Forbidden Read Free

greed and speculation and desire.
    No one had ever looked at her in that way. No one had looked at her as though they wanted to eat her up, sample
her, taste her and savor that pleasure. Such an idea was absurd, impossible.
    Except that it was not, for this man was looking at her with
acute interest and—she gulped, her throat suddenly dry—definite desire.
    There had to be some mistake. He was confusing her with someone
else.
    “You don’t work here,” he repeated softly. He took a step
closer to her, put out a hand and touched her cheek lightly with the back of his
fingers. He wore no gloves and his hand was warm. Margery’s skin felt even
hotter now.
    “I’m only visiting,” she said in a rush.
    His eyes widened. That smile, like sunshine on water, deepened.
“There’s nothing wrong in that,” he said.
    “No! I mean—” Margery floundered. “I’m not here to—” She
stopped, wondering how on earth to describe the many and varied sexual practices
that Mrs. Tong’s customers indulged in and she did not.
    “I’m a lady’s maid,” she blurted out.
    “Of course, you wish to be incognito.” The stranger shrugged.
“Don’t worry. Mrs. Tong caters to all tastes. Many ladies enjoy dressing up as
maids. Marie Antoinette, for example.” He smiled. “The marketing basket is a
nice touch.”
    “I’m not dressing up,” Margery said. She whispered it because
he was now so close that she seemed to have lost the power of speech. “I really
am a lady’s maid.”
    The stranger laughed. “Then it is enterprising of you to
supplement your income like this.”
    Oh, lord. Now he thought she worked part-time as a lightskirt.
It was not unheard of. Margery knew plenty of maidservants who sold their
favors. It was more lucrative than scrubbing floors. It was whispered about Town
that Lord Osborne had once visited his favorite brothel only to be confronted
with his housemaid, who was working as a courtesan on the side. Margery had
never considered supplementing her income that way. When she had left Berkshire
for London it had been with her grandmother’s warnings ringing in her ears.
    “London is a cesspool of vice,” Granny Mallon had said. “You
take my word for it—I’ve been there once. Keep yourself nice for your husband,
my girl.”
    Margery had not cared much about finding a husband but she did
care about keeping herself nice. It was important to her.
    Besides, no one had asked her to give up her virtue anyway.
Lady Grant’s twin footmen were too pretty and too much in love with themselves
to notice anyone else, and the rest of the male staff were too young, or too old
or too unattractive. And they were her friends. Margery had not felt a single
amorous flutter toward any of them.
    She did have a servant follower, Humphrey, who was the second
gardener at the house next door. He brought her flowers and moped about the
kitchen inarticulately, staring at her and reddening if she spoke to him.
Humphrey reminded Margery of a stray animal. She felt pity for him and a kind of
impatient affection. He did not make her tremble, or cause her knees to weaken,
as they were weakening now. He did not make the breath catch in her throat or
her heart beat like a drum, as it was beating now.
    But Margery had also been warned about handsome gentlemen, men
who preyed on naive country girls. Granny Mallon had not been wrong. London was
indeed a home to every vice beneath the sun, and Margery was fairly certain that
this man was intimately acquainted with quite a number of them. There was
something downright wicked about him.
    “We are at cross-purposes,” she said. She had to force the
words out and her voice sounded husky and high-pitched at the same time. “I am
not a lightskirt, nor am I here to sample any of the pleasures of the
brothel—”
    “Are you sure?”
    Had he heard the note of wistfulness in her voice? Margery
gulped.
    “Not even—” his mouth was dangerously close to hers