Claiming the Courtesan

“How is he, Mr. Macleish?” she asked in an unsteady voice. If her brother died because of what had happened today, she’d never forgive herself.

“Oh, he’ll make it. But he’ll be gey sore on the morrow.”

The confidence in his tone reassured even more than his words. Through the gathering dusk, she saw that Hamish had done a marvelous job of bandaging Ben’s wounds. She wondered where he’d found the linen, but she didn’t ask.

In her brother’s bruised face, one blackened eye opened and focused on her in the fading light. “Verity lass,” he said indistinctly through his swollen mouth.

He was awake. She hadn’t been sure he’d regain consciousness. She bent her head and started to cry out her overwhelming relief and her bitter guilt in great heaving sobs.

“Oh, lass! Don’t take on so.” Ben’s face contracted with pain as he struggled to reach out to comfort her.

“No, don’t move. I’m just so happy that you’re alive,” she wept, taking his hand carefully so she didn’t hurt his poor, bruised knuckles. “I thought I’d lost you.”

“Takes a sight more than those cream puffs to finish Benjamin Ashton. Give over, lass. There’s nowt to cry for.”

“I know,” she said on a gusty sigh that produced more tears. “I don’t know what’s…what’s wrong with me.”

“Hamish, you ride with Ashton in their carriage.” Without her noticing, Kylemore had come to stand beside her. “I’ll take madame up with me on Tannasg.”

Dazedly, Verity checked the rapidly darkening road and saw that only the four of them remained. The duchess and her men had gone, as had the rest of Kylemore’s band.

“I’d rather stay with Ben,” she said. She couldn’t risk being alone with Kylemore when her resolution to leave him teetered so close to shattering.

Unresisting, she let him help her to her feet. “The hired curricle only takes two, Verity, and someone needs to handle the horses. Your brother will be better off with Hamish until he reaches the castle. I’ll make sure you’re never far away.” His authoritative tone softened as he made the promise in the last sentence.

“As you wish,” she said dully, too weary to argue.

Numbly, she watched Kylemore and Hamish lift Ben into the vehicle. They were careful with their burden, but her brother’s tight expression indicated his pain. The jolting carriage would only worsen his discomfort, but they had no choice if they wished to get him to shelter.

She hurried forward and folded her brother’s hand in hers again. “I’ll see you at the castle,” she murmured. Then she looked up at Hamish, who had climbed onto the bench beside Ben. “Look after him, Mr. Macleish.”

“Aye, my lady, that I will. One of the lads has gone for the doctor. We’ll have young Mr. Ashton right as rain in no time.” Hamish took the reins and clicked his tongue at the horses.

“He’ll be fine.” Kylemore stepped up to stand at her shoulder as the carriage rolled away. “Don’t worry, mo gradh.”

His massive horse loomed behind him. The beast no longer frightened her. Compared to this afternoon’s tribulations, her fear of horses seemed childish, feeble, unimportant.

She wiped her face with shaking fingers. Curse these tears. Soraya had never cried. Verity these days seemed to do little else. “How did you come to be here?”

“I pledged escort to Whitby. I’m a man of my word. I intended to follow at a discreet distance.” Tension darkened his tone, and his gaze was grave and impossibly deep as he stared at her. “Thank God I did. The memory of my mother holding that knife to your lovely face will haunt me forever.”

The reminder of the duchess’s foul threats made her belly roil anew. “After she’d scarred me, she meant to hand me over to her henchmen for their amusement,” she whispered.

Murderous anger flashed in his eyes. “I should have killed the bitch,” he grated out fiercely.

She forced some strength into her tone. “Thankfully your good sense prevailed over your rage.”

His lips turned down in bitter self-derision. “For once.” Some of the intensity drained from his expression. “Come here, mo leannan. Your ordeal is over.”

Weak fool that she was, she couldn’t resist. She stepped into his embrace, and the world lit with warmth and safety. The empty years stretching ahead loomed cold and lonely when viewed from the circle of his arms. Because the prospect was so bleak, she forced her intentions into words yet again. “I’m still leaving you, Kylemore,” she said sadly. “You must make your own life. You must marry and have children.”

“And you’re going to what?” He paused thoughtfully, as if he considered the alternatives available to her. “Take a new protector and forget the wicked duke who kidnapped you?”

How could he be inhuman enough to mock? Leaving him had been the hardest thing she’d ever done, harder by far than turning her back on her upbringing and selling herself to Eldreth. Harder than facing the duchess’s sickening vengeance.

“I’ll never take another lover,” she said brokenly, burying her face in his coat to hide fresh tears.

“No, I don’t think you will,” he said gently. “Hush now. You’re too tired to fight. I’d win too easily. Let’s go home.”