Claiming the Courtesan

From the broad back of his pony, he looked at the Highlands in late summer glory and tried to keep shrieking memories of terror and misery at bay. But they overwhelmed his ramshackle defenses and possessed his soul. He closed his eyes in unspoken anguish.

He hadn’t been this far north since he was seven years old. He’d forgotten the clear air, the endless rows of mountains fading to blue, the wide skies, the red of the rowan berries, the purple of the heather, the soft music of running water. He’d forgotten this ineffable beauty woven like a rich gilt thread through the wretchedness of his childhood.

Beauty.

The one weakness he’d never conquered until he’d encountered Soraya and fallen victim to even greater weakness. Although originally, of course, her beauty was what had drawn him toward her and his own destruction. He’d glimpsed her, exquisite, perfect, proud, across Sir Eldreth’s drawing room and known he must possess her and keep her as his forever.

What he discovered now only deepened his insatiable fascination. Strange to admit he’d learned more about her during these days of arduous travel than he ever had when she’d played his cooperative paramour.

He’d come to realize Soraya was in many ways a falsehood. Soraya was at ease with her gorgeous body and with sexual pleasure. Soraya was a creature addicted to luxury who would recoil in fastidious horror at the privations of this journey. Soraya was endlessly compliant to a lover’s demands. Asked for one word to define his mistress, he’d have chosen sybarite.

Verity, on the other hand, was made of sterner stuff.

Verity guarded her chastity like a miser guarded his treasure. Nothing of the seductress softened that intransigent soul. Every time Kylemore touched her, she looked like she wanted to cry. Or bite and scratch at him like a wild cat. Soraya had certainly bitten and scratched upon occasion, but only as part of her repertoire of love games.

Verity had endured the journey without complaint. When he’d set out on this trek, a childish streak in him had relished the idea of his mistress whining and caviling at the hardship. Her weakness would somehow justify how he treated her. But against his better judgment, with every day that passed, his grudging respect for the woman he’d abducted grew. It was damned inconvenient, but he could do nothing about it.

She took everything he threw at her and still came back fighting. He even found a grim amusement in realizing that she’d come closest to breaking not because of anything he’d done but at the prospect of riding a horse.

He didn’t want to respect her. He wanted to foster the rage that had sent him on this reckless quest. He wanted to hate her as he’d hated her in London, even while he couldn’t forget how he wanted her with ev

ery breath.

Broodingly, he surveyed the starkly magnificent scenery that surrounded him. There was a truth in this landscape that pulverized self-serving deceptions about how far he’d come from the sniveling craven he’d once been. He’d never intended to return to the site of his shameful agony and fear.

Yet again, it was bleakly apparent that what he wanted didn’t count. He just hoped to hell his ruthlessness endured. Perhaps he could fight his childhood recollections. But could he hold out against the woman who trailed after him, her flawless face ashen as she clung to her ungainly pony?

That night, they stopped at another deserted cottage. Verity noted there was no shortage of abandoned buildings to shelter the traveler. Plenty of buildings but no inhabitants. They hadn’t encountered another soul all day. Even accounting for the duke’s desire for secrecy, this seemed peculiar.

The countryside became wilder with every mile. Yorkshire, where she’d grown up, was more rugged than the south, but these dramatic Scottish hills and cliffs and lochs were outside her experience. She quashed a superstitious notion that Kylemore conveyed her beyond the reach of human help.

One thing, however, she was sure of—Ben couldn’t trace her here. Kylemore’s confident assertion that her brother would never find her was fully justified, damn him. The confusing maze of ridges and valleys meant nobody had a hope of tracking their party.

Her horse still made her nervous, although she’d managed to control it after a fashion. During her long day in the saddle, she’d decided the beast’s principal role was as a four-legged instrument of torture. She groaned and shifted her sore rump, trying to find a more forgiving position on the ground. There was a rug under her, but it didn’t help much.

Kylemore crossed the room and dropped to his haunches before her. If she hadn’t hated him already, she’d hate him now. How could the rigors of travel not affect him? It was unnatural. He didn’t look tired or worn, although something told her his mind was troubled.

Not that she was naïve enough to imagine he fretted over what he did to her. No, something else disturbed his vaunted sangfroid. She banished any curiosity with a mental shrug. He was welcome to keep his secrets.

“Sore?” he asked softly. On the few occasions she’d seen his expression that day, she’d remarked its grimness. But right now, if she hadn’t known better, she’d believe he was genuinely concerned for her comfort.

She dismissed that fatuous conclusion and sent him a fulminating glare. “You’d love me to admit that, wouldn’t you?”

A faint smile flickered across his face. “Behave yourself or I won’t do my magic and make you feel better.”

She surveyed him sourly. “How are you going to accomplish that? Shoot me?”

“If all else fails, I’ll keep that in mind.” He turned his head and spoke in Gaelic. The two giants rose from the corner, where they sat talking in low tones, and left the cottage to the duke and his captive.

The time had come. Finally after all the fraught waiting, he meant to reassert his rights of possession over her body. She was too worn out to summon anything more than a dull anger. She told herself she’d survive this as she’d survived so much else. After hours on that wretched horse, she already ached so badly that she probably wouldn’t even feel him pounding into her.

But beneath the tiredness and meaningless bravado, her heart keened in misery.

“Lie back.”

“This won’t help,” she said tonelessly, obeying him.

What was the point of fighting? This moment had been inevitable from the beginning, and for all her hard-held defiance, she didn’t want him to hurt her.