She heard the church bells toll midnight, echoing in the night, one more song of the city. He was drunk in a pub.
They tolled one—he was lying in a gutter, beaten and robbed.
They tolled two—his body was floating in the Thames.
They tolled three—his body was being picked apart by the ravens that had warned of his death.
They tolled four—he was . . . he was back! In the silent household she could hear him—the front door closing quietly, the steady steps on the stairs, barely a trace of a limp, moving on the landing, coming closer, past his door now, at hers.
She held her breath, frozen, waiting for the knob to turn, waiting for him to come to her, but the silence held, he moved, and she heard the quiet opening and closing of the door next to hers.
She closed her eyes, but they flew open immediately. She spent exactly one moment considering the ramifications of her act, then dismissed it entirely.
The hall was deserted, and there was no footman dozing downstairs. No witnesses, no gossips, no one to know.
She hadn’t brought a candle, and she didn’t knock. She simply pushed the door open and stepped inside.
He wasn’t there. Pain and fear swept over her—she’d been so sure he was back, but no, he was dead somewhere and. . .
“Why are you here?” His voice came out of the shadows, flat and expressionless.
He was over by the window, the pale moonlight silvering his body. He’d been undressing, and he wore only his breeches, his chest bare, the scarring clearly visible. She loved his scars.
“I was afraid something had happened to you.”
His derisive laugh broke the night. “What, did you think I’d gone off to find the remnants of the Heavenly Host? I went to a pub with Noonan and sat watching him, drinking tea, for God’s sake, while he got rip-roaring drunk on Irish whiskey. He’s a fondness for it and you’d have a hard time finding it anywhere in Scotland.”
She, who never prayed, offered up a silent prayer of thanks to the God who had never listened. She took a tentative step toward him. “I brought Morley back to you.” She held out the floppy little bundle.
There was a long moment of silence, as if he were considering whether he was going to tell her to throw the bunny on the banked fire or get the hell out of his room. He did neither.
“Come here,” he said.
She did.
Emma Cadbury was quite the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen in his life as she moved toward him on quiet, bare feet. God, he loved her feet! Her rich, dark hair was hanging down her back, the flowing nightdress was ridiculously fancy. It must have been a gift from his sister-in-law. She should wear something more classic, simpler, silk against her glorious body. Or nothing at all.
She came up to him, and the moon shone down on her upturned face. She had the hint of faint creases around her eyes, and he could imagine what she’d look like when she was old. She’d still be beautiful, sitting at a table, drinking tea, looking at the man opposite her. That man was going to be no one but him.
She held out Morley, and he wanted to laugh. He didn’t want a bundle of stuffed rags in his bed, he wanted Emma there. Needed her. Forever. He just had to convince her that she needed it too.
He took his boyhood companion from her and tossed it lightly onto the chair, and there was nothing between them but inches. He shortened the distance, and she didn’t retreat, and he was almost touching her, so close he could smell the soap on her, so close he could feel her warmth, so close.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said. “You’re perfect.” There was almost wonder in his voice that he couldn’t hide.
She didn’t flinch. “I hate it. I hate being pretty, I hate that that’s all people ever see, I hate that something like my face causes men to do terrible things. I wish I were a troll.”
He wasn’t sure if he wanted to laugh or cry. This was a confession so intimate he wondered if even Melisande had heard it. But she was telling him.
“Well,” he said judiciously, drawing out the word. “I didn’t say you were that pretty.”
She laughed, her voice light and silvery, and it hit him directly in his heart. They were so close. And then she said the most astonishing thing. “I think you’re that pretty.”
It was absurd. One didn’t call a man pretty, and God knows he was a monster who scared small children. He kept his tone light. “Perhaps the part of me that hasn’t been ravaged might not be too bad, but. . .” Before he knew what she was doing she’d risen to her tiptoes and pressed her lips across the scarred side of his face. The feeling in his skin was strange—both numb and exquisitely sensitive, and her soft lips were miraculous.
She leaned back. “Pretty,” she said, and this time he believed her. “I love your scars.”
“Why?”
“Because I never would have met you if you didn’t have them. Because you get to show your darkness on the outside, where mine is stuck in my heart. Because the other side of your body is too handsome and you needed something to give you character. A thousand reasons.” She placed another kiss on his jaw and he wanted her hands on him.
It was simple enough to reach down for them, to pull them up and set them on his shoulders. “I don’t want you to lose your balance.” His voice had lowered to an intimate growl. Her hands held on.
“I don’t like this,” she whispered, making no effort to move away.
“What don’t you like?” He lowered his head and kissed the side of her neck, so gently, then her cheekbone, then her forehead, slow, soft kisses that demanded nothing, and he heard the hitch in her breathing. “This?” He moved over and kissed her perfect earlobe, sucking it into his mouth for only a moment. “Or this?” and his mouth brushed her eyelids.
Her sigh was soft on the night air. “I don’t want to be here.”
Their bodies were almost touching. “Then why did you come?” he whispered back.
Her eyes opened wide, meeting his gaze in the silvery moonlight, and he could read so many emotions there. Fear, anger, longing, sorrow. And love. He could see love. His Harpy was here with him, now, and she loved him.
“I don’t want to.” Her voice was only a breath of sound.
“Don’t want to what?” He didn’t worry. This time she wasn’t going to run—he knew it. This time she was here.
“Anything. Everything.”
“But you’re here.”
“I’m here,” she said.
“Why?” he said again. “Penance?”
He could tell by the way her eyes darkened that that was one of the whips she’d used to drive herself. But it was a goad, an excuse, nothing more.
She didn’t deny it. “I should never have said such an awful thing.”
“You’re my harpy. You always say awful things. Do you want to leave?” He would let her, of course. He would let her out of his life if he had to, if she had to. He would die, but he would do it. For her.
“I want to stay,” she whispered.
The buttons on the night dress unfastened easily—the fussy thing wasn’t without merit. He could feel the tremor in her body and he knew she had to be handled carefully, not with the brute passion of the night before.
“I won’t hurt you,” he said.
She was holding very still as his hands moved lower and lower, the tiny pearl buttons releasing with just a flick of his shaking fingers. The gown parted to show her moon-silvered flesh, and he caught his breath. “I could wish you weren’t so perfect.”
“The ugliness is all on the inside,” she said.
“There’s no ugliness in you anywhere. There’s only pain.”
Her eyes flew up to meet his, and he knew he’d shocked her. She’d tried so hard to hide it. He reached up and pushed the gown off her shoulders, and it pooled on the floor around her bare feet. A moment later he scooped her up, because he wanted to cradle her against him, and she was so light in his arms when she was so heavy in his heart. He carried her across the room, pushing open t
he hidden door to the adjoining bedroom, his room, his bed, kicking the door shut behind him. He held her for another moment, then set her on the mattress. “I want you in my bed,” he said. “I’ve always wanted you there.”
The shadows were deep, and he wanted to see her. Stepping back, he pushed the curtain aside, letting the moonlight flood in. He turned to look at her, the glorious picture she made, stretched out on his sheets.
She was naturally, inherently graceful as she lay there, looking up at him, and while he wanted to savor the sight of her, he needed to touch her more.
He knelt on the bed, grimacing as his breeches pressed against his rampant cock.
“I’ve seen one before, you know,” she said with what was close to laughter in her voice, but to her this was still a very serious matter. “I know what to do. I’m out of practice, but I was a professional.”
He didn’t bother correcting her—she used her constant reminders to keep him at a distance, and it had never worked. He simply didn’t care, except that it had hurt her.
“I imagine you’re very proficient at fucking if you put your mind to it,” he said. “But I don’t think you’ve ever made love before.”
He shouldn’t have been surprised by the sudden fear in her eyes, as if the very thought was a threat. “I don’t. . .” she started to say.
“Yes, you do.” He looked at her with such tenderness.
“I’m . . . I’m frightened.
He knew how much it cost her to admit it. “I know.” He kissed her then, soft, sweet, so that her lips clung to his, her body rose into the kiss, and her mouth opened when he tugged at her plump lower lip. Her nun like kisses were getting more adventurous, and she was a quick study. There was a certain desperation about them, but he understood, and he sank down on the mattress with her, pulling her into his protective arms.
He had all of her laid out before him, warm, naked, acquiescent if not eager, and the wealth of her was overwhelming. While part of him, a particularly insistent part one, wanted to push her back and throw himself on top of her, the rest of him wanted to take his time, discovering her, pleasuring her, warming her frozen soul.
But then her hands were on his chest, pushing back, and he wanted to howl in despair that she was going to run, and he would have to let her go.
She wasn’t. “I want to see you,” she said in a small voice. “I want to touch you.”
There was no way he could argue with that. He began to unfasten his breeches, but she pushed his hands away, moving to the buttons and releasing them.
For a moment he’d been afraid of whores’ tricks—she would know them all, but that was another woman, not this shy creature in his bed. She pushed his breeches down clumsily, until he sprang free like a goddamned cork on the water, waving in her face.
She didn’t move, she simply surveyed him, and he realized with sudden amusement that this must by what she looked like when she was examining some strange medical growth she was going to remove. Even that unsettling thought didn’t inhibit him, though he’d be careful not to have scalpels around when she was angry. He lay perfectly still, letting her look her fill.
She rose up on her knees, pushing her thick, dark hair behind her ears, and moved closer, examining all of him with a distracted eye, and damned if it didn’t make him even harder, something he hadn’t considered possible.
She frowned, still that surgeon’s look in her eyes. “That is a great deal larger than the ones I’ve seen,” she observed. “Do you have some medical condition?”
This time he did laugh. “Yes,” he said. “Exposure to you.”
It took her a moment to realize what he was saying, and she smiled faintly. “Obviously everyone I’ve ever seen has been in my presence,” she pointed out.
“I’m more enthusiastic.”
She even managed to laugh at that, though he could see she was still trembling, just slightly, for all she was trying to appear scientific and matter of fact. “I won’t touch you until you give me leave to,” he rashly promised, wondering if he was signing his death warrant. He would keep that promise, even if it killed him, which it damned well might if she changed her mind.
“I’m not afraid,” she said, contradicting her earlier words.
“Of course you are, my poor darling. But I promise you won’t be.”
She looked at his face, not his raging erection, thoughtfully. “All right,” she said, sinking back. “I think I can stand it now. Go ahead.”
She really was going to kill him, he thought. “No.”
For a moment it seemed as if she hadn’t heard him. She was resting against the pillow like some virgin sacrifice, and she was probably trying to send her mind to that secret place she’d gone all those other times, with all those other men, just to survive. And then her eyes flew open. “No?”
“You came here. You got this far—it’s time for you to go all the way. If you want this, if you want me, then you’ll have to show me.”
God, was he the world’s greatest idiot? She was ready and willing—why was he demanding more?
Because she deserved more. It was that simple. If she couldn’t move past her fears, just a little, if she couldn’t even bear the thought of. . .
She moved so swiftly he was taken off guard, as she put her hot, sweet mouth against the scarred side of his face. She moved her lips slowly, carefully, down his neck with soft, little bites, and he moaned.
She pulled back quickly. “Did I hurt you? Old wounds can contain a kind of phantom pain, as if the wound were new. . .”
“Do it again,” he said in a choked voice. “Please.” No one had ever touched his scars. He didn’t blame them—they were repulsive, and he’d come to think of that part of his body as dead. It wasn’t. The torn, damaged skin was exquisitely sensitive, and her soft mouth felt like water in a desert.
She wanted to refuse—he could sense her reluctance, and he bit back his longing. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” he said again, and she was watching him, her expression unguarded and . . . needy.
“I want you,” she said simply.
He reached out and cupped her face gently, his fingers twining her beautiful hair. “Then what do you need me to do?”
“Show me. Show me what lovers do.”
A vast tenderness came over him, so different than his burning need for her. He’d never thought so much about sex in his entire life—he’d always been single-mindedly intent on rutting, though a woman’s response did heighten his. Now he was determined to give Emma pleasure if he died trying.
He tugged her down, deepening the kiss. Her breasts were soft against his chest, the sweet nipples just beginning to bud, and he slid his hand down to cup one soft, lovely mound. She pushed against him, clearly needing more, and his fingers closed around the nipple, tugging slightly. Her quiet moan was his reward and her nipple hardened. He gently pushed her down on the bed, leaning over her body to gorge himself on her richness.
Her eyes were solemn as she watched him, and he dropped his head down and licked across the tip of her breast. She jerked, surprised, and he allowed himself to wonder if no one but he had ever done this for her, to her. His licked again, teasing her, feeling the nub harden against his tongue, and then he gave in to temptation and put his mouth on her, sucking at her sweet breast as he covered the other one with questing fingers.
She practically rose from the bed as the pleasure spiked through her, and if his mouth hadn’t been so deliciously busy he would have smiled. He let his teeth lightly scrape against the edge of her nipple, and he heard her muffled shriek. She had sensitive breasts, he thought, but she liked an edge, and he bit down carefully.
“Oh, God,” she gasped, and he realized her fists were clutching the bed sheet beneath them. He wanted those strong hands clutching him as he drove into her, he wanted it so badly he would have wept.
But if he rushed things he’d ruin it. He had to go slowly, to ready her, to show her what pleasure could be had.
r /> He lifted his head, releasing her nipple with a soft popping noise and kissing her mouth, swiftly, sweetly, before taking the other breast into his mouth, the nipple already tight. He was in a desperate hurry, he had all the time in the world, and he stopped thinking, trusting his instincts, his emotions, his. . . love for this beautiful, wounded creature who was somehow stronger than anyone he had ever known.
They were skin to skin, his mouth tugging at her breast, and she felt swamped with the strange, restless feelings of the night before. She wanted to close her eyes, to disappear and let him simply have her, but he was demanding more than that. She couldn’t refuse him and her fingers tightened on his shoulders. A shudder ran through him, and she knew without doubt it was a reaction of pure, carnal pleasure. But how could something be pure and carnal at the same time? This was sin and wickedness, all she was good for, and if she took any more pleasure in it she deserved the eternal damnation that would be her lot.
He lifted his head to look down at her, and she could see him so clearly in the moonlight, the beautiful, half-ruined face. “Don’t think,” he whispered. “Just feel.” And before she realized what he was doing he’d moved down her body, kissing her belly and her hips and her thighs, and then, to her horror, he put his mouth between her legs.
She let out a muffled shriek of protest, trying to pull away, but his hands were holding her still, pushing her thighs apart as she felt his tongue against her most private flesh. He lifted his head for the briefest of moments, but she didn’t have the presence of mind to try to close her legs against him. “Don’t think,” he said again, and put his mouth, his tongue back.
Thinking was her only chance of salvation. As head of the brothel, and with a natural bent toward medicine, she had taken care of the others, and she was better educated in the details of what lay between a women’s legs than most people. She tried to isolate her mind, concentrate on what he was doing. His tongue was wicked, tasting her, for heaven’s sake, and she knew he would attempt to arouse the small bit that gave a woman pleasure. It would be useless—her own efforts in that regard had ended in an embarrassed sort of failure, even though she’d been alone in her shame. He was wasting his time and hers.