Page 15 of Where Have All the Scoundrels Gone (Dukes in Disguise #2)

Chapter Fifteen

Bess wanted more.

She could hardly breathe for wanting more.

A night to remember? At this point, Bess would be glad to forget! Or at least for the memory to wear thin and threadbare, like cambric after too much washing.

At the oddest times, the memories would overtake her. One peek at the jut of Nathaniel’s jaw above the stiff points of his collar of his exquisitely tied cravat as he swept out the front door would catapult her back to that same jaw dragging a slow, scratchy caress across her trembling thighs. A brush of his gloved fingers when he handed her down from the carriage for a stroll in the park would send shivers chasing down her spine and curling around the tips of her breasts.

And God help her if their eyes met.

Fortunately, that didn’t happen often in the week after their anonymous assignation. Nathaniel barely acknowledged her at all, beyond what was polite.

Nothing could have convinced her more thoroughly that the duke had no idea of the true identity of the woman he’d slept with in that room above The Nemesis.

The morning after, having been unable to fall back asleep, Bess had washed and dressed early enough to make it downstairs while Nathaniel was still at his breakfast. Heart in her throat, she’d approached with caution, wondering all the while if he would look at her across the breakfast table and recognize her after all.

But he didn’t. In fact, he barely acknowledged her—a swift, disinterested glance and an absent “Morning” were all she received.

Within moments of her arrival, he had dabbed at his lips with the corner of his napkin, bowed politely, and strolled from the breakfast room and off to the House of Lords.

Bess tried to be relieved. Was relieved! Of course she was. It was better this way by far. The alternative didn’t bear thinking about.

To be exposed as the duke’s partner in a sordid rendezvous in a back-alley tavern—Bess’s cheeks burned to think of it. Or maybe they burned because now she was actually thinking of the night itself, the way he’d knelt to worship her, as he put it. The way he’d felt inside her. And the way he’d wiped her clean after, with a tenderness that had warmed and devastated her in equal measures.

The fact was, Bess knew she ought to feel she’d taken part in a sordid rendezvous, but she didn’t.

It had been…consuming. Wildly erotic. Heartrending.

Addictive.

Bess found herself sitting up in bed at night, tensed all over and listening out for the sounds of footsteps stealing down the corridor.

She didn’t know what she would do if and when she heard them. But she couldn’t stop herself from listening.

Bess nearly sleepwalked through the days of accompanying Lucy to exhibits and lectures on everything from fossils to fungi. She was keenly aware that it was all for the best that the Duke of Ashbourn seemed to have forgotten he had houseguests at all, because after so many sleepless nights Bess wouldn’t give two farthings for her ability to maintain her composure around him.

At least, not without a mask.

The night Bess finally heard the soft tread of surprisingly graceful, booted feet on the thick-piled rug that ran the length of the hallway, she bolted from her bed and flew to her armoire as though someone had lit a fire under the mattress.

It turned out, she knew exactly what to do, after all.

By the time she’d yanked on her underthings and laced up her old dark blue muslin dress, Nathaniel was long gone. Her heart was in her throat for the entire, interminable amount of time it took her to sneak out of the house herself and find a hansom cab willing to take her to the Haymarket.

She tied on her mask with trembling fingers and pushed open the unassuming door of The Nemesis.

What am I doing here? Bess thought, her pulse pounding so fast she was honestly afraid she might faint.

Bess had never fainted in her life. She didn’t intend to start now.

He would be here, or he wouldn’t. If he was here tonight, he would fight and he’d win, of that Bess had no doubt. And afterward?

Well. He’d choose Bess again…or he wouldn’t.

Either way, she’d live. Even if it felt as though she wouldn’t survive the disappointment and humiliation and sheer, awful loss if he didn’t choose her.

Even if it felt as though she would never be truly alive again until she was in his arms.

She wanted to shake her head at her own folly, but it had been days, and the memories of that night were still sharp enough to cut. Something had happened to her in that room upstairs—to all of Bess, not merely to her body.

And though it was almost certainly a terrible idea, she was desperate to find out if there was a chance to have more than just one night.

So here she was, back at The Nemesis, secure behind her mask…and wondering why everyone kept turning to stare at her as she made her way past the bar toward the ring at the back of the room.

To her left, two women glanced at her then put their heads together to giggle; a man on her right gave an appreciative whistle and a “Hello, luv!” before his companion shushed him with an alarmed gesture.

The man who’d whistled seemed to grow pale beneath his mask at whatever his friend whispered in his ear, and Bess began to feel distinctly uncomfortable.

She wanted to slink into a corner and hide, but that would negate the entire purpose of this clandestine expedition.

Nathaniel had to see her to choose her, after all.

So Bess straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin as though people gawked at her all the time and she thought nothing of it.

After the first few minutes of interest, most of the crowd went back to the business of drinking, flirting, and placing bets on the upcoming fights. Bess’s breath had just started to come easier when she noticed there was still one man who appeared fixated on her.

Lanky and expensively dressed, wearing an ornate mask embroidered in gold thread, he carried himself a bit like a young boy swaggering in imitation of his elder brothers. He threw his head back too far to laugh too loudly, slammed his empty tankard down on the bar with too much vehemence.

Watched Bess too intently.

There was something almost familiar about him. Bess narrowed her eyes and took in his disheveled sandy-colored hair and the almost palpable air of entitlement.

As though he’d been waiting for her to notice him, the young man grinned and pushed away from the bar to saunter in Bess’s direction.

She turned away at once, swearing under her breath, and started to walk away only to nearly blunder into a wiry older man with a crooked nose that made his mask sit slightly askew on his face.

“All right there, miss?” the wiry man asked, as polite as if they’d bumped into each other in St. James’s Square.

“Fine, thank you,” Bess managed, though she couldn’t quite stop herself from casting a glance over her shoulder at the young man who’d been pursuing her. He’d paused, a scowl making him look even more like a petulant child as he glared at her.

Where did she know him from?

“Ah, I see, a gentleman with a death wish!” The wiry man had a surprisingly deep, booming voice. “Don’t even think of it, lad. This lady is spoken for.”

Bess stiffened, withdrawing half a step. The wiry man looked down at her in surprise, which faded to amusement. “Not by me! I’ve me hands full, don’t I?”

Those nearby who seemed to know him laughed. One fellow deep in his cups raised his glass, sloshing beer over the side, and said, “To Madame Leda and Rufus!”

The woman who owned The Nemesis, Bess remembered, who had been so kind to her that night a week ago when Bess had come here for the first time. With no idea of what she was doing or what would happen to her.

“Madame Leda is your…?”

The man smiled, and it changed his rather quirky, foxy face into something extremely charming. “My lady, my employer, my captain, the light of my world! And not one to share, so have no fears on that score, miss.”

He glanced meaningfully over her shoulder, raising his deep voice slightly. “Not that I’d be fool enough to accost you in any case, when you’re his and everyone knows it.”

His.

Bess forgot about the young man in the fancy gold mask and shivered, though the air in the tavern was hot and close. She didn’t have to ask who Madame Leda’s partner meant, not when the name was suddenly on the lips of every person in earshot.

The Berserker.

“Is he here tonight?” she murmured, clutching at Rufus’s sinewy arm. She had to know.

“Aye, that he is,” he assured her, patting her hand. “In a filthy mood, too. Though maybe the sight ’a you’ll cheer him. Shall I tell him you’re awaitin’ on him?”

Bess felt herself flush hotter than the surface of her cooktop back home. “He doesn’t know my name.”

A salt and pepper brow arched high enough to be seen over the top of Rufus’s mask. “No fear, miss. He’ll know who I mean.”

Because The Berserker—Nathaniel—had never claimed a woman as his prize. Until Bess.

The thought still had the power to turn her knees wobbly.

She didn’t have time to dither over whether to give Nathaniel warning of her presence, however, because Madame Leda was strolling into the ring and raising her slim, brown arms in a graceful gesture that commanded attention from everyone present.

“The fight’s about to start,” Rufus whispered, tucking Bess’s hand into his elbow and steering her toward the ring. “Here, let’s find you a good view.”

He escorted her directly through the crowd, straight to the side of the ring at the corner farthest from the bar and therefore slightly quieter. A little darker, too, Bess noted as the challenger strode into the ring.

Bess had missed his introduction, but the man was huge—as broad through the shoulders as Nathaniel, but with a stocky build that made him look like a rectangular mountain of pure muscle.

Unlike Red Jack, this man gave the crowd nothing but a terse nod before he went back to standing stock still and waiting for the fight to begin.

Sickness swirled in Bess’s stomach, bile burning at the back of her throat. She hadn’t forgotten that she would have to watch another fight, exactly, but she hadn’t really dwelt on it. She’d been much more focused on what would—or wouldn’t—happen afterward.

Now that the moment had arrived, she wondered how she would be able to stand it. How would she be able to stand here and watch this giant of a man pummel Nathaniel’s beautiful body?

Feeling unsteady on her feet, Bess reached out and grabbed hold of the corner of the ring. Rufus eyed her warily. “You look a might peaky, miss. I’ll bring you something to drink that’ll buck you up.”

He melted into the crowd just as it sent up a ferocious roar, surging forward. Bess gasped, suddenly pressed against the ropes by the crush of bodies behind her.

She looked up, lungs aching and heart galloping. The Berserker had entered the ring.

Bess ate him up with her eyes. It was as if she hadn’t seen him in a week, though of course she had seen the duke going into his study at Ashbourn House or across a ballroom or leaving for a session of Parliament.

But she hadn’t seen this man. The man who had held her and touched her and made her sob with pleasure. The man who had seemed as if he needed her every bit as much as she needed him.

And there he was, his absolutely massive shoulders and chest bare and gleaming in the candlelight. He wore the same plain brown leather mask and carried that same aura of barely contained violence as he walked forward. Like a bank of gathering storm clouds, ominous and inevitable.

Just as inevitable, his head came up when he hit the center of the ring, as though Bess had rung a bell that only he could hear.

He turned and looked directly at her. Bess clutched at the ring’s corner post and tried to breathe. Tried to smile.

Oh Lord, he’s coming over to me!

His long legs covered the ground between them in three strides. “What are you doing here?”

Did he wish her to go? Was he angry to see her? It was so hard to read his expression at the best of times, and the mask only made matters worse. Bess fretted for an excruciatingly awkward moment before she noticed his hands.

Those big, raw-knuckled, broad-palmed hands hung loose by his sides but as her gaze dropped to them, they flexed minutely as though they wanted to reach for her.

That one tiny movement gave her the courage to smile tremulously up at him and say, “I’m here for you.”

He took another step closer. It looked involuntary. Bess tipped her head back to keep her gaze on his face, which twisted a bit as he rasped, “You can’t simply say things like that.”

“Why not? It’s true. I wanted to see you again.”

She watched him swallow. “To see me fight.”

Bess shook her head. “No. In fact, we can dispense with the fight altogether, as far as I am concerned. I hated it last time. And I would be your prize for nothing.”

You don’t have to win me , she wanted to say. You already deserve me.

But did he? Bess bit her lip and tried to hold back the softest part of her heart from squishing out all over the place like jam from a roly-poly.

At any rate, it didn’t seem to matter because he was already backing away. “I have to fight. But. After…”

Bess nodded, excitement and happiness and nerves fizzing up in her chest, bubblier than home-brewed apple cider. “After.”

He stopped, his handsome lips forming a silent curse before he strode back to her and grasped her face in his hands to kiss her.

Bess opened for him at once, eager and ardent. His tongue stroked into her mouth, and she threw her arms around his neck. He growled in his chest, deepening the kiss until Bess’s head was swimming.

He broke the kiss with a gasp, a lock of brown hair falling rakishly over his masked forehead. Bess came back to herself with the crowd all around them going wild, cheering and slapping Nathaniel on the back and good-naturedly urging him to get on with the fight so they could finish what they’d started.

She had to let him go, though it was the last thing she wanted to do. As if he felt the reluctance in her grip, Nathaniel tilted his forehead to hers and whispered, “After.”

A promise.

Bess let go. He stepped back and gave her a smile. Just a small, private smile that was only for her—as though the tavern and his opponent and Rufus and Madame Leda and all the rest didn’t exist.

And as he prowled back to the center of the ring and fell into a fighting stance as easily as breathing, Bess racked her memory for another moment when she might have seen Nathaniel smile like that. But she couldn’t.

He didn’t smile, she realized, her heart squeezing.

Only tonight, he did. At her.

It was a thought that kept her warm and distracted as The Berserker and the giant who fought under the unlikely moniker of “Gentleman Percy” squared off.

She needed the distraction; when Madame Leda left the ring and the fight began in earnest, Percy came out swinging fists the size of picnic hams, and it was all Bess could do not to cry out a warning.

Which would’ve been idiotic and unnecessary, since Nathaniel was already well aware of the danger, so Bess pressed her lips together. And while Nathaniel blocked and ducked, pivoted and slid past Percy to deliver a staggering blow to his side ribs, Bess fought her own battle: to keep her instinctive and visceral flinching off her face.

Because the few times Percy managed to land a blow on his light-footed opponent and Bess, in an unguarded moment, visibly winced—the spectators around her hooted and howled, stamping their feet.

It only served to distract Nathaniel, and Bess wouldn’t have that.

Not when all she wished was for this fight to be over, so they could commence their much more intimate—and pleasurable—battle upstairs.

Nathaniel seemed to be of the same mind, if the almost clinical precision of his hits was any indication. Everyone around Bess agreed that The Berserker was in rare form tonight, demonstrating a master class in tiring out a larger opponent and weakening him systematically with body shots to the ribs and belly.

Or so the two gentlemen who kept jostling Bess’s right elbow with their gesticulating arms seemed to think.

All she knew was that even though Percy must have outweighed Nathaniel by at least four stone, their fight ended after ten minutes without Nathaniel ever taking a serious hit.

Relief rushed over Bess like a cool breeze at the easy way Nathaniel moved as he helped his opponent up off the ground and shook his meaty paw. Relief…and anticipation.

She wanted to rush to him, to take his hand and examine it for bruising and press soft kisses to it and let it lead her upstairs…but that wasn’t how this worked. So Bess stood still and reminded herself of his promise.

It was finally after .

Like last time, Nathaniel found her in the crowd and pointed at her, and once again, all conversation in the tavern went hushed for a heartbeat before coming back with a roar.

Nathaniel gave her a last, searing look before stalking out of the ring and through the door in the back of the tavern that led to the stairs.

Bess watched him go while she tried to gather her scattered thoughts and feelings. She hated that he’d fought, but at least it was over quickly. And really, it was probably all to the good that they maintain some semblance of structure to this thing they were doing. Rules. Order.

Anything that might help her keep her wayward emotions in check. For it was all too easy to imagine being swept away by this passion between them.

Bess had never experienced its like. With a pang of remembrance for Davy, she recognized that the sweet, innocent fumbling they’d done together was like a candle next to the blazing bonfire Nathaniel ignited in her. If she wasn’t careful, she would be burned away entirely by it, nothing but ashes left behind.

Well, she would simply have to remember that this was but a moment out of time, an interlude. More than a single night—she hadn’t been able to stop there. And she didn’t delude herself she’d be able to stop it on her own at any point, but she wouldn’t have to.

In three weeks, the Season would end, and she and Lucy would go back to Five Mile House.

Bess would go home with a treasure trove of memories to keep her warm in the long, lonely nights of her life. Nathaniel would stay here and probably marry a wealthy lady of perfect breeding.

And Bess would never see him again.

The thought tore at her, but she forced herself to contemplate it calmly. There was nothing to be gained by losing sight of reality, even as she made the conscious decision to step outside of it for these brief moments in Nathaniel’s arms.

He didn’t even know who she was. And that was the only reason they could be together at all.

Had she waited long enough to satisfy the rules of this encounter? Bess hoped so, for she couldn’t stand to tarry any longer. She started for the stairs, the crowd parting to let her through.

Madame Leda met her by the door that hid the staircase. “Back again, lamb? You are full of surprises.”

“Am I?” Bess smiled faintly.

“I thought you were here for just a taste, and that one taste would be enough. But it seems to have sparked a...craving.”

“Ah.” Bess struggled not to blush. “Yes. Well, you said to do what felt good.”

“It’s what I created this place for.”

Bess nodded. She had nothing to be ashamed of, and there was certainly no judgment or derision in Madame Leda’s lovely face. “I’m grateful to you. I found something here last week, something I’d been missing for a long while.”

“And tonight you’re back, hoping to find it again.” The proprietress cocked her head consideringly. “You didn’t partake of the food last time. Nor the wine. Should I bother tonight?”

Ashamed or not, the blush would not be held back any longer. Cheeks flaming, Bess nevertheless managed a smile. “Ah, perhaps not. I would hate to waste the food, or put your cook to any trouble.”

Looking charmed, Madame Leda opened the door and gestured Bess toward the stairs. “It’s an odd sort of lady who thinks about putting the servants to too much trouble.”

“Perhaps,” Bess acknowledged. “But then, I am not a lady.”

“Hmm. I think, in the ways that matter, you are.” Madame Leda smiled. “Go on, he’s waiting.”

Bess hesitated only a second before saying, “Actually, there is something I wonder if you can help me with…only it’s a little awkward. Very private.”

“Mmm,” Madame Leda purred, hooking their arms together as she turned away from the stairs and pulled Bess into the back room behind the bar instead. “My favorite kind of request. Tell Madame Leda everything.”

* * *

Nathaniel sat on the bed and told himself she wasn’t coming.

He’d already doused the lights, all but the one candle by the bed that she'd asked for last time. He’d given himself a cursory wash with the basin of water that had already been in the room, and he’d put the shirt back on when he was still damp, so now it clung to him in cold, wet patches.

The whole room felt cold. As cold as he’d been since the moment he woke up in this very bed a week ago and realized that it was over.

He’d traded his honor for a single night of pleasure, and he couldn’t even regret the loss. All Nathaniel regretted was that he’d never have her again.

A week of pretending the very sight of her was not a jab to the guts; a week of resisting the tidal pull of her presence in his house and in his carriage and in the same ballroom or drawing room or assembly room.

It had been the most impossible task he’d ever set himself, and yet he’d done it.

Until he saw her at the edge of the ring tonight.

She came back.

It was all he could think, every beat of his heart pounding out the same message over and over.

She came back. She came back .

But he’d been waiting in this empty room for what felt like an age, and the chill was beginning to creep over him once more.

There. A light footstep in the hall.

All of Nathaniel’s senses were trained upon it. The swift steps coming closer, no hesitation at all—which made him think it could not be Bess, surely not, but then the brass doorknob turned, and Bess slipped into the room and shut the door behind her.