Trust Me (39 page)

This new information
startled Anne. She didn’t know what to say.

“I had thought the
reason I would be faithful would be my wish to avoid hurting you. The truth is,
I thought you might come back and if you did, I didn’t want Rebecca between us
like that. As I said before, the circle of you and me is all that matters now.”

“I know you didn’t
bed her. I saw the truth in your eyes that day we quarrelled over your carriage
ride with her.” Her voice grew tighter and she paused for a breath. “I only
pretended because I felt I must convince you to let me go.”

“Why were you so
willing to believe me?”

“Because I couldn’t
believe that you would ever hurt me like that. I just couldn’t. I am not always
able to voice everything I am thinking and feeling in a moment. But I trust you
with all my heart.”

He stroked her hair
and then he put the necklace on her. He traced a fingertip down the chain to
where the pendant rested between her breasts. “The circle of you and me. That
is all that matters.” He walked to the bed and sat on it. “Come.”

He motioned to his
lap.

“But you said you
forgave me.”

He reached over and
picked his crop up from the night table. “This is not punishment. This is about
possession.”

Heat tingled through
her belly, her sex. Pride swelled within her. Pride that, after everything, he
still wanted to possess her in this way.

Don’t think. Just
feel.

She went to him and
lay over his powerful thighs.

He stroked his hand
over her buttocks. “I could devise some impossible standard that you could
never uphold and use that as an excuse to do this. To satisfy my desire to mark
you as mine. But I vastly prefer that you to submit yourself to my will because
you want to please me. Because you want to be marked by me.”

“I do. Oh,
I do
.
Mark me as yours.”

The sound of the crop
striking her flesh, startled her.

She hadn’t expected
him to react so quickly. The sting hit and it was like fire spreading through
her body, straight to her cunt.

He struck her
quickly, twice more. Then he threw the crop aside. It hit the floor with a
thud.

She was writhing with
need.

He slid his hand
between her legs and touched her wet, swollen slit. Stroking her slowly,
building in speed and intensity, slipping his fingers into her channel whilst
circling her erect, straining nub with his thumb.

Everything inside her
broke loose, and pleasure burst within her in waves. Her inner walls clenched
on his fingers again and again and she was coming and coming.

And then she lay
spent. For several moments, he stroked her hair and she clung to his thighs.
She belonged here, held in his lap. Surely, she’d never felt so at peace.

“You do realize that
I indulge you shamelessly?” His deep voice startled her.

Still in a daze of
satisfaction, the meaning of what he said dawned on her slowly and she laughed
softly.

“What if I made you
wait a whole week for release?”

She tensed. Oh, he
wouldn’t. Surely he wouldn’t, at some future date, decide to be so unkind!

“No, no Jon,” she
begged.

“You are too spoiled,
too delicate for such sensual denial, eh?” He chuckled.

“You make me sound so
frivolous. I am really very practical.”

“You don’t have a
practical bone in your body, love. You’re a very sensual creature. You with
your chocolates and your raspberry preserves, the rose and lavender candles you
have spread all over my house. All your little comfits you cannot do without.”

“Goodness…” Anne
couldn’t keep the dismay from her voice.

“Don’t be distressed.
I adore your little spoiled sensibilities. I also am aware that you have known
much denial in other areas where you had no control and no hope of fulfilment,
and yet you bore it all with dignity.”

He knew all her
deepest, most shameful weaknesses. To be seen so clearly
 
and yet to be accepted, and loved… dear
Lord.

Her eyes instantly
welled with tears. She didn’t want to cry.
She wouldn’t cry.
She
swallowed hard.

“My poor, lost little
lady,” he said softly.

“I did so look
forward to Dorothea coming here. I thought to have a sister…even a half-sister,
then I will understand, finally, what it is like to have a true family
connection.”

He stroked her back
with a circular motion.

“It was horridly
selfish of me, I should be happy that she will have her time with Mama. But I
am disappointed and I am angry…I just…I just…”

“Of course you’re
disappointed, sweeting, of course you’re angry. Not with Dorothea, but with
your mother. She built up your hopes, made you turn your life upside-down. You
were pressured to get over the trauma of the accident so that you could be
ready to meet your sister in Plymouth. Yet as it turned out, your mother had
not been set in her mind about what she wanted. She sent you a letter based on
a caprice.”

Oh God, he could be
so sympathetic, so understanding. She could never hold out against that. Tears
fell from her eyes, freely. She couldn’t hold them back.

He caressed her back.
“It is all right, sweeting. It is all right, Nan.”

 
She cried harder, her whole body shaking for
while.

When her sobbing at
last subsided, he took her body and gently rolled her until she was lying in
his lap, looking up at him. “I was wrong to put my pride in-between us,” he
said. “I should have said to hell with whatever people were saying. Even if
they were saying you were mad, I should have stuck to our plans to go to
Scotland. None of this darkness would have happened to you.”

It pained her heart
to hear the terrible guilt in his tone.

“I think it would
have happened no matter what we did, or where we went.”

“Why do you say
that?”

She told him about
Rebecca Howland’s unexpected and bold visit.

“She did?” he
thundered.

Anne touched the side
of his face. “She wanted to help.” A deep crease had
 
formed between his eyes and Anne reached up and smoothed it. “Do
not be angry with her. She helped me to realize something. I’m not mad, but I
could be pregnant.”

For a few moments, he
continued to scowl.

Finally, ever so
slightly he smiled,. “If Rebecca says you are increasing then you likely are.
She has an intuition for such things.” His smile broadened and he gently laid a
hand upon her stomach. “You’re a clever little wench to get yourself with child
so quickly.”

There was no
mistaking the pride and, yes, happiness, in his voice. She smiled up at him and
he smoothed her hair off her face.

“A very clever
wench.”

For several moments,
they simply smiled at each other.

But Anne couldn’t
shake the memory of his admiration for his former mistress. It had hurt to hear
it in his tone when he had spoken of her just now.

“You say you were
never in love with Rebecca Howland, never thought of marrying her.”

“I’ve been in love
once.” He caressed her cheek.
 
“Once.”

“I don’t understand.
She’s everything a man like you could ever want in a wife.”

He raised his brows
in exaggerated surprise. “She is?”

“Of course she is.
She is capable, practical, brave—”

“She never believed
in me.”

“Certainly she does.”

“No. She never
expected me to love her. How can a man love a woman who never makes any
emotional demands? Who will not trust him to fulfil her dreams?” He smiled
broadly and traced a fingertip down Anne’s nose. “You believed I could help
you. You wanted the world from me and believed I could deliver it to you. You
demanded that I change my ways.”

Her mouth fell open.
“I never did.”

“Yes, you did. In
your quiet way.” His look sobered. “In your deepest core, you trusted me to
fulfil you. No, woman ever had looked at me the way you did. But I damaged that
trust, at Eastwood Place, when I pushed you too hard. When I was cruel to you.
I would work a lifetime to prove myself to you. I
will
work a lifetime
to prove myself to you.” He smoothed her hair off her forehead. “A man, even a
noble gentleman, can change, Anne. Let me prove that to you. Tell me what you
want, anything at all, and I will give it to you. I will do it for you.”

“What I want right
now?”

“Yes.”

“I am dreadfully
hungry, Jon. I feel like I’d kill for a breakfast of ham and cheese and bread…
oh, and I’d dearly love a pineapple.”

He laughed. “A
pineapple?”

“Yes.”

“Where shall I find a
pineapple this time of year?” Teasing entered his tone and his eyes twinkled at
her. Bluer than any sky.

A feeling of inner
emotional release came over her. An easing of a holding back she hadn’t even
realized had still been there. It was as though she were taking her first full
breath since first arriving in Mayfair weeks ago. No, since that damned letter
had come from his Grandmother.

But things had
shifted themselves.

She and Jon would be
all right.

Everything would work itself out.

“Surely there are
greenhouses in London.”

“I don’t know. I fear
it shall be dreadfully expensive. Are you worth that kind of bother and
expense, wench?”

“Oh Jon, I am so
hungry and I really do
need
a pineapple. And I promise to be a good girl
in return for the trouble.”

“A good girl, eh?”

“Ever so good.”

He chuckled softly.
“Then a pineapple you shall have, Lady Ruel.”

****

They lay in her bed,
eating pineapple. Jon picked up the dark-green, spiny, lopped-off top of the
fruit and considered it a moment. “I think you are much like a pineapple, my
love.”

Anne laughed softly.
“A pineapple?”

“On the outside,
you’re all prickly. But underneath, you’re very sweet and succulent. Delicate.
Yet deep inside you’ve got a strong core.”

“You’re waxing…well,
not poetic, maybe the right word is…
silly
.”

“You make me silly.
With happiness.” Despite her smile, he saw the doubt in her eyes. They would
work on that. Together. “You are very strong, Anne. In your own way. You fought
your own demons and you have prevailed.”

Pride and admiration
for her made his voice catch at the end. Lest he give his wench a swelled head,
he returned to reading his newspapers.

“Jon?”

“Hmm?” He looked at
her.

She drew her dark
brows together. “When did you get these?”

She touched the
spectacles on his face.

“Do you know, Anne,
that we have so much to read in the Lords, that it gave me headaches?”

“Goodness. That
much?”

“Yes.” He put his papers
aside on the night table and leant back against the pillows. “The political
life is growing on me.”

“Is it?” She flushed
and her dark blue eyes widened and sparkled with pleased surprise.

 
“It is like another sort of battle. It has
its own strategies of charge and retreat. I never thought much of politics
before. It seemed so much vainglory and needless puffing. But it is an art.”

“And you think you
might make a go of it?”

“I think I might,
wench. I just might at that.”

Her look turned
serious.

“What’s wrong,
sweeting?”

“I can’t forget about
Saxby. I wonder if he is all right. He took a hard knock to the head.”

After their breakfast
of ham, cheese and bread and before they had made love, she had told him all
about the events at Marshwray Place.

“Saxby should worry
more about when I come to make him answer for his deeds.”

Rage smouldered
through Jon. Oh, he would take care of Saxby. The young duke would answer for
what he had done. And as for Maria, she would be retiring to the country—or
relocating to America, permanently. Very soon. The climate in Mayfair would no
longer agree with her.

“But you said you
forgave everything.”

“I forgive you. Saxby
held you against your will.”

“Yes, Jon, he did.
But he thought he was protecting me. He thought you were being a brute to me.”

He took her hand. “It
is why I insisted that you be very careful not to let the secret out. He could
not possibly understand. Nor will others.”

“I never meant to
involve him. But I understand better now.”