They rarely kissed, and a kiss as a gesture of affection was an unprecedented event.
But that’s what this felt like to Kylemore. She wasn’t trying to seduce him. After a year, he would recognize seduction. And he’d already given her the extravagant pendant. Even greedy as she was, she couldn’t hope to coax another maharajah’s bauble from his pocket.
No, he could only assume she’d kissed him because she’d wanted to.
That revolutionary idea had just taken hold when she drew away. The soft pink lips that had clung so sweetly to his—and sweet was the only word he could bring to mind—curled into a faint smile. “Good day to you, Your Grace.”
He snatched at her hand and, still lost in the memory of her kiss—which was absurd, given the debaucheries they had indulged in all afternoon—raised her slender fingers to his lips with the reverence due to a princess.
When he lifted his head, he caught a bewilderment that matched his own in her silver eyes. “Good day to you too, madam.”
He released her and strode from the room, down the stairs and out of the villa he’d bought her a year ago. But no matter how far he went, he couldn’t quite banish the memory of her mouth on his in a kiss that was almost…innocent.
His infamous, dangerous, enigmatic Soraya. And he was no closer to understanding her now than he’d been six years ago.
She heard the duke’s determined footsteps take him out of the neat little house. He always moved as if he knew exactly where he was going. It was one of the first things she’d noticed about him.
But for a moment, when she’d kissed him, he had looked young and unsure, not like the chilly, self-possessed Duke of Kylemore at all. Thoughtfully, she went behind a gaudy—and remarkably lewd—Chinese screen and replaced the aqua peignoir with a plain cotton wrap. There was a knock on the door just as she emerged.
“Come in,” she said, absently collecting discarded garments from the floor. The house had a full domestic staff, all on the duke’s retainer, but old habits died hard.
A hulking figure in striped Eastern robes entered and observed her out of perceptive dark brown eyes.
“I’ve got those lasses downstairs heating water for your bath, Verity,” he said in the thick Yorkshire accent she had tried and failed to eradicate.
“Thank you.” Verity Ashton, familiar to the world as the incomparable Soraya, looked around the wreck of the bedroom. “I can hardly believe my time as Soraya is over at last.”
The man sighed and tugged off his flowing headdress. Immediately, the inscrutable Ben Ahbood, mute Arabian guardian to London’s most scandalous demimondaine, became Benjamin Ashton, North Country farm lad and as unassailably English as pork pies or the white cliffs of Dover. “Did you say owt to his nibs?”
Verity ignored the hint of hostility toward the duke. Her younger brother hadn’t approved of any of her protectors, but for some reason, he reserved particular opprobrium for Kylemore. An antipathy she suspected the duke shared, if he could bring himself to admit feeling anything for so lowly a creature as a fallen woman’s manservant.
“No, you and I agreed it’s better just to disappear.”
Ben made a disapproving sound deep in his throat. “But now you’re feeling bad about it. I don’t know how a soft-hearted widgeon like you survives in this cutthroat world.” He took a tray from the dresser and began methodically stacking scattered plates and glassware. The disordered room, she knew, offended his sturdy yeoman’s mind.
In his four years with her, Ben had never really reconciled himself to her profession. If he hadn’t been a mere child of ten when she’d launched her present career, he would have stopped her, she knew. But then, if he hadn’t been so young, if her sister hadn’t been even younger, perhaps she’d have had some choice in the matter.
“I think…I think the duke is an unhappy man,” she said softly, dismissing the old memories. She rarely dwelt on the past, but today was an ending, so inevitably she contemplated Soraya’s beginnings.
Ben cast her an unimpressed glance. “As unhappy as a great fortune and a pretty face and all a man can want could be. He’s nobbut spoilt, that’s all. He won’t like losing his toy. But all that lovely brass will soon buy him another. Don’t fret yourself over yon high-toned bastard.”
“Not saying good-bye seems shabby. We don’t have to sneak away. When I became the duke’s mistress, he knew the arrangement was only for a year. He signed a contract that said so.”
“He was so mad with lust back then, he would have signed away his soul if you’d asked. And smiled as he did it. Take my word, lass—a written agreement means nowt to a sodding duke. When he got you, he’d wanted you for five long years. He meant to have you, never mind the price.”
She bent her head, studying the fine Turkish carpet beneath her feet. It was, in fact, the only genuine Middle Eastern item in the room.
“I suppose so.”
Not for the first time, she wished she’d never kissed the duke. Any demirep worth her hire knew that was asking for trouble.
“You’re eight and twenty, Verity. You’ll soon be too long in the tooth for this lark. Then see if high and mighty Kylemore thinks twice before changing you in for a fresher bit of muslin.”
Verity laughed briefly. “What an old crone you make me sound!”
Her brother smiled back. “Oh, I don’t reckon you’re ready for the knacker’s yet. But you’ve planned this a long time. Don’t let misplaced pity change your mind.”
“You’re right.” The duke had always been a means to an end, her chance to leave this unnatural life behind forever. He’d soon recover from whatever damage her departure inflicted on his pride. “Soraya is no more.”