The Pearl at the Gate Read online

  She ran them through her fingers, fascinated by their lustre and the way they warmed to her touch. It was almost as though they were alive, each one a tiny spirit awaiting her attention to awake. Cupping them in her palms, she raised her hands to her face, bending to rub her cheek across the pearls. Then she pooled them in her lap and opened another compartment. An ivory-handled razor was the only thing there, so she closed it and turned to the next.

  Raising the wooden flap revealed a leather-bound book, the cover stamped with a swirling pattern and gilded with touches of gold leaf. Jenesta reached for it but hesitated, leaving it in its satin-lined home. There was a date stamped in gold on the cover and she leaned forward to read it in the dim candlelight.

  June 13, 1813

  Her hands began to tremble as she slowly traced the letters and numbers with the tip of one finger.

  That was the date of the Duchess of Hastings’s ball—the night she first set eyes on Roake Barbenoir.

  Jenesta dragged in a shallow, shaky breath and eased the book out of its receptacle. The smell of leather and ink grew stronger as she balanced the book on the edge of the trunk and opened the cover. There was no printing inside. Instead, the flyleaf held only Roake’s name, inscribed in his large slanting script. Turning to the next page, Jenesta read, ‘Your light calls to me, brightens my world even as it deepens the darkness within.’

  She shuddered, reading the words again and again. She might have written them herself, so true were they to her own feelings for her husband. Jenesta could not pinpoint the time when she first knew she loved him. It seemed to have simmered in the background from the moment they met, when something deep and tortured opened inside her, releasing a wave of both darkness and radiance into her soul. He was both the catalyst and balm for those feelings—being with Roake was both delight and pain.

  Almost reluctantly she moved on to the next page and gasped as her heart began to pound.

  He had drawn them together, politely greeting each other at the duchess’s ball. Rendered in pen and ink, the details in the picture were astounding. Roake had remembered the exact cut of her gown, the roses entwined in her hair, the choker of pearls at her throat. Yet, while he had drawn her precisely as she had appeared that night, he was depicted with a series of dark, slashing lines. It was still him, but not as she had even seen him. The self-portrait made him harsh, frightening. A monstrous presence disguised as a man.

  She turned quickly to the next page and found more words.

  ‘Your light holds me in check, yet at night the dreams come and I awake in the morning ravenous, with the words Forgive me on my lips.’

  Another drawing accompanied them. They were still at the ball, but it was a scene obviously from his imagination. Roake was leading her outside, his head bent as though he whispered into her ear, her face tilted up to listen. The look in her eyes was that of a sleepwalker, as though he had taken her over, mind and body.

  Flipping to the next picture, she froze, unable to breathe, unable to immediately comprehend.

  She was bent back over his arm, her bodice lying in tatters about her waist, breasts exposed to the night. Roake held her with one hand tangled in her hair, the other tight around her waist and his teeth latched on to her as he tugged on her puckered nipple.

  The trembling began in her fingers, the book fluttering with the violence of her shudders. They travelled along her arms until her entire body washed hot and cold and, finally, inexorably, the cold receded and the heat settled between her legs.

  As though in a dream, she turned the page. Now she was in his arms, limp, in a swoon perhaps, and Roake ran into the night looking over his shoulder at the milling crowd outside the duchess’s house. His face was set in a snarl, daring those who would rescue her to try.

  Another page—another drawing. They were now here, at Black Oaks, in this very room. Roake tore at her skirts, shredding the fabric with his huge, rough fingers. Her body was bared to him, inadequately covered by her hands. Her hair fell in wild disarray about her face, her only other adornment the choker of pearls around her throat.

  Jenesta closed her eyes against the intensity of sensations driving into her body. She could feel it, the mingled terror and lust, the sense of being too weak to fight him off, but filled with the power of being able to arouse him past civilization. Her breasts ached for his touch, her belly trembled with each breath, wet heat gathering to pulse between her legs. It was what she had dreamed, what she wanted so desperately to share with Roake.

  With her eyes still shut tight, she fumbled with the page, turned it and took a deep breath before slowly opening her eyes. The picture wavered, came into focus. Her hand was raised, Roake’s face turned so he looked out off the page. It was obvious from her stance she had slapped him, and the look in his eyes as they stared at her promised retribution. Quickly now, breath rasping in her throat, Jenesta turn the page.

  The book fell from her nerveless fingers. The room seemed to grow dark and there was a strange rushing in her ears, yet although the book now lay face down on the floor, she could still see the drawing in her mind.

  She was sprawled over his lap, her bare arse in the air, his hand coming down, a blur of motion about to connect with her flesh.

  Jenesta wrapped her arms around her waist and rocked back and forth.

  How could he know? How could he have found out?

  She had never told anyone what she had seen, what she had done. Without being told, she’d instinctively known to keep it to herself. The images flashed through her mind, distant now, yet just as powerful. They pulled her effortlessly back in time, churning lust thick in her belly.

  Hiding in the old crofter’s cottage, trying to get away from her sisters. Johnston coming in, dragging the downstairs maid, Janie, behind him. She always thought Johnston and Janie liked each other, had even thought they might get married, but now she wasn’t sure. The butler was being so rough with her, his voice harsh as he pushed Janie in front of him.

  “You’ve defied me once too often, girl. Now it’s time to pay the price.”

  “Please, Mr. Johnston, you know I didn’t mean nothing by it.”

  The sound of the butler’s laugh, deep and strange. “Oh, you been goading me into this all week, you saucy piece. Take off your skirts and get yourself ready for your punishment.”

  Janie, bare below the waist, bending forward over the old, scarred table.

  “That’s right, miss. Push that arse in the air and open your legs so I can see your sweet cunt.”

  Janie whimpering, spreading her legs wide to reveal a thatch of wiry red curls and deep pink, glistening flesh, panting and moaning as Johnston worked his fingers between her thighs.

  “You’re a randy bitch, with your cunt already wet and hot for me before you get your whacks. Fifteen this time for your trouble. And don’t you dare touch yourself or it’ll be all the worse for you.”

  Johnston’s face was flushed as pink as Janie’s cunt and as damp, perspiration beading on his brow as the birch twigs rose and fell. Janie cried, writhing with each blow—begging for more. Johnston counting out the stripes until he reached ten, ignoring her pleas for him to give her leave to come.

  Janie reaching between her own legs, rubbing and slapping her cunt as the last five slashes of the birch fell on her arse, crying out, body jerking and flailing until the table beneath her shook.

  Janie falling to her knees, kissing the birch twigs and asking, “May I kiss the rod now, Mr. Johnston?”

  Johnston nodding. Janie reaching up to unbutton his pants. The rod springing out into her hand, red and thick, the end purple. Janie kissing it, taking it into her mouth. Johnston straining forward, grunts and harsh sounds ringing in the cottage as he held her head and thrust. Pulling back, it made a wet sound leaving Janie’s mouth.

  Janie tipping back on to the rough dirt floor, spreading her legs. Johnston falling on top of her, plunging that thing into Janie’s body.

  “Yes, give it me.” Janie screech
ed, bucking her hips to meet Johnston’s thrusts, locking her legs around his waist. “Give me all that fat cock. Fuck me.”

  As Johnston pulled away, ordered Janie on to her knees, Jenesta reached under her skirts and found the wetness of her own cunt for the first time…

  There was no sound, but the air in the room changed, swirled around Jenesta’s overheated body. Lost in a strange fusion of past and present, wracked with a firestorm of lust, Jenesta opened her eyes and turned her head toward the door.

  The sense of unreality expanded, fractured under the weight of her discoveries and the sight of Roake standing there, his strong face frozen, pale, his body visibly trembling.

  Chapter Three

  He could not feel his legs.

  The thought came as a distant aside as Roake stood in the doorway of the east wing room and felt the world die around him.

  He was too late.

  Jenesta sat in front of the sea chest, his journal on the floor, her face white as chalk. She looked so innocent in her modest, light-pink nightgown and wrapper, her hair braided and tied with a ribbon falling down her back. Her arms were tight around her waist as if to hold herself in one piece.

  If she let go, they could fall apart together.

  She knows.

  It was obvious from her shocked blank eyes, motionless features, the book cast aside in disgust.

  She knows my dreams, my desire for her.

  Roake’s stomach roiled, a frigid mist rising from his toes, rushing to swamp his entire body. He tried to turn away, but could not. Jenesta’s eyes held him in place. They demanded something of him, although he was unsure what it was. An explanation? A reason? Reassurance that this was just a nightmare and they would awaken in the morning as though it never happened?

  He almost laughed, but even that froze in his chest.

  Impotently, he searched for something to say and the strength to say it, but all he could think was She knows.

  Jenesta got to her feet, a spill of silk and pearls falling from her lap onto the carpet. She was shivering and her hand rose to clasp the top of her robe. Still she said nothing, only watched him with those wide, unfathomable eyes.

  She knows.

  As the thought entered his head once more, Jenesta stepped back, moving away from him slowly, carefully.

  At the motion, something wild and hot flared in his belly, broke through the fog holding him in place. With it came deep hurt and anger, mixed with acceptance of grim inevitability.

  It was already over—their marriage, his futile hope she would bring him peace and give him the family he so desperately craved. She had destroyed everything, except the dreams he now knew would haunt him until he died.

  Jenesta already knew his twisted cravings. There was no reason to hide any longer. She owed him something for the destruction she had caused.

  She would pay with this night.

  His feet moved of their own accord, matching her steps with the awakening instincts of the hunter.

  Jenesta’s breathing sounded loud even above the rain driving against the windows and roof. Roake stalked her, lengthening his strides so, for each one she took, his brought them a little closer together.

  “Why did you come in here, madam?”

  Jenesta’s lips trembled open, but no sound came from them. She was almost to the far wall. Another step and she would feel the stone behind her—know there was nowhere left to run. Roake followed, taking an extra step to stop less than an arm’s length away.

  “My instructions were clear. Why did you defy me?”

  Her silence provoked him to action, propelled him into his fantasy. One swift movement and the lawn wrapper and nightgown tore beneath his hands to hang in rags from her shoulders.

  Jenesta gasped, her face flooding with color, but before she could react further, he closed the distance between them, roughly cupping her breast with one hand as the other made short work of the remnants of her garb.

  She leaned away and slapped him across the cheek.

  The sound that emerged from Roake’s throat was a growl of triumph, of vindication. Jenesta’s heart leapt with joy.

  Yes, my love. Yes.

  She was challenging him—had been from the first step hinting at retreat—wanting to give him all he dreamed of and achieve fulfillment of her own dream in return.

  Luckily, they seemed one and the same.

  Roake leaned into her, pressing her back to the cold stone. Yet she hardly felt the chill. Her body was aflame.

  His voice rasped harshly into her ear. “Did you look at my journal?”

  Jenesta forced her reply past the yearning clogging her chest. “Yes.”

  “So you know what I have to do now, don’t you.”

  It was not a question, but she wanted to answer, wanted him to know she was complicit in what was to come. “Yes.”

  His movements were swift, sure, as he pulled her away from the wall and across the room. Using his foot, he tugged the chair out from beneath the desk. His hand curved tight around her arm, no hint of gentleness left in his touch. Jenesta stumbled as her feet tangled in the silk on the floor, and the pearls rattled, rolling off the edge of the carpet onto the floorboards. Roake paused with his hand on the chair, looking down at the pearls.

  His gaze swung to her face. Roake’s eyes were the color of an approaching storm, wild as lightning slashing in the sky. Yet something else flashed behind them—it looked like sorrow or fear but she could not tell precisely.

  Inexplicably, he murmured, “One night.”

  The chair was flung roughly aside and Roake pushed her toward the desk, his hand braced on her back to position her facedown on the smooth surface. Then he grasped her hands and pulled them out to the side, curving her fingers around the edge of the wood. He leaned into her, overwhelming her in his power. Jenesta shuddered, surrounded by his hard body, the tang of his distinctive scent, his rigid cock pressing into her arse through his trousers.

  His voice rumbled like distant thunder as he asked, “Did your tender sensibilities allow you to read past your punishment for slapping me?”

  Jenesta shook her head, the want too strong to allow a reply. Roake’s breath was hot against her cheek and fanned the flames rising to scorch her from the inside out.

  “Good.” His rough voice held such anticipation, Jenesta moaned. Roake chuckled, and ground his cock into her, sending shooting spasms from her cunt to her breasts and all the way to her fingers and toes. “The element of surprise is always a benefit. Stay exactly where I have placed you, Jenesta.”

  Slowly, he straightened, and stepped to the side of the desk so she could watch him take off his jacket and cravat. Jenesta trembled as he lifted his arms above his head to strip away his shirt, drinking in the sight of his broad muscular chest that tapered to a sculpted belly. Soft golden hair arrowed down to disappear into his bulging breeches and she clenched her fingers tighter around the wood, desperate to touch him, knowing not to move.

  She looked up to his face and Roake smiled, but it held no resemblance to the warm salute he had given her that morning.

  Now she knew why he had drawn the self-portraits in his journal the way he had. There was a beast inside him, and now it was awake. The answering untamed spirit in her revelled to see it, a low keening wail issuing from her throat as it called to him.

  The flush deepened across his cheeks, his face going still for a moment. Then he answered her challenge, stepping behind her, out of sight.

  “One night,” his voice came to her as a whisper, warm moist breath brushing over her thighs, “One night.”

  His mouth was on her, sucking, nipping, his tongue rough and commanding as it slicked over her flesh, stabbed at her cunt. Jenesta screamed, riding the waves of sensation emanating from his ravening lips and teeth, her entire body jerking, wanting more.

  Roake lifted his head and chuckled, his fingers pulling the cheeks of her arse apart, thumbs sliding into her cunt, slipping up and down, spreading the wetness. When he
touched her arsehole, she tried to move away, but he only chuckled again and held her in place to press and play with his wicked thumbs.

  “No, Jenesta. Tonight I can do whatever I choose, and I choose to possess you in every way I can.”

  Roake slid a finger into her cunt, twisting it in and out, his hand slapping against her flesh with each insertion. The roughness of his movements only served to push the tension inside higher, and Jenesta writhed, spreading her legs wider. She tried to protest as Roake withdrew his finger, but before she could, he plunged it into her arse.

  Jenesta cried out, trying to pull away from the fiery sensation of his slick, hard digit invading her tender flesh. Roake kept his finger deep inside her, his other hand caressing along the straining muscles of her thigh.

  “Relax, Jenesta. Relax and you will discover a new, exciting experience.”

  Following his command was difficult, but she willed her body to stillness, and then to relaxation. Roake murmured his pleasure and, once more, slid his tongue around her cunt, flicked across her most sensitive spot as he slowly pushed his finger a little deeper.

  Roake began a slow thrusting motion with tongue and finger and Jenesta cried out in shocked enjoyment as pain and pleasure conspired to push her to ecstasy. Roake’s hoarse grunts and moans penetrated into her soul as deeply as his fingers and tongue penetrated her body.

  Then he was gone, leaving her shuddering on the edge of coming, gasping, bereft.

  “Pearls are my favourite gems.” Roake’s voice was low, almost contemplative, coming over the sound of her own harsh breathing, the soft clink of the gems as he lifted them from the floor. “The night we met, you wore a strand around your throat and I remember thinking I would like to cover you in pearls, rub them over your skin and see which was smoother.”

  He parted her nether lips and touched her lightly with his fingertip right on the spot that wanted his touch the most. It pulsed with frantic need, each beat sparking out to shudder across her skin and insidiously tighten the desire deep within. Jenesta moaned, pushed back, wordlessly begging for more, harder, but Roake did not comply. His finger shifted to maintain the light, torturous pressure.