His Courtesan Bride (Brides of Mayfair 3) (30 page)

Serena looked up him then, her eyes tinged with despair. “As I discovered last night, I realize I have always been in love with you. But I denied my feelings all this time, because they were too painful to bear—just as they are too painful now.”

He came to sit beside her, taking her hand in his, squeezing it in desperation. “But it doesn’t have to be so, darling. We are both guilty of hurting each other. We have the rest of our lives together to make amends. Let me make things right between us.”

Serena turned her head away.

Darius felt his heart twist in his chest. It was inconceivable that they were having this conversation. Not after their souls had mingled and mated together in the darkest hours of the night.

The fear in his gut transformed into anger. “After all we’ve been through together, I cannot believe you are willing to throw it all away. This is our chance at happiness!”

She turned back to look at him. “That’s just it, Darius. In the end, I do not think we would be happy.”

“We? Or you?” he asked bitterly.

Her expression darkened as she said, “Me, then. I think that if we continued our liaison, eventually I would be quite unhappy, indeed.”

Darius stood, stalking about the room. “How can you say that? Last night, we made love. We
were
love, Serena. We could have that joy, that tenderness for years to come—

“How many years?” she demanded.

The question perplexed Darius. “I don’t know. Neither do you. But that is not a reason to deny ourselves a life together.”

“For a courtesan, it is, I assure you,” she replied.

“You are not simply a courtesan, Serena,” he shot back. “You are
my
courtesan. No other man has touched you but me. And none shall.”

He poured himself another drink as he needed to feel the searing liquid burn his throat.

“Until you tire of me,” Serena said, pointedly.

Darius wanted to laugh, but the situation was far from humorous. “I do not see that happening.”

“But I do,” she replied. “It is inevitable, Darius. And it is a cold, hard fact that the longer a courtesan stays with one man as her protector, the greater the odds that she will end up brokenhearted and destitute. Having already experienced both, you can understand that I should like to avoid such an outcome.”

“Bollocks! Is that what you are afraid of?” Darius asked, incredulously. “I am sorry to shatter your illusions, Serena, but there are no guarantees in this life. You fear a future which may never come to pass. And that, my dear, is not a good enough reason to hide from living.”

Her eyes flashed with anger. “That is quite easy for you to say when you have nothing to lose. I would have to sacrifice everything to be with you. And you would sacrifice nothing.”

He folded his arms across his chest, and said. “Enlighten me.”

“I chose the life of a courtesan for many reasons,” she began. “As you know, after the Telford scandal, the avenues of polite society were closed to me. Yet, from that tragedy there emerged an unexpected gift. I discovered much about myself that I never would have learned, otherwise. I realized that I valued my freedom and independence more than I did my reputation, and I wanted to be the mistress of my own fate. I was given that chance, and I took it. I have no regrets in that regard.”

“You would still retain your independence, Serena. I would never want to take it from you.”

She shook her head. “You might not want to. But eventually, you would.”

Darius huffed in exasperation. “You’re getting your lacy little knickers in a twist over something that hasn’t happened yet. Don’t be such a bloody coward!”

“Me? I’m the coward?” she demanded. “That’s rich. There is an old Italian proverb that states: ‘
He that deceives me once, it is his fault; if twice, it is mine
.’ Forgive me for wanting to protect myself against further injury from you, my lord.”

“I would not make that mistake again, Serena,” he replied. “Especially not with my
wife
.”

For a moment she simply stared back at him, perplexed. “What?”

“I had been planning to ask you, though not like this. I even told Caro about my plan to propose marriage to you.” Darius crossed the room in two powerful strides. He sank down onto his knee before her, taking her hand in his. “Marry me, Serena.”

She blinked in confusion. “Have you gone daft?”

“Perhaps I was before, but not now,” he said. “I ask again, will you marry me?”

Serena pulled her hand away. “You don’t know what you are saying.”

“I know exactly what I’m saying,” Darius countered. “I want no other as my wife but you, Serena. It is what I’ve wanted all along. It is what we’ve both wanted. And this time, I am determined that we shall have it.”

She stood, walking away from him. “You have lost your senses. You can’t marry me. I am a paid courtesan!”

“You’re
my
courtesan,” he insisted. “You’ve been with no other man but me. Who would object?”

“Your mother, for one,” Serena replied. “I met her today, walking about the estate. To say that she does not approve of me would be an vast understatement.”

Darius rose from where he knelt and came to stand beside her. “She does not approve of anyone, so do not take it to heart.”

Serena shook her head. “What you suggest is madness. I would be a pariah in society.”

“And what you suggest is not madness?” he demanded. “A life apart from each other? With you taking on new lovers, taking their money in exchange for your skills in bed? That would be the true madness, Serena.”

“That has been our arrangement for the past six months,” she countered. “Don’t make it sound criminal now that you have enjoyed the benefits of my training.”

“You must forgive me, my darling,” he said, a bitter note tinging his voice. “The image of you taking other men to your bed does not bring out the best in me.”

“This is not easy for me, either, Darius.”

“You make it seem so.” He came to stand behind her, placing his hands on her shoulders, then turning her around to face him. “Since you are impervious to the logic of my argument, I must try a different tack.”

He tipped up her chin so that she had no choice but to meet his eyes. He studied her face, saw the torrent of emotion there. It was a chink in the wall of her defenses. The old soldier in him seized the opportunity to exploit it.

Slowly, he lowered his mouth to hers, covering it, plundering it, branding her with his desire, his love. Even with the closeness they’d shared the previous night, it was like no other kiss they’d ever had. For wrapped inside it danced a whirlwind of emotions. Like leaves in a storm, one moment they moved wildly and full of fury, the next softly settling in peace. The kiss encompassed all their unspoken emotions—those they were unable to share…and those that they would never have the opportunity to.

Darius felt a sob escape Serena’s throat, and then her arms were around him, holding him tight, pulling him close against her.

Their tongues mingled, mated, warred with each other, as Darius realized too late what was happening.

They were saying good-bye.

Using the heels of her hands against his chest, Serena pushed away from him, breaking the kiss.

It was too late. The magic of the moment was gone.

“I would like to be alone now, Darius,” she choked out, stepping away from him and wiping at her moist eyes.

“But I want to be with you,” he said. “I
need
to be with you. Don’t send me away.”

Serena’s voice was barely a whisper. “Please, I beg of you. Stay at the Hall tonight. I need to be alone.”

Darius stood numbly as he tried to comprehend her words. They had less than two days left together, and she was banishing him?

“It is clear that you find my presence unbearable at the moment,” he said soberly. “I shall obey your wishes, of course.”

He turned to go, stopping in the little foyer to look back at the woman he loved. Though no sound escaped her, he watched helplessly as her shoulders shuddered with silent sobs.

Darius Manning, seventh Earl of Kane and decorated war hero, had faced some hellish situations in his life, some of which would have bested a weaker man than he. Bullets, battles, a murderess wife and the death of his unborn child. They had all been faced head on and dealt with, no matter how painful.

And yet he had never endured anything so frightening as the scene that had just transpired in the little cottage. He headed out the door feeling raw, hollowed out, like a ghost that still thought himself among the living.

Darius walked slowly across the dying grass, forcing himself to take each painful step forward. He grasped at the familiar emotions of anger and rage, the ones that had always spurred him on in the past. But they wouldn’t come. Only a dark, empty wretchedness filled his heart.

As Darius walked back to Manning Hall, he knew in the depths of his soul that his life had just been unequivocally changed.

And not for the better.

Chapter 24

“
There is no ill a man can cause which another cannot cure.”

–from
Memoirs of a Courtesan, by Lady Night

Serena lay in bed, staring into the darkness as she tried in vain to ignore the throbbing ache in her heart. It felt as if she were bleeding inwardly, slowly dying of some incurable disease to which there was no cure.

With no idea of the hour, she guessed it was somewhere in the middle of the night. She’d gone to bed without supper, punishing herself for the terrible scene with Darius.

The truth was that she hadn’t been hungry. Her stomach was sick with despair. Instead she’d cried herself out on the bed. The fact that she and Darius had made love there so tenderly the night before only served to make her grief sharper.

If only Lady Devlyn had warned her that the last days with a protector could be so painful, perhaps Serena would have been better equipped to bear it. Even with all of her training, her well-honed emotional control, she was unable to use any of those skills now. The pain in her heart was too great.

Perhaps that was the crux of it. As a courtesan, she was an expert at the function and stimulation of sexual pleasure. But with matters of the human heart, Serena was all adrift.

Darius—damn him—had only made things worse by asking her to be his wife.

His wife!

Of all the things she thought he might say, she had never counted on a proposal of marriage. No matter that she had once wanted that from him more than anything in the world. She had been a green girl, then. Now, Serena was an experienced courtesan who eschewed the idea of binding herself to one man for life. She had witnessed firsthand how disastrous a marriage could be for a woman. Her mother had paid a high price for making a bad choice.

Marriage to Darius was out of the question. Certainly, they were well-matched in bed. And if they could have kept their relationship purely sexual, perhaps a union of that sort would have succeeded. But now there were emotions involved, on both sides. What would she do when Darius’s feelings for her waned? When he banished her to his country estate so he could take a young, beautiful mistress in Town, as she had once been?

The flipside was just as undesirable. Remaining as Darius’s courtesan while he married again and had a family would cause Serena another kind of heartache, altogether. It was difficult to decide which option was worse.

And then there was the ostracism of society to think about. No matter that King George lived in sin with his married mistress, Lady Conyngham. He was the King and was subject to a very different set rules than she and Lord Kane. Though it was difficult to imagine, if Darius took his paid courtesan to wife, Serena would be even more of an outcast than she was now.

As a member of the Courtesan Club, Serena, Bliss and Felicity were looked upon as something of celebrities. They were exotic, mysterious, and interesting.

But once she became a married woman, Serena would be thrust into a different social circle, in which wives were the heroines, and mistresses—including former mistresses such as she—were the enemy. No matter that Darius had been a widower during the time of their contract. Serena would still be an unwelcome reminder of how aristocratic husbands often spent their private time.

And yet, for all that, it was Serena’s heart that voiced the most protest. All the other excuses were simply window dressing to disguise the ugliness of the true problem.

Darius was right.

She
was
a coward.

He had broken her heart once and she had steeled herself against him for two years. And though Serena had worked hard to construct the battlements of her soul, Darius had finally gained entry. In fact, she had opened those guarded gates and let him walk right in.

A part of her wished now that Caro had not confided in her about Darius’s poor unborn child. She could have kept him at arm’s length, then…could have kept believing that he was as heartless as the devil himself.

But it was too late, now. The damage was done.

They could never go back to the way things were.

A fresh wave of sadness washed over her, and she blinked back more tears. Serena felt wedged between a rock and a hard place, unable to move, and yet unwilling to accept the reality of her fate—that she would slowly die there if she didn’t do something drastic.