The Libertine by Saskia Walker Page B

love?”
    Duty.
    His question was too much, worse than the intimate touch, the
heated kiss. She forced herself to nod and then turned away. “I fear I am and
always will be a failure to my husband.”
    Leaning closer, he stroked her hair back from her forehead with
a tender touch. “Is that what burdens you so?”
    Why was it she was compelled to share her thoughts with him, to
be honest about things she had never told anyone? “It disappoints me greatly, I
cannot deny it.” She pursed her lips a moment. “I am, however, not prone to
melodrama over such things.”
    Once again, he smiled. “But you do carry a secret burden,
something you have shared with no one, not friends or kin.”
    Tensing, she shook her head.
    “I sense it in you. If you tell me what it is, I will be more
able to help you.” There was a firm, commanding tone to his voice.
    “You’re my last chance.”
    “And we have made progress. It is that important to you?”
    “Would I have put myself at risk with a stranger if that were
not the case?” She turned her face away.
    “What is it?” Grasping her by the chin he forced her to meet
his gaze.
    Chloris felt something turn in her chest and her will to keep
her private matters private weakened. “I must fall pregnant with my husband’s
heir.”
    He cocked his head as if waiting for her to say more. Expecting
it.
    The truth knotted in her chest, but the dark secret she
carried—that which filled her with shame—was being drawn out as surely as if he
had it harnessed by a thread of magic and tugged gently, drawing from her.
    Her lips parted, but she said it unwillingly. “I fear my life
depends on it.”

CHAPTER SIX
    My life depends on it? Lennox studied the woman, attempting to read the turmoil he saw there at the
back of her eyes.
    Prior to that moment of confession she was all but ready to
surrender herself to him completely—and he was more than ready to lose himself
between her soft thighs. His intentions, at first, had been almost wholly
selfish. There was a twisted pleasure in entering Tamhas Keavey’s house while he
slumbered unaware. There was also great pleasure in dallying with his cousin.
Her tender beauty called to him. She would be soft and supple beneath him, and
he craved the clasp of her body on his hardened cock as he entered her. During
the ritual she had responded so readily, and that only increased his desire.
    How sweet it was to enjoy her, with the certain knowledge that
Keavey would be horrified when the tale came out. The nature of the situation
had changed, however. She’d drawn back a curtain and showed him her secret
fears. An instinctive need to know more came over him. He regretted the
interruption, but there were times when discovering the truth overwhelmed his
cause. It was because he hated to see fear in a woman’s eyes. Desire was good.
Fear was not. It was always the way because of what he’d seen happen to his own
womenfolk, as a youth.
    “Your life?” he queried.
    Her eyelids remained lowered, the patches of color on her
cheeks high. “I should not have said that.”
    The tug of resistance was more than he would expect in a
well-to-do woman who had lowered herself to seek help of the local witches.
There were the basic fears—that they would be discovered together, that she
would be mocked by her hosts for indulging her whims with the demonic Witch
Master. Beyond that there was a deep fear, something that had forced her
footsteps to his door. She wanted a child, and yet that wasn’t the only thing
pushing her footsteps on. The need in her was something far deeper, rooted in
obligation and mired in a situation from which she felt she had no escape.
    “Come now.” He stroked her face, urging her to tell him more.
There were so many intriguing things about this woman. She was a wellborn lady,
and yet she was suggesting that she had suffered. “You have said it, and you
have lowered a barrier between us.”
    “Please.” She looked at him from