Chapter Six

Cat shuddered slightly as she gazed around the room. Boyd’s dinner party consisted of ten businessmen, all, from their appearance, high rollers. Cat knew the look of such company; her stepfather fancied himself one, but he was small-time compared with Boyd, and no mistake.

Many but not all of these men had arrived with women on their arms. Cat could not tell the women for wives or prostitutes, but all came clothed in great splendor and the latest fashion.

Which explained Cat’s attire. She looked down at herself again in wonder. The dressmaker had brought an unfinished gown which she had fitted to Cat in one afternoon.

Cat had never worn or imagined wearing such a dress. A creation of amber silk and gold lace, it fit as if molded to her body and revealed more cleavage than Cat actually possessed. This had been achieved via a contraption of whalebone and wire that thrust what bosom she did have upward into what she considered indecent view.

Not only most of her breasts but her shoulders lay revealed, her sleeves mere puffs of lace half way down her arms. Of course, she had to acknowledge as she looked around the parlor where she and the rest of the ladies had withdrawn, leaving the men to their brandy and cigars, the other women were similarly attired.

“You’re new,” said the woman in red, eyeing Cat frankly. Cat had no hope of remembering her name; the introductions had taken place en masse, and Cat, prey to nerves, had not been in a good position to keep anything straight in her mind.

The woman in red seemed bold and confident. She’d lit up a small cigar as soon as they reached the parlor and now sprawled in an armchair, her eyes gleaming.

“I recall the one Boyd had before her,” said the woman in aqua. “We met them in Montreal. You were there, Rose. Do you remember?”

Rose, appropriately, wore a shocking gown of rose-colored satin so lowcut it made Cat’s garment seem modest. She shook her head. “Must have been before my time. I’ve been with Jefferson only a year last November. Look at what he bought me.” She indicated a pendant displayed prominently on her generous bosom. “One-carat diamonds.” She smiled in satisfaction. “Only took five kisses down below to get that out of him.”

Cat’s eyes widened, though none of the other women so much as batted a lash.

“You have to give them what they want,” said the woman in purple, “no matter how bent their desires. I don’t suppose you’d know anything about that, Noreen—you being married.”

A woman in glittering black replied, “My dear, a wife in my position is nothing more than a whore with permanent status. Roger likes it doggie style—and often. How about you, sweetie?” She switched her gaze to Cat. “What’s Boyd’s pleasure? We heard he’s into bondage.”

Cat’s stomach roiled and a blush swept from her engineered cleavage upward.

“I heard,” said a woman in silver, again not affording Cat a chance to reply, “he doesn’t like it at all. That last girl—what was her name?—claimed he seldom came near her.”

Rose leaned forward eagerly. “But when he did—whips and chains all the way.” She cast Cat a look of mock sympathy. “But no whip marks where it shows, of course.”

They’re just trying to frighten you, Cat told herself. The bunch of nasty-minded crones. They want a reaction; don’t give it to them.

But what if it were true? What if he came to her room tonight? If he did, she supposed she would have to follow through on the commitment she’d made. Better her than Becky.

“I heard,” said a woman in blue, “Boyd can only get it up for young girls.” She ran interested eyes over Cat. “How old are you, dear?”

“Nineteen.”

“Yes, but,” Rose spoke up again, “she doesn’t look it. You look about sixteen, with that slim build,” she informed Cat.

“Even sixteen’s too old for him, from what I hear.” The lady in blue lowered her voice. “I was told he likes them under fourteen.”

Becky was just thirteen, Cat thought, her heart sinking. What if Cat didn’t succeed in pleasing him, for all her sacrifice? Becky was the one he’d originally wanted; what if he went back to that well again?

She turned her gaze on the woman in blue. “How do you know this?”

“Word gets around,” the woman in blue replied without spite. “They all have their little quirks. And men as powerful as Sebastian Boyd tend to get what they want.”

He’s a perverted monster, Cat thought, and suddenly feared she might vomit, losing the small portion of dinner she’d forced herself to consume.

The ladies began speaking then of another woman of their acquaintance, who’d had the poor judgment to get pregnant by the man who kept her, and all too soon they were joined by the gentlemen, who brought the brandy with them.

The conversation turned to business, dry and seemingly interminable. Balanced between boredom and repugnance, Cat feared the evening would never end.

Yet when it did—when the guests at last began making their departures—her fear flared brighter. She could not get past the conviction that this would be the night Boyd made the first of his demands.

By the time the last of the couples left, seen to the door by Boyd himself, she felt sick with apprehension. When he returned to the parlor and closed the door carefully behind him, she swayed on her feet.

“Well, Catherine, I have to say you make a damn poor hostess.”

Cat looked back at the evening just past and supposed it true. She lacked the confidence and sophistication of the other women and felt utterly unequal to the position wherein she had been placed.

Carefully she said, “I apologize.”

He approached her the way a cat might a mouse, his eyes glittering. “When your father sold you to me to cover his debts, I was assured you would be accommodating.”

“He is not my father.” Cat spoke through suddenly dry lips. Everett Kraus had married Cat’s mother when Cat was the age Becky was now and Becky only seven. Cat felt proud to say she didn’t carry that craven fool’s name.

“Ah, yes, stepfather.” Boyd’s eyes, pale gray in color, examined Cat slowly from head to toe and back again. “I hope you mean to perform better in the bedroom than you have in my dining room.”

Cat’s knees promptly threatened to fail her. She reached out and caught the back of the nearest chair, and Boyd’s mouth quirked in what, for him, might pass as a smile.

“How long have we been together, Catherine?”

“Two weeks.”

“Two weeks, more or less,” he confirmed. “During that time, I have asked little of you.”

He took another step closer. Cat’s heart began to pound like a piston in a steam engine.

“But I have provided for you,” he went on in that emotionless voice. “Food, drink, shelter, that fine room upstairs, and a splendid wardrobe on order. I hope you are grateful.”

Of all the feelings teeming in Cat’s breast, she could find no gratitude, save for the enduring fact that she and not her beloved little sister stood here.

She blinked at Boyd as he took still another step, near enough now to touch her if he wished. He reeked of cigar smoke and liquor. How much had he taken to drink? Dare she hope, if he accompanied her upstairs, he might succumb to sleep instead of lust?

“You truly are a lovely thing,” he said. “Quite tempting. Take your hair down for me.”

“What?” Cat faltered.

“You heard me. I will expect you, Catherine, to be completely obedient when we are together. Whatever I ask, you will do without question.”

Cat raised unsteady hands to the arrangement of her hair. A woman she’d never seen before had been sent in well before the guests arrived to dress it for her in a grand pile of upswept curls.

Now her fingers moved clumsily as she felt for the pins and let the curls fall beneath Boyd’s gaze. What did she see in his eyes? Something at once curiously detached, cold yet avid. Did he want her or just her humiliation?

Perhaps both.

“Ah,” he said, once her hair hung about her shoulders. “You look like a child.”

A chill chased its way up Cat’s spine as the words of her recent companions came rushing back at her.

Boyd raised a hand and brushed her cheek with the backs of his fingers. In contrast with his cool gaze, his skin felt hot. Cat lifted her chin in defiance of her terror, and as if in response he trailed his hand lower to touch her bosom and slide all the way down to the edge of her dress, which rode just above her nipples. For one horrifying moment she thought he would thrust his hand inside her bodice.

He spoke in a low, threatening voice barely above a whisper. “What would you do, lovely Catherine, if I bade you strip off that dress? What if I told you to get down on your knees and service me?” Something dark blossomed in his eyes. “Do you understand of what I speak?”

Cat understood. Had her recent companions not spoken of just this? Diamonds, indeed.

But she felt the heat come to her skin. She couldn’t. She simply could not.

“Shall I tell you what you would do?” he went on. “You would obey. Because that is what you promised when I spared your family. Is it not?”

Calling upon all her courage, Cat nodded.

“Good. Good, because I can still go back and remake our deal, you know. Take what I want.”

Becky, Cat thought, and her heart clenched in her chest. “I mean to be accommodating,” she told him.

“Pleasing.”

“Pleasing. Just so long as you keep to the agreement.”

“I will, if you do. That is how I do business, and never forget this is business.” His gaze flicked over her again. “Trying you is a delight I will save for another evening. Go to your room now. It is late, and your guard will be back on duty soon.”

Cat drew a long, unsteady breath. Did that mean she was safe tonight?

“Go,” Boyd told her again, and she fled as if chased by seven devils.