The death of him and his wife had occurred a year after Joshua had escaped to Jamaica. How had Elizabeth borne it all? In his selfishness, he had not considered the grief she must have experienced in those years of his absence.
“What was it like in Jamaica?” she asked, breaking the silence.
“Hot and humid,” he said shortly. He didn’t want to talk about those ten years. All those brutal fights for money and entertainment that kept the wolf at bay only emphasized his base nature. He hadn’t been fit for gentle company and had spent much of his time with a rude circle and shady companions.
“Those women, did they…help?” Elizabeth asked tentatively.
He gritted his teeth. “I told you, Elizabeth. There were no other women.”
She snorted. “I know how the Beast must be kept at bay.”
“I fought.” His throat closed. The pain of the many beatings he’d suffered, the bouts he’d lost and even the ones he’d won all swamped him.
“I don’t understand.”
“I became Lord Fist,” he said bitterly. “I fought anyone and everyone, with natives and Englishmen alike betting on me. It gave me partial release.” His hand had done the rest, but badly.
She frowned. “Then I feel sorry for you.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Why is that, my dear?”
“It means that you derived only a physical release.” She gazed at him thoughtfully. “I’ve seen Perry…” Her words stopped for a moment and he hoped she had become too embarrassed to go on. But she spoke again. “I know he didn’t care for any of those women and he always felt such shame afterwards. I tried to tell him that once he found a mate—” Her mouth clamped shut and she turned her face to the carriage window. “But I suppose I don’t know what I’m talking about. You found your mate but it did not help you.”
Joshua stared at her. “You were my only sanity, Elizabeth. All those years I was gone…” The words dried up and his throat tightened. How could he explain? “You asked me why I didn’t come home after I learned to control the Beast.” To tell her would risk much. But he needed her to know. “I thought it was too late. I believed I had killed whatever love you had for me.”
She snorted. “That’s a fine excuse. You came home and began to demand the rights of a lover as if you’d never left.” Her face was pinched. “I do not believe you.”
He sighed. “I know. Why should you?”
Her head whipped around and she stared at him. “You could have written to me, told me, anything. Instead you left me to believe I’d been cast aside, discarded for the wilds of the new world. Yet you are telling me you were afraid to come home, afraid I no longer loved you.”
“That sums it up nicely.”
“And you expect me to—”
“I expected you to do exactly what you’ve done,” he interrupted her. “I’m not discouraged by your resistance, Elizabeth. It’s a challenge I intend to take.”
“You’re a fool.”
“Perhaps. But I believe I will win.” He glanced over her and noted how her chest rose and fell quickly and her tongue flicked out to wet her lips. Every inch of her body screamed that she belonged to him. It was her mind he had to convince.
*
How had Joshua known exactly where Perry had gone? Elizabeth stared at the nondescript home. The lights flickered dimly in the windows and a swaying man exited the front door, falling into a carriage.
It was similar to Lord Everret’s home, yet a bit seedier and more run down. The clientele was definitely rougher. Elizabeth shivered. In the past she’d seen such places guarded by large men with wicked revolvers. It was a relief to see Jaimison materialize out of the shadows to hold the door to the carriage open.
“Lady Arundale,” he said, surprise stamped on his face. “What are you doing here?”
“She threatened to come anyway, though I forbade it,” Joshua said. “But she has agreed to obey me without question.”
Elizabeth glared at Joshua. “Perry will not hurt me.” Many times, Perry had reacted to another male as a challenge but her presence always calmed him, so that he would go along peacefully. Most of the time, of course, they found him inebriated and unconscious.
“Perry needs to learn a few lessons.” Her husband strode to the front door and marched into the house as if he owned it.
She marveled at his ability to do so. He’d always commanded respect and admiration, but the shyness she remembered from his boyhood was gone, replaced by something much more attractive. And dangerous.
Her heart was completely unreasonable, still besotted with him, still his willing slave. Her only hope for self-preservation was that he seemed not to know it. His challenge, issued in the heat of the moment she was sure, emphasized that he was unaware that she was already deeply in love with him. The entrance to the house was as run down as the rest of the estate, the staircase a jumble of wood that looked none too stable. The women here were less refined than the women at that Lord Everret’s and were dressed in worn clothes. The men, however, looked exactly the same as most of the patrons she’d seen in places like this. Well dressed, refined and dissolute.
A man appeared in the hallway, his pants loose and his face smeared with rouge. “Well, well, well,” he said smoothly. “If it isn’t Lord Joshua Arundale, Earl of Arundale Hall.” The man sneered at Joshua’s title.
Elizabeth’s spine stiffened. Who was this rude person who dared to talk to her husband that way? She started forward but Joshua gripped her arm to hold her still. “Do I know you, sir?”
The man bowed. “Robert Applegate, Duke of Kent, at your service.”
“Then perhaps you can tell me where my younger brother might be?” Joshua mused. “You know him, do you not?” Though his tone was mild, his fingers tightened on her arm.
“The honorable Perry Arundale?” The offensive man chuckled. “Indeed I do.” His gaze focused on her and she shuddered. His gray eyes were sharp and assessing. His hair was sprinkled with white strands, though it was clear he kept it clean and brushed. His hands were manicured and unblemished. Though fit, Elizabeth could tell he would give way to portliness as he aged. Unlike her husband, who would probably only grow more handsome as the years passed.
The man’s perusal was bold, considering that Joshua stood in front of her. Applegate raised an eyebrow. “And this is Lady Arundale, of course.” His tone was oily. “How delicious.”
Again she started forward, intending to put this rake in his place, but Joshua beat her to it. “My wife is always by my side, your grace.” There was an edge to Joshua’s tone. “I cannot bear to have her away from me.”
“And yet I heard you’ve been gone for ten years,” the man said bluntly. “In that time—”
Joshua stepped forward, face-to-face with the man. “In that time, I grew up. Now where is my brother?” he said harshly.
Rather than show offense, Applegate grinned. “He’s in the cellar.”
As the Duke strode past them, Joshua pulled Elizabeth closer to his side, out of reach. When the man was out of sight, Joshua glanced at Jaimison. “I don’t like him. He had a look I’d call knowing.”
Jaimison nodded. “He recently inherited his title. His father was a religious man, but his mother…” Jaimison said no more.
“Scandalous?”
“They hushed it up, but yes, I’d say she was wild. I’m afraid the father punished the son rather than his errant wife. He was sent to India and has just returned.” Jaimison glanced around the house. “Shall we retrieve Mr. Arundale?”
They headed toward the cellar and Elizabeth tried to keep her gaze on Joshua’s back. But she glanced at some of the other patrons of the house. What was it about a woman who took a man’s cock in her mouth that made her belly flutter?
It was always difficult to make these little trips, but it seemed worse with Joshua’s hand on her skin, his heat soaking through. Jaimison checked the rooms and finally they found Perry.
The Beast had chosen a different way this time. Or had he? Elizabeth rushed forward, ignoring Joshua’s attempts to restrain her. “Not again,” she murmured.
This time Perry had chosen a much uglier way to contain his wolf. Pain. Boot marks bruised his torso and blood oozed from his nose and mouth. He was splayed flat on a dirty floor. There was no furniture in the room. Just dust and blood.
Elizabeth whipped out her handkerchief and dabbed at Perry’s mouth. He blinked and gazed at her. Then he moaned and pressed his forehead to the floor. “Leave me to die, sister. I am a worthless being with no destiny but death.”
Gently, she lifted his head and placed it in her lap. “I have told you before. I will not allow you to think that way. You are not worthless.”
“There is no hope for me, Elizabeth.”
She patted his head. “There is always hope if you look for it.”
Jaimison and Joshua lifted Perry to his feet. Perry leaned heavily on Jaimison. “I’ll take him, my lord.”
“You have a carriage?” Joshua asked.
Jaimison nodded. “Mine is less noticeable.”
“Be careful.”
The two men strode down the corridor and Elizabeth started to follow when Joshua grabbed her arm. “No. You’re coming with me.”
“Let me go,” she demanded.
“There’s something I want to show you.”
“No.” She jerked and yanked her arm, trying to get away from him, but he was implacable.
He dragged her down the hall to a room they’d passed in their search for Perry. It was empty except for a large window. On the other side of the window, a contraption which resembled a saddle on two thick poles dominated the center of a room. A woman was bent over the saddle part, her face hidden by a mask, her dress pooled at her stocking feet. A man in gentleman’s clothes stood behind her, also masked, his hands gloved.
“All evening as we searched this house for Perry, I smelled your need, your desire. It tormented me, Elizabeth.” His breath was hot on her neck.
“You are mistaken,” she lied, her gaze already focused on the tableau on the other side of the wall. The man’s hand slid over the woman’s naked skin. His loving attention created jealous warmth in Elizabeth’s belly. She closed her eyes but Joshua gave her no respite. He leaned down and whispered in her ear. “Watch him. Watch him give her pleasure.”
The only sound Elizabeth could hear was her own harsh breathing. The man’s hand rose and struck the woman’s behind. The woman’s face flushed and her gaze lifted to meet Elizabeth’s. Pleasure, need and desperation flickered in her greenish eyes. Her neck was corded and stretched as each blow made her arch her back. The sight was arousing and frightening.
Elizabeth couldn’t move. The man’s strikes came faster and then, suddenly, he ripped his pants open and gripped the woman’s hips. His cock pinned the woman to the saddle and he thrust like a wild man inside her.
The woman’s mouth opened and her muffled scream penetrated the thin glass. The man’s hoarse shout also reverberated against the walls and Elizabeth stared at them. Her gaze was drawn to the man’s right hand as he stroked the woman’s cheek, a sweet caress filled with emotion. Damp response gathered between her legs and she wanted to escape.
“Would you like that, Elizabeth?”
“Let me go, Joshua,” she whispered. Her gaze was riveted by the couple on the other side of the window.
“Would you like me to take you that way? Bent over, your sweet bottom against my waistcoat and my cock buried inside your pussy?”
She bit back a moan and struggled to free herself from his grip. He whipped her around to face him. “Tell me,” he demanded.
A sob escaped her lips and she closed her eyes. “Yes. Yes, I want that. I’m a whore. You’ve proven your point. Now let me go.”
“Stop saying that.” He shook her by the shoulders. “You are not a whore and that is not what I wanted you to see.”
Her lip curled and she glared at him. “Why torture me like this?” She jerked her head toward the woman. “She trusts him. You can see how much they want each other, how much they— How much they—” Her voice broke and she pursed her lips. The love between the couple had been palpable. Why the lovers had come here was beyond Elizabeth’s understanding, but she knew love when she saw it.
“Elizabeth…”
She stiffened and stopped fighting. “Why did you show me this?” Her heart twisted in her chest. Why would he want her to watch another couple, a couple clearly in love, when the two of them were further apart now than when there had been an ocean between them?
He cupped her chin, his fingers gentle but insistent. “It can be that way for us. I wanted to tempt you, not hurt you.”
“Tempt me?” She reared back, breaking his hold on her. “Nothing could tempt me to foolishly give myself to a man who spurned me once.” Numb and bitter, she held his gaze. “I do not need you, Joshua. Not for anything.”
Something flashed in his eyes and he abruptly released her. “I see.”
The sting of his grip still resonated through her flesh and she rubbed her upper arms. She’d scored a point, finally breaking that iron façade he presented to her. Why didn’t she feel the satisfaction she’d thought she would?
Because she still loved him. Hopelessly, helplessly, eternally. She turned and fled that dingy room, heedless of the eyes that watched or the picture of desperation she must have made.
Outside, the carriage was waiting. Joshua’s hand gripped her arm and she jumped nervously. Impersonally, he helped her into their carriage and she cringed in the corner, avoiding his stare.
He sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “I wish you would believe me, Elizabeth.” His back curved and he dropped his head into his hands. “When I ran from Arundale, I believed I was a monster, dangerous and wicked.” He lifted his head but didn’t look at her. “On the way to Jamaica, my worst nightmare came true.”
It seemed like an eternity before he continued. “I killed a man. Horribly.” His voice cracked and Elizabeth longed to touch him, to tell him it didn’t matter. He gripped his hands together and stared at his clenched fingers. “I…ate the man’s heart, apparently a part of the Beast’s ritual.”
Stunned, she stared at him. “Like the man murdered and left on my doorstep.”
“And your horse, Shadow.”
“What does this have to do with the ten years you stayed away?” She crossed her arms. Unreasonable? Yes, she probably was, but she had years of hurt to deal with and he expected too much.