The Dark Regent

by Catherine Lloyd

  “Take off your clothes.”

  His voice rumbled through her like the thunder. She shrank from his stare, startled by his physical power and her inability to act against it. He reached for the clasp at her throat and she stood by helplessly as he unfastened her mantle, his hands moving down the garment until it fell open. Without a word, Wolfe removed it from her shoulders and hung it on a wooden peg.

  He took her hand, led her into the kitchen and stood her in front of the fire. Crispin tugged at the buttons on her kid leather boots and pulled them off her feet. He worked the fastenings on her jacket, tugged it off and laid it on the bench to dry.

  Her arms and shoulders were bare.

  “Do you need me to undress you? Or are you capable of removing your skirt without my assistance.”

  “I need a robe, Crispin.”

  “You need a bath.”

  Wolfe stepped into the cloak room and returned with a copper washtub that he set on the hearth in front of the fire. He filled a large kettle with water from the pump, set it on the fire to heat, and then continued to fill the copper washtub with cold water.

  “You’ll be warm enough in front of the fire until the kettle heats.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest and stared at her as though waiting for her to disrobe.

  With burning cheeks, Fawn stepped out of her skirt and laid it on the bench beside her jacket. Crispin removed himself to a chair in a shadowed corner, presumably to give her privacy, but she was keenly aware of his eyes watching her every move. She unlaced her corset, set it on the table, and then removed her wet stockings and hung them on the mantle to dry.

  The fire was wonderfully hot. Her toes curled on the cold stone floor. Fawn moved to the copper basin.

  “Not yet. Take everything off.”

  “I cannot. Not with you looking.”

  “I want to see you. I may not have another opportunity and I will not be denied. Bathe with me in the room or do not bathe at all. The choice is yours.”

  Fawn’s belly fluttered as she fingered the tiny pearl buttons on her chemise, unfastening each one until the garment fell loose from her shoulders. She slipped it off and dropped it to the stone floor. Cool air brushed over her breasts contrasting with the heat from the blaze.

  The storm crashed over their heads and Fawn shivered. Crispin watching her undress from the shadows was causing a storm within.

  “Take off your slip.”

  She pulled on the tie at her waist and the cotton slip fell to the floor. She was completely exposed to the captain’s gaze. Fawn closed her eyes briefly, her skin burning with embarrassment.

  Wolfe leaned back in the deep dark shadows where it was too dark to see him properly and she could pretend he wasn’t there. Fawn tugged the pins from her hair. Unbound, it cascaded down her back, matted with mud and tangled.

  She crooked her knee, trying to cover herself as she waited for the kettle to heat. Crispin emerged from the void and crossed to the fire. He lifted the heavy kettle and poured the steaming water into the cold water in the copper tub. His gaze traveled languidly over her breasts and belly.

  “The water will be warm now. Take your bath. I won’t disturb you.”

  He set the kettle down and returned to his corner seat.

  Fawn gingerly stepped into the tub and gratefully sank below the surface. The tub offered a degree of concealment, she thought, and rested her head against the copper edge. His voice floated to her from across the room.

  “Now I have a question for you,” he said. “Am I the reason you attempted that desperate act on the cliff?”

  She lowered her gaze to her hands, grateful that he wasn’t shaming her, though she felt ashamed of herself. “I don’t have the answer to that. I was wrong to give in to despair but I fear your obsession will break me one day. I can’t fight you forever and once you’ve ruined me, you will discard me. I am not a fool. Everyone discards me eventually.”

  Fawn lifted her gaze to the dancing shadows on the ceiling. “It is a perverse, cruel prison you have me in, Crispin. I was trying to escape it when you stopped me. Now I have no choice but to see it through.”

  “No choice at all,” he agreed harshly. “I’ve wanted you too long to give you up to the sea.”

  “And you always get what you want, don’t you, through whatever ruthless means possible.” Fawn leaned forward, trying to see his face “You baffle me completely. I cannot make you out. You are ruthless and cruel, and then suddenly, you can be tender and compassionate.”

  Crispin moved into the light, ostensibly to be near the fire. “You need soap and a cloth.”

  Fawn tensed and crossed her arms over her breasts. “Yes. Thank you.”

  When he left to fetch them from the pump room, Fawn sank under the water, shutting out all sound. Her hair floated in a wide arch around her head, muddying the water.

  Crispin returned carrying a cloth, soap and a pitcher of water. He knelt beside the tub and began vigorously lathering his hands with soap. She bolted upright and stared at him; her eyes widening, her nerves on edge. “What do you think you’re you doing?”

  “I’m going to wash your hair,” he said grimly. “Seeing you like this is unmanning me by the hour. I swear I’ll do myself an injury if you don’t submit soon.”

  Fawn tipped her head back and gazed at him as he worked the suds through the snarled locks.

  “I hope you do,” she said softly. “I hope you suffer as you have made me suffer.”

  “I already am. You are just too stupid to see it.”

  His expression was closed and strangely removed. He reminded Fawn of a caged panther—tragic and dangerous. Wolfe’s strong fingers massaged her scalp and she relaxed. He wouldn’t hurt her. She knew he would never hurt her.

  He reached for the pitcher. “Close your eyes.” The clean water was poured over her hair, rinsing away the soap.

  She made a noise, half-shrieking, half-giggling. “It is cold.”

  “You’ll get soap in your eyes—close them.”

  When her hair was rinsed clean, he lathered his hands again and rose up on his knees. Crispin bent over her and rubbed his soapy hands over her breasts as though bathing her.

  Her nerve endings tingled. Her body responded. Oh no, no, no....

  Crispin bent near her quivering mouth. Then he stilled, barely breathing. “You can’t stop it from happening, Fawn. I want you and I mean to have you tonight.”

  “Take me if you must.” She met his eyes. “There is always the cliff in the morning. You can’t stop that from happening, Captain Wolfe.”

  Crispin broke away abruptly. He scrubbed her shoulders and back with vigour. The rough terry chafed her skin. “Captain Wolfe,” he repeated bitterly. “What happened to uncle?”

  “You are no kin of mine. You do not merit the title.” Fawn flinched, protesting. “I am not one of your horses, Crispin! You are flaying the skin off my back.”

  He flung the cloth into the water. Crispin pushed himself away from the tub, breathing heavily. “Damn you to hell! I want you but not at the expense of your life.”

  “Then we are at an impasse.” Her heart was pounding.

  “How can it be broken?” Crispin’s jaw clenched. “Give me your terms.”

  “You cannot meet them. I would have to love you and that will never happen.”

  She witnessed the heroic struggle Wolfe underwent to control his impulses. Then abruptly he reached into the tub and hauled Fawn out by her arm. She felt astonishingly small and light in his powerful arms. Fawn bit down on her lip, controlling her rising fear.

  “You won’t hurt me,” she said anxiously. “I know you won’t hurt me.”

  Crispin carried her from the warmth of the kitchen into the ancient, low-timbered hall. The massive oak stairway led upstairs to the sleeping quarters.

  She shut her ears to the voice that was urging her to fight, choosing instead to trust the smaller voice that insisted Wolfe wouldn’t violate her.

  With ever
y step, her panic rose. Her dark regent carried her in his arms, naked and dripping, up the black stairwell to the master bedroom.

  FAWN HAD stopped struggling against his chest. She was shivering—Crispin wanted to believe the girl was shaking with desire. Certainly desire would ease his conscience.

  Bathing her had been shockingly sensual. He’d had to slow his pulse when Fawn closed her eyes and moaned softly when his hands were on her breasts. How very full and ripe they were, like young firm fruit ... her sensitive nipples budding under his fingers....

  Fawn’s eyes were open and resting on his face ... beautiful smoky green eyes that were filled with doubt. Her girlish cheeks were round and smooth, and lightly tinged pink. The lust he had for her was confounding. Crispin resisted admitting his feelings went deeper than that, even to himself. But in the recesses of his soul, he knew that Fawn was beginning to matter too much to him and the cracks were beginning to show.

  As if reading his mind, the girl asked: “What did you mean when you said I could live for you?” He felt her warm breath against his neck. “You must tell me, Crispin. I believe I could be content to be your mistress if I knew you cared for me a little.”

  No, he decided firmly. Wolfe had seen too much of life to believe that love was worthy of his trust. Love was as capable of destroying a man as hate. He would never say the words.

  Wolfe carried her into the master bedroom and kicked the door closed behind him. Enough light had broken through the storm clouds to illuminate the bed—a magnificent four poster set on a riser and canopied with soft muslin. Crispin deposited her on its mattress that had been stripped of linens save a threadbare quilt, and then moved to the hearth to light the fire.

  He was aware of her green eyes watching him, waiting for an answer.

  Chapter Nine

  “YOU SAID I could live for you. What did you mean?”

  That blasted slip of the tongue was going to haunt him to the end of his days. Fawn was not going to let it go.

  “I suppose I should be glad that you are curious,” Crispin said mirthlessly. “Perhaps there is hope for us yet. I could tell you a story that will make you weep tears of pity, or I could spin you a tale that will convince you I have a soul worth saving. Which would you prefer?”

  “The truth will suffice,” she said drily. Fawn burrowed herself under the quilt and gazed at him expectantly.

  “The truth it is then.” He straightened and leaned against the mantle, staring into the fire. “When I was a boy, living with my mother in London, I had no sense that we were living in disgrace. My mother shielded me from the worst of the scandal. I was eleven before I learned the truth. Years before, my father, Mr. Archibald Gleason had met my mother at a party. Helen Wolfe was the sixteen-year-old daughter of a wealthy merchant who had frequent business dealings with Gleason. Helen’s mother had died the year before, or much of what happened might have been prevented.”

  Crispin rubbed his mouth, gazing into the fire, remembering the day he was told this history. There was silence from the bed behind him. Fawn was waiting for him to continue.

  “Gleason was married with one daughter, Jocelyn, who was also fifteen or sixteen at the time. The details of his seduction of Helen Wolfe are unclear. Some said it was the girl’s doing, others said Gleason was a known philanderer. When he discovered she was pregnant, he abandoned her. Helen’s father sought justice for his daughter and Archibald went on the attack, destroying Wolfe’s business interests. Her father died before his time, beaten down by financial anxiety and his estate was tied up by creditors. After I was born, a cousin showed up to claim the house and we were sent to live with relations. One after the other until—”

  “Until there were no more relatives willing to take you in,” Fawn finished softly. “That is how you knew so much about the life I had led—because it was your life too.”

  Crispin stared into the flames. Relating his history was harder than he expected it to be. Not surprisingly, he’d never spoken of those years to anyone. He had never wanted to until Fawn.

  He turned to look at her. She was gazing pensively at the window, doubtless reliving her own memories of shame, loneliness and dependency.

  “How alike our stories are,” Fawn sighed. “My parents died when I was thirteen.”

  “I was fortunate to have Lady Weybourne as my benefactress. She paid for my education and other necessities. She would have done more if she had not been living in genteel poverty herself. After being expelled from our final residence, my mother at last wrote her ladyship and confessed the true gravity of our situation. She had kept her troubles from her, knowing her friend’s soft heart. Lady Constance would sacrifice her social standing if she took in a woman with an illegitimate child. She did it anyway. You have seen the letter.”

  Crispin grinned, recalling the fierce spirit of his benefactress.

  “There was a happy ending to your story then?”

  “Not happy. No.” He had to turn away to finish the story. “My mother died on the journey. I kept her death from the conductor for fear of being put off the train before reaching Stokesbay. The driver sent to meet us from the Hall helped me carry her body and place her in the carriage. The man was fortunately not squeamish of the dead. Lady Constance arranged the burial and I remained at the Hall for another year before leaving for Oxford. A gentlemen’s education was vital, Connie said, as one day I would be master of Hawkcliffe.”

  Her liquid green eyes were fastened on his face. Crispin tensed. He knew the question remained to be answered and the words were sticking in his throat.

  “The thing of it is ...my mother’s death was not accidental. I was sitting beside her and I saw her empty a vial of white power into her mouth. I asked her what it was. She said it was headache medication and I went back to reading my book. She died beside me a few minutes later. You see, she felt she had nothing to live for but she could have lived for me. I was too late to say those words to her. They were the first ones that came to mind when I saw you running toward the edge of the cliff. You could live for me.”

  The fire crackled on the hearth, filling the silence between them.

  “Lady Constance took over raising me. She was a good lady who deserved better than a moody fifteen-year-old youth for company.” Wolfe turned his gaze to the window. “I am incapable of loving any human being. The journey to Stokesbay with my mother’s dead body beside me snuffed out what remained of my soul. I do not trust in love. I do not expect to find it in human beings. My mother claimed to love me once. It is a word of little value.”

  “But you asked me to love you!” Her voice rose, echoing her frustration.

  “Yes,” he admitted in a clipped tone. “I want you to love me. But I do not look for it, I will not trust it, and the sentiment will not be reciprocated. I’m a physical man. I don’t brood on matters of the heart. I want to bed you. That one instinct dominates everything else. I have been as tormented by this obsession as you have been. I didn’t ask for it. It crashed upon me like a blasted wave on rock. Never have I been so consumed by a woman.”

  “How can you say with a clear conscience that I could live for you?” Fawn answered emotionally. “When you have no love in you to give, what sort of life would I have with you?”

  “A safe life and a contented life,” Crispin barked. “A life free from poverty and degradation! Here, as my mistress, you will live as you please. You’ve heard my story. Every word of it is true. I’ve never invited a woman to Hawkcliffe Hall before this. I’ve never wanted a woman the way I want you. Love is not what you need, Fawn. You need a man who would kill to keep you from harm.”

  THE ONLY other furniture in the room, aside from the bed, was an armchair and a looking-glass set in an oak wood frame. The sky beyond the windows smoldered with rain and lightning.

  Fawn tucked herself against the headboard, as far away from him as possible, pulling the quilt tighter about her. Crispin spun around to the fire and stabbed at the embers with the poker. Firelight
danced over his strong handsome features. Her heart lodged in her chest.

  He set the poker down and then moved to stand at the foot of the bed.

  “Are you warmer now?” he asked brusquely.

  She nodded.

  “Good. Then lie down. All the way ... flat on your back so I can see all of you.”

  She did as he asked. Rain lashed against the window panes.

  His glittering eyes examined her body, his jaw muscles flinching. Crispin took a step up on the riser. Fawn fastened her eyes on the canopy overhead and tried to empty her mind.

  “Do you consent?”

  She squeezed her eyes shut. The inevitable heat flooded her face.

  “Yes.”

  The word was a rasp barely heard over the storm. Crispin didn’t move and neither did she, as though they were both holding their breath.

  “It will hurt. Try not to tense up.”

  Fawn opened her eyes to find him bare-chested and standing at the side of the bed. His manhood, fully erect, was visible in sharp outline under his trousers. Crispin released the button fly and liberated the organ. It extended from his body like a mast.

  Her eyes flew open. “You cannot mean to—to—”

  She started to move away from him. Crispin caught her legs and gently, but firmly, pulled her toward him until she was in position to receive his cock. Fawn squeezed her eyes shut as he pressed the engorged knob against her womanhood.

  “Sheathe me in your sweetness, Fawn. Take me home ... all the way home....”

  He closed his eyes and flung his head back, preparing to impale her.

  Fawn caught her breath and released it on a sob, anticipating the loss of her virtue and the end of her hope of ever being truly loved.

  CRISPIN HALTED, hearing a noise downstairs and in that brief moment of hesitation, the pounding on the front door grew so loud in volume that it could not be ignored. Someone was seeking admittance to Hawkcliffe Hall.

  His temper exploded in a profane oath. Crispin restored his erection to his trousers, buttoned his fly and reached for his white silk shirt. As he pulled it on, he glared at the girl on the bed.