The Dark Regent Read online

  Fawn sat up. His words frightened her more than his sudden and unwelcome entry into her bedchamber. “A governess with whom? Where?”

  “She won’t say. You won’t be employed in London; that much I know. Jocelyn claims that after years of feeding and housing you, she has wearied of the responsibility and now wants rid of it. I objected on your behalf, but her mind is made up.”

  “This is your doing,” she said bitterly. “You told her lies about me to get rid of me. You’re afraid I’ll tell her about the Society!”

  His mouth hardened. “I said you would regret threatening me and you will, but not like this. Jocelyn has been looking for an excuse to get rid of you for months. You must have seen the signs of irritation and disinterest. The tell-tale hints that one is about to be dispatched to another relative until they run out of family and the wretched orphan is placed with strangers. If you’re lucky, you’ll escape the workhouse.”

  “Stop!” Fawn pressed her hands over her ears. Hot tears sprang to her eyes and rolled down her face. “The change in her only happened after you arrived. If you had not interfered, I might have made her love me one day.”

  “No, you would not. I speak from experience. My half-sister is too self-serving to love anyone. Don’t break your heart seeking it.” Crispin handed her his handkerchief. “Stop crying. It’s not as bad as all that. I have a plan.”

  “I don’t want your plan. I don’t want anything from you.” Fawn swallowed her grief. “She found another way to remove me from this house after you forbade me marrying. If my aunt has said I must live among strangers, there is very little you can do about it.”

  Wolfe made a gesture of impatience. “There is little you can do about it, Fawn. I am a beast of a different stripe and I won’t be put off when I want something. You are not going anywhere. I have thus far tolerated my sister’s vanity and whining complaints for your sake. I’ll cut her out of my life if she puts you out.”

  Fawn felt her face go hot. “She is your family—your blood. You must not say such things.”

  “I must and I will.” He looked at her intently. “I didn’t expect to find a rose among the thorns in this house. I went into this arrangement, the bastard son of Jocelyn’s father, knowing I would be miserable. My sister has money and I do not. I expected to find only tyranny under this roof and instead, I found you. I won’t give you up without a fight. Jocelyn will allow you to stay or she will spend the rest of her days alone.”

  A tense, horrific silence followed as Fawn realized what her uncle had planned. “I—I don’t want to hear this,” she whispered desperately. “I want you to leave.”

  Crispin caught her by the shoulders and shook her roughly. “No, I will not leave until you’ve heard everything I have to say. For God’s sake, listen to me—I am your last hope! Without my help, you’ll be cast out into the streets.”

  “I know the help you propose and I don’t want any part of it!” Fawn’s temper flared. “The fault lies with you. You have all but ignored your sister whilst embarrassing me with your attention. If I’m no longer under her roof, Jocelyn will have her brother back.”

  “She deludes herself if she believes that. Sending you away will not restore me to her. Jocelyn doesn’t give a damn about either of us—I’m just clever enough to know it. An attempt will be made to find you a suitable position until she is bored of the enterprise and forces you out. Do you know what happens to young women on the streets of London? You are in no position to defy her, but I am. Take what is being offered. Your first duty is to yourself.”

  “Why are you doing this?” Fawn cried. “What do you want from me?”

  Wolfe appeared to be caught off guard for the first time since entering her room. “I thought that was obvious. I want to take care of you. I want you to admit me to your chambers on occasion. As my mistress, you will want for nothing.”

  Fawn laughed scornfully. “I see. That is how you mean to care for me.”

  “You knew my intentions from the first.”

  “Have I ever given you reason to believe that I welcomed those intentions?” Guilt slithered through her, wondering if this was the reason her uncle had persisted. She had returned his stare on more than one occasion and had been stirred into thinking about him more than she should.

  “Not in the least,” Crispin said firmly. “In fact, you’ve done everything in your power to discourage me. The question is why?”

  “I should think that was obvious,” she said with a blush. “I am dependent on Jocelyn’s good opinion and she does not approve of the interest you’ve taken in me. She hasn’t said so directly, but her affection for me has cooled since your arrival. She sees me as a rival for your attention. I would have to be mad to incur her displeasure.”

  “So you do not have an aversion to me then. Our status in this house is the obstacle or you would have admitted me to your chambers. If our situations were different, would you be willing?”

  Her head was spinning and she sensed a trap. “I will not surrender my virtue to any man save my husband if that’s what you are asking.”

  “Then perhaps becoming a governess is all you deserve,” he said coldly. “Spending your days instructing snot-nosed brats when you could be happy here with me. Yes, I shall enjoy thinking of you under the supervision of a contemptuous Mama; taking your meals with servants who despise you for your airs, and then waiting for the opportunity to escape to your room—only what’s this? Papa has taken note of your charms and presses his suit with threats of dismissal. When Mama discovers the affair, you are chucked out and plunged into abject poverty because no reputable house will employ you and no decent man will marry you. The thought of you wandering the streets of London is a scene I shall treasure every day that I live here in comfort.”

  “Stop it,” she sobbed desperately.

  Crispin caressed her cheek. His voice softened. “The reward for your loyalty to Jocelyn will be rape, degradation and poverty. I am not going to let that happen to you.”

  She slapped his hand away in horror. “I am no longer your concern, uncle.”

  “Fawn,” he said a tight voice, “you will always be my concern. I cannot get free of you until you consent to me. I can’t marry you. Don’t look for it. Jocelyn will cut me off and I love money more than respectability. But I can’t let you go until I’ve had you. I don’t apologize for the way I am. It is beyond my power to change. I would not wish this possession on any man. Submit to me just once, Fawn. When it is over, I swear to God, I shall forget you or die trying.”

  She lay very still, hearing nothing but the sound of her own labored breathing. A feeling of heaviness crept into her arms and legs, numbing her senses and offering a strange comfort. It was easier not to think. It was easier not to fight him anymore.

  Fawn turned her gaze to her aunt’s brother. His eyes glowed sapphire in the candlelight; his hair was as dark and glossy as a raven’s wing. He was watching her, waiting for her answer with breathless intensity.

  Fawn moaned softly and pressed her fists to her eyes. She had tried so hard and for so long to please everyone and she had failed. The truth was dawning on her at last, penetrating her heart, defeating her. There were no tears, only emptiness within.

  Crispin Wolfe stood between her and a life of crippling poverty and homelessness—for a price. With one word the fear and uncertainty would go away. She had only to say yes.

  Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Fawn nodded her head. “Yes, then. Yes.”

  Her uncle seized her by the shoulders and in one swift movement, eased her back on the bed. His heavy brocade dressing gown fell open. Dazed, Fawn realized the captain was naked beneath the robe.

  His body was strange to her, his skin and the hair on his chest, his masculine smell—it was all so strange and different. And then between his legs—she had not wanted to look but her eyes moved with a will of their own. Captain Wolfe was as well-endowed as he was rumored to be. Fawn had been privy to more than one jealous confession since her
uncle’s arrival in their house. Jocelyn’s half-brother would not have to beg to be admitted to any woman’s bed.

  He was a means to be saved from the humiliation of the street, Fawn told herself. Wolfe was nothing to her and he never would be. He would have her body but he would never have her heart.

  Fawn accepted, without passion or struggle, the kisses he trailed from her throat to her collarbone.

  So this is how it is to be, she thought, staring blindly at the ceiling. She pondered for a moment the swirling sensations of relief and sadness that alternately washed over her. Did she believe that he would leave her alone after this? Not for a minute. She had lost faith in all humankind where her welfare was concerned.

  With little regret, Fawn left behind her old self to embrace the new.

  She would become her uncle’s mistress.

  The decision made, all tension dissolved from her body. Her pulse fluttered as Wolfe’s fingers worked the laces of her nightgown. She could feel his restraint, the effort it was costing him to untie the satin ribbon slowly. Fawn wondered why he was bothering. Push up the hem and get it over with.

  After all these months of rapping on her door, he must be so pleased with himself, she thought, gazing at him. Strangely, Crispin did not look pleased. He looked tormented.

  He needn’t feel guilty. Fawn wasn’t fit for any other life than that of mistress. She’d been left impoverished by foolish parents who were not wealthy, but lived as though they were. They squandered their only child’s inheritance and then compounded their error by drowning while on a boating trip along the Thames. Since then Fawn had been passed from one disgruntled relation to another until she grew up and no one knew what to do with her.

  Captain Wolfe knew what to do with her and he would do it for as long as he liked once this night was over. From his ebony hair that glinted with copper highlights, to his glittering eyes and muscular chest, he was a force beyond her control.

  From the moment of their introduction in Jocelyn’s drawing room six months ago, Fawn had felt his interest quicken. In her innocence, she could only react with flustered embarrassment when he met her eyes. Wolfe spoke of London’s workhouses and slums as if he had intimate knowledge of them, she mused. Perhaps he was doing her a kindness after all. Admitting him to her bed once or twice a week was a small price to pay to be preserved from prolonged degradation.

  Crispin’s eyes were wide open, gazing at her with a fixed intensity. Even by candlelight she could discern the smoky blues of the iris. His lashes were a long fringe of charcoal that almost touched his straight black brows. Suddenly, very much, Fawn wanted to know what he was thinking—what he thought of her. Did he despise her for giving in to him?

  “Fawn,” he murmured thickly.

  She looked into his eyes and was met with a strange vacant stare that made her uncomfortable. He’s trying not to frighten me, she realized. Wolfe was trying to control himself, to break her maidenhead as gently as possible.

  The pink satin ribbons had tangled. He tugged and there was the sound of tearing. Her cotton nightgown parted and she was exposed to her navel. Fawn bit her lower lip. Her heart was in her mouth as her dark regent gazed at her nakedness.

  Chapter Four

  WOLFE’S GAZE scalded her flesh from her collarbone to her breasts. He moved over her and his masculine body filled her vision. His skin was silken, radiant, and smelled of sweet mown grass. A belly lightly muscled, a dark line of hair that disappeared in the mysterious black bush between his legs.

  Her nipples peaked and tightened under his scrutiny. The captain bent over one pert nipple and brushed it, feather-light, with his lips.

  Fawn gave a short soft intake of breath. She recovered quickly, but he caught her trying to hide her curiosity. She was intrigued by him and baffled by the feelings he was stirring in her.

  Wolfe smiled and caught her nipple in his mouth, giving it a gentle tug with his teeth. Her back arched reflexively and she choked down a moan. Humiliated, Fawn closed her eyes and crooked her arm over her face.

  Slipping his hand under her gown, he whispered: “God help me, you are wet for me, Fawn. There will be some pain when I enter you, but it won’t last long, and the pleasure that follows will diminish any regret.”

  She exhaled sharply as Wolfe eased her legs apart. His skin brushed against her skin. He was well-muscled from soldiering and quite broad in the shoulders. She was aware her aunt’s half-brother had a splendid physique—he seemed to fill a room—but Fawn had no idea of his actual physical size until this moment. Or of how small and powerless she would feel under him.

  How odd that he should mention regret, Fawn thought as Wolfe positioned his manhood at the entrance to her sex. How could there be regret when she had agreed to the act?

  Oh, he means my virginity, she thought distantly. He believes she will regret losing her virginity in this way because after this night, she will never belong to herself again. There will be only this room, these walls, and her dark regent’s footsteps outside her door until—

  “Wait!”

  “Keep your voice down,” he ordered fiercely. “There is no need for hysterics. Every woman has pain the first time.”

  She struggled to free herself from his weight. “No, uncle, please....”

  “You’re frightened. You don’t have to be.” He moved his hand crept higher up her inner thigh. “I know something that will help....”

  “No,” she cried, slapping his hand away. “I have changed my mind.”

  His jaw tightened. “Allow me to change it back again.”

  “No.” Fawn fought for breath and pressed her hands against his bare muscled chest. “I’m resolved, sir. The answer is no.”

  His eyes darkened. The air crackled with tension. A horror raced through her mind that he was going to force himself on her. And then, abruptly, Wolfe shifted, allowing her to sit up.

  Fawn scrambled to her knees. With trembling fingers, she tied the ribbons on her nightgown. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled, blinking back tears of shame. “This was a terrible mistake. You must forget everything that happened here. If you are a man of honor, you will never speak of it.”

  “I am fairly certain,” Crispin said in a thick voice, “that I will never forget the sight of your naked body stretched out for my perusal, and I am absolutely confident that I shall refer to it again and again until you admit me to your bed.”

  Fawn slapped him hard across the face. He stared at her in astonishment for a full minute, his expression almost comical. And then he laughed; a sound menacingly soft and velvety. A shiver of fear went through her.

  “It is a little late for righteous indignation,” he jeered. “You agreed to spread your legs for me in exchange for a home. Do you imagine I’m going to forget that?”

  “I am eager to hear your answer to my brother’s question as well, Fawn.”

  Jocelyn’s voice was flat and unemotional but it worked on Crispin like a blow. He wheeled around to come face-to-face with his half-sister. Fawn almost fainted with relief. She was saved!

  “How long have you been standing there?”

  Jocelyn ignored him. Her icy gaze raked over the room taking in every detail; the rumpled bed, Fawn’s torn nightgown and her brother’s obvious state of arousal.

  “Put on your robe, Crispin,” she said finally. Her cold steady gaze came to rest on Fawn. “I had no idea that you and my brother had become so close.”

  She flushed hotly and pulled her nightdress tighter over her breasts. “It wasn’t like that.”

  “Do you mean to say he was forcing himself on you?” Jocelyn’s mouth hung open in mock disbelief. “I would never have guessed that by the tone of your conversation.”

  Fawn flinched as though struck. “I told him to stop—”

  “Stop what?”

  “He—he wanted to—to—.” She halted, unable to accuse Wolfe without incriminating herself. Fawn had no defense.

  Jocelyn grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her viole
ntly. “Tell me what my brother wanted with you!”

  “I wanted to make her my mistress but she refused,” Crispin cut in. He pulled on his robe and belted it about his narrow waist. “That is what you walked in on—her refusal.”

  Jocelyn released Fawn as though burned. Jealousy and rage mingled in her eyes. Her fists clenched; her chest rose and fell rapidly as she fought for control.

  “The two of you conspiring behind my back to—”

  Then abruptly, the storm passed. Jocelyn smoothed a lock of auburn hair from her brow and adjusted her shawl.

  Fawn’s aunt wore the face of a woman who had been forced to bow to defeat and having done so, was more dangerous than ever. Her pale blue eyes hardened to glimmering shards of ice and for the second time that night, Fawn knew fear.

  “When my brother asked you to be his mistress, what did you say?”

  The blood drained from her face and beads of perspiration formed on her brow. The air in the room seemed thick, stifling, and she felt sick to her stomach. She wanted to flee the woman standing before her with the hard face and knowing eyes. More than anything, Fawn wanted to escape the shame that engulfed her.

  “Well?”

  There was no escape. There never would be. Fawn turned her gaze to the inky night sky just outside her window. “Yes,” she answered weakly. “I said yes.”

  Without warning, Jocelyn slapped her hard across the face, a stinging blow that sent her reeling to the floor.

  “Get out.”

  “No.” Crispin stepped between his sister and Fawn. “Stop this hysterical outburst. Nothing has happened—go back to bed, Jocelyn. We’ll talk in the morning when tempers have cooled.”

  The room crackled with hate as Jocelyn turned her malevolence on Crispin. “I accepted that you had inherited the same lascivious nature as your slattern mother, believing that you would at least be discreet! You must think me witless if you imagine for a second that I’ll allow your whore to remain under my roof!”