Then he furiously combed every inch of the villa, although he already knew the crafty bitch he’d kept in such high style would have made sure nothing here could help him trace her. She hadn’t even left him so much as a mug to smash, and by the time he’d finished his mad search, he dearly needed to smash something. Preferably Ben Ahbood’s smug face.
All the time, his mind circled the problem of Soraya and just how much of a fool she’d made of him in their dizzyingly expensive year together.
Ben Ahbood was not mute after all. If he was not mute, it was highly unlikely he was a eunuch either. And no man could know Soraya without wanting her.
So had she played Kylemore false with her manservant?
They had been living together, Devil take them. Only a soup-brained nitwit could imagine their relationship was innocent.
The idea of that hulking brute grunting over Soraya’s pale naked beauty became too much. Cursing, Kylemore burst out of the house into the garden. He breathed deeply and struggled to order the anarchy hurtling through his head.
He was Cold Kylemore, famous for his self-control. No damned twopenny whore and her fancy man could disrupt his sangfroid.
Where the hell could she have gone? Why in the name of all that was holy had she left him? Had she really abandoned him for another lover?
Casting around desperately for clues to her disappearance, the duke thought back to what he knew of the woman who had shared his bed this past year. Surprisingly little, he realized.
Now, futilely, he wished he’d taken the time to find out more. But he had been so lost to his physical passion that he’d never paused to explore more than her body.
He turned sightlessly back toward the house that had witnessed some of the few happy hours of his adult life. With evening closing in, it loomed before him. Dark. Lost. Forsaken.
If that treacherous slut thought she had left the Duke of Kylemore similarly bereft, she’d learned nothing during their liaison.
And if she imagined she had eluded him with her lies and her midnight flit, she was wrong about that as well.
“Damn her,” he whispered into the encroaching night. “Damn her to hell.” He could no longer bear to be here, where Soraya had been and now so abruptly was not.
The empty house seemed to mock him as he mounted his horse. Ignoring the animal’s snort of protest, he wheeled around and galloped for London in a furious clatter of hooves.
He rode hard. He rode blindly. He rode without a care for the fine horseflesh between his thighs. And all the time, his mind beat out a rhythm of the chase.
Soraya, Soraya, Soraya.
Only when he was back in Town did necessity force him to ease his breakneck pace. When his horse nearly trampled a woman crossing the street, he took a deep breath and hauled on the reins.
He shook his head to clear it and looked around at the twilit city. How strange that life should continue normally for other people when his own world had changed so irrevocably in the space of an afternoon. Around him, shopkeepers closed up, children played with hoops and tops and dolls, families took the late spring air. All perfectly usual. All things he’d seen ten thousand times before.
His attention focused on a pair of sweethearts poring over a shop window. A tall young man and a pretty blonde girl.
How he hated them. How he wanted them dead.
And he wanted them to scream as they died.
A woman in a stylish bonnet moved past them, a small woman with a trim waist and a fashionable air. A woman who moved with a peculiar grace.
His breath caught in his throat.
He flung himself from the saddle. In this crowd, he had a better chance of catching her on foot. And by heaven, he meant to catch her.
The woman turned the corner out of sight.
Soraya had underestimated him indeed if she’d thought he wouldn’t find her so close to home.
Without a thought for his horse, he set off at a run. He treated the people in the street as so many inanimate obstacles, hurling them out of the way without excuse or apology, not pausing when he recklessly knocked a child’s hoop flying or sent a puppy skittering out of his path. Only one thing mattered—that the traitorous strumpet didn’t escape him.
As he rounded the corner, he slipped and almost fell. When he steadied himself against the rough brickwork, the jade was ahead of him, looking for all the world as if she was enjoying a pleasant evening’s stroll.
Oh, she would pay for what she’d done to him. She would pay with everything she had to give. And then he would demand more. And she didn’t even know her short-lived bid for freedom had ended.
How delightful. How he would laugh when he saw her face.
His lips curved in a wolfish smile as he contemplated his inevitable triumph over the presumptuous baggage.
He dived forward and grabbed her, not caring how his fingers bit into that slender shoulder. The woman gasped and turned.
But he already knew.
“I beg your pardon?” she snapped in outrage.
Kylemore’s hand dropped away as an awful weight settled on his heart. This was not Soraya. Soraya was too clever to risk discovery after what he now recognized as all her planning.
“I was mistaken, madam. My apologies. I thought you were someone else.”
“Keep your hands to yourself, sir, until you are sure of whom you are accosting!” She was an attractive piece, past first youth, but with a nice sensual mouth and flashing dark eyes. Once, he might have taken the time to soothe her temper and discover whether that shapely figure was a product of corsetry alone.
Kylemore made his excuses again, but in truth, he’d already forgotten the woman. He flicked her from his mind with no more thought than he’d give a speck of lint on his coat. Less thought, in fact. His tailoring was always high on his list of priorities.
He headed back to where he’d leaped so precipitately from the saddle. God knew if his horse would still be there.
But some public-minded citizen had tied it to a hitching post outside an inn. At least he wouldn’t have to walk all the way to Mayfair—although in his present frame of mind, it might be safer if he did.
He mounted and rode on, but his attention was focused far from the capital’s busy streets.
Where could Soraya be? He had known her six years. Something over that time must hint at her whereabouts.
With a pang he didn’t want to examine, he recalled his first sight of her. Like lightning from a clear summer sky, she had just arrived in London from Paris. Her protector then had been Sir Eldreth Morse, a rich and aging baronet who had held some embassy position in the French capital. Sir Eldreth was a bachelor with a passion for beautiful things. And by far the most beautiful thing in his famous collection was his young mistress, the incomparable Soraya.
Kylemore, frankly curious to view this creature who had set the men of the ton on their collective ear, had met her at Morse’s town house shortly afterward. He’d been unprepared for his reaction, although the level of the furor should have warned him.
Because, of course, London had seen beautiful women before.
But Soraya was…more.
One look at her across Sir Eldreth’s drawing room and Kylemore had known the same urge to possess and conquer that had raised his reaving ancestors from minor Highland lairds to dukes of the realm.
But the cool-eyed beauty’s lack of interest in him had been insultingly plain. Nothing he did or said, no material inducement he dangled before her exquisite nose could separate her from her elderly lover.
That season, every man in the beau monde seemed to scheme to steal her away. Until it finally became obvious she was, astonishingly, perfectly content to remain loyal to her keeper.
And that was when her real notoriety started.
Three young men, all bright hopes of their generation, shot themselves for love of her. There were duels, several killing matters, even though the survivors must have known their victory brought them no closer to obtaining what
they so desperately desired.
Within months of her arrival, Sir Eldreth Morse’s mistress was the most hated and most idolized and most scandalous woman in England.
Kylemore observed the chaos with increasing frustration. Surely he could do something to make her his. But all his power, all his fortune, all his attractions couldn’t shift her from her damned inexplicable devotion to the portly baronet.
Secretly, he sent investigators to France to ferret out what they could about her. But she’d been both as famous, as faithful and as elusive in Paris as she was in London.
Of course, rumors abounded, but all proved infuriatingly difficult to substantiate. Some said Sir Eldreth had rescued her from a Turkish harem—or a harem in Egypt or Syria or Persia. Unlikely heroics for the notably sedentary baronet, although the evidence of the girl’s name indicated some exotic origin.
If her name really was Soraya, which Kylemore had always doubted.
Other people believed she was a laundress Morse had picked up in the alleyways around Les Halles. Or she was a former child prostitute who had seen her chance with the rich English milord and taken it.
Kylemore always treated these tales—and even more outlandish stories he heard over the years—with skepticism. His own guess about her, if she was indeed French, was she came from a respectable family that had fallen foul of the Revolution or Bonaparte. He’d lay money that breeding lurked somewhere in her background. Her effortless self-possession outdid any fine lady he knew.
Perhaps she was English. She spoke the language as well as he did.
“Watch it, yer lordship!”
The shout wrenched Kylemore back to the present. A thickset countryman clutched at his horse’s bridle, clearly trying to save himself from being knocked down.
The famous Kinmurrie glare cowed the fellow, although Kylemore knew the bumpkin was only guilty of wandering unwittingly into his path. He forced himself to concentrate on reaching Grosvenor Square without causing damage either to himself, his mount or London’s traffic.
The moment Kylemore slammed into his town house, his mother appeared at the top of the staircase. Since their argument yesterday, he had deliberately avoided her. He wondered with distant amusement just how long she’d been hovering above, waiting for him to come back. He hoped it was hours.
“Justin, I must speak with you.”
He stripped off his gloves and handed them to the attendant footman. “Not now, madam.”
She marched down the steps with elegant determination. “What plans are you making? What is this ridiculous talk of an engagement?”
“I shall inform you of developments.” He turned toward his library.
His mother forgot her self-importance to go so far as to hurry after him. “That’s not good enough! And you cannot really expect me to leave London!”
He whirled on her as he reached the door. “I have spoken, madam. And as head of this family, I expect to be obeyed. You and your ward will be gone from this house by week’s end.”
“Justin, this is cruel. This is…”
He didn’t know what she read in his face, but his expression must have been daunting enough to convince her that retreat was the wisest course. And the duchess was a woman who quailed at nothing.
“As you wish,” she said in a subdued tone he’d never heard from her before.
“Yes, as I wish,” he said savagely, knowing that nothing, in fact, was as he wished.
He strode into his library without a backward glance. Soraya didn’t know what she’d unleashed in her lover by deserting him. But she would find out. And she would be sorry.
Kylemore poured himself a brandy and downed it in a single gulp. He was usually a man of abstemious habits. His father’s pathetic example had always stood as a warning against the dangers of self-indulgence. But now he refilled his glass and collapsed in a chair in front of the fire. He had agreed to meet his cronies at his club, but he was in no mood to act the civilized gentleman tonight.
The liquor’s warmth couldn’t melt the chill inside him. What was Soraya doing now? Had she left him for another protector? Was his humiliation already public knowledge? Did the world snigger tonight at the thought of Kylemore’s mistress fleecing some other rich blockhead?
How his rivals would gloat at his rejection. How they would fawn over the fortunate fellow who was now Soraya’s keeper.
He swore and flung the empty glass into the fire.
Had she taken another lover? Or had her favors become her brawny manservant’s exclusive prerogative? The thought aroused another burst of sick anger. Just when had Ben Ahbood become an inseparable part of Soraya’s mystique?
Kylemore couldn’t remember the first time he’d noticed the brute. He’d certainly been with Soraya after Sir Eldreth’s death three years ago, when the male half of the beau monde had predictably gone mad trying to secure her interest. Two other dukes had been in the running, as well as an Italian prince and one of the tsar’s cousins, not to mention a parcel of fellows holding lesser titles.
In the six months Soraya took to consider her next step, there were more duels between especially excitable supplicants. Although thankfully, this time, the self-destructive element among society’s sprigs controlled their inclinations to end it all.
Kylemore had been sure of himself—and of her—and had remained above the vulgar displays of masculine competitiveness that kept London buzzing that season. He’d always known at some bone-deep level she would be his. And she’d known that too. She put up a great show of indifference, but some link, some invisible thread tugged her inexorably toward him.
So he stood apart from the fray and waited for her inevitable choice. Only to watch Soraya do the utterly unanticipated.
From her clamoring legion of admirers, she chose James Mallory. Not a whiff of a title. A mere Mr., a shy young man recently back from India. Of good but unremarkable family. And rich. At least there she’d lived up to Kylemore’s expectations.
If his inconvenient fascination for the chit had allowed, Kylemore would have given up the game then and there. She’d had her shot at greatness and instead given herself to a commonplace milksop with no social polish, however deep his pockets were.
Although to be fair, James Mallory had cut quite a dash after Soraya singled him out as her lover. He’d soon developed enough town bronze to snare one of the season’s prettiest heiresses. To whom, then, amazingly, he showed every sign of fidelity.
Which meant Soraya was back seeking a protector.
Not that she gave any indication her sudden freedom was unwelcome. And by this stage, Ben Ahbood, or whatever the bastard’s name really was, had been very much in evidence.
Of course, she had neither explained nor excused. The legendary Soraya’s factotum was a mute Arabian Samson. If the world disapproved, she shrugged her straight, slender shoulders and proceeded just as she pleased.
This time, Kylemore left nothing to chance. No gentlemanly hanging back, no self-confident hesitation in expressing his interest. The morning Mallory’s engagement to Lady Sarah Coote was announced, Kylemore presented his card at Soraya’s house. He’d waited five years. He had no intention of waiting one moment longer.
Soraya appeared neither delighted, dismayed nor disconcerted to find a duke in her parlor at an hour more suitable for breakfast than for callers. Instead, she listened calmly and, Devil take her, had said she would think about what he proposed. Her protector hadn’t been in evidence, although Kylemore would have happily faced him down if he had.
But, Kylemore remembered with a churning in his belly, Ben Ahbood had admitted him to the house, then sent him on his way. And the lout’s manner toward him had done no honor to his dignity as a duke.
Soraya’s response had come a week later, couched in a swathe of legalities. Kylemore’s original offer had been extravagant. She requested he increase it to a king’s ransom, including clear title to all property and goods he gave her.
And, he remembered now with anothe
r unpleasant twinge, after a year, if either party were dissatisfied, the arrangement ceased forthwith.
Oh, she’d been clever, his grasping, cunning mistress. Clever and faithless. And he’d been guilty of fatal complacency.
She’d been overtly true to her two previous keepers. He should know—he had cast every lure to coax her away. But perhaps she’d duped everyone and her real allegiance was to the blackguard who lived hugger-mugger with her.
Her subtle hints about Ben Ahbood’s sexual incapability had been a masterstroke. Kylemore had always admired Soraya, but her audacity now took his breath away.
His excellent brain—like his looks, inherited from his despised mother—clicked back into working order. Coldly, calmly, he vowed to track down the cozening trollop and her lover.
The blood of generations of ruthless men ran in his veins. Soraya had no idea what she’d started when she played the Duke of Kylemore for a fool. He smiled in cold anticipation of the day she discovered the mistake she’d made in betraying Justin Kinmurrie.
A late summer storm had stirred the North Sea off Whitby Sands into fury. Verity flung the veil back from her black bonnet and stared out into the windswept world around her. The beach was almost deserted, and no one would notice the widow Symonds hold her face up to the cold gale or smile out at the restless ocean.
She’d been in Whitby for three months and still could hardly believe that the transition to her new life had been so easy.
The scandalous Soraya had left London with her manservant. Several days later, the respectable widow Mrs. Charles Symonds had taken a house in this Yorkshire fishing town with her brother, Benjamin Ashton.
I’m free, I’m free, her heart chanted in time with the gray water lashing the shore.
I’m free. I’m independent. My life is my own at last.
I’m free, but becoming uncomfortably damp, her more practical self pointed out as spray flew up to darken her black bombazine. She chuckled and moved back from the edge.
The townspeople, all good sturdy Yorkshire folk, had been mildly curious about her arrival with her brother but had soon accepted them. Verity Symonds was still in deep mourning for the young husband she’d lost to a fever six months ago. The young husband who had left his relict perfectly well provided for, by all appearances.
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