For a long time afterward they lay unmoving, spent in the aftermath of passion, his chest crushing her breasts, their skin sheened with moisture.
Damien’s thudding heartbeat was beginning to slow when he heard a muffled sound that might have been a sob. Startled, he raised his head. Vanessa’s eyes were shut, but tears glistened on her flushed face.
His heart contracted. “Did I hurt you?”
For a moment she didn’t reply. Damien eased his weight off her, feeling as much bewilderment as alarm. His love-making this time had been fierce, yet no more violent than in the past.
“Vanessa?”
He could see her swallow as she made a visible effort to stem the flow of tears. She couldn’t wipe her eyes because of her bound arms.
“Did I hurt you?” he demanded, reaching to untie the silken scarf at her wrist.
Her eyes opened, while her chin lifted as if with determination.
“Not at all,” she replied tonelessly, but the hurt in her luminous eyes belied her words.
Chapter Sixteen
Vanessa stared blindly out the window of Damien’s traveling carriage as they sped steadily north from London, the wet, gray day mirroring her spirits.
She had lied last night. Damien had indeed hurt her. Not physically, of course. On the contrary, he’d given her body pleasure as great as any she’d known.
It was her heart he had shattered without even being aware of it. His cold, casual experiment in carnal gratification at Madame Fouchet’s had reminded Vanessa of how foolish she was to dream about impossibilities. She wanted his love, while he wanted only her body.
Strangely Damien hadn’t appeared to enjoy the visit to the brothel any more than she had. Instead, he’d seemed dangerously angry when he escorted her home last night, whether at her or himself she couldn’t tell. His brusque announcement had startled her.
“I should like to return to Rosewood tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? So soon? ”
“It is a few days early, I realize, but I should think you’ve seen enough of the demimonde by now. And I doubt there is much more I can teach you.”
Truthfully Vanessa had seen enough of the depraved side of London to last her a lifetime. Far from being disappointed, she was actually relieved to be leaving. Damien’s decadent world of luxury and license held little appeal for her, especially since the man she had fallen for so hopelessly seemed to have vanished. During their entire time in town she’d seen no evidence of the tender lover and friend she’d initially glimpsed at Rosewood. There was only the wicked rakehell known as Lord Sin.
A sadness swept over her, so intense it made her ache. Had she only imagined the intimate, caring part of him that he kept hidden from much of the world?
Beside her on the carriage seat, Damien was absorbed by his own brooding thoughts as his conscience soundly flayed him.
It had been a mistake to expose Vanessa to Fouchet’s brothel last night. He’d seen her shock and disillusionment reflected in the dark luster of her eyes. Disillusionment with him.
Damien winced inwardly. Vanessa must have known the sort of life he led; certainly he’d never attempted to hide it from her. But the reality clearly was more unsettling than she’d expected, the entertainment far more salacious. If she’d thought him debauched and dissolute before, she now had irrefutable proof.
Her tears had cut at his heart. Almost as tormenting was her lack of candor when she’d refused to tell him why she was crying. Perhaps it was absurd, but he wanted honesty between them.
Had Vanessa perhaps been comparing him to her late husband? Had his wicked sexual games reminded her too closely of her pain and shame at Sir Roger’s hands? Or had the comparison started earlier in the evening, upon seeing the Swann at Vauxhall? If memory served, Sir Roger’s last scandal was the result of a duel over an actress… Good God, Elise Swann.
Damien swore profanely under his breath as he remembered Vanessa’s stricken expression at the encounter in the pleasure gardens last night. How could he have failed to see the reason for it?
He’d thought her wounded look due to simple jealousy. Given the troubled history of her marriage, she would understandably be upset to have his own former relationship with another woman brandished in her face. But her distress clearly went far deeper. Her husband had been killed over the same actress he himself had enjoyed and showered with emeralds. It had devastated her to have her most terrible humiliation flaunted in her face-and he was to blame.
Then he’d compounded her misery by taking her to a brothel and treating her like any sophisticated harlot- even though a sophisticated harlot was precisely what she was determined to become, and what he had set out to make of her.
Fiend seize it, he couldn’t go through this charade any longer. He couldn’t pretend indifference while Vanessa strove to win a place in his wicked realm. She didn’t belong in his world, any more than his own sister did. There were doubtless other less destructive ways for her to obtain the financial independence she so determinedly sought. He would have to end this gut-wrenching scheme of theirs if his conscience was to have any peace at all.
Damien turned to stare out the carriage window, through the gloomy mist. He despised himself just now.
His careful tutoring had been designed to forearm Vanessa against the sort of libertine she would doubtless encounter in her new role. Rakes of his own ilk. But if he had any pretensions to nobility, he reflected darkly, he would protect her from himself.
The drizzle had subsided by the time they arrived at Rosewood. Damien escorted Vanessa into the house, where they were greeted by an unsmiling Croft.
When Damien asked where his sister could be found, the butler’s frown deepened. “I believe Miss Olivia is in the garden, my lord. She is entertaining a gentleman caller.”
Vanessa froze in the act of surrendering her pelisse. Her first thought was of her brother. With her heart suddenly quickening, she followed Damien through the French doors of the drawing room, out into the garden.
Olivia was not immediately visible, but a few moments later, they spied her in the distance, seated in her invalid chair beneath a linden tree. A man sat on the bench before her, holding both her hands in his.
Recognizing Aubrey, Vanessa blanched.
“Damien, wait…” she urged breathlessly, fearing what he would do. He merely quickened his step, long, angry strides that carried him rapidly toward his sister.
Hearing footsteps, the couple looked up guiltily as he approached. Both of them went still.
Vanessa knew the exact instant Damien identified the caller, for he came to an abrupt halt. She could see the wave of cold rage overtake him; every line of his body went rigid.
Far from fleeing in fear, though, Aubrey rose slowly to his feet. “My lord,” he murmured, standing his ground.
Vanessa couldn’t help but admire her brother’s bravery. She felt the blistering force of Damien’s wrath as she came to a halt beside him.
Silence followed, as potent as the aftershock of a lightning bolt.
It was Olivia who spoke first. “Damien… I did not expect you-”
“What the devil are you doing here?” Damien demanded of Aubrey. “I thought I gave you fair warning to keep away from my sister.”
“I invited him to call,” Olivia said hastily.
Damien turned to stare at her, as if she had lost her mind.
“I had a question to pose to Miss Sinclair,” Aubrey said in a quiet voice.
His attention snapping back to the intruder, Damien clenched his hands into fists. “I suggest you take yourself off my estate before I forcibly remove you.”