LITMIR.BIZ

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he had looked through the keyhole first—she remembered him doing that at the country house, so often that she stuffed a tattered handkerchief into the keyhole when she disrobed or dressed.

      “Did I awaken you, Angelica?” he asked without turning around, intent on his task.

      She wanted to grab the candelabra, thrust the burning candles into his face, and run for her life. She half-rose, steadying herself on the arms of the chair, but her legs wobbled.

      He turned around to face her and folded his arms across his chest. He seemed to her to have filled out, no longer a young buck of slight build, but a powerful, fully grown man.

      The evil that drove him had grown in strength as well. She could see it in his eyes.

      “It seems that I did. You can sit down. I will bring you the tray. You haven’t eaten a bite.”

      “And I will not. Take it away.”

      His expression hardened. “Do not give me orders, my dear sister.”

      “I am not your sister!”

      He only shrugged. “The law would have it so and who am I to argue with the law?”

      Angelica was standing fully on her feet, feeling the blood flow again in her legs. Still, she doubted she could push past him, let alone escape.

      “What do you want with me?” she asked desperately. “It was you I ran from, after you—you tried to touch me.”

      “So you did.”

      “You let me go then,” she said in a pleading voice. “You cannot keep me prisoner in this house, Victor!”

      “Are you a prisoner?” he inquired in a maddeningly calm tone.

      She shook a fist at him, a futile gesture, for it only made him laugh. “You drugged me and kidnapped me or had someone do it—that man out there, was it? And I woke up shackled to a wall—where was that room? In this house or another?”

      “So many questions,” he reproved her. “I don’t know where to begin.”

      She took a step forward and her skirts swung as she did. He glanced down, making her shrink back as if he had hit her.

      “You are not shackled now,” he said pointedly. “I don’t do things like that to women, unless it is a game they like to play. Some do, you know. Guard and prisoner. Crime and punishment.”

      Angelica flushed with shame. “You thought such things were games. You and that filthy little bitch who did her best to hurt me.”

      “Miss Hopkins was hired to correct your wayward nature, Angelica. Dear Nancy. She taught me much.”

      “She let you watch!”

      Victor smirked. “Indeed she did. And it was not only you who was birched. At least you were permitted to keep your skirts down and receive your strokes only upon your legs. Things were rather different for the housemaids, you know. A well-run household cannot tolerate impertinence from the staff. I helped her with those sessions. And it was my very great pleasure to do so.”

      Angelica spat full in his face. Victor wiped away the few drops she had worked up from her dry mouth and took two steps toward her, holding her by the throat with one large hand and rubbing her spittle into her face with the other.

      “Do not ever do that again,” he growled. “You must show me respect at all times from now on.”

      She struggled to breathe, pulling at his hand. He kept it where it was, but loosened his grip fractionally.

      “Wh-why d-don’t you just kill me?” she gasped. “I will not be b-broken by you again—never!”

      He let her go and pushed her back into the chair. Angelica fell into it like a rag doll cast aside by a petulant child.

      “You are a valuable commodity, Angelica,” he said after studying her for some moments. “And I am now a man of business.”

      “You are a dirty bastard and nothing more!”

      He sighed and began to pace the room. “I should not have taken you by the neck. Your remarkable beauty must remain unmarred. You will fetch a higher price that way. Are you still a virgin, Angelica?”

      “What?” The depth of his depravity was revealed in his last question. Truly, she would rather die if she could not escape!

      “I could have the ox outside control you here and now. My bawd knows how to check, you know.” He snapped his fingers. “Shall I do that?”

      “No!” Her thoughts raced as she figured out the nature of his business. “Is that why you had me kidnapped? Why me? There are—there are thousands of women in London who would willingly sell themselves!”

      He nodded sagely and stopped his pacing. “But it is the struggle that some customers desire—the unwillingness of the truly pure excites them, you see—I thought of you the first time I was asked to procure such a one.”

      “For shame, Victor!”

      “Shame?” He grinned. “I don’t know the meaning of the word. You will have to explain it to me. I believe Miss Hopkins instructed you in that humbling emotion often enough.”

      She fell silent, appalled and afraid. Yet she felt a flicker of hope. Nothing more. If he wanted to sell her unmarred, then she had a chance, however slender.

      “How long has it been since you ran away into the night?” he mused. “Two years? Three? I thought I might find you when I came down to London but only once did I catch a glimpse. You were riding in a carriage by a lady, dressed in her second best as far as I could tell. I assumed you had gone into service as a maid.”

      Angelica let him talk.

      “After all, you had no references and no sensible family would entrust their precious brats to an unknown girl who called herself a governess.” He cast an assessing look at her. “And you are too proud to whore. I knew that.”

      She drew herself up unthinkingly.

      “So that left working in a shop, which I did not think you would do. Too public. Or becoming a lady’s maid. I was right, wasn’t I?”

      His expression was unbearably smug. She did not reply.

      “But finding you was a problem, and of course I was establishing my business and had many other things to do. As you just said, there are many women in London who are willing to sell themselves. But my enterprise was specialized.”

      Shut up. She wanted to scream it a thousand times. She wanted to choke him, squeeze the foul life from his body and consign his soul to hell, but the thought of his far superior strength, to say nothing of his underlings in this house, put paid to that wild idea.

      “It did also occur to me that you might become the mistress of a wealthy man, perhaps even the wife of one who didn’t care to ask questions,” he continued. “I see that didn’t happen.”

      She shook her head, not that she was entirely surprised by his obsessive pursuit of her in the intervening years. “How did you find out that I worked for the Congreves?”

      “The old man and I belong to the same club. He was in his cups, boasting of his conquests from a list he had in his hand. He happened to describe a young beauty, a new maid he’d hired for his wife and I thought it might be you. Then I looked at the list and I saw your name, plain as day. Angelica Harrow. He’d put a star by it.”

      “Why?”

      “He explained that it meant you were next.”

      “I dodged him,” she said flatly. “His wife had her suspicions, but she was entirely wrong.”

      “I see,” Victor said cheerfully. “I do like the forthright way you say that. It sounds as if you are done pretending to be outraged.”

      He looked at her through narrowed

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