Chapter Five
May 25, 1815
“Here is the breakfast tray you asked for, Your Grace,” the housekeeper said as she came into her office. “Though you didn’t need to come down to the servant’s quarters. I could have had it brought up to your rooms.”
“It’s not for me.” Alexander took the tray from her, had nearly cleared the small space, when Mrs. Duvall’s next words stopped him cold.
“Ah, then it must be for our unwilling guest, the woman you’ve decided to hold captive.” The disappointment in her tone was unmistakable.
“It is.” His intent was not to offer up any more information than necessary.
The older woman frowned. “I have worked for your family all my life, and I was very fond of your mother. She was always kind to me, to all of us who worked here.” She paused, and he could almost guess what was coming. “I don’t think Her Grace would have liked to know what you’re doing and why.”
And there it was. The guilt couched in genuine caring from one of the few servants who still liked him. Tamping the urge to huff in frustration, Alexander turned to face the housekeeper, but he tightened his fingers around the edges of the tray.
“Thank you, Mrs. Duvall, for being concerned about me. However, I will politely ask that you stay out of it.”
“You kidnapped a young woman, Your Grace,” she said with a raised eyebrow.
“Not all that young,” he shot off before thinking.
“You are holding her against her will.”
He heaved a sigh. “I am.”
“Do you love her?”
“What?” He couldn’t help but cackle with laughter. “I care nothing about her. She is an instrument in my revenge against the Marquess of Inglehart, nothing more. In fact, she’s due to marry that bastard next week, so I will make certain she is already on her way to—”
“Stop.” Mrs. Duvall held up a hand. She shook her head and the lace on her mobcap fluttered. “I don’t wish to hear it. But I do know that you are not a man who would do things like this. That isn’t what the Alexander I knew would do.”
The tray in his hands shook a bit. “I haven’t been that man in many years. And what I am now?” He shook his head. The last thing he needed was to be guilted into “proper” conduct because of a housekeeper who had adored his mother. Especially after he’d thought he’d heard his mother’s voice in his head last night. “ He made me into this. That is why he must pay.”
“But the young woman, this Miss Hardesty… She has nothing to do with this, so why must you involve her? Simply go after the marquess and put a ball into his heart.” Again, she raised an eyebrow, and he was struck by all the silver in her hair and the lines of age on her face.
That gave him a bit of a chuckle. “How bloodthirsty you’ve become, Mrs. Duvall.” Then he sobered. “And no, Miss Hardesty is merely an innocent bystander, but there is nothing for it. She will be collateral damage, but in the end, when the end comes, I…” Well, that didn’t matter either, for he would be done with it.
With everything.
“We will talk later, Your Grace, but I am not going to give up on you. Your mother wouldn’t do that either, so since she isn’t here, I will carry on in her stead.” Briefly, she laid a hand on his arm. “I am glad you are home, and yes, you’ve lost twenty years, but don’t waste the next twenty being lost to revenge and other dark things.”
Damn and blast. Why wouldn’t everyone around him just let him do this one thing and then remove himself from this horrible life he’d been thrust into?
By the time Alexander had climbed the stairs to the second level and stood in front of the door leading to Miss Hardesty’s bedchamber, he’d managed to tamp the feelings that tried to resurface during his talk with the housekeeper. There was no room for guilt or even latitude here, and he certainly wasn’t looking for redemption.
Was he?
When he tried the latch and found the door locked, annoyance stirred in his chest. “Miss Hardesty, open the door. I have breakfast.” Seconds later, he pounded on the wooden panel with a closed fist while he held the tray with his other hand. His annoyance level rose, for the woman was far too vexing, but she would prove a challenge, and he hadn’t had that in far too long.
Truthfully, though the whole scenario of her being here revolved around revenge, he looked forward to claiming her, leaving a mark on her, enjoying her body, showing his skill before he sent her onward.
“I’m not hungry,” came her response from the other side of the door.
He scowled at the panel, banged on it again. “Doesn’t matter if you are or not. I personally brought you a breakfast try, so it would behoove you to open this door.”
“Or what, you’ll bash it down like the beast you are?”
Damn that tart mouth of hers. It only aroused him.
His frown deepened as he attempted to ignore his annoyance. “If you don’t eat, your strength will flag, and I want you very alert and quite aware for what I’ve planned for today.”
Seconds later—after she had no doubt stewed and glared—Miss Hardesty opened the door while wrapped in a bed sheet. She was every bit disheveled, as if she had passed a restless night, but she wasn’t a mess as some women might be in the same situation. With this woman, the mussing gave her form more interest and mystery, and damn if he didn’t want to rip away the sheet from her body.
“I suppose I will need strength if I’m to find a way to escape your clutches,” she said with an expression of wariness as she gave him a wide berth when he strode into the room.
“It is good that you have retained a sense of humor, but I rather doubt it will last the week.” He deposited the tray at the foot of the bed where the bedclothes hadn’t been disturbed.
She completely ignored his comment. “I will need clothes, preferably mine, going forward.”
A hint of panic rose in his chest. “Why, because you wish to escape?”
“Do you truly plan to lock me in this room for a week? You might be many things, but I rather doubt you’re an ogre.” One of her light brown eyebrows rose in challenge, but that only brought his gaze to the cheek where the scar marred the soft skin.
“I do not.”
“At least there is that.” When she crossed to the bed, still making sure she didn’t come close to him, she frowned. “Actually, I want you to take me home.”
He snorted. “First off, I don’t have compassion so trying to make yourself pathetic won’t work, and secondly, I don’t take orders from anyone. I’m a damned duke.”
“Ah.”
They glared at each other.
For the first time, doubt crept into his plan. How the devil was he to detain her long enough so that he could enact his revenge? Though he wasn’t above taking what he wanted from a woman against her will, he didn’t wish to do that to her. Why was that? She meant nothing to him, and he needed her not at all beyond ruining her for Inglehart, for she was how he would gain access to the marquess. But if he didn’t lock her into this room—or any other—she would flee, and he would be left with nothing.
Shoving the thoughts away, he cleared his throat. “I shall give you one of my shirts. However, if you don’t act like a harpy, I’ll let you have the bag your maid packed that was brought with you.”
“Then this wasn’t on a whim. You planned it.” Her eyes rounded in surprise. “You ordered the man who kidnapped me to have my maid pack a bag?”
“I suppose I’m not the aforementioned ogre after all.” All of it was a concession and he didn’t like it, but even he acknowledged that she couldn’t remain naked; she would need to leave the room eventually. Would she run away? That remained to be seen. Perhaps he merely needed to discover what it was she desired in her heart of hearts and try to promise that so he could have her.
“Thank you.” With an air of meekness he hadn’t encountered in her before, she plucked off the tea towel from the tray to investigate what he’d brought her for breakfast.
With nothing else to do, and feeling odd that she ignored him, Alexander left the room. He stood in the corridor for a few moments, but when the familiar click of a lock didn’t come, he allowed himself a small grin.
Interesting.
Around midday, he completed his task of walking the estate and refamiliarizing himself with it, noting the several repairs he’d need to make if he ever came into an impressive amount of coin. Too damned bad Miss Hardesty wasn’t an heiress.
Not that he would marry her, of course, but if she was, he could ransom her back to Inglehart. Just thinking about that man had hot anger rising through his chest. His estates and holdings had languished and been neglected for twenty years, thanks to the marquess, and having revenge was foremost in Alexander’s mind. There was simply no other way, and in this, he wouldn’t budge.
Her sensibilities and his housekeeper’s be damned.
A half hour after arriving back at the manor, he cleaned himself up as best he could, and since the afternoon was rather warm, he once more came to her bedchamber while wearing only a loose lawn shirt, breeches, and boots. He hadn’t bothered to shave or ask his valet to trim his hair. What was the point of it when he would end everything when his plan of revenge was finished?
When she bid him enter following his knock, he pressed the latch and pushed open the door, swiftly closing it behind him.
“I’m honestly surprised you have enough manners to knock,” she said as she turned away from opening the window.
“Perhaps next time I won’t.” Alexander couldn’t look away, for with the afternoon sun streaming in through the glass, the lawn shirt she wore was rendered almost transparent. The curve of her breast as well as her hip and the thatch of brown hair at the apex of her thighs was nearly visible and oh so tempting. What was more, her hair was unbound and seemed as if she’d combed it with her fingers. That caramel-colored mass came down to the middle of her back.
Damn, but she was delicious in his clothing, and as he stood there assessing her, a wave of lust consumed him. He couldn’t help it, for he hadn’t had a woman in his bed for at least a year out of necessity. At the last second, he stifled a groan.
Questions swam in the mossy depths of her eyes. “Though our relationship is awkward and fraught with issues at best, you may call me Madeline if you wish.”
The unexpected boon confused him. The use of her Christian name made things between them far too intimate, beyond what he’d already done to her. “You may refer to me as Ravenhurst.” After all, they had been neighbors at one time, far too many years ago.
She narrowed her eyes, but as she wandered away from the window, he was afforded a glimpse of the shadows of hardened nipples beneath the shirt, and they renewed his awareness. “Where have you been these past twenty years?”
“That is not up for consideration or conversation at this moment.” His chest tightened, for it wouldn’t do to become close to this woman when she was nothing more than the vehicle with which he would deliver revenge to his enemy.
A sound of frustration came from her. “You can’t keep me here without talking to me, Alexander. Regardless of what you think you want, life doesn’t work that way.”
Shock went through his being at the sound of his Christian name from her. He hadn’t given her leave to do that, but it had been such a long time since anyone had referred to him by that name that he longed to hear it again. When someone did so, it meant they knew him on a deeper level than most or that they cared. Yet she was a stranger to him, so why had she done it?
Bah!
Letting his annoyance and anger grow and guide him, he closed the distance between them, stopping only when a handful of inches separated them. “Enough!” He held her gaze. “I decide what happens this week! I decide if you live or die, if he does. Do you understand?” The control in this situation belonged to him, and he refused to let her distract him.
“Ha.” Madeline drilled a forefinger into his chest. “And I’ve grown weary of being told what to do. My life has been like that since I was a young girl, and it stops now. With you.” Determination lined her expression, a warning that he’d be in for a fight. “I refuse to be a prisoner or a weapon.”
“And I refuse to let Inglehart go through life unscathed for what he’s done.” More randy than he’d been in a long time, and needled by this interesting woman, Alexander pounced. He caught her in his arms and claimed her lips, for horrid motivation aside, he did rather enjoy how her soft lips felt against his.
Though Madeline didn’t put up as much of a fight as she had yesterday, that spirit was still there and he craved it, wanted to draw it out to make what he was about to do more exciting and perhaps acceptable. At the very least pleasurable for her.
Again and again, he moved over her mouth, deepened the kiss until their tongues thrust and parried, crazily mated, and in the process, they both fought for dominance of the embrace. Because he was selfish, he didn’t let her have it, but when she pushed against his chest, darted to the door in a bid for an exit, he didn’t grant her that either.
With a sense of adventure and desire crashing through his veins, Alexander caught her at the door. He quickly spun her about to face him and tangled his fingers in the long length of her hair, and once more, he kissed her, perhaps to teach her a lesson, or punish her, but mostly to tell her without words that he was in control, and he wouldn’t tolerate her going against his wishes.
Little by little, she ceased to try and break from his hold. Instead, Madeline rested her palms on his chest, even went so far as to meet his overtures and kiss him back. Small victory, that, for he didn’t trust her not to harm him as she’d done earlier, but when such an attack didn’t come, he tugged on her hair, lifted her chin, and took full advantage of ravishing her mouth.
When he craved more access to her body, he wrenched away only to move his hands beneath the shirt she wore, and it was far too easy to access her charms. As he cupped her breasts, squeezed them, rubbed the pads of his thumbs over her nipples to encourage them to harden, she made a sound of protest or encouragement, it was difficult to tell.
“Don’t…” The words faded as she tried to push him away, but that only stoked the fires of need building within him. “I’m not… This isn’t right.”
“I must.”
“But I don’t love you.”
He snorted. “Sex doesn’t need love, my girl. Two people can indulge in carnal play for many different reasons.” It took little effort to shove her against the wall, put a knee between her thighs to hold her in place, and continue to bedevil her breasts and nipples. When her eyelids fluttered closed and her lips partly slightly as a half-stifled moan escaped, he allowed himself a grin. It seemed the woman wasn’t as immune to his plans as she wanted him to believe. “Obviously, you remember what this felt like yesterday, hmm?”
“Don’t be more of an arse than you can help, Ravenhurst.” Yet she squirmed against him to grind upon his knee.
“Ha.” It was more comfortable hearing her use his title, stopped this from being too intimate, but the fact she wanted to feel physical pleasure spurred him onward. “What you don’t realize, my dear, is that I left being an arse behind years ago. Now, I’m naught but a bastard, an ogre, hell, you can even call me a devil if you’d like, especially once I’m done with you.”
Not wanting to lose momentum or her attention, Alexander shuttled her over the floor to the bed where he pushed her torso onto the end, bent at the waist. Since the bed was elevated and she was on the short side, she had no choice but to balance on her toes in order to remain upright.
“Tell me you have been at least curious about this act, Madeline.” Raw desire graveled his voice as he slipped a hand over one bare arse cheek. “Especially since you were engaged once before.”
“I…” She panted as he continued to fondle a breast with his other hand. “I suppose, but I’d hoped there would have been romance involved and perhaps words of affection.” Then she elbowed him in the gut, smirking when he grunted. “Not this idiotic idea of getting revenge on an enemy by coupling with his fiancée.”
God, her tart mouth was as maddening as her curves. “Then you believe I should just put a ball through his heart and have done with it?” Not that such a thing hadn’t crossed his mind. “Go forward in my life as if nothing happened?”
Madeline glanced at him from over her shoulder while trying to squirm out of his hold while he wrenched the fabric of his front falls until all the buttons slipped from their holes. “Honestly? Yes, I do, if you hate him so much, and since I don’t know why you want revenge, that’s my answer.”
“I don’t want to discuss it right now.” Not while his shaft was so hard, he could probably drill through the wall. When it popped free of the fabric, he was only granted temporarily relief.
“Shocking. The only thing you’ve done since I arrived here has been ordering me about and forcing unwanted physical attention on me.”
That provoked him to the point of insanity. “Unwanted, hmm? We’ll see if that’s true.” Then, nearly out of his mind, he gripped her hips with enough force to no doubt leave bruises and forced her thighs apart, aligning the wide head of his prick with her opening. “Prepare yourself, Miss Hardesty.” It was better if he thought of her as naught but an essential part of his revenge instead of a woman else his conscience—which he’d hoped had been long buried—would rear up and berate him.
“But I haven’t—”
“I don’t care,” he growled in interruption. The need pulsing through his member eclipsed anything else, even her warning that she’d never been with a man. Dear God, he wanted to leave his mark on her so that Inglehart would see that another man had passed there before him, that another man had sampled his bride, had used his skill to imprint himself upon her memories, and that she would forever compare the marquess’ performance in sex to his.
Above that and oddly enough, he wanted to make so deep an impression that she wouldn’t forget him as the world apparently had.
With a powerful thrust of his hips, he penetrated her body and broke through the slight resistance of her innocence. A tiny, whimpering cry came from her, for she’d no doubt experienced a twinge of pain, and he withdrew. “I’ll wager you now belong to me, at least for the duration,” he managed to whisper as he saw a trace of blood on his member, but it didn’t matter. Once more he stroked into her body, and the act of watching himself glide in and out of her snug, hot passage emboldened him for taking more.
Yes, he might be a devil, but what he was doing was nothing compared to what Inglehart had done to his family.
“Alexander, please…” Sounds of either denial or encouragement came from her, but it was difficult to tell with her face pressed into the coverlet and mattress tick. It didn’t much matter; there was no going back. Another shove into her passage had one of her feet lifting off the floor. Then she was crying and still he pummeled into her because he couldn’t stop, needed that outlet, craved something to help as he fought with his demons while he sought to hide from them in her.
Despite the fact he was nearly gone and the urgency surging through his prick had grown overwhelming, he wanted to grant her at least something. “It’s almost over, Miss Hardesty,” he whispered as he wrapped an arm about her plump hips, and when his fingers found the curls shrouding her sex—the curls so damned damp with arousal—he quickly encouraged the button at her center out of hiding while he ceased his movements while still buried deep inside her. “I’m sure you remember this as well, since I brought you to release yesterday, and unless I miss my guess, that was your first foray into carnal bliss, hmm?”
“Why are you like this?” She lifted her head, tried to squirm away, but Alexander wouldn’t let her go.
He doubled his efforts to bring her over that edge. “I wasn’t always like this, but when everything has been taken from a man at the drunken whim of another, and that all leads to murder and other horrid things, one tends to become the worst version of themselves.”
Tormenting her button with varying degrees of friction, he laughed when a slight scream sounded wrenched from her throat and her body stiffened seconds before she apparently went flying from his touch.
In the process of riding out the wave, Madeline shoved her body backward against his, which sent Alexander ever deeper, embedded him so tightly into her passage that his eyes temporarily crossed, and that was the beginning of the end.
“Bloody hell.” There was nothing else to do but grab hold of her hips, and he thrust with more force and intent. “This is madness.” Of course it was, for in a perfect world, he wouldn’t have done this to any woman let alone an innocent. Yet here he was, claiming her body with barely words of consent between them, taking everything she would give and some she wouldn’t until they were both heaving against each other, bodies straining, sweat dampening his back so that the fine lawn of his shirt lay plastered to him.
“You are the mad one,” she replied, her words a bit muffled by the bedding.
“Don’t you think I know that?” Slightly crazed, Alexander tangled a hand into her hair, forced her head up so he could lean over her back and speak into her ear. “You will never forget this day, this week, and this is only the start of me ruining you for that man. Once I’m done with you, you’ll hate him just as much as I do, and you will rethink everything .”
She gasped. “Or I’ll grow to hate you.” The whisper seemed overly loud in the room.
“That I can live with, for I hate myself.” Renewing his grip on her hips, he lifted her upward and her feet left the floor, but he kept her trapped between him and the edge of the bed, and he pistoned his hips, ruthlessly thrusting into her body with hard, deep, frantic strokes that had them both moaning and sighing.
Urgency shot through his shaft. Tingling went into his stones and they drew close to his body. He lost himself, then, and with one final push, he was hurled over that edge. The vortex caught him up in its storm, and as he ground himself into her body, his shaft emptied. Fuck, when was the last time he’d come this hard? On the other hand, Madeline joined him in that storm where all sound and light were absent, and her surprised scream shattered that safe cocoon.
“Oh, dear heavens. I never thought…” The rest of her gasped words were lost as she buried her face in the bedclothes.
Despite the circumstances, Alexander was pleased that he was her first, and oddly enough, he couldn’t wait to show her, teach her more about the carnal world, even if it was within the bounds of revenge and the fact he cared nothing about her.
Knowing he couldn’t linger, couldn’t give softer feelings the chance to spring up and take hold between them, he quickly withdrew from her honeyed heat. Not for worlds would he admit to being supremely satisfied. “I shall see that your things are brought up,” he said with a final caress to her back as he walked toward the door while doing up the buttons of his front falls. “Rest before dinner. We have much to discuss.”
She had earned at least that freedom.
What sort of captor was he, then? Damn his eyes.