Oh, she’d been clever, his grasping, cunning mistress. Clever and faithless. And he’d been guilty of fatal complacency.
She’d been overtly true to her two previous keepers. He should know—he had cast every lure to coax her away. But perhaps she’d duped everyone and her real allegiance was to the blackguard who lived hugger-mugger with her.
Her subtle hints about Ben Ahbood’s sexual incapability had been a masterstroke. Kylemore had always admired Soraya, but her audacity now took his breath away.
His excellent brain—like his looks, inherited from his despised mother—clicked back into working order. Coldly, calmly, he vowed to track down the cozening trollop and her lover.
The blood of generations of ruthless men ran in his veins. Soraya had no idea what she’d started when she played the Duke of Kylemore for a fool. He smiled in cold anticipation of the day she discovered the mistake she’d made in betraying Justin Kinmurrie.
A late summer storm had stirred the North Sea off Whitby Sands into fury. Verity flung the veil back from her black bonnet and stared out into the windswept world around her. The beach was almost deserted, and no one would notice the widow Symonds hold her face up to the cold gale or smile out at the restless ocean.
She’d been in Whitby for three months and still could hardly believe that the transition to her new life had been so easy.
The scandalous Soraya had left London with her manservant. Several days later, the respectable widow Mrs. Charles Symonds had taken a house in this Yorkshire fishing town with her brother, Benjamin Ashton.
I’m free, I’m free, her heart chanted in time with the gray water lashing the shore.
I’m free. I’m independent. My life is my own at last.
I’m free, but becoming uncomfortably damp, her more practical self pointed out as spray flew up to darken her black bombazine. She chuckled and moved back from the edge.
The townspeople, all good sturdy Yorkshire folk, had been mildly curious about her arrival with her brother but had soon accepted them. Verity Symonds was still in deep mourning for the young husband she’d lost to a fever six months ago. The young husband who had left his relict perfectly well provided for, by all appearances.
Mr. Benjamin Ashton, too, seemed a good enough chap, clearly from local stock, as he, unlike his sister, hadn’t lost his accent. In fact, it was soon bruited about that Mr. Ashton sought a suitable property where he could establish a sheep farm.
As she climbed the steps to her house at the top of the ridge, Verity considered whether she’d stay in Whitby. She loved the sea and the old town and the brooding ruins of the ancient abbey on the hill. The place was far from the eyes of society and conveniently close to the moors, where her brother had always wanted to settle.
Ben had hated London. She found it an immense satisfaction to witness his transparent happiness at resuming his true identity. At last, he followed his own ambitions after playing her silent bodyguard for so long. Helping him fulfill his dreams was the very least she owed him.
Not for the first time, she wished she could remove her sister from the school near Winchester where she’d boarded since she was five years old. How wonderful to reunite the entire Ashton family. But the risk was too great that Soraya’s notoriety would taint Maria’s future.
Wherever Verity went, Soraya would always cast a shadow. That sobering thought accompanied her up the last of the steep rise to her lodgings.
She let herself into the house and paused in the confined hallway to remove her bonnet and gloves. Her brother’s voice was raised in anger somewhere at the back.
This was strange enough to make her hurry toward the sound. But as she neared the kitchen, it was the second voice she heard—soft but clear, and as cutting as a saber through flesh—that made her stop.
The Duke of Kylemore had found her.
Chapter 3
How long did Verity stand in that dim corridor while her foolish sense of security leached away to nothing? Later, common sense told her it must only have been seconds. Dread held her immobile. She had a prescience of doom as relentless as those pounding waves upon the beach, where she’d been so stupidly sure of herself.
When awareness returned, she was halfway back to the door. If she ran far enough and fast enough, surely Kylemore wouldn’t follow. Britain held a thousand places to hide. Or she could go abroad. He’d never trace her in America. Or New South Wales. Or wildest Borneo, if it came to that.
With shaking hands, she reached out for her bonnet, then realized just what she was doing. She couldn’t flee with merely the clothes she stood up in and the few coins in her reticule. The sound of a crash, probably a chair smashing on the flagstones in the kitchen, made up her mind for her.
The duke had no legal claim on her. She’d held her own against him as Soraya. Verity Ashton was no lesser creature. She took a deep breath, turned and headed toward the kitchen.
The duke pinned Ben to one wall, his cane across her brother’s throat. The sight of her lover after so long made Verity’s breath hitch with fear as she paused in the doorway.
“Come on, you lying bastard. Hit me! You know you want to,” Kylemore taunted in a low, jeering voice. “Hit me, for Christ’s sake.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Ben, thank God, kept his fists by his sides. “But magistrates don’t encourage the lower orders to beat up the bloody nobility. I won’t hang for the sake of your sodding pretty face, Your Grace.” This last with utter contempt.
A jerk of the stick against Ben’s Adam’s apple made him gag. “If you don’t hang for that, Lord knows, you’ll hang for something else.”
“Stop it,” Verity said firmly. Her apparent calmness hid trembling terror. “For pity’s sake, there’s no need for this!”