The color bled from her face. She stared at him with stoic acceptance. “Such is your life.”
“Quite so.” He nodded once. “I’ll let you get back to your duties.” Turning on his heels, he strode away, damned if he would beg. Damned if he would let her see just how desperately he longed for her in his bed.
She and no other.
Fallon watched him storm away, her heart in her throat, blocking her breath. She bit her lip to keep from calling him back, to accept the offer that went against everything she was, everything she ever wanted to be.
And yet, suddenly, the role of mistress—his mistress—did not horrify her as it should have. She could only think of the benefits. The temptations. Chiefly falling asleep in his arms and waking up in them each morning…and in a home that he would provide. A home of her own. The prospect nearly made her dizzy. The duke and a home.
But at what cost? The coppery tang of blood washed over her teeth and she quickly released her lip.
Shaking her head, she entered the guest chamber requiring fresh linens, vowing to forget the simple thrill of his touch and recall that she was nothing more than a maid. A servant in his household. At least until she saved enough for her own place. Da had not raised her to become a rich man’s mistress. A toy to be played with and discarded when he tired of her.
Dominic would find another to take her place. Several, if his past habits were any indication. She need merely to brace herself for the day she saw him with another. An eventuality. Nonetheless, pain lanced her heart at the likelihood.
Legs suddenly weak, she sank onto the bed, staring ahead, not seeing the fine pinstriped papered walls at all. Instead, she saw herself. Struggling day in and day out to remain unaffected in the duke’s household—to act as a shadow when her heart was irrevocably bound to him.
Grand, Fallon. You perfect idiot. You’ve fallen in love with the wastrel.
She rubbed the side of her face. What an impossible situation. Had she truly thought she could go on as before, blithely unaware of the duke? She had never been unaware of him. On the contrary. And now…given the intimacies they had shared, her carnal knowledge…
She blinked, heat flooding her face.
In that moment, she knew what she had to do.
She would accept Lord Hunt’s stipend, however insulted she felt upon first hearing it. A dull ache grew beneath her breastbone. She pressed a hand there, rubbing in small circles. Her very survival dictated it. Better a dent to her pride than her heart.
Chapter 26
D ominic ignored the gentleman who stopped before his chair and continued to stare into the hearth’s flickering fire as he raised his glass to his lips. At least until the fellow cleared his throat so many times he begged notice.
“I’m busy,” Dominic ground out, lips hugging the edge of the glass.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, Your Grace. Your butler directed me here.”
“Adams?” He was going to have a word with the man about giving out his whereabouts to anyone who came calling.
“It is a matter of some urgency.”
Dominic snorted and sent a quick glance to the man, surveying him with a sweep of his eyes. “Have we met? You look familiar.”
“I’m John Meadows. Your grandfather’s secretary.”
Dominic grunted and finished off his brandy. With a motion of his hand, he signaled a server to bring him another drink. Leveling a ruthless glare on the man, he spoke evenly, “This is a private club.”
“Quite so, but given the nature of my business, they permitted me a brief word with you.” He glanced down at his rumpled attire, brushing dust from his trouser leg. “Forgive the late hour and my appearance. I rode all day to reach here.”
A quick glance around the room revealed that they were the subject of some interest. Several gentlemen peered at them from their seats, gazes lifting from their newspapers or cards.
“Convey your message and be gone, then.” A footman hurried over and deposited a tray with a fresh decanter upon it. Dominic held out his glass to be refilled.
In the last few days, he had spent more time at his club than home. Absurdly, he was hiding from Fallon. Unable, unwilling, to see the very thing—the woman—he most wanted and couldn’t have.
The secretary cleared his throat again, tugging at his cravat.
Leaning back against the plush cushion of the chair, he stretched out his boots before him. “Out with it? What’s the message?”
“Message?”
“Yes. From my grandfather?” He paused to take another lengthy sip, replying drolly, “What does the old bastard want?”
Meadows’s eyes bugged behind a pair of spectacles. “You refer to him thusly?” His shoulders pulled up in clear affront, nearly reaching his ears.
“Know any other old bastards?”
Meadows’s mouth worked, clearly beyond speech. The secretary had not been around when Mrs. Pearce reigned supreme at Wayfield Park. Dominic waved his hand impatiently. “Spit it out.”
“Your grandfather is…”
“Yes.” Despite his air of indifference, a certain tightness gripped his chest as he prepared himself for the words to come, already guessing what they were.
“Declining.”
His hand stilled for a moment, pausing in bringing his drink to his lips. Not dead, then. Declining. He took another sip.
“I see.” He lowered his glass to the small rosewood table at his side. Absently, his fingers bent inward, curving to stroke the scarred flesh of his palm. “That last time I saw him he was declining. Isn’t that what old men do?”
“Yes, well, he has worsened. I fear he will soon expire.”
Dominic’s lips twisted in a savage smile. “That also tends to happen when one is old. You die.”
“Have you no desire to see him?”
“I already did.”
“Perhaps again?”
“He’s not dying,” Dominic announced baldly, the proclamation earning a few more stares. He forced his eyes wide with feigned guilelessness. “He told me himself that he would not breathe his last breath until satisfied that I am well and settled, married and living a virtuous life.”
Meadows’s eyes skimmed him with some skepticism. “Indeed. Well, I fear he cannot live forever. Much as some would like.”
Dominic chuckled, not missing the secretary’s insult. Not missing it, and not caring. “Don’t put it past him.”
“I know there is some discord between the two of you—”
Dominic stopped from biting out that he didn’t know a damn thing. About him, at any rate. And likely he didn’t know anything about the good reverend that he appeared to hold in such esteem.
Instead, he only chuckled harder. “Discord? That’s rich.”
“I would be happy to accompany you to Wayfield Park to—”
“Now, why would I wish to go there?” He had no intention of stepping foot in the home of his youth. His grandfather could perish and that mausoleum could rot from neglect for all he cared. He had spent enough miserable years in those walls.
“Well, aside from seeing your grandfather, there is the matter of Wayfield Park, its rents and tenants—”
“All of which ran smoothly these last years in my absence.”
“Yes. Under Mr. Collins’s care. Now that he is ill, would you not wish to begin familiarizing yourself with—”
“Not especially. I’ll worry about that when I must. After he’s dead.”
Meadows adjusted his spectacles and angled his head to the side. “I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me.”
Meadows gave a jerky nod, the skin of his face suddenly pinched and tight-looking. “I see all that I’ve heard of you is true.”
Dominic shrugged and grunted in a manner that conveyed how little he cared about the secretary’s opinion.
Meadows sniffed. “You are the devil.”
Dominic reached for his glass. “So I’ve been told.”
With a grunt o
f disgust, Meadows turned on his heels.
Dominic watched the little man flee with a hard smile on his face. He sat for some moments—alone in a room full of people—searching within himself, attempting to gauge precisely how he felt on the matter of his grandfather’s impending death. If he felt anything at all.
Nothing, he decided. He found only a dull hollowness within his chest. His usual numbing apathy. Nothing. Deadness.
His mind wandered, jumping ahead, seeking, aching, he realized, for the person who brought feeling into his cold life, breathing a warm wind through the arctic void. Fallon. For once the thought of her came as a welcome distraction. Fallon—the only person to make him feel he was more than the immoral blot of existence the world perceived. The only person to make him…feel. And not just when his body joined with hers. Every time he saw her. Every time he talked to her. Every time he thought of her. With Fallon, he felt right, good, whole.
And she wanted nothing to do with him. Damn her. She wanted to live her life, devotedly saving every halfpenny. For a home. Home. What was that anyway, save walls and a roof? What was so important about a bloody home? He possessed several, and none of them meant anything to him.
Finishing off his brandy, he pushed to his feet, suddenly craving solitude. At this late hour, he could return to his townhouse with no fear of facing anyone. Namely her. She would be safely tucked in bed in the servants’ quarters. Living the life of a maid. An existence she preferred to that of one with him.
Fallon stared at her small valise, packed with all she possessed in the world. Paltry in sum. A sad testimony to her life, but an accurate reflection nonetheless.
She inhaled a deep breath, her chest expanding as she examined its contents a final time. But no more. She would begin living for herself. Soon her life would be impossible to stuff within one small valise. It would brim full and spill out over the edges. Even if it meant swallowing her pride and accepting the provision Lord Hunt offered.
It mollified her somewhat to know Da would want her to take the help. In fact, he would be annoyed if she did not. She could almost hear his voice now. Stubborn lass, take the money. I bloody well earned it for you.
Dominic’s face floated before her. She shook her head, absently brushing her lips with her fingertips. True, she wanted him more than she should. But she did not need him. She would not have him. Not if it meant selling herself…cheapening herself and trading all her dreams and desires in exchange for an undefined number of nights in his bed.
She strode across her small room and lifted Lord Hunt’s card from the center of the desk. Tomorrow she would call on him. Tomorrow she would accept his stipend.
Tomorrow her new life would begin.
She set the card down atop the table, smoothing her fingertips over the embossed lettering. And tonight…
Tonight she would say farewell to the duke.
Certainly, she could just slip away. Leave in the morning without saying good-bye, without explaining her departure. Or she could simply offer her resignation to Mr. Adams. No audience with the duke was required. She never had to clap eyes on him again.
Yet she couldn’t do that. It didn’t seem right. Not after…everything.
Wise or not, she could not leave without seeing him one last time.
Opening the door of her room, she slipped out into the silent hall.
Dominic sat in the drawing room, his booted feet stretched before the fire. Heat licked at the soles but he still did not move, preferring that the bottoms of his feet roast rather than suffer his other feelings. Feelings. Hell. Years of losing himself in women, drink, and painting in order to feel anything at all, and now he couldn’t stop the onslaught of emotions.
Frustration swam through him, commanding he rise and set off in search of Fallon. He should return to his room and his own bed, but Fallon’s scent still lingered there, tantalizing him. The drawing room was far safer. His eyelids drooped and he knew he risked falling asleep here for the servants to discover…which lent itself to the very real and unwelcome possibility of Fallon finding him in the morning. An unwelcome scenario. He could not trust himself around her. Could not trust to keep his hands to himself. Or trust himself not to lash out at the woman who preferred a life of humble servitude to him.
“Dominic.”
Her soft voice sent all his nerve endings into singing awareness. It was as though he had called forth her presence.
He closed his eyes in a tight blink, forcing himself to rein in his surge of swirling-hot emotions. She was nothing to him that should bring forth such feelings. Nothing. Just as she preferred.
He opened his eyes to find her there before him, attired in the loathsome uniform all the maids on his staff wore. His gaze crawled over her, stopping at her face. “Strayed a bit far from the servants’ wing, haven’t you? Go away.”
“I came—” she faltered, her gaze sweeping his unkempt appearance. Her nostrils flared, no doubt smelling the spirits on him. “What has happened?”
“Nothing.” His hand twitched on the arm of his chair. “Merely another night of debauchery.”
She stared at him some time before shaking her head, rejecting his words. “No. Something happened. I’ve never seen you like this.”
Irrational anger burned in his chest. “Ah, proof then that you don’t know me at all.” If you did, you would understand how very much in danger you are just by being here.
She cocked her head and looked down at him as if he were a wayward child. The look ignited his temper. “Come, let’s get you to your room.”
“Bugger off,” he snarled, despising her mothering tone and that she would dare adopt a motherly role with him. “You made it clear you were not interested in becoming my mistress. And as I have no need of a nursemaid, you are of no use to me. Leave.”
Fire snapped in her amber gaze. “You’re a miserable wretch.” Her head nodded as though satisfied with the qualification. “Kindness is lost on you. I came in here to tell you good-bye.” She started to turn.
“Good riddance,” he snarled, surging to his feet even as his chest clenched at the prospect of never seeing her face again.
Scarlet stained her cheeks as she faced him again, nearly as vibrant as the hair peeking beneath her cap. “I can see the sentiment was wasted on you.”
“Since when does saying good-bye require sentiment?”
“It doesn’t,” she raged, chest lifting on a deep, ragged breath.
“Simply turn and walk out that door.” He whirled a finger in a little circle. “Easy. That is all. Done.”
“Quite so.” Spinning on her heels, she stalked to the door.
He swiped his hand through his hair and gave a violent tug on the ends. Bloody hell. With a growl, he took off after her. His hand was almost on her shoulder when she stopped and jerked herself around.
They crashed into one another.
She gave a small yelp. He grabbed her when she would have stepped back and hauled her against him, his hands hard clamps on her arms. Their eyes collided and clung, their chests heaving against each other.
With a curse of defeat, he slammed his mouth over hers in a punishing kiss. He forced her lips open, plunging his tongue inside to tangle with hers, beyond gentleness. Beyond finesse. Savage need drove him.
Her arms circled his neck and she kissed him back. Molded together, they lowered to the drawing room carpet, mouths devouring each other, the pop and hiss of the fire the only sound on the air. He slid a hand around her to the small of her back, letting her feel the evidence of his desire. She made a small sound and deepened the kiss.
He pulled up, breaking their lips apart with an abruptness that jarred. Aching and furious from the heavy wanting coursing through him, tightening every nerve in his body, he bit out, “Go. Go now, or God help me, I won’t stop.”
She wiggled from him, steady resolve entering her eyes. Warm amber. Red in the firelight. With a small nod, she clambered to her feet and turned, striding toward the drawing room door.
Pained breath sawed from his lips as he watched her go, but he still did not move from the floor. If he moved, it would be to go after her.
Her hand closed on the latch. He watched, forcing himself to rise to his feet and watch her walk out of his life. He fought the urge to haul her back and flip up her skirts and fulfill every savage impulse pumping through him.
The grinding lock of the door clicked on the air.
He blinked.
She turned, her body falling back against the door. She had not left. She stayed. Despite his warning. Palms pressed flat against the wood, she studied him with a steadfast gaze. And yet even in that unflinching stare, a fire gleamed—a fire he had put there. And one he intended to stoke even higher.
She was staying. For now. For tonight. He intended to make every moment count. She could leave him in the morning, in the shroud of dawn, but he vowed to make her remember, vowed that she would never forget him. Of that, he was certain. Memories of him would haunt whatever bloody dwelling she called home and dared to value above him.
Chapter 27
F allon had not intended for this to happen. Not again. But she could not desert him when he looked as he did. When he looked at her as he did. So full of savage need and hunger. Gray eyes dark with a thirst her own body felt, echoing deep in her bones.
He appeared so grim and alone when she first entered the room. Flames from the dying fire cast him in sinister shadow. It should have sent her fleeing. And yet she remained.
She knew what turning that lock signified. But as her hands moved over the tiny buttons lining the front of her gown, she decided she did not care. She would be here for him tonight.
And tomorrow she would be gone.
“Fallon,” he breathed her name but said nothing more as she undressed, strangely immodest before him. Naked, she stepped out from the puddle of her clothes at her feet and strode toward him. Pressing her palm against his chest, she backed him into a chaise, a heady euphoria filling her at her boldness, making her dizzy with power and desire.