by Peyton Meri
“And why should what your betters are gossiping about bother you? You said so yourself that you are not one of them.”
Ledi’s hand itched to slap the arrogance from his face. His words cut her deeply. He must’ve known or felt it, for he arched his bloody brow as he gave her a challenging look of dare. When she hesitated. His next words made her lips hurt and her cheeks flame even hotter.
“Strike if you would like. However, be forewarned. You know me well enough now that I might enjoy it a lot. Too much in fact. And it might lead me to fuck you in the carriage instead of waitin—”
He caught her gloved hand as it shot upwards just as his driver arrived.
Harker tightened his hold around her wrist. She winced. He loosened his hold but did not let her go. “What? Too vulgar for you tonight?” he asked. He knew by her expression he should stop. His intent to hurt her in any small way he could as she’d done him lost its venom when her large honey-walnut eyes pooled with tears.
He jerked her toward the steps of the carriage his coachman lowered.
“I’ve got it, Joseph,” Harker said.
“Yes, my lord,” The coachman went back to the front.
Still holding her wrist, Harker could feel her tremors beneath his hand and the rapid beat of her pulse. Her lovely face, chest and bosom were flushed with her anger. “Get in or shall we give these people more of a show.”
It hurt to turn her head, but she did, and Ledi gasped. Half the ballroom seemed to have followed them out onto the porch. Duchess Rhea Oakes had an unhappy expression upon her face, her glaring eyes on Harker. He so richly deserved that look.
Ledi jerked her hand free and dug her fingers into his forearm as she used him for leverage, and climbed with her head held high into the carriage.
He gave the word to depart even before the door was fully shut behind him.
Ledi fumed and ignored him. She gazed out the small window into the night. She could feel his eyes on her, scalding and the sound of his uneven breaths. Oh! He infuriated her in the worst way just as he had the ability to hurt her by his words so deeply. She was so thundering livid! Why could she not be like the knave he was and not feel a damn thing?
The ache in her chest was unbearable. How had she let such a cad as him get inside her heart? Fool! Bloody fool is what she was. She folded her hands in her lap. That did not work so she fisted them in her skirts.
His light chuckle sent her eyes darting in his direction and a tremor up her spine. His angular face looked meaner, angrier within the dark shadows of the carriage. And she knew why. He’d snuffed out the lantern on his side.
One of his long lean muscled legs was bent, outstretched; the tip of his fine shiny hessian touched the bottom edges of her dress. Gathering as much of the material to her, Ledi squeezed herself further into the corner.
“Ruck them all the way up for soon the bloody hindrance will be off you and I’ll be inside you,” he said coldly.
That was it! “You insufferable knave! This bargain of ours does not give you leave to force me to suffer you speaking to me like I am your whore,” Ledi yelled at him.
“You are not a whore.”
His statement did not make her feel any better. “There is no need to be so beastly and crude when you speak to me.”
Even in the shadows, she could not only see the change in him, but also feel the shift of something dangerous breach the air.
“Be as mad as hades for all I care, Ledi. However, you started this game. Test of wills. You want to know how dark, how beastly and crude I can be. The lesson can begin now. Right here, if you’d like.” his words were cold, yet oddly hot and using the tip of his boot he brushed it against her ankle.
“No,” Ledi stammered and moved her foot away only to discover he’d trapped her.
“Is that no to now or no to later?”
Ledi blinked. “What? I don’t need a lesson now. Will you cease doing what you’re doing? You’ll cause me to get a heat bump.” She tried to close her legs to his invading boot as it inched upwards.
“I can remove it. My bare toes are not only manicured, but also much softer. They will move over your satin skin like soft feathers.”
Brute! Ledi drew herself up in the awkward position he’d forced her into and said, “Harker, you said in your chambers. Not here,” she reminded him. Her quip as short as her temper.
Silence.
Then, “That I did. Didn’t I?” he concurred. “Will you fight me once we’re there? I would like to think your answer would be a no, but I don’t like to make presumptions.”
Ledi wanted to say yes. Nevertheless, she had a deal to complete. “No. A deal is a deal,” she answered. She just needed to suffer her soul two more nights.
How many years of penance would she have to give in turn for the grave sinful situation she had put herself in? Moreover, wanting this monster past the allotted time of the deal, made her feel even more abashed.
“Yes. A deal is a deal.”
Why his words sounded like mockery she didn’t know, but his expression did not change. His booted heel hit the carriage floor and he drew his legs away from her. He turned his head away and something clenched inside her chest. His action seemed casual enough but Ledi felt that the something had changed. That same something she’d felt earlier in the air between them had shifted. Her heart ached. Moreover, she was sure of it when he said not more for the rest of the ride.
In her robe and waiting inside her bedchamber, Ledi paced the adjoining bedroom, awaiting Harker to summon her. It seemed the man wanted to stretch his cruelty even further with the delay.
It seemed hours had passed since they’d arrived back at CASTLE and disembarked the carriage. No one had been awake inside to greet them. But she knew without a doubt that Chayton lurked about somewhere.
She doubted the poor man slept a wink. Always at the beck and call of his beastly master.
Ledi woke to a soft burr near her ear. Startled she blinked her eyes open and caught the door to her chamber clicking shut. It had not been the adjoining door. She shot up and off the bed.
Darkness shrouded her room. Someone had been in her room. And it hadn’t been Harker. He usually came through the adjoining doors.
After checking her door and looking out into the hallway, she saw no one. Just the lights at both ends of the dimmed hall.
Ledi shut the door and wished she had the key to lock it. Why hadn’t Harker done as he said and taken his due tonight. Trepidation swelled inside her chest. She made her way to the adjoining doors and slipped through.
Harker lay sprawled across his bed completely naked on his back, his legs off the side and his bare feet on the floor. Trying to avoid the arresting sight of his perfect physique, Ledi averted her gaze, but found it difficult to do.
Even though his behavior and treatment of her tonight was deplorable, downright horrible, her body’s reaction to his naked state could not be denied, and betrayer that it was. Ignoring the passionate effect he had on her, she approached the bed. She reached for the covers to pull over him.
The night was cold, the fire low in the fireplace. He’d catch a chill.
His light snores filled the room. It was as she reached for the bedding that she saw why he had not come to her.
An empty crystal decanter sat atop the table beside the bed, an overturned glass next to it. Ledi lifted the glass and sniffed, then wiggled her nose with a frown as she set it back down upright. Whisky.
“Oh, Harker…” she whispered softly. The handsome beast had drank himself drunk. And it was further confirmed when she lifted one of his limp arms and it fell heavily back to the bed. He slept like the dead. Dead drunk.
He did not wake during her exertion in moving and pushing his body onto the bed save for an unintelligible word here and there, followed by an inaudible annoyed grunt.
A sweat had broken out on her brow by the time she had him in a better position and decently covered. Startling handsome and his face relaxed in his sleep
. Those nice lips, slightly parted, his thick brows arched perfectly over his closed lids.
Her heart squeezed inside her chest. Ledi took advantage of the moment and traced her fingers over every inch of his beautiful face.
He swatted at her once, a futile attempt. Ledi smiled, nuzzled her face against his.
In one more day, she would never see him again. She had said she would forget him. Wipe him from her mind, from her thoughts. Yet her fingers, touching him as she stared, starved, said she was trying to etch every inch of him into her mind.
Unbidden, tears burned behind her lids. She leaned over him one last time and pressed her lips to his. Soft. Warm.
A snore trailed off and his warm breath came into her mouth. Ledi pulled away, missing him desperately already.
He licked his lips in his sleep, murmured something she did not catch, then his snores returned and filled the room once more.
With her belly in knots and a heavy heart to match her footsteps, she slipped back through the adjoining doors and back into her own bedroom.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
He detested discussions about marriage. Casual affairs, relationships of mutual pleasure with no involvement, no deep entanglements is what interested him. The sort of women who knew that were the ones who came to him. Not the wallflower type.
Be they virgin, widowed or wide as the Thames, he refused none if they were willing or came to his door.
Debaucher he had been labelled such, but he truly had no penchant for breaking maiden heads, deflowering virgins did not stir his blood.
He’d no tolerance for teaching the innocent eighteen or nineteen year olds the way of it. He liked his women a bit older, some get in their bones, some meat not only on top, but more flare in a hip, more sexy carriages of posture. Confidence. Women who knew what they wanted. His oldest to date had been four and forty. Widow Wisette.
Two nights ago, the lovely duchess had been pleasured quite thoroughly in his chamber, then his evening with Tambers had followed. His youngest, in the past five years, one and twenty. Jane Redfield, an American, on a visit with her father’s shipping business.
The stunning brunette had found her way to him through the throng of women as he’d left one of the private gaming clubs. Normally, he’d not have given someone on the street a second glance, but her determination to be noticed had won him over. That and her full curves. Harker smiled. He loved women.
It was the best entertainment.
Prim ladies cast their furtive heated glances his way
On those extremely rare occasions he ventured through the main thoroughfare
The proper ladies, most daughters of men who despised him. Yet, those same men, who would be willing to force a shackle around his throat, for a marriage proposal to alliance their families to his deep pockets, sell their offspring to him like their last mule to deflower one of their precious darlings.
It would never happen. He’d too many widows, curious duchesses and plenty married wenches ready to ride him to pleasurable heights. Therefore, why this innocent virginal Mary had come to his doorstep with her sham and he’d accepted out of reasons he had not truly understand the depth of at that time.
His thoughts turned to the last time a woman had casued such a reaction from him and had damaged his relationship with his only brother, Adrean. The brush of the scandal that had followed between them had sent his younger brother into voluntary exile
Harker guessed he himself had done pretty much the same thing.
He did not engage with society if he didn’t have to. He had his servants, his staff, to do and take care of much of what he needed. And for what they could not, such as for things he needed to procure, he’d hired others to handle with trusted discretion.
The situation had been ideal at first then it had waned in the past year. Something was missing. And it was never more noticeable than it was not since he’d met Ledi.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Her enticing curves on display before him, Harker arched a brow in wonder. Once he discovered her reason for being here, his next move would be to have Chayton throw her out.
He hadn’t done his due diligence. He was getting lax. No, he’d done no more than he usually had when he was after a woman. Most came to him, with offers. Most he knew and was aware of who they were and any connections they had.
For the wastrel’s sister, Rena—he hadn’t cared. She was well-known, word about her floated around select elite private gentleman clubs. She was just another woman to get into his bed for a night of pleasure. Another conquest.
And for one night , he could give a hell’s ass care who or what their history was. That she was Evann Barrton’s sister had been enough.
That her gambling fool brother had not balked at the idea, Harker had felt there was not much else he needed to know.
Now, he wished to holy heaven that this had been the one time he had looked, checked. Hell and damnation.
He’d made a bet in jest never thinking his fool opponent would see it through.
She had eyes only for him. All else ceased to exist as she zeroed in on his tall form. He stood a foot over her brother.
A friend arrives deep in this cups upset over the lady he wants. “I’ve come to ask you to accompany me to White’s then Madame Duvay’s or Pentaks’s for some depraved debauchery.”
“Now you’re with better you can’t ignore me, Rena. You stole from me and I want to recoup in any manner I can. I know you’re piss poor cunt and cannot pay it back so I’ll take it in trade. Seeing as how we were interrupted last time, we can pick up right from where we left off. Ah, yes. I remember. You were about to take me into that hot wet sassy mouth of yours.”
Harker comes/fights Harker could see how rattled she was.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“I’m afraid one night does not even come close to saving your brother’s neck from the debtor’s noose.”
Ledi frowned. She was sure she’d heard Evann tell Rena the night of their tiff that it was just for one night. She narrowed her eyes on the man. “Well then, how many nights will it take to settle his notes and cure all my family’s past debts?” His reply came without hesitation, short and clipped.
“Thirty days.”
Ledi didn’t believe him. His watchful gaze had remained on her hen he’d answered. Clearly, he was not only lying and had pulled that figure out of the air and she had an idea why. He was testing her. Again. What game was this man playing? Thirty days? Maybe she had made a mistake after all. Ledi sighed. “Thirty days?” she mumbled aloud, more to herself than him. She couldn’t do this. Yes, he had touched her intimately already, but all that time and away from her mother…She shook her head and opened her mouth to tell him so when he spoke first.
“And all your family past debt paid plus a whole year.”
Ledi gasped, her eyes going wide as she clutched her skirts tighter. “My-mother…my brother will—no. No one can find out about this. ”
“I think your brother is far from getting wind of any changes to the original agreement.” No the rat’s concern should have been his sister facing him alone and the consequences. Harker would bet his last quid that her family and wastrel brother cared not one whit about anything the lady did. Had they, they wouldn’t have let her sneak out under the cover of night to come here, unchaperoned.
“Why thirty days? Can we not, um—the deed be done in one or even two nights.”
He was enjoying this. He spoke without pause. “Oh, no. I’m afraid not. We would need to become accustomed to one another. Our bodies, of course. In order for that to happen, it would have to be several times a week.”
Ledi nearly choked. She could feel her rapid pulse beat in her throat. She blinked a few times as if doing so would make what he’d said make more sense in her mind. Her throat itched. She squeezed her clasped hands tighter. Nerves. Damn it! “What do you mean?” she choked out.
“Just what I said. Many, many times a week. I’m a virile man. Insatiable at t
imes.”
He had to be jesting with her! The glint in his slate-blue eyes told her he was serious. Ledi was unaware that she moved closer to the edge of the chair as she stammered a response. “But—but the other women that you, uh…How is that possible when you have the other women?” It was her shock at his many many times that made her ask such a brazen question. He could not truly mean what he’d just said. Dear god, she hoped not. How would she be able to stand it?
“I’m not the renowned libertine despite what you might have heard. The other women are none of your concern. I practice safety all around and discretion. Respectable women, such as yourself, come to me and expect that. Do not ask me about them again. Understood?”
His answer nettled her nerves. For a man claiming not to be a renowned libertine after what he’d just stated and what she’d seen—was that not the habits of a renowned libertine? Ledi lifted her chin higher. What did she know, outside of the books she’d read, about such the way of so-called libertines in real life. Not much. Not much at all. So much for her own bluffing and bluster. Still she needed to understand things as clearly as possible.
“I don’t understand how I’ll fit into your, um evidently fully engaged schedule. It’s all that I’m asking. Having intimate relations several times a week with many, seems a bit exaggerated and dare I say, excessive, even for a non-renowned libertine. It seems ridiculous at best. The body would be overtaxed, surely.”
His dark brow quirked upward. Muted silence. Ledi clamped her lips closed. She could not believe she was lecturing this cad as if she had the same experience he had. Nerves made her a chatterbox.
Nonetheless, his hint at such excessiveness did seem somewhat unbelievable. He was but one man. Her brother enjoyed the company of women, and not even, he engaged in women as frequently as the count seemed to suggest as something being the norm. Then again, Benning was far from the norm, Ledi chided herself silently. The cad was a libertine. A handsome one and by God, she had not only come here to offer herself she was fully going to agree to lay with him. After all, that had been her whole purpose for coming here. Her innocence for her mother’s needs and her own welfare.