DeButy & the Beast

by Linda Jones

  Maybe he had realized that he truly did love her.

  Too late. She would not allow herself to be hurt again. Even if Julian did love her, that love would not last. Eventually he would leave again. He would break her heart again.

  Sebastian could never hurt her, for one simple reason. She did not love him.

  Peter appeared in the north parlor doorway. “Miss Anya, your breakfast is getting cold.”

  At Sebastian’s orders, the servants who had defended him from Julian’s knife fell into step behind her. She now had her own personal guard, it seemed. Could they keep Julian away?

  She hoped so. She could not stand another broken heart so soon.

  Her eyes cut to the side as she made her way to the dining room, waiting for Julian to appear. He did not, but Grandmother joined her at the table.

  “Anya, why are you wearing that… that outfit?”

  “I wished to do so.”

  “You have so many beautiful dresses—”

  “Julian is home,” Anya interrupted.

  Grandmother’s eyes went wide, her cheeks lost their color. “He is? I thought… Seymour said he had taken a ship to Australia. What happened?”

  Anya shrugged and played with one of the biscuits on her plate. “I do not know.” Why share his ridiculous story about being kidnapped? It was an excuse for his behavior, and she chose not to believe him. “I told him I was going to return to Puerta Sirena with Sebastian, and he left.”

  “Anya,” Grandmother said crisply, “you are not returning to Puerta Sirena.” She nodded sharply in that way she had, leaving no room for argument.

  “I belong there,” Anya said quietly.

  “You belong here.”

  Anya shook her head.

  In truth, she did not belong anywhere. Not here, not on Puerta Sirena. Oh, she was going to make a terrible queen!

  “Well, where is Julian now?” Grandmother asked tersely.

  “I do not know. Maybe he left. Maybe he is here in the house, still.” Yes, he was here in this house. She felt him. After weeks of missing her husband, she actually felt his presence in this house.

  Grandmother gave her a small smile. “Perhaps he came back because he missed you, and he now realizes that the two of you should remain here. Together. He’ll do away with that ridiculous pagan king, and everything will be the way it should be.” Again, she nodded.

  Anya picked at her biscuit. She had a sinking feeling nothing would ever be as it should be, not ever again.

  *

  Julian had not slept for more than twenty-four hours, and it was beginning to show. After leaving Anya and her damned king, he’d stormed through the house looking for Seymour. Jeremiah would come with the truth, when he found it. He would get the information from the man who had hired him and Milton, he would learn who was behind the plot.

  But Julian knew what had happened. Who else but Seymour would hire thugs to see that Julian left this house and didn’t return? Seymour, who had been so distressed by the news that Anya wanted a dozen children. Seymour, who had been so happy that his sister would turn her back on her share of the Sedley fortune for love. Seymour, who apparently wanted it all for himself.

  It had been Peter who’d finally told him that Seymour had gone out the night before with friends and had not returned. The butler was not concerned. This was normal behavior for Seymour.

  Julian had washed his face in cool water and now laid back on his own bed. His heart pounded erratically, his vision was cloudy. He could not think straight! In truth, the shock he’d received on his homecoming probably had more to do with his state of mind than something so simple as lack of sleep.

  He closed his eyes. So that was King Sebastian. A new fury rushed through his blood. He had painted a picture in his mind, a picture he could live with. In spite of Anya’s insistence that the king was young and handsome and virile, in his mind he’d given Sebastian an ugly face, a spindly body, and a grating voice no woman would care to hear. He had made the king old and ugly and… less than ordinary.

  How else could he live with the fact that Anya had once been his concubine?

  But Sebastian was none of those things. Most women would probably find the heathen attractive. And the bastard had asked Anya to be his queen, and wanted to make Julian’s child his heir.

  Never. He would follow them to Puerta Sirena, if he had to. He would fight to the death for his wife and child.

  At least she was safe, he thought, the rage he was unaccustomed to fading slowly. And well. Pregnancy agreed with her. How could she be more beautiful than he remembered? Her hair redder, her lips more perfect, her eyes brighter. He had dreamed of her, while imprisoned in Miller’s Crossroads, and even in his dreams she had not been so beautiful.

  As soon as his head cleared and Anya was calm enough to be reasonable, he would explain again what had happened on the road. She would understand, and forgive him.

  A few hours of sleep, that was all he needed. Julian took a deep breath. He could hear people moving throughout the house and voices muffled by the thick walls. A man, a woman. A voice he knew, another he did not.

  Below stairs, something fragile hit a wall or the floor and shattered with a resounding crash. Julian smiled and drifted into an uneasy sleep.

  Chapter 18

  Anya was surprised to see Julian come down to dinner. What had she hoped? That he would leave? That he would follow her around and beg her forgiveness? She had not seen him all day, though Peter had said he was resting in his room. She had been tempted to open the door and peek in, but she had not. Angelo and Hector, the guards Sebastian had assigned to her, never left her side, even though she had tossed more than one vase their way and had ordered them several times to leave her be.

  For the evening meal, Julian had bathed, shaved, and put on clean clothes. He wore a very nice black suit Grandmother had insisted he have, a conservative contrast to the scarves Anya continued to wear. He looked very gentlemanly, but for the gleam in his dark, hooded eyes.

  Anya took a seat at the table. Sebastian sat in the chair at her right. Julian took the chair to her left. Her heart almost thudded through her chest when the two men bracketed her.

  There was quite a crowd at the table tonight. Grandmother at the head, as usual, Queen Carola at the foot, the place she had chosen for herself. Julian, Anya, and Sebastian were on one side of the table, a yawning Seymour and the Mathias newlyweds on the other, along with a disinterested Uncle Ellis. While Grandmother had not forgiven Valerie for defying her, she did concede whenever Anya asked to see her cousin, and of course Valerie wanted to spend as much time as possible with her father before he sailed away for parts unknown again.

  The islanders from Puerta Sirena, four men and two women, stood close by, silent and ready to defend their king and the queen mother. And Anya herself, she supposed.

  Sebastian leaned down and placed his mouth close to Anya’s ear. “I do not think the man who was your husband likes me much,” he said, a hint of teasing in his deep whisper.

  “I doubt he cares enough to dislike you,” she answered in a voice as low as his own.

  “I disagree.”

  Julian laid a hand on her knee, and Anya jumped. He leaned close, and nudged her hair aside as he whispered, “When did you take to wearing scarves and jewels again, my dear?”

  “They are more comfortable,” she answered turning the back of her head to Sebastian and glancing up at her husband, who remained so close, so very close. No. As Sebastian said, Julian was the man who used to be her husband. She waited for a lecture on proper clothing for a lady. Instead, Julian’s fingers slipped higher on her bare leg.

  “I like it,” he whispered in her ear as his hand traveled higher.

  “You do?”

  His fingers stopped short of their intended target, swaying on the tender skin at her inner thigh and going no higher. “Of course I do.”

  Grandmother cleared her throat loudly, and again Anya jumped. Good heavens! She had almos
t forgotten that she and Julian were not alone.

  “Julian, where on earth have you been?” Grandmother asked sharply.

  Julian’s eyes raked over everyone at the table. “While on the road to my aunt’s house, just a few hours after leaving here, I was set upon by robbers and kidnapped.”

  Grandmother raised a hand to her chest. “How terrible.”

  Valerie and William expressed their horror, as well, and even Seymour showed his surprise.

  Betsy had made a fine roast, and it was passed around the table, along with the vegetables she had prepared.

  “What bad luck,” Seymour said as he piled potatoes onto his plate.

  Julian stared at Anya’s cousin. “It wasn’t bad luck at all,” he said darkly. “The note summoning me to my aunt’s house was false, a ruse to get me on the road alone.”

  “They meant to kill you?” Valerie asked, horrified.

  Julian’s fingers tightened at Anya’s thigh. “No, they meant to shanghai me.”

  This last statement got Uncle Ellis’s attention. “Shanghai?”

  “Yes. Someone wanted, very much, to get me as far away from this house as possible.”

  Anya lifted her eyes cautiously. When Grandmother passed Julian the large bowl of potatoes, he had no choice but to remove his hand from Anya’s leg and take the food. “So it is true?” she whispered. “You were abducted?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Did you really think I’d simply leave you without a word?”

  Anya nodded. That feeling she did not like welled up inside her. Fear. Trapped tears.

  “Well, how did you escape?” Seymour asked brightly. “It sounds like a grand adventure. I’m sure it makes for an exciting story.”

  Julian laid his eyes on Seymour. “Not tonight,” he said calmly. “I have more important things on my mind.”

  Grandmother cleared her throat again. “Well, Anya, now that Julian has returned, I’m sure you’ve reconsidered your plans to return to Puerta Sirena. Goodness, Julian, we thought you’d taken off for Australia. That’s what we were told. I imagine the same ruffians who kidnapped you also arranged for us to hear that story.”

  Julian scoffed. “The ruffians who kidnapped me are incapable of planning anything so devious. No, someone hired them to shanghai me. That’s the person who made sure you all thought I had taken off for… where did you say? Australia?”

  “Who did it?” Valerie asked, her cheeks flushing pink. “Who hired them?”

  “I don’t know,” Julian said. “But I will find out.” He turned his attention to Anya. “You didn’t answer your grandmother’s question, my love. Do you still plan to return to Puerta Sirena?”

  “Yes,” she said quickly.

  “Why?” he whispered.

  Her heart thundered. Her hands shook. “I belong there,” she whispered. “I do not belong here.”

  All of a sudden her stomach roiled. She pushed her chair back and stood quickly. “I do not feel well. I am going to bed.”

  Sebastian and Julian rose in a synchronized motion. They both looked as if they intended to accompany her. She lifted her hands, one palm presented to each man. “No. Leave me alone, both of you.”

  When Angelo and Hector stepped up as if they intended to follow her, she lost her temper. “And you two! I am sick of turning around and running into you! Stay away from me!”

  They looked to Sebastian, and with a wave of his hand he gave them permission to do as she asked. When they stepped back Anya turned and ran from the room, heading for the stairs and blessed solitude.

  *

  The royal guests had been put in another wing, thank goodness. The queen was in Valerie’s old room, and the damned king was in a room near Seymour’s. Guards had been posted at Anya’s door, but they likely didn’t know that the three rooms along this corridor were connected by inner doors. Julian slipped through the door from the shared sitting room into Anya’s bedchamber.

  A lamp burned low on a bedside table, illuminating the lump beneath the covers. Anya immediately sat up and twisted to face him.

  “I see you’re still wearing my nightshirt,” he said softly.

  She nodded and grasped the bodice with one hand. “What are you doing here?” Like him, she kept her voice low, so the guards in the hallway wouldn’t hear.

  He held the plate in his hand high, and offered the glass of milk. “You didn’t eat. I thought you might be hungry.”

  “I am starving,” she whispered.

  Julian sat on the edge of the bed and offered her the plate and glass. He had put together a roast beef sandwich and cut it into four pieces, and he’d sliced an apple. Anya took one of the small sandwiches and began to eat.

  “You must think about the baby,” he admonished. “Skipping a meal is not a good idea.”

  “I know,” she said between bites. “But I could not eat. Not with—”

  “We’re not going to talk until you’ve cleaned this plate and drunk all the milk,” he interrupted. And then he wasn’t leaving this room until he and his wife settled this… this thing between them.

  Anya didn’t look at him, not directly, as she ate and drank. Even when she was finished and he took the plate and glass and set them aside, she only looked at him out of the corner of her eye. He couldn’t stand it. He took her face in his hands and forced her to look at him. Immediately, her eyes filled with tears.

  “Don’t,” he whispered.

  “I cannot help it.”

  He wiped away a tear with his thumb. “I don’t understand,” he confessed. “Do you really prefer a life with that… that Neanderthal king to a life with me?”

  “Yes,” she breathed.

  “Why?”

  Anya only shook her head in inadequate answer.

  “I hate him,” Julian said, refusing to release his hold on her. “Never in my life have I really wanted to kill, but when I look at him…”

  “Stay away from Sebastian,” Anya said, showing fiery emotion for the first time.

  Julian dropped his hands. Had he been so wrong about her? He’d been so certain that Anya loved him, but the way she defended her bloody king made him wonder.

  Anya was keeping a secret, and he couldn’t figure out what it was. Did she love her king so much? Did she want to be queen so badly that she’d do anything to have that title? Had everything between them, everything that had come before, been false?

  No, he didn’t believe it. Couldn’t. When he leaned forward to kiss Anya, she turned her head and presented her cheek. He wasn’t deterred, but planted his lips there, kissed her, raked his mouth down to her throat.

  “While I was gone,” he whispered, “I thought of you every day. Every moment of every day. I dreamed of you at night. In the worst moments, I remembered the way you felt, the way you laughed, the way you smiled. When I lost hope, I thought of you and knew I had to do whatever was necessary to get home. To get home to you. And now that I am here, it seems that you don’t want me.”

  She shuddered, long and deep. “Julian…”

  “Marido, ” he corrected. “You used to call me marido.”

  “But you are my husband no longer,” she said, almost desperately. “Queen Carola has declared—”

  “Queen Carola can kiss my ass.”

  “Julian!” Anya said, drawing slightly away from him.

  “She can’t undo what we’ve done.” He raked his hand down Anya’s side.

  “It is best,” Anya whispered.

  “Best for whom?” Julian asked impatiently. “You? Me? King Sebastian? You can’t tell me that taking my child to an island in the Caribbean to be raised as a savage is best.”

  “It is best for everyone,” she said, not very convincingly.

  Julian raised his eyes and met her watery gaze. “Do you love him? Is that what this is all about?”

  “Sebastian?” She shook her head. “No, I do not love him.”

  “Then why—”

  “I will never fit in here,” she snapped. “Never.”
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  “You are my wife. You will fit in wherever we are.”

  She shook her head in denial. “Did they hurt you?”

  “What?” he asked, confused by the abrupt change of subject.

  “The kidnappers,” she explained. “Did they hurt you?”

  “No, not really.”

  “Good.” She reached out and brushed a strand of hair off his shoulder.

  She had, at least, accepted the fact that he had not purposely deserted her. That was a step in the right direction, he supposed.

  “I missed you so much,” he confessed.

  “And I missed you.”

  Julian smiled. Everything was going to be all right. He reached out and placed his palm over Anya’s belly. “You’ve grown a little, I think.”

  “I know.”

  He placed his other hand on her breast. “Here, too.”

  Anya nodded.

  With a gentle shove he laid her back on the bed and hovered above her, one hand on her belly, the other on a soft, yielding breast. “I want you,” he whispered.

  Anya shook her head, but she didn’t move away or shove his hands aside.

  “You’re my wife, and I need you.”

  Again, she shook her head.

  “Don’t you want me?” She didn’t answer, not even with a shake of her head. He kissed her throat again, laid his body against hers so she could feel for herself how he needed her. She answered, with a long, deep shudder.

  His hand slid down from her belly. He grasped the tail end of the nightshirt Anya wore and lifted it slowly to bare her thighs. Enough talking. She would show him how she felt, as she always did. They would handle the king tomorrow. They would handle everything tomorrow. Tonight… tonight was for this.

  He ran his palm up her bare thigh, cupped her hip, and drew her closer. He kissed the tender spot beneath her ear, trailed his lips down to her shoulder. She moaned and brushed an easy hand down his side, then slipped that hand between their bodies to caress the length beneath his trousers. A few buttons, a moment more, and he would be inside her.