Lord Blackthorne’s face softened into a grin as he strode into the room. “Abiding love, indeed,” he said. “I should be pleased for you to enlighten me further on that subject, my dear wife.”
Ruel studied Anne’s face as he walked toward her. Her almond eyes, tilted up at the corners, glittered like onyx in a pool of clear water. Enchanting, delectable creature. Pale and velvety, her fair skin begged for his touch. Her hair, loose from its pins, tumbled around her shoulders like a cascade of dark syrup. Her lips beckoned.
“There is no need for your theatrics here, sir,” she said, pursing those pretty lips. “This is not a public room, and Miss Watson is privy to our secrets.”
He glanced at the slender young lady, recalling she had been Anne’s friend at Slocombe. Prudence Watson had been the one to run to Tiverton for help when they had been shot at on the road, had she not? Flushing bright pink, Miss Watson had backed so far into the settee it was a wonder she did not vanish into it altogether.
Nothing to worry about from that one, he decided. She would not have the temerity to use the secrets of the high- born to her advantage. It was his wife he needed to keep a close eye on.
As he had climbed the stairs to his rooms that evening after the gathering, it occurred to him that he might use Anne’s innocence to his advantage. Were she truly a trollop, as his brother had implied, she would never succumb to a severe case of infatuation. Were she accustomed to the easy dalliances of his society, she would not likely believe herself—or him—to be in love.
But his wife was a minister’s daughter. Shy. Untouched. Pure. It should be a fairly simple matter to convince Anne that she had fallen deeply in love with her husband. Regardless of his personal feelings for her—which, he wryly admitted, he did not choose to examine too closely—such a development would clearly be to his advantage. A woman in the throes of romantic passion, he had been given to understand, would do anything for her beloved. He could take her wherever he liked and count on her to labor at his lace venture for as long as he wanted. And he would never have to fear her betrayal.
As he approached Anne, a stain of color spread from her neck into her cheeks. It would be more than a little enjoyable to make this woman his. Despite her heartfelt avowals to the contrary, she did admire him. And he admired her.
“You may go,” he said, dismissing Miss Watson with a wave.
“Stay, Prudence,” Anne countered, holding out a hand to stop her. “We have not concluded our conversation.”
The young woman’s eyes grew round and frightened as she glanced from her friend to the marquess. Ruel squared his shoulders. “You may go,” he repeated. Then he lowered his voice. “Should you wish to retain rooms in my house for yourself and your sister, Miss Watson, I suggest you comply with my wishes.”
“Yes, my lord. Of course.” Eyes darting to Anne one last time, Prudence grabbed her skirts and fled. As she shut the sitting-room door behind her, Ruel tugged the knot from his cravat.
“Obedient,” he said. “I like that in a woman.”
“Have you something important to say to me, sir?” Anne gripped her silk shawl tightly and hiked it an inch higher until the knot of fabric was jammed against her throat. “It is late, and I am to call at three houses in the morning. I should very much appreciate my privacy.”
“What happy manners you have, my lady. Mrs. Davies certainly taught you well.”
“And you poorly. You failed to knock. You did not announce yourself. You rudely drove away my friend. And you have continued to stay when you are not wanted.”
“Am I not wanted?”
She glanced away, but only for an instant. “As I told you, I am fatigued. If you have something to tell me, say it quickly and be gone.”
Determined to stay until he was satisfied, Ruel walked across the room to a window, drew back the heavy drapes, and peered outside. He had resolved to discover Anne’s true feelings toward him—and to see that she acknowledged aloud her growing passion. Equally important, he wanted to determine what it was about this former housemaid that so intrigued him. Was it those brown-gold eyes and that tiny waist of hers? Was it her saucy conversation that amused and challenged him so? Or was it the bright spark of her obvious intelligence that drew him?
“You have a charming prospect of Cranleigh Crescent from this room,” he remarked, setting one foot on the window seat and resting his arm on his thigh. “Did you know I used to sleep in this room when I was a boy? These quarters were the nursery in those days. I would sit in this window for hours watching carriages come and go, studying the ladies and gentlemen out for their promenades, spying on housemaids as they flirted with fishmongers and vegetable boys. What do you think of town, Anne?”
When he looked at her again, he noted with dismay that she had managed to pin up her hair and exchange her pink silk shawl for one of thick white wool. Gone was his temptress. She looked chaste. Ethereal. Angelic.
Blast.
He had come into the room intending to make her his conquest. Now she looked like a creature from heaven. A minister’s daughter. How could he seduce that?
She glided slowly across the carpeted floor and joined him at the window. Peeking between the drapes, she studied the lamplit street.
“I prefer the wilds of the Midlands,” she said in a soft voice. “Through my curtains in our little rectory in Nottingham I watched butterflies dance above yellow primroses and saw hedgehogs scurry through the fern. I memorized the songs of the blue tit, the wood pigeon, and the wren. Bumblebees in the knapweed and ladybirds on the dandelions fascinated and charmed me.”
“Bumblebees and ladybirds?”
“I see lace in the commonest things,” she said, turning her brown eyes on him. “In the spiral of a cobweb . . . in the white blossom of a hawthorn shrub . . . in the curls of a small green moss on a gray stone. Sometimes I think I am quite mad.”
He could not hold back a smile. “You have a gift.”
“Not a very useful one . . . except perhaps to a marquess with grand dreams.”
“Which I am.” He pulled his cravat from his neck. “Do you believe I want only to make use of you, Anne? You implied as much tonight with my brother.”
“Have you any other purpose, sir?”
He focused on the window again, remembering his plan to make a conquest of her. More and more often, he was finding it easy to scheme while alone in his chamber—and impossible to carry out his plans in the presence of this woman. She was too good. Too gentle. Too moral.
“No,” he said, standing suddenly. “I have no purpose other than the plan we made. Yes, I am using you in my commercial venture, but no more than you have used me to accomplish the release of your father.”
“My father,” she said, suddenly anxious. “Have you had any report of him?”
“A note from the barrister I engaged. Nothing new.”
“I see.” She sank down onto the window seat.
Annoyed with himself and with her, he raked a hand through his hair. “Anne, I must apologize for my brother’s behavior tonight in the garden. Alex can be quite revolting.”
She had tucked her knees beneath her chin and was staring out the window. Her gown draped in a puddle of pink silk on the floor. “It must be very hard for you to be so unloved.”
“Unloved? My dear lady, I have been loved a great deal more ardently than you, I should think. I believe my reputation in that regard preceded my own person into the kitchen on the day we met.”
Her focus never left the window. “I do not speak of physical passion. I believe true love has little to do with the body and far more to do with the spirit. The soul is the repository of love, and without love the soul withers and dies.”
Religious gibberish. Romantic nonsense. Frowning, Ruel had the sudden urge to take his little zealot straight into his arms and teach her how very much the body did have to do with it. She sat there so smugly virtuous. What did she know about the world?
“I never think about anyone’s affections or disaffections toward me,” he said, taking a step toward the door.
“Do you not?” She laid her cheek on her arm and watched him. “Then I fear you are more empty inside than Mr. Walker.”
“Empty? What gives you that idea?”
“Prudence and I were discussing it.”
He rolled his eyes. “Miss Watson hardly knows me. And how on earth do you deduce that Walker’s life is empty?”
“Prudence spoke with him at length in Slocombe. And they were together during our rest stops on the journey to London.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Tell me, sir, do you observe nothing?”
“I see important things.”
“Aye, your great financial schemes and adventures. What about the people around you?”
“I avoid people when I can. Unfortunately I have been surrounded by them all my life. I endure their mincing and gossiping and preening until I am nearly ill from it. Only in America was I ever able to escape such posturing—and then but briefly. In general, people annoy me, Lady Blackthorne. Especially those who labor on and on in conversation of little consequence.”
As though she had not heard him, she continued in her soft, magnetic voice. “There are those around you whose character runs deep. Some of them love you. Others despise you. You would do well to find out which are which.”
“Your character runs rather deep, I should think. Tell me, do you love me or despise me?” When she made no answer, he smiled. “Well, Lady Blackthorne, which is it?”
“If by this time you do not know my feelings for you, then you are far more blind than I thought.” She stood and faced him, her soft gown swirling at her feet. Lifting that delicate chin, she narrowed her eyes at him. “I pity you. You are friendless and loveless, and your soul is blacker than the night outside this window. I find you self-centered, disagreeable, and immoral. I dislike you very much.”
He rested one hand on the back of a chair and studied her. Why could she not be like the other women he knew—moldable and silly, eager for baubles, and as visionary as clams?
“Then you despise me,” he said.
“I dislike you . . . but I cannot despise you.”
“If you cannot despise me, then you must love me. In your speech moments ago, you left no other option.” As he spoke, Ruel walked toward her. The light in her eyes changed from defiance to uncertainty to distress. All her bold words to the contrary, she was afraid of him. Afraid of the emotion he evoked in her. And her fear gave him power.
“In fact, I believe you do love me, Anne,” he went on. “You find me intriguing and intelligent. In spite of yourself, you are curious about me. You admire my brashness and my disrespect for Society. You are attracted to my bold tongue, my sense of foresight, and my enterprising nature. It is you who would wish to save me from myself. It is your love that you would have fill my empty, black soul.”
He stopped a breath away and stared down at her upturned face. “Am I right?”
“No.”
But her eyes said yes. He searched them, awed by the intensity he saw in their depths. This was not a woman he could toy with and then cast easily aside. Her love really might fill his soul . . . fill it up . . . and overflow it . . . and possess him.
“You frighten me, Anne Webster,” he whispered. “You frighten me as much as I frighten you.”
“Go away, Ruel. Please.” Her voice held a note of pleading that transfixed him. “Go now, and leave me in peace.”
She took his shoulders and pushed him through the door. When she had shut it, he stared at the blank wood until he heard her singing softly in the next room. It was a hymn.
After reading her Bible and saying her prayers, Anne lay in her bed for nearly an hour watching the moon rise through the open curtains. London. Cranleigh Crescent. A marchioness. What had become of her?
She had not worked at lace in weeks. She had not seen the inside of a kitchen or scrubbed a floor or brushed crumbs from a tablecloth in ever so long. She had traded the chatter of the servants’ quarters for the sniping and backstabbing of the upper class. She had exchanged bowls of hot oatmeal and hearty roast beef for hare soup and ragout of duck. She had given up the silly flirtations of vegetable boys and fishmongers for a man whose desire simmered openly in his eyes.
And what of Prudence? If only Anne could relinquish this enormous, overstuffed bed for her narrow cot in an upstairs room with her friend. How cozy that had been, the two young women chatting after dark and giggling over this and that. Happy hours of making lace by the window . . . lighting candles in the corridors . . . arranging bouquets of fresh flowers in the drawing rooms.
Anne sat up in bed and threw her combing gown over her shoulders. Prudence would understand. She had to. Prudence had always listened, and she had far more experience with men than Anne. Maybe she would know what to do about the marquess and his magical kisses.
Aware that the full moon would cast enough light in the corridors for her to see her way to her friend’s room, Anne elected not to light a candle. She stepped into a pair of soft slippers, pushed her loose hair over her shoulders, and peeked through the doorway. The corridor was deserted. Shutting the heavy door behind her, she crept down the hall past the marquess’s chambers, edged around a corner, and finally tiptoed up a short flight of stairs and through a green baize curtain.