Rescued By a Lady's Love (Lords of Honor #3)(11)

“And I quite assured him that I would. After all, what kind of son would I be if I did not see to his dying request?” A cold, taunting smile formed on his lips.

Bile burned like acid in her throat and she remained frozen, incapable of words.

“By your reaction, you expect an offer of protectorship from me, don’t you? Hmm?” he prodded when she still said nothing.

Heat blazed over her body and she damned the cream white of her skin that surely revealed that telling color. “Do you not?” She prided herself on the steady deliverance of those words.

Holdsworth ran his knuckles down her cheek and she stilled so as to not give him an indication as to how repulsed she was by his touch. “Would you like that, Miss Benedict?” His sickly, sweet breath fanned her cheek. “Would you like me to find a place for you in my bed? To stay in this cottage as my mistress?”

Never again. She curled her hands tight. She’d pledged to never take another man to her bed and, with Sir Henry’s promise of a home in the country, she’d foolishly believed her future secure—at last. “I assure you not,” she said coldly. “Even I, a whore, have too much honor to take a married man to my bed.”

“A whore with honor,” he chuckled. “Imagine that.”

Her fingers twitched with the urge to slap him. “Nor was an offer of protectorship what your father pledged when he spoke of my security.” He’d promised a country cottage in Northumberland, far away from Carlisle, far away from London, far away from anyone and everyone who might know her.

“Ah yes. Northumberland, wasn’t it, I believe?” he asked, dropping his hand to his side. “And you, my dear, may rest assured that even I have better taste than to rut between the legs of my father’s favored and well-used whore.”

Her heartbeat kicked up at his knowledge of the future she’d hoped for herself. She took a step back, putting distance between her and this volatile stranger. No one was to have shared in that unchartered, unjourneyed part of her life. Sir Henry had promised as much. Tired of being the unwitting player in a game she did not know the rules for, she snapped. “Why do you not say what it is you want, instead of speaking in veiled terms of my past?” And my future. A now rather uncertain, bleak future. All because of another broken promise. Another swell of bitterness churned through her.

“As I was saying earlier, about the Duke of Blackthorne...” He stared expectantly at her.

Did he search for a hint of pain at the mere mention of George’s title? What he could not know is that she’d long ago found she’d never truly loved the Duke of Blackthorne. “What of him? It is my understanding the duke is dead,” she said. Not even a frisson of warmth stirred for the late duke. She’d loved the idea of being so very loved by him. She’d loved his whispered words of affection, those falsely whispered words. But she’d been nothing more than an infatuated girl, taken by his charm and looks. She winced. God, what a bloody fool she’d been. The laugh he’d had over her.

“Not a hint of warmth for the man you gave your heart and virginity to?” he observed.

For his obvious cruelness, there was an astuteness to him. “I have little warmth for men who use me and deceive me,” she said pointedly.

A sharp bark of laughter escaped Holdsworth. “So that...lack of warmth as you refer to it, I take, extends to the members who share the blood of those men?” he asked when his shoulders no longer shook with his mirth.

Lily shook her head. “You are speaking in riddles.”

Holdsworth spread his arms wide before him. “Let me be more clear then, Miss Benedict. Would you share an equal apathy for the Duke of Blackthorne’s kin?”

No one could abhor that vile family more than Lily. They’d turned her away when she was most desperate and sent her into the world without a hint of compassion. God rot their souls.

“Ah, I see by the hatred snapping in your eyes, Miss Benedict, we are of like opinion for that family.”

There was no shortage of enemies for the Winters kin. Was it a wonder?

“Something was taken from me, something very valuable and special, and I would have you return it to me.”

So embroiled in her own tumultuous thoughts of hate, it took a moment for the man’s words to register. “Taken?” She blinked several times, knowing she must appear a lackwit, but too absorbed in her own pained remembrances that she couldn’t put to right Holdsworth’s words. What matter was it to her what this man had lost? Whatever it was of the material variety could never, ever come close to the loss she’d suffered at that family’s hands. Lily squared her jaw. “I do not see how this pertains to me,” she said impatiently.

“Ah, but it very much pertains to you.” He returned to the sideboard and retrieved a glass. The gentleman appeared to consider his selection, passing over several decanters before settling on a bottle of brandy. He held the bottle aloft and made a show of studying the amber brew. “Would you care for a drink?”

“I do not drink spirits,” she said stiffly.

His lips quirked in a sardonic grin that set her teeth on edge. “My, you are the very proper mistress, aren’t you?”

Lily bit back the sharp retort on her lips. She could ill-afford to become insolent to a man who with one curt word could see her tossed out on his recently inherited doorstep.