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“Let you go where? And to what? Christ! I had not realized this tendency of yours to become overemotional!”
“Overemotional you call it? To want to rescue a poor, tortured creature screaming aloud for help...?” Alexa began struggling wildly until she felt her wrist jerked painfully behind her back in the same motion that pulled her closely up against the length of his body.
“Your poor, tortured creature is probably screaming aloud in order to earn herself an extra pound or so. Are you so naive that you’re not aware there are some women who enjoy that kind of treatment? And some poor whores on the streets outside who would submit to anything—any perversion or brutality required of them—for as little as five shillings?” The sound of his laugh was harsh and ugly in her ears. “Why, there is nothing at all that cannot be had—for the right price! From a genuine virgin to a child of either sex. If they are not old enough to sell themselves their parents will do so willingly enough. You must know, of course, of the specialized houses?” Feeling as if her throat was paralyzed, Alexa could only stare up at him speechlessly while he continued in the same hatefully cutting voice: “No? You continue to surprise me! But perhaps it’s natural that you would not be particularly interested in infants, although some men are. They are usually between the ages of four to eleven, unless of course some rich customer...”
“Don’t!” Alexa managed in a choked voice. “Please don’t! Children...”
“Male or female—a matter of personal preference. But of course the older they are the longer they are likely to survive. Would you rather I described some different perversion and how it is catered to?”
“No!” White-faced, Alexa flung her head back to glare at him, her eyes like darkly glowing coals. “You have already described too many of the disgusting, inhuman perversions that you seem all too familiar with.” Her body stiffly unyielding against his, she drew in a sharp breath before almost spitting out, “Unless, of course, you want to tell me what your particular preference—no, your perversion—happens to be?”
“Mine? Ah, I’m disappointed! I thought, mi corazon, that you understood my particular form of perverseness as well as I understand yours. Why do you think I brought you here tonight?”
“You are not only perverse, you are obscure!” Alexa cried angrily. “And you understand nothi
ng— nothing about me! For if you did... Damn you! What do you think you’re doing?”
“Giving in to my particular form of vice, I suppose,” Nicholas said grimly as he carried her, kicking and struggling, past a heavy wooden door that stood ajar into a dimly lit room that was dominated by a bed on which he dropped her unceremoniously. “While you are undressing, querida, I will ring for some chilled white wine—unless you’d prefer champagne? And in case we become hungry later on...”
“Did you bring me here by force in order to rape me? I suppose that must be your favorite form of vice.”
“My sweet Alexa,” he said in a deceptively soft voice. “I should apologize, I suppose, for not making it clear enough. It was not to rape you at all; quite the contrary. For tonight I had hoped that you would show me all the different ways in which a little virgin-whore is taught to make love to a man.”
“Oh!” Alexa said with venomous sweetness, wishing that every word she uttered could have been a poisoned dagger. “But do you want to be shown only what I learned while I was still virginal or what I have learned since then as well? And I really should tell you while I’m about it that you’re the only man I thought of charging a fee! I suppose that’s what it’s called, and I suppose that does make me a...”
“I have always known what you are, sweetheart, so there’s no need to worry about disillusioning me. Although I must warn you that if you decide to put a price on your services tonight, I expect value for my money. It’s understood?” His laugh, as he bent for an instant to brush his fingers with suggestive familiarity across her breasts, was insolent. “You have nice firm breasts, thank God, even if they’re not very full. But I must say that you’ve the prettiest little bottom in the world, if I remember correctly, and I’ll expect you to show it off after Dawes has brought up our wine and cold meats. Do undress quickly, won’t you?”
“And if I do not choose to undress or... or... any thing else?” Alexa said in a carefully calm voice, even as her nails dug into her palms as she waited for his reply.
He had been looking through a mirrored armoire that was conveniently placed opposite the bed and turned back to toss a silk peignoir at her before saying as if he had not heard her, “You might want to put this on later if you feel cold. Or at least while Dawes might be about.”
Alexa sat up in his bed with her clenched fists supporting her and said with quiet violence, “Perhaps you did not understand what I said just now? I said...”
“A carefully couched hypothetical question, I think. You really need an answer?” As he turned in the doorway with the light behind him, Alexa could not see his face or the expression on it when he said evenly: “Well, then, if you want to play at being stubborn and coquettish and if I should feel impatient or aggravated, then I would instruct Dawes to see to it that you’re made ready for me. He’s quite used to dealing with recalcitrant females, I understand. He’d soon have you stripped of your pretty gown and all your petticoats, even your tightly laced corset and your silk stockings. That is, unless I tell him to leave you provocatively half-clad when he uses his softest leather straps to secure your wrists and your ankles. Hmm! Now that I’ve let my imagination picture the scene I must admit it’s an alluring one. Especially if...”
“You filthy, rotten bastard! You...”
“If you should go on in that fashion you’d have to be gagged as well, since I don’t particularly enjoy hearing a female screech. And now that I think of it, Dawes is supposed to be an expert in using a dog whip without marking up a delicate skin. A few swipes might do wonders in teaching you to hold your temper and your tongue, my love.”
“Fiend!” Alexa cried after him as he started to walk away into the other room, her voice almost cracking with breathless fury. “You’d never dare to try such tactics on me! I’m not some frightened little whore you’ve picked up off the streets to threaten and browbeat, Lord Embry! I’d have you in jail, believe me, if you or anyone else so much as dared lay one hand on me. Damn you! How dare you threaten me!” As she swung her legs off the bed, still half blinded by rage, Alexa’s groping hand encountered a china comfit box on the night stand, and without thinking she threw it against the door he had left half-closed behind him (while she had still been talking!) with all the force she could muster. Hearing that satisfying smash made her feel better, and stronger, Alexa thought, grinding her teeth together as she sprang like a wild animal off the bed and ran to the dresser to seize a porcelain vase to throw in the same direction she had thrown the fragile china box. That explosive crash was even louder, and her only regret was that he had erupted through the doorway a split second too late. The blue-shaded lamp she grabbed for next was heavier than she had anticipated, and before she could lift it high enough she found it snatched out of her grasp and set down again; and in the very next moment, before she had time to. catch her breath again, she was lifted and thrown back on the bed as if she was of even less account than a lamp.
“You had better listen to me very closely this time, my darling,” Nicholas grated between his teem as he leaned over her, his face a hard, threatening mask. “Because after that temper tantrum of yours my patience is exhausted. No, you’d be wise not to say a word, querida!” It was the barely controlled way in which he took her face between the fingers of one hand, with his palm against her throat as he forced her to look up at him, that made Alexa catch back her angry words and fall unwillingly silent while he continued with cold deliberation: “I had just rung for Dawes before you began to screech and smash everything in sight like a virago. And I tell you now that if you are not undressed and wearing that silk wrap I handed you by the time he comes up... I think I have already told you what the other alternative is?” As he released her face and straightened, Alexa heard him add softly and almost contemplatively: “Of course, it might be that you derive some excitement from that kind of thing, and that is why you encourage Newbury. But in any case, I’m sure that we shall learn a great deal more about each other before the night is over, aren’t you?”
After Nicholas had walked off into his dressing room, leaving her there on the bed without another glance, it took several moments before Alexa found she could think coherently again. How dared he! He was only trying to frighten her with his ridiculous threats, of course. To have her tied up and beaten as if she... And then like a glass of cold water thrown in her face she remembered all too vividly the screams she had heard earlier and the cruelly callous words uttered before the poor creature had been dragged off to face more agony. And Nicholas himself had not cared, had dismissed it casually. As casually as she had heard him say, “I was accused of killing my wife,” and then a few minutes afterwards use his knife on a man with cold deliberation.
He was capable of any act of cruelty or violence. Alexa was suddenly positive of it, and the thought made her shiver with a cold chill that struck through her body and cooled some of the heated rage that had all but clouded her thinking so far. Dear God! she thought suddenly, what was the point in accumulating knowledge if she had not enough control over her emotions to use everything she had learned? Why, every time she let herself be provoked into losing her temper and her self-control with it she was only allowing herself to be bested; and even worse, manipulated! Dragging in a deep if rather ragged breath, Alexa set her jaw determinedly as she slid off the bed and stood up. Discretion, she had heard, was the better part of valor; and in this case, by remaining stubborn she would only heap more humiliation upon herself, whereas a pretense at least of conceding gracefully might even give her the advantage, for a change.
While she had been engaged in thinking and soul-searching Alexa had hardly been conscious of the faint sounds of splashing that came from behind the closed door to the dressing room; but now, as she struggled with the buttons running down the back of her gown, she became suddenly aware that the sounds had stopped. What was he doing? Changing his clothes in privacy while she was allowed none? As she stared balefully at that closed door Alexa had a sudden thought that mad
e her lips curve wickedly for a moment before she composed her features again.
“Nicholas?” she managed to say rather timidly before she knocked at the door. “Nicholas, I...I’m afraid I need some help.” Alexa thought she heard him swear softly before he opened the door to her second knock and she looked up to meet his scowl and his narrowed, suspicious eyes. He had already stripped down to the waist, she noticed, before her eyes fell on the razor he was holding, and she said with wide-eyed guilelessness: “Oh, goodness! You surely didn’t think you might need to defend yourself from me? I only knocked to ask if you could help me with some buttons I cannot undo myself.”
“I happened,” he said grimly as he wiped off traces of lather with the end of the towel he had slung about his neck, “to have been engaged in shaving myself just now.”
“But don’t you have a valet to look after you? I could never manage to do anything for myself without my maid to help me. I am sorry if I interrupted you, though... only...”
“Maldito sea!” Nicholas swore feelingly. “If the sight of a razor makes you so nervous you begin to babble inanities, I’ll put it away immediately, I promise you! Where are these buttons? At the back? Then for God’s sake turn yourself about if you want me to play lady’s maid!”
