Behind the Courtesan - By Bronwyn Stuart Page 0,62
it?”
“I slept with you because I wanted to. Because I stupidly believed that the man you are would be enough for me. But you’ve just proved you haven’t changed one bit. All the work I’ve done, all the mornings, all the... It seems you’re the one who feels he has sunk low, not me.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. Jesus, Sophie, you bring out the worst in me every time I’m near you.”
Her eyes pricked and burned and it was hard to push the words out. “I want you to go.”
“I will but before I do, will you tell me what is so special about your duke?”
“You won’t understand. You don’t understand anything I try to tell you.”
“So now I’m ignorant, too?” He stalked toward her.
She stepped back but not far enough, she couldn’t get away from his fury, the pain in his eyes and the rigidity of his body. They’d had this conversation already. She doubted he would listen any better now than he had then.
“Will any title do or does it have to be a duke? Is a deep purse enough? A hunting lodge and mansion on Mayfair too? What is it that makes your callers so much better than me?”
“That’s the part you’ll never understand.” Sophie tried to remain calm, tried to leash her temper and not enter yet another fray with him. But it was too late. It was inevitable. “It has nothing to do with titles, purses, hounds or horseflesh. Daemon treats me like a lady even though I’m as far from it as any woman can get. When he looks at me, he sees only me. He doesn’t see my occupation, he doesn’t see the men who have gone before him, he doesn’t even care about the dress I wear or the house I live in. He cares about me. Sophia Martin. Not the courtesan, but the woman. That is the part you will never understand.
“You’ve been so caught up on the ways in which I have changed that you haven’t actually seen the changes. This is who I am, Blake Vale. This is the woman I have become and this is the woman I want to be. St. Ives accepted that and never tried to change me. He never made me feel filthy. That is the difference between a duke and a tavern owner, between Daemon and you. He is a gentleman down to his very soul. You are a bastard through and through.”
Her chest heaved with the effort to breathe. Her hands clenched until her nails bit into the palms of her hands, leaving crescent moons in their wake. She should take back her words. She should never have spoken them to start with, yet there they were, out in the open, like a ravenous wolf, who wants only to eat the hearts of the pained and lonely for his breakfast. Tears burned her eyes, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing them fall.
“I understand.”
Sophie slowly calmed, as if his answering words had popped the bubble of her anger. Blake’s shoulders slumped and for a moment she had to bite her lip against an apology. What had started out as a pleasant evening of companionship and passion had ended in pistols at dawn after all. She wondered who had won.
“If it means anything to you, I am sorry.”
God, why did he have to punish her so? And why did she have to believe he meant what he said? “You should go.” Before he specified if he was sorry for the hurtful words, or sorry that he’d crawled into her bed.
But before Blake could take one step, there was a frantic knocking at the bedroom door. She met his gaze with a little shake of her head, willed him not to answer, not to make a move or a sound.
“Who is it?” she called, panic filling the pit of desolation.
“It’s Dominic, miss. There’s a problem downstairs and I can’t seem to find Blake.”
Sophie shuffled to the door, careful to keep the blanket around her still naked body. “What’s the problem, Dominic?”
“The Duke of St. Ives has just arrived and there’s no breakfast and no one in the dining room to tend him. I have to take care of His Grace’s flesh and I can’t do it all by myself.”
“I’ll be down in a moment. Keep looking for Blake.”
“Thank you, miss. Thank you.”
Sophie held her breath until long after his thumping footsteps had receded. She turned, her head fell forward until her