Edmund closed the distance between them in four long strides. He wrapped a hand about her waist and she stiffened at his touch as he guided her around.
“Wh—what—?” Her words ended on a startled gasp as he dipped his mouth close to hers.
“You are now bitter and aware of the truth of the world, but you are not a liar.” Not like me. His breath came harsh and fast, a blend of desire and darkened regrets. It blended with her own. Mint and chocolate. “You still want me. And you will come to my bed, this time as my wife, my marchioness.” He killed the protest on her lips by claiming her mouth for a hard, powerful kiss.
For a moment she went taut and he expected her to pull back, but then she leaned into him and that slight softening fueled his desire. It was a thrill of exhilaration in knowing even with what had come to pass between them, she wanted him still, and he could use that part of her to reclaim what he needed of her. Edmund slipped his tongue into her mouth and plundered the hot depths. Their tongues met mimicking the most intimate act of bodies joining. It conjured all manner of erotic images that involved Phoebe with her back against the wall and her skirts up while he made love to her in all the ways he still ached to.
He folded one hand about her neck and angled her head, positioning her in such a way that he better availed himself to her mouth. A ragged moan escaped her and he swallowed the sound with his own groan of hunger. Phoebe melted into his frame and with his other hand he trailed a path down the small of her back, ever lower. He caressed her buttocks, cupping the delicate swell of her derriere. She cried out and he pulled his mouth from hers, instead shifting his ministrations to the long, graceful column of her throat. Her head fell back and he exulted in her surrender. She might abhor him, but she still wanted him. And as long as he had this piece of her, it would be enough. It would be a piece of her, one he was unworthy of, undeserving to claim as his own, but then he’d always been a selfish, self-serving bastard.
Edmund ran both hands down her slender frame, reveling in the gentle curve of her hip. He needed more of her. All of her. He grasped her skirts and tugged them up, exposing the lean, lithe limbs and took in the faintly muscled calves. All manner of delicious acts that involved her legs wrapped about him slipped into his sinful thoughts. A pained desire, more agony than pleasure shot through him. Then she put her palms to his chest. And he was lost.
She shoved hard, the movement so jarring, he tumbled backward and staggered, quickly righting himself. Phoebe took several faltering steps away, her skin flushed a delicious crimson red, her lips swollen from their kiss. Edmund took in every single, subtle, jerky movement. The haste she made to put distance between them, so very similar to Society’s response when he entered polite, and more often impolite, events. For years, he’d not only grown accustomed to those sentiments, he’d reveled in that fear wrapped in contempt wrapped in hatred. His gaze went to her long fingers, shaking, now clasped to her throat. Horror wreathed the delicate planes of her face.
A hollowness settled in his chest. Where was the triumph now?
When Phoebe had been a small girl, she’d searched the house for her sister Justina in a game of Hide and Seek. Hearing faint whispers, she’d hovered outside the Ivory Parlor with her hand poised on the handle—just as the sound of voices had reached through the door. She’d stood frozen while two young servants whispered about her father’s vile depravity. Heart hammering and stomach twisted with knots of sickness at the ugly truths heard, she’d run as fast and as far as her then little legs could carry her.
She’d raced down the corridors with her own breath, the servants’ words, and her heart’s erratic, loud rhythm pounding in her ears. She’d sought out an armoire in one of the guest chambers and shut herself away. The thick, blackness had enveloped her in the quiet and inky darkness. The silence had been deafening, until her harshly drawn breaths had robbed her of logical thought. That day, she’d climbed out of the armoire with no one the wiser of a young girl’s world having been torn asunder. She’d closed the door, exited the guest chambers, and then found her siblings. Resolved to never let another person’s ugliness—including her own sire’s—steal her happiness or in any way fundamentally chase away the hope inside.
This moment, with Edmund before her now, was remarkably alike in that regard. The same shock, confusion, horror. And worse…the betrayal of loving one, only to find that you never truly knew the person. That everything about them, everything to come before was nothing more than flimsy lies. And yet, staring at the harsh, angular planes of his face carved in an impenetrable mask, she’d violated that great vow she’d made long ago. Not after this. Not after Edmund. Unable to bear the sight of him, she slid her eyes closed. And for this, she could not be happy again. Not truly. For she’d trusted; Edmund, herself, and given herself over to love, only to have that innocence proven foolhardy—just as Honoria had warned. Yet, that her body should still crave his kiss and hunger for his touch, sickened her with the shame of her own weakness.
“I hate you,” she whispered, the words empty and meaningless. For she didn’t really. If she truly hated him, her heart would not be cracking into a million shards this very instant. Instead, he’d become a blackguard, whose words and stories had been a lie. And she hated herself far more for her own humiliating weakness for this man—a dream of a person she’d dared love.
There was the faintest stiffening, the slightest indication her profession might in some way matter. Then he inclined his head. “Hate is something I am accustomed to, Madam.”
In other words, he’d grown so used to those sentiments of disdain, that hers meant so very little. A chill stole through her and she folded her arms and rubbed in attempt to suffuse warmth back into the frozen limbs. “Then I daresay you’d not forever bind yourself to a woman who detests the mere sight of you,” she said in a bid to hurt him.
Alas, it would take one far stronger than her to wound in any way the great and powerful Marquess of Rutland. A hard grin turned his lips. “I would have you as mine, Phoebe. It matters not that you hate me. We will have desire which is far more than all those other empty unions.”
She shook her head and tried to make sense of those words. That is what he spoke of? Not love or genuine regard…but of desire? “Why?” Why with such professions of hate should he still want her?
He lifted his shoulders in a casual shrug. “Everyone hates me.” In another person, those words would have been intended to ring sympathy, to inspire regret. In Edmund, however, they were delivered with a chilling matter-of-fact calm. “I might as well tie myself to one I hunger for, even if she does detest me.” His square, proud jaw tensed. “And make no mistake. I want you.” And I intend to have you. Those words danced around the air. Unspoken but no less real.
A denial sprung to her lips. Then, Justina’s face flitted to her mind’s eye and the false protestations withered and died. If it was only Phoebe’s ruin to consider, she’d easily spit in his face and send him gladly to the devil. But he spoke of her sister; the sister whom she loved and cherished and protected. She’d not see Justina broken by life the way Edmund had been broken and the way he’d shattered her. “You will not wed my sister,” she said with a resolute calm, proud of that steady deliverance.
His expression grew veiled, but he gave no response to that pledge.
Phoebe tried one more feeble grasp at freedom. “We would not suit. Not truly. The women you are…” Her cheeks blazed with heat as she recalled her friend’s claims about ties and knots and bonds. Those vile, dark acts were the kind this man enjoyed. The tender meeting in the Lord Essex’s gardens had been nothing more than a ruse to shatter her defenses and trap her. What would he be like as a lover now, when there were no more pretenses required of him? Unease twisted in her belly. “The women you are a-accustomed t-to,” she stumbled over herself. “Are different.” The ladies one such as Edmund would want in his life were experienced and worldly. Even in light of his betrayal, jealousy twisted like a green-edged blade in her bell
y. Fool.
The ghost of a smile played on his lips and she wanted to slap his smug face once again for being so indifferent to the talk of him with other women. “Yes, Phoebe, you are unlike any woman I’ve been with before now.”
As she did not know what to make of that ambiguous, emotionless statement, she said nothing and waited for him to say something.
“We will be wed by special license.”
To say something that was not that.
He stalked over to the door, the matter settled and panic throbbed in her breast. Phoebe sprinted over and placed herself between him and the wood panel. Her back rattled against the door. “B-but…” Her mind raced in an attempt to put her world to right and spare them both this miserable union.
“But what?” Edmund tugged out his watch fob and consulted the timepiece; the casual act, lending power to the tedium of that two-word question. “The way I see it, Madam, this is mutually beneficial to the both of us.”
“How so?” A near hysterical bubble seeped from her lips. How could there be anything remotely good between them? “How can there be anything good in a marriage between us?”
With an effortless grace, he tucked his timepiece into his pocket. “I did not say good. I said mutually beneficial.”
She furrowed her brow. “With the exception of saving my sister from your vile grasp, what benefit could there be to me in tying myself to one such as you?”
Edmund inclined his head. “Would you prefer the Earl of Allswood?”
An involuntary snort escaped her. “I’d prefer neither of you.” His frown deepened as though he disliked being lumped in with the Lord Allswoods of the world, but that was precisely where he belonged. “I daresay there are a good many more options for me than you and Lord Allswood.”
His dark eyebrows snapped into a single, hard line. He dipped his head close and she made to draw away but found retreat impossible with the hard mahogany door at her back. So, she angled her chin up and glared at him.
“Do you believe the options are so very limitless for a dowerless woman, no longer in possession of her virginity?” His words expelled the air from the room. Even with everything she’d heard and discovered, the depth of his viciousness still slammed into her with a ferocity that caused her legs to tremble. And just like that, she was the small girl, alone, in the darkened armoire “What manner of monster are you?” she asked, her tongue thick.
Silence met her question.
Did she imagine that flash of pained regret in his eyes? “You would keep my dowry, even with everything we’d shared?” Agony leant her words a ragged quality. She searched his hard face and by the unrelenting set to his mouth, needed no confirmation beyond that. A chill stole through her. Then, but for their bodies, had they really shared anything? Where did the betrayals end? Her father’s disregard and sins through the years, she’d long ago accepted. Or thought she had. Only now, knowing not even her dowry had been valued by the wastrel reprobate who’d given her life, showed her that she was not so very indifferent to that betrayal, either.
Edmund brushed his knuckles over her jaw. “It matters not.”
“It matters not?” she spat, hating that his touch somehow filled her with a reassuring warmth, hating that she still craved his touch, that special bond they’d once shared. “You’d wed a woman without a dowry, who does not want to wed you?” She could not make sense of who this man truly was or what drove him. He was a riddle wrapped in a conundrum.
“You have a dowry,” he said pulling her to the moment.
“I had a dowry.” Bitterness tinged her words. Phoebe pressed her palms to her cheeks, blotting out the intensity of his dark brown eyes. “I have nothing.” Not even my virtue. Nausea roiled in her gut until she feared she’d cast the contents of her stomach up at his feet.
He continued to stroke her jaw and then expanded his caress to her cheek. “I possess your dowry and now I’ll have you.”
From the thick haze of confusion and tumult, Phoebe lowered her arms to her sides. Edmund’s words came as from down a long hall. She stared at his mouth as he talked. His lips moved, but she only managed to pluck out a handful of coherent phrases from the string of words he now strung together.
“…and now I’ll have you…”
Those last three words snapped her from the haze of confusion and Phoebe cried out. She ducked out from under his arm and raced away from him, placing a King Louis XIV chair between them. “What of my sister?” she demanded in a strangled tone.
His eyebrows dipped, while a muscle jumped at the corner of his eyes, as she suspected a man accustomed to not having demands made to him by anyone, didn’t know what to do with her insistency.
“What of my sister?” Her cry rang about the room.
“I possess only your dowry.”
She ran her gaze over his face; once beloved, now the harsh, cruel one everyone had warned her of. “I don’t believe you.” With the lies between them, how could she believe anything he said?
Edmund leaned a shoulder against the door and folded his arms at his chest, elegant in repose. “I have no reason to lie to you in this regard.”
In this regard. Unlike all the times before this when he’d had reasons to lie to her. She smoothed her palms over her skirts. In this instance, she did not matter. Justina and her innocence and her future happiness and dowry—that is what mattered. Phoebe’s fate had been settled long ago; by her father—by Edmund. “If I wed you,” she began, “will you see my sister is protected? Will you see my father…” the monstrous fiend who’d sacrificed her. She took a deep breath and finished the remaining thought. “Will you see that my father does not sell my sister off to pay his debt?”
He inclined his head. “It is done.”
It is done. Those three words marked this exchange as a transaction, a contract entered into. Phoebe pressed her fingers over her eyes and drew in several breaths. She could and would forever despise Edmund for his treachery, but she’d courted this disaster by continually allowing herself to meet with him and giving herself over to the notorious marquess. After their scandalous meetings had there ever really been any other recourse except marriage? Phoebe lowered her hands to her side. Edmund continued to study her in that piercing manner. A chill ran along her spine. He may as well have been a stranger she passed on Bond Street to the man she’d lain with in Lord Essex’s gardens.
She eyed him warily. “Why should I trust you?” She spoke that question more to herself. “You do not,” love, “care for me, therefore my sister’s happiness matters less than mine, to you.”
“You should not trust me,” he replied, still lounged against that door. “As my wife, I’d advise you not to trust anyone.” Another icy shiver racked her frame with the evidence of his cold unfeelingness. What a miserable way to go through one’s existence. “But regardless of whether you believe it or not, I protect what is mine. You are mine and no one will dare hurt you or yours for your connection to me. That protection extends to those you care for.”
There was something oddly reassuring in the steely edge of that promise. She’d gone through the duration of her life with a father who didn’t give a jot for her. She’d been preyed upon by men with lascivious intentions for no other reason than the shameful truth of her connection to the Viscount Waters. No, looking at the icy glint in Edmund’s eyes and the firm set to his mouth, he would not tolerate anyone infringing upon that which he claimed as his. For the bumble broth she’d made of her own life, knowing that Justina would be cared for would give her the courage to do this thing with Edmund. It would be the peace she found in life. Her sister would be happy and that would be enough.
At the prolonged silence, Edmund arched a single brow. “Come, Phoebe. At the very least, I would expect you to ask for something for yourself. What do you require?”
She wet her lips. “My dowry.” Phoebe tipped her chin up. “I want my dowry.” For eventually there would be children who she called hers and she’d not have those children
dependent upon anyone the way she and her siblings were now, dependent upon their father and Edmund.
He shoved away from the door and took a step toward her. Phoebe tightened her grip upon the back of the chair. The wood bit painfully into her palms. He came to a stop six feet away and then she lightened her grip. “What will you do with your funds?”
Edmund did not say no or outright reject her request. Instead, there was a faintly mocking curiosity threading that question as though he mocked himself for putting questions to her. “That is for me to decide.”
Appreciation flared in his flinty gaze. “You won’t want for jewels or baubles or fabrics. Anything you desire will be yours.” Anything except her freedom and happiness.
Phoebe ran her gaze over his face—this hard, implacable stranger. “Oh, Edmund,” she whispered. She gave her head a sad, slow shake. “You want me, but you don’t truly know me.” He stilled. The dangerous narrowing of his eyes hinted at a man unaccustomed to being called out. “If you think I desire any jewels or baubles or fabrics, as you say, then you know nothing of me at all.”
“Don’t I?” That smooth, quiet whisper washed over her, almost tauntingly. “Do you know what I believe you’d use the funds for?”
Given his scheming machinations these days, she didn’t want to feed any toying questions he’d pose and yet she wanted to know. She inclined her head, giving him a silent encouragement to continue.
“Your freedom.” She started and by the triumphant glimmer in his eyes, he believed his supposition the correct one. How little they both knew of each other. “You would travel to your distant lands, like Captain Cook. Or mayhap closer. To Wales, perhaps?” He spread his arms before him. “And I shall not stop you.”
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