"Become your mistress?"

Had someone sucked her mouth dry?She remembered that very first day she'd found herself an object of ridicule at Starkadder's? 'Oh whot 'ave we 'ere? Little Miss Toffee-Snout. Wif her brother. Lord Snotter-Nose.' Two terrified children. She thought about the things that had happened since, everything, to come to this. My God.

Had she really thought he wouldn't be so low? A man whose aspirations were half an inch off the ground?

A man who ...