“No, actually,” she replied. “He was not a cruel man, not to me, but he was a bit … cold. Much like your father, I suppose. He never took much of an interest in me, though he was quite invested in Bertram’s future. He would become the viscount someday, and the Fairchild bloodline is an old one.”
“One of the bluest in all of England,” he agreed. “Which was why Fairchild did not wish to sully it by marrying his precious heir off to a Scottish chit whose mother had come from new money.”
Reaching up to press her fingers against her throbbing temples, she shook her head. “If I had known—”
She quickly clamped her lips together, recalling his words that morning as he’d dumped her into her bed. He did not want her apologies or platitudes. Yet, she could not help but think of what she might have done if she’d known about Olivia. Take Bertram to task, and demand he do the right thing. Yet, what would it have accomplished? Lady Olivia had simply been one in a string of conquests, all of whom Bertram had cast aside.
“When did you find out?” she asked, remembering he’d been on the Continent, and Maeve’s claim that he blamed himself.
Perhaps much of his anger lay with himself for being in another country while his little sister was being preyed upon by her brother.
“Not until it was too late,” he declared, before turning to leave the room.
Despite the sense of self-preservation telling her not to follow, her feet moved of their own accord, and she chased him out into the corridor, watching as his long legs carried him toward the stairs.
“Adam,” she called out, halting him in his tracks.
Why did she call out to him? What did she want?
To console him? To seek comfort from the man who had been tormenting her from the moment she’d first laid eyes upon him?
He paused at the top of the stairs, his shoulders tensing as his hands clenched into fists. However, he did not turn back to gaze at her when he responded.
“Where was your father during all of this?”
Adam scowled. “Dying. Some disease of the heart, the physicians said. The Callahan misfortune claimed him, as he always knew it would.”
Silence passed between them for another long moment, during which Daphne fiddled with the lace edging her gown.
“Have a care, little dove,” he warned suddenly. “I might have been drunk last night, but that does not mean I was not well aware of what I was doing or who I was doing it to. I hardly think you would relish being thrown on your hands and knees on this staircase and ravaged. Or … perhaps you would. Provoke me, and perhaps I will forget your body needs a reprieve and put that to the test.”
Swallowing past the lump in her throat, she backed away from him, clasping her skirts in shaking hands. Fear lanced through her at the image he conjured, and she could practically feel the cold, hard steps digging into her knees and the palms of her hands as he took her from behind as mindlessly and brutally as he had when taking her maidenhead.
Yet, her core clenched in longing, the tips of her breasts pebbling and insides melting into molten fire. God help her, he had awakened something she was not certain she could ever put back to sleep. Some filthy thing in the depths of her soul that craved depravity … sex … oblivion.
She wanted to test him, to take a step toward him and see what it earned her, see what challenging him would result in. Instead, she retreated a few paces, which seemed to free him from the thrall. He disappeared swiftly down the staircase, leaving her in the hollow corridor alone.
Another sleepless night drove Daphne back to the music room, where she hovered in the doorway, staring listlessly at the pianoforte. Her heart sank when she entered to find it empty, though she did not know why she cared. It should be a relief to return to this place she’d begun to think of as a haven and find solitude. She most certainly did not care that Adam did not occupy the space, or that the evocative composition he’d played in the early hours before dawn no longer reverberated from these walls.
She approached the harp, reaching out to caress its strings, stroke her fingers over the golden angels. As she sank onto the low stool, her gaze flitted to the spot on the floor where Adam had ravaged her. Despite the rug remaining pristine, she imagined it carried a mark from their encounter, a stain that could never be washed clean. It confronted her accusingly, reminding her of the dark things that had happened here, of the twisted desires he had pulled from deep inside her, forcing her to confront and accept them.
Closing her eyes, she embraced the harp, seeking succor in the music. Louis Sphor’s Fantasia in C Minor flew from her fingers without a second thought, despite it having been years since she’d laid eyes upon the sheet music. She didn’t need it to remember each note, to let them carry her away. She kept her eyes closed and ignored the invisible stain upon the rug and the ache it caused in her chest. Her mind became lighter than air, and she floated away with the music.
She moved into another composition, one she had long forgotten the name of. It had been one of her first, though, and she played it as effortlessly as she had Fantasia. It was not until she neared the end that she realized she was not alone, that her music was no longer the only sound filling the confined space.
Opening her eyes, she found Adam seated at the pianoforte, his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows to reveal his strong forearms. The muscles stretched with fluid grace as his hands moved over the keys, playing in accompaniment to her composition. The two sounds melded and became one—strings and keys intertwining into harmonious notes flitting about on the air around them.
He sat with his profile presented to her, his gaze cast someplace she could not see. So, she openly watched him, traced the angle of his sharp, stubble-roughened jaw, roamed the undulating strands of his hair, soaked in the bunch and roll of his shoulders beneath the pristine white shirt.
Like last night, his expression had melted into one of stillness and peace as he played, the cares of the day washing away until he existed as one with the music … and, in a way, with her. They played together naturally, Adam guiding her wordlessly into another composition, then another. After what felt like hours, they finally finished, reaching the end of their fifth composition without him flowing into another.
Daphne rested her instrument on the carpet, releasing a deep sigh as her body began registering the strain of playing for so long. Her fingers had grown tired, her shoulders and back aching from sitting so perfectly erect.
Adam had hunched on the bench, hands in his lap as he stared down at his keys. From where she sat, he appeared despondent … grieved. She wondered if he had just come from Livvie, if the young woman had suffered another episode. Pity she did not wish to feel settled in her gut, causing her heart to twist violently in her chest. Without the anger he wore like a mantle, he appeared a pitiful creature … a lion licking at the thorn in his paw. If she thought he would not maul her to death for drawing too close, she might have wished to help him remove it, to soothe the ache that obviously plagued him.
Folding her hands in her lap, she cleared her throat. “Where did you learn to play?”
He did not spare her a glance, reaching up to press his first finger to one of the keys. The long note rang out, quickly fading away without another on its heels to lend it strength.
“My mother,” he replied, his voice low as if he were as loath to disturb the peace they had found together as she was. “Not a pastime typically taught to sons, but I was all she had. This was her instrument … an extravagant wedding gift from my father. I spent hours in here sitting on this bench beside her, watching her play, matching the notes to the keys she struck. One day, I snuck in here alone and played an entire composition on my own. I was only five years of age.”
She gasped, awed by the revelation that Adam was a bit of a musical savant. She’d heard of such people, but had never met one in person.
“You do not read sheet music,” she observed aloud.
He shook his head. “I never needed to. There was somethi
ng in me that seemed to understand the music without it. My father did not like it, but Mother saw what I had and nurtured it. While I am also adequate with the violin, harp, and cello, I never excelled at any instrument like I did the pianoforte.”
She smiled at the thought of a young Adam sharing the piano bench with his mother, his little legs swinging inches off the floor, his hair tousled by affectionate hands.
“What of Olivia? Did you teach her the pianoforte?”
At last, he turned to gaze at her, the troubled expression on his face deepening and causing her chest to tighten painfully.
“No,” he replied. “Olivia loved the harp and played it better than anyone I’d ever heard … until you. It is why I took to calling her butterfly, for the way her hands would flit over those strings, so light and swift.”
Staring at the golden instrument resting in front of her, she sighed, sadness slumping her shoulders. The beautiful harp had belonged to Livvie, no doubt—yet another thing Bertram had stolen from her, ensuring she could never enjoy it again.
“I purchased that harp for her on her birthday,” he added. “When she reached seven and ten … just before setting off on my Grand Tour. She loved the bloody thing. When I returned from the Continent to assume my place as the earl, I purchased Dunnottar and created this music room. I thought playing again might heal her … make her feel more like herself.”
He did not have to say the words that hung on the air between them—did not have to tell her he could hardly get her to look at the harp now, let alone touch her fingers to the strings.
She parted her lips, but then snapped them shut. She had been on the verge of apologizing, of uttering the words she knew would only infuriate him. Because her apologies meant nothing … because expressing her regret would not give him his sister back or assuage her guilt.
“Come here.”
His words turned her blood to ice water in her veins, a shiver of dread rolling down her spine. He did not look at her, did not seem impatient for her to obey his command. Perhaps because he knew she would obey, if for no other reason than to make it easy on herself.
Clenching and opening her hands, she slowly rose from the stool and forced her limbs into motion. She became aware of her cunt, still aching from their first joining, and her breasts, her nipples which had turned into hard points at just the sound of his voice and what his command suggested. Would he use her again, tear her clothes from her body and throw her to the floor?
He reached for her when she came near, his hold on her wrist so alarmingly gentle that she hardly knew what to make of it. Shifting back on the bench, he slammed the pianoforte shut, covering the keys before hauling her toward him. He pulled her down onto his knee, wedging her between it and the instrument.
Before she could blink, he had the bodice of her nightgown torn down, freeing her breasts. He released a heavy sigh before latching onto one like a starving man, suckling at her as if he’d never tasted anything sweeter than her nipple. She cried out, the pleasure of his lips and lashing tongue spiraling straight between her legs. Squirming in his lap, she ground her cunt against his hard thigh, seeking pressure and friction, relief from the desperation he’d created in her with nothing more than the touch of his mouth to her breast.
He released one and moved on to the other, cupping both orbs in his large hands and kneading them, squeezing and caressing as he tasted his fill of her.
Gazing up at her, he teased each nipple with little flicks of his thumbs, smirking when he drew a sharp gasp from her, then a yearning moan. He dragged his tongue slowly over one while pinching the other, and she gritted her teeth, hissing at the muddle the dual sensations made of her senses.
“Such a bonny little thing,” he remarked, still steadily stroking her nipples with the pads of his thumbs. “Especially with my fingerprints all over your skin. Those other men who coveted you … they valued you in your state of pristine goodness … your white muslin and frills, your smooth hair, and your perfect posture. But not me, little dove. I much prefer you like this … your hair mussed, your neck bruised from my lips, your back arched to its breaking point as I wrap my hands in your hair and pull.”
She gasped when he scraped a fingernail over the tight bud of one breast, easing the sharp sting by drawing it into his mouth.
“No one else has seen you like this, have they?” he demanded, staring back up at her with fire in his eyes, turning the inner prisms into molten gold. “Have they, Daphne?”
She shook her head, and he reached around to grab one of her buttocks, giving it a tight squeeze and then a slap. It stung through the layers of her robe and nightgown, its warmth radiating at her core and further inflaming her.
“Answer me,” he growled, nuzzling her breasts and treating them to little nibbles and soft, teasing bites. “Who has seen you like this?”
“N-no one,” she gasped. “Only you.”
“That’s right,” he crooned before taking one of her breasts deep into the cavern of his mouth, sinking his teeth into the soft flesh.
She groaned and thrashed in his lap, her channel pulsating with need, liquid heat gathering there and slicking the path into her body.
It did not matter if he hurt her when he entered her … she would invite the pain just as she would the bliss that would follow, leading her to the rapture waiting for her on the other side.
“Say my name,” he commanded, grasping her waist to lift her onto the pianoforte. “Tell me, who is the only man to see you like this, little dove?”
“Adam,” she moaned when he swiftly parted her legs and hauled her down onto the enclosure over the keys, poising her at the perfect angle to enter her.
She grasped the edge of the instrument for purchase, her mouth practically watering as he began opening his fall, revealing the hard root of his cock. She whimpered when he stroked himself, pointing the thick tip toward her opening. Her inner thighs were smeared with the evidence of her need, but even as he slid his head into her cunt, she knew her wetness would not be enough. She was still so swollen, too tender from his first assault to accept him.
Yet, accept him she did, when he hooked his arms beneath her knees and yanked her to him while simultaneously thrusting his hips. She threw her head back and screamed at the invasion—equal parts ecstasy and agony. Her swollen channel gave way to let him in, sheathing him to the hilt, wrapping him in throbbing flesh.
“Again,” he rasped, tightening his hold on her as he pulled back and prepared to drive into her once more. “Let me hear it again.”
“Adam!”
He grunted as he impaled her over and over, sending waves of pleasure surging through her, resounding to the far reaches of her body. She chanted his name as he fucked her, mindless from the ecstasy, her body creating music at his hands as he played her as masterfully as he did the thing she lay upon.
“Adam … Adam … Adam!”
He took her slower than he had the night before, but his presence inside her had no less impact, driving her to climax so swiftly, she could hardly catch her breath before she went spiraling. She collapsed back onto the pianoforte, the edge biting into her back as he used its hardness for leverage and quickened his strokes, seeming to reach for his own end.
Pulling out of her with a rough groan, he spent, his liquid essence spilling over her belly and thighs, marking her, staining her. Her cheeks flushed while deep inside, a part of her practically purred with contentment. The part of her that craved Adam’s depravity stretched and sighed happily, thrilled at being taken and sullied.
Closing her eyes, she fought to catch her breath, but also to avoid Adam’s gaze. Her limited experience with him had prepared her for what would come next. If he did not spew his venom, punishing her with words, then he would leave her there, stunned and thrown off-balance, her body still throbbing from his invasion.
She was unprepared for the touch of linen against her skin. Opening her eyes, she found him cleaning her with his own handkerchief, the snowy white mat
erial soft against her thighs. The flush in her cheeks deepened, her face flaming hot as he took his time, painstakingly removing his seed from her stomach, then folding the cloth and using it between her legs. His face gave nothing away, his eyes shuttered and his lips a firm line as he completed his task and replaced the handkerchief in his coat pocket.
Then, he swiftly buttoned his fall before grasping her waist and putting her on her feet. Her nightgown and robe fell to cover her; yet, when he gazed into her eyes, she felt utterly exposed. He studied her in silence for a long moment before moving again, taking hold of her hand and pulling her along, leading her to the door.
She stumbled, her legs having not quite regained their strength. Grasping the hem of her robe, she followed him, uncertainty making her heart pound and her mouth go dry.
Where was he taking her … and what would he do with her once they got there?
They reached her chamber a moment later, and he threw open the door and pulled her inside. She found it empty, but prepared for her—a fire still blazing in the hearth, the bedclothes neatly turned down, a clean nightgown laid out beside the washstand where a fresh basin of rosewater sat waiting for her.
As if Maeve had known she would need to clean herself up when she returned. She wondered if the maid had waited up, somehow discerning Adam would use her again tonight. Or, perhaps Adam himself had ordered all this done.
He gave her a little push toward the washstand, which she took as a silent command to make use of it. Her hands shook as she walked to it, peering back at him over her shoulder. He had begun disrobing, his coat slung carelessly over the bench settled at the foot of her bed, his cravat thrown on top of it. She swiftly turned her back before he could remove his shirt, her throat constricting so tightly, she could hardly breathe.
Did he mean to have her again … in her bed this time?
She trembled with equal parts fear and anticipation as she removed her robe, then the nightgown—which had not survived the encounter in the music room unscathed. Droplets of Adam’s seed had begun to dry on the fabric. Letting it slide off her shoulders, she took up the soap and scrap of linen waiting beside the washstand. She found the rosewater still warm, its scent mingling pleasantly with the floral-scented soap.
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