Chapter Four
The cheery breakfast room made a mockery of Patience’s inner turmoil. Her mood was ill matched with the midmorning sunlight streaming through the windows and staining the walls yellow. Even the street below their rooms was unusually tranquil.
Biting her lip, Patience set Elizabeth’s new installment of The Haunted Tower aside. Her mind kept straying to the marquess’s proposal. If what she did was discovered, she’d be ruined in the worst possible way. Maybe women of higher birth had the luxury of acting like hoydens, but people like her had nothing if they lost respectability. The scandal would follow her forever. Stain her family. Affect her father’s business. Bring her mother to tears.
Was it horribly selfish to even consider the proposition?
All questions about what she wanted had evaporated overnight. She wanted to accept. But could she?
She eyed her father, seated with his newspaper across the table. Not his own, but one of the many others circulated around London. He wrote and printed The Navy Man’s Review, a small journal reporting the doings of the English Navy. Dry stories full of odd tidbits that kept him endlessly fascinated. In times of war, he printed daily. In times of peace…
It was a constant source of friction between her parents that he profited from war. When her mother pushed him to explore other subjects he might write about, he always claimed he was too old.
Mr. Emery could have been her great-grandfather. Her parents had married late, then spent the first ten years of marriage without any hint that it was possible for them to become pregnant. They’d given up hope after five years. Then, without warning, when her mother was forty-two, she’d been doing her sewing one day and felt a fluttering low in her belly. To hear her tell it, she’d known immediately she carried life. Sure enough, four and a half months later, Patience had arrived.
She was their only child. Their dearest thing. Their miracle. They’d repeated as much often enough as she’d grown.
It was no easy weight to bear.
If she had an ounce of shame, she’d be embarrassed by what she’d allowed Ashcroft to do to her last night. It would shatter her parents if they found out. Nice young females did not do such things.
But no such sensation weighted her soul. Was she as wicked as that? The marquess seemed to think so. And liked her the better for it.
What if Patience wasn’t a nice young female?
Patience’s mother entered wearing a light muslin gown printed with dainty flowers and said her good mornings to the occupants of the breakfast room. She set her own newspaper down by her place before fixing her plate at the sideboard. She had a certain look about her, remaining artificially cheerful and not quite meeting her daughter’s gaze.
Mrs. Emery took her seat at the table, bright smile pasted on her face, then slid a surreptitious sidelong glance at Patience’s plate. Her mother’s smile pinched silent disapproval. Patience braced herself.
“My dear, I have something I think you’ll like.” From between the pages of the gossip rag she read every morning, her mother withdrew a folded sheet of paper.
Though she’d been expecting no less, Patience’s stomach went hollow. It never stopped hurting, no matter how many times her mother had tried this.
At first, when Patience was much younger and thought her body was a problem to be solved, the rules of eating offered hope. After each failure, a new set of rules came into her life. Eat this, not that. Drink this, not that. Fish, no fish, fish at every meal and cod liver oil before bed. With each came the absolute assurance that this one would be the one to change her life. To make her normal.
Heedless, her mother continued, her tone a little too bright. “A reducing regime. This one will work, I know it will. Mrs. Kittering gave it to me. She used it, and to excellent results.”
Marvelous. Mrs. Kittering had given it to her and vouched for the efficacy. That meant Patience’s mother was discussing her daughter. Patience did not want to be the subject of conversation, least of all as a topic for others to show their compassion about her body—compassion she did not need, because there was nothing wrong with her. In her head she could hear what they said about her in such a gathering. Such a nice girl, your Patience, Mrs. Emery. Pity about her size.
Her father’s attention had become preternaturally affixed to his plate. Nothing on earth could be half so interesting in half-eaten bread and preserves.
Mrs. Emery slid the sheet toward Patience. “Do read it, my love. I’ve already spoken to Cook, so you won’t have to worry while you’re at home. You’ll only have to remember a few simple things when you’re dining in another home.”
Another regime. To whom did Patience’s body belong?
The question roused another. One pertaining to her virginity—the fact of her virginity, if no longer the spirit—rather than her size.
“And then, who knows?” Patience’s mother looked at her plate, as if trying to appear casual about something that meant more to her than she could say. “Then perhaps it would be easier for you to stand up with Mr. Wilshire.”
Patience took a luxuriously long sip of her chocolate, then took the sheet between two fingers. Slowly, she tore the paper in two, top to bottom. She turned it once and ripped it again. The ripping sound echoed through the room.
Her father peered at her over his gold-rimmed spectacles. Wiry white hair that had thinned a bit over the years stood in haphazard curls upon his head. Not a spare ounce clung to his old bones. “Patience, was that really necessary?”
She’d once believed that her body was a betrayal to her. What a horrible way to live, thinking such a thing—about herself, no less.
There was nothing wrong with her. Nothing. Anybody who thought so was not worth her time. Not even if the person was her own mother.
Patience set down the torn pieces and picked up her chocolate again with a happy sigh. “Yes. Yes, it was.”
…
The morning after the ball, a punishing two-hour training session at Angelo’s failed to purge Giles of his need. The exertion had been lovely, though it’d been no orgasm. But he had to do something to help him through the torment of waiting for Miss Emery to send her answer.
In the north-facing studio of his Mayfair house—bachelor quarters were for bores—Giles wore nothing but shirtsleeves, trousers, and boots. Two years ago, he had fired his last assistant for drunkenness. Since then, he’d found grinding his own rocks and minerals was infinitely more satisfying, loving the process in equal measure to how much he hated it, and he had never bothered hiring another assistant.
He was about to undertake the task when an unexpected guest barged into the cramped room. Giles glared at the intruder. “I’m going to have a word with that negligent butler of mine if he let you up here.”
The man was in his midfifties, solidly built, and wore his displeasure of the world at large in his perpetually disdainful expression. He was His Grace Stephen Tobiah Warrington Hale, the Duke of Silverlund. And Giles would rather slice open his own cock than address the man as Father.
“Always such a child, Ashcroft.”
Giles waved a hand as if lazily swatting a pesky fly. “As you say.”
The duke wandered to where one of the new paintings stood drying on an easel, his mouth turning down at the corners as he studied it. The picture showed one of Giles’s models in repose. He’d taken the sketch for what became the final painting a month ago. He’d tied the woman to his bedpost and slapped her ass while fucking her from behind. She’d had three orgasms before he was done, and he’d captured the afterglow of their boneless pleasure.
What he needed now more than anything was to be given the honor of doing the same to Miss Emery.
“You have talent. A shame you were born to be a duke. An even greater shame that you squander it on”—the man’s lips pursed, pulling down at the edges in distaste—“these things.”
Lines had turned to grooves in his forehead and around his mouth. Perhaps Silverlund had once been handsome. It didn’t matter.
The duke’s pestering wasn’t a recent development. When Giles had come of age, Silverlund had taken a renewed…oh, interest—for lack of a better word—in his son and heir. In Giles’s first seventeen years of life, the best the duke had done for his son was ignore him. There were some memorable exceptions, but for the most part, Giles had been left to his mother, his tutors, and his painting master.
The intensity of the duke’s harassment, however—that was new.
What wouldn’t Giles give for a return to the halcyon days of his youth? Anything to be left alone. “Tell me what you’re doing here so you can leave again. I can’t imagine anything here is more important than the card tables at your club or drinking the blood of innocents or whatever it is that comprises your…” He made a face of pure disdain. “…raison d’être.”
“Where were you last night?”
Giles brushed his hand through the air in an offhanded wave. “Ah. Lady Sophie. I quite forgot.”
He didn’t ask his father’s forgiveness, because he didn’t want it.
“You humiliated me. And the young lady in question is not feeling well disposed toward you. Ever since you’ve returned from the Continent—”
“Ever since I’ve returned from the Continent for good, I’ve regretted being within a hundred miles of you because you won’t let me alone.” Giles had returned for his mother, the only inducement in the world strong enough to bring him back into the same kingdom in which his father resided. Since departing, he’d come back only once—before now, that was. His mother had taken ill. She’d recovered quickly, but he’d stayed, worried his leaving would rob her of health.
After a year, he hadn’t been able to suffer his father any longer. This time, though, he wouldn’t let his father dictate to him where he would live his life, whether directly or indirectly.
“We made an agreement. I agreed to allow you to leave Oxford to travel on the condition that you marry the girl of my choosing when you returned. Lady Sophie is the girl of my choosing.”
“You’ve taken it into your head, Your Grace, that you will be able to pick the woman yourself and I’ll happily march up the aisle at your command. I agreed only to allow you to suggest women I might consider marrying.”
“Were you drunk at the time? Because that wasn’t our agreement.”
“Stone sober, Your Grace, which is always unfortunate when I must suffer your presence.”
“You’re an embarrassment to your name. Cavorting with whom you please, when and where you please. By extension, an embarrassment to me.”
“I’m grieved to hear it, Your Grace.” Giles’s tone was flat with indifference. He was restraining himself, but only because his mother had begged him not to break the duke’s hooked nose.
“You don’t have to be. You’re too intelligent for your own good, that is plain enough, but you have discipline and drive.”
“That’s news to me.”
“They need be channeled in the right direction and—”
“I’m perfectly happy with my direction, I’ll thank you.”
“You aren’t your own master, Ashcroft. Think of what you owe to things greater than yourself. The family name, for instance. Or to your blood and your history.”
“And you think I belong to you, I suppose?” Giles would sooner suck the boils on Satan’s icy worm of a prick than ever belong to his father.
The duke’s tone went cold. “You haven’t heeded my warnings.”
“Because there is not one twisted fiber of my black heart which could possibly be induced to care.”
Giles didn’t fear many things. Certainly not Silverlund. The duke would have been far too gratified to have incited such an emotion in his son. Giles wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. Neither would he ask what the duke’s true purpose was. Anything the man said would have been hogwash. Besides, it was plain enough. The duke was used to power. Control. It was the air he breathed and the sustenance he lived upon.
“I heard about the ball. It’s all over town. The shame of your behavior doesn’t belong to you alone. It affects me.”
For an agonizing moment, Giles only remembered Miss Emery, and he thought he was going to be sick. That was private. Intensely so. And he’d promised her he’d care for her reputation. If his word wasn’t reliable, he might as well have a limp rod. (Perish the thought.)
If he took a rare moment to be reflective, he would admit there were four things he truly cared about, albeit in vastly different ways. Fucking. Painting. His word. His mother.
And Giles did not make mistakes. So how had anyone discovered what he and Miss Emery had done?
Relief relaxed the tension spun around his bones. Tuesday night…that had to be what his father meant. The night before last. Specifically, the debauchery at the Cyprian Ball. A particularly good one this time around, too.
“I’m going to give you one last chance.” The duke turned. “Or I’m going to make you more sorry than you can ever imagine.”
“You already have. You married my mother.”
“And begot you. You should be groveling at my feet.”
“Perhaps there might be groveling in me were you ever to forgive me for being born.”
The old man stared at him. His eyes alone would have gleefully spread a layer of frost over a garden of rosebuds. “Toy with me at your own peril. Mark my words, boy. This is the last time I will warn you.”
“Very well.” Giles waved at Silverlund. “I consider myself warned. Now leave.”
The duke stayed firmly affixed to the floor on which he had no permission to remain. “I fear you’re not heeding me.”
“Well, then?”
“Well, then, what?”
Giles blinked. Really, it was astounding that this man had sired him. He could be thicker than a brick of lead. “Why do you yet persist?”
“I will make you sorry.”
“We covered this ground not two minutes ago. Consider your errand complete and go about…” Giles paused to consider, wrinkling his nose slightly and pursing his lips. “Doing whatever it is you do.”
His father gone, Giles took his mortar and began grinding the dark-red hematite. And ground and ground and ground. When he added the oil, the pigment assumed the hue of old blood. He didn’t usually clench his jaw. But if he couldn’t relax, he was going to shatter every last one of his teeth.
That one done, he moved onto the next stone to crush for pigment.
“My lord?”
Giles jumped. He’d been grinding for so long, the stone had disintegrated into dust. His hand ached, and he rolled his shoulder to ease the stiffness away. “Yes, Welland?”
The butler took a step in the room, holding out a note on a silver plate. “This arrived.”
There was a tiny X on the left bottom corner. Miss Emery. At once, Giles’s entire body began humming.
He’d have given her all the time she pleased. He himself liked his gratification powerful, satisfying, and, above all, immediate. However, a man like him learned quickly that he was different from others and that sometimes he had to put his physical demands second in order to get what he wanted.
Very well, in truth, he put his own wants second but rarely. He was the Marquess of Ashcroft. People tripped over themselves to gratify him. Women were ready to lift their skirts on slight provocation. But it was a philosophy he wanted to embrace on the occasions that warranted them. Miss Emery was worth any wait.
Giles tore open the note.
How intriguing.
He smiled and abandoned his painting room for the study. It was sensible for her to be considering the proposition with care.
At his desk, he penned his reply, each letter formed in perfect round hand. Each word in a written document required careful selection, both in how the whole would be read silently and how it would sound being read aloud. It had to appear beautiful, too. A letter was a work of art. A note was no excuse for relaxing standards.
The reply wasn’t long in coming.
He penned a reply as hastily as his penmanship standards would allow.
While waiting for her next reply, Giles took out his cock—made hard merely by the act of writing to Miss Emery—and played with himself, reliving the memories from the previous night. How sweet her soft flesh had been. How his hands had sunk into her thighs. How he’d feasted on her wetness, finer than any wine, his tongue making her tremble and moan.
Erotic visions flocking in his fertile imagination, he tugged and pulled, keeping pressure firm and steady over the hot shaft. Holy hell, he was hard. His body was tense, his bollocks tight. He was ready to shoot off quickly and forcefully.
But he held back, not willing to surrender the pleasure of thinking about her just yet. Wanting to push himself to the limits of his endurance as he envisioned her impatiently following her own bodily delights.
Miss Emery. Miss Emery. Miss Emery.
What powerful needs she had. And if he were the one to coax them out of her, to teach her about a side of herself she hardly dared imagine, he would be the luckiest bastard in the world.