Kylemore lunged to catch her before she fell. “Christ, mo leannan, what have they done to you?” he muttered under his breath.
She felt his arm snake around her waist to hold her upright. At his touch, her faintness receded. She turned toward his strength and heat as a flower opens to the sun.
He is here, he is here.
The trilling carol of relief and wonder allowed her to take her first unfettered breath in what felt like hours. It was a breath full of the haunting essence of Kylemore. She fought the impulse to bury her nose in his chest and pretend all danger had passed.
Because, of course, it hadn’t.
Even while he sheltered her against his body, Kylemore kept his pistol leveled. A few feet away, Angus and Andy took charge of her former captor and herded him toward his two cohorts. The three thugs who had so terrified her were cowed and silent as they huddled together on the roadside.
She looked away from them and up at the man she’d thought never to see again. Her heart blossomed with difficult joy. How she wished she could stay in his embrace forever, but her wishes were as impossible now as they had ever been.
Reaction to what she’d been through set in, and she shook in his hold as though she had a fever. She stifled the urge to cling to Kylemore and shower him with grateful tears.
Struggling for control, she sucked in another deep breath. Right now, she needed to check on her brother. He’d been silent for too long.
“I have to see to Ben,” she said urgently. “He’s over there, beaten to within an inch of his life.”
“Hamish, go with her,” Kylemore said, releasing her.
He kept his pistol aimed at his mother while Verity hurried across to her brother. Ben lay on the ground, still tied up. He must have finally, mercifully lost consciousness before the duchess had grabbed the knife.
With a broken sob, Verity fell to her knees at his side.
Is he alive? Please, let him be so.
She hunched forward over his poor, battered body, cradling him to her breast. Even in the gloaming’s forgiving light, she saw how badly hurt he was. Thank heaven, he was still breathing. This close to him, she could hear the air’s uneven passage through his mashed mouth.
“Oh, Ben,” she murmured, tears running unchecked down her cheeks as she rocked him the way she’d rocked him when he’d been a child in her care. “My poor darling brother.”
He didn’t hear her. Perhaps he’d never hear her again.
The beating had been prolonged and unconstrained. Who knew what damage he’d sustained? Very gently, she raised his torn and bruised head onto her lap while Hamish rolled him over on his side and cut his bonds with a horn-handled knife.
“They did a gey good job on him, my lady.” The Scotsman ran his hands over her brother’s frighteningly unresponsive body.
“It’s all my fault,” she whispered, fumbling in her sleeve for the handkerchief Ben had pressed upon her earlier.
Hamish looked up at her with a frown. “Och, no, dinna go blaming yourself. That wicked banshee over there brought this on ye.”
It wasn’t true. The knowledge lay like a stain on her soul that Ben had paid for his sister’s sins today.
But repenting her misdeeds must wait. Ignoring the sting of her scraped palms, she tried to use the handkerchief to clean the dirt and blood from Ben’s swollen, marked face. But the severity of his wounds defeated her and the linen square was soon soaked red.
His nose sat askew, and his mouth wasn’t much more than a bloody gash. If not for his shock of white-blonde hair, even filthy and matted as it was, she’d have had trouble recognizing him.
“What do you think, Mr. Macleish?” she asked huskily.
“His nose is broken and I wouldnae be surprised if a few ribs are cracked. We’ll get him back tae the castle where a proper doctor can see tae him.”
Hamish’s touch was sure and kind as he tested her brother’s injuries, as sure and kind as it was when he tended the duke’s horses. The thought was strangely reassuring. She bent her head and crooned comfort over Ben, just as she’d crooned when he’d been a child in her care.
“No, Justin! You jest!”
The duchess’s emphatic denial dragged Verity’s attention from her unconscious brother. Mother and son squared up a few feet away from where she knelt. The fine-boned faces that proclaimed their shared blood were stark with naked hatred.
“I am most definitely serious, madam.” Kylemore’s voice was more cutting than Verity had ever heard it. It was the voice of a man who exacted instant obedience to his merest command. “You will retire to the dowerhouse in Norfolk. You will take your odious ward with you. An escort will accompany you there and I’ll set guards round the clock at the house. If you venture one foot beyond Norwich, I cease to be responsible for your expenses and you must rely purely on your jointure from my father’s estate.”
“That’s barbaric! I am your mother!” The rage in the duchess’s voice made Verity’s hands pause in stroking the tangled hair back from Ben’s forehead.
“Because you’re my mother, only I can end the devastation you wreak.” Kylemore’s words dripped such ice that Verity shivered. “I should have curbed you long ago. Foolishly, I believed you powerless without access to the ducal purse. Today that grave error of judgment almost cost me everything I hold dear.”
Verity’s heart leaped with outlaw happiness. It was the nearest thing to an open declaration of love she’d ever have from him.
Kylemore raised one elegant hand to forestall any protest from his mother. “No, madam, don’t waste your breath. I am determined. You are destined for a life of harmless rustication.”
The older woman drew herself up to her full height. “Very impressive, Justin,” she sneered. “But I still have one weapon in my arsenal.”
“Yes, and what’s that?” he asked as idly as if he discussed a trifling wager on a horserace or a boxing match.
“My husband was indubitably mad. To my distress, my son is highly strung and difficult.” Insincere sadness infused her cruel words. “Your recent behavior indicates you’ve inherited your father’s tragic affliction. Proceed with your vile plan to exile me and I’ll have you committed as a lunatic.”
“No! It’s not true!” Verity cried in anguish. Her hands clenched in Ben’s ripped and dirty shirt.
Kylemore glanced across at her, and astonishingly, he smiled. “Don’t worry, mo leannan. This particular tigress no longer has teeth.”
The duchess frowned at his assertion. “You think so, Justin? London is agog at the lengths you’ve taken to regain your tawdry mistress. The gossips always speculated about your sanity. It will need very little to fan those rumors, dear boy.” She had the gall to reach up and tap his cheek as though he were indeed a troublesome child. “So let’s have no more talk of the dowerhouse.”
Kylemore’s smile faded as he turned back to his mother. “The same gossips will relish the reports from your household servants, madam. The sordid tales of your insatiable appetite for brawny young footmen. Or for ruffians off the streets paid a guinea for the foul pleasures you exacted.”
Even at a distance, Verity saw the duchess whiten. “Justin? What are you saying?” she gasped, reeling back.
Still he maintained that uncanny control. The more composed he sounded, the more dangerous he became, Verity knew.
“I possess sworn statements detailing your sexual excesses. Perhaps your endless affairs with members of the ton may be overlooked. Your taste for rougher trade won’t encounter so much understanding. Smithson, your pander, stands beside you. I doubt he’ll keep his mouth shut if he can save himself from the gallows. Consider carefully before you threaten me with your pathetic stratagems again.”
“You’ve had me watched, you miserable little bastard?” she snarled. The contemptuous tone sent a queasy aftershock of terror through Verity, and she held her brother’s motionless body more tightly.
“Indeed,” Kylemore said, unmoved by her insults. “I k
new the day would come when you overstepped even the generous boundaries I set on your behavior.”
The woman’s voice shook as she spoke, and her rouge stood out unnaturally bright on her sallow cheeks. “No, Justin! This is too cruel. If you won’t think of me, think of yourself. You cannot drag the Kinmurrie name through the mire!”
“I only did what I was told, Your Grace,” Smithson insisted from behind the duchess. “It was more than my job was worth to gainsay the lady’s demands.”
“You are a thug and a bully,” Kylemore said acidly. “And I’ll see you and your cohorts hang for today’s work.”
“No, Kylemore,” Verity said firmly. Slowly and with great tenderness, she laid Ben’s head down on the thick grass verge.
Her intervention created a short silence. Kylemore looked at her more in surprise than anger. “No? You don’t know how close I am to shooting them here and now and letting the law go to the Devil.”
“Believe me, I know,” she said gently, reading the vibrating tension in his lean body.
She rose and squared her shoulders before she crossed to the duke’s side. Gingerly, she reached out and, after a moment’s resistance from him, took the pistol. It rested cold and hard and heavy in her palm.
“Her Grace is right. A public scandal will damage you as much as those you prosecute,” she said quietly, while inside her, her heart galloped with apprehension. Pray heaven she could make him bow to reason. “Let her go to Norfolk. Let her take her henchmen—the threat of arrest should keep them there safely enough.”
“She tried to kill you.” Kylemore’s deep voice was a whiplash of fury. “And these animals who may yet have killed your brother aided her.”
“I haven’t forgotten Ben.” She cast a glance across to where Hamish still worked methodically on Ben’s injuries. “But if you put these men in the dock, the whole sorry story comes out, and that will do nobody any good.”
“You’re more generous than I, mo cridhe,” Kylemore said softly.
He reached out and took his mother’s arm in a punishing grip. “So what do you say? Norfolk? Or confinement in an asylum for insatiable carnal mania? And damn the scandal.”
Tears glittered in the duchess’s deep blue eyes—tears of thwarted fury rather than remorse, Verity was sure.
“Justin, you’re hurting me!” his mother whined.
The change from threats to abject weakness didn’t sway the duke. “Hurt you? God, I’d like to dismember you.”
He visibly reined in his sparking temper. “Well, madam? I await your answer.”
The duchess was pale and drawn, and she at last looked her age. Only the faintest vestiges of her remarkable beauty remained as she licked nervous lips and met her son’s ruthless expression. “I’ll go to Norfolk.”
“Good.” He didn’t unhand her. “Before you go, beg this lady’s pardon.”
The woman’s face hardened in abomination while shock thundered through Verity and rendered her speechless. A great lady of the ton apologize to a whore? The idea was unthinkable.
The duchess tried to jerk free but failed. “Damn you, Justin, I will never humble myself to this harlot.”
“You will, madam. Or you will face the consequences.”
“This slut should be cast into the gutter, where she belongs,” she snapped. Traces of her earlier confidence resurfaced. “And don’t threaten me with confinement in an asylum. That particular bird won’t fly, sir. You’d no more have your own mother committed than you’d swim to Ireland. End this absurd playacting immediately and release me. I’ll go to Norfolk, and you have my word as Duchess of Kylemore that your whore is safe. That is concession enough.”
“Not nearly,” he said in a voice that made Verity wince. He turned to his waiting men, who stood guard over the duchess’s henchmen. “Duncan, is Sir John Firth still the local magistrate?”
“Aye, Your Grace,” a man Verity didn’t know answered.
“Then go to Claverton Hall and inform him I have prisoners for arraignment.”
“Your Grace.” Duncan lowered his pistol and strode toward the trees.
Verity waited in quivering silence as cold sweat slicked her hold on the pistol. Surely the duchess wouldn’t permit her pride to bring disaster upon them all.
But the duchess’s pride was an unpredictable and terrifying force, as Verity had discovered on this lonely road.
Only when Duncan was almost out of earshot did the older woman relent. “No! Damn you to hell, Justin. Stop. I’ll do it.” Her voice was low and uneven as she scowled at her son. “I curse the day my womb gave you life.”
Kylemore bowed ironically toward her and with implacable strength drew her around to face Verity. “Life is full of small disappointments, madam. I assume this vituperative outburst forms an introduction to your apology.” Without looking away from his mother, he called out after Duncan. “Wait a moment.”
The duchess stared over Verity’s head, her face masklike. Her voice was flat with abhorrence. “I ask forgiveness for the injuries I have done you and yours.”
“Perhaps again with sincerity,” Kylemore said silkily.
Verity had had enough. “Kylemore, you don’t need to humiliate her further,” she said through stiff lips. “You’ve won. She isn’t worth your spite. Let her go. Ben needs a doctor.”
Kylemore looked down at the duchess with unalloyed loathing. “I bow to this lady’s wishes. Just remember when you’re sulking at the dowerhouse that only my mistress’s intervention saved you from the madhouse. That thought should sour your existence quite satisfactorily.”
He turned to his men as he released his mother. “Disarm the duchess’s servants, then take them to Oban and find a notary. I want sworn statements about what occurred today. Then escort them to Norfolk. I’ll write to my factor, and he’ll have a guard in place by the time you arrive.”
The duchess inhaled with a long hiss. “No, I won’t bear it!” She fumbled in her skirts, and suddenly, the silver knife glittered in her hand. She launched herself at Kylemore. “You have no right to do this, you misbegotten wretch!”
“Watch out, Kylemore! She’s armed!” Verity cried, automatically raising the pistol.
He jerked beyond his mother’s reach, then stretched out to restrain her. She swiped his hand aside with a sweep of the blade, a fraction away from drawing blood.
“Damn you, madam!” He didn’t shift his gaze from her. “You’ve lost. It’s too late. Do you want to hang indeed?”
“I won’t hang. I’ll go back to the life I’ve always led,” she gasped, her eyes feverish in her pale face.
“Drop the knife, Your Grace,” Verity said in a hard voice. Her earlier fear had evaporated the moment the duchess had threatened the man she loved. “Drop it. Or I swear I’ll shoot. And if you think I don’t know how to use this gun, you’re sadly mistaken. Self-defense counts among the courtesan’s arts.” To prove her statement, she cocked the gun with the smooth assurance her lessons with Eldreth had lent her.
The duchess fixed a contemptuous gaze on Verity. “You won’t kill me. You know what would happen to you.”
“Perhaps I don’t care. You threatened me with torture and rape today, Your Grace. And remember, we have a string of witnesses to swear I merely protect the Duke of Kylemore. I doubt I’ll see the inside of a prison cell.”
The duchess’s stare glowed with malevolence as she trained it upon Verity. “How I wish I’d destroyed you.”
Verity tilted her head in imitation of Kylemore’s ironic salute. “I’m rather glad you didn’t.”
“You uppity bitch! I’ll kill you before you crow over me!”
The woman flung herself toward Verity, the knife raised. Automatically, Verity’s finger tightened on the trigger.
There was a deafening explosion. The acrid smell of gunpowder filled the air.
The duchess screamed and staggered back into Kylemore’s hold. He held her upright with one arm around her waist while he tugged the knife from her slack
fingers.
Ears ringing, Verity let the pistol drop uselessly to her side. “Did…did I injure her?” she asked unsteadily, feeling sick to her stomach.
She’d never before fired a gun in anger, and, however much the duchess deserved to suffer, it was hard to accept that she’d shot a bullet into another human being.
“No, she’s untouched. More’s the pity,” Kylemore bit out after a perfunctory inspection.
“Thank God,” Verity whispered, her dizziness receding.
“You shot at me, you damned guttersnipe,” the duchess said in shock. “You shot at me!”
Kylemore’s unearthly coldness returned as he spoke to the duchess. “Not another word, madam. Your antics are at an end. Now get out of my sight.” He looked up at Duncan, who had rushed in their direction when the gun had gone off. “Escort Her Grace to her carriage and see she stays there.”
Verity expected arguments, threats, protests from the duchess, but the woman remained silent. Against her son’s tall and dominant leanness, she looked shrunken, as though today’s defeat had leached the venom from her.
But Verity knew this particular snake would strike again if the opportunity arose.
While Duncan marched the duchess away toward the waiting vehicle, Kylemore turned to Verity with concern in his eyes. “Are you all right?” he asked gently.
“Yes,” she said, although her heart still pounded with the nauseating wave of terror that had swept her when she’d thought she’d killed the duchess. She even dredged up an uncertain smile as she passed the gun across to him. “This might be safer with you.”
Kylemore accepted it without comment. “Hamish and I will accompany you and your brother back to Kylemore Castle.”
“Thank you,” she whispered, while exhausted gratitude to the man who had saved her swelled her soul. She turned away to hide a sudden rush of tears. “I must check on my brother.”
She forced herself from trembling immobility and crossed to kneel at Ben’s side. He was stretched out on the luxuriant grass, and a coat was folded beneath his head.
Claiming the Courtesan Page 32
