Heartless (23 page)

Ariel opened her mouth to argue, but the words got stuck in her throat, and only a little mew of denial escaped.

“You don't know him the way I do,” Phillip said. “You don't realize what the man is capable of. I tried to tell you. I tried to warn you, but you wouldn't listen.”

Ariel shook her head. “He isn't like that. He's good and decent. He just doesn't know it.”

“He's a villain, Ariel. He has stolen your innocence—do you deny it?”

She glanced away, the pink rushing into her cheeks confirming the truth of his words. “I love him.”

Phillip gripped her shoulders. “He's using you, can't you see? As soon as he tires of you, he'll cast you aside like so much flotsam.”

Tears burned her eyes. “You're wrong. Justin would never do that.”

“Ariel, you mustn't trust him. You must leave this place, now, tonight. Come away with me, darling. What's happened is past. I'll take care of you from now on, protect you from Greville.”

She shook her head, lifted her chin. “I've told you the way I feel. Please, Phillip, I'm asking you to leave. It's dangerous for you to be here. If Lord Greville knew you had come—” She gasped as he hauled her against him, gripped the back of her head, and covered her mouth in a punishing kiss. He thrust his tongue between her teeth and down her throat so deep Ariel nearly choked.

Shoving against his chest, she tried to turn her head away, tried to break free, then stiffened at the feel of Phillip's hand sliding into the bodice of her gown. He grasped her breast, squeezed it ruthlessly.

“You're mine,” he whispered. “I found you first.” The gown tore, then her chemise as he harshly abraded her nipple. Ariel choked back a sob and tried to kick him, but he was stronger than he looked and she only succeeded in ripping her skirt and knocking the pins from her hair. She fought him harder, for the first time truly afraid. Her foot slipped, caught in the hem of her dress, and both of them tumbled into the straw on the floor of the stall.

“Get off of me!” she demanded, struggling beneath his heavy weight.

“I'll have you—I swear it. You're used to the smells of the barn—you were born to it. I should have taken you this way from the start.”

Ariel tried to scream, but one hand clamped over her mouth and the other feverishly worked to bunch up her skirts. She tried to bite him, tried to twist free, felt him groping to unfasten his breeches; then his heavy weight flew off her as if it were lifted by some superhuman force. Phillip whirled to defend himself and a meaty fist connected with his chin, slamming him backward into the wall, dislodging a heavy leather harness that crashed down on top of his head.

Ariel jerked her gaze to the big, beefy red-haired man who stood with his fists bunched and his legs splayed—Cyrus McCullough, Justin's head groom. She started to tremble, could barely force her lips to move. “Mr. McCullough … th-thank God you came.”

Phillip groaned, and his eyelids fluttered open. His chest rose and fell in a harsh, unnatural rhythm, and a trickle of blood seeped from the corner of his mouth. He wiped it away with the side of his hand. “What the hell do you think you're doing?”

“Where I come from, laddie,” Cyrus said, “we dinna take kindly to a mon havin' his way with an unwillin' lass.”

Phillip clenched his jaw, shoved the harness off onto the floor, and staggered to his feet. Ariel dragged her disheveled hair back over her shoulder, tried to brush the straw from her skirts, but her hands were shaking too badly. “H-how did you know we were in here?”

“I heard the noise from my room upstairs. Thought I'd best come down and see what was causin' the ruckus.”

“Thank you. I don't know what would have happened if you hadn't come along when you did.”

A few feet away, Phillip's pale hands fisted. He fixed a murderous glare on Cyrus McCullough. “I'm the son of an earl. Do you know what that means, old man? You'll spend the next twenty years in Newgate for what you've done.”

“No, he won't,” Ariel said firmly, flashing Phillip an equally nasty glare. “You say one word about this to anyone and I'll go to Greville. I'll tell him you tried to rape me.” Even in the darkness, she could see Phillip blanch. “I don't want trouble and neither should you. None of us will say a word about what happened here tonight. Do you hear me, Phillip?”

He spat a curse, then raked his hands through his hair, combing it back into place. Grudgingly he nodded.

“Ye'd best be gettin' back, lassie. Before someone discovers ye've gone.”

Ariel nodded and flashed a grateful smile at Cyrus McCullough. “Thank you again.” With a last glance at Phillip, she turned and hurried away. The door closing behind her muffled the sound of the beefy Scotsman's fist connecting one last time with Phillip Marlin's chin.

*   *   *

Justin stood at the window of his darkened bedchamber watching Ariel leave the stable. In the light of the quarter moon forking down between the clouds, he could see a rip in the bodice of her gown, a tear along the side. Long strands of pale blond hair floated around her, loose from the pins that had held it in place. The shawl she had been wearing had gone missing, and as she disappeared through the back door of the house he noticed straw and dirt on the back of her wrinkled skirt.

Justin closed his eyes, fighting a wave of nausea and the heavy weight pressing down on his chest that made it impossible to breathe.

He had returned to the house just minutes after he had left, quietly entering through a side door and making his way upstairs. All evening he had watched her, seen her growing more and more tense.

He had known she was lying, of course. And he had been determined to find out why.

Now he knew.

Anger mixed with bitter despair, and a shudder went through him. It had been mere chance that he had spotted Phillip Marlin in the alley behind the house and seen him go into the stable. Before that, he'd been listening for the sound of Ariel's departure from her room, certain she intended to leave, wondering where she could be going and why she hadn't wanted him to know.

The moment he'd seen Marlin go into the stable, the truth had hit him like a blow, though at first he had refused to believe it. He had waited, watching and hoping he was wrong, praying that Ariel wouldn't go to him, that there was some other explanation. He'd considered confronting them, but he had humiliated himself in front of Marlin once before; he wasn't about to do it again.

Instead he stood there watching, his stomach churning, his hands sweating, praying he was wrong.

Then Ariel had finally come out of the stable, her clothes covered with dirt and straw and her hair in tangles. It was obvious she had been trysting with Marlin, and the torment that had been building inside him burst open like a festering sore. He ached with it, felt sick with it, wanted to die of it.

He hadn't believed he was capable of suffering such an agony of raw, unbearable pain. Ariel had done that to him, destroyed the protective wall he had so carefully built around him, left him open and vulnerable, broken and bleeding, the shell of the hard, perfectly contained man he had been before.

He hated her for it. Hated her even more for making him weak than he hated her for betraying him with Marlin. Woodenly he moved around the darkened room, guided only by the pale rays of moonlight filtering in through the mullioned windows. In the darkness, he sank down on a wooden chair in front of the hearth, staring at the cold, unlit fire, feeling the chill sweep through him.

Inside his chest, his heart beat dully, a dead, frozen lump that should have been numb and instead pulsed with a throbbing ache. How had he let it happen? How had he allowed himself to be taken in so completely?

Ariel.
Just the sound of her name whispered from the recesses of his mind made a bitter ache well up inside him. With her false brightness and calculated warmth, she had melted the wintry shield that had been his only protection. She had charmed him, deceived him, practically unmanned him.

Justin stared at the cold, spent ashes in the hearth and thought that they mirrored the years of his life. Cold and spent at twenty-eight years old, with a frozen heart and a glacial, arctic soul.

The thought drew harsh, chilling laughter from deep in his throat. He ran a shaking hand over his face, surprised the tears in his eyes didn't turn to ice as they slid down his cheeks.

*   *   *

Justin sent for Ariel late the following morning. He hadn't slept at all, and though the mirror had reflected eyes that looked sunken and bleak, no other emotion showed on his face. He wouldn't allow it. Not today. Not ever again.

Waiting for her to appear in his study, he plucked a piece of lint from the sleeve of his immaculate black coat, carefully straightened the cuffs of his white lawn shirt. He had dressed with care this morning, choosing somber clothes, perhaps as a sign of the end of this particular phase of his life.

Ariel knocked only briefly, then stepped in and closed the door. She gave him a soft, welcoming smile, though a faint edge of uneasiness marked her approach. He hadn't come to her bed last night. Perhaps she wondered why.

“Good morning, my lord.”

“Good morning, Ariel. I trust you slept well.”

Her cheeks colored a bit. “Not as well as I have been.”

The reference to his absence would have pleased him in the past. Now it only made his jaw harden.

“I missed you, my lord. I thought … hoped you would come to my room when you got in.”

How did she do that? How was it possible to be such a poor liar at times and at others accomplish the task like a master?

“Our meeting ran late. Afterward, Clayton and I got … distracted.”

Her pretty face fell. “Oh.” She was dressed in soft yellow wool, her silver-blond hair pulled back on the sides with small mother-of-pearl combs he had bought her in Tunbridge Wells.

God, she was lovely. The smoothest skin and bluest eyes he had ever seen. Amazing that as much as he despised her, he could still want her. His groin tightened at the thought and he began to grow hard. It hadn't occurred to him to have her before he sent her away, but why not? He and Marlin had shared women before. Somehow the notion seemed fitting.

“Come here, Ariel.”

She looked up at him and smiled, but the warmth in her eyes could no longer reach him. A layer of frost protected his heart, and he would never allow her to thaw it again. She came toward where he lounged against the bookshelves, his shoulders propped against the gilt-edged leather volumes.

“I got a great deal of work done yesterday,” she said, stopping just in front of him. “I have all those new figures you wanted and—”

He silenced her with a rough, demanding kiss, taking her a little by surprise. For a moment she tensed; then she relaxed against him and her mouth went soft and pliant. Justin gentled the kiss. He wanted to remember this last coupling. On the rare occasion he might allow himself to think of her, he wanted to remember the sweet victory of taking her so thoroughly, so utterly completely, just before he sent her off to Marlin.

He kissed her again, his tongue stroking deeply, his hands moving over her breasts, coaxing her nipples into stiff little buds, making them pulse with need. She made a soft sound in her throat and her hands slid up around his neck. Justin turned, easing her backward till her shoulders came up against the bookshelves. He settled his thigh between her legs, nudging her mound and lifting her a little. He heard her swift intake of breath, felt her fingers digging into his shoulders.

Reaching down, he began to slide up her skirt, running his hand along her leg and up her thigh as he bunched the bright yellow fabric around her waist. He deepened the kiss, his hand replacing his knee, slipping between her legs, probing her softness, stroking her until she was wet and ready.

He kissed her deeply, worked the buttons at the front of his breeches, and his shaft sprang free. He was hard as a stone, throbbing with heat and need.

“Part your legs for me, Ariel.”

She swayed a little, her pulse beating rapidly, but did as he commanded, opening herself to him, trusting him as he had once trusted her. He parted the folds of her sex and drove himself inside her with a single determined stroke, impaling himself completely.

Ariel moaned as he began to move, thrusting into her hard and deep, lifting her a little off the floor. Her body trembled and her head fell back. Justin kissed her throat, gently bit the side of her neck, and she pressed herself against him. Long penetrating strokes had her clinging to his neck, arching upward, whimpering his name.

Inwardly he smiled as her body tightened around him, milking him sweetly as she reached a powerful release. Still, he drove on, plunging into her until she peaked again. Only then did he allow his own release, pounding into her ruthlessly, taking what he needed, hotly expelling his seed.

Seconds later, he turned away, keeping his back to her, waiting for his heartbeat to slow, casually refastening the buttons at the front of his breeches. There must have been something in his expression—or more likely it was the lack of anything at all—that alerted her.

“Justin…?”

He turned with a calm that made her pretty face pale. “I summoned you here for a purpose,” he said matter-of-factly. “I suppose it's time we got on with it.”

“What … what purpose? What's happened, Justin?”

His expression remained bland. “Last night Clayton and I … well, we stumbled across some rather entertaining companions.” It was a lie, of course, he had never left his bedchamber, but he owed her nothing of the truth anymore.

“Entertaining companions? You aren't talking about … about women?”

“I'm sorry, my dear, but you knew sooner or later it would happen. You were quite good, really, better than I had expected, but a man's tastes change. Since that is the case, I believe it would be best if you left the house.”