Claiming the Courtesan

His need was a weakness the great Soraya would have immediately exploited. But until she had no other choice, Verity refused to descend to cheap harlot’s tricks, however many spiteful names Kylemore cared to call her.

The duke was strong and ruthless. Any thin veneer of decorum that existed between them in London had disintegrated to nothing. She sensed he’d been pushed so close to the edge that he’d do anything. Anything.

But he wouldn’t prevail, she told herself bravely.

And wished to heaven she

believed it.

“I didn’t betray you,” she said, as much out of a need to break the screaming silence as out of any great wish to communicate with him.

His eyes in the gloomy interior didn’t even flicker. “Yes, you did.”

“Our contract was for a year. Everything you gave me was legally mine. You know about Ben now. I was never unfaithful.”

“Fortuitous for you—and him—you weren’t.” The duke spoke with an indolence she didn’t trust as he stretched out his legs in the well between the two benches. If one disregarded the banked fires under those lazily lowered eyelids, he was the picture of relaxed control. “You speak of quibbles. Inessentials. In your heart, you know you betrayed me when you left. In your heart, you knew I’d seek reparation.”

The problem was she had known. Because of this knowledge, she’d fallen in with Ben’s scheme to disappear into the night with him as though they’d been a pair of housebreakers. She’d spoken no promises to Kylemore, but every time they’d made love, every time he’d produced an empress’s jewel to adorn her, she’d committed herself to stay. Legally, she’d been free to go. On a personal level, she’d deceived, then abandoned, him.

Unspoken guilt had nagged at her ever since she’d left. But she realized now she’d been wise to flee him and his obsessive desire. What had been unwise was allowing him to find her again.

“If I admit that’s true and beg your forgiveness, will you let me go?” she asked without any expectation he’d agree.

He laughed softly, and the deep sound sent a chill of apprehension along her spine. “No, that’s too easy, madam. Although I vow you’ll do both before I’m finished with you.”

Unhappily, she was sure she would too. She spoke quickly before the thought lodged in her mind and chipped away at what little courage she had left. “How did you find me?”

“With more difficulty than I anticipated, I must say. I compliment you on your cleverness.”

It didn’t sound like a compliment. She shivered although it wasn’t cold inside the closed carriage.

He went on. “At first, I tried all the obvious places. But if you’d taken a new lover, everyone concerned was damned discreet about it. My inquiries turned up no information about your whereabouts at all.”

“That must have been—”

“Humiliating? Yes, it was.” He cast her a level look from under his sharply marked brows. “I’ve already said you have a great deal to make up for.”

“I owe you nothing,” she said with a staunchness even she found unconvincing.

He ignored her interjection. “In the meantime, my agents searched across the country, concentrating on the fashionable towns. It never occurred to me you didn’t plan to continue your profession.”

“Why?” she asked sourly. “You believed I was so madly in love with my manservant that I absconded with him.”

The annoying smile, which had come and gone ever since he’d seized her, reappeared. “What I understood to be your affair with Ben Ahbood hadn’t prevented you trying to bleed me dry. Why would it stop you hooking your claws into some other gullible source of income?”

“You don’t think very highly of me, do you?” she asked through stiff lips.

“On the contrary, my dear. I have the greatest respect for your business acumen,” he said dryly. He folded his arms, his fathomless dark blue stare still probing her every secret. “Your only truly foolish act was to refuse my offer of marriage and run away. You must know you couldn’t find a more generous provider.”

Inwardly, she recoiled at the contempt in his drawling voice. Oh, he wanted her, all right, but he despised himself for it. And he’d make her pay for his weakness.

“I only had one thing to sell. You can’t blame me for getting the best price I could,” she said.

“No. And you can’t blame me for getting value for my money.” Clearly feeling he’d stemmed any insubordination in the lower orders, he proceeded with his explanation. “I started to think about wills and legacies. Sir Eldreth was a rich man and a bachelor. Likely he made provision for you. Especially considering your touching display of loyalty. And I remembered you waited six months before taking your next lover. It argued an independent income of some kind.”

“Perhaps it argued discrimination,” she retorted, bitterly resenting this cold accounting of her life.

“Not when Mallory was your next choice. The man’s a nonentity.”