Temptation In Regency Society. Margaret McPhee

      How dare he? she thought. How damnably dare he stand there and judge me after what he has done? And in that moment she hated him with a passion that was in danger of driving every last vestige of control from her head. She wanted to scream at him and hit him and unleash all of her anger, for all that he had done then, and for all that he had done now. But she hung on to her self-control by the finest of threads.

      His eyes held hers for a moment longer and the very air seemed to hiss between them. Then he walked over to stand behind one of the two black armchairs by the fireplace.

      ‘Sit down, Arabella. We need to talk.’

      She gave a shake of her head. ‘I think not, your Grace,’ she said and she was proud that her voice came out as cold and unemotional as his, for beneath it she was shaking like a leaf.

      ‘If it is the money you are concerned over, rest assured that I have paid for the whole night through.’ He looked at her with flint in his eyes.

      There was a lump the size of a boulder in her throat that no amount of swallowing would shift. She faced him squarely, pretending she was not ravaged with shame, pretending that she was standing there completely untouched by the fury of emotion that roared and clashed between them.

      Pretending that she had no secrets to hide.

      He gestured to the armchair before him. ‘Come, Arabella, sit. After what has just passed between us there is no room for coyness.’ His voice was harsh and his face was set harder, more handsome, more resolute than ever she had seen it. And she knew that he would not change his mind.

      ‘Damn you,’ she whispered and the scars throbbed as if they had never healed and his reappearance, after all these years when Arabella had thought never to see him again, sparked fears that she was only just beginning to grasp.

      Only once Arabella was seated did Dominic take the chair opposite hers.

      ‘Did you know it was me from the start?’

      ‘Of course I did not!’ The fury he felt for both her and himself made his voice harsh. It did not matter what she had done, he would never have taken her out of vengeance.

      ‘Then how did you realise?’

      ‘How did I not realise sooner?’ he demanded, but the question was not really for her but, rather, for himself. ‘Me, who has known every inch of your body, Arabella.’ One flimsy black-feathered mask alone had been enough to fool him, he thought bitterly, and knew that was not quite true. It was the fact that this, a bordello, a bawdy house, a brothel, was the last place on earth he would have ever thought of finding her.

      The thought of what she had become shocked him to the core. The thought that he had treated her as such shocked him even more. He had dreamt of finding her, both longed for it and dreaded it. But never in all of his imaginings had it been like this. He raked a hand through his hair, trying to control his feelings.

      He glanced across at her. Her face was pale, her expression guarded.

      Time had only served to ripen her beauty so that she was now a beautiful woman when once she had been a beautiful girl. There was about her a wariness that had not been there before. Then, she had been innocent and carefree and filled with an irrepressible joy. Now what he saw when he looked at Arabella was a cold, angry, determined stranger he did not recognise. And then he remembered the muffled sob he had heard and the sheen of tears in her eyes … and something of his own anger died away.

      ‘You said Marlbrook died.’

      She gave a cautious nod. ‘Two years since.’

      ‘And left you unprovided for?’ He could not keep the accusation from his tone.

      ‘No!’ The denial shot from her lips in her desperation to defend the bastard she had married. ‘No,’ she said again, this time more calmly. ‘There was money enough left for a careful existence.’ She hesitated as if deliberating how much to tell him.

      The questions were crowding upon his lips, angry and demanding, but he spoke none of them, choosing instead to wait with a patience that he did not feel for her explanation.

      But Arabella’s explanation was not forthcoming. Her expression closed. Her mouth pressed firm and she glanced away.

      The seconds ticked by to become minutes.

      ‘Then you are here by choice rather than necessity?’ he said eventually and raised an eyebrow.

      ‘Yes.’ She tipped her chin up and met his gaze unflinchingly, almost taunting him. ‘So now you see the woman I have become, have you not changed your mind about leaving?’

      ‘I am staying, Arabella,’ he said, his eyes still holding hers with every inch of the determination he felt.

      She bowed her head and glanced away, sullen and angry.

      ‘What does your father make of your chosen profession?’ he demanded. ‘What does your brother?’

      ‘My father and Tom were taken by the same consumption that claimed Henry.’

      ‘I am sorry for your loss,’ he said. The news shocked him, for he had known the family well and liked them. ‘And Mrs Tatton? What of her?’

      ‘My mother was brought low by the disease, but she survived.’

      ‘Does she know that you are here, Arabella?’

      A whisper of guilt moved across her face. ‘She does not.’ She tilted her chin, defiant again. ‘Not that it is any of your concern.’

      In the ensuing silence they could hear the faint rhythmic banging of a bedstead against a wall. Neither of them paid it the slightest attention.

      His eyes raked hers. There was another question he needed to ask, even though he already knew the answer by the very fact that she was here in Mrs Silver’s House of Rainbow Pleasures.

      ‘There is no other man since Marlbrook? No new husband or protector?’

      ‘No,’ she said in a tight voice and eyed him with unmistakable disdain. ‘But if there were, it would be no business of yours.’

      Their eyes held for a moment and a storm of anger seemed to fire and crackle between them before she rose and moved away to stand over by the long black curtains that covered the window.

      Arabella could not just sit there and let the questions continue, not when she feared where they might lead. Besides, Dominic had no right to question her. He had forfeited the right to know anything of her life when he had made his decision all those years ago. Let him think the worst of her if it prevented his questions and made him leave. Let him think she was the whore he had just made her. Better that than the alternative.

      She could not bear for him to see how much she was hurting. And she could not bear for him to know the truth of her situation, of the desperation that had led her to this place. Better his contempt than his pity, and better still that he left knowing nothing at all.

      The chink of night sky, between the edge of the curtain and the wall, was very dark. There were no stars, and the street lamps outside remained black and unlit and everything seemed to be waiting and edged with danger. And when she glanced round at Dominic he was sitting staring into the small flames that flickered amongst the glowing coals, the expression upon his face as dark and brooding as the night outside.

      ‘I cannot believe that I have found you here … in a damnable brothel!’ Dominic was still reeling from the shock of it. All these years he had imagined that one day he might find her. He had imagined a thousand different scenarios, but not one of them had come close to the reality. She was a lightskirt in an upmarket bordello. Miss Noir, in Mrs Silver’s rainbow selection for those men who had enough blunt to pay. He felt sick at the thought.

      ‘Then walk away and pretend that you have not,’ she said in a low voice, but she did not look round.

      In the silence there was only the crack from the remains of the fire upon the