“Then, what are your intentions now, Lady Wellcott?” he asked.
She blinked at him, a flirtatious flutter of eyelashes that any courtesan would have applauded. “What kind of villain would I be if I announced such a thing? Perhaps you must seduce it out of me, sir. What say you?”
Phillip’s mouth fell open in shock but he struggled to recover his composure. “I’d say that was a fool’s challenge.”
She pressed her lips into a pout. “Am I not desirable, Sir Warrick?”
“You are more than desirable.”
Her chin lifted. “You want to be punished? Then come, Sir Warrick. Prove what kind of man you’ve become. One that is ruled by fear to cower at the brush of a woman’s skirts? Or one who is willing to make amends and take what is offered?” She stood as if to go. “Make no mistake. I am not attracted to fools.”
He caught her wrist and thwarted her escape. “You are not a villain, Lady Wellcott. And I am not a fool.” She held her breath and he went on. “I am sorry, Serena. I am completely sorry for all the pain I caused you that fateful day. For the lies I swallowed and the callous heartless actions I took. For the suffering, for the years lost and for every stupid instance that cheated me out of the pure happiness and joy that you fearlessly gifted me with.” He kissed her hands then turned them over to place another reverent kiss on the tender flesh of her palms. “I am in the Duke of Northland’s debt but not for feathers and silk and fortunes…but because he saved you when I was too blind and stupid to be the man that you deserved. My God, I am so, so sorry.”
She bowed her head, closing her eyes as the balm of his words finally edged close to the worst of her wounds. There. The apology I dreamt of and longed for…
Except it may all be too late.
She looked back up at him. “Thank you for that.”
“Come to me tonight, Serena.”
“Yes.” Her eyes filled with unshed tears but she averted her face before he could see them. “I will come to you tonight.”
He released her hand and she walked back toward the house as gracefully as she could, despite the lash of her emotions that urged her to run.
Yes, one last time.
Because tomorrow it all comes to head one way or another and it is over.
Tomorrow, it will rain.
Chapter Seventeen
She waited until midnight before she came to his rooms.
I have changed into a woman he doesn’t really know.
A woman he isn’t likely to want to know.
But there is time for one last night to embrace the lie and pretend that it isn’t too late.
She knocked softly and entered quickly without waiting for his answer. He was there, just as she’d known he would be, standing at the center of the room. A single candle was lit by the bed to cast a beautiful glow throughout the space and giving it a magical quality.
“You came.”
She smiled. “Did you have any doubts that I would?”
“I’d be a fool not to entertain the possibility that a woman can always change her mind,” he replied with a smile.
“Ah! You’re learning the way of it now.”
He approached her slowly, tipping her head up slowly to kiss her. “I am lucky to have such a beautiful tutor.”
He teased her with the whisper of a kiss and Serena nearly cried at what his touch foretold.
Not slow. Please, god…not slow.
She wasn’t sure her heart could survive it. She wanted him to rush her, to race her to the finish and be done with it; as if the pain of a knife’s thrust would be lessened with speed.
She tried to hurry him, to overwhelm him. She pushed the robe from his shoulders to reveal his naked form and knelt to incite him to action, aware that her mouth against his sex would weave a spell to wrench control from his hands.
His cock came to life at the first brush of her hot breath across the silky soft skin covering his hardening shaft. Serena admired the vigor of his body and the taut evidence that she alone commanded him. She kissed the darkening tip, delving her tongue against him to taste the first pearl of moisture that demonstrated his readiness. She found the sensitive ridge underneath his length and then pulled him inside the velvet pocket of her mouth, drawing against his strength with a gentle assault of tongue and teeth. He sighed at her touch, holding as still as he could to allow her to play as she wished.
Serena tightened her grip, eliciting pleasure from the way his body responded, alternating each stroke of her fingers with a long sweet kiss across his flesh until he was moaning for more.
He stepped away without warning, gently disengaging her from the game. Phillip reached under her arms and lifted her to her feet. “Come, Lady Wellcott.” He began to lead her to his bed. “Come to me. Why hurry, my love? We have all the time we need. All the time in the world…”
Words failed her but she took his hand and followed him to the bed. He climbed up onto the mattress and she quickly pulled off her nightgown to toss it on the floor before joining him. Serena crawled up, deliberately exaggerating her movements like a cat, drawing his eyes to her curves and allowing her long black hair to trail up his frame as she carefully landed on top of him.
Then for a strange second, she forgot her seductive plan to push him and lost her place. She covered him with her body, placing one of her ears against his chest.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Shh! I’m listening to your heartbeat,” she confessed softly. She closed her eyes to try to absorb the strong thrum and thud of his heart beneath her as if to draw it into her soul. It was a sound that mesmerized her and made her wonder if she would ever again indulge in dreams where Phillip Warrick’s heart beat with love for her.
Tears slipped from her eyes and fell onto his skin and he jolted at the sensation. “Serena! Are you crying?”
“No! Don’t be foolish!” The denial would have been effective if not for the hiccup that followed it and the clear evidence on her face that she was a liar.
He’d shifted her off to change places with her before she could stop him, cradling her in his arms against the soft mattress beneath her. “What troubles you?”
“The moon,” she whispered. “Kiss me.”
The look of confusion on his face was priceless but he complied, kissing her with renewed fervor. Where he led, she followed. In an ageless dance, they explored and teased, gave and took pleasure in equal measure and then forgot to measure anything at all, not even time.
The candlelight transformed them both into creatures of golden light and darkest shadows. Her skin was warmed by his hands and every path of his hands coaxed her to life as if she couldn’t move unless he was there to inspire her blood to flow or her heart to beat. It was an intoxicating paradox as she was the siren that danced to the music of his groans astride his hips but Serena knew that it was not Phillip who was drowning.
Her body welcomed him and she shuddered at the power of it.
He pulled her down into the bed, their primal ritual taking a slow turn from want to need. Serena spread her thighs apart even wider to urge him on and then arched her back as every line blurred between victory and surrender, between the past and the present.
Her release built slowly this time, as if her body knew what she couldn’t acknowledge, that letting go meant losing far more than a moment’s control this time. Some stubborn part of her resisted it but she was no match for Phillip’s patient assault on her senses. His body was a relentless and impossibly sexy opponent as one gentle tactic after another finally exhausted her defenses.
When it was close, Serena clung to him, tears pressed from eyes as frustration yielded to an exquisite pang of shuddering ecstasy and agonizingly slow waves that made her shudder and buck against him. She cried out at the strange sense that her soul was caught in the tangle of this and that she had just given up something she could never have again.
And she hated him for it.
And she loved him for it.
&n
bsp; Dreams of Oakwell gave way to a strange return to the Greenwood Home for orphaned and unwanted children. She’d pushed through the doors to the solarium and ended up in the courtyard of the hell of her childhood. But this time, they’d chained her to the flagstones and somewhere Pepper was in danger. Pepper was screaming because a monster was raping her.
Raven was trapped. Trapped in the rain. Helpless.
And the flagstones turned to mud…and Pepper stopped screaming.
And that was so much worse.
Awareness came hard as she sat up in a cold sweat, the terror of her nightmare seizing her by the throat and choking her. She slowly caught her breath and accepted that she had unwittingly fallen asleep in the bed next to Phillip. Serena waited to see if she had disturbed him with it, but mercifully he slumbered on, unaware of her.
She shook her head to try to banish fear. Oh, God. What if I have crossed a new line and have far more to lose than to gain if I surpass the evil deeds of the villains of my childhood in my reach for justice?
What kind of demon puts an innocent in harm’s way?
It was too dark to really see Phillip’s face and she was grateful for that one merciful detail. Serena slid cautiously from his bed, gathered her things, and slipped from his room, a refugee from her own past.
Chapter Eighteen
“You seem distracted, Lady Wellcott?” Phillip asked. “Did you not sleep well?”
It was a wicked tease since he knew very well how she had slept. But it wasn’t the lack of sleep or erotic tangle he evoked when he looked at her. Pepper’s fleeting encounter with Mr. Osborne and her own knowledge of how close the man was to losing control heralded danger. She walked into the dining room to join the others for breakfast, but found her steps turning uneven as she became aware that their host was not in his chair at the head of the table.
“I slept like a babe,” she said, then shifted in her chair to address Delilah. “Is your husband not joining us?”
Delilah shook her head. “He should be here any moment.”
Phillip spoke as he retook his own seat. “I saw him upstairs earlier and he said something about a headache. Said he was going to take a powder and rest and that we shouldn’t wait for him.”
“Oh.” Serena began to take a cup of coffee and then stopped, abruptly setting her cup aside. She hadn’t seen him upstairs and there was no cause to fear.
Except…
It’s nothing. But why is my mouth dry? Why do I have the worst feeling? Pepper is upstairs in my bedroom and if he waited to see me leave…
She stood. “If you’ll excuse me. I meant to take a walk after breakfast and just realized I left my parasol upstairs.”
“No need to race for it. I’ll just ring to have Dell bring it down for—“
“No reason to bother her.” She didn’t linger for a debate on the inefficiency or complex protocol that meant staying in the dining room. “I’ll be back shortly.”
Her pace increased with every step she took. The planned ambush of Osborne now felt like a flimsy construct and all she could think of was Pepper. Memories of Pepper when she was all of five years old and looking to Raven for protection and solace in that damp dark hellhole. Pepper who had never questioned her and never faulted a friend who asked her to risk all in a quest for vengeance.
Pepper! What have I done?
She tried to shake off her fears. This was likely to end in laughter as Pepper mocked her surge of over-protectiveness but Raven knew that her plans had changed. She would find another way to bring Osborne down without—
A muffled cry through her bedroom door ended the train of her thoughts instantly.
She seized the door handle only to realize it was locked.
No! Oh, no!
She took one deep breath. If I pound on the door, he is sure he’s been discovered and all is lost. Oh, god. Hang on, Pepper!
She ran from the door to the adjacent bedroom, sprinted into the dressing room and bolted toward the adjoining door that connected the two bedrooms. And just as she’d surmised, he’d bolted the door to the hall but a man like Osborne would never think to also lock a door used only by the maids.
She burst into the room and onto a scene from her worst nightmare. His pants were down around his knees and he’d forced Pepper face down onto the bed, her skirts pulled up to reveal her bare nethers. He half-turned in his shock at the intrusion, his thick erection bobbing beneath his belly while one hand was clamped viciously over Pepper’s mouth to muffle her screams.
“Get off of her, you bastard!”
Serena rushed up to him without a single thought of strategy, her hands forming claws aimed at his eyes. He released Pepper’s mouth and backhanded Serena before she could reach him to draw blood.
Stars of white hot pain danced in front of her eyes as she landed on the floor at his feet, her vision filled with the ugly sight of his wobbling red cock inches from her face.
Osborne laughed and reached down to grip his sex proudly, then released it to press his hips forward to show off his prowess. “Oh, get a good look, dear lady! You’ll get your fill, soon enough! So impatient!” He looked back to the bed, eyeing the object of his desire. “Just let me split this peach and we’ll see if you don’t—“
She reached up in one fluid stroke to retrieve the long six inch pin from its metal sheath hidden in her curls and drove it up deep into the wrinkled hairy fat pouch that held his balls. It was a single puncture that caused more pain than actual immediate damage but it was exactly what she’d intended. He screamed, a piercing high pitched wail that rivaled a banshee as he doubled over to cradle his insulted jewels. “You, bitch!”
“Help! He’s at us!” Pepper screeched.
James glared at her maid in disgust unaware that Serena was sheathing the hair pin before he could see it in her hands. Serena kicked out with one heeled boot, squarely connecting with his bare inner thigh, pushing away from him to struggle to her feet. “Run, Pepper!”
“What is this, you witch?” James grabbed the woman closest to hand and the one he suspected had cut his balls open. His hand fisted into her hair with a roar, while the other involuntarily grabbed his injured flesh at the strain of holding her down. “What did you do?!”
“What’s wrong, Mr. Osborne?” she whispered, wincing at the pain of his grip. “Was that you barking? I couldn’t tell.”
Fury overtook him and he lifted a closed fist readying to punch her before he realized that Pepper had indeed run. Sobs braying in innocent horror at what she had endured, she was fumbling with the lock on the bedroom door, hysterically seeking freedom and help in equal measure.
“Don’t open that door! I’ll snap your mistress’ neck if you—“
Momentum carried Pepper past the threat before she understood his words, unlocking the heavy door and throwing it open only to be greeted by Phillip Warrick with Mrs. Osborne and three footmen along with a bewildered Mr. Clayborne holding a candelabra like a club.
“Oh, God! He—he’s there! My mistress! Save my mistress!” Pepper cried as she fell against Phillip.
Serena’s heart nearly broke that Pepper would even now, think of someone else’s safety rather than her own. Go on. Snap my neck and ensure that your own is broken by the hangman’s noose! Serena closed her eyes, calmly waiting for James Osborne to make his choice.
“Bitch!” Osborne growled as he released her, doing his best to stand away from her and then realizing his pants were still down. “She…lured me here!”
Serena looked at Phillip and the others, staggering to her feet and making no effort to hide the ruin of her right eye and cheek. “I came up for my parasol and found him in the midst of raping my maid! When I tried to stop him, he struck me and then threatened the same to me!”
Mrs. Osborne came quickly into the room to put an arm around her shoulders. “I am—so dreadfully sorry, Lady Wellcott! Your face!”
Serena reached up to touch her throbbing cheekbone and allowed the tears to start.
> “You son of a bitch!” Phillip released Pepper so that he could murder his cousin’s husband.
“I’m bleeding! That bitch! She cut me! She cut me!” Osborne held up a hand covered in blood, his eyes wide with primal masculine panic.
Phillip’s steps slowed, his lip curling in a sardonic humor, but he seized James by the collar. “Cut you? With what?”
“I…I…don’t know…” Osborne’s fury wobbled as he fumbled between trying to pull up his britches and stem the flow of blood from an injury he couldn’t see despite the agony that was undeniable.
“Do you have a weapon, Lady Wellcott?” Phillip asked.
She shook her head and held out her hands, fingers splayed to demonstrate their emptiness. “I am not in the habit of carrying weaponry, sir.”
“Of course, you aren’t. Which just leaves the matter of rape. Send for the constable, Delilah, and bid him to bring two strong men to cart a criminal from your house.”
“No!” Osborne’s fear took on a new dimension and a sharp edge at the realization that there were no less than six people looking on to the scene with calls echoing down the halls that were sure to summon every living soul in the house. “I—the scandal…”
“You should have thought of that before you assaulted a guest in our home!” Delilah said. “Before you assaulted a maid under my roof, you bastard!”
“J-just a maid! She wanted it! This is a terrible misunderstanding, Delilah. A man…I have my weaknesses and she…lured me…to….said her mistress was up…for it…as well…”
Pepper gasped at the suggestion and buried her face in her hands. Serena shifted away from Delilah to take Pepper into her arms. “Send for the doctor as well to see to my darling girl! But by all means, send for the constable. I will be the one to press charges and see this through! I know what I saw and will testify to the attempted rape and to your assault of my person.” She glared at him defiantly. “Unless you care to claim that I somehow begged you to give me a black eye in the midst of this nightmare?”
Delilah slapped her husband so hard that the sound resembled a gunshot. “You’re not a man. You rape a maid and think to blame her? You’re a vile excuse for a human being!”
Lady Rises (The Black Rose Trilogy Book 2) Page 13
