Claiming the Courtesan (29 page)

Verity gave a broken cry as the brutes moved away from her brother and she finally saw what they’d done. His face was bloody and swollen, and his clothes were torn and filthy.

What further injuries did the fading light hide? The damage she could see now made her want to vomit.

“Oh, Ben,” she cried, hoping desperately he’d lost consciousness, despite the duchess’s orders. But his head jerked unsteadily in her direction as she spoke his name.

Her distress meant she hardly noticed when the duchess directed Smithson to hand her over to two of the men who had beaten Ben. They stood on either side of her and grabbed her arms while the loathsome Smithson stepped forward to stand beside his employer. “What are your wishes, Your Grace?”

The woman’s eyes were bright with almost sexual arousal as she drew a small silver knife from her reticule. “Cut her face. Scar her so no man can look at her without revulsion.” Her voice quivered with eagerness.

“No! You can’t do this!” Verity cried, struggling futilely. Pride had fled and she could no longer conceal her terror. “It’s barbaric.”

“Your Grace…” Smithson fell back from the blade the duchess extended. Even through her panic, Verity was astonished to see his impassive face crease into repugnance.

“You were happy enough to kill her,” the duchess said derisively, as if she criticized a dandy on the fall of his cravat. “Be a man, for God’s sake.”

Smithson shook his head. “Killing is quick. But to slice a wench’s pretty face open just for spite? No, Your Grace, I’m sorry, but I can’t do it.”

“You are dismissed from my service,” she said in a frigid voice that contrasted grotesquely with the elation in her face. Her eyes fixed avidly on the villains who constrained Verity. “This woman is a harlot and a thief. She should be whipped at the cart tail, then hanged. Is anyone man enough to do my bidding?”

Verity waited in strained and panting silence to see if anyone took up the challenge.

Her beauty had always been more of a curse than a blessing, but she abhorred the prospect of becoming an object of pity. And her courage failed as she imagined that glittering little blade piercing her flesh.

She sucked in a ragged breath, fighting hysteria. Rape would follow quickly upon disfigurement. How could she endure what was about to happen?

“A hundred guineas to the man who takes the knife,” the duchess said clearly when no one moved to obey her.

Her irritation with her cohorts was written in austere lines on the face Verity had once thought beautiful. Now all she could see was obsessive hatred and salacious cruelty.

Verity’s dread rose, threatening to suffocate her, as she studied the circle of faces around her. A hundred guineas was a fortune, more money than these men would see in their lifetimes. It made no sense that they’d smash her brother to a pulp, yet turn squeamish at the idea of scarring her for life.

Would they also balk at raping her?

“I’ll do it, Your Grace.” The man on her right released her and stepped forward to take the silver knife from the duchess’s trembling hand. The woman’s unsteadiness didn’t stem from uncertainty, Verity knew, but from excitement.

“Cut her deep.” The duchess’s breath sawed audibly as her monstrous revenge edged closer to fruition.

Ben made an unintelligible protest and lurched to his knees before his guard knocked him down with a blow.

Verity managed to stand proudly until the man with the knife stepped directly in front of her, but as she looked up into his eyes, her nerve failed. She writhed against the merciless hands that held her fast.

“No! No, please. Don’t do this. In the name of heaven, please don’t do this,” she pleaded. She turned away as tears poured down her cheeks.

The man took her chin in a firm hold and made her face
him. She braced herself for the knife’s slash, for excruciating pain and rivers of blood.

“Please,” she whispered shakily, searching for some trace of compassion in him.

He was so young. Younger than Ben. How absurd a mere boy could perpetrate this outrage.

“You can’t do this and call yourself a Christian.” She caught a flash of uncertainty in his eyes, and for a moment, she thought she’d won.

“Two hundred guineas!” the duchess urged from behind him.

The youth raised the knife and pressed it to Verity’s cheekbone. There was a brief sting, and warm wetness trickled down her face.

“God damn you forever,” she whispered and closed her eyes again. She waited for pain.

And she waited.

“Good Lord, and they call women the weaker sex!” The duchess’s anger grated across nerves knotted tight to breaking point. “I should have known I’d have to do this myself.”

“Yes, good servants are so hard to get these days, aren’t they?” Verity said faintly. She opened her eyes to watch the duchess snatch the knife from the boy.

Kylemore had told her this woman blanched at nothing. She wouldn’t flinch at the humiliation and degradation of a humble whore. Any reprieve was past.

The man she loved had called her the bravest person he knew. She refused to face her fate like a puling weakling. She’d scream and cry and beg for mercy in time. She knew that. Even the scratch on her cheek hurt like blazes, and worse was to come. But she’d hold on to her pride as long as she could.

Pride wouldn’t save her from what was about to happen,
but it was all she had. She drew herself up as if she were the duchess and her lover’s mother the cheap bawd.

Something that might have been admiration flickered in the woman’s glassy eyes, eyes the same deep and beautiful blue as Kylemore’s. “You’re a worthy opponent, I’ll give you that.”

“This serves no purpose,” Verity said as calmly as she could. Pleading could never succeed. Perhaps defiance would. She cursed the husky edge to her voice but couldn’t do anything about it. “I told you—His Grace and I have parted forever. He has sworn he won’t pursue me.”

“Even if that’s so, I deserve some recompense for the trouble you’ve given me.” The duchess’s voice was exultant.

“By consigning me to torture and rape?”

“These things are all relative.” The woman stroked the edge of the blade and considered her victim in the fading light. “I rather think I’ll take out an eye.”

The gorge rose in Verity’s throat. “You’d leave me blind?” she gasped in revulsion.

“No. Only one eye. I want you to see what I do. It’s dangerous to range yourself against your betters, my girl.”

“You’re not my better,” Verity spat. Fury clawed at her fear. Fury alone gave her the strength to stand stiffly and await the blade’s descent. “You’ll never get away with this. I’ll bring the full force of the law against you.”

Astonishingly, chillingly, the duchess laughed, the sound tinkling and sweet in the still air. “I’m the Duchess of Kylemore. You’re my son’s discarded, lowborn lover. The law will pay you no heed at all. Unless, that is, I decide to have you transported for prostitution.”

“You’re a devil from hell,” Verity gasped in horror.

Let it be quick,
she prayed, although she knew the duchess intended to draw out every last strand of torment. Fortitude
was all Verity had left. Please let it not desert her now. She closed her eyes and waited.

The duchess was so close that Verity heard the slide of a silk sleeve against her bodice as she drew her hand back, ready to strike.

Then, in the breathless pause, a cold, commanding,
beloved
voice pierced her all-encompassing fog of dread.

“Shed one drop of her blood and I’ll shoot you where you stand.”

K
ylemore’s clipped words wrenched Verity from the lightless bastion where she’d retreated.

It couldn’t be true. He couldn’t be here to save her. Such unlikely heroics belonged only in fairy tales. Fear and grief must have sent her mad.

But when she opened dazed eyes, he strode, arrogant as ever, out of the overhanging trees toward her. And how could she doubt he was real when the force of his rage made the very air quiver?

He was dressed completely in black, from his silk shirt to his long coat that swept the ground. Even the boots kicking up dust with every purposeful step were black.

Against the unrelieved darkness of his clothing, his face was pale and taut with barely curbed fury. One elegant hand rested negligently on the hilt of the sword that hung from his waist, and the other leveled a heavy pistol at his mother and Smithson.

With a gasp, the duchess spun around. “Justin, don’t be ridiculous. You cannot threaten your own mother.”

She sounded perfectly reasonable. The ecstatically vengeful harpy of a few moments ago had disappeared. Quickly, she hid the deadly silver knife in her skirts.

Savagery tinged the duke’s smile as he stopped a few feet away from her. “I can and do threaten you, madam.” He looked across to where his mother’s servant held Verity. “Have they harmed you,
mo cridhe?
”

“No,” Verity whispered. Trembling with reaction, she focused a tear-filled gaze on Kylemore.

She was safe now. He’d never let anyone hurt her. She knew that as she knew she needed breath to live.

“Your face is bleeding,” he pointed out with a contained gentleness that sent a cold shiver down her spine.

“It’s only a scratch,” she said unsteadily.

Compared to what the duchess had planned for her, the sullenly seeping cut hardly mattered. Still, she saw anguish flare in his eyes as they rested on the injury.

“I hope so. Or someone will pay dearly.” He masked the flash of emotion and returned his relentless focus to his mother.

The duchess’s face tightened with scornful defiance as she met his stare. “You wouldn’t harm me. You don’t have the stomach for it.”

Clearly, she’d decided bravado was her best strategy. Verity could have told her she was wrong. When Kylemore looked like that, nothing swayed him.

“Try me,” he said in the same terrifyingly mild voice.

Still the duchess didn’t take warning. A triumphant smile curled her lips. “You forget I have four men and you are alone.”

Kylemore’s lordly manner didn’t falter. “Four men who
will soon be in custody and incriminating you with every word of their testimony.”

He signaled with one hand to someone behind him. Eight armed men surged from the woods that edged the road. Verity recognized Hamish and Andy and Angus among the newcomers.

“Justin, think of the scandal!” the duchess snapped.

“Yes, think of it,” he said with satisfaction.

With taciturn efficiency, Kylemore’s companions took, at gunpoint, the boy who had come so close to scarring Verity and the bully who guarded Ben’s ominously unmoving body.

The duke glanced at the man who still restrained Verity. “If you hope to live through the next minute, let her go.”

His voice rang with absolute authority. Immediately, she was free. The abruptness of the action threw her off balance. She staggered and gasped for air to combat her sudden light-headedness.

Kylemore lunged to catch her before she fell. “Christ,
mo leannan,
what have they done to you?” he muttered under his breath.

She felt his arm snake around her waist to hold her upright. At his touch, her faintness receded. She turned toward his strength and heat as a flower opens to the sun.

He is here, he is here.

The trilling carol of relief and wonder allowed her to take her first unfettered breath in what felt like hours. It was a breath full of the haunting essence of Kylemore. She fought the impulse to bury her nose in his chest and pretend all danger had passed.

Because, of course, it hadn’t.

Even while he sheltered her against his body, Kylemore kept his pistol leveled. A few feet away, Angus and Andy took charge of her former captor and herded him toward his
two cohorts. The three thugs who had so terrified her were cowed and silent as they huddled together on the roadside.

She looked away from them and up at the man she’d thought never to see again. Her heart blossomed with difficult joy. How she wished she could stay in his embrace forever, but her wishes were as impossible now as they had ever been.

Reaction to what she’d been through set in, and she shook in his hold as though she had a fever. She stifled the urge to cling to Kylemore and shower him with grateful tears.

Struggling for control, she sucked in another deep breath. Right now, she needed to check on her brother. He’d been silent for too long.

“I have to see to Ben,” she said urgently. “He’s over there, beaten to within an inch of his life.”

“Hamish, go with her,” Kylemore said, releasing her.

He kept his pistol aimed at his mother while Verity hurried across to her brother. Ben lay on the ground, still tied up. He must have finally, mercifully lost consciousness before the duchess had grabbed the knife.

With a broken sob, Verity fell to her knees at his side.

Is he alive? Please, let him be so.

She hunched forward over his poor, battered body, cradling him to her breast. Even in the gloaming’s forgiving light, she saw how badly hurt he was. Thank heaven, he was still breathing. This close to him, she could hear the air’s uneven passage through his mashed mouth.

“Oh, Ben,” she murmured, tears running unchecked down her cheeks as she rocked him the way she’d rocked him when he’d been a child in her care. “My poor darling brother.”

He didn’t hear her. Perhaps he’d never hear her again.

The beating had been prolonged and unconstrained. Who knew what damage he’d sustained? Very gently, she raised his torn and bruised head onto her lap while Hamish rolled him over on his side and cut his bonds with a horn-handled knife.

“They did a gey good job on him, my lady.” The Scotsman ran his hands over her brother’s frighteningly unresponsive body.

“It’s all my fault,” she whispered, fumbling in her sleeve for the handkerchief Ben had pressed upon her earlier.

Hamish looked up at her with a frown. “Och, no, dinna go blaming yourself. That wicked banshee over there brought this on ye.”

It wasn’t true. The knowledge lay like a stain on her soul that Ben had paid for his sister’s sins today.

But repenting her misdeeds must wait. Ignoring the sting of her scraped palms, she tried to use the handkerchief to clean the dirt and blood from Ben’s swollen, marked face. But the severity of his wounds defeated her and the linen square was soon soaked red.

His nose sat askew, and his mouth wasn’t much more than a bloody gash. If not for his shock of white-blonde hair, even filthy and matted as it was, she’d have had trouble recognizing him.

“What do you think, Mr. Macleish?” she asked huskily.

“His nose is broken and I wouldnae be surprised if a few ribs are cracked. We’ll get him back tae the castle where a proper doctor can see tae him.”

Hamish’s touch was sure and kind as he tested her brother’s injuries, as sure and kind as it was when he tended the duke’s horses. The thought was strangely reassuring. She bent her head and crooned comfort over Ben, just as she’d crooned when he’d been a child in her care.

“No, Justin! You jest!”

The duchess’s emphatic denial dragged Verity’s attention from her unconscious brother. Mother and son squared up a few feet away from where she knelt. The fine-boned faces that proclaimed their shared blood were stark with naked hatred.

“I am most definitely serious, madam.” Kylemore’s voice was more cutting than Verity had ever heard it. It was the voice of a man who exacted instant obedience to his merest command. “You will retire to the dowerhouse in Norfolk. You will take your odious ward with you. An escort will accompany you there and I’ll set guards round the clock at the house. If you venture one foot beyond Norwich, I cease to be responsible for your expenses and you must rely purely on your jointure from my father’s estate.”

“That’s barbaric! I am your mother!” The rage in the duchess’s voice made Verity’s hands pause in stroking the tangled hair back from Ben’s forehead.

“Because you’re my mother, only I can end the devastation you wreak.” Kylemore’s words dripped such ice that Verity shivered. “I should have curbed you long ago. Foolishly, I believed you powerless without access to the ducal purse. Today that grave error of judgment almost cost me everything I hold dear.”

Verity’s heart leaped with outlaw happiness. It was the nearest thing to an open declaration of love she’d ever have from him.

Kylemore raised one elegant hand to forestall any protest from his mother. “No, madam, don’t waste your breath. I am determined. You are destined for a life of harmless rustication.”

The older woman drew herself up to her full height. “Very impressive, Justin,” she sneered. “But I still have one weapon in my arsenal.”

“Yes, and what’s that?” he asked as idly as if he discussed a trifling wager on a horserace or a boxing match.

“My husband was indubitably mad. To my distress, my son is highly strung and difficult.” Insincere sadness infused her cruel words. “Your recent behavior indicates
you’ve inherited your father’s tragic affliction. Proceed with your vile plan to exile me and I’ll have you committed as a lunatic.”

“No! It’s not true!” Verity cried in anguish. Her hands clenched in Ben’s ripped and dirty shirt.

Kylemore glanced across at her, and astonishingly, he smiled. “Don’t worry,
mo leannan
. This particular tigress no longer has teeth.”

The duchess frowned at his assertion. “You think so, Justin? London is agog at the lengths you’ve taken to regain your tawdry mistress. The gossips always speculated about your sanity. It will need very little to fan those rumors, dear boy.” She had the gall to reach up and tap his cheek as though he were indeed a troublesome child. “So let’s have no more talk of the dowerhouse.”

Kylemore’s smile faded as he turned back to his mother. “The same gossips will relish the reports from your household servants, madam. The sordid tales of your insatiable appetite for brawny young footmen. Or for ruffians off the streets paid a guinea for the foul pleasures you exacted.”

Even at a distance, Verity saw the duchess whiten. “Justin? What are you saying?” she gasped, reeling back.

Still he maintained that uncanny control. The more composed he sounded, the more dangerous he became, Verity knew.

“I possess sworn statements detailing your sexual excesses. Perhaps your endless affairs with members of the ton may be overlooked. Your taste for rougher trade won’t encounter so much understanding. Smithson, your pander, stands beside you. I doubt he’ll keep his mouth shut if he can save himself from the gallows. Consider carefully before you threaten me with your pathetic stratagems again.”

“You’ve had me watched, you miserable little bastard?” she
snarled. The contemptuous tone sent a queasy aftershock of terror through Verity, and she held her brother’s motionless body more tightly.

“Indeed,” Kylemore said, unmoved by her insults. “I knew the day would come when you overstepped even the generous boundaries I set on your behavior.”

The woman’s voice shook as she spoke, and her rouge stood out unnaturally bright on her sallow cheeks. “No, Justin! This is too cruel. If you won’t think of me, think of yourself. You cannot drag the Kinmurrie name through the mire!”

“I only did what I was told, Your Grace,” Smithson insisted from behind the duchess. “It was more than my job was worth to gainsay the lady’s demands.”

“You are a thug and a bully,” Kylemore said acidly. “And I’ll see you and your cohorts hang for today’s work.”

“No, Kylemore,” Verity said firmly. Slowly and with great tenderness, she laid Ben’s head down on the thick grass verge.

Her intervention created a short silence. Kylemore looked at her more in surprise than anger. “No? You don’t know how close I am to shooting them here and now and letting the law go to the Devil.”

“Believe me, I know,” she said gently, reading the vibrating tension in his lean body.

She rose and squared her shoulders before she crossed to the duke’s side. Gingerly, she reached out and, after a moment’s resistance from him, took the pistol. It rested cold and hard and heavy in her palm.

“Her Grace is right. A public scandal will damage you as much as those you prosecute,” she said quietly, while inside her, her heart galloped with apprehension. Pray heaven she could make him bow to reason. “Let her go to Norfolk. Let her take her henchmen—the threat of arrest should keep them there safely enough.”

“She tried to kill you.” Kylemore’s deep voice was a whip
lash of fury. “And these animals who may yet have killed your brother aided her.”

“I haven’t forgotten Ben.” She cast a glance across to where Hamish still worked methodically on Ben’s injuries. “But if you put these men in the dock, the whole sorry story comes out, and that will do nobody any good.”

“You’re more generous than I,
mo cridhe,
” Kylemore said softly.

He reached out and took his mother’s arm in a punishing grip. “So what do you say? Norfolk? Or confinement in an asylum for insatiable carnal mania? And damn the scandal.”

Tears glittered in the duchess’s deep blue eyes—tears of thwarted fury rather than remorse, Verity was sure.

“Justin, you’re hurting me!” his mother whined.

The change from threats to abject weakness didn’t sway the duke. “Hurt you? God, I’d like to dismember you.”

He visibly reined in his sparking temper. “Well, madam? I await your answer.”

The duchess was pale and drawn, and she at last looked her age. Only the faintest vestiges of her remarkable beauty remained as she licked nervous lips and met her son’s ruthless expression. “I’ll go to Norfolk.”

“Good.” He didn’t unhand her. “Before you go, beg this lady’s pardon.”