The Heart Denied
Authors: Linda Anne Wulf
The
Heart
Denied
Copyright © 2010 by Linda Anne Wulf
All rights reserved.
This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Printed in the United States of America
First Printing, 2010
ISBN 978-0615432427
Hydra Publications
337 Clifty Dr
Madison, IN 47250
www.hydrapublications.com
London
June 28, 1728
Bed curtains?
Thorne Neville rolled over with a groan, only to see the deep cleft in a plump bosom. Six inches closer, he might have smothered.
There were worse ways to die.
"Sleep, Mister Adams," said a drowsy voice at his ear. "'Tis barely dawn."
Mister Adams.
His alias. That explained the bed curtains. "You sleep," he mumbled. "I'll be off."
"So early?"
"Aye." He sat up and feigned a yawn to make his next words sound casual. "I'm going home."
He tensed as the mattress shifted and flint struck behind him. Candlelight bathed the bed, revealing his stray clothing--which he gathered with unusual haste while Katy Devlin's stare seared his back.
"Home? You're leaving Oxford?"
Dread slowed Thorne's heart. Must she make this more difficult than it already was? He tugged on his stockings and tied the garters, jammed his arms into his shirtsleeves. "Do you not think four years at university enough?" Turning, he pinned Katy with the unnatural brilliance of his blue eyes, an intimidating maneuver he'd often used to his advantage, though never on a woman.
She didn't flinch. "Then you'll be leaving London, too, Mister Adams. And me."
It was Thorne who flinched, dropping his gaze. "I...I'm not 'leaving London,' nor anyone in particular." He freed his black mane from inside the shirt and smoothed the wrinkled linen into his breeches. "I merely return to my ancestral home to take up the reins where my father left off."
"And would that be, sir, the very place you've avoided like the plague, since he died? Where you've not ventured in four years, neither at Yuletide nor harvest?"
The barb pierced its target. In return, Thorne pierced Katy with a silent glare.
"Well then, be off, Mister Adams!" She rolled out of bed and flung on a wrapper, swiping a sleeve across her eyes in the same motion. "I've other gentleman callers to see today."
"Aye," Thorne muttered. "We've each our obligations, however less than noble." He fastened his waistcoat, yanking at the mother-of-pearl buttons.
"But you know mine. I know naught of yours."
So the fight wasn't over. "Nor would you care to," he said shortly, hoping to put an end to it.
"You think not?" Katy sashayed toward him, fists planted firmly on her ample hips. "Then all you know of me is that I sleep with men for my keep."
"And that it was not by your choosing," he said quickly--too quickly.
"Och, defending me against myself now, are you? And what does it matter how I got here? I am who I am, Mister Adams, and I'll be begging no pardons, even from you. Who the deuce
are
you this morn, by the by? Where's the man who's bedded me every se'nnight for four years?
He's
never judged me."
"Nor shall he." A snap of his wrist shook the folds from his neckcloth. He looped it around his throat, briefly considering hanging himself with it.
"Then look at me," Katy pleaded, tears constricting her words, "and tell me what summons you home with such haste you cannot linger another hour."
Thorne swallowed a sudden tightness in his own throat. "You ask too much of me," he said, fumbling with the long ends of his neckcloth.
"Och, sir, I've never so much as asked your true name, or whence you come. Here, let me." She brushed his hands aside and tied the linen with deft fingers. "All I know is that someone holds stewardship of your lands in your absence...has he died, that person? Is that why you must go?"
Thorne looked into her eyes--those emerald wells of compassion from which he'd drunk for four years now, believing that as long as he paid for the privilege, there would be no demand for his heart--long ago stolen and buried.
He'd been wrong. Wrong to think Katy's profession made her invulnerable. Wrong to keep calling here after he saw the signs. And wrong to confess to her that she was his first and only lover.
But he hadn't been wrong about his heart. Years ago gone with a young woman to her grave, its resurrection was out of the question.
The sun's first pale rays rippled over Katy's hair. Unable to help himself, Thorne touched an auburn lock before going on to trace the rose-petal softness of her lips. His pulse quickened as she caught his fingertip between gentle teeth.
Silently cursing fate, he hauled Katy to him, slipping her wrapper and shift off one shoulder to caress its smooth roundness. Rebelling suddenly at the passing time, as well as at other growing constraints, he slid his hand down to cup a full, firm breast. He encountered Katy's open palm instead.
He smiled into her eyes; he knew this game. "You would bargain your favors with me, Miss Devlin?"
"They are my stock in trade," she said, irony lacing her words.
Thorne's smile froze. "So they are--as you seem bloody bent upon reminding me this morning." He snagged his tricorne from the hat stand and strode toward the door. "I should have gone before sunup, at any rate."
"Mister Adams."
So grim was the note in her voice that he halted in his tracks and turned to meet her unblinking regard. Her tears were wiped dry.
"If you pass through that door, sir, without telling me who or what summons you away-" Katy took a deep, tremulous breath and squared her shoulders. "Then I shan't receive you again."
I won't be calling here again, Katy.
He knew he should say it, but the words stuck in his throat.
Awash in the rosy light of dawn, she stood with her gaze unwavering, hands loosely clasped, mussed hair tumbling to her waist over the nightclothes still drooping from one shoulder. That she made no move to rearrange herself only added to her dignity.
But Thorne feared that the anguished pride in those dry, green eyes would forever haunt his dreams.
In three strides he had her by the shoulders. He pressed his lips to her pale brow, then took a deep breath and drew back to look her in the eye. He owed her at least that much.
You owe her the truth. Every rotting word of it.
"I've a promise to keep," he heard himself say in a low, taut voice. "An obligation to fulfill." He firmed his hold on her shoulders and shook his head, scarcely able to believe it himself.
"I
must
go home, Katy...to meet my bride."