If only the thought provided the slightest comfort.

Verity stood shivering with cold and reaction in the center of her bedroom and watched Kylemore feed the fire. He must believe she was unlikely to make another dash for liberty, at least for the present. He hadn't locked the door. Now he seemed content to take his time at the grate.

For one of the nation's greatest noblemen, he showed great dexterity with kindling and bellows. Not for the first time, she reflected how she'd underestimated him in London. Then, she'd considered him just another useless aristocrat. Cleverer and perhaps more ruthless than the other men who'd vied for her favors, but basically made of the same stuff.

Since then, she'd seen him slough off the effects of hard travel. And he didn't act as if he found this humble house beneath his dignity. While it would have seemed the height of luxury to her in her rustic youth, it hardly matched the standards a duke was used to.

She looked at him now, on his knees building the fire, a task for the lowliest maid in any of his mansions. He was strong. He was intelligent. And he was alarmingly complicated.

Oh, how she wished he really was the effete wastrel she'd once judged him to be. But if this last week had demonstrated anything, it was that she didn't understand the Duke of Kylemore at all. He was darker, deeper, more dangerous than she'd ever imagined, although there had been clues in London to the truth of his nature, if she'd cared to read them.

His dogged pursuit of her. Certainly, his unquenchable passion when he came to her bed.

She remembered what a revelation that potent ardor had been. Eldreth had been a man of sedate habits, and she'd had to train James out of his inept fumblings.

How Kylemore would laugh if she admitted one of the reasons she'd misjudged him so disastrously was her own inexperience. London's most notorious courtesan as taken aback by a man's powerful virility as any green young miss? She almost laughed herself.

Part of her had always considered Kylemore a threat. Why else resist his blandishments as long as she had?

But those vague instincts had given no hint of the evil she'd courted when she'd become his mistress. What she'd thought of as her sensible self had discounted her vague feelings of mistrust and had insisted she grab the chance for financial security.

Sensible self? She should have jumped into the Thames before she'd accepted him in her bed.

All this hard-won wisdom came too late. She'd become entangled with the wrong man and had to pay the price. That would be soon enough, if the knowing glint in his blue eyes was any indication as he rose and prowled across the room to her.

"Why keep fighting me?" he murmured, flicking open the hussar fastenings of her bodice with a deftness that rankled even in her fear.

Her trembling intensified, but she didn't move away. What was the point? He'd only catch her again.

"You know why," she said stiffly.

A strange smile drifted across his face as he pulled the gown down from her shoulders. "I think I'm beginning to."

She stood like a doll as he undressed her. Unexpectedly, he seemed in no rush to use her. She tried not to mind her nakedness, told herself she'd been naked for him so many times before. But she couldn't stem the quivering vulnerability she felt standing nude in front of him.

When he reached for her hairbrush, a horrible thought occurred to her. "You're not going to spank me?" she asked in dismay. For some reason, that would be the final humiliation in a night filled with humiliations.

His soft laugh grated on her nerves. "No, although you might enjoy it."

With sure fingers, he reached up and let down what remained of the knot she'd twisted her hair into earlier. Her dash into the bushes had tangled it into an impossible mess. Slowly, thoroughly, he began to smooth the long black strands into order.

She stood motionless under his attentions. For a long time, the room was quiet as he concentrated on his task, his face calm and serious, as if brushing her hair were the most important thing in the world.

Eventually, he put aside the brush and gently pushed her down onto the bed. She lay staring upward and listened to him tug the clothes from his body. For all her denials and refusals, she was back where he wanted her.

She fought the urge to burst into tears.

It was like last night. Tomorrow night would be the same. And the night after that.

And every night until he tired of this cruel game.

Without extinguishing the candles, he lay down next to her. She waited for him to part her legs and claim her. But tonight he seemed determined to take his time. Perhaps because after this morning, he knew pleasure was the worst punishment he could inflict. He wanted to make her pay for her abortive attempt to escape him.

Verity turned her head and watched him raise himself up on one elbow in a characteristic pose. As he made a leisurely inspection of her prone form, the ghost of a smile curled his lips. The room was silent except for the crackle of the fire and the soft susurration of her nervous breathing.

She stiffened in silent rejection of what that smile promised. After everything that had happened, she could remain unmoved if he merely rutted over her, seeking his own release and ignoring hers. She was staunchly certain she could resist a thoughtless lover.

But now he promised to be anything but a thoughtless lover. He reached out to stroke his hand across her body, learning its shape and texture. It was as though touch were the only sense available to him.

He sighed with a pleasure she couldn't mistake as he trailed his fingers across the hollows of her collarbone and down her arms. He touched her belly and her shoulders and her legs. His hand was warm and gentle on her naked flesh.

Against her will, her pulse quickened after each seemingly casual brush of his fingers. His gaze was intent and serious as he studied the intricate, meaningless patterns he drew on her skin, patterns which made every inch of her sing.

She closed her eyes and told herself he'd done this before. On so many long, languid afternoons in Kensington.

The first time he'd shared her bed, he'd taken the trouble to arouse her. She'd been surprised at his care. Then shocked at her reaction.

With Eldreth, she'd gradually learned to tolerate sex. She'd quickly decided that if she had to earn her living on her back, she might as well make the best of the bargain. But the Duke of Kylemore had unveiled a dazzling new world of sensuality-a world which beckoned so strongly that she'd been frantic to escape its pull by the time she'd left him.

Now she fought to stay unresponsive under Kylemore's touch. Surely, she knew all the weapons in his arsenal of seduction. Familiarity must blunt their effectiveness against her.

But here, his touch seemed different. Just as Kylemore seemed a different man in many ways, some too subtle even to describe.

Gently, he shaped her thighs, her flanks, her arms. As if testing what a woman was. Her heart fluttered within her like a trapped bird. The light skimming hands were tender and astonishingly arousing.

Verity's nipples tightened. The reaction was immediate and uncontrollable, and she had no hope of hiding it from him. Her uneven breathing caught, then resumed an even more erratic rhythm as she tensed, waiting for him to touch her breasts.

But he concentrated on parts of her she'd never before considered particularly erotic. Although she knew from her year as his lover that her whole body offered him the promise of delight.

Only after long minutes of silently enduring his attentions did she realize he deliberately avoided her breasts and between her legs.

Nor had he kissed her.

He meant to demonstrate his superiority. Of course he did. She'd never fooled herself that this was anything but a quest for supremacy. That insight helped her beat back the shimmering response his fingers created wherever they glanced.

You abducted me,she chanted in her mind.You think you own me. You want to destroy me. You're nothing but a selfish brute.

The litany went on, eventually overcoming the spell of his caresses. Her wanton body might strain to surrender to him. The memory of the ecstasy he could call forth was imprinted on her skin. But her head and her heart were stronger, and they would prevail.

As her own arousal faded, she became more aware of Kylemore's. He breathed unsteadily, and his touch lost its effortless mastery. Next to her, he radiated heat like a great fire. His hand wandered down her stomach, tantalizingly close to her sex.

Then there was nothing.

After a moment, she opened her eyes. He still leaned on one bent arm, watching her. His face was flushed and his eyes were dark with desire. Although she'd long ago abandoned modesty as a luxury a whore couldn't afford, she fought the urge to cover herself with the sheet.

"This isn't working," he murmured, lifting his hand to brush a few stray strands of hair back from her cheeks.

How she abhorred the false tenderness of the gesture. Loathing lent her response an acid edge. "I told you I wasn't willing."

He ignored her interjection. "I'm too disturbed myself. I find the strategy I've chosen...distracting."

"What do you want from me? Sympathy?" she gritted out.

In the candlelight, he was almost sinfully beautiful. His narrow face was thoughtful under the wing of black hair that fell across his brow. It lent him a boyish air she knew was a lie.

His gaze dwelled on her as though she were a philosophical problem he was compelled to solve. "I'm trying to stir you into a frenzy of lust," he said consideringly.

The idea was so ridiculous that she couldn't restrain a scornful laugh. "You must know that won't happen."

"You shouldn't make challenges you can't live up to." He tugged at a lock of her hair in gentle reproof. "You're far from unaffected now. But I can't concentrate on driving you out of your mind while I'm so unsettled myself."

Part of her wished he'd just get on with it and take her. Another part dreaded his possession. Every time he gave her pleasure she didn't want, he chipped another piece of her soul away. Soon there would be nothing left.

"Perhaps you should go away and think about it," she suggested without any expectation he'd heed her.

His own huff of laughter contained a trace of genuine humor. "And perhaps not."

Strange that after all the turbulent emotion, they should speak almost like friends. This was something new. Soraya had always treated the duke with the distance due his rank, even when she'd used her mouth and hands and body to bring him to climax.

It was doubly strange when at any moment the duke would be inside her. The flickering light gilded the strong, lean lines of his body and left her in no doubt at all of his rampant readiness.

As he rose above her, she searched desperately for her hatred and anger. Both had receded further than she'd have believed possible.

He bent to kiss a long scratch a thorn had left on her neck, and they receded even further.

"You're hurt," he whispered.

Yes, she was, but not in the way he meant.

"It's nothing," she said, making her tone hostile.

The spurious intimacy of the warm bed in this candlelit room sapped her ability to resist. When she stopped resisting, he'd destroy her. His scent surrounded her, reminding her irresistibly of other occasions when she'd lain next to him willingly.

"Let me kiss it better." He lifted one of her hands and deliberately pressed his mouth to each mark. Her hands had borne the brunt of her wild flight into the shrubbery.

For a moment, she remained quiescent. Absurd, but his kisses did soothe the sting. She realized how close she came to wavering, and she snatched her hand away.

Yet again, Kylemore summoned tenderness to vanquish her. She had to conceal just how vulnerable she was to that particular ploy, although he was frighteningly perceptive and he'd probably already guessed, damn him.

"Stop it!" she snapped. "There's no need to dress up what you intend to do to me in pretty words or gestures."

He caught her hand again and gently but inexorably unfurled her fingers. He studied them for a long time.

"Soraya had perfect skin. Verity has calluses."

He swept his thumb across the rough area at the base of her palm. By now, she was so sensitized to his touch that the caress tingled right through her and down to where liquid heat pooled in her loins. She shifted uncomfortably against the cool sheets.

"I'm sorry if that offends you," she said with feeble sarcasm. "I never pretended to be anything but a peasant."

He kissed the place he'd just touched and she experienced another of those unwelcome inner tugs. Surely he couldn't seduce her with a mere kiss on the hand, could he?

"Actually, I don't think we ever discussed your background. An oversight I intend to correct very soon. I take it from your brother's execrable accent that you're originally from the north of England."

She frowned up at him, so annoyed that she didn't even try to draw away as he lowered himself between her legs. "I don't exist purely for your entertainment, Your Grace."

He braced himself on his arms and stared down at her with a breathtaking mixture of amusement and hunger. "Entertainment is a flimsy word for what we share, don't you think?"

He moved back slightly to clasp her hips and angle them up toward him. But still he didn't take her. She hated to admit the pause tantalized her. It must just be that she wanted the long torture over.

Why did he take the trouble to linger over her like this? Her availability to him couldn't be clearer.

She struggled to adopt Soraya's cool tone. Not surprisingly, given her trembling awareness of the massively aroused male poised above her, she failed. "A mistress is only a rich man's plaything."

"This particular mistress seems a considerably graver matter than that," he said gently.

He tensed and finally-finally-slid into her. Her gasp mingled with his deep groan of pleasure.

For a long moment, he was still. Then he began to thrust into her, deeply, fully and with a relentless drive she couldn't help but recognize. His skin against hers burned hot, belying the teasing edge to his words. As did the implacable fierceness of his possession.

Her body had only just adjusted to his size and heat when he gave another groan and lost himself inside her.

Verity lay panting beneath his weight. They were still joined. She felt uncomfortable and sticky.

And that couldn't be frustration skulking in her heart, could it? After such extended preliminaries, she'd imagined he'd make more of an effort to bring her to completion.

Hadn't he mentioned sending her mad with lust? Her obdurate soul had looked forward to denying him.

Although perhaps this businesslike coupling had been an inadvertent rescue. For a few moments before he'd taken her, her soul had been about as obdurate as blancmange.

She raised her hands from where they lay at her sides and gave him a push. His bare skin felt like warm rock under her palms. It was the first time she'd touched him of her own free will all night. "Get off me, Kylemore!"

He lifted himself on both elbows, although he didn't break the connection between their bodies. "Oh, we're not finished yet," he said softly.

He moved his hips suggestively, and she felt him swell inside her again.

"Oh, yes, we are," she insisted, squirming in protest.

"That was nice. Do it again." A wolfish smile, familiar from London days, creased his face. That particular expression had always warned her he meant to launch some inventive piece of love play.

And she'd always gone along with him. But not tonight.

She was very near the end of her resistance. She knew it. He knew it. A glance into his intense indigo eyes told her he considered victory already his.

Verity made herself remember everything she had at stake. Her self-respect. Her future. Ben and Maria's future.

She deliberately sought the cold obsidian center of herself. The obsidian center that had helped her survive as a demimondaine. The center where no one reached her. The center that was utterly Verity and which Soraya had never touched.

Closing her eyes, she waited, secure in the knowledge that her true self was safe from him.