Claiming the Courtesan (24 page)

As he moved, he hardly dared to look at her. What would he find in her face? Contempt? Pity? Triumph?

Or worse, indifference?

Slowly, his eyes traveled up from the trailing green hem of her dress. She hadn’t shifted from her dressing stool, and her heavy hairbrush dangled in her lap. Reluctantly, he met her gaze.

And finally, finally, understood her silence.

Disbelievingly, he searched her beautiful face. Her eyes were stark with sorrow, and tears glittered on her cheeks.

“Oh, my dear,” she said brokenly. She smiled shakily and held out one trembling hand in his direction.

His lonely, doubting heart opened to the beckoning gesture. He crossed the room in a couple of steps and stumbled to his knees at her side.

“Verity…” he whispered and buried his head in her lap, his arms lashing around her waist. The brush slid to the floor as she bent over him and surrounded him with warmth.

“It’s over. It’s over. I’m so sorry for what you went through. I’m so sorry.” Her voice was husky with crying. “But you must have been such a brave little boy.”

She kept murmuring over him, stroking his hair with a tenderness that made him want to weep.

But he didn’t weep. Instead, he clung to her as the only good thing in his life. He stopped listening to her words and just let her endless compassion flow through him and melt the frozen emptiness at his center.

Closing his eyes, he surrendered to the welcoming blackness. A blackness full of sweet Verity.

And in that blackness, the truth that had skulked in his heart right from the beginning finally made itself heard.

He’d fled what he felt for so long that even now he resisted the inevitable moment.

But it was too late. The truth clawed into the light. He could do nothing to silence its clamoring insistence.

He’d had such a hunger for this woman’s body because he had an even greater need of her soul.

She fulfilled him in ways he only started to understand, although his heart had always recognized her as his other half.

He’d committed crimes against her, used her, wanted her, hated her, mistreated her.

All the while, she’d been his only hope of redemption.

He knelt beside her, clutching at her like a man lost on a stormy sea. She’d faced hardship, loss and violence. She’d confronted them all with courage and an endless willingness to sacrifice herself for those she loved. She hadn’t resorted, as he had, to the easy defenses of cynicism and indifference.

He loved her with every fiber of his being.

He loved her.

The oppressive weights of his solitude and anguish fell away. It wasn’t even important that she didn’t love him. Instead, he just felt the joyous relief of trusting himself to her and knowing she wouldn’t betray him.

She’d seen the worst of him. Yet she accepted him.

One day, he’d tell her of the long, difficult years at Eton, where he’d arrived as a barely literate savage after inheriting the title. He’d been mocked, beaten and bullied by other boys only too quick to sense his essential isolation.

Thank God he’d inherited a good brain from his harpy of a mother. By the time he’d left for Oxford, his academic brilliance and cool noninvolvement had been the envy of his classmates. They’d never guessed the years of lonely training that had created Cold Kylemore out of the frightened
barbarian dragged kicking and screaming from the only home he’d known.

He’d tell her about the ruin the shallow, self-obsessed creature who’d borne him had perpetrated in his name on the tenants while he’d stood by, powerless to stop the devastation she’d wreaked.

He’d threatened to grow into an equally shallow, self-obsessed creature.

What would have become of him if he hadn’t surrendered to his curiosity about the woman who’d set tongues wagging the year he’d come into his inheritance? If he hadn’t met a pair of wary silver eyes across a crowded London salon?

His need for Soraya—
Verity
—had always been his one weakness. He’d spent years struggling to break free of her.

Thank the Lord he hadn’t.

Yes, one day, he’d tell her all of this.

Or maybe he no longer needed to. He had her understanding and forgiveness already. He felt it in her touch, in her soft voice as she whispered tender comfort over him.

And he had the privilege of loving her.

V
erity noticed the change in the duke immediately. Her ruthless lover didn’t exactly turn into an ordinary man, but his manner took on a new ease and lightness.

Nightmares no longer broke his sleep.

If the horrors of his childhood haunted her instead, that was the price of love. She should have immediately guessed monstrous deeds had occurred in this place, but she’d been too wrapped up in her own tribulations to notice the signs.

The bars on the windows, obviously installed years before her arrival. The duke’s noticeable skittishness and reluctance to spend time inside. The house’s air of long neglect and unspoken misery.

His dreams.

Oh, yes, his dreams should have alerted her. Even in London, she should have suspected anyone who maintained such inhuman control must hide suppurating wounds deep within.

She didn’t gull herself into believing those wounds were
near to healed. But she prayed this new gentler, more open man had a chance to become whole at last.

The new Kylemore was inclined to play the slugabed. She didn’t mind. Reward enough to watch the exhaustion and tension fade from his fine-boned face. Every night, he slumbered with perfect trust in her arms while she wept over the agonies he’d born so bravely and in such isolation. Wept in heartbroken silence. If he caught her crying, those preternaturally perceptive eyes would divine her secret love.

A week after the duke’s devastating revelations about his childhood, Verity came downstairs one morning to discover him in the hallway. He balanced a stag head under each powerful arm.

“What are you doing?” she asked in astonishment.

“Making a pyre from our stern chaperons.” He dropped his burdens without ceremony and came over to take her in his embrace. “Unless you’d like to keep them,” he murmured into her hair.

“Heaven forbid.” He was in his shirtsleeves, and the long muscles of his back flexed under her stroking hands.

Andy tramped in from outside and grabbed a pine marten and a particularly lugubrious badger from a pile she now noticed near the door. He hardly glanced at the entwined couple. She supposed he, like everyone else in the valley, was inured to the sight of her in Kylemore’s arms.

Still, she blushed. It was absurd. She’d been a courtesan for thirteen years, yet during these last days, in spite of the wildest debaucheries of her life, part of her felt pure and reborn. Almost virgin.

A virgin with her first love.

Well, she thought with another concealed smile, while she was woefully far from a virgin, he was most definitely her first love.

“Can I help?” Ever since Kylemore’s confession, she’d itched to strip the wretched memories from the house. Perhaps then he’d find peace.

Reluctantly, she drew away from him to watch Andy sling his load into a handcart at the door. “Kylemore?” she prompted softly.

He’d asked her to use his Christian name, but she didn’t feel comfortable with the intimacy. It was nonsensical, when he treated her body as his private pleasure ground.

“You don’t have to work as my skivvy,
mo leannan
.”

“I’m sure if a duke of the realm can get his hands dirty, a peasant like me can too,” she said dryly.

Without waiting for his agreement, she went into the parlor and gasped at the chaos. Hamish and Angus stood on stools in front of adjoining walls, wrenching the parade of animal heads down with crowbars and brute strength. They greeted her, then went back to their task.

“Your grandfather clearly wanted his trophies to hang until the crack of doom,” she said and promptly sneezed as the largest of the heads crashed to the floor in a cloud of dust.

“Here.” Kylemore passed her a handkerchief that cost more than she’d have earned in a year as a servant. “I wasn’t joking about the dirt.”

“Apparently not,” she said after blowing her nose. “I’ll look after the smaller things.”

She turned to the massive glass-and-mahogany specimen cases, which displayed examples of the valley’s wildlife. She’d hated these poor, stiff, dead animals from the moment she’d seen them. She reached in with great satisfaction and tugged out a stuffed weasel.

Clearing the room took most of the day. Once, she’d never have believed the magnificent Duke of Kylemore would lower himself to such menial work. At the very least, he wouldn’t have subjected his perfect tailoring to such despoliation. But
now, she wasn’t surprised to see him work diligently and uncomplainingly beside his servants.

How she’d misunderstood him in London. And she’d always considered herself a clever woman!

As Hamish, Angus and Andy carried out stag’s head after stag’s head, something new seeped into the atmosphere. Something that felt like happiness.

But for her, it was a happiness tinged with regret. It was a happiness that couldn’t endure.

Verity carefully straightened from the bottom shelf of the last case. She put a hand behind her aching back. To think she’d once worked like this every day as a maid in Sir Charles Norton’s manor. She must be getting old.

She turned her head and caught Kylemore studying her from the corner. His dark blue eyes held a familiar glint that sent blood pounding low and heavy in her belly.

Perhaps she wasn’t that old after all.

They were alone for the first time that afternoon. After a murmured discussion with the duke, the others had disappeared to consign the last gruesome decorations to the bonfire.

He stepped over the only remaining detritus, a quartet of remarkably bloodthirsty hunting scenes, and crossed to her side. With one elegant hand, he tilted her chin toward the light flooding through the large windows on her left.

“You have dirt on your cheek,
mo cridhe
.” A gentle smile flickered across his face. “Soraya would be ashamed of you.”

Once, the reference to Soraya would have stung. Once, he would have intended it to sting. They’d moved far beyond those days, but even so, she suffered a twinge of insecurity.

She looked searchingly into his face. “Do you miss her?”

He raised his other hand and smoothed the tendrils of
hair that escaped the braids twined around her head. “Why would I? She’s here. She’s Verity.” A very male satisfaction deepened his smile. “And she’s mine.”

Verity didn’t bother arguing. They both knew it was true. As they both knew that while this idyll lasted, he was hers.

When surrender was so equal, what shame was there in defeat? She cast him a searing glance under her lashes. She’d quickly learned that particular look drove him wild with desire.

Predictably, the fingers on her chin tightened and his voice roughened into urgency. “I want you now.”

Not the most subtle seduction, but the heat of his body and the intent glow in his eyes were enough for her. Sometimes, he wooed with sweet words and extravagant compliments. Sometimes, he swept her off her feet with a forceful passion that made her heart race.

Right now, she read the sapphire blaze in his eyes and saw he was too impatient to devote time to preliminaries. She didn’t mind. “Let’s go upstairs.”

He shook his head and his smile took on a devilish edge. “No, I mean
now.
”

She felt her eyes widen. “But anyone could come in.”

“They won’t. I’ve dismissed them for the day.” He let her go and strode across to lock the door. “Take off your drawers and lie down on the rug.” His voice was uncompromising.

Verity gave a shiver of anticipation at the brazen demand but didn’t immediately obey. “Just my drawers, Your Grace?”

“For now.” He turned to face her and tapped the room key on his palm, all aristocratic impatience. Only the hard bulge that pressed against his breeches belied his aura of control.

She bent her head to conceal her gathering excitement. “As you wish.”

She heard his breath catch as she raised her skirts to reach
the strings. A few quick tugs and her underwear sagged to lie at her feet. She stepped out of it and draped it with deliberate provocation over the massive oak chair she’d noticed on her first day here.

The cream silk, with its elaborate embroidery of violets and lilies, looked incongruous against the heavily carved wood. Like a banner of challenge. Which, of course, it was.

His eyes were avid as he watched her every movement from where he stood near the door. She felt like a rabbit in a fox’s sights. But in this case, the rabbit was more than happy to be devoured. Her pulse skittered when she saw his gaze dwell on her drawers, shamelessly displayed for his delectation.

“The rug,” he said hoarsely.

She hid a gloating smile. His autocratic manner had cracked already. It hadn’t taken much effort on her part.

Without a word, she crossed the room and reclined on the red-and-blue Persian carpet in front of the unlit fire. She bent one knee in his direction and parted her legs slightly. He wouldn’t be able to resist the bold invitation.

Oh, what a wicked, wicked woman she was to taunt him. He really ought to punish her.

She closed her eyes and waited on a thrilling edge of suspense for him to come to her.

She didn’t have to wait long. The key clattered onto the table, and suddenly he was on his knees between her legs. He’d moved so fast that she hadn’t even heard him cross the room.

“You think I’m putty in your hands, don’t you?” he growled. He wasn’t touching her. But he would soon, she knew.

Verity pretended a yawn, knowing it would push him to the bounds of his control. How she loved teasing him like this. “Yes.”

He gave a rueful laugh. “And you’re right, damn you.”

Over his uneven breathing, she listened to the faint rustle of his clothing as he released the front of his breeches. She couldn’t mistake his eagerness. Her heart moved from a restless trot to a careening gallop that surely he must hear. She raised her other leg a fraction just so he knew she hadn’t finished tormenting him yet.

He roughly bunched her skirts and petticoats at her waist. Her excitement rose as the air flowed cool across her bare skin. She must look utterly depraved, lying before him in such abandonment. But she didn’t feel depraved, she felt free.

She let her legs fall open a little more. Even without opening her eyes, she felt the heated inspection he made of her. The room was silent, apart from the accelerating scratch of his breath.

He placed his hands on her knees and ruthlessly drew them wide apart. The heat of his palms through the thin silk of her stockings made her tremble with excitement.

With her eyes shut, all her other senses became more acute. She could smell his arousal and hear the unsteady rattle of his inhalations as he fought to contain himself. She shifted sinuously against the thick rug and waited for him to thrust into her. He must know she was ripe for his possession.

But he didn’t immediately take her as she’d expected him to do. Instead, his head nudged between her legs and his silky hair brushed against the sensitive skin of her thighs. She gave a start of surprise as the warmth of his breath touched her damp center. Then his mouth took her and she gave a low moan of rapture. He sucked and licked at her until she quivered beneath him.

He was a devil. He was
her
devil.

Her spine arched into a rigid curve as the tension inside her built to an unbearable pitch. He took a firm grip on her hips and shifted her so he could taste her more fully. As his
tongue penetrated her, she shuddered in primitive response. But she wanted more.

“Please,” she begged raggedly, her fingers clenching and unclenching in his thick hair. She pressed herself closer, hovering on the brink. But still he played with her, forcing her higher and higher.

Then he drew hard on the source of her pleasure, and she screamed as a hundred suns exploded behind her eyes. Fire cascaded along her veins, and every muscle in her body spasmed with blinding delight.

The blazing peak seemed to last forever. She hung suspended in the splendor only he could create in her. He made her dance among the stars. How she adored him.

When the fiery joy had subsided into rippling aftershocks, she opened her eyes to find him watching her from between her splayed legs. She lay exposed, and enough of her girlhood self remained for her to slide one hand down to fiddle her skirts into modesty. Even that simple action tested her strength. She felt as though her bones had turned into wet muslin.

“We’re not finished yet,” he murmured, stopping her before she could cover herself.

“I don’t think I could move a muscle,” she protested.

It wasn’t true. Already, her interest stirred. Just because he looked at her as if she were a miracle sent down to him from heaven. Sometimes his sway over her frightened her.

“I think you could.” His lips curled in a smile of promise.

He hooked his arms around her and drew her upright so she knelt facing him when he sat back on his heels. She rested one hand on his chest. Her fingers tightened in his shirt as she felt his furious heartbeat beneath the fine white lawn. Then he lifted her over him until her dark green skirts settled around them, lending a spurious decorum to their profligacy.

But beneath that concealing material, she straddled him, open and ready for his entry. His erection pressed imperi
ously against the damp curls at the base of her belly, making her womb clench with a pang of desire.

She wanted all that heat and power. She wanted him inside her.

She grasped his sinewy shoulders with both hands and raised herself up and forward. His hold on her back tightened convulsively and she watched his eyes go opaque as she slowly slid down upon him. Even wet as she was, there was a moment’s delicious resistance before she took all of him. His breath escaped in a rasping sigh when she settled around him. She gave a mew of pleasure as she stretched to accommodate his size.

Their gazes met, meshed, held. She read in his eyes that for now, he was willing to let her set the pace. A knowledge of her own power thrilled her as she established an undulating rhythm on him, almost withdrawing, then descending to accept him fully. Every thrust probed deep.