by Sharon Page
He ran his hand lower, until he found a silken curve that had to be her cheek. Gently, he eased her away, and the sensation of sliding past her velvety lips almost made him explode. “Ride me,” he growled. “Ride me hard and fast until you pound everything out of my head.”
She giggled. He was straining to hear everything, so he detected the demure notes in her light, lovely laugh. The way it was shy rather than bold. She was such an unusual prostitute, with her pretty voice, her proper speech, and her uncertainty.
Then she wrapped her hand around his shaft and he couldn’t think about anything but the way she held him, the tug as she lifted him upright, the first touch to her silky heat.
He arched his hips up, needing to thrust deep. Her bottom smacked his thighs as she came down, and he rocked up into her, lifting her high, joining them as tightly as he could.
He’d begged Cerise to ride him, but he didn’t give her a chance. He did the work. Lifting her to bury his cock to the hilt worked his muscles to the limit. Thrusting made sweat roll down his forehead and coat his chest. He had to do this. Had to thrust like a madman. And know only the sheer delight of sliding his erection deep inside her, of feeling her walls hug him tight, the delicious friction as he withdrew.
It was heaven. Heaven for a man who’d earned a place in hell for what he’d done.
Devon laughed as the weight of her bottom jiggled up and down on his spread legs, as she gasped and moaned and cried out. Cerise was a noisy lover. Her shrieks and squeals must be echoing all over the house.
He loved hearing them. He couldn’t remember the bursts of cannon fire and rifle shot when she squealed and wailed and shouted, “Oh, goodness!”
Her hands smacked against his chest as she braced herself. Sweet as her voice might be, she rode him with hard, punishing strokes as though she knew, without words, exactly what he needed.
But he wanted to watch her bosom bounce and her hips move as he rocked her. He hungered to see her face contort with agony as he thrust. Wanted to know the color of her beautifully soft hair. See her eyes as she found pleasure too.
He yearned to see her, damn it. Hell, how he did.
Frustration boiled in him. He shut his eyes and made love to her even harder than before. He should be gentler; he should slow down, yet she gripped his shoulders and pounded on him.
“Yes, Your Grace,” she cried. “I like it hard.”
Then her hands—it had to be her hands—ran down his thighs and she gripped his bottom. His John Thomas swelled and grew bigger, stiffer, ready to burst. Devon tipped back his head and howled to the heavens above. He wished he could make love to her for the rest of his life. So he never had to think or remember again.
He wanted to please her. He had to hold on. Fight to last, fight for control so he could make her scream for him in ecstasy.
“Cerise, love, what do you need?” he rasped. “I won’t last.”
“This!” she cried. Then she gasped, “Oh, Your Grace!” She gave a long, agonized moan, bouncing wildly on top of him.
Her lushly erotic scream ripped through him, and he lost control. His arse lurched up from the sofa and he drove hard into her. His body went rigid as his orgasm roared through him, spun through every nerve, took every ounce of his strength. His muscles seemed to turn to fluid. Every thought left him. There was nothing but pleasure and the pulsing of his body as the almost endless climax pummeled him.
Devon flopped back onto the settee beneath her, a ragged laugh rising from his chest. Deep inside, his heart hammered.
Cerise collapsed on him, gasping too. Her breasts, warm and damp, crushed to his chest. The earthy scent of her surrounded him, as if enclosing them in a world built solely of pleasure. He wrapped his arms around her, cradling her tighter than he’d ever embraced a woman before.
“Are you sleepy, Your Grace?” she murmured, her voice throaty after all her screams. “Or do you want another bout?”
“All right, love. Another round.” He rocked gently into her. It would take time to get aroused again. He shut his eyes and stroked her, letting his fingers see her where his eyes could not. Much better this way. She had the perfect back, long and slender, with a sweet dip at the bottom. He took care as he caressed her, remembering how she had described her bruises. He cupped the flare of her curvy bottom. She had a delectable rump. Lightly, he ran his fingers over her rounded derrière, savoring her hot, silky skin, and she giggled in her pretty, endearing way.
She possessed a lot of hair, and it fell over his chest and shoulders like a silken throw. He gathered a mass of it in his hand, moved it so it fell over his face and he could breathe in the scent of it. He was hard again. Ready to pound into her. Ready to make her burst—
The vision came so quickly and slammed into his head so hard, he was amazed it didn’t knock him off the chair. He was back on a smoke-strewn, deafening battlefield. An enormous weight pinned his legs—the flank of his dying horse. Through a gap in the dark ash and struggling bodies, he saw the boy. A French lad. Ragged uniform. The boy had lifted a rifle, and his skinny body was jerking with tension as he got ready to shoot one of Devon’s men. Before Devon knew it, his pistol was in his hand.
A split-second choice. Shoot a soldier who was little more than a child or let a good man die—a man who’d left his wife and child to go to war.
He’d had to make the choice. That damnable, haunting, inhuman choice—
Cerise shifted on him.
He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t make love. Not now. He grasped her arms and hauled her off him, and she squeaked with surprise and fear as he dropped her down hard on his thighs. She scrambled forward, but he tightened his hold on her wrists so she couldn’t move.
“You—you’re hurting me.”
“It’s not going to work. Nothing you do will make the demons go away. You need to get off me and go upstairs, back to bed.”
“Demons?” she whispered huskily. “What demons, Your Grace?”
“Go away, angel.”
“The nightmares? Is that what you mean? You could tell me about them. I want to help you.” Her voice was purring temptation. The silly git wanted him to unburden his soul. To her.
“No.”
“Please, Your Grace, I am yours to help you in every way I can.” She ran her hands over his chest, down his abdomen, to his privates. She stroked him there. “I’m going to fondle you until you tell me.”
She thought she could tease him into some kind of sanity. Like Ashton, she thought all it would take was a bit of conversation and some fucking. “You have no idea, love. I’ve seen men torn apart by cannonballs and bullets.”
She gasped, and he knew it was in horror. But she wasn’t going to stop, was she, until he frightened her away?
“Even that’s enough to flood your mind with grisly images, isn’t it? You do not need to hear any more. Once you’ve seen things like that, you can’t make them go away. I can no longer see the back of my hand, but the color of human blood? Unforgettable.” He needed a drink. Needed to be alone. Right now he didn’t want to have to talk. He sure as hell didn’t want to hold anyone. He lifted her off his thighs, intending to plant her on the floor, but when he let her go, he heard her gasp in shock, heard her fall to the floor.
“You need to get away from me,” he barked, furious with himself. “Go up to your room.”
“I should stay. In case you have another nightmare—”
“And you’ll try to wake me? Put your pretty neck in my reach? What if I strangle you? Or start beating you to death because I’m out of my wits?”
“Y-you won’t.”
But she wasn’t sure, was she? He wasn’t bloody well sure. “I’ve hurt people, Cerise. Don’t you remember how I grabbed you and threw you to the floor when you first came here, because you touched me? And what kind of a touch was it?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean what did you do to me that made me leap up and slam you onto the ground?”
“I—I
brushed your hair out of your eyes.”
“Exactly. It was an inconsequential touch, but it set me off like a flame reaching a keg of gunpowder. I’m mad. The war, the battles, the blindness, the killing and the grief—I wasn’t strong enough to let it all just glance off me. I’m no war hero—all throughout the damned thing, I was filled with pain and fury and grief and doubts. A hero is a man who is filled with confidence, who takes action and doesn’t waste time on remorse. He doesn’t hide in the blasted dark. He gets a damned grip on himself. But I can’t. I’ve gone out of my wits, and I’m going madder by the day. I’m not getting better, I’m getting worse. That’s why I have Treadwell to scare people away.”
“You are drinking too much,” she said firmly. “That is probably why you are getting worse. If you were to stop drinking—”
“I like drinking,” he snapped. What was wrong with the chit? Didn’t she recognize the need to get away from him and stop arguing?
“But it doesn’t help—”
“It helps me. And I intend to do a fair bit of drinking right now. So you need to get out of this room and leave me alone. For the rest of the night, you will stay in that bedchamber. You will not come out until I summon you.”
Devon expected to hear her footsteps patter across the floor. If there ever was a cue for a woman to hasten out of a room, this was it. But, no, the stubborn wench was not moving.
“Go,” he roared. “Get out now.”
He should have felt satisfaction as her feet slapped against the floorboards, then the door slammed—obviously behind her as she left. Instead, he now needed a drink because he felt like a blackguard. War hero. His bark of laughter rang in the room. What a blasted joke that was.
Chapter Four
HEN SHE WOKE, Anne dazedly thought she was at home again. At Longsworth.
Rain drummed against the windowpanes with the patter of an excited heartbeat. A window had been left slightly open, and the room was filled with country smells she remembered: the crisp, cool scent of early morning, the rich aroma of wet hay, the nose-tickling perfume of meadows as wildflowers went to seed.
Dazedly, she rubbed her eyes. A forest-green silk canopy soared above her head. It was so very much like the one that had been over her father’s bed. Once when she was very little and playing hide-and-seek with her nurse, she’d hidden beneath Father’s bed. The hiding place had proved to be too good, hours had passed, and she’d fallen asleep there, sending the whole house into an uproar—
Sitting up abruptly, Anne kicked back the heavy counterpane and the silky sheets. She shook her head, shook away memories that made her throat ache and brought longing up in an engulfing wave.
She would not think about the past. That part of her life was over. The young girl who had lived in that house was gone and might as well be dead. And, depending on the duke’s decision, she might truly die, convicted for a crime she’d been forced to commit to save a child’s life, hanged even though she had acted to protect and Madame had been the one willing to kill.
No. She would not let it happen. To survive, she’d had to do so many sinful things. She would not give up now.
The rug was warm and cozy beneath her bare feet, but the cool, damp morning air penetrated her filmy shift and nipped at her bare skin. Shivering, she crossed to her dress, which she had draped over a chair of polished oak and green velvet. Her corset lay in a heap on the seat. She left it there and pulled on the gown.
Bother dresses. This was one of the gowns Kat had given Anne after she, and the three girls she’d rescued, sought refuge at Kat’s house. It was a low-cut creation of scarlet silk, and her friend had given it to her with a wave of her hand, claiming it was now a whole Season out of fashion and no longer of use. Anne didn’t believe that. Kat was being kind and generous, just as she’d been so very, very good to let Anne hide in her home and ask her friends to help the girls. Anne had known she couldn’t stay—Kat could be arrested for harboring her. Then the Earl of Ashton had come. Anne had hidden behind the parlor door while the fair-haired earl had begged Kat to help the duke, who was Kat’s friend. Ashton had pleaded with her to give March sex to help him heal, as he’d put it. Kat refused, but Anne believed she had the perfect solution. She would go—she would leave Kat and keep her friend from trouble, and she would save herself.
The gown gaped at her breasts. It was fashionable enough that it hung on her without proper underpinnings. There was no way she could lace her corset by herself, nor could she fasten the back of the dress. And she had left Kat’s in such haste she had no other clothing except her cloak, bonnet, and gloves.
Someone knocked lightly on her door, and the most delectable scents wafted through from the other side. Anne let the dress fall in defeat and dragged on the borrowed robe. “Come in.” She prayed it was a lady’s maid—someone who could help her dress.
But when the door swung wide, a footman backed in—the same wide-eyed young man who’d relayed the duke’s message the night before. He carried a tray laden with dishes. Steam coiled into the air in front of him. “Your Grace insisted this be sent up, miss. And he”—the young man blushed beneath his powdered wig—“requests that you eat heartily.”
Before he sent her back to London, His Grace meant.
The last thing she could face was food. She waved the tray away. “I can’t accept it. I’ve trespassed on his kindness long enough.”
The footman looked stricken. “His Grace will be angry if I don’t deliver this as I’m supposed to. I don’t want him displeased with me.”
The lad appeared to be absolutely terrified. Why? The duke had fought her last night, but that was during a dream. The rest of the time he was controlled, cool, and gentle. Far kinder than she deserved, given she was telling him a pack of lies. Though he had mentioned he threw chairs …
One thing she realized: The duke must be awake if he’d arranged for her breakfast. “Where is the duke? In his study? Or is he eating in a dining room?”
“I think His Grace is in the library, miss.”
The library? It seemed … odd, since he could not read, but perhaps it was a pleasant room. “I will need a maid to help me with my clothing.”
The lad vehemently shook his head. A poppy-red blush flooded his cheeks again. “His Grace used to have parties—naughty ones—here. So no women servants, His Grace said. He has me mum and me sisters come once a week for cleaning and dusting. And His Grace wishes to see you after your breakfast. When you finish, miss, if you ring for me, I’ll take you to him. He told me to say he wants to ask you some questions.”
He bowed and she waved him out. She could have slammed two of the silver lids together in frustration. She had no way of getting dressed.
What sort of questions did the duke want to ask? Fear roiled in her stomach. Did he not believe her story? It shouldn’t be a surprise—her tale was weak and filled with holes. Last night he’d been obviously suspicious. After all, he was right—a London madam would hardly spare a thought for a whore like her. There would be a dozen more innocents who could be plucked off the streets to replace her. Surely, though, he couldn’t know about Madame Sin’s murder. He wouldn’t have let her stay if he suspected she was the object of Bow Street’s hunt.
Her plan had been as filled with holes as her story. She’d believed that, because he was hiding here in the country, she could keep her identity a secret and become his mistress. How could she have hoped to do that forever?
Remember, Anne, it doesn’t have to be forever. Young handsome dukes probably didn’t keep mistresses for longer than a few months. By then, from gifts he gave her, from the allowance he would provide, she would have enough money to escape.
She glanced toward the window. A long drop to the ground, but dense woods ringed the lawns beyond the house. She could easily disappear in there. She could try to run now.…
But even if she did manage to avoid the Runners, how far could she get with no money? She’d used all her blunt to send three young girls from Madam
e’s brothel back to their homes and then to hire the carriage that had brought her here. The only way to truly escape was to leave the country, but she couldn’t afford passage on a ship.
Perhaps the only thing she had left was honesty. She should tell the duke everything.
Yes, tell him about her confrontation with Madame Sin and what had happened when Madame was going to shoot one of the three virgins Anne was trying to rescue. She would have to tell him Bow Street wanted to arrest her and admit that the Earl of Ashton had not paid her to come to him. Perhaps once he heard the truth, all of it, the duke would believe her. He would believe she did not deserve to die for saving a girl’s life. He would—
Anne almost laughed aloud at her foolishness. A duke would not help her. Would he care that she’d acted to defend herself and the girls? Or would he condemn her for being a murderess and believe she should hang, regardless of the circumstances?
“Damnation, why do this? Why torment yourself by touching books you’ll never read again?”
Devon groaned. He didn’t have an answer. And wasn’t talking aloud to himself another sign he was losing his mind?
His fingers closed around a book and he pulled it off the shelf. He felt the leather binding, the smooth gilt of the title. But he couldn’t distinguish the letters by touch. It was all he had left—his senses of touch, smell, his hearing. So far he’d decided it was a fallacy that his other senses would grow better. He didn’t think they had improved. They were just all he could use.
He breathed in the different smells: the mustiness of old books, the rich scent of leather bindings on the new ones, the tickle of the dust that clung to unreachable corners. His friends thought he’d taken the house solely to hold wild orgies, but he had liked to spend many of his evenings here reading. He’d stocked the shelves with thousands of books. Books his father never would have imagined he possessed. His father thought he spent all his time gaming, drinking, and skirt-chasing—and it was true he had spent most of his life doing that. Then, to everyone’s amazement, he had fallen in love. With Lady Rosalind Marchant. He had plummeted into it so hard and so fast it felt as if the world had rocked beneath his feet.
