by Elisa Braden
“But why? If you thought we were better off apart, what sense does it make to suddenly decide—”
“I realized you need me to keep you safe. You’ve had trouble controlling your impulses since you were a girl. I assumed that behavior was confined to our … connection. Recently, I realized it is simply part of your character.”
Her mouth gaped. “Unbelievable.” She could scarcely credit his arrogance. “This betrothal has been about managing me like an unruly pet?”
Heavy brows crashed into a V. “No. That’s not—blast. I am not good with … You take unacceptable risks. Do rash things without thinking about the conseq—”
“What sort of fool would I be to marry a man who thinks I must be manipulated into self-preservation?”
“Bloody hell. Do not break the engag—”
“The sort too daft to bother with, I daresay.”
“Stop this, Annabelle. You agreed.”
“And you lied.” Those lies had shattered her heart so badly she still felt the abyss left in its place. Nothing filled it. Not even the work she loved. She’d thought marrying Robert her best chance to regain some of what she’d lost. But he did not love her—he pitied her. He always had.
At the moment, he looked frustrated. “I had good reasons.”
“No. You had your reasons. And I am calling a halt to this disastrous union for my reasons. I want you to leave.”
“Annabelle.”
“Oh, is that rash? As a weak-minded girl incapable of managing her impulses, it is a wonder I do not relieve myself on the carpets like an untrained hound.” She shoved away from the desk then pointed at the door. “Leave. Or I shall ask Ned to assist you out to the street.”
He did not leave. He did not even step toward the door. No, in typical Robert fashion, he instead crowded closer. “You agreed to marry me,” he gritted.
Heavens, he was close now. Her hip brushed the desk as she tried to gain some breathing room. “That was before realizing I am an ill-behaved ninnyhammer whose judgment should always be questioned.” Reaching back to steady her balance, her hand slid on a sheet of paper. She watched in horror as the page—her letter to a phantom Robert—flew past the actual Robert, who watched it flutter past his boot with frowning curiosity.
She had scant seconds in which to panic. To run through her options. To imagine the dreadful scenario in which he retrieved the page from behind his boot—and read it.
Only one distraction was certain to make him forget the page existed.
Decision made, she gripped his coat’s collar, yanked his head down, and kissed the all-too-real Robert’s all-too-tempting mouth.
His cane clattered to the floor. His groan hummed against her lips. Powerful arms cinched around her like greedy ropes. Soon, her backside slid up. Up onto the desk, which scraped across the wood floor as Robert’s urgency moved him into her.
God, even when she was furious with him, he tasted divine. A bit salty, a bit like coffee, and a lot like a man she wanted to devour. He felt enormous and powerful surrounding her. Yet she had hold of him. Her hands cradled his jaw. Her lips caressed his. Her tongue slid and hid until he invaded where she wanted him most.
Her desire frightened her. But it was the same heady sensation as standing upon a cliff above the ocean—all that force pounding through one’s body, all that majestic beauty beckoning with power. She felt it. And he felt it.
She’d felt it yesterday when she’d trimmed his hair. It moved between them like a tide.
Now, his hands were roamers. Squeezing and tugging.
His tongue was an explorer. Pulsing and playing.
His thighs were seekers. Delving and spreading.
One of those thighs wedged high between hers. Pressed hard. Shocked a moan from her throat. The pleasure was ferociously eager as though it had waited years for an invitation. It spiraled out in sparkling waves from where he pressed and slid.
Nothing was solid. Except him. Robert. She tore at his collar. Distantly, she heard threads tear. But it didn’t matter. Nothing else existed except his mouth and hers. His thighs and hers. His desire and hers.
Something squeezed her left bosom a breath before indescribably rich sensations burst from its center. She wanted to see. She wanted to keep kissing him, but equally, she wanted to see what he was doing.
Tugging and clawing at his shoulders, she pushed back to glance down.
His hand. Big, strong, warm.
Her breast. Bare, swollen, ripe.
“Damn and blast,” he panted, his chest heaving. “Bloody siren.”
His eyes were blue flames. They were riveted upon her breast, which he stroked and teased. His thumb danced over the hard, red tip with obsessive repetition. Each pass wound her tighter.
“You drive me mad,” he growled. His cheeks were flushed, his eyes mirror-bright, his wondrous lips swollen. “Need a taste.”
He kissed her shoulder first, having apparently bared it along with her bosom. Sliding damp lips to her throat, he then tickled his way down across the slope of her breast. There, bold as can be, his thumb moved aside in favor of his mouth. And his mouth claimed her nipple with breathtaking force.
Her entire body seized. Keened. Lost what was left of her sanity in an explosion so sudden and ferocious, she had to bury her mouth against his neckcloth to stifle her screams. The pleasure pulsed in wave after wave. And, like the ocean, it rocked her to and fro until she tumbled and lost her hold on the ground.
But he held her, his arms strong as ropes, his thighs hard as stone. His mouth explored her throat and eased her bodice from her other shoulder, which gave him access to her other breast.
Her body loved everything. His hands. His lips. His breath and the coolness of her nipple after he’d suckled it. A part of her was satisfied with what they’d already done, and like a kitten in a warm pool of sunlight, she wanted to stretch out and laze.
But he was not finished.
No, he seemed to have something to prove to her. As soon as both her breasts were exposed, he set to work like a man possessed. His mouth claimed one nipple. His thumb reclaimed the other.
Her head fell back on her neck as the pleasure started up again, slower this time, but with more urgent purpose.
His teeth scraped and nibbled. His hand traveled to her knee. Yanked at her skirts. Slid to her inner thigh, where she was soaked and soft. Firm fingers found a spot that only her own fingers had ever explored. The intimate touch gave her a start, but within seconds, she was writhing for him to deepen the contact.
His mouth was at her ear, now, his other hand testing her nipple’s tenderness with a gentle, rolling pinch. “Say you’re mine, love.” His growl rippled against her ear as his finger circled and slid between her folds. “Say you’ll be my wife.”
Her heart pounded. She couldn’t catch her breath. What was he doing to her? “Robert?”
“Say yes, and I’ll make you come again.” He didn’t sound like himself. He sounded growly and hoarse. Rough.
It made her want him more.
“Oh, God. Robert.” His name was one long moan. She hooked an ankle behind his good leg. “I need you.”
“Damned right, you do.”
His finger slid through her opening and snugged deep into her sheath. The fit was tight and foreign, but the relief of having something fill the aching emptiness was almost as good as the pleasure she’d experienced earlier. Almost.
“Feel that, Bumblebee?”
She grunted and dug her fingers into his shoulders.
“You can have more. Just say yes.”
“I want you so much,” she panted.
“Say it.” His finger surged deeper. His other fingers plucked and pressed her nipple until it felt afire. “Or shall I leave you like this? Starving for a meal you’ll never have.”
“No, please.”
“Marry me, Annabelle. Be my wife.”
The tension was no longer an ocean. It wa
s pure fire. Her skin prickled. Her nipple burned. Her sheath clenched and wept around his finger. Her hips rolled in an attempt to force even greater pressure from his hand.
She couldn’t remember how this had begun. She scarcely recalled the word he wanted her to repeat. Or why it seemed so important to him.
Everything was too bright. Even the air felt like velvet, weighty and soft.
She groaned.
“Give me your promise. Say yes.”
“Good heavens.”
“Say, ‘Robert, I will marry you.’”
“Oh, God. Your hands feel soooo good.”
“Go on, Bumblebee. Repeat the words.”
“I can’t … I can’t …”
The hand between her thighs jerked as he buried his face in her neck and gave a long, deep growl. “Yes. You will.”
His finger slid impossibly deep even as his thumb pulsed against her most pleasurable spot and his other hand squeezed her nipple with a firmness he hadn’t used before. He drew the nipple out, lengthened it before engulfing it in the heat of his mouth. With brutal determination, Robert worked the pleasure points of her body until she was mindless.
Begging.
Chanting his name.
Exploding in shameless, luminous ecstasy.
She was buoyant as sunlight. Floating like a cloud across soaring peaks.
When she finally descended to the ground, Robert was there. If she hadn’t been so befuddled by her own climax, she might have been prepared for what she saw.
He loomed above her, his face shadowed, his eyes gone black. His gaze was riveted to her bare breasts.
Faintly embarrassed now that her lust had eased, she started to tug the lilac silk and the cups of her stays back into place.
He stopped her. Met her eyes. “Let me look at what’s mine.”
Both her heart and her eyelids fluttered. He sounded beastly, as if he’d do violence to anyone who stood between them.
“Robert,” she began softly.
“I can wait to take you,” he rasped. “But let me look.”
She nodded.
He looked. Every inch his gaze touched felt tingly and ripe. “You will marry me,” he murmured before finally stroking the swells of her breasts with his knuckles and putting her bodice to rights. “You must.”
“Only a blackguard makes such demands of a woman when she is …” Her eyes traced the beloved lines of his face, the jaw and brows, the lips and freshly trimmed hair, so dark and thick. “Do not use my weakness against me,” she whispered.
“I will do whatever it takes to keep you … safe.”
Was it her imagination, or had he hesitated before the last word? Dash it all, it didn’t matter. A husband should respect his wife, not pity her. Did she want a lifetime of this? Did she want a man who looked on her as a charming pet best suited to confined spaces and dull cutlery?
Did she want Robert?
Oh, heavens. Yes, she wanted him. But no, she didn’t want his pity.
“I’ve survived well enough these last seven years.” She managed the lie with aplomb, though her voice was thin. “I suspect I’ll do the same once you’ve remembered I’m not worth the trouble.”
He stroked her cheek with his knuckles the same way he’d caressed her bosom moments earlier. “There’s the problem, Bumblebee,” he said. “To me, you were always worth the trouble.”
*~*~*
CHAPTER TEN
“Most expected I would object to Mr. Aimes’s portrayal of me as a dragon, but I fail to see the insult. On the contrary, I suspect the hand that drew me as a fearsome, fire-breathing creature knows me rather well.”
—The Dowager Marchioness of Wallingham in a letter to the Marquis of Mortlock on the topics of amusing sketches, societal hypocrisies, and unusual talents.
*~*~*
Dearest Robert,
I made Major Colby laugh today. Fancy that. We met in the village, and I showed him one of my sketches. He laughed.
I think I may be getting good at this.
Ever yours,
Annabelle
—Letter to Robert Conrad dated November 5, 1812
*~*~*
Two days later, when Annabelle entered the park for a ride with Jane, she was still fuming. Robert had followed her yesterday and the day before that, tracking her across Mayfair like a hound chasing a fox. He’d left her no opportunity to return to Mr. Green’s offices unobserved, so she’d sent her last few sketches through a messenger.
“I do wish you hadn’t used me as an excuse to delay marrying Robert,” Jane grumbled, shivering atop a white mare. She wore a fine riding habit of warm blue wool—similar to Annabelle’s, though Annabelle’s was brown—but the weather this spring had been abnormally cold. May felt like March, dark and damp. Heavy gray light glinted off of Jane’s spectacles. “Cutting the season short seems a splendid idea.”
Annabelle hadn’t yet told Jane or Papa about breaking the engagement. She wasn’t certain why—probably her daft heart hoping Robert would make a grand gesture, such as sweeping into a ballroom, dropping to one knee, and declaring his eternal love and veneration.
Silly daydream. Dropping to one knee would be awkward for a man with a cane.
Annabelle sighed and answered her sister. “You must make an effort, Jane.”
“I have.”
“No. Dancing is an effort. Smiling is an effort. Speaking with someone of the male persuasion is an effort—”
“I spoke with Ned and Papa only this morning.”
“Whereas reading behind Lady Colchester’s topiary whilst eligible prospects search for dance partners constitutes the opposite of effort.”
“I beg to differ.” Jane sniffed. “It requires ingenuity to locate the perfect reading spot. Potted palms and topiaries are not as plentiful as I would like.”
“You cannot marry a potted palm.”
“Even a dashing one? Lady Colchester’s are rather handsome.”
“Jane.”
Her sister’s lips tightened. “I know, Annabelle. Perhaps you think me daft as well as plain—”
“I think you neither, ninny.”
“—but I understand my duty well enough.” Her voice grew quiet. “If it were merely a question of effort, the task would have been done last season.”
Sadness and anger squeezed Annabelle’s heart. She glanced to her sister—her charming, amusing, intelligent sister—and wished with all her might that Jane could be cured of her shyness. Then, others might see what she saw: a young woman of uncommon worth and wit. Objectively, Jane might be considered plain, yes. Her spectacles made her eyes appear bigger than they were, distorting her face’s proportionality. Her nose, like Annabelle’s, was round rather than refined. Her skin was pale, given to flushing red at the slightest provocation. Her brown hair refused to curl. And she was a bit plump.
Yet, Annabelle had never seen her sister as plain. She’d seen her as what she was—beautiful. If only the rest of the world were not so blind. If only gentlemen preferred charm above comeliness.
If only wanting and having were the same.
“In any event,” Jane continued, nudging her spectacles with a gloved finger. “You have more urgent matters to consider than my wallflower status. Have you heard from your dreadful publisher?”
Annabelle shook her head and directed her mount closer to Jane’s. “Not for over a week.”
If she didn’t know better, she would assume Mr. Green was avoiding her. But he had published her revised sketch of Lady Victoria and Atherbourne. Since then, she’d sent him several new caricatures with different subjects, but hadn’t received so much as a note in response. Of course, she’d had no opportunity to venture to Catherine Street, either.
Because she had a hound upon her heels every time she left Berne House.
Jane glanced behind them and raised a brow at Annabelle. “Is it customary for one’s intended husband to follow one about with
such … vigilance?”
Annabelle simply glared ahead. She would ignore him. She would.
“What, precisely, is his purpose?”
“I have no earthly idea.”
“Does he think you will cry off?”
“Let us change the subject.”
Jane frowned at her. “It is curious, Annabelle.”
Not as curious as Jane supposed.
“I never knew Robert to show such intensity,” Jane continued. “More a steady sort, I thought, like a great block of stone. And just that expressive.” She chuckled wryly then resumed her musing tone. “Though, I do recall him being quite protective toward you.” She nibbled her lip. “That time you followed him whilst he and John were hunting. When you wandered between his shot and the ducks. My, he was incensed, wasn’t he?”
“Jane.”
“Or, the time you rode Papa’s stallion to catch Robert before he departed for Eton. He was furious then, too. So were John and Papa, to be fair. You might have broken your neck. That horse had a devilish temper. He threw Papa every other ride.”
“Let us speak of something else.”
“Come to think of it, Robert has always been rather intense where you are concerned.” Jane eyed her with speculation. “Interesting.”
As usual, Jane’s insightful nature drew her too close to the bone. Annabelle would have to give her answers, or she would simply continue digging. And, as much as she loved her sister, she would not have her drilling for water where there was only blood and pain to be found.
“I ruined his life, Jane.” She kept her eyes upon the path before them. A sharp wind came to bite her skin.
“But, you were a child then. Genie’s age. It was an accident. Surely he’s forgiven you. Else, why make you his wife?”
She glanced at her sister, who seemed genuinely perplexed. She had no further answers to offer, so she held her silence.
After a while, Jane said gently, “You never speak of that day.”
Because she could not bear to touch it. To remember.
“John said you and Robert quarreled.”
