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‘They may know of Miss Noir, but they do not know the identity of the woman behind her mask.’
Yet.
The word hung unspoken between them.
‘You may rest assured that I will do all in my power to keep it that way.’
She stared at him, not knowing what to make of his attitude.
‘I will make discreet enquiries over—’
‘No,’ she said too quickly. If he started asking questions, who knew what he would discover. Everything that Arabella had striven so hard to hide. ‘No,’ she said more gently. ‘Words already spoken cannot be unsaid. Asking questions will only make it worse. Besides—’ she glanced away ‘—you are a duke; there will always be an interest in your dealings. And the lure of a coin will mean there are always tongues to be loosened.’
And she could not blame them. She of all people knew what it was like to be poor and in desperate need of money.
‘Perhaps, but speed and generosity has always worked in the past to silence them,’ he said.
‘But not this time.’
‘Seemingly not.’
There was a small silence.
‘Thank you for trying.’ Her words were stilted. Gratitude sat ill with her when it came to Dominic, but for all that she felt she knew how much worse it could be, had he taken her as his mistress as carelessly as he had abandoned her as his betrothed.
The carriage wheels rolled on.
She steered the conversation to safer ground. ‘Who was he, the man in Vauxhall? Misbourne.’ The man who had stirred in Dominic such barely leashed fury.
There was a small pause before Dominic answered, ‘A delusional old fool, Arabella, but not one you need have a worry over.’
Another pause.
‘I thank you that you stayed my arm,’ he said. ‘Brawling with an earl at Vauxhall would not have been conducive to our maintaining a low profile.’
She gave a nod of acknowledgement. And she wondered as to this man who she knew to be a rake and a scoundrel. A man who had made her his whore, yet did not flaunt or humiliate her publically. A man who went to such pains to preserve her privacy and who, it seemed, had a care for her mother’s sensibilities.
The carriage came to a stop outside Curzon Street.
The hour was late. She did not know whether he would come in. Whether he would kiss her. Bed her. And she was not sure if she dreaded it or wanted it. Nervous anticipation tingled right through her.
He helped her from the carriage and into the hallway, dismissing James the young footman who was acting as the night porter.
Only two wall sconces were lit and the soft shadowed lighting lent the hallway an unusual intimacy. Or maybe it was the fact that they were standing there alone in the middle of the night facing one another.
Arabella did not know what she should say. She could feel the tension between them, feel the speed of her heart. Her mouth was dry from dread, her thighs hot from desire. She swallowed and it sounded loud in the silence.
‘You need not worry, Arabella, I am not staying,’ he said in a voice as dark and rich as chocolate. ‘I came only to see you safely inside.’ As if to reinforce his words she could hear the sound of the waiting carriage from the street outside.
In the flickering of the candlelight she thought he had never looked so dangerous or so handsome. There was a hardness to his face that had not been there all those years ago, but when she looked into his eyes, those dark velvet brown eyes, Arabella saw something of tenderness. And for all that she should have known better, for all of her common sense, she felt the stirrings of old feelings that she had thought never to feel again. There was such an allure of forbidden attraction that the atmosphere sparked with it.
Her breath was shallow and fast, her stomach a mass of fluttering butterflies. ‘This arrangement between us. I thought that you would … That it would be different between us …’ She met his gaze. ‘I do not understand.’
‘Neither do I, Arabella,’ he said.
Her heart was thudding so hard she thought she could hear it in the silence.
He peeled off his gloves and came to stand before her.
They stared at one another for one beat of her heart and then another. And then he reached out his hand and touched his fingers to her cheek, caressing her face in a mirror of her own actions from an evening not so long ago. His touch was more gentle than she remembered, soft as the stirring of warm breath upon her skin. His movement was unhurried and sensual as he traced the outline of her cheek and up across her eyebrow.
He touched only her face yet every inch of her body tingled in response. He trailed his forefinger down the slope of her nose, and her breasts felt heavy and sensitive. His thumb brushed against her lower lip and the sensation was as if he had stroked between her legs. She gasped and opened to him so that his thumb probed within the moisture of her mouth. Her lips touched to him, not because she was his mistress but because it felt instinctive and right.
‘Arabella,’ he whispered and there was something agonised and urgent in his whisper. And then he pulled her into his arms and kissed her.
Arabella kissed him back, their mouths moving in hungry reunion. She felt his hands upon her breasts, upon her hips. Their bodies clinging together, as if nothing of the pain had ever been.
She felt the press of his manhood against her, felt the heat of him, the need in him, and, God help her, but she wanted him too. Her thighs burned. She was moist for him. Her body recognised his and opened as if in invitation. And her heart began to open to him too, just as it had done all those years ago. And suddenly she was afraid, afraid of where this was leading, afraid of what she was feeling.
Dominic seemed to sense the sudden swirl in her emotions. He stopped, raised his head and looked into her eyes and she saw in them a desire and confusion that matched her own.
‘No,’ he whispered, but did not release her. ‘No,’ he said again and she knew that it was himself he was denying more than her. His breathing was ragged and she could feel the taut strain in every hard muscle of his body. She could sense his hunger, and yet there was a sudden wariness in his eyes, a restraint almost. She felt his grip loosen. He released her and left; there was only the sound of the front door clicking shut behind him.
Arabella stood there until the sound of his carriage faded into the distance and she touched trembling fingers to her swollen lips, not understanding how she could feel such attraction for a man whom she disliked and did not trust. He had hurt her in the past. He was humiliating her in the present. She knew all of that, yet tonight he had made her forget. He seemed too like the man she had fallen in love with. When she was with him, when he touched her, when he kissed her …
She clutched her hand harder to her mouth and closed her eyes against the memory, feeling confused and ashamed that he could still affect her so and not knowing what was wrong with her. How could she, who was so strong when it came to everything else, be so weak when it came to Dominic Furneaux?
But Arabella knew that she must not give in. Once it had only been her heart and her pride that he had taken. Now there was so much more at stake than that. She glanced upstairs towards the chamber where her mother and son slept and knew she must stay strong.
Chapter Eight (#ulink_6adc0431-08df-5428-a1e3-2617ac48b23f)
The night was not going well for Dominic in the gaming den.
He looked at the cards in his hands and, despite all his resolutions, thought again of Arabella. Two nights had passed since the night of the masquerade. Only two nights and in that time he had thought of little else.
‘Arlesford,’ Hunter prompted by his side, and he realised that everyone at the table was waiting for him. He shoved some more guineas into the pile at the centre of the table.
And, contrary to his usual play, promptly lost them. Indeed, he had not won a game since entering the seedy surroundings, much to the delight of the rather rough-and-ready patrons of the establishment. But then Dominic knew he was more than a little distracted.
It was a small tavern in the East End, most of the patrons of which looked like men you would not wish to meet on a dark night. Their clothing was coarse, their language too. The gin and beer flowed freely, in the hope of addling the wits of those that were fool enough to come here.
It was, surprisingly enough, the very latest place to be seen for Gentlemen of the ton. Although, Dominic thought wryly, those young fops that ventured in here would soon realise they had bitten off more than they could chew. Young Northcote had ignored all of Dominic’s warnings and was now grinning to hide his nervousness and both drinking and betting more deeply than was wise. The boy was ill at ease in the surroundings, even if he did not want to admit any such thing; it had, after all, been his idea to come here.
Did she wonder as to his absence? Did he gnaw in her thoughts as she gnawed in his? Did she feel this same craving that plagued him night and day? He doubted it. To women like Arabella, their arrangement was nothing more than business. To women like Arabella … He caught the phrase back, and thought bitterly that there were no other women like Arabella.
He stared across the room, seeing not the overly warm, smoky den with its scored tables and rickety chairs and the men with their blackened teeth and their stubble-roughened faces, but the woman whose image had haunted him through the years.
The cards had been dealt. Again.
He lost. Again. And saw the way young Northcote’s eyes widened with fear as the youngster realised the extent of his own loses even at this early hour.
Dominic ached for Arabella, wanted her with a compulsion that bordered on obsession, but each time he touched her it was both ecstasy and torture. When he took her in his arms he felt the wound inside him tear afresh.
She was Arabella Tatton, the woman he had loved, the woman who had so callously trampled the youthful tenderness from his heart. And he could not separate that knowledge from his body’s craving for her. There would never be anything of relief. Yet he needed to be with her more with every passing minute. Even knowing that he could not touch her, even knowing the torture would be greater with her than without, he could not fight this growing addiction.
Dominic pushed his chair back, its battered legs scraping tracks through the sawdust that covered the floor.
‘I think I will call it a night,’ he said to the others and gestured for his hat and gloves to be brought.
Several faces looked up, surprise soon turning to menace.
Even Bullford seemed caught unawares. ‘A tad early for you, Arlesford.’
‘Certainly is, your Grace,’ said a large ruffian employed by the establishment. ‘Stay, see if you can win back them golden guineas that you’ve lost.’
‘Perhaps another night, gentlemen,’ he said.
The men did not look pleased, but Dominic met their gaze directly, knowing that he could handle himself against them. They looked back but only for a moment, then deliberately moved their attention elsewhere.
Hunter stood by his side.
‘Best not leave Northcote here. They will only chew him up all the more and spit him out afterwards,’ he said quietly to Hunter.
So the two of them guided Northcote out into the street.
After the haze of cigar and pipe smoke within the den the clear chilled night air seemed to hit Northcote so hard that the boy staggered.
Dominic hailed a hackney carriage and helped Hunter manoeuvre Northcote into it.
‘You are not coming with us?’ Hunter asked.
Dominic met his friend’s eyes. An unspoken understanding passed between them.
‘You do not have your cane with you tonight,’ said Hunter.
Dominic said nothing, just looked at his friend resolutely.
Hunter gave a sigh. ‘Very well. Just have a care if you are so intent on walking to her,’ said Hunter. ‘The coves back there were not too keen to let you go. It is only a little after midnight and they had hoped to fleece you for hours yet. Watch your back, Dominic.’
‘I will.’ Dominic clapped Hunter on the shoulder and watched the carriage depart before he turned and began to walk in the opposite direction.
He had not gone far when he became aware that he was being followed. He scanned the street, seeing that one of the lamp-posts was out a little further along, just at an opening between the buildings. A nice dark spot and a conveniently positioned alleyway. He knew that was where they would attack him.
They struck just where he had expected. Two attackers, one large and burly, the other smaller with no teeth in his head. He recognised them both from the gaming den.
He dodged back into the alley to avoid the first punch.
‘Not so fast, your Grace,’ a coarse voice said so close to his ear that he could smell the foulness and feel the heat of the fetid breath. A fist swiped close to his face. Dominic ducked and retaliated with a blow hard and low in the belly and had the satisfaction of hearing the man grunt and stumble away clutching at his guts as he bent double and retched against the alley wall. As he turned the second assailant was almost upon him. Dominic twisted to avoid the blow arcing towards him, and managed to avoid the blade—almost. The sting of it sliced across his ribs.
Dominic grabbed the man’s wrist and twisted. He heard the soft crack of bone and the yelp of pain as the man fell to his knees cradling his wrist. The knife clattered to land in the wet and filth of the cobblestones below. Dominic picked it up, and then grabbed the kneeling man’s hair, jerking his head back and touching the edge of the blade against the exposed throat.
‘See that the same does not happen to my friends. Do you understand?’
The man croaked a desperate acquiescence.
Dominic pushed the man away, then walked to face the man cringing against the wall, touching the knife’s tip ever so lightly against the fat of the villain’s belly.
‘You too.’
‘They won’t be harmed, I’ll see to it personally, your Grace,’ the rogue promised.
Dominic stared at him for just a moment longer and then he slipped the knife into his pocket and walked away.
The ruffians were kicking at the door, laying siege to it with a hammer. The thuds of the splintering wood reverberated right through Arabella’s body. She protected Archie with her body, but the men pulled her aside and wrenched the golden locket from around her neck. And when she looked across the road to the other side of the street where the narrow houses with their boarded windows should have stood, she saw the park and her mother standing waiting there. It was all mixed up and wrong, of course, but Arabella did not notice that in her nightmare.
She woke suddenly, with that same panicked feeling of fear in the pit of her stomach. But the sky was still dark with night, and she remembered that this was Curzon Street and there were no robbers and thieves here. She breathed her relief and relaxed her head back down on to the luxury of a soft feather pillow, and as she did she heard a voice cry out in shock. The cry was cut off as if abruptly hushed. She heard the low murmur of voices in the hallway below, the quiet opening and closing of a door. Hurried footsteps across the marbled floor tiles of the hallway.
Archie!
Arabella scrambled from the bed and, using only the glowing remains of the fire to guide her, was out of the bedchamber door and running down the stairs.
All of the wall sconces in the hallway had been lit. A maid, clad in her nightdress and robe, was coming out of the library with a bottle of brandy in her hand.
‘Anne?’
‘Oh, ma’am!’ The girl jumped and spun round and Arabella could see that her face was wet with tears.
‘What is wrong? What are you doing?’ The fear was squirming in Arabella’s stomach.
‘I got such a fright when I saw him.’ The maid’s face crumpled and she began to sob again.
‘What has happened, Anne?’
The drawing door opened and James the footman appeared. ‘What on earth is taking you, girl? I would have been quicker fetching it myself.’ And then he saw Arabella, and gave a quick bow. ‘Begging your pardon, ma’am. I did not see you there.’
‘What on earth is going on here?’ Arabella demanded.
‘It’s the master, ma’am.’
‘Dominic is here?’ The thought had not even entered her head. Even though it was his house. And she was his mistress.
‘His Grace has had a bit of an … accident.’
‘An accident?’ Arabella’s stomach dropped to the soles of her feet. Her heart was thumping a fast frenzied tattoo of dread.
The footman lowered his voice even more. ‘Not the best of sights for a lady to see, but he won’t let me fetch a doctor, ma’am.’
A chill of foreboding shivered right through her. She pushed past James into the drawing room.
