“Retribution.”
She huffed a little laugh to cover the way the words unnerved her. “What do you plan to do? Parade me through the streets? Tarred and feathered?”
“The image is not entirely unpleasant.” He smiled then, and she imagined he’d smiled that particular smile a hundred times in his club. In his ring. “I do plan to parade you through London. But not tarred and feathered.”
Her brows rose. “What, then?”
“Painted. And primped.”
She shook her head. “They won’t have me.”
“Not like the wealthy heiress you once were, no.”
They’d barely accepted her then. She’d been a threat to everything they were. Everything they had. The pretty young daughter of a wealthy working man. She might have been rich enough, but she’d never been good enough for them.
“They won’t have me in their company.”
“They shall do what I say. You see, I am a duke. And, if I remember correctly, while killer dukes are not favored by the doyennes of the ton, those of us who have not committed murder tend to be well received.” He leaned closer. “Ladies like the idea of dukes.” The words were more breath than sound, and Mara resisted the urge to touch the exposed skin of her neck, to at once rub them away and to keep them there. “And you are mine to do with as I please.”
Her brows knit together at the words. At the way they spread through her, hot and threatening. “And what is that, precisely?”
“Precisely, whatever I desire.”
She stiffened. “I shan’t be your mistress.”
“First, you are in no position to make such demands. And second, I don’t recall offering to have you.”
She went hot with embarrassment. “Then what?”
He shrugged, and she hated him in that moment. “I don’t trust you anywhere near my sleeping form . . . but they needn’t know that.”
The words stung. “Mistress in name only?”
He came closer, close enough to feel the heat of him. “Twelve years of lying to my detriment has no doubt made you a convincing actress. It’s time to use all that practice to lie for my benefit. As I please.”
She straightened her shoulders and tilted her face up to meet his gaze. He was so close—close enough that at another time, in another place, as another woman, she might come up on her toes and press her lips to his.
Where had that thought come from?
She wanted nothing to do with kissing this man.
He was not for kissing. Not anymore.
She pursed her lips. “So you wish to ruin me.”
“You ruined my life,” he said, all casualness. “I think it only fair, don’t you?”
She had been ruined for twelve years—from the moment she’d bloodied the sheets and ran from that room.
She had been ruined before then.
But she’d hidden it well, and she had a houseful of boys to care for. Perhaps her ruin was his due. Perhaps it was hers as well. But she’d be damned if he’d ruin MacIntyre’s and the safe haven she’d built for these boys.
“So I will have to leave. Start over.”
“You’ve done it before,” he said.
As had he.
Vengeance was a pretty thing, wasn’t it?
She straightened her shoulders. “I accept.” For a half second, his eyes went wide, and she took pleasure in his shock. Evidently, he’d underestimated her strength and her purpose. “But I’ve a condition of my own.”
Tell him.
The thought came from nowhere.
Tell him Christopher’s debt included all the orphanage’s funds.
She met his gaze. Cold. Unyielding. Uncaring. Like the eyes of the boys’ fathers.
Tell him that what he does threatens the boys.
“I see no reason why I should allow for any of your conditions,” he said.
“Because you haven’t a choice. I disappeared once. I can do it again.”
He watched her for a long moment, the threat hanging between them, his gaze going dark with irritation. With something worse. Something closer to hate. And perhaps he should hate her. She’d crafted him with the skill of a master sculptor, not from marble, but from flesh and blood and fury. “If you ran, I would find you. And I would take no prisoners.”
The promise was thick with anger and truth.
He would stop at nothing to exact his vengeance. She was at risk, and everything she loved.
But she would not put the boys at risk.
She threw herself into the fray, already considering her next steps . . . how she would protect the boys, the house, and its legacy if he made good on his promise. She straightened her shoulders, and entered the fray. “If you treat me like a whore, you pay me like one.”
The words stung him. She could see it, the blow there and then gone, as though they were in the ring where he reigned. When he did not retaliate, she threw her next punch. “I shall do whatever you ask. However you ask it. I shall play your silly game until you decide to reveal me to the world. Until you decide to send me packing. And when you do, I shall go.”
“For your brother’s debt.”
“For whatever I wish.”
One side of his mouth kicked up in a fleeting half smile, and for a moment Mara thought that in another place, in another time, as another woman, she might have enjoyed making him smile.
But right now, she hated it.
“He’s not worth you.”
“He’s not your concern.”
“Why? Some kind of sisterly love?” His eyes blackened, and she let him believe it. Anything to keep him from the orphanage. “His is a face badly in need of a fist.”
Retribution.
“And yet you will not fight him,” she said, feeling angrier than she would have imagined. “Are you afraid to give him a chance?”
He raised a brow, but did not rise to the bait. “I’ve never been bested.”
She smiled. “Did I not best you last night?”
He stilled at the words, then looked up. She saw shock in his black eyes, in the way they widened just barely for just a moment. She resisted the urge to grin her triumph. “You gloat over drugging me?”
She shook her head. “I gloat over felling you. That is the goal, is it not? You owe me the money.”
“In the ring, Miss Lowe. That is where it counts.”
She did smile then, knowing it would annoy him. Hoping it would annoy him. “Semantics. You’re embarrassed to admit I beat you handily.”
“With the help of enough narcotics to take down an ox.”
“Nonsense. A horse, maybe. But not an ox. And you are embarrassed. I work with boys, Your Grace. Need I remind you that I know one who is embarrassed when I see one?”
His gaze grew dark and serious again, and he leaned in, closer to her. Close enough for him to tower over her, more than six feet of muscle and bone, power and might, scars and sinew. He smelled of clove and thyme.
Not that she noticed.
And then he whispered, so close to her ear that she felt the words more than heard them as they sent a chill down her spine. “I am no boy.”
That much was true.
She opened her mouth to reply, but no words came.
It was his turn to smile. “If you wish to fell me, Miss Lowe, I encourage you to meet me in the ring.”
“You will have to pay me for it.”
“And if I don’t agree? What then? You haven’t any choice.”
Truth.
“I also haven’t anything to lose.”
Lie.
“Nonsense,” he said. “There’s always something else to lose. I assure you. I would find it.”
He had her in his trap. She couldn’t run. Not without making sure the boys were safe. Not without securing the money that Kit had lost.