A Gentlemen's Agreement Read Free

different.”
    “That makes everything
complicated. I like James.”
    “He doesn’t like me.”
    He raised an eyebrow but didn’t
reply.
    “Tell me what to do and I’ll obey
you,” she said.
    He thought about that.
    “You were at the entertainment
last week,” she said. “You know that I’m not a virgin. And I’m not saving
myself in the hope of being married to James again. If you want me, take me.
That’s your right. Even James can’t argue with that.”
    “Why did you do it? Why in hell
did you climb up on that auction block and sell yourself to a stranger?” A
flush of anger surfaced in his cheeks.
    “I can’t explain it. Everybody
asks and I try but nobody understands. Maybe I don’t really understand myself.
It was an impulse. Maybe a self-destructive impulse. Have you ever looked down from a high bridge and felt an impulse to jump? I
jumped. I jumped up onto that stage and I jumped out of the aristocracy.”
    “And now you regret it.” His voice
was flat.
    “No. I didn’t say that. I haven’t
regretted it for a minute. I don’t mean that I don’t regret some things. You
saw me be crucified for half an hour at the end of last week’s entertainment.
Believe me, I regretted a lot of things when I was hanging in that frame,
suffering like you can’t believe. But I never regretted the big jump. I don’t
regret that I left the life of a lady.”
    He looked curious. “No? You had
the best clothes. The best food. Servants to do
whatever you wanted. The company of some of the finest wits
in the county. What was not to like about being a lady? Didn’t you have
a fine husband? Was James cruel to you? Was he secretly a terrible person?”
    “No. James was a fine man. He is a
fine man. He never treated me with anything but perfect respect. He tried to
give me whatever I wanted. But I wanted a life and he didn’t
know how to give me that. My fine clothes were a burial shroud . His manor was a mausoleum. The fine food
couldn’t nourish the kind of life that I needed. The company – your
company – was the best part of that life. But I have your company now. I
didn’t give that up.” She smiled at him. “I just see a different side of you when
I’m a slave. Now, I see the lusty side of gentlemen and I like that more than
their refined wit. I’d rather have your cock shoved into me right up to the
root and hear your screams of passion than sit across the table from you and
hear your clever literary allusions.” She laughed. “Now if you could toss out a
few clever allusions to Shakespeare and Moliere while you were buggering me,
I’d have the best of both worlds.”
    He laughed. “I don’t think that I
could do that. Buggery has a way of diminishing a man’s intellect. It’s like
that trick picture where you can see either the old hag or the young beauty but
never both at the same time. I can be either a sodomite or a sophisticate but
not both at the same time.”
    “And I always thought that sodomy
was the epitome of sophistication.”
    “After all the sodomy that I saw
you endure last weekend, you must be the most sophisticated woman in the
county.”
    “My asshole is certainly the most
sophisticated part of me, now.”
    He grinned. “There’s not another
lady on the continent who can say that.”
    “There’s not another lady on the
continent who would want to.”
    He sobered. “You don’t think there
are any others like you?”
    “No. But a bit of that kind of
sophistication would do some of them a world of good. It did for me.”
    “Your slavery gives James a world
of pain. You know what you did to him.”
    “I gave him an opportunity. He
rejected it.”
    “What opportunity? You were his
wife and you rejected him.” Anger was rising again in Snow’s cheeks.
    She didn’t care about mollifying
him. She would have preferred to hash this out directly with James but she’d
settle for Lord Snow. “I rejected him? Like hell! I gave him an opportunity to
buy me. I gave him an