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.
Her fingers tightened in his hair, and he could hear her gasping cries as she sought her release. And suddenly he didn’t want her to come that way. He was selfish enough to need to be inside her, and he moved up, kneeling between her legs, taking her hands in his and pressing them down against the mattress as he filled her; slowly, inexorably, deeply.
He’d planned to give her a moment to accommodate herself to his size, he’d planned to go slowly, but the moment he sank all the way in she convulsed around him, her body tightening, milking him, and he had no choice but to follow her, his control vanishing, as he drank in her choked cry of completion.
He released her hands, wrapping his arms around her head, cradling her, his lips drinking in her tears as she sobbed beneath him. She tore at the heart he didn’t know he still possessed, but not for anything would he regret the last hour, the last day, the last weeks. If it was weakness, damnable, destructive weakness, then he no longer cared.
The moment she regained a tiny bit of control she tried to turn away from him, even as she lay beneath him, their bodies still joined. “Let me be, Nicholas,” she begged brokenly. “Don’t torment me, don’t humiliate me further. Let me go away, I beg of you.”
“I thought I explained this to you,” he said with great patience, kissing her eyelids. “You are not going away from me, ever again.” He smoothed the tear-damp hair away from her face with surpassing gentleness.
“Don’t do this to me,” she cried. “Now of all times, don’t be kind. You know what I am, what I had to become.”
“I know what you are,” he agreed, his voice low. “A very dangerous woman. Fierce, and brave, and terrifying. If I could let you leave I would, my love. But I can’t.”
“Nicholas…”
“Hush,” he said, releasing her body, moving to one side and gathering her in his arms. “Hush, now. All this weeping and lamentation is a waste of time. You can’t change the past, and all your thirst for revenge won’t help matters.”
“Don’t be kind,” she whispered. “For God’s sake, Nicholas, don’t be kind!”
“I’m never kind,” he said. “You should know that by now. I’m selfish and dishonorable, dissolute and wicked.” He smoothed her tangled hair away from her tear-damp face. “You should know that better than anyone.”
“Nicholas…”
“And to prove it to you, I’m about to make love to you again. Ignoring your righteous dismay, ignoring any wishes you might have in the matter, I’m going to start all over again and discover whatever it was you learned from all those hundreds and thousands of men you lay with on the streets of Paris.” His voice was gently mocking.
“Don’t joke about it,” she said, trying to hide her face. Since she chose his shoulder to hide against, he found such a move entirely acceptable. “There were three,” she said in a very small voice.
“Three hundred?” His deft fingers began working the taut muscles of her smooth, narrow back, kneading, stroking, feeling the skin grow warm and alive as one tension left and another began.
“Three men. Or rather, two and a half.”
He paused for a moment, careful to keep his voice free of laughter. “How did you manage to service two and a half men? I can’t quite comprehend the logistics. Not that you need explain. I’ve told you, it doesn’t matter how many men. I’m just curious.” His hands moved down to her small, rounded buttocks, pulling her closer to him.
“There was the earl,” she muttered. “And M. Porcin, the butcher. But when Malviver wanted me to…” Her voice broke, and the tears stopped as she looked up at him. “I killed him.”
“You always were a bloodthirsty wench,” he said amiably, pulling her legs up around his aroused body with deft grace. “Why did you kill this… Malviver, did you call him?”
“He was the man who took me to Madame Claude’s,” she said flatly.
“Well, it certainly seems as if he deserved it more than me,” he said, pulling her closer still, until he rested against her, newly aroused and needing her. “Did you use poison?”
“I don’t understand you,” she cried, catching his shoulders. “How can you sound so amused by it all?”
“Haven’t you learned by now, my angel, that you must either laugh or weep?” He brushed her still-damp face. “I think you have wept enough for one night.” And he sank into her, turning on his back as he went, pulling her astride him.
She was astonished, hesitant at first, and tried to scramble away. It was obvious to him that her scarlet past had included very little, and he briefly considered all the things he would teach her. “Nicholas!” she said in shock.
He schooled his powerful response enough to smile at her. “I believe it’s all a lie. You did spend the last decade in a convent. Be brave,
ma mie.
You might find you like it.” His long fingers tightened on her thighs, as she still tried to pull away. “Please,” he said.
He’d never said please to a woman in his life. Somehow she knew that. She closed her eyes briefly, and her fingers tightened on his shoulders, but she made no more move to escape.
She was an apt pupil. She caught the rhythm in no time, and the shyness vanished, leaving her glistening with sweat, trembling, taut with passion, learning to take her pleasure, and his. And when she came this time her cry echoed out over the still waters of the canal, mingling with his.
She collapsed on top of him in an untidy little heap of satisfied female flesh. He tucked her against him, smiling as he felt the boneless exhaustion of sleep. The scrape on his chest stung, but he made no move to do anything about it. It was a small enough price to pay for Ghislaine. If need be, he would have let her hack off his arm in return for the hours they’d just shared.
She was so small, so fierce, so strong, so vulnerable. He had never known a woman like her. He needed her, he who’d never needed a living soul. There was no way he was going to let anyone wound her again. He was bound to bring her enough pain as it was. It was in his blood. The least he could do was keep her safe from others who might choose to hurt her.
He waited until he was certain her sleep was so deep that nothing might awaken her. He wanted to sleep too, wrapped in her arms, drinking in her scent, the scent of their lovemaking filling the room.
But he had a more important task to perform. One that damned well wasn’t going to wait.
Venice was like every cosmopolitan city. Gaming houses stayed open till daylight, parties lasted till breakfast. It took him three stops, but he finally found the Earl of Wrexham at one of the better gaming houses, deep in a game of faro.
He must have felt Blackthorne’s shadow loom over him. He glanced up, and Nicholas noted he wasn’t cupshot. Not that it would have mattered. Drunk or sober, Wrexham was going to die. A duel with Nicholas Blackthorne would be one-sided, no matter what condition his lordship was in. It would simply make society happier if he was sober.
“That you, Blackthorne?” he asked, looking up, his eyes bright with malice. “Hoping to see you again. I’ve an interest in your little ladybird. Unfinished business, don’t you know? What say we play for her favors? A hand of piquet? We could play for a night, for a week? Winner take all.”
“I’m going to kill you, Wrexham,” Nicholas said in his smooth, pleasant voice.
“Don’t be ridiculous, old chap. People don’t kill each other over sluts. Had a feeling you weren’t best pleased when I recognized the gel, but I’ve always had a good memory. Come on, old man, let’s share a drink…” He held a crystal wineglass toward him, but there was a faint shade of anxiety in his faded eyes.