“Hope.” She rolled, using the full force of her weight as leverage, and pushed him flat, climbing atop him, finally sinking fully on his cock.
She looked down on him from her position of triumph and placed both palms on his chest, scraping her thumbs across his pink nipples.
“Ahh!” He bared his teeth, tossing his head back, his arms flung above his head, a Prometheus tortured by the eagle.
She slid her palms down his gorgeous torso until she felt the bones of his hips. She braced herself there and she began to move. A subtle rocking, a delicious little wave. She hardly shifted his hardness within her, but ground her folds against him.
It was… oh, it was sweet, watching him in the sunlight as her breasts swayed, as she felt the heat build between her legs, as his cock ground inside her.
His hands were clenched in fists, the tendons in his neck stretched taut, his head tilted back as he watched her from slitted eyes. He was motionless and she wondered when he’d break.
When he’d be unable to stand any more.
She leaned a little forward so that she could grind her clitoris against him as she rolled, rocking back and forth. And the spark that gave her made her groan.
He answered in echo.
She opened her eyes, smiling at him. “Ugly.”
He gasped, blinking. “Beautiful.”
She laughed, on edge, close, so close. “Bitter.”
“Sweet.” He heaved himself up, wrapped his arms around her, and rolled them both, so that he was thrusting into her, hard and fast, almost before they’d settled. He braced himself over her, his golden curls falling into darkened glittering azure eyes, lines imprinted on his pale beautiful face, and gazed down at her with awful, terrible foreboding. “Death.”
She was falling apart under his assault, sparks flying behind her eyes, warm honey in her limbs, but she forced herself to meet his gaze, to keep her eyes open even as her mouth went slack with pleasure. “Life.”
His hips faltered, and his head rolled on his shoulders as if he’d been hit, as if he were in great pain, his lips drawn back from his teeth. He groaned, continuing to thrust, but more slowly, less gracefully, a man in his death throes.
And as she watched, he opened his eyes and gasped, “Séraphine.”
She answered as naturally as breathing, “Valentine,” and felt his hot seed fill her.
Chapter Sixteen
That night Prue and King Heartless went again to the gardens, where a loom was being built. The king yelled at the workmen for being lazy, but Prue shushed him. “They won’t work any faster for being scolded.”
So the king instead thanked the workmen when they were done. Then they wove and wove, and though neither was particularly good at it, every once in a while Prue would lean over and tighten the king’s weft and he would grunt in acknowledgment.…
—From King Heartless
The next morning they set off for London. Not because Val was in any hurry to return to that teeming metropolis, but because of that single glance Dyemore had given Val’s hand linked with Bridget’s. It made him ever so slightly nervous and he felt it best to put as many miles as possible between Séraphine and those awful liver-colored lips. And since the main reason for journeying to Ainsdale in the first place—namely, Miss Royle—had slipped his net, there was really no cause to stay.
Of course there were the other, more minor incentives for returning: to discover how his affairs were progressing and what news and scandals were muttering and murmuring in the alleys and salons of London, and to satisfy his own prodigious curiosity.
Which was why, on an afternoon four days later, he was shown into Lady Amelia Caire’s sitting room.
“My lady,” he said, sweeping his gold-lace-trimmed tricorne wide in a deep bow, “I beg your pardon for such a disgraceful leave of manners. I know I have not the pleasure of an introduction, but I hope your gentle feminine mercy will take pity upon such a poor wretch as I and grant me an audience.”
Lady Caire’s lips curved coolly. “Your Grace. What an unexpected surprise.”
“People keep telling me that,” Val said, taking a seat, for he rather thought that if he waited to be offered one, he might stand for the entire encounter, “but I ask myself: can a surprise be expected?”
“Mm.” Even her frosty smile had disappeared. “Amusing as this conversation is, Your Grace, I wonder why you’ve chosen to come to my house.”
“Do you?” He sat back on her very elegant and very uncomfortable settee. He approved: style should always come before function, although personally he enjoyed both. “I think we have a mutual acquaintance.”
She was a beautiful woman. Her nose was narrow and small, with delicate little nostrils. Below, her lips were a perfect cupid’s bow. Her eyes had been almond-shaped and large. The lids had creped a little with age, fine lines radiating from the corners, but in some ways it merely gave her face more command.
Her hair was snow white.
She looked nothing like her daughter. Even when Séraphine’s hair became pure white in several years, she would not look like her mother. She’d merely look like herself: a burning angel, even more fierce and strange.
He could hardly wait.
He watched now, though, as the woman who had conceived and borne his Séraphine looked back at him, bored.
She raised a perfectly arched eyebrow. “I’m sorry, but we no doubt have many acquaintances in common.”
“Yes,” he said, smiling, “but this one is special. Very special.”
He took her letters from his pocket and very gently placed them on the low table between them.
She glanced at the letters.
The spring before he’d used them to blackmail her into introducing his sister to a group of aristocratic ladies, so she knew full well what they were. He had to admire her composure. She neither made a move toward the letters nor changed her expression.
She simply looked at him.
What a fascinating woman! Val had the impression that she was quite prepared to wait him out—interesting, since she must know he held all the cards. She might not look anything like her daughter, but perhaps they were alike in their bravery.
In their defiance.
Into their silent battle of wills came the sound of boot heels and then the scrape of the sitting room door opening.
A man stood there, tall and broad, his hair quite as white as his mother’s, left long and clubbed back with a black velvet bow.
His hawk’s gaze darted from Val to Lady Caire. “Mother?”
She went white to the lips, still facing Val, her back to her son. Her eyes widened in a clear plea.
Val smiled and rose. “Lord Caire, I presume.”
Caire didn’t move an inch. “You are?”
He made another sweeping bow because, among other reasons, he was very, very good at them. “Valentine Napier, the Duke of Montgomery, at your service, sir.”
Caire inclined his head. “Your Grace.” His eyes were narrowed as if he’d heard Val’s name and was trying to place it.
Oh, good.
Caire’s mouth opened.
The door burst open again and a small female child came pirouetting into the room, crying shrilly, “Gwandmama! Gwandmama! We’ve been to the fair and saw a dog in a dwess that danced on its paws. Can I have a dog?”
The tiny devil came to an abrupt stop at her father’s knees and stuck a finger in her mouth at the sight of Val, muttering rather indistinctly around it, “Oo’re oo?”
“I,” Val said, staring down his nose at it, “am the Duke of Montgomery. Oo’re oo?”
The finger came out of the mouth with an audible pop. “’M Annawise Hun’ington.”
“Charmed, I’m sure,” Val said, distracted by the dark-haired woman who had entered behind the child. She wasn’t a particular beauty, but she had a Madonna-like poise.
Lady Caire stood. Somehow the letters on the low table had disappeared, possibly into one of her sleeves or a pocket. “As yo
u can see, Your Grace, my son’s family has arrived and while this has been an interesting visit—”
But the day’s entrances apparently weren’t done. Rapid, determined, and quite familiar feminine heel-taps approached.
Val’s breath caught in anticipation.
She came in, grim and alert, and probably ready for anything.
Anything, of course, but what she found.
For his bright burning Séraphine had taken off her hat between the front door and the sitting room.
And whatever else Caire was, he wasn’t a fool.
He took one long look at her and without taking his eyes from her said, “Mother, who is this woman?”
BRIDGET HAD FOUND where Val was headed only because of an offhand comment by Mehmed made half an hour before: “I do not understand this. How can a lady be a care?”
It had taken her perhaps a minute to work through the implications—and less than that to realize that Val was going to interfere where he should not.
She’d nearly run here.
All the while worrying that he was going to blackmail her mother again—after they’d become lovers. She was by turns hurt and angry. How dared he betray her?
Which was why she didn’t actually have a plan when she entered Lady Caire’s sitting room. She’d been so anxious to get here and prevent Valentine’s mischief that she hadn’t thought about how she was going to do so.
Five people turned at her entrance. Valentine, wearing a beautiful, wicked, anticipatory smile; Lady Caire, cool and watchful; a dark-haired lady with a curious expression; a darling little girl with her finger in her mouth and her hand on the knee of a tall man.
A man who had hair so white it looked silver.
She knew at once who it must be, of course. He had the white hair of their mother, the aristocratic bearing, and…
Well, he was an aristocrat, wasn’t he? A baron.
He stared at her with clear blue eyes—the same color, technically, as Val’s, but so very different—and said, “Mother, who is this woman?”
Oh. Lady Caire.
Bridget couldn’t even look at her. She felt heat crawl up her cheeks, for she knew that the lady hadn’t ever wanted this, to be confronted by both her… well… in the same room together.
She very much wanted to burst into tears.
But she couldn’t, so she bobbed a hasty curtsy to Lord Caire. “I’m Bridget Crumb, sir.”
For some reason that made Val’s smile twist down.
“Bridget Crumb,” Lord Caire said slowly. He was staring at the streak in her hair and she damned herself for a fool for removing her hat when she’d come in.
For rushing here at all.
Val caught her eye and arched an amused eyebrow.
She scowled at him.
And then hastily ordered her face.
“Well,” she said brightly. “I must be going.”
“Oh, but you’ve only just got here,” Val, the wretch, said smoothly. “And in such a hurry. I can’t have my housekeeper rushing all about London so very agitated.”
“Your housekeeper,” Lord Caire said, his head snapping alarmingly to Val.
“Oh, yes, and rather more,” Val drawled, taking her hand and kissing her knuckles in the most horrifying manner.
Bridget could only stare. What on earth was he doing?
“Shall we go together?” he asked solicitously, looping his arm around her waist and drawing her against his side in a far too intimate manner.
She stiffened, trying to wriggle away without causing a scene, but the problem was he was quite strong and she couldn’t move an inch.
The little girl chose that moment to take her finger out of her mouth and point it damply at Val. “I don’t wike you.”
He looked down his nose at her. “No, nor does anyone else, yet they all seem to be happy enough to let me take sweet Séraphine off to be debauched at my leisure. D’you suppose they would stand around twiddling their thumbs were I to take you as well?”
“Val!” Bridget said, horrified.
While at the same time the child opened her mouth and wailed for her “Mama.”
The dark-haired woman hurried over to pick her up, casting a very intense glare at Val.
“Let’s leave, please,” Bridget muttered to him, tugging at his arm. This was a farce, a ridiculous comedy, but at any moment it would turn to tragedy, irreversible and permanent, and she was suddenly frightened. “Please.”
He was an obdurate rock, though, staring at Lord Caire, a mocking smile curling the corner of his mouth.
“Mother?” Lord Caire whispered.
Bridget couldn’t help it. She glanced at the older woman.
Lady Caire was staring at her, the oddest expression in her blue eyes. It was almost one of… longing? That couldn’t be, surely?
Then the lady closed her eyes, hiding their expression, whatever it had been, and said, “She’s my daughter.”
Suddenly everyone was quiet. Even the little girl stopped crying.
Lady Caire opened her sapphire eyes and looked into her son’s eyes. “She is your sister, Lazarus.”
He nodded, almost calmly.
Then he pivoted and struck Val full in the jaw.
VAL FELT HIS jaw cautiously ten minutes later in his carriage. All in all it’d been a quite exciting afternoon and thoroughly enjoyable, despite the slight pain.
“It’s a very good thing I know how to take a blow, otherwise Caire might’ve broken my jaw.”
The woman across from him—she’d absolutely refused to sit with him—remained sullenly mute.
He eyed her a moment. Darling Séraphine’s color was still rather high and her breasts were rising and falling rapidly.
No doubt it was best to proceed with caution.
Too bad he never did.
“I agree it would be a tragedy to mar this visage,” he mused. “A sin to the sight of women everywhere—and many men as well, let me assure you. And did you notice how quickly he moved, that brother of yours? Not many men of his size and years can get around a settee that fast. I’ll have to watch myself tomorrow morning or I might lose an ear or an eye or my nose or my—”
“Stop it,” she said in what sounded very like a growl. “Just stop it. You’re not going to duel Lord Caire!”
“I assure you I am,” he said earnestly. “We aristocrats take these things very seriously, you know—or rather you don’t because your mother went and copulated with, what? A stable lad? A traveling tinker? A tall and brawny footman? Ah,” he breathed, for she’d flinched on the last. “A footman. How very boring of her—every titled lady wants to tup a young footman. I’d thought she might be a little more original than that.”
“Why are you being so awful about this?” she asked.
“Why aren’t you?” he shot back, some of the clean, clear anger bubbling up that had been simmering beneath his skin for the last several days, ever since he’d seen that glorious white streak and known—known instantly—what it must mean. “What did she do? Hide herself away in some isolated cottage when she began to show, drop you in secret like a kitten, and hand you to the first farmer she came upon? ‘Oh, I say, mind bringing up my daughter while I return to my life and pretend she never happened?’”
A rose flush climbed her cheeks and her dark eyes began to burn. “That’s… that’s not how it was.”
He crossed his legs and assumed an exaggeratedly interested expression. “Oh? Do tell.”
She lifted her chin, stubborn and proud, and, though she was unaware of it, looking more like her mother than at any other time. “My Mam was a good woman and my foster father was… not unkind.”
He was having a very hard time keeping his anger from boiling over. “A rousing endorsement if ever I’ve heard one. Did he hit you?”
“No.” She scowled. “I told you, he wasn’t unkind.”
He waited.
“He used to tell me I was a cuckoo in his nest.” She hurried on, “But Mam loved me, I kno
w she did. Lady Caire made sure a good family raised me. And she visited me.”
“Really?” He drawled. This was much too easy. “How often?”
Her nostrils flared. “Four times that I can remember. She couldn’t do it any more than that. It would’ve roused suspicion.”
He clapped his hands mockingly. “How generous. And yet you went into service at the age of twelve.”
“I wanted to work.”
“Did you?” He leaned forward, and this time he couldn’t manage even the mocking smile. “Don’t lie to me, Séraphine, not to me. Would you really have preferred work at the age of twelve to books? She could’ve sent you to a family of her own rank, or one just a little below. Such things have been done before. You could have been raised as a lady. Schooled as one. Seen the world as one. You could’ve worn silk and brocade instead of wool. You could’ve danced your nights away instead of scrubbing the floors of indolent, stupid aristocrats. She stole your rightful life from you.”
For a moment she stared at him, breathing hard, as if she were the one who had whispered the litany of poison and hatred.
Then she closed her eyes as if weary. “And if I had—if I’d been that lady in silks, dancing at balls, unused to work or labor—I’d never have met you.” She opened her eyes. “You do know that, don’t you?”
“Oh, yes,” he breathed. “And that, that may be her worst crime of all.”
She shook her head and sat forward. “It doesn’t matter. Ifs and but fors and what might have beens. This is who I am and this is the life I have lived. It may be hard for you to understand, but I’ve rather enjoyed it. I like being a housekeeper. I don’t blame Lady Caire for my life and neither should you, Val.”
“And yet I do,” he said quite honestly.
“Please.” She closed her eyes. “You cannot duel Lord Caire.”
He smiled without any humor at all. “I can and I will, I assure you.”
She inhaled, her face going white. “I’ll take your mother’s ivory box to the Duke of Kyle.”
A thrill went through him at the thought, but he shook his head gently. “Oh, Séraphine.”
“I will,” she said, staring straight at him, her mouth firm, her chin lifted and resolved. “I don’t want to, but I will if you go through with this. Call it off and I won’t have to.”