The Prince of Midnight (22 page)

As he bent to yank off a boot, his burnished queue and its long black ribbon
curled together, falling over his shoulder against his shirt. In his stocking
feet, he lay back on the pillows with his hands beneath his head. "I hope it
won't come to that," he said, gazing at the canopy. "I'm sure I've at least a
thousand quid here. I never let the dibs fall below nine hundred on any of my
accounts."

In the quiet room, Nemo stretched out on the wooden floor and put his head on
his paws with a sigh. Leigh stared incredulously at the relaxed figure on the
bed. "Do you mean to say you've an actual balance in a Rye bank?"

He rolled over onto his elbow. "Yes."

She wet her lips. "So you won't have to—steal anything to pay for all of
this?"

"No."

The threatening weakness quivered behind her eyes. "Curse you, then!" she
snapped. She strode to the window and thrust it open, staring past the leaded
green glass into the stable yard below.

"I beg your pardon," he said dryly. "I didn't realize your heart was set on
it."

'It's not," she said. "You may believe me, it's not."

There was silence behind her.

"Could this possibly be concern for my neck?" he asked softly.

She turned away from the window, ignoring that. "We should have a plan,
should we not? You arranged this. Why are we here? If you have a plan I want to
hear it."

His gaze rested on her for a long moment. "Close the window," he said.

She looked at him sharply, and then obeyed.

"Come here."

Drawing a deep breath, she sat down on the edge of the bed, so that he
wouldn't have to raise his voice for what he had to tell her.

He held up his hand, the silver pendant dangling against his palm. "It's been
six weeks," he murmured. "Six weeks I've wanted you. I know how you move, and
how the sunlight makes a shadow on the curve of your cheek, and the shape of
your ear. I know what you look like under that bloody waistcoat."

"What has that to do with a plan?"

"Nothing," he said. "Not a damned thing." He chuckled harshly, then turned
his head on the pillow and looked at her. "I'm dying," he said. He dropped his
fist against his chest. "Right here, you're killing me."

"That's not my fault," she said stiffly.

He closed his eyes. She suddenly realized that his body had grown ready for
her, that he lay with his shoulders taut, breathing deeply.
"Merde,"
he
said in a low, impassioned voice. "Tell me, Sunshine. Do you still have any
debts to me outstanding?"

"Is that all you want?" She tilted her head back and sighed angrily, feeling
shaky, all nerves, staring up at the red damask folds of the canopy. Her fingers
curled into her hands until her nails cut into her palms. She was afraid he was
going to reach for her, and she didn't know what she would do then.

He lay like a lion stretched on the bed, tawny and masculine. The silence
grew. He made a moody sound, star-lng at the pendant.

"I thought it was beneath you," she said. Her voice came out wrong, too
husky, a little fractured. "You've hardly touched me since the first time."

"Aye," he said bitterly. "I've wanted you to ask."

She would never give him that. She wouldn't stumble into the kind of absurd
emotional maze he lived in. Daft, he was. Sentimental, daft, devastating. She
could imagine him with her sisters. He would laugh at Emily's jokes even when
she couldn't remember the punch lines. He would tease Anna into tantrums. He
would ... no, not
would . . .
would have, would have . . .

Sometimes she thought she heard them, heard their voices, somewhere just
beyond sight. Just beyond reach, fading into dreams.

But all that was gone.

Gone, gone, gone ... as if it had never been.

Reality was an unfamiliar room and a highwayman. He was magnificent, his
green eyes, gold dusted; his knee lifted and his body relaxed, as beautiful in
its own way as the wolf's. She knew the strong shape of his hands and wrists and
the sudden, beguiling shock of his devil's grin.

It felt like drowning, to be this close to him. It felt like pain: the deep
ache and anguish of heat applied when all her limbs were frozen. She didn't want
it; she couldn't survive it.

"I won't ask," she said. Her voice sounded crystalline, brittle in the
silence. "I need nothing of what you call love. What you want is your own
affair."

He looked away with a grimace. He held up the pendant and watched it twist in
the light.

"Did I speak of love?" His jaw was set. His mouth looked forbidding. "I
thought I spoke of debts." He opened his hand and allowed the pendant to slide
slowly from his fingers, one silver loop after another. "My bed. My food. My
money," he said softly. "Ever since La Paire." There was just the faintest trace
of scorn in his voice. He lowered his hand and rested it against hers. "What of
that? You'd have it all business between us—so you've told me."

Leigh grew taut. She remembered him, again, with the sword on the beach—the
rapier's wicked song as it cut the air. He slipped his fingers about her wrist,
sliding his hand up her arm and slowly down again. The twist of his mouth held a
sardonic challenge. "So . . ."he whispered. "Pay me."

She breathed deeply, like a deer frozen in alarm.

Did he think she would shy from it now? She stared at him, at the moody
smile, the lowered lashes that hid his intent.

Her eyes narrowed.

Let him. Let him believe it was in his power to move her in any way.

He shifted his hand to the buttons on her waistcoat and began to flick them
open, one by one, deliberately. He reached the last. "You're strangely passive
for a whore," he said. "Don't you know your business?"

She felt a flush rise in her face. But she wouldn't give him anything, not
even shame.

Without lifting his head, he caught her chin between his fingers, caressing.
There was still that scornful curve to his mouth. "If I'm buying this, I don't
expect to undertake all the exertion."

"There'll be servants coming."

"Turned up shy?" he murmured. "They won't stay long."

She fought the alarm, sought for the shield of resentment. She thought of the
way he'd struck the sword from her hands as if her fingers had no strength in
them. She wanted redress for that, and for other things: the way he drew her in
and made her afraid for him and what he might do.

She thought of the scenes in the marquis's little book, the erotic stories.
Her lip curled.

Let him think he could shake her this way.

She turned her head and brushed her lips over his hand. Delicately, she
closed her teeth on the tip of his finger and lowered her eyes. "I'll bathe you
then, monsieur."

* * *

S.T. lay on the bed as the maid finished pouring the last pail of hot water
into the bath. Rye's preeminent tailor had not been behindhand in offering his
wares. S.T.'s new coats, brought by the shop boy, were spread for inspection on
the clothespress amid their paper wrappings: bronze velvet trimmed with dark
green frogging, midnight blue satin decorated in gold, along with a hopeful
offering of matching breeches, heavily embroidered waistcoats, and fresh linen
shirts that dangled discreet lace at the cuffs.

The maidservant gathered her empty pails and left on the heels of the
dismissed shop boy. S.T. sat up on the edge of the bed. He reached for the
platter of cold meat and ate a slice of beef on bread, tossing another portion
to Nemo, who consumed it in one swallow.

All the time, he watched Leigh.

Her hair was tied back again, revealing tender skin, snowy and silken. He
kept his lashes lowered, kept a check on himself, just watching, like a hunter
in the trees.

She moved around the room—arranging towels, laying out soap, and making
little feminine sorts of preparations, the kind of things he'd never seen her do
before.

It made him hot to watch her in the boots and breeches, her head bent in
quiet attention to the tasks. The effect was maddening, sublimely exotic. She
was doing this for him, all these little meek rituals, these maidenly things,
while he wanted to rape her—she'd driven him that far.

He'd not intended it this way. He'd tried to impel her to refuse him, to
shame her into it.

She won. He lost . . . lost the bluff, the whole stake, the entire war, every
scrap of conscience and restraint— and took painful, inglorious, mortal pleasure
in it.

He sipped at a glass of brandy, feeling it warm his throat and chest. He was
disturbed to find that his hand wasn't steady. The drink did not blunt the
hunger in him, or the self-contempt.

She moved to the bath, tested the water, and turned to him. "Monsieur?"

Her eyes were lowered, her tone polite and reserved, as if she were a docile
servant. He felt bound; unable to stand up and take her in his arms in the usual
way of things. He just sat there, violent inside, his hands shaped to the edge
of the bed.

She came to him, stood beside the bed. "You wish me to undress you, my lord?"

His lips parted a little. The husky voice was seductive, her manner grave. He
thought she must be mocking him, calling him by a deferential title, as if she
were truly a servant. She dropped her eyes in a sort of courtesy, her dark
lashes curving against her cheek, inflaming him beyond logic with this offer of
service.

"Yes," he said hoarsely, surrendering to the erotic promise of it.

He'd been attended by servants a thousand times. He'd never thought about it
in his days of living high. He was a gentleman; he had a valet when
circumstances permitted. But not this. Not this tantalizing female who lifted
his shirt, trailing her hands over his torso and chest, touching him in places
he had not been touched in three years.

Her fingers stroked him, moved up his ribs and outlined the curve of muscle
on his chest. She caressed his nipples until he lifted his chin and drew in a
heavy breath. She pulled the linen over his head, moving away to lay the shirt
across the chair as if everything were commonplace routine. Then she came back
and paused in front of him, her gaze still lowered modestly, like an attendant
awaiting his pleasure.

He stood up. She touched him without hesitation. The back of her hand pressed
him leisurely as she unbuttoned his breeches. He was having trouble breathing.
He wet his lips as she pushed the material aside and released him.

He felt as if he were sinking into a dream.

Her fingers closed around him intimately, warm and stroking. He sucked in his
breath, put his hand on her shoulder, and arched his head back. His whole body
seemed to reach for her, to fuse and center on that touch.

She slid her palm down the side of his hips, bent to unfasten the buckles at
his kneebands. He stepped to one side, freed of breeches and stockings, standing
naked and aroused while she made a neat pile of the clothes and tested the water
again.

"Monsieur," she said gravely. "Your bath is at a pleasant warmth."

He looked at her. His brain did not quite accept this scene: his own
nakedness; her demure downcast eyes, her figure in the provocative breeches, the
shirt, all covered and all flagrantly in view. His mind disowned it, but his
body beat a hot and ready song.

He stepped into the bath. The steamy water flowed around his calves. On his
bared back, he could feel his queue brush softly when he turned his head, like
cool silk while he simmered all over.

She held a washcloth and soap, waiting, but somehow he could not bring
himself to sit down. His knees would not bend, his shoulders would not relax.
All his muscles seemed taut with pleasure. He flexed his hands as he stood with
the warm water caressing his feet.

She waited a moment, her gaze steady at the level of his chest. When he made
no other move, she folded back her sleeves to the elbows, knelt, and doused the
washcloth and soap in water. She was so beautiful, she made every move delicate,
gracious. He wanted to hold her face between his hands and drive his tongue deep
into her mouth. As she rose, she drew the scented bar and cloth up the back of
his leg, up his thigh and his loins, cascading warmth down his body.

He bit the inside of his mouth and tilted his head back, feeling her hand
move on his skin, slowly massaging.

She began to soap his chest. The water ran down in heated rivulets. He heard
himself breathing, rough and uneven, the only sound beyond the swish of water in
the tub.

She knelt again and brought a fresh soapy flood of sensation, washing his
throat and his shoulders, taking each of his arms in turn and working gently
down to his fingers. Her skin felt slick and hot against his; he caught her
wrist, but it slipped from his hand as she turned away. She filled the pitcher
and lifted it above his shoulders to rinse.

He closed his eyes as the water poured down over him. She knelt again and
began to soap his legs, running her hands over the hard muscle of his calves,
and then upward.

She stroked the back of his thighs and caressed him provocatively. He could
not believe it; he couldn't speak; there was a sound caught in his throat, a
blocked whimper of ecstasy. He touched her hair, thrust his fingers through it,
and held her head between his hands as if she could keep him standing when his
braced legs felt as if they would give way.

She let the cloth fall and brushed the inside of his thighs with satin-slick
fingers. Then, while he stood trembling, she slipped her hands around his hips,
leaned forward as she knelt, took him in her mouth and kissed him.

His back arched; he clenched his teeth and panted through them as she stroked
the most unbearably sensitive part of him with the tip of her tongue. Sweet
flashes of agony sent tiny spasms through his frame. He began to move; he
couldn't help himself, his hips pressed forward into the rhythmic strokes and
his hands slid down to her shoulders to lift her.