Chapter Five.

In her tiny apartment above her cousin's tailoring shop, Julia set the kettle over the fire. It was Sunday, so the shop was closed and Algernon wouldn't be in today. She planned to call on him later to let him know that she was safe. She was also blazing with curiosity as to what he had discussed with Dev, what Dev could have possibly told him to make him abandon his rescue.

She didn't understand the internal workings of Dev's mind or why he had kidnapped her and threatened to keep her in his house, but she wouldn't survive another intimate encounter with the man. He hadn't found her yet, but it seemed inevitable. She wasn't safe here. All she could do was to appeal to her cousin for help. Again.

Sighing, she took the boiling water off the fire and poured it over a few tea leaves. Tea was dear, but Algernon had given her some for Christmas and she felt like indulging today. Grasping her cup in both of her sore hands, she sank into her only chair, an old Queen Anne with a velvet cushion-a relic from Algernon's attic.

A door creaked downstairs.

Julia froze with her teacup halfway to her mouth and then set it down, reminding herself to breathe. That couldn't be Dev. He didn't have a key. It had to be Algernon coming to work on the books or to finish a design for an important client.

She stood, brushed off her skirts, stiffened her spine, and went down to greet her cousin.

As she neared the bottom of the stairway, a large, dark figure turned into the back corridor. He reeled to a halt in the doorway, looking up at her. She stopped in her tracks, three steps up from the bottom.

Devlin.

Julia's heart lodged firmly in her throat. She could hardly breathe.

He swept off his hat and dragged a hand through his tousled black hair. "Julia."

"How did you get in?" she whispered.

"Your cousin loaned me this." He raised the key in his hand. At the horrified look that must have shown on her face, he added, "It was quite by choice. I did not have to pummel him to get it."

What on earth had he told Algernon? She shook off her disbelief and clasped her arms around herself, fighting a bone-deep shudder, fighting the urge to turn and run. But there was nowhere to go.

"You must leave, Devlin."

"Not until we talk."

"I cannot be with you. I-I can't stay trapped in that room. I am sorry." How odd that she was apologizing for choosing not to be his captive.

"No. I am the one who is sorry. For all of it." He swept his hand in a grand, encompa.s.sing gesture. "But most of all"-he swallowed hard and his voice dropped to a rasping whisper-"I am sorry for using you, Julia. I didn't know that was what I was doing...but now I see that's what it was. I'm sorry."

She clutched the banister. "Please. You must leave."

Please, please leave. Last night, he had left her hot and throbbing for him, and now the honesty of the pained expression on his face opened a deep, aching void in her heart.

"I cannot let you go," he said softly. "I won't."

"Please, Dev." She stared at her feet, too afraid to look at him, to see the intensity in his eyes and that dark shadow behind it.

"I need you with me."

"No-"

"I can't live without you."

"Of course you can," she breathed.

"I was wrong. So wrong."

Her head snapped up.

"I was stupid to have believed Clayton's lies," he continued. "I understand everything now." He set his hat on the side table opposite the foot of the stairs and moved toward her, his hands open, his palms facing upward in a gesture of supplication. "I was wrong. What I said to you, what I did. I will never tire of you, Julia. I'll never let you go. I love you."

She gripped the banister so tightly her knuckles turned white. "Love?" She mouthed the word, for she could not say it aloud.

"When you left me, I thought-" His voice broke, turned ragged. "I thought all you wanted was the money, that I hadn't offered you enough and you dismissed me, believing other men would offer you more."

She swallowed hard. She'd already told him that wasn't so.

His shoulders slumped. "The reports of your exploits in Paris seemed to confirm my theory about why you'd left. I didn't think I'd survive your leaving me...and then those rumors-they destroyed me. And when you returned, and I found you in that salon and walking between two men, I thought the worst." He closed his eyes. "For the past year, I've raged at you for what I believed you'd done. It's so much easier to be angry than to feel..." His voice dwindled.

"Hurt?" she supplied after a moment of silence. Neither she nor he had moved. He stood below the bottom step looking up at her. A part of her wanted to go to him, to pull him close and tell him to forget everything and just hold her. But there was still too much left unsaid. Too much uncertainty.

He hesitated, then said gruffly, "Yes. Or...heartbreak."

Understanding dawned, a slow-burning flame building in that chasm within her. She was the one who'd thought her heart would be broken. She'd protected herself by running away, and in the process, she hadn't even considered that he might have been affected by her departure. She'd believed he'd simply find another mistress.

She tilted her head at Dev, remembering his actions, trying to delve beneath all that surface fury and rage she'd witnessed that night at the opera and then three nights ago, when he'd taken her from Algernon.

She'd hurt him. She'd left him without explanation, climbed into a notorious bachelor's carriage and escaped to Paris.

Viscount Clayton hadn't helped matters when he'd returned to England to spread his vicious lies. And when Dev had seen her on Thomas's and Algernon's arms, tripping down the street, half-drunk...

She was the cause of that shadow in his eyes. She'd wounded him, and he'd protected those wounds with a shield of fury.

Still, none of that explained the way he'd treated her before she'd left him.

"When we were together before," she whispered, "you didn't think of me as a wh.o.r.e?"

"G.o.d, no."

"As your mistress?"

"No." He winced. "I didn't think of you as my mistress, although I realize now that was what you technically were, if a sorely undercompensated one."

She raised her hands in a gesture of pure, confused, frustration. "What did you think of me then? What did you think we were doing together? What did it mean to you?"

"I didn't think, Julia. Not beyond the present, about how fulfilled I was when we were together, how deeply you satisfied me in all ways. Our times together-they meant everything to me. I thought they did to you as well. Until you left."

Slowly, she shook her head. "I thought that was how you saw me. That was all I was to you. Nothing more than someone to tup and then dismiss until the next time. Until, eventually, there wouldn't be a next time. You'd be finished with me."

A muscle jerked in Dev's jaw. "No."

"When I was ten years old, I saw it with my own eyes, Devlin. I woke up one night to the sound of one of my father's mistresses pounding on the door." Julia wrapped her arms around herself and gazed past him, out over the ordered rows of coats that lined Algernon's shop, remembering. "My window looked out over the front door of our house. It must have just finished raining because the ground was wet, and so was the woman. Her hair hung in sad, dripping strings. She was distraught, crying, screaming that she was Eliza; didn't my father remember her? She sobbed that he'd promised to love her, that she was with child and she had no money, no one to turn to. She begged for his help."

Dev's lips pressed into a flat line. "What happened?"

"My father came outside and spoke harshly to her. I heard him say, 'Go away. How dare you come to my home?' It took four men to drag her off-she was so desperate, she fought and screamed until I couldn't see her anymore. But the image of her-the woman my father cast off, that desperate, beleaguered woman with tears streaming down her thin, haggard face, haunted my dreams. What happened to her? There was no way for me to find out. She was probably sent to a workhouse. Or worse." She squeezed her arms even tighter around her body and blinked hard. "I think I might have a younger sister or brother somewhere...and I'll never find them."

"Did you try?" he asked gently.

She shrugged. "My father died a year after that, and I was sent to live with my uncle. I have no way to find her-all I have is her first name. Do you know how many Elizas there are in London?"

"No," he said.

She gave him a sad half smile. "Thousands."

"I could find them for you," he said. "If you wished it."

Her heart filled a little. What a sweet thing for him to say. "Would you?"

He shook his head, frowning as if disappointed she'd ask. "Of course. I'd do anything for you. Anything you ask." He stepped onto the first step, bringing his face even with hers. "You do know not all men are like your father, don't you?"

"My uncle was the same way," she whispered.

He reached out to drag the wayward strand of hair out of her face, tucking it gently behind her ear. "I'm not your father. I'm not your uncle. I can see why you'd believe I was after what I did-or rather what I didn't do-when we were together. But I promise you, that is never how I thought of you. I fell in love with you. I wanted forever."

Her knees turned to water. But he was there on the step with her, his arms around her, holding her up, stroking her lower back beneath her muslin gown. He stared into her face, so close her skin p.r.i.c.kled from his heat.

"I've thought about you hundreds of times a day, every day, for the past year. I missed you...so much." He drew in a shaky breath.

"Oh, Dev."

"It drove me mad thinking you were with other men when I wanted you so badly, when I had offered you my heart and my soul."

"But you didn't-" she began.

He pressed his fingers to her lips. "I'm no good with words, Julia. I thought you knew. You saw me at...when I was most vulnerable...in ways n.o.body else did, and I thought you understood the power you held over me."

She shook her head helplessly.

"I wanted to make you mine. I wanted-needed-you beside me. I wanted to keep you with me, and since I knew you wouldn't come willingly, I felt like I had no choice but to force it upon you."

She caressed his big shoulders through his coat.

"I was a fool," he said. "I made a.s.sumptions. I was wrong."

She had been a fool, too, making her own a.s.sumptions about him. "Why didn't you tell me?" she asked softly. "Why didn't you give me a sign?"

"I thought the trinkets would be enough. I thought the lovemaking would be enough. I didn't know you wanted more."

She pressed her cheek to his chest. "I needed you to say it. I needed to believe it."

"I love you." He drew back and kissed her lips, her cheek, her temple. "I always have. I always will." His words were soft tickles of pleasure over her skin.

All of Julia's resistance fled. She no longer cared what happened tomorrow or beyond. There was only this moment, with Devlin holding her, caressing her, finally saying the words she had never imagined she'd hear.

He loved her.

He grasped her face in his hands, angling her head up to his, rubbing the pads of his thumbs over her cheeks. "I am no good with words. Let me show you how I feel."

She stared into his tormented eyes and knew she could not deny him. She could never deny him. Her pride had vanished and her soul had inexorably twisted with his. She would do whatever it took to be with him for as long as he would have her. "Show me, then."

He brushed his lips over hers in a soft, long stroke. "Tell me you will have me."

"Yes."

He dropped his hands to her shoulders and pulled her body tightly against his.

"Please...tell me you won't leave me again."

"Never." She closed her eyes with the finality of that word. It was the truth. She was pouring all of herself into his hands. The choice to nurture or destroy was his now.

"I've got to have you," he gritted. "I can't wait any longer. Please say yes, Julia."

She looked up at him-at his taut cheeks, his blazing eyes, his clenched teeth-and knew he had exposed himself completely, laid himself bare at her feet. At her mercy. Her voice was hardly above a whisper. She rocked against his hard body. "Yes. Yes. Please."

She leaned forward and swiped her tongue over his lips, then sucked his lower lip between her teeth. Her hands roamed over his torso, exploring its rippling strength through all the layers of his clothing.

He parted her lips with his tongue, then thrust in, claiming her mouth. Heat poured through Julia like a fluid key, opening all the parts of her she had tried to keep locked from him.

Suddenly he pulled away, holding her around the neck with one hand and at the small of her back with the other.

"Sit."

He lowered her into a sitting position on one of the steps and went down on his knees before her, his eyes narrow and intent.

"Lift your skirts. Let me see you."

Shuddering, she lifted them and opened her legs wide, exposing herself. She hadn't yet dressed for going out and she was still bare beneath her chemise.

"You are an angel." He moved in, the heat of his breath licking her thighs. "I want to taste you."

"Yes. Please." She raised her hips off the step as he brought his head down, covering her with his mouth.

He grasped her waist and explored her, slowly moving his tongue along her folds, circling with tender care then dipping inside. A sweet, p.r.i.c.kling sensation flooded her. She closed her eyes, tilted her head back, and gave herself over to it.

Beads of sweat broke out over her chest and at her temples. He gave a long, husky purr, and the sound resonated through her body, bunching her nerves. Her leg muscles clenched around him.