Eternally Seduced (86 page)

The house was quiet but brightly lit when Arthur drove the Rolls Royce up the driveway. “Come back in the morning,” he said when he stepped out.

“You’re sure, Your Grace?”

The old man shouldn’t bother calling him His Grace if he was going to be this impertinent. He knew that Arthur believed he would be overstaying his welcome and that Mary wouldn’t forgive him so easily.

The housekeeper he hired opened the door, her face unsmiling as she greeted him. She probably didn’t give a fuck about him either, never mind that she was on his fucking payroll.
At least she was loyal to Mary
, he thought.

“Where is she?”

“In the bedroom. Your Grace,” she added reluctantly when he raised one arrogant brow at her. “I’ll call her---”

“No, don’t bother. I know the way.”

She gasped.

“It is
my
home, too, Mrs. Wiltshire.”

As he ascended the stairs, he heard her muttering under her breath, “It’s your house, but it’s not your home.”

Ignoring the cryptic words, Rathe proceeded to the bedroom he had never shared with Mary. After knocking on her door, he waited and only entered when she called for him to come in.

****

Mary had done what she could to prepare herself coming face to face with Rathe again. But the moment he entered her bedroom, everything came back to her.

Of Rathe undressing her…

Of Mary touching him…

Of Rathe leaving him…

She choked out, “I can’t.”

He stopped midstride, the agony in her voice something he could not ignore. He knew, by the look of her face alone, why she looked like she was about to snap.

“I’m sorry,” Rathe gritted out.

She nodded, as if his actions that night had eradicated her voice’s ability to work.

“It wasn’t a bloody cliché when I told you…it was the bloody truth and that’s what’s so bloody funny about my life.”

Her head jerked up at his words, her eyes on him.

“My father was 41 when he married my mother. She was 19.” He laughed humorlessly at the shock she was unable to hide from him. “Funny, isn’t he?” he said savagely. “It’s like history repeating itself. You’re eighteen and I’m 34 – it’s not a 22-year-age gap, but it’s cutting it bloody close.”

She wanted to speak then, because now she understood so much, but he beat her to it.

“Old enough to be your father, don’t you think?”

And there it was.

The root of all his heartbreakingly cruel actions.

“Yes,” she whispered.

He flinched.

“You’re old enough to be my father,” she continued tremulously.

He clenched his fists, breathing hard now, telling himself that when she was done he was going to leave her. He was going to bloody leave her life and never come back because she had finally realized the truth he was desperate to hide from her.

They were not to be.

They were never to be.

They were---

“But Rathe…”

He forced himself to look at her.

“You’re not my father.”

He couldn’t understand – didn’t dare understand what she was saying.

She started to cry. “You’re not my father so if that’s your only reason for hurting me, it’s a s-shitty kind of reason.”

“Don’t you understand?” he snarled. “I’m sixteen years older---”

“And I’m sixteen years younger and I’m always going to be sixteen years younger than you!” She breathed hard after her outburst, unable to believe that she had shouted. She
never
shouted, never even cried out loud when her stepfather had been of a mind to beat her.

Another memory sliced into her mind, this time of her stepfather pushing her shirt up so he could inspect her bruises and sometimes so he could add new ones to his fading handiwork. Oh God, now it was clear why he had always wanted her clothes out of the way. Oh God, now it was clear, why sometimes his fingers would be on parts of her body that he hadn’t beaten. Oh God, how long had she been his unthinking puppet---

“Mary!” He caught her before she fell, the blank look on her face telling him that she was no longer firmly rooted in the present.

She shuddered into consciousness at the sound of her name on his voice. Her eyes clung to him desperately. “I’ve forgotten.” Her voice was dead.

“Stop it. Don’t think about it---”

She screamed, “I forgot what he did to me.” She started to cry as she tore her clothes off, needing to scrub herself clean because she could not bear being in her own body now that she remembered. Oh God, how had she managed to forget all those things he did to her?

“Mary, stop it.” He wrapped his arms around her, his heart pounding in fear at the near-crazed look of hysteria in her eyes. He kept her chained in his arms, preventing her from moving, forcing her to come back to the present.

“I remember now,” she wept against his chest. “Rathe, I remember now. He didn’t use to just touch me. He would keep fondling me, too. And he would make me suck on his…”

He wrapped his arms more tightly around her, wishing there was a way for him to vanquish all her pain. If it meant bleeding for her so her heart would start to heal, then he would cut his own out right now. “It’s the past. It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters! It matters! IT MATTERS!”

She was lost in the past, struggling in his arms, crying and beating his chest.

“Mary---”

“How could I have forgotten?” she sobbed. “And why did I have to remember? Now, I can’t ever make you love me like I love you…”

He froze, unable to believe what he had just heard.

“I’m dirty, I’m broken, I’m trash…”

He said unevenly, “You’re in love with me?”

She shook her head, struggling harder to escape him.

He pinned her hands behind her back with ease using just one hand. He used his other hand to tip her chin up, making her look at him. “You love me?”

Mary only stared at him with eyes that continued to cry.

“You
love
me?”

She choked back a sob, doing her best to resist the command in that voice.

He asked hoarsely, almost begging, “You love me?”

Oh God, he was so unfair.

“Yes!” She bowed her head down, her tears falling fast and furious now that she had admitted her true feelings for him – something she had only discovered that afternoon. It had struck her out of the blue, the love she felt for him, and the love she had to deny because he had never asked for it. He wanted her as a mistress and not a girlfriend, not even a lover.

Psychologists would probably tell her it was just an emotional reflex, a victim falling for her rescuer – the opposite of a victim falling for her captor. But Mary knew deep in her heart it was different. They had a connection, Rathe and her, but it was not a connection that was meant to last.

“You love me.”

He spoke the words with such disbelief that she had to look up and make him realize it was her who was unworthy, not him. “How could I not fall for you, Rathe? You saved me from my stepfather. You wooed me when I didn’t want to be wooed. And you made me live when before you, all I did was exist.”

Rathe let go of her, but now she didn’t want to leave him, not when he was looking at her in a way that made her heart crash against her chest, the way it beat so hard. That look of his…oh God, it made her want to hope.

He was almost afraid to touch her, feeling like if he did she would disappear. Did she really not care about the years that would always separate him?

“They called me the pedophile’s son.”

“They were just jealous of you.”

“They called my mother a whore.”

“They don’t know what they’re talking about.”

“Don’t you care if they call me a pervert because I want to be with you?”

Mary said shakily, “I wouldn’t care if they called me Jezebel reincarnate if it means I get to be with you.”

He said in a low, shamed whisper, “I want you with me, but I cannot offer anything more than what I have offered.” He looked at her with regret in his eyes. “You deserve more than to be my mistress.”

Looking at him, she wanted to cry out to all the gods and beg for them to make her just a little bit older. Because if she was, then – maybe, maybe then he would fall in love with her. But she knew it was an impossible wish and she was not the type to knock her head against the wall.

She touched his face, and she marveled at the way his entire body shook in reaction to her touch. She affected him that much?

The question in her eyes was easy to decipher, and he said quietly, “Just you. It’s only just you who makes me feel this strongly when before you…I felt nothing.”

For a long time, they only gazed at each other. When he started to speak, she knew it would be something she wouldn’t want to hear, knew it would be the duke speaking and not her Rathe, the man she had come to love.

“No,” she said softly. “Let me speak first.”

He inclined his head, the lord granting the servant leave to speak. Even when he hurt, he did not and could never lose his aristocratic side and it made her smile even as her voice wobbled and her eyes started to shed tears once more.

Rathe could not bear seeing her struggle. He should have left, should never have messed up her life. Thank God he had not taken her innocence yet. At least that was one thing he could be proud of.

“Mary---”

“No,” she cut him off desperately. “Let me speak first.” She did not wait for him to answer. Tiptoeing, she placed her lips on his. After a moment of stunned disbelief, Rathe reacted, starting to kiss her back, but she pulled away, cupping his face as she asked him, “Please make me your mistress again?”

“Rules, you say.” He lifted one noble brow at his mistress as they enjoyed dinner in the privacy of their living room, with the housekeeper given the rest of the day off. Moonlight filtered through the glass wall, creating a silvery sheen inside the room and making Mary feel like she had been transported to another world – one where magic and love co-existed.

Rathe was seated on the leather couch, bare-chested and barefoot and wearing only a pair of low-slung sweatpants. Mary was seated cross-legged on the rug and between his thighs, still wearing the clothes she had worn to school.

She had her laptop and portable printer on the coffee table, and she was waiting impatiently for her list of rules to come out.

Her eyes twinkled up at him. “When I found out that you never had a mistress before me---”

If looks could kill, Mary would be dead by now. He said in his best icy ducal tone, “You make it sound like I am horribly equipped to keep a mistress simply because it’s my first time to do so.”

She said innocently, “But that
is
what I’m saying.”

He muttered a curse under his breath, making her throw back her head and laugh. He bent down and kissed her, cutting off her laugh midway, and when he pulled away it was his turn to smile at the dreamy expression on her face.

“Ill-equipped, am I?”

She recovered, flushing. “You’re so…”

“…nothing like you’ve ever dreamt of?”

“I give up,” she said laughingly. “Nothing’s going to kill your ego.” Her printer had fallen silent, and she quickly grabbed the sheets of printed paper it had churned out, waving them at Rathe’s face. “I have it!”

He smiled at her enthusiasm, knowing he was one of the few persons privileged to see this side of her. They really were one of a kind, both of them only able to reveal their true natures to a few.

She cleared her throat. “Rule number one of our mistress-master agreement.”

He choked. “Mistress-master?”

“I couldn’t think of anything else to write,” she said defensively.

“Mistress-master,” he repeated, a grin tugging at his lips.

“Hmph,” she grumbled. “It’s just a title. Anyway, I want to know what you think about the rules.” She lifted the papers back up, and unable to see the pages clearly, grabbed her glasses.

Looking at Mary with her glasses on, his body reacted immediately. There was something so bloody sexy about a girl who wore glasses not just for show but because she really did have a serious need for it.

“Ahem.”

Her attempt to sound professional made him laugh.

“Shut up. I’m serious. Ahem. Ahem.” She adjusted her glasses. “Rule number 1: the comings and goings of the master.”

An arrested expression appeared on his face, and she knew both of them were thinking the same thing.

“Your first rule packs a punch,” he acknowledged evenly when Mary kept looking at him, “especially if this is a reference to what I did the last time I was here.”

“Yes,” she answered evenly, sounding incredibly mature for her age at that moment. “It is about that.”

“I won’t do it again.”

“Good – because this rule won’t let you. There must be an agreement between us from now on. About when and where the mistress’ affections may be engaged by the master and how the master is to treat---”

He interrupted her, saying, “Mary?”

She paused.

“Let’s cut to the bull. I will do anything you want to make up for what I did. Is that good enough?”

Her eyes shone at his words. “Yes,” she said shakily. “That’s good enough.”

He nodded. “What’s the next rule?”

“The master---”

He groaned.

She laughed. “I’m just kidding. Most of the next rules are really about…
that
.” Seeing the grim look enter his eyes, she rose on her knees and touched his face, no longer shy because there was nothing to hide now. He knew she loved him – and he was letting her love him. It was more than enough for now.

“It’s okay,” she said softly, kissing the corner of his lip.

“It’s not,” he said roughly. “I was a bastard for doing that to you.”

“You’re sorry. I’ve forgiven you. It’s water under the bridge now.” She kissed the other corner of his lip, his nose, and his cheeks, kissed every part of his face until she felt the angry tension leaving his body.

He caught her face and kissed her on the lips. “Thank you.”

She answered with a smile, “I love you.”

Bloody hell.

She never failed to knock him sideways whenever she said those words to him out of the blue. “What’s the next set of rules then?” he asked gruffly.

Settling back on the rug, she leaned against him and he moved forward so he could start massaging her shoulders. He had never done this for any woman but Mary---

“Ooooooh.” A blissful expression settled on her face as she stretched and purred in his arms while he continued massaging her shoulders.

“My sweet, beautiful, hedonistic pearl,” he teased.

Her head now lying on his lap, she opened her eyes to look up at him with a smile. “Only with you.”

“Good.” He didn’t bother to hide the possessiveness in his voice.

With a little laugh that was more effective than any aphrodisiac, she moved away and grabbed her list of rules once more. “Okay, next rule then.” Her face flushed suddenly.

He frowned. “What is it?”

“Umm…”

“You can tell me anything. You know that, right?”

“I’m just…” She sighed and read the first part of her second set of rules. “BDSM.”

He choked. “What the bloody---” He demanded, “Where the hell did you get these rules anyway?”

She pursed her lips.

“Maaary…”

She tried avoiding looking at him.

“Mary, one last time…”

She blurted out, “Half of the rules I got from a Regency etiquette book and then the other half from the contract in Fifty Shades and other erotica books.”

Without a word, he took the list from her. By the time he reached the last set of rules, he was having difficulty controlling his laughter.

“It’s not that funny!”

That clinched it. Laughing, he hauled her up to his arms and got to his feet. “You are so amazingly ingenious, do you know that?”

Her legs had wrapped automatically around his waist and at his words, she leaned back against his arms so she could see his face better. The tenderness in his eyes made her swallow. That look…that look…

It told her she had done the right thing, told her that by loving him he might learn to love her, too.

“I just want you to be happy,” she whispered honestly. “Those rules…I want you to make it clear to me what you want and what you don’t want because I want to be your perfect mistress.”

“You’re already perfect.”

“No, but I will be,” she told him seriously.

The way she was willing to fight so hard for him made Rathe swallow.

Too hard. Too fast. He had to stop this or there was no going back.

Forcing himself to look away, he murmured, “Those rules of yours…”

“Yes?”

“Rather than just agreeing and disagreeing about them…”

She cocked her head to the side. “What are you saying?”

“How about we test them one by one instead?”