Claiming the Courtesan

What was she thinking? He sensed no condemnation or scorn, although he deserved both after the wild, destructive passion he’d conjured between them earlier.

“I was born on a farm in Yorkshire,” she began quietly after a long silence. “My father was a tenant to Sir Charles Norton.”

She paused, as if waiting for some reaction, but Kylemore didn’t speak, afraid that if he did, she might stop.

Astounding to think that she finally offered him a clue to her mystery. Astounding she offered her secrets when he least deserved such a gift.

“My brother, Benjamin, is five years younger than I, and I have a sister, Maria, five years younger again. My mother’s health wasn’t strong, and I cared for the little ones.”

She would have been good at that, he thought. At her most basic level was a nurturing instinct. Witness how she succored him now, even after everything he’d done to her.

Her voice was calm and level, as if she read a fairy tale to a child. The night crowded in, inviting confidences.

“My father wasn’t much of a farmer, but we managed wel

l enough until I was fifteen and fever swept the moors.” Here the calmness faltered slightly, but after a longer hesitation, she went on. “Both my parents died within a week of each other. There was no money, and I was too young to take over the farm, even if Sir Charles would have rented it to a female. We had no family to turn to for help. So I found Ben and Maria a place with a woman in the village and I became a maid up at the big house. I didn’t earn much, but it was enough to keep the children from going hungry.”

And it had been unending drudgery, Kylemore knew.

Perhaps because the only people who had shown him any kindness as a boy had been servants, he was unusually aware of conditions below stairs. A fifteen-year-old rustic would have obtained only the most junior post in a great household. And junior maids did the roughest, hardest, most unpleasant work.

“I wasn’t happy, but I was determined to endure.” Another hesitation, one fraught with emotion. She stopped stroking him. “Until…”

Kylemore raised his head from where it rested on her breasts. In the gloom, he just discerned the perfect line of her cheek and jaw above him. The candles had long ago burned down to unlit stubs. The lack of light emphasized other senses. Touch, smell, hearing.

“What is it, Verity?” he coaxed. “Until what?” He shifted up so she lay in his embrace now. She hardly seemed to notice.

Her body was tense, where before there had only been supple ease. She shook her head.

“This is stupid,” she said in a voice that grated. “I don’t know why I’m telling you. What interest can a man like you have in the life of a whore?”

“Don’t call yourself that!” he snapped, then he forced himself to speak more temperately before he aroused the self-protective caution she usually hid behind. “Tell me what happened, Verity.” He no longer clung to her as his only refuge but held her fast to give her the strength to go on.

“Sir Charles was old. A widower. Kind enough in his own way. Life was bearable. Until that summer.” Her short, choppy sentences revealed her agitation. “His son John came down from Cambridge. By rights, he shouldn’t have known I existed.”

“But he wanted you.” The old story, Kylemore thought bitterly, but that didn’t make it any more palatable.

He could imagine Verity at fifteen. Good Lord, she must be nearing thirty now and she still took his breath away. Just emerging from girlhood, she’d have been exquisite.

Exquisite and utterly defenseless.

She nodded, her silky, unbound hair sliding pleasurably against the bare skin of his sheltering arms. “Yes.” She took a shuddering breath. “I tried to stay out of John’s way once I understood what he wanted. I begged him to leave me alone. I asked the other servants for help. They did what they could. But—”

“But he was the son and heir and you were a penniless nothing.”

Kylemore wished the unknown John Norton was here so he could have claimed the privilege of beating him senseless. Ironic, considering his own behavior toward Verity.

“Yes. I was such a bumpkin then. My parents were strict Methodists, and I was as naïve a country mushroom as you could meet.” She gave a humorless laugh. “I had a foolish trust in the goodness of humanity I can’t believe possible now.”

“The bastard tricked you,” Kylemore said flatly. What she said hurt him, cast cruel reflection on his own behavior.

“He…he sent a note telling me he wanted to apologize. As if that cod-faced ninny ever lowered himself to such a thing. I was so stupid, I asked for what happened.”

Kylemore’s hold tightened around her. “No,” he said hollowly. “You didn’t ask for it.”

He meant every evil that had befallen her, not just rape from a thoughtless young scion of the gentry. Shame flowed black and acrid in his veins, and his belly churned with contrition and regret.

“He asked me to meet him one afternoon in the music room. And he…and he…”