Claiming the Courtesan
Page 8
“Brave words. But I doubt you’d appreciate being bruised on the cold hard marble.” The firmness of his chest pressed into her side as he tightened his grip.
This close, he felt large, ruthless and powerful. But he smelled like passion and pleasure and peace. Devil take him for kissing her. She began to struggle. Not that her trussed state allowed much leeway for movement.
“If you don’t behave, I’ll haul you over my shoulder.”
“Your Grace’s humble servant would never seek such an honor,” she said acidly.
“Right.” His loud exhalation indicated endless masculine irritation. “Remember, you asked for this.”
He balanced her upon her bound feet on the top landing and bent to take her over his shoulder. It was exactly how a farm laborer lifted a sack of wheat. The sudden image from her childhood held her immobile for the moment Kylemore took to settle her as a helpless burden. Her unbound hair flopped around her face in a tangled black curtain. She fisted her dangling hands and made an ineffectual attempt to pummel him into letting her go.
“I didn’t ask for this,” she choked against his superfine coat. She felt the powerful muscles of his back flexing through the material as he moved.
“Too late,” he said, striding toward the door that his minion held open.
Kylemore was so tall that the floor loomed a very long way off indeed. She gulped with a combination of terror and outrage. Not that she thought he’d let her fall. His plans to hurt her didn’t include smashing her on the ground.
They were in a candlelit hall now. Elegant black and white tiling replaced the marble landing. Unfortunately, it looked equally hard, and the geometric pattern made her dizzy as she crossed it flung across the duke’s shoulder.
“Welcome, Your Grace.”
Verity’s tumbling mane of hair prevented her from seeing the woman who greeted them.
“Good evening, Mary,” the duke said as urbanely as if he’d been at a ball in Mayfair and not lugging a captive about in God knew what obscure corner of the kingdom.
Verity grunted and wriggled to clear her vision, but it was useless. She was humiliated knowing that her rump stuck up in the air and her calves and ankles were exposed. She tried to kick the duke, but his arm remained secure across her thighs.
“The rose room has been readied,” the woman, another Scot, said. Both servants sounded absurdly calm, considering that their master carted around a bound and clearly unwilling woman. Perhaps they were used to assisting His Grace with abductions.
“Excellent. We shall bathe. Then supper, I think.”
“Very good, Your Grace.” Verity heard the servant move away as the duke started up yet more steps. She tried again to kick him to relieve some of her frustration.
He retaliated quickly with a slap across her bottom.
“Ow!” She wriggled in protest, although her skirts and petticoats meant he hadn’t actually hurt her. No, the blow had only stung her pride.
“Be still,” he growled and began to take the stairs at what from her precarious viewpoint seemed a reckless pace.
By the time he placed her on her feet in a luxurious bedroom, she felt disoriented and a little sick. But that didn’t stop her from fighting.
“You really are a savage, aren’t you?” she said bitterly. She shook her head to try and clear her hair from her eyes.
“Just remember it,” he said, unfazed by the insult. “Here.” Impatiently, he reached out and smoothed back her hair, then smiled wryly as she glared at him. “Why don’t you sit down? There’s a bed just behind you. Your bath shouldn’t be long.”
“I’d rather stand.” She was almost out of her wits with the need to thwart him any way she could.
He shrugged, unimpressed. “As you wish.”
Then unbelievably, he turned to go. She’d expected him to stay and continue to torment her. “I shall join you for supper.”
The moment she was alone, she subsided onto the bed. As, she suspected—damn him—he’d known she would.
Verity carefully studied the room for a way to escape. This was the first time she’d been alone since her abduction. She had to use the opportunity. Not that she could do much right now, bound as she was. But the duke had mentioned a bath and a meal. Surely he wouldn’t keep her tied up then.
Unless he meant to wash and feed her himself.
She gave a shiver, not, much as she hated to admit it, entirely of disgust, at the idea of those large capable hands soaping her naked body.
The villa in Kensington had boasted the most modern of bathrooms. She and Kylemore had explored the room’s sensual potential on a number of occasions. The breath caught in her throat as she remembered the sensation of her wet and naked flesh sliding against his while warm water had lapped around them.
But that had been Soraya. Now she was Verity. And Verity’s stern soul had no truck with such decadent pleasures.
To distract her from memories that threatened to prove a disastrous weakness—a weakness she was determined to conquer or die trying—she returned to inspecting the room. It was large and comfortable, with a delicate, rose-patterned wallpaper. Mahogany furniture. An elaborately carved mantel over a grate. Brocade curtains covering two sets of windows.
All disappointingly normal, at least for the rich. Her childhood self would have been speechless with wonder at the thick patterned carpet and silk hangings on the bed, but the woman she had become recognized her surroundings as nothing exceptional, a room for the daughter of the house perhaps.
She should be grateful Kylemore hadn’t dumped her in the cellar. It had been a distinct possibility. He was determined to humiliate her, after all.
Perhaps he’d chosen this bedroom with a more specific purpose. Perhaps he meant to relieve his itch for her on this pretty pink coverlet before they traveled on. He’d said he wouldn’t touch her, but she didn’t trust his word. Especially when every gesture proclaimed his hunger for her.
She shivered in her bonds, terrified of what he’d do to her, terrified she’d respond as mindlessly as she had to that dazzling kiss. Then what hope did she have of prevailing against him?
He meant the memory of that kiss to taunt and torment her, and, God help her, it did. When he’d abducted her, she’d have laughed if anyone had suggested the duke retained any sexual power over her. Now she knew just how easily he could have her on her back, and the knowledge filled her with roiling dread.
The stout door that Kylemore had locked behind him—she had already considered and dismissed that particular avenue of escape—opened. Fergus and a brawny young man hauled in a tub. A woman, whom she assumed was the Mary who’d welcomed them downstairs, followed, carrying soaps and a pile of towels.
The gaping door behind them beckoned, but tied as she was, there was no point even trying to run.
Yet.
She watched silently as the three servants, one of whom was clearly Fergus’s son, if his sandy complexion and square jaw were any indication, filled the tub. The room brimmed pleasantly with scent, as if the wallpaper indeed bloomed with masses of pink rosebuds. The sweet perfume lent a jarring air of innocence to her ordeal.
She waited for Kylemore to reappear, but when the door finally closed, only Mary remained. As the woman came toward her, Verity reflected that with her kind blue eyes and untidy graying hair, she made an unlikely criminal accomplice.
Gently, she untied the cords from around Verity’s wrists. “I’m Mary Macleish, Fergus’s wife and the housekeeper here. Allow me to help you, madame,” she said in a soft Scots burr.
She addressed Verity with the same French title Fergus had used upon their arrival. It suited an absconded mistress as well as anything else, Verity supposed. The word’s English equivalent, my lady, was laughably inappropriate.
As she knelt to release Verity’s ankles, something in the woman’s carefully controlled features indicated censure. Knowing her chance to make an ally could end any second with Kylemore’s arrival, Verity mustered the courage to speak.
She doubted the duke would descend to listening at keyholes. But who knew? She’d never have imagined him driven to kidnapping either.
The woman’s busy hands paused, then she resumed removing Verity’s shoes and stockings. “My family and I owe everything to His Grace. I’m sorry for your plight, madame, but I cannot credit the duke truly means you harm.” Mary stood up. She kept her eyes downcast, as if she couldn’t bear to witness Verity’s suffering because if she did, she’d have to do something about it. “I’ll help you out of your gown.”
“But he does mean me harm. He’s said so. You’ve seen how he treats me.” Verity looked helplessly into that impassive face. Frantically, she leaned forward and grabbed Mary’s wrist with her newly unbound hands. “Please, I beg of you. Help me! For God’s sake, you have to help me.”
“There’s no need to take the Lord’s name in vain,” Mary said with more disapproval than Kylemore’s unorthodox arrival downstairs had aroused in her. “I told you I can never go against the duke.”
Verity could see that as far as the servant was concerned, nothing more remained to be said. But she couldn’t give up, not when this might be her only moment away from her jailer. Emotion made her voice shake. “He tied me up. He stole me away from my family. He’s threatening to rape me. Surely, you as another woman…”
Mary’s eyes flickered nervously to the side, as if Kylemore might appear out of the air and send her packing without a reference. “I won’t hear anything against him, madame. His Grace saved my whole family from poverty and starvation. There isn’t a Macleish in this house who wouldn’t die for him.” This time when she looked at Verity, her eyes held genuine sympathy. “I am very sorry you’ve come to this pass, but I cannot aid you. Now, please stand up and I’ll assist you with your bath.”
“If you don’t help me escape, you’re as guilty as your master,” Verity said caustically, although she already knew she was wasting her time. The woman was blindly devoted to Kylemore, and nothing could suborn her loyalty.
A difficult flush reddened Mary’s face. “That is as may be, madame. But I…I cannae help ye. I dinna ken what else tae tell ye.” In her growing distress, her Scots brogue thickened. “Please, dinna ask me tae gae against His Grace.”
Angry frustration rose to choke Verity. With a disgust aimed more at the woman’s employer than Mary herself, she knocked the woman’s hand aside from the buttons that fastened the front of the black dress.
She was on her own. Again.
“Leave me,” she said flatly.
Mary looked troubled. “His Grace told me to attend you.”
“Then attend me by granting me privacy,” Verity snapped.
The woman bowed her head in reluctant acknowledgment. “Very well. But I’ll stay by the door in case you need me.”
In case I turn into a puff of smoke and drift through the keyhole, Verity thought bitterly. Mary left with her shoulders bowed in regret, but that didn’t keep her from locking the door securely behind her.
Verity dealt with her most immediate needs, then flung the curtains back from the windows. Opening them, she peered out. Enough light reflected from the room behind to allow her to assess her chances of getting out this way.
Not great, she decided bleakly.
She was two floors up, and no convenient trees grew close to the house. If she jumped, she’d break her neck. Which offered one solution to her difficulties, she supposed.
She leaned out further, searching for a drainpipe or balcony or ledge, but the building held faithful to the purity of its Palladian origins and was starkly unadorned with meaningless decoration. Verity wondered if she had time to tie the bed hangings together into a rope before another parade of Macleishes marched through the doorway.
“Don’t even think about it.” The duke strolled into the square of light below her window and lifted a cigar to his lips.
“I was just…” she began nervously. The last thing she wanted was for him to invade her precious privacy because he suspected her plans.
He laughed softly and exhaled a cloud of smoke. The smell of fine tobacco rose up to her, blending evocatively with the freshness of the damp garden. “I know exactly what you were just. Go and have your bath. I won’t risk losing you so early in the game. That would be poor sport indeed.”
He sounded as if he relished watching her fight against the net he twisted around her. Loathing surged up in her so strongly that she would have shot him then and there if she’d had a pistol.
“I am pleased I amuse Your Grace so mightily.” Her voice dripped sarcasm.
“Oh, so am I,” he said lightly. “And to think the entertainment has only just begun.”
Childishly, her only response was to slam the window shut.
When Kylemore let himself into the rose room, he found his mistress once more garbed as the virtuous widow. The black dress was buttoned tight to the neck. She’d tortured her silky hair into a severe knot. A forbidding expression darkened her silver eyes. Clearly, she wished him to believe she was armored against his wiles.
Unluckily for her, he hadn’t even started to exercise his wiles.
Of all the reactions he’d expected during this mad escapade—anger, hatred, satisfaction—he hadn’t expected this mad joy. Yet the sight of Soraya sitting before the crackling fire, rebellious and ready to snarl at him over every concession, cheered him as nothing else had in months.
He was indeed as lunatic as his forebears.
He took the seat opposite her at the table and poured them both some claret. From a dresser nearby, an array of covered dishes sent out teasing and tempting smells. But of course, nothing teased and tempted like the beautiful woman scowling at him over the damask tablecloth as if she wanted to kill him.
She probably did, he thought with a mental shrug.
“Should I remove that knife from your reach?” he asked lazily, lounging back and bringing his glass to his lips.
She looked down with surprise, and he saw that she hadn’t considered her cutlery’s potential as weapons. Not for the first time, he suspected she was a gentle creature at heart. Or at least gentler than she wanted the world to realize.
Gentle? Ha! This was the woman who had used and betrayed him without a moment’s hesitation. She could hold her own in a pit of vipers. He mustn’t let her beauty gull him into believing her anything but a grasping jade.
Although, God knew, she was beautiful, even in the unbecoming gown and with that unflattering hairstyle. Its starkness merely emphasized the perfect oval of her face, the wide clarity of her remarkable eyes and the soft fullness of her mouth.
Her mouth…
He looked away before the thought of kissing that mouth overpowered him. Yet again, he reminded himself that he hadn’t stolen her away to fall back into her clutches. He’d stolen her away to show her she couldn’t make a fool of the Duke of Kylemore without paying the price for her treason.
He rose to his feet, partly to keep himself from reaching for her. “Shall I serve you? Mary is an excellent cook.”
Surprisingly, that damned succulent mouth quirked with sardonic humor. “The condemned prisoner ate a hearty meal?”
He began to fill her plate. “You’re welcome to face your fate on an empty stomach, if you prefer.”
“No,” she said steadily. “I’d rather keep my strength up.”
He laughed softly. He wanted her to keep her strength up, too, but for a completely different purpose. He slid a crowded plate in front of her and returned to serve himself.
True to her word, she ate everything placed before her. He noticed, though, she drank sparingly. Clearly, she was determined to keep her wits unclouded by alcohol. He could have told her she wasted her time plotting escape. Having caught her, he meant to keep her.
“The gown didn’t meet with your approval?” He indicated a rich ruby
garment spread across the bed. He’d sent it up with Mary for his mistress to wear after her bath.
It was a dress exactly right for Soraya—stylish, flamboyant, subtly exotic. He’d chosen it with great pleasure from the modiste who regularly supplied his mistress’s wardrobe. He’d had even greater pleasure imagining slowly stripping it away to reveal Soraya’s delectable body.
“No, I’d rather wear my own clothing.” She didn’t even glance toward the extravagant garment.
Strangely, he had to agree that the dress was inappropriate for the woman who sat with such hard-won composure across from him. It was a whore’s dress, although admittedly a woefully expensive whore’s dress. While his companion’s determined lack of artfulness could have almost convinced him she was indeed the chaste widow.
But of course, he knew better. The recollection of those long afternoons of sin in Kensington contradicted any image of propriety she strove to convey now.
Once more, the troubling idea snagged in his mind that she wasn’t the same woman she’d been then. And for the first time, he thought of her as Verity before he thought of her as Soraya.
“You’ll find yourself well and truly sick of those black rags before we’re done,” he said now. “And what’s the use of this small defiance? It does nothing to change the outcome.”
She shook her head and didn’t answer him, although he imagined he understood. Each compromise was another step on the road to final defeat. Little did she know she was already inexorably on that road.
Or perhaps she did know.
He rose to his feet and noticed her quickly suppressed recoil. Some devil made him move behind her and place his hands on her shoulders. As if she screamed it at him, he felt her urge to jerk away.
“You promised you wouldn’t touch me,” she said sharply.
“An offer I’ve decided was a mistake,” he said gently. He curled his fingers over her slender bones, testing her fragility and her strength.
“I won’t let you do this!” she cried out. Twisting from his hold, she dove awkwardly for the fire irons. It was the first ungraceful action he’d ever seen her make. “I’ll kill you before I let you take me again,” she panted, raising the poker. Her exquisite face was white with tension.