But it was too late, and probably wouldn’t have mattered anyway because Zeus smiled with smug triumph and said, “Oh, I’ve had my eye on you for some time.”
A chill took Bess. Prickling sweat broke out at her hairline and the small of her back.
She recognized the feeling at once. Those times when she’d been out with Lucy and that night at the Marylebone Pleasure Gardens, when she’d been so certain someone was following her. And that night at The Nemesis, when Rufus had warned away a sandy-haired patron by proclaiming Bess had been claimed by The Berserker…
“I’ve been watching you,” he hissed. “Ever since that day you humiliated me in front of…”
He cut himself off, face darkening. “That’s by the by. The important thing is, I know your secret, and if you want to keep it, you’ll do everything I want, exactly as I say. If I want you to get on all fours and…and bark like a dog, that’s what you’ll do.”
Something about the phrase bark like a dog tugged at Bess’s mind. She gasped. “You’re that boy from the riverbank!”
Affronted pride stiffened the young man’s frame. He grabbed her wrist in a bruising hold. “You should have a care how you speak to me, bitch. Now that I’m your lord and master.”
The boy she’d called a pup, prancing about in front of his idol, the Duke of Thornecliff, all but wagging his tail and panting for attention.
Bess remembered him now. Lord Phillip Something. The idea that he’d become fixated upon her, enough to follow her and watch her from the shadows, made her stomach twist.
She jerked her arm trying to get free, but he held tight, the delicate bones of her wrist grinding together painfully.
“You are nothing to me,” she told him through gritted teeth.
“I’m the man who has you in the palm of his hand, and I won’t hesitate to crush you. Do you know what my life has been like since that day? Thorne won’t see me, I’m not invited anywhere, or if I do turn up at a club or hell, do you know what I hear? People barking and growling, mocking me. They call me Lord Pup! And it’s all your fault. I will have my revenge, if you don’t do what I want, I’ll tell everyone?—”
Bess shook but somehow kept her voice steady. “I don’t know what you think you’ve discovered, but?—”
“Why, that you’re spreading your legs for the oh-so-noble Duke of Ashbourn, of course.”
Bess froze. Everything in her head went silent and swaying, like an uneven stack of hay bales about to come tumbling down.
He knew. What if he told Nathaniel? “Let go of me.”
“No,” he sneered, so certain that he had the upper hand. “We’re going to walk out of here right now, and you’re going to become my mistress. Show me some of what Ashbourn’s been getting.”
Bess pulled harder at her wrist. “Let go.”
A peevish frown clouded his wild gaze. He looked like a child who’d been told he couldn’t have a boiled sweet. “There’s no need to be so obstinate. Just be friendly to me, like you’ve been to Ashbourn. I’ll make it worth your while. You’ll see, there’s not much difference between whoring for him and whoring for me. Unless you think his father’s madness is hereditary and he might one day lose his mind enough to actually marry his whore.”
The words landed hard, in the center of Bess’s chest. She didn’t care what this petulant puppy called her, but it hurt to have an unspoken dream spoken aloud and mocked mercilessly.
Anger flowed through her limbs, lending them strength and bringing clarity to her mind. Remembering her sparring lessons with Nathaniel, Bess stopped trying to twist her arm free. Instead, she slid one foot behind her for balance and turned her body to give her other arm room to wind up.
Then she hauled back and punched her assailant with all the force she could muster.
He let her go to grab hold of his nose, which fountained blood that instantly stained his toga red. “My nose! You broke my nose! You bitch!”
Riding a wave of fury, Bess stepped in and said into his ear, “The difference between whoring for Ashbourn and whoring for you is that you must resort to blackmail and violence to secure a woman. But Ashbourn? I would do anything he asks of me and ask for nothing in return. I will never be your mistress. But I will be whatever Ashbourn wants, for as long as he will have me. Because he’s a thousand times the man you will ever be.”
He looked at her, eyes streaming and nose still bleeding, and Bess felt a little hint of what it must be like for Nathaniel when he stood victorious over an opponent in the ring.
She’d beaten this man who’d tried to bully and intimidate her, and it felt good.
Only he wasn’t beaten—he was furious.
He reared up, reaching his blood-covered hands toward Bess as though he would wring her neck. She darted out of reach, heart hammering, but then stilled in shock.
From somewhere behind them, on the other side of the painted screen, Bess heard a roar. An instant later, the heavy wooden boards collapsed with a deafening clatter, kicked aside by Nathaniel in a full Berserker rage, bearing down on them.
Lord Phillip blanched, throwing up his hands in terrified surrender, but it was far too late for that.
