I Sold the Cursed Duke One Hundred Nights, and He Never Counted Them novel · Chapter 2 of 24
Chapter 2: The Collector
Lord Halcourt offers to forgive her family's debt if she marries him, and the Duke tells him she is spoken for until the hundredth night. That night she is shaking with rage and takes the lead, and afterwards he writes in a locked ledger. The Dowager is coming.
Odalys turned her back, and he undid every hook of her gown himself, slowly, down her spine, with his scarred knuckles brushing the skin.
By the time the silk slid off her shoulders, she wasn't shaking from fear.
He turned her around.
She stood in her chemise with the fire at her back, and his eyes went over her.
"Say what you want," he said again, rougher.
"Your hands," she said. "All of them. Everywhere I tell you."
"That's the contract."
"That's tonight."
He picked her up by the waist and set her on the edge of his bed, and stood between her knees.
She felt his hands shake on her thighs.
His hands were shaking on her thighs.
Odalys liked that more than she wanted to.
The fire threw his shadow over her.
"Start at the ankles," she said.
He dropped to his knees without a sound.
His scarred knuckles brushed her right ankle first.
Then his palms closed around it, slow, like he was testing the weight of her.
"Higher," she said.
His hands slid up her calves, open-palmed, and she felt every ridge of scar.
"Tell me where," he said, and his voice was rough as a dragged stone.
"The backs of my knees."
He obeyed.
His thumbs pressed into the soft skin there, and she sucked a breath through her teeth.
"You're shaking," he said.
"So are you."
His hands moved up her thighs.
"Stop," she said.
He stopped.
His eyes came up to hers, grey and burning.
"I didn't say no," she said. "I said stop. There's a difference."
"I know the difference."
"Do you?"
He leaned in.
His breath hit the inside of her knee.
"I've wanted you since the Harvest Ball," he said.
The words landed low in her stomach.
"You told me I danced like a man marching to the gallows," he said.
"You did."
"I spent eighteen months thinking about what else that mouth could say."
"Then earn it."
His fingers tightened on her thighs.
"The inside," she said. "Slow."
One hand slid up while the other held her open.
His thumb traced the hem of her chemise.
"Say it," he said.
She met his eyes.
"Between my legs."
His fingers pushed the silk up.
The air hit her bare cunt and she bit the inside of her cheek.
"Fuck," he said, and the word came out of him like a blow.
"Not yet," she said. "First the inside of my thighs. When I say."
He bent his head and put his teeth to the skin of her inner thigh.
She gasped.
Not gently.
He dragged his mouth up, open, with his tongue behind it, and she grabbed the bedclothes.
"When I say," she repeated, and her voice cracked on the word.
"Then say it."
His thumb found her cunt without waiting.
She arched off the bed.
The sound she made was not a word.
"You're wet," he said, like it was an accusation.
"I know what I am."
"Say what you want."
"Your fingers."
He slid one thick finger inside her without asking again.
Her head went back.
The fire crackled behind them, and the room was already dimmer.
"Another," she said.
Two, stretching her wide enough that she felt every joint and knuckle.
"You've never done this," he said.
It wasn't a question.
"No."
"Good."
He curled his fingers inside her and she nearly screamed.
His thumb found her clit at the same time.
"Slow," Odalys ordered, and her voice shook. "I'll tell you when to go faster."
He obeyed like it cost him.
His jaw was tight and the veins on his neck stood out.
The black lines on his chest had faded where her palm had pressed.
Her hips started moving without her permission.
"Faster," she said.
He drove his fingers into her, hard enough that she heard it.
"Like that," she said. "Fuck, like that."
"Look at you," he said. "You came here to sell and you're dripping down my hand."
"I'm still selling."
"Then tell me what you want."
"Your thumb on my clit. Now."
He pressed his thumb flat and circled hard.
She came with a noise torn out of her, bucking against his hand.
Her thighs clamped around his wrist and she heard him groan.
The room went darker as the fire guttered.
She could still see the outline of him between her knees.
"Night one," she said, panting. "And I haven't put my hands on you."
"Then put them on me."
She sat up on her elbows.
"Your chest first," she said.
He rose off his knees and stood between her legs.
She flattened her palm against his sternum, over where the veins had run.
The skin was hot and smooth.
No lines.
His heart was hammering.
She dragged her hand down, over his ribs, to the waist of his breeches.
"Say it," he said, and his voice was barely steady.
"I want to know what I did to you."
She pressed her palm over the hard line of his cock through the cloth.
He made a sound like a man struck.
His hips bucked into her hand once, helpless, and his head dropped forward.
"Again," he said.
She squeezed through his breeches, learning the shape and heat of him.
He grabbed her wrist, not to move it, just to hold on.
"I could make you finish like this," she said.
"You could."
His breath came in short, ragged bursts.
"Not tonight," he said.
"Why not?"
He bent over her, his forehead nearly touching hers.
"Because I'd rather keep wanting you."
She slid her hand away.
The fire died to embers and the room went fully dark.
He pushed her back against the mattress with one hand on her chest.
Then he climbed over her and pulled the cover up around them both.
His arm came down heavy over her waist.
She lay in the dark with her heart still racing.
His breath slowed against her hair.
He said nothing about the veins.
Neither did she.
At dawn he was already up and standing at the window, in the grey light, with his back to her.
"Night one," he said.
He turned.
His chest was bare and Odalys looked at it for no reason she could name.
The black lines were gone.
She took it for the way a fever breaks.
He opened a thin black book on the sill and wrote a number in it, and his face gave her nothing at all.
"What are you writing?"
"The tally." He shut the book, slid it into a drawer under the window seat and turned a small key. "Clause four. The Duke keeps the tally."
"That clause is the rudest thing I've ever signed."
"You did read it twice."
"Your money is in the vault," he added. "Five thousand crowns. The steward will show you the sack."
She got out of his bed and dressed herself with her hands steadier than she'd expected.
She had a small prayer book in her pocket, and on the last page she pricked a hole with her hairpin.
One.
"Same time tomorrow," she said.
"Moonset," he said. "Don't be late."
She was halfway down the front stairs when she saw the carriage in the courtyard.
It was lacquered black with a gold crest on the door, and the man who stepped out of it had soft hands, heavy rings and a warm smile.
Lord Bertrand Halcourt looked up the steps at her in last night's gown and took a folded writ out of his coat.
"Miss Marenne," he said. "I hear you've found yourself a position."
"A writ of attachment," Lord Halcourt said, and held the folded paper up to the whole courtyard. "On every crown Miss Marenne earns, from this morning until Lady Day."
Two grooms and a scullery maid stopped what they were doing to watch.
"I haven't earned a crown yet," Odalys said.
"Five thousand last night, I'm told." His smile was kind, which was the worst thing about it. "I have friends in every kitchen in this city. They love to talk about a girl who walks in at dusk and walks out at dawn."
Her face went hot, and she kept her chin level.
"The writ is a piece of paper," she said. "Take it up with the Duke."
"I'd rather take it up with you. Come down, Odalys."
She came down three steps, and no further.
"I'll make this simple," he said. He lowered his voice, as if to spare her, and it carried to the stables anyway. "Marry me at Lady Day. I burn every note your father signed. Your brother stays at his school. Your father keeps his rooms. You never sell yourself to a man like that again."
"A man like what?"
"A cursed one. They say his last mistress lasted six nights and left screaming."
"And what are you?"
"Patient," said Lord Halcourt.
"No," Odalys said. "You're forty-six and you want a count's daughter on your arm so the Exchange will stop laughing at your vowels. The answer is no."
The smile stayed exactly where it was.
The door at the top of the steps opened behind her.
Caelan came down in shirtsleeves, with his collar open and a pen still in his hand, and he did not look at her.
He stopped one step above her, close enough that she could feel him there, and looked at Halcourt as a man looks at a stain on a tablecloth.
"The vault is mine, my lord. The writ cannot enter it. Neither can you."
"Your Grace. I came only to make Miss Marenne an honest offer."
"She gave you an honest answer. She is spoken for until the hundredth night."
"Spoken for," Halcourt said. "By the hour?"
"By me."
It rang off the stones of the courtyard.
Halcourt tucked the writ back inside his coat and bowed, very correctly, and nothing at all of that warm face changed.
"Then I shall wait for Lady Day," he said. "I collect in coin or in kind, Your Grace. Your arrangement can only buy her until then."
He climbed into his black carriage.
Odalys stood with her arms folded until it had gone through the gate.
"Spoken for," she said, without turning. "By you."
"A figure of speech."
"It was not."
"No."
She did turn then.
He was looking at her with the same unblinking attention as the night before.
She had no idea what to do with it in daylight.
"You'll live here," he said. "The carriage ride at moonset is a waste of an hour. The west room is yours. The steward will move your things."
"I haven't agreed to that."
"Then agree."
She agreed because the west room had a lock on the inside, and because she had seen the look on the maid's face.
She spent the day in it, with her arms wrapped around her knees, and all day she heard his voice say by me.
At dusk the steward found her in the west room with a sealed letter on a silver tray, and his eyes on the ceiling.
"From Her Grace the Dowager, my lady. She arrives at noon tomorrow."
"What does she want?"
"To see you," said the steward.
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