The Third Son (15 page)

“Damien,” said Serge with his usual grin, “I don’t know where you found this woman, but she is much too good for you.”

Esmeralda giggled. Damien grinned. “I agree, brother, but I intended to let her figure that out for herself.”

“Esmeralda,” said Nicolai. “Might you do me the honor of taking a turn about the lawn? I find the need to walk off this delicious feast I have just stuffed myself with.”

Esmeralda stood to join Nicolai. “I’d love to.”

Damien watched as she walked off on Nicolai’s offered arm, admiring the sway of her hips beneath the flowing gown.

“She’s beautiful,” Serge remarked.

“Yes, she is.”

“How angry do you think mother will be when she finds out who she is?”

Damien sighed. “She told you?” 

“No, I recognized her. Don’t worry
,
you know your secret is safe with me. Besides, I like her a lot more than most of the other women you usually keep company with.”

“And just so you know,” Damien retorted, “I couldn’t give a damn what mother would think. Esmeralda is a rare woman and I am lucky to have her in my company.”

“Here, here,” Serge said, lifting his glass before taking a drink. “I see that Davina is missing today.”

“I am relieved. Things did not go very well when I ended our relationship last night.”

Serge laughed. “From what I hear she never could take rejection well. Don’t worry about her
,
that kind always land on their feet.”

Damien laughed. “She’ll have a lot of help landing on her feet. The amount I settled on her was obscene.” 

He watched Esmeralda as she strolled about the crowded lawn with his cousin.
Damien
observed her smile and felt a gentle tugging on his heart strings. Could this be love, he wondered? He had never experienced it before, yet in a very short time
,
he had come to care deeply for Esmeralda. 

“I am happy for you,” said Serge, as if reading his mind. His twin always had the uncanny ability to guess at his thoughts. “It is obvious that you care for her. I only hope that you will not hurt her.”

Damien shook his head vehemently. “Not this woman,” he said. “This woman is different than any I’ve ever known.”

He stood as Nicolai and Esmeralda approached, taking her hand from Nicolai’s arms. “If you will excuse us,” he said, leading her away from the crowd and toward the palace. “Are you enjoying yourself?” he asked.

She smiled. “Very much. Your brother and cousin were very kind to me. Are we leaving now?”

Damien patted her hand, leading her around to the conservatory. “I want you to myself for a while,” he said. “And I wanted to share some of my interests with you. That’s the greenhouse,” he indicated the conservatory as they neared the large glass building.
Damien
ushered her inside and showed her to the area he had cleared for his experiments with hybrids. He showed her several beautiful plants, including orange roses he had
crossbred
himself.

“They’re beautiful!” she exclaimed, fingering one of the brightly colored buds. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“It took a long time to achieve this result,” he said proudly, lifting a pair of shears from a nearby worktable and snipping one of the buds. He handed it to her. “Now I am working on the same effect with lilies.”

He took her back towards the palace, leading her on a tour through the ballroom, the gallery boasting portraits of several generations of the royal family and the observatory where his many telescopes were housed. “I will bring you back here one evening so I can show you how they all really work,” he said, taking her hand to lead her on the last stop. “After we’ve seen the library I promise I’ll take you home.”

“Oh I don’t mind,” she said, following his lead into his wing of the palace. “I enjoyed seeing it all.”

He lead her through a series of corridors, all guarded, before ushering her into his library. The heavy green drapes were thrown back to allow in the sunlight. A large, well-used desk sat in the corner with several books stacked on top.
C
hairs and couches were strewn about the room, and along each wall, climbing up about three stories were shelves packed with books. She looked up to find that there was a skylight, allowing even more sunlight into the bright room.

“It’s a bit dusty,” he said, leading her to the center of the room where she turned in a circle slowly, taking it all in. “I don’t require the servants to dust it often because it’s quite a bit of work. He showed her the ladders leading up to each story of the library, which featured a narrow railed walkway circling the entire room.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” she said. “How do you keep track of it all?”

Damien
laughed. “It is a bit overwhelming but I do have a system.” 

He watched her walk around the room, reaching out to touch the leather bound books.
Damien
grasped her hand and pulled her into his arms, finding sweet relief in having her alone and to himself at last.
Untying
the ribbons of her bonnet
,
he
lifted it from her head, tossing it onto a nearby couch. He gazed at her face, tracing the contours with his eyes. He lifted first one of her hands, then the other, slowly removing her short lace gloves. The fabric slid over her skin like a slow caress, and Esmeralda’s breath quickened when he pressed his lips to her fingers. He released her hands and wrapped his arms around her waist, pressing her flush against him. His lips came crashing over hers hungrily, savoring the taste of the white wine that still lingered there. He wanted her badly enough to take her down to the floor right there in the library, but he wrestled for control.
Damien
was still working on gaining her trust and would not ruin it.

He lifted her in his arms, walking her over to a nearby sofa.
Damien
sat beside her, taking her face between his hands and claiming her lips
hungrily.
His
palms
slid down her shoulders and arms before he
spanned
her waist with his hands and ran them up to her breasts. Her back arched, pressing the firm globes into his
grasp
. She moaned, a small sound in the back of her throat and Damien was nearly undone. He cupped her breasts, lifting them slightly, exposing more of her modest cleavage to his view. He kissed the top of each one, delighting in the small tremors that gripped her as he tasted her flesh. She was half sitting, half lying on the sofa. Damien stretched out over her as much as the couch would allow. He grasped one of her legs and bent it at the knee, circling her slender ankle. He slowly skimmed his hand up her well-muscled calf, over the bended knee and up to her soft thigh. His
fingers
came in contact with something long and sharp. He pulled back abruptly, whipping her skirt up further and frowned. A leather strap around her thigh held a dagger with a jeweled handle. She sat up swiftly and shoved her skirts back over her legs.

“Oh God, I’m so sorry,” she stammered, clearly embarrassed.

Curiosity won out over his desire to take her back in his arms and finish what they’d started. “Darling, why is there a knife strapped to your thigh? Surely you don’t think you need to protect yourself from me?”

She shook her head vehemently, reaching out to touch his arm. “No, it’s not like that at all! It’s just that I always have it on me and I forgot I was wearing it. You have that affect one me,” she said sheepishly, lowering her eyes. 

Damien’s brow shot up
.
Esmeralda became even more intriguing with each passing day. “May I see it?”

She nodded, turning modestly away to retrieve the dagger.
Esmeralda
held it out to him and he was surprised by the weight of it. The heavily jeweled handle made the dagger quite valuable and Damien wondered where it had come from. 

“It was my father’s,” she said, watching him turn the dagger over in his hands. “He acquired it during his time at sea.”

“Why do you carry it?” 

She snatched the dagger back from him, placing back in its rightful place against her leg. “Because the world is full of dangers, that’s why!” she cried, crossing her arms over her chest protectively. Her eyes were clouded with something Damien could not quite name, a mixture of fear and something…something else
.
“I carry this because it makes me feel safe. I won’t be caught unprepared.”

“Unprepared for what?” Damien asked, pushing aside the ridiculous image of Esmeralda marching off to battle, the jeweled dagger glistening in her hand. 

She sighed heavily, plopping back down on the sofa. “My father was murdered.”

Her revelation stunned him. He never asked how Esmeralda’s father had died and was not prepared for the possibility that there had been foul play. He sat beside her again, waiting silently for her to continue.

“We had just left the Golden Dancer,” she said. “It was late. Earlier that night, my father and Dominic had sent some men away for trying to proposition my cousin Morgana. They were very drunk, but my father thought them harmless. He and Dominic were able to convince the men to leave and they did not come back. We were walking home together when the men found us in the street. They were angry at my father for kicking them out of the tavern
and
were so drunk they could hardly stand
.
W
e thought we could escape them. We ran into an alley and they followed us, surrounded us there.”

She broke off for a moment, choking back a sob. Tears glistened in her eyes and her hands shook as she clasped them tightly together in her lap. Damien placed his hand at the small of her back in a gesture of comfort, but did not speak. He sensed her need to tell the story uninterrupted, to get it out in the open.
Damien
wondered if she had ever told anyone else what had happened that night.

“They attacked my father, throwing him down on the ground. I tried to help him but there were four of them and I had no weapon to use against them. Two of them held me back as the other two took turns beating him. I fought them….I fought them until they began beating me as well…the rest is a blur but I was in and out every few minutes…” she trailed off for a moment, swiping the tears from her cheeks. “When I woke up, Tristan was there. And my father was dead.” 

Damien waited until he was sure she was finished before he pulled her into his arms. He felt anger unfurling in him, white hot and furious.
Damien
imagined Esmeralda, her face battered and bruised
,
as it must have been, afraid and trying to save her father. A sudden thought sprang forth in his mind, causing even more fury to well up inside of him. He didn’t want to pry, but the feeling that there was more to the story would not go away.

“Esmeralda,” he said softly, he voice strained by wrath. “Those men, they did not just beat you did they?” 

Esmeralda pulled back slightly, meeting his eyes with her tear-filled ones. She shook her head slowly and Damien felt his jaw tighten to the point of snapping.
Esmeralda
lowered her eyes from his, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs. 

“I kept fading in out of consciousness,” she managed between sobs. “But they were holding me down and one of them was over me. My vision was hazy and I was hurting all over from the beating they’d given me and I wasn‘t sure if it was real or if I was dreaming. When I awoke and Tristan was there, he was so angry and I couldn’t figure out why. It wasn’t until I got home and my mother removed my skirt, which was soaked in blood, that I realized why Tristan was so angry.”

She fell back against the back of the sofa, releasing a huge breath as if relieved. Damien clasped her hand tightly and pulled her until her head was resting on his shoulder. Her tears had stopped and she seemed to be calming down. Before long
,
her breathing had returned to normal, though her eyes were still a bit puffy.

“Esmeralda?”

“Hmm?”

“If I ever found those men who hurt you, I would ensure that they suffer for the rest of their lives.”

Esmeralda said nothing for a moment, resting against is shoulder and breathing in his comforting scent. “I’ve never told anyone the whole story before, you know,” she said finally. “My mother never asked, though she knew by looking at me what had happened. But she never made me talk about it.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was only curious about the dagger. I had no idea
...
”

“It’s alright,” she interjected. “I realize now that I had to get it out. I’ve been living in fear since that night. I don’t want to be afraid anymore.”

Damien stood, taking her hand and urging her to follow. “It’s time I returned you home, but before we go I want you to know something. I want you with every fiber of by being.” He leaned his forehead against hers and breathed deeply the fragrance he was coming to love. “I would not have you afraid of me, but if you would let me I would lay you down and show you so many reasons why you shouldn’t fear me. I would banish all memories of pain from your heart, and give you only pleasure.”