The Damsel: A Villain Duology Sequel

by Victoria Vale

  Unable to stand it any longer, he took hold of her shoulders and hauled her against him. She resisted, arching her back and pushing against his chest.

  “Let me go!”

  Wrapping both arms around her waist, he only held her tighter. “No.”

  She thrashed in his hold, her strength nearly breaking his grip. But he fought back, capturing first one wrist, then the other, and gathering them both in one hand. Wrapping his free arm around her waist, he pressed his forehead against hers and met her gaze.

  “That’s enough,” he said, his tone firm and his grip like iron.

  He’d never manhandled a woman in his life, but these felt like extenuating circumstances. If he had to use his strength to get through to her, he would.

  “Stop fighting,” he murmured.

  She shook her head but went still, the tension melting from her limbs the longer she stood his arms. “I can’t.”

  “Just tonight,” he urged. “Tomorrow, you can raise your defenses again and shut me out. You can be strong and fight and do whatever you feel you must to survive. But right now, you can stop. I am here. Do you understand? I’m not abandoning you like this.”

  He felt the steel leaving her spine by degrees, her arms falling limp as he released her wrists. She lowered her gaze and let out a small sob, a tremor ripping through her body and jolting his. For the first time since he’d met her, Cassandra seemed defeated, vulnerable. Broken. That she had complied gave him no satisfaction. He wanted his fiery siren back; the woman who could command him with a word or a glance.

  “Will you come with me?” he urged, tipping her chin up so she looked him in the eye. “If we remain out here much longer, someone will come looking for us. No one has to know you are still here.”

  Her shoulders sagged, but she nodded her agreement. Taking hold of her hand, he led her away from the front doors and toward a servant’s entrance on the side of the house. He opened it and pulled her through the dark passage to a staircase leading to the upper floors. Knowing the way by heart, he did not need a taper to light their path. He had sneaked through these passages many times as a young man, not wanting to be seen on his way to the woods to meet Daphne.

  Now, instead of creeping out, he was secreting someone back in.

  They came out on the landing of the third floor, and he led her to his bedchamber, spiriting her inside before a servant happened by. Felix, his valet, came rushing from the open door of the dressing room, eyes going wide at the sight of Cassandra.

  “Mr. Stanley—”

  “Leave us,” he barked, without sparing the man a glance. “Go to the stable and find Lady Cassandra’s driver. Tell him that she has requested he return home without her. I will see her back safely. Tell no one what you saw.”

  “Of course, sir,” the man replied before turning to go back the way he came. Another door closed in the distance, and Felix’s retreating footsteps faded into silence.

  Pulling Cassandra near the hearth, he found himself grateful the valet had just stoked it. It was cold and she’d been outdoors without her cloak. He took hold of her shoulders and found her skin still chilled to the touch. Chafing his hands over her arms, he looked into her glassy eyes.

  “I have to leave you here for a little while, but only to tell them I must see you home. The party seems to be winding down, anyway, so I should not be expected back. I’ll return as soon as I can.”

  She did not reply with words, but nodded, her stare unfocused.

  With a sigh, he took her hand and led her into his dressing room, where Felix had left a bowl with hot water on the washstand.

  “You can clean yourself up a bit if you’d like. Make yourself comfortable. But, do not leave this room. I do not think I need to tell you how horrible it would be for someone to see you up here.”

  Again, she nodded but did not speak, leveling a blank stare at the washstand. With a heavy sigh, he turned to make his exit. He did not want to leave her alone for a second, but he had no choice.

  Dashing back the way he’d come, he circled back to the front of the house from the servant’s entrance. He rushed back in, ensuring the butler and footmen saw him returning to the drawing room.

  “Robert, there you are,” his mother said.

  Their guests had begun rising from their seats and exchanging farewells. As he’d suspected, the party was now at an end. His father looked exhausted but happy, his eyes bright and clear.

  “Is Lady Cassandra all right?” the baron asked.

  “Just a bit under the weather. I will escort her home myself. She’s quite ill, and I would not feel right allowing her to leave on her own.”

  His mother opened her mouth as if to argue against it, but his father cut in before she could.

  “Of course you shouldn’t,” the baron declared. “Do give her our sincerest well wishes. We hope she recovers soon.”

  “I will.”

  He turned to flee without another word, though he heard his mother through the drawing room doors.

  “William, it is hardly proper …”

  “…the right thing to do, Rosie, the woman is ill.”

  The run back to his chambers seemed to take forever, but before long he was safe behind the closed door again, the party and guests forgotten.

  He found Cassandra seated on his bed, her vacant stare focused somewhere across the room. She’d taken down her elegant coiffure, leaving the neat curls hanging down her back. Her face appeared pink from a fresh scrubbing, though crying had left her eyes red-rimmed.

  Coming farther into the room, he gave her as good a smile as he could manage.

  “I see you made use of the washstand,” he remarked, uncertain where else to begin.

  If he tried to pry into what had happened downstairs, she might retreat from him again. For now, they seemed to be at a standstill, coming to a truce of sorts. He only wanted to give her what comfort he could—what comfort she would allow.

  “The tooth powder also,” she said, her voice still small and strained. “Fricassee chicken tastes far better going down.”

  He chuckled, edging closer and offering his hand. This time, she acquiesced without a fight, letting him help her to her feet.

  “Turn around.”

  She shocked him by obeying, giving him her back. He took advantage of her assent and swept her hair over one shoulder before trailing his knuckles down her spine.

  “May I?”

  The need for her approval proved difficult to ignore, and he could not act until she’d given him what he needed to proceed.

  “Yes,” she replied.

  He began opening the back of her gown, resisting the desire to bend his head and kiss the back of her neck. He had not brought her here for carnal reasons, and did not want her think he had. She stepped out of the sumptuous gown, which he laid over the back of a chair before busying himself with her stays and petticoats. Kneeling at her feet, he removed her slippers, then slid his hands up her legs to untie her garters and pull down her stockings.

  Once she stood before him in only her chemise, he went to work on his clothes. She remained placid, watching as he untied his cravat, then removed his coat. His layers fell to the floor—waistcoat, shoes, stockings, braces. Choosing to remain in his shirt and breeches, he stepped forward and swept her off her feet. She stiffened in his hold, but he refused to set her down. He carried her back toward the bed.

  Turning to bury his face in her neck, he inhaled that intoxicating scent of oranges and clove. She whimpered, but still seemed resistant to his hold, the lack of control it forced her to accept.

  “Shh,” he whispered against her ear. “You promised not to fight, Cass. And I’m only taking you to bed … to sleep.”

  She relaxed a bit, and he held her for only a moment longer before laying her on the bed—which Felix had already turned down. Climbing in after her, he lay on his side facing her. She looked younger and smaller somehow—curls falling about her head in a haphazard tumble, lips pink and pouting, eyes wid
e.

  He reached for her again, this time wrapping an arm around her waist and urging her against him.

  Again, she angled away from him like a skittish doe jumping out of a predator’s reach. But, just as he had outside, he pressed the issue, wrestling her over to his side of the bed.

  “I’m going to hold you, and you’re going to let me,” he murmured, smiling when she narrowed her eyes at him.

  It would seem she was only capable of letting go of the fight in her for so long.

  “I would never hurt you, Cass,” he whispered before kissing her forehead, then the bridge of her nose. “You are safe with me.”

  Tucking her against his chest, he held onto her and refused to let go. For the first few minutes, her breathing and the rigidity in her spine told him she still insisted on resisting. Before long, her breaths slowed and her weight grew heavier against him, her limbs going slack. Tucking his chin and gazing down at the fierce bundle of a woman in his arms, he smiled, finding her eyes closed and her lips parted, the furrows in her brow smoothed away by peaceful sleep.

  Chapter 9

  Cassandra stood near a window in Robert’s bedchamber as the sun rose on the horizon, casting orange rays over the object she held in her hand. She’d only just awakened, an odd departure from the usual sleeplessness plaguing her nights. Horror had overwhelmed her the moment she’d opened her eyes to find Robert beside her, one arm still draped over her waist. He appeared younger in sleep, his plush lips parted and his eyelashes fanned out over his cheekbones. That she’d been comfortable in his hold, warm and content, should have made her happy.

  Instead, it only made her angry at herself for allowing him to get too close.

  Last night, the news of Lady Downing’s death had ripped her apart, and she’d been unable to think past one stunning realization.

  It was entirely her fault.

  She did not believe the story about the woman tumbling down a flight of stairs for a moment. Cassandra was certain he’d pushed her. Upon accosting him, her aim had been to save the woman any further torment. Instead, she’d provoked the man to retaliate, and now the person she’d wanted to defend and protect was dead.

  Her fingers tightened around the box clutched in her right hand, her jaw clenching until it ached. Guilt had overwhelmed her in the dark of night, but now rage overshadowed it, bursting forth from her gut like the rays of the sun thrusting upward in the distance. Sir Downing had no notion what he had done. By killing his wife, he’d set his own death in motion.

  As he had paid for the abuses he’d subjected Lady Downing to over the years, he would pay for this … Cassandra would make certain of it.

  The sound of rustling bed sheets had her turning to find Robert had awakened. He came upright, rubbing at his heavy-lidded eyes. His open shirt displayed the purple bruise left by her lips and teeth, a brilliant blossom of color against his skin. Instead of being pleased by the sight of it, she became annoyed with herself all over again.

  How had she allowed a simple affair to become so complicated?

  He might take her acquiescence last night as a desire for closeness and intimacy. And why wouldn’t he after she’d fallen apart in his arms and allowed him to hold her throughout the night? It was exactly the sort of thing she’d vowed to avoid, and now she had allowed him to see the parts of her she always kept hidden.

  No more.

  He’d been kind to her when she had needed it most, but the moment had passed. She had a mission, a cross to bear. There could be no room for him in her life, and she could not allow him to unravel her any more than he already had.

  As he stood and approached her with a soft smile, she steeled herself against him, tucking away the things she’d allowed to show last night.

  “Good morning.”

  He faltered when he noticed the small box she held, his smile fading and a questioning glance overtaking his expression. She opened it and stared down at the sapphire ring hidden inside.

  “I did not mean to pry,” she said, turning the box this way and that so the light glittered off the facets of the stone. “I saw it on the washstand last night, and when I went back into the dressing room this morning I saw it again and became curious.”

  He nodded, reaching out to pluck the ring from her grasp. After studying it for a moment, he snapped the box closed.

  “It was meant for Daphne.”

  She expected him to display some sort of emotion over the betrothal that had never come to pass, but his face betrayed nothing.

  “Did you ever present it to her?” she asked, more curious now than ever about his severed connection to the woman who was now the Countess of Hartmoor.

  “Twice,” he replied with a little shake of his head. “I brought it back from London and … I left it on the washstand, and I suppose Felix has been waiting for me to tell him what to do with it. I’ve been a bit preoccupied the past few months and have hardly thought of it.”

  His piercing gaze told her everything she needed to know. She had been the thing keeping his mind off Daphne. Before he could voice those thoughts, she pressed on, needing to keep the focus upon him.

  “Why didn’t you fight for her?”

  He seemed taken aback by her question, brow furrowing as his gaze flitted back to the closed box in his palm. “It is difficult to fight for someone who does not want you. She wanted Hartmoor. There was no longer anything to fight for.”

  “But … you loved her.”

  “She did not love me,” he replied. “At least … not the same way I loved her.”

  Cassandra had her doubts. She’d never been in love, and no longer had a heart she could place into the hands of someone else. Bertram, her mother, and those who had denied her sympathy and understanding had made sure of that. But, she’d always imagined that people in love were completely irrational, willing to scale mountains and swim oceans, doing whatever it took to win in the end.

  “What did you love about her?”

  His frown deepened, his grip on the ring tightening until his knuckles went white. “What does it matter now?”

  She shrugged, turning to gaze out at the sunrise. “I cannot help but think it wasn’t Daphne you were in love with at all.”

  He came up beside her, and she felt the weight of his stare upon the side of her face. She refused to meet his gaze, crossing her arms and keeping her eyes focused forward.

  “Is that so? How could you possibly know that?”

  “It is just a theory. I think you believe you loved her … but what you actually loved was the idea of her. This notion of holding on to something that constantly fought to be away from you. You liked the chase, Robert. You liked that she was aloof and beautiful and always out of your reach. You liked the pain of unrequited love, the tragic romanticism of pining after her.”

  She felt him stiffen at her side, his gaze still piercing her without relenting.

  “You are confusing the dynamic I had with Daphne to what is obviously happening between us.”

  She stiffened, her gut clenching and roiling in reaction to his words. She pushed the sensations down, compressing them deep inside her where they could be ignored.

  “There is no us.”

  He took hold of her arm and spun her to face him, jaw set in stubborn determination. “Isn’t there?”

  She pulled away, once again erecting the invisible barrier between them that did not allow for touching. He stepped back as if he’d felt it, his jaw hardening as he stared her down.

  “Ah, we are back where we began, I see.”

  She raised her chin. “Where would that be, exactly?”

  He scoffed, shaking his head in disbelief. “Where you use me for pleasure, but hold me at arm’s length. Where you cry in my arms, but then refuse to tell me why. Where I try to show you affection and care, and you shun me.”

  “I never claimed to want any of that from you,” she argued. “Nor have I indicated that I want anything other than your prick.”

  “Perhaps not w
ith your words, but the rest of you is clearly in need of something. Will there ever be a time you will admit that to yourself? You claim I love the chase and the pain of rejection. But, what of you, Cass? What do you love? What will you fight for?”

  She squared her shoulders and thought of Lady Downing lying at the bottom of a flight of steps, her neck broken, her body robbed of life and breath.

  “Justice,” she ground out, fighting down the wave of grief and anger washing over her.

  His expression softened and he stepped closer to her, though he took care to keep his hands to himself. “Cass, I cannot tell you how sorry I am that there was no one there to fight for you—”

  “I don’t need anyone to be my champion!” she snapped. “I fought for myself when no one else would!”

  “You did, and I cannot tell you how proud I was to watch you do it. But, the time will come when there is nothing left for you to fight for. You cannot allow the past to rule your present. You cannot let it destroy your future.”

  She sneered at him, her insides bursting with heat and a sudden pain that made her feel as if she were being torn apart. Why did he have to poke and prod at her this way—pull forth the emotions she tried to stifle lest they destroy her?

  “Of course you can say such a thing! You, who goes about blissfully unaware of what is happening right under your nose. You know nothing of what we have suffered all these years—the shame of it, the pain of losing a part of yourself that cannot be taken back. Those women meant nothing to you until you were forced to acknowledge what happened to them. I meant nothing to you!”

  His jaw ticked, eyes narrowing as he seemed to wrestle with himself for a long moment before speaking. She wanted to strike him and push him away, tell him to leave her alone and take his sentimental notions with him. Conversely, she wanted to pull him close and kiss him, keep him for herself, give in to the things he was offering her. She was exhausted from it all, but couldn’t stop now— not when crimes like those committed by the likes of Sir Downing went unpunished.