Her stomach pitched. I’m going to be ill . . .
Say something. Order him gone. Order him to the Devil.
Her mouth went dry as terror clawed at her mind, robbing her of rational thought.
And by the feral grin on Lord Oliver’s slightly fleshier face, he well knew it and reveled in the upper hand he’d wrested from her.
He raised a hand, and she recoiled, hunching her body protectively.
You little whore . . . you will do whatever I tell you to do . . . and with whomever . . .
With a smirk, the duke brushed a ginger curl back from his brow in an affected gesture.
He was toying with her, as he’d always done.
“Get away from me,” she whispered, and she hated her own inherent weakness for the threadbare quality to that pitiable command.
A flute of champagne dangling between his white-gloved fingers, he swirled the contents in the slightest circle. “Tsk, tsk. And here I’d thought there would be great joy at being reunited with your former love.” He sipped at his drink.
And through the terror and misery of having him step back into her life, a seething and potent fury swept her. A welcome, deserved hatred that shook loose the shock and brought her back up. “What do you want?” she demanded.
He paused; it was an infinitesimal slip of time but one she saw and took strength in.
Reggie wasn’t the young, weak girl she’d once been. Broderick had helped her to see her own strength and worth. She’d not let a cad like Lord Oliver bully her about. Not any longer.
“That’s hardly the greeting for the man you were to marry.”
She seethed. “The man who made me a whore.”
Lord Oliver touched his spare hand to a chest. “You wound me, love.” He lifted his glass and toasted her. “I never made you anything.” He lowered his voice to a husky whisper. “You saw to that all by yourself.” As casual as if he were raising a lady’s finger for a requisite kiss, he grabbed her right breast, squeezing hard.
Her skin crawled, and for a horrifying moment she was transported back to another time. And she was that small, pathetic creature too afraid to say no to even his filthy touch. Fearing the inevitable backhand. The unexpected fist.
Break and belittle. It had been a tactic he’d wielded with militaristic precision.
It chased off her fear, leaving in its place fury. Color burnt her cheeks. Not this time.
Snarling, Reggie swatted Lord Oliver’s hand, knocking his hold loose. With her opposite palm, she unsheathed her dagger and touched the tip of her blade to his throat.
He blanched, going absolutely still.
And mayhap she’d been shaped in Mac Diggory’s image, for she reveled in the stark terror spilling from his slightly soft frame. “I’ll ask you one more time, what do you want with me?”
Lord Oliver swallowed and forced a chuckle that sent his throat muscles bobbing.
Under that slightest of movements, the lethally sharp tip of her dagger pierced his skin. A single crimson bead wound a trail down his creamy-white flesh, staining his cravat with a minute drop.
“Come now, Regina,” he cajoled, those same tones he’d used when coaxing her out of her virginity. “Surely you don’t intend to slice a duke’s throat in the alcove of another powerful peer.”
“You’re a duke now,” she said dumbly.
“Indeed,” he purred, his relish clear in even that two-syllable reply.
She faltered but made no move to lower her knife. Of course his ascension to a dukedom had been inevitable, but still, this understanding elevated him to all-powerful in ways he hadn’t been before. “I’d rather swing than allow you to hurt me.” Again.
Never again.
“Ah, but what about the family which has taken you in?” Her heart wound a path from her chest, dipping to her stomach, and then crashing to her toes, along with reality. “I, along with all Polite Society, understand Mr. Killoran seeks a proper match for his sister. A scandal in a ballroom between us?” He flashed a wide grin; the cloying hint of garlic and sweetness on his breath set her gut to churning. “Why, I trust that would ruin all hopes. Don’t you?”
Reggie stood immobile, breathing hard and fast. Wanting to tell him to go to the Devil and provide a path for him to get there.
And yet he didn’t threaten her . . . he threatened Broderick and his family.
Silently cursing, she let her arm drop. “What do you want?” she asked succinctly.
Lord Oliver set his glass down on the ledge behind him and then yanked out a kerchief to dab at that slight wound she’d made on his throat. “With you?” he scoffed. “What would I want with you, the whore who robbed me?”
“You bastard,” she spat. “I didn’t rob you.”
He chuckled. “It doesn’t escape my notice that you do not dispute being a whore.”
Shame came, hot, swift, and with a stingingly familiar force. For there could be no disputing what she’d done in the past . . . what she’d given to this man. What she’d been. Before Broderick had taken her in and let her carve a new beginning.
For all the anger she’d carried these past days, love swelled within her breast for every gift he’d given, and more for the strength he’d helped her find within herself. And for those gifts, she could not see him harmed. Not even to spare herself. “You have one minute,” she warned, “and then I’m leaving.”
He frowned.
Yes, of course, dukes didn’t partake in discourse. They spoke, and the world listened and didn’t volunteer a word edgewise. Reggie, however, didn’t belong to this world. She never would. Nor did she wish to. Not even when she’d believed herself in love with him.
“Mr. Killoran wants a title for his sister.”
She stiffened. Of all the things she’d expected from his treachery . . . that had been the last she’d anticipated. And yet why should it be? Why should his motives in seeking out Reggie, Gertrude’s companion, knock her aback? “No,” she said curtly before he could put another word forward.
The duke flicked an imagined scrap of lint from his midnight-black sleeve. “I didn’t put my request to you.”
“You request nothing,” she snapped. “You take what you want and give nothing in return.”
“Yes,” he acknowledged unapologetically. “Generally, that has been my way. That is a luxury afforded dukes. This time, however, is different.”
A warning knocked around the back of her head. No!
He spoke, confirming her dark suspicion. “I’ve lost my fortune.”
“To whores, wagers, and drink,” she spat.
He smiled. “Indeed. However, I now find myself in need . . . of funds.”
Reggie’s mouth moved with no words coming out. She was already shaking her head. “No.”
“I’m not asking you.” He stroked a finger down her right cheek, flesh that had suffered so many blows from the very hand he worked over her face now. “I’m telling you.”
She stumbled away from him, knocking against the back wall and toppling onto the bench.
“I’m going to court her and make her my duchess.”
Her stomach heaved, vomit climbing her throat.
“Over my dead body.”
He laughed softly and leaned down, erasing the distance between them, making the already-small space of the alcove narrower and darker.
She flinched, but he merely flicked her nose. “I can arrange that. A whore who robbed me years ago and lived the years in between as a gaming hell owner’s mistress? Killoran wouldn’t survive the scandal, and you?” He scraped a derisive glance up and down her frame. “You simply wouldn’t survive.”
Her tongue felt heavy in her mouth. “What do you want from me?”
“Your silence. And I’m so generous, Regina, that I’m willing to not only spare you but also pay you.”
“Pay me?” she echoed.
“Word is that Killoran would pay anywhere up to seventy-five thousand pounds for the man who takes the blind one off his hands.”