“Will you tell me why?” She turned on the last step and looked back up at him. Her gaze was so direct, he couldn’t lie to her. She would know.
Justin gave in. He knew it wouldn’t be the first concession he would make. “I’ll tell you what you need to know. But after this day, we will not speak of it again.”
“I don’t want you to tell me what you think I wish to hear. I want the truth, Justin, the whole truth.”
“I’m not sure I can give that to you.” He shook his head and raked a hand through his already disheveled hair. She’d finally begun to use his name but it wasn’t in the tone he’d hoped for.
“Not enough. Good day, my lord.”
Justin watched as she stepped lightly onto the footpath and turned right. Swearing, he chased her, grabbed her arm and whirled her around so they were face-to-face. “I will tell you what I can. I will answer your questions, but please, come back inside.”
He knew what it looked like: that he openly argued with his mistress in a neighborhood that housed some of the most avaricious gossips of the ton. He was barely dressed and she very nearly sparked with fury. The neighbors would stand in their drawing rooms, the curtains parted just slightly so they could watch the exchange. He couldn’t have planned it to go this well. Now he just needed her to come back inside with him and stay there.
“Please, Carmalina, come back inside the house. I’ll tell you everything.”
“Everything?”
“Whatever you wish to know.”
At her hesitant nod, he placed a hand lightly at the small of her back and guided her up the stairs and back into the yellow room. He heard the front door shut firmly behind them and was grateful that his butler had not decided to intervene on the lady’s behalf. Although by the severity of the door slam, Justin knew he would receive disapproving stares and maybe a lecture later from his most proper butler.
Once he’d seated her with a refreshed cup of tea, he went to the liquor cabinet and poured himself a glass of brandy. He gulped it down in one swallow and then splashed more into the now-empty glass.
“What I tell you right now is to be kept between us. If one word is spoken outside of this room, I will ruin you. Do you understand?” He didn’t want to scare her but she had to understand that while his life may appear a joke to those who looked in from the outside, it was no joke to him.
She nodded, his threat ignored, and gestured for him to continue.
He didn’t know where to start. His life represented one bad story after the next and he didn’t want to make himself out to be a victim. The weak boy who couldn’t stand on his own two feet.
“I am the third son of my father.”
She nodded again.
“I wish to be disowned.”
“I beg your pardon?” The disbelief shone from her coffee eyes. He could almost hear the thoughts ticking over in her pretty head beneath all those luscious dark curls.
“I want my father to disinherit me, to throw me out of their sorry excuse for a family.”
“Why?”
“Because I would be better off on my own without his…” Justin spat the next word with disgust, “…connections.”
“But all of this, this house, your money, your life, you owe that to them.”
“I owe them nothing. My father has never lifted a finger to help me. My uncle gave me this house after the earl threw me out the second time.”
“But…I still don’t understand.”
“I need a scandal so big he will have no choice but to cut me off.”
“But you have failed thirteen times before. What makes you think I will make the difference?”
Justin chuckled. “Instead of being horrified that I want to use you in my scheme, you worry that I’ll fail?”
“I’m trying to understand why the pampered son of an earl, even a third son, wouldn’t be grateful to be born into this life of privilege.”
“Tell me, Carmalina, do your parents love you?”
“My parents died a long time ago, my lord.”
“Did they love you?”
“More than life.”
“There is your answer. I would rather have been born on the streets and work my fingers to the bone all my life, to be loved by my family, than live the nightmare it has become.”
“Why do you not leave?”
How many times had he asked himself that same question? How many times had he drawn a blank? Justin had been at it for so long; he rarely stopped to think about why he kept it up. Whenever someone referred to him as Billington’s boy, his anger would rise to the surface and he would be back scheming and plotting his next disaster. He couldn’t explain it in words. It was a feeling he had that he deserved better and only his family held him back from his true potential.
“Why do you not purchase a ticket to America and leave England?”
“I cannot run away.”
“Instead you would ruin your family name in the pursuit of…of… I don’t really know what you are trying to achieve.”
Justin turned his back on Carmalina’s searching gaze. He fought to find the words that would halt her probing. He stared at the street outside, at an open carriage as it rolled past, a maid with a basket over her arm running an errand, practically skipping in her haste. He stood like this some days, staring out at the world and wondering where each person came from, where they went. If they were loved.
At first it was all he’d wanted, for his family to see that he was someone too. Their reaction was that of an irritated person swatting at an insect, or a thorn in the side of an elephant. It was there, you knew it was, but you didn’t have to give it any more than a passing thought. Such was the story of Justin’s life.
“My family hates me. This all started out as a way to either be seen or at the very least be heard.”
“Surely you are wrong. Perhaps they just don’t show it?”
“My two older brothers were hoisted on ponies from the time they could walk. They spent long hours with Father, overseeing tenants and fields and the estates. Do you want to know where I was?”
“Where were you?”
He ignored the pity in her tone, the tremble in her voice. “I was in the nursery. I would look through the windows and wish I was out there with them. I thought as I got older, things would change and I would be included but I kept watching from that window until I had to accept the painful truth. My brothers were wanted, were needed. I was neither, just an extra, an afterthought.”
“I’m so sorry, Justin.” He felt the heat of her hand as she pressed it to his shoulder. She stood close behind him in a show of support, of comfort. It was a strange feeling. It had been many years since anyone had offered him true affection.
“There you have it.” He sighed, not quite believing he’d poured his history out for a relative stranger. “The ugly truth. Will you stay?”
“To create your scandal?”
“Forget the scandal. That is merely a bonus. While we are here, in this house, this is between us and about us. No one and nothing else.”
“And if your father doesn’t cut you off?”
“Then I will find another way to make it happen.”
“I really don’t know if I want to get involved in your family affairs.”
“Do you care if they don’t approve of you?”
“Not at all.”
“Then forget them and concentrate on me.” He turned, took her hand and placed it on his chest, wrapped his arms around her and brought her close. “I don’t want to talk about them anymore. We have better things to do.”
With only the barest of touches, he brushed his lips over hers. The caress was not meant to arouse; it was merely a taste of what was to come. He knew they would be good together. Theirs was a mutual attraction that burned hotter each time their eyes met and he intended to stoke the fire until they both burned along with it.
* * *
Carmalina wished she had more choices. At least one other option to pay for fo
od in her mouth and clothes on her back.
She wished Justin was the rakish rogue the gossips made him out to be. If she hadn’t seen the pain and torture reflected in his sad eyes she may have been able to walk away or, at the very least, think his words lies. He degraded her by offering her this liaison. She wouldn’t believe the condescending flattery about giving his arm to be with her. He saw her as a means to an end. An end she still didn’t understand. Why stay feeling the way he did? If she hadn’t heard the words come out from his mouth, she wouldn’t have believed it.
What she did understand was what it felt like to know you didn’t belong. To be trapped in a hopeless situation not of your own making and wish for the outcome you so desperately wanted but knew would never eventuate. Carmalina knew what it felt like to fall to the lowest levels of blind desperation, the place where consequence or conscience had no rhyme or reason, and Justin was very close.
You can’t save him.
No, she couldn’t. Yet she could make it easier on him and easier on herself. He needed her just as badly as she needed him. He just didn’t realize the true extent yet.
“I have one more condition,” she managed to utter between his devastating kisses. He was so large and imposing she felt as though he literally backed her into a corner. She was not so brave that she would open her arms and welcome him that readily. She needed time to adjust to her new position. In more ways than one.
“Anything,” he mumbled as he nibbled on the pulse point below her jaw.
“You cannot come to my bed for four weeks.” Carmalina knew the moment his body stiffened and he released her that she’d said the words wrong.
“Anything but that,” he beseeched, his tone gravelly yet firm.
“I need time to reconcile myself to all of this.”
“Bella, trust me when I say, you will adjust.”
“Four weeks will go by very quickly.” A weak offering but she had to have her way in this.
“Have you been with another man in the last few weeks, Carmalina?” As he asked, he stepped forward, reached for her again.
Never had she blushed so much in one day. She was torn whether to claim maidenly embarrassment or slap his face. “I have not,” she replied as she stepped farther away. There was never enough distance between her body and his. The scent of cologne, the sparkle in his eyes; he intoxicated her more than the headiest wine.
“Then there is no chance that you are with child by another man.”
And the sensual bubble burst with a pop to her senses. Now she understood his question. “I can assure you, my lord, that will not be an issue.”
“I will give you one week. If in seven days you still cannot accept me in your bed, the agreement will be broken and we will part ways.”
It was the best she was going to get and since there was little choice, she nodded her agreement, defeated yet again.
“Say the words aloud, Carmalina.” He watched her intently. No doubt he remembered the last time she inclined her head in acquiescence.
“Seven days, my lord.”
“And no more ‘my lords’. You will call me Justin.”
“Is that one of your conditions?”
“It is a request.”
“Very well then, Justin, we should write down the terms of our agreement so we are both clear.” She wanted no misunderstandings when the time came to part ways.
“If it makes you feel better, I’ll have my man draw it up.”
“Thank you, my—Justin.” Her cheeks flamed again.
“Now.” He eyed her with an intent she already began to identify. “To seal our bargain.”
Carmalina felt more as if she was in the lion’s den in that moment. Even more so than when he’d backed her into the corner. She held her hand out for him to shake as was the custom for finalizing bargains. He had something else in mind.
No sooner had he grasped her hand than he pulled her tight against his body and covered her mouth with his. She tried to close her lips, tried to stem the onslaught of feelings that poured from him, but it was no use as he angled his head. Thought fled, rationale fled; there was only his warmth, his hardness all around her. And then she fell. Fell into pleasure, fell from the pedestal she had erected to protect her person, her name, her heart, and it was heavenly. The world beneath her feet disappeared when he lifted her into his arms.
As difficult as it was, she had to stop him. It was too much too soon. No matter what, she had to force him to abide by the rules.
“Justin, please, we mustn’t.” Her voice was light and fluttery, as was her stomach.
“Mustn’t we?”
“We still have one more matter to discuss.”
He groaned against her neck and slowly set her on her feet. She could read the reluctance in his eyes, feel the rigid length of his desire against her stomach.
“Where will I live?”
When his lips turned up in that predatory, feral way that wasn’t quite a smile, her pulse tumbled.
“Right here,” he replied.
* * *
The rest of Carmalina’s day was filled with shopping, shopping and more shopping. She was measured for morning gowns, walking gowns, evening gowns, even a riding habit. She didn’t have the heart to tell Madame DeFleur that she wouldn’t sit atop a horse even if Justin paid her a thousand pounds on the spot. Each time a new cloth was brought forth to lay against her skin to see if the color would suit, she had to bite her lip so as not to ask how much it would all cost. Madame didn’t even raise an eyebrow at the order or the amount of clothes or the time it would take to sew the garments. She probably made apparel for mistresses all the time.
If she wasn’t so frightened about her current predicament, Carmalina would have protested. If she wasn’t so numb from the morning’s events, she would have cried about what she had done. Already the sick taste of The Fallen filled her mouth and caused the breath to stall in her already compressed chest.
Carmalina felt as though she traversed a thin sheet of ice and, at any moment, there would be a deafening crack and she would fall through to the freezing water below the fragile surface. In her head, one picture played over and over. She saw herself, hair disheveled, gown ripped, lips bruised and bloody from God knew what. She stood on a street corner in front of a nameless tavern, her eyes devoid of life, laughter, any essence of Carmalina long gone, a tin cup in her hand while she begged the people who walked past for a coin.
She shook her head and bit her tongue hard to clear the image. She was not a doxy. She would never resort to selling her body on the street for any sod to take her. She would give Trentham his scandal, his affare, and then she would disappear.
But first things first. She still hadn’t devised a plan to retrieve her travel case secreted in Trentham’s gardens behind an overgrown bush. If she came back empty-handed, he would be suspicious. If she traipsed through his garden, he would ask questions. But had she arrived on his doorstep, case in hand, he would have immediately guessed her predicament.
What she needed was a diversion. Perhaps luck would be with her and he wouldn’t be at the house when she returned. He was a gentleman after all. He would have engagements and other such events to attend. If he hadn’t gone back to bed.
To lift her hand and knock on his door had been the single most frightening experience of her life. Her heart had thundered, tears had pricked her eyes and the lump in her throat seemed to be more the shape of a cannonball than unease. And then she’d had to wait. Newberry had informed her that the master didn’t wish to see anyone but she’d stood fast and demanded Trentham meet with her immediately. Had she known he would arrive in his shirtsleeves, barely dressed to meet a chambermaid let alone a lady, she may have been less exacting.
But her timing wasn’t so much the issue, was it? She wasn’t a lady and he’d meant to discomfit her. And damned if it hadn’t worked exactly the way he’d wanted it. His strong, tanned forearms sprinkled with a liberal amount of honey brown hair had seemed almos
t erotic, even more so the expanse of chest bared by an unbuttoned shirt. At the theatre she’d seen men naked as the day they were born, yet hadn’t blushed as furiously.
You weren’t going to sleep with those men.
Damn her voice of logic.
She had to stop thinking of events yet to happen and start to worry about why she was being fitted for a ball gown. Did he expect to throw a ball or did he want to take her to one? Men did not take their mistresses to ton balls. Did they? Carmalina tried to tuck the unpleasant inkling into the back of her mind. She had enough troubles without creating more.
She wondered if Richard had found her note yet. A small smile graced her lips. He would probably be as red as a radish, shouting at everyone and everything. She knew it was weak of her but while she set a new level of low for herself, she may as well do it properly.
After the seamstress, she was conveyed to another shop to purchase bonnets, hats, reticules, shoes, ribbons, combs and pins for her hair, stockings and any other fripperies she wanted. It was in this shop she discovered Justin had sent notes along with the driver to ensure she got what she needed for the nights ahead. She didn’t know whether to admire his consideration or be furious that he thought she didn’t know how to shop for herself.
Even though her parents had died when she was very young, she could still remember the feel of silk against her skin, the dozens of maids and footmen hurrying about their home. She knew what it was to be a lady, albeit from the outside looking in. Is that what Trentham wanted? To transform her into a proper lady?
His earlier explanation sent shivers down her spine and the uneasy weight settled lower in her stomach. What she did was wrong. What he did seemed misguided but she couldn’t judge him or his motives. She hadn’t lived his life. She’d grown up with love all around her. After the death of her parents, her aunt had taken her in and tried to raise her right. Every day she’d felt she was a part of a family even with her mamma and papá gone. After her aunt died at the age of only six-and-fifty, she still felt loved and blessed up to the day when she realized all of the deaths in her life had only one connection. Her.
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