Blood Lust (29 page)

With a force of will, he shoved the gruesome thoughts away, set the bottle on the floor, stood up, and began to peel off his clothes. Shedding his wrinkled tailcoat, then his waistcoat, he shrugged out of his white shirt. He still wasn’t drunk enough to sleep, but perhaps he would be able to rest a little. Even an hour would help. Whichever path his fate now took, he needed his wits about him if he intended to survive the days ahead.

Weariness and the brandy made his movements sluggish and awkward. He cursed when he brushed the edge of the table, tipping it sideways, and an untouched brandy snifter, placed there for his use, went crashing to the floor.

He cursed his bad luck, which seemed to mirror the events of the day, and barely had the will to bend down and pick up the pieces.

Katherine heard the splintering glass in the room next to hers. William was still awake. But she had suspected as much. He was mired in depression at Jane’s murder, certain his last hope for proving his innocence had died along with her.

Katherine had tried to cheer him at supper, had described in detail about her meeting with the constable and relayed the news that the man seemed satisfied with her tale of the murder.

The killer was a footpad, the constable was certain, intent on stealing the duchesses jewels. They were safe for the moment, she had told William, but he had only nodded, excused himself, and retired upstairs to his room.

A few minutes later, a servant was summoned and a bottle of brandy sent up to his bedchamber. There had been no word from him since.

Listening now, the sound of William’s movements carried through the wall between their rooms. Knowing she shouldn’t, her heart throbbed softly in warning. Katherine swung her legs to the side of the bed, put on her quilted wrapper, and walked to the door leading into his bedchamber. It wasn’t locked. With Jane’s murder so near at hand, William was worried about her safety. He wanted to be able to get in quickly if trouble arose.

Quietly lifting the latch, she opened the door and stepped in.

Long, dark shadows filled the chamber, and the dim, yellow flicker of a candle burned low. William knelt beside a small table, facing away from her as he worked to pick up the broken pieces of the brandy snifter, his sun-darkened body burnished in the faint light of the candle. He was naked to the waist, she saw, wearing only his breeches and boots.

He straightened from his task at the sound of her and started to turn, but not before she saw the jagged white scars that formed a vicious patchwork across his back.

A gasp escaped before she could stop it. William swore an oath, set the bits of broken glass down on the table, and started in her direction. “What do you want, Katherine. Did you even think of knocking?”

She felt sick to her stomach, her bottom lip trembled. “Your back. Dear God, what has happened to you? What have they done?”

He stiffened, stopped a few feet away and came no closer. His face looked hard, his features closed up and remote. “I was flogged. It happens I am not a particularly humble man. Taking orders was difficult for me, a man raised as heir to a duke. It took a while for them to break me, longer than most.”

Her eyes filled with tears. How could she have not noticed? They had only made love a few times and she had been too caught up in the moment of the things he was doing. Or perhaps he had simply been careful that she did not see, and made her way toward him. Inside her chest, her heart thumped painfully, hurting for him, each breath tight with knots of pity.

“Turn around,” she whispered and saw him bristle even more.

“It isn’t pretty. I hoped you would never have to see this.”

“Please, William.” Her throat felt so thick, the ache there so harsh she could hardly speak. “I want to see how badly they have hurt you.”

His muscles strained with the tension that poured through him. She thought he might refuse, then slowly he moved, his shoulders straight as he turned so the candle shown on the deep grooves and ridges. They were lighter than his darkly tanned flesh, a maze of thin lines that crossed the heavy muscles, some deeper than others where the lash had cut more than once. Broad valleys of flesh had been ripped out in places then partially grown back only to be torn out again.

Her breath constricted, seared down her throat. Dear God, the pain he had suffered. Tears stung her eyes, spilled in scalding droplets down her cheeks. She couldn’t begin to imagine the torture he must have endured. Her hand trembled as she lifted it toward his scarred and battered flesh. She rested it gently atop one of the grooves, bent and pressed her mouth against the taught brown skin.

She heard him take a deep breath, felt the muscles tighten. Twice more her mouth brushed his flesh as if she might take away the pain.

He turned then, his eyes penetrating, dark with terrible memories with anger that now seemed directed away.

“I did not kill my father, Katherine, but I’ve committed other crimes, dozens of them, some worse than murder.”

“No. . .” It was a barely whispered word. She shook her head. “It wasn’t the same. You were innocent. You were fighting to save yourself. You didn’t deserve that they did to you.”

He gripped her shoulders, his fingers tightening, tight and unrelenting. “Why can’t you see! Why is it so hard for you to understand?”

Katherine stood frozen. A fire seemed to be building in her stomach. Pity for him choked her, nearly making her gag. Bitter sobs shook her being. How had he survived? How had he been able to bear it?

“It’s all right,” he whispered. “Please don’t cry. I’m not worth your tears. A man like me isn’t worth it.”

He had said something like that before. She pulled back to look at him, saw him through a film of tears. “These aren’t the only scars you carry, are they, William? The ones locked up inside, those are far worse. Tell me what you’ve done that is so terrible. Let me share your awful burden and in time the pain will fade.”

He shook his head. Already the darkness had begun to appear in his eyes and the features on his face. “Don’t ask that of me. If you care for me at all, you won’t ask me about it again.” The expression in his face betrayed an agony that ran deep. It was etched so sharply Katherine’s heart twisted painfully inside her.

She wanted to comfort him, hold him. She wanted to take away the hurting, ease the terrible memories. “It’s all right. You don’t have to tell me anything.” She reached up to touch him, brushed a lock of his dark hair back from his cheek.

Turning away, she began to unbutton her wrapper. It took longer than it should have with her fingers trembling so badly. William said nothing as she eased it off her shoulders and let it fall, nothing as she crossed to his large bed and drew back the covers.

He stood unmoving in the shadows, but she felt his eyes on her. Ignoring the pulse beating inside her chest, the warmth beginning to run through her veins, she clasp the hem of her night gown and dragged it off over her head.

His gaze watched her toss it away as she positioned herself on the massive bed.

“Please. . .” Her fingers worked the single plat of her hair, unbraiding it then loosening the strands. She spread it around her shoulders. “I need you, William, just as I know you need me. Make love to me this night. Help us both to forget, if only for a while.”

Long moments passed. William said nothing. His heart was beating like a hammer in his chest. He stood rigid, almost afraid to move, staring at the girl who was no longer a girl because of him, at the woman he had married who wasn’t really his wife.

He closed his eyes against the tempting sight she made lying there in his bed, her luscious body naked.

“Come to bed, William.” Her eyes begged him not to refuse her again.

Already hard, his body throbbed with heat. Blood rushed to the soft ridge of flesh pressing uncomfortably against the front of his tight fitting breeches. He had tried to block his desire for her every day since they had left the inn. There were times he had actually succeeded. This night was not among them.

She ran a small hand of invitation over the vacant place beside her. “Neither of us can be sure what the future will bring. I need you to hold me, touch me, make me feel safe. Will you do that for me, William?”

His breathing quickened, came in shorter, faster cadence. His hunger grew with every heartbeat, fired by the glow of her skin, the uptilt of her breasts. He watched, her nipples hardened into tight little peaks against the chill that invaded the room, or perhaps it was the knowledge that he wanted her so badly.

His arousal strengthened, ached with every breath. He wanted to pull that tight little bud between his teeth, to suckle and tease until she writhed and begged him to take her. He wanted to rape that sweet mouth, to invade it with his tongue. He wanted to spread those shapely legs, to fill her with his hardness, to thrust into her until the lust he constantly fought was finally sated.

“William. . .?”

For God’s sake, he was only a man. He needed her too damn badly. With shaking hands, he reached toward the buttons on the front of his breeches, popped the first one loose and then the next, sat down and tugged off his boots.

Perhaps he would pay for his lust. Odds were he was destined to burn in hell! What difference would one more sin make in a life that was shadowed by more than he could count.

He whispered her name as he sat down naked on the bed beside her. “My God, Katherine, I want you so damned much!”

A soft smile touched her lips. Her eyes moved from his face, spanned the width of his shoulders, moved across his chest. Her hand skimmed over the flat slab of muscle across his stomach, passed as her gaze traveled down to the jutting ridge of his sex.

“You are so beautiful, so strong, William. So incredibly male. Even the scars cannot dim your beauty.”

He found himself smiling at her sincerity. “I am suppose to say something to that?”

She looked up at him from beneath her long lashes. “Do you think I am beautiful?”

“I think you are incredible.” He kissed her then, taking her mouth gently at first, though what he wanted was to conquer, to claim, to possess the very essence of her. He wanted to fuse his body with hers, to make her so much a part of him that she would never forget him.

She kissed him back far less gently, demanding he show her his strength, or perhaps merely sensing his mood as she so often seemed able to do. He groaned at the feel of her small tongue sliding into his mouth, and his control slipped badly.

His hands roamed over her body, felt the smoothness of her skin, the sweet hills and valleys that marked her a woman. He kissed his way down to her breasts, took one into his mouth, tauted and caressed until she writhed beneath him. His hand found her softness. She was wet and hot. He stroked her deeply, felt her body beginning to tremble, felt her small hands gripping his shoulders.

“William,” she whispered as he rose above her, parted her legs with his knee. “I need, I need. . .”

“It’s all right love, I’ve got what you need.” he entered her in a single stroke, filling her completely, locking them both together. Their mating was swift and fierce, driven by long denied passion, or perhaps desperation. Afterward they lay entwined.

He took her again just moments later, more slowly this time, almost gentle, savoring the closeness, knowing it was wrong and yet the pleasure was so fierce, the joy so over-whelming he did not care.

He slept after that, the deepest, most trouble-free sleep he could remember. Tomorrow he would face the problems that remained, the worries about Katherine’s safety and his own, make whatever painful decisions he must make.

Tonight there was only this one small woman and the kind of peace he hadn’t known in years. The last thing he remembered was the pleasure he felt at having her curled in his arms.

Chapter Twenty

It wasn’t yet daylight, but shades of gray crept over the horizon. Katherine had managed to sleep for a while, saved from their powerful lovemaking, but her mind could not rest.

Thoughts of William haunted her, images of the scars on his back, visions of the torture he must have endured. Sadness filled her and she felt an ache for William that throbbed deep within her. An ache that would not stop.

Until last night, she hadn’t known how deep she had come to love him. She had never really thought she would fall in love. She believed she would know only the feelings that came with an arranged marriage. She had hoped at best to find a indulgent, kind husband with whom she could live a peaceful life.

She hadn’t known these sort of emotions existed, this yearning, wrenching, all consuming attachment for another. She would love this man forever. She knew that as surely as she knew he would leave her or worse that he would be killed.

He didn’t want a child that he would have to abandon. The message could not have been more clear. It left an emptiness inside her.

He cared for her, but not enough to stay. He would leave, no matter if he was proven innocent of his father’s murder and his title and estates restored to his name. Worse still, he would not take her with him.

A lump rose in her throat. What they shared could not last. Sooner or later she would lose him. It hurt just to think about it.

As the sun began to rise, Katherine vowed as she had before, that she would find a way to help him.