Jennifer Haymore Read online

  She might have spent the happiest afternoons of her life with Sir Devlin Vaughn, but he had also ruined her for anyone else, and now he threatened her closest friends in the world. She clenched her jaw against a sudden flare of anger.

  “I will go,” she whispered to her cousin.

  “Julia, you are not thinking clearly! You cannot.”

  “I am thinking quite clearly.” And she was. Dev’s presence here, tonight, had a magically sobering effect. Dev himself, on the other hand, must be three sheets to the wind. What else could have prompted his appearance? “Let me go,” she whispered to her cousin. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  She would not watch Thomas and Algernon get pummeled on her behalf. There was no question they would lose, even two against one. Dev was a trained fighter who boxed for sport, and Algernon and Thomas were…well, they were tailors, for heaven’s sake. They could, perhaps, do some damage with a needle and a thread, but not with their fists.

  She couldn’t get them involved. Dev was her problem, and she would face him head-on. She took a step forward.

  “Julia!” Thomas hissed.

  She turned back and gave them a smile she hoped masked her quavering insides. “I will see you soon.”

  Thomas shook his head and began to unbutton his greatcoat, preparing to fight.

  “Please don’t, Thomas. I beg you. I promise he won’t hurt me.” A bitter taste rose in her throat at the lie. Dev could hurt her, but not in the way they imagined—she knew that much. “I promise, Algie. He would never harm me. I’ll go with him and talk some sense into him. If I am not home by morning, come fetch me from his house in Mayfair.”

  Thomas’s hands paused over his buttons. A deep crease appeared between Algernon’s brows.

  “Please,” she added in a desperate whisper. “I don’t want violence. I can defuse his anger, I know I can.”

  “Julia—”

  “No. Now promise me you won’t go to the authorities.”

  “Julia—” Thomas said.

  “Promise me!” she snapped.

  The upper crust of London society often avoided the authorities and took matters into their own hands because the repercussions, should certain things become subjects of gossip, could be devastating. Instinct told her it would be wise to follow their lead in this matter.

  Algernon looked bewildered, clearly not understanding why involving anyone else would probably only serve to make matters worse. “I don’t think—”

  Now. She had to go to Dev now or they would do something rash. She couldn’t allow that to happen. She turned her back on them, lifted her skirts, and hurried up to Dev, stopping when she was within an arm’s length of him.

  She looked up into his handsome face, with its straight, long nose, square jaw and brooding eyes. Ignoring her stuttering heartbeat, she met his dark gaze.

  “Very well, Sir Devlin. Here I am.” And a rebellious spark somewhere deep within her added, Now what are you going to do with me?

  Chapter Two

  Without sparing a backward glance at those ridiculous fops, Devlin took Julia’s arm and pulled her around the corner. Once they were out of sight, he half pushed, half dragged her to Tottenham Court Road, where he hailed a hackney.

  It had been hotheaded and imprudent to take her so publicly, but his plans had changed. He couldn’t stomach the thought of her being bedded by those two little men. He muttered, “Don’t say a word,” as he nudged her inside the cab.

  He shouldn’t be gentle with her, God knew. Not after what she’d done to him. But hurting Julia, causing her pain or marring her beautiful skin—it was something he couldn’t conceive of doing.

  The ride to his house was brief, filled with silent tension. She obeyed his command and stared straight ahead in silence. His thigh pushed against hers in the tight confines of the hackney cab. He could not take his eyes off her. Christ, he wanted her, even when she sat stiff and proper beside him, her lips compressed into a tight, angry line. Even when she refused to meet his gaze. His body felt like one taut, flaming nerve. If she were to reach out and touch him, he would explode.

  When the hackney lurched to a stop, they emerged at the gate of his home. The house boasted large stretches of lawn on all sides, separating him from neighbors and busy streets, and offering a great deal of privacy. He had sent all the servants except his valet, Whittle, to his country estate. Whittle knew how to turn a deaf ear and keep his mouth shut.

  When they stepped into the dimly lit entrance hall, he slammed the door behind them and tore off his top hat, flinging it carelessly onto the table near the door.

  She pushed her back up against the blue gilt-trimmed wallpaper. The fire from the oil lamp burning on the table reflected off her wide eyes, speckling the blue with golden sparks. “Why are you doing this, Dev?”

  “I am not paying you to ask questions,” he snapped.

  “You are not paying me at all.” Her voice was calm, even though her hands shook, betraying her fear. Seeing that he was staring at them, she clasped them together behind her back.

  He flung his coat onto the table over his hat. “Very well, then. How much do you charge for a night of pleasure, Julia? Now that I know what you want, I plan to compensate you very well indeed.”

  She flinched, but her voice was still strong. “I am not a whore.”

  “Liar.” He stepped up to her, unclasped her cloak and let it fall to the floor. He pressed his body against hers, grinding into her, his erection pushing against her belly. He angled his lips so they brushed hers.

  Sweet and soft. Just that one brush, that one light taste, made pleasure flood through him.

  Defiance sparked in her blue eyes, and she pushed at his chest, hard. “Let me go, Devlin.”

  He pulled her wrists above her head, pinning them to the wall with one hand, his grasp immune to her attempts to free herself. He moved his free hand down the side of her face, her neck. How he’d missed her warm, pliant flesh. Nobody’s skin felt like Julia’s, no body reacted to him like hers. He moved his hand down her silk-clad shoulder and over her breast. Her nipple puckered through her bodice and he caressed it, drawing it out, making her breasts swell in pale round globes above the edge of her bodice. She gave a low noise of pleasure, half gasp, half groan.

  A burst of male pride shot through him, making him even harder. He knew how much she loved to be touched there.

  “Stop this,” she gritted out from between clenched teeth.

  Soon, he knew, he wouldn’t be able to stop. Images of taking her again and again, of sinking into her sweet, willing flesh, bombarded him. It had been too long since he’d had her. “Why should I?” he asked, his voice roughened by lust. “You take every Englishman on the Continent into your bed, and now you’re back in London taking on two at a time. What’s one more?”

  She inhaled sharply. “You’d never—”

  “I’d never what? Take an unwilling woman? But you’re willing, aren’t you? You will open your legs for any man so long as he’s rich enough, won’t you?”

  “No!”

  “I’m rich as Croesus, Julia,” he purred. “Have you forgotten?” He leaned down and brushed his lips against her ear. “Why, I would wager you’re already hot for me, already wet. Aren’t you?”

  A part of him knew he wasn’t playing fair, that this was wrong. But he was too overcome. Julia was in his house again. After a year of pain and longing, of fury and jealousy, she stood before him, beautiful and hot and sweet and lovely and as compelling to him as ever. His logical mind had long since relinquished control.

  She shuddered beneath him. Her breath came in little pants. He remembered how she’d loved it when he was rough with her, how she’d panted when he’d spoken to her with harshly erotic words. She wanted him now. He could feel it. He could smell the tang of her arousal beneath the perfume of her rosewater.

  She squeezed her eyes shut. “Please, Dev—”

  “Please what? Please take you? You can be certain I’ll oblige y
ou. I’ve been waiting a long time for this moment.” He drew out her hatpins, cast her little sapphire silk hat to the floor, and buried his face in her hair. The smell of her so close made his heart clench, his body tighten, his mind reel. He spoke softly. “Why have you been hiding from me, little Jewel?”

  The endearment, a play on her name, shocked him as much as it did her. He drew back and they locked eyes.

  Why had the name escaped from his lips? It was the nickname he had used after they made love. Or at least that was what he thought they had made. Until she had exposed her true colors by running off with the viscount.

  He couldn’t let her run off again. He wouldn’t survive it. This time he would tie her to him, if necessary.

  He broke eye contact, stepped back, grabbed her wrist in one hand and the lantern in the other and towed her up the stairs.

  He took her past his own suite of rooms to the chamber he had prepared for her. He had thrown out all the miscellaneous furniture and decoration and furnished it only with a small table and chair, and a bed covered with satin sheets, draped with India chintz curtains and piled high with red and white quilts and pillows. He had removed the paintings from the walls, boarded the window and set a deadbolt on the door.

  “Welcome to your new home,” Devlin said, drawing her inside. He deposited the lamp on the table beside the bed.

  She spun around to face him, her sapphire skirts settling around her legs. Her dress was beautiful, stylish. A testament of her worth to other men. “Dev, what is wrong with you?”

  You are.

  But he couldn’t say it, of course. He couldn’t let her see his weakness. Couldn’t let her see how deeply it had cut him when she’d left. He closed the door and leaned against it, unbuttoning his tailcoat as he commanded, “Remove your clothes down to your chemise and lie on the bed.”

  She drew herself up tall and faced him at her full height. Still she was small, nearly a foot shorter and at least seven stone lighter than him. Her lovely face settled into determined lines. “No.”

  He took a step into the room, curled his fists at his sides and raised an expectant brow.

  Clamping her lips together, she shook her head.

  How dare she? How dare she giggle and flirt on the arms of two men, two strangers? How dare she kiss their cheeks and cheerfully waltz down the street on her way to be bedded by them both? How could she go so willingly with them and then glare at him and say no?

  It was the money, surely. The two men had likely offered her an exorbitant sum.

  Devlin’s shoulders shook. He turned away and braced his hands, palms flat, on the door. He wanted to cry, to scream, to hit something.

  Stay calm. Breathing slowly, he quieted his raw nerves. He had her now. She would never sleep with anyone but him ever again, because he wouldn’t allow it. He wouldn’t allow another man to touch her, to look at her in anything more than polite friendship.

  He could live with what she’d done. He had no choice in that. But that knowledge didn’t take away the pain her actions had caused him. That would always reside within him, a festering wound.

  Pushing himself away from the door, he turned back to face her and tried to infuse command into his voice. “Take off your dress.”

  She didn’t speak, but she didn’t remove her dress, either. With eyes as wide as a virgin’s, she retreated until her back pressed against the boarded window.

  Why was she performing this act? What could it possibly mean?

  He knew she was no innocent. He stepped forward. “Your gown.”

  “I can’t—”

  “Don’t toy with me, Julia.” He reached out, grabbed the sapphire satin of her skirts in one hand and yanked, clasping her firmly about the waist when she lurched forward.

  She twisted in his arms, her stomach grazing his straining cock. He lost his grip on rational thought. Dragging her down with him, he sank to his knees.

  “Dev,” she panted.

  She couldn’t know how it had torn him to shreds when she’d left him, how he’d tried to patch himself up by sleeping with other women, only to fail in his efforts to transpose her face over theirs. He craved only her. Her soft, sweet-smelling flesh, her raven-dark, silky hair, her beautiful blue eyes. Her kind, gentle heart… But, no. That last bit had been nothing but an act.

  Still, she couldn’t conceive of how badly he had ached for her since she’d left him.

  And now he had her back. He’d never let her go. He…couldn’t.

  He plunged his hand into her hair, his fingers jamming against her hairpins. Most of her hair came loose, and he slipped his fingers through it and clasped the back of her head, turning her face toward his.

  Their lips met in a clash of teeth and tongues. Devlin claimed her mouth as his own and sank into the raw pleasure of tasting her again, losing his mind to her soft, warm lips, her sweet taste. Julia. His jewel.

  She made a soft whimpering noise as his tongue dove into her mouth. The sound pierced all the way through him, arousing him all the more.

  And then, she was with him. Right there, on the edge of the precipice, on the verge of losing all control. She grabbed the edges of his shirt and yanked it apart. Buttons flew and the fine linen tore down the front. Then her greedy hands were on him, stroking his chest, teasing his nipples, tugging the waistline of his trousers.

  Somewhere beneath her voluminous skirts and petticoats, he found her leg. He nudged her knees farther apart, moved his hand over her silk stocking, past her garter, up her thigh. He explored the soft flannel of her drawers, the curve of her buttocks. She ground against him.

  A groan ripped through his body. “You like that, don’t you, Julia?” he growled against her mouth.

  “No,” she whispered, her voice trembling with need. Then louder. Firmer. “No.”

  * * *

  Julia wrenched herself free of Dev and scurried back on her haunches, her skirts falling back down around her legs. “No,” she repeated, shaking her head to rid it of the cloud of lust that had overcome her.

  She had thought herself free from him, but he had just proven to her that she was not. Worse, she had not fought him as she should have. His insistence had caught her on fire, and only his ardor—the very thing she had striven to eliminate from her life—had doused it. She had wanted it as much as he had, and her wicked body loved every second. Her wicked body wanted more.

  He had kidnapped her, for goodness’ sake! What was she thinking? Had she completely lost her senses?

  She bit down hard on the inside of her cheek. Earlier, Devlin had threatened Thomas with bodily harm. Just moments ago he had dragged her into this room with its boarded window, clearly meant to be her prison. And yet she could not despise him as she should. Why could she not despise him?

  She knew now, as she had known a year ago, that this could only end badly. If nothing else, she had become a sensible woman. She had stopped dreaming, stopped believing in fairytales. She must cling to the lifeline of her newfound practicality.

  Dev’s expression hardened, and suddenly ice resonated off him in sheets, making her shiver with a bone-deep chill. “So you’ll go cheerfully to allay those two men’s depraved desires, and yet you say no to me?”

  Her resolve hardened. Despicable, hateful, jealous man.

  “Do not say such things,” she bit out. “Algernon is—” She broke off, pinching her lips together in rebellion. He did not deserve an account of her horrible year or an explanation of Algernon and Thomas’s relationship to her. He did not deserve anything from her.

  His dark eyes glinted. “So you intended to play the innocent virgin with them as you are attempting to do with me? I know better.”

  She squared her shoulders and stumbled to her feet, glaring at him as he rose, too. She hated him. Hated him. Crossing her arms tightly over her chest, she said, “Have you had quite enough, Devlin? Am I free to go?”

  He glared at her. “You misunderstand. I am keeping you here.”

  “You cannot do t
hat.”

  “Oh but I can. And I will.”

  “My…companions will be here in the morning. They will search for me.”

  He gave a careless shrug. “Let them try.”

  She dashed toward the exit, but as fast and graceful as a lynx—he had always surprised her with his easy grace in spite of his size—he beat her to it, edging between her body and the door. “Not so fast, Julia.”

  “You cannot keep me here. I have a life, a position.”

  His lip curled into a sneer. “A position? Well, you can assume that position here, for me, whenever I damn well please.”

  She gasped at the brutality of his words. This was not the Devlin she knew. She stared at him for a frozen moment.

  It was there, deep in his eyes. A dark shadow, so deep and so valiantly hidden behind all this self-righteous fury that she almost hadn’t seen it.

  The real Devlin was still in there somewhere. She took a deep breath and spoke, filling her voice with soft assurance. “I will not take you as a lover, Dev.”

  His eyes narrowed into snakelike slits. “Why?”

  “Because…” she closed her eyes, then spoke the truth, “…you will ruin me.”

  Ultimately, her words made no sense. She was already ruined in the eyes of society. But in her own eyes…in her heart and soul…yes, Dev had the power to ruin her.

  He let out a burst of harsh laughter. “I saw you tonight. I saw you work that room, then leave draped over the arms of those two whoremongering bastards. You’re already ruined, Julia.”

  She shook her head. Foolish man. “Do not speak of what you do not know.”

  His teeth glinted in the lamplight. “You would be their whore but not mine?”

  “I am nobody’s whore,” she exclaimed.

  “You lie.”

  “I’m not lying. I never sold my body.”

  “Tell me Viscount Clayton did not pay your passage to the Continent.”

  “He did not.” Algernon, bless his heart, had loaned her the money.

  Dev looked taken aback, but recovered quickly. “Who paid for your upkeep in Paris, Julia? Your uncle? I sincerely doubt it. By all accounts he will have nothing to do with you.”