Devil's Bargain (17 page)

“And love?” she pressed.

“Do not seek to love me, Lynette. I do not share your feelings.” He swallowed, pushing his words past the constriction in his throat. “I cannot.”

She held his gaze for a moment, then looked down. In her hands she held her bread, covered now with jam. But she did not move to eat it. In fact, she set it back down. She spoke, her tone almost casual, clearly oblivious to how each word cut him.

“I had not realized how hard this must be for you.” She lifted her gaze again. “To touch and not to have. To…” She paused as she gestured weakly toward
her body. “To express love but not feel it.” She pushed away from her chair but did not leave. Instead, she stepped closer to him, reaching out to gently caress his cheek. It was the lightest of touches, but he felt it burn.

“I do not envy you your task, my lord. I hope when I marry I will finally restore your estates.” She shook her head. “But the cost to your soul has been great.” Her hand fell away. “I do not know how you bear it.”

Then she left, turning away from him as all his girls eventually did. She walked out of the room while he sat there—his cheek on fire as if she had branded him. And for all the pain, all the confusion that swirled through his benighted soul, one thought remained. One thought echoed in his head.

She knew. She knew what he did and what it cost him. She knew better than him. And when she spoke the knowledge aloud, she cut him as never before. How could she understand? How could she know what he kept hidden from everyone, including himself?

Looking down at the fragile cup in his hand, he suddenly grew furious. Grasping it tightly, he threw it across the room. The tiny cup shattered on impact, sending shards and brown tea flying. And as he watched the liquid slide down the wall, he was reminded of the mess abovestairs: the pool of dried liquor and broken glass near the baroness’s feet.

How untidy his life was now. And how sad.

He looked at his empty hands and wondered at what he had become. Was this worse than the debtor’s prison he sought so desperately to avoid? Was what he did worse than what poverty daily heaped upon its wretched sufferers?

Did he hurt his girls, or help them?

There was no answer in his upturned palms. Neither was there wisdom in the broken teacup or the dark bottle of brandy in his bedroom. There was only himself, his plans, and Lynette. And an aching emptiness only she seemed to understand.

Taking a deep breath, he fought to subdue his thoughts. These questions often tortured him, especially at night when the darkness surrounded him. But he knew how to deal with them. In fact, it was a simple matter of setting the thoughts aside. He thought of the rich green fields of his estate, and juxtaposed it with wretched memories of prison.

He knew which picture he wanted: the prosperous green fields. And no drunken aunt, empty soul, or too-wise clergyman’s daughter would sway him from gaining it. Squaring his shoulders, he looked about him, searching for a rag to clean up the spilled tea. There was no need for Dunwort to see how much his master had lost control.

He needn’t have bothered. Before he could even step away from the table, Dunwort appeared, rag in hand. Not by so much as a flicker of his gaze did the man betray surprise at the mess on the floor; wordlessly, he bent down and began to clean.

Adrian meant to stop him. He meant to lean forward and tell his old retainer that there was no need for such servile behavior between them. They had gone through too much together. This was one disaster Adrian should repair himself.

But he did not do it. Indeed, as he watched the older man’s capable movements, Adrian realized he did not know how. How did one wash tea off stone?
How did one clean dried brandy out of a braided rug? And how did one function so quietly, so capably in a household so steeped in discord and sin that even the neighbors shunned the sight of you?

He did not know.

He took refuge in what he could do, in words and actions he had memorized from girl after girl after girl. He pulled out a sheet of foolscap from where Dunwort kept it for writing down kitchen lists, and with his quick, bold hand, wrote two sets of orders. The first told the baroness to prepare Lynette for the appointments to come. The second went to Lynette, listing each and every gentleman she was to meet, the time and location.

With that completed, he handed the missives to Dunwort for delivery and quit the house. He had his club and a bottle of brandy waiting for him.

Lynette stared at her list of appointments with an empty heart. In fact, she began to wonder what had happened to the organ. When she checked, it did indeed still beat within her chest, but that was all it seemed to do. It kept her alive, nothing more.

Quitting the kitchen, Lynette went upstairs to see how the baroness fared. She found the woman on her knees, cleaning up the broken glass and spilled liquor on the floor. Lynette helped, and they worked side by side without speaking. Then the older woman left, mumbling something about a bath. Moments later, Dunwort appeared with a missive and handed it over before departing.

The final blow came as the front door slammed and Adrian, too, fled her presence.

Which left Lynette alone, staring at a list of gentlemen, with no thought of what she was to do or how to go about doing it.

She looked at the mantel clock and saw she had many hours before her first activity. Tonight she was to go to a card party and meet a certain Lord Marston, who, it was noted, apparently had a predilection for dogs.

She knew she should search the library for a reference on canines. Indeed, she was fairly certain the baroness would soon appear to quiz her on that very subject. But she did not wish to study right now. She had no desire to learn more about dogs, or to impress an aged peer with a false fascination for creatures she had long since deemed smelly nuisances.

Instead, she wanted…She did not dare voice aloud what she wanted. Not even to herself. But the words whispered through her mind nonetheless; she wanted to return to last evening. She wanted to relive each moment as Adrian had fallen into her arms.

She had held him all night. Indeed, she had spent many hours after he slept glorying in the wide expanse of his back, in feeling his heavy weight upon her shoulder, in marveling at how his legs intertwined with her own.

She wanted to return to those moments when her life had seemed simple. Last night the world had narrowed to herself and him. No others. No thoughts of anyone or anything else intruded on their solitude. It had simply been the two of them, without tension—not even the haze of desire that surrounded them whenever he sought to teach her.

It had been peaceful. Healing. She had slept deeply
and easily, waking only when she realized her arms were empty.

But now the night was over, and the morning brought more pain than she could have imagined. Was she supposed to simply return to the way things were before? Before she had held him? Before she had seen how much anguish Adrian hid in his soul?

She could not. And yet what else could she do?

In the end she decided to follow his instructions. But not the ones he had just given her. She chose instead to do something else.

Slipping upstairs, she rummaged through her few belongings, finding her copy of the Bible. It had been a great luxury to have one of her own. Indeed, her family had only the one primary Bible, with which all of them had learned their letters. But she had saved her pennies, skimped where she could on the parish books, and hoarded the tiny gifts some of the parishioners had given her in thanks. In the end, she had bought her own.

Now it lay at the bottom of her satchel, nearly forgotten. When she opened the well-worn pages, she did not turn to her favorite stories. She did not open the pages to Ruth’s devotion or Eve’s disgrace. She opened to the Song of Solomon.

She had never read the poem before. Her father’s sermons had always focused on what he called the great texts: parables of punishment and reward, stories where the sinners were incinerated or turned to salt. But her father wasn’t here. So she lay on her bed, smelling the lingering scent of Adrian’s bay rum on the sheets, and read about love.

The language was beautiful, the words intriguing.
The first time she read for meaning, seeing the pictures in her mind, glorying with the lovestruck groom, languishing with the momentarily abandoned bride.

The second time she read more slowly, focusing on words and images she was not sure she understood. She frowned over words about myrrh running off the bride’s fingers, of dew soaking the groom’s hair. And she longed to understand the unfamiliar scents the poems mentioned, the essence of pomegranate trees that intrigued her without explanation.

Then, the third time, she read the entire sequence aloud. She let the words roll off her tongue, and as she spoke she pretended she was reading to someone else. Or that someone else was reading to her. In her mind’s eye she saw Adrian lounging beside her, his body relaxed, his mellow voice slipping through the night air to wrap her in a cocoon of sound and sensuality.

That the Bible could contain such beauty astounded her. That she responded so deeply to it relieved her. That Adrian would know of this text, know about its secret power over her, did not surprise her in the least.

It was right somehow that her teacher would know. And as she closed her eyes after reading the last word, she dreamed he was beside her, completing the story, showing her the lovers during their wedding night, teaching her the secrets that her Bible did not reveal, showing her what love between a man and a woman truly meant.

Hours later, she awoke. She came alert with a start, her eyes scanning the room, searching for Adrian. Where had he gone? Wasn’t he here just a moment ago? Or had that been a dream?

With a sinking heart, she realized it
had
been a dream. And this was reality: the baroness standing above her, glaring down and holding a scandalous dress in her hand.

“Put this on,” the woman said. “Then I shall crimp your hair.”

Lynette’s days fell into a monotonous routine. She should have been swept up in excitement, moving from card party to rout to masquerade, but there seemed to be no joy in it. She wore her earrings and her clinging, low-cut gowns. She even learned to move suggestively while following the staid patterns of the current dances.

But Adrian’s nighttime visits to her room had ceased.

The first night without him, she was confused. The second she became alarmed. Had she performed badly? By the fourth night she accepted the inevitable. He would not visit her. In fact, he barely spoke to her.

And then, without warning, he was back.

She was applying a light dusting of cosmetics, at which she had become quite adept. In fact, the baroness—a scrupulously sober baroness—had spent many long hours helping her apply just the right
amount depending on time of day, type of event, and color of her gown. But tonight, just as she had put the last dab of color on her cheeks, Lynette looked up to see Adrian’s reflection in her mirror. His appearance was so sudden and so unexpected that she gasped and nearly dropped the rouge pot.

Only his quick movement prevented disaster. How he was able to catch the tiny ceramic container when she couldn’t remember how to breathe was beyond her comprehension. But catch it he did. And as he returned it to her dressing table, he spoke, his voice clipped and devoid of emotion.

“Lord Finton has taken ill. You will not see him tonight.”

“Oh,” she said breathlessly, “then am I to meet someone else?”

She noted he wore formal garb: dark breeches and coat, alleviated only by the pristine expanse of a snowy white cravat. With his dark hair and brooding eyes, the sight of Adrian in formal wear never ceased to snatch her breath away.

“We are going somewhere else.”

She raised her eyebrows. He had not deigned to go anywhere with her lately. She and the baroness had attended every function on their own. Many times, of course, Lynette had caught sight of his dark presence across the room, but they rarely joined company and never, ever spoke. That they were to travel together somewhere was astonishing.

“We leave in five minutes.” He glanced dismissively at the elegant gold gown she wore, his perusal taking barely more than a second. “That dress is acceptable.”

He left while she remained frozen helplessly before her mirror.

It took some time, but eventually she shook off her stupor.
Wake up, girl!
she chastised herself. But she still could not shake off the tension that gripped her belly.

What was about to happen? What—

She abruptly cut off her thoughts. She thought too much. She dreamed too much. And it always led to trouble. Had not her dreams of the last two weeks only led to a worse awakening every morning? Had not sitting and listening for Adrian’s tread in his bedroom only set her up for hours of useless longing?

He did not visit her at night anymore. Dreaming about it only made it worse. He did not touch her as he once did. Wondering if he might now would only make her more distraught when this trip turned out to be another card party or stupid promenade down an equally ridiculous path.

Lynette grabbed her wrap, hurried out of her room, and slammed the door on her speculations. What happened would happen. She would not think about it.

She gasped as Adrian pulled her into a hired hackney and shut the door. They were moving before she had time to realize that the hard seats bruised her bottom and the straw on the floor poked into her slippers. As the carriage picked up speed, she peered into the darkness across from her, wishing she could see him as more than just a dark shadow.

“We are not waiting for the baroness?” she asked, hating the way her voice trembled.

His voice was stilted and curt in the enveloping blackness. “She will not be joining us.”

“But where are we going?” Despite her vow to accept what came, Lynette found she could not easily suppress her curiosity. She doubted Adrian would answer. In fact, he remained silent for so long, she gave up hope. Then, abruptly, his voice drifted through the darkness.

“We are going to Jenny’s.”

Lynette had met so many women in the last few weeks, so many names, that
Jenny
did not at first register. Then, finally, she recalled. “Jenny, your mistress?”

His laugh was harsh. “Not mine. Nor any other man’s, in truth. Jenny is her own mistress, even when she plays with the rest of us.” The seat squeaked as he leaned forward, and in the weak moonlight she saw the pale outline of his face. “That is what I want for you, Lynette. To learn what she knows.”

Lynette’s mouth went dry. “How to become a whore?”

He released a coarse laugh. “How to play with a man, entice him, enthrall him, even own him while always, every time, every night, you remain completely and wholly yourself.” For the first time in over two weeks, he reached out and touched her, stroking her arm with the lightest of caresses. “It is so easy to lose oneself, Lynette. You must hold tight to who you are.”

“Why?” The word was out without thought. Lately she had become so tired, so exhausted by the endless parade of men, that she’d begun to think of surrendering. Of giving up everything to Adrian—her thoughts, her fears, her loneliness. She would let him decide everything for her, and then, maybe, she would find peace. She began to wonder if it were already happening. Indeed, she was losing pieces of herself every day.

“You must be strong, Lynette. You are too precious to destroy.”

She tensed as he continued to stroke her arm, her body and mind at war. It was not his words that disturbed her. It was her reaction to him. After all this time, she still longed for his caress. For weeks now he had outlined and explained her various options in husbands. He always made it absolutely clear that the gentleman who gained the privilege of her bed would not be him. And yet, after all that, she still longed for him.

Oh, Adrian.
Her pulse leapt at his touch. His voice stirred her as no other. It was all she could do not to throw herself shamelessly into his lap.

But her mind would not let her. Her reason repeated all the things he had said. All that she had decided as well: about the older man she would wed. About the Season she could give her sister, the commission for her brother. About how she would prepare her husband’s meals, grace his table and his home, and entertain him at night. The poetry she would read to him. The caresses she would give him. How she would hold him through the night.

She had planned all of this, and then she’d thought about what she would do with her time after he died. She would go to the theater as often as she liked. She would take her family out for ices at Gunters and buy them all the clothing and presents they could want. They would not face this life she had chosen. She had long since decided that.

Perhaps she would buy a place in the countryside and go for long walks alone during which she would never worry about seeing another soul, and would never have to care whether she was dressed appropriately,
whether her skin showed to its greatest advantage, or whether some man would take her into a dark alley and do vile things to her.

All these things she would do. And none of them would include Adrian.

“Do you know how copulation is achieved?”

Adrian’s voice startled her out of her musings. When she replayed his question in her mind, she was so startled that she did not know how to respond.

He repeated his question impatiently. “Do you understand the mechanics of such a union?”

She shook her head. It took her a moment to realize that he could not see her movement in the dark. Scrambling to gather her wits, she spoke her answer aloud. “No.” She swallowed. “No, I do not.”

“You will learn tonight.”

Again she swallowed, but she still could not think clearly enough to speak.

Adrian continued without pause. “I have narrowed your list of potential bridegrooms to four. I only await the last one’s offer, and then you will be able to choose.”

“Four have already offered for me?” She was shocked. Stunned, in fact, by the news. Then she frowned. “I thought you would restrict it to three.”

He remained silent a moment. Eventually she heard him answer, though the words seemed reluctant. “I decided to allow you more freedom in this.” Then his words picked up speed. “Once you have chosen your husband, all that remains is to get the special license and finalize the settlement.”

She was startled. “I will not be married in a church?”

His response was quick, his tone cold. “All these
men are less than healthy. They do not wish to waste time awaiting your favors.” He paused as if to impress his point. “You would do well to remember that, Lynette. No man will wait long for something for which he has paid dearly.”

She looked away, her gaze skimming past his gloomy visage to the equally gloomy landscape outside the carriage window. “I understand,” was all she said.

The carriage pulled to a stop. They had arrived.

“Gather your hood about your face. You must not be seen.”

She hesitated. “My lord?”

“Adrian,” he snapped, correcting her formal tone. Then his words gentled. “I know you are nervous, Lynette, but this is the last place for formality. If you simply obey until we are inside, everything will be revealed.” He sighed. “Then you can plague me with questions.”

She nodded, doing as she was bid, pulling her cloak tightly about her head and face. Even so, she could not resist voicing her own pique. “I did not realize I was plaguing you, Adrian. I will try not to ask too much.”

She made to move out of the hackney, but Adrian grasped her arm, holding her back. “You are not plaguing me, Lynette,” he said, his tone harassed. “Try to understand that some lessons are easier to teach than others. Tonight will be…difficult for me.”

She turned to look closely at him, but in the darkness could see no more than his outline. “Are you afraid I won’t understand? I will try very hard to learn quickly.”

He shook his head, the movement barely discernible
in the darkness. She did, however, hear his chuckle, the sound mocking not herself but him. “That is exactly what I fear.”

“I don’t understand.”

Then he did something he had not done since the very beginning. He reached out and stroked her face. His touch was exquisitely gentle, and she turned into it, unable to resist extending his caress.

He fisted his hand and drew it away.

“Do not let me kiss you, Lynette. Not on the lips.”

She looked up, again frustrated by the darkness. “What?”

He grabbed her wrist, holding it firmly as if to imprint his words on her. “You will learn many things tonight. But before we go in, you must swear to me. Swear that if I try to kiss you here”—he reached out and touched her lips—“you will stop me.”

His movement was so slow that she leaned into it, aching for the smooth texture of his glove and smelling the scent that was him, on her lips. She closed her eyes to savor the sensation.

“Lynette!” he snapped, his hand abruptly abandoning her.

Her eyes flew open.

“Swear, Lynette. Hit me, kick me, do whatever it takes. You must push me away.”

She did not know what to say. All the while, his hand gripped her wrist, the pressure building until she wondered if her bones would snap.

“Swear, Lynette, or I shall have someone else instruct you tonight.”

“I swear.” She could not have said the words faster. She did not want another instructor. It had to be him. “I swear,” she repeated, even more firmly.

Before he could say more, the door jerked open.

“Out ye go,” snapped the cabbie. “Oi’ll ’ave none o’ yer tomfoolery in me carriage. Out!”

Lynette hastily climbed out, followed by Adrian. She did not watch as he paid the man, but instead occupied herself by gazing about her. They were behind a house, a large home in a darkened part of London. But for all the surrounding gloom, the area seemed sedate. Safe. Almost respectable.

Until Adrian caught her arm and drew her inside. There was only scant illumination in the dark hallway: the light of a single candle. But in the brief second it took to gain her bearings, Lynette saw bold wallpaper and a beautiful woman—that was all—before Adrian was enveloped in a flurry of arms and skirts.

“Yer late,” the woman whispered. “But I forgive ye.” Then she kissed him full on the mouth.

A hot surge of jealousy whipped through Lynette. Apparently, she herself was not allowed to kiss Adrian on the lips, but this strange woman could. And with a great deal of thoroughness.

Lynette narrowed her eyes, barely noting that her hands had curled into fists. But she did not move. Adrian would likely be furious if she interfered, for all that this petite blonde was practically climbing on top of him in the hallway.

She could not remain silent. “Should I wait here, my lord, or go on without you?” Her tone was dry and formal. It was the same tone her father used when conveying moral superiority. And it had not the least effect. She was not even sure Adrian heard her, so occupied was he in supporting the blonde’s weight.

Fortunately, the woman heard. She pulled her face away from Adrian’s, turning to assess Lynette with an impish grin. “Oh, my,” she drawled. “She is a handful.” Then she hopped off Adrian to land almost catlike on the ground. But she did not release him, even though he was now gesturing to his charge.

“Jenny, may I present Lynette Jameson? Lynette, this is Jenny.”

Though it nearly killed her to do it, Lynette gave the woman a curtsy. It was a short one, sketchily done in the narrow corridor, but it still observed the proprieties.

“Coo, but she is a good ’un,” came the woman’s response. “Lovely. Good figure. And polite, though it nearly kills ’er to do it.” She turned to Adrian, tapping him on the shoulder. “She’ll make you a fortune!”

Adrian acknowledged the comment with a nod, but he did not speak.

Fortunately for him, the woman gave him little chance. She led them down the winding corridor and up what clearly used to be a servant’s staircase. “Well, I ’ave a treat fer you,” she said, her accent smoothing out as she settled in to business. “You can watch Louise. She likes an audience, for all that ye won’t be seen.”