Then she saw him.
“Darius?”
He turned slowly, looking through the doorway of the parlor at her, his eyes dark and dangerous. A note of paper hung from his hand. He held it aloft,his voice accusing as he demanded, “What the hell is this?”
Chapter 23
“In order to make the transition from one protector to another as smooth as possible, it is best not to speak about one to the other. As men are jealous creatures by nature, such discussions should be avoided at all costs.”
–from Memoirs of a Courtesan, by Lady Night
Darius clenched his hand into a fist, the paper crinkling between his fingers as he waited for Serena to answer him.
It didn’t help his mood to see that his mistress looked ravishing. The fresh air and natural surroundings of Manning Park made her appear somehow like a wild faerie, free and full of passion. Serena’s cheeks were flushed from her walk out of doors, her auburn tresses falling in loose, windblown curls from the loose bun on top of her head.
Darius’s gut tightened and burned with jealousy as he struggled to keep his temper in check.
“Did you hear me?” he asked.
Serena stood silently, her expression shuttered. “Yes. I heard you.”
“Then why don’t you answer?”
“It seems that you already know what you hold in your hands, my lord,” she replied. “A letter from the Duke of Balfour. My next protector. Surely, you do not need me to explain it to you as you have obviously read it.”
Darius cast the letter to the floor, anger seething through his veins. “That is where we disagree, Serena. I see that the note is from Balfour, but I do not see that he is your next protector. The very suggestion is repulsive.”
Serena took a few tentative steps into the room, bending down to pick up the mangled note. She hastily stowed it in her pocket. “I wish you had not read that, Darius.”
“Why? You do not wish me to see the correspondence between you and your lover?” he demanded.
“He is not my lover.”
“Not yet.”
“No, not yet,” Serena said quietly.
“Not ever.” Darius stalked across the room to the cupboard and pulled out a goblet and bottle of brandy. He slammed the heavy crystal on top of the cupboard, pouring the amber liquid into the vessel. Throwing his head back to ease its passage down his throat, he swallowed the brandy all in one shot. He pointed the empty glass toward Serena, accusingly. “Not as long as I have breath in my body. Of that, you can be sure.”
A pained expression clouded Serena’s face. “Please. I beg of you. Do not make this more difficult than it already is.”
“Make what more difficult?” he asked. “Your departure? I am not making it difficult, because there shan’t be a departure. You will stay here at Manning Park with me for the winter. We shall return to Town in the Spring. And that is an end to it.”
“I’m afraid it’s not that simple, my love,” she said quietly.
The endearment caused his heart to skip. She had never called him that before, and he hated himself for how those words affected him. “Of course it’s simple,” he said finally. “Nothing could be simpler. And after last night, I’m surprised you could even suggest such a thing.”
Last night with Serena had been incredible. He had never felt anything so intense, so magical, or joyous. She had truly let him inside her heart, for the first time ever. And it was a place he never wanted to leave.
The thought of another man touching Serena, let alone bedding her, made bile rise in Darius’s throat. Last night as he’d cradled her in his arms, everything had become dazzlingly clear to him. With his actions that night at Telford House, and in the weeks leading up to it, he hadn’t simply been lusting after Serena Ransom. He had been unable to keep himself away from her because she was the true mate of his soul.
Though at that time, his mind had accepted the necessity of marrying Henrietta for his family’s sake, his soul had never acquiesced. His heart had reached out to Serena because it needed her in order to be whole. And it wasn’t going to let a little thing like his marriage to another woman stand in its way.
Serena gazed up at him, her dazzling green eyes deep with emotion. “After last night, there is more reason than ever to end our liaison, Darius.”
He gave a bitter laugh. “Forgive me if I do not see the logic of your argument. Usually, when two people discover that they are in love, they want to plan a future together. Not abruptly end the affair.”
“You knew this was coming,” Serena pointed out.
“I didn’t think you were serious about leaving. I still do not believe it.” He cupped her shoulders and pulled her against him. He searched her face like a desperate man, trying to understand this strange language she was speaking. It did not make sense to him. “I see what you are doing now, love. You are punishing me for my past sins against you. I suppose you have every right to torment me, now. I will submit to your torture. But assure me that it will be over soon, and you will tell me what I need to hear. That you will stay with me forever.”
He gazed down at the woman in his arms, watched her shake her head slowly, then take a wobbly step away from him. She moved awkwardly, like a marionette on uneven strings.
His heart plummeted like a struck bird as his mind tried to grasp the horrible truth.
Serena still meant to leave him.
In two days’ time, she would be in the arms of another man. The Duke of Balfour—Darius’s most reviled enemy.
“Why are you doing this?” he rasped.
“Even if I was not under contract to the duke, I would have to leave,” she said, sitting on the edge of the sofa and staring ahead blankly. “You see, I have done a terrible thing. In the courtesan’s world, it is the most grievous crime imaginable. I have fallen in love with my protector.”
Serena looked up him then, her eyes tinged with despair. “As I discovered last night, I realize I have always been in love with you. But I denied my feelings all this time, because they were too painful to bear—just as they are too painful now.”
He came to sit beside her, taking her hand in his, squeezing it in desperation. “But it doesn’t have to be so, darling. We are both guilty of hurting each other. We have the rest of our lives together to make amends. Let me make things right between us.”
Serena turned her head away.
Darius felt his heart twist in his chest. It was inconceivable that they were having this conversation. Not after their souls had mingled and mated together in the darkest hours of the night.
The fear in his gut transformed into anger. “After all we’ve been through together, I cannot believe you are willing to throw it all away. This is our chance at happiness!”
She turned back to look at him. “That’s just it, Darius. In the end, I do not think we would be happy.”
“We? Or you?” he asked bitterly.
Her expression darkened as she said, “Me, then. I think that if we continued our liaison, eventually I would be quite unhappy, indeed.”
Darius stood, stalking about the room. “How can you say that? Last night, we made love. We were love, Serena. We could have that joy, that tenderness for years to come—
“How many years?” she demanded.
The question perplexed Darius. “I don’t know. Neither do you. But that is not a reason to deny ourselves a life together.”
“For a courtesan, it is, I assure you,” she replied.
“You are not simply a courtesan, Serena,” he shot back. “You are my courtesan. No other man has touched you but me. And none shall.”
He poured himself another drink as he needed to feel the searing liquid burn his throat.
“Until you tire of me,” Serena said, pointedly.
Darius wanted to laugh, but the situation was far from humorous. “I do not see that happening.”
“But I do,” she replied. “It is inevitable, Darius. And it is a cold, hard fact that the longer a courtesan s
tays with one man as her protector, the greater the odds that she will end up brokenhearted and destitute. Having already experienced both, you can understand that I should like to avoid such an outcome.”
“Bollocks! Is that what you are afraid of?” Darius asked, incredulously. “I am sorry to shatter your illusions, Serena, but there are no guarantees in this life. You fear a future which may never come to pass. And that, my dear, is not a good enough reason to hide from living.”
Her eyes flashed with anger. “That is quite easy for you to say when you have nothing to lose. I would have to sacrifice everything to be with you. And you would sacrifice nothing.”
He folded his arms across his chest, and said. “Enlighten me.”
“I chose the life of a courtesan for many reasons,” she began. “As you know, after the Telford scandal, the avenues of polite society were closed to me. Yet, from that tragedy there emerged an unexpected gift. I discovered much about myself that I never would have learned, otherwise. I realized that I valued my freedom and independence more than I did my reputation, and I wanted to be the mistress of my own fate. I was given that chance, and I took it. I have no regrets in that regard.”
“You would still retain your independence, Serena. I would never want to take it from you.”
She shook her head. “You might not want to. But eventually, you would.”
Darius huffed in exasperation. “You’re getting your lacy little knickers in a twist over something that hasn’t happened yet. Don’t be such a bloody coward!”
“Me? I’m the coward?” she demanded. “That’s rich. There is an old Italian proverb that states: ‘He that deceives me once, it is his fault; if twice, it is mine.’ Forgive me for wanting to protect myself against further injury from you, my lord.”
“I would not make that mistake again, Serena,” he replied. “Especially not with my wife.”
For a moment she simply stared back at him, perplexed. “What?”
“I had been planning to ask you, though not like this. I even told Caro about my plan to propose marriage to you.” Darius crossed the room in two powerful strides. He sank down onto his knee before her, taking her hand in his. “Marry me, Serena.”
She blinked in confusion. “Have you gone daft?”
“Perhaps I was before, but not now,” he said. “I ask again, will you marry me?”
Serena pulled her hand away. “You don’t know what you are saying.”
“I know exactly what I’m saying,” Darius countered. “I want no other as my wife but you, Serena. It is what I’ve wanted all along. It is what we’ve both wanted. And this time, I am determined that we shall have it.”
She stood, walking away from him. “You have lost your senses. You can’t marry me. I am a paid courtesan!”
“You’re my courtesan,” he insisted. “You’ve been with no other man but me. Who would object?”
“Your mother, for one,” Serena replied. “I met her today, walking about the estate. To say that she does not approve of me would be an vast understatement.”
Darius rose from where he knelt and came to stand beside her. “She does not approve of anyone, so do not take it to heart.”
Serena shook her head. “What you suggest is madness. I would be a pariah in society.”
“And what you suggest is not madness?” he demanded. “A life apart from each other? With you taking on new lovers, taking their money in exchange for your skills in bed? That would be the true madness, Serena.”
“That has been our arrangement for the past six months,” she countered. “Don’t make it sound criminal now that you have enjoyed the benefits of my training.”
“You must forgive me, my darling,” he said, a bitter note tinging his voice. “The image of you taking other men to your bed does not bring out the best in me.”
“This is not easy for me, either, Darius.”
“You make it seem so.” He came to stand behind her, placing his hands on her shoulders, then turning her around to face him. “Since you are impervious to the logic of my argument, I must try a different tack.”
He tipped up her chin so that she had no choice but to meet his eyes. He studied her face, saw the torrent of emotion there. It was a chink in the wall of her defenses. The old soldier in him seized the opportunity to exploit it.
Slowly, he lowered his mouth to hers, covering it, plundering it, branding her with his desire, his love. Even with the closeness they’d shared the previous night, it was like no other kiss they’d ever had. For wrapped inside it danced a whirlwind of emotions. Like leaves in a storm, one moment they moved wildly and full of fury, the next softly settling in peace. The kiss encompassed all their unspoken emotions—those they were unable to share…and those that they would never have the opportunity to.
Darius felt a sob escape Serena’s throat, and then her arms were around him, holding him tight, pulling him close against her.
Their tongues mingled, mated, warred with each other, as Darius realized too late what was happening.
They were saying good-bye.
Using the heels of her hands against his chest, Serena pushed away from him, breaking the kiss.
It was too late. The magic of the moment was gone.
“I would like to be alone now, Darius,” she choked out, stepping away from him and wiping at her moist eyes.
“But I want to be with you,” he said. “I need to be with you. Don’t send me away.”
Serena’s voice was barely a whisper. “Please, I beg of you. Stay at the Hall tonight. I need to be alone.”
Darius stood numbly as he tried to comprehend her words. They had less than two days left together, and she was banishing him?
“It is clear that you find my presence unbearable at the moment,” he said soberly. “I shall obey your wishes, of course.”
He turned to go, stopping in the little foyer to look back at the woman he loved. Though no sound escaped her, he watched helplessly as her shoulders shuddered with silent sobs.
Darius Manning, seventh Earl of Kane and decorated war hero, had faced some hellish situations in his life, some of which would have bested a weaker man than he. Bullets, battles, a murderess wife and the death of his unborn child. They had all been faced head on and dealt with, no matter how painful.
And yet he had never endured anything so frightening as the scene that had just transpired in the little cottage. He headed out the door feeling raw, hollowed out, like a ghost that still thought himself among the living.
Darius walked slowly across the dying grass, forcing himself to take each painful step forward. He grasped at the familiar emotions of anger and rage, the ones that had always spurred him on in the past. But they wouldn’t come. Only a dark, empty wretchedness filled his heart.
As Darius walked back to Manning Hall, he knew in the depths of his soul that his life had just been unequivocally changed.
And not for the better.
Chapter 24
“There is no ill a man can cause which another cannot cure.”
–from Memoirs of a Courtesan, by Lady Night
Serena lay in bed, staring into the darkness as she tried in vain to ignore the throbbing ache in her heart. It felt as if she were bleeding inwardly, slowly dying of some incurable disease to which there was no cure.
With no idea of the hour, she guessed it was somewhere in the middle of the night. She’d gone to bed without supper, punishing herself for the terrible scene with Darius.
The truth was that she hadn’t been hungry. Her stomach was sick with despair. Instead she’d cried herself out on the bed. The fact that she and Darius had made love there so tenderly the night before only served to make her grief sharper.
If only Lady Devlyn had warned her that the last days with a protector could be so painful, perhaps Serena would have been better equipped to bear it. Even with all of her training, her well-honed emotional control, she was unable to use any of those skills now. The pain in her heart was too great.
Darius—damn him—had only made things worse by asking her to be his wife.
His wife!
Of all the things she thought he might say, she had never counted on a proposal of marriage. No matter that she had once wanted that from him more than anything in the world. She had been a green girl, then. Now, Serena was an experienced courtesan who eschewed the idea of binding herself to one man for life. She had witnessed firsthand how disastrous a marriage could be for a woman. Her mother had paid a high price for making a bad choice.
Marriage to Darius was out of the question. Certainly, they were well-matched in bed. And if they could have kept their relationship purely sexual, perhaps a union of that sort would have succeeded. But now there were emotions involved, on both sides. What would she do when Darius’s feelings for her waned? When he banished her to his country estate so he could take a young, beautiful mistress in Town, as she had once been?
The flipside was just as undesirable. Remaining as Darius’s courtesan while he married again and had a family would cause Serena another kind of heartache, altogether. It was difficult to decide which option was worse.
And then there was the ostracism of society to think about. No matter that King George lived in sin with his married mistress, Lady Conyngham. He was the King and was subject to a very different set rules than she and Lord Kane. Though it was difficult to imagine, if Darius took his paid courtesan to wife, Serena would be even more of an outcast than she was now.
As a member of the Courtesan Club, Serena, Bliss and Felicity were looked upon as something of celebrities. They were exotic, mysterious, and interesting.
But once she became a married woman, Serena would be thrust into a different social circle, in which wives were the heroines, and mistresses—including former mistresses such as she—were the enemy. No matter that Darius had been a widower during the time of their contract. Serena would still be an unwelcome reminder of how aristocratic husbands often spent their private time.
His Courtesan Bride (Brides of Mayfair 3) Page 22
