by Jilian Rouge
Turning her head to look at him bravely, she answered, “I thought I could make you stay.”
“With the price of your innocence? Do you know what this would mean?” he asked, now looking more distraught than he did when he first arrived in the meadow.
Sitting up, Rue angrily set her clothing to rights, and haughtily replied, “It doesn’t mean a damned thing unless you tell anyone different.” Refusing to look at him, she hastily stood up, and almost wobbled at the effort. She would not cry, she promised herself, even if her heart was breaking to a million pieces.
“Be reasonable,” he cried, while getting to his feet and tucking himself back into his trousers. “You can’t have thought you could try to trap me into marriage now. Not when I have—”
“Fine! You can go on to London and see to your business there. I don’t need you to marry me, not when you made sure that I couldn’t trap you with marriage and a baby!” With those words hanging in the air, Rue stalked off towards her house, the opposite direction of Ravenscroft.
“Wait, Rue! Can’t we talk about this?” Alex called after her. His guilt at what they had done threatened to swallow him whole, especially since this trip to London was already planned and his stay there would be for an indeterminate amount of time.
“No!” she screamed at him from across the meadow. “There is nothing you can say that could make this better. Just know this, if you try to even talk to my father about asking for my hand, all you will receive is a flat-out refusal. No force on this earth will get me to marry you, Alexander Carruthers!”
Alex watched helplessly as Rue made her way down the familiar path through the meadow and onto her family’s property. Blowing out a breath of aggravation, Alex was sorry to leave things as they were with Rue, but he was leaving early the next morning, and there would be no hope of patching things up with his oldest and dearest friend, not when he knew, as was her way, that she would continue to be upset into the following day.
As Alex dejectedly made his own way home to make last minute preparations for his journey to London, a lone figure hidden by the drooping branches of a willow tree watched him leave. Seething at having witnessed the two lovers rutting like base commoners in the dirt, the figure vowed to never again let Rumina Abelard near Alexander Carruthers.
Never before had there been as mismatched a pair as those two, not when the newly-made earl was known for wanting perfection in all areas of his life. And Rumina Abelard was anything but perfect for the Earl of Merrick. But that same drive motivated Alexander to choose a path of hard work and struggle, knowing he would not be home again for some time, and the figure smiled at that fact. Rumina and Alexander must never be together, not when it could be helped.
1
On the Road to Anthropshire, 1831
Nine long years was too long to be away from home, and Alexander Carruthers, named the sixth earl of Merrick, had found it was high time to return to the family seat in Anthropshire. Yet, if he had to minutely examine his reasons for heading home, he was forced to admit he was running away from London as much as he was yearning for the peace and comfort of his childhood home.
London hadn’t felt anything like home, not in the last year at any rate; to him, it was an advantageous place where he was better able to resurrect the fortunes of the Merrick estate through immersing himself in business. Business that also allowed him to sail the ocean to and from the West Indies. His drive to excel in everything he did spurred him to spend those nine years working diligently to ensure that the future of his ancestral home was well and truly secured. Now at the age of thirty years and having accomplished his goal of becoming fabulously wealthy by way of a steady income from trade, Alex knew in his bones that it was time for him to come back home to Ravenscroft.
At first, London had its entertainments and its share of lovely ladies in whom he found his pleasure with almost reckless abandon. It didn’t hurt that his sailing adventures had helped to chisel his form into a powerful body of leanly corded muscle. And his complexion belonged more to that of a swarthy privateer than a London aristocrat. His wealth and golden rakish looks contributed to the number of London ladies who boldly sought him out, and as a master seducer, he had willingly accepted the many invitations to their beds, wolfishly partaking in every carnal delight.
Discretion, of course, was paramount, yet his reputation of his prowess and expertise in bed preceded him, and he became inviolately the most sought-after man in London. In the beginning, the newness of it all was a heady thing, adoring as he was of a woman’s body and the delights he discovered with each one.
There was nothing quite like losing one’s self within the embrace of a woman. His first year in London saw him seeking out women, be they merry widows or experienced married ladies of the ton, just to know again and again the indulgence and pleasure that could be found between a willing woman’s soft thighs. To revel in a beautiful woman’s feminine scent and to skim his fingers across ample curves was an experience that fed his continual quest for satisfaction and carnality. With his skills in the bedroom honed to flawless perfection, he cut quite a swath through the masses of swooning ladies of the ton.
But in the last year, he had wearied of his usual routine. No longer did he find satisfaction in bedding amorous widows or lonely wives as he used to do, nor did the gratification of his body’s needs bring him the fulfillment he hoped it would bring. Too often, the predatorial looks aimed his way from both married and unmarried ladies alike made him shudder in revulsion, but the shame that threatened to choke him when he caved in to such lusty invitations greatly sickened him. The final straw was when he felt preyed upon at the last ball he attended, where more than one lady boldly whispered in his ear what they wanted from him and how they wanted it. He preferred to be the predator, not the prey.
Now he was fleeing homewards, and he felt like he could breathe again. He hadn’t realized how exhausting the current Season was for him until he had left its environs, and it told him volumes of how tired he was of his own reputation. Such a reputation, though hard-won and one he had thought he wanted, had only rewarded him with an emptiness he didn’t know how to fill. Playing the ton’s games as he did for the past nine years was no longer a sport he was willing to participate in, and he wearied of living and breathing its rules.
As a man who had worked himself to the bone to see the Merrick fortunes spring back to its former glory, he realized it was to ensure that future generations of Merrick earls would not have to worry about the state of the family’s finances. Rather than spend his hard-earned money on expensive baubles for mistresses, he preferred to dispense with playing such games with women of no real consequence to him. Especially since such women could give him nothing but a fleeting moment of bodily bliss. He desired more than just a body to warm his bed for brief moments; he wanted, no, he craved fulfillment that permeated his life in its entirety.
Speeding along in his carriage, Alex thought back to the last letter he had received from his mother as he stared out the carriage window. In answer to his request of her, he grimaced at her remembered words of elation she had written to him. He could almost hear the gloating in her words, not to mention a small measure of smugness that he was certain came with the territory of being his mother.
As her only child and with his father long dead for almost a decade, the Dowager Countess, Lady Edith, was highly concerned with his duty to carry on their line for future generations of Merrick earls. After all, she was always quick to remind him he was now thirty years old, and therefore, ready to settle down. She would have been remiss in her duty as his mother if she hadn’t reminded him in each of her letters for him to see to acquiring an heir, but not before harping him about acquiring a wife first.
In her last letter, she had admonished, ‘My son, my vexation at your refusal to marry during the past nine years has been greatly alleviated by your request for help. It is such a relief to hear you are actively seeking to cast off your bachelorhood, and of course, I
have the right candidates in mind for that particular endeavor. As you well know, we are approaching the time of our yearly mid-season ball, the perfect stage for such an important undertaking.’ And so on, her letter went, which served only to exasperate him with her spate of reasons why he was doing the right thing by his title.
Sighing to himself, Alex would not have turned to his mother for help if he was entirely capable of searching for a suitable wife. He knew himself and his healthy appetite for the female form, and he could foresee himself, if left to his own devices, choosing a wife who resembled his ladyloves of the past. He feared most of all a wife who was his in name only, not when he craved something more, something deeper. Thus, he didn’t trust his own ability to choose a proper wife, not when he was a creature of habit who placed his impulses and desires ahead of what his head knew what was good for him.
He had let such impulses and desires rule a good part of his life for so long that he hadn’t heeded his own father’s advice. Before he had passed, his father had warned, “Sowing your wild oats is well and good for a time, but there will come a time when you will find it empty and devoid of true fulfillment. When that time comes, you need to find someone who can provide that kind of completion.”
At the time, he was a young buck who scoffed at his father’s words, and he dearly wished he had his father back to talk to about such prophetic words. He knew firsthand that his parents maintained a love-filled marriage where one completed the other, but he also knew that such a marriage was rare. It was highly unlikely that a rake like him would find the kind of happiness his own mother and father had shared. But with his father gone, there was no longer a chance to share his innermost fears for the future, no longer an opportunity to divulge his fear of being without someone who truly knew him.
His mother’s eagerness to help with his search for a wife was his eleventh hour, especially since the women of his acquaintance were anything but wifely material. At the very least, he recognized that he required a wife that would do credit to his family name while at the same time assuaging his need for a partner in every sense of the word.
Lady Edith’s plan to invite proper young ladies to Ravenscroft for their annual midsummer ball was a brilliant idea, giving him every hope that he would finally be rid of his fatiguing reputation as London’s most sought-after bedmate. With his return home, he was determined to fully immerse himself in his duties as earl, and in doing so, honor his father’s name and legacy by embracing an all-new version of himself that would do his late father proud.
Finding a wife without outside interference who was his proper counterpart would have presented an insurmountable challenge, as none of the ladies of his acquaintance would have been deemed suitable. He knew that what he needed in a wife and what he wanted in one were not the same things, and he had given the subject a great deal of thought. His countess should be above reproach, loyal, and everything a proper lady should be. The ladies he knew in London were none of those things, despite his former readiness to accept their invitations to their beds.
Now that he was aware that his hedonistic ways brought him nothing but dreariness, he thought it wise to re-fashion his life somehow, and he believed that returning home was just the beginning of his fresh start. He supposed that once he was back at Ravenscroft, his mother would probably run roughshod over him in an effort to see him properly leg-shackled. But he was prepared for his mother’s forceful but well-meaning methods to see him married with the promise of future heirs. His decision to come home and do right by his title could not have come at a better time, a time where nothing in his present life brought the joy that it used to.
Alex thought back to a time before London, before he had become so jaded, when he knew a measure of joy, but for a short time. A time when he had his first taste of something so pure, so sweet, and it was a wondrous shock to know with whom he shared this experience. But he had already made up his mind to leave their idyllic world in Anthropshire for a chance to change the Merrick fortunes while in London, and therefore, he did not get the chance to explore what might have been if he had stayed.
However, most of his memories of his childhood nemesis most often rose feelings of high dudgeon and irritation within him. As far as he could recall, all of his experiences with her in the past were combative in nature, and every remembered confrontation they had only confirmed how much of an aggravation she had been. Except for that fateful last encounter that reminded him of what could have been if he only but stayed.
Chuckling ruefully to himself, he guessed she must have married by now and produced a passel of sons and daughters as hoydenish as their mother. Recalling the seemingly endless teasing with which she used to plague him, he imagined her own children with her same skewed sense of amusement, and he thought what better punishment for harassing him with her antics than to have the same behavior served back at her.
A tiny flicker of regret pricked him where she was concerned, as he continued to indulge in a flood of memories about his nemesis-turned-tormentor. For the past nine years, the ghost of her memory played a dual part in his mind. As someone who was a close neighbor and a friend of the family, she was a touch of home that served to remind him of the tranquility he found lacking in the city. But on the other hand, the memory of her also tormented him on the nights he spent in the beds of others. Especially when he realized that he was either chasing that extraordinary feeling he had with her before he left. Or he was trying to drive out his own memories of the feel of her in his arms every time he bedded someone else. Either way, he was never successful in completely exorcising her memory, but neither did he want to completely try.
To him, the sweetness of that one glorious time with Rue was everything he aspired to, but he firmly believed he would never find it again with another woman. Thus, he was allowing his mother to help him choose a bride from a list of candidates approved by her, and she was going to use her annual mid-Season country ball to parade them in front of him. To contrast his usual methods of getting women to gravitate towards him in the past, he supposed using a more societal-approved method to gain a wife would serve his purpose just as well.
Glancing outside the carriage window, he viewed his ancestral home in the distance, just before the horizon, and the sight of Ravenscroft had him eager to revisit the home of his youth. He inhaled deeply, then slowly released his breath between puckered lips at the thought of facing his mother after too long of an absence. Knowing his mother as he did, she would most likely fall over him, weeping happy tears, all the while castigating him for neglecting to visit at least once in the past nine years.
With home so close, elation buoyed him, as he was finally arriving home for good, having accomplished much more than he originally set out to do in London. Attaining his goals and then exceeding them, he felt a great deal of triumph arriving home with the wherewithal to safeguard his home for generations to come. But of course, he needed a wife first to aid him with getting those heirs.
2
A Few Days Ago, Also on the Same Road to Anthropshire
It was fortunate that Rue had accepted Lady Edith’s invitation to her Midsummer ball as it gave her the perfect excuse to leave London. Which was why she was speeding along in a carriage on the road home to Anthropshire with two of her dearest friends, Lord Ernest Montagu, Marquis of Reddington, and his younger sister, Lady Georgina, as escorts. Only, Rue didn’t want to go home, not when she was still nursing the hurt shored up by her erstwhile suitor’s spiteful comments.
Georgie, as she was called by those who truly knew her, asked, “Dearest, I know this might not be timely, but don’t you think your father would want to know about Lord Geoffrey?”
Ernest rolled his eyes and said incredulously, “After what that scoundrel has said about her? Rue is lucky she has the backing of the Dowager Countess of Merrick who could vouch for her character. It’s not Rue’s fault that Geoffrey Orriss wasn’t taught the proper social graces.”
Rue sighed at the reminder
of the source of her humiliation. Holding out her hands between the two siblings to keep them from bickering further, Rue yelled, “Stop! It’s enough that I lived through it all. I don’t need constant reminders of his treatment of me after I rejected him. Not from the two of you.”
Quieting down, the Montagus seemed to deflate in front of her, and Rue remarked how alike the two of them were in appearance, yet they could not be more different from each other in personality and temperament.
Georgie mumbled a soft apology, and Ernest gave Rue an apologetic smile. He reassured her, “Cheer up, love. You’re better off without that cad. Not even the Society mamas would vouch for him if they knew of his true character.”
Sighing once again, Rue replied in exasperation, “Still, I think his words did just enough damage to ruin any further chances of making a good match. It’s entirely unfair how a few cutting words could cause such a mess for a woman. If it were said about a man, those words wouldn’t be as damning.”
Her friends made noises of agreement but made no further comment. As silence cut between the three of them, Rue let her mind drift back to all that had led up to her downfall in London, despite the amount of discomfort the memories imparted to her. If she hadn’t overheard Lord Geoffrey’s laughter floating from the Greshams’ terrace as she and Georgie were strolling in the garden below, then perhaps she wouldn’t have been any wiser of his cruelty or his deceit. She counted herself fortunate to learn immediately of his true nature and that although he planned to marry her, albeit for her fortune, Lord Geoffrey had unknowingly revealed how disgustingly vile he and his friends truly were.
