During the endless dreary hours since she’d woken, her only companions had been the silent and ever-watchful giants and the little maids who had helped her dress and served her dinner in the parlor. As the day had limped on toward twilight with no sign of her arrogant lover, she’d stifled her unhappiness and instead summoned righteous anger.
He had no right to treat her as he did. She couldn’t allow this situation to continue. The duke wasn’t a heathen savage. Surely she could dredge some chivalry from his black soul and persuade him to release her.
She wore the least provocative of the gowns Kylemore had ordered, a dashing cobalt merino with black military-style frogging—not totally inappropriate, as she intended to fight.
She resented the loss of her widow’s weeds, although the dress had been ruined past repair on the rough journey to this godforsaken wilderness. At least it had been hers, paid for with her own labor, no matter if the money had originally been Kylemore’s. She abominated the way every moment in this valley leeched away a little more of her independence.
As she watched the light fade over the loch and the mountains, the magnificence of the landscape struck her as ominous, hostile to humanity. No wonder so few people lived in this oppressive emptiness. She shivered and drew her cream cashmere shawl closer around her, although the evening wasn’t cold and a fire burned in the grate.
Kylemore paused in the doorway, and she saw him take in the scene with one single, scowling glance.
“What is the meaning of this?” he snapped. “Take off that dress, let down your hair and get into bed now.”
Clearly her defiance hadn’t escaped him. She’d expected him to be annoyed; she’d even planned on it.
He moved across to lean against the dresser. She rose and linked her hands in front of her to control their trembling.
“I’m tired of being led like a lamb to the slaughter, Your Grace,” she said firmly. “Your claim on my body ceased at the end of our contract in London.”
“I told you what I want.” He folded his arms implacably over his half-open linen shirt.
He wore country clothes. Plain shirt, buff breeches, tall boots. He looked as if he’d been outside all day, as though he still carried the freshness of the wind with him. The uncertain golden light shed by the candles and the fire glanced across his collarbone and hinted at the black hair on his chest.
She was dismayed to realize she sidled away from him like a mare scenting a stallion. This was ridiculous. She was letting his physical presence distract her from what she needed to say. For all their decadent play in London, she was more aware of him as a man here than she’d ever been before.
“You’ve got what you want. You’ve had your revenge.” She forced herself to hold her ground. “Let me go. You must stop this…this gothic horror before it gets out of hand.”
A sardonic smile twisted his lips. “Is that the best you can do?”
Startled, she met his eyes fully for the first time. She’d expected to see anger, but instead, he looked tired and terrifyingly cynical. And deeply unhappy.
As if realizing she perceived more than he wished her to, he straightened and crossed the room to stare moodily out the barred window.
“I assume you’ve been concocting that little speech all day.” His voice dripped sarcasm. “What did you expect it to achieve? The offer of a peaceful night to yourself and a quick trip home tomorrow? For such a concession, at least conjure up a tear or two. A man would be a monster indeed to say no to beauty arrayed in weeping distress at his feet.”
How she hated that superior drawl. With an effort, she kept her voice steady. “If that would work, I’m certainly willing to try it.”
He turned to look at her. Cynicism had conquered whatever else he felt. “Don’t waste your time. Or mine. We both already know I’m a monster.” He gave her clothing a slashing wave. “Stop this nonsense. I can have you out of that fiercely elegant ensemble and under me in five minutes flat and we both know it.”
His eyes were so cold that she shivered again. But she refused to let his threat, phrased in a tone of bored indolence, cow her.
“No.”
“You still don’t understand, do you, Verity? And I’ve always considered you such a clever little poppet. You have no power. You have no rights. You belong to me. This isn’t London. This is a forgotten corner of a feudal domain. And I am its lord. There’s nowhere to run. There’s no one to help you. If I want you—and we both know I do—I take you.”
She was powerless to control her rapid, shallow breathing, even though she knew it betrayed her rising fear. “You think because I’m a whore, I must accept any man with coin to pay for my services?” she asked hardily.
“No. I think because you’re mine and you’ll always be mine, you should surrender to the inevitable.”
Still she didn’t yield. “Whatever else I am, I’m a sovereign soul. I am no man’s creature.” She’d repeated those words over and over to herself all day in a futile effort to bolster what little courage she retained.
A derisive smile curled his expressive mouth. “You’ll be my creature. You’re already my creature.”
Because one craven element of her feared that was true, she drew herself up and glared at him with all the contempt she could muster. “Never.”
He arched one supercilious eyebrow, as if he knew how thin her veneer of recalcitrance was. He probably did.
She went on. “I will never lie down willingly with you. Surely the great Duke of Kylemore has too much pride to pursue a reluctance mistress.”
She meant the words to needle, but his expression remained stony. “The great Duke of Kylemore does what he wants, madam. I’ve withstood three months as the laughingstock of London. I’ve humiliated myself scouring the kingdom for news of you. I’ve brawled with a common yokel. I’ve descended to kidnap. Don’t delude yourself that pride prevents me from any action—any action—that achieves my ends. My pride has been in the dust since you left. You’ll find no aid there.”
Despite herself, she felt a flash of unwilling sympathy at the picture he painted. The man she knew in London had been the mirror of the perfect aristocrat—not, perhaps, generally liked but certainly admired, respected, feared, envied.
Losing her had cost him dearly.
Softly, she said, “Kylemore, I’m sorry I left without telling you. That was badly done of me. That last…” She paused. She still quailed to remember his final, furious visit to Kensington and that lunatic marriage proposal. “That last day when you came to call, I should have explained, I should have said good-bye. Then we’d at least have parted amicably.”
He gave a huff of unamused laughter, and the bitter lines on his face deepened. “As if I’d have let you go. We both know I wouldn’t. You knew it then—it’s why you sneaked away.”
She’d taken a step toward him before she realized what she did. “I’ll pay back the money.”
He couldn’t possibly know the sacrifice she was making with the offer, a sacrifice on behalf of not just herself but her sister and brother as well. But she’d spent all day trying to devise some way to break free of this nightmare. If it cost her the fortune she still believed was legally hers, she’d gladly pay.
The Ashtons would manage, she told herself guiltily. She’d see they did.
She pressed on. “If you give me a few days to make arrangements, I’ll return every penny.”
Kylemore whirled on her. Because of her brainless moment of pity, she was close enough for him to clamp his fingers around her upper arms.
“Don’t be a damned fool, woman! It’s not the money. It never was the money, except as a symbol of what you stole.” His grip dug into her arms, and Verity braced herself for a good shaking. But he just held her.
Desperately, she looked up at him, seeking some sign he might relent. But while his face conveyed anguish and turmoil, there wasn’t the slightest hint of hesitation.
She took an unsteady breath. “I stole nothing.”
His fingers flexed against the sleeves of her dress. “You stole yourself. Now I have stolen you back. And I’ll never let you go.”
She gave a broken cry and wrenched free of him. “This is impossible. You must see that.”
“No. It is my will.” He moved after her as though he tracked a wild animal.
She backed away, horrified by how certain he sounded. If she stayed any longer, she might start to think he made sense.
Then she noticed he’d neglected to shut the door behind him when he’d arrived. With frantic speed, she dove for the entrance. A half second too late, he leaped after her. She felt the shift in the air as he lunged to catch her.
But she reached the door first and slammed it after her. She dashed down the staircase and across the entrance hall. She had a fleeting impression of rows of dead animal eyes watching her run past. Then she was tugging at the bolt on the massive front door.
Sobbing, she struggled with the heavy iron latch. The duke was nearly upon her. She heard the approaching thud of his boot heels on the wooden steps.
The door swung open just as he jumped and hit the floor a breath away from her. She flung herself out into the darkness with no clear idea where she went apart from her overwhelming need to escape her pursuer.
Chapter 11
A tangled mass of shrubbery crowded against the side of the house and offered hope of sanctuary. Verity would have made for the woods if she thought she could outrun Kylemore over the open area she needed to cross first. But even in her panic, she knew better.
Skittering on the damp grass, she scrambled into the bushes. Twigs and thorns tore at her hair and dress as she pushed her way toward the center, only stopping when the branches became an impassable barrier.
She huddled into a ball, trying to make herself invisible, although no one outside would be able to see her through the undergrowth and the darkness. She tried without success to control her sawing breath.
He was near. She couldn’t hear him or see him, but the prickling hairs on her skin told her he was watching, waiting for her to betray her position.
“Verity, come out,” he eventually said. As expected, he was very close. “There’s nowhere for you to go.”
He sounded like a reasonable man when he used that coaxing tone. Once, she might have believed that was what he was. No longer.
The gossip was right. All the Kinmurries were mad. The duke’s thirst for revenge threatened to make him the maddest of them all.
She shrank deeper into her hiding place and didn’t answer. A chilly trickle of water ran down her nape, but she didn’t dare move to wipe it away.
“The night will turn cold, and it’s going to rain again.” He hadn’t shifted. Curse him, he must have seen her tunnel her way in.
As if he read her thoughts, he said, “I know just where you are. There’s a hollow at the heart of the shrubbery. I grew up here. There are no secret places for me in this glen. It’s useless trying to escape. There isn’t a nook or cranny or bolthole for miles I haven’t already found and used.”
She supposed he’d played pranks like all children and found hiding places. Strange to imagine him as a little boy. She didn’t think she ever had before. Her momentary distraction ended abruptly when she heard an ominous rustling.
“I’ll come and get you if I have to. Or you can come out of your own volition. But you’re not staying outside.”
As her breathing calmed, the blind fear that had sent her on this pointless flight subsided. And it was a pointless flight, she saw now. Where could she go? It was the middle of the night. She wasn’t dressed for travel. She had no provisions or money. She hadn’t a clue how to get out of the valley.
Kylemore sighed. “All right. I’m coming in.”
“No,” she said tonelessly. “No, wait.” She couldn’t bear the thought of him dragging her out kicking and screaming.
Defeat replaced her earlier crazed fury and she was aware of every snag and scratch on the way out. Wet, muddy and smarting from a hundred small abrasions, she crawled into the open, but nothing smarted as much as recognizing her stupidity in running away from him like that.
She needed more than hysteria to escape the Duke of Kylemore. Hadn’t she tried to leave him after a year of hardheaded planning? And that had only landed her squarely in her present predicament.
In spite of her chastened obedience to his bidding, she faced him without cowering. “I won’t sleep with you.”
“Yes, you will.”
He reached out and took her arm. The heat of his touch burned through the damp wool of her sleeve and made the blood throb sullenly in her cold flesh. He turned her back toward the doorway and began to walk with her.
His hold was firm without bruising. Why exert his power overtly? He knew as well as she that he’d emerged the victor tonight, however staunchly she stood up to him now.
A great wave of misery swept her as Kylemore led her, outwardly submissive, inside the house and up the stairs. She’d never escape this man. She’d never escape Soraya. For thirteen years, the thought of being free one day was all that had kept her going. She hadn’t foreseen the duke and his obstinate desire for her.
But surely desire died when it received no encouragement to live and thrive. When its object gave nothing, offered nothing, shared nothing. He was too proud to beat himself to destruction against the unbreakable rocks of her resistance.
Except he’d told her he had already abandoned his pride.
And even over the last few days, she hadn’t always been unresponsive. Corrosive shame ate at her as she remembered moments—more than moments, if she included his kiss in the carriage or this morning’s explosive climax—when her body had answered his with pleasure and not denial.
She told herself it was habit. After all, she’d been his mistress for a year.
Or it was his unquestionable skill as a lover.
Or her irredeemably sinful nature.
It certainly wasn’t because his touch had the power to circumvent everything she wished for and believed in, she insisted in desperation. If she stayed strong and strove to remain like ice in his arms, he’d tire of his mad quest.
But even if he did, what then? Would he just wave her on her way and allow her to return to the life she wanted? She doubted it.
Perhaps he meant to kill her when he finished with her. In this isolated place, he could dispose of her easily enough.
However, she couldn’t picture the duke murdering her, no matter how angry he was. He might dominate her sexually, he might force himself upon her, but her instincts told her he preferred her alive.
If only the thought provided the slightest comfort.
Verity stood shivering with cold and reaction in the center of her bedroom and watched Kylemore feed the fire. He must believe she was unlikely to make another dash for liberty, at least for the present. He hadn’t locked the door. Now he seemed content to take his time at the grate.
For one of the nation’s greatest noblemen, he showed great dexterity with kindling and bellows. Not for the first time, she reflected how she’d underestimated him in London. Then, she’d considered him just another useless aristocrat. Cleverer and perhaps more ruthless than the other men who’d vied for her favors, but basically made of the same stuff.
Since then, she’d seen him slough off the effects of hard travel. And he didn’t act as if he found this humble house beneath his dignity. While it would have seemed the height of luxury to her in her rustic youth, it hardly matched the standards a duke was used to.
She looked at him now, on his knees building the fire, a task for the lowliest maid in any of his mansions. He was strong. He was intelligent. And he was alarmingly complicated.
Oh, how she wished he really was the effete wastrel she’d once judged him to be. But if this last week had demonstrated anything, it was that she didn’t understand the Duke of Kylemore at all. He was darker, deeper, more dangerous than she’d ever imagined, although there had been clues in London t
o the truth of his nature, if she’d cared to read them.
His dogged pursuit of her. Certainly, his unquenchable passion when he came to her bed.
She remembered what a revelation that potent ardor had been. Eldreth had been a man of sedate habits, and she’d had to train James out of his inept fumblings.
How Kylemore would laugh if she admitted one of the reasons she’d misjudged him so disastrously was her own inexperience. London’s most notorious courtesan as taken aback by a man’s powerful virility as any green young miss? She almost laughed herself.
Part of her had always considered Kylemore a threat. Why else resist his blandishments as long as she had?
But those vague instincts had given no hint of the evil she’d courted when she’d become his mistress. What she’d thought of as her sensible self had discounted her vague feelings of mistrust and had insisted she grab the chance for financial security.
Sensible self? She should have jumped into the Thames before she’d accepted him in her bed.
All this hard-won wisdom came too late. She’d become entangled with the wrong man and had to pay the price. That would be soon enough, if the knowing glint in his blue eyes was any indication as he rose and prowled across the room to her.
“Why keep fighting me?” he murmured, flicking open the hussar fastenings of her bodice with a deftness that rankled even in her fear.
Her trembling intensified, but she didn’t move away. What was the point? He’d only catch her again.
“You know why,” she said stiffly.
A strange smile drifted across his face as he pulled the gown down from her shoulders. “I think I’m beginning to.”
She stood like a doll as he undressed her. Unexpectedly, he seemed in no rush to use her. She tried not to mind her nakedness, told herself she’d been naked for him so many times before. But she couldn’t stem the quivering vulnerability she felt standing nude in front of him.
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