Claiming the Courtesan

Like an automaton, she poured warm water into a bowl and began to wash. The sheer banality of her actions gradually coaxed her soul back from the shivering hell where it had retreated. But still, she couldn’t bear to contemplate that moment when he’d invaded her body.

With trembling hands, she wiped herself with the ragged remains of her nightdress, then pitched it into the fire. To cover her nakedness, she tugged a man’s shirt, probably Hamish’s, from a pile of fresh laundry. She threw the dirty water in the drain and lit a candle, then went in search of somewhere to sleep. That morning, she’d noticed a chamber on the upper floor that contained a roughly made up cot.

Slowly—she ached all over, even though he hadn’t hurt her—she mounted the stairs in quest of a place that didn’t contain the Duke of Kylemore. She was frightened, but the fear was strangely distant, as all her emotions had been strangely distant since she’d left him. Perhaps he waited at the top of the stairs to force her back into his bed. But mercifully she made it into the humble room without encountering anyone.

She crept between the sheets and pulled the blanket high around her shaking body. Only then, in the spurious security of this narrow cot, did she begin to cry, great, gulping sobs that scraped her throat as they emerged. Sobs too loud and too heartbroken to muffle in the pillows, much as she tried.

He’d used her coldly, without care or feeling. He’d rammed into her as if he owned her. When she’d been his mistress, he’d never treated her with such callousness. Then, he’d wanted her to share the pleasure, to become his willing partner as they’d explored the world of sensuality.

But he’d used her tonight as if he loathed her.

As he must loathe her.

And the worst betrayal of all?

She’d recognized the contempt he’d expressed with each action. Even so, her traitorous body had fluttered with the beginning of response, a response owing nothing to Soraya’s practiced wiles and everything to Verity’s lonely soul.

Kylemore stirred with a startled grunt from the deathlike sleep into which he’d plunged after sex. He was alone in Verity’s bed, and the smell of their coupling surrounded him.

This was, of course, familiar.

Less familiar were the guilt and regret that lurked in the sordid vacuum within him where

most men had a heart.

Tumbling his mistress had always left him with an inner peace nothing else in life offered. When she’d gone, she had snatched away his only source of happiness. He’d been desperate to get it back, like a child who had lost his favorite toy and cried until it was restored.

Well, he had his favorite toy back and he still felt like crying.

His rage at her disappearance. Three months of miserable celibacy. Her insults. All these might explain what he’d just done to her.

Nothing could excuse it.

Groaning, he sat up. He’d pounded into her like a wild animal. He’d simply lost control. Never had he treated a woman so.

With a shudder, he remembered pouring himself into her. At that moment, he’d wanted to drown her in his essence, fill her utterly so no trace of anything but him remained in that slender body.

His conscience winced to recall what he’d done, but his unruly flesh rejoiced in how it had felt to take her fully, uninhibitedly, for the first time. Always, he’d been careful to spawn no bastards to suffer the cursed Kinmurrie blood. But in those frantic seconds when he’d pumped all his unhappiness into Verity—and to his shame, it had indeed only been seconds—no thought of future consequences had intruded. The world shrank to contain just him and the woman, and his body claiming her in nature’s most basic way.

It had been glorious.

But now he felt sick and sad and tired of the game.

He gave a harsh laugh. The game had only started. He couldn’t give up now. His desire wouldn’t permit it, whatever the better man inside him insisted he do.

Would his mad urge to possess this woman end in his destruction? Right now he hardly cared.

Kylemore found Verity easily, although he was surprised that of all sanctuaries, she’d chosen his room. But then, she probably hadn’t known it was his. Her room was larger and better furnished, befitting the house’s main chamber.

He raised the candle higher and studied her sleeping face against the creased pillow. Even in the uncertain light, he saw the tearstains on her cheeks. The regret and guilt inside him coalesced into one roiling black mass. She hadn’t cried once during this whole ordeal, but he’d made her cry tonight.

How she must hate him. For his clumsiness. For his blind need. For the way he couldn’t help wanting her. Any man worthy of the name would let her go. But the prospect of losing her made everything within him howl in anguished denial.

Let her go? As if he could. Even the thought of her leaving his bed made him want to break something.

He blew out the candle and placed it on a cabinet. Slowly, he bent to brush aside the blanket and pick her up. He thought she still wore the shabby white nightgown before he remembered he’d destroyed it in his anger. No, the rough cotton garment under his hands was a man’s shirt she must have found somewhere. She whimpered, a broken, husky sound that furrowed his heart until he remembered he possessed no such organ.

Then she awoke. “No!” she cried, immediately struggling. “Let me go! Don’t touch me, you devil!”