The Duke of Shadows (27 page)

Her head lolled to one side, taking her eyes away from him.

He reached out and pulled her face around by the chin. "Yes or no."

She stared. She could not say yes, of course. Not and remain on that floating iceberg she'd found for herself.

"Yes means no," he said. "No means yes. Do you understand me?"

Her eyes fell to his cock again. Rose, heavier-lidded.

"Do you understand?"

Goddamn her. "Do you want this?"

"No," she said, and lay back on the rug, her hair spreading around her face like a cloud.

He levered himself over her, reaching between them to fit the head of his cock to her. Her breathy gasp nearly undid him. Her hips shifted away; her hands came up against his chest. With a black laugh, he let go of his cock and caught her wrists again, pinning them to either side of her head, pushing down his hips to pin her.
Ah.
There. She was so tight, so hot and so wet as he pushed into her. She groaned, and the violence of the feeling that moved through him was transmitted though his hands and his initial thrust; it brought her eyes open and he loosened his grip on her arms with a muttered curse. There was fear here. Not hers, but his. She was soft, and yielding, and hell, but he could not trust his impulses; he wanted to move inside her so hard she would be forced to throw off this sham, to cry out in some genuine way, yes, even in pain perhaps, to beg him to stop. But he could not do that to her. It was nowhere in him. So he gritted his teeth and pushed her arms down when they demanded it and tried his best not to hurt her as she was inviting him, urging him to do.

"Ah—ah—" She writhed beneath him, and everything in him tightened, from his balls to the crown of his head, and he pulled out of her just as he came.

Windless, he lay diagonally across her thighs, listening to her breathing gradually slow. He should stand up now. He should not say a word. God
damn
her.

Instead he found himself leaning over her. She lay very still, her eyes shut, her face perfectly still, pale in the gaslight. Enchanted by some icy spell of her own making. Beyond his touch, really.

"It means nothing," she said.

"Nothing, Emma." And he bent down to catch with his lips the tear that slipped over her temple.

Her face turned a little toward his. He kissed her softly on the mouth. No hedge of thorns had ever grown so thick as the cold with which she surrounded herself. With his lips and tongue he willed it to melt.
Wake up, Emma. Sleep no longer.

She wanted to do it again.

The interior of the coach was very dark; Julian had not turned up the lamp. But she could dimly make out his form, across from her. The weight of his attention pressed against her throat like his hand had done, earlier. It pushed out the words that had lodged there for an hour. "Am I one of your women now?"

He gave a low laugh. Not of amusement. "One of my women."

"That's what I said."

"Yes," he said at length. "I suppose you are."

She turned back to the window. With one finger, she followed a raindrop down the other side of the glass. Fitful little thing. Advancing in jerks and starts. Pausing without reason. The mad impulse was upon her to observe that he had lowered the bar for her. She was not resplendently blond, neither elegant nor beautiful. She could hear how her voice would sound as she said it: vitriolic, cutting. But the only one who would bleed from such a remark was she. And so the impulse bewildered her, and she repressed it.

"It was interesting," she murmured.

"A cold way to describe it."

"Is it? How would you have done?"

"But then, I told you such things did not require emotion. Perhaps you have learned it now. Often one has to experience such truths to credit them."

"Experience is a great teacher," she agreed softly. Her raindrop had left her. She slid her finger up to a new arrival.

"And yet you seem melancholy. Not quite the same thing as unmoved. Or, for that matter, interested."

Then she was a better actress than she had guessed, for there was nothing unmoved in her. Her senses would not calm. They strained in every direction, fixing on no object in particular, so that every small sensation registered as something startling. The air leaking through the window was an icy breath on her throat. The velour banquette brushed against the backs of her arms like a cat wanting petting. She sat forward, but it was no good; it brought her closer to him, to his scent, and suddenly everything in her was inclining toward him, thrumming for want of what he could give her. She had forgotten how it could feel to be so … alive.

"Perhaps it was not so effective a lesson," he said.

Her mind focused on his words. On what she might make of them. "Do you propose to give me another one?" She smiled as something—a small rustle in the dark—betrayed his surprise. "By your own admission, you are a roué, Julian. I could hardly expect a different response."

"Indeed?"

"Indeed," she said.

"Very well, then." He spoke evenly enough, but she had the impression that a note of mockery colored his words. "If that's how it's going to be, you must go about it properly."

"Yes? How would I do such a thing?"

"Open your parents' house."

To have him there. Her breath caught at the images flashing through her mind. She had never seen him in the light. "Yes," she said. "Yes, I had already planned on it. It will be safer for my cousin if I leave. And the light there … it is better for painting. There's a very wide salon on the second floor, with large windows along the walls, eastward and westward."

"I would not be interested in your salons."

"No, but I would. Is that all?"

"Of course not. You must prepare yourself for society's condemnation. No one will receive you. They will not even acknowledge you in the street."

She supposed it would be a more final sort of disgrace than what she had endured in Delhi. She expected he was thinking of that girl as he issued his warning—the one who had fled into the Evershams' garden to escape the censure and pity of strangers. He was still trying to protect that girl, wasn't he? The thought sobered her for a moment; a strange loneliness slowed her heart. She had long since cast off such worries; she had no use for such protection. She needed other things entirely. The clarity of light. The sharpness of sound. The fullness of sensation he had given her, all unwittingly, with his body and his kiss. But perhaps she could have those things from him, if in return she allowed him to give her what
he
thought she needed.

"You must help me to be discreet," she said. "I will hire an amenable companion, so as to maintain appearances."

"Excellent idea." Now he was no longer bothering to disguise his derision. It puzzled her.

"You do not believe me? You think I will not do it?"

An infinitesimal pause. "I think you will do it," he said. "Why do you ask?"

"Because it sounds as if you're having fun at my expense."

"But I am, Emma. So?"

Her fingers knotted together in her lap. "Then
you
don't mean to follow through. Is that what you're saying?"

"Oh no," he said softly. "I mean to follow through."

"Then—" She did not understand him, and suddenly the weight was back on her chest. For a little while, she had felt so free. Reckless and fearless, unencumbered by complexities, giddily drunk on the very air she breathed. But if he forced a reckoning between them, it would all be lost. "What do you mean, then? Follow through on—on making me your mistress, yes?"

"What else could I mean?"

"Yes," she said, and felt settled again, and easy. She lifted away the veil, and his features came into focus. "Just to be clear."

"Clarity is, above all things, to be desired."

"Well, I will open the house. And the painting—shall we go to Sommerdon's to get it?"

"I will make inquiries. He is a great collector, and a loud one; it should not be difficult to find out the details."

"You will let me know, then."

"Yes."

"And I will let you know. About the house, I mean. It should not take long."

"You will let me arrange for the staff. And guards. You will need those."

"But—you just said—"

"Surely it is the least I can do." Again, mockery.

They were pulling up at the house. She put her hand to the door, but he caught her wrist and pulled her over to his bench. She let him do it; only the brush of his fingers over her skin, and it was as though roman candles were sparking in her blood. But when she settled onto the cushions beside him, he did not lean forward to kiss her. Rather, he sat back and turned up the lamp. His eyes roamed her face. So beautiful, he was. She was tempted to reach out and stroke his cheek, but it would not be in keeping with her role.

Would he not kiss her again before he left?

When he smiled, impatience finally took hold of her tongue. "What?"

"'Half-sick of shadows,'" he said softly. "It's all right there in your face."

"What do you mean?"

He shook his head. "I would tell you, but you would not like the answer." Leaning forward, he threaded his fingers through her loose hair and pulled her into a brief, hard kiss. When she would have opened her mouth, he pulled away. "Go," he said. "I'll wait until you're inside. I know you like to be the one to do the leaving."

Breathless, she slipped out of the carriage and up the walkway. The latch slipped off the gate soundlessly, and she had just managed to fit the heavy brass key into the lock when the front door opened beneath her hands.

Delphinia stood there, clutching her wrapper to her throat.

Emma looked past her into the hall. No sign of Lord Chad.

"He's sleeping," her cousin said. "Well, come in, Emma. You'll wake the servants. Unmarked," she went on, with a jerk of her head toward the carriage, now pulling away from the curb. "That's something, at least." She reached past Emma, and the door thumped shut. An ominous sound.

"Delphinia—"

"Come with me."

Her cousin set a rapid pace down the hall, her shoulders determinedly square beneath the frilly white wrapper.

Inside the morning room, all the lamps were lit, and a book and knitting needles lay on the chaise. "You were waiting for me," Emma realized. "Did you hear me leave?"

"No. I couldn't sleep. I was thinking of Poppet and—well,
you,
actually. I came by your room and found you gone. Beckworth was sleeping, so I was very afraid you had … gone off alone, I suppose. Although now I think of it, perhaps that would have been preferable. Oh, take off that ridiculous veil and sit down." As Emma tossed the hat and shrugged out of her cloak, Delphinia gasped. "Good lord—your dress! What have you done to it? No, don't tell me. You were with Auburn, weren't you?"

"Yes."

"Emma, are you …
consorting
with that man?"

"It's late. Perhaps we should discuss this in the morning."

"Emma, listen to me! You will
ruin
yourself."

"I understand your concern," Emma said. "You cannot have me under the roof, behaving like this. I have decided to open my parents' house."

"No, you do
not
understand. You are scaring me!" Delphinia began to pace the boundaries of the chaise. "I thought you were getting better. I thought you
were
better. But this man! He has thrown you
backward!
Your moods of late—and such behavior! No better than a two-penny trollop! No respectable woman—"

"You forget yourself," Emma said sharply. "I have not been respectable for a very long time. Not since that freighter—"

"I am
sick
of that line. Do you think anyone remembers it? You are an heiress, Emma. If only you would circulate, you'd find that money has a way of weakening the memory. People would be willing to forgive a great deal of you, if only you made it possible for them to do so!"

"Oh, how generous of them. To accord me the respect I can purchase! Why, it gives a whole new color to the idea of a
sterling
reputation, doesn't it?"

"Emma!"
Delphinia suddenly looked teary. "Oh, Emma—why must you be so difficult! Don't you see? This is your
life
we are discussing! No one will receive you if you continue to gallivant around like this! It's all right for Auburn—he's a
duke,
dearest, he's a
man—
but it's not all right for you! You must not let that man seduce you!"

Emma bit back a sigh. How to explain to her cousin? One could hardly say,
You're right, it is my life; and it is for my life's sake that I am seduced.
Delphinia, for all her sympathy, was fortunate beyond measure. She would not fathom how the prospect of feeling—really
feeling,
after such a long, blank, white stretch—might outweigh any sacrifice of name or station. And so, carefully, Emma said, "The life you lead is not the one I would choose. If it's my happiness you're worried about…" She could be cruel now, and put an end to the conversation by saying that her chances had been ruined the moment she was forced to come to London. But that was not even true. GemsonPark had been peaceful, but also, increasingly, stifling. Hence the plans for Italy. Yet, now the idea of leaving London…

She could not lie to herself. What troubled her was the idea of leaving
him.
She wondered, suddenly, what her pupils looked like. For he, too, was a sort of drug. Only a mere taste of him, after so long, and it was enough to … stir her so…

"And what of marriage, Emma? Has Auburn even spoken of it? Or is he perfectly happy to ruin you?"

He was not happy in the least. He looked at her as though she were a puzzle he meant to solve. Julian was anything but stupid. If she kept him intrigued, all the better. It would lure him back to her, at least until he managed to crack the riddle. And then—well. So what if he turned away? Affairs ended. Indeed, their impermanence was their defining quality.

"No, coz," she said. He had never spoken of marriage. Not even in Sapnagar. Why was that?

"Oh Emma. Think of it! To spend your whole life alone!"

She should be grateful for it. What she wanted from him was the opposite of marriage. There was no reason to resent his failure to offer what she would not take.

Strange, then, that she should find the failure noteworthy.

"It would be no easy thing," Delphinia said. "No nursery, no one to love…"