Mastering a Sinner (17 page)

Alistair slowly stood up. “I will not allow you to kill my brother, ma’am.”

“Then it is in your best interests to keep an eye on me, and make sure that I don’t.”

He bowed. “Indeed.”

“Good day, Mr. Maclean.”

“Ma’am.”

He closed the door behind him and took a deep breath. The ceiling suddenly felt too close and he hurried down the stairs, his right hip aching, taking over the complaining as his headache abated.

What did Charlie want and whom was she allied to? Or was she simply so focused on finding Harry that she’d jump in bed with the devil if he promised to help her? He wasn’t sure. The only thing he did know was that if his brother did meet Charlie he might be in serious danger. There had been something in her eyes that he recognized—a familiarity with death and the knowledge of how to kill without mercy.

Alistair shuddered and went through into the kitchens where Christian sat at the kitchen table.

“I take it you didn’t find your man?”

“I found him.” Alistair put on his hat and gloves. “Thank you for your help.”

“You are welcome.” Christian raised his cup of ale in a salute.

By the time Alistair got back to the Sinners, his headache was raging and he was longing for the peace and quiet of his bed. Maddon and an anxious Lady Westbrook met him in the back hallway.

“My dear Alistair, wherever have you been?”

“Over to the pleasure house. I did tell Mr. Maddon.” Alistair suddenly felt like a schoolboy again. “Is there something I can help you with, my lady?”

She tucked her hand in the crook of his arm and walked with him up the stairs. “I was just worried about you venturing forth with your head in such a state.”

“It feels much better today, my lady. We Scots are a tough race.”

“That is true.” She patted his arm. “Diana was looking for you earlier.”

“Is she still in her office? I’ll go and see what she wants.”

“No, she went out to see Malinda. She did tell me that she’d left some documents on your desk.”

“Then I’ll go into my office and make sure that everything is all right.”

“Then you must promise me that you will take yourself off to bed. I’ll have Maddon bring you up some supper on a tray later.”

“Thank you, my lady.”

He managed to detach himself from her before he went into his office and shut the door. His desk was buried in a new layer of documents, books, and letters. With a groan he settled in his chair and began sorting out the mess. He might not stay awake long enough to complete every task, but he would at least attempt to prioritize the information and avoid missing anything urgent. He drew the first packet of letters toward himself and cut the seal.

 

“Mr. Maclean isn’t in his bedroom, Mr. Maddon,” Diana said.

“Are you sure, my lady? Lady Westbrook advised him to go to bed hours ago.”

“Maybe he slept for a while and got up again.” Diana looked back at the corridor, which held the Sinners Club offices. “I’ll go and see if he’s still at his desk.”

She took the candle Maddon offered her and made her way to Alistair’s room. There was no light under the door, but she went in anyway. A dark form was slumped over the desk. With a soft sound, she hurried over and placed the candlestick on the crowded surface.

“Mr. Maclean? Are you all right?” She crouched down next to him and gently shook his arm.

He opened his green eyes and peered at her intently. “My lady.”

“You were supposed to be asleep in your bed.”

“I had too much to do.”

She smoothed her hand over his rumpled auburn locks. “You are far too efficient and far too careless of your health.”

“I had a lot to do.” He yawned and sat up, wincing as he stretched out his shoulders. “What time is it?”

“Almost ten.” Diana hesitated. “Did you see the book I left for you?”

“No, I don’t think I did. Where exactly did you put it?”

She stood and studied the now neat piles on his desk. “It was right here.” She picked the candle up and directed the light more fully on the space. “A large brown leather book.”

He waved a vague hand at one corner of the desk. “I stacked all the books here.”

She leaned over and sorted through the pile, which he’d arranged in order of size, until she reached the second from last book and hauled it free.

“Here you are.”

“I’ll take it up to bed with me and read it there.”

“I’ve marked the page of interest.”

“Thank you.”

She lingered at his side touching things on the desk, which he immediately returned to their original places. “The earl is due back soon.”

“I am aware of that. Don’t worry. I’m well enough to read the evidence tonight and give you my opinion tomorrow.”

“There’s no hurry. The proof is fairly damming.” She gave him a calm smile. “I don’t wish you to tire yourself out for my benefit.”

He smiled back at her through the flicker of the candlelight. “That’s not what you normally say.”

Gathering her skirts, she turned to the door. “I have no intention of taking you to bed until you feel much more the thing.”

“I appreciate that.”

He followed her to the door and she turned to look at him. Reaching up, she traced a finger over his lush lower lip.

“I don’t intend to wait forever, though, so please take care of yourself and don’t work too hard.”

He hesitated. “Will you . . . find someone else while you wait?”

“And have to start all over again? I’m not sure I have the energy to deal with another exhausting male. Mr. Maclean, before you go I must say this.” She cupped his jaw. “If the Earl of Westbrook throws me out on the street, I expect you to let me fall alone.”

He opened his mouth, but she stopped him speaking with the hard press of her fingers. “I do
not
expect you to support me in this matter. I want you to retain your job and your loyalty to the Sinners.”

He pulled her hand away. “But what if I don’t want to do that?”

“I’m not giving you a choice. You can’t afford to lose this job. I can. I’m not supporting my family and a wastrel of a brother. And when I leave, Mr. Maclean, I do not intend to see you again.”

He raised a sardonic eyebrow. “You seem to have it all planned out.”

“Of course I do. I’m very efficient. Isn’t that why I was hired to work here in the first place?”

“You were hired because the countess and Lady Malinda felt sorry for your situation.”

“And we both know that I took advantage of that pity for my own ends.”

“Yes, we damn well do.”

God that hurt. She raised her chin. “I have plenty of friends who will make sure that I survive.”

“And will you return to whoring?” His green eyes were as hard as flint.

She shrugged. “If I choose to do so.”

“Or find another rich fool to marry you?”

“I will do what I want to do, Mr. Maclean,
and
what I
need
to do to survive.”

“Rather than accept any type of support or protection from me.”

“I doubt you can afford me on your salary.” She forced herself to smile up at him. “I certainly haven’t asked for any support from you.”

“Because you don’t consider me capable of offering any, do you?”

She met his suddenly furious gaze. “I know what you are, and I know what you need in your life.”

“You know what I need in
bed,
but that doesn’t make you an expert of everything about me, my lady.”

“Then you’d rather I said, ‘Alistair, when the earl throws me out, come with me. We can live on the streets together.’”

“It wouldn’t come to that.”

“But what if it did?” She searched his face. “You’d hate it. I have no intention of being poor again, and I swear to God I will never drag you down with me.”

“I would find another job. I could take care of you.”

“Not in London. If you left with me, the Earl of Westbrook and your employers could make finding employment impossible. Mayhap even employment in the whole of Britain.”

“Now you are exaggerating.”

“Maybe I am, but I can’t allow you to beggar yourself and your family because of me.”

“Because you don’t need any help and even if you did, you wouldn’t ask for it.”

She wrapped her arms around herself. “This is a ridiculous conversation.”

“You started it.”

“I just wanted to warn you that if things didn’t go well, you were under no obligation to spring to my defense,” she said tiredly.

“Why not?”

“Haven’t we just discussed that?”

“Why would you assume I wouldn’t defend you?” He moved a step away and stared down at her.

“Because no one ever has in the past.” She raised her head. “And that’s perfectly fine because it taught me a lot about how to survive.”

“But also made it impossible for you to trust anyone or let anyone help you.”

“You are the one with the issues of trust, Mr. Maclean.”

He smiled at her. “I don’t think I’m the only one. Good night, Lady Theale.”

He walked away, leaving her staring after him, her mouth open like a fool. How dare he misinterpret her kindly advice for him not to lose his job over her and manipulate it into something different? How dare he suggest she was unable to trust anyone? She trusted Charlotte, and Nico and . . . lots of other people. Did he have any idea how it felt to be dumped on the pavement and told to go away? How
terrifying
that was?

The fact that she and Charlotte had survived their first night on the streets was a miracle in itself. They’d been discovered by the manager of the pleasure house huddling in a doorway and brought back to Elizabeth Delornay. She’d taken them in and offered them decent work until they’d both decided to seek employment in the more lucrative part of the pleasure house itself.

She refused to be ashamed of her self-sufficiency.

She
refused.

And if she had to strike out on her own again, she’d do it and damn the Earl of Westbrook and the Sinners. Damn Alistair Maclean too.

17

A
listair set the book down on his bed and tore savagely at his cravat. Diana Theale was
infuriating
. Her calm insistence that she could take care of herself, that she didn’t need him, that she had friends . . . made him want to curse, haul her into his arms, and never let her go. And she wasn’t even doing it to entrap him, he knew that. She genuinely believed she didn’t need anyone to survive.

Especially him.

He left the rest of his clothes in a pile on the floor and put on his nightshirt. Despite everything, the pain in his skull had dimmed to a more manageable throbbing hum, which was almost bearable. He’d be fine in a day or so. Just in time to see the return of the Earl of Westbrook and Diana’s attempt to force the man to acknowledge that he was her father.

With that unpleasant thought, he turned to the book she’d given him, lit more candles, and placed his spectacles on the end of his nose. After falling asleep for four hours at his desk, he was hardly tired. Anger and frustration made uneasy bedfellows.

He wasn’t even sure why he was angry. She didn’t owe him anything. Her task in his life was to offer him the best sexual release he had ever experienced and that she performed superbly. He should be damned grateful that she wanted nothing more. After assuming responsibility for his family at fourteen, he normally shied away from taking on any other burdens, especially emotional ones. Dealing with two younger sisters and his mother hadn’t been easy. He loved them all dearly, but he was always conscious of failing to protect his father from the authorities and afraid he would fail them too.

With a sigh, Alistair climbed into bed, propped the musty old book on his knees, and turned his attention to the problem in hand....

Five minutes later, he threw back the covers, found his tattered silk banyan, and put in on. With the book under his arm, he made his way through the quiet corridors until he reached Diana’s door.

“Lady Theale?”

She opened the door an inch and stared down her nose at him. “Yes?”

“May I come in?”

“If you must.” She walked away from him and began to unpin her hair. “I hope you have come to apologize.”

“No, actually, I haven’t.”

She sat down at her dressing table and continued to remove the pins, her movements unhurried. He put the book down and walked over to her.

“May I?” He gestured at her hairbrush.

“If you wish.”

He picked up the brush and began to comb it through her luscious black locks. A hint of her perfume warmed the air, and he was instantly hard. She removed her earrings and unclasped her pearls from around her slender throat. He thought of the collar with his name on it, and wished he was wearing it right now.

She glanced at him in the mirror. “You’re supposed to be sleeping in your own bed, Mr. Maclean, not thinking lustful thoughts about occupying mine.”

“How do you know they are lustful?”

She reached back and stroked the worn silk of his robe where his cock had raised the fabric like a tent pole. “You’re hard.”

“You have that effect on me.”

“Even when you’re angry?”

“Especially when I’m angry, and tied up and begging you to . . .” He resumed brushing her hair. “If I owe you an apology, I am quite happy to offer you one. I do understand about surviving.”

“I doubt that, Mr. Maclean. You come from an aristocratic background and probably had the best of everything.”

“Hardly. My father was accused of treason against the Hanoverian crown and dragged out of our home by English soldiers, who hung him and then burned the place down. I was reduced to running into the flames to save anything I could before the whole place came down on top of me. Some of the soldiers stood around laughing and placing bets on whether I’d survive.”

He put the brush down on the dressing table. “When they finally dispersed, I had to find shelter for my mother and two sisters. It wasn’t easy. None of our neighbors would help us at first for fear of reprisals. We spent several weeks living in a cave while I and some of the Maclean men made a small cottage on the edge of the castle grounds habitable.”

“I . . . didn’t realize that.”

“Why would you?” His smile held no humor in it. “Trying to survive a Scottish winter with almost nothing to eat and three females to feed was extremely trying.”

“Where was your brother, Harry?”

“He was in England.”

She turned around to study him. “At school?”

“No. He was under the protection of the family he’d betrayed our father to.”

Her hand came to rest on her heart. “Harry informed against his own
father?
”

“He didn’t like him. He told me later that he wanted to hurt him.”

“But by acting against your father, he almost destroyed the rest of you.”

“That wasn’t important to him. He didn’t want to be cold and hungry and live like a pauper in Scotland. The money he received paid for his education and kept him safe and secure for several years.”

“I don’t understand how you can bear to look at him, let alone defend him.”

He moved away from the dressing table to stare out of the window and then closed the curtains. “My father was a loud-mouthed fool who proclaimed his hatred of the English crown whenever offered the opportunity. If it hadn’t have been Harry betraying him, it would’ve been somebody else.”

“But still—”

Alistair shrugged. “It’s all in the past. My mother and sisters are well housed and happy now.”

She rose from her seat and presented him with her back, so he undid the buttons of her dress and then untied her corset. Her nightgown was hanging on the chair closest to the fire, so he handed it to her and waited as she put it on.

“If you didn’t come here to apologize, what did you want?”

“To ask you about this.” He picked up the book. “Are you quite certain you marked the correct page? I couldn’t find any references to you at all.”

“What do you mean? I indicated the place quite clearly.” Her expression changed and she grabbed the heavy tome from his hands and put it on the bed. She found the red ribbon and opened the book wide.

“There’s nothing there. That’s not right.”

“As I said.”

She started flipping the pages back and forth and then turned to him. “I don’t understand.”

“I suspect from the fresh paper cut between the pages you marked that someone removed the evidence.”

“But who would do that? Who knew what to look for?” Diana shook her head and sank down onto the side of the bed.

“At what time did you put the book on my desk?”

“It was just after one this afternoon.”

“And while I was out, my office was open. Anyone could’ve been in there and found the damned book.” He sighed. “It does make me think that someone employed here is working against the Sinners rather than for us.” He sat down next to Diana and patted her hand. “It’s all right.”

“No, it isn’t. That was the first piece of evidence I’ve ever found with the Earl of Westbrook’s name on it.”

“What exactly did it say?”

“That he paid my school fees.” She looked up at him. “I thought I was a charity pupil. I was certainly treated like one.”

He frowned. “But, even so, how did you end up in the pleasure house?”

“Our school was closed down when I was fourteen. The debt collectors came in at the same time as the parents arrived to pick up their children and started putting everything that they could get into their carts. By the end of the day, everyone had been collected except me and Charlotte.” She sighed. “We begged for help, but no one listened. Eventually one of the bailiffs drove us out onto the street and threatened to beat us if we didn’t clear off.”

“The earl didn’t come for you, I take it?”

“Obviously not. We were lucky that Ambrose from the pleasure house found us that night. He took us to Elizabeth, and she paid for us to board with a family of Methodists Ambrose knew. When we were older, we both decided we’d like to work in the pleasure house.”

“And now that evidence has disappeared.” Alistair frowned. “I still don’t understand why the earl didn’t know what happened to the school, or what had befallen you. He’s the head of a vast network of spies and informers. Surely he would have been able to locate you?”

“I’ve wondered about that too.” She hesitated. “Perhaps he did know where I was and chose to abandon me there. Perhaps he has no idea that I exist at all.”

Alistair had no answer for that, but he squeezed her hand hard. “I’m sorry I wasn’t at my desk when you put the book there.”

“You couldn’t have known.”

“But who did? Who knew what that book contained, Diana?”

“You, me, Charlotte, and . . .” She raised her troubled gaze to his. “Nico. He’s the person who found the book in the first place. But why would he give Charlotte the evidence and then take it back? Did he really not want her to share it with me?”

She jumped up and started to pace the room. “And Nico isn’t here, anyway, is he? How can it be him?”

“We don’t know if he’s here. We just haven’t seen him. Maddon will know if he’s been in the house. I can go and ask him right now.”

“It’s too late and we’ll achieve nothing at this hour anyway.” She swung around to face him. “You do believe what I’m saying, don’t you?”

“You would scarcely give me a book with nothing in it, would you? The fact that someone felt the need to tamper with the evidence means it probably has value.”

“Thank you.”

He raised an eyebrow. “For what?”

“For believing me.” She took a shaky breath. “I didn’t expect it.”

“Then I’m glad I surprised you.” He slid off the side of the bed and pulled back the covers. “You should sleep.”

She came toward him, the lush curves of her body outlined through the glow of the fire. “Will you stay?”

“I can’t be of much use to you.”

“Your head is still troubling you?”

He touched the wound behind his ear. “I’m recovering nicely. Scotsmen have very hard heads.”

She stroked a finger down his arm. “I’ll probably have nightmares about being thrown out on the street if I’m alone.”

“Then I’ll keep you company, as long as you wake me up if I have nightmares of my own.”

She took his hand and kissed his palm. “Take off your banyan, Mr. Maclean.”

“Yes, my lady.” He untied the sash and let the garment fall to the floor. His cock refused to admit defeat and was stubbornly erect. “After you.”

She climbed into the bed, and he blew out the candles and joined her. She pushed him onto his back and curled against his side, one hand low on his flat stomach.

“I like you hard for me, Mr. Maclean.”

“So you said, my lady. You wanted me to be ready whenever you wanted to fuck me.”

“Mmm . . .” Her fingers drifted lower, and he sucked in a breath. “That could be most inconvenient for you.”

“I’d manage if that was your will.”

“And if it was my will that you couldn’t come? Would you accept that too?”

Her fingers loosely encircled the root of his shaft.

“I’d do my best.” He swallowed hard. “Although coming inside you is . . .” His breath hissed out as she tightened her grip, her nails digging into his tender flesh. “Coming
for
you is far more gratifying.”

“For me or for you?”

“I would hope for both of us.” He licked his lips. “When I’m hard for you and I feel as if my balls are so tight, so ready to come that I can’t hold on one more second, you make me wait. Sometimes I’m screaming inside and my cock is so stiff that I . . . I think one touch from you will make me climax. I yearn for that touch and yet I fear it at the same time because I want to please you and stay hard.”

“You do please me. I love seeing you fight against your own needs to satisfy mine. I love seeing you hard when you can’t have release.” She relaxed her grip. “It gives me great pleasure to know that you are wet and ready for me. It makes me wet too.”

He shuddered as she slid one leg over his thigh and he felt the sultry heat of her sex against his skin.

“Do you wish me to give you pleasure, my lady?”

“Not if it’s going to make your head ache.” Her laugh was low and made his cock even stiffer. “I think I’ll take what I need from you, Mr. Maclean. But you aren’t to move at all—especially your head.” She raised herself off him and he bit back a protest. “In fact, maybe I should tie you down so that you can’t move at all.”

He kept still as she got out of bed and went to the chest of drawers in the corner of the room. Using the embers of the fire, she lit a candle and placed it at the side of the bed.

“Now I can see what I’m doing.” She showed him the coils of silken rope in her hands. “Lie still.”

She tied one of the ropes to the bed frame and drew it across his upper arms and chest, securing it on the far side of the bed. She slid an extra pillow behind his head and another underneath his arse and then tied another rope across his hips in the same manner. Touching his knees, she drew them wide apart until his thighs touched the sheets and then drew his feet up until they almost met in the center.

“Are you comfortable, Mr. Maclean?”

“Yes, my lady.”

She tied his ankles together first and then brought the ends of the rope higher, sliding it under his knees and binding each wrist to each thigh. His fingers splayed against his spread thighs as if he was holding himself open wide for her gaze. He tried to ease the stress on his back but only added additional pressure on his ankles and upper thighs.

She stood to one side and considered him, her expression thoughtful, at least two more coils of rope still in her hand. He tried to breathe slowly, but he could feel the rope tightening against his chest. She leaned in and adjusted the top rope so that it ran right over his nipples making them throb along with his raised heartbeat.