As soon as he discerned her at the window, he stopped. In one slow, unending glance, his eyes traced from her bare feet to the folds of the sheet skimming over her hips to her breasts, then over her naked shoulders. It was a caress, with no direct hint of sex. It was simply there. The heat of his gaze and the appreciation of her form was a simple fact shown in the way his face tightened and the almost imperceptible widening of his eyes.
Her own heartbeat increased, pulsing at her throat, making her body seem suddenly alive in a way she had never known nor now understood.
He raised a black brow. “Are you better in body?”
She blinked. “In body?”
Sympathy warmed his hard features. “I assume your spirits are still significantly bruised.”
She opened her mouth to deny it, but couldn’t. The lie wouldn’t form. “How do you know what I may or may not feel?”
He gave the barest shrug, a movement that stretched the fine English tailoring of his coat. “I have had my fair share of mornings bathed in shame. It is not a pleasant feeling, but one survives.”
Survive? How much more did she need to survive?
“You no longer experience shame?”
“I do not.”
She eyed him, wondering whether indeed such a thing could be achieved. And if she could achieve it, would she choose to live so? “How fortunate for you.”
“It makes things simpler.” He took one slow step forward, testing the ground between them. “Society’s instruction in morality is what makes you feel as you do now.”
“You have unlearned such instruction?”
“After much practice, I have shed most societal strictures and limitations.” Another slow step forward, his long, hard legs stretching against the superfine wool of his black trousers. “I urge you to do the same.”
She couldn’t tear her eyes from his muscled thigh. How had he become so fiercely strong when so many other lords were so incredibly weak? “Why?”
“You will never feel as you do again.”
Her eyes snapped up to his. The very idea that she might never feel . . . this drenching self-hate again was almost too much to contemplate. An impossible and forbidden happiness. “Never?”
“Shame is a wasted emotion. Learn from your mistakes and take pride in the fact that you shan’t make the same mistakes again.”
A dry laugh rattled from her throat before she could stop it. “I assume you mean I should avoid a bottle of wine and a large dose of laudanum in the same sitting?”
He let out a small, deep sound of amusement. “I think there was more than one bottle of wine and it would seem wise to abstain from such volumes of opiates, though not for moral reasons. You care about your self-preservation, do you not?”
Along with the crackling tension of his simply being in the chamber, she sensed something else. Something she couldn’t trust. “I do.”
“Good.” He closed the distance quietly until the closeness of him seemed to steal the air out of the room. “Then you will tell me who gave you the laudanum that nearly killed you.”
She fought the urge to step back. She couldn’t run. Not anymore. There was nowhere to go. Instead, she raised her chin, challenging him. “Why would I do that?”
He towered over her, a good six inches’ height in his favor. “Because you wish to please me.”
She cocked her head to the side, meeting those obsidian eyes, wondering what it would be to please such a man, and perhaps . . . to be pleased in turn. “I suppose the protection you offer me leads you to suppose you are entitled to such information.”
“Yes,” he stated.
She inhaled sharply, anger spiking through her. She had escaped a madhouse and run for her life, scratching and fighting across the country only to be standing before this man, entirely beholden to him and almost under his control.
Being controlled was something she would never accept again. If she did, she might as well waltz back to the asylum.
Carefully, he lifted a hand and stroked her too short hair back from her cheek, tucking it behind her ear. The very touch sent shivers over her skin. Surely, they were shivers of revulsion. But for the first time, she wasn’t sure. There was something soothing and provocative to him and his touch. Tender and hot, meant to assure rather than command. Even in her anger, she couldn’t stop the sudden wish for him to stroke her again.
He did. His fingers danced over her cheek, so softly it was barely tangible. “As your protector—”
“As my protector you are entitled to my body and my fidelity. Nothing more.”
His brows drew together slightly and his touch stilled on her cheek. “A sentiment that does not presently apply.”
“It
does
apply,” she countered.
“You seem to understand a courtesan’s creed quite well.” His black eyes deepened to pitch. “Did your last lover do this to you?” His breathing remained slow and even, but tension ruled his body. “I could have him butchered into a plethora of pieces. Should you like that?”
Mary pressed her lips together, wishing she had held her tongue. How could she tell him she’d been a whore? A whore unpaid and free for the use of any man the keepers wished to give her to? She couldn’t bear thinking of it.
Speaking
of it? She closed her eyes as the room swayed.
“You needn’t fear my judgment, darling.”
He was so strange in his relentless kindness. Hard, calculating, determined to save her and care for her, even if she’d been another man’s. None of the forces in hell or heaven could bring her to confess the truth. He would cast her out in revulsion. Nor was she about to reveal that her mother had once been a famous courtesan. Such details would only lead him to the truth of her birth. For if he knew who her father was, perhaps he wouldn’t be so ready to do battle with such a powerful man.
He would certainly learn she’d been put away. This fact might repulse him. That thought alone—that he would turn from her in disgust—struck a chord of dismay within her.
“Come,” he coaxed, his strong, gentle fingers cupping her cheek and tilting her face up as if to ready her for a kiss. “Tell me who you are. Yvonne told me only that you were in need of a protector.”
“How would it benefit you to know?”
His thumb stroked softly against her cheek, featherlight. “I could shelter you. I desire nothing more than to keep you safe.”
“And well,” she corrected.
A gentle sound that might have been mistaken for a laugh passed his lips. “And well.”
“If you knew more, you would, in fact, desire me less, Your Grace.” She shifted on her feet, tempted to pull away from him, yet unwilling to lose the growing connection between them. She had to recall why she was here. Her position was as his mistress and, terrifying as that might be, she had to start acting the part. “A general lack of knowledge about one another is essential to the intrigues of an affair, would you not agree?”
His sensual eyes scanned her face, searching as if he could see deep inside her and find the answer himself. “You will not tell me?”
Pointedly, she trailed her gaze over his full mouth, then leaned slightly toward him. “No.”
He slid his hand to the nape of her neck, trailing his fingers into her short jetty curls. “Why?”
At the caress, her heart slammed against her ribs. To her shock, she felt no fear . . . only curiosity, and a sudden anticipation. “Because there is no reason for you to know.”
Her breath came in short, shallow intakes as she slowly lifted her hand and shakily placed it on his hard chest. He tensed beneath her, his muscles impossibly hardening. The linen couldn’t disguise the heat of his body nor the sculpted contours of his muscular shape. She couldn’t identify what emotions she felt, only that her traitorous hand liked the feeling of touching him. “We shall be happier this way.”
“But what if I truly wish to know you?”
She could find a way to please him and then be safe with him. But she wouldn’t tell him about her past. Not ever. He couldn’t know just how used she had been and what she had finally done to stop it. No one could ever know about the blood that still occasionally stained her hands, dripping along her skin in a constant reminder of her escape.
No one could ever care for someone so low. Adjusting her hand to his waist, Mary stepped forward, closing the gap between them until her sheet brushed his legs and boots. “Then you shall find yourself vastly disappointed.”
His eyes flared with shock and the unmistakable heat of desire. “Calypso, you shall never disappoint me. No matter what you do, no matter what you say, I shall always be in awe of your perfect vulnerability, your perfectly imperfect soul.”
She tilted her face toward his. Perfectly imperfect? Such a thing had never occurred to her. Suddenly, as if her body was responding to the hypnotic lure of his words, she angled her curves into his hard contours.
“Let me know the depths of your heart,” he whispered. “Let me be its guardian.”
Every bit of her skin was alive, desperately wishing she could let him in. But three years of terror had closed the drawbridge of her heart to all who dared traverse it. So, unable to say what he wished to hear, she let her eyelids flutter half shut as she murmured, “My heart is unknowable, even to me, but you can know me in other ways.”
Please, heaven, let him take the offer
, she prayed. Let him take it and leave her secrets hidden in the diseased recesses of her memory.
His gaze slipped to her lips and then his mouth was on hers. A brush of hot skin and gentle pressure. His hand held the back of her head carefully in place and his other arm came around to cradle her against him.
She remained absolutely still, trying to allow her mind to go blank. But she couldn’t. The sudden warmth and gentleness of his kiss stole her instincts away and she eased into his embrace. Ever so slowly, she lifted her hands to his shoulders and held with a feather grip.
He played his mouth over hers, giving and giving with the softest of touches. Teasing her with chaste kisses and the promise of something more.
Mary let out a shocked breath of pleasure.
He took the sound as encouragement and eased her tighter against him. His mouth parted and he licked lightly at her lips. Opening to him in small degrees, Mary took his tongue into her mouth. The taste of tea was on him, spicy and aromatic as he stroked her.
It seemed unbelievable that this could be pleasing, but she couldn’t deny the urging pressure to let him kiss her deeper. Carefully, she caressed her tongue against his.
His groan filled her mouth and he grasped her tight to his wide chest, his hands hard and suddenly full of demand.
Fear shot through her and she shoved at his chest. Hard. As she tore her lips away, his mouth smeared down her cheek. “Stop—” She panted. “Please.”
His embrace suddenly stilled, empty of the pleasure that had been there a moment earlier. “What is amiss?”
Panic shuddered through her and she saw the image of a bloated face with bloodshot eyes above her where Edward’s should have been. “No no no. I cannot!” She pushed blindly against the man holding her.
The arms abruptly let go and cold air stole across her skin where she had been warm a moment before. She stood swaying, her eyes blind to the room. She shook her head wildly. “No. Please, no.” She could feel the keeper’s callused hands, rough with dirt and cracked fingernails.
“Stop—” She choked, her throat tightening like a crushed reed.
“Mary,” a voice called, desperate and hollow.
She could feel those rough, stubby fingers upon her cold flesh.
“Mary!”
She shook her head again, her hands coming up and clawing at her naked shoulders, trying to push the invisible hands away. Staggering, she scratched at her skin. She couldn’t get it off. The hands. The filthy, hard hands pinching her skin. Any moment. Any moment those hands would shove her to the ground, lift her, and—
A scream tore from her throat. She brought her hands to her face, forgetting the sheet covering her body, and hid her eyes.
It had to stop. It had to.
The keeper. His muddy eyes, alight with hunger, loomed before her. She gagged on the smell of filthy flesh and its accompanying shame. As she attempted to flee from her own thoughts, she couldn’t stop one thought from repeating over and over again.
This pain would never stop.
She knew that now. It would never leave her. She would never be well.
“M
ary!” Edward’s muscles locked and he stood helpless, afraid that if he did reach out to her, she would fly apart. She stumbled a few feet away from him, her bare feet sliding over the carpet. Her short hair fluttered about her strained face as she shook her head wildly.
A sob ripped from her throat as she continued to swipe her hands over her shoulders. “Stop—” She gasped. “Stop!”
His insides twisted so hard he nearly choked. He longed to grab her and soothe her, but feared it might frighten her all the more.
“Mary,” he called again, hoping to break through whatever had seized her mind.
She wailed into her frail hands, covering her face. Her shoulders trembled and she dropped to her knees with a soft thud. “Please,” she whimpered. “I’ll be good.” She lowered her hands from her face and cradled herself. “I promise.”
Whatever was left of his twisted heart shattered at the sight of her. She rocked slowly back and forth, her skin shivering as it prickled from the cold.
Holy Christ. What had happened to his Calypso? Her mind had been ruined, dismantled. Rage pummeled him. A blind, aimless rage at whatever bastard had done this to her. How was a man, even a man driven as he, supposed to change
that
?
Dry sobs shook her whole body as she continued to rock herself.
Edward ground his teeth, his hands flexing and unflexing with pent-up frustration. He couldn’t just stand here. But what? What could he do? At last, he crossed to her and very slowly knelt before her.
Her eyes were wide, staring up toward the ceiling.
His heart demanded he reach out and pull her to him, but he resisted. “Who hurt you?”
She didn’t answer, her body moving back and forth in a steady motion.
“You’re safe, Mary.” His own limbs shook with fury as he willed her to hear him. “You’re safe. You’re here with me.”