Oliver sat in his usual chair drinking brandy, while a succession of Polly’s whores paraded in front of him. And he felt . . .
Nothing. No stirring in his cock. No urge to tup. Just a bone-deep disgust with himself.
When had Polly’s whores started looking so . . . sad? The madam had done her best to please him, offering her choicest ladies to pique his interest. Yet their soft words and lush bodies and erotic gestures were wasted on him. For the first time, he saw the falseness in their smiles, the boredom they tried hard to hide.
Worse, he kept comparing them to Maria. Her smiles were never false. They might be rare, but when he won one it felt like a real triumph, precisely because it was genuine. Because she gave it to him by choice.
What triumph was there in winning the smile of a whore, when all she wanted was the contents of his purse? Not that he’d ever thought they would clamor to bed him without the money, but he could usually maintain the illusion enough to forget himself in their bodies. Sunk in his own misery, he generally paid no attention to theirs.
Now that was all he could see. Seemingly overnight, they’d transformed from genial companions in wickedness to everyday women living a hard life where they only survived by satisfying men’s urges. His urges.
Being moral and disciplined is hard work. Being wicked requires no effort at all—one merely indulges every desire and impulse, no matter how hurtful or immoral.
He knocked back the rest of his brandy in a vain hope that the fiery liquor would purge Maria’s words from his mind. What did she know about it? And why did he even care what she thought? It was none of her concern how he chose to forget his troubles. He paid for his pleasures, damn it, and he paid well.
While his estate suffered. While his tenants worked their farms from dawn to dusk. While his servants relied on him for their livelihood, and his siblings looked to him to save them all.
A cold chill swept over him that even the brandy couldn’t warm.
“Milord,” Polly said, perching on the arm of his chair with a salacious smile. “Perhaps you need something a bit more fresh and sweet to tempt your palate.”
It wasn’t the first time she’d offered him a “virgin.” He’d always refused politely but firmly, uninterested in that unsavory part of the trade—country girls who came to the city, eager to see the world, only to find themselves forced onto their backs because of clever women like Polly.
This time, the very idea of it revolted him. He kept seeing Maria landing in such a situation through no fault of her own—sometimes the line between respectable woman and fallen woman could be paper thin. He knew that better than anyone. Why, even his sisters, if taken advantage of . . .
“No,” he said hoarsely, pushing himself to his feet as his stomach churned. “God, no.”
He stumbled from the brothel to retch in the street. It was the brandy, that’s all. The damned cheap brandy, mingling with his morbid mood to make him unable to find pleasure in his usual pursuits.
Deuce take it all, he would find pleasure if it killed him! There were other places he could go, places less sordid. That’s what he needed.
Reaching the opera house just as the night’s performance was ending, he went backstage to where half a dozen dancers were entertaining admirers in their dressing room. They were fun girls, always ready for a night on the town. Fun girls were what he needed right now.
Yet after ten minutes of their flirtations, he’d had enough. He kept thinking that any man of consequence would please them—if he dropped dead in their presence right now, they would mourn him with a drink and a dance, and forget him by next week.
Suddenly, that wasn’t enough.
The realization staggered him. Swearing foully, he left there to go to a tavern, then a club, then a party that someone in the club dragged him to, where the demimonde were sporting with their protectors. But all he could rouse himself to do was drink, and even that he was sick of by the end of the evening.
It was no use. Maria had infected him somehow with her morality. He would have to purge her from his mind and body before he could return to his usual pursuits.
If he ever could. The sobering thought plagued him as he ordered his coach around and had the man head for home.
Home? Halstead Hall wasn’t home! This was what came of letting a sweet little virgin capture your eye. You started considering the future, letting the weight of responsibility color your actions. You started hoping for the impossible. You started thinking that perhaps you could actually—
A groan escaped him as he settled against the squabs. This obsession with her was mad. He’d spent his entire night on the town without once plunging his cock into a willing whore, without even wanting to. It was insanity!
Yet it was Maria who consumed his mind on the journey home, Maria and the light in her eyes as she’d said he wasn’t doomed. Maria and her lush, innocent kisses and how they made him feel.
He didn’t want to feel, damn it! He’d survived all these years without feeling. Now all the feelings he’d kept in his strongbox were spilling out, no matter how much he held down the lid.
As soon as he reached Halstead Hall, he passed through the courtyards until he came to the staircase that led to the floor where her bedchamber lay. Then he stood hesitating, his obsession making him ache to see her. Did he dare to try, despite the hour?
The debate became moot when male voices drifted down from above. His brothers were up there. What the devil?
Half inebriated, he vaulted up the stairs to find them lolling in chairs in the hall outside Maria’s door. Gabe clasped a bunch of violets in his hand while Jarret held a rolled-up piece of parchment in his.
“What are you two louts doing here in the middle of the night?” he growled.
“It’s nearly dawn,” Gabe said coolly. “Hardly the middle of the night. Not that you would have noticed, in your drunken state.”
Scowling, Oliver took a step toward them. “It’s still earlier than you, at least, ever rise.”
Gabe glanced at Jarret. “Clearly, the old boy doesn’t remember what today is.”
“I believe you’re right,” Jarret returned, a hint of condemnation in his tone.
Oliver glared at them both as he sifted through his soggy brain for what they meant. When it came to him, he groaned. St. Valentine’s Day. That sobered him right up. “That doesn’t explain why you’re lurking outside Maria’s door.”
Jarret cast him a scathing glance as he got to his feet. “Why do you care? You ran off to town to find your entertainment. Seems to me that you’re relinquishing the field.”
“So you two intend to step in?” he snapped.
“Why not?” Gabe rose to glower at him. “Since your plan to thwart Gran isn’t working, and it’s looking as if we’ll have to marry someone, we might as well have a go at Miss Butterfield. She’s an heiress and a very nice girl, too, in case you hadn’t noticed. If you’re stupid enough to throw her over for a bunch of whores and opera dancers, we’re more than happy to take your place. We at least appreciate her finer qualities.”
The very idea of his brothers appreciating anything of Maria’s made his blood boil. “In the first place, I didn’t throw her over for anyone. In the second, I am damned well not relinquishing the field. And I’m certainly not giving it over to a couple of fortune hunters like you.”
The sound of footsteps coming down the hall from the servants’ stairs made them whirl in that direction. Betty walked slowly toward them, one hand shading her eyes.
That’s when it hit him. His brothers were here because of that silly superstition about a maiden’s heart being joined to that of whoever was the first man she spotted on St. Valentine’s Day.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” Betty murmured as she approached, carefully avoiding looking at any of them.
A devilish grin lit Gabe’s face. “Betty, catch!” he cried and tossed a violet at her.
She didn’t even move a finger to stop it from bouncing off her and falling to the floor. “If your lordships will excuse me,” she said in a decidedly snippy tone, “my mistress rang the bell for me.” With a sniff that conveyed her contempt for them, she slipped inside Maria’s room and shut the door firmly behind her.
“That was shameful,” Jarret told Gabe. “You know bloody well that Betty and John are sweethearts.”
“It’s not my fault that John didn’t show up this morning so she could see him first,” Gabe said with a shrug.
“He couldn’t,” Oliver ground out. “John was with me.”
His brothers turned their gazes on him again. “Right,” Jarret said coldly. “At the brothel. We know. We all know. And so does she.” Eyes glittering, he tipped his head toward Maria’s door.
An icy rage swelled in Oliver, directed mostly at himself. Of course she’d heard about his night in town. How could she not? Servants had a tendency to talk, and he’d been a fool to ignore that yet again. But he’d been so desperate to get away from here . . .
Now she would despise him even more.
He stiffened. All right, so he’d have to get past that. And he would, too. He wasn’t about to allow his brothers to step in and woo her. He was the one who’d discovered her. He was the one who’d brought her here and paid for her gowns, and they weren’t going to enjoy the benefits of that. The very idea of it made his stomach knot.
A groan escaped him. There he went again—being consumed by jealousy. It was like a pox; it ate at him day and night. There was only one way to cure himself of it—he had to bed her.
Yes, that was the answer. Once he reached his release in her arms, this obsession would surely end, and he could find himself again. He could go back to living his life as he pleased and ignoring the ramifications of his behavior. That’s what he must do. Scratch his itch. No matter how much his deuced family tried to interfere.
He’d had quite enough of their shenanigans this week. He’d allowed them to play their games and carry her off wherever they wished, but no more. She was his. All he had to do was convince her of it. And if that meant heeding some stupid superstition on St. Valentine’s Day, then by God he’d do it. To hell with them all.
“All right, you two,” he announced, “you’ve been having a grand time at my expense, but that’s over now.”
With a smirk, Jarret glanced over at Gabe. “I don’t know what he’s talking about. Do you?”
“Not a clue,” Gabe replied.
“Then perhaps I should demonstrate.” Oliver grabbed the violets out of Gabe’s hand, then knocked on Maria’s door, planting himself across the doorway before either of them realized what he was up to. After a second, the door swung open, and she blinked at him. “Oliver! What are you doing here?”
Words utterly failed him. She wore a white cotton wrapper over her linen night rail, both buttoned up to the chin and chaste as a nun’s habit. Yet just the sight of her in such attire aroused him as none of Polly’s girls had managed to do. All he wanted was to back her into the room and swive her senseless.
Instead, he thrust the violets at her. “For you. For St. Valentine’s Day.”
Her blue eyes turned to ice. “Take them to your friends at the brothel. I want none of them.”
“Please, Maria,” he said hoarsely, “let me explain.”
“You owe me no explanation.” With a glance at Betty, who had her back to them but was clearly listening avidly, she murmured, “I’m only your pretend fiancée, after all. So if you’ll excuse me—”
“I won’t.” If he hadn’t caught the glint of tears in her eyes, he might have walked away. But he’d be damned if he’d do it now.
He’d hurt her. He’d sworn never to hurt a woman, which was why he’d kept his relations with women casual. If they became attached, he broke with them before it could turn nasty.
Yet he’d still hurt her, the one woman he’d least wanted to hurt. He didn’t like how it made him feel. Right now he would give anything, do anything, to wipe that wounded expression from her face.
“I’m the first man you saw today,” he pointed out, “so I’m officially your valentine.”
She let out a harsh laugh. “Because of a silly superstition? I think not.”
“Because I want to be,” he said in a low voice. “And because you want me to be, too.”
Her gaze would have skewered a stone. “Want a drunken debaucher fresh from some whore’s bed as my valentine? Not if you were the last man on earth.”
She slammed the door in his face.
His brothers laughed, but he ignored them. He couldn’t blame her for being angry; he’d given her good reason to be so.
But it didn’t change a thing. He’d be damned if he let her go now. One way or the other, Maria Butterfield was going to be his. One way or the other, she would share his bed.