Wicked Surrender

by Jade Lee

  He had felt it then. He felt it again now. She had kept it from him for a time. The game of seduction had pushed the agony away and given him something different to think about. Something wonderful to anticipate. Without her, he had nothing to stand between him and the despair.

  “I have nothing else to offer you,” he said more to himself than to her. “You already have money. You don’t want tender emotions. You—”

  “Respect, Brandon. I want to be—”

  “I respect you!” he shouted back. He pushed up from the floor. He would not be on his knees before her. He would not! And yet, after two furious turns about the floor before her, he dropped back against the wall, his entire body slumping. He was not kneeling, but neither was he standing tall.

  “I want you as my mistress, Scher,” he said. He kept his voice soft and low, as was appropriate with a lady, while he prayed that the urgency within him somehow translated to her. His words came out in a rush, without thought or understanding. He would honor what he said, but he was too afraid of the despair to gauge his promises. “I will give you money, jewels, a home, and education for our children.”

  “Do you offer me marriage then?” she asked softly. Her expression was puzzled now.

  “I . . . I . . .” He watched her expression harden and he damned himself for a fool. He would not lie to her. “I cannot,” he forced himself to say. He couldn’t even explain it to her. No one knew the extent of the problems he had brought back with him from India. A wife was simply not possible.

  “Then you are right,” she said. “You have nothing that interests me.” Oddly, she seemed disappointed by that. Her face had softened and her eyes held regret. Her perfume had dampened now that he was a few feet from her. All in all, she had given him his final comeuppance. Lady Scher, a failed actress had thrown him over.

  She leaned forward, not to touch him, but to see him more clearly. She peered in his face and he read honest confusion. “You say you respect me, and yet you treat me like a trollop. You wait in my room, you try to seduce me with kisses and pretty words, and when I say no, you touch me anyway. Brandon, you are not this stupid! What are you thinking? What demons drive you to this madness?”

  He looked at the floor as he spoke. He could not say these things to her face. “You were meant to be a distraction. A sweet way to pass the time between writing speeches and discussing English colonization policies. Michael suggested I seduce you—for Kit’s sake—and I found you interesting enough to be worth the effort.”

  She fell back away from him, the disgust apparent in the huff of her breath. But he knew she still listened. And even if she did not, he could not stop his words.

  “And then something happened.”

  “What?” she asked when he fell silent.

  He shook his head. “I don’t know, but it was the same in India.” He lifted his head to look at her. There was only the glow of a single candle flame, but he didn’t need it to see her face. Green eyes, glossy reddish-brown hair, and a serious expression. She managed an entire acting troupe, a playhouse, and unruly gentlemen with just a flick of her hand and arch of her brow. She had substance, and it inspired him. That was the word. “I grew inspired.”

  “You found a woman to seduce. That is hardly inspiring.”

  “No,” he rasped as he stepped to her side and dropped to the floor before her. “I had already worked my way through the ladies. I had already learned about the secrets of bed play. In truth, I was bored.” He sighed. “No, what inspired me in India was money, commerce, cooperation.” He laughed, unable to hide the bitterness in his tone. “I was inspired to work, Scher. To fight for an ideal that would make both the English and the Indians a great deal of money.”

  She tilted her head as she looked at him. “But that was all to the good, was it not?”

  “No, it was not. No good. No cooperation. Only . . .” Lies. Murder. Death.

  “The fire in that factory,” she whispered, finally understanding some of it at least. “When everything you had worked for was burned.”

  “Yes, the fire. It was deliberately set, you know. All those people murdered on purpose.” He dropped his head into her lap. He had not meant to collapse there, but somehow he found that he had placed his head on her knees, and the feel of her fingers in his hair was the most exquisite of sensations. Neither sexual nor maternal, it was simply touch—human touch—and it made his eyes burn with tears.

  “But what has that to do with me?” she asked. “How has that . . . that tragedy brought you here?”

  Did she not understand? Of course not. How could she? He was struggling through the darkness himself. With great reluctance, he lifted his head. He caught her hand and brought it to his lips. She was passive in his grasp, but he knew he had not won her. Not yet.

  “You inspire me,” he said again. He felt her still, felt his words seep into her heart. Did she soften to him? He prayed so. “I cannot explain the reason or cause. I cannot explain any of this, Scher, except to say that I feel a fire within me whenever I see you. A fire that has not touched my cold, dark heart since . . .”

  “Since India.”

  “Since before it all went bad.”

  She stroked his face, feathered her fingers across his cheek, and even touched his lips. He would have kissed her then, but she pulled back. He would have followed, but she held him off with a single look. “Disillusioned. I see it now. I see why you and I have this connection. Kit has never felt his world destroyed; certainly none of his set know what it is to give their heart and have it—”

  “Burned.”

  “Betrayed.”

  He swallowed, nodding. Yes, he had been betrayed. Only a select few knew that the fire had been set by the English, not the Indians. She didn’t know it was his superior at the East India Company who did the horrible deed, and that even the Prince Regent was complicit in the lies.

  “And so,” she continued, “we understand each other. We feel—”

  “Connected.”

  She appeared to struggle with that word, and in the end she shook her head. “A resonance. A memory of pain. But Brandon, I cannot build a life on that.”

  He touched her arms, he looked into her face, he pleaded with everything that was in him. “Scher, look into my eyes, feel what I feel, know what I know.”

  “Brandon—”

  “Just do it!”

  She did. She looked into his eyes, and he saw something spark in hers. He saw her pupils dilate, her nostrils flare. He knew without looking that her body reacted to his, heating with a call that was more than just physical. She needed him, just as he needed her. He wasn’t sure if it was truly in her eyes, but he wanted to believe it was there. He needed her to feel as he felt.

  “Be with me, Scher.”

  “No.”

  “Live with me, have my children, inspire me for the rest of my life.”

  “Marry me,” she said. “Anything you want, Brandon, but it comes with a wedding ring.”

  He tightened his hands painfully. “I can’t!”

  “Then neither can I.”

  He heard her words, pounding dully in his mind. He searched her face, looking for some crack, some spark of what he knew was there. He saw nothing. A shadowed face. A flat mouth.

  “Scher . . .”

  “I can’t give up on that dream, Brandon. I have held it for so long, wanted it with all my heart. Don’t you understand? You asked me why it is so important that I be respectable. Very well, I will tell you why. I had a sister once, did you know? Her name was Cleopatra and she was everything I am not. Beautiful, vibrant, with such a voice on stage that no one could fail to love her.”

  “You are beautiful, Scher—” he began, but she cut him off with a wave of her hand.

  “Cleo was the light that everyone adored, including me. And one day she caught a fever. The surgeon came—a day after we had sent for him. We put all our money together to buy her medicine, but the man was a cheat. He sold us bad-tasting water and Cleo
died.”

  He felt his gut clench and his hands tighten. He wanted to strangle the bastard with his bare hands.

  “We were all devastated, but we were actors and whores. No one cared what the man had done, least of all the magistrate. A week later one of the actresses died in childbirth. We couldn’t save her. She was a whore and we had no money to pay for proper caring, having spent it all on Cleo.” Her eyes glittered as she looked down at him. “Shall I tell you how my mother died? Pappy? Or a score of others?”

  He shook his head. He could lie to her. Tell her that her loved ones would still have died if they had been respectable, but the truth was that the lower classes received worse care. It was the way things worked in England, in India, in the world.

  “Do you know why I work so hard?” she asked. “Why I watch the cash box and count the wine as if it were gold? So that there will be money to pay the surgeons when we need them. So the midwife will come for the gold. But it’s not enough, Brandon. We still come second to anyone with a wedding ring. Any respectable family will be tended before us.”

  He could see it then, her aching desire for security. The need to assure by any means possible that the ones she loved would be well cared for. “You know, of course,” he said softly, “that a wedding ring will not ensure safety. That people die in respectable families as well.”

  “I know,” she said and he watched her eyes close in weariness. “I know, but I cannot escape the fear any other way. A doctor thinks twice before cheating a respectable family. And magistrates listen to a good wife as they do not hear an actress.”

  He couldn’t argue with her. It was true. And even if it weren’t, she had built so much of her life around the lie that she would not surrender it. Besides, who was he to tell her that she couldn’t strive to be married like a normal woman? She was beautiful and smart. Any man would be lucky to marry her, including himself. But since India, that path was blocked for him, and nothing he did could change it.

  “I cannot give you that,” he confessed. “I can only offer you myself.” He pressed his lips to her leg, feeling the cloth of her gown rough beneath his mouth. And yet it was part of her, and so he cherished even this tiny thing. “I need you,” he said.

  She sighed, the sound coming from deep within her. He felt her hands in his hair and her caress against his cheek. “No, Brandon. I will be a wife.”

  There was no fighting the finality in her words. He heard it as dark and brutal as the crack of a pistol or the snap of roof being consumed by fire. She was sure, and nothing he could do or say would sway her. Nothing, of course, except the one thing he couldn’t give her.

  He slowly straightened away from her, standing though he could barely feel his body.

  “Kit is a good man,” he said. “He will be good to you.” He looked down at his hands. “But he will never withstand the pressures of London society.” He looked toward her door, the burning heat in his body now cooled to a gaping darkness. “Move as far away as you can.”

  She straightened, pushing to her feet even as he slowly fled. “Leave London?” she asked. “But everything I have is here.”

  He shook his head. “You must go somewhere where there is no British society.”

  “But that is not . . . not respectable. That is being expelled. Spit out like bad meat!”

  He shrugged. He was so cold even with his new coat pulled on. “It is all you can have.”

  He opened her door and stepped out into the hallway. One of Seth’s boys lounged in the hall, his eyes narrowed with suspicion. Brandon absently tossed him a coin.

  “Tell Seth that I only spoke with her. I didn’t touch her. I didn’t hurt her. I only . . .” Failed. He failed completely and utterly to win her.

  “Lord Blackstone,” Scher called from her doorway. “Brandon.”

  He turned. Should he feel gratified that she looked troubled? He didn’t. He felt so damned cold.

  “What do you intend now?”

  He arched a brow. Did he intend anything? Ever? The sneer came easily to his lips. “Do you think Delilah is busy?”

  The boy answered. “She gots her man in her bed already.”

  “Hmmm. Well, perhaps at the brothel down the street then.” He sketched a shallow bow. “Good night, Lady Scher.”

  She waited a moment, obviously trying to think of something better to say. In the end, she merely nodded. “Good night, Lord Blackstone.”

  He left quickly then, his feet taking him in aimless patterns through areas of London best left unexplored. It was hours before the blows came. Two thieves, possibly three. They came at him with knives similar to the one Scher had held. But unlike her, they wielded theirs with skill.

  He felt the first cut on his back.

  The next came to his chest, sharp and cruel beneath his ribs.

  His last thought was that his blood was the warmest part of him, and it was draining away.

  Chapter 10

  “Have you seen Brandon?” Kit asked Scher in the Green Room six nights later.

  Scher was distracted. The societal and political fury over their engagement continued to rage. Attendance at the Tavern Playhouse was at record levels, but so were the brawls. Seth had to hire extra men just to keep the furniture from being destroyed. Fortunately, the extra “actresses” were also enjoying a brisk after-performance business.

  All in all, Scher’s engagement had been an excellent business decision but a terrible personal one. In fact, demand for her presence in the Green Room was so high, it rivaled her mother in her heyday. After all, no one could toast to her success or damn her status-seeking immorality if she wasn’t there to be applauded or damned. The worst night they’d had all week was the night she tried to spend a quiet evening hidden in her bedroom. They’d lost a dozen chairs and a score of glasses to a boisterous group demanding she hear their support of the lower classes.

  It was ridiculous, but given the damage to the furniture, she never again hid in her upstairs room. She also made sure to never appear without Seth’s protection. And after the second night, she insisted that Kit stand at her side as well. He was quite adept at diffusing the tension that surrounded them, always handy with a clever quip or a good-natured laugh. It was hard to hate Kit, even if one believed him the harbinger of the end of British civilization. Unfortunately, the strain was beginning to show on him as well.

  Which was why his question about Brandon took her by surprise. Fully three dozen people were compressed in the Green Room tonight. Despite her hopes that the excitement would die out, she and Kit remained as notorious as ever. But as Delilah had just appeared—and in a rather scanty gown—Kit and Scher enjoyed a momentary respite from the crowd’s attention.

  “The wine tastes strange tonight,” Scher commented rather than answer Kit’s question.

  “That’s because I had Seth order a better sort. If I’m to be here for hours every night, I want to drink something worth the effort.”

  She arched a brow. He had never complained about the drink before. But then, he hadn’t had to practically live here before either.

  “Don’t worry,” he added as he drained his own glass. “It’s just a few bottles exclusively for you and me.”

  And whatever guests he wished to treat. Not to mention the members of the troupe who would sneak a glass here and there. Kit would find that his few bottles didn’t last nearly as long as he thought.

  “What a nice idea,” she lied. It was a terrible idea, but ever since she’d allowed Kit to look at the books for the Tavern Playhouse, he had started to meddle in the running of it. A bottle of expensive wine here. A new sort of cushioned chair there, the fabric already smelling bad. A suggestion on the new act, and a bizarre idea about the dog food.

  Meddling, all of it, and Scheherazade hated it. It had taken her years to get all aspects of the Tavern Playhouse running smoothly. His little suggestions were already threatening to unbalance her hard work.

  On the other hand, once they were married, all her owne
rship in the troupe and the building that housed it would pass to him. Which meant, he would soon own most everything here. It would be his right to meddle as much as he wanted. And she, of course, could say nothing about it.

  “Kit, I think it would be better if we kept our wine in my bedchamber. It should be separate from the rest of the accounts.”

  “No one’s seen him for days, you know,” he said, completely ignoring her words. Which was only fair, of course, as she had ignored his. “I went round his rooms, and he hasn’t been there for nearly a week.”

  “What? Who?” she asked, though she knew perfectly well.

  “Brandon!” he repeated rather loudly. “Have you seen him?”

  “Why would I see him? Last I knew, he was headed for a brothel.”

  “Scher!” Kit said with mock outrage. “Surely you don’t know that.”

  “Of course I know that!” she snapped, irritated with this entire conversation. “He said so most explicitly.”

  “Well, that’s hardly the thing.”

  Scheherazade stopped herself from rolling her eyes. “Nothing about Lord Blackstone is ‘the thing,’ as you put it. Nothing ever has been.”

  Kit released a sigh loud enough to be heard over the din of the Green Room. “A lady doesn’t criticize like that, Scher.”

  That was another thing Kit had been doing more of lately. He had started using the phrase “a lady doesn’t . . .” with increasing frequency. Enough that she had to resort to her wineglass rather than risk an unladylike response.

  It was some moments later before she permitted herself to speak. “I haven’t the foggiest idea where Lord Blackstone is, nor do I wish to.”