A Measured Risk (35 page)

Then it was over. His harsh breath echoed loudly in the chamber. He uttered a sound between a chuckle and groan. “My lady, oh
,
my lady.”

He withdrew and released her.

She dropped back, sprawling weakly on the floor.

Then she glanced quickly about the room.

Aside from Tiberia slumbering on her pallet, they were alone.

Jon chuckled. “He left, Anne. He left before you even got two buttons undone. He was quite indignant.”

He put his cock away and refastened his trousers. Then he took his handkerchief out. He offered his hand.

She stared at it, feeling drained and confused. He handed her the handkerchief.

“Come now, Anne, you loved what we just did. Admit it. You want to be mine.”

She took the cloth and wiped her mouth. Then she stared up at him. “You know I am yours. There is no wanting or choice about it.”

“Well, then, marry me and we shall be very happy.”

All her sexual arousal cooled. “This changed nothing.”

“Christ, you can be so soft and then turn so hard. How do you do that? Relent, Anne. Relent.”

“I can’t.”

He studied her intently, his blue gaze burning her. “When I first came in here, you wanted to submit to him, to let him take you to his bed and fuck you, didn’t you?”

“Goodness
,
no.”

“Be honest, Anne. I saw the look on your face.”

His tone was compelling
,
drawing her response before she thought. “I-I…felt tempted, yes. But not truly. I could never let a man like Kean bed me.”

Jon laughed, the soft sound sending chills over her. “Why? Because he is a commoner? You think he’ll dirty you in some irreparable way?”

No, because he is not you and I am yours now and forever.

She looked down at her lap and studied her hands. “You brought me here. You made me stay for that wicked party.”

“He’s looking for a wealthy wife. You should know that.”

“I am not looking for any husband.”

“You think that
,
Anne
,
but you’re wrong. You need me. You just don’t realise yet how much. I am going to let you go today. But when you decide to come off your high ropes, you send for me.”

She scoffed. “One week back in London amid your other women and you will have forgotten all about me.”

His expression hardened and he held out his hand to her. “Come, hurry, your carriage awaits. Your nervous little abigail is probably overcome with vapours wondering what’s become of you.”

 
* * * *

It had been scant hours since Anne had arrived at Whitecross Hall from Eastwood Place. Her bottom was still sore from Ruel’s lash marks, yet she couldn’t baby herself. Nellie watched her too closely and should her faithful abigail discover the truth, she’d be all for seeing Ruel strung from the highest tree. She’d never understand Anne’s dynamic with her lover.

Anne sighed. Even though Nellie had been waiting inside to accompany her, the ride had been difficult for more reason than one. Being inside a carriage, while not as blood
-
chillingly terrifying as it once might have been, was still difficult. Even the two glasses of claret she’d gulped down hadn’t eased the white-knuckled edge.

But she had survived. She had made it in a carriage alone. Moment by moment. As she had descended the carriage at Whitecross, relief had sung in her blood. She would make it through the carriage ride to Plymouth and then all the carriage rides after that to Ireland just the same way. Moment by moment.

However, now she was drained.

 
She certainly hadn’t recovered her reserves enough to deal with this letter that had been waiting for her. Mama had finally sent the exact details of little Dorothea’s expected arrival.

Nellie bent and picked it up and folded it, placing it in Anne’s lap. “What does she say, my lady?”

Anne lifted her brows and sighed. It was finally time to tell her. “Seems Mama has found herself a wealthy Nabob. He wants to marry her.”

“Well, that’s grand news.”

“Yes, for Mama, I am sure. But there’s a snag
,
you see.”

“A snag, my lady?”

“Apparently Mama has had a bit of a side-slip. Previous to this, you understand.”

Nellie’s mouth fell open and her eyes went wide.

Anne nodded. “Not a word to anyone, Nellie, you must promise.”

“Of course.” Nellie frowned. “How long…”

“Three years.”

“Goodness! And not a word, until now?”

Anne nodded and dropped her voice. “And m-my sister,” Anne’s heart contracted at the realisation. “My sister is on her way here in the company of her nanny. Soon. Mama intended the letter to come sooner, but the ship had some troubles in transit. In a month, the
Celia
will dock in Plymouth. We shall have to be there to meet it.”

Even now, her stomach sank at the thought of riding in a carriage all the way to Plymouth.

“But you don’t have to go. You can send someone.” Nellie clasped her hand. “I shall go with my older brother, Robert. Do not worry over this, we’ll find a nice home for the child.”

“No,” Anne said, firmly. “I must be there. I shall be the only family the poor girl will have here in England.”

“But she’s not your real family. She’s a side
-
slip, my lady and you shall remarry eventually
.
Your husband will not appreciate the child’s presence any more than your Mama’s rich Nabob would.”

Nellie spoke common sense. Social custom. However, Anne refused to heed it. She would not be like the duke or her feckless Mama
,
who tossed her own child out like some unwanted kitten.

The same way she’d left Anne to the care of servants and then at sixteen dumped her unprepared onto a cruel, competitive marriage mart and left England altogether immediately afterwards. Anne’s throat burned. No, she had to be there. When the child disembarked and walked onto England’s shores for the first time, it must be holding the hand of a blood relative. So she would know that she mattered. That she had a family. Even if it was to be a family of just one.

* * * *

Two weeks in London had done little to soothe Jon’s mood. At the sight of Anne, clipping roses in the Whitecross garden, the shaggy dog at his side grew restive and surged forward. Jon gave the leash a sharp tug. Nevertheless, he found himself in sympathy with Tiberia. It took all his control not to rush to Anne and pull her into his arms.

She stared at him, her face betraying no emotion. The old
,
cold mask, the one she’d greeted him with the very first day he’d met her. The day he’d dismissed her as a wallflower and then she’d given him that sultry, sensual, sidelong glance and sent his pulses pounding. And
,
God help him, he felt the same challenge to probe her depths.

“I thought you might take care of Tiberia from now on,” he said.

“Don’t you want her with you?” She knelt to stroke the shaggy fur and Tiberia raised her head invitingly. “I haven’t kept a dog since I was a girl.”

She spoke so calmly, seemingly unaffected
,
while he’d spent all these nights—too many nights—longing for her. The hold she had over him proved an intolerable yoke that lashed him to her. It wasn’t a pleasant sort of a feeling at all. A devilishness urge to torment her seized him and would not let go. “I won’t have time for her.”

Her head jerked up and her fathomless sapphire eyes struck him in the heart.

“What do you mean?” Her voice rang with suspicion, the first emotion she’d shown today.

Satisfaction surged through him, impelled him on. “You see, it’s exhausting to entertain all my mistresses, jumping from one bed to the other—”

“Oh you’re too cruel!” she cried, jumping to her feet and fleeing.

Satisfaction slammed through him to have cracked her cold mask. He caught her about the waist and her soft curves under his hands made his cock twitch to life. As she struggled against his hold, he laughed softly, enjoying her helplessness against him. As helpless to him physically as he was to her emotionally. He’d not make this easy for her. “What’s all this? You told me to go back to London, to be with my mistress.”

She ceased her struggles. “And I suppose you have seen her.”

“Yes, I have.” His words were flat.

She went rigid. “I think you should leave. Just leave.”

“Nan—”

“Don’t call me that, you have no place to call me that.”

The hurt in her voice extinguished all desire for retribution.

“Nan,” he repeated more firmly, lowering his lips to her ear. “I have dismissed her.”

Her body stiffened even more. “Have your eye on someone else, do you?”

He smiled at her fortitude. “You little tart
-
mouthed hoyden, one day that’s going to be your undoing.” He pressed his lips to her neck for a moment. “I dismissed her because I shall soon be a married man. I will have no need for mistresses.”

She placed a hand to her head. “Please do not do this today. I have so much to concentrate on and—”

“What is troubling you? Tell me.”

“My Mama is getting married, to a rich Nabob. So she’s sending my half-sister here to live with me.”

He frowned. “Your half-sister?”

“Yes, I have a three year old half-sister and she’s arriving in Plymouth next week. She’s illegitimate
,
of course, so you see I cannot abandon her and I could not ask you to accept her.”

“I shall welcome your sister to my household. She will be part of our family. You insult me to think otherwise.”

Anne’s breasts rose and fell with a deep, trembling breath. “I do owe you a debt of gratitude that I shall be able to travel there to meet her when her ship arrives.”

Disbelief nearly froze his brain. It took a moment for her words to fully register. “You mean to say you’re planning to travel all the way to Plymouth, alone?”

“I shall have Nellie with me.”

“You cannot travel alone with only a servant to watch over you. Not on your first trip since Cranfield’s death.”

“I shall do as I will. You have no say.” Her cold, stubborn expression somehow only made her look more beautiful, in an unattainable way.

He grasped her arm and gave it a tug. “You need me with you. Your servant can ride in a separate carriage with my valet and your luggage.”

“We cannot travel together like that.”

“We can if we are married. I have a special licence.”

“You have
what
?”

He released her arm, took the paper from his pocket, and showed it to her.

Anne gasped
,
then jerked her gaze back to him, expression agog, as if seeing their names together might be her undoing. “You presume too much—why you had no right, absolutely no right!”

“I have the right, Nan.”

“Don’t call me that. I am not yours any longer.”

He caressed her cheek with his fingertips. “Aren’t you?”

She pulled away from him. “No, I am not. I am my own person. I need no one. I am going to live in Ireland and raise my sister. Alone. We need no one. No one.”

Her wild, defiant look set his blood afire. Made him itch to turn her over his knee and spank her into quivering submission. As he very well knew he could. And she was practically begging for it. Yet he’d done it before and it had done no good.

“And that’s what you fear most, isn’t it? Needing someone. The way you need me,” he said.