Laughter drifted up from the open black carriage as it rolled through Hyde Park. A man’s deep voice joined with the lighter, crystalline tones of a woman. The ground still shimmered with the last of an early-morning mist, and though the breeze blew steadily, a warm sun beat down through a scattering of clouds, brightening Ariel’s apricot parasol and Phillip Marlin’s tall beaver hat.
“My dearest Ariel.” He captured a white-gloved hand and brought it to his lips. “With the wind in your hair and the blush in your cheeks, you look like a princess.”
Ariel flushed and lowered her lashes, hoping to shield the effect of his words. As she had done each day, she had met Phillip that morning in the park. He was tall and fair, his hair a shiny golden blond, the image of a London aristocrat. Though he wore his clothes with a casual air, they were cut of the finest cloth and perfectly tailored to fit his square-shouldered frame.
“You flatter me, sir.” Ariel toyed with a strand of long blond hair that had escaped from beneath her bonnet. “The wind is blowing. I probably look a fright. You are simply too gallant to say so.”
“‘The southern wind doth play the trumpet to his purposes, and by his hollow whistling in the leaves foretells a tempest and a blustering day.’”
Ariel laughed at the quote she recognized as being from Shakespeare’s Henry IV. “‘We shall be winnowed with so rough a wind that even our corn shall seem as light as chaff, and good from bad find no partition.’”
Phillip smiled with pleasure at the sally. “You are a delight, my sweet Ariel. I am a fortunate man to have found you.”
Ariel said nothing, just allowed herself to bask in the rays of Phillip’s adoration and listen to the sound of his matched bay horses clopping along the lane. But the clouds overhead began to thicken and grow dark, and the breeze kicked up even more. When thunder rumbled in the distance, Phillip turned the horses toward her home.
“We’d better hurry,” he said. “It’s going to start raining any minute.”
The wind blew leaves around their feet as Ariel took his hand and they rushed up the steps of the big stone mansion in Brook Street. She wasn’t exactly certain how it had happened, whether it was his idea or hers, but a few seconds later Phillip stood beside her in the entry and it seemed he would be staying to tea. She remembered he had asked if her cousin was yet returned and she had told him with a shake of her head that he was not due for another two days.
She flashed a brief smile at the butler, a man named Knowles, whose expression remained as blank as a clean sheet of paper.
“Mr. Marlin will be joining me for tea in the Red Room,” Ariel informed him airily, having discovered that all you had to do to gain a servant’s obedience was pretend that you deserved it. “Will you see to it, Knowles?”
Scarecrow thin and balding, the man gazed from Ariel to Phillip and back again. This time, there was no mistaking the disapproval on his face. He merely lifted his bushy eyebrows and said, “As you wish.”
Working to suppress a smile, Ariel took Phillip’s hand, led him down the hall and into the Red Room, guiding him over to a sofa in front of the fire.
The tea arrived a few minutes later, and Ariel poured, saying a silent prayer of thanks that she had learned the social graces necessary to move in Phillip’s world.
He took a sip from the gold-rimmed cup she handed him, his eyes, the blue of pretty Delft china, moving slowly over her face. “I cannot begin to tell you how much I have enjoyed these days we’ve spent together.”
Ariel rested her cup and saucer back down on the table. “I’ve enjoyed them as well.” It had been fun, being wooed by a handsome man, the son of an earl, no less, trying out her feminine wiles for the very first time. In the beginning, she had been self-conscious—Phillip was, after all, a member of the aristocracy and socially miles above her—but his ready smiles and easy charm had quickly put her worries to rest.
“You’ve been wonderful, Phillip. If it hadn’t been for you, my days in this house would surely have been dismal.”
He smiled. “The pleasure was mine, I assure you. ‘Your fair discourse has been as sugar, making the hard way sweet and delectable.’”
She felt herself blushing. He was forever spouting poetry. It was so romantic, so courtly. “Shakespeare?” She knew how fond he was of the Bard, but this time she wasn’t really sure.
He nodded. “Richard II.”
Ariel sipped her tea, then carefully set the cup back down in its saucer. “I should love to see it performed sometime.”
“Then I shall make it a point to take you.” He reached out and caught both of her hands. “My dearest Ariel. You must know the way I feel.”
She glanced down at the hands holding hers, soft, pale hands, the hands of a gentleman. Her heart beat almost painfully. Surely it was too soon for him to speak of marriage.
“I don’t … don’t know what to say.”
Phillip glanced to the door, which Ariel hadn’t realized was closed, eased her nearer, then pulled her into his arms. “I realize we haven’t known each other long, but sometimes, when two people share such a strong attraction, time isn’t important. I must kiss you, my darling Ariel. I have thought of nothing else since the moment I first saw you. I’ve gone half-mad thinking about it.”
Ariel felt suddenly uneasy. As Phillip had said, they’d been seeing each other for little more than a week. “Phillip, I don’t think—”
His lips cut off her words. She had never been kissed before, but she had dreamed about it often. Though the sensation was pleasant, there was none of the fire she had imagined, none of the glorious passion. She gasped as she felt Phillip’s hand on the underside of her breast, and he took full advantage, sliding his tongue inside her mouth.
Shock jolted through her. What was he thinking of to take such liberties? Did he believe she was the sort of woman who would allow a man she barely knew to touch her so intimately? Determined to end the kiss, she tried to twist free, shoving her hands against his chest just as Phillip abruptly jerked away, surging to his feet so fast he nearly knocked her off the sofa.
He was breathing hard, his hands tightly clenched. “Greville…” was all he said.
She hadn’t heard the door swing open. Now, as she struggled to comprehend what was happening, she saw that a man stood just inside the drawing room. He was several inches taller than Phillip, with a dark complexion and jet-black hair. His mouth was set, his jaw clenched so hard it appeared cast in stone. Eyes the color of pewter sliced into her like a knife blade.
“Who … who are you?” she asked, the icy chill of his gaze making it difficult to force out the words.
“I believe your … companion … knows well enough who I am.”
Phillip turned confused blue eyes in her direction. “I thought you said Greville was your cousin.”
“I said that, but this isn’t—”
The tall man made a stiff, formal bow of his head. “Justin Ross, Fifth Earl of Greville, at your service, madam.” Rage, barely controlled, dripped from every word. When he turned those fierce gray eyes on Phillip, she could have sworn he flinched. “Miss Summers and I have business to discuss,” the earl said curtly. “I believe, Mr. Marlin, it is in your best interest to leave.”
Wordlessly Phillip rose from the sofa, his pale hands still clenched into fists. A blast of cold seemed to pervade the room as the two men stared at each other. Phillip clamped his jaw, turned, and walked toward the door.
“Phillip … wait!” But he only kept on walking, out of the room and down the hall, his footsteps a chilling, hollow echo as they receded.
Ariel fixed her attention on the man beside the door. “I don’t … don’t understand what is happening.”
His smile could have frozen steel. “What is happening, my dear, is that my father, the fourth Earl of Greville, was good enough to die some two years past, leaving his title to me.”
Ariel nervously wet her lips. “The earl … the earl is dead?” She was having trouble grasping what he said. Everything seemed to be spinning around just outside her reach.
“The former earl is dead. I’m Justin Ross, the fifth and current Lord Greville, the man who has been paying for your finery, for your room, board, and education. As you might imagine, it comes to a very tidy sum.”
“Yes, I-I’m sure it does. That is one of the things I wished to speak to the earl—I mean you—about.” Dear God, the earl was dead. She didn’t really know him, hadn’t seen him in more than four years, but she had been certain that he was the one who’d been helping her.
“I believe you spoke to the earl about those things some time back. I believe the two of you came to an arrangement more than four years ago.”
She swallowed, forced a little courage into her spine. “I suppose at the time we did.”
“As I understand it, in exchange for your education and expenses, you agreed, upon reaching your maturity, to become the earl’s mistress.”
Bluntly spoken, but true. “Yes, but I … I was younger then. I didn’t exactly realize—”
“You’re some years older now, nearly nineteen, if I recall, no longer an innocent young girl—as evidenced by your conduct with Mr. Marlin.” Ariel blanched. “You’ve received an extensive, extremely costly education. I would imagine during that time you came to understand exactly the bargain you made—is that not so?”
Misery washed over her. Her stomach rolled with nausea. “Yes.”
“Still, you accepted the money I sent you, let me pay your tuition.”
“Yes.”
“You allowed me to purchase your clothing—that gown, for instance, that you are wearing.”
Unconsciously she smoothed the lovely apricot silk, her fingers brushing a row of delicately embroidered roses. A painful knot rose in her throat. “Yes.”
“Since that is the case, the bargain must remain.”
Tears burned behind her eyes. She blinked several times, refusing to let them fall. “Yes.…” Her throat ached. Dear God, she had never believed it would actually come to this.
The earl turned and started walking, making his way the several short paces into the hall outside the carved double doors. He was tall and lean and dark, and the powerful presence he exuded seemed to remain in the room even as he walked away. Pausing, he turned once more to face her.
“I require your presence upstairs, Miss Summers.” He didn’t bother to wait, simply started walking again, certain she would follow. Sick with dread, she did, letting him move ahead of her as if he were the master and she the slave, ignoring the insult, continuing up the wide stone staircase, along the sconce-lined hall, and into the master suite.
She had never been inside the rooms before. Now she noticed in some vague corner of her mind the dull blue Turkish carpet, the faded velvet draperies that thinned the weak sun trying to press through the mullioned windows. Not surprisingly, the huge suite of rooms was as dark and dreary as the rest of the house.
Lightning cracked outside. Gray, angry clouds blotted the sun, the storm now a full-fledged gale. With an eerie hiss, the wind thrust its way beneath the windowsill. Ariel’s footsteps slowed as the earl passed the marble-topped furniture in the sitting room and continued on into his bedchamber. He didn’t stop until he reached the foot of his massive four-poster bed.
For a moment she paused, her heart pounding raggedly. She could feel his eyes on her, wintry gray, cold as the north wind blowing outside the house. He stood there waiting, his expression glacial as she slowly, tentatively, made her way toward him, stopping just inside the bedchamber door.
“Close it,” he commanded. Icicles dripped from his voice. Instead of the hot rage her father had unleashed on her as a child, the earl’s chilling fury slid toward her in frozen sheets that were far more terrifying.
She bit down on her trembling lip and did as he said, quietly setting the latch into place with a shaking hand.
“Come here … Ariel.”
She didn’t want to. Dear God, she wanted to turn and run. Still, she wasn’t a coward, had never been a coward. She had survived her father’s beatings. Somehow she would get through this.
Pride stiffened her spine. She walked toward him on legs that felt wooden, praying they would continue to hold her up.
“A bargain was made,” he said. “I have fulfilled my part. Now it is your turn to do so. You will remove your clothes. I wish to see what I have purchased with my hard-earned money.”
For several long seconds she simply stared at him in horrified disbelief. “I couldn’t … couldn’t possibly—”
“If I hadn’t arrived when I did, you would have removed them for Marlin. You will do so now for me.”
A shudder of fear slid down her spine and she bit back a sob that tried to escape from her throat. Dear God, this couldn’t be happening! Of all the scenarios she had envisioned, none of them were as terrible as this. Her eyes were burning, threatening to fill with tears. She forced them away, determined not to cry in front of the coldhearted beast who was now the earl.
Instead she lifted her chin. “You’re mistaken, my lord. I would not have let Phillip take … take liberties with my person.”
A fine black brow arched up. “No?” His lips twisted into a bitter, mocking smile. “And that little scene I witnessed in the Red Room? Are you going to stand there and tell me I imagined the two of you entwined in a lovers’ embrace?”
Ariel bit down on her lip. It was only a kiss and yet, from the start, something about it had felt wrong. “What … what you saw was a mistake. Neither of us intended for that to happen.”
His brows pulled together in a dark angry line and his mouth flattened out. He strode toward her, his expression thunderous, and unconsciously she took a step away. “If you believe Phillip Marlin did not plan your seduction then you are a bigger fool than I am. Now remove your clothes—or I shall remove them for you.”
Tears filled her eyes. She blinked furiously, trying to stop them, finally succeeding. Courage came from somewhere deep inside her, a place scourged into her by the cruelties her father had inflicted. He could beat her, but he could never break her.
Neither would the earl.
Turning, she presented her back to him, standing ramrod straight though her legs were shaking. “You will have to help me with the buttons.”
The earl moved forward. She could hear his shiny black shoes making a muffled sound on the carpet. He ignored the buttons and instead she felt the heat of his fingers at the nape of her neck as he took hold of the gown and ripped it open to the waist.
The sob in her throat tore free, but when she turned to face him, those flat gray eyes held not a single trace of pity.
“Now, do as I said. Take off the dress.” He took a few steps backward, as if he wished to view her distress from a more casual distance.
Her hands were trembling. She gripped the delicate apricot silk and slid the ruined dress off her shoulders. Such a beautiful gown, she thought fleetingly, each one so precious to her, a woman who had never owned such lovely things. She tried to think of something she might say, some way to make him understand what had happened between her and Phillip, but one look at his face told her the effort would be futile.
She stood in front of him in only her slippers, white silk stockings, satin garters, and fine lawn chemise, the fabric so transparent it revealed the faint pink circles of her nipples, the pale hair between her legs. Her face turned scarlet as those cold silver-gray eyes moved slowly over her breasts. They traveled past her waist, down her legs, to her ankles, then returned to her face.
“Remove the pins from your hair. I wish to see how it looks around your shoulders.”
Ariel bit the inside of her cheek, not sure she had the courage to continue. A shiver rippled through her, then another. She couldn’t bear to think what the dark, forbidding earl intended to do. The thought returned that she should run, make at least some effort to save herself. But she didn’t believe for a moment the angry, predatory man who stood across from her would ever let her escape.
Instead, she steeled herself and did as he said, praying God would intercede and some miracle would occur, hoping she could think of a way to save herself. Her fingers were shaking so badly she couldn’t hold onto the pins. They made soft pinging sounds when they hit the wooden floor at the edge of the carpet. When the last pin was removed, her pale hair tumbled down past her shoulders.
“Now the shift.”
Oh, dear God. Fresh tears sprang into her eyes and this time she could not stop them. They brimmed over and slid down her cheeks. “Please…” she whispered. “I’m sorry about what happened. I know I shouldn’t have let him come in, but I had no idea he was going to kiss me.”
His jaw clenched. She closed her eyes against the sight of his tall, hard frame bearing down like a vision from hell. He stopped directly in front of her, his hands reaching out to grip her shoulders.
“I’m not a fool, Ariel. It’s obvious Phillip Marlin is your lover. Since that is the case, from this day forward, you will simply warm my bed instead of his.”
Her lover? Misery crashed over her in great numbing waves. She only shook her head. “Phillip isn’t … my lover. I’ve never … No one has ever … That was the first time anyone has ever kissed me.”
His fingers tightened on her shoulders almost painfully. “You’re lying.”
“I’m telling you the truth.” She stared into the stark planes of his face. “We only just met last week. I was walking in the park and he … he simply appeared. Today we went for a ride in his carriage. It was starting to rain, so I … I asked him in to tea. Then he kissed me.”
Thunder crashed outside, shaking the windows. Another bolt of lightning stabbed into the overcast sky, illuminating the shadowy angles of his face. Ariel caught a flash of something in his eyes she hadn’t expected. Something stark and filled with pain. Something he hadn’t meant for her to see.
His long dark fingers dropped away. For the first time, he appeared uncertain. “You’re not saying … You’re not telling me that you are still a virgin?”
Ariel’s face went warm. She stared down at the carpet, studied the faded blues and reds in the intricate patterns. “I would never let a man … I wouldn’t … Yes.…”
Greville caught her chin, forcing her gaze back to his face. It was there again, deep in his eyes, the pain, the bitterness, the hurt, like a man betrayed by his closest friend. She didn’t understand it, yet it touched her in some way.
His gaze held hers for long silent moments. He stood so close she could feel the warmth of his body, the brush of his clothes. The color of his eyes began to change, shifting from a frosty gray to a crystalline silver, the rage still there but changing, beginning to shimmer with heat.
Then without warning, his mouth crushed down over hers.
There was nothing of tenderness in the kiss. It was hard, brutal, savage, a punishing kiss meant to repay her for the betrayal he must have felt. For the second time that day she suffered the will of a man she barely knew, yet each man’s attentions were totally different. The earl’s brutal kiss ravished her mouth in retribution, yet as the seconds passed, it softened, heated, changed.
Ariel swayed as his lips moved over hers, beginning to coax, starting to seduce, becoming something she hadn’t expected, something that pulled at her from dark, secret places.
Something far more disturbing than the kiss she had shared with Phillip Marlin.
The contact ended as abruptly as it had started and Greville turned away, pacing toward the small mullioned window, looking nearly as shaken as she. He raked a hand through the wavy black hair that edged over his collar. It gleamed blue-black in a jagged fork of lightning.
“Perhaps you’re telling the truth. It doesn’t really matter.”
But a chink had appeared in the armor he had been wearing, and for the first time since this nightmare began, Ariel felt a ray of hope. She gathered what little courage she had left and drew in a steadying breath.
“I can’t begin to know what you are thinking. What you must surely think of me. Whatever it is, I am truly sorry for what has occurred.”
He turned, casting the full measure of that hard gray gaze in her direcion. “Are you, indeed?”
She moistened her lips, noticed that they still tingled from his kiss. “I made a bargain. As you said, you fulfilled your part. It was never my intention not to live up to mine. I only hoped—prayed—that whatever happened between us would be agreeable to both parties.”
The earl said nothing.
“What I mean to say is, I had hoped we might be able to work things out in an amiable manner. I thought we would have time to discuss it. I didn’t realize you would expect me to … to fulfill our bargain the first time we met.”
He actually looked a little embarrassed. “It was not my original intention.”
Her pulse speeded up as hope continued to build. “If that is the case, there is a favor I would ask.”
A thick black brow arched up. “A favor? I believe you have received more than enough favors from me already.”
For an instant she glanced away, her own cheeks warming with embarrassment. He had given her more already than she could ever have asked. “It is merely the favor of time, my lord. As I said, when I came here, I assumed we would have a chance to become acquainted. I hoped that we might develop a … a friendship of sorts before our relationship progressed any further.”
The earl came away from the window. Now that his anger had lessened, some of the harshness had seeped from his features. For the first time she realized that in a different, more brutally masculine way, the earl was every bit as handsome as Phillip.
“Friends?” he repeated with a slightly mocking air. “That is a novel concept, Miss Summers—having a woman for a friend. I find it almost amusing.”
Ariel lifted her chin, wishing she wasn’t forced to have this conversation in a state of near-undress. On the other hand, that they were talking at all was a miracle for which she was sorely grateful.
“There is nothing amusing about friendship, my lord. And no reason at all that a man and woman could not share such a bond.”
His eyes raked over her thin chemise, fixed pointedly on her breasts, and hot color burned into her face. In the wake of such scrutiny, it took sheer force of will to remain where she stood.
“There are any number of reasons, my dear Miss Summers, that friendship between the sexes rarely occurs. The fact that you don’t seem to know what they are makes me believe you might actually be the innocent you claim.” He moved closer, until he stood merely inches away. Though Ariel was taller than the average woman, she had to tip her head back to look at him.
He lifted a lock of her pale blond hair and smoothed it between his fingers. Ariel felt an odd tingling in the pit of her stomach.
“Just how would you suggest we go about building this … friendship?” he asked softly. His hand brushed her shoulder as he let the curl drop back into place and the tingling turned to gooseflesh that slowly edged down her arm.
Surely it was hope, she thought, that set her heart to pounding. If he agreed to wait before demanding she come to his bed, she might have time to convince him to reconsider their bargain.
“I’ve never been to London,” she said, dredging up a wobbly smile. “Since my arrival, I’ve seen little of the city. Perhaps you could show me some of the sights.”
“Sights? What sort of sights?”
Ariel’s mind worked frantically, struggling to come up with an answer that might prove her salvation. “The opera, perhaps. Or a play! I-I should love to attend the theater. Shakespeare perhaps. I’ve always wanted to see King Lear. You live here in the city. Surely you know places that might be of interest. I would be happy to go wherever you suggest.”
He seemed to ponder that. He turned his back to her and resumed his scrutiny of the branches scraping against the windowpanes. “All right, Miss Summers.” His attention swung back to her. “For the present, we shall set aside your … obligations. I would rather have a willing woman in my bed than one who is there merely at my command.”
Ariel swayed on her feet, fighting a wave of relief so powerful it made her dizzy.
“Since that is the case, you may put your dress back on.”
She didn’t hesitate, just snatched the gown up off the floor and struggled into it, jamming her arms into the small puffed sleeves, pulling it up over her shoulders, releasing an inward sigh of relief when she was decently covered again.
The earl said nothing more and Ariel took his silence to mean she was dismissed. Ignoring the missing buttons at the back of the dress and the fact that her hair was a windblown mess, she whirled toward the door, certain that even if any of the servants saw her, they would say nothing. From the day she had arrived at the house, she had noticed their somber, businesslike manner. Little laughter was heard in the mansion. After meeting their coldhearted employer, she understood why.
Struggling to keep the torn gown in place, she silently fled the bedchamber. She was nearly running by the time she reached her room. Once inside, she hurriedly turned the brass key, locking the door, and leaned against it. She was safe for the present. But how long would that safety last?
She wished she had the answer, wished there was a way out of the situation she had got herself into. In truth, her options were limited. She had no money, no job, and no place else to go.
And she had given her word.
Ariel squeezed her eyes shut and tried not to weep.