Darker Than Love (23 page)

He crossed to tug on the velvet-tasselled bell-pull. Clarissa kicked Gabriel lightly under the table. He raised his head and looked at her with eyes full of pain and anger. ‘Go!’ she mouthed urgently and he gave a sharp nod, acknowledging the danger. When the butler entered, Gabriel left the room, stooped and shuffling like an old man.

Clarissa watched Marldon anxiously, wondering if he knew she had seen through the disguise. It would be better, she thought, to feign innocence. There was a remote possibility that Marldon did not know the doctor’s true identity, and she did not want to enlighten him.

‘How touching that you missed me,’ he said, bidding her rise from the chair. ‘Thank God I’m not a fool or I might take that for a sign of fondness. Lift your dress, Clarissa. Show me exactly where you missed me.’

Obediently, she rucked up the purple-blue fabric and held it bunched about her waist. Her mind raced, wondering if Gabriel had made a safe exit. Perhaps there were others within the walls of Asham ready to help him overpower the servants. They might return within moments and rescue her.

She widened her legs for the hand Alec slipped between her thighs. His skilled fingers wandered, tantalising her sex and sensitising her clitoris. She groaned faintly, feeling her wetness gather. She hated him for
tormenting Gabriel, yet she could not stem her desire for him. She tried telling herself she was sparing the man she loved by offering herself so wantonly, and so soon after his departure. It was a way to deflect Marldon’s attention.

But her conscience did not ease. She knew that, even when Gabriel had been sitting there, Marldon’s touch had aroused her.

‘Take it off,’ said Marldon, and Clarissa swept the loose silks over her head. ‘I shall have more such gowns made up for you. Perhaps one slashed at front and back, then I can reach for you at any time. Would that please you, Clarissa?’

Not caring, she murmured that it would. Her sex ached to feel him and she rolled her hips desirously. Lord Marldon unbuttoned himself.

‘Forgive me if I sit for this one,’ he said, drawing the chair. ‘I’ve expended more energy than you the last couple of days.’

The remark stung, reminding her that she was not as much of his life as he was of hers. She did not wish to know where he had been, or muse on what depravities he might have indulged in. She hoped he would not insist on telling her.

Alec pulled her to stand astride his lap. His stiff prick stood from his open trousers, ruddy at its head. Clarissa lowered herself on to it, moaning soft bliss as her vagina slid wetly down. She sank herself to his root. Her pliant flesh enveloped his thickness and his glans pushed high. She breathed quickly and stayed there, immobile, relishing how his solid virility filled her so entirely.

‘Ah, how greedy you are,’ Marldon whispered.

He closed his mouth over a hard nipple, sucking and nibbling. Clarissa arched her spine, rocking on his penis. With every roll forward, her inflamed pleasure bud pressed through his crisp curls to rub against his body. She raised herself high, sucking with her sex muscles, then dropped back on to his cock. Her urgency swelled
and she grasped the chair and bucked with a driving hunger.

Her breasts bobbed from Marldon’s mouth. His strong hands spanned her waist, encouraging her movements, and he watched the eager bounce of her bosom with delight. Clarissa gave a shrill cry as she reached her crisis.

‘Don’t stop,’ he said. ‘Prove how you’ve missed me, Clarissa. Work to make me come. Sweat for it.’

Clarissa lifted herself, her thighs trembling with the effort. Her vagina glowed with the dying pulse of her pleasure, and she felt his cock-tip butting at the core of her. Again and again, she sank deep, impaling herself on the hard, hot pole of his prick. Marldon’s lust was hard to release. He held himself back until she thought her legs would fail her. She panted and pleaded, feeling the sweet, rising tide of her second peak.

‘Yes,’ urged Marldon. ‘Ride me hard, Clarissa.’

He thrust urgently beneath her, clutching her waist, controlling her balance. With increasing speed he plunged upward, slamming her body down to meet his furious, jolting strokes. His lips stretched, baring his white teeth, then with a long throaty growl he spent his fulfilment. The searing heat of his orgasm pushed Clarissa to her limit. Wrenching ecstasy burst open and her climax shuddered around the last squeezes of his cock. Then she sagged against his chest as the throbbing force drained away, her breath coming in quick gasps.

‘It seems our soothsayer was correct,’ said Marldon. ‘Your body
has
been yearning for simple pleasures. How insightful of him. Perhaps I shall invite him back sometime.’

Gabriel moved down the marble stairway with slow, faltering steps. The need to maintain the charade was frustrating beyond measure. All he wanted to do was get out of Asham House as quickly as possible before anyone questioned him.

Clarissa’s warning had proved timely, confirming what he feared: the earl was suspicious of him. And that little show, with Clarissa barely dressed and Marldon handling her so intimately, had most likely been for his benefit. Gabriel’s blood seethed at the memory of it. The man was a cruel tyrant, a Caligula who deserved a lingering death. It had taken Gabriel every ounce of control he had not to throttle the despicable fiend there and then.

But that would have meant certain exposure. At least he had made a start. He now knew that a tighter plan was required, one which took into account Asham’s lurking employees, its maze of corridors and securely locked doors. If Lucy and Julian could not come up with anything decent then to hell with them. He would summon the police to Asham and he’d damn well accompany them to make sure there was no foul play. Marldon would get his comeuppance somehow, and it had to be sooner rather than later. Every minute Clarissa was under his roof was a minute too long.

At the foot of the steps stood the waiting butler, staring into nothing. Gabriel eyed him with concealed suspicion, knowing he was not safe until he was on the pavements of Piccadilly, perhaps further. He shuffled over the final marble slab and stepped delicately on to the tiled hall floor. The butler strode stiffly towards the door and rested a hand on one of the bolts.

When Gabriel reached the centre of the hall, the man drew back the shaft with unnecessary sharpness. The bolt rasped loudly. Quick footsteps followed. Gabriel twisted his head round, catching a glimpse of a rushing figure before an arm was hooked violently about his neck. He uttered a strangled cry and jabbed his elbow fiercely into his assailant’s stomach. The grip on his neck slackened. Gabriel swung free of it, sweeping back his hood.

The thin fellow was bent double, then he raised his head, green eyes flaring, and made ready to lunge again.
Gabriel landed a tightly balled fist into his face. Blood trickled from the creature’s nose and he staggered back, groaning.

His cloak whirling, Gabriel spun around to see two more men fast approaching.

‘You cheating blackguards,’ he snarled, and cracked a solid upward punch beneath the jaw of one. He turned to thump the other but a clenched hand, broad and strong, struck him on the temple. Dizziness rocked him for a second. Then he hit the brawny fellow square in his brick-hard stomach. The man grunted, barely affected, then addressed Gabriel with a tobacco-stained grin.

From behind, something thudded against Gabriel’s skull. The room twisted, the colours blurred, then everything went black.

Chapter Ten

LORD MARLDON HAD
barely left Clarissa’s side all day. She did not trust him. He watched her with a furtive smile and there was a gleefulness in his manner which made her taut with apprehension. And now they were eating in the state dining room instead of the usual, smaller one. They sat either end of the long table, a line of candelabras and fruit pyramids stretching between them. Silver dishes, decanters and flagons gleamed strangely against the dark wainscoting.

‘Are we expecting company?’ she had asked on seeing the display. And Marldon had replied with an enigmatic ‘maybe’. But only two places were set.

Clarissa feared his behaviour had some connection with Gabriel. Seeing him yesterday had raised her hopes: her friends knew of her whereabouts and were attempting to help her. Yet, at the same time, despondency weighed on her heart. In the face of Marldon’s cunning, they could surely accomplish little. She toyed with the food before her, too anxious to swallow a morsel.

‘Perhaps dessert will tempt your appetite,’ said Marldon, signalling for the footmen to clear away the main course. ‘You are preoccupied, Clarissa. Are you wondering whether finally to accept my offer of marriage?
Perhaps I should ask for your hand once more, just to test the air.’

Clarissa said nothing as the liveried servants, Beckett and Simms, removed plates and cutlery. ‘The question is beginning to bore me,’ she replied eventually.

‘Now there is something I have not tried,’ said Alec with a contemplative gaze. ‘Boring a woman into submission. Still, I don’t suppose I would be successful at it. That’s the trouble with charisma: it narrows a man’s options.’

Simms, oval-faced and balding, brought a decanter of wine to the table and made to pour it into Clarissa’s glass. She put out her hand to stop him.

‘Have some,’ insisted Marldon firmly. ‘It’s a Muscadet. Its sweetness will be a perfect complement to the next dish.’

Clarissa shot him a worried glance. There was an edge to his voice; his words sounded ominous. Marldon smiled as his glass was filled, then raised a toast. Clarissa did not join him.

‘To sweetness,’ he said, and drank.

Clarissa watched him, her body tense with grim expectation. What pestilent thoughts were going on in that mind? What was he anticipating?

A movement at the far end of the room caught her attention. She looked beyond Alec to see the double doors open wide. Brinley and Jake entered and between them, hands behind his back, arms locked in theirs, was Gabriel.

‘No,’ gasped Clarissa, leaping to her feet.

She rushed to him, emotion robbing her of breath. A purple-black bruise, shiny at its centre, marked one of his cheeks and, though he did not struggle, his strong, beautiful face was shadowed with fury. She drew up short when she saw the blade glinting at his throat. ‘No,’ she whispered.

She threw a fearful, pleading glance at the knife-wielding valet. Brinley’s left eye was blackened and he grinned, vengeful and smug. She turned to Gabriel. Her
heart flared with pity and love, and culpability pulled a sombre knot in her stomach. She had brought him to this.

Her hand trembling, she reached out to his wound. Her fingertips hovered above it before she brushed a touch over his lips.

‘They hurt you,’ she said quietly. She gazed at him for a long time, seeing tenderness beyond the anger in his rich-brown eyes. Hot tears smarted in her own and she turned to Marldon slowly but feverish with rage.

He had positioned his chair so as to observe her better. He rolled the stem of his glass between thumb and fingers, and his lips were curved in a triumphant smile.

‘Release him,’ she said, her voice low and quivering. ‘Release him, or I swear I will not be responsible for my actions.’

‘Ah, the passion of young love,’ said Marldon lightly.

Clarissa screamed, incensed, and ran to hurl herself at him. The impact of her body almost unbalanced him and his glass crashed to the wooden floor. She slapped and battered at his chest, tugged at his clothes, clawed wildly at his face. She shrieked curses at him. She clutched great fistfuls of his hair, pulled him low and shook his head savagely, wanting to tear it from his neck.

Then harsh fingers gripped her arms and the footmen wrestled her away. She kicked and squirmed in their grasp, still screeching abuse at Marldon.

The earl crossed to her, his eyes barbarous, his hair dishevelled. With swift force, he cracked a hard stinging slap across one cheek.

Clarissa choked a heaving cry, then fell silent, stunned.

‘You bastard,’ spat Gabriel.

‘She was hysterical,’ barked Marldon. ‘And she’s my business.’

There were threads on his frock coat where a button should have been, and part of his high starched collar
was undone. It poked above his skewed tie at a gawky angle. With the calm of one attempting to regain his dignity, Marldon swept his thick sable hair into place and adjusted his clothing.

‘Release her,’ he snapped, and the two footmen at once stepped back.

Marldon walked to the sideboard and poured himself a glass of claret. His face was flushed and scored with red lines, and his mouth was pinched and wrathful.

‘You spilt my drink,’ he said to Clarissa. ‘Mop it up.’

She stared at him, too shocked and breathless to respond. Her mind seemed to float in a tranquil space, vaguely aware of some far-off violence. She felt serene, dazed, and she could not recall what Alec had just said. Then a suppressed groan of agony penetrated her trance. She twisted around to see Gabriel half-bent and writhing, his face contorted in pain. His wrists, she saw now, were manacled, and his captors were forcing his arms high behind his back.

‘I’ll do it,’ she whispered to Marldon. ‘What is it? I’ll do it.’

Alec signed for Brinley and Jake to cease their cruelty then repeated his command: ‘Mop it up.’

Clarissa turned to address Simms. ‘Could I please have a cloth?’ she asked meekly.

‘No, you cannot,’ said Marldon sternly. ‘Soak it up with your drawers.’

A tiny whimper escaped her lips and she closed her eyes in wretched despair.

‘Do not,’ shouted Gabriel. ‘Clarissa, do not allow him to abuse you so. I will bear anything for you, any amount of pain.’

‘That’s as may be,’ said Lord Marldon. ‘Although you will not be as quick to say it when your throat is slit. And, if I am merciful and merely slash your face until the skin hangs from it in ribbons, then I perceive great disappointment. Clarissa is not, I can assure you, averse
to a scar or two. But a patchwork of them would be unlikely to appeal.’

‘It’s nothing, Gabriel,’ she said imploringly. ‘Please, don’t make it worse for me.’