Claiming the Courtesan

by Anna Campbell

  She managed a smile for the older man. Chasing her fears and doubts around her head was driving her mad. At least company promised distraction.

  “It’s a strange place, this valley. Yesterday, it was utter misery. Today, it’s the Garden of Eden.”

  Hamish stopped in front of her, his bright eyes considering as they rested on her. She wondered what he saw. Nothing of Soraya, that was sure. His manner was unguarded, and for the first time, he sounded genuinely friendly.

  “Aye, it’s a country of extremes,” he said. “Much like the people born here.”

  Verity’s curiosity got the better of her now that the normally taciturn Scotsman seemed in a mood to chat. “Does that include the Duke of Kylemore?”

  Hamish shook his grizzled head. “No, my lady. The heir is always born at the castle further down the coast. Young Kylemore grew up in this glen, though. At least until he was seven and they sent him away tae some Sassenach school tae learn tae be a wee gentleman.” Hamish’s sarcastic tone indicated what he thought of that plan.

  Verity glanced around at the isolated valley. It was an unlikely location to raise one of the kingdom’s greatest landowners.

  “And you were here then?”

  “Aye, I worked for his father, the sixth duke. The Macleishes have always been in service tae the Kinmurries.”

  “I understand your loyalty to the duke,” she said softly.

  Hamish looked at her sharply. “I doubt ye do, lassie. I doubt ye do. Justin Kinmurrie is a better man than he lets ye or anybody see.”

  Once she’d have laughed such a statement to scorn. But recently, the duke hadn’t behaved like the unredeemed villain she’d believed him on the road north. And even on that onerous journey, he hadn’t been as cruel to her as she was sure he’d intended.

  Light and dark battled for supremacy in Kylemore’s soul. Occasionally, she was lunatic enough to imagine light might emerge victorious.

  Oh, you’re a willfully blind fool, she chastised herself. He kidnapped and abused you. Never forget that. Don’t make the mistake of imagining just because he saved your life, he’s some sort of hero.

  She bit her lip. Did she really want to learn more about Kylemore? She was too confused already. Right now, she needed a clear head and a cold heart. A devoted servant’s reminiscences about the duke’s childhood would only cloud her thinking, remind her that Kylemore was human and not the monster she so desperately wanted him to be.

  But Hamish’s teasing offer of information lured her. This might be her only chance to answer her questions.

  She met the old Scotsman’s steady gaze with equally unwavering eyes. “You know him so well,” she said.

  Was that approval she read in his face? Surely not. A woman who had led the life she had would be anathema to this stern man.

  “Aye, that I do. Ever since he was a wee bairn.” He gestured to her bench. “May I join ye, my lady?”

  She nodded. “Of course.”

  “Thank you.” He took the space next to her and stretched his bare legs under the kilt out to the sun. “I’m not as young as I used tae be.”

  She didn’t say anything, afraid she might discourage confidences. Because confidences were about to flow, she knew.

  After a pause, he went on. “I was gey lucky—I’ve always had work on the estate. Most other crofters werenae so fortunate. They were all tossed off their land when the duke’s mother decided more gold lay in sheep than in folk. Families who had served the Kinmurries for centuries were cast away like so much rubbish tae starve or emigrate or find what work they could far from all they knew and loved.”

  Verity was appalled. “Surely you exaggerate.”

  “No, lassie,” he said sadly. “I wish I did. It’s a common story since the lairds started tae cut a dash down south. The clearances were late coming tae Kinmurrie holdings. But when she decided tae act, the duchess was ruthless. Folk tried tae resist but there wasnae anything they could do. And when the troopers shot John Macleish, my nephew, most of us went quietly enough. We couldnae fight the law.”

  It was a terrible story, more terrible for what Verity suspected Hamish left out—the destruction of a whole way of life. “On the way here, I thought it was odd that we saw no people, just ruined cottages.”

  “Aye. This happened all over the Highlands,” he said with a bitterness he didn’t hide.

  “Yet you don’t blame the duke?” Surely this tragic tale provided her with another sin to heap on Kylemore’s head.

  “Och, he was but a bairn. He might have inherited the title, but he had nae real power until he reached his majority. The duchess had all the say, and she’s no a woman tae put anything ahead of her own selfish wishes.”

  “But Kylemore continued to profit from what she did.”

  Hamish stared straight ahead into the misty hills. His expression was distant, as though he relived those tragic events.

  “No, he did his best tae make amends. When His Grace took over, he set out tae find everyone he could. But by then, fourteen hard years had passed. Folk died or were lost. Many went across the water tae Nova Scotia. Still, he tracked down those he could and invited them back. Those with new lives, he gave them money tae make up for their trouble.”

  “Fergus and his family,” she said, remembering their fervent and, at the time, inexplicable devotion to Kylemore.

  “Aye. Fergus is my brother. Search as ye will, my lady, ye won’t find a soul on any Kinmurrie estate tae say a word against His Grace.”

  Once she mightn’t have believed Hamish. But while the last days had revealed a darker, more complex Kylemore, they had also shown her the honorable man hidden inside him too. She had no trouble imagining that honorable man moving heaven and earth to make recompense for the pain his mother had caused.

  The duke would abhor them discussing him like this. He wanted her to view him as the impossibly self-assured Cold Kylemore.

  But she’d held him in her arms too often. Held him when he’d shuddered with sexual release. Held him when he’d sobbed with misery.

  He’d never be that impervious aristocrat to her again. Hamish’s revelations only moved that false perfection further out of reach.

  “Why are you telling me this?” she asked.

  He turned his head and looked at her squarely. “I’ve watched ye, lassie. I’ve watched the laddie with ye. I know he’s done wrong by ye. I think in his soul, he admits that. But there’s good in him, if ye look. And for all his privileges, he’s no had an easy life.”

  “He’s rich and handsome enough,” Verity said, echoing her brother’s dismissive reply when she’d falteringly tried to describe the tormented depths she’d sensed in her lover’s soul even then.

  “Aye, weel, neither make ye happy. Ask him about his father some time.”

  She already knew Kylemore had feared his father. She shivered as she recalled him begging his papa to leave him alone. A child’s cry in a sleeping man’s voice.

  “Can’t you tell me?”

  The older man smiled ruefully down at her. “Och, I’ve gossiped enough for one day. Too much, folk might think.”

  Kylemore would certainly agree, but Hamish had only whetted her curiosity.

  “The duke has bad dreams,” she said abruptly.

  Hamish looked unsurprised. “Aye. He’s had them since he was a ween.” He gave her another of those straight looks, as though he sought some commitment from her. “But ye can help him. If ye feel braw enough tae take the task. And the lassie who climbed Ben Tassoch yesterday is as braw a lassie as any I’ve ever met.” He stood up and stared down at her.

  “I was so frightened,” she admitted, remembering the raw panic that had threatened to paralyze her throughout her misguided attempt to flee. She hadn’t been brave. She’d been utterly terrified.

  Hamish’s smile didn’t fade. “Aye, but ye still did it, my lady.” He bowed his head to her, one of the few times she’d seen him show anything like conventional respect for anyone, even the duke
. “Good day tae you.”

  Clearly, he’d tell her nothing more. Troubled, she watched him walk away toward the stables.

  Was he right? Did she have the heart to take on Kylemore and the demons that pursued him?

  Did she have a heart left at all?

  Kylemore’s ultimatum last night had demanded a surrender that was already so precariously close.

  Her abject surrender had been his goal from the start. She wasn’t fool enough to imagine anything else.

  Oh, why couldn’t she have fallen in love with someone simple and straightforward? Someone who at least promised her a tiny hope of happiness.

  She’d never asked much from life. Experience had taught her to make do with what was within reach and never to howl after the moon. She’d be content with kindness and a few shared interests. Companionship. Consideration.

  She didn’t want a difficult, brilliant, mercurial, tormented man like the Duke of Kylemore.

  But she did.

  A horrified gasp escaped her, and she staggered to her feet in denial. The devastating truth hammered at her with the grim inevitability of the cold Scottish rain she’d endured in the mountains yesterday.

  She’d struggled against this fate since she’d seen a gloriously handsome young man across a London drawing room. Something within her had immediately warned her of danger. But she’d kept her head over the years, difficult as that had sometimes proven.

  Until he’d radically altered the game between them.

  In London, she’d been able to maintain the detachment that kept her safe. Here in this small house, where Kylemore refused to countenance barriers between them, she couldn’t pretend she felt nothing for her lover.

  Was this the revenge he’d planned all along? Had he fought to stay in her bed because he’d known that eventually she’d fall victim to love?

  Love.

  Such a small word for what she felt.

  Yet what other word could there be?

  She loved the Duke of Kylemore. And that love could only lead to disaster.

  Chapter 18

  Kylemore lay awake in the barren little room he’d claimed for himself in this hated house. It wasn’t the room he’d used as a boy. Neither pride nor will could make him sleep in that particular chamber: It remained empty and abandoned at the end of the corridor.

  Empty, that is, of everything except the screaming ghosts that returned to rupture his slumber.

  He’d dream again tonight. He knew it. And in his extremity, he’d find no soft comfort, no warm arms to embrace him, no whispered words of reassurance.

  Verity wouldn’t come to him. Why would she?

  He hadn’t seen her since he’d left her to sleep on her own last night. Perhaps it was best if he never saw her again.

  Hamish could take her by boat along the loch and down to Oban, where she could arrange passage to Whitby. Hamish would undertake the task with alacrity. His old mentor had always disapproved of Kylemore’s treatment of his mistress.

  With good reason.

  He shifted restlessly. Physically, he was exhausted. He’d set off on Tannasg just after dawn and stayed out until nightfall with precisely that aim. But his mind refused to settle. It felt so wrong to be in here alone when the woman he wanted slept just down the hallway.

  The woman who had nearly died because of his transgressions.

  No matter how hard or how far he rode, he couldn’t outrun his guilt-plagued memories. His black despair when Verity had fallen. The unalloyed terror in her eyes as she’d clung to the mountainside. Her collapse into unconsciousness after he’d rescued her.

  He’d told Hamish he wanted to break her. Damn it, that had been the point of this entire misguided exercise.

  But contrary to every expectation, he’d found no satisfaction in seeing her humbled last night.

  When she’d made it clear she would endure his presence in her bed because she had no alternative.

  Once, a willing and cooperative mistress was all he’d sought. Once, he wouldn’t have hesitated to take what she’d offered. But that was when he’d only known Soraya.

  Soraya would tolerate his attentions.

  Verity, the Verity he’d come to know in the last days, would suffer as she lay beneath him. As she’d suffered since he’d brought her to the glen.

  He was tired of self-deception. He could no longer pretend she masked her desire for him with false reluctance.

  No, she’d told him repeatedly she despised him. It was time he had the courage to accept that as the truth.

  Oh, yes, he gave her pleasure, but that pleasure wounded her like a knife. She hated him for seducing her. Worse, she hated herself for being weak enough to respond.

  He’d always feared his passion would lead to devastation.

  It was too late for him. It had been too late the moment he’d seen her six years ago. He should never have pursued her when she’d left Kensington. But if he let her go now, surely she’d be able to escape his catastrophic obsession.

  He must let her go.

  Releasing her would be the most difficult thing he’d ever do. But if keeping her meant risk to her life and sanity, he had to set her free.

  Her scream as she’d fallen down the cliff still echoed in his mind and made his gut clench with horror. He’d come so close to losing her. And now it seemed he was to lose her indeed.

  Yesterday, he’d learned a number of salutary lessons. None welcome. All well overdue. Among them, that he’d leap over that cliff himself before he caused her one iota more of pain.

  Unseeingly, he stared out into the darkness and swore he’d do the right thing. For once.

  He had no choice, damn it all to hell.

  The harrowing decision made, he tried for the thousandth time that night to sleep. But wisdom in hindsight proved an unsettling companion. Especially when the woman he wanted was forever out of reach.

  Forever.

  What a bleak word.

  Christ, if only he could sleep. Even bad dreams would be an improvement on lying here contemplating life without her.

  He stifled a groan. The pain was too sharp.

  He couldn’t bear it.

  I can bear it. For her sake.

  He rolled over with another groan. The sheets chafed his naked skin. His muscles were sore from yesterday’s exertions and today’s long ride. He needed rest, but the endless night extended ahead of him as a desolate watch.

  The first of many. His only consolation was that finally, too late and after the damage was done, he’d found the will to act like a man.

  If only dawn would come.

  But when dawn came, he must say good-bye to Verity.

  God, let the night never end.

  It was well past midnight when Kylemore heard the latch rattle. He rolled over and watched as slowly the door swung open.

  Flickering, golden light illuminated the darkness. Dazzled, disbelieving, he looked up to see Verity on the threshold. Her candle made her eyes glow dark and mysterious in her pale face. A silk robe was loosely belted at her slender waist, and her glorious hair tumbled loose around her.

  Being strong was difficult enough when he had only his regrets for company. With the focus of his every desire hovering so close, resolution was well nigh impossible.

  Then he realized only an emergency would force her to seek him out. In an instant, concern had him shoving himself up against the headboard.

  “Verity, are you all right?” he asked, his voice edged with urgency. Had she taken a fever?

  “Perfectly, thank you.”

  He couldn’t doubt she meant it. Her voice was calm, even carried a hint of amusement, and her face was grave but strangely untroubled. She held the candle so steadily that the flame hardly wavered in the still air.

  His astonishment mounted. If she wasn’t ill, what in the Devil’s name was she up to?

  Surprise and confusion pinned him to the bed as the door clicked shut behind her. She set the candle on the plain deal dresser. When
she moved, he caught the shadowy outline of breast and thigh through her thin robe. His ferocious need ratcheted higher.

  His conscience insisted he had no right to touch her. His body most emphatically disagreed. To confirm this, his cock rose, eager, ready, unruly. Thank God the bedclothes hid his arousal. He was more than a brute animal, he told himself without conviction.

  She drifted toward him in a rustle of silk. The uncertain light revealed a smile that was pure Soraya. Seductive. Knowing. Confident. In another woman, he’d have interpreted the gleam in her eyes as desire.

  But this was Verity, and he knew better.

  “What the hell do you want?” he asked sharply, summoning anger as his only defense.

  Had she come here to make him suffer? If so, she succeeded, damn her.

  “I want you,” she said huskily.

  He closed his eyes in anguish. How he’d longed to hear her say those words. But circumstances had changed—he had changed—in the last few days.

  “I don’t believe you,” he snapped, resentful because he wished so desperately that what she said was true.

  “You will.”

  Her voice rang with sincerity as she padded nearer. Her slim, elegant feet brushed across the floorboards. The night wasn’t cold, but still he fought the impulse to pick her up and carry her back to her bed. His control was so frail that if he touched her, he was lost.

  “You don’t have to do this,” he bit out while his wanton blood beat out the command to take her, take her, take her.

  “Yes, I do,” she said without a hint of faltering.

  God, why did she stand so close? Her damned evocative scent wrapped around him and lured him to sin.

  God, why didn’t she stand closer still so he could tear off that concealing robe and tug her under him?

  “You owe me nothing. You were right to call me a thief.” His tone grated as he made the difficult confession. He looked away into the shadowy corner and spoke in a voice that was dull with hard-held self-restraint. “I’ve given up revenge. I’ve given up forcing you. I’ve given up asking anything of you at all.”

  She leaned over him, releasing another tantalizing eddy of scent, subtle rose soap and woman. “You talk too much,” she whispered. “Where’s my ferocious lover gone? Where’s the demon Duke of Kylemore?”