One Dance with a Duke (Stud Club #1)(80)

Finally, she’d reached a position of equality with her husband. She’d learned how to give him her body without risking her heart.

What a cold, bitter triumph it was.

Spent and trembling, Spencer withdrew from his wife’s body. His knees locked as he lowered her to the floor.

She said, “I thought I was promised finesse.”

Spencer winced. He wasn’t especially proud of that performance. It had been brutish, angry, brief … and goddamned amazing, which somehow made it worse. “Do I owe you an apology?”

“Don’t be absurd.” Her eyes were the pale blue of river ice. “We both enjoyed it.”

He turned aside to straighten his garments, needing to escape her gaze. He’d just enjoyed the most intensely pleasurable sexual experience of his life, with the eager participation of his creative, willing lover. And he felt lower than the carpet fringe.

Shaking out her skirts, she said, “When can I have my money?”

“What?” Had she honestly just asked him for money? As if she were a common whore, lifting her skirts in a darkened alley for a tup against the wall? There was angry but amazing, and then there was … coarse.

“As you’ve just reminded me, we had an agreement when we married. I give you children; you give me security. Those were your words, Spencer. Specifically, you promised me twenty thousand pounds. I’d like to know how soon I can have it. If you refuse to let me see my brother, I’ll help him on my own. I’ll … I’ll …” Her words tumbled together, growing increasingly fraught with emotion. “I’ll do something. Perhaps I can send him back to university, or buy him a commission, or just find some place for him away from Town …”

Spencer put a hand to his temple. Her loyalty to Jack was admirable—and the very reason they’d met—but her protective efforts were doing her brother more harm than good. There was no way in hell he was going to hand over thousands of pounds and let her squander it by proxy in London’s seediest brothels and worse. “The money is held in trust. I can’t just give it to you. It doesn’t work that way.”

“I’m certain you could make it work that way, if you wished. You’re quite free with your chequebook when it suits you.” She cast a glance at the wall they’d so recently buttressed. “I’m holding up my end of the bargain.”

Bile rose in his throat, giving his words an acid tinge. “You’re not with child yet. By that logic, I don’t owe you anything until a son is born.”

“Half,” she said numbly. “I want half in advance. Or there’ll be no son at all.”

“What the devil has come over you? Holding your favors for payment, as if you were a harlot? This conversation is beneath you, Amelia. It’s beneath us both.”

“You’ve driven me to it!” A tear streaked down her face. “Don’t you have the slightest capacity for empathy? Leo was attacked while wandering the same neighborhoods Jack’s frequenting. Jack could so easily have been the one who was killed. I can’t just idly sit by and wait for him to come around. By the time he does, it could be too late. Yes, I would barter my body to save him. I would give my life, if that’s what it took.” Turning away, she buried her face in her hands.

A rough sigh deflated his chest. He closed the distance between them and slid an arm around her shoulders. She flinched, but he held her tight. He might not have possessed a natural talent for this hugging business, but he’d always been a quick study. He stroked a hand down her spine. “Jack doesn’t deserve that kind of devotion.”

“Who truly does?” She ceased struggling and buried her face in his waistcoat, and he folded both arms around her. “But you can’t ask me to stop loving him. It isn’t fair.”

He held her as she cried, trying to come to grips with his own painful conclusion—that he couldn’t ask his wife to stop loving her fool of a brother, any more than he could force her to feel the same for him. He let himself imagine, for a treacherous moment, what it would be like to know that Amelia would do anything for him. Give her last worldly possessions, her body … her life if it came to that. If he were ever so fortunate as to be the recipient of such affection, he damned sure wouldn’t be spurning it to chase idle pleasure in gaming halls.

All he need do was throw some money at Jack, and he’d be in her good graces again. But the whole cycle would just repeat. Sooner or later—most likely sooner—Jack would resurface, having squandered it all, promising to reform if only they’d give him a little more. And Spencer would be forced to refuse, and Amelia would cry …

No amount of reasoning or explanation could change her mind right now. She was too compassionate, too tenderhearted to break the pattern. He had no choice but to be the arrogant, unfeeling villain and do it for her.

“Spencer, please. If you could just talk to—”

“No,” he said firmly. “There will be no discussion, Amelia. My decision is made. I cannot, in good sense or good conscience, give your brother any funds. Now that he’s realized that, I think you’ll find Jack will be the one cutting the ties.”

She cried some more. He would have held her longer, but she pulled away. Instead he just stood there awkwardly, watching her weep. It was a miserable way to pass a quarter hour.