Lord Ruin (29 page)

“What of you, Anne?” he said. “I know you have regrets, that you hoped for some other husband than me. But has it been all bad? Can you say nothing redeems our marriage?”

“I cannot say that.”

“But naught else.”

She closed her eyes and while she saw nothing behind her lids but blackness, she drew a deep breath and shut the door to feeling. When she opened her eyes, she found she could safely look at him. “I should like to go to Cornwall.”

“Anne.”

“Please. Please, just let me go.”

He threw himself onto his chair, legs sprawled, arms dangling over the sides. “I can’t. Or, more to the point, I won’t.”

“Why not?”

Ruan looked away and said, “Because I am in love with you, Anne.”

There wasn’t any taking back the words. For one thing, they were true. But, he’d said them too soon, he could see that by the way all the color drained from her face, as if he’d just confessed murder. Lord Ruin would have done something to gloss over the awkward confession, make light of it, or, if he were feeling particularly the fiend, continue with feelings fabricated from air, perhaps inspired by some wretched poetry about bedewed bluebells draped about alabaster shoulders. He didn’t do any of that. He didn’t know what to do. The immensity of what he’d just said paralyzed him.

“You don’t mean that.”

“I have never lied to you, Anne.” He held onto himself, fighting the impulse to go down on his knees and beg her to believe. “You’ve made me feel again. I ought to hate you for that but instead, I love you. I look at you and see reflected back everything that is wrong with what I became.”

“I make a poor mirror.”

He reached for his port. “You are kind, and I have not been. You forgive weakness. I never have.”

“What of Mrs. Forrest?”

“You are tolerant. I am not. I’ve always thought myself an honorable man, but where was my honor when I came to Corth Abbey? I acted on my basest impulses and have been rewarded beyond measure. I won’t send you away.” He gripped his glass. “Still, I show you no honor, for I won’t ever send you from me.”

“You love me.”

“I’m the boy who cried wolf. Now that it’s really happened, I’m not believed. Well.” He drained his port to the last. “I cannot blame you.”

Anne left her chair, slowly walking to him until she stood directly in front of him. “Why?” She accused, and he wondered which question he should answer, why he would say such a thing or why he loved her.

“I don’t know why.” Her spectacles glinted in the light, and he felt a surge of both desire and tenderness. “I just do.” He sat straight, empty glass in hand. “I just do,” he echoed with a sort of numb hopelessness. He threw the glass against the far wall where it shattered into tiny pieces. “If I knew,” he whispered, “maybe I could do something to stop it.”

It was but a measure of his weakness that instead of sending her away, he pulled her onto his lap and kissed her. And Anne, sweet, lovely forgiving Anne kissed him back. Because she was too kind to hurt him with the truth. It was a convenient and effective way to gloss over their impasse.

In the morning, the late morning, Ruan watched her sleep. She lay partly on her side, uppermost leg drawn toward her stomach. A hand clenched into a fist lay on her pillow near the back of her head, the other lax near her chin. Sometime last night her braid had come undone. Flaxen hair spread over the pillow and sheet, a tangled mass. Her chest rose and fell in the rhythm of sleep. Her mouth was slightly open. During the night, the temperature had cooled considerably so the covers hid all but the outline of her shape. Anne was the only woman to sleep in his bed. More, she was the first woman he’d woken next to and found he wanted there again. And again. And again. For as many mornings as a bastard like him had left. She might never love him, but he would make her happy. He’d see to that. She stirred, groaned and opened her eyes.

“Good morning,” he said.

She lifted her head, squinting because she did not have her spectacles. Her eyes were puffy from sleep and a crease in the pillow had put a corresponding line down her cheek. He thought if he woke to such a sight for the next hundred years he wouldn’t mind one bit. The tightness in his chest eased. She was his wife and that, nothing would alter.

She clapped a hand over her mouth. “Ohh.”

He snatched the basin Merchant had tucked away in his room and held her until she stopped retching. She groaned as he bathed her face. With one finger, he moved a strand of hair from her cheek and helped her to sit. “And, by the way, happy birthday, my dear.” His heart gave a little hitch at the pleased smile that slowly appeared. You’d think he’d given her a whole casket of jewels, the way she looked at him.

“I didn’t think you knew.”

“I’ll see you at Portman Square tonight.” She stretched, and he put a hand on her belly. “Soon, Anne, when I touch you here, like this, even you will agree I feel our child.”

Anne lay back. When Cynssyr smiled like that, she couldn’t help but return his smile. His fingers stayed on her belly, spreading out in a soft caress that sent fire to her toes and back again. “Our child,” she said, pulling him toward her. “I am so grateful, Cynssyr.” She was thinking of Miss Dancy and the fate they might have shared. Would she have been tempted to find a similar end?

“For my skill in the marriage bed?” He lifted his head from her throat and gave her a wicked smile.

“What would have happened if we’d not been discovered?”

Ruan froze. When his heart started again, he sat swinging his legs off the bed and holding his head between his hands. A dozen smooth lies came to mind, any one of which would adequately deflect the danger. Any of which he once would not have hesitated to tell. “I would not have married you the next day.”

“That’s so.”

He looked at her, and with the finality born of deep conviction said, “I would have found a way to keep you with me. Hell, the minute I felt your mouth on me, I was planning how I could manage it.” Something in his chest eased. “I would have found a way. And I would have fallen in love with you. That sounds like a lie. The very sort I’ve become infamous for telling, I know, but it’s the truth.” He gripped her hand. “What frightens me, Anne, is not what might have happened at Corth Abbey, but what would have happened if I had not gone when I did. What if I hadn’t ruined you?”

“Ah.” Still on her back, she turned her head. He could no longer see her face. “But you are a man who deals in what is. Not what might have been.”

“I used to be many things.” Dobkin chose that moment to tap on the door. “Blast,” he said.

Anne faced him again. “You must show Thrale that ring and the button, too. See what he has to say for himself.”

“Right now, I don’t care.”

She slipped out of bed. “If Richard did do this, then he must be stopped. If he didn’t, we must know that, too, and discover the man who has.” She’d found her nightdress and now stared at it with dismay. He had, she recalled, quite literally torn it off her. From the corner of her eye, she saw his smile of pure male satisfaction. He looked like he wanted to do it again. Oh, but Lord Ruin was a devil. They all believed him. Every single one of them believed he loved her, even Katie had probably believed him. Despite all the past examples against the likelihood, they had all believed themselves the exception.

“My robe is over there.” He pointed even though he thought it a shame to cover her delectable self. Another few minutes, and he might be up to a repeat of last night’s activity. “We cannot afford to assume it isn’t Thrale.”

The faint scent of his cologne rose from the folds of silk that swallowed her. For some reason, it made her feel sad. “You are right, of course. Has Devon learned anything more about Richard’s household? Disgruntled servants perhaps? Someone who might have taken his coat?”

What would be the harm, she thought, in deciding to believe he loved her? None to him. Much to her when at last she had to face the truth. Would certain agony be worth the brief joy of pretending herself adored by Lord Ruin?

Ruan had half a mind to ask her to come with him, but Dobkin knocked again. “Your grace?” the valet called out. Anne gave the door a wide-eyed look.

“You are my wife. He won’t be scandalized to find you here.”

“I’m nearly naked.”

A grin twitched at his mouth. “Yes, I know. A moment,” he replied to Dobkin, but Anne was already scurrying to her room. He wanted to bring her back, ask her when she would be home, when he would see her again, all the horrible, clinging suffocating things women had done to him. He forced himself to stay put. Patience. Patience. And more patience. He would not redeem himself in a day. “Come in, Dobkin,” he shouted, irritably running his fingers through his hair. His valet covered any shock at being greeted by a nude Ruan sitting on a bed that had plainly seen active use.

Dobkin disposed of the basin Anne had used. Ruan, standing before the wash basin, gave himself a quick bath of the sort he’d taken in the field.

“Your grace?”

“Hmm?”

“I cannot locate your robe.”

He dried his face before answering. “The duchess needed it.”

Dobkin concentrated on setting up the shaving kit. “Indeed, sir?” Had Ruan been looking, he would have seen his valet smile. However, he wasn’t and so was spared the indignity.

“Clear some space in one of my wardrobes.”

“Yes, your grace.”

“Enough for a few of Anne’s things.” Anne might, after all, frequently wake up in his bed. He hoped so. “So she needn’t wear my robe when she gets up.” Sounded damn practical that way. How could anyone object to so reasonable an accommodation? Not even Anne could argue the logic.

“Yes, sir.”

He dressed without paying much attention to Dobkin’s choices, agreeing to whatever was selected before dismissing his valet with a careless wave. He gave in to compulsion. He went to Anne’s room. There was always time. . . .

Tilly stood in the center of the room, holding Anne’s torn nightdress. “Your grace.” She bent a knee, guiltily hiding the ruined garment behind her. Her cheeks flushed pink.

“Has the duchess finished dressing?” he asked. She wasn’t here, he knew that even before Tilly’s answer. The room felt empty. Bereft.

“Yes, your grace. She’s gone to the dower house.”

“Thank you, Tilly.” He left disappointed and disconcerted by the depth of the emotion. Business at the Justice Courts kept him from calling on Thrale much before three. The proceedings went overlong and bored him nearly to death. He thought to find Thrale at the Lords but came up blank there. No luck either at any of the St. James’s Street clubs in which he knew the marquess had memberships. Or used to. He discovered he’d resigned several of them. At last, he ran him to ground at Thrale’s Charles Street home.

The marquess greeted him with a somber smile. “To what do I owe the honor of this visit, Cynssyr? Something to drink?” He walked to a sideboard.

“Madeira, if you’ve got it.” He took a seat, admiring the parlor in which Thrale met him. Nothing too fancy. Good-quality furniture, excellent paintings, a Gainsborough among the best. He would have expected something dark and dreary from the man, but bright colors predominated. Whatever financial difficulties the man had didn’t yet extend to his London home.

Thrale handed him the wine. “I suppose, like me, you got a taste for it in Spain.”

“The only thing I got a taste for in Spain was getting the hell out.” He sipped the wine, nodded because it was quite good, then put it on the table next him. “I’ve been all over town looking for you. Didn’t expect to find you here.”

He shrugged. “I’m sorry to have inconvenienced you.”

“Aren’t you usually dogging Emily Sinclair’s heels?” he asked. Once, he’d not been able to think of her without a pang of regret. Now, nothing. What a fool he’d been to think Emily Sinclair the woman for him.

Thrale laughed with good-natured chagrin. “I’ve wrangled an invitation to Portman Square later tonight. See you there, I expect.”