Chapter 24 #2
One arm wound around her torso, just under her breasts, and pulled her against him. When Maria tipped her head back to gaze at him, she found that he watched her with a hot intensity.
“Do you know what you are asking of me?” he asked, his voice low and sultry.
It was then she felt it, him, pressed firm and unmistakable against her lower back. Heat pulsed through her veins. That he could still be so composed while so clearly affected thrilled her. Maria bit her lip, a rush of power coursing through her. She’d done this. She’d stirred the beast.
“I do know,” she said. “Now, give me what I want.”
His mouth descended on her neck, pushing her hair aside with no gentler courtesy than needed.
His kiss was a distraction, hot and promising.
She thought to resist, to question, to vex him just a little, but the idea skated away like a wisp of smoke.
His lips had begun to move; sensation bloomed and chased reason into silence.
Her pulse jumped, and she pressed herself back against him, rubbing her body against his still-clothed manhood. A loan groan tore from her throat, as she imagined him sheathed inside her.
Damien’s lips returned to her neck, trailing hot and possessive kisses down the side off her neck. Maria let her head fall back, baring her throat as though in offering. Each featherlight graze lit up her nerves until she squirmed against him. His mouth shifted, firmer now, teeth barely grazing.
She smiled, bold and breathless. “I do not want a mark that all can see,” she whispered, “though I would wear such a thing with pride.”
“You do not get to choose,” Damien growled, low and dark, “If I wish every man to know I own you, then they shall.”
His hands seized her skirts and took great handfuls of them, heaving them up with reckless ease, and even as he bared her, he never slowed the kisses. Maria turned her face to his, her smile slow and devastating. “And who owns you, Your Grace?”
He stilled. His mouth curled into a smirk, but his eyes betrayed him. “I am your prisoner.”
Maria saw it. She felt it. That need, raw and unsatisfied, that wild hunger barely restrained. She had him. She had always had him.
Whatever secrets lay beyond the doors, they would wait. Maria had already unlocked the most dangerous one of all.
“Please,” she whispered, her voice shaking with need.
He chuckled, the sound reverberating through his chest. Cool air swept over her exposed rear, as he finally lifted the skirts past her waist. “Hold this,” he murmured.
She complied, her heart hammering so loudly that she heard its echo reverberating inside her skull. Fabric rustled behind her, and she felt him pressed against her rear.
“Oh, God,” she groaned.
He chuckled. “So scandalized,” he teased. “Did you not ask for this?”
“I did.”
“Has your courage abandoned you?”
She had a retort on the tip of her tongue. No, her courage had not abandoned her. She was his wife and had long been prepared to attend to her wifely duties, but he was such a tease—
But then, his finger pressed between her folds and slowly entered her, driving all her clever retorts from her head. She groaned raggedly, as his finger moved in and out in a steady rhythm. Lewd, wet sounds filled her ears, as he pumped his finger in and out, stretching her inner walls.
“Oh…” she whispered.
All her muscles grew taut, and she bucked her hips, grinding against his hand and trying to get more of his touch against her sex.
He kept his arm wrapped beneath her breasts, but coaxed her into leaning forward.
She imagined how ridiculous she must appear, how unseemly, for she was bent over his arm, her buttocks raised and brushing against him.
“Shall we?” he asked.
“Please…” she whispered.
His tip pressed against her entrance, and her thighs shook. There was the smallest pinch, and she hissed between her teeth. As he sheathed himself inside her, she had the strangest sensation of being filled. It was not uncomfortable, but tight and just a little unfulfilling.
She cried out and moved against him, shifting and adjusting, trying to take him more comfortably. “Oh, Damien!” she cried out, wanting and uncomfortable and eager.
“So greedy!” he whispered, nipping at her neck. “So wanton!”
Damien pulled himself out, and she whimpered as he pushed into her once again. He quickened his pace, in and out, and each push forward threatened to knock her off her balance.
A new sensation, sharp and building, grew between her thighs. She groaned with need and pushed back against him, meeting every thrust with a buck of her hips and a push of her buttocks against him. The feeling grew, tears coming to her eyes as her body begged to—to achieve something—
Suddenly, it all released. She gasped, her thighs and knees quivering, as a jolt of pleasure swept over her. Maria cried out, her thoughts all leaping from her. Damien continued bucking and jolting his hips against her, his body shaking—
Or was it her own?
With a roar, he seized her hips and pulled her hard against him. Maria cried out, as a rush of warmth wetness filled her. She gasped for air, her body damp with sweat.
A low laugh rumbled from him, and he kissed her jaw. “Satisfied, my wife?”
She gasped breathlessly. “You are…impossible,” Maria groaned.
“Only when I am with you.”
He unsheathed himself, and Maria dropped her skirts. The fabric fell easily over her legs, but it felt so strange, being suddenly clothed after fully exposing herself to him.
“You kept me waiting,” she said, “but it was worth it.”
“Good,” he said, his eyes alight with mischief. “But be warned, my wife, I have now developed an insatiable appetite to be inside you. I fear that you have awakened something within me that cannot be put to bed again.”
“The house is far larger than I imagined that it would be,” Ezekiel said.
Damien only grunted in response. Although he had agreed to show Ezekiel about the place, at Maria’s behest, Damien could not say that he was delighted with the prospect. He had determined to dislike this young man, and despite all evidence to the contrary, Damien did not believe him.
This fair-haired, delicate creature could not have possibly had the same sire as he. It just was impossible.
“Where are the duchess’s chambers?” Ezekiel asked.
An innocent question, as far as Damien could tell. Still, Damien cast him a withering glare. Ezekiel’s friendly smile fell.
“You have no need to know where her chambers are,” Damien said brusquely, as he quickened his pace.
Ezekiel kept up easily with him, which was to be expected of a young man but also remarkably vexing.
“This stone is ancient,” Ezekiel said.
“It is.”
Damien wanted nothing more than to end this insipid conversation. The only benefit of it was that he seemed to be having no small effect on the young man, who sometimes looked as if he might fall to pieces in Damien’s presence.
Let him. This young man needs to realize that I am the lord and master of this domain.
“You must tread softly here,” Damien said. “I do not tolerate trespassers, but there are regrettably many of them. I have placed traps in the woods to deter them, and it is nothing short of miraculous that you did not stumble into a trap yourself.”
He darkly thought that if the young man had it would have solved so many of his problems.
Ezekiel gulped. “R—right, Your Grace.”
And Damien smiled.
Maria walked the hallways of Winterleigh, carrying a lamp to dispel the darkness.
Three weeks had passed since Ezekiel’s arrival.
Three weeks during which Maria had been occupied in helping to arrange the ball that Anna would be hosting.
She did not believe Damien would attend, but was determined to try to persuade him.
He no longer wears the mask inside or outside the house. That is progress. Now, I need to bring him out into the world. Let the world see the Damien Alaric that I know.
That mission had proved difficult for the last three days because she had seen little of her husband.
He had devoted his time to Ezekiel. She hoped that meant he was accepting his brother, deriving solace from finding him.
Perhaps they were sharing memories of their mother, discovering new things and which of their memories overlapped.
She stopped, listening. The other issue she was determined to resolve was the voices she had heard more than once in Winterleigh. Not servants, not the normal sounds of an old house. Ghosts? Or something mysterious; something Damien knew about but refused to say, and sought to distract her from.
She felt herself blush at the memory of Damien’s skillful distractions. That evening had ended. Eventually, they had returned to their separate rooms, but only after much… distraction.
A sound reached her. It was unmistakably the soft noise of footsteps on carpet. It was approaching slowly from the darkness, coming towards her. She raised the lamp higher, and Ezekiel almost ran into the pool of light.
He was breathing hard and sweating. His eyes were wide and his hair wild, as though he had been disturbed from his sleep. At the sight of her, he backed away, looking back in the direction from which he had come.
“Ezekiel? Are you well? You look like you’ve been haunted,” Maria said.
“Your Grace! I… that is… I could not sleep, and so I decided to stretch my legs. This house is so huge that I thought I could wander for a while until sleep found me. But I… I found something…”
“You found something?” she asked. “What?”
Is this the answer to the mystery? Has Ezekiel discovered what Damien is hiding?
Maria felt a chill at the notion that his secret was such that it had clearly terrified Ezekiel. What could it possibly be?
“It would be easier to show you, I think. Will you come?”
Maria hesitated for a moment as Ezekiel reached out a hand to her.
There has been too much distrust in this house. Too much suspicion. Someone has to show trust.
She took a deep breath and took the offered hand. Ezekiel led her through the midnight hallways until they reached a set of double doors bisecting a corridor. One half stood open, and beyond was a narrow stone staircase, twisting downward.
“I stumbled upon this door and the staircase beyond. It leads to a cellar which I think must run beneath the entire house,” Ezekiel said, staring at the shadowed staircase.
“And in the cellar? I presume you saw something other than wine,” Maria said apprehensively.
Ezekiel nodded wordlessly. He took a deep breath as though summoning courage and stepped through the door.
Maria followed. The wooden staircase wound downward, the only light coming from the lamp that Maria held.
At the bottom, though, there came the gentle flicker of a candle.
Maria saw it, lying on the wooden floor on its side in a growing puddle of wax.
Ezekiel pointed. Maria stepped into the cellar, holding the lamp as high as she could.
At the edge of the light, against one wall, was a cage. In that cage was a man. He sat upon a straw mattress, wearing plainly made clothes and with several day’s growth of beard on his face. He watched Ezekiel and Maria with eyes that glittered in the lamplight.
“Who are you?” Maria demanded, unable to believe what she was seeing.
“My name is Charlie Moss,” said the man in the accents of the London streets. “Please, can you help me? I have been here for so long, and I am dreadfully sorry! Please, help me!”
“What are you doing here?” Maria asked, though she feared she knew the answer.
“I’m a poacher,” Moss said, his eyes darting about as though searching for some hidden foe. “I got caught and locked up here. The Phantom got me!”
Maria swallowed, her blood roaring in her ears. She wanted to believe that Damien would never do such a thing, but he must have. Her husband could not have possibly not known about a prisoner held in his dungeon. “The duke imprisoned you! For poaching?”
Moss nodded.
“How long ago?”
“For weeks, if not months,” Moss said. “I have had no means by which to measure the time. Please, let me go! I promise that I will never poach upon these lands again! I will tell no one what I have discovered here!”
Maria felt a sick sensation in her stomach.
A landowner had the right to deter poaching.
She knew that and could even mete out summary justice.
But to imprison a man for several weeks seemed far in excess of what a landowner should be allowed to do.
She stared at the man and tried to see him through Damien’s eyes.
Did you do this, Damien? Is this the man you truly are?
She cautiously approached the cage, rattling the bars. They were solid. A hefty padlock secured a door at one end.
“Have you been hurt?” she asked.
“No, my lady. Just confined,” Moss said, “and would dearly like to get out, but the Phantom keeps the keys on his person. I have seen him pocket them.”
“He comes to see you?” Maria said.
Moss nodded. “Once. To question me.”
“About what?”
“What I was doing on his land. What I was trying to find out. Whether I was a spy and, if so, for whom. He seems convinced that I am part of a conspiracy. But I’m not.”
Maria looked around the cellar, the parts of it that were visible in the lamplight. No obvious sign of a key.
“I will speak to him,” she decided.
“No!” Ezekiel cried. “That would be the most dangerous course of action. He is unpredictable at the best of times and quick to anger. Confronting him directly will only lead to the inflammation of his temper.”
“I cannot leave Mr. Moss to his plight. And the only way to free him is to plead with Damien directly. I can persuade him.”
I must persuade him. This cannot be allowed to continue. If it does, then our marriage must end tonight!