Rogue Countess (6 page)

Anna stepped out from behind the table and turned toward the back of the pub. Before she could go another step, she was brought up short by Jude’s hand wrapped around her upper arm. Several chairs scraped across the wooden floor as men pushed to their feet, not liking the sight of her being handled in such a way.

“Where do you think you are going?” Jude growled.

Anna stopped and looked over her shoulder, making sure her smile was relaxed. “I am going out back to where my horse is stabled,” she replied with amazing calm, though her own anger rolled through her at his heavy-handedness. “You may accompany me, like a gentleman,” she stressed. “Or I suppose you could be thrown out, if you insist on being brutish.”

His hand was warm and secure around her arm and he stood close enough that she could detect the smell of his horse and the fresh Suffolk air as it emanated from his person. She glanced up at his face, just inches from hers, and noted the sharp warning in his gaze.

“You are quite sure of yourself with your pack of hounds surrounding you,” he whispered. “But what will you do once you and I are alone?”

He dared to threaten her? Anna nearly slapped him. But she controlled her fury. She couldn’t wait to get her husband somewhere private so she could tell him what she really thought of his little show. She turned to precede him toward the back of the pub, eager to be outside and away from curious and concerned spectators. Jude released her arm and turned back to address the room before following her out.

“My wife will no longer to be known as Mrs. Locke. She is the Countess of Blackbourne and you will address her as such or I will know why.”

Anna heard his little speech and clenched her fists as she took long and furious strides to the large stable behind the Fox & Grouse.

The bloody arse! He had no right. She had spent years separating herself from his family and her blighted marriage, years of hard work that had finally started to gain her some respect in a world not known to be welcoming to women. One of the reasons people came to her was because they trusted her to be totally up front and honest. And he may have just blasted her reputation to bits with his careless, possessive words. Damn him to bloody hell!

She didn’t stop until she was in the dark shelter of the dusty stables. She stalked to her horse’s stall, but rather than reach for the mare, she whirled around to squarely face her husband. He was only a few steps behind her, as if he didn’t trust her to get too far out of his sight. She didn’t try to hide the fury rolling through her. In fact, she almost flew across the space with her compelling desire to slap away the look of complete self-righteousness on his face.

“You half-witted, arrogant, asinine bastard! You have absolutely no right to strut into my life and behave in such a deplorable fashion. Your actions will reflect upon me and I will not be brought down by your complete lack of manners and your twisted sense of acceptable conduct. If you want to behave like a reprobate savage, then go back to your own wasted existence somewhere else and leave me the hell alone!”

Anna had never lost her temper like that in her entire life. And as she caught her breath after the long expulsion of her fear and fury, she felt relief. Brief, however, because a second later, Jude approached her with menacing slowness. He had stood still while she had railed her accusations, but now she could see he wasn’t going to just let her insult him and then turn and be on his way. It had been a foolish hope, she realized, as she tensed for the backlash of his obvious anger.

Anna lifted her chin and glared at him, daring him to retaliate. She didn’t want him to see that he still made her very nervous. His blue-black eyes, his unsmiling face and that strange physical awareness in every tiny fiber of her body. It was something she had noticed when she was young, the sense of always feeling more alive when she was near him. But the sensation was made all the more potent by the memory of how he had touched her and kissed her and held her the other night at the masquerade.

Damn, but she had really messed herself up with that ill-conceived escapade.

He stepped up to her until he stood only a hand’s reach away. His lip curled into a sneer before he spoke and his voice was low and heavy with loathing.

“That was a pretty little tirade, wife. I almost believe you are truly concerned with what just happened in there. But you’re tougher than that, aren’t you? You haven’t changed that much from the deceitful little creature who crawled into my bed in a disgusting play to get what you wanted.”

Anna froze at his crude reference to what had occurred so long ago. That morning haunted her still. She could still see the look on his face; the abject terror in his sleep-clouded eyes. Then the slow-creeping understanding. Followed by the stark repulsion and pure hatred.

He was looking at her now with the same expression. She steeled herself against the aching it caused her heart. She had thought that organ damaged beyond repair, but apparently it existed with just enough strength to cause her more pain. She resorted to disdain in defense.

Her smile was sly and provocative. “As I recall, you weren’t in too much of a hurry to jump from your bed that morning. Something managed to keep you there long enough to get caught.”

Jude snarled like a caged animal and lunged for her. He grasped her shoulders and pushed her back against the rough wood of the stable wall. He pressed full length against her, holding her in place. Panic speared through her bones. He wouldn’t really hurt her, would he? Her head fell back and she looked up at him, refusing to let him see how he frightened her. She smiled, her expression wicked and taunting. “What’s the matter, husband? The truth too much for you?”

Jude lowered his head and met her defiant gaze with undisguised hatred. “You wouldn’t know the truth if it wrapped itself around your pretty little throat,” he growled low in his chest. His fury made him react with the instinct of an animal caught in a cage. “You know exactly why I couldn’t get out of bed. And it wasn’t you, I assure you. It was a delicate and inescapable little trap you set, dear wife.”

Anna’s thick eyelashes flickered over her glaring gaze. His words revealed something she had never been aware of, but should have guessed. He had been drugged.
Of course
. It answered so many questions she had about his behavior that morning. Her father had certainly thought of everything. She felt sick to her stomach and her throat closed with the suffocating weight of the past and where it had brought them.

Controlled rage radiated from his hard, muscled body as it trapped her against the wall. His fierce and angry heartbeat pounded against her chest. Distrust was vivid in his eyes. This was what she had expected from him every time she imagined his return. The hatred, the disgust.

What she hadn’t expected, and what she had perhaps been too naïve to imagine, was how she would react to the heat of his anger.

“So what do you want now, Jude?” she asked coldly, shielding the raw emotions of regret, loss and her own personal sense of betrayal churning in her stomach. “What brought you here? You followed me all the way to Newmarket—” she sneered, “—you must want something.”

“An annulment. I want to end this farce of a marriage. I will not allow you to remain a part of my family. You will no longer be allowed to drain from wealth you do not deserve to fund your amusements.”

“I never took a damn thing from your family,” Anna replied from between gritted teeth.

Jude’s laugh was rough and hollow. “Of course, you bought that extensive estate I just came from with money you found on the ground. Or was it a lover who purchased it for you?” he asked, his eyes sliding with cold appreciation down the length of her throat to the shadowed V at the top of her breasts. “You must be a very good mistress to earn such a gift.”

Anna’s blood shot to boiling. His accusation that she had taken advantage of his family left her with an acrid taste in her mouth. From the second she had landed on the doorstep of Silverly, she had been determined to accept nothing that might have even the slightest connection to the man who had left her to face her new life alone.

But rather than deny his ugly accusations, she coated her words with thick and heavy sarcasm. “Of course. What other option would a woman like me have? I couldn’t possibly have managed to come by all of this solely on the strength of my own intelligence, determination and hard work.” Her smile then was not pretty as she cast him a sly glance from beneath thick sooty lashes. “I assure you I earned every bit of what I have. As you said, I am very good at what I do.”

“You disgust me.”

“Fabulous!” Anna exclaimed with frustrated fury. “Now let me go.”

Jude didn’t seem the least bit affected by her physical struggles. His hold never loosened and her thrashing could have been that of a kitten for all of its effect. After a moment, she realized the futility of her fight and she stopped with a huff. She rested her head back against the wall and glared up at him.

“You are quick to cast stones, my lord. How can you justify such a self-righteous position when you have proven yourself to be a depraved and dishonorable scoundrel?”

One golden brow arched over his unmoving glare. “Depraved, perhaps. But the only thing I have ever dishonored is this farce of a marriage.”

“And me!” Anna shouted. She was reaching the limit of her endurance. Her anger was going to support her for only so much longer.

He laughed, a short rough sound. “Do not expect me to feel remorse or pity. You are not deserving of it. I owe you nothing,” he replied with utter conviction.

“And I owe you nothing,” Anna retorted. “Especially not an annulment.”

His eyes flared with black fire. “You have no choice in the matter.”

“Don’t I?” Cunning intellect sparkled in her gaze. “You will need to prove proper cause, my lord.”

His smile was wicked in its lack of humor. “If you’ll recall, we never had a wedding night.”

Anna’s reply was thick with malice. “I’ll lie and say the marriage was consummated. There was plenty of time in the carriage ride to the house following the ceremony.”

Jude glared at her as he weighed her response. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“You don’t know me very well,” she challenged. “Actually, there are several ways I can make an annulment very difficult to obtain,” she added with haughty certainty.

“You are that opposed to ending this marriage?” Jude asked as he shifted against her. “Then perhaps you should act like a wife. Starting now.”

Anna didn’t even have a chance to take a breath before his mouth fell on hers, hard and cold and unmoving. Her lips were crushed against her teeth and her head was pressed back against the wall. She brought her hands up to his upper arms, trying to dislodge him, but he wouldn’t budge. Her eyes darted to the side, trying to find something she might be able to use against him.

Then something unexpected happened. He shifted his stance and his head angled to the side. At the same time, his hand came up to wrap around the back of her neck, squeezing the tension there. His mouth changed too. It softened just the tiniest bit and his lips parted against hers. She was so startled by the change such minute differences made in the overall tone of the kiss that when his tongue pressed forward, she didn’t even think to resist. In fact, she tilted her own head to allow him better access. And as his velvet tongue swept inside her mouth, her limbs flooded with jittery warmth. Her fingers curled around the muscles of his biceps and her lower back arched involuntarily. Every thought flew from her mind as she was overcome by burning, shuddering sensations pulsing through her entire body.

She found herself answering the dart of his tongue with a sliding exploration of her own. His breath was rich and intoxicating. His body was strong and encompassing. And Anna once again experienced a yearning for so much more of him.

That was when he stopped. His head lifted just enough to break contact between their mouths. Anna’s breath expelled on a sigh as she lifted her stunned eyes to meet his. She stiffened at what she saw there.

“It seems you are that good,” he murmured with ugly approval.

Anna’s eyes widened as every ounce of the desire he had roused within her fled as if blown away by a gale wind. Her body tensed with a depth of fury she had never known.

“I hate you,” she muttered through her teeth.

Jude’s mouth spread in a smile that more resembled a snarl. “We are on the same page then, wife.”

He stepped away from her and she wasted no time in swinging around and stepping into her mare’s stall. She leapt up into the saddle without the assistance of a mounting block. All she could think about was getting far away from him and the unwelcome feelings he created. She settled her feet into the stirrups and urged the horse from the stall.

“I will have the paperwork necessary to dissolve our marriage sent to you as soon as possible.” Jude’s voice was formal and distant, a stark contrast to the passion she had just experienced in his arms. Clearly, he had felt nothing of the same.

Anna stopped her mount and looked down at him. She tried to infuse her voice with the same cold finality. “Feel free. But you won’t get your annulment. It is the least I can do for such a devoted husband.”

Not the slightest bit concerned with what he would think of her vindictive refusal, Anna pressed her heels to her horse’s sides and the well-trained thoroughbred leapt into an instant and powerful gallop. The sound of pounding hooves resounded through the dingy stables for only a moment before she turned onto the road and gave the horse free rein.