Of all the arrogance…
“You’ll sell her in marriage!” Dominic stared hard at Hunt and took a sudden step his way, dragging her with him. He stopped, his free hand closing at his side in a white-knuckled fist. The incredulity in his voice rankled and she tugged free.
Hunt blinked, clearly befuddled. “It is done in our circles, Dom. Plenty of titled lords’ pockets run short. And she’s fetching enough.” His eyes roamed her in appreciation. “A sight more than last season’s crop of debs.”
“Her? Fallon? A maid?” Dominic shook his head.
“And why must you sound so astonished?” she demanded, even though she knew. She was nobody. A servant. The daughter of an Irish gardener.
Dominic stared at her, mouth parted on words that would not fall.
Hunt shrugged. “My family owes her a debt.”
“My father’s life is a mere debt to be paid, is that it?” She glared at the two men before her, staggering back several steps.
Both men loomed before her, everything she had come to loathe. Overprivileged blue bloods who could never understand where she came from…or what she hoped to achieve in this life. Because they already possessed what she most craved.
Freedom. Security. Freedom from the likes of them. Security in a home of her own where she need never answer to anyone.
Disgusted, she turned and fled.
Chapter 23
“H ungry?”
Whirling around, the bread Fallon clutched slid from her fingers and hit the ground. It struck the stone floor with a thud and rolled several feet, bumping into the tip of one black shining Hessian boot. The bite she chewed turned to dust in her mouth. Her teeth worked faster, quickly chewing the remaining bread.
Her gaze lifted, settling on Dominic’s hard face. His eyes, relentless chips of ice, drilled into her through the room’s flickering shadows.
She rubbed a sweaty palm against her skirts and swallowed.
He approached, his steps tapping and echoing lightly in the cavernous room. As he moved, orange light from the flickering fire licked his features, lending him a demonic appearance. A dark angel from hell. Fitting, she supposed, for the demon duke.
“Did you not eat dinner?” he asked, his voice flat and emotionless.
She chafed one hand against her arm. “I wasn’t hungry earlier.”
Too many speculative stares. Too many smirks. Even Daniel had muttered an unflattering remark beneath his breath loud enough for her to hear. No one needed to explain it to her. The sudden cold wind that blew through the servants’ quarters whenever she entered a room had everything to do with the duke’s unprecedented visit to the kitchens followed by the ugly scene in the foyer earlier today. She was mud in the eyes of the staff. Only another reason for her to look to the horizon, to end this and find a situation elsewhere. Somehow.
Dominic stopped before her, his booted feet sliding over the stone floor with a nerve-grating scrape.
She watched with growing dread as he crossed his arms and surveyed her with glittering eyes. “But you’re hungry now?”
A shiver coursed through her. Suddenly, she suspected he wasn’t talking about food and she could not find the words to answer him.
“I imagine if you accepted Viscount Hunt’s offer, you would have your own servants to call forth in the middle of the night to deliver you a veritable feast.” A faint sneer laced his voice.
She lifted her chin. “I imagine I would.”
His gaze slid over her, dark and unreadable. “Of course, as some lord’s wife, you would have to permit him a feast of his own in exchange for the honor of his name.” The way his head tilted back to scan her body, she did not mistake his meaning.
“Are you deliberately crude?” she snapped. Weariness swept over her. She tired of the fight. All her life, since Da left her, it seemed she only ever fought to survive.
“I speak only the truth. Of course you could simply take the stipend Hunt offers.” He nodded as though she very well should. “You could then raid your own kitchen in the middle of the night and need not share your bed with some fine lord.”
“A more appealing circumstance to be certain,” she agreed, a scenario she did, in fact, find rather tempting. She had thought of little else. Aside of Dominic’s blistering kiss in the pantry. She never thought a man could make her feel as he did. Hot and cold all at once.
She didn’t know how large the provision Hunt offered, but she would not require much to achieve her dream of independence. Hunt had promised her a life of comfort. Could it be possible? Could the home she always dreamed of be within her reach? Bitterness coated her mouth. If only she accepted the money. Blood money.
She lifted her chin, but said nothing, merely held Dominic’s stare, determined he not know how easily his presence rattled her. The silence in the kitchen was suffocating. He was suffocating, an encroaching wall closing in on her.
She had to get away. Now. Tonight. Forever.
“Perhaps this is a good opportunity to discuss a proposition.”
“A proposition?” He cocked his head to the side, those gray eyes lighting with interest. “Do tell.”
She squared her shoulders. “While I appreciate your letting me remain on your staff—” she broke off. “Truly, you’ve been more than—”
He held up a hand. “Spare me the platitudes. What do you want?”
“I would like a letter of reference.”
His features stormed over. “Why?”
“So that I may…move on. Leave.”
“Hmm. Should I detail your penchant for attiring yourself as a man and passing yourself off as footmen?”
Indignation swept through her. Would he forever hold that over her?
But of course he would. As long as she resided under this roof, it would forever be there between them. “Let’s do be honest, Your Grace. This situation is not working out.”
“For you,” he rejoined.
Her thoughts leapt to their kiss in the pantry. The kiss she initiated. Unlike the intimacies shared in the carriage. Or in her valet’s room following her bath. She had been the one to move her head that last inch and press her mouth to his. Shameless. And she feared her resistance may fail her again. He had warned her to leave. Warned her that he wanted her.
“For both of us,” she finally answered.
He rocked back on his heels, pinning her with his silvery stare. “Ah, you’re concerned for me, then? How altruistic.”
“A letter would be vastly appreciated.”
“Why not ask Hunt? He would be glad to assist you. His family is beholden to you, after all. For that matter, why not take his offer—”
“I want nothing from him.”
“Ah.” He nodded, as if understanding, as if seeing her. “I never took you for the spiteful, stubborn sort.”
“I’m not spiteful! Nor stubborn.”
“No? Seems to me that you are. You’re punishing Hunt for the sins of his father. Even if it means hurting yourself. Spiteful and stubborn.”
She ground her teeth together, not liking his words…especially as they might have struck upon the truth. “May I have a reference or not?”
He angled his head as though considering her request, then bit out a single, emphatic, “No.”
“No?”
“No,” he repeated in the most affable of tones. “You claim difficulty in maintaining a position, and yet here you have one you’re prepared to toss aside. Not very sensible.”
She shook her head, his refusal making her feel very much like a caged animal—robbed of choices and any hope for escape. Her desperate thoughts tripped back over those moments in her room, naked with the duke. His mouth on her. His hands. The intimate press of his fingers on her thighs, sliding inside her…
She could not shake free of the memory. She could not trust herself. Since discovering her a woman, he had kissed her, touched her, melted her with a look. Upon every single occasion. And she had let him. At this rate, she would be in his bed before the week’s
end.
She glanced around the empty kitchen, acutely aware of their aloneness. Her heartbeat accelerated to a heavy drumming in her ears. You remain at your own peril.
The driving impulse to flee, to escape, seized her. She tried to step past him. His arms came up, hands bracing the edge of the table, hemming her in.
“Let me go,” she ground out, punctuating each word for emphasis.
His gaze scanned her face. A muscle ticked madly in his jaw. “You’re not leaving.” His words fell hard, savagely. The pulse at her neck jumped, a wild beast looking to escape her body…just as she needed to escape him.
“You don’t own me. You can’t keep me here.” She dragged fortifying air into her too tight chest. “I don’t need your letter of reference,” she tossed out the last bit with more bravado than wisdom, thrusting her chin higher. Without a reference, she had little hope of gaining another respectable position. Which only left the disreputable ones.
Better than surrendering to him. To losing your pride. Losing yourself.
“Stubborn wench,” he growled. “Can you not try to make your life easier? Must you forever take the most difficult path? You won’t take the stipend old Hunt left you? Fine. But you have security here, you little fool.” He jerked his head hard in the direction of the doorway. “Out there, you don’t know what waits you.”
“Security?” she snorted, thinking of how unsettled he made her feel…and how the other servants treated her as a pariah. She scarcely felt secure.
“Yes, security,” he shot back. “And you could have more, if you so wished.”
“More?” Skepticism laced her voice. “Like what?”
Something flickered in his gaze beneath the fringe of dark lashes. The barest hint of emotion. Vulnerability. Sentiment entirely unexpected from him. Then it was gone, like smoldering embers banked with a splash of cold water. He gazed at her with unreadable eyes.
His lips parted. “You could have me.”
Her heart clenched at the stark invitation. Elation swelled in her chest. Dangerously sweet. Elation she had no business feeling. She could not have him. Anymore than he could have her.
“Impossible.”
“Why?” His lips twisted, eyes storming over a tumultuous gray. “Because it offends your oh-so-proper sensibilities?”
“We can’t have each other. You’re a duke. I’m a maid.” She swallowed in the face of his darkening scowl. “And we don’t even like one another.”
He laughed darkly, the menacing sound rippling through her and giving her goose bumps. “Ah, you’re going to try and pretend nothing exists between us now. Interesting tact. And so easy to disprove.”
He leaned closer, his hard chest pressing into her, arching her back over the table.
“W-what are you doing?”
He scoured her with a fierce glare. “Putting it to the test. Never could pass on a challenge—”
“No,” she denied, shaking her head fiercely. “I did not mean to—”
“Too late,” he pronounced, his gaze dropping, fixing on her lips with feverish intensity. “I’ve longed to continue where we left off in the pantry.”
Her chest lifted on a sharp exhalation. “You promised I would be safe in your household.”
“A promise I seem to recall retracting in my carriage.” Still gazing at her lips, he replied distractedly. “I did not take into account that I would not be safe from you.”
“Me?” she squeaked.
“You’re far too tempting.” He shrugged. “So I changed my mind. Never was the honorable sort.”
“Convenient,” she bit out, arching her back over the table. An image of the parade of women to breeze through his life since they first met flashed through her mind.
“You were warned.”
“Certainly you don’t need me to slake your lust. You can find any number of eager females and leave me be. Shall I send for one? Perhaps you’ve forgotten their names? Celeste, Gracie, Jenny. I confess even I cannot recall the names of the two females in the carriage with you the night we first met, but I’m certain I could try to—”
“Always a cheeky remark.” His gaze flicked from her eyes to her lips. “No wonder you’ve met with such trouble. Your past dismissals must have held some merit.”
Fury swam through her at his words. All the more because she feared there was a kernel of truth to them, feared that her bold ways may have resulted in her inability to maintain a post.
“And perhaps,” she spit out, aiming for his Achilles, “your grandfather is right about you.”
His eyes darkened. An utter stillness came over him as he pressed against her. “Tread carefully. You know nothing of what you speak.”
Still, she could not hold her tongue, could not stop herself from forging ahead with her final stinging accusation, flinging the very words he claimed his grandfather charged him with: “Perhaps you are the devil.”
He moved then, grabbed her by the back of the head, fingers digging cruelly through her hair as he tilted her face toward his. “And what kind of fool does that make you? Toying with such a man as me—the devil himself?”
Her heart squeezed in her chest. In a panic, she wondered, indeed, what kind of fool that made her. She tried to speak. Words gurgled at the back of her throat, incomprehensible.
“And have you not toyed with me from the start?” He shoved his hips against her, trapping her lower body between the table and the hard wall of his body.
She gasped. Hot desire licked her body. Her hand fumbled behind her, knocking several bowls aside, closing around an object on the table. She brought it up in the air, only realizing at the last moment it was merely a thick wooden spoon. Grand. Unfortunate she couldn’t have grabbed a heavier piece of crockery. She swung the spoon toward his head.
The slap of his hand around her fingers echoed in the cavernous room. His harsh laughter scraped the air, rising to the rafters and infuriating her. His fingers squeezed until she dropped her would-be weapon.
He flicked a disgusted look down at the spoon. “A great fool, it would seem. What were you going to do with that? Serve me soup?”
“I had hoped to crack it over your skull.”
His lips twisted in a savage smile. She eyed the arms on either side of her, imposing and hard.
He trapped her so effortlessly against the table. Her eyes moved to his and she couldn’t look away. Slowly, she stopped struggling, stilling altogether, forgetting all the reasons she needed to fight him. She saw only his eyes. His face. His mouth.
His fingers in her hair softened, but his grip was no less firm as he angled her head back, upturning her face for him.
Her breath rattled loose in a hoarse hiss as he pressed the side of his face against hers, his cheek rough and scratchy against her own. “You think running away will make you forget me?” His warm breath puffed against her ear and her belly trembled, tightened. Remembered.
No. She knew she wouldn’t. But then she didn’t have to forget him. She just had to get away.
Taking small sips of air to control her ragged breathing, she shook her head, which only brought her face closer, rasping against his. Her pulse skittered at a mad rate, her heart thumping hard as a drum in her chest. The barrier of the table dug into the back of her hips.
With a suddenness that made her gasp, his hands circled her waist. He hefted her onto the table, settling himself between her thighs as if it were the most natural thing to do. For him, she supposed it was. And strangely, it felt natural—right—to her, too.
Thinking, however, no longer felt natural. Or right. All thought fled as his hands moved from her waist to her skirts, gathering them in his fists and hiking them to her waist in a single rough move. His fingers grazed a searing trail along her quivering thighs. Her breath hitched in a strange little hiccup of sound. Feelings ruled. Sensations sang through her body.
He spread his hand over her thigh, a large searing brand on her quivering flesh. His mouth closed over her lips, kissing her unt
il her hands fell on the table, palms flat on the worn-wood surface. His hands moved between them, fumbling first at his trousers, then between her legs. The sound of tearing fabric rent the air. Then his fingers were on her, playing against her. He found the little nub buried in her folds and rubbed, pressed, squeezed until she bucked against his hand.
She whimpered, thrusting her hips off the table to meet him. He eased a finger inside her, working it slowly in, stretching her until a low moan spilled loose. Ducking his head, he claimed her lips, taking the sound deep into his mouth. He drank greedily from her, his kiss deepening, slick tongue sliding against hers in a sinuous dance.
She groaned as his finger withdrew, her hips moving forward, seeking. Her center burned, ached, clenched with need…
He tore his lips from hers with a broken gasp. Their heavy breaths mingled between them, warm as vapor. He dropped his forehead to hers, his silvery eyes clung to hers, probing, seeking, reading in her own unblinking stare what her mind—body—screamed. Yes.
Then she felt him nudging at her opening, pushing inside her. Bigger. Harder than the earlier stroke of his fingers. Thrilling. Frightening. Invasive.
She hissed at the burning pleasure, the searing stretch of her inner muscles. Deeper, he penetrated her, until the pleasure ebbed, giving way to pain.
Wincing, she tried to slide back. With a groan, his fingers seized her hips, anchoring her. Holding her still, he surged against her in a final push, burying himself to the hilt, his member pulsing inside her.
She cried out at the swift and piercing pain, her arms trembling where they braced upon the table. Cursing him, she tried to wiggle free.
One of his hands flew to the back of her head. His mouth was on hers again, feverish and hungry. He kissed her until the pain dulled, eddied. A low-throbbing ache started between her legs, matching the pulsing rhythm of his member buried there.
He slid himself out, nearly withdrawing completely before easing inside her again. She whimpered, a long mewling sound that did not sound quite human. Something else burned at her center now, and her legs parted wider without will or volition. Her pelvis turned upward on the table, seeking with an instinct she did not understand.