Page 18 of The Damsel
Once he had finished, forgoing the cravat and stuffing it into the breast pocket of his coat, he’d turned to find her facing him. She’d donned all her layers again, including her gloves and cloak. She hadn’t bothered to put her hair back into its coiffure, and a thick lock of it hung over one shoulder.
“Well, I must be off,” she said, beginning to edge toward the door.
Something in him had lurched, forcing him forward, his hand reaching out before he could think better of it. She had tensed when his fingers closed around her arm, eyes narrowing as she stared at him with a heavy measure of accusation. He hadn’t understood what possessed him to touch her that way; he’d only known he needed to tell her why he’d said yes.
“I’ve been in love with the same woman for most of my life,” he blurted before he could lose his nerve. “In recent years, I’d come to see that I was losing her. She’d begun to slip through my fingers, and … well, perhaps she was never mine to begin with. I thought if I tried harder, if I fought for her, if I made up for the time we lost, I could win her back. But, today I watched her choose someone else—a man who is everything I’m not.”
The annoyance in her expression had melted away, and understanding lit in her eyes. There was no pity there, thank God, but her gaze had told him she understood.
“Lady Daphne,” she said—not a question, but a confirmation.
“Yes,” he replied, a knot that rising in his throat at the mention of her name. “She and Hartmoor … well, it hardly matters anymore. I only mention it so you’ll understand … I came here tonight to forget her, to try to feel something else.”
She’d seemed to try to smile, the side of her mouth twitching the slightest bit. Yet, her expression had remained as solemn as ever.
“And did you ... feel something else?”
He’d smiled at her then, a little laugh bubbling up in his chest. “I did not think of her once the entire time.”
Now, the corner of her mouth did turn up a tick. “I am glad for you.”
With a nod, he released her arm and backed away, content now to let her leave. He would linger for a bit to give her time before he exited himself. Now thoroughly exhausted, he had been more than ready to return to his suite of rooms in Town and turn in for the night.
To his surprise, she'd paused in the doorway, turning back to face him. He caught sight of the servant turned guard, Peter, lingering in the corridor. The man stepped out of view once he peered into the room and seemed to decide everything was as it should be.
“You asked why,” she’d said, one hand resting upon the doorknob. “And the answer is quite simple, Mr. Stanley. You see, there has been no one since … well, since Lord Fairchild.”
He’d winced at the reminder of the man who had hanged just that morning for violating more than half a dozen of theton’s young debutantes, Cassandra among them.
“I wanted to choose who it would be, how and where it would happen,” she continued. “As for why I selected you … I hold quite a bit of disdain toward men of your sort. Titled, wealthy, pampered. And if you think to take offense to that, don’t. It is simply a fact that men of thetonare a species all their own, and you are one of them. But, I can honestly say that you do not seem quite so much like the rest of them. In short, I chose you because I did not believe you had it in you to hurt me.”
No, he’d thought.But you have the capacity to hurt me.
Aloud, he’d said, “I am glad I could be of some help to you.”
Those flimsy words had not been adequate enough. Yet, how could he explain that he wanted what she’d given him again, and then again and again? How could he tell her that he’d do it as many times as she needed to wash the rancid taste of Bertram Fairchild out of her mouth?
“Good-bye, Mr. Stanley,” she said, taking the matter out of his hands.
In those words, she’d made herself more than clear. She had told him this would be a one-time affair, and she meant to hold true to her word. They would part ways now and never speak of this again.
“Good-bye, Lady Cassandra.”
He had not seen or spoken to her since that good-bye, having spent only another sennight in London before he’d given up his rooms and returned home. He never liked being away overlong, as he never knew when his father might take a turn for the worse.
“I’ll take good care of ’im for ye, Mr. Stanley,” said the stable groom who accepted the reigns of Robert’s gelding once he’d dismounted.
“Thank you,” he replied, turning to tramp along the pathway back to the manor.
The chill of an early spring morning had given way to a pleasant warmth, the sun high overhead in a cloudless sky. He’d been going out of his mind trapped inside the house this past week, near constant rain making outdoor activity impossible. Upon arising this morning to find the ground almost dry and the clouds abated, he’d set out for a morning ride. He had hoped it would offer a reprieve from the constant state of agitation that had plagued him since parting ways with Cassandra at the White Cock.
He had thought the craving for more of the tortuous pleasure Cassandra had opened his eyes to would abate over time. After all, he’d been quite the same after wetting his cock inside a woman for the first time. He’d been insatiable, wanting more and more, whenever and wherever he could find it. That sort of persistent arousal had gone away with age and experience, and he’d moved forward with his life able to go longer than five pitiful minutes without thinking about fucking.
But, this proved a different problem altogether. It wasn’t simply that he could not stop thinking about fucking … it was that he couldn’t stop thinking about fucking while being tied down, slapped, and dominated. Cassandra's fingerprints had faded by the next morning, but he could swear he felt that strike every time he thought back to that night—the vibrant blossom of the sting over his jaw, the surge of blood rushing through his veins as his heartbeat sped to a gallop, the way it had made his cock harden to painful limits.
Ruined. He was absolutely ruined.
He’d tried to capture that elusive feeling in other ways. But the whores in Lavenham—even the pretty red-haired one he’d always favored—could offer him nothing that appealed to this newly discovered part of himself. One had tied his hands for him, another had even bitten him a few times. Neither had affected him half as much as Cassandra, and he’d left both encounters more frustrated than ever.
