She didn’t protest when he drew her body against his and pulled the bedclothes atop them both. They were joined from ankle to shoulder, his arm banded over her waist in a possessive grip he couldn’t restrain. Soft, womanly heat burned him alive. The scent of bergamot and vanilla and ambergris blended into one heady note. Christ, but everything about her drove him to distraction.
“I’m sorry for hurting you,” he said into the darkness and the silence that had fallen between them. He meant that in every way possible, so much feeling and emotion packed into that sentence it could have been a bloody ocean-faring merchant ship loaded from bow to stern and it still would not have contained more.
Her hand found his where it tightened over the curve of her waist, their fingers tangling. “I’ve promised to call you Sebastian and you’ve promised to cease all apologies for tonight. If you mean to go back on your word, I’ll have to refer to you as Your Grace forever. That could prove a lengthy sentence indeed,Your Grace.”
He detected the smile in her words and realized he was grinning back into the night, like some besotted fool. Staying in her chamber had been another mistake in a series of grievous errors. But he hadn’t the willpower to move from her side now, and what was one more sin in a catalog of so many?
“Touché, buttercup.” He paused, his smile fading as he thought again of her earlier words.I’ve been hurt far worse in my lifetime.Part of him probed her now because he knew he must, and part of him probed her because he was the man who had taken her innocence, and he cared for her regardless of the glaring fact that he should not make such a neophyte mistake. “You said you’ve been hurt worse. Your father… what did he do to you?”
He heard her swallow, the steady, even pace of her breathing increasing in increments. Without light to illuminate her face, he read her on tells and body language alone. The fingers tangled in his tightened. She didn’t answer.
“Daisy,” he tried again, careful to keep his tone gentle. “I’m your husband. Won’t you tell me?”
“Why would you want to know?” she asked at last, her voice small, marked by some indefinable emotion. Shame, perhaps?
Why, indeed?
Because he needed to know.
Because he needed to believe her, to understand her story, where she’d come from and who she was.
And also, because he needed to know just how badly he’d have to hurt her son-of-a-bitch of a father in reprisal.
“I want to know what he did to you, Daisy, because I’m going to do each one of those things to him in return, only with ten times more depravity.” It was as honest a reply as he could manage.
“You mustn’t say that.” There was her voice again, lilting and haunting in the night’s inky stillness.
“Tell me, buttercup,” he urged, pulling her tighter to his side, as though he could somehow absorb her, take on any pain she’d ever experienced just to lessen her burden, and keep her forever safe from harm. He would have gladly done so had it been possible. All the disgust he’d felt at betraying his duty had somehow faltered in the blinding brilliance of the feeling of her trusting form next to his.
She was silent for an indeterminate space of time. No sound but busy London outside, clacking hooves, her steady breathing, vehicles traveling, so many people all around them, and yet, there they were. Two naked bodies pressed against each other. Connecting in a way he’d never before imagined possible, a way that transcended the physicality of a mere joining. He’d bedded his fair share of women. But he didn’t lie to himself that any of those occasions could compare to this.
“It began after my mother died,” she said, quietly at first, and then with more authority as she continued. “I was four years old, and I’d spilled ink on the new rug in his office, where I wasn’t meant to be. He whipped me with a riding crop. As I grew older and began acting as his hostess, the punishments he meted out changed. Fists and kicks mostly, though he was always careful never to strike me where anyone else could ever see the mark.”
Jesus.
The air felt as if it had been sucked straight from his lungs. She spoke calmly, with a matter-of-fact acceptance that disturbed him. Daisy had mettle, the sort he couldn’t even begin to fathom any other fine lady of his acquaintance possessing.
“His fists.” His voice was toneless. Vanreid’s fists were practically the size of ham hocks. And he had used them upon a helpless woman, whose bones were as dainty as a bird’s. Sebastian’s blood went cold. Andkicks. By God, the man was built like an ox, and he’d kicked Daisy. To manage such a feat, she would’ve had to have already been on the floor, struck down by him. “Where? Where did he hurt you?”
He had to know, and yet the knowledge would make him ill.
“Sebastian,” she protested. “It doesn’t matter.”
Oh, it mattered. Retribution would be his. Vanreid would be made to pay.
But he didn’t wish to push her too far, or upset her by asking her to relive such viciousness, and so he tucked her head against his chest and kissed her crown. “I would take each of those beatings for you, buttercup. If I could, I would remove every memory of them.”
She burrowed closer, rubbing her cheek against his bare chest like a cat, trusting. “Thank you, Sebastian.”
She had no cause to offer him gratitude.
Already, she had given him far more than she should this night. She had given him everything she had. And he’d taken it. Every last shred. Her innocence was his. Her future was in his hands. But she didn’t know that. Naïf that she was, she hadn’t an inkling that he was the last bloody man in all of London she should have entrusted with such a priceless gift.
He stroked her hair, sweet-smelling and luxuriant as silk, a new surge of protectiveness settling heavy in his gut. The devil of it was that, given the opportunity, he’d do it all over again.
“Sleep now, buttercup,” he told her.
Soon, the steady, rhythmic sound of her breathing filled the chamber. Sebastian stared into the black void of the night, still stroking her hair, unable to find the same solace that only slumber could provide.
