hat in the bloody hell had he just done?
Sebastian breezed into his private bathing chamber. The gaslights remained lit, for he’d intended to perform his nightly ablutions before going to sleep. But instead, he’d gone in search of the one woman in the goddamn world that he should stay farthest from. The woman he couldn’t seem to stop touching, kissing, wanting, and lusting over.
The woman he had just bedded.
Had he actually believed he could withstand the temptation of being in Daisy’s bedchamber again without taking her? More fool, he, for all it had taken was the wet heat of her cunny and the sweetness of her lips to make him risk everything he sought to preserve. His loyalty, his oath, his country, his honor.
“Fuck,” he cursed once with feeling, and then thrice more for good measure. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” This latest manifestation of counting he blamed upon her as well.
She had infected him like a disease. Burrowed beneath his skin like a tick. Had somehow managed to do what no other woman before her ever had. And in one night of allowing his prick to rule his head, he’d just done what he’d sworn he wouldn’t do.
He washed her blood from his cock, and he had never performed another task that made him feel lower. There it was, the evidence of their union. How the hell would he annul their marriage now, after he had so selfishly and stupidly taken her innocence? Oh, he had no doubt that Carlisle would still pull the proper strings to accomplish such a feat, but could Sebastian, in good conscience, do it?
One answer belonged to that question, and one answer only.
No.
He pulled his robe together and knotted the belt. Then, he seized the bowl he ordinarily used for shaving and filled it with warm water, still cursing himself. He took up two small towels before turning back toward the chamber where he’d left Daisy, thoroughly deflowered. He lowered all the lights save one.
Carlisle was going to have his head. Married for the span of one day, and he’d consummated. Had more than consummated. He’d spent inside her. Jesus Christ, his stupidity and raging lust now meant that there was the chance that Daisy could bear his child.
The notion didn’t curdle his blood as it ought. Instead, an odd, foreign surge of warmth flooded his chest. What in the name of all that was holy? Ruthlessly, he forced the sensation to go the hell away. She wasn’t meant to be his duchess. He still didn’t know which side of the damn fence she stood on. He had deceived her, had dishonored her, and under no circumstance should the thought of Daisy growing heavy with his child and bearing him a daughter with sprightly golden curls and green eyes make him feel anything other than revulsion.
When he strode back into her chamber, determination and self-control firmly once more at the reins, a pang of some indefinable emotion nevertheless stabbed through him. She lay where he’d left her, the long, beautiful strands of her hair in disarray, her robe closed, hands laced together in a protective gesture. Her expression wary, her cheeks flushed a becoming shade of pink as she made eye contact with him.
She looked so small and alone, delicate and frighteningly lovely all at once, that his hands trembled, sending some of the water splashing from the sides of the bowl. It landed on his bare foot and the thick carpet with a splat. Damn it to hell, how could this woman who was a stranger to him, this dainty, elegant creature he didn’t dare trust, shake him to his core?
It made no sense, but she did.
He continued across the chamber, not stopping until he’d reached her bedside. Everything in him had meant to upkeep his honor and preserve her virginity. Yesterday, he’d stood at this same spot, slashing his thumb and smearing his blood into the bedclothes to maintain both.
He loathed himself.
“Your Grace?” she asked, her tone hesitant, wide eyes going from his hands to his face.
Her guard was down, it was plain to see, and she looked every bit like a woman who’d had to live her life by the whims of a violent man. She was a wary thing, his buttercup.
Surely not his, though?
His, answered something deep inside him, just as quickly.
“Promise me something?” He deposited the bowl on the bedside table with care, his gaze never leaving hers. “You will dispense with the formality between us forever. From this moment forward, I am only Sebastian to you.”
A frown creased the creamy perfection of her forehead. “I’m sorry.”
His self-loathing increased tenfold. “You have done nothing for which you need apologize. I, on the other hand, have. This… consummating our union… I should never have come to you tonight. And for that, I must apologize to you. I promised you a courting, and within a day, I’ve made a liar and a cad of myself.”
And worse, he added inwardly.
A man without honor was not a man at all.
“Sebastian.” A soft smile transformed her features, and if she had been beautiful before, there was only one word to describe her now. Radiant. She glowed. Daisy was a force.
“As we’ve already established.” He found himself smiling back at her like a bloody escapee from a lunatic asylum. “The sort of churl who doesn’t appreciate his wife’s tardiness at dinner.”
“Yes.” Her smile widened, and so did his, and for a beat, he fell into her green gaze, mesmerized by that simple way she had of making him see levity where he was certain none could be had. “Then you must promise me not to apologize for what happened tonight. A churl you may be, but a cad and a liar, surely not.”
Christ, she didn’t know how wrong she was.
He had not returned to her side to make a confession, however. He jerked his attention back to the bowl of water. Best to act while it still remained warm. And there was utterly nothing to be gained by mooning at his beautiful pawn of a wife. A woman suspected of treason.
For some reason, the reminder didn’t hold as much ice and warning as it once had. He dipped one of the towels into the bowl, saturating it, before wringing out the excess. Slowly, he joined her on the bed.
“What are you doing?” she asked, eyes going wide.
Curious that she would only question him now, when the damage had long since been done. With his free hand, he nudged her knees open. “Tending to you, buttercup. Let me, please?”
She resisted. “I’m perfectly capable of—”
“Of course you are,” he interrupted, not at all surprised. Something had told him that she would be independent to the last. This was a woman who had been relying on herself and herself alone for far too long. “But I want to do this for you.”
Her flush heightened as her eyes searched his. At long last, she nodded, her jaw tensing, the only outward show of her nervousness. “If you must.”
It was a means of doing penance, and a small one at that. He guided her thighs open, swept aside the fabric of her dressing gown once more, revealing her mound in all its perfection. Blood smeared her thigh. Her cunny was pink and wet with the evidence of their lovemaking. His cock surged anew at the sight, some primal force in him relishing his claiming of her.
She was his, by God.
He moved the wet towel over her, cleaning her. First her thigh, then her pretty pink flesh, washing her, worshipping her. She didn’t attempt to close herself to him or push him away, simply remained still and silent, allowing him to complete this torturous task he’d assigned for himself.
Two sets of bloodied sheets in two nights. He hadn’t an inkling what the servants would think, but it was too damn late to worry about such trivial repercussions now. The most damning consequences of all would follow if Carlisle ever got wind of it.
“I hurt you,” he said again, because he still recalled the way she’d gone rigid beneath him when he’d torn past the barrier of her innocence, and because he hated himself for giving her any sort of pain at all, for deceiving her even now.
He dried her with the other towel and kissed her inner thighs. Would have continued, kissing all the way to her cunny, tasting her where he longed to taste her the most, but her hands flitted to his shoulders like twin butterflies, urging him upward. He allowed her to move him where she would. He wouldn’t dream of pushing her too far, and he’d already taken far more than he had a right to take.
“It was nothing.” She gripped his elbows and drew him toward her.
But it wasn’t nothing. He hadn’t liked hurting her. Hated that he was hurting her still with every action, each small deception. He would make up for it the only way he knew how.
As though it was the most natural thing in the world, his mouth connected with hers. The kiss was long and slow and deep. Leading once more to the path of ruin. With great reluctance, he tore his mouth from hers and returned the towel to the bowl.
He had never before spent an entire night in bed with a woman, but he had also never deflowered an innocent before either. It was bloody peculiar, but he didn’t want to leave her. Before giving his rational mind the chance to confuse matters for him, he turned down the lights and shucked his dressing gown. With her help, he made short work of Daisy’s as well.
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. And kicks. 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.