Forsaking Hope

by Beverley Oakley

  Hope pretended she neither knew nor cared. “Those friends who are concerned about your state of mind. They paid Madame Chambon in the hope of restoring to you your former spirits, and now here I am again.” She pushed back her right shoulder just a fraction. “I’m the remedy for a great many sorrows and disappointments.” She licked her lips. It was part of the act. Not that it was usual that she had to resort to any measures to entice a man before. “So you may as well enjoy me while I’m here.”

  Strangely, she’d never found herself so desirous of wanting to make a man bend to her. Of his own free will. She’d excited his desires when he was responding only to bodily cravings. But his moral objections were a barrier she needed to breach. Not just because she wanted to, but because of what she needed to do for Wilfred. For Charlotte.

  He straightened and moved back slightly, watching her with horrified fascination. “You’re trying to break me, aren’t you?” He spoke through clenched teeth. “You want to destroy my dreams. Otherwise, you’d just leave. Why torment me? I’m tormented enough already.”

  Squeezing his eyes shut, he sank suddenly onto his bed and hunched his shoulders, his breathing fast, but controlled as he half turned away.

  Hope thought he’d have taken her in his arms by now. Most men would have, especially one who admitted to loving her. Well, to having loved her.

  She glanced at the door. If she left now, she’d still have the memory of their lust-crazed lovemaking. Two days ago, he’d been insensible to the fact she was reality, and therefore free to love her without censure. He’d indulged himself like a man in love. Truly in love, so she’d felt at the time.

  Now, the circumstances were very different. Excruciatingly so.

  “I’ll leave.” She said it decisively, and she meant it. “I didn’t come here to torment you. Go back to Annabelle. That’s her name, isn’t it? She’s pure and untainted, and you can love her without guilt.” Hope was pretty certain she’d summed up the situation correctly when she saw the rigid awareness transmitted through his suddenly stiffened shoulders, though he didn’t speak. Gaining courage, she went on, “Whatever you do with me—or feel about me—will cause you only more torment, and ruin whatever little we shared once. I don’t want that to happen.”

  How noble she could sound when she fell so very far short of it. She started walking to the door, the decisive click of her neat kid boots giving substance to her intentions.

  “Annabelle?”

  She stopped when he spoke the name, but she didn’t turn. “She’s the woman you intend to wed, isn’t she?” Just speaking of it made her heart convulse.

  “What do you know of Annabelle?” His voice was barely above a whisper. Hope looked over her shoulder, but he remained hunched over the bed, his face in his hands.

  She sounded as guilty as she felt. “I saw you’d made several written attempts to apologise to Annabelle. Several of the letters had fallen to the floor.”

  “Did you find anything else of interest when you went through my correspondence?”

  “As I told you, I picked the letters up from where they’d fallen beneath your escritoire.” She changed the subject. “Are you in the habit of apologising to Annabelle for consorting with women like me?”

  She deserved it when he swung around, fury in his eyes. “I have never consorted with women like you.”

  “You’ve never been with a prostitute?”

  “I was initiated at the urging of my father and I’m not proud of it. I do no choose to take my pleasure with a prostitute over a virtuous woman, if that’s what you’re implying.”

  “But you did,” Hope interrupted, speaking slowly. “You had me not three days ago. And you enjoyed me very much.” She smiled, pushing aside a loose ringlet that fell across her face as she met his stare. His eyes flared with frustrated desire as again she turned and began to walk towards him, using her body like the instrument of pleasure Madame Chambon insisted her girls must regard it. Not for themselves, of course. But for men like Mr Durham.

  The rustle of her skirts across the floor was loud in the sudden quiet. He seemed to be mesmerised. The longing in his eyes made clear she’d won.

  Until he whispered, “Miss Hunt is my likely intended. It’s all but agreed.”

  “So, it really is Miss Annabelle Hunt?” Hope blinked rapidly and put her hand on the high mattress to keep her balance. “Annabelle Hunt?” She couldn’t help but say it again.

  He was angled to look at her, sitting on the other side of the mattress, and when she repeated the name he said, “You and she were rivals, were you not? Though I’d have chosen you over Annabelle any day had circumstances not put you out of my reach.” He finished on a bitter note though his feelings could not have been as bitter as Hope’s.

  In a flash, she understood the reasons behind Wilfred’s game of revenge and wondered why she had not before.

  “You wrote your apology to Annabelle because you wanted to avoid marriage to her?”

  Felix rose slowly from the bed. “I was on the point of proposing. In fact, she was expecting it, when I received a note from your sister six months ago saying she believed she knew where you were.”

  Hope put her hand to her mouth, but he gave a harsh laugh. “Oh, she was clearly wrong. However, she believed you’d been unable to communicate from your position in Leipzig. It went without saying you were in a respectable position, Miss Merriweather; however, she feared you’d been detained against your will. After all, what else could account for your silence?” He looked accusingly at Hope. “When your sister contacted me, I told Miss Hunt that this new information changed everything. That I had to find you. At all costs. I was quite honest with her. I told her that you and your well-being would always be my first priority. I thought you needed rescuing. That I could be your saviour…”

  He let the sentence trail away in the heavy silence so Hope could assimilate his meaning. He’d kept a flame burning for her all this time. Since their separation.

  But Hope knew what Felix did not. And could not, now. Not if she were to protect her sister’s future.

  So Annabelle was the reason Wilfred had sent Hope on this mission to reveal herself as being far from the gilded object of Felix’s dreams. Wilfred wanted Felix to resume his courtship of his sister, and the only way to do that was to destroy his regard for Hope.

  Felix treasured purity. He’d held Hope up on a pedestal.

  Well, look at her now. A degraded creature destined for hell.

  Hope took in the hurt in his eyes and knew what she had to do—what Wilfred intended for her to do. Tonight was her last chance to exorcise herself from Felix’s romantic daydreams so he’d pledge himself to Wilfred’s sister, Annabelle—heart, body, and soul. Little matter that it was Annabelle who was as complicit in Hope’s fall from grace as her brother.

  So, as Hope revealed herself as the rotting corpse of noble, high-minded Mr Durham’s dreams, the young heir to a viscountcy would be free to pledge himself to Wilfred’s sister, so that pretty Miss Annabelle Hunt, the squire’s daughter, could look forward to a title and a life of leisure in the house on top of the hill.

  Hope forced her tone to sound light. Madame Chambon was an exacting teacher. Her standards were high and her tolerance for failure as low as Wilfred’s. Between them, Hope stood no chance.

  Unless she resigned herself to the gutter.

  “And now I am here. It’s true I stand before you in a guise that sits uncomfortably with you, but you’d be far from alone if you took your pleasure with me, Mr Durham, when I am already paid for.”

  Even though her heart was close to breaking, she must shore up her remaining reserves and follow through with this hateful charade. For Charlotte.

  When he didn’t respond, she gave a light shrug of her shoulders and went round the bed to stand just in front of him. “What will you do, Mr Durham?” She put her hands on his shoulders and smiled, as if she cared nothing for the parody role she played. The angel had fallen. She offered what
he’d always wanted—but she was a poisoned chalice.

  He stiffened and turned his head away, but she felt what it cost him to deny himself.

  It both angered her and ripped at her heartstrings.

  A moment went by. She couldn’t believe it. He wasn’t going to succumb when she felt scorched by the heat of attraction. Yet he truly was going to turn away from her.

  And deny her the only pleasure she was likely to ever enjoy on this earth again?

  Not only that, he’d prove how truly abhorrent he found her. And yet, he’d enjoyed her body but a few days beforehand with complete abandon.

  No, she would not allow him to do this to her. To make her feel so worthless, when she relied on him to nourish her if she were to make anything of her future.

  Carefully, she lowered herself onto his lap and draped her arms around his neck.

  He didn’t respond other than to stiffen slightly. He didn’t move his own arms.

  With a soft sigh, she pressed her cheek against his.

  Although he still didn’t move, she heard him catch his breath. And she felt the effort it cost him to hold himself deathly still. He was on a knife edge. He couldn’t bring himself to push her away, which must mean he was dangerously close to caving in.

  Using her eyelashes to trail a sensuous journey from the sharp delineation of his cheekbones to the corner of his lips, she felt the straining of his thigh muscles and tautness of his chest.

  When she lightly ran the tip of her tongue across the seam of his lips, she knew she had won.

  With a terrible cry of agony, he clasped her tightly against his chest and pressed his hungry mouth to hers. Hope had never embraced a kiss more. Or rather, the hope in that kiss. Pushing him onto his back on the mattress, she straddled him, securing each of his wrists above his head in a light clasp he could break as easily as a fly’s if he chose.

  But he did not. He was her willing slave for the moment, taking every drop of love she spilled from her lips until she rose to alter her position, and he reached up to pull her down, flipping her onto her back and caging her body beneath his.

  They were both fully clothed but now began the torturous, exciting, and desperate race to divest themselves and each other of trousers, coat, and shirt in Felix’s case, and Hope’s elaborate bustle skirt. It unclasped at the waist, and she was skilled at wriggling her hips so that it shimmied down past her ankles and she could kick it gracefully free. Beneath it, she wore nothing but her stockings.

  His eyes were closed, their mouths fused, when his seeking hands registered this. She felt his shocked awareness and the swelling of his member against her belly. Arching her back so that it pressed against her belly, she quickly worked the fastenings of her cuirass, wriggling expertly out of it so that the only garment she wore was her corset.

  It nipped in her waist to a tiny twenty inches, but it would take too long to unlace. Besides, she knew he enjoyed the sensation of entering her when she was so confined. He had before, anyway.

  And right now, Hope was determined Felix was going to enjoy her—consciously—even more than he had last time.

  She had to prove she had some semblance of power over him. Even if it was only for the twenty minutes they were destined to spend together. What happened after that, she would not dwell on for there would be only these few moments to enjoy what she once might have forever, had her future not been swept away from her by Wilfred Hunt.

  What a cruel irony, that Wilfred was both facilitating and destroying these final few moments of pleasure—these only few moments of pleasure—Hope would ever have to call her own.

  Felix Durham’s eyes blinked open a moment and caught her in the blaze of his despair. She might have lost him then had she not gripped his manhood and again covered his mouth with hers. Oh, she’d have let him go if he truly found her abhorrent. If he had no feeling for her. If there was no desire beyond lust.

  But he had carried a candle for her; raised it to her memory. Admitted he desired to be her champion. Every tortured admission of what he’d been prepared to do to discover her whereabouts, reclaim her, was an admission of that love.

  But how quickly love is disappointed, made a mockery.

  With renewed determination, Hope pleasured him with all the considerable skill she’d learned over the two years of her dreadful calling. If he had loved her, she would not let that love fizzle out for lack of being well met. No, she’d see it go up in flames, incinerating them both.

  Withdrawing her lips from his, she pushed him onto his back and wriggled down so she could take him in her mouth.

  He gasped, moaned—though it sounded more like defeat or surrender than ecstasy. Still, he did not push her away. He did not choose to end the encounter. He was entranced. His hand cupped the top of her head as his body notched up his growing desire in each slight jerk of taut sensory pleasure.

  To pleasure a man to climax in these circumstances was Hope’s preferred method of ending the encounter.

  Tonight, she was desperate to have him inside her. She’d carried the feeling of their last encounter like a slow-burning flame within her heart, and the anticipation of knowing that tonight he was a willing participant—yes, willing, albeit reluctant—might go some way to dispelling the grief that was a foregone conclusion of tonight’s encounter.

  When he was near the edge, she wriggled up the bed and cupped his face. “I want to feel you,” she whispered, arching her back and making her invitation implicit. “I’ve only ever wanted you.”

  She closed her eyes and gripped his buttocks as she opened her legs to him, awaiting the sensation with heart-pounding anticipation, whimpering as she felt the tip of his manhood breach her entrance.

  He’d not hesitated. She understood he was now pledged to end this. Finish this and end this. With her.

  It was a relief. His reluctance had frightened her from the moment she’d seen the dismay in his face. She’d not wanted to believe she might not be able to repeat their first time together.

  With a cry, he plunged into her, his hands pinioning her wrists as he thrust into her, and she whimpered in pleasure. Let him take that away. The fact he’d brought a jade to the pinnacle.

  He would exorcise her through this act of lust and passion; he would remind himself that the sexual act was base, and that tenderness played no role for he had been badly hurt.

  Just as she had.

  With a cry of rapture and despair, he came, his face buried in the pillow beside her as he continued to breathe heavily, not moving.

  Nor did Hope move. She wanted to feel the weight of him, bearing down on her, depending on her, loving her, hating her. She wanted him close.

  Too soon, he rolled off her. Wearily, he sat on the edge of the mattress and put his head in his hands.

  Hope hadn’t expected this. The silence was terrible.

  She’d wanted this so much, but now she wondered if this act of what was for her pure love would come at the cost of her soul.

  When he didn’t move, didn’t speak, she crawled over the mattress on the other side and slipped to the floor. She dressed quietly. Only the soft rustle of her blue velvet skirts across the floorboards indicated what she was doing.

  It was an ensemble that she could get in and out of without help, but if the circumstances were right, she could claim helplessness for the man who enjoyed participating in disrobing; or she could cater to the chivalry or pretended tenderness of the man who wished to assist the woman he’d just ravished.

  When she’d smoothed her ringlets and arranged her pert confectionery of exquisite millinery upon her head, she regarded Mr Durham uncertainly.

  It seemed he really had managed to exorcise her from his heart through their base actions for he neither moved nor looked at her.

  Her throat was dry. She blinked away her tears. On the far side of the room was his escritoire where he wrote his letters and where she could see he kept his pocketbook.

  What could she do? Wilfred wanted her to steal from
him. Prove that she was a worthless jade.

  Well, she didn’t need to steal from him to prove that. His immobility and patent disgust proved she was no longer a threat to Annabelle.

  Chapter 6

  “Stay.” Her hand was already on the doorknob when the reluctant directive issued from him. Reluctant it clearly was. Hope was practiced at distinguishing between the tones that indicated desperate want and weary resignation.

  She didn’t want to stay. To stay threatened the strength she’d built up in that agonising transition from her naked vulnerability on the mattress to being mistress of her own destiny. To stay put her back in his power. He was the man she wanted, desired. She’d not wanted or desired any other man, and to be in thrall courted her own death. Death of her tenuous inner being.

  Hope stopped, but she did not turn. She didn’t remove her hand from the doorknob. She didn’t want to hear what he had to say. Perhaps he didn’t know either. A great wall of disappointment welled between them. He wanted her as he remembered her: pure and unsullied. But now that she was the opposite of that to all men, and for the taking, available to anyone prepared to pay for her, he’d still wanted her. No doubt he already despised himself for his weakness, hating her all the more for what she’d had no choice in becoming.

  Silence stretched between them. Finally, she turned.

  “Will you come back?”

  She gave a light shrug. “If somebody pays me.” There. She’d be on her way soon enough after that, and he’d never know how much it cost her to sever ties. Self-preservation. That was worth anything. Madame Chambon had instilled that into her girls.

  “All right.”

  Puzzled, she watched him reach forward to open the drawer of his escritoire. He pulled out a roll of banknotes.

  “How much do you want?”

  “I told you. This afternoon…now…is already paid for.” Shame burned her cheeks. Paid for, in effect, by the man who would ensure that their connection did not continue.

  He nodded, slowly, though he still held the banknotes in a tight ball. “But you’ll come back if I pay you?”