Claiming the Courtesan

But when Kylemore rode up to the pretty little villa the next day, it was silent and empty. The notorious Soraya, his chosen weapon against his hated family, was gone.

Chapter 2

Kylemore entered the house and in a matter of moments ascertained it was not only uninhabited but also looted of everything of value.

Had his marriage proposal frightened his mistress into precipitate flight? He wouldn’t have said Soraya was a woman who scared easily. Yesterday, she’d seemed outraged rather than terrified.

Perhaps his parting threat had sent her scurrying for whatever bolthole currently sheltered her beguiling hide. But he doubted it.

From long habit, he kept a tight rein on his temper. Pointless to vent his fury now. No, far better to conserve it for when he caught up with the deceitful trull.

And he would catch up with her.

He paused in the parlor. He should have realized what was afoot yesterday when so much had been missing from the house.

Cleaning indeed! He’d wager the rapacious piece had never in her life encountered the sharp end of a scrubbing brush. Although to be fair, she’d been dressed for it. He had a sudden piercing vision of her sitting before him in that remarkably shabby frock.

Beautiful, of course, and damned fetching as always. But tall, straight and disdainful, as though she already were the duchess he planned to make her. And subtly, not the same person as the compliant courtesan he’d farewelled in the early afternoon.

When she’d sent him on his way with a kiss, damn her duplicitous soul to hell.

The Judas kiss.

He remembered her air of suppressed panic when he’d proposed. No, she’d plotted her betrayal long before he’d asked her to marry him. The house’s forlorn abandonment reeked of a carefully executed departure.

He started to go upstairs when he heard a muffled thud from the back of the dwelling.

So he wasn’t alone after all. With triumphant eagerness, he flung open the door from the parlor and found himself in a totally unfamiliar hallway. His heart pounded with an expectation that included a shaming dose of relief.

He strode down the shadowy corridor, his boot heels ringing on the flags. The kitchens had been cleared like the rest of the house. But here, all was not pristine. His eyes fell on a few scattered crumbs along the sink.

“Come out. I know you’re here.” His voice echoed in the empty room. “This is childish.”

He began to bang open doors, coldly amused to think of the magnificent Soraya reduced to cowering in a cupboard.

But when he hurled wide the pantry door, he discovered instead a small servant girl, nearly catatonic with dread and clutching the remains of a bun.

“Jesus!” he cursed. “For God’s sake, what are you doing? Come out at once!”

The girl whimpered, and to his horror, her eyes filled with tears.

“Stop that!” he snapped. “Where is your mistress?” And mine, he thought grimly.

She merely shook her head and pressed further away from him.

Kylemore took a deep breath. Terrifying the girl would render her useless as a source of information.

But beneath his impatience lingered a memory of just how it felt to be alone and defenseless and scared for your life. He bundled the unwelcome recollection back into the dark corner of his soul, where it lurked with other events he had no desire to revisit—ever.

“Come, child. I mean you no harm.” He moved back from the door as if to prove his good intentions.

The maid didn’t budge, but at least she spoke. “Please, sir! Please, Your Grace, don’t hurt me. Mr. Ben turned us all off last night but I didn’t have nowhere to go so I hid down here. Please don’t hurt me.”

“I have no intention of hurting you,” he said with asperity, then immediately regretted it as she huddled into the wall once more. He deliberately gentled his tone. “You have my word. Come out where I can see you.”

He stepped away as the girl emerged reluctantly. “I know you, don’t I?”

Her curtsey was unsteady. “Yes, Your Grace. Elsie. I let you in yesterday. I didn’t mean no mischief by staying. Mr. Ben said we was all to go to Your Grace’s town house tomorrow for our wages. The buyers don’t take over until next week. I didn’t mean no harm, sir.”