Sans Regret

by Alice Gaynes

  “I don’t know what your purpose is in any of this,” he said, gesturing around him.

  “You’ll know my purpose when I decide to tell you.” Once she’d thoroughly debased him, she’d remind him of what he’d done to her sister. Then she’d make him face the facts of how low he’d fallen. She’d kick him out without a cent—maybe without clothing—and let him find his way back to London in disgrace. Her triumph would never make her whole of course, but it would taste sweet nevertheless.

  “How long do you plan to keep me?” he asked.

  “Until I’m through with you.”

  His eyes widened. “Why?”

  “This is all becoming tedious.” She waved a dismissive hand. “You would have been glad of an invitation here in my husband’s time.”

  “In that case I would have chosen and I would have left when I wanted.”

  Exactly the choices she never had, thanks to him. “Depravity becomes a drug after a while. The addict craves more and more exotic experiences until he’s driven to find them.”

  “Did that happen to you?”

  How dare he? She really ought to slap him for that question. She’d hated every moment of what Oakhurst had made her do. She’d hated what she did today but at least it furthered her goals.

  “You know nothing about me,” she answered.

  “I do know you. I’ve seen you somewhere before. I just can’t remember where.”

  Her father’s house, when he’d visited his ancestral lands for hunting. Her parents had paraded her and her sister in front of him in hopes he might take an interest. He’d hardly noticed her because of Cecily’s beauty. No one had ever noticed her when Cecily had been in the room.

  He’d noticed her sister all right and his interest had ruined both of them.

  “I wouldn’t expect you to remember our meeting,” she said. “It was quite brief.”

  “Nonsense. I wouldn’t forget a woman like you.”

  “You mean a degenerate?”

  “Good Lord no.” He looked honestly surprised, sitting straight up with his brandy halfway to his mouth. “That sort of thing doesn’t show on someone’s face.”

  “Then what?”

  “Why, your looks of course,” he said. “I’ve seldom laid eyes on anyone quite so captivating.”

  Dear heaven, did the man expect her to believe that? He was notorious for having his way with any number of women. No doubt he told them all rubbish like that. “Flattery won’t win your release from here, Lord Wortham.”

  He had the nerve to look offended. “I don’t flatter people.”

  “I can’t imagine what else you call it.”

  “You have a unique face.” His eyes widened as he stared at her. “Not one most would call pretty. Prettiness is boring.”

  “To use your own word, nonsense.” She toyed with the stem of her snifter. “I was a very unimpressive young woman.”

  “Perhaps so, but you’ve blossomed into quite a beauty.”

  “Like some sort of hothouse orchid?” The idiotic man had no idea what he was talking about.

  “I wouldn’t have seen your body when we met but I’ve seen it now. Lush, inviting. Everything a man could hope for.”

  “Enough. The servants.”

  “Hang the servants. You aroused me this afternoon. Not the getup you were in or how that woman…what that woman did to me. I wanted you and nothing else.”

  “You shan’t have me.” Or if he did it would be on her terms.

  His eyes narrowed as he studied her from the other end of the table. “Why do you do that?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Any compliment, any sign of tenderness sets you off.”

  She set her jaw and glared back at him.

  “You let that man lash you without so much as flinching but when I touched you gently you went stiff, as though I frightened you.”

  “I’m not afraid of you.”

  “Just now when I told you you’re beautiful you refused to believe me.”

  “I don’t believe in fairytales.”

  He stubbed out his cigar in the ashtray with more force than necessary. “Damn it I don’t lie.”

  “So you say,” she shot back. “But I don’t trust you.”

  “That’s rich.” He snorted. “You abduct me and hold me prisoner and you say you can’t trust me.”

  “This conversation is getting us nowhere.” She put down her brandy and rose, pushing back her chair.

  In an instant he’d stood and approached her, blocking her escape. “I disagree. This is the most I’ve learned about you since the night we met.”

  “Let me by, please.”

  He caught her arms and pulled her against his chest. “I wonder what would you do now if I kissed you?”

  “I’d call the servants.”

  “Why now?” he said. “You were liberal with your favors that first night. You enticed me away from the others and thoroughly seduced me.”

  “I seduced you? Don’t make me laugh.” She tried to pull back but he held her fast.

  “You allowed, no invited me to kiss you. You stroked my cock through my clothing.”

  “I had my reasons.”

  “This afternoon I didn’t want that other woman’s mouth. I wanted you. I wanted to bury myself so deep inside you that you’d never feel completed without me.”

  “Let me go.”

  “I want you now even after everything you’ve put me through.” He took her hand and placed it against the front of his pants. He’d grown hard again—long and impossibly thick. He was such a large man in every way. He towered over her and looked deep into her eyes. Such strength and heat radiated off him. Another woman would find him appealing but not she. She wouldn’t let herself.

  “You want me too,” he said. “That frightens you for some reason.”

  “I do not want you.”

  He pulled her harder against him and lowered his mouth to hers. Not gently this time but probing, pushing, demanding a response.

  This was what she wanted—for him to crave her every moment. She’d planned for this. She’d steeled herself to expect it. Still his mouth on hers was too intimate, too much. And it wasn’t enough.

  His lips captured hers while other sensations enchanted. The scent of his shaving soap, the sounds of his breath. Even the taste of brandy. Her palms rested against the smooth wool of his jacket the hardness of muscle beneath.

  This wasn’t Oakhurst with his aging skin and shriveled limbs. This was a man full in his prime. Glorious. Intoxicating. Dangerous.

  Did she dare yield to him even in the slightest? Hinting at surrender might draw him in farther. She could always pull away if he got too close.

  Too late. She already had given in. Her fingers curled into the fabric of his jacket as she hung on to him. Her lips parted under his. Her own breath came faster as his mouth claimed hers. A sigh escaped her—soft but unmistakable. His kiss had won.

  He straightened and put her away from him. Gently but with a smile that said he’d felt her weakness.

  “So you think you don’t want me?” he said.

  She rubbed a hand over her mouth and did her best to control her breathing. “Insufferable man.”

  He laughed outright at that. “I didn’t seem insufferable a moment ago.”

  “You think what you want to think.”

  “Remember that kiss while you lie in your bed tonight.”

  “I’m sure you will too.”

  His nostrils flared with the tiniest hint of anger. “Good night, Lady Oakhurst.”

  She didn’t answer but watched him turn and leave the dining room. After sanity returned, she smiled. Yes she might have yielded to him for a brief moment but she’d learned something tonight. He wanted her beyond reason. He’d admitted as much and he’d left with a massive cockstand just now. All she had to do was keep her own revulsion in check and she’d have her victory.

  Aside from her own appeal, which was consi
derable according to him, she had some experience in manipulating the male body. She had another source of wisdom in that regard too. Abby. She’d ask Abby to stay on for a while longer and help her plan Wortham’s downfall.

  Chapter Five

  Caroline frowned at the closest thing she’d had for a friend since marrying Oakhurst. “You’re not being any help, Abby.”

  Abby pushed aside her breakfast plate and lifted her teacup. “But you don’t need any help, love.”

  Abby had called her Lady Oakhurst only once before Caroline had ended the practice. She could hardly maintain any formality with the woman who’d shared her marriage bed, creating a threesome on her wedding night. Abby, at least, had treated her with some tenderness.

  “Wortham’s already infatuated with you,” Abby went on. “He never takes his eyes off you.”

  “I don’t know how you could look at his face while you were sucking on his rod.”

  “I saw enough. A woman who wants to please a man observes his every response. If I hadn’t learned that long ago, I’d be selling my body outside Covent Garden, not in the most noble houses.”

  Abby had, indeed, escaped the dangers of her profession by building a reputation as the best whore in all of England. She’d kept her looks—and her health—by serving only the wealthiest in society. Men and women. Now here she sat in Caroline’s sitting room, sharing a morning meal as if she’d been born to the aristocracy.

  Abby had been a wonderful tutor too, but for this battle, Caroline needed every weapon she could muster.

  “I need to have Wortham more than infatuated,” Caroline said. “I need to have him obsessed with me.”

  “Why Wortham? He was never one of the men who ill-used you here.”

  “His ill-use of someone else put me here.”

  “There must be an interesting story in that.”

  “Not really.” Caroline set her own cup in its saucer. “It’s all very tiresome.”

  “I’ve taught you everything the older whores taught me. You have an excellent touch with a man’s cock.”

  “It isn’t just his body I want. I want his soul.”

  Abby smiled. “You want him to love you.”

  “Good Lord no. Whatever gave you that idea?”

  “You shouldn’t deny that so loudly.” Abby raised an eyebrow. “It gives you away.”

  “I don’t want him to love me.”

  “Or you don’t want to love him. Which is it?”

  “Don’t get maudlin about it. Sentimentality doesn’t go with your profession.”

  Abby laughed outright at that. Usually so pleasant, her amusement grated this time. Caroline rose, walked to the window and gazed outside.

  Down the hall in her old suite, Wortham would be eating his own breakfast. He likely wouldn’t have dressed yet. He’d probably have slipped into the silk robe. He’d sit there with a stubble of beard on his chin, his broad shoulders filling the robe. If it fit him at all. He was so bleeding big. She pinched the bridge of her nose with her fingers and rubbed her eyes. What had she gotten herself into?

  “Caroline, are you all right?”

  “Fine.” She turned back and looked at her friend. “No one is to fall in love here. As if they could in this house.”

  “That’s the only way to capture a man’s soul.”

  “All they think about is their bodies.” All a man thought about was his cock, not even his whole body, when you came right down to it.

  “Not true. They do love. More than women, I think, though they’d never admit it.”

  “I’ve never seen one do it.”

  “A man in love thinks his woman is the most beautiful and desirable one on earth. Even when she gets old, fat and wrinkled, when she enters a room, he can see no one else.”

  Now that she thought about it, she had seen that look on one man. Watson, the fool her parents had married Cecily off to. The man had to have known he was getting damaged goods but he hadn’t seemed to care. He’d declared himself the luckiest man live. Poor bastard.

  Abby sighed. “Once a man falls like that, he no longer wants my services.”

  “You do very well nevertheless.”

  Abby studied her in silence for a moment. She had a rare gift for seeing into people. It helped her in her work but it always made Caroline uncomfortable.

  “Wortham has a hint of that in his eyes when he looks at you,” Abby said. “If he were to come to love you, you would own all of him. Body and soul.”

  Caroline sighed. “All right. Assume I wanted to make him love me. How would I set about doing that?”

  “Concentrate on him. Don’t be obvious about it or he’ll suspect you’re up to no good. Observe his responses to things—what makes him laugh, what makes him hard. Find out where he responds the strongest.”

  “If I know you, you’ve already noticed a few things.”

  Abby smiled. “There’s a place on his rod, on the underside just behind the head. Touch that gently and see what he does.”

  “Wicked woman.”

  “Then act as if he’s the best lover in the world. Act as if his touch drives you wild. Pretend you spend your days craving his lovemaking.”

  “I can’t do that. It would give him too much power over me.”

  “You’d think so but it works just the other way around.”

  Oddly enough, she’d done that the night before and it had worked. The beastly man thought she desired him and the thought obviously aroused his animal nature. Could she stomach pretending to want him? Could she manage to deceive him? Maybe she already had without meaning to.

  “I wish you could take some pleasure in this, love,” Abby said. “He’s a handsome devil. If I fucked for sport, I’d give him a tumble.”

  Caroline waved a hand. “Have him with my compliments.”

  “I think it’s already too late for that. He wants only you.”

  “And you sound like a romantic fool.”

  Abby rose, walked to Caroline and took her hands. “My poor damaged flower. It’s not too late for you to learn to enjoy being alive. You deserve it.”

  “I wouldn’t know how to try.”

  “Why not let me gamahuche you? Lady Dewhurst says I do it rather well.”

  “You’ve done that to me many times,” Caroline said.

  “Only as a performance for someone else and you’ve never let yourself enjoy it.”

  “I know you mean well, Abby, but my idea of heaven is never to indulge in the carnal again.”

  “That’s not how people were meant to be.”

  Caroline shrugged. “Then I’m a freak of nature.”

  A freak of nature that would soon play the role of the hopelessly smitten. She’d convince Lord Wortham that he’d been right all along. She couldn’t resist his charm, would kill to have his kisses and lived for the day when they’d couple. Then she’d put off that day for as long as she could possibly manage. How in hell would she manage all that?

  * * * * *

  The day Wortham finally found an unlocked door leading to the outside of Sans Regret, he also found its mistress engaged in an intimate conversation with another man. Tall and slender, but on the whole quite handsome, the fellow appeared younger than she. A lover? Nothing should have surprised him in a place like this but somehow she hadn’t struck him as the sort of woman who kept a younger man for her pleasure.

  He oughtn’t have cared if she did. But damn it all, the idea that she’d set about to torment him while working out her own needs on another fellow didn’t sit well. Not well at all. He might be several years older than the bastard but he’d seen a lot more. Experience and a greater bulk ought to allow him to bloody the fellow’s face.

  The two of them were holding hands while the young fool gazed down into her eyes. When she spotted Wortham, she pulled her hands back and turned.

  “So you’ve found us.”

  “You left the kitchen door open by mistake.”

  “I don’t make mistakes.”

&nb
sp; If so, she’d planned for him to see the two of them together. The fact that she cared so little about what he thought was more galling than the knowledge that she had another lover.

  His anger must have shown on his face because her smile said she found something very amusing. More insult heaped on injury. For his part the man looked decidedly uncomfortable. Good.

  “Lord Wortham, let me present my brother, Robert Durant.”

  “Your brother?”

  The man gave him a small nod. “Wortham.”

  “Durant.”

  “I knew the two of you would get along famously,” she said, still smiling.

  Durant said nothing but stared at Wortham with some hostility. Perhaps he knew of Wortham’s sexual interest in his sister. She was hardly an innocent in that regard. To the contrary, she’d done everything within her power to seduce him since the moment they’d met. If Durant planned on playing protector of her virtue, he was a little late. Wortham stared back at him.

  Lady Oakhurst put a hand on her brother’s arm. “Why don’t you leave the two of us alone?”

  “Are you sure that’s wise?”

  “Your sister can take care of herself,” Wortham said.

  Anger flared in the man’s eyes and one of his hands formed into a fist. What a display of brotherly concern. Under the circumstances it was really rather funny.

  “Go on, Robert,” Lady Oakhurst said. “I’ll be fine.”

  Durant headed toward the kitchen door. His path took him within a few feet of Wortham, where he stopped. “Take care how you treat my sister.”

  “She drugged and kidnapped me, not the other way around,” Wortham answered. “I imagine you were involved in that.”

  The man at least looked sheepish at that. Finally he turned and disappeared into the house.

  “You left my cage open,” Wortham said.

  “I decided to let you outdoors.”

  “But not free.”

  She smiled pleasantly. “Guards patrol the walls with dogs.”

  “Well thank you for the sunshine anyway.”

  She smiled again and this time the expression seemed sincere. She had a striking face at any time. Not pretty but beautiful. With the smile softening her features, she went from beauty to loveliness. Maybe the sun had beguiled him. Or the warm breeze, fragrant with the smell of roses. Right this moment, he felt more like a suitor than a prisoner. Distinctly odd, that, as he’d never courted any woman seriously.