Claiming the Courtesan

Mary’s eyes flickered nervously to the side, as if Kylemore might appear out of the air and send her packing without a reference. “I won’t hear anything against him, madame. His Grace saved my whole family from poverty and starvation. There isn’t a Macleish in this house who wouldn’t die for him.” This time when she looked at Verity, her eyes held genuine sympathy. “I am very sorry you’ve come to this pass, but I cannot aid you. Now, please stand up and I’ll assist you with your bath.”

“If you don’t help me escape, you’re as guilty as your master,” Verity said caustically, although she already knew she was wasting her time. The woman was blindly devoted to Kylemore, and nothing could suborn her loyalty.

A difficult flush reddened Mary’s face. “That is as may be, madame. But I…I cannae help ye. I dinna ken what else tae tell ye.” In her growing distress, her Scots brogue thickened. “Please, dinna ask me tae gae against His Grace.”

Angry frustration rose to choke Verity. With a disgust aimed more at the woman’s employer than Mary herself, she knocked the woman’s hand aside from the buttons that fastened the front of the black dress.

She was on her own. Again.

“Leave me,” she said flatly.

Mary looked troubled. “His Grace told me to attend you.”

“Then attend me by granting me privacy,” Verity snapped.

The woman bowed her head in reluctant acknowledgment. “Very well. But I’ll stay by the door in case you need me.”

In case I turn into a puff of smoke and drift through the keyhole, Verity thought bitterly. Mary left with her shoulders bowed in regret, but that didn’t keep her from locking the door securely behind her.

Verity dealt with her most immediate needs, then flung the curtains back from the windows. Opening them, she peered out. Enough light reflected from the room behind to allow her to assess her chances of getting out this way.

Not great, she decided bleakly.

She was two floors up, and no convenient trees grew close to the house. If she jumped, she’d break her neck. Which offered one solution to her difficulties, she supposed.

She leaned out further, searching for a drainpipe or balcony or ledge, but the building held faithful to the purity of its Palladian origins and was starkly unadorned with meaningless decoration. Verity wondered if she had time to tie the bed hangings together into a rope before another parade of Macleishes marched through the doorway.

“Don’t even think about it.” The duke strolled into the square of light below her window and lifted a cigar to his lips.

“I was just…” she began nervously. The last thing she wanted was for him to invade her precious privacy because he suspected her plans.

He laughed softly and exhaled a cloud of smoke. The smell of fine tobacco rose up to her, blending evocatively with the freshness of the damp garden. “I know exactly what you were just. Go and have your bath. I won’t risk losing you so early in the game. That would be poor sport indeed.”

He sounded as if he relished watching her fight against the net he twisted around her. Loathing surged up in her so strongly that she would have shot him then and there if she’d had a pistol.

“I am pleased I amuse Your Grace so mightily.” Her voice dripped sarcasm.

“Oh, so am I,” he said lightly. “And to think the entertainment has only just begun.”

Childishly, her only response was to slam the window shut.

When Kylemore let himself into the rose room, he found his mistress once more garbed as the virtuous widow. The black dress was buttoned tight to the neck. She’d tortured her silky hair into a severe knot. A forbidding expression darkened her silver eyes. Clearly, she wished him to believe she was armored against his wiles.

Unluckily for her, he hadn’t even started to exercise his wiles.

Of all the reactions he’d expected during this mad escapade—anger, hatred, satisfaction—he hadn’t expected this mad joy. Yet the sight of Soraya sitting before the crackling fire, rebellious and ready to snarl at him over every concession, cheered him as nothing else had in months.

He was indeed as lunatic as his forebears.

He took the seat opposite her at the table and poured them both some claret. From a dresser nearby, an array of covered dishes sent out teasing and tempting smells. But of course, nothing teased and tempted like the beautiful woman scowling at him over the damask tablecloth as if she wanted to kill him.

She probably did, he thought with a mental shrug.

“Should I remove that knife from your reach?” he asked lazily, lounging back and bringing his glass to his lips.

She looked down with surprise, and he saw that she hadn’t considered her cutlery’s potential as weapons. Not for the first time, he suspected she was a gentle creature at heart. Or at least gentler than she wanted the world to realize.

Gentle? Ha! This was the woman who had used and betrayed him without a moment’s hesitation. She could hold her own in a pit of vipers. He mustn’t let her beauty gull him into believing her anything but a grasping jade.