Page 15 of My Demanding Duke (Forbidden Love #2)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

DESPITE MANY ATTEMPTS at cajoling Anna into pledging to bear her son twelve children, the only pound of flesh Edwina had managed to extract was a promise that they would attend Lord and Lady Hargreaves’ musicale that evening. Which is why Anna now found herself—at the interval of an excruciating set—standing on the veranda of the Hargreaves’ Belgravia mansion, taking the night air to steady her nerves.

Hugh—like most of the menfolk—had vanished the moment the Hargreaves’ three daughters began their shrill assault on the pianoforte. Ostensibly, he had slipped out for a quick cheroot, though given that he had not returned, Anna presumed he had gone all the way to the South Americas to fetch it.

In truth, she did not mind the reprieve from his all-consuming presence.

She had not meant to kiss him in the parlour. She had certainly not meant to let herself be pressed against the wainscoting like some hapless tavern wench. And though she had not meant for it to happen, she could not pretend she that had not enjoyed it.

A blush stained her cheeks and she was glad for the night air that cooled her feverish skin.

From across the garden came the muffled sounds of two guests enjoying each other’s company with an enthusiasm more suited to a brothel than a musicale. Their unrestrained passion might, Anna thought wryly, be less a result of romance and more a desperate response to the auditory assault inflicted by the Misses Hargreaves.

She took a measured sip of her ratafia, holding the glass a moment against her still-bruised lips.

"An angel bathed in moonlight," a voice called.

Startled, Anna turned.

Lord Gravesend stood at the open French doors, the lamplight behind him casting his tall frame in shadow. His words and air of arrogance put Anna to mind, for a moment, of Hugh on their first meeting.

“My lord, I was just taking some air,” Anna replied, ignoring his outrageous compliment.

“Alone?” Gravesend observed, as he took a step toward her. His voice sounded alarmingly husky to Anna’s ear.

“My husband is partaking in a cheroot,” Anna answered firmly. Invoking the image of Falconbridge was sure to put a stumble in his step.

“How careless he is with you,” Gravesend’s wry smile flashed white in the dimness. “If you were my wife I would never leave you unattended.”

“I am not your wife, my lord,” Anna answered pointedly, setting her ratafia glass down upon the stone ledge. She lifted the hem of her skirts to depart but Gravesend’s hand shot out to encircle her wrist.

Anna stilled, her heart pounding in her chest. Did her erstwhile rescuer intend to steal a liberty?

“Falconbridge made certain no one else could have you,” the young lord said his tone laced with pity as he released her from his grip. “For a man so intent on having you, I was surprised to see him in The Bird’s Nest, gambling on his wedding night. Though, His Grace does love to chase a win; I was present the night that he won your hand. I regret that I was unable to prevent your father falling for his dastardly scheme.”

Anna stood riveted to the spot as his words washed over her. That Gravesend had borne witness to the most pivotal moment of her life and she had not, felt akin to a bodily assault.

“His Grace likes to back men into a corner before he ruins them,” Gravesend continued, his pale eyes gleaming in the darkness. “Anyone could see that your father was in too deep—that he could not control the compulsion. A gentleman would have called time, but your husband pushed him and pushed him, until…”

Anna closed her eyes, allowing his sentence to remain unfinished. They both knew how the tale ended; Anna’s hand to the duke, her heart broken by her father.

Suddenly, she knew just why Falconbridge had forbade her from associating with Gravesend. He did not want her to learn from an eye-witness his perfidy.

“Do you know where he is?” she whispered urgently, as the sound of the Hargreaves girls warming up for the second round drifted across the night air. “My father, do you know where he is? He has not been seen since that night.”

Gravesend paused long enough for Anna to ascertain that the young lord was as clueless to her father’s whereabouts as she.

“I shall endeavour to find out,” he swore.

“Thank you, my lord,” she inclined her head graciously. The notes from the painoforte became more insistent and Anna turned her head to the door.

“I must return,” she said, touching a distracted hand to her hair.

“I would offer to escort you inside, your Grace, but I do not think it wise.” Gravesend quipped.

He was correct; it would not do for her to be seen emerging through the French doors with a man who was not her husband. Nor would it do for her husband to see her accompanied by a man he had forbidden her to speak with.

“If you learn anything of my father—”

“I will send for you at once,” Gravesend assured her.

Anna smiled wanly at the young man before returning inside. The room was far more crowded than when she had left; the absent men-folk had reappeared to show their faces for the second half of the performance.

Anna spotted Hugh at once, for he towered over most of the other guests. Beside him stood Edwina—even from across the room, Anna could tell they were discussing her whereabouts. Nervously, she cast an eye over her shoulder, just in time to see Gravesend slip through the French doors. When she turned her gaze back to her husband, she realised that his eyes were on her.

His expression was unreadable, as his gaze slipped from Anna to the young lord a few paces behind her.

Anna knew a moment of guilt for defying his orders but she quashed it quickly. She was not Falconbridge’s servant, she was his wife. The wife he had acquired through the most dubious means, if Gravesend was to be believed.

“Oh, Anna, there you are!”

Edwina’s satin-gloved hand rose high in the air as she sighted her daughter-in-law, her smile of excitement contrasting sharply with her son’s impassive expression and set jaw.

“Hugh has returned for the second-half,” Edwina whispered, as Anna reached their side. “As have all the other husbands. I’ve never known so many men to take so long going for a cheroot.”

“Men are seldom where they say they’ll be, or who they say they are,” Anna answered glibly.

She turned her back on her husband, ignoring his penetrating gaze, and allowed Edwina to lead the way back to their seats. As the Misses Hargreaves resumed their shrill mockery of harmony, Anna sat still, her expression serene—her thoughts anything but.

The carriage ride home was fraught with tension. Anna tucked herself into one corner of the compartment, unwilling to allow her thigh even brush against her husband’s. The more she tried to ignore his presence, the more it filled her awareness. He was the moon and she was but the tide, drawn toward him despite herself—happy to dash herself against the cliffs at his command.

“I spoke with an acquaintance regarding your father earlier.”

Finally he spoke, after long minutes of silence.

Anna tilted her head to indicate that she was listening, her breath catching with nerves.

“Lord Mosley has not been seen in London, since the wedding,” Hugh continued, his eyes watching her carefully. “He has run up no new debt, that my connection knows of.”

Anna nodded, both relieved and made more anxious by his words. If her father was not gambling and indulging his vices, then where was he?

“Do you think he is dead?” she whispered, voicing the worst of her fears. She thought on Gravesend’s testimony; that when last sighted, her father was a broken man. Broken at the hands of the husband seated opposite her. Destroyed men did desperate things.

“No,” Hugh’s answer was delivered so confidently, that Anna felt a moment of relief.

“Someone would have discovered his body,” he continued, when Anna cast him another searching look.

“Of course,” she inclined her head graciously, both galled and gladdened by his blunt honesty.

“I have sent a rider to Whitby, to see if he has simply returned to his estate,” he finished, shrugging his wide shoulders. “Perhaps your father learned his lesson.”

“You were glad to teach it to him,” she stated, tilting her chin as his gaze swept over her.

“I find no pleasure in another man’s misery,” he replied, his voice low, deadly. “But I do not regret plucking you from his careless grasp.”

Blood flowed through Anna’s veins; anger mixed with unspent desire. He was so cool, so powerful, so utterly composed—she longed to undo him. She longed for him to express even some of the tempest that raged within her whenever he was near.

The carriage drew to a halt, killing the acerbic retort at the tip of her tongue. Hugh opened the door to assist her out. When her slippered feet landed on the footpath, he did not release his grip on her elbow.

Silently, purposefully, he lead her inside. Through the front door, the dimly lit entrance hall, and up the stairs to her bedchamber.

“Josephine your services are not required this evening,” Falconbridge informed Josie, who had materialised from the dressing room at the sound of their arrival.

Josie blushed, unable to meet Anna’s eye, and scurried away quickly.

As the door clicked shut, signaling that they were now alone, Anna whirled to face her husband.

“Your arrogance knows no bounds,” she whispered, mortified that Josie thought herself dismissed on account of their passion.

“My arrogance?” the duke remained his usual cool, composed self—but his voice held a note of anger, that terrified Anna a little. “This from the woman who not only disobeyed my only order but did it flagrantly in front of me.”

“I am not your subordinate,” Anna scowled, not denying his accusation. Her finger—of its own accord—reached out to prod his chest. Like the rest of him, it was rock hard, unyielding.

“You do not get to issue arbitrary orders and expect me to fall in line,” she continued, prodding him again. She knew that she was provoking him but she wanted some sort of reaction from him—something to prove that he was not made of stone.

Hugh’s hand came down and engulfed hers, before pulling her against him. He brought his face close to hers, his breath ragged, his eyes burning.

“I am trying to protect you.”

A moment of silence followed his rasped words. Both were utterly still as he held her in his arms, like two predators waiting for the other to make the first move.

If asked later, Anna could not honestly say who yielded first. All she knew was that his lips were upon hers, hungry and demanding. Her hands threaded through his thick hair as he pressed himself against her.

Trembling with want, she trailed a path from the nape of his neck to the front of his chest where, with trembling fingers she sought to free the buttons of his waist coat.

Urgency filled her every move—and his. He palmed her erect nipples beneath her gown, growling with annoyance to find them encased beneath gossamer and silk.

Their mouths never parted as they each undressed the other with clumsy, hurried hands, until they were both stripped bare. They sank to the carpet, limbs entwined, where Hugh covered her body with his own.

His mouth left hers, trailing hot kisses down her neck which made her her want to weep with need. When he at last caught one of her taut nipples in his mouth, she gave a cry of relief.

His hands roved the rest of her body, his fingers caressing a path along the soft virgin skin of her inner thigh. He nudged her legs apart, though she needed no encouragement to open herself for him.

“You’re so wet,” he whispered huskily into her ear, as his fingers caressed her slick crease. He moved then to the pearl of her pleasure, teasingly it gently with his thumb.

“Please,” Anna gasped, her reserve completely stripped. She wanted him, needed him, to sate the burning ache between her legs. Her hips arced, inviting him to take what was his; to plunder her completely.

He uttered an epithet as, in acceptance of her invitation, he placed himself between her legs. She was pinned down on either side by two bronze arms, bronzed from the sun, sinewy with muscle. She was powerless against him, she realised; though his sheer size and strength did not frighten her, it thrilled her.

“Christ,” Hugh uttered, as he rubbed the thick, hard length of his desire against her wetness.

Anna shivered, both with need and the cool draught which curled around them.

Above her, Hugh stilled.

“You’re cold,” he whispered, rolling off from on top of her to reach for his coat, discarded on the floor beside them. He covered her with it, his hands briskly rubbing her arms to warm her.

“It was but a draught,” Anna protested but he paid her no heed.

Instead, he assisted her to her feet in what would have been a most chivalrous manner, were it not for the fact that he was utterly naked and sporting an enormous erection.

“Hugh,” Anna stuttered as she finally found her voice. “What—?”

He turned to gaze down at her, his expression almost pained.

“Not like this,” he answered, his voice gruff. “Not in anger, not on the floor like we are rutting animals.”

Not when you hate me.

He did not say it aloud, but Anna could guess. And she could guess because she wasn’t entirely certain that she didn’t hate him.

They had reached the bed now, and he removed his coat from her shoulders, allowing it to fall to the floor. He worshiped her naked form with his eyes for a moment, his expression pained. Then he reached for her hand and guided it between her legs.

“Touch yourself if you need some relief,” he advised, his tone wry. “That’s my plan.”

With a surprisingly gentle kiss to the top of her head, he left for his own chamber. The door clicked shut behind him.

Anna stood alone, trembling with cold and something far more dangerous. Her body ached with want, her skin tingling where he had touched her—but it was her heart which troubled her most. Just that afternoon it had been filled with hope but now it felt scorched, it burned. Perhaps it was hatred she felt. Or perhaps it was just the rage of desire denied.

She couldn’t tell the difference anymore—and that frightened her most of all.