Claiming the Courtesan

by Anna Campbell

  Chapter 12

  At first, Verity thought that the strangled sound was part of her confused dreams, but as she raised eyelids still heavy and swollen with tears, the cry came again.

  Somewhere in the house, a man called out in inconsolable agony.

  One of the servants must be troubled or sick, although she’d thought that all the people in the valley, apart from Kylemore and herself, slept in the cottages.

  Without consciously deciding to act, she was on her feet and pulling on the first piece of clothing her hand lighted on in the armoire—a silk robe. Habits instilled through years of looking after her brother and sister had never left her. She couldn’t ignore the terrible need in those hoarse screams.

  Fumbling, she lit a candle, then let herself out of the room. She paused in the hallway, unsure which direction to take.

  The man cried out again, a long keen that faded away into broken sobs. It came from down the corridor. Clutching the robe around her naked body, she went toward the room where she’d sought refuge from the duke last night.

  She quietly pushed open the door to the simple chamber with its narrow bed only to discover no servant broke the silence of the night.

  Instead, it was the Duke of Kylemore.

  She stood in the doorway as hatred rose in a black tide to choke her. Nightmares should plague a man with such evil on his soul. In any just universe, he’d never enjoy a peaceful moment. No other revenge lay open to her, but at least knowing he battled night demons was something.

  The long, lean body in the bed thrashed wildly, as if he fought some invisible assailant. Twisted sheets tangled around him, mute testimony to his struggles. His chest was bare, and sweat shimmered on his white skin under the light covering of black hair.

  The duke had bad dreams. What was it to her? He’d kidnapped and abused her. His conscience should trouble him.

  She turned to go. Let him rot in his misery. Let pains in this world give him a foretaste of the pains of hell that surely awaited him.

  Behind her, he gave a low moan. She paused, not wanting to hear the bone-deep grief in the sound but unable to help herself.

  She straightened her spine. No, she must be ruthless, as Kylemore was ruthless. Her fear and entreaties and resistance had never kept him from taking what he wanted. So why should she care if his sins returned to haunt his sleep?

  Her enemy’s agony was her only vengeance.

  He writhed again in the grip of his dream, so violently that the bed creaked loudly in the small room. She tried to rejoice in his anguish, but something stronger than her futile dreams of retribution prevented her leaving.

  Slowly, reluctantly, she turned back.

  This time, she couldn’t help edging closer. He’d rolled to lie spread-eagled on his back, braced for imaginary attack. She told herself she wanted to luxuriate in his distress while he was too lost in his fantasies to threaten her.

  But when the light of her candle spilled across the sleeping duke—for all his turmoil, he was still fast asleep—she didn’t feel remotely like laughing.

  No trace now of the supercilious aristocrat she’d known in London, or even the ruthless tyrant who had abducted her. Instead, the man stretched out before her was tormented to the edge of sanity.

  He tossed his head with its sweat-dampened dark hair from side to side as if in violent denial. His breathing was loud, and his powerful chest heaved with each difficult inhalation.

  In spite of everything he’d done to her, in spite of how she wanted to react, Verity’s heart contracted with pity. She couldn’t abandon any fellow creature, however despicable, to suffer as the duke so obviously suffered.

  “Your Grace,” she said softly, leaning over and hesitantly touching his bare shoulder.

  The smooth skin was clammy beneath her hand. Some monumental crisis gripped him.

  “Your Grace, you’re having a bad dream. Wake up.”

  He jerked away as though her touch scorched him. The marks of tears on his cheeks shocked her. He was still deeply asleep, lost in his nightmare.

  She curled her fingers around his shoulder and gave it a gentle shake. “Your Grace, wake up.”

  His hand shot out and grabbed her wrist as the gentian eyes opened wide. For one startled moment, he looked up at her through that hazy blue like a lost child. She had another sudden vision of the little boy he must once have been.

  All the while, his adult strength crushed her fragile wrist.

  “Who is it?” he grated out, his gaze blind.

  She doubted he was actually awake. The dream still dug its claws into him.

  “Kylemore, it’s me.” She tried to break away, cursing herself for her stupidity in venturing so close. Did she never learn?

  He didn’t seem to hear her as he inexorably dragged her toward him. When he forced her to bend over him, her unbound hair tumbled forward to pool on his naked chest.

  “Who is it?” he asked again.

  “It’s Verity.”

  The room was silent except for his ragged breathing. Hesitantly, he brought up his free hand to tangle in her hair. The gesture was almost tender.

  “Black silk,” he said in husky wonder. Then more sharply, “Verity? Is that you?”

  “You’re hurting my hand, Kylemore,” she said firmly, hoping to disperse the miasma in his mind.

  His dazed glance fell to where he gripped her with such bruising force. “Your pardon.”

  He immediately freed her. She should seize this reprieve and flee to her room, but still she didn’t go.

  He pushed himself upright against the pillows and looked around as if unsure exactly where he was. “Verity,” he said in a more normal tone. “What are you doing here?”

  She rubbed her sore wrist. “You called out in your sleep. I came to see if you were all right.”

  “Just a bad dream,” he said with a carelessness she knew better than to believe.

  It had been more than just a bad dream. His terrifying distress still echoed in her ears. And he’d cried. She wouldn’t have thought the heartless duke capable of tears, but tonight proved her wrong.

  “Go back to bed.” He spoke as though dismissing a servant in his grand London house. “I promise not to disturb your rest further.”

  She couldn’t ignore this reprieve. She should be relieved he was sending her away unscathed apart from a few bruises.

  With every second, he returned to his usual self. And Kylemore’s usual self was dangerous, as she knew to her cost. She retrieved her candle and began to sidle out of the room. Out of the corner of her eye, she tried not to notice how his hand shook when he raised it to brush his hair back from his face.

  He didn’t look at her. “Good night.”

  “Good night, then,” she said, telling herself she imagined the bereft note in his voice.

  At the door, she impulsively looked back and caught the naked desolation on his fine-boned face. He sat up as if he meant to watch out the rest of the night.

  For once, the shell of his self-confidence had cracked, and she saw him more clearly than ever before. Exhaustion marked his face—she suddenly wondered if he’d slept at all since they’d arrived in the valley—and the beautiful mouth was taut with anguish.

  Cursing herself for being every variety of fool, she returned to stand beside the bed. “Can I get Your Grace anything? A glass of wine? Something from the kitchen?”

  He focused those bleak indigo eyes on her, and she struggled not to recognize a loneliness as strong as her own.

  “No,” he said.

  “Very well.”

  But as she turned once more to leave, he reached out and snatched for her hand. “Yes. Yes, stay.” His voice was harsh, turning what should have been a plea into a command.

  “Your Grace, I…” If she crawled between the sheets, she was all too aware what he’d do.

  He must have read the refusal in her face, because he dropped her hand and looked past her with an attempt at his usual hauteur. “Of course you mus
t go.”

  Ridiculous to be moved by his foolish pride. She reminded herself he plotted her destruction. But at the moment, it was difficult to think of him as the unrelenting, omnipotent Duke of Kylemore. If anything, he reminded her of Ben, who as a child had always been quickest to deny he wanted comfort just when he needed it most.

  But he wasn’t Ben. He was the man who contrived to make her his slave. He was the man who, only hours ago, had come close to achieving that end. She was mad to pretend that a troubled, grieving Kylemore wasn’t as perilous to her as his daytime self ever was. Perhaps even more perilous.

  His thin face indicated aristocratic disdain as he stared stoically into the distance. But shadows darkened the hollows around his eyes and a muscle jerked spasmodically in his cheek.

  She’d regret relenting. Even as she placed the candle on the ugly oak side table and climbed onto the mattress, she knew she’d regret it. But common sense had lost all authority over her actions.

  “Verity?”

  When she didn’t answer, he shifted to make room for her.

  She didn’t want to touch him. Although she might be a fool, she wasn’t that much of a fool. But while he was a lean man, lying apart from him on the narrow cot meant she only just balanced on the edge.

  She was close enough for the heat of his body to curl out and beckon her nearer. She waited for him to haul her to him and spread her legs so he could rut over her, but instead, he lay still and tense beside her. It was as if somehow the rules of engagement between them had changed.

  For a long moment, neither spoke. Verity became more and more uncomfortable. His musky scent was everywhere, reminding her cruelly of how she’d responded to him earlier.

  What was the duke to make of her rebuffs when she came willingly to his bed now?

  This was wrong. Terribly wrong.

  “I should go,” she said shakily, starting to rise.

  “No.”

  He surged up and lashed his arms around her to drag her down so she lay with her back pressed to his chest. Through the silk of her robe, she felt him tremble. It vividly brought back the memory of how she’d found him. Hesitantly, knowing she was making one of the worst mistakes in her life, she turned and very gently embraced him.

  “Sleep, Your Grace,” she whispered. “It’s not long until morning.” It was the same tone she’d used to soothe Ben and Maria when they’d woken frightened in the night.

  She waited for mockery or triumph. After all, what credence would her claims that she hated him have when she lay here cradling him like the most precious thing on earth?

  But for once, Kylemore’s cutting tongue was silent. Instead, he pulled her fully against him and relaxed with a great sigh. His bare flesh under her hands gradually lost its worrying coldness, and his breathing became deep and even.

  The Duke of Kylemore slept in her arms.

  Kylemore stirred from the sweetest sleep he could remember in years. The capricious Highland sun poured through the humble chamber’s uncurtained windows. It was warm. It was late. And he held a fragrant bundle of slumbering femininity within the shelter of his body.

  Or actually, she held him. His head rested on Verity’s breast and her arms encircled him as though she protected him from every threat. Curious and rather sad to reflect that no one had ever held him like this before.

  And even more curious that he should feel so safe in the arms of someone who detested him so virulently.

  Detested him with good reason.

  The unwelcome thought had no power to disturb him. He’d slept deeply and well. He’d woken with the woman he wanted above all others.

  Literally. He was hard and ready.

  But most curious of all, he made no attempt to seek relief. Although relief, asleep and defenseless, lay at hand.

  He wished he were pitiless enough to take advantage of having her in his bed. He could be inside her before she woke. Before she set up any barriers. And after last night’s astounding inferno of pleasure, those barriers would be dangerously weak.

  So why did he hesitate?

  Perhaps because she’d conquered her fear and abhorrence to come to his aid. She’d joined him of her own free will and had offered solace where he’d deserved only loathing. She’d seen his pain and risked herself to ease it.

  Altogether, last night had been a revelation.

  He’d been a brute, forcing her to flee from him into the night. He’d caught her and manipulated her into surrender. He’d schemed and blustered and bullied. And his reward had been the best sexual experience of his life.

  But now her gallantry had changed everything between them.

  The anger driving him for the last three months was absent this morning. His craving for revenge had retreated.

  But though he no longer wanted to punish her, he couldn’t let her go. She was his only hope for peace. If nothing else, last night proved that was truer than ever.

  Verity was his shield against the demons that pursued him. So her fate was sealed. She must stay with him forever.

  The sun was warm on the back of Verity’s neck as she tugged relentlessly at the weeds infesting the flowerbeds behind the house. Kate Macleish, Hamish’s wife, kept a forbiddingly neat kitchen garden to supply the household, but she had no time left over for growing flowers. Verity had noticed the untidy beds yesterday, and the Yorkshire farm lass who still lurked within her had itched to create order.

  She hadn’t seen Kylemore all day—he’d been mercifully absent when she’d awoken. She had no idea what she could have said to him.

  Actually, she was astonished she’d remained unmolested. Good heavens, she’d slept the night cuddled up to him, for all the world as if she’d wanted to be there. A better man than the duke would have made use of the woman so conveniently at hand.

  For the thousandth time, she berated herself for a fool.

  What had possessed her to go to Kylemore? Her only hope of prevailing against him was continued resistance. Yet how convincing would refusals sound after she’d crept into his bed without a murmur of protest?

  She’d survived and prospered as a courtesan because she’d used her head and not her heart. What if that heart she repudiated ached for his misery? The duke was nothing to her.

  But if he was nothing to her, why had the sight of his tears, tears he wasn’t even aware he shed, cut her so deeply?

  Some old sorrow plagued him. Some old sorrow that taught him to hide his true feelings behind a mask of ruthless autocracy and perfect control.

  She growled her exasperation. With him. With the situation. And with herself most of all. Why should she fret over him? All she wanted was to be free of him, immediately, utterly and forever.

  She began to worry at a particularly stubborn root.

  Last night, he’d given her sexual pleasure such as she’d never known. She’d never forgive him for it.

  But worse, he’d opened a chasm in her heart. She could fight his strength and perhaps even win. But she had no defenses against his need.

  She must get away before she did something really stupid.

  Like fall in love with the oppressive tyrant who believed he owned her, body and soul. Damn him.

  She gave the root a vicious tug, but still it didn’t budge.

  “Whisht, lassie! You’ll do yourself a mischief!”

  She looked up from her turbulent thoughts to find Hamish Macleish staring at her in consternation. In the outlandish local costume, he looked large and capable, and his bare legs under the kilt were straight and strong.

  Earlier, Angus had been on guard duty. He’d tried to divert her from what he’d clearly thought was an inappropriate activity for the lady of the house. She’d pretended not to understand and had kept going.

  She was surprised to see Hamish. He’d always studiously avoided her—probably because he was the only servant who spoke English. She couldn’t subvert people who didn’t understand a word she said.

  “Good morning, Mr. Macleish.”

/>   The angels had been remarkably deaf to her pleas of late. But perhaps they’d heard her last desperate prayer for escape.

  “Good morning, my lady.” He stepped closer. “It’s gey stony soil for flowers. My Kate gave up.”

  Verity stood and wiped her hands on the faded apron that protected her skirts. “Mr. Macleish, will you help me?”

  “Aye, my lady. Although ye ken it’s a wee while since I’ve done any gardening.”

  She shook her head. “No, you misunderstand me.” She took a deep breath and marshaled her courage. “I see you as a man of honor.”

  He met her eyes squarely—these Scottish rustics were remarkably free of their southern counterparts’ sycophantic ways. “May the good Lord keep me so, my lady.”

  “A man who wouldn’t stand by and allow a woman to be abducted and abused.”

  The man’s expression became shuttered. “Ye ask me tae help ye get away,” he said flatly.

  She took a step closer and injected a pleading note into her voice. “The Duke of Kylemore stole me from my family. I’m here against my will. My heart is set on a virtuous life, yet he forces me to play his mistress. You must believe me. As a man of honor, you must assist me.”

  He shook his head. “No, my lady.”

  “But you must help me!” she cried desperately, reaching for his arm. Surely he couldn’t just abandon her to her fate now that he knew what the duke had done to her.

  “I serve His Grace tae the last breath in my body.” He sounded regretful but immovable as he shook himself free of her clinging grip. “I feel for your troubles. But I cannae help ye. I gave my oath of obedience tae the duke.”

  Although she knew she wasted her time, she couldn’t give up. This might be her only chance to persuade Hamish to her cause. If he failed her, where else could she turn?

  Her voice shook with urgency. “I’ll pay you. I’ll pay you well. Take me back to my brother. I swear you’ll be rewarded.”

  His frown indicated the offer offended him. “No, lassie, I dinna want your money.”

  She spread her hands in frantic appeal. “But your master commits a great wrong.”