All I Want Is You (20 page)

Then Cora leaned against a wall. ‘I can’t go any further, Sophie. I can’t. You go on without me. Please.’

‘I’m not leaving you,’ I said, but inside I was panicking. Somehow we got to Westbourne Street, where I saw an approaching taxicab and desperately hailed the driver, but he went on by – I wasn’t surprised. Another car was drawing steadily nearer and slowing up as it approached us. I grabbed Cora’s hand and swung her round to run again, but the car – a Daimler – was already pulling to a halt. The driver stepped out and gave a slight nod. ‘You might remember me,’ he said in a calm voice. ‘My name is James, I’m the Duke of Belfield’s chauffeur. Would you please get in?’

Where… how…?
I bundled Cora inside; he closed
the door on us and drove off steadily into the night, while Cora clung to me, terrified.

So we were brought to Hertford Street in Mayfair in the middle of the night, and as Ash’s chauffeur helped Cora out I simply stood there, gazing up at the massive, cream-stuccoed mansion. This was Ash’s house, his London house – and his chauffeur must have been following us. Cora, still drugged or drunk or both, was gazing up at the house too, her gaudy eye make-up running down her cheeks in the rain.

‘My, but you know some rich people, Sophie.’ She began to giggle, poor, exhausted Cora, then she started to sing, in her faltering voice. ‘I’m Always Chasing Rainbows…’She tottered up the steps before I could stop her and was banging the knocker.

‘Cora, no…’

Just then the door opened and a woman in a smart grey dress and apron stood there, looking startled at first, but when she saw James behind us her face brightened. ‘It’s you,’ she said to Cora and me. ‘His Grace said you would be here shortly.’

She beckoned us into a place that might as well have been a palace, with its massive entrance hall hung with gilt-framed paintings and a huge sweeping staircase at the far end.

And my heart stopped because a man was coming steadily down that staircase towards us: Ash, the Duke of Belfield, my Mr Maldon. Something inside me twisted so hard I had to drive my fingernails into my palms.

He looked so beautiful, you see, in a black evening suit with his tie unfastened but still hanging round his neck. So impossibly beautiful, whereas we looked what we were – two girls picked up from the streets and drenched with rain. Cora was transfixed by the sight of him, watching him with her eyes opened very wide, and then to my horror she started tottering towards him. ‘My, oh my, but aren’t you a beautiful man? Do you know, I might let you fuck me for free… Sophie, don’t you think we should let him fuck us for free? Both of us together?’

Her coat had fallen apart to display that shocking underwear and I felt sick. ‘
Cora
…’

I saw a range of emotions flash across his expressive face; then he said to the woman in grey who’d opened the door, ‘Mrs Lambert. Take this one, will you?’ He pointed to Cora. ‘Get her dry and warm. James?’

The chauffeur went up to him and the two of them conferred, swiftly and in low voices. Then James set off after Mrs Lambert and Cora and, as soon as he’d gone, Ash turned to me.

I was aware that my short hair clung in damp, ungainly strands to my face, and by now the pain in my ribs where Cora had unintentionally kicked me throbbed like hell. I said, ‘You were having me followed. You had no right to have me followed.’

He answered curtly, ‘From what James has told me, you should be on your knees thanking me for it. What the hell have you both been up to?’

His expression was filled with pure, stark anger. I hugged my coat around me, knowing full well that I
looked as cheap and as desperate as Cora, but somehow I made myself meet his beautiful blue eyes. ‘Cora shares my house,’ I said with defiance. ‘Some men were… pursuing her, I don’t know why.’ His eyes were unreadable; I shivered in the draught from the still-open front door, and I shivered even more as he came towards me.

Cora is safe and I can go
, I kept telling myself.
Cora is safe and I can go.
I wrapped my coat more tightly around myself; I was about to hurry outside again, but then his fingers brushed my hands. They were warm, too warm on my bare skin, and a dark, dangerous heat rose deep within me. Helplessly I remembered the savagery with which he’d pleasured me, in that back street outside the theatre.

Dear God, I didn’t want this. I hadn’t wanted to see this man ever again. I couldn’t afford to see this man ever again. I remembered the girls at Cally’s, all agog that night he’d been in the audience, almost licking their lips as they watched him – and he thought me a whore. No doubt he assumed that beneath my coat I was clad in underwear just like Cora’s, a peephole black brassiere and scanty knickers, both of us dreaming of a rich client like him.

I dragged myself away while he stood motionless. I backed towards the door, saying, ‘If you will look after Cora – find her somewhere – I will be grateful.’ I turned to walk out into the night again, away from him. But he’d moved far more quickly than me and was gripping me roughly by the shoulders.

He said, his voice flaying me, ‘Did it occur to you that
by associating with your friend Cora, you were putting yourself in considerable danger too?’

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
I’m in danger from you, Ash, because you haunt me. Being near to you again, like this; I cannot forget, I cannot, what it was like that night at Belfield Hall, when you took me to your bed and made sweet, sweet love to me…

I dragged myself again from his arms and pushed my damp hair back from my face. ‘You underestimate me,’ I said with cool finality. ‘I’ve been in London for some time now. I can look after myself.’

‘That’s why you were both fleeing for your lives at almost midnight?’

My breath hitched. ‘It’s Cora who needs help – I don’t. I told you before not to think me some naïve innocent—’

He broke in, his voice dangerous again. ‘My God, yes; I remember you boasted that you’d become a tart last time we met, in that street outside your theatre where men pick up women for a shilling a time.’

‘I’m going,’ I said flatly. ‘If you’ll just look after poor Cora for the night, I’ll come for her in the morning.’

I swung round towards the door, but once more he grabbed me, and when he pulled me back to face him there was no tenderness in his eyes. ‘You’re mine, Sophie,’ he said bitterly. ‘I told you. You’re mine.’

‘
No
.’ I was shaking so badly.

‘You told me you’re a whore.’ His arm clamped round my waist. ‘So be it. You will be mine, for tonight at least – consider it payment, for shelter for you and your friend. You say you’re no longer some naïve innocent;
very well, you can show me what tricks you’ve learned.’

I wanted to throw myself into his arms. I wanted to say,
I was lying about being a whore. You’ve got everything so wrong – I’ve loved no one but you, ever.
But he was looking at me with such terrible, such raging scorn.

‘If I’m a whore, then you showed me how,’ I breathed. ‘At Belfield Hall.’

‘Enough,’ he grated almost savagely. ‘Enough.’

What next?
Did he take me in his arms, or did I fall into them? Sweet Jesus, he must have known what he did to me; he held me so close I felt flame and heat, and soft, soft warmth flooding my cheeks. I glimpsed his faint, bitter smile; then he lowered his head and he brushed his mouth against mine. He kissed me.

I felt the teasing sweep of his tongue as he caressed the curves of my trembling mouth in a kiss that tore the damned breath from my shaking body. His arms were strong around my ugly, damp old coat, and everything about him reminded me of the devastating pleasure he’d bestowed on me before: his touch, the heat of his powerful body, his very scent melted me; the faint citrus of the soap he used, the clean fragrance of a rich man’s fresh linen.

I tried to push at the hard wall of his chest, my futile tears pouring down my cheeks. ‘Bastard,’ I whispered, ‘you bastard.’ But oh, God, my body was melting, my tongue was matching his, meeting him stroke for stroke; I could hear a soft moan rising in my throat.

‘Stay the night with me, Sophie,’ he urged in my ear. ‘Be mine, if only for a short while.’

His tenderness. That was what undid me. The
sudden gentleness of his voice. For a moment, I could only gaze up at him, my whole being in turmoil as I saw something in his bleak, sad eyes that shook me to my very core.

I was lying
, I wanted to say.
I was lying, about being a whore. There’s never been anyone, Ash. No one except you. There never will be.

He swung me up in his strong arms and carried me towards the sweeping staircase. He climbed up and up with effortless ease, kicked open a door and walked through with me still in his arms.

I saw we were in a luxurious private sitting room, with easy chairs, a low-burning fire and a big desk. There were wide doors, leading onto a balcony; the curtains hadn’t yet been drawn, and the lights of the city outside glittered in the wet night. He set me on my feet and went to close those curtains, then he gestured me through to another beautiful room dominated by a big bed draped with a cream satin counterpane and pillows. He shut the door from the sitting room and came to where I stood.

From the night I’d left him at Belfield Hall, I’d carefully erected my defences. I’d taught myself to remember, whenever my thoughts turned to him, that I was absolutely nothing to him. But the look in his eyes as he carefully removed my wet coat shook my resistance into a thousand pieces.

He took off his black jacket and in just his shirt and slim-fitting trousers he was so beautiful. I lay there
shivering although the room was warm, and I watched the fluid movements of his lovely body beneath his clothes.
That kiss just now.
It was as if he cared, but of course he didn’t – he was furious with me.
Sophie, don’t you think we should let him fuck us for free? Both of us together?

You little fool, Sophie, I whispered to myself. You bloody little fool.

He laid me on the bed and pulled off my cheap gown almost roughly. He gazed at my silken brassiere and flimsy French knickers and stockings – yes, I too liked pretty things now – and I heard him suck in his breath harshly as he cupped my breast, his thumb circling my nipple where it pressed against the pale silk. Sensation curled deep inside me; desire spiralled through me until I was begging with my body for more, even though he thought me a whore, he thought me a whore.

Suddenly he pulled away, his face sombre, his eyes brooding. ‘Please,’ I whispered. ‘Ash, don’t leave me. Not now.’

His finger was curling against my panties, making me shiver with delicious need. He said, ‘You know my conditions. Stay there.’

I knew. I knew what was going to happen. Perhaps this would cure me of him – if there was any cure. I felt sick with sadness and despair but I lay there while he walked purposefully towards a chest of drawers and came back with a black cord looped in his hands.

‘Lift your hands up,’ he commanded.

I did so, and his face was without expression as he
went about his work, binding my wrists to the bedposts, testing the bonds so my whole body became taut in a way that sent shivers rioting through me. ‘Please,’ I begged, my hips squirming. ‘Please…’

‘This first,’ he said. And he drew out a long, dark piece of cloth from his pocket, and blindfolded me.

Oh, God. I strained against my bonds, but I yearned for him, sightless as I was. I rubbed my legs together, trying to relieve my need like an animal on heat. I felt the bed move a little and knew he was sitting there beside me, then with one fluid movement he cupped my bottom to lift my hips and, pushing my knickers aside, he guided his fingers into the moist heart of my being. My legs fell apart; I cried aloud with wanting.

He was kissing my breasts, after pulling my brassiere down beneath them so they were both upthrust and swollen; he was drawing the peak of one nipple into his mouth, and at the same time his strong fingers were driving deep inside me until I felt my vaginal muscles contract around him as his skill sent me spiralling into sweet, wanton need.

There was no tenderness here. But the physical pleasure – oh, God, I moaned for him in despair. But by then his fingers were urging me on in their oh-so-skilful work, my breast was in his mouth again, his tongue and lips were tugging at my nipple until I could bear no more. As his fingers drove into me in a deeper, more vigorous rhythm, I climbed high, so high, and fell, crying out his name again and again as my senses shattered.

I slumped in my bonds, aware that he was still beside me, but I felt cold, so cold because I knew his eyes would
be shuttered, his face impassive. He was taking his revenge, that was all this was. This was a game, his private game of power and domination, in which he was the winner always.

With meticulous care he removed the bonds from my wrists and the blindfold from my eyes. He sat on the edge of the bed watching me as I pulled myself up against the pillows; was I cured? No, but I was terribly ashamed, because my body was still bared to his gaze, still heated from his lovemaking. I would never be cured of this man whose eyes were dark and so impenetrable that I had to turn away, shivering. Then suddenly—

‘My God. Sophie.
Sophie?
’

I realised he’d seen the purple-red bruise on my ribs from where Cora had accidentally kicked me while climbing that wall behind our house. He was swearing softly under his breath. ‘This must have happened
tonight.
Why in God’s name didn’t you say?’ He reached to a bell-pull then went swiftly to a wardrobe and pulled out a man’s dressing robe of heavy silk paisley. ‘Here. Put this on.’

Within a few moments there was a knock at the outer door to his sitting room, and when he went through to open it I heard the calm voice of his housekeeper, Mrs Lambert. He must have left with her, because I heard the door closing, and I was all alone again. Racked with despair I curled myself up in his dressing robe on the bed, breathing in the lovely, all-male scent of his skin and body that lingered there.
Oh, God
. He was so beautiful, but perhaps Cora was right.
Lots of rich men are a bit fucked-up, you know
, she’d said.
I blame their upbringing…