“This is the Mark of my covenant with Lucifer,” he said, keeping his voice steely. “I’m damned, Maia, damned and tied to him, and because of that, I cannot—I don’t want—anything or anyone in my life. I want to be left alone. I want to be free.”
She hadn’t taken her eyes from his shoulder, and when she reached to touch him, Dimitri moved away.
“Now,” he said, taking control of his voice, changing it from the desperate tones of a moment ago to one matter-of-fact and calm, “this is what will happen. You’re going to leave here, Maia, you’re going to go to your chamber and dress and pretend you were on a walk and forgot your appointment with Bradington. And you’re going to marry him as planned. And you’re going to forget about all of this.”
“I can’t do that, my lord,” she said, surprising him with the formal use of address.
“You must. There is nothing I can do for you, nor that I want to do. I’ve allowed you to invade my house, my den and now my bedchamber—” she tensed at that comment, and, gratified that it had hit the mark, he went on “—but I’m finished now. Lerina’s visit last night has me concerned that she has some other plans. And I’ve done everything I can to ensure that you wed Bradington without a hint of scandal. That is all I can do for you.”
Her mouth had tightened. “I cannot do that, Corvindale. Did you not hear me?”
“Yes, you—”
“I cannot, Corvindale,” she interrupted in a stiff voice, “because, much as I desire to leave your vile presence, I cannot walk from one end of your house to my chamber in the other dressed like this.” She flung the bedcoverings away from her naked torso.
Lord. He caught his breath before he realized it, then looked away. But the image was burned into his brain, the delicate shape of her body, the shadow of her collarbones, the high handfuls of br**sts tipped with tight pink ni**les, the hollow of her waist and curve of hips, and the peek of a slender white thigh. Remember it.
“Very well,” he said in a strangled voice. “I’ll arrange it for you, Miss Woodmore.”
She was shaking her head, her full lips flat and mutinous. “I will return to my chamber, but I don’t see how I can marry Alexander when I’m in love with you.”
He stilled as something sharp darted through his gut. “You’re even more foolish than I thought if you believe that, Miss Woodmore.”
“That is one thing I believe we must agree on, my lord. I am foolish.”
“And regardless of what you might think you feel, Miss Woodmore,” he said, “love has nothing to do with whether you wed Bradington or not. Is it not all about the match? The income, the family, the title? Whatever you might think you feel has no bearing on your reputation or your marriage.”
Something glinted in her eyes and he thought for a startled moment that his feisty Miss Woodmore might be tearing up. But she blinked and the shininess was gone.
“Nevertheless,” she said, “I will tell him the truth. And either he’ll wish to go forward with the wedding, knowing that not only do I not love him, but I don’t come to him untouched, or he’ll drop me and our engagement will be broken.”
“There will be a scandal,” he said, despite the fact that he would ensure that Bradington didn’t drop her. “Your reputation will be ruined.”
“Please refrain from stating the obvious, Lord Corvindale,” she said in a parody of an admonishment he’d once given her. “I’m willing to risk it. I will not live a lie with Alexander. He needs to know the truth. And that is why I felt compelled to tell you the truth of how I feel, even though I knew precisely how you would react.”
“You don’t understand, Maia,” he said, keeping his voice cold so that it wouldn’t break. “I’m immortal. I live forever. And when I die…I belong to the devil. I belong to him even now. I have nothing to give. That,” he added nastily, thinking of Wayren and her stories, “is what makes me different from the fairy-tale beast. I own nothing of myself. I have nothing to give.”
19
OF IRONY, UMBRELLAS AND INFERNOS
After his icy pronouncement, Corvindale swept out of the chamber into his adjoining dressing and bathing room, leaving Maia sitting alone on the bed. Numb.
Moments later, she heard the door open onto the hall from that room, and then shortly after that, he returned, stalking into the bedchamber, his hands filled with garments. He was dressed simply in an untucked shirt and trousers.
“I suppose you’ll need assistance dressing,” he said, placing the clothing on the bed with surprising gentleness. She’d expected him to throw them.
“No,” she said, snatching up a chemise. She refused to ask how he’d obtained the garments. It was impossible to imagine that the earl would have gone into her chamber and dug through her wardrobe and drawers. “I don’t need your assistance.”
The chemise floated down over her shoulders and hips.
Maia disdained the corset and drawers and pulled on the simple day dress he’d provided. Fortunately the empire-waist style allowed for her to go temporarily without the corset. She would thus be able to return to her chamber and then get properly dressed with Betty’s help, appearing as if she had just returned from a walk if anyone encountered her in the meanwhile.
Then she could go down and have a difficult conversation with Alexander.
After she found a way to cover her vampire bites.
Once his grudging assistance was refused, Corvindale turned away and stood in front of a curtained window, his back to her, while she finished dressing.
As she did so, Maia reflected on the amazing fact that she was in the earl’s bedchamber, alone with him and dressing after spending several hours wrapped in his arms. Naked. And now he would hardly acknowledge her presence. They’d talked so coolly and calmly about everything that had happened, as if it were a story that had unfolded on the pages of a book instead of to them. In real life.
Looking at the bedraggled mattress, she gave a little shudder of remembered pleasure tinged with regret. She would never forget the feeling, tumbling onto his nude body, warm and hard, rough with wiry hair and firm with planes of muscle, his arms closing around her. His mouth taking from hers.
She belonged there.
“The only time I loved a woman,” he said suddenly, still turned away, “I gave everything for her. My heart. My life. And, quite literally, my soul.”