The Lady Flees Her Lord

by Ann Lethbridge

  “Lucinda!”

  No dreamy-voiced murmur, but a sharp, shocked rumble.

  She looked into his eyes, still hazy with sleep and lust and confusion.

  “Hugo,” she whispered. She drove herself down to the hilt, her back arching with pleasure.

  “Ah, yes,” he moaned. “I thought I was dreaming, love.”

  Love. This time he had said it while awake. Her heart sang, but her body demanded. She rose to its command.

  This time his hands beneath her bottom helped her lift and then pressed her down, pushing his hot flesh deeper inside, until the head reached the mouth of her womb.

  “Yes,” she cried out, not sure she could stand so much pleasure, yet wanting more.

  Together, they increased the rhythm, the slow upward slide until he almost withdrew, the hard, fast, downward rush to mindless delight. It seemed to go on forever, harder, faster, their bodies grinding together, one of his hands caressing each of her breasts in turn, her fingers tweaking his nipples, grazing them with her nails until he too cried out.

  He raised his head to suckle on her breast. An arrow of tension and pleasure and pain shot to her core. She moaned her pleasure.

  “Ah, God,” he cried out. He lifted her clear and dove and rolled her over on her back. “My turn,” he growled.

  She smiled up at him, cupped his cheek in her palm, raised her mouth to his, touched her tongue to his lips, and tasted the depths when he opened for her.

  “Take all of me,” he said and drove home, hard and deep, to the hilt.

  “Yes.”

  His hips pumped in a furious but gentle assault.

  The wire pulling her skyward fought with gravity. She twisted and writhed to take him deeper, seeking the release hovering just out of reach. He slowed the pace, angled his hips until the pleasure grew so great her limbs were numb and her mind as empty as the universe.

  “Now,” he begged. “Come for me.”

  The wire broke at the desperation in his voice, flung her into the void vaguely aware of his cry of fulfillment and the weight of him as she sank into the mattress. Heated by bliss she had thought never to know again, she fell into deep sleep.

  • • •

  Hugo loved watching her sleep. He had lit the candle by the bed for just that purpose. The soft curve of her lips, the way her cheek nestled into his shoulder and her dimpled arm lay along the curve of her waist and hip. Here, in his room, they were one. He reveled in the feel of her here beside him and refused to think about her leaving. In coming to him tonight, she had merely prolonged their parting. Damn him for a selfish bastard.

  He knew the moment she awoke, although she didn’t open her eyes. Wariness tensed her neck, and her breathing hesitated for a second. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  Her delicate eyelids opened. Lashes tipped in gold from the candlelight framed fathomless, mysterious eyes. “We need to talk.”

  “What is there to discuss?” He said it flatly, firmly.

  She rolled on her back, away from him. Good. The further apart they were, the easier it would be. He braced himself to be brutally honest.

  “Why don’t you want me anymore?” She asked it calmly enough, but he heard tears in her voice.

  “You lied to me. I dislike being made to look a fool.”

  She lay in utter silence for several long moments, as if listening for unspoken words. “That is the only reason?” She made it sound trivial.

  “Yes.”

  “You are the liar,” she said coldly. “I hear it in your voice. Let me guess. It was all right to offer to marry a widow you could hide away in the country.” Her voice broke and she swallowed. Her hand went to her collarbone in a painful little gesture that struck like a dagger at his heart. “But now, knowing who I am, you could not do that. You would have to be seen with me. I would make you ashamed.”

  His heart wrenched. He longed to reach out and take her in his arms, kiss away the tears that he knew without looking must tremble on the brink of spilling over. He forced himself to remain still. “The duke made you a very good offer. One I cannot match.”

  “A perfectly cold offer, without mention of love. I deserve more.” The words were fierce and angry. They humbled him to the core of his soul.

  He rolled on his side and cupped her beloved cheek in his palm. “Think about it. Give it some time.”

  She sniffed and subsided into silence. He felt as if he’d flattened something delicate and precious, crushed it beneath the iron hooves of a charger, or ground it beneath a boot heel. He clenched his jaw, determined not to beg forgiveness.

  A small sigh of resignation stirred the air. The divide between them grew to gargantuan proportions. A crevasse too wide and deep to cross and too long to go around. Good, he told himself and ignored the growing ache in his chest.

  “Don’t you love me?”

  The breath left his body in such a rush he felt dizzy. “I believe that two people can be drawn to each other to the point of madness,” he said. “I do not believe in love.” Daren’t believe in it.

  The crevasse widened and deepened. He felt it, even though she did not move a muscle. She was slipping away from him, just as he wanted.

  “What you describe is lust. Love is intangible. The willingness to die so the other might live is the stuff of which love is made.”

  “Melodramatic nonsense,” he mumbled, recalling his resolve of earlier in the day with a pang of guilt. Love was a dangerous and painful emotion when those loved were lost. It had been bad enough with his mother, and his wife and child, but if anything happened to Lucinda it would be ten times worse. Coward.

  “Where are you supposed to be right now?” he asked.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Did you come here from the vicarage? I will drive you back.”

  She rolled over to look at him. He kept his gaze on the folds of blue velvet above his head.

  “I am staying at the Hall. Catherine very kindly loaned me her horse.”

  “Have you no care for your reputation coming here in the middle of the night?”

  “Not one jot.” She sounded almost amused.

  “It is time you returned, before someone misses you.” Time for her to leave before the urge to take her again became too strong. The scent of her and their lovemaking filled every breath he took, and the knowledge that her glorious body reclined only inches away was diverting blood to his groin, making it far too difficult to think. And he needed every morsel of his brain to dodge her questions.

  “So you do not believe in love?”

  That kind of question. “No, I don’t. And even if I did, I’m the wrong man for you. You deserve someone better. Someone who can protect you. The duke saved your life this afternoon.” He allowed himself a bitter smile and pulled his hand away, even while missing the warmth of her skin beneath his fingers. “In fact, he had it all well in hand before I blundered along, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “I have to admit I was mistaken in the duke. Somewhat.”

  “As you are mistaken in me. I am not the man for you.”

  “Are you saying that because I made an error in judgment with Denbigh, I am not capable of knowing my own mind?”

  “Good Lord. You are one of the most capable women I know. There isn’t a woman of the ton I can think of who could make her own way in the world as you have.”

  “Compliments? They mean nothing, Hugo, when they hide the truth. There is something you are not telling me.”

  He wanted to lash out. To tell her to go to hell, to close the door on the world and lick the wounds she inflicted with every word. He feared only the truth would satisfy her. Only her knowing the kind of man he was at heart would send her away.

  “You do not know me.”

  “I know who you are.”

  She sounded so heartbreakingly certain, he didn’t know where he found the courage to continue. His voice thickened in his throat as if it were full of heavy fog. “I’m the kind of man who runs away.
I ran from my father and abandoned my mother, and I ran from Spain. I am a coward.”

  “Everyone says you were a hero.”

  “The real heroes are dead. I, on the other hand, am a man who stands idly by while another saves his woman.”

  “Your woman?” She sat straight up, a curtain of long straight hair falling about her shoulders, framing her face and softening her features, her sumptuous breasts temptingly close to his face. With the sheets tumbled around her hips, she looked like a mermaid rising from the waves.

  An unattainable goddess.

  A highly distracting vision. “You are not listening. I had a crazed notion you had no one who cared about your welfare, that you could live here with me in this moldering pile and be happy. At any moment I might find the bailiffs on the doorstep. You saw the state of the household accounts. Believe me, that is a fraction of what is wrong here. How can I let a woman with your prospects live in such squalor? Surely you must see it is for the best?”

  “So you would give me away to the duke.” She sounded resigned.

  His heart thudded, unpleasantly slow, and a tremble shook him deep inside until he thought he might vibrate apart. He clenched his jaw. “You are not mine to give.” He forced the words out to control the shake in his voice.

  “And your child?”

  Damn her. She knew his every weakness. “She will forget about me inside a fortnight. Tell Vale to buy her a pony.”

  She put a hand on her gently rounded stomach. “I wasn’t talking about Sophia.”

  The bed seemed to slip sideways. “What!” He shook his head to clear his hearing.

  “I’m expecting your child.”

  He threw himself out of the bed, his feet carrying him to the window and back. “No,” he yelled in her face. “It is not possible. Your husband swore you were barren.”

  Eyes huge in a face the color of moonlight, she stared up at him. “He was wrong.” She dragged the sheet up to her chin. “Is it so very bad?”

  “Bad?” he roared. “It couldn’t be worse.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “You are mistaken. Or . . .” He glared at her. “It is your husband’s child and you are trying to pass it off as mine. Tell me. I won’t mind.”

  She shook her head.

  “Goddamn it.” He prowled the room, reached the dressing table. “No,” he yelled at his reflection in the mirror. He smashed his fist into the glass. It shattered into a million pieces, fractured and gleaming with slivers of himself reflected in the shards. “Goddamn it. No.” He wanted to curl into a ball, to weep, to pray to the gods. He would not allow this a second time.

  “Why are you acting like this?” she whispered.

  Hunched up in the middle of Father’s bed, her face as white as the sheet she clutched to her chest, she was staring at him as if he belonged in Bedlam. He did.

  “I told you. I don’t want children. Hate them. Get rid of it.”

  She recoiled. “You can’t mean it.” She shook her head. “You will get used to the idea.” Tears trembled on the edges of her lashes

  He wanted to howl and smash everything in sight. Anything but face this. He swept his hand across the dressing-table top, scattering brushes and cologne and pieces of glass onto the floor with thumps and crashes and infuriating tinkles.

  She scrambled back, pressing against the headboard and glancing wildly around.

  “If you keep this child, you are as good as dead,” he said. “I told you I was married before, didn’t I? I told you about my Spanish wife.”

  She shook her head, her hair whipping across her shoulder. “You said you were married. Nothing more.”

  “I killed her. In nine months’ time you will be dead, too. Who will look after Sophia then?”

  “Stop it,” she cried. “You are frightening me.”

  “Not half as much as you are scaring me. Do you want to die?”

  Dumbly she stared at him, her eyes enormous, her bottom lip grasped tightly by her top teeth, the sheet shivering with the trembles of her body. She lifted her chin.

  Oh, God. What would come out of her mouth now? He steeled himself for bitter recriminations, disgust, hatred.

  “Tell me what happened. Let me decide on the danger.”

  That he hadn’t expected. Yet it would work. He could make it gruesome enough, dark enough, violent enough to frighten the bravest of women, and God knew Lucinda had courage.

  He strode to the bed, still naked, he realized. He perched on one edge, close to her on the pillows. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Where the hell to start?”

  “At the beginning,” she suggested in a dry little voice, a voice on the edge of breaking. But he couldn’t think about that now. Would not let it bother him.

  “I met Juanita at the officers’ mess during the winter. All the boys were sniffing around her skirts. I wanted her the moment I saw her. Most of the Spanish women were fragile little things, but she . . . she was tall, sturdy, a lush armful. And she was alone, in need of protection. Juanita was no fool. She knew the other fellows would take whatever she offered and no strings attached. She was desperate, her family dead or disappeared, no money. At any moment she was going to succumb to an offer of a temporary liaison in exchange for food in her belly. To save her that and to keep her for myself, I offered marriage. Hell, Father had been nagging at me to marry since I left school.”

  A soft touch on his shoulder made him start. He glanced down at her soft white hand on his skin. The tension in his back eased.

  “That was good of you.”

  He sneered. “Oh, yes, very gentlemanly. Let us be honest. I had a strong case of lust.” He ploughed on. “She accepted my offer, and we dragged a priest out of bed in the middle of the night.”

  “How romantic.”

  “I’d offered. I had to make good. I wrote home to tell Father what I’d done. I knew he wanted an English bride, but I didn’t care. He was the one who insisted I join the army. Said I needed toughening up. If I’d figured out what he meant, I never would have married.”

  Her soft stroking ceased for a moment and then picked up its gentle rhythm.

  “I got a terse congratulations and ‘do your duty’ from Father. Mother, on the other hand, babbled with joy. She urged me to get my wife with child as soon as possible and to let her know the moment I did. I thought it odd but was pleased there were no recriminations from her about my choice of a bride from the lower orders and a foreigner to boot. She said she was grateful. I should have guessed then.”

  “Guessed what?”

  “That Mother’s life hung in the balance.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Let me finish. Juanita got pregnant almost right away. She never seemed to worry and carried the child well while we moved from one disgusting billet to another, even sleeping under canvas. Everything seemed perfectly fine. Until it came time for the babe.”

  He shuddered remembering the blood and the screams. “The doctor said the baby was sideways. I had my doubts, memories, overheard snatches of my parents’ fights. I ignored them. We were billeted in some ghastly stable with the horses. Hours it lasted. All day and all the next night. In the end I couldn’t stand it, her screams, her calling me every kind of bastard under the sun and deep inside knowing she was right. It was inhumane—abnormal, one of the camp women said. I left and got drunk. Bloody coward. When I came back, she was dead. Her and the child. I killed them by planting my seed in her belly. Can you not see? I have done the same to you.”

  He turned away from her and curled his body into itself, reliving those horrible hours, the dreadful realization that he should have known why his father insisted he marry the moment he reached his majority. His birth had damaged his mother’s insides and a couple of miscarriages early on had made things worse. Rather than hate himself, his father had blamed Hugo when his mother refused Father her body. “Once I heard Mother yell at my father, ‘All the countesses die in childbirth.’ They did. Don’t you understand? I knew the truth, and still I got he
r pregnant.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I will not kill another woman.”

  He buried his face in the pillow the way he had as a lad to shut out the sound of his mother’s weeping and his father’s curses, once more too full of horrible throat-choking emotion to speak. “Later, I wrote to Father and said I was done. No more children. I was going to break the chain. God. And now this?”

  He shook his head. “I will not have another death on my conscience. Do you know what my father did? Do you have any idea? He said if I wouldn’t give him a son, he would get his spare from Mother. Her letter chased me across Spain. She begged me to take another wife, to give Father hope. By the time the letter reached me, she was dead. Goddamn it. He killed her trying to have another child. She wasn’t cold in the ground before he was looking for a new wife. Do you know what his last letter said? ‘I always knew you took after your mother, but I did not think you were a coward. You are too soft for a Wanstead.’ Well, I may not be a Wanstead in nature, but my seed is just as cursed.”

  “Hush,” she whispered. “I promise you I am not going to die.”

  The stubborn set to her jaw sank him into despair. “I can’t take that chance. I love you too much.”

  Her little gasp halted him. He’d said he loved her. He did. It was a heady feeling and one filled with fear.

  She leaned her cheek against his back and felt her breath stir the air above his shoulder blade. A deep conviction filled his mind. He would not give life to another killer of females. “You must not have this child.”

  Silence. Not outright denial. What would he do if she would not listen to reason?

  Unable to move, he lay there for a long time with her stroking his shoulder, petting his hair, and infusing him with a peace he never thought possible. He drew strength from her spirit, her courage, for he had none left. The hard knot of rage around his heart that had protected him slowly unraveled, leaving him vulnerable. There, deep inside, he discovered something new. Hope. A tiny grain of hope that perhaps with Lucinda life could be different. If only she’d listen.