Page 18 of A Most Improper Duchess
The petals shifted and their hues merged into each other. Like the windows of Sainte Chapelle, where she had planned to take him that afternoon, where all the colour and light of the world would bathe them. Her stomach roared. Her head thumped.
‘Vivianne?’ Arley took a step closer. His brows furrowed, and fear shaped his features, like inles Catacombes. Her knees buckled beneath her. He took another step as he held out his arms. The flowers scattered. Pink, peach, purple, blue sky, green leaves, yellow stone, Arley’s ugly waistcoat, his black coat, all of them swam and blended, before they smothered her in darkness.
Snippets of movement, of Arley, a carriage, and being hoisted upstairs and through doors flitted in her memory. The mattress beneath her was too soft to be her own, the fabric against her cheek too smooth. And she rarely had enough money to afford fuel for a fire, yet one cracked, and the room smelt of its warmth. And the sheets—fresh, like a garden. She knew the feel of a stranger’s bed. Arley had brought her to his hotel.
Two voices filled the room. One thumped her heart. The other gripped her chest. She kept her eyes closed as the fuzz of their words found form and clarity.
‘She is not infected.’ The cruel officiousness… it could only be a doctor. Vivianne sent up a silent prayer to return to the blackness.
‘What do you mean, infected? Is she sick?’ Arley asked, his voice leaden with worry.
Vivianne gritted her teeth as the doctor laughed. ‘I do not think she has a street disease. That’s what you want to know, isn’t it?’
Eyes scrunched, Vivianne willed herself not to move, not to even alter her breath. She felt raw, as all of her heartache and her transgressions were spread as wide as a three sous whore’s thighs as the doctor so nonchalantly spoke of her, her body and her place in the world.
‘Why did she faint?’ Arley asked. His tone was level but edged with disdain. For her or the doctor? She could not tell.
A button clipped, clothes rustled. A door opened. ‘The ballerina’s do not always eat,’ the doctor said, his voice a dismissal. Feet scuffed carpet, voices mumbled, a door closed. Vivianne dared to half open her eyes.
More luxurious than she expected, she lay on a wide, four-poster bed. Heavy drapes were fastened at each corner. The suite extended to beyond the point where her vision found form. Arley turned back from the door as he raked his fingers through his hair. He’d removed his coat and waistcoat and now rolled his shirtsleeves to just below his elbows. He moved slowly across the room, then eased onto the bed beside her.
‘I didn’t want to take you into the theatre,’ he said as he rested a hand on the covers, over the little mound made by her feet. The intimate weight was a comfort and reassurance against her fears of his judgement. ‘In case they wouldn’t let me stay with you. Sorry if you were scared. I didn’t know what else to do.’ He tapped at her with a slight agitation. ‘You don’t eat?’
‘Not by choice,’ she rasped out.
He lurched from the bed and went to a small table stacked with glasses, bottles and carafes. He filled a tumbler with something amber, then returned and passed it to her. She took a sniff, then a sip. Armagnac. It burnt her nose and throat, but settled in her stomach, and sent her veins racing.
‘You have no money because I held back the pin? Demanded more of your time?’ His words were only half questions, as he seemed to speak more to himself, his voice heavy with self-recrimination. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Tell you I am half starved? Give you more power than you already have? There is never enough of it for men like you, is there?’ Vivianne braced herself against the bed to better face him. How dare he judge her when she had given him far more than she had any man. ‘You want my truth? I have only been playing the part of a courtesan. But I have not had the attentions of a patron for some time.’ She pressed the uneven cut of the crystal against her palm, before taking another gulp and pushing herself up. ‘I will leave.’
‘You will not.’ He lay alongside her on the bed, kicked off his shoes, raised her head as he slid his arm beneath her and pulled her against his chest. ‘I have ordered soup, and bread. Some cheese. I can have them send up some wine if you like. Or coffee.’
‘The duke will pay?’
He laughed. ‘Yes, the duke will pay. He may be an inconsiderate arse, but he would not want you to go hungry.’
She should have resisted, but why? His shirt cotton rubbed soft against her cheek in a feather light caress against her skin. She let her eyes grow heavy and curved into him. Stroked at his chest. Not rough like his coat, his shirt fabric had a tight weave, with perfect shell buttons, and was softer than any fabric she’d ever worn. Luxurious and of a quality that she only knew as clothing the bodies of men.
Not just any men.
Men of means.
Chapter Nine
Arleywoketoaslab of sunlight across his face, a stiff cock and the most beautiful woman he’d known toying with the button at his throat. Vivienne trailed her fingers over his chest and drew lazy ribbons on his skin. She grazed the tent of his erection, before walking her fingers over his body again. When she unfastened his top button, he gave a small groan.
The night before, after eating, and barely talking, Vivianne had fallen asleep in his arms, and he’d breathed her until sleep claimed him. During the night, she must have removed her skirts, as she sat beside him in only a light, threadbare chemise, the fabric so thin that her pink areola cast a slight shadow against the muslin, and the small points of her nipples made bumps against the fabric. Midway through the night, uncomfortable and overheated, he’d tossed off some articles of clothing. With a sheepish realisation, he looked down to see he was clad only in his underwear—tight fitting white underpants that reached past his knees, and a fitted white undershirt. He made a half grab at the sheet, but Vivianne tugged it away.
‘Vivianne, I cannot pay,’ he said, holding fast to the lie.
She smiled, her eyes sparkling. ‘Then you will be in my debt, instead of me in yours.’
‘You don’t owe me for helping you—’
‘Chut,’ she cooed and pressed a finger to his lips. ‘I want to.’
She unclipped another button, and kissed the small exposure, then another button, and kissed lower still. She sat up, stifling a giggle. ‘Please take this ridiculous underwear off. I cannot while you are dressed so.’
