Rogue Countess (13 page)

“He did not,” he muttered through choking laughter. “And he still has his head? Or is decapitation still to come as part of the suffering you mentioned?”

“Argh,” Anna shouted in frustration as she grabbed a pillow that had fallen from his bed and swung it violently at his head. “This is serious, Leif. I need your help.”

“Sorry, sorry.” Leif tried valiantly to swallow back the chuckles that rose in his throat. “So, what does he want from you?”

“An annulment,” Anna answered as she started pacing again.

“Perfect,” Leif replied, throwing his hands in the air. “Give it to him and be done with the man.”

“No. If an annulment is what he wants, then it is the last thing I want him to have. I want him to suffer, Leif. I want him to feel the pain and distress of being trapped in this marriage as I have been.” She waved her hand in a sweeping gesture toward the window. “He took off. He lived his life exactly as he wished with no thought to what he had left behind. I don’t want to be ignored and forgotten again as if I am some slip of paper to be passed into a drawer. Before he goes on his merry little way again, he will know that I exist.”

Leif watched the various expressions of distress, anger and sadness that passed over his friend’s features. He shook his head in disgust for what he was about to suggest. He still wasn’t convinced she shouldn’t turn and run. But he knew Anna, and she had set her mind on vengeance. If she wanted her husband to stand up and take notice, he would do what he could to help her. Leif could only hope she came out better for it on the other end.

He sighed heavily and stood.

“Let me ask you something,” he began gently as he reached her and set his warm hands on her shoulders. “Is he attracted to you?”

Pink warmth spread over her cheeks at the personal question, but she answered it honestly. “I don’t know. He implies that he is, but it could be a ploy to irritate and manipulate me.”

“Has he kissed you?” Leif pressed.

Anna shifted from one foot to the other. “Yes.”

“In thinking about how he kissed you, what does your intuition say about his level of desire?”

Anna snorted. “I don’t know, Leif. What difference does that make? His passion could have been a show, a put-on. Isn’t that what you do all the time?”

Leif cringed at her careless observation, but he knew she hadn’t intended the comment as an insult. It was true, after all. “Yes, but I have practiced the proper reaction. A man without my particular experience would not so easily be able to express a passion he didn’t feel.”

Anna screwed her features into an expression of embarrassment mixed with distress. “Then I guess I would have to say yes, he finds me attractive.”

“Excellent,” Leif murmured with a gentle squeeze of her shoulders. “Then making him suffer should prove to be terribly easy for you, sweetheart.”

Anna’s expression turned incredulous. “You mean I should seduce him?”

Leif nodded. “Seduce him and refuse him. Understand that’s the key. If you can’t refuse him, there is no point in even attempting this strategy.” Leif dipped to look her more directly in the eye. “Tell me you understand.”

Anna rolled her eyes and pushed past him to cross the room in nervous strides. “Of course I understand. I’ve realized I have a certain…vulnerability when it comes to him.”

“You just realized that, did you?” Leif smirked, earning himself a swift glare of reproach as she turned back to face him.

“I don’t know the first thing about enticing a man,” she argued, which made Leif laugh again.

“That’s a bunch of bullocks. You, my angel, are one of those rare women who radiate with innate sensuality. You have an instinctive knowledge of how to display your more enticing features to the most dramatic effect. There has just not been any occasion to practice the art of seduction itself. You spend far too much time with men who prefer fast horses to fine women. I promise, you will barely have to do a thing.”

“I don’t even think I could manage to be nice to him,” Anna warned.

“You wouldn’t have to be. Your greatest weapon is that stunning body of yours. Let him catch a glimpse here and there. A small patch of forbidden skin or a quick flash of the whole package. With him in your house, it should be easy to maneuver.”

“And what if I manage to seduce, but then can’t refuse,” Anna asked in a voice that suddenly sounded strained.

Leif hesitated. Though her posture was stiff and determined, there was a flicker of sadness in her eyes. It was carefully hidden away and only barely visible to one who had seen that look far too much in a time he had hoped was long gone.

He stepped toward her and answered earnestly, knowing she needed the truth from him more than anything.

“You might enjoy it. You might lose your heart.”

Anna closed her eyes and stood motionless. Leif was tempted to reach out and fold her in his arms, to comfort her as he used to when they had been young. But he kept his distance and waited.

After only a moment, she opened her eyes and met his gaze with strong conviction in the tilt of her chin.

“Then I think I’d better avoid seduction,” she stated blandly.

Leif nodded. His blood ran cold with the certainty that Blackbourne would not be the only one to suffer in the coming days.

Chapter Twelve

With Anna gone from the house, Jude took it upon himself to become familiar with his new residence. He was in a fine mood, and it was a direct result of his encounter with Anna that morning. The first phase of his plan to become a constant presence in his wife’s life had been rather easy to accomplish.

She had claimed she wouldn’t alter her routine by his presence, but he doubted she would be able to ignore him completely. He could see that he made her uncomfortable. He felt the same way. It would have been so much easier to just hate her on all levels. The natural stirrings of lust that came to life whenever he was in her presence made things more difficult for him, but it did not change his ultimate goal—to be free of the marriage once and for all.

The more he learned about the woman, the less he trusted her. A young woman who had risked everything to force a marriage with the heir to an established and respected earldom, did not turn around and refute every connection to it and go about her merry way. There was some piece of the puzzle he was still missing and the certainty of that nagged at him.

After making his way through every room of the house, Jude stepped outside to investigate the stables. He was surprised by the quality of the small out building behind the typical London townhouse. Usually, there wasn’t much room for full accommodations in the city limits. Many town dwellers didn’t even have a stable, preferring to rent carriages and horses as they were needed. But the countess had extended her service building into the small garden that stretched behind the house, allowing for a quaint stone courtyard. The space made a fine display area to show a horse for an intended sale.

He spent the better part of an hour talking with the very capable and knowledgeable lads in charge of the horses. They knew an inordinate amount about the care and treatment of thoroughbreds, and very little about the woman who paid their salaries. Any questions Jude posed about her business in breeding and selling racehorses were answered with quick confident responses and wide grins of pride. But the best he could determine about their mistress personally was that she spent her time equally between London and Thornwood Abby in Suffolk, depending upon the season, and she rose early every morning without fail to ride in Hyde Park.

Jude never slept late, but the next day he woke exceptionally early in order to
accidentally
intercept his wife. Yet for all his planning, he still heard her heading out more than fifteen minutes before he was ready to leave his bedroom. He ignored the flash of annoyance over having to chase the woman down in order to irritate her.

But his pique didn’t last long.

It was a beautiful day after all and it was already shaping up to be unseasonably warm. When he entered the courtyard the sun was just starting to stretch its rays from below the horizon. A couple of the stable lads he had talked with the day before were already finishing up their morning chores and waved a friendly greeting as he passed. He walked into the building and breathed in the rich scent of fresh hay, oats and oiled leather.

Not much later, Jude was riding along one of the many lanes in Hyde Park.

As the horse’s hooves thundered over the perfectly prepared path through the park, Jude thought back to that summer and the weekend that had changed the course of his life.

It was strange to him now to think that he had ever been so young and naïve. At twenty-two, he had thought himself a man of experience. He was betrothed to a woman he loved and he thought the entire world was his for the taking.

He and Olivia had met at one of the many balls that overran London during the official season. She had been a vision of golden beauty. Her pert wit and pouty pink smile had claimed the hearts of many young men about town, and for some reason she had chosen him amongst all of her possible suitors. Jude had been flattered and bewitched. Miss Olivia Locke knew exactly how to make a man feel as if he were the strongest, cleverest and most interesting human being in the entire room. The girl had wrapped him around her finger.

But he had been content. His mother and father had approved of the match, though his father had cautioned a long betrothal so they could have time to get to know each other, which was the purpose of the many weekend visits during those hot summer months. The Locke house had been filled with guests desperate to escape the heat and stench of the city. Jude had lavished nearly all of his attention upon Olivia, and she had relished in his single-minded focus.

The younger Locke sister had only been a faint shadowy waif who drifted in and out of Jude’s memory of those days. Back then she had been a sullen and quiet girl. She had been too young to join in the amusements of the house party and for the most part kept out of sight. Though there had been that one time when he had convinced Olivia to sneak away from the house with him. He had had her pressed up against the outside wall of the stables with his hand shoved up her skirts and his mouth pressed to the top of her bosom when Anna came upon them. Olivia, in her embarrassment and fear of discovery, had shooed her younger sister away with a sharp and biting tongue.

He could still remember the stark astonishment on the young girl’s face. Her dark eyes, even wide with shock as they were, still held a depth of melancholy that was disturbing in one so young. As Olivia had shouted at her to run along back to the schoolroom and keep her mouth shut about what she’d seen, the child had turned those doleful eyes on him and he had felt a moment of searing awareness. As if the girl had seen into his soul and had been disenchanted by what she saw. The sensation had bothered him and cooled the ardor that had run so hot minutes before.

And the very next morning, disaster fell like an anvil.

Jude woke up feeling like he had to swim through layers and layers of London’s thickest fog. His entire body ached and his head pounded with a headache that made it hard for him to think straight. Even the details of the night before were vague and distorted. He had been afraid to even open his eyes in fear that the light of the room might split his skull completely.

But then, something had managed to break through to his consciousness with disturbing alarm. It was the voice of Edward Locke bellowing loud enough to wake the dead. In Jude’s confusion, he’d thought for a moment he must be dreaming. Why on earth would Olivia’s father be in his bedroom? Then he had heard a pitiful female wail and had struggled to open his eyes. Olivia was there too? His confusion had been so great he couldn’t even make out what the Lockes were saying in such angry tones. It was as if their voices were coming at him from under water.

He’d managed to crack his eyes open and not only Olivia and her father were in his bedroom, but other guests were crowding in behind them, their gazes pinned on something beside him. Jude had pushed himself onto his elbow and turned his head, the slight motion making his stomach heave.

Sprawled next to him in the bed was the slim, pale body of Olivia’s sister. The girl had looked so young and defenseless lying there still asleep, or pretending to be, in spite of the commotion surrounding them. At the same time, lying on her stomach with her limbs flung out in all directions and her black hair tangled about her, she had also appeared devastatingly wanton. Jude had known then with a sobering certainty that he wasn’t dreaming at all.

He had awoken to a living nightmare.

He didn’t remember much of what happened immediately afterward. He had no idea how he got back to Silverly, and it wasn’t until the following day that he recalled the glass of warm milk that had been sent up to him before bed. His fury at the full realization of what had happened had no outlet. There had been too many witnesses to the girl’s ruination, and Edward Locke had already begun a campaign demanding retribution.

He was trapped. His fate sealed by the devious actions of a girl still in the schoolroom.

When he went to his father and explained privately what had happened, the earl had only looked at him with sorrowful eyes. Jude had never been able to discern if his father had believed his explanation or not, but the earl made it very clear that regardless of how the events had been put in motion, he fully expected his son to behave with honor.