James watched it all with a faint smile on his face, appreciating Mrs. Hurst’s tactics, enjoying the display but wanting nothing of what was offered. The demure glances through dark and curling eyelashes, the flick of glossy nut-brown ringlets over a shoulder, the pouting of full lips, the slight arch of her back to bring the full breasts into prominence—it was all well done, and it left him cold. But when he looked at Kate . . . then the heat came.
Mrs. Hurst was the type of lady with whom he could have had an entertaining interlude in years past, the type of lady he could easily have married for convenience, if—and he knew that the if was there—if he was prepared to turn a blind eye to her dalliances with other men. She would enliven his bed and the beds of other men. Her laugh was rich
