Lord John laughed softly as if she’d made a witty remark at a society event. “He’s gulled you into thinking he’s sane, has he? I must say he can be quite convincing. Until he starts to shake and drool and lose control of his bowels. I doubt you’d be so quick to defend him then.”
The picture was so graphic, nausea rose in her throat. She wanted to call Lord John a liar. But what did she know? She’d been here five days. His uncle had known the marquess all his life. Still, she spoke through stiff lips. “I don’t believe you.”
“It is of no importance what you believe.” His tone hardened. “You have one week to lure my nephew into your bed.”
She stepped back from the chair and straightened her shoulders. Even in the overheated room, the sweat on her skin was cold, although not as cold as the bleak knowledge seeping into her mind. There was no escape. There would never be any escape.
“And if I don’t?”
Lord John’s expression became, if anything, more condescending. “You die and I instruct Monks and Filey to locate a replacement. Hopefully, one with a greater sense of self-preservation.”
“This is monstrous.” She sought but failed to find guilt or regret in his impassive face.
“Yes, perhaps it is.” He sounded unconcerned.
She pressed one shaking hand to her roiling stomach to calm it. “So it’s death or dishonor?” she said with false bravado.
“Death in any case,” he said negligently. Then he paused and a calculating light entered the flat gray eyes. “Although if you prove your trustworthiness and bring my nephew up to snuff, we needn’t be so final about your eventual fate.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, even though she knew he played with her to gain obedience and had no intention of negotiating concessions. She’d been a naïve fool when she rushed into this room, but she was a naïve fool no longer.
He shrugged. “Just that I reward those who serve me well. This past year, Sheene hasn’t been himself. If I see you’ve taken my wishes to heart and my nephew returns to his former health and vigor, you may rely on my gratitude.”
She was past guarding her words. “So if I prostitute myself, the payment is freedom?”
He didn’t even blink at her biting question. “I offer the suggestion merely as incentive.” He stood. He was tall, but not as tall as the marquess. “You have a week. One guarantee I will make is if you fail, next Saturday is your last day on earth. After Monks and Filey have taken their turn at you, of course. They blundered in this scheme, but they’re faithful. As I said, I reward loyalty.”
“You’re a devil.” The words seemed to come from a long way away. She sucked in a gulp of heavy air but her vision remained cloudy. While a suffocating sense of unreality rose to crush her, one memory remained cruelly clear. Filey’s hands mauling her breasts and his foul breath in her face as he promised degradation.
Death she could bear if she must. The prospect of Lord John’s foul henchmen raping her made her want to scream until she had no voice left.
The monster came around the table and gripped her arm in merciless fingers. “Think upon what I’ve said, Mrs. Paget. You’re comely enough to snare my nephew if you try.”
He trailed one white hand down her cheek. She tried to flinch away but subsided into shuddering stillness when he pressed his thumb hard into the base of her throat. She gagged on a strangled whimper.
He continued in the same reflective tone even while his thumb pushed and pushed at her windpipe, choking her. “Don’t imagine lack of cooperation will meet with lenience. Replacing you presents only minor inconvenience.”
He released his bruising hold. She stumbled free. Through an aching throat, she struggled to breathe.
“Don’t touch me,” she managed to rasp, blindly fumbling for the wall to keep herself upright. A little while ago, she’d offered to kneel. Now she couldn’t countenance the idea of collapsing in front of him.
He clicked his tongue in disapproval as though at a naughty child. “You must rise above such fastidiousness, madam. You have a week.”
“I won’t do this,” she said in a low shaking voice.
“Then face the consequences.” He nodded in her direction. “Good day, Mrs. Paget.”
She couldn’t bear to turn and watch him leave. She listened to the even tap of his cane as he crossed the floor, then the gentle click of the closing door. Lord John had done everything carefully and softly. His voice hadn’t risen above a murmur when he promised her destruction.
Grace raised a quivering hand to her lips and stared sightlessly down at the table. Danger crowded upon her from all sides of this darkened, stifling room.
Suddenly, she craved air and light. She lunged across to rattle back the curtains and fling open the windows. Great lungfuls of clear spring air brought her rioting stomach under control. But nothing shifted the leaden weight of hopelessness and fear. She suspected that burden would remain until the day she died.
The day she died might only be a week away.
“Congratulations,” the marquess said from behind her, his tone edged with lacerating contempt. “My uncle must be so pleased with you. He looked even smugger than usual when he left.”
Through her panic, she hadn’t heard him come in. She didn’t shift from the window.
“Did you speak to him?” The words scraped over her sore throat. She didn’t need to look at Lord Sheene to know the bristling animosity was back.
“No. He finds my company uncongenial.” Again that acerbic drawl. “But I’m sure he enjoyed his coze with you, Mrs. Paget. Particularly when you told him how easily you gulled me.”
She barely believed what she heard. Surely he must guess Lord John’s coze had involved only threats and terror.
Slowly, she turned. Lord Sheene leaned indolently against the wall near the door, his arms folded across his chest. His expression was shuttered but she read the anger blazing beneath his sangfroid.
He was her only ally against Lord John’s evil. She needed him to trust her. She needed an hour unshadowed by fear. Futile to list what she needed. The stark reality struck that what she needed above all was survival.
What would survival cost?
“You cannot think I’m in league with your uncle,” she said in a broken voice.
“I cannot think otherwise. You and he shared a long, apparently fruitful conversation and he reeked of self-satisfaction when I saw him step into his coach a few moments ago. Tell me—what’s the next scene in this farce?” He sounded as though he didn’t care but a muscle jerked spasmodically in his lean cheek, eloquent witness to temper.
She felt as though she’d been shaking forever. She was too distraught to dissemble. “I am to cozen you into my bed.”
His haughty expression didn’t alter. “Surely that was your cause from the start. No need to exert yourself with this show of desperation. Your terrified act duped me once before. The repeat performance isn’t nearly so effective. Perhaps eschew the vulnerability and adopt a more seductive manner.”
Grace flinched. He sounded like he hated her. If he truly believed she connived with his uncle, who could blame him? She met the marquess’s burning eyes, frantically searching for some goodwill, some trace of the man who had been almost cordial less than an hour ago. “My lord, I’m in trouble.”
He smiled, a grim twist of his beautiful mouth. “You most certainly are, Mrs. Paget. Especially when my uncle realizes I stand by my vow not to touch you.”
“You won’t help me.” The words emerged as a thread of sound. Something clenched inside her like a cold hard fist. She felt lost in an endless desert.
His inimical gaze flicked across her as if she were eternally beneath his notice. The look was terrifyingly similar to the one his uncle had cast upon her. Then a smile conveyed rejection and triumph in equal measure. “Help you, madam? How may a poor madman help you when he cannot help himself?”
“You have to believe me when I say I don’t conspire with your uncle.”
His response bit at her like a whiplash. “On the contrary, my dear Mrs. Paget, I don’t have to believe anything you say.”
“I’m telling you the truth,” she insisted in helpless despair.
“Truth?” He gave a short, contemptuous laugh. “You don’t know the meaning of the word.”
“I beg of you, my lord, help me.”
His expression hardened and his mouth flattened with implacable rejection. “You waste your time with these theatrics. I told you—I’m awake to your deceit.”
Weak, useless tears welled up. She could see that nothing she said would convince him she wasn’t his enemy. All hope was lost. All hope had been lost from when she’d set out to find Vere in Bristol.
She stumbled toward the door. She didn’t have the strength to argue with the man she must seduce. The man who had never liked her, most emphatically didn’t want her, and who now quite obviously loathed her.
He turned his head as she reached him and spoke with a detachment she knew was feigned. “Just tell me one thing, Mrs. Paget—are you my uncle’s lover?”
She stopped as if she collided with an invisible barrier and stared at him aghast. For the first time, she really believed he was out of his mind.
Another woman might have slapped him. But she was too astonished for outrage.
As her shocked silence extended, he straightened away from the wall and brushed past. She didn’t move as she listened to him stride out of the cottage. His rapid steps suggested he couldn’t bear to breathe the same air as she did for another second.
Chapter 8
Matthew stretched out as far as he could—not bloody far enough—on his awkward sofa and listened to Grace pace in the room above. It was late, past midnight. As if to prove him right, the hall clock chimed two. He hadn’t slept. From what he heard upstairs, neither had she.
They hadn’t met since he’d challenged her with being his uncle’s mistress. For the first time, she hadn’t come down to dinner. He wondered if she’d eaten, then chided himself for caring about the artful trull’s well-being. She could sulk up there until Kingdom Come as far as he was concerned.
Burning anger still choked him. Anger with her. And with himself for allowing her to sneak under his barriers. He’d always known she was his uncle’s creature, a superb actress ready to go to any length to convince her unwilling audience of one. God knows she’d even drugged herself to nausea to achieve that last touch of verisimilitude.
Yet she’d gained his cooperation, his friendship, his trust. Or at least she’d been on the verge of gaining those things. If he hadn’t emerged from the courtyard in time to see his uncle drive away, he might have fallen into her warm, fragrant trap.
He’d wanted to kill her then.
He rolled over on the couch, but five nights’ experience told him there was no comfortable position for a man of his height. Savagely, he punched the cushions under his head.
What use lying awake and stewing over her duplicity? He should be inured to treachery. Betrayal had dogged him for the last eleven years. Hers was just one more instance, and scarcely the most significant.
Although that wasn’t how it felt.
A step creaked. What the hell was she doing? Perhaps she wanted a walk, unlikely as the hour was. He’d welcome surcease from her damned endless pacing.
She paused outside the salon. The door squeaked faintly as she pushed it open. Immediately, he lay still, feigning sleep.
His senses were always abnormally sharp around her. He heard the uneven saw of her breath, the rustle of her clothing. Not the rasp of the silks or satins that seemed to constitute her wardrobe. No, this was something softer that whispered as she moved.
She crept inside, then paused in the center of the room. He dared a quick look under his lashes. She wore something pale and filmy so he had no trouble locating her.
She’d never approached him at night. Clearly, Lord John’s visit had incited her to take the initiative. What other purpose could bring her here silent as a ghost? His uncle had ordered her to bed him and like a good little puppet, she danced to the tug of the strings.
The reminder of his uncle stirred his anger. Thank Christ. Otherwise, he’d have leapt to his feet and grabbed her, damn the consequences.
Her scent called to him, tempting him to forget everything except that she was close enough to touch. His hands balled against his sides.
If he touched her, he’d take her.
He resented her. He mistrusted her. But he couldn’t deny he wanted her.
He didn’t know how long they waited. He, pretending to sleep. She, trapped between fleeing and advancing. All the time, his unruly flesh swelled and rose, insisting she was his for the price of reaching out his hand.
“I know you’re awake,” she said huskily.
“Yes.” He gave a heavy sigh and sat up, placing his bare feet flat upon the floor. Although it was dark, he dragged the blanket across to cover his nakedness. “What do you want, Mrs. Paget?” he asked wearily, running his hands through his hair.
“I don’t know.”
That was a lie. They both knew why she was here. She was his uncle’s obedient cipher. But God help him, she sounded so innocent and bewildered. He tried to revive his earlier rage but he was too dizzy with lust.
“Sweet Jesus,” he muttered to himself rather than to her. He couldn’t take much more. He stood, hitching the blanket more securely. She gasped and lurched back. Copulation might be her goal but she seemed less than reconciled to the idea.
The darkness was dangerously intimate. He leaned across and lit a candle to dispel the web of awareness between them.
A futile hope. He was always aware of her.
She’d tied her thick dark hair into a glossy plait that fell across one shoulder and dangled between her breasts. Under her transparent ice-blue night rail, the outline of her slender body was visible.
She kept her gaze lowered. Even so, she must have sensed where his eyes dwelt. To his reluctant regret, she wrapped her arms around herself, covering her chest. It was a characteristic gesture she used when she was frightened, or at least pretending to be so.
“You’re safe enough,” he said in a dismissive tone, praying it was true. “I can restrain my manly passions.”
“You don’t have any manly passions,” she said sullenly.
“What?”
He stared at her, startled. A flush of color seeped under the creamy skin of her face.
“No, I meant…That is…” She took a deep breath and at last looked at him. Unbelievably, he watched the beautiful eyes widen and fix on his bare chest. Her color rose higher and her tongue flickered out to moisten her lips. Her arms dropped loosely to her sides as though she offered herself. If he hadn’t known better, he’d believe she found him as compelling as he found her.
She wrenched her gaze up to meet his. “I’m sorry. I referred to your interactions with me. I mean, I’m sure you have manly passions. Every man…” She trailed off. She glanced away and her attention focused on the rumpled sofa. “I didn’t know you slept down here.”
He shrugged. “You occupy the only bed in the house.”
“I know.” Again she licked her lips, pink, moist, succulent. The simple action tightened the coil of lust inside him. “Or I know now. I looked for you upstairs but only one chamber is set up for sleeping.”
That explained some of the restless movement he’d heard. The picture of her pursuing him through the darkened house was evocative enough to stop his breath. Thank God for the blanket around his waist or his unwelcome visitor would have no doubt about his manly passions.
He bent his head in an ironical bow. “Until your delightful advent into my existence, I hadn’t expected to entertain guests.”
She flinched at his sarcasm. His brain kept telling him she was a deceitful little cat. His heart stubbornly insisted that every time he attacked her, he should be horsewhipped.
Right now, though, even the most obstinate part of his mind foun
d it hard to credit she was quite the lying witch he believed her. She followed his every move with her drowned dark sapphire eyes as if unsure whether he meant to tumble her or strangle her.
Although if she were genuinely reluctant, she’d cover her body with a robe. If she were genuinely reluctant, she wouldn’t be in this room at all. He forced his gaze away from the tantalizing shadows beneath her flat belly.
“I want to talk to you,” she said in a reedy voice.
“Do you?” he asked unhelpfully.
She wasn’t here to talk. There was only one reason she stood before him in her delightful dishabille. She contrived to seduce him as his uncle had commanded.
Now the time had come, and she was unable to complete the act. He mocked himself for that burning instant when he’d imagined she felt the first sparks of desire.
“Yes.” There was a pause while she sought some reason to explain disturbing him in the middle of the night. Then in a rush, “It’s not fitting that you sleep here. You’re the Marquess of Sheene. You should have the bedchamber.”
Aha, he thought, fighting the urge to tell her to stop talking and just do what she’d come for. Perhaps she meant to lure him to her bed first. He cast a derisive glance at his inconvenient couch. She’d certainly be more comfortable under him upstairs.
Then she confounded him as she almost always did. “I could sleep in here.”
So she wasn’t inviting him to share the bedroom. He had no right to be disappointed. As long as his will held—and it wavered by the second—he had no intention of tupping her.
“No, keep the bed,” he said shortly. How could he bear to sleep where she had slept? The idea was too evocative, fatal to his will.
“Your uncle said you’d been ill.”
His laugh was humorless. “Of course I’ve been ill. I went mad.”
The serious gaze didn’t falter. “No, he said you’d been ill this last year.”
“I see you were in the mood for confidences.”
She studied him with that damnably steady regard as if she meant to uncover his every secret. He had a strange premonition in his gut that she’d succeed. “Your uncle is an evil man,” she said softly.
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