For twenty pounds sterling.
Tenderly, Trenwyth bent to kiss her, and some of her dark thoughts dissipated. There had been pleasure too. Illicit, unimaginable pleasure wrought by his brutal, gentle, masculine, skilled hands.
With a groan, he lifted himself off her and reached for a cloth hanging from the basin. It was red, like everything else in this room, and would hide the blood of her virginity. Cleaning himself without bothering to look, he handed a second one to her, respecting her privacy as she wiped the leavings of his pleasure from her hip, grateful he’d taken precautions against pregnancy.
It wouldn’t do to have the first child of the Duke of Trenwyth born the bastard of a prostitute.
She expected him to leave then, to dress and abandon her to the task of pulling herself together.
Instead, he prowled, completely nude, back into the bed. He reached for her and unhooked the stays of her corset in a few rough, jerking motions.
“What are you doing?” she demanded, swatting at him ineffectually.
“This,” he said by way of patient explanation, yanking her chemise off.
“Don’t … what … you … Oh!”
Somehow completely bare, her arms clutched over her breasts, he dragged her up to the pillows like some loutish, ham-fisted beast, and settled her on her back.
She lifted a knee and crossed it over herself in an absurd attempt at modesty.
He looked at her then, just knelt above her, all naked sinew and strength, and watched her with those hot, languorous eyes. A possessive sound of satiation rumbled from his throat. Something undeniably masculine, and at once oddly bestial, both a purr and a growl, she thought.
Ceaselessly inquisitive hands roamed her languidly, found little intimate places she’d never before paid much notice. The divots beside her knee, the quivering skin beneath her belly button, the sensitive hollows of her visible ribs. Places she’d not considered sensual before this moment.
“You should eat more,” he admonished, his attractive features arranging themselves with displeasure.
Imogen gave him a tight smile and nodded her complacency, biting her lip to keep from informing him that an empty larder and three empty bellies do not a voluptuous lover make. She’d love to eat more than scraps not fit for an alley cat. But that wasn’t his concern, nor was it something she wanted to consider now. Hunger didn’t present a problem at the moment. In fact, a sense of supreme satisfaction lingered in every organ and limb.
Trenwyth’s hand curved over the slight swell of her hip exposed by her barely modest posture. He traced a little shape found on the swell of her buttock, a mark she’d had since birth.
“Has anyone ever told you this looks precisely like our island?” he asked, bending down to press delighted lips to the mark.
“No,” she admitted shyly. No one but her mother had ever seen the shape, let alone remarked upon it, but it wouldn’t do to tell him that.
“I do believe I just kissed you somewhere near Cornwall.” His lips moved slightly to the right and north. “And here’s Edinburgh.” He pressed his warm mouth to her again, eliciting delicious shivers of sensation along her skin, raising little needles of gooseflesh.
He crawled up her body, nuzzling at her nose with his before sealing his lips to hers in a rather pleasant, if casual kiss. “How very patriotic of you to carry such a representation upon your person,” he teased with a breathtaking half-grin. “And on such a lovely spot. I commend you on behalf of your queen and country.”
Despite herself—despite everything—shy mirth tugged Imogen’s lips into an answering smile.
That is until he moved her arms from where they shielded her modesty before burrowing his rather tousled head against her breasts and settling his body around her.
Dear Lord. He meant to … sleep with her.
His great body heaved with such a sigh, she didn’t ever think he’d cease exhaling until finally it ended on a sound of—dare she think?—contentment.
“Thank you.” He yawned. His hand settled over her breast, and Imogen tried not to be embarrassed by the way it barely filled his palm, let alone his long fingers. Though he didn’t seem to mind. In fact, his hold there had a rather possessive quality to it.
Or perhaps she only imagined it did.
“You can’t know what you’ve done…” His slur became more pronounced now, as exhaustion settled over his big body. “You’ve turned this nightmare of a day into … something else.”
Moved by his words, she covered his hand on her chest with her own, wondering if he could feel the heart beating right above her breast. “I know we’re not speaking of it,” she ventured. “But I’m very sorry for your loss, all the same.”
He became dreadfully still, and her heart gave an extra thud.
“You know … everyone keeps congratulating me,” he finally said as though he couldn’t believe it. “I’ve lost … nearly every person who ever meant a fucking thing to me, and all anyone can talk about is my good fortune at being the youngest of three and still inheriting the ducal title and all of Trenwyth.”
Imogen couldn’t think of a thing to say to that, mostly because she agreed that the sentiment was deplorable.
“I loved my brother,” he said darkly. “He and Hamish Mackenzie were—are—the closest people in the world to me. And my father … he was so dear, so upright and stalwart and strangely sentimental for a man. I’ll miss him.”
The hollow note creeping into his voice broke her heart. “And your mother?”
“Of course. Of course my mother. We weren’t particularly close, but I loved her. And she loved me, in her own way, I suspect. Though she loved Robert the most, as I caused her no end of trouble as a boy. He was the heir, and I was the spare, as they say.” The caustic sound he made tickled her bare skin. “If she’d—lived, she’d just detest that I’m the duke now.” His laugh contained a suspicious hitch.
“I’m certain she’d be proud of you.” Imogen knew nothing of the sort, but she desperately wanted to lend him some comfort.
He nuzzled in closer, and something warm melted her heart.
“I don’t want to be a duke,” he lamented around a yawn. “I never did.”
“You’re likely the first man to ever say that.”
That sound again. Like a laugh, but not quite.
Imogen contemplated the loss of her own father. A kind man, when he remembered to come home. When he hadn’t left them to gamble and drink away all the money. Leaving them with nothing. “Fathers.” She sighed. “They don’t always leave us the legacy we are prepared for, that’s for certain. The best thing we can do is try to muddle through, I suppose. Try our hardest to make the best of things and not give a fig what anyone else has to say about it. You grieve as long as you like, Collin Talmage, and anyone who has a thing to say can go hang.”
“You are a rare find, Ginny,” he murmured, and nuzzled her breast.
“How’s that?” Imogen found that she rather liked the warm weight of his body chasing the chill of the spring night.
“A genuine person in a world full of deceit.”
Touched, she squeezed his hand and his fingers threaded with hers.
“Is Ginny your real name?” he queried.
“No,” she confessed.
“You’ll have to tell me what it is.” His words were barely intelligible now, and Imogen didn’t have to wait long until a soft snore vibrated against her skin.
“It’s Imogen,” she whispered. A tear slid into her hair as she realized she’d shared the most physical and emotional intimacy she’d ever known with a man who didn’t even know her name. They’d never even been introduced, and likely never would be. “My name is Imogen Pritchard, Your Grace. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
CHAPTER THREE
London, August 1877, A Year Later
“The Duke of Trenwyth Lives!” Every one of the empire’s ubiquitous newspapers from the Times to the Telegraph had some variation of the exact sam
e front-page headline. As she scurried away from Charing Cross Station, Imogen burned to stop and devour every detail, but she was due at St. Margaret’s Royal Hospital in ten minutes, and Dr. Fowler was nothing if not a stickler for punctuality.
A pinprick of light appeared upon the ever-darkening canvas of her disposition. Collin Talmage was alive. Imogen had followed the saga of his disappearance the prior year a little more breathlessly than the rest of the nation. She’d held the night they’d shared as a treasured secret in her memory—and in her heart—as everyone from Buckingham Palace to the military, to the Criminal Investigations Division of Scotland Yard had searched for England’s favorite son.
Imogen had reluctantly left Trenwyth sleeping soundly in room 17 of the Bare Kitten last spring, and hurried to her shift at St. Margaret’s, much as she was doing now. From what the papers had gleaned over the year spent searching for him, Trenwyth had boarded a ship bound for the Indies that afternoon and had never been heard from again. Rampant speculation had spread like a pernicious disease through the local and international press. Had he been lost to some Oriental jungle and the savages living there? Killed in the skirmishes between the Ottoman Turks and the Russians? Defected to the obscene wealth of a profligate sultan? Or made his own little tribal kingdom somewhere in the wild desert, complete with a harem to do his bidding?
Eventually the crown had put a stop to the articles, though the more liberal newspapers still ran a piece now and again on the alternately scandalous and mysterious life of the vanished duke, Collin Talmage. As the third child of one of the noblest and wealthiest families in all of Britain, he’d spent his youth as a reprobate and a wastrel, squandering his allowance on expensive courtesans, parties, and the kinds of pleasures not strictly allowed by imperial law. Eventually, his desperate father had bought him a commission in the military, and this was where journalists spent most of their time and energy. Because after a short time beneath the command of Lieutenant Colonel Liam Mackenzie—the man they called the Demon Highlander—Collin Talmage’s rank and regiment became increasingly opaque. Articles and editorials often remarked upon how odd it was that a peer of the realm—a man in the direct line of succession—should be sent on a military expedition, most especially so soon after the deaths of his parents and brother. Did the demise of the Talmage family have anything to do with Collin’s disappearance? Had he anything to do with their deaths?
The papers screamed the word his compatriots had whispered that long-ago night in the Bare Kitten.
Spy.
Imogen often searched her memory of that night, and could still recall the way he’d avoided revealing his destination, or his objective. Just as often—maybe more so—she’d prayed for his safety, for his comfort. The Duke of Trenwyth might have been any number of things in his life, but he’d been kind to her. Generous. They’d shared something in that room above the Bare Kitten, an intimacy that surpassed the physical. And while he likely never thought of it, his kindness had meant the very world to her.
By the time she mounted the back stairs of St. Margaret’s, Imogen was exactly eleven minutes late according to the watch she had pinned to her bodice. She’d certainly be hearing about this. Stashing her gloves, bag, and sundries into her designated cupboard in the nurses’ changing room, she seized her apron and cap and lunged for the door. Her heels made mismatched clips on the stone floor of the back hall as she tied a starched white apron over her black frock. The sole of her left shoe had come loose ages ago, and she couldn’t afford a trip to the cobbler. Making a note to pilfer some paste from the storage room again, she swung to the right and hurried up the back stairs. She had her cap affixed to the crown of her head by the time she reached the second floor. She never worked the surgical theater, so she kept climbing, past the crowded patient wards on the third floor, and toward her post on the top level where the private wings were located.
St. Margaret’s was a rather exclusive hospital, only treating patients who thereby had the means to afford it, but the back stairs usually bustled with staff. Use of the grand front entry stairs was restricted to patients, family, and the occasional doctor or visiting patron who would subsidize a new wing or a particular mode of research.
So distracted by her thoughts of Trenwyth, Imogen didn’t particularly notice that she’d not met another soul on the stairs until she’d already cleared two flights.
Where was everyone? Could it be that providence, for once, was on her side and she could make it all the way to her post without Head Nurse Gibby or Dr. Fowler noting her tardiness? She increased her speed, using the banister to give her extra momentum as she careened to the fourth floor. All she had to do was make it down the long hall of private rooms to the South Wing nurses’ station and begin mixing the morning tinctures and medications before anyone noticed. She’d stop in to Lord Anstruther’s room first. Everyone knew of their fondness for each other, and would believe that she tarried with the elderly earl before beginning her duties as was her habit.
Reaching the top of the stairs, she lunged around the corner, then clamped her hand over her mouth in order to prevent a sound of surprise from escaping. She didn’t, however, stop in time to avoid a slight collision with Gwen Fitzgibbon, her counterpart in the North Wing.
Gwen, a stout, quick-witted Irish girl, instantly caught Imogen, then pushed her back against the wall with one strong arm. The instinct to resist died immediately when Imogen realized that nearly the entire staff of St. Margaret’s was crowded into the hall, and thusly lined against the wall in a parody of regimental posture.
It seemed a miracle to have so many bodies in her ward making hardly a sound, or perhaps the hammer of her heart blocked any noise. She’d caught the suggestion of a voluminous black skirt and a great many black and red coats toward the end of the hall before Gwen had saved her. But Imogen couldn’t make out the goings-on from this distance, and didn’t dare move until her breath returned to normal.
Gwen tilted her dark head toward Imogen, eyes the color of cobalt sparkling with excitement and awe. “’Tis Her Royal Majesty and Mr. Disraeli consulting with Dr. Fowler.” She injected as much marvel into the breathy whisper as was possible.
“What?” Imogen gasped in a breath. The Queen of England and the prime minister? She let her head fall back against the wall. Of all the bloody days for her to be delayed, why not when Queen Victoria and Benjamin Disraeli stood in front of her station?
Bugger. Was she going to get the sack in front of the English monarch and her retinue? Was it too late to throw herself back down the stairs?
“Aye.” Gwen continued, gesturing to the sovereign mostly obscured by a circle of royal yeomen, her personal bodyguards. “She’s here to check in on her distant cousin, or haven’t you heard?”
“Her cousin?” Imogen’s heart split in two with the violence of a hatchet strike. One half relief, the other fear. All her blood seemed to be pooling in her limbs, turning them hot and numb. “You don’t mean—” She couldn’t bring herself to speak his name, even in a whisper, lest she prematurely conjure impending disaster.
Trenwyth was alive. Thank God he was alive.
And if he recognized her, he could ruin everything.
“Aye, Collin Talmage, the Duke of Trenwyth, in this very hospital,” Gwen affirmed.
Imogen’s hand flew to her corset where it seemed to inhibit her lungs from expanding at all.
“We’re not like to be introduced, though.” The girl deflated with a long, breathy sigh.
“Why not?” Imogen asked alertly.
“The duke is a right mess. I didn’t catch all of what the doctor said, but I did hear that he is afflicted with typhus.”
Imogen’s hand moved from her lungs to her heart at the word. “No,” she whispered.
Gwen nodded. “Aye. After all this time. After everything it seems they did to bring him home. They don’t expect him to survive the night.”
Home from where? Hazarding a break in decorum, Imogen craned her neck to glance
down the long hall of the South Wing. The royal entourage painted bold, stark renderings against the hallway painted institutional white.
Queen Victoria, a stout, imposing woman bedecked in unfathomable yards of silk, stood like a black pistil within the crimson-clad petals of her vanguard. The register of her voice carried down the hall as she consulted with Dr. Fowler, but the words remained unintelligible. If the queen’s commanding words didn’t reach the landing of the stairs, surely Imogen’s careful whispers wouldn’t disturb Her Majesty.
“Did they mention where he’s been all this time?” she asked Gwen, who’d returned to staring at the monarch with a mixture of awe and ambiguity. As an Irish Catholic, Gwen had likely been born with a distrust of the English crown. “What did you mean when you said ‘after everything they’d done to bring him home’?”
“Don’t you take the paper?” Gwen glanced back impatiently.
“I’m afraid I slept in rather late this morning.” After an extra boisterous night at the Bare Kitten, she’d been dead to the world until Isobel had to wake her, likely saving her job.
“Well.” Gwen adopted a conspiratorial posture. “The official story, according to the London press, is that he’d contracted typhus while exploring the jungles of India…” She trailed off dramatically, and Imogen wanted to shake her and every one of her blarney-speaking relatives for their bardic tendencies. Then she caught herself. Why was she being like this? Voracious, impatient, almost desperate for any information she could glean about a man she barely knew.
A duke who could ruin her. Who—some would argue—already had.
“You have reason not to believe the story?” Imogen prompted, fighting to keep the impatience from elevating the volume of her voice.
“Half the royal army’s in the Indies, aren’t they?” Gwen said pointedly. “Why, then, send the Demon Highlander after Trenwyth?”
“Who knows?” Troubled, Imogen chewed on her lip. “But if—”
“Nurse Pritchard.” Dr. Fowler’s voice carried down the length of the hall as he broke from the queen and searched the hall of anxious faces for her own. “Nurse Pritchard, step forward, please.”
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