Author: Anne Stuart

This moldy old place had more than its share of antique armaments, and a complete suit of arms stood at the end of the hall. He strode down to it, picked up the battle-ax and headed back to Miranda’s door. One solid whack and the door splintered, the doorknob crushed at his feet.

He pushed inside, then slammed it behind him. Without a latch it immediately swung back and hit him in the bum, so he grabbed a chair and shoved it against it.

Then turned to advance on her.

Miranda woke up with a start, pulling the covers up to her neck like some silly virgin as she stared at Lucien. He stood inside her doorway, holding a battle-ax, and she wondered for a moment if he was going to kill her. She didn’t care.

He dropped the ax, trying to be casual, and came toward the bed. “Your door was locked,” he said unnecessarily.

“Against you,” she pointed out in an even tone.

“Well, you see how much good that did.”

She should simper and smile, but that ability had vanished the moment he’d left her to that horrid little man in the goat mask. She glared at him. “What do you want?”

“To talk.”

“Well, I don’t wish to.” There was none of the cloyingly flirtatious lover now. The mask had dropped.

“I thought I was your darling, your true love?” he said, taking one of the delicate chairs and lounging in it, for all the world like a man in his mistress’s bedchamber. Well, she wasn’t his mistress and she never would be.

Her face stayed grim. “You’re an evil, treacherous, degenerate monster, just as you always told me you were. Go away.”

“I saved you,” he pointed out.

“God knows why. By the way, I’m afraid you’ve lost one of your prize pieces of armament. I stole a dagger from the Roundhead collection and left it behind.”

He looked amused. “No, you didn’t. I took it from beneath the pillow and had it placed in the coach ahead of time.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You knew I had it?”

“Of course.”

“I should have stabbed you when I had the chance.”

He smiled at that. Bad move.

“If you don’t go away I’ll scream.”

“It won’t do you any good, my angel. This is my house, remember. No one will come.”

“Not if Mrs. Humber has anything to say about it. She hates me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous—Essie doesn’t hate anyone.”

“I don’t care about Mrs. Humber. I just want you out of here.”

“The coach was waiting to take us away,” he pointed out.

“It was doubtless waiting to take you away. I think you had every intention of abandoning me there and going on your way.”

He didn’t deny it. “Why do you think I changed my mind?”

“God only knows. You must have come up with something even more foul and evil to do to my family, using me to do it, no doubt.”

He rose, coming up to the bed. The midday light filtered in the windows, leaving strange shadows on the pure white sheets, and he loomed over her like the monster she knew he was. “In fact, I have.”

“The truth for a change. Well, pray, enlighten me.”

“Well, I had considered that your family would be driven mad by the thought of you married to me, being kept away from them, made miserable by my neglect and misbehavior.”

“I hope and pray for your neglect,” she said spitefully.

“Let me finish.” He held up a restraining hand. “And then I thought of an even better revenge. What if I made you blissfully happy, so happy that you never wanted to leave me? They would be helpless. If I mistreated you they could always ask the Crown to intervene. If I loved you they’d be helpless.”

She stared at him. “You’re out of your mind. That’s impossible.”

“I’m afraid it’s too late,” he said. And he began to take off his coat.

She didn’t move. “And you think I’m going to lie still and let you touch me again?”

“I hope you won’t be lying still. It’s much better when you participate.” His vest followed, onto the floor.

“So you expect me to get out of this bed and follow you into my dressing room so I can’t look at you? Your insanity knows no bounds.”

“Only when it comes to you.” He sat in the chair and began to pull off his boots, dropping them on the floor. And then he rose, reached for the hem of his shirt and pulled it over his head so that for the first time she could actually see him in the bright sunlight that poured in her windows. No pitch-black darkness this time.

He was beautiful. Muscled and lean and strong, with wide shoulders and powerful arms and a flat waist. And then he deliberately turned around, and she stared at the ruin of his back.

She couldn’t control her horrified intake of breath. It was astonishing that someone could have gone through that kind of torture and lived. The stripes crisscrossed his back, some so deep they had to have hit bone, others lighter, less vicious. It looked to her untrained eye that the beatings had happened over an extended length of time—some of the scars had widened as his body grew, others were still narrow. And then he turned back, tossing his head so she could get a clear look at the same damage to his face, reaching into his scalp.

“So,” he said in a flat voice. “Richard the Third or Caliban?”

She knew she was crying, crying for him, for the pain he’d endured. Crying when she never cried.

Except that she did, for him. Always. She managed a smile. “‘O brave new world,’” she quoted Miranda’s speech, “‘that hath such people in it.’ Come here, my love.”

And he came.

It was late afternoon as they dozed, sleepy and sated. He’d won another wager: she had used her mouth on him, of her own accord, though he had to stop her before the afternoon ended too soon. She lay now in a state of bliss, looking out into the afternoon sunlight.

Lucien lay beside her, on his stomach, and she slowly traced the scars along his back with gentle, loving fingers. “Do these still hurt?”

“Not for a long time,” he said, his face half in the pillow.

She leaned over and kissed one of the deeper stripes, and then another, featherlight, and he groaned with pleasure. “It’s a waste of time,” he muttered. “I’m going to need at least an hour to recover.”

She laughed, falling back on the mattress but keeping her hand on him, wanting, needing to hold him. “Who did this to you?”

She was afraid he’d tense up, push her away. But he didn’t. It was as if he’d finally given up fighting her, fighting his own feelings for her. The feelings she’d somehow known he had, buried deep inside.

“My stepmother,” he said after a moment. “She was mad. That’s why Genevieve was brought up here. Her family didn’t want to leave her with her mother. I was no kin of theirs, so I was fair game.” His voice was calm, emotionless.

“And your father?”

“Already dead. We were in Jamaica, but I don’t think I would have fared much better here.” He turned his head to look at her. “Don’t cry, love. It was over long ago.” He reached up and brushed the tears away with his thumb.

“What happened to her? Your stepmother? What finally stopped her?”

“I expect she would have killed me before she stopped, but fortunately she drowned herself one night. With no help from me, I might add. I was only twelve at the time. I would have killed her if I could, but at that point I was small for my age. No one ever fed me.”

“Oh, Lucien,” she cried.

He moved to cover her, so quickly she didn’t realize what he was doing. “No more tears, vixen. You unman me.”

“Well, that’s the last thing I’d want to do.”

He laughed, then pulled himself out of bed, reaching for his clothes, and she saw for the first time that the scarring went over his buttocks as well, down to his thigh.

“It’s not a pretty sight,” he said without turning around, knowing she was looking.

“Actually it’s a very pretty sight,” she said, doing an excellent job of keeping the tears from her voice.

“Saucy wench. Do you realize the door’s been open all this time? I don’t know if it will close again. You’ll have to move into the pink room with me.”

She giggled, unable to help herself, and at that he turned and smiled at her. She had the oddest feeling it was as if he was saying goodbye, but she knew that was impossible. He loved her; he was no longer fighting it. There was nothing to be afraid of.

She wriggled back down in the covers. “Where are you going?”

“I have things to do. Much as I’d love to spend the entire day despoiling you I think you need to rest. I promise to wake you by dinner time.”

“And how are you going to awaken me?”

“As wickedly as possible.”

She smiled sleepily. There was nothing to worry about. She was simply unused to being happy. “Come back sooner,” she said in a sleepy voice. And before he could even leave the room she fell back into a sound, sated sleep.

Lucien left his pink rooms, having bathed and changed, a rueful smile on his face. She really did have an unholy nerve. He wondered if that was the god-awful moment when he’d fallen in love with her? Or had it been earlier than that, when she’d wept in his arms and then turned around and burbled cheerfully at him. Or had it been, as he suspected, the moment she kneed Gregory Panelle in his privates?

She was fearless, and he’d been a fool to try to resist her.

“You’ve got a visitor, my lord.” One of the new footmen was waiting for him by his door, and Lucien froze. They were too remote for casual visitors, and he knew exactly who it was. He thought he’d have more time, time to admit to Miranda the wretched truth about Christopher St. John. He’d told her he was a villain. What more could she expect of him? But the thought of St. John’s vapid face in the crowd at Bromfield made him a little ill.