She was lost. Helpless. This was not just pleasure. It was not just release. It was all-encompassing. It was as if she had found herself, here and now, with his body planted over hers, his rigid cock inside her.
As the shudders of pleasure wracked through her, he stiffened and withdrew, gripping his cock as he spent all over her skin. He painted her belly, her abdomen, and even her breasts with streaks of his seed. Groaning and rolling away from her, he fell onto his back, his breath emerging in heavy pants.
Heart hammering, she lay alongside him, reluctant to move. Reluctant to wash the traces of him away from her skin.
“You should never have come here tonight,” he said again into the silence.
She stared at the ceiling, her fingers trailing through the evidence of their latest sin, rubbing it into her skin. “No,” she agreed. “I should not have.”
But she had, and they had.
And nothing would ever be the same.
Chapter Seventeen
Eight years earlier
Two days after he had watched her slip away from him beneath the full moon, Clay was waiting for Ara again. Those bloody days had stretched into an eternity. Because he did not want to risk their discovery, he had been forced to temper his need for her, which only seemed to grow with each hour he was not at her side.
He had punished his body by running until his lungs ached. He had sparred with Leo and bloodied his knuckles and bruised his jaw. He had performed every exercise he knew until his muscles shook, until he was covered in sweat. Until his heart threatened to pound straight through his chest. But using his body as a weapon to fight his tension had failed.
In between attempts to work the nerves from his body, he had applied for and acquired a marriage license. He had also spent a good portion of his time with pen and paper at hand, planning. He had funds at his disposal: meager, but enough for several months at least.
After they were wed, he would seek employment at the Home Office. His father had wished to settle Marchmont on him, a property that wasn’t part of the entail. Though his pride had forced him to decline Marchmont previously, he would accept it for Ara. It would not be as fine as Brixton Hall or Kingswood Manor, but it would suffice, and he would do anything for her.
He was going to become a husband. Today. He was going to be Ara’s husband. He grinned into the night as he waited, knowing he was an hour ahead of their appointed meeting time. He had been unable to remain at Brixton Hall a moment longer, knowing the rest of his life awaited him. She had his heart. Now and forever.
She was his fate.
The sudden, soft crunch of a footfall behind him alerted him he wasn’t alone.
Before he could react, violent pain slammed through his skull, accompanied by the sickening sound of something heavy and hard connecting with his flesh. A thousand tiny stars swirled before him.
Bloody hell, was he being robbed? What in the hell? Who in the hell?
He reached out, his mind swimming with agony and confusion. He was blinded, off-kilter. He tried to grope for his attacker. Met with empty air. Another swing of the weapon hissed through the air, landing on his already battered head. He raised his arms, trying to deflect the blows that kept coming. But he was slow, his body sluggish and weak from the grueling pace he had set for himself. From shock and surprise and the effect of the blows he’d suffered.
Another.
He fell to his knees.
Another.
The world went black. He pitched forward into nothing, and his last thought was of Ara. He had to protect her. He had to keep her safe. But the blackness called, and the anguish was a tide, pulling him under.
Today was the day. The first day in the rest of her life. The best day. No, scratch that. It was the beginning of the best of her days.
She was going to be a wife.
Clay’s wife.
Mrs. Clayton Ludlow.
Ara’s hands shook as she retrieved her small valise from its hiding place beneath her bed. Small enough to carry. Large enough to contain a few of her most precious possessions: her journal, a simple gown, undergarments, two pairs of stockings, and Volume II of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Poems, the match to the volume she’d given Clay.
She was early, she knew. Clay had instructed her to meet him at dawn, which would not yet arrive for another hour. But in the dark stillness of Kingswood Hall, so much change about to unfurl, she could not sleep.
Energy quaked inside her like a spring blossom prepared to burst forth and bloom. In the time since they had parted, she had done her best not to show a hint of the tumult rioting inside her—the sheer, unadulterated joy. As she breakfasted alongside her mother and father, she wondered if they noticed a difference in her.
She wondered if her smiles were too bright, too wide, if she seemed too eager, too carefree. Too alive. She feared they could sense the love burning inside her, filling her, overwhelming her. Transforming her. Changing her from Araminta, proper and well-behaved, dutiful daughter, into Ara.
Ara was the woman who found love like a wild rose thriving amidst weeds and plucked it to make her own. Ara was brave and bold. She was the one who left Kingswood Hall in the night and wrapped herself in the arms of her lover. She was the one who dared.
And Ara was loved. She was going to make a happier life for herself than her mother and her sister had found. One of her own choosing. One of her own making. She did not need a title or wealth. All she needed was Clay and his large, reassuring body, his knowing hands, his gentle strength, his tenderness. His teasing.
His kisses.
His love.
How she adored his mouth. His fingers. His dark hair, the scruff of his beard, the scuff on his boots. He was going to be hers. Hers to touch and love, though it still seemed an impossible fantasy as she made one more cursory check of the items she had stowed inside her valise.
But it was true.
She was going to be a wife.
Clay’s wife.
Mrs. Clayton Ludlow.
No matter how many times the thoughts rained through her mind, she could not seem to imagine the reality of it. The bliss of being free to be with the man she loved. Of no longer having to hide in forests and hunting cabins, living for the night and the darkest hour when no one would discover what she was doing or where she was going.
She sat down on the edge of her bed, valise at her side, and waited.
He woke to his hands bound. To the sting of a cold metal blade on his cheek. To the lash of something tight around his chest and waist. To the scent of stale sweat and gin and old boots.
To a warning.
“You will leave Lady Araminta alone.”
The voice was gruff. Nasally. Unfamiliar.
Pain swam through Clay, nausea roiling in his gut as he slowly became aware of his body once more. His eyes blinked open. The world was blurry and dark. A shadowed face loomed over his. Something cold and wet hit him in the cheek.
Spittle?
Bloody hell, where was he? What had happened?
“Ara,” her name was the first word on his lips, a cry into the night. “Where is she?”
“She is not here,” the stranger clipped, digging the blade deeper into Clay’s skin.
Fuck, it hurt. The pain of his head met and swam together with the pain in his cheek. A fresh roil of nausea rolled through him. He choked back the bile. Swallowed it down. He had to be strong. For Ara.
Everything for Ara. Always.
But the blade pressed deeper. He was being cut apart. Flayed. Laid open. A warmth slid down his face, dripping, dripping. Wetness coated his neck. The knife sliced deeper.
“There now, not so pretty anymore are you?” the voice asked.
He blinked, tried to see the face of his assailant. Nothing made sense. His mind was jumbled. All he could think of was Ara. She was to meet him here. They were to be married. What had happened to her? Where was she? Had she come?
“By God if you have harmed her, I will tear you limb
from limb,” he managed, though the words were weak. The blows he had taken to the head had made the world seem like it was distorted. Everything hurt. He hurt.
His face. His head. His back. Why the hell couldn’t he move? He struggled, trying to free his arms, to defend himself. Realization sank through the murk. He was bound. He was helpless. All the strength he had honed, all the ways in which he had built his body so it would never fail him, were useless to him now. With a few blows to the head, he had been felled.
The blade sank deeper. Slowly, slowly, deeper, stroking downward. And the pain was fierce and his blood ran, hot and sticky and wet, down his throat, soaking into his coat.
“Won’t be so easy to charm the ladies after this, Duke’s Bastard. You’ll be marked forever now.”
He tried to speak again. “Wh-where is she?”
“She is where she belongs, you son of a whore,” his attacker said. “She’s safe in her bed at Kingswood Hall, regretting the day she ever spoke your name. You will leave her alone from this moment forward.”
“No,” he denied even as the man’s knife cut deeper into his flesh. He would not believe—could not believe—Ara would do this to him. To them. She loved him. He loved her. They were meant for each other.
“A letter from the lady.” The man tucked it rudely into his coat. “Read it at your leisure, Your Grace.”
He did not miss the scorn in his assailant’s voice, even as the blade continued its slow and steady path of destruction.
“Cannot be,” he muttered, though half his face felt as if it were on fire. The pain was blinding and numbing and hot all at once.
“Your blood for the blood you spilled,” the man said as he finished drawing the knife down Clay’s face. “The earl considers the debt paid now. You will never speak to Lady Araminta or look upon her again.”
“I…no.” It was all that would emerge. He was losing blood. Growing dizzy. The pain sank its fangs so deep into his belly it gave a violent heave. He was going to vomit. To cast up his accounts.
“Believe it. The lady confessed all to her father. She has realized the error of her ways, and she wants nothing more to do with you. Read her letter. She will not be coming to meet you, Duke’s Bastard. Not today. Not ever.”
No.
Not Ara.
He could not believe her capable of such treachery.
She was going to become his wife. Today. The license was in his pocket.
The blade reached his jaw, slicing deep. So deep. So much pain. He would never be the same, and he knew it all the way to his bones. He would be disfigured. Forever changed.
But who else would have known? How else would he have been found here? How would the earl know? Nothing made sense. And the sense it did make was more horrible than the knife cutting his flesh, making him scream.
Making him bleed.
The world turned black again, and no matter how hard he tried to fight it, he couldn’t keep himself from succumbing to the abyss.
Ara arrived at the designated meeting place with one quarter hour to spare. The early morning air was biting, but she scarcely felt the cold. Her body vibrated with expectation. She clenched her valise and exhaled a breath, grateful she had not been discovered. They had not been thwarted, and nothing and no one could stop them.
Now that she had reached her destination, a sweet sense of peace settled over her. The rightness of it all sank into her bones, becoming a part of her. It was as if she had waited her entire life for this moment. For this man.
Within hours, they would have their freedom. Within hours, they would be wed, and they would have the rest of their lives to learn and love each other. To grow together. To find their own happiness.
Her heart gave a pang as she waited, eyes searching for a beloved, tall figure emerging from the mists.
“Mrs. Clayton Ludlow,” she whispered to herself with a small, satisfied smile.
When he came to next, he was on his back. His body felt as if it had been decimated by a locomotive. Head, face, arms, legs—everything throbbed and ached. Holy hell, his teeth hurt. His mouth tasted of blood. His mouth struggled to form words, but searing pain shot through his cheek to his jaw, burrowing itself inside him with such ferocity he almost cast up his accounts.
“Christ on the cross, is that you, brother?”
Clay blinked. His vision swirled. The sky was bright. Too bright. Everything hurt. Where was he? And how? And why? Three Leos hovered over him. All of them appeared concerned, which was unusual for Leo, who made an art of disillusionment and detachment.
“L…” he attempted to say his brother’s name and failed. His mouth failed him. Or his face. Or his mind.
He couldn’t be sure.
“Jesus, don’t try to talk,” Leo said, dropping to his knees. “Clay, don’t close your eyes. Can you hear me?”
Tired. So tired. Clay’s eyes didn’t want to stay open. They were heavy. Filled with the weight of a thousand stones. He hurt. Everything hurt. He had lost Ara. There was a letter in his coat. From her. A goodbye.
He couldn’t bear it.
“How did you come to be here?”
“Where?” he managed to croak.
“Brixton Hall,” his brother clipped.
Clay opened his eyes long enough to see Leo’s face swimming before him. Worried.
Leo never worried. Leo was Leo. Cold and arrogant and cynical, detached as a grave robber. How could this be right? How could any of this be right?
“Fuck, Clay, your face is…” Leo’s words trailed off, and then he touched Clay’s cheek gently. “Someone cut you badly, brother.”
The pain was so intense he couldn’t control himself. His body twisted on the ground where he had been left—somewhere on the outskirts of Brixton Manor, but Lord knew how—and he retched.
“Jesus, what happened to you?” his brother demanded.
When the heaves subsided, he spat into the dirt. Dark-red blood stained the ground. “Robbed. I was robbed.”
And he had been.
In the truest sense of the word. His vision narrowed as if he had entered a dark tunnel. Or a chamber of hell.
Then, he passed out once more.
Hours.
That was how much time had passed since she had arrived in the early morning’s ethereal glow and now. Ara hadn’t a timepiece, but she guessed by the position of the sun, the pain in her feet and back, and the crushing, bitter weight lying heavy on her heart, that it was at least noon.
Fears, dark and painful, threatened to consume her. They swirled through her mind, resounding, mocking, and bitter.
He isn’t coming for me.
He has changed his mind.
He does not love me.
As the sun had begun to rise and he initially failed to arrive, she had contented herself with a waterfall of reasons why he had been delayed. Perhaps he overslept, she reasoned. Perhaps he had forgotten. Mayhap his horse had gone lame. But time had lolled slowly on, the sun ticking its way across an overcast sky.
Her naïveté continued to provide her with a fountain of hope for some time. Had she gotten the day wrong? Maybe he had told her three days instead of two. Was it possible she was a day early? What if he had been robbed? Thrown from his mount? What if he had fallen and struck his head on a rock, and he was bleeding and in need of her assistance?
As time stumbled on, her confusion melded into worry. Valise still in hand, she had trekked about as much of the dense undergrowth as she could manage, bogged down by her case and her travel skirts, searching for his fallen form. Her search had turned up not a sign of him, and, fearing he would arrive at their appointed place and she would not be waiting, she returned, solemn.
And waited.
Waited some more.
Her feet began to throb. She paced until her left boot wore a blister in her heel. She stood until twinges in her back and the pain in her feet led her to settle her bottom upon her valise. More time passed. Her chin fell into her hand, and in this miserable f
ashion she passed at least another hour.
All the while, her mind turned into a tempest. Excuses and worry and fear faded. In their place, came realization. Sobering, numbing realization.
Clay had jilted her.
He did not want to marry her.
Indeed, perhaps he had never intended to wed her at all. Or perhaps in the last two days, while she had been dreaming of becoming his wife, he had changed his mind. Or mayhap her wickedness at their last meeting had disgusted him. Maybe he regretted making love to her.
She could only guess at his reasons, for he was not here to ask.
And he was not coming.
Ara finally admitted it to herself after a few more hours had passed, and she was thirsty and hungry and so very tired. At first, all she knew was a great, billowing swell of numbness. But all too quickly, the pain followed.
The horrible, agonizing pain as realization turned into undeniable fact.
He isn’t coming for me.
He has changed his mind.
He does not love me.
She was not going to marry Clayton Ludlow today. She had a packed valise, a heart filled with dreams, and nowhere to take them. She had begun the morning in secret smiles and tentative happiness, but the Ara who had awoke in the night, so eager to become Clay’s wife that she could not sleep, did not resemble the Ara who stood alone with her valise in the waning hours of the afternoon.
Though she tried to contain them, the sobs inevitably came. She did not know how long she sat on her valise alongside the road, crying into her skirts. When a familiar carriage ambled into view with her father’s crest emblazoned on the side, she did not bother to run. Nor did she stop her tears from flowing.
The carriage halted alongside her. She did not even protest when her mother escorted her inside. As the carriage rattled back to Kingswood Hall, she closed her eyes tightly, refusing to speak.
He was never going to come for you taunted the rolling wheels.
Nobody's Duke (League of Dukes Book 1) Page 20
