by Anne Stuart
She’d worked hard, nonetheless, side by side with the servants, scrubbing, cleaning, scouring, and when Tavvy returned with two baskets full of bread, fruit, rice, and fish, she’d set him to work as well, ignoring his loud complaints.
She was exhausted. Her body ached from the hard work; her soul rejoiced in it. They’d eaten a simple meal, all of them around a single scrubbed table, a meal that Luisa and Ghislaine had cooked together.
By the time the previously hostile young manservant, Guido, had carried buckets of steaming water up for her bath, and one of the maids had shyly offered clean bedclothes, Ghislaine had commanded their devotion. If it came to a battle between her and the foreigner who was paying their salaries, she had a good idea which side they would choose. The original state of the house was more than indicative of their contempt for those who held the purse strings.
The bath had been deep and blissfully hot.
She’d scrubbed herself, many times over; she’d even scrubbed her hair. The white night rail was made of heavy cotton, soft after many washings, and it covered her from her fingertips to her toes. As she climbed into the narrow bed in the small room they’d cleaned at the front of the house, she found herself smiling in peaceful pleasure.
The master bedroom had been prepared for Nicholas. His clothes were laundered and put away, the damp hangings on the huge bed shaken and aired in the evening air, the floors swept and scrubbed. Even spotlessly clean, the palace reeked of decay and dissolution. A fitting enough habitat for a decadent British rake.
Exhausted as she was, it was still a long time before she slept. Her body was weary, sated by the hard work and the steaming bath, yet she was restless, longing for something to ease her. It wasn’t until she was almost asleep that she realized with horror what she was missing. Nicholas.
The light in her room was murky, greenish when she awoke. She had no clock, could only guess that it was sometime past dawn. And that she was no longer alone in the tiny room she’d chosen for her own.
She opened her eyes. Nicholas was lounging in the one chair the room possessed, his legs stretched out in front of him, seemingly at ease. He was clothed entirely in black, and his features were in shadow, his hair falling long and disheveled about his face.
She expected no words of praise for her transformation of the house, and thankfully received none. He simply watched her for a moment, and the tension in the room grew.
“No,” he said finally, his voice soft and dangerous, and she didn’t bother to misunderstand him.
He rose, crossing the room, and reached out a hand to touch the prim white night rail. “Where did you get this?”
“One of the servants lent it to me.”
“You have no need to wear servants’ castoffs anymore. A modiste is coming by later this morning with several things that should be easily altered for you.”
“I won’t accept clothes from you…”
He leaned forward, a dangerous presence, and her words trailed off before his banked, incomprehensible rage. “You will accept what I choose to give you. Clothing, food, jewels if I so desire. Just as you accepted my body.”
“You gave me no choice.”
“Exactly. Remember that, if you will.” He straightened, moving away, and she might have imagined that moment of raw emotion. “We will be going out tonight. We’ve an invitation to the Marquise de Brumley’s rout, and we will attend.”
“You’ll take your prisoner?” she shot back, not ready to concede defeat.
His smile was cool in the morning light. “I’ll take my willing mistress. Suitably bedecked in fine clothes and jewels. I had a very successful night at the tables.”
She watched him leave. She didn’t want his fine clothes. She didn’t want his jewels. She didn’t want to be his whore.
But there was something she did want, something he couldn’t give away, because he no longer possessed it. His ability to love.
And she was seven times a fool to long for it.
Chapter 21
Ghislaine hadn’t worn a dress of such quality in more than ten years. She had stood very still as Signora Bagnoli had measured her, pinned and tucked and murmured beneath her breath. She had made no demur when Nicholas sat sprawled in a chair and watched the proceedings. She neither knew nor cared what the dressmaker thought of a gentleman surveying the procedure. Most likely she was used to such things. She would have noticed no wedding ring on Ghislaine’s white fingers, and would have drawn her own conclusions. And she would have been right.
She glanced at herself in the mirror, holding very still. The servants had cleared the dressing room that adjoined the master bedroom, and Ghislaine had dressed in there, not willing to battle Nicholas. The dress was made of a deep rose silk, cut low across her bosom, accentuating what curves she possessed. There was nothing of a courtesan to the dress—it was suited to a dashing young matron. Her chestnut hair she arranged herself, finding her hands surprisingly, instinctively skillful. She wore the finest silk stockings on her legs and the most elegant lace undergarments, and the slippers on her feet were sewn with jewels. She stared at her reflection, at the quiet, beautiful young woman who stared back, and she wanted to weep.
It was a lie, all a lie. Where was the girl who’d sold her body to feed her brother? Where was the girl who’d killed the man who had brought her to such disgrace, who’d done her best to kill the other man she held responsible? Where was the woman who worked side by side with the bourgeoisie of Paris, the cook in the great English house? Where was Ellen’s friend? Where was the woman who’d lain silent and still beneath Nicholas Blackthorne?
There were all there; they were all vanished. The woman who stared back had a gentle mouth, soft eyes, and a yearning heart, and she didn’t know how much longer she could disguise that fact. Only the knowledge that he wouldn’t care enough to look too closely protected her.
She descended the stairs slowly, gracefully, knowing he was watching her out of unreadable eyes. His thin mouth curved in something close to a smirk, and he bent low over her hand, a mocking courtesy. “You quite astonish me, Mamzelle,” he murmured. “You only want some jewels to make the toilette perfect.”
She snatched her hand back. “I won’t wear your jewels.”
“You will do anything I tell you to do,” he said pleasantly, catching her wrist in his and pulling her back. She had no choice but to go, to stand perfectly still as he fastened a collar of brilliant diamonds around her slender neck. Her father had told her once that she should always wear diamonds. Apparently Nicholas shared the same taste. She wanted to scream.
“Now the effect is perfect, ma mie,” he murmured. “I’m afraid we shall have to travel by water to Lady Brumley’s palazzo. Oblige me by not being sick all over your lovely dress.”
He was trying to goad her into anger. But indeed, her anger had vanished, leaving only despair in its place. When she made no reply, he simply took her arm, leading her out into the cool night air with a deceptive solicitude.
The noise, the heat of the party overwhelmed her. The short gondola trip had done little to restore her equilibrium, and the sheer shock of having so many brightly clothed creatures chattering around her, a great many of them speaking in French, was almost more than she could bear. Her fingers dug into the dark-clothed arm of her escort, without her realizing it, and if he glanced her way with patent curiosity, she was too distraught to notice. She moved through the crowds in a daze, politely responding to Nicholas’s murmured introductions with a regal nod that somehow came as second nature, and it wasn’t until several hours had passed that she loosened her grip on his arm, took a deep breath, and decided she might very well survive. And then she turned, at Blackthorne’s prompting, and looked straight into the eyes of a man she’d hoped never to see again.
She didn’t know his name, other than that he was an English earl. He’d aged in the years since she’d seen him, and she’d only seen him by candlelight, through the haze of her own rage and terror. When she�
��d viewed him last he’d been lying on the floor of Madame Claude’s, knocked unconscious, the contents of a chamber pot adorning his lap. She had hoped she’d killed him.
He looked the same. The same wet, thick lips; pendulous cheeks; red-veined, bulbous nose. Even his eyes were the same; milky, pale, set in pouched skin. And they were as avid, as knowing as ever.
“This your little ladybird, Blackthorne?” the man murmured, coming close enough so that Ghislaine could smell his perfumed, overheated flesh.
If she hadn’t been so distraught she would have realized Nicholas had no use for the man. “Mademoiselle de Lorgny,” he said in a bored, correct voice, “may I present the Earl of Wrexham?”
“We’ve met,” Wrexham said cheerfully, licking his thick pink lips.
She struggled for calm. “Monsieur must be mistaken,” she said, her voice raw and pained, giving her away, to Nicholas if to no one else.
“Nonsense, I never forget a face. Or a body, for that matter,” he said jovially. “I’m not one to hold a grudge, however. I’ve thought about you every now and then during the last few years. Wondered what happened to you. Madame Claude was fit to be tied, of course. Made it up to me, don’t you know. But there was no one to compare with you. It’s not often one gets a virgin.”
Nicholas was saying something to him, in his soft, cutting voice, but Ghislaine was too distraught to take it in. She turned away blindly, but Nicholas caught her arm, holding it tightly, moving her slowly across the room.
“You aren’t going to turn and run, ma mie?” he murmured under his breath. “I wouldn’t think you’d wish to give the gossips that much ammunition.” There was nothing she could say to him, no response she could make. She moved with him, barely conscious of her surroundings, as he escorted her from the crowded room, pausing with him as he took his leave of his hostess, waiting with numb patience as he did all that was proper.
The gondola moved in silence through the dark waters of the canal. He sat across from her, saying nothing, and for the first time the sickness of her soul overcame her seasickness. Her mind had stopped, unable to race ahead to the next few minutes, even the next few days. She tried to consider whether this revelation about her might force him to release her, but she found no pleasure in the notion, no despair. Everything was a blank.
The servants had retired for the night. There was no sign of Taverner when they entered the hallway, no sign of anyone. “Go upstairs,” he said, the first words he’d spoken to her since they left the party. “I’ll follow in a moment.”
She wanted to turn and throw herself at his feet, begging him to forgive her for what was not her fault, for what had been his fault. She realized with shock that that was how far her foolish love had taken her. She moved away from him without a word, her back stiff and straight, and began ascending the stairs.
Nicholas watched her go. Watched her narrow back, so straight, so delectable in the soft swirl of the rose silk gown. He walked into the darkened salon, moving to the far end of the room to stare out at the moon-silvered canal. He had to be very careful. Fury beat so strongly in his veins that he felt as if he might shatter. He wanted to kill. He needed a moment to clear the red-hot blindness from his eyes before he touched her.
She was sitting in a chair in the candlelit bedroom when he entered, her slippered feet neatly together, her hands folded in her lap. She didn’t look up, simply kept her gaze at her lap, until he pressed the glass of brandy in her icy-cold hand.
He’d already removed his boots and coat. He moved to the window, knowing that his nearness only increased her agitation, and leaned against the wall, watching her. “Madame Claude’s?” he said softly.
She shuddered. He could see the tremor sweep over her body, and he wanted to cross the room, take her in his arms and hold her, hold her until the trembling ceased. He didn’t move, afraid to touch her, afraid that if she said no, this time he wouldn’t listen.
“I saw you there,” she said, her voice distant, almost otherworldly. “The night that man… raped me. They were taking me upstairs. I was drugged, but I heard your voice. You were there.”
“I might have been.” His voice was cool and calm. “I didn’t see you.”
“Yes, you did. You asked Madame Claude whether I’d be available later.”
He didn’t flinch. “How did you get there?”
“A man took me. He found me on the streets, picking a drunkard’s pockets, and he took me there and sold me to that evil woman.” A cold smile twisted her face. “They drugged me first, and then they auctioned me off to the highest bidder. I believe you introduced him as the Earl of Wrexham.”
“He has an unsavory reputation.”
“He likes virgins. And he likes to hurt.”
“How long were you there?”
She glared at him. “Long enough.”
“How long?”
“You want to know how debauched I was? Whether I enjoyed it? Whether I learned any tricks that I might display for you?” Her voice was rising in hysteria.
“No,” he said in a deliberately bored voice. “I wanted to know how much I was going to make him suffer before I killed him.”
Her laugh was bitter. “Revenge will get you nowhere. Don’t you think I haven’t learned that by now? Why should you want to kill him? Surely you wouldn’t want to kill all the men I sold my body to.”
He took a meditative sip of his brandy. “I might,” he said in a reflective voice. “If I have the time. How many were there?”
She rose then, moving across the room toward him. “I sold myself on the streets of Paris,” she said softly, her voice a challenge. “An old Hebrew pimped for me.”
He looked her up and down and just managed a convincing yawn. “Very tragic, I’m sure.” And then his voice hardened. “You survived, Ghislaine. You did what you had to do. It’s a waste of time to wail and moan and pity yourself. I don’t give a damn how many men you serviced in the back alleys of Paris. If it would make you feel any better I would kill them all, but I doubt I could track them down. I don’t really care. All that matters is that you care. You despise yourself for surviving, and I still don’t understand why.”
“Because Charles-Louis didn’t!” she cried.
He didn’t move. “Your brother,” he said flatly. “You did it for him, didn’t you?”
“It doesn’t matter why I did it.”
“Certainly it does. If you did it for someone you loved, you’ve an even greater fool than I thought, to continue to berate yourself for it.”
“I am a fool,” she said in quiet misery, turning away from him. “To think that there could be any peace for me, to trust in another human being, to fall…” The words trailed away in a choked gasp.
All indolence left him as he seized her arm and whirled her around to face him. “You didn’t finish your sentence, mademoiselle,” he said coolly. “To fall…?”
She tried to jerk away from him, but he was too strong for her, pulling her against his body, subduing her flailing arms with no difficulty whatsoever, tight against him. He held her wrists with one hand, using the other to tilt her furious, defiant face up to his. “Finish your sentence,” he said again, his voice harsh.
“You’re the one I want to kill,” she cried in mindless fury. “You’re the one who brought me to this…”
“Oh, give it a rest, Ghislaine,” he snapped. “Your father’s greed brought disaster to your family. I was a stupid, selfish boy, I admit. But I didn’t sell you into prostitution, and I didn’t rape and deflower you.” He thrust her away from him roughly, having finally been pushed too far. “If you’re so intent on killing me, stop talking about it and just do it.”
She was beyond rational thought, her breath coming in rapid gusts, her eyes dark and desperate. “If I could…”
He took the knife he’d tucked in the back of his breeches and pressed it into her hand. It was a large knife, very sharp, its steel blade glinting in the candlelight. “You want to kill me?” he said
, ripping open his snowy-white shirt and exposing his chest for her thrust. “Then do it.”
She stared at the knife in her hand, then back at him in horror. “Do it!” he thundered, grabbing her wrist and forcing her to plunge the knife at him.
She screamed, fighting against him, and the knife glanced off his flesh at the last minute, slicing across his shoulder. He barely felt the pain, only the wetness of blood as it welled up against the shallow cut. He released Ghislaine’s wrist, staring at her as she backed away from him, the bloodstained knife still clutched in her hand.
“Can’t do it, can you?” he taunted, advancing on her. “You have two choices, Ghislaine. You must either kill me or love me. Make your decision.”
He watched her grip tighten on the knife, and he wondered whether this time she would do it.
He reached her, standing in front of her, his tom, bloodstained shirt barely covering his chest, and waited.
“Oh, my God,” she said in a broken voice. And she dropped the knife with a noisy clatter, and flung herself into his arms.
He caught her, and triumph surged through his veins. The silk gown ripped beneath his desperate fingers. The room was dark as he pushed her down on the bed, following her down, yanking at his own clothes. It had been so long since he’d allowed himself to touch her, he felt demented. When he covered her mouth with his, she kissed him back, and he could taste the tears on her cheeks. He wanted to bury himself in her body, feel her hot sweet flesh around him. He wanted it fast and hard; he wanted it slow and languorous. Her breasts were small, round, delicious beneath his mouth. Her small hands threaded through his hair, pulling him against her. He kissed her breasts, her belly; he kissed her between her legs, with all the expertise he’d gained through the years, through the countless, faceless women, all those encounters simply leading to this moment, this woman, this pleasure that he wanted to give her. His blood was streaked on her pale body, and there was a savage satisfaction in that. She’d marked him; he’d marked her. Together they were bonded, joined forever.