Heartless (The House of Rohan 5)

“You named a price, I agreed, the bargain is done. Surely you wouldn’t renege on a business deal?” he said silkily.

She stared up at him, and the sudden knowledge hit her with the force of a boulder. He had broken her heart once more. Just when she thought it inviolate, if not extinct, he had managed to get beneath her cool defenses and break her, just like that. She’d been so sure she’d never feel that searing pain again, was incapable of it, and now she lay in his bed feeling shattered. She had no idea whether he was simply ruled by lust or had some inexplicable need to punish her, but she didn’t care.

She could bring an end to all this in a matter of moments. He could climb on top of her, rut and sweat and grunt like all the others, and it would be over. She lifted her eyes to his face. She couldn’t see him well in the darkened room, but she knew there would be no mercy, no tenderness, no emotion whatsoever, and she was ready for the coup de grace. Her face was set like stone. “I await your pleasure, my lord.” She braced herself.

She’d expected he’d rush her. He didn’t move, still lost in the shadows. “Take off your clothes.” His voice was muffled.

She didn’t hesitate. She was paying the price to destroy any last bit of feeling she had for the man, and she sat up in the wide bed, tossing her shawl on the floor. Her nightdress was a thing of beauty, with tucks and lace and tiny pearl buttons, made by the aspiring seamstresses at the Dovecote, and she didn’t want his hands on it. She might never be able to wear it again, but she treasured it, so she slowly lifted her hand and began to unfasten the neckline.

She had learned her lessons well, so long ago. Delay, tease, linger, and by the time she was ready her customer would be so overwrought that it would take but a minute or so of frantic effort and he would spill. She moved her fingers down, taking her time, exposing more and more of her flesh, prepared for him to rush her at any moment.

He didn’t. He didn’t move from his spot in the darkness, though she thought she might have heard a hitch in his breathing. The buttons stopped at her waist, and she paused, hoping she wouldn’t have to go further.

He stayed where he was.

There were buttons on the long sleeves, and she took her time unfastening them, then she paused, waited. Pulling the gown down to her waist, exposing her shoulders and breasts was marginally less humiliating, but she wanted and expected the worst from this encounter. She reached down and caught the hem of her nightdress, yanked it up, lifted her bum to free it and pulled it over her head so that she sat there, completely nude.

And then she remembered that wasn’t how it was done. Gentlemen, for want of a better word, preferred their whores to wear little naughty bits of clothing—useless underwear that did nothing to impede access, bits of fluffy scarves. In fact, she’d usually worn a great deal more than that for the men who wanted the fantasy of debasing their wives, and she couldn’t remember if she’d ever been completely naked.

She could feel the heat suffuse her body. Surely now he would launch himself at her, finish this mockery.

“You’re blushing,” he said softly, and she cursed his night vision, his sudden gentleness. He broke it a moment later, thank God. “I didn’t know whores blushed.”

She could feel the color drain away, until she was cold and hard. “As you can see, you don’t know much.” She sank back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. “Have at it.”

He laughed, he actually laughed, making no effort to approach her, and she was filled with sudden horror. Had he been playing a game? Was this simply one more way to humiliate her?

She waited, her heart hammering, the silent prayer repeating, over and over again, in her mind. Please go away, please go away, please go away. Tell me you didn’t mean to do this, tell me you aren’t this man.

She didn’t expect her prayers to be answered, and they weren’t. She felt him approach the bed. “All right,” he said, his voice taut and emotionless, and the mattress dipped as he stretched out beside her, his clothed body pressing up against her side. She closed her eyes, wanting to weep. For a moment there was silence, only broken by the sound of their breathing, his heavy, tense, hers shallow. “Do you have any specialties? Are you particularly good with your mouth? Perhaps you like to take it up the. . .”

“Shut up,” she said fiercely, rolling to her side to face him. She needed this done, and quickly. “Unfasten your pants and finish this.”

She was trembling, practically vibrating, but she doubted he’d notice. She reached for his clothes, realizing too late that he’d stripped off his shirt and there was only warm flesh beneath her fingers, the feel of the scars that she had once tended a rough reminder of what was lost forever.

He caught her hands in his larger one, holding her still. “I’m thinking this might be a mistake,” he said evenly.

She wanted to wail, to beat at him. She couldn’t bear it if he suddenly became decent once more. “Surely you wouldn’t renege on a business deal?” she quoted back to him. “Or do you perhaps have performance issues? I suppose there are things that I could do. . .”

A moment later he had rolled her onto her back, and he lay on top of her, between her thighs, the fabric of his breeches rough against her soft skin, his erection pressing against her. He was too damned big. She’d bathed him in the hospital, unperturbed by sick men’s bodies, and he’d seemed no more endowed than the men she’d serviced. That assumption had clearly been wrong.

He cupped her face with his strong hands, and his warm breath touched her face. “You’re shaking,” he said quietly.

“I’m cold.”

“The room is warm, and your nipples are soft. You aren’t cold and you aren’t aroused.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” she cried in desperation. “Just get this over with.”

He did the very last thing she expected. He kissed her.

Chapter 21

The woman lying beneath him was terrified. He had no idea how that was possible—there was no doubt at all that she’d spent a number of years running a brothel after spending time working in one. He’d heard the stories of the youngest Madame in England, never guessing they were talking about his beloved Harpy.

And she had been his beloved. Even when’d she abandoned him and disappeared, he’d still loved her, longed for her, until the opium and the brandy had scoured her from his memory. He hadn’t allowed himself to think of her when he’d been in Scotland, determined not to waste a moment’s thought on anything that might deter him from his goal, and he hadn?

?t even recognized her when he first met her, apart from that odd sense of familiarity.