Page 27 of The Traitor's Curse
“This,” I finished, too tired and annoyed to sum up my outrage in any more eloquent way. I drew a deep breath. “Get out of my bed!”
“All right,” he said, to my complete shock, and rolled off the bed in one smooth motion. “But only because those footsteps in the hall must be the servants laying the table.” Ah. He’d been obeying the dictates of his stomach, not his liege lord. That made much more sense. He looked me up and down. “Are you dressing for supper? Or do you plan to tease me with all that lovely skin while we eat?”
“Tease you?” I couldn’t help glancing down too, taking in my pale bare feet and ankles, the black fabric swathing the rest of me. A bit of my throat and chest showed at the top, and maybe my legs would be visible under the table when I sat (if Benedict decided to lean down under and leer at me), but “all that lovely skin”? Had he lost his mind? “This is hardly seductive. And you ought to know better than to think I’d want to be. Not for you, anyway. Besides, you’ve already debased me twice today. That’s enough even for someone with your animal appetites.”
“Well, then,” he said, a corner of his mouth twitching as if he’d barely managed to suppress a laugh, “I suppose we’ll go in to supper en dishabille.”
What? He’d found thatfunny? When had I lost the ability to insult him into sparking anger? Earlier today he’d told me that he’d nearly laughed at my insult about the cheap wine, and now this? What the hell had changed, and how did I change it back?
But amused or not, he prowled like he always had, taking one slow step forward and then another, his eyes never leaving mine. The room went hushed around us, the crackle of the fire and the voices of the servants down the hall receding into the pound of my heart and the rush of my breath.
Benedict held out a hand, his forearm at the precise, perfect angle of a gentleman offering to escort a dining or dance partner.
And he bowed. Gods help me, he bowed, eyes still fixed on my face, and I went momentarily dizzy as our first meeting flashed through my mind. This gesture didn’t show any more genuine respect than before, but it did hold the same challenge.
When we’d met I’d had the option of dodging that challenge, avoiding him as much as possible and ignoring the way he smirked and stared until I blushed when I couldn’t help being in his presence. Come to think of it, much of my skill at keeping my blushes in check stemmed from the practice he’d given me.
But this time Benedict wasn’t constrained by a public setting, or by my father’s authority as the duke, or by anything at all.
I could set my hand on his arm, rough hair and hard muscle and the heat of him under my fingers where he’d rolled up his sleeve, and walk with him to supper—both of us barefoot, half dressed and disheveled, looking for all the world like the duke and his lover taking an intimate meal together after spending an hour in the duke’s bed.
Or I could refuse. And then he could carry me there if he wished. Or throw me on the bed and have his way with me again. Or tug the cord of my dressing gown and bare me to his gaze, and I knew I’d be unable to control the color and heat that’d flood across my chest and up into my neck and cheeks if he did that.
When the servants saw us like this, there’d be no way to hide it. They’d know Benedict and I had…
Unless I played it off another way? Family intimacy could be very similar to the intimacy of love from the outside looking in. If Benedict were truly my brother, of course we’d dine together casually dressed. There would be no reason not to. Icould address him that way in front of the servants. Treat him like a member of my family.
My gut clenched with sudden nausea. A brother? Benedict hadneverbeen my brother, and he never would be. The very idea revolted me.
No, that would never work.
But…gods, why hadn’t it occurred to me before? Clearly my shock over Fabian’s murder and Benedict’s demands had crippled my brain.
I’d been afraid that I’d be mocked for being Benedict’s newest plaything, the object for his curse and his lust.
But as the Crown Duke of Calatria, wasn’t it my prerogative to take a plaything of my own? Someone to pleasure me. Serve my whims.
…Even join me in court and announce that he served and supported me, sitting at my feet and showing that he knew I was the rightful duke.
My spine straightened as new strength flowed through me.
Benedict didn’t seem to care if anyone found out he’d started using me to relieve his curse. His recklessness earlier in the throne room had proven that. But he couldn’t flaunt his power over me if I seized the high ground of public opinion first, making myself appear to be the one in control of our arrangement.
So I reached out and set my hand on his forearm, accepting his escort. Benedict’s arm tensed almost imperceptibly under my touch.
I ducked my head to hide my smile. Benedict would suspect something if he saw it; he knew better than to think I’d smile at him simply for offering me his arm to go to supper. Or for any reason.
“Lead the way,” I said, and we proceeded to the diningroom.
He walked close to me, hardly keeping a courteous distance. Could he feel the vibration of my hammering heart? If he did, he’d probably ascribe it to my being flustered by his nearness, the arrogant ass.
But for the first time since I’d heard Fabian fall to the floor—perhaps even for the first time since Fabian himself, pale and terrified and furious, had come to tell me that he’d found my father dead—I had that swooping, soaring sensation that came from taking control of events rather than having them happen to me in inevitable, unstoppable succession.
Benedict led me through the door to the dining room with all the courtly grace of a lord at a royal ball, and the two footmen who’d laid the table bowed low, one of them moving to pull out my chair and the other to pour the wine.
As Benedict handed me into the chair, I glanced up at him from under my lashes exactly the way I’d seen that idiot Clothurn do when Benedict had been seducing him in the courtyard, and I allowed my hand to slide off of his arm, my fingers tracing along and between his, feeling the length of them, their strength. All the hair rose on my own arm, a frisson that traveled up and then down again, lodging in the base of my spine.
It took no effort at all to lower my voice to a sultry purr as I said, “So gallant, Lord Benedict. I can’t believe I overlooked you for so long.”
