by Lucy Ashford
With those few words, Deb realised that this man had come to mean so much to her that her world—yes, even her beloved, familiar world of the Players—would be nothing without him.
She’d seen the public façade he put on for outsiders, and tonight she’d seen the tenderness in his eyes for his little sister. She also knew that beneath the iron control he exerted over himself, there was something primitive raging. The passionate need to see justice done, for his brother and for his family; whatever the method, whomever he had to use and destroy.
It would be safer to hate him. Instead a bone-deep longing for this proud man infected every part of her being. Seeing him so tender with his sister, Laura, had reminded her that he could be so kind that it took her breath away. Yet he despised her, and thought her nothing but a cheap little actress. He thought that she could be bought.
And she’d done little to dispel his illusions tonight, she thought wearily. That kiss just now. Another few moments, and...
Deb had spent the past few years having to guard her emotions, and she would continue to do so. But—if only she’d never met him. If only he hadn’t been travelling to hateful Hugh Palfreyman’s on the day she’d decided to burgle Hardgate Hall. If only...
He loosened his cravat and went to sit on a chair, resting his forehead in one hand.
‘You don’t have to send me away,’ she said steadily.
He rose again, forcing his limbs to work. He forced his mind to work, which made a change from the last few days, he thought bitterly. Laura’s arrival had made him see sense. He’d been living in a world of ridiculous delusion, thinking that he could have her. Could have the lovely young woman who was looking at him now with her clear golden eyes.
Deborah. He said the name to himself softly, gazing down at her, drinking in everything about her, because he knew that his little sister’s arrival was a timely warning, and this had to be the end.
But even now, she drew out from the recesses of his heart some fathomless emotions he didn’t realise he possessed. She looked bewildered. She also looked utterly beautiful. She shone like a candle flame on a dark, dark night. She was bright, brave and honest. And he was using her.
Yes, she’d hesitated over telling him the truth, about the jewels being counterfeit. But he, Beau, had lied to her from the very beginning. Because he’d already guessed that Simon might well have gambled the jewels away, and so he’d sent her forth, the unknowing and innocent bait in the trap, to draw out the truth. He was the one who was despicable.
And she looked as if his talk of dismissal had stunned her. He raked his hand through his dark hair. ‘I must send you away,’ he said. ‘Back to your actor friends. I’ve decided that I cannot go on with this.’
She hadn’t realised she could hurt so much. ‘But what about the memorial service for your brother? And—people have seen me, Beau.’ That was the first time she’d called him that. She was still gazing up at him, her vulnerability for once laid utterly bare. ‘How are you going to make me just disappear again?’
‘I’ll say that you found appearing in public too much of a strain.’
‘But it’s important for me to be at this memorial service—you told me so. It would have been important to Simon...’
He shook his head. ‘I can’t ask you to go through with it.’
She said steadily, ‘And don’t I get any say in the matter? What if I want to do this, for Simon’s sake?’
He looked incredulous. ‘You didn’t even know him.’
She faced him stubbornly. ‘Does that matter? I owe nothing to Paulette and her family, that’s for sure. But you must have loved your brother so much, just as you love and care for Laura—’
‘No,’ he said, suddenly urgent. ‘I let Simon down. Always.’
‘I don’t think so,’ she said steadily. ‘I don’t think you would willingly let anyone down.’
She spoke with such sincerity, and with such belief in him, that he was shaken to the foundations of his being. Nobody had spoken to him like that, ever. No one had looked at him with such complete and utter trust.
Emotion is weakness. That was what his father had taught him, over and over again. But suddenly, for Beau, only she existed; only she and the wild surge of wanting that he’d never experienced in his life before. He’d known plenty of women, all of them eager and willing, but this one was different.
Her golden eyes, like a cat’s, were full of fathomless depths that he wanted to explore. He felt that in taking her he’d be trying to catch the whispering breeze, or the pure scent of some rare forest flower...
Pure? Who the hell was he fooling? ‘Damn it,’ he muttered aloud, only then he saw her flinch at his oath, at his cynicism; she was backing away as if he’d physically hurt her, and he recognised something almost like despair in her dark-lashed eyes. He reached out to catch her small hands, which were still sheathed in black mourning gloves.
‘Don’t go,’ Beau said. His voice was almost hoarse with desire.
Deborah lifted her eyes steadfastly to his hard blue gaze. In that moment, she saw the longing there, and a kind of hollow despair that matched her own. She realised, with a great leap of her heart, that he was suffering as intensely, perhaps, as she was. And suddenly, she reached up to touch his cheek.
He shivered slightly, and for a heartbeat she wondered if she’d made an appalling mistake. Then he was dragging her into his arms, pressing kisses to the top of her head. ‘Don’t leave me tonight,’ he whispered. ‘Please.’
She rose up on tiptoe, and her lips met his. Moments later, they were upstairs. In his bedroom. With the door locked, and no time now for regrets.
* * *
Beau acknowledged that his sister’s arrival had given them their one opportunity to leave each other alone, and they’d have been wise to take it. But now it was too late. No time for regrets.
He never stopped kissing her as he eased her on to the quilted silk coverlet of his big, lonely bed. He didn’t stop kissing her as he pulled away her shawl, revealing the upper curves of her smooth breasts. Just for a moment she tried to cover them with her hands, but he grasped her wrists very gently and eased his hips over hers, pressing her down against the bed, allowing her to feel how very much he wanted her.
Her black skirt was already splayed out, and he was able to slide his hand beneath it up to the top of her thigh; he felt the tiny movements of her hips as her body instinctively begged for his possession. Kissing her again, cherishing her mouth with deep, slow strokes of his tongue, he encountered the soft curls of her maidenhair with his forefinger, and as he continued to explore gently, he felt her gasp against his mouth, a gasp that turned to a moan of longing as he stroked her, roused her. She clasped her hands around his shoulders and quivered, her trembling body acutely sensitised.
He couldn’t control his own desire for much longer. He reached to unfasten himself, then he shifted down on to the bed beside her again, sliding his hands under the luscious curve of her bottom, lifting her until he could feel the warmth and passion of her silken body in his arms. Pressing kisses to her throat, he unfastened her damned dress at last—where were the buttons? The side, you fool, down the side—then the petticoat, and the corset. And exultation surged at last through his veins, along with despair, as he gazed down at her luscious naked form and bent his head to take first one sweet nipple in his mouth, then the other.
They leaped to his touch. She cried out his name—Beau—and tangled her fingers jerkily in his hair as her legs moved for him, opened for him. This had been inevitable, he thought almost viciously as he eased his hips between her thighs. He had known this was going to happen from the moment he met her. And he should have damned well stopped it, before it was too late—but it was already too late.
Lifting his head, he moved his hands down her ribs, across the quivering flatness of her stomach. Taking
his weight on to his elbows, he arranged himself so that his erection was nudging at her silken folds, and he heard her gasp. Surely—surely she couldn’t be nervous of this? Of pregnancy, perhaps. That must be it.
‘It’s all right,’ he breathed. ‘It’s all right.’
Trying to keep some sort of control, he reached to guide her legs around his. Then he began his rhythmic thrusts, and her breathing grew jagged, her words incoherent.
He put his mouth to her breast again. He reached with his hand to finger her at that most sensitive of places where her desire centred, and he knew when she was almost there, because the frantic tightening of her body around him told him so. Engulfing need raged through him as he continued to pleasure her with deep, deliberate strokes, and she was crying out her ecstasy, arching her back and crying for more, climbing to her extremity.
How could this sweet girl be a whore? Dear God, it was almost as if this was her very first time! But there, rational thought ended. He plunged deep inside her, again and again, while she called out his name. Her climax all but engulfed her. When she’d finished, he kissed her lips—his last moment of restraint—then he pulled out and spent himself, hungrily, almost viciously. She kissed him afterwards, pressing tiny, hot kisses all over his chest and his face, while he soothed her and tried not to think of the consequences of what he’d just done.
Tangled in one another’s arms, they slept.
* * *
When Deborah woke, the full moon was casting its light through the filmy curtains, and the gilded clock on the marble fireplace told her that it was a little past two. Beau was asleep beside her, and she was curled in his arms. She eased herself away, careful not to wake him, shocked beyond words by the enormity of what had just happened. By what she’d allowed to happen.
Her eyes swept the moonlit room, taking in the opulence of it—the grandeur of its hand-painted wallpaper, the extravagance of the beautiful walnut furniture and priceless gilded ornaments. The man who’d just made love to her was a peer of the realm—a Duke—and she was nobody. Very carefully she moved from beneath the smooth sheets and went to sit by the window, pulling back the curtains just a little so she could gaze out into the moon-bright garden.
She knew that for rich, powerful men like the Duke of Cirencester there were three categories of women. The first kind were the ones they married, and, oh, God, she was as far from that as she was from the moon and the stars. Then there were the women they took as their public mistresses—women who were often wealthy in their own right, and were of a high enough status to mean there was no shame attached to being seen with them in public. Indeed, these elegant chère-amies were often set up in pleasant town houses, and attended social engagements at their lovers’ sides without any censure from society.
That censure was saved for the females the rich men visited in secret. The trollops. The ones they were ashamed of.
That was all she could be. In her past, she’d had only one brief and hateful experience of intimacy, with Jack Bentall—but that was enough to make her damaged goods. She had hated Bentall’s lovemaking, and had thought that no man could ever cure her of her revulsion. But now she gazed across at the Duke’s sleeping figure and remembered what it had been like to be in his arms, and to share that extremity of passion with him. She felt her lips still burning where he had kissed her.
Then he stirred. She watched, her heart pounding, as he stretched himself, and opened his eyes, and—
‘Deborah?’ he murmured huskily. ‘Deborah?’
More abruptly, he raised himself on one elbow and saw her by the window. ‘I thought you’d gone,’ he said, very quietly. ‘Stay with me. Please.’
She tried to be strong. ‘The servants might find out I’m here. Your sister, Laura, might find out...’
‘They won’t,’ he said. ‘Only Delaney ever comes to my rooms, and he, along with Armitage and my coachman, are the only three people in the world whom I would trust with my life. Come here.’
He held out his arms, and she let him enfold her once more in his embrace. He made love to her again, worshipping every inch of her body with his mouth, his lips, his virile power, and she responded with equal urgency, revelling in the glorious male strength of him. For a while she slept in his arms, but at dawn she was wide awake, and he was too. ‘I’d better go to my own room,’ she whispered. ‘Before Bethany arrives.’
He held her tightly. ‘I don’t want you to go. But you’re right.’
So she crept from his bed before even the servants were up. Just as well she was going back to her own rooms, she thought dizzily. She would at least be able to catch up a little on her sleep.
* * *
At nine, Bethany brought in her morning tea and toast, and soon after that Beau’s sister arrived, full of plans.
‘I know that you’re in mourning, Paulette,’ Laura declared, settling herself on her bed. ‘But you are allowed to go out a little, aren’t you? You must be, because last night I know you went to that party with Beau. Will you come for a carriage ride with me in the park later today? Beau said it would be all right, if you wore your veil and if I behaved myself. And I’d far rather go with you than with Miss Champion, who can be so dreary. Oh, and at four, Madame Lisette, who makes the most divine bonnets, is coming to show me some of the newest designs from Paris, so will you look at them with me, please?’
* * *
Thus was set the pattern of the next few days. Morning and afternoon, Laura was with Deb almost constantly, and sometimes they went for drives in the park. But at night, when the house was quiet, Beau would come to Deborah’s bedroom, and their need for each other would be overwhelming, shocking even in its intensity. Time and time again he would bring her to a shuddering release, and she would almost beg for mercy; but he would kiss her, he would kiss her everywhere and begin all over again until even he was sated.
I am in love, she realised dazedly as he slept at last. She gazed at his strong, perfect profile, which was dusky with stubble; his eyes were closed; she was lying in his arms, her cheek against his chest, her legs still tangled with his. She loved him. And it couldn’t last. It mustn’t, for her sake as well as his.
* * *
Laura had a passion for the theatre, Deb soon realised, and to visit a London play, especially in the company of her big brother, was to her the height of pleasure. She told Deb about the productions she’d seen in Brighton with her friend Helen and her mother.
‘Will you come to the theatre with me, Paulette?’ Laura asked. ‘When your mourning is over?’
Deb hesitated. When her mourning was over, she would have no place in this family’s life. But she said evasively, ‘I should like that very much.’
‘I’m glad. Though you used to dislike the theatre excessively, you know, and sometimes Simon or Beau would take me instead!’
A bad mistake there, Deb. ‘Well,’ she said quickly, ‘perhaps I meant that even if the play doesn’t particularly appeal to me, it would still be a pleasure to keep you company.’
‘Oh, good! Paulette, do you know anything about a play by William Shakespeare where brave King Harry fights the French?’
‘Do you mean Henry V? Yes, a little.’
‘I don’t suppose you remember the speech that King Harry made before the battle of Agincourt, do you? I saw it performed in Brighton, and it was wonderful!’
Deb actually knew the whole scene by heart, but she said, ‘I’ll go and fetch it for you, shall I, Laura? I know your brother has a volume of Shakespeare in his library. I’m sure he won’t mind if we borrow it.’
She hurried down the stairs, thinking that in fact, Beau might even be pleased. He’d said to her that he feared his sister’s mind was too filled with frivolity and gossip—so surely a little Shakespeare was to be encouraged?
She burst into his study, and stopped.
S
he’d thought he was out—a business meeting, he’d said—but she hadn’t realised that the business meeting was here, with Mr Armitage. She felt the colour warm her cheeks. Be careful, you fool, or Armitage will see how much Beau means to you... ‘I’m so sorry, your Grace,’ she blurted out. ‘I was hoping to borrow a volume of Shakespeare, if possible. There is a play that Laura wishes to study.’
‘By all means.’ Beau’s demeanour, unlike hers, was perfectly cool as he pulled the book down and put it on his desk for her. ‘And, while you are here, you might like to look at these.’
He pointed to an open, silk-lined box on his desk, wherein lay the most exquisite pieces of jewellery she had ever seen—a superb necklace and matching earrings, made of rubies and diamonds that almost set the room ablaze.
The Brandon jewels. And they were as different from the counterfeits Mr Newman had shown her as silk from sackcloth. ‘So you got them from Lord Featherstone?’
‘Armitage—’ Beau gestured to his secretary ‘—negotiated for them. But your help was invaluable in ascertaining what had happened to them.’
She gazed at them again, nestling in their box. ‘You were always most welcome, your Grace,’ she said quietly, ‘to any help I could offer. What will happen to the jewels now?’
He looked surprised. ‘They’ll go back in the safe, of course. Where else?’
‘It just seems a pity,’ she blurted out. ‘To go to so much trouble, for something that will be locked away again, for ever...’
She broke off, conscious of Armitage staring at her in astonishment, and the Duke—Beau—tightening his jaw in that way he had when she’d said too much. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘It wasn’t my place to say that.’
She took the book and hurried out quickly, closing the door. He had the jewels he wanted so very badly. There was only the memorial service to be got through now. And then—that would be it, wouldn’t it? That would be—the end.
