Devil's Bargain (23 page)

Lynette denied it with a single shake of her head. “I am here today to choose my husband.”

“I know.” Suzanne laughed, and the sound was oddly lighthearted. “That is why I am here. I wanted to speak with you.”

Lynette did not ask the obvious question, but Suzanne answered it nonetheless.

“My dear, for all his talents, Adrian is still a man. He does not know that we fall in love with him. He does not realize how hard it is for us to leave him. He does not know, and so he cannot help you.”

Lynette looked away. She did not want to think about this. She did not want to remember that soon she would be leaving the Marlock home. Soon she would be married to someone else.

“You have fallen in love with him,” Suzanne prompted.

“I have not!” Lynette whispered back fiercely. But in her heart she realized she lied. She had indeed fallen for the viscount. She had, in fact, been deeply in love with him for a very long time. As the baroness had claimed, too.

Why else would she wait up nights hoping he would join her in her bedroom? Why else would his merest look send her to the heights of joy or the depths of despair? She loved the way he spoke, the way he looked, the way he slept until noon, then arose like a bear with a sore paw. And she loved that all she needed to do to turn him back into himself was pour his tea, hand him his paper, and leave him alone for a half hour. Then, she knew, he would smile at her in gratitude and she would sail through a beautiful day.

“No girl can be trained as he does it and not fall in love,” reproved Suzanne.

Lynette shook her head—no longer in denial of her feelings but in disagreement with the method. True, her moments in Adrian’s arms were ecstasy as she had never experienced. But she treasured as much, if
not more, the moments when they spoke, when they shared the tiny details of their day. From the beginning he had challenged her, met her on her own terms, and even negotiated with her as if he respected her mind and abilities to choose her own fate. From the beginning, he had valued her as a person, and it was that which planted the seeds of her love. He valued her. And she valued him.

She loved him.

And yet…Her thoughts trailed away. She did not want to finish the sentence. Did not want to acknowledge the question. But it was there nonetheless, and all too soon it surfaced in her mind.

She loved Adrian with all her heart and soul, and yet he was right now preparing to hand her over to another man.

Her chest clenched at the thought, squeezing her heart so tightly that she feared she would die. But she did not. Instead, she breathed her question aloud, not even knowing she was speaking it openly to Suzanne. “Could he not love me back?”

Suzanne’s answer was soft, but no less hard to hear. “Has he kissed you? On the lips?”

Lynette spun toward her companion, her eyes pulled wide with hope. “Do you mean it is possible? He could love me?”

Suzanne’s expression was philosophical. She shrugged. “I could tell you no. No, Lynette, there is no possibility that he loves you. But you would not believe me. None of us wanted to believe it.”

“But…” Lynette began. Suzanne forestalled her.

“Has he kissed you? On the lips?”

Frantically, Lynette searched back through her memories. He had touched her in so many ways,
kissed her in places no other soul had dared touch. And yet, through all that, there had never, ever been contact with her lips.

“No,” she whispered.

“And he will not do so. That is the one place he reserves for the bride’s husband.”

The implication was clear. If Adrian had never broken that rule with her, he had always, from the very beginning, planned to give Lynette away to another man. Despite all their shared passion, every moment of glorious rapture, he had maintained that distance.

He had never kissed her on the lips, therefore he had never loved her.

The pain was unbearable. Unbidden, tears sprang to her eyes. So steeped in misery was she that she did not even bother to wipe them away. All her secret hopes, the fantasies she did not even realize she had built, all came crashing down around her.

He did not love her.

He never would.

She would marry an old man soon and spend the next decade in servitude until she, finally, like Audra, emerged sensuous but cold and alone. She clasped her hand over her mouth to stop a cry of agony.

She did not know when he appeared at her side. But somehow, when she blinked back the tears, she saw Adrian there, his hard eyes on Suzanne.

“What have you said to her?” he demanded, as Lynette struggled frantically to regain her composure.

“Nothing, Adrian—”

“
This
is not nothing!” he said, his voice low and angry.

Suzanne did not flinch. Instead, Lynette saw her rise slowly, almost painfully to her feet. Her expression
was sad. “I merely told her the truth. A truth she needed to hear.” Then she looked down, and Lynette connected with her compassionate gaze. “Ask her if you need to. Ask her if I am the one who hurt her.”

Adrian turned immediately, his expression alternating between alarm, fury, and confusion. “Lynette?”

Then she understood. It was at that moment she fully comprehended what Suzanne had meant when she said that for all Adrian’s skills, he was still a man. He was still as confused as her father when it came to emotions.

Suzanne was not the one who hurt her; he was. He was the one who had taught her, who had held her and touched her and teased her. He was the one who had allowed her to fall in love with him. And he was the one giving her away to someone else.

She finally felt it. At last a surge of fury blew through her, a rise of anger that whipped like a gale wind, crushing her tender feelings, leaving her colder, harder, and much, much stronger.

He did not love her. She understood that now.

She lifted her chin, stared directly into his startled gaze, and spoke her words simply. “No, my lord. She did not hurt me at all.”

Then she walked away.

She did not speak to him again until they returned home. She went directly to her room to strip out of her funeral clothing as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, as usual, there was nothing in which she wished to dress. So she stood by her window in her shift, staring out into the late afternoon while thinking over everything that had happened.

She came to no conclusions as the sun began to slip lower in the sky. Indeed, all she could do was think the same phrase over and over, no matter how many times she tried to purge it from her thoughts.

She was in love with Adrian.

She heard him come into her room. Either that, or she had at last become so attuned to his movements that she knew where he was no matter what he did. In any event, she knew he was standing in the doorway that joined their two rooms, regarding her with a mixture of anxiety, concern, and confusion.

True to form, he wrapped all those emotions into his sounding of her name. “Lynette?”

At first she could not decide what to do. She did not want to face him, and yet she did not want to let this opportunity slide by. It wouldn’t be long now before she had to leave this house, before she wed some other man, and she would always regret not pushing the issue now.

She turned, squaring her shoulders as she faced him, but she did not speak. He interrupted her before she’d even drawn breath.

“What did she say to you? What upset you so?”

She frowned, trying to decide how to broach the subject. Then she shook her head, throwing caution to the wind. She could never choose her words carefully around Adrian. They always became jumbled and confused. She would simply speak and accept what came.

“Why have you never kissed me?”

He had stepped into the room, coming toward her with his arms open, as if he meant to embrace her. At her question he froze, his expression turning wary.

“I do not understand,” he said slowly, though his demeanor told her that he very much understood. “I have kissed you hundreds of times.”

“Not on the mouth. Not…” Her own fingertips touched her lips, and she blinked in surprise at the feel.
No,
she realized suddenly. No one had ever touched her there.

He stepped forward, his expression darkening as he moved. “Is that what Suzanne said to you? Did she ask if I had ever kissed you?”

Lynette shifted, letting her hand slowly drop away from her face. “She told me that you never kiss your girls on the lips. That you reserve such actions for the bridegroom.” She looked him squarely in the eye and dared him to lie to her.

He did not, though she could tell he wanted to. She saw it in the way he opened his mouth, then shut it again without speaking. And in the way he shifted his weight away from her, looking down at the floor before finally meeting her level gaze.

“She is correct,” he finally said. He shrugged as he tried to explain. “I have never kissed any of my girls. I do so much to them. With them. I need to build some sort of barrier, someplace I cannot go.”

“Because it separates us.”

He nodded, pain in his eyes. “Because it reminds me that you are not mine to kiss.”

She understood now. Probably better than he did. She knew he was a passionate man. No cold fish could ever do what he did, teach what he taught. How easy it must be for him to lose himself in his work, to believe that the woman in his arms today would remain there forever.

But from the beginning she had known she was destined for someone else. That he was only the instructor, not the goal. So he’d created this restriction, this immutable law that even he could not break, a reminder not to his girls but to himself. They were not his.

Lynette felt a tear slip down her cheek. In that moment she realized that she cried not only for herself, for the love that could never be, but for the man in front of her. The man who gave himself body and soul not once but seven times, to women who would leave him. Seven women had walked down the aisle to other men.

“All of them would have stayed, you know,” she whispered. “If only you had asked, they would have remained with you.”

He shook his head, and she caught the sheen of pain in his eyes. “No, they would not. And if they had, they would have been unhappy.”

She understood his implication; still, she had to say it aloud. She had to hear it spoken boldly, starkly revealed in the afternoon sun. “And I?”

He opened his hands, lifting them in a gesture of futility. “I have nothing to offer you, Lynette. And everything to lose if you remain.”

She nodded. The movement felt stiff and brittle. Inside, the last of her hopes died, crushed beneath his brutal honesty. He did not want her. He did not love her. Not enough. And now the last of her lessons was over.

She’d never known love could cut so deeply.

“Very well,” she whispered. And though she could not lift her gaze to see him, could not even
gather the strength to brush away her tears, she found enough resolve to speak. “I shall marry the Earl of Songshire.”

Even through the haze of her tears, she saw his reaction. His body recoiled as if struck and his fists clenched spasmodically. Likely without realizing it, he took a step forward.

She shied back, quickly and in fear. If he so much as touched her, she would die. She knew it with absolute certainty. She could not so much as breathe the same air with him or she would collapse into a helpless puddle of pain.

Thankfully he stopped, standing helplessly, barely two feet away from her. He spoke, though his voice was unsteady, his tone uncertain.

“He is not very old.”

She nodded. This she knew, but she would rather spend longer with a kind man, a man like Songshire, than a few short years with an ill brute. “I don’t mind,” she said softly. “He is an old family friend. My family will be pleased, and I hope to enjoy the years we will be together.” Certainly she could not imagine living in a household where one member longed for the other’s death.

“Lady Karen will be difficult.”

Lynette shrugged, thankful at last to have something else to think about, some other problem to focus on.

“It will take some time, but I believe I can bring her around. It will go easier once she realizes I will not come between her and her father.” Then she felt herself smile, though she thought her skin might crack with the effort. “She always was possessive.”

She saw him nod, but the movement was more of a jerk than anything else. Once again he moved forward, and once again she jumped back, her words rushing in her panic.

“It is my decision, my lord. You promised me I could decide. I want him. I want Songshire.”

She saw him stop, drawing back at her anxious movements. Then he waited, standing in silence as he no doubt studied her misery in confusion. And all the while Suzanne’s words haunted her.

“For all his talents, Adrian is still a man. He does not realize how hard it is for us to leave him. He cannot help you.”

Lifting her gaze, she saw that Suzanne was right. Adrian did not know what to do. He was lost, yearning for what he could not have, eternally trapped in a web of his own making.

“It is over, my lord,” she whispered, wanting to set him free even more than she longed for her own release. “I will marry Songshire as soon as it can be arranged. Then you may take your money and rebuild your estates and your life.” She forced herself to give him a ragged semblance of a smile. “Perhaps one day you will marry and carry on your family name. And maybe we shall meet, you and I, when I am at a last a wealthy widow and you have your children dancing at your feet.”

She could tell he was hurt by her words. She knew as well that he was not even aware of the source of his pain. Yes, she realized, he did love her a little. He did want her. But he was not in love with her and never would be. To him, she was merely a means to his estate. A tool in the grand design of the Marlock fortune.

“Please, Adrian,” she finally whispered. “Please leave. Please make the arrangements.”

Then she turned her back on him, staring out at the setting sun. Inside her heart, it was already dark.

“You want what?” Adrian sat bolt upright in his chair, staring across his desk into the Earl of Songshire’s eyes. He could not be more shocked if the man had walked in naked.

“Good God, man,” returned the earl in amused accents, “I never thought you would be one to cut up stiff on this point.”

“But…but…” Adrian sealed his lips shut. It could not possibly be. This was not a rational discussion.

“But-but nothing,” returned Thomas firmly. “You listen to me, boy, I want a Marlock bride and so I shall have one. Why do you think I turned her in your direction in the first place?”

Adrian nodded his head dumbly, looking down at the stack of papers between himself and his guest. “All the particulars have been agreed upon,” he said, as if confirming the fact to himself.

“Yes,” agreed the earl. “All except one. You must take her virginity for me.”

Again Adrian’s mind reeled. “You cannot be serious about this.”

The earl threw up his hands in disgust. “Look at me, Adrian. I am a fumbling old man. Good God, I haven’t the skill or the patience to break in a virgin correctly, much less a parson’s daughter.” He leaned forward, his eyes intense. “But you do, man. You’ve made a bloody business out of it.”

“I have never taken any girl’s virginity!” Adrian snapped, all the while wondering why his hands were clenched, why he wanted to pound his fists into the face of the nobleman who had just made an incredibly generous financial settlement upon Lynette. And by extension, upon Adrian himself.

“Of course you haven’t,” returned the earl in soothing accents. “But you will now. Because I haven’t the patience to do it right.” Then he leaned forward, his expression stern. “The young can be so touchy and unpredictable. They take more patience than I have. And you and I both know how a bungled wedding night can ruin a girl forever.”

Adrian swallowed, his throat unaccountably dry. “But it is
your
wedding night,” he said, his voice hoarse as it scraped his throat.

“No, Adrian. The second time will be my wedding night. Her first time will be with you.” Abruptly the man stood, grabbing his hat as he moved. “Do it soon. Tonight, perhaps. I shall get the special license for the day after tomorrow. That should give her enough time to recover.” He paused at the door, turning long enough to wink at the younger man. “Then it shall be my turn.”

He left, while Adrian remained rooted to the spot, immobile with shock.

Lynette’s virginity.

His.

With a sudden spurt of energy, he ran from the room and out the back door. Falling to his knees in the vegetable garden, he cast up his accounts.

Baroness Agatha Huntley knew what day it was. Indeed, the entire household knew. Today was the day Adrian would take Lynette’s virginity. The contracts had all been signed, the accounts totaled and closed. Now all that was left was to deflower the girl, watch as the chit whispered her
I do
, and wave as bride and groom rode off into the morning light.

At last Adrian would have enough blunt to set his estate back on its feet. This would finally give him the capital above his debts to start afresh. Dunwort would finally escape the hellhole he called London, for he was set to follow his master into the country. And Agatha would be left to rot wherever she stood.

Yes, Lynette was the last of the Marlock girls. And so Agatha was expendable, because Adrian had made it more than clear that he felt no family connection to his aunt. Her only worth was in her ability to train and escort his women.

The moment Lynette walked down the aisle, Agatha would be cast out like so much rubbish.

Looking down at her hand, she glowered at the cup and the dark liquid held within it. It was cheap brandy, and a more foul substance could not be found in this house. Until now, she had never minded. Bad
brandy rendered one insensible as quickly as good. In fact, sometimes faster.

But not today. And not for some weeks. Not since Lynette had issued her challenge.

“Pick a man, Baroness. Show me how your wiles work without beauty.”

Those words echoed in her head, tumbled around and around until Agatha had reached for the brandy just to silence the sound. Except she had not drunk, had not touched a drop of liquor since that day. Because the moment she reached for the bottle, she remembered Adrian’s words.

“You were a handsome woman once. When you did not drink.”

Between Lynette’s challenge and Adrian’s disdain, Agatha had decided to face her demons. But now they were back in force. Now they were gliding down the hallway all embodied in the form of Lynette.

The girl was beautiful—graceful, young, and warmhearted. She was all the things Agatha had been once. Long ago, before her husband beat them out of her.

She glared resentfully at Lynette’s disappearing shadow.

It wasn’t fair. How could that girl get everything, while she herself rotted away with nothing? Lynette was the golden child. Lynette would get a rich husband. A respected title. Lord, she even got to be deflowered by the best hand in all England.

Worst of all, Lynette got Thomas: Thomas, the sweet boy who had once professed his love to Agatha, who had once bent on one knee and kissed Agatha’s hand with an ardor that would have shocked his parents had they known.

Fool that she had been, Agatha had spurned him. Not harshly. Indeed, she had been most kind. His family would certainly naysay the match to a nameless girl. And she had already given her heart to Horace, a mere baron. God, if she could only go back in time. If she could only whisk herself back to that moment when he had first spoken to her. She would throw her arms around him, do anything in her power to seal their match.

Agatha realized she would have thrown propriety to the winds, purposely compromising herself in his arms and forcing him to do the honorable thing. And he would have. She knew it. Because Thomas was an honorable man. And now he was to be Lynette’s.

The thought soured her stomach even as she reached for her glass. She did not drink. Instead, she stared once again at the dark liquid, tempting her as it had not for weeks.

“Pick a man, Baroness. Show me how your wiles work without beauty.”

It was a challenge. Issued as bold and brassy as any that had ever been shouted. And up until this moment, Agatha had ignored it. She would not stoop to that level. She would not fight a girl half her age for a man, as if he were some prize at a fair.

But Lynette had Thomas. And Agatha wanted him.

“You were a handsome woman once. When you did not drink.”

Agatha looked at the clock. Lynette’s deflowering would take place tonight. That meant both the girl and her nephew would be more than occupied.

She frowned again, thinking through her plan. Thomas was a creature of habit. He always had been. In a bare forty-five minutes he would leave his empty
house for his club. There he would eat his dinner, smoke his cigars; then, at half past ten, he would return home. Letting himself in by his own key, he would read some Aristotle or some other dead Greek before finally seeking his bed by midnight.

The only reason the man desired Lynette was because she was a novelty. And more than that, she offered the promise of constant change of routine throughout the years to come.

But men never understood their own minds. Lynette would please him for a week or two, perhaps even months, but no young girl had the wherewithall to manage Thomas for years on end. No child still in her twenties understood Thomas well enough to allow him his routine while disturbing it just enough to be daring.

It was not the girl’s fault. She simply did not have the history an older woman did. The perspective, as it were.

But Agatha did.

And Agatha would.

With that thought firmly fixed in her mind, the baroness pushed up from her chair, abandoning her liquor in search of other more interesting fare. Tonight she did not want to forget. Tonight she intended to remember. And to make someone else remember how they’d once been together.

She would not stoop to compete with Lynette. She simply intended to show Thomas his mind, assisting the man in getting what he truly wanted.

It was time.

Adrian stared numbly at his grandfather’s battered pocket watch. It was one of the few things his father
hadn’t pawned years ago, probably because the item had been lost for over a decade. Adrian wouldn’t have it now if he hadn’t discovered it fallen behind a wardrobe. Even then he had stared at it, wondering if he should sell the item.

But the wardrobe had been purchased, not the watch, and so he had kept it. Later, when the last of the rare books had left his home, he had wondered again how much it would fetch. In the end, he had gone to a ball, searching for something to eat, and that was where he had met Audra.

Sometime during that night he’d decided to sell Audra instead of his grandfather’s pocket watch. Now, once again, he was staring at the watch, wondering exactly how much the battered timepiece would fetch. Was it possible to sell the item for as much as Lynette? Half as much?

Of course not. Not even one thousandth, but he still contemplated it. He stared at it and wondered and wished and remembered.

He closed his eyes, pain welling up in his heart. He didn’t want to do this. He didn’t want to take her virginity, to lie in bed with her, to bury himself within her. He didn’t want to touch her—because that would make the morning that much harder.

If he cried every time one of his girls married, what would he do when Lynette walked down the aisle? How could he watch the one woman who had ever challenged him, ever teased him, tested him, and overwhelmed him? How could he watch her marry another man?

She had offered to stay with him. Of all his girls, she was the one who had said the words. Or nearly said them. She would stay if only he would ask. She
would throw away everything she ever wanted and remain here with him.

He looked around at the pocked walls, the empty shelves, the threadbare carpet. Soon Lynette would have wealth and security for the rest of her life. He could not give her that. He could not even offer her security through the end of the month. She did not know how dangerously depleted he was. How much he had risked on the income from her marriage.

If the arrangement did not go through as planned, all of them would be on the street within a fortnight. Debtor’s prison would not be far behind. It would be months before his crop came in. And years before he saw any real return on his investments.

Even with her marriage, he faced long, hard years of backbreaking work.

He had to give her away. His future, his aunt’s, Dunwort’s, even the people who worked his land, all depended on Lynette’s marriage.

But how could he hold her, share a single, glorious night with her, and then send her away? It was unthinkable. So he sat and stared at his grandfather’s pocket watch and wished for things he could not have.

He knew he should be upstairs. She was likely pacing the floor, worrying herself into a frazzle at what was to come. She knew what he had to do. Indeed, he had told her, not face to face but in another one of his cursed missives.

Songshire requires that I take your virginity tonight. Your wedding will occur in two days. Direct all questions to the baroness, as I shall be occupied with the final contractual obligations.

M

Dunwort reported that she had read the missive with equanimity. She had not fainted or screamed or cried, not that he had expected such from Lynette. But she had gone pale and needed to seat herself for a moment. Dunwort had given her tea, held her hand, and then, at her urging, gone on about his regular tasks.

Adrian should have been the one to hold her hand. He should have given her the news tenderly, carefully, helping her to absorb the shock and prepare for the no doubt frightening night to come.

He should have, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t face the betrayal that surely shone in her eyes, the dread that he would have to touch her again, all the while knowing that he would abandon her in the morning.

She would stay with him if he only asked.

Seized with a sudden pain, he gripped the chair, cursing Songshire with every ache, every clench of his belly, every agonizing breath he took. Then, when the fit passed, he stood, resolve in every line of his body.

He would not do this. He could not do this. Songshire would simply have to deflower his own wife.

He was halfway across the room when the library door opened. Framed in the dim hallway light stood Lynette, her hair down, her body loosely clad in one of her sheerest gowns.

Adrian swallowed. This he had not expected. But then again, when had Lynette ever done anything he expected? Anything he planned? Though, even given her penchant for surprising him, he never would have guessed she’d come to him. That she’d stand before him in a sheer gown with no shift beneath.

Good God, he could see her entire body. Her luscious
breasts. Her trim waist. The dark thatch of hair at the apex of her thighs. And, of course, her legs. Her exquisitely long and shapely legs.

“Adrian?” she queried softly.

His gut tightened at the sweet sound of her voice. She looked at the gloves in his hands and frowned at him.

“Were you leaving?” she asked.

He wanted to lie to her, but he could not. If nothing else, he owed her honesty.

“I cannot do this, Lynette.” His voice was thick and hoarse, his body clenched with pain. He was not sure if it was a mental pain or a physical one. The two were so intermeshed that he could not distinguish one from the other. He only knew he wanted her with an intensity that bordered on insanity. But he could not have her.

“I must leave.”

He stepped forward, meaning to do exactly that. But she did not move. She remained exactly where she was, framed within the doorway. And he could not risk brushing past her. Not when she wore that gown. Not if he had to touch her.

“Lynette,” he said firmly, trying to put a note of command into his voice, “this will not work.”

She cocked her head, smiling at him as if she understood a great secret joke. “What will not work, Adrian?” she asked sweetly. “Are you saying your male organ is damaged?” She glanced significantly down at him, making him all too aware of the visible bulge there. “Somehow I doubt that.”