Read The Price of Desire Online
Authors: Leda Swann
Tags: #Fiction, #Erotica, #General, #Romance, #Historical
The Price of Desire (9 page)
He’d made a couple of discreet inquiries of his neighbors during dinner as to the whereabouts of Caroline Clemens but they had heard nothing of her since her father’s death and clearly cared nothing about her fate. There was nothing left to do but wait until he could rejoin the ladies in the drawing room and extend his inquiries to the rest of the company. It stood to reason that one day, one of her old acquaintances would know something of her.
Dominic took another sip of his port, idly listening to the chatter around the table, but not joining in, when a couple of words caught his attention.
“…old Isaac Clemens’s brats.”
His ears pricked up. Was that Caroline they were talking about so disrespectfully at the other end of the table?
“Really?” asked a languid man with a pale face and long muttonchop whiskers with a yawn.
The first speaker, his host for the evening, a fat, florid man by the name of Bartles, whose waistcoat buttons strained to stay closed over his paunch, gave a great belly laugh. “As sure as I sit here. The oldest Clemens girl, what was her name? The one who was going to marry Bellamy until he called it off. Sensible man, that, to refuse to take a pauper to wife. I would’ve done the same.”
“Caroline,” supplied one of his neighbors helpfully.
“Yes, that’s it. Caroline Clemens and all the rest of them. They sued for admittance to the Bloomsbury workhouse a week ago. You could’ve knocked me down with a feather when their names came up in the meeting this morning.”
“And did you let them in?”
“Let them in? Certainly not. Old Isaac Clemens died leaving more honest men than me out of pocket. I’m not paying yet again to keep all his brats in the workhouse. They can go and find an honest job and get a decent wage for an honest day’s work and not rely on charity.”
His Caroline in the workhouse? His stomach roiled with the rich food and wine he had consumed at the thought that she had gone to bed hungry. Could it be that she had no money at all? No relatives to take her in? No one in the whole of London to lend her a helping hand?
The uncharitable Englishmen around the table had thrown her and her sisters out to starve with as little concern as if they were a litter of unwanted kittens.
The languid man gave another bored yawn. “Did old Clemens really leave them with nothing?”
There was a chorus of tut-tuts from around the table.
“Careless.”
“Improvident.”
“Bad businessman in more ways that one.”
“Besides, from what I heard,” the fat man continued, “Bellamy offered to pension the girl off so he didn’t have to marry her. Let him pay for her and all the rest of Clemens’s brood to salve his conscience. I pay more than enough of my hard-earned cash to feed paupers as it is.”
Dominic finally found his tongue. “Caroline Clemens is living at the workhouse in Bloomsbury?”
“She was until this morning. They will have thrown her out by now.” His voice was fat with satisfaction. “With a father like hers, it’s no more than she deserves.”
Dominic pushed back his chair and stood up. He had the information he wanted now. Besides which, he could not stand another moment of his host’s smug cruelty. To rejoice that Clemens’s innocent family had fallen so low that they had sought out the workhouse as their only place of refuge was utterly vile. To rob her of even this last haven was unspeakable. “If you will all excuse me,” he said, not caring to hide the disgust in his voice. “I find that urgent business has suddenly called me away.”
His host looked up from the table, a look of dismay on his oily face. “Must you leave so soon? Before we have even brought up the railway investments I mentioned to you before? I have been anxious to discuss those with you for some days now. I thought that tonight would present the perfect opportunity for us to come to an agreement.”
First butter me up with turtle soup and fine French claret and then try to fob off your worthless stocks on me, Dominic thought in a savage temper. He had seen the tactic many times before in India but had not thought to see it used with quite such a lack of finesse in the City. “I have decided against investing my money in those particular railway stocks,” he said smoothly. “Now if you will excuse me, there is a young woman I believe who is in need of my help.”
As his host’s red face turned an unbecoming shade of green and he stuttered an incomprehensible protest, Dominic turned on his heel and stalked out of the door.
His peremptory rapping at the workhouse door eventually brought a sleepy-eyed woman shambling to the gates. The glare on her face faded as she took in his elegant suit and the carriage that stood just beyond the gate, and her muttered grumbles died away on the instant. “How can I help you, sir?” she asked, her voice now dripping with honey.
“Caroline Clemens. Where did she go?”
Her head shot up with surprise. “You’ve come for Caroline?”
“Her and the rest of her family. I gather they have been here for the last week. Bring them here to me.”
Her face took on a knowing leer. “You’re the Captain, then, wot’s promised to support the young lady?”
He raised one eyebrow at her impertinence. So that rascal of a Captain was still sniffing around Caroline’s skirts, was he? He would put a stop to that soon enough. “Now, if you please. It’s getting late. I don’t have any time to waste.”
Caroline came awake reluctantly, the matron’s hand shaking her mercilessly until she opened her eyes.
“Get up, do you hear. The Captain has come for you. He wants to see you this moment, down in the master’s office.”
The Captain? At his name she came awake on the instant. Had he come to gloat over her in her misery, or to see if she was desperate enough to accept his offer now?
Was
she desperate enough to become his mistress in exchange for a mere pittance? She was hardly in a position to bargain with him for more, given how little she had now.
Two hundred pounds a year was not so very little after all. If they found a very small cottage in the country and grew their own vegetables and kept chickens, they would be able to live. Emily was clever enough to find a position as a governess close by, and who knows, when they were grown maybe one of the girls would find a husband.
She rolled over and buried her head in her hands. The prospect of throwing herself on the mercy of the Captain still made her sick to the stomach, but how could she avoid it now? She would die of shame if she accepted his offer, but they would all die of hunger if she refused him. All she could do was put off her choice for a few more moments. “Go away,” she mumbled, feigning a sleepiness she no longer felt. “I do not want to talk to him.”
Relentlessly the matron pulled her out of bed. “But he wants to talk to you. Hurry along now and throw on your pinafore or I will take you down to him in your shift.” She leered unpleasantly. “Not that he would mind, I’m sure, a red-blooded gentleman like him.”
The effort of putting on her stockings and boots made Caroline’s hands bleed anew. She grit her teeth through the pain. It seemed she had no choice but to go through this interview now, whether she liked it or not.
Once dressed, she followed the matron down the stairs and through the workhouse buildings to the master’s office.
The matron ushered her inside with a whispered injunction not to bite the hand that fed her, then shut the door behind her.
Caroline’s eyes were glued to the threadbare carpet on the floor. She could not look the Captain in the face. Let him see to what depths he had driven her. If he had any conscience at all, the sight of her ought to smite him.
“Caroline Clemens.”
That was not the Captain’s voice, but a rich baritone that even now had the power to send a shiver of sheer pleasure down her spine. Slowly she raised her head, hardly able to believe the evidence in front of her eyes. “Mr. Savage? What on earth are you doing here?”
“Looking for you.”
Caroline was suddenly, horribly aware of the picture she must present: rough work clothes, unbrushed hair tied back with a piece of twine, cracked and bleeding hands, and a face lined with exhaustion and worry. She put her hands behind her back and straightened her shoulders. “Here I am,” she said as bravely as she could. “So now what are you planning to do?”
“I am going to take you away from here. To take you home with me.”
She stifled the leap of hope that burst painfully into her chest. His sudden appearance in the workhouse in the middle of the night, where she would least expect to see him, seemed to be the miracle she had been hoping for, the miracle that would save them all. “My sisters and brother are here with me. I will not leave them.” She was pleased to note that her voice hardly wobbled at all. Whatever he was offering her, she would never desert them. If he was to be her miracle, he would have to rescue them all.
“I am not asking you to leave them.” His voice was impatient. “They must all come, too. I have a carriage waiting outside.”
Still she did not move. No one took in a whole family of paupers without getting something they wanted in exchange. “And what are you asking for in return?” It hardly mattered what he wanted—she would give him anything he liked and more. Hunger and desperation had brought her lower than she could ever have imagined.
His face creased into a wry smile. “Do you always look a gift horse in the mouth?” With one hand he reached out and stroked her tangled hair. “You were not so shy with me that evening in the conservatory, or so intent on examining my motives.”
Her face flamed as she remembered how wantonly she had behaved with him, with no thought of asking for anything in return but the pleasure he could give her. “I am sure what you are proposing is less in the nature of a gift, and more in the nature of an exchange. I would rather know where I stood first as last.” She had let him have her once for nothing, but she could not afford such luxuries now. If only he were to offer her two hundred pounds a year to be his mistress, she would be his willing slave. Better him than the Captain, for sure.
“You would stand here and bicker over terms with me?” He moved closer to her and clasped her hands in his.
Wincing with pain, she withdrew them hurriedly and hid them in her pockets so he could not see the mess they were in. They were not the hands of a pampered mistress.
Gently this time, he took them out of her pockets and turned them over, swearing under his breath when he saw their sorry state. “You can hardly stand with exhaustion and you need to see a doctor. If we must argue over the terms of your rescue, let it be when you are back to full strength.”
She could feel her eyes fill with tears. “You are really going to take us away from here?” The reality of her escape was only just now beginning to sink in, making her light-headed and dizzy.
“I shall have the woman fetch your sisters and brother and we will leave right away.”
“You will be kind to them?” she asked, suddenly feeling the horrors of the last week crash in on her, leaving her barely able to support herself on her two feet. “You will not abandon them?” If nothing else, she had to get his promise on this before she left with him.
“I will treat them as kindly as if they were my own family,” he said. “I swear it.”
She knew instinctively he was not the sort of man to lie to her. “Thank you.” Then the blackness that she had kept at bay all week crept in on her and she clutched at his shoulders to keep herself standing upright. This time not even the pain in her hands could keep the darkness at bay.
The last thing she felt was the sensation of his strong arms around her, catching her and holding her safe as she crumpled.
The short carriage ride was nothing but a blurred memory of Teddy and Dorothea hugging her as if she might vanish into thin air if they let go of her for a moment, and of the sight of Beatrice’s face, alive with happiness once again.
By the time the carriage pulled up outside Dominic’s house in Russell Square, Caroline knew that she would suffer any indignity, any hurt to her pride, for the sake of keeping her family safe from the workhouse. She would be Dominic Savage’s mistress and perform any debased act he might command of her if he would but pay her enough to take care of them all.
With Teddy holding onto one hand and Dorothea the other, she clambered painfully up the steps to the front door, her blisters rubbing with every step.
The butler’s eyebrows almost disappeared into his hairline when he saw Dominic standing there with a collection of grubby paupers, but he said nothing. “Have the housekeeper make up some beds at once,” Dominic instructed him as he strode down the hallway with Louisa in his arms. “We have some unexpected guests.”
The rest of them followed as he led the way into a large sitting room with a merry fire at the grate.
Teddy was looking around him in awe. “Do you have any food in this house?” he asked.
“Teddy,” Caroline scolded faintly, though privately she had been thinking along the same lines.
Dominic laid Louisa down onto a settee. “You’re hungry?”
“I’ve been hungry for ever and ever,” Teddy replied, holding his chapped hands up to the fire. “The workhouse didn’t feed us much, and when I didn’t eat it quickly enough, one of the bigger boys would steal it from me. Sometimes they stole nearly all my dinner before I got to have hardly a bite.”
“I’m really hungry, too,” Dorothea chimed in. “But nobody stole my dinner. I would have punched them in the nose if they’d tried.”
“Dorothea,” Caroline scolded, scandalized. Had their week in the workhouse already turned her youngest sister into an irredeemable savage?
“They would have deserved it,” Dominic agreed soberly. “But no one will steal your dinner while you are here.” He rang the bell, quietly instructing the servant who answered it to bring whatever food they had in the house to the sitting room at once.
The food, when it arrived a few minutes later, made Caroline’s stomach growl in anticipation. Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding still warm from the oven, a loaf of thick-cut crusty bread, a dish of celery, and a huge apple tart with a jug of yellow custard.
They needed no urging to gather around the table and eat, balancing the plates on their knees and stuffing food into their mouths as fast as they could get it there.
The taste of roast beef rolled over Caroline’s tongue like a caress. She could have kissed Dominic right there and then for the simple chance to quell the aching hunger in her belly. Lifting her head from her plate, she swallowed her mouthful in a hurry. “Thank you,” she said, feeling dreadfully ungracious for falling on the food like a starving mongrel instead of waiting to thank him first.
“Don’t talk,” he commanded her. “Eat. It seems as though the workhouse tries to starve its guests to death.”
“They did their best–”
“Eat,” he repeated. “I don’t want to hear another word from any of you until every scrap of food on the table is gone.”
The mountain of food lasted an embarrassingly short time. When all of them, even Teddy, had finally eaten as much as they could, only one small piece of apple tart remained.
Dorothea looked at it longingly. “Can I take that with me in case I get hungry in the night?”
“Don’t be greedy,” Teddy scolded her under his breath. “That’s all the food we have left. We can all share it for breakfast in the morning.”
“Apple tart for breakfast?” Dominic shook his head. “That may do very well for ladies, but us men need better nourishment than that. I will ask Cook to make us ham and eggs and sausages and cold meat pies instead. Does that sound acceptable?”
Teddy’s eyes had grown wide at the thought of eating so well again in the morning and he nodded.
“I want ham and eggs just like Teddy,” Dorothea demanded, though her eyes still lingered on the apple pie. “And meat pies, too.”
“We shall all have ham and eggs and pie for breakfast,” Dominic agreed. “But I think now you need some hot water for washing and a clean bed to sleep in.” He beckoned in the bevy of maids who stood waiting in the hallway. “Please, see our guests have everything they need.”
As the younger ones trooped obediently out of the sitting room, he stayed Caroline with a hand on her arm. “Come with me. I will show you to your quarters myself.”
Mutely she followed him up the stairs, wincing at the dusty marks that her boots left on the fine rugs. He led the way down the hall to an elegant bedroom done out in a beautiful shade of pale blue. “You can sleep here. I have asked the maids to bring you in a tub of hot water right away.”
Her eyes were immediately drawn to the connecting door on one of the walls. She walked over to it and pushed it open. As she had suspected, it lead to another bedroom, one done out in a more masculine dark blue, and obviously inhabited. Now that her stomach was full and her faintness had passed, she felt well enough to carry on the conversation they had started in the workhouse. She might as well get the terms of his rescue out in the open sooner rather than later. It was better to know where she stood right away, and to bargain for the best terms she could extract from him while he still wanted her.
His offer to keep her, if she read his intentions rightly, might have insulted her a week ago, but she was beyond being insulted by such things now. Unlike the Captain, Dominic had never promised her any more, or offered to take her as his wife. Dominic was not expecting to be married to one of her old friends and wanting to set her up as his mistress at the same time, paid for by the money his wife would bring to him. If he would but settle a small sum on her, enough for them all to live on, and maybe even agree to give Teddy an education and help him off to a good start in life, she would accept him as her lover with alacrity.
While he was still pleased with her, she would save all her settlement to dower her sisters. They would never marry well, not with a whore as a sister, but if they could find somebody who would support them and be kind to them, what else would they really need?
Maybe she ought to be ashamed of herself, selling her body for so little, but she could find no shame in her soul. Only a bone-deep relief that maybe, just maybe, if she played her cards right, she had found a way to save her family. “What do you expect from me in exchange?”
For the first time that evening he looked uncomfortable. “You are tired. We should have this conversation in the morning.”
“I would rather have it tonight, if you don’t mind.” She gave a small smile. “It is bad bargaining to accept the goods before you have settled on a price for them. Or to accept an offer to buy before the compensation has been discussed.”
Just then there was a knock at the door and a footman entered with a large tub, followed by a procession of maids with huge kettles of hot water. “Our piped water would never cope with half a dozen baths in a row,” he explained. “So I had some extra water heated on the stove for yours.”
She looked longingly at the steaming water, torn between the desire to climb into the tub and the need to clarify her position in the household before she accepted any more favors from his hands.
“Go ahead and bathe while the water is hot,” Dominic said. “We can talk in the morning.”
Caroline looked at the steaming water, then at Dominic. Making a quick decision she hoped she would not live to regret, she drew her pinafore over her head. If she was to play the part of a mistress, she would play it to the best of her ability, and extract whatever concessions she could from her new keeper while he still wanted her badly. Right now, her sensuality was her only ally against starvation for all of them. It were best she used it to her advantage. “Don’t go,” she said as she tossed her pinafore on to the floor, removed her boots and stockings and wriggled out of her gown. “We can talk while I bathe. If you have no objection, of course.”
Dominic swallowed uncomfortably. If he had no objection? For hours he’d been thinking of nothing but getting her naked, of running his hands over her creamy white thighs, of taking her nipples into his mouth and sucking on them, and of plunging into her tight, wet cunt and thrusting into her hard and fast, riding her until she was as mindless with desire as he was. Seeing her collapse in front of him with worry and exhaustion, watching her eat as if she were half starved, and knowing the painful state of her hands, he’d deliberately tamped down his desires.
She needed to eat and sleep, and then have a doctor tend to her injuries. The last thing she needed was to be importuned by a man who wanted nothing more than to taste her sweet body again. If he were to have his way, there would be plenty of time for him to taste her in the coming months. As much time as he needed to take his fill of her.
But here she was right now, standing in front of him, as naked as the day she was born, and asking him to stay and converse with her as she bathed. He was a man, not a saint. She was playing with fire. And by the calculating look in her eyes, she was well aware of the danger she was in. There was no way he was going to walk away from her now. He had spent too many nights thinking about her, dreaming about her naked body held against his, to resist her. “Be my guest.”
Gingerly she stepped into the bath, giving him a tantalizing view of her naked ass in the process. “Oooh, the water is hot,” she said in a throaty voice as she sank down into the tub.
He knew exactly what she was doing—she was trying to play him like a fish on a line, to reel him in and ensure he had no wish to escape her net. He could even pinpoint the exact moment she had decided to do so, when the bath had arrived and in the space of a heartbeat her attitude changed from directness, even aggression, to sultry promise.
Her week in the workhouse had not broken her spirit, or turned her into a shrinking violet. Clearly she was still the brazen temptress who could seduce him in the conservatory at a soiree, who could tease and kiss and fuck him until he was utterly satiated, and then walk away from him without a single backward glance. He was beyond glad that her fighting spirit had remained intact. Violets had never been his favorite flower.
