Duchess of Sin

by Laurel McKee

  Next to her, she heard his breath, the tremors of his release slowed. She opened her eyes and rolled onto her side, gazing at him in the sputtering lamplight. His eyes were half-closed, and he gave her a lazy smile that made her heart speed up again.

  “Are you all right, cailleach?” he murmured.

  “Oh, yes.” Better than all right. She was at peace. Even if it was only for a moment, it was a rare, wondrous gift. She kissed the corner of his mouth in silent thanks.

  “I should see you home,” he said. “It grows late.”

  “Not just yet. We have a little time.” She hated the thought of leaving this room. Here they were safe; they were together and nothing could touch them. Out there, the whole world and all its troubles and expectations waited.

  She sat up on the edge of the chaise and untied her ribbon garters. She rolled down her stockings and cast them away, giving him a long glimpse of her bare leg before she reached for his discarded shirt. She pulled it over her head, and let its soft folds wrap around her. It smelled of him, and of her too, their essences mingled.

  “It suits you much better than me,” he said. He reached out for her and tugged her back into his arms. She curled up against him, her back to his chest, and closed her eyes with a smile. They were as close as two people could be, she and Conlan, at least for that night.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Katherine couldn’t shake away the feeling that something was wrong. She could not sleep, even though it was far past the hour to retire.

  She set aside her book and looked out the drawing room window. Usually there was a view of the grand house across the street, its pillars and portico echoing their own dwelling in lovely symmetry, but tonight everything was concealed by a thick blanket of fog. It muffled the streetlights and even the moon, making it seem much later than it really was. She shivered, and not just from the damp chill.

  Drawing her shawl closer around her shoulders, she went to pull the draperies shut. It had been a quiet evening, most unusual in the round of Dublin holiday merrymaking. With Caroline’s lesson running long and Anna indisposed with a headache, Katherine took her supper on a tray by the fire. She had thought she missed the quieter life of the country, but now in the long, silent moments filled with her own thoughts, she wondered if the social round didn’t have its advantages after all.

  It did not always pay to look too deeply into one’s own heart; she had discovered that long ago. As long as she did her duty and spent her time looking after others, she could dismiss any doubts or fears, any hint of sadness.

  Tonight, though, there was nothing she had to do, no useful task that waited for her. And all those doubts clamored at the edge of her mind.

  “Oh, what is wrong with me?” she muttered. She curled her fist into the satin drapery as she stared out at the misty night. Nothing should be wrong. Anna was on the verge of being betrothed to Grant Dunmore, a most suitable gentleman, and Caroline seemed to be settling down to her lessons. Her motherly work was nearly done. She should be proud and happy, and planning for the future.

  Not restless and worried. She felt like she was on the edge of something, that events she could not control or even understand were rolling toward her like a landslide.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said sternly. Such things did not happen to a person twice in her life. She and her family had survived the Uprising, and she had worked hard to put their world back in order. All was well now. It was just the rumblings over the Union that had her so uneasy.

  She pulled the curtains over the window, blotting out the night. If only she could be happy again, carefree like when she was a girl so long ago, before marriage and duty had pressed in on her. Those days were so brief that she could hardly recall them.

  She took up a candle and went upstairs to the silent corridor where the bedchambers lay. Perhaps her ominous feelings would disappear if she saw everyone was safe.

  Caroline was asleep in her bed, the blankets thrown back haphazardly and her book open next to her. Katherine carefully removed her daughter’s spectacles and tucked the coverings around her before she blew out the lamp and tiptoed from the room.

  Anna’s chamber was dark, her bedcurtains drawn, so Katherine did not come closer. Anna had looked so tired lately, so preoccupied. She needed her sleep. And Katherine had hopes that the country air, and the resolution of the Dunmore engagement, would do her daughter good.

  She sighed as she made her way back downstairs. Not that the Dunmore matter seemed quite so certain now, with the advent of the Duke of Adair into their lives. His appearance in town and his attentions to Anna were a puzzle, and not one she was entirely sure she liked. He was handsome, of course, and dashing, and possessed of a fine estate despite his less than stellar background. A ducal title made up for a lot.

  Yet he was so mysterious, his life as shadowed as that fog outside. Anna was a high-strung girl, one that had been worrisomely clouded by sadness since the rebellion. A man so complex might not be good for her.

  But since when did young ladies want what was good for them? Especially ones as passionate and strong-minded as her daughters.

  Katherine turned toward the library with the thought that maybe a lighthearted novel or some poetry would distract her from this strange mood. She pushed open the door and froze at the sight that greeted her.

  Nicolas Courtois sat at the desk, bathed in a circle of pink-amber lamplight that turned his skin and hair to molten gold. He had his head bent over an open sketchbook, and the flickering light cast shadows that chiseled his high cheekbones and strong jaw into fine sculpture. His hair fell in an untidy sweep over his brow, which would tempt any woman to smooth it back, to touch its softness and trace her fingertips over his handsome face.

  Well, perhaps she did understand a bit after all, the foolish rush of feeling over a handsome face. Strange—she had never felt like that before. Why now, with a young Frenchman, her daughter’s teacher?

  Perhaps this was the sense she had of something amiss out there in the night. Of standing on the brink of her own uncertain future.

  Nicolas leaped to his feet at her entrance, running his fingers through his hair to push it back. It just sent the locks into greater disarray.

  “Lady Killinan,” he said. His lilting French accent seemed heavier tonight. More foreign and exotic. “Forgive me.”

  Katherine straightened her shoulders as she tried to recover herself. “I did not realize anyone was here.”

  “I was merely waiting for the fog to lift. It was quite thick when Lady Caroline finished her lesson. We ran too long,” he said. Across the shadowed space of the library he stared at her, his eyes so dark and deep they seemed almost black. He, too, seemed very startled. Only by her sudden appearance? “Je suis desolée, I am sorry.”

  “Oh, no, Monsieur Courtois,” she said. She stepped into the room and set down her candle on the nearest pier table. Her hand had begun to tremble so she feared she couldn’t hold on to it. “You were quite right to stay. It cannot be safe to try and cross the city in such weather. I just wish I had known; you could have dined with me.”

  “That is kind of you, my lady. One of your maids brought me refreshments.” He gestured to a tray of bread and cheese on the desk.

  “Of course she did.” The maids were all in love with him. And Katherine feared that she was just as foolish as they were, drawn by a godlike face and a sad story. By his great artistic talent. He was not dull like the Society men she knew, not bound to expectations and old ways of thinking. He saw true beauty and goodness in the world.

  She tightened her shawl over her shoulders. She should go, but she didn’t want to, not at all. She didn’t want to go back to her cold, lonely night.

  “Then perhaps you would share a brandy with me, monsieur,” she said. She hurried over to the small sideboard holding a crystal carafe and etched glasses. “We need something warm on such a dismal night.”

  “That is very kind of you, Lady Killinan,” he said. He sound
ed cautious.

  She should be cautious, too, but she didn’t want to. The fog seemed to close the world around her with a sense of unreality. “Not at all,” she said as she poured a generous measure of brandy into two of the glasses. “It’s quite selfish actually. I’d like the company on such a dismal evening.”

  “Then I am glad I happen to be here. I’d like the company, too.”

  She handed him one of the drinks and clicked her glass to his. “Salut, monsieur.”

  “Salut.”

  Katherine tilted her head toward the sketchbook. “More of your own work?”

  “No, it is Lady Caroline’s.” He turned the drawing so she could see, his hand brushing hers. “She says it is your house in Kildare County.”

  “Oh, yes!” Katherine could see it now, the old medieval tower of Killinan Castle, the lines uncertain but recognizable. “I think she was holding out on me when she said she has no artistic talent.”

  “She has very good instincts, a good sense of proportion. She just needs a bit of…”

  “Refinement?” Katherine laughed. “I fear all my girls need that.”

  “I cannot believe that, Lady Killinan. They are your daughters, are they not? Telles meres, telles filles. Like mothers, like daughters.”

  “Meres et filles? I begin to think that might be true.” And she began to think she herself was not so refined after all. Not when she stared at him in the lamplight and felt the stirrings of an undeniable desire deep inside. She never thought that she possessed such feelings at all. It was very startling.

  She took a long drink of the brandy, letting its fiery smoothness slide down her throat.

  “Lady Caroline asked if I could teach her some French,” Nicolas said, draining his own glass. She saw the streaks of paint staining his long, elegant fingers. “She thinks it might be… useful.”

  “You are a miracle worker, monsieur. Caroline never wanted to learn French before, only Gaelic. I’d be happy if you could come for extra lessons.”

  “Then I will tell her I agree.”

  Katherine refilled her glass and drifted over to sit on a settee by the fireplace. “Have you ever been married, monsieur?”

  “I’m afraid not,” he said. He sat down in a chair across from her, and she saw that the brandy had erased the caution in his eyes. He gave her an unreadable half-smile. “I hear it is a most—how do you say? Amiable state.”

  Katherine laughed. She felt her own caution, her usual reserve, ebbing away. She was just a woman enjoying the company of a handsome young man. “I am not sure about that. Sometimes it must be.”

  “Your own husband looks as if he was a kind man.” Nicolas nodded toward Lord Killinan’s portrait over the fireplace. “Even though the artist was not of the best quality, he captured something good-natured about the eyes.”

  “Perhaps the quality was not so fine because the artist was in a hurry,” said Katherine. “My husband was always impatient to be in the hunting field, and he had no time to stand still for a portrait. But he was kind enough.” He never had a harsh word for anyone, and he gave her her daughters, her home. That made the match a success, especially in the eyes of Ascendancy Society, but not one full of excitement and fire, or even true understanding.

  “I’m surprised you are not married,” she said.

  “My life is too unsettled for any lady to bear,” he answered. “I move from post to post.”

  “Oh, I think a woman would put up with a great deal more than that to have you for her husband!”

  He tilted his head, laughing. That laughter seemed to light him from within, making him seem even more handsome—if such a thing was possible. “Do you think so?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, I have not met this very patient lady yet. And I have never been in love, which I would not marry without.”

  “Neither have I. Been in love, that is,” she said without thinking. She wished she could call back the words, especially when his eyes darkened.

  “How can that be?” he said, his voice low, richly accented. “You are so very…”

  “So very what?”

  “Beautiful. In France, you would have been in love many times. Men would throw themselves at your feet just for a smile.”

  Katherine suddenly couldn’t breathe. She wanted to cry at his sweet words, at the intense expression in his dark eyes as he looked at her so intently. “Men in Ireland must be different from men in France,” she said.

  “Then they are fools,” he said fiercely. “If they are too occupied with hunting and cards and drinking to see a marvelous woman like you, then they are imbeciles.”

  She laughed shakily. “I think we have both had too much to drink, monsieur.”

  “Non, I speak only the truth.” He sat down next to her on the settee, so close she could smell him and feel the heat from his tall, lean body. He was so handsome, she thought in a daze, so gloriously young and fierce and ardent. He was so very, very tempting. She had spent years being good. She hadn’t realized how exhausting it was until now.

  “In Paris, you would be a goddess,” he said. “You would reign over the whole city, and it would light only for you. I have never seen anyone like you. If I were not who I am…”

  “Then don’t be.” Katherine did something she never, ever thought she would—she dropped her iron control and gave in to temptation. She reached up and touched his face, tracing the line of his cheekbones and brow. He felt so warm and fair, so needful. She had never imagined there could be such a man.

  “Don’t be yourself, Nicolas, just for this moment,” she whispered. “And I won’t be Lady Killinan. I am so weary of her, weary of everything.”

  “What is your given name?” he said softly. He tilted his face into her touch and closed his fingers gently around her wrist.

  “Katherine.”

  “Katherine.” He kissed her palm, his open lips caressing each finger, each bit of soft, trembling skin. His eyes closed as he savored her, inhaling deeply of her perfume. In that moment, she did feel like a goddess, like Paris—and all the world—would be at their feet.

  She felt such a profound, painful longing sweep over her at his kiss. She had always been puzzled by her friends when they threw themselves into passionate affairs, when they spoke in heated whispers of their rapture over some man. But now—oh, now—she understood. The ice she had spent her whole life trapped in melted away, and she was vulnerable to every emotion in the universe.

  He kissed her wrist, the tip of his tongue touching the delicate pulse beating there. She rested her other hand on his head, caressing the golden silk of his hair. Her young, gorgeous god.

  He turned his face up to her, and their mouths met in a passionate kiss. There was nothing tentative or awkward about it. It was as if they had kissed a hundred times before in a dozen lifetimes, and their lips and bodies fit perfectly together. It was like coming home after a long, long journey.

  Katherine parted her lips and welcomed the slide of his skillful tongue against hers. He tasted like brandy, and like himself, and she felt his breath mingle with hers, quick with excitement. It had been so long since she was kissed and never like this. Never as if she was a precious, desired being.

  Nicolas groaned against her mouth, and his hands grasped her waist to carry her back down to the cushions. His weight was delicious on top of her, his body so strong and warm. She caressed his shoulders and pushed his coat away, impatient with anything that impeded her desperate touch.

  “Belle cherie,” he muttered. His kiss traced over her cheek, along her throat to the soft skin above her silk bodice. She felt his tongue caress the swell of her breast.

  Katherine felt something vital and desperate come alive inside of her. The youth she had lost in duty and motherhood, the womanhood she had denied even to herself, roared into being.

  “Tres belle, tres belle,” he whispered. He kissed her cheek again, soft and lingering.

  She clutched at his shoulders, so dizzy she feared
that she would faint. She opened her eyes—and met the painted gaze of her husband. Her stolid, dull, kind husband with their home behind him in the sunny distance. My angel Kate, he used to tease her. That’s what they call you, you know—the Angel of Kildare. And they’re right.

  Bitter despair rushed through her, colder than any icy fog. Her heedless, wonderful passion, suited to a young girl and not a respected widow, collapsed into ashes. Love belonged to the young.

  She pushed frantically at Nicolas’s shoulders. She had to flee, to run away and sob in private. No one could see her tears, least of all this man. This young, gorgeous, desperately unsuitable man.

  “No,” she whispered, pushing at him harder.

  He left her immediately, scrambling to his feet. He stared down at her with dark blue eyes, his breath harsh, as if he couldn’t believe what had just happened. He spun away from her and caught up his rumpled coat from the floor. His back was rigid with iron control.

  Katherine slowly sat up and tugged her own clothes into place. Her hair tumbled over her shoulders like a girl’s and she felt even more foolish. She couldn’t pretend to be what she wasn’t. She couldn’t give in to what she wanted like an impulsive child and ruin everything she had created in her life.

  “I’m so sorry,” Nicolas said in that musical Parisian voice. “I—I will go. You won’t have to see me again.”

  “No, no,” Katherine murmured. She swung her legs off the settee and found she trembled so hard she couldn’t hope to stand. “It was my fault. I was feeling a bit woeful tonight, and we had too much to drink. Please, monsieur, I don’t want you to abandon your job. Caroline needs your help, and I…”

  And she could not bear the thought of never seeing him again. Despite her foolish behavior, despite the temptation, she didn’t want him to vanish into the mist.

  “I need your help, too,” she said. “I promise, I will not—importune you again.”

  “Importune?” He laughed harshly. “Non, madame, I think I was the one who has importuned you. You are so beautiful, and I—but there is no excuse.”