Lord Ruin (7 page)

Ruan found Anne in his room, surrounded by his trunks. Neatly packed by the ever efficient Dobkin, they stood stacked and ready to be sent on to Satterfield. Well, now to London instead. She stood at the window, clutching the damask curtain, head bowed to the darkly rich material. Though he could feel the tension in her, she wasn’t crying. No flood of womanly tears. She simply stood there holding the curtain like a drowning man would a rope. “Miss Sinclair,” he said curtly because he very much disliked tears and quite plainly there would soon be tears aplenty. Then he remembered she wasn’t Miss Sinclair anymore. “Anne.”

She slowly turned from the window. No sign of emotion marked her expression. He’d never thought of women as creatures capable of any particular control when under duress, but Anne’s composure impressed him. Those damned spectacles of hers made it impossible to see her eyes and even begin to guess what she was thinking. She curtseyed. “Your grace.” She wore her wedding gown, green satin old enough to have lost some of its sheen. He still disliked the color on her.

“Urgent business calls me to London,” he said abruptly. “I leave within the hour.”

“I understand.” She pushed her spectacles toward the bridge of her nose in a gesture he thought was pure habit.

“I’m sending you to Satterfield.” He walked part way in, and half-leaned, half-sat against the larger of his trunks, wondering why she reminded him of Devon. The moment he and Dev met, he knew they’d be friends. He felt that now, the same unspoken, unquestionable certainty of compatibility. Which made no sense at all, but there it was.

“Yes, of course,” she said. Her breath caught, refusing to give voice to the grief he now saw in her eyes.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

“Ask me no questions . . .”

“And I’ll tell you no fibs,” she concluded, a faint, wry smile curving her mouth.

“Then no fibs between us, Anne. I am your husband. You may tell me anything. Anything at all.”

She lifted her hands, palms up. “I keep thinking I’m going to wake up and find it’s all been an awful dream. Only I haven’t.”

“We must make the best of the hand fate dealt us.”

“I am very good at making the best of things.” She returned to the window, staring steadfastly out as if fascinated by the view. “But I want my life back the way it was.”

“Put your regrets aside. They do no one any good. Least of all us.” Late afternoon sun lit her hair, bringing out subtle shades in her braided bun that ranged from palest gold to silver-white. Not plain hair by any means.

Just a plain arrangement. As with her figure. Plain coverings hid the beauty of her form.

“Never, ever, has it mattered what I want. Not to anyone.” She pressed her forehead to the window and spoke in soft, constricted words. “Always, I must accept someone else’s decision about my life. First Papa. Then Aldreth. Now you. But I am not a puppet to be manipulated as if I don’t matter.” She clenched a fist to her throat. “I am not.”

“What is it you want? Jewels? New gowns?” he teased, thinking of having his fingers threaded in masses of silver-gilt hair. “A box at the opera? A pretty mare and an elegant carriage round out the usual requests. I’m a generous man and think I can be a generous husband.” Midnight blue would be her color, he thought. Yes. Dark and dramatic tones in counterpoint to her coloring. Rich silks and sensuous velvet, as soft and luxurious as her skin.

She turned again, perfectly composed. “I want to go home.” They stood close enough that he could touch her. Which he did. A soft, gentle stroke along her cheek. For him, the contact was a lightning strike, a bolt of sensation that leapt from her and shot through him like fire through dry grass. She gasped, and that made him wonder if she’d felt it, too. “I don’t want to feel,” she whispered. “I want only to get through this without disaster.”

“Without inconvenient feelings.” He felt a bit at sea because he’d never in his life had so perfect an understanding of any woman. Women as a species, he understood quite well. But any woman in particular? Never. Until now. She was a stranger to him, but not a stranger.

“Exactly,” she said.

“In that, Anne, we are in accord.” He had the damnably persistent feeling he’d known her for years and could speak to her without dissembling. As if she were a long lost friend with whom he had only to become reacquainted. Again, not what he was used to when dealing with women.

She shook her head. “This cannot possibly succeed.”

“I will take care of you. Never doubt that. You are my wife. I take care of what is mine.”

“I am not yours.” Her spectacles slipped downward, but she ignored them. Lashes black as night made her eyes seem paler than they actually were. Lord, how had he ever thought such eyes lacked spirit? Hers blazed with intelligence.

“Yes, you are.” He smiled slightly. “You gave yourself to me when you signed your name on the marriage lines.” Christ, her eyes were lovely.

“Papa said you would set me aside.”

“So that’s what he told you downstairs.” He shook his head. “I wondered about that. What else did he say? Never mind. I don’t want to know. Your father does not signify.”

“He said you will divorce me. That I shall have to live abroad until Parliament grants you a divorce. Then—” She faltered just the tiniest bit. “Then, sir, why, I will to Bartley Green, and you’ll never hear from me again.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible.”

“Bartley Green is my home. Why on earth could I not go back?”

“A divorce. A divorce is not possible.”

“You can’t mean you haven’t the money or the influence.”

“I have both, of course.”

She lifted her palms. “Well, then.”

“Divorce would ruin me. I’d not be welcome anywhere. More important, I’d have to step down from Parliament and the Privy Council. If I were prepared to do that, I would have done as you expected; settle on you a sum sufficient to keep you in the deep countryside never to be heard from again.”

“Would that be so bad?”

He met her forthright gaze. “I have responsibilities I wish not to relinquish. There are inequities in England I would see eased, if not erased.”

“You mean that, don’t you?”

Her surprise pricked his pride. His voice took on a certain coldness. “So much so that there are but a limited set of circumstances under which I would consider so extreme a course as divorce.”

“Such as?”

That sounded like a challenge, and he frowned. “The obvious ones. If I had reason to believe any child of yours was not mine, for example.”

“Whose could it be, if not yours?”

Ruan felt her innocence like a blow. It kept him from telling her how many married women had come willingly to his bed, how many a woman he knew of who gave her husband another man’s brat. Only one thing would be worse than that, and that was no brats at all. “Or if you denied me conjugal rights such that I would not have any heir from you.”

He met her gaze head on and was shocked by how intensely aware her eyes were. Aware of him. Aware of his meaning. Aware of the consequences. A woman of parts, he thought, even though he’d never before applied the compliment to anyone of her gender.

“Under those circumstances, yes, I would divorce you. But none other.” A rather long silence ensued. He gave up fighting the ridiculous feeling that they had years of history behind them and years more to come. “I’m sorry if you thought otherwise.”

“You’ll not set me aside. Child or no child?”

“No.” He felt—What? Relief. Certainly that. But while the distant future concerned her, he thought only of the present. At this moment, he had clear memories of making love to her. Memories she appeared not to share, at least not with any fondness. “Can you bring yourself to the marriage bed without disgust?” The thought of her lying inert while he did what he must appalled him.

“If I had a baby, I might not feel so alone. There would be at least some purpose to this mockery of a marriage.”

Once again, her thoughts were on the future when what mattered was right now. “You will meet the purpose quite nicely, I should say.” She did not look like a woman capable of sending a man insane with wanting. She was not beautiful or seductive, at least not as he’d formerly understood the words. But he knew what he’d felt. He wanted to feel it again. To have an orgasm that shattered him to oblivion and back.

“You make me sound like a prize broodmare.”

He acknowledged that with a nod. “I’m certain you will be a good dam to my foals.” That made her smile, and he grinned back. “Do you know, until now, I’d only thought of a wife and children in the abstract. As if I’d one day have some sent over from Regent Street. Boxed up nice and pretty to be taken out on holidays and the odd special occasion.” He cocked his head. There wasn’t a woman alive he couldn’t charm if he put his mind to it. “Now that I have you, tomorrow wouldn’t be too soon for children. I’d like several.” Christ! Where the devil had that come from?

“So would I,” she whispered.

“All the dukes of Cynssyr have been born in Cornwall.” He took her hands in his, touching the wedding band on her left hand. “At Fargate Castle. It is where my heir will be born.” He stood near enough to see the neat stitches in the collar of her gown and an area where satin thread was meant to mimic fabric worn away from long use.

“I’m sure I shall like Cornwall,” she said in a determined voice. He rather thought she’d have said the same of Hell. A regular solider, she was. “Is that where you’re sending me now?”

“Satterfield is much nearer London than Cornwall.” He gave a faint grin. “Did you think I meant to banish you to Cornwall?”

She shrugged in reply. Amenable on the outside she was, but inside, Ruan thought she was not so yielding. He fancied if he pushed hard enough he’d feel the bite of steel beneath.

“Under different circumstances, I might have banished us both, but I’m afraid I cannot stay away long enough for the gossip to die a natural death. So, it’s Satterfield, not Fargate Castle. I’ll be in town, though. I can’t say if I’ll be able to join you very often. I shall if I can get away. Christ,” he sighed, brushing his fingers through his hair. “I’ve not been gone twenty-four hours, and I’ve nothing but disasters to be dealt with.”

“Including me?”

He gave her a sharp look, but she smiled, and the tension in him eased. Without thinking what he was doing, his slid his hands up her arms, savoring the warm, silky flesh. “Believe me, you are the least of them.” In the back of his mind, he puzzled over how at ease he felt with her. It once again struck him that he might have known her for years. Just like with Devon. An odd, but certainly not unwelcome realization. “So, my dear Anne, only when we have achieved our mutual goal will I banish you to Cornwall.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I am a practical man.” She made a little sound of surprise when he cupped her elbows and pulled her close. He watched her, feeling his interest rising, stirred in a surprising degree. Really, she wasn’t a bad-looking woman at all.

“That is not your reputation.”

He kept her close. “And that is?”

“That you make women love you.”

“I never in my life
made
a woman love me.”