He was so matter-of-fact about it all, as if the world hadn’t just tilted on its axis. “Yes,” she said meekly, thinking she shouldn’t admit such a thing.
“Good. I’ll take care of things, then sneak down to Mrs. Harkins’s kitchen and find the bandages and something decent to eat. You know, that woman was ready to wrestle me to the ground when it came to looking after you. She frightens me.”
Bryony managed a watery chuckle. “If I didn’t frighten you then I doubt Mrs. Harkins can do so.”
“Oh, my love,” he said softly, “you terrify me. Stay put.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever walk again.”
“I’m not that big, love,” he said, and a moment later she heard the door click behind him.
She wanted to roll onto her stomach and bury her face in the pillow. She wanted to weep, this time from guilt and confusion. She’d told him nothing but lies, and he had no idea who she was. If he did, he never would have touched her. If being tipsy and being a virgin were enough to rouse his latent conscience, the fact that she was a properly reared young lady would have stopped him cold. There was no way she could tell him, no way—
The truth hit her so hard she sat up, stifling a cry of pain as her arm protested. Miss Russell. He’d called her Miss Russell. The… the son of a bitch really had no conscience at all. He knew exactly who she was, and it hadn’t stopped him from ruining her. So much for his latent nobility.
Thank God he had none. She lay back down, carefully, favoring her arm, and thought about it, and a slow smile spread across her face. She had been most carefully, beautifully, deliciously ruined, and she wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. So he knew who she was, and he was playing games. She could play games as well; in fact, she had been since she entered this house.
She closed her eyes. She still felt faintly dizzy from the laudanum, but she didn’t blame that for her fall from grace. She had entered into that willingly, as he said she would. And given the chance, she would do so again.
The door opened, and he came back into the room carrying a basin of water. He was wearing a robe, but he stripped it off as he came back to the bed, and she let herself look at him again. Looking at the part she wasn’t supposed to look at—his cock. The part that was so very different from her, and yet, despite the odds, somehow made her complete. He still didn’t look like a Greek statue.
He sat down on the bed and pulled the covers away, then took a warm, wet cloth and began to gently clean her stomach, between her legs, and the slow strokes shouldn’t have been arousing. But then, everything he did, even the way he looked at her, was arousing.
“I don’t understand the Elgin Marbles,” she said suddenly.
He laughed softly. “What a completely random observation. What made you think of that?”
She looked down at him. He wasn’t as large as he had been, but he was still very different than the Greek statues. “Your… cock is so much bigger.” She felt odd using the word. “Even when you aren’t about to… I mean…” She let the words trail off under the sudden heat in his gaze, but when she lowered her eyes she found the member in question had grown larger.
“Actually, I am about to… I mean…” he mocked her gently. “And I’m afraid you saying the word ‘cock’ does powerful things to me.”
“Really?” she said faintly.
“Unless you’re averse to the idea.”
“Oh. No.” She could feel heat wash through her.
“That’s no, we’re not going to fuck again, or no, you’re not averse?”
That word, that indecent word, seemed to have the same effect on her that “cock” had on him. “Oh, no, I’m not averse.”
He smiled, putting the basin to one side. “A good thing. I think we’d better get creative with that arm. I don’t want to do it any more damage.”
“Creative?”
He grinned at her, a wicked, carefree grin that caught her heart and broke it at the same time. Because he could never be hers. “I can be extremely creative, my love. You’ll be impressed.”
And she was.
His darling Bryony lay half curled around her bad arm, a delicious, sleeping bundle of femininity, but even he couldn’t get it up a fourth time in that many hours, though his cock was doing its best. He left her in an exhausted little heap and bathed and dressed. At the last minute he remembered Collins, sitting in the storeroom, tethered
, and he grinned. He’d better let the bastard out or he’d wet himself.
Apparently Collins was more adept than he’d thought, or his miniature confederate had come back and untied him. There was no sign of him in the room, the bonds lying loose on the chair, and Kilmartyn cursed beneath his breath. He had more questions to ask the man, but once released he was going to disappear into the vast populace of London, never to be seen again.
Bryony’s arm seemed to be in good shape despite their exertions—there was no sign of fresh blood, but he decided he’d better rewrap it anyway, once she woke. He was starving, though as far as he knew all his servants had decamped along with Collins. Maybe they were all in the pay of the mysterious mastermind. No, that was hardly likely—Mrs. Harkins had been in residence for more than ten years, and the head footman, Bertie, had been there almost as long.
He didn’t bother ringing for anyone. He descended the winding servants’ staircase, pushing open the door to the basement kitchen, and watched with amusement as everyone froze.