Chapter 9

The duke is a most devoted Papa. He is also eager to bed me again…and oh, how I have missed being in his bed. I can tell by the frenzied way he makes love to me that he missed me, too…

~The Duchess of A

S eated at the long, wood table in the Duke of Argyll's empty kitchens, Cadogan broke a cardinal rule.

He drank.

Aside from those assignments which required he sip some for-pretenses sake, Cadogan hadn't drank liquor since the year he'd started his work with the Home Office.

Funny, in the name of King and Country he'd slashed the throats of men while they'd been sound asleep—even sometimes having done so while those traitors slept beside a spouse or mistress who'd slumbered on through those murders.

He'd witnessed men who'd served with him, face cleverly gruesome ends at the hands of adversaries.

He'd dispensed of too many bodies to remember.

And in the end, it hadn't been those acts of barbarous violence which had driven him to drink, but rather, the lush, generous crimson lips of a woman who was brave one minute and trembling next.

His lips quirked in a grim smile.

All he knew was he wanted her.

Oh, he wasn't one of those fellows to get bogged down with a sense of guilt or shame for lusting after a lady—sex was sex. A beautiful woman was a beautiful woman.

And there was no doubt, Argyll's pert-mouthed, saucy sister with her big, doe-like, innocent eyes, and whitish-golden blonde hair aptly bore her Norse goddess's name, of gold and beauty.

It was a shame her spirit would eventually be extinguished by whatever fancy lord her brother married her off to.

Either way, Cadogan neither cared nor would he be around to see the day.

On the Marriage Mart, she'd go quick and fast, and Cadogan? Cadogan would be free to get back to that which really fired his blood— work that didn't involve governessing an innocent miss with a spirited streak, but actual, mercenary business only a beast like Cadogan was capable of doing.

And not least of all, he'd have the identity of his assailant.

He raised his mug to take another swallow—and stopped. Though not a whisper of sound split the quiet, Cadogan sensed her presence before she even spoke.

Fuck.

"Are you hiding, Mr. Cadogan?" Lady Raina asked softly.

He dragged a hand discreetly over his face. God, she moved stealthily. Yet another attribute to add to the list of things that both infuriated and impressed him about the lady.

"If you are operating under some misguided hope, I don't see you," she said in an appallingly bad whisper, then I regret to inform you, hiding in plain sight in the middle of an empty kitchen is a most ineffective hiding spot."

Was the chit mad? Strike that question. He already knew the answer. "If you think I'd be so inept when it came to evading you, then you clearly haven't realized the manner of opponent you're—" Cadogan finally turned to look at her.

The lady's full lips twitched. "I was teasing."

"Teasing," he repeated dumbly. What the hell was that even?

Apparently misinterpreting that as an invitation to join him, Raina seated herself.

" Teasing . And, as I know you enjoy helpful definitions, it means to laugh at someone or make light of them in order to embarrass, annoy, or upset."

He stilled. Why, the gall of the chit tossing his previous elucidation at his face.

He thinned his eye into even narrower slits. "It appears—"

"As though, I've proven cleverer than you, again?" Lady Raina batted her endlessly long, golden lashes at him. The glimmer in her eyes devilishly impudent.

His mouth moved, but nothing came out.

The crafty minx, on the other hand, had words enough for the both of them. "Worry not, Mr. Cadogan." She patted him on the arm like he was a petulant child. "I'm merely teasing." She paused. " Again ."

Lady Raina folded her hands primly before her on the tabletop and smiled.

He snorted. "Do you truly take me as a man who'd hide from you ?" Or, for that matter, anybody ?

"I don't know, Mr. Cadogan," she mused. "You did pass the role of watching me to the handsome gentleman outside my door and are all the way down here in the kitchens. You, one, wish to avoid me. Or two…?"

Hardening his gaze, he dared her to finish that short list.

" Two ," she said, taking up his unspoken challenge. "This day proved entirely too long and exhausting for you; as such you required the handsome guard outside my chambers take on your responsibilities."

His nostrils flared. " Handsome gentleman ?" She'd call fucking Mauley handsome.

Lady Raina hesitated. "Uh, I…assume he's one of yours? He's not quite as tall as you. Loose, ash-blond curls," she said, gesturing to her own much blonder than ash head. "He's also very muscular."

Her very detailed description indicated Lady Raina had studied Cadogan's man very closely. Too closely.

Cadogan suppressed a growl.

"Not that I believe it is the latter as you don't strike me as one who suffers from a weak constitution," she hurried to assure him, completely—and thankfully—missing the reason for his inexplicable rage.

This was bloody enough.

"You think I'm avoiding you?" he asked on a steely whisper.

"I…do."

The corner of his right eye twitched.

The gall of this impudent wench.

What was worse? The blasted lady was as clever as she was spirited and daring.

She was the first to look away. Unlike all the times before when she'd boldly met his gaze, now Lady Raina studied her lap. "Do you believe I'm wild?"

Cadogan barely heard her whisper.

He leaned in. " Wild ?"

She peeked up at him with luminous eyes. "Depraved?"

Her?

From under his lashes, Cadogan contemplated the woman before him, as much as her fear-filled question.

She'd asked if he thought her depraved.

This hesitant, guileless ducal sister didn't have a hint of wicked in her body. She was a veritable Eve before the apple. A caged tigress lived within her, and God, how hot it'd be when she set that side of her free. As a rule, he wanted the women he fucked to be experienced and as ruthless in bed as Cadogan was in his every day dealings.

Yet, for some reason the idea of having this particular debutante under him, and then burying his cock in her tight, virginal sheath, sent blood rushing to that randy organ.

The fact remained, only one of them possessed a corrupt soul, and it was decidedly not the artless miss stealing glances up at him.

"No," he finally said, his voice harsh and hoarse with desire.

A bitter-sounding laugh spilled from her lips. "A prevaricator you are not."

A prevaricator was all he was .

"And you're someone who cares about being proper?"

Unlike the blush of before, this time her cheeks flared with crimson color.

She'd taken offense at his blunt question. Not that he'd expected anything else. A regal princess like Raina Goodheart would only be outraged at someone thinking of her as anything less than a lady.

"Are you always this loathsome?" she whispered.

Confusion wreathed her sweet, dulcet tones.

"Usually more so." After all, there wasn't another way a man built for murder could be than reprehensible to normal men and women.

"My…mother visited that club, once," she confided.

When he said nothing, Raina lifted her gaze to his. "She enjoyed watching those fights," she said softly.

Her color deepened.

"And this is relevant to me, why?" he asked, more curious than impatient.

To Raina, however, the query may as well have been the latter.

Fury blazed within the green pools of her expressive eyes. "I hate you."

"Yes, you've said as much two times now," he taunted. "And yet you still continue to seek out my company. Therefore, what does that say about you , Princess?"

A hiss exploded between her teeth, and as hesitant as she'd seated herself before, was as fast as she stormed to her feet.

He expected her to run.

She stunned him by staying.

Standing over Cadogan's still-seated form, she glared at him. "Let us be clear, Severin ," she said, teeming with rage. "My being here has absolutely nothing to do with you. I have a habit of visiting the kitchens."

By God, she was breathtaking in her spirit and fury. Perhaps he'd been wrong all along in wanting his women obedient.

" Furthermore ," she jabbed a finger in his face, "you are the one who followed me tonight."

Growling, he caught her by the wrist and held her trapped in his hard grip. "No one," he whispered, "I repeat, no one , puts a finger in my face. Am I clear, Princess?"

Raina gave a juddering nod.

"As for my following you," he mocked. "Until you go and get yourself married to some dull chap, you're my responsibility," he coolly informed her. "If getting yourself into the kind of trouble that makes you unmarriageable, then I'm stuck for God knows however long."

Her hand trembled. A glassy sheen filled her revealing eyes.

Bloody hell.

Tears.

With every fiber of his unfeeling being, he despised those crystal drops which denoted weakness.

"I'm not c-crying," she said, the break in her voice made an even worse liar out of her.

Cadogan grunted. "I didn't say you were."

Fuck. He didn't have the time or energy for mollifying a young miss.

"Well, I knew what you were thinking. I-I saw it in your eyes."

He stiffened.

With a slow, but deathless fury, he stood, denying the lady the advantage she seemed to think she had over him and this exchange.

"There is nothing in my eyes," he whispered, as she hurried to put several paces between them. "And you know nothing about what is in my head."

"Maybe normally, and with other people, Severin."

He may as well have imagined any weepiness from this one. The lady was all fire, again.

Raina lifted her delicate shoulders in a flippant shrug. "But with me, and this particular time, yes . You were horrified by my tears, Severin," she charged, spreading her arms wide. "They disgust you— I disgust you," she amended. "I make you uncomfortable."

With the exception of that disgusted with her part, she'd landed unerringly on the mark. She disconcerted the hell out of him. Other than that, the only person he was disgusted with was himself.

That same annoying muscle pulsed at the corner of his eye.

First, this pert lady who knew precisely what he'd been thinking, and now this goddamned tic to give him a way; what in hell was wrong with him?

Raina , however, proved infuriatingly in control of her emotions and this exchange.

"Another thing, Sev—"

He shot a hand out and the rest of his name ended on a gasp, as he again caught her by the wrist.

This time, he reeled her slowly in, until her soft, full breasts were pressed against his chest.

As close as they were, he heard the way her breath came faster, and lower. He felt each shiver that raced through her.

"You are afraid, Raina. Good." He curved his lips into a cold smile. "You should be."

He'd give credit where credit was due—she didn't even try to lie. But then, with her body shaking and her chest rising and falling like she'd just completed a race, how could she do so convincingly?

Leaning down, he put his lips near her temple. "You have me mistaken for some servant or inferior lady you can defy and disrespect."

"I do not treat people with disrespect," she said, still breathless. "That is, I don't treat anyone other than you , that way."

She'd decided Cadogan was somehow the man she'd treat with irreverence? He looked her over, searching for insanity in her eyes, but found only deadly serious determination.

He whistled. "You are either daft or dumb, Princess."

Raina wrinkled her perfectly symmetrical, Greek nose. "Why, because you're unaccustomed to people being unafraid of you? You go about life being treated like some sort of god not to be crossed."

This further show of her undaunted spirit should infuriate rather than enflame him. Anger with her, and her effect on him managed to cool his ardor—some.

"A mortal man," he bit out. "A dangerous one. I'm no mythical, non-existent entity, people have never seen or who they convince themselves is real."

Raina's sky-blue eyes went wide. "Did you…are you suggesting you are more powerful than the Lord?" Her question ended with her laughter.

He allowed the lady her amusement.

Cadogan knew the moment the chit realized her mistake.

Raina attempted to tug her hand free; he retained his hold.

With a deliberate slowness, he brought his face close to hers. The spark of spirit in her eyes dimmed and fear flared.

"From this moment, going forward," he snarled, "know this , Raina; I am not a man who'll be ordered about by anyone or disobeyed. You have taken your last midnight jaunt."

She gasped. "I've already told you, I'll not be treated like a child."

He gave her a scathing once over. "Do you know what you are?"

Raina gave her head a small shake.

Cadogan lit into her. "You're a duke's pampered sister. You think rules don't apply you, Princess. This time, however? They very much do. Be warned; you do not want to face my wrath." He narrowed his eyes. "Have I made myself clear ?"

When Raina failed to respond fast enough, in want of an acknowledgment on her part, Cadogan applied a light, but firm pressure to her delicate wrist.

The spitfire darted the tip of her tongue out and traced it along the generous seam of the most gorgeous lips he'd ever had eyes on.

His cock swelled to the point of pain as he imagined all the things he could do—and wanted to do—with her sensual mouth.

"What will happen if I disobey you, Severin?"

Her breathtaking challenge broke through his lustful imaginings.

"You are not my master," she shot.

"Something tells me, sweetheart," he taunted on a husky whisper, "you would welcome me as your master. In fact, you'd beg for it."

She gasped. "I most certainly would not !"

He smirked. "By your explosively indignant reaction, you certainly have yourself convinced. Not me. I know what you want."

Her cheeks blazed bright as the setting sun.

Cadogan found a perverse relish in provoking her with the wicked things he knew to be true about her.

"That is why you snuck off tonight," he continued.

When she gave a furious shake of her head, Cadogan pressed her further. "You went to the Fight Society because you have a taste for strong, powerful men. Primal ones."

The color on her cheeks flamed all the brighter. "You don't know anything," she said between clenched teeth.

"I know everything," he purred, sliding closer.

Backing away, Raina, darted her wild gaze about.

Cadogan continued his slow, deliberate approach until he'd backed Raina around the other side of the table. There she stood before him, trapped front and back.

"You hate that I know every wicked thought you're thinking," he taunted.

She lifted her chin. "Do you really, Severin? If that were true, how did I manage to get the better of you this entire day?"

They locked stares in silent, heated, battle.

God, she was breathtaking in her strength and courage.

And infuriating.

More infuriating than breathtaking.

Bloody liar.

"Unless you don't want to be kissed senseless, Princess, I suggest you run," he whispered, dipping his head, lower.

Raina edged hers back. Her lashes fluttered and her head fell back in invitation.

"Don't say you weren't warned." With a growl, he tugged her into his arms and mated his mouth with hers.

She stilled, and then gripped his lapels. With more of that innocent desire that enflamed him, Raina attempted to match his kiss.

He swept his tongue inside and consumed of the sweet, fruity hint of wine on her breath. He nipped her tongue. Drew that flesh deep and sucked, until she was moaning and undulating against him.

With a grunt of approval, he snatched Raina's skirts up in one swift move and lifted them high around her waist.

Cadogan stepped over the bench, and with the heel of his boot, he shoved that seat backwards, so he could more easily get himself between the lady's slender, lightly muscular thighs.

With an intuition as old as Eve, Raina pushed her hot center flush against his rock-hard cock.

"You don't really care, do you, sweetheart?" he said between each angry slide of his mouth upon hers. "You don't care what the world thinks about or expects of you." Cadogan rocked his hips in a slow, undulating circle so she could feel each steely inch of his erection. "You just want this."

Moaning low and long and hungrily, Raina's head fell back.

As greedy a lover as he'd always been, Cadogan took advantage of her reflexive offering. He kissed a path down the long, graceful column of her throat.

While he worshiped that satiny soft skin, suckling and biting until he'd marked her, Cadogan reached between their bodies and cupped Raina at her center.

What'd begun as a taunting lesson had morphed into something else.

But then, with her full-figured, voluptuous body against yours, what did you expect? the devil in his head taunted.

"Your curls are drenched with desire," he praised.

She whimpered, a sound steeped in shame and longing.

Cadogan slipped two fingers into her hot, tight, sheath, so wet it eased his way inside.

He gave another grunt of approval.

"Do you feel how wet you are, Princess?" he whispered. "This is not the body of a lady who cares what I or anyone thinks about her. This is the body of a woman who knows what she wants."

He placed his lips at her ear. "And what my Princess wants and craves is my thick cock, isn't it."

With a whimper, she burrowed her face against his shoulder.

Ah, yes, she'd fight the spoken truth about her desire. Whereas her body didn't lie.

She rode his hand, panting and gasping.

Breathing heavily, he continued pleasuring her with the rhythm she needed, and exactly how she needed it.

"You're going to come all over my fingers, my love," he promised, adding another digit to her quim. "When you're done, I'm going to suck them clean."

Raina stiffened; her sheath gripped tight about his fingers buried in her.

"Take it, Princess. Come, before I change my mind and punish you for sneaking out of the goddamned house."

Either that domineering threat, or the mockery in his voice, or maybe both, sent her soaring to her climax.

Cursing and crying, Raina bucked and thrashed her hips as she came undone in his arms. "S-Severin," she wept, turning his name into a plea. "S-Severin."

At the sound of her begging, his cock wept. Sweat beaded at his brow, and he, the master of restraint and self-control, found himself fighting the need to rip his placard open, release his shaft, and bury himself inside her.

He didn't. He couldn't.

But God, how he wanted to.

Cadogan clenched his teeth so hard his jaw ached, and he welcomed the pain as a distraction from the unceasing agony of his painfully tight ballocks.

He was stronger than his basest hungering. He was capable of giving a woman relief but taking none for his own.

That'd always been the case.

This time, with this woman, however, wanting to fuck her as he did, challenged every long-held belief he'd carried that he was more powerful than his wants.

Gritting his teeth against an all-consuming lust, he poured his attention into servicing Raina, bringing her off, for the first time in her life—that is, with the touch of any hand other than her own.

He intended to give her a quick second.

Cadogan returned to petting her.

Soon, she was panting and gasping.

"Have you touched yourself before?" he rasped harshly, already knowing the answer, but wanting Raina to utter it anyway.

Whimpering, she bit her lower lip and gave her head a jerky shake.

"You wouldn't lie to me," he whispered. "Not when you know I'll punish you mightily, by stopping."

"No!"

"No, don't stop?" he jeered. "Or are you saying you've never touched yourself this way?"

Raina chewed at her deliciously full lower lip. "I…"

God, he wanted to consume that pouty flesh.

When Raina still did not answer, Cadogan stopped giving her what she needed.

She cried out; her entire body jerked like she'd been shot.

He looked at the flushed beauty in need of the mindless surrender he'd given her and would give her again—if she obeyed.

"Open your eyes," he demanded gruffly.

At his directive, Raina's lashes fluttered open. Her passion-glazed eyes shone with a mix of virginal shyness and shame.

That this woman who'd just come undone in his arms moments ago should also still possess the eyes of an innocent proved an unlikely aphrodisiac.

"You don't have to answer me," he said huskily. "I already know you've stroked your quim."

"No!"

Raina's inner muscles clenched around the fingers Cadogan still had buried inside her; making a liar of the lady.

"And you loved it," he whispered.

Her eyes flared. "I didn't!"

The minute Raina's revealing declination came flying from her mouth, she blushed.

Cadogan chuckled.

"When do you stroke your pussy?" he continued his onslaught. With the mental image he painted in his own mind he'd have to toss himself off tonight. "No answer, hmm? You'll make me guess. Very well. You do so while you bathe."

Her needy little whimper was all the confirmation he needed, but he continued to torment her anyway.

"After your maid tends your hair and washes your back, you send her away, because you do not want her there as you tend yourself ."

As he spoke, he drove his fingers inside her faster and harder, until tears coursed down her cheeks.

"When she's gone, you place a washcloth between your legs as a barrier and clean yourself, but as you do, you also caress yourself." Lust hoarsened his voice. "Until you reach that great peak."

Panting, Cadogan drew from the most vigorous lessons he'd been dealt by the Home Office, in restraint.

"You want to scream with pleasure, but you bite your lower lip," as was her way, "to keep anyone from hearing and knowing precisely what you are doing to yourself. But today you learned you want a real man's hand on you, instead. My hand ."

With that, Cadogan touched Raina in the precise spot to send her over the brink.

Then, she was coming again. She wept, as he pleasured her with his fingers; frenziedly she lifted her hips and bucked against his hand.

Until, with a last, agonized gasp, Raina collapsed once more.

Cadogan waited until she finally looked at him. Then, as promised, he licked the remnants of her orgasm from his fingers.

A blush added a deeper color to her cheeks already flushed from her latest La petite mort.

With her dreamy expression, heavily-lidded eyes, swollen and bruised mouth, she had the look of a sated Aphrodite who'd been well-pleasured by Ares, God of War.

"Did you like that, Princess?" he asked, already knowing the answer. He'd loved it a thousandfold more. But he hated, and worse, feared , how half-mad with lust he was by this woman's innocence.

The instant she fully opened her eyes, Cadogan wished he hadn't asked. It was the way those big, blue, pools of her irises, glittered.

Bloody fucking hell, this was dangerous. Each minute spent in her company, Lady Raina Goodheart, London's darling Diamond, was proving to be the weak link he'd never known he possessed; his body's response to her, potentially fatal.

He needed to disabuse her of any fanciful musings that'd already sprung in her beautiful head.

Cadogan stepped away, depriving the flimsy cover she sought in his arms. Stoical, he shoved Raina's skirts back into place.

Lines of confusion creased her regal brow.

"You forget, Raina," he said on a silky warning, his unrequited lust made his voice ragged and even rougher than usual. "I've made a career of identifying liars and getting answers from them. My very lengthy list of malefactors includes women whom I've given great pleasure to, in exchange for information I want."

Joy faded and hurt flickered to life in Raina's eyes.

"Is that what this was?" she moved her gaze haltingly across his face, in search of answers she'd never find. "A…lesson."

No.

When he didn't speak, she asked, again, this time her voice pitchy. "Was it some kind of test ?"

No.

"Yes." He lifted his shoulders in a lazy shrug. "Though, if it would alleviate any virginal guilt, this," Cadogan motioned between them, "can be whatever you want it to be."

Hurt bled from every exquisite plain of her features, which twisted in an intolerable, all-consuming grief.

Through his work, he'd been required to lie too many times to count.

This was the first, he'd ever felt…some peculiar way about it.

Raina inched her chin up another notch. "You are a bastard," she whispered.

"Yes." He'd always known it.

Cadogan smirked. "In the figurative sense, at least, I'm very much a bastard."

Raina's lower lip trembled.

That slight quivering caused his stomach muscles to seize.

"Now that we've squared all that away," he said, emotionlessly, detached on the outside, even as he wanted to part her legs again, bury his aching cock deep inside her, and restore her sadness with mindless bliss.

Raina stared at him with stricken eyes. No, her eyes weren't just those of a wounded woman. Within those revealing depths blazed hatred. Good, that was the correct sentiment the lady should feel for him and about him. Not whatever it was he'd spied too many times now.

He made himself meet her stare with an opaque one.

When she made her exit, she did not run. Instead, Raina, like the regal queen she was, marched away from Cadogan, her lowly subject.

And ‘lowly subject' couldn't have been a more apt descriptor for Cadogan. For in this moment, he'd never felt lower than he had because he'd hurt Raina Goodheart, a proud, and daring, goddess.