by Jade Lee
And yet, how she wanted it: true, honest, legitimate marriage. To the son of a peer! Her life would be respectable, her children safe from all the dangers that plagued illegitimate children. The longing for it was a deep ache that would not subside.
“I love you, Scheherazade,” Kit continued. “And you have said you love me. When added to the other logic, can anything else be more perfect?”
She shook her head, her heart caught somewhere between her lungs and her mouth. “Your family will never allow it,” she repeated. “Think of the reaction. Can you live outside of ton? Outside of all society? You love it here!”
“It won’t come to that.”
She sighed. “Yes, it will.”
“But you forget something, my sweet.” He lifted her clenched fist to his mouth and pressed a tender kiss to her knuckles. She winced at the sight of her dirty hands against his mouth, but he didn’t notice.
“Do not say love again. That is a poor basis for anything.”
He arched his brow in challenge, but then quickly conceded the point. “All right then, you have forgotten about the money. We shall be rich as Croesus, and that will solve the other. It is the way things are, as you have mentioned to me more than once.”
“Money can only buy so much. Your family will still disown you. They would certainly never recognize our children.” Her heart twisted painfully at that. How odd that she could feel pain for children that hadn’t even been conceived yet, but she did. She most certainly did.
“We will not need them.” He slid off his bench back onto one knee. He pulled her hand to his lips again and gazed at her with an earnestness that she found more endearing than she had before. “Please, Scheherazade, will you do me the greatest honor of becoming my wife?”
Could she do it? Could she spend her life away from the acting troupe and tavern? Could she exist in that gray place of the not quite respectable nor fully deplorable? Could she be a good wife to a man who was kind, if a bit young? Of course, she could. It was a far better life than what she had here.
But he could not. When it came right down to it, he would not. Well before they made it to the altar, the world would change his mind. And yet, she wanted it. She had wanted this forever.
“It will be hard, Kit. Harder than you ever imagined.”
He smiled into her eyes, and she saw a strength there she hadn’t expected. “Love will overcome all obstacles.” And when she didn’t answer, he sobered. “You will help me, Scheherazade. And I will help you. This I swear.”
“Then yes, Kit. Yes, I will marry you.”
It was many hours later before Scher sought her bed. Half the troupe had been listening at the door, so when she finally accepted Kit’s proposal they had burst through with shouts of “huzzah!” Then there was champagne and brandy, the not-watered-down kind. And Scher managed to grab a bun before they were all gobbled down. In truth, she tried to keep the celebration modest. She didn’t want the engagement talked about yet, and so she told everyone quite sternly to keep the news quiet. It wouldn’t work, of course. No one enjoyed a good story like actors, and having one of their own marry the son of a peer was the best story of all. But some of them understood her worry. Some of them knew that Kit had yet to face the wrath of his family for his choice of bride.
In truth, she enjoyed every moment of the celebration. Whenever her mood started to sour, Kit was beside her with a word or gesture, something that made her smile. He really was a delightful . . . man. She could no longer call him a boy in her thoughts. He was a man grown, or so she hoped.
In any event, she was dropping with fatigue when she finally climbed the stairs to her bedchamber. She was the only one who lived on the top floor, and she cherished the privacy it afforded. The middle story was given over to props and costumes, plus four bedchambers, which were always occupied, though by different couples every night. And of course, the main floor was tavern and stage, plus the Green Room, which was really painted a soft brown so as to further highlight Delilah’s pale beauty.
Scher hadn’t even put her key to her door when she heard him step up behind her. She whirled around, her fist and lantern at the ready. But it was him, Viscount Blackstone, her fiancé’s first cousin. He had warned her that he would come tonight, and though she’d told him no, she’d known he would come anyway.
He stood back in the shadows. His eyes were hidden in the darkness, but she could see the hard clench of his jaw beneath his morning beard. He was angry, and the sight pleased her. After all, he had made her angry often enough.
They stood there for a moment, her with the light in her hand, him just outside of the lantern’s touch, silent and immobile. She struggled for something to say, but could come up with nothing appropriate. In the end, she sighed and turned back to her door. Let him stand in brooding silence all night if he liked. She wanted her bed. He spoke before she turned the key.
“You have accepted his suit.”
She sighed again, her whole body filled with a sudden despair. She had held on to her joy among a score of people all shouting “huzzah,” but now in the dark corridor before her door, she felt the fantasy slipping away. Why not get the pain over with quickly? The sooner she said the truth out loud, the sooner she could crawl into her bed and cry. And yet it was hard to say it aloud. So much harder than she might have guessed.
“Scher?”
“You need not fear,” she forced out. “It will not hold. We are to dine tomorrow with his family to announce the engagement.” She let her head drop to the side such that it rested on the door frame. One hand still held the lantern, the other had the key pushed into the lock. But the rest of her body sagged against the frame. “His mother will never let the marriage happen.”
“So why accept the suit? Why tarnish his name with gossip? Why put yourself through the mockery?”
She shrugged. “He is a man grown and entitled to his choices.”
“But if his mother—”
“Stop!” she hissed. She turned to look at him and was startled to find that her vision was excruciatingly clear. Despite the fact that he hid in the shadows, she still saw his every dark feature. “I want this wedding,” she confessed. “I want the home and the children and the life he offers. I want it.” She lifted her chin. “I do not know the future. I do not know that his family will break him. He is not the fool you think him.”
His head canted to the side as he studied her. “I never said I thought him a fool.” He reached out slowly to touch her, but she flinched away. She knew how it would feel before he connected. It would hold no tenderness, but it would burn across her skin like fire. And she had no business feeling fire with a man who was not her intended.
“He makes me laugh,” she said clearly. Then she bit her lip, stunned that she had revealed so much.
He moved in close, too close for her to shy away, caught as she was against her door. He touched her only on her face, his rough male fingers exquisitely light on her cheek. And, yes, fire burned wherever he stroked. She closed her eyes, locking her knees against the weakness that would come.
Then his thumb slid to her lower lip, tugging the flesh out from beneath her teeth. “I can make you scream,” he said.
She knocked his hand away, startling them both with the force of her refusal. Especially since her mouth was already swollen from his heat. “I do not like to scream,” she said tartly.
“True,” he said, and she detected a note of reluctance in his words. “You are the most quiet of women. It is why I like you so.” Then he dropped the tenor of his voice to a low whisper. “Perhaps I shall make you sing, then.”
“I stopped singing on my tenth birthday.” Then she turned her back on him, wishing she could close him out of her thoughts as easily.
He had appeared in her life as most men did, as a visitor to the Green Room, a lord who wanted to dabble with the lower class for a time. He was clean, wickedly witty, and had a dark aura around him that she—and so many others—found intriguing. He nev
er drank or became loutish, never pawed or groped anyone, and once he had saved Molly from someone who was both drunk and loutish.
That is what had softened her to him, a little more than a month ago. Before she or Seth had time to even notice the problem, Viscount Blackstone had caught the drunkard and sent him home. She had heard the story later from Molly, who was practically swooning from the romance of it all.
The very next night, Scher had thanked him with a glass of their very best wine. And in such a way, their conversations together began. Barely a week later, he had caught her between the stage and the Green Room. His touch had been dark and forbidding, just like the man. A touch of roughness, a dark need that sparked her passion as nothing else, and that wonderful whisper of minty elegance. She had allowed the kiss then. Five nights later, she had allowed a bit more.
He was a master at seduction, and she had gloried in it. But that had been weeks ago. Five times now, he had come to her doorway at night. Four times she had turned him away, though the things they had done in the hallway would hardly be considered proper. Still, she had kept him from her bed, but it had been a losing battle. They both knew her surrender was imminent.
If things had gone as usual this night, if Kit had not logicked her into agreement, then she probably would have opened the door tonight. She would have let him into her bed and her body. She would have relished every moment of her descent into the carnal, and in the morning . . . In the morning . . .
She did not know how she would feel in the morning, which is why she hadn’t opened her bedroom door to him those first four times. And now the question was moot.
“I am an engaged woman,” she said before he could renew his caress. “Please do not think I would betray Kit so easily.”
He paused, his body still a good foot away from hers. And yet she smelled the mint, she felt his presence, and she knew her legs were weak despite the way she held herself tall and proud.
“You said the engagement will not hold,” he said. “And you are still sad.”
She huffed. “Because the engagement will not hold.” She said the words, but in her heart, she thought something else. What if Kit held strong against his mother? What if the day went not well, but not so badly either? Then she would hold on to her dream with both hands and not let anyone end it.
“No,” he said, his dark voice interrupting her thoughts. “There is something deeper. I knew it before Kit’s impetuous proposal.”
She stiffened at that, abruptly finding the strength to turn and shove him backward with one hand. “It was not an impetuous act!”
He arched an eyebrow at her, the dark slash an echo of the half-sneering twist of his lips. “That is your first show of spirit this whole night.”
“Then it is a good thing it came when defending my fiancé.” Her voice almost broke on the word “fiancé,” but years of vocal training kept her emotions from affecting her words. “You underestimate your cousin.”
He acknowledged her words with a shrug. “The boy does have excellent taste.”
Scher shot him a grimace of disgust. “Flattery is not your strong suit.”
“On the contrary, Lady Scher, flattery is simply not your weakness.”
“Why can you not be my friend?” she asked, unable to look in his eyes as she spoke. “You know what life is like for a woman like me. I am accosted at night and sneered at by day. Even the poorest married woman is afforded respect, and her children have options as they grow.” She forced herself to look into his eyes. “A friend would be happy for me, for this chance at a good life.”
He didn’t speak at first, but she read a desperate sadness in his eyes. “I want to be your lover, Scher. You cannot know how you haunt me.”
“And I want to be respectable, Lord Blackstone.”
“Kit is not your answer.” He took a step forward. “But I could be. I could try.”
She wanted to believe him. She wanted it the same way she wanted to feel his hands on her body, his male strength surrounding her—penetrating her—at night. But that path led nowhere. So she turned back to the key in her door, twisting it with a precise flick of her wrist. “I am too tired to match wits with you, my lord. I concede the victory. You are more brilliant, more witty, and more manly than any woman can withstand. I am fairly panting with desire. Too bad I am engaged to your cousin.”
He was upon her in a moment, his assault too silent for her to hear, his strength too much for her to defeat. She hadn’t even smelled the rush of mint until it was too late. He simply waited until her back was turned, then wrapped his arms around her, pinning her elbows to her side. She barely had the strength to keep the lantern from crashing to the ground and setting the entire theater on fire.
He quickly wrenched the lantern from her grip. And when she drew breath to scream, the sound came out as a squeak as he flipped her over his shoulder and carried her into her bedroom.
Chapter 3
Scher weighed next to nothing. That was Brandon’s thought as he kicked the door closed behind him. For all her force of personality, for all the steel he felt beneath her surface, her weight was rather slight. Scher was flesh and bone, he realized, and that could be conquered.
He dropped her on her bed. He remembered at the last moment to protect her head such that it didn’t bounce painfully on mattress or wall. He slid his hand to cradle her as she descended, but that brought him too close to landing on top of her. And if that happened, there would be no way to rescue the situation.
So he kept her head from bouncing, and then quickly stepped back. But he couldn’t force himself to go far. He stood beside the bed, looming over her, as he contemplated her slim body. She was not lush like the portraits of her mother. Whoever her father was clearly had slimmer bones and more refined features. Brandon thought she was like a beautiful bird, slender enough for flight, long enough to be flexible, and with a crown of glossy reddish-brown hair that could mesmerize him. Did she know it changed colors depending on the light? Right now, it spilled about her head in dark waves, only occasionally glinting red from the lantern flame.
“Why aren’t you screaming?” he asked casually. How odd that his organ was painfully hard for her, that he was thinking of doing the unthinkable, and yet could discuss his actions with the dispassion of the most hardened criminal. Perhaps that was what he was: a depraved, unrepentant criminal. “You are frightened,” he noted.
Her eyes were wide, her breath shortened into tight whispered pants. She had braced herself on her elbows and coiled her legs together and back the moment her body hit the mattress. But beyond that—and a slow inching to the opposite side of the bed—she made no move to protect herself.
He looked to her bedroom door. It was shut, but not locked. Anyone could enter at any moment. Except that they were on the top floor, and he knew no one disturbed Lady Scher’s rest. “One good scream from you and I shall have the whole troupe upon me.”
She took a deep breath. He wasn’t even looking at her, but he heard it nonetheless, and he reacted without thought. He was upon the bed, his forearm pressed to her throat. He didn’t push, but the threat was enough. If she released her scream, he would cut it off before she could do more than whimper.
He waited that way until he felt her release her breath on a slow, steady sigh. He even closed his eyes to better feel the heated air whisper against his cheek and the gentle lowering of her chest as she exhaled.
“I suppose that is why,” he said to himself. He felt his organ press against her thigh. Oh, she was so close. Damn his cousin for jumping the gun. Damn Kit for proposing today rather than tomorrow. He could have had Scher tonight if it were not for the stupid boy. He could have had her in a blissful sexual haze for nights on end. Enough to satiate his own hunger and dissuade the puppy from his ridiculous proposal. But Kit had not waited, Scheherazade had accepted, and now she would not submit to him without force.
It had seemed so easy a month ago. His brother, the earl and head of the family, had tasked
him with distracting a scheming actress away from Kit. How hard could it be? Then he’d met Scher and found her infinitely more complicated than expected. And also infinitely more intriguing.
She’d been kissing him for more than a month now, teasing him with her hunger while simultaneously struggling to hold on to her respectability. He had felt the war inside her with every kiss. She did not want to desire him, but she did. And he had made sure that some of his friends knew of their liaison. Not the particulars, just enough to set the stage if Kit forced his hand.
And Kit had forced his hand, damn it all. If only the boy had waited one night. Kit didn’t seem to care if the girl was virgin, only that she remain true to him now. So all Brandon needed to do was seduce her before the proposal, then brag about it in the right circles. But it hadn’t happened that way, and now Brandon lay on top of her fighting his worst desires.
My, how he had fallen from his idealistic youth.
It would be so easy. All he need do is ease himself on top of her. One hand would pin her wrists. The other would pull aside her skirt. And if she screamed, it wouldn’t matter. The deed would be done before anyone could stop him. Even if she cried rape afterward, there would be enough doubt. Kit would likely decry the engagement before tomorrow’s family dinner.
His brother would do it. His brother would think it a service to Kit and to the family name. He could almost picture Michael standing over him, cursing with displeasure the longer Brandon avoided doing the deed.
She was back to her short panting breaths. In truth, he hadn’t allowed her much more than that, so he eased off her throat so she could breathe deeper. He had no wish to suffocate her. But he couldn’t force himself to move further—either on top or away. Her breasts were full beneath his chest. She had gotten that much from her mother. Ripe globes that he could feel distinctly even though she lay on her back.
He moved his free hand to her breast. His right arm still lay light across her throat, but his left shifted enough for him to caress her. He didn’t tear off her clothes. She owned so few dresses. It would be cruel to destroy this one even though it was a dull, ugly brown. He could feel through her clothes. He shaped her and lifted her and rubbed his thumb across her nipple. She released a mew of distress, but he felt her pebble beneath his ministrations, and he wondered if her breath was short because of fear or desire.
