The Marquess Who Loved Me

Chapter TWENTY


Ellie had fought hard to control her blush when she read the note that Nick had sent her. She must have succeeded — Salford had said nothing about it. He merely continued discussing her antiquities collection with her as though receiving a note at midnight didn’t merit any curiosity whatsoever.

Or perhaps he was merely polite. Far more polite than Nick. Only a devil would make this arrangement, let alone send the note he had sent. Why couldn’t she have fallen in love with someone like Salford? Someone kind, with a sharp mind, who might take care of her?

But Ellie didn’t want a protector. Perhaps she didn’t deserve one, either. Perhaps she deserved an inescapable adversary, a dark king to match the woman she had remade herself into.

Stop being dramatic. The party had dissolved five minutes after she received the note, when she had abruptly sent everyone off to bed. And now, after twenty minutes spent pacing in her room, she had come back downstairs to follow her orders. She took a breath and pushed open the door to the study. She closed it behind her and turned the key in the lock. Leaning against the door, she unfolded the note in her hand and read it again.

E. - The study, half past midnight. Lock the interior door. Unlock the door to the terrace but leave the curtains closed. Take down your hair for me and kneel in front of the desk. Wait there until I arrive. Don’t move when I enter. Don’t make a sound until I say you may. Tonight, goddess, we shall see whether you can worship me. - N.

Her father was wrong. There were times when one had to be dramatic. This was one of them. She strode across the room and tossed the note into the fire. She didn’t wait to see the paper burn — the words were already seared into her memory.

She unlocked the terrace door. She shivered as she pulled the pins from her hair, placing them one by one on the lacquered white desk. Her sense of order was disturbed by having them there, so she slid open a drawer and tossed them inside — directly on top of Nick’s copy of the agreement they had signed, the paper that bound her to him. She shut the drawer and shook her hair out until it fell in heavy waves down her back.

Then she moved around the desk to the open space in the center of the room. She eyed the floor dubiously. It was thickly carpeted, but she wasn’t accustomed to kneeling. Ellie Claiborne knelt for no one and nothing.

But the saints of old had knelt until their knees bled — something Ellie would have done a decade ago, if she had thought her betrayal of Nick and their love was something she could do penance for. So she knelt. She felt ridiculous even as she sank to her knees, but there was nothing for it. Perhaps Nick would see how ridiculous it was and let her have a chair instead.

There was little hope of that. As soon as he walked through the French door a few minutes later, she knew he didn’t find her ridiculous. The hunger in his eyes was so stark, the set of his jaw so determined, the slash of his lips so cruel, that she knew, then, how this night would go.

He would wring everything from her that he intended to wring. And her cursed, traitorous heart would give it to him — everything he asked for, everything he wanted.

Everything she wanted, if she were being honest. Because, stupid fool that she was, she would rather have this night, no matter where it led, than another lifetime without him.

* * *

She knelt for him. Nick had dreamed of her in that pose. He had dreamed of the words that would come from those lips. She would beg for his forgiveness. She would plead for him to come back to her. She would cry as he denied her. He would crush her heart so that she would feel the same roaring, angry emptiness that he felt. And then he would leave her with the knowledge that she would share his bed anyway, again, and again, until her debt was repaid.

But dreaming was so far away from doing. And now that Nick had her there, in exactly the pose he had imagined, he felt far more doubt than he’d ever expected.

She didn’t greet him. So far, she had followed his instructions to the letter. Only her eyes moved to follow him, but she didn’t tilt her head as he moved toward her — didn’t turn as he walked behind her, although her spine stiffened with the tension of not knowing what he intended.

He wanted to touch her. But, more, he wanted to know her. He needed to know her, suddenly — needed to know why her image was so icy when her painting was so wild. Why she was so distant when her friends were so intimate. Why she, who seemed so jaded and fickle, had never professed love for anyone else.

He walked over to the decanter and poured himself a drink. It was still a hideous room — not the setting he’d imagined for this seduction, although using her in the room she’d decorated in a fit of pique against him was its own sort of poetry. Still, he would be damned before he sat on one of those lavender hassocks. He pulled the chair out from behind the desk and sat in it, directly in front of Ellie, his legs spread negligently in front of him. His erection pressed against his breeches, but he still had some control — there was still time for the questions he suddenly, urgently needed to ask.

“Tell me what your sins are.”

Ellie sat back on her heels, startled. “I beg your pardon?”

“Your sins. I said I would learn them. And I want to learn them now.”

“Now? You called me onto the carpet like a child, not a…?”

She couldn’t complete the sentence. “A concubine?” he supplied.

She nodded.

“Funny, that doesn’t seem to be a word you would hesitate over. But no, you’re not a child. And we will get to the concubine part of the evening in good time.”

She choked back a laugh, perhaps thinking that laughter wasn’t allowed by the letter of his demands. She was so far from tears as to make his revenge, if he still wanted it, seem permanently unattainable. He frowned and tried to focus. “Your sins, Ellie. Now.”

She met his gaze straight on. “You were the only sin that was deadly for me.”

“Still regretting you gave your maidenhead to a peasant? My only regret is I can’t take it again.”

“Do you want me to say I regret that I have but one maidenhead to give for your lordship? I’m sorry, but you broke that toy — you’ll have to take something else.”

He sipped his whisky to hide his sudden grin and contemplated the lines of her face. In this mood, she wouldn’t betray vulnerability. Her chin was too stubborn, her mouth too sultry, her eyes too guarded. She was the Virgin Queen again, cold and unattainable no matter what he said or what he forced her to do. But he knew how to break through the ice.

“Is there nothing else you wish to confess?” he asked.

If she lifted her chin any higher, she would snap her own neck. “Absolutely not.”

He tossed back the rest of his whisky, wiped his mouth with his sleeve just to annoy her, and set the glass behind him on the desk. Then he leaned back in his chair and crossed his hands behind his head. “Then you may begin, goddess. Worship me.”