What a Duke Dares (22 page)

“You’re safe,” he said grimly. Without taking his arm from his eyes, he caught her wrist with his other hand.

She tensed, but as his hold was loose enough to break, she didn’t shake him off. “I don’t feel safe.”

His expressive mouth, visible beneath his forearm, thinned. “You used to.”

“That was… before.”

Sighing, he lowered his arm and released her. She’d seen his expression after he’d taken her. He’d looked ready to slit his throat to save the world the trouble of shooting him. He still looked like he’d forsaken his last hope for happiness. Her heart twisted with a stupid female need to assuage his cares.

She battered down the impulse to take him in her arms. What comfort had he offered when he’d so ruthlessly used her? Then left her incomplete at the end.

“I can apologize again, Pen,” he said bleakly.

She avoided his desolate jade gaze and stared down to where her fingers folded and unfolded the sheet with idiot compulsion. “Don’t.”

A silence fell, then she felt the mattress move as he rolled away. She should be glad he went, but something in her was disappointed that he didn’t stay to persuade her. Not into doing… that. But she’d appreciate him making an effort.

Oh, devil take her, she was a complete mess. She wanted this. She wanted that. None of it made any sense. After what Cam had done, she shouldn’t want to see him again. However impractical that might be, given today’s marriage ceremony.

She was almost as annoyed with herself as she was with Cam.

Which didn’t prevent her watching as he walked away. The back view was just as spectacular as the front. The proud set of the head, even now when his pride smarted because he’d failed to satisfy his bride. The wide powerful shoulders. The straight, well-muscled back. The firm globes of his buttocks.

Like her, he still bore the shipwreck’s marks. Healing bruises and abrasions, including a slash of dark purple across his ribs. Anger ebbed out of reach, although disappointment remained. Whatever tonight’s disaster, he’d nearly died saving her.

She waited for him to enter the duke’s apartments, but instead he veered off into the luxurious bathing room. Disgruntled, Pen straightened against the pillows. If he wanted to wash, couldn’t he do it in his own rooms?

He emerged carrying a bowl and towel, and with another towel slung low around his narrow hips. He set a small mahogany table beside the bed and placed the bowl upon it. He turned and with one hand, hooked up the heavy red robe, covering himself.

“Lie down,” he said softly.

“Why?” she asked suspiciously.

“I’m going to make you feel better.”

She bit back a sniping response that his absence would achieve that most effectively. Anyway, it wasn’t true. As her discomfort faded, she felt lonely and teary and desperately in need of kindness. Even if the kindness came from the man who had hurt her.

Very gently he pried the covers from her clinging hands and drew them down, revealing her nakedness. Tonight she’d cursed her stupidity more than once. She cursed it again when she realized that she should have gone in search of a fresh nightdress while he was in the other room.

She acted a complete ninny. A brazen ninny at that.

“Leave me alone,” she said, grabbing uselessly after the covers.

“Pen, a wash will help.” He paused, and she knew he hated having to reiterate his good intentions. “I promise, only a wash.”

The urge to curl into herself and hide from those probing eyes was strong, but something in his face told her that if she did, she’d hurt him, as she’d hurt him when she’d claimed that she no longer felt safe. Yet again she derided her soft heart.

“Very well,” she said reluctantly, stretching out.

She watched him wring out the cloth and lift it over her stomach. Before he touched her, she grabbed his hand. “This doesn’t mean I’ve forgiven you.”

His gaze darted up to meet hers and she read his profound remorse. Unfortunately, remorse didn’t strike her as a particularly strong foundation for marriage.

“Pen, let me do this.” He made no attempt to break away. “Please.”

Pen wasn’t proof against Cam’s uncharacteristic humility. Reluctantly she released him. He took the gesture as permission to continue. Very carefully, he began to wash her. Starting with what should have been unexceptional places like arms and neck. He winced every time he touched one of the yellowing bruises from her ordeal after the
Windhover
went down.

She should be immune to Cam’s touch, but her skin tingled as the warm, damp flannel wiped away the night’s sweat and, she had to confess, much of the bitterness.

When he trailed the cloth over her midriff, every muscle clenched. By the time he reached her breasts, she breathed unsteadily. He didn’t linger, but the soft friction had her
nipples hardening as if he kissed them. She mistrusted the wayward responses that left her lightheaded as though she’d had too much claret.

Methodically, he moved to her legs, washing thighs and knees and shins and feet. This felt like slow seduction, although she caught his flinch when he saw the blood on her thighs.

He dipped the cloth in the water and gently parted her legs. She made a soft sound of distress.

Slowly he raised his head as if emerging from a daze. He’d concentrated so hard on what he did, he’d barely looked beyond the area of skin he washed. His eyes were as lifeless as malachite in his dark, intense face. “Trust me, Pen.”

She bit her lip. She’d trusted him earlier and had come to grief. But she couldn’t deny a lifetime of love. She let her legs fall open, although no man had seen the private hollows of her body. He thoroughly washed each fold and valley, soothing every sting. His gentleness squeezed her heart into a tiny ball.

She bit back another whimper, not this time of discomfort. Although this intimacy made her more embarrassed than she’d ever been in her life. How could her body respond like this? After years of imagining a man in her bed, of imagining
this
man in her bed, she knew now what happened. Pain. Shame. Regret. Powerlessness.

Yet with every stroke, he smoothed the disagreeable memories and replaced “never again” with “perhaps.”

With trepidation, she watched him wring the cloth. She’d been afraid that his passion might have left her a bloody mess. She was reassured to see only a trace of pink in the water.

Finally the torture that had transformed into dangerous allure ended. He dropped the cloth into the now cool water, dried her one last time, and lifted his hands away.

The silence preyed on her nerves, but she couldn’t force words through a throat jammed with tears. Not from pain this time, but because whatever pain he caused her, she loved him. She’d always love him. His care only proved that never having him love her in return would eat at her until her dying day.

The slow washing, like a ritual, had calmed him. Just as it had calmed her. His jaw no longer looked chiseled from stone and the lines around his mouth and eyes had relaxed.

He bent toward her. She thought he bowed to say good night. The atmosphere between them had become strangely courtly.

But his head lowered and lowered.

Before she could think to move, he placed his lips on her pale stomach, just above the navel. She felt the warm, damp brush of his kiss. Her skin tightened, although the kiss felt more an act of homage than a sensual invitation.

Questions flooded to her lips but died unspoken when he lifted the bowl and turned toward the door. Pride and confusion kept her from asking him to stay. She felt piercingly alone watching Cam walk away. But not so alone that she was ready to endure his use of her body.

Cam went through the door, leaving it ajar. A gesture of reassurance, the way one left a candle burning for a child in the dark. He must guess that she found this cathedral of a bedroom intimidating.

Awkwardly, still sore despite Cam’s ministrations, she struggled to stand. She needed a nightdress.

When she emerged from the dressing room wearing another of the late duchess’s seductive peignoirs, Cam leaned against one of the carved oak posts at the base of the bed. He still wore his robe and his expression was calm.

Perhaps he came to say good night. Then she noticed the
decanter of red wine on the dressing table near the empty glasses. Given how he’d arrived with brandy, the wine struck an ominous note.

She stopped so abruptly that the blue silk nightdress slipped from one shoulder. “What do you want, Cam?”

He prowled across to pour the wine. He passed her a glass. “I think we’ve done things completely the wrong way around.”

She frowned in confusion. “You mean you should have got me intoxicated before you joined me in that bed rather than after?”

Despite the tense atmosphere, his lips twitched. “No.”

Warily she studied him. “Then what do you mean?”

He gestured toward two chairs beside the hearth. “I mean, my wife, that we need to talk.”

Chapter Twenty

C
am watched Pen’s wariness deepen, but at least she appeared willing to listen. As she sank into the chair, she looked fierce and sensual, like a ravished goddess. Her black hair flowed around her. The blue nightdress was cut like a Greek tunic and emphasized the otherworldly quality of his wife’s beauty.

In the firelight, he noticed a red mark on her collarbone, just below where her pulse pounded like a trip-hammer. He’d branded her as his. Desire rippled through him, but he stifled any impulse to push his luck. He’d done that earlier and catastrophe had resulted. Guiltily he remembered the blood marking her thighs. Her cry as he’d pushed inside her still rang in his ears.

She watched him as if expecting him to pounce. “I told you I don’t want to talk about your… assumptions.” She gave the last word a bite that made him flinch.

“I’m sorry, Pen. But we must.”

She raised her chin and glared at him. “I suppose you mean to apologize again.”

He slid a chair from the other side of the hearth closer, but not close enough to crowd her. After he sat, he tasted his wine. The claret filled his mouth, rich and heady and complex. Nothing to compare to Pen’s kisses.

Beneath his composure swirled a turbulent stew of emotions. Anger at himself. Compunction at his clumsiness. Uncertainty that he could make up for what he’d done. Surprise—how had this sensual, beautiful woman remained untouched? “Would it do any good?”

“Probably not.”

Inwardly he winced. “You’ve been away from England a long time.”

“What’s that got to do with it?” Her temper lifted his spirits. He never again wanted to see her hurt and crying. Especially over something he’d done to her.

“You must know there’s been gossip.”

She looked unconcerned. Dear God, he wished he could be as nonchalant about spiteful talk as the Thornes. “Occasionally someone would write and say that they’d heard about something I’d done. But why should the ton care about me? I never had a season.”

“That’s part of the appeal. You’re a mystery. A well-bred girl who chooses to scandalize the Continent rather than make her debut and find a husband. Peter’s profligacy and Harry’s tomcatting kept the Thorne name on everyone’s lips. Your antics added spice to the mixture.”

She sipped her wine. “There were no antics.”

His eyes sharpened on her. “What about the Grand Turk’s harem?”

She looked startled. “What about it?”

For years, outlandish tales of Pen’s adventures had piqued both his chagrin and curiosity. The rumors had become pure torture once he’d met her again. “Don’t try to be funny.”

Her lips firmed with impatience. “I’m not being funny. A woman is safer in a harem than she is in a nunnery. Apart from the eunuchs and the Sultan, the harem is a female preserve.”

“What about your affair with Count Rosario?” An affair which had never taken place, Cam realized.

Hostility sparked her gaze. “The Count is seventy if he’s a day.”

“You and he traveled together for weeks.”

“I joined a party of scholars to see the excavations on Rosario’s estate outside Palermo. The weather was bad and the count was kind enough to take me into his carriage. His arthritis has stopped him riding.”

How thoughts of the count had tormented Cam. Now Rosario loomed in his imagination as a geriatric bookworm. “What of the Prince of Castrodolfo? He’s a young man. And you two spent a night alone in the Apennines.”

Amusement lit Pen’s annoyance. “At thirteen, the prince is certainly young. Most people consider him hopelessly bookish. His mother fears difficulties in securing an heir, unless she can awaken his interest in the fair sex.”

“What about Goya? Word is that he painted you wearing what only the most intimate associate would wear.” Which meant wearing nothing at all. The idea of another man feasting his eyes—and other things—on Pen’s glorious nakedness made him livid. He knew he was a primitive, but despite everything, he looked at this woman and his heart beat
mine, mine, mine.

Her cheeks went pink. “He’s a great artist.”

Cam started to feel like a schoolmaster quizzing a troublesome pupil. “So that rumor is true?”