The Princess and the Pauper (12 page)

“
The one who treated you
last night.”

He searched his foggy memories
for
answers.
Soon events unfolded in his mind.

“
Ah, that’s
right.”

“
What’s right?” she asked.
“What happened last night?”

Her expression was questioning, but
serene, and he suspected she wouldn’t really care if he confessed
the truth or not, that she kept a much greater secret from
him.

He frowned. “I might ask you the
same?”

Her lips quirked, and a playfulness
entered her eyes. His heart almost rent with the yearning to be her
confidant again, to have her trust, and more than anything, even
after so many angry and hurtful years, her love.

He still desired that above all else. He
still served her like she was a princess and he a slave. But he
would never have her love. And he resented her teasing gestures all
the more for making him hope.

Grey
struggled again to right himself, and
this time he pushed her hand away when she tried to restrain
him.

“
Rees
—”

“
Leave me be,” he
ordered.

He heard her sigh in
frustration
behind him, but she didn’t touch him again. He swiveled and
brought his feet to the ground, gripped by vertigo, but after a few
labored breaths, his dizziness cleared and he pushed himself off
the mattress.

His first step was unsteady, but
he regained his bearing and plodded across the room
to
ward the
winged chair by the window. As soon as he dropped in the seat, his
vertigo returned, and it was a few minutes before he looked back
across the room and found her sitting on the bed, knees pulled up
to her chin, arms wrapped around her shins, hair in glorious waves
over her shoulders, watching him.

Just like when
they were children,
she seemed unperturbed by his pushing her away, as if she knew the
gesture had nothing to do with his true feelings for
her.

Why
she had such confidence in him,
and
why
it disarmed him, troubled him beyond measure.

“
What are you going to do about
your scheduled performances?”
she wondered.

“
Cancel them.”

“
Your devotees will be
disappointed.”

“
I don’t care.”

“
And why not? Why do you
play,
if not
to share your music with others?”

“
I play to earn money.
Music is my only talent.”

“
An unfortunate
reason.”

“
And what reason would suit
you, princess?”

“
One that makes you
happy.”

“
I am happy,” he barked. “And why
the hell are you suddenly concerned with my happiness?”

“
I’ve always been concerned
with your happiness.”

He looked away from her, his
hands trembling.
She said the sentiment with such earnest, he almost
believed her, but he knew she was lying. She had to be. She
couldn’t have cared for his happiness
and
done what she’d done to him.

The sight of splintered wood captured
his interest, and he focused on the broken violins, not doubting
who had smashed them.

“
You have your father’s
temper,” he said dryly.

He wasn’t moved by the carnage. He didn’t
care for any of the instruments. But when he noticed the pile of
letters on the floor—her letters—he dropped his brow in his hand.
Shit. So that’s why she looked at him so starry-eyed. She had found
the letters during her fit and thought them meaningful
keepsakes.

“
I s
hould have burned those letters,” he
grumbled.

“
But you
didn’t.”

“
I forgot to burn them, is
all. I forgot all about them.”

“
I don’t believe
you.”

“
Believe what you want, princess.
I don’t give a damn.” But his heart drummed in his chest, and it
took all his physical strength to keep his breathing under control.
“Why did you destroy the violins?”

“
I was angry with
you.”

“
And what right have you to
be angry with me?”

He
had lost everything the night he had
kissed her, the night she had denied him.

“
You and I we
re once friends,” she said
softly. “Can’t we—”

“
No, we can’t.
”

“
And why is
that?”

“
Because we’re not children
anymore. It’s time to give up childish ways.”

If the past
couldn’t be erased or forgotten,
then at least it could be contained, and talk of friendship, and
heaven help him, love, was childish rot he’d not tolerate anymore,
especially from her.

The door busted
open and Harry
Hickox entered the room in typical dramatic fashion. Grey had
issued his friend an open invitation to come by the house at any
time, and the servants had been told to permit him without
ceremony. He needn’t be announced, for Grey wasn’t one for
etiquette. But he had always met his friend in the study, never in
his room. And the man’s unexpected trespassing prickled Grey’s
spine.

Harry dropped his luggage on the ground
and raised his hands. “I’m officially a vagrant.”

“
Don’t exaggerate,
Harry.”

“
Exaggerate?” He glared at Grey.
“She tossed me
out
of the house. I’ve nowhere to go, thanks to
you.”

“
Why did she toss you out
of the house?”

“
Because she’s angry with
you
,
and she took it out on
me
.”

Grey
grunted and rubbed his bandaged side.
“She took it out on me, too, Harry.”

Last night, Lady Hickox had
suggested they
“have a little fun.” Her idea of fun was the yank the bell
poll, summon her footmen, and have Grey soundly thrashed and thrown
from her house.

He
would have saved himself a beating if he’d
denied Emily. She certainly wasn’t his mistress. She bloody well
tortured him with her presence and music. But he’d refused to
renounce the rumor. He still wasn’t sure why.

“
Rightly so
,” said his friend. “You’ve
ignored her for a month, then gossip spreads you purchased a posh
filly for twenty-five
thousand
pounds, and then you show up at her door in the
dead of night.”

“
Ten,” said
Emily.

Harry turned around, bemused. “I beg
your pardon?”

“
He purchased me for ten
thousand pounds, not twenty-five.”

Harry opened his mouth, then closed
it, then opened it again. “A steal, madam.”

“
Harry,” came an unbidden growl.
“Go and find yourself a room.”

Grey hadn’t meant to sound like
a possessive dog, but the
overtly approving look in Harry’s eyes, when he
first noticed Emily on the bed, had an unexpected affect on him. He
was suddenly seventeen again, watching Emily parade through the
ballroom under the carnal stares of every male guest, overpowered
by jealously.

“
Of course, I will.” Harry took
up his suitcase. “I’ve every intention of making myself at
home.”

As soon as Harry
left the room, Grey
shifted his gaze to Emily, still cocooned on the bed, her
expression carefully bland.

“
Your mistress is his
sister?”

“
Mother,” he
corrected.

“
I see.”

Her features remained impassive,
but
he sensed
her naive dreams slipping away. He was grateful for that. While his
affair with Lady Hickox had officially ended, he didn’t want Emily
to believe an affair—or friendship or whatever she wanted to call
it—would arise between them.

“
Do I offend you,
princess?”

She looked down at the bed. “Harry doesn’t
mind that you’re . . . ?”

“
Bedding his mother? No, he
doesn’t, so long as we’re discrete, and maybe not even
then.”

“
And her
husband?”

“
Dead. Propriety is for public,
not private eyes. It’s just the way of the world. But you already
know that, don’t you?”

“
I know I sold myself to
you.”

“
As I did to Lady
Hickox.”

She frowned. “What do you
mean?”

Grey remembered those
first torturous
weeks after losing Emily, his grandfather’s violin, his whole
world. He’d wandered the city, taking irregular jobs, earning a
pittance. He had even found himself one hopeless night on a bridge,
staring into the black and inviting waters of the Thames. Emily had
cried out to him from that abyss. He’d heard her ghostly
call—
play
for me
.

He shivered at the stirring memory. He had
pulled away from the water that night and with the money he’d
received from Wright, purchased a second-hand violin the next day.
Grey hadn’t intended to use the funds or ever play again, but he’d
been compelled to chase after his dream.

A
nd as a traveling musician, he had earned
a better wage. But his fortune had truly turned on a street corner
in the West End, where he’d first met Lady Hickox. She had stopped
to admire his music, to admire him, for later that evening her
servant had come round to deliver an invitation he hadn’t been able
to refuse.

“
Lady Hickox suspected I had a
talent beyond music. And she was right.” He pushed out of the chair
and approached her. “She supported my early music career, and I
warmed her bed.”

When he reached his
own bed, he grabbed
the wood post for support and looked down at Emily, who observed
him with a thoughtful expression.

“
What’s the matter,
princess?
” He
thumbed her chin. “You look unhappy.”

“
Will I warm your
bed?”

He took in a
sharp breath. Damn, she was
brash, still impulsive, even reckless, voicing such a sentiment out
loud. But after undressing before the window last night and taking
his breath away, he wasn’t surprised by her scandalous remark. She
had never been a prim and proper lady.

Still, w
hat was she thinking? He had already
assured her he’d take care of all her earthly wants, so she needn’t
prostitute herself. There was no reason for her to offer herself to
him, unless . . . unless she wanted him.

He
dropped his hand. “No. You will not warm
my bed.”

Grey
turned away from her, his heart
thundering. He wanted her now more than he’d ever wanted her as a
cajoled youth. He’d dreamed of her for five bloody years, but he’d
sooner eat glass than surrender to the temptation of being with
her.

She grabbed his wrist
and pulled him back
toward the bed. “Rees.”

Head spinning, he seized the
bedpost again.
“Blast it—”

She cut off his words,
his
thoughts,
his very breath with a hot, hard kiss. Kneeling on the mattress,
she pressed her warm body against his and slipped her fingers into
his hair, holding him, ravishing him.

The mixture of pleasure and pain
as she bussed his bruised lips,
embodied their entire history. He had
never been able to resist her, however hard he’d tried. She had
always won their battle of wills because his love for her had
weakened him . . . but he didn’t love her anymore. He couldn’t love
her anymore.

He tore his mouth away. “No,” he
rasped.
“You
will not break me again.”

Her lips flushed with
blood
. She
gasped for air. As she steadied her rampant breathing, the
brightness in her eyes dulled and her fingers dropped from his
hair.

He almost pulled her back into his arms.
Almost. But instead, he remained bone-still, resisting every
self-destructive impulse to kiss her again.

She slipped off the bed and headed for the
door. “I won’t disturb you again.”

“
Where are you
going?”

“
I don’t know,
” she said, voice
hollow.

As soon as the door closed behind her,
Grey sank onto the bed and shut his eyes. His head was spinning.
His body burned with fever or desire, he didn’t know. One fact was
clear, though. Emily still held great power over him. She always
would, he feared.

~ * ~

Grey sat beside the coal-burning
fireplace, a glass of brandy in his
still swollen hand. He swirled the amber
tonic, a far more effective medicine than the opium Emily had tried
to give him earlier in the day. Another glass or two and he should
be steaming drunk.