Lord Ruin (21 page)

“You were in the thick of it, weren’t you?”

“The very. Were I to be killed—” His throat closed. Go slowly. Not all at once or she might refuse to listen. That she should listen to him and really hear him, seemed terrifyingly important. “Were I to be killed, I wanted to die from a clean shot. Quick. Through the head or the heart. I didn’t want to linger for days like some of them did.” He lifted her hand onto his lap as insurance against her escape. “Belgium, Quatre Bras, that is, was different, but in Spain I tried to kill cleanly. Sometimes I couldn’t. Combat in close quarters means bayonets. It’s a rotten thing to do to another man. You’re damn lucky to stop a man on the first thrust. Generally it takes a few, all the while someone else is trying to gut you himself. I ought to have insisted on a command from the bloody start.”

Once begun, he could not stop. Every awful memory poured from him. The heat, the smell of blood and dust and sweat and rotting men. Gaping wounds, the look in a soldier’s eye just before he died. Swirling, churning lust for death and survival. Screaming men and horses. The god-awful sound of swords and guns and cannon booming. Metal piercing flesh. Quicksilver judgments and near instantaneous reactions that meant a man’s life or yours. Winning or losing. Life or death.

Anne said nothing, for Cynssyr spoke to her. The man. Not the aristocrat. Not the dandy. Not the politician. Not even the soldier, but the man who was all those things. Nothing stood between them. The power and depth of his emotions humbled her. Occasionally, she touched him or murmured something comforting. Heaven help her, he was so much more real to her this way, telling her of his experiences in the war, binding her to him with his sharing. A man like any other. Like Aldreth or Devon. Not at all intimidating. A man with fears and imperfections. A man reaching for comfort and afraid he would find nothing.

“It’s not the same dream every time. Sometimes I’ve been shot in the belly. Something that takes a while to snatch you away to hell, and I’ve been left for dead.” He shuddered. She felt his tremor in the dark. “Sometimes I am dead. A corpse on the field while that damned Lieutenant Martin steals my watch and cuts the buttons off my coat. I keep shouting ‘I’m alive. I’m alive!’ Only no one hears me.” His voice dropped to a low, raw whisper. “They go on about what a pity it is I got myself killed. A man of such promise, they say. Whatever it is, it ends with me surrounded by dead men. They grab me, beg me to save them, and I can’t. There’s nothing I can do but listen to their curses. No matter what I do, no matter how many Frenchmen I murder, there are too many. I never save anyone. Least of all myself.”

Images of men fighting, going down, bleeding from mortal wounds filled her mind. Cynssyr grasped her head between his hands, peering into her face like a man desperate for an answer. “What?” she whispered over the fear in her heart. That look stole her breath, her will, the very core of her.

“Until you, I wondered if I really was dead. All this time, I thought I might be. Until you.”

In the semidark, she brushed a crescent of hair from his forehead. “I’ve always thought no one was more alive than you.”

“Until you, I didn’t know what it was to be alive. You’ve shown me something I didn’t think existed.” His voice fell so low she wasn’t sure if she heard the words or just absorbed them. “
I am not dead. ”

She stroked his face. “Cynssyr.”

He let out a short breath of air and spoke in a normal, almost dispassionate tone. “You are good to sit here listening to me tell you of my night terrors.”

“How could I not?” A deep sadness filled her. When he came out of this mood, he would see her. The woman he did not love. The wife he never wanted. She leaned away only to encounter the heavy silk hangings that cast them both in shadow.

Air moved across her forearm, as though he’d meant to touch her then changed his mind. “I am so often awake past dawn I’ve been a dolt and forgotten you are used to country hours yet. Go to bed, Anne.”

“What is it like for you?” The question came out impulsively. Obscurely. Too abrupt and too blunt.

“What?”

“When you’re with a woman.” She could not bring herself to ask the question she wanted answered. What was it like for him to make love to her?

“That very much depends,” he said in a quiet voice. Had his emotions ever been in such turmoil? Anguish. Gratitude, then amusement. Admiration. Lust. Inevitably, lust.

“On whether the woman is beautiful enough?”

“I used to think so.”

“What then?”

He shook his head. “With you it’s different. I come like a bloody bull with you. I want to reach inside you and make you feel what I do, to know heaven and hell and pleasure so intense you can’t tell if it’s agony or pure bliss.” He touched her cheek and decided he had nowhere to go but forward. “When I make love to you, I am yours. You own me body and soul.”

“Cynssyr.” And in that one word he heard doubt and anger and fear.

“You don’t believe a word I’ve said, do you?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

“You are always honest with me.”

“Usually,” she said.

“I’m not sure I care for it.”

She laughed at that, and then they laughed together. He drew her closer, grateful for her impossibly even temper.

“Tell me, was there truly no one ever to court you?”

“Never.”

The swiftness of her reply sent an alarm through him. “Bartley Green must be full of fools.” She must have been courted. A woman like her would have been noticed by someone. And, of course, she had been.

“No more than any other place, I imagine,” she said with altogether too much caution.

“No one you longed to kiss?” he asked. She tried to squirm free of his embrace, but he kept her close. Jealously cut astonishingly deep. The reality that Anne, his Anne, had longed for another man, had dreamed of another man’s embraces pierced to his soul. “Was it Devon?” He hated himself for asking, but he had to know. Ben and Devon had both talked as if Anne had no notion of Devon’s intentions. But she must have. She would have.

If she felt the edge to his question, she didn’t let on. She laughed. “I might as well wish to fly as think of any of Aldreth’s friends. There were so many handsome men at Mary’s wedding. Besides, no one ever paid that sort of attention to me. Why would they?”

“Anne,” he said. “I forbid you to talk in this fashion. You are not a crone. You crack no mirrors when you look in them. Nor is it true no man paid attention to you. Devon did.”

“Not the way you mean,” she said. She didn’t sound surprised. No, of course not.

Oh, Christ, he thought. Jealousy twisted in him because he knew Anne too well to believe she hadn’t at least suspected Devon’s feelings. “Ben had no intention of letting you molder in Bartley Green. Do you think he brought you to London solely to chaperone your father?”

“That’s perfect nonsense.”

“You knew he had someone in mind.”

“Cynssyr,” she said reasonably, even though he had her decidedly off balance, guessing things she’d not wanted to admit even to herself. Not openly, anyway. But, he was right. “Why does it matter? I would never have married.”

“Not even if you were in love?” He gave her a full minute to answer, and she didn’t. “Were you in love?”

“Why does that signify, Cynssyr?”

“Let us just say that it does,” he whispered, terrified he was too close to the brink, terrified that he had lost himself to her and that she would never accept him because she’d loved Devon first and still did.

In the darkness Anne could not make out his expression. But she didn’t need to see him to know his mood. His voice sounded like steel, so hard and unyielding that his hand on her cheek gently tracing a line down to her throat startled her. She tried to still her racing pulse. “Papa refused to give his permission, and so I put him out of my thoughts.”

“And what of your heart?”

To this, Anne made no reply.

“Who is it?” he asked. “Some other man I’ll want to kill? Or is it black-hearted Devon?”

“Did you dream of kissing him?” His arms crept around her, still gentle. “Of having him hold you like this?”

“I did not dare.”

“Do you love him still?”

“He is my friend, Cynssyr. I don’t know what I’d do without him.”

“He loves you.”

“Yes,” she said after a bit. “I know.”

“Not as a friend, Anne. He does not love you as a friend.”

She tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let her. She turned her head, staring at the silk bed-hangings. “I know.”

“He wanted to marry you. He intended to.”

“I know that.” With an anguished cry she faced him again. “He waited for me all this time. He waited when no one else did. When he stopped being just Mr. Devon Carlisle he wanted me still, and he waited. But Papa hates him. Even after he had money and his title and was a gentleman whom everyone wanted to know, Papa still hated him.”

“Especially then, Anne.” He cupped the side of her face. “Devon meant to take you from him. And your father knew he could do it this time.”

“Don’t you see, Cynssyr?” Her voice broke. “I knew it was impossible.”

“And now it is.”

“Yes,” she said. “Now it is.”

“Do you hate me for it?”

“I should.” Her voice fell to a whisper, like silk against air. “I should.”

“You are mine, Anne. You don’t belong to your father anymore, and you never belonged to Devon. You are mine.” His fingers slipped from her shoulders to her waist. He shook with his want of her, with an almost violent need to make love to her.

He wanted to make love to her. But he wanted more than sexual release. Physical intimacy was the only way he knew to express what he felt for her. Ruan, who had once looked upon sexual relations as akin to food, a corporeal need that since it must be satisfied had as well be satisfied by only the best, glimpsed a frightening truth. He’d wasted something precious with those other women, and had certainly never truly made love. Though he had always satisfied his partners, and by some accounts magnificently, he had in fact been a selfish lover.

Anne’s breath caught in her throat when his mouth grazed her neck, a tender, lingering touch at odds with the tension she felt in him. Gently, he moved aside her braid, exposing more of her neck to his mouth.

“Mine,” he murmured. “Mine.”

His lips warmed her skin. There was that feeling again. That nervous ball in the pit of her stomach. And, Lord save her, anticipation, too. She felt his lips brush her shoulder and a corresponding disturbance in the rest of her body that centered itself in the core of her womanhood.

“This is mine, too.” He put a hand on her breast and found the peak.

She bowed toward him, completely undone by his fingertips on her. And then it was his mouth. “Cynssyr.”

Anne’s heart jumped in her chest, her body fevered from the inside out. She pressed herself against him, offering herself to him with helpless desperation. One of his hands was on her knee and stroking upward beneath her nightdress. His mouth was on her throat, tracing a hot, damp line toward her belly. Sensation buried her. She didn’t care what happened to her or what he did so long as he continued to touch her. He devoured her, and she let him. She wanted him to. One of them gasped, she thought it was probably her.

“Are you all right?” he whispered.

Honestly, she didn’t know. She felt dizzy and out of breath. He held her even more closely than he had before this started. “No,” she said. “You’ve stopped kissing me.”

“Let me remedy that.” His mouth felt wonderfully greedy, taking what she gave and then coaxing more from her so that she teetered constantly on the brink of another discovery about just how hot her blood could burn. Her arms were around his neck, clinging to him while his lips sliding down her throat sent trails of fire to her belly.

Christ, she had that soft voice that had so pleased him at Corth Abbey. The passionate witch was summoned to his arms. And here they were, so conveniently in his bed. His mouth caught hers, and his chest quivered. Heat flashed through him because he knew he would have her this time. All of her. Everything. The heat settled at the base of his spine and between his legs at a distressingly specific spot.

A spark shot through him at her bewitching surrender. He took her mouth again and urged her lips farther apart, wanting every bit of her sweetness. He tasted her, drank of her with his mouth and body and mind. His hand cradled the side of her face while he swept his tongue past her lips and into her mouth, bent her over his arm, kissing her with what his fogged senses dimly recognized as desperation. He ran his tongue over her teeth and along the inside of her cheek, exploring, luring, capturing.

Hunger rose in him, needy and overpowering. The hand on her cheek slid around to the back of her head and brought her closer yet. He burned for her. For Anne. He held her tightly, taking her mouth like a starving man. He wanted to devour her and thought maybe he would. She answered his passion, arching against him until he was certain he would go up in flames. Her kiss seared him, burned him to ashes, melted him and put his life and future in his lover’s hands and heart.

He turned so that she was beneath him, his body over hers. Her legs parted, whether from the weight of him or some happy accident of their position or even instinct made no difference. Whatever the reason, their respective parts were suddenly touching. He took her heat into him. His mouth left hers to search downward, along her neck to the soft skin above the neckline of her night-clothes. She moaned her longing and pleasure. One of his hands found her bare knee and stroked along her thigh. That brought on another moan, another arch of her body into his. He adored her with his mouth and his hands and then, just when he was going to reach for his own nightclothes and begin the all-important lesson about her passion for him, she stiffened.

“Anne, what’s wrong?” Christ, his fingers were tangled in her pubic hair. “Have I frightened you?” Hell. Hell and damnation. Was he destined always to be a clod? “I’m sorry.”

“The door.”

“What?” The fog of passion began slowly to dissolve.

She touched his cheek. “Merchant,” she said with gratifying breathlessness. “The door.”

“Your grace?” came his butler’s voice.

“What?” he shouted. Merchant, he decided, had just spent his last hours of employment at Cyrwthorn.

“My lord the earl of Bracebridge is here, sir. He is most insistent upon seeing you.”

Devon. He shot a look at Anne and saw her lips swollen with his kisses, her hair disheveled, nightclothes loosened, the flush of passion still there.

“He wouldn’t insist if it weren’t important,” she said.

Another five minutes and he would have been between her lovely thighs, losing himself to her. And she would be losing herself to him.

“In my study,” Ruan called to the door, pushing himself away from Anne. He hung his head, drawing in a calming breath. “Ten minutes.”

“Very good, your grace.”

He caught Anne’s hand just as she slid off the bed, modestly pushing her nightclothes below her knees as she did. “Don’t leave.” She stopped, a look of inquiry on her face. Against his better judgment, he leaned in for another kiss, catching her lower lip between his. “That,” he said, pleased because she moved eagerly into the embrace, “must sustain me.” He left the bed and after lighting a lamp, gathered his clothes. “I woke you, Anne. Sleep here. If you like.” The essentials only, underclothes, trousers, shirt, boots. Could he stand the thought of knowing she was here? In his bed.

“I couldn’t sleep now,” she said. “Not with Devon downstairs on urgent business.”

He threw a glance at her as he drew on his trousers. Strands of her silver-gilt hair fell about her face, her hands rested palm down on his rumpled sheets. Without the spectacles, her eyes were vivid blue-slate. A wrinkle formed between her brows as she squinted to see him.

“Merchant didn’t say it was urgent,” Ruan said.

“But that’s what it means, his coming here at this hour. He must have some news.”

“Yes, I expect that’s so.” He held his shirt, poised to pull it over his head. It struck him that she was beautiful. But he saw far more than her physical beauty; he knew the woman who lay beneath her strengths and weakness, which when it happened with other women generally sent him quickly on his way. Not with Anne. If she turned to a crone before his very eyes she would still be beautiful to him. “If that’s why he’s come, you ought to hear, too. We’ll be in my study. Join us there when you’ve dressed.” But he caught her hand before she could leave. “You
are
mine.”

“Like a toy to be tossed aside when you’ve grown bored?” She did not smile or laugh this time.

“He is my best friend.”

“I know.” Briefly, she pressed her palm to his cheek. “I know.” And then she was gone. He dressed quickly and went downstairs to see what his best friend was up to.

Devon turned when Ruan stalked in. One black eyebrow shot upward. “Good morning to you, too, Cyn.”

“I was making love to my wife,” he said, throwing out the declaration like a challenge.

“My timing has always been execrable,” he said wryly. “I trust you gave a good account of yourself.”

Ruan took a deep breath and sat heavily behind his desk, waving at Devon to find a chair of his own. “My apologies for that, Dev.”

“So,” Devon said softly, stretching out his legs and crossing them at the ankles. The question in his tone was obvious.

“I barely remember meeting her.” He held his head in his hands. How could he have met her and not known? There ought to have been bells tolling or a ray of light shining from the heavens to her. Some damn premonition anyway. “I won’t even tell you what I thought of her when we met her at Aldreth’s wedding.”

“I know what you thought.”

“However you look at it, I’ve been a worthless bastard.”

“Well, now,” Devon drawled. “I wouldn’t say worthless.”

A soft tap at the door interrupted Ruan’s tart reply. Anne came in carrying a tray of tea and hot cross buns straight from the oven, judging by the fragrant steam. “I thought a bite of something might do us all some good.” She smiled at Devon, and it was like an arrow turning between Ruan’s ribs. “Good morning, Devon.”

“Anne.”

She set out the cups, wondering what they’d been talking about that made the air thick enough to cut with a knife. Once, for so brief a time, she had let herself love Devon. He would have been a good match for her, she thought. Or maybe for the woman she used to be. Somewhere in the back of her heart’s regrets she felt sad for the loss of that future. She served each of them tea and a bun, then settled down with one for herself. No tea, though. The smell bothered her. “What have you learned?” she asked Devon. “Do you know who it is?”

“Cheeky little thing, ain’t she?”

“Yes.” Cynssyr gave a very slight smile. Anne stared at his mouth. Those lips had been on hers. Doing wonderful things to her. Worrying things. Fretful things. Shamefully splendid things. Things to enslave her. Thankfully, they’d been interrupted, because she’d been close to disastrous surrender. In truth, she had surrendered. She knew he would have shown her no mercy.