“It’s kind of you to offer, but, no.”
He let his palms slide off her shoulders. “I’ll be at home. You’ll send if the need arises?”
“I will. And thank you for fetching me.” She turned to Merchant when Dev had gone. “He’s in the parlor?”
“One worries, your grace, when the dark humor strikes him so deeply.”
The parlor door was ominously closed. The implications of her having no fear gave her pause. It seemed amazing, and absurd, that she had ever believed him nothing more than a heartless rogue. She opened the door. The room stank heavily of cigar and the fireplace coals were long dead. Cynssyr sat on an armchair pulled up before the fire, close enough that he could flick his ravaged cigars onto the ashes with minimum effort. A bottle of scotch sat unopened on the table beside him. Without turning to look he said, “Forgive me, Anne. I am not in the mood for company.”
She bent down at the fireplace. “I won’t disturb you long.” With practiced hands, she added more coal and restarted the fire. She stayed by the fire, hoping to take off the chill of her walk. Right now he seemed every inch the man she thought she’d married. Arrogant, harsh, intimidating and beautiful beyond description. She pasted a smile on her face. “There, you see?”
His eyes followed her as she rose. Their sad, faraway expression made her think of faded roses and letters written to parents who would grieve forever after. “How went your interview with Mrs. Withers?” he asked.
“Mostly a waste of time, I’m afraid.” Her chest felt tight. She wanted to hold him in her arms and take away his pain, but she could not make herself move. Instead, she said, “Mr. Withers did most of the talking. I dared not ask anything important of her, for with her husband there she would have been forced to lie. Either to me or her husband, and that would not have been fair.”
“Always so kind.”
“He is too old for her, Cynssyr. I can’t imagine why those two would ever have married.”
“Yes, well,” he said in a voice rich with irony.
The silence lingered. Lord help her, she understood his pain and forgave him. “Have you had dinner or supper?”
“You’re wet. Why?”
“It’s raining, and Devon and I had to walk home.”
“Indeed.”
“I’ll fetch you a plate of something from the kitchen.” She rubbed her hands together, whisking away the inevitable bits of coal dust.
He pulled on his cigar, then flicked it into the fire. “Mrs. Jacobs was nearly murdered,” he said softly as she started back to the door.
“Yes. Dev told me. How is she?”
“Clinging to life.”
After a moment, she walked to him and put a hand on his arm. “How did you even know where to look for her?”
“After you left, I was on my way to Brooks. Jacobs intercepted me. He had the demand note with him. Two thousand pounds in return for his wife unharmed. I fetched Dev and Ben, and went to some cesspit tavern near the South Road. They watched the place while I delivered the money. A whore met me. I couldn’t beat the damn information out of her though perhaps I should have, for it took me too long to frighten her into telling me anything useful. Fool woman didn’t know a blessed thing except there was a lady in her room and she was supposed to be paid a pound to show a gentleman upstairs.”
She saw, next to the untouched bottle of scotch, a letter. “Is that the note?”
“Yes.” He snatched it off the table and threw the sheet onto the fire. “For all the good it does. It brings us no closer to Thrale or anyone else.”
“A pity the woman was no help.”
Flames leapt to consume the paper. “An ignorant thing who cared for nothing but my coin. Even offered her own sweet person.” This he said with biting sarcasm. He looked at her from underneath lashes long enough to be the envy of many a woman. “I thought I had him. I really did. We’ve never had our hands on one of his cohorts before. But the woman knew nothing.”
“It is not your fault.” She offered her hand, wishing she could take away the anguish he tried so hard to disguise.
“The responsibility is mine.”
Without question he believed that to be true. She settled onto the sofa, watching her tall, proud husband staring at the ashes of the letter. “How do you bear it?”
“I am a man.” A moment of silence stretched out. “I bear it because I must.” To her surprise, he sat beside her, bending his head to her shoulder as if bowing slowly to the sorrow. “I must,” he repeated. “There is nothing else.”
“You will find him, Cynssyr.” Her hand rested on his head, touching his hair, mahogany that felt like silk against her fingers. For some minutes, they sat in the quiet. Then, he lifted his head.
“You were with Devon,” he said roughly. “You were with Devon and though I trust you without reservation, I cannot bear the notion of you with him.”
“He brought me home, that’s all.”
“Yes, he did.” A spark passed between them, invisible, yet wholly tangible to them both. His mouth came down on hers. Not at all tender, demanding as she buried her fingers in his hair. Roughly, he lifted her onto his lap, bringing her head against his shoulder as his free hand sought to cup her breast.
He made her quiver with longing, a frisson of excitement too intense to survive. Their mouths met again, tongues delving, his hand searching for her, her body offering. After a moment longer, he pulled away, breathing hard. “Why can’t you wear those low-cut things like all the other women of fashion?” he complained with a self-mocking smile. “I want to touch you.” He took her head between his hands, forcing her to look at him. And she did. She met those peridot eyes and saw her own passion reflected there. “Feel what you do to me, damn you.” He sucked in a breath when her hand found the part of him he meant. “Damn you.”
She peered at him from beneath half-closed eyes and dared a great deal. Her pulse raced. “Do you want me to kiss you there?”
“God, yes.” He laughed softly while she worked at the buttons of his trousers. “Right now.” After a moment of her struggling with the buttons of his breeches, he said, “Bugger it. Stand up, Anne.”
She did, and he fumbled at his own trousers only to find himself just as clumsy. “Bugger it again,” he breathed. He pulled hard. Buttons popped loose, and he was free. She started to take him in her hand, but he stopped her. “Later,” he said gruffly pulling her to him. She felt the length of him pressing against her, the iron heat of his desire between them, the taste of his mouth and despair and desperation unleashed. With a groan, he walked her backward until she bumped against a table. He got her onto it, threw up her skirts and then his body was between her legs, his breath hot against her cheek when he surged inside her. The sensation of being filled made her gasp, and she met that first wonderful thrust of his with one of her own. “God, but you are made for this. For me.”
“Cynssyr,” she cried, her body already contracting around him.
“When I saw her, Anne,” he said as he went deep into her, “I kept thinking, my God, it could have been you.” He gasped, almost a sob. “It could have been you.”
“Hush,” she soothed as she accepted the fierce tautness of his body. “Hush.” He took her for some time, silently, fiercely, with single-minded concentration. She moaned as he began to lead her toward oblivion.
“It’s not like this with anyone else,” he said. His strokes continued, long and steady. “I don’t understand why, but it’s true.”
She arched her back and offered what they both needed, “Harder, Ruan.”
He came that much further and ferociously into her. His hands above her shoulders kept her from sliding away from the urgent thrust of his hips. “Hard enough?” he asked, staring down at her with gem-like eyes.
“No.” A pulse of pure sexual desire ripped through her, almost feral. She did not have enough, wasn’t yet where she wanted to be.
“No?” he whispered.
“No.”
So
mething changed. She felt the difference. This was not at all like their lovemaking before. Then, he had been tender or passionate by turns, restrained, always, always consummately in control, always leading her, even with his restraint proving his mastery of her body. Not now. They were equals now. She wasn’t afraid or intimidated. She burned with the same fire that consumed him. He pinned her hands above her head, and she answered his raging passion with a fury of her own.
“We’re going to break the fucking table,” he growled. He picked her up, keeping her legs around his hips and him buried deep in her. Then, they were on the floor. He scraped his teeth along her bared shoulder. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said. “Tell me if I’m hurting you.”
“More,” she gasped. “Please, more.”
He obliged her, and she went spinning out of her mind. “Anne.” Her name seemed to tear from his throat in desperation. “Anne. Sweet Christ, Anne.”
CHAPTER 27
Anne stood alone in the dressing room. She kept a small valise hidden here, inside a trunk, covered over with gowns from Bartley Green. In it she’d packed a few clothes, toiletries and some money. Enough to see her to Cornwall. A precaution against heartbreak taken on the night Cynssyr had made such desperate love to her. The night he’d found Mrs. Jacobs and reached to her for comfort, taking her heart and soul away with him.
She gazed at her reflection in the cheval glass. Staring back at her was the old maid of Bartley Green dressed up to suit the fashion. Ivory tulle over amaranth satin with a Morocco belt of a darker hue above her natural waist didn’t hide the essential truth. Nor did sleeves fashioned from puffs of satin and tulle. Nor pale red flounces and white lace to match her satin slippers. It was the sort of gown one of Cynssyr’s distractions might wear. The truth was she suited neither gown nor husband.
She had herself back in her accustomed place, and her husband in his. Her role was to give him his child, which she would do, and to cause him no embarrassment, which she would also do. All those unsettling feelings he aroused in her were locked away like her valise, to be brought out only if necessary. For now, at least, she was safe from Lord Ruin. He could not destroy her as he had so many other women. She knew how he did it. Unconsciously. Relentlessly. With cruel tenderness. But she was expert at keeping her place; at never wanting more than her due. Reach too high and one got burned. Anne could feel the flames.
Lady Prescott’s townhouse blazed with light. There were thirty to supper, an intimate number. Aldreth escorted her tonight because Cynssyr was going to be late. An appointment, he’d said, after the Sessions let out. She felt safer yet when Devon arrived.
Even without her husband, she merited a place close to the hostess and had the honor of Sir James’s arm on the way to the table. Devon got paired with Miss Fairchild. Camilla’s nervous giggles carried throughout the room. John Martin led in Miss Fanny Cooke, but he was seated far from Anne’s place. Thrale sat on her left, Devon between Miss Fairchild and Mrs. Cooke. Her father, Aldreth, Lucy, Mary and Emily sat near Anne’s end of the table. After supper, when the gentlemen had rejoined the ladies, someone suggested dancing. Once the furniture was moved, two footmen proved themselves able musicians, one on the fiddle, the other on pipes. A young boy kept the beat on a small drum.
Anne never sat down, not even with her sisters for competition. Aldreth partnered her first, then Sir James himself and Devon. Julian Durling braved Cynssyr’s wrath and asked for a dance. He led with authority so that dancing with him was effortless. She didn’t need to think what step was next or what her feet were doing or even much about the music. In consequence, they had a spirited conversation. “You’re an outrageous flirt,” she scolded him. “How is it a man as charming as you hasn’t married?”
He gave her a piquant grin. “It seems I’ve poor judgment about how to find a wife. I’ve scoured the ballrooms and salons of London when I ought to have been attending country dances.”
Anne laughed. “You see the error of your ways.”
“Too late,” he said, smoothly coming to a halt. “Alas, too late, for now I’m a hopeless jade.” He bowed and handed her to her next partner who happened to be the Marquess of Thrale.
Thrale had so far danced exactly three times. Twice with Emily and once with Lucy. This last with Anne made his fourth. He spoke hardly at all of Emily, instead amusing her with a recitation of Lucy’s many perceived faults. Her sister, he told her, was a scatterbrained female who wasn’t safe even sitting on a chair. Midnight found Anne chatting with Lady Prescott while the two footmen took a well-deserved break from their musical duties. She knew the Sessions had let out, for Fenrother and Sather had arrived well over an hour before.
“Bracebridge,” said Lady Prescott, extending a bejeweled hand to be kissed when Dev joined them. “Wherever have you been? It’s bad of you to have disappeared like that. I’ve been waiting these past hours for you to ask me to dance.”
He bowed, his unruly curls falling over his forehead. “If I thought your husband would not have my liver on a plate for the presumption, I would.”
“Ah, how I do miss your father. You’ve his silver tongue and the look of him, too, or would have if you’d not gone and ruined your face. I remember when your nose was as straight as his. You were a handsome man then.”
“I was never handsome, my lady.” He turned to Anne, his eyes serious despite his lighthearted exchange with Lady Prescott. “A moment of your time, duchess?”
“Of course.” Without another word, he led her out of the room. Martin broke off his conversation with Julian Durling as she and Devon passed. Seeing his stare, Anne nodded, then bent her head toward Devon to say, “What is it, Dev?”
He put his mouth near her ear. “Miss Dancy.”
Anne’s heart leapt. “You’ve found her?”
“To be precise, she found me.”
“Is Cynssyr with her?”
“No.” After collecting her cloak, they went to his waiting carriage. Inside, Anne took out her spectacles and put them on her nose. The sudden crispness of her vision startled her. What a relief to be able to see. Devon got in beside her. Without preamble, he said, “She has agreed to talk to you. Only you.”
“I wonder why? I mean, why now?”
Devon shrugged. “As of now, you know as much as I.”
They drove to an Inn near the road to Hampstead Heath, absurdly named the Jolly Duck. Devon took her to a private sitting room on the second floor. A young woman sat on a horsehair sofa, hair as blonde as Anne’s arranged in what appeared to be a fall of natural ringlets. Her face was pretty, very nearly beautiful, with deep brown eyes and a sensitive mouth.
“Miss Dancy?” Anne said. The remains of her supper had not yet been cleared.
“You are the duchess?” she asked in a soft, anxious voice. She did not stand. “Lord Ruin’s wife?”
“Yes, I am.”
The girl peeked nervously at Devon. Anne, recognizing the fear that sank hope to her toes, looked over her shoulder. The look reminded her too much of Polly and Mrs. Featherstone. “He’ll wait in the other room, won’t you, Devon?” He nodded solemnly and went out. Anne took the only other seat, an uncomfortable and un-upholstered wooden chair. “My goodness, you’re just a child.”
“Nineteen, duchess.” A look of pain flashed over her face. “Last week. Thank you for coming.”
“Thank you for seeing me,” Anne said.
She clasped her hands over her heart. “I agreed because you’re his wife,” she whispered. “Lord Ruin’s.” For a moment, Anne thought the poor girl must be in love with Cynssyr. A pretty girl like her would have tempted him. Miss Dancy quickly dispelled that notion, however. “I knew you would understand when I heard why you are married to him.”
“Why is that, Miss Dancy?”
She lifted clear brown eyes to Anne’s face. “He got caught.”
“It wasn’t—” Anne meant to say it wasn’t like that, but the need to keep Miss Dancy talking stopped her. Besides, she knew
at least something of what the girl meant for she remembered her feelings when Aldreth had made her understand what had happened at Corth Abbey. What must it have been like for Miss Dancy who had suffered immeasurably worse from men without a scrap of humanity or decency? Cynssyr, at least, hadn’t acted from hatred or anger, and afterward, he’d done what honor demanded. More, he’d made her welcome in his home, his life even, and he needn’t have.
“I knew you would understand.”
She reached for Miss Dancy’s hand but found the gesture rebuffed. “Will you tell me what happened?”
“There were three of them.” Only occasionally did she stop. The details she related differed little from those Anne had already heard from Mrs. Featherstone or Polly Withers. Despite a clear and almost emotionless recitation, the brown eyes told a different story. Anguish leapt from them, a deep and abiding despair and, at certain points, outright fear.
“You know who did it, don’t you?” Anne said.
She nodded.
“Who?” Anne tried again to take one of her hands but the girl kept her fists tightly clenched. “Who was it? My husband will see that he pays, whoever it was.”
Miss Dancy’s pretty mouth trembled. “The Marquess of Thrale.”
“You actually saw him?”
“He was careful not to let me see his face.”
“Then how do you know it was him?”
“I heard his name. They talked about him when he left the room. And I have this.” Slowly, she opened her fist. A gold button lay on her outstretched hand, still attached to a bit of blue fabric.
Anne took it and examined the engraving. “Talbot passant,” she murmured. Part of the coat of arms of the Marquess of Thrale. She couldn’t believe Thrale capable of such an abomination. Yet the button, ripped from its anchor during a moment of violence, gave silent testimony to the man’s damnation.
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