How to Lose a Bride in One Night (22 page)

And another realization hit her. Hard and ugly. She bit her lip until she tasted the coppery tang of blood.

As long as she ran, she hadn’t changed. She was the same broken girl who had washed ashore. The girl she had vowed to never be again.

Owen lifted his hand and brushed her lips gently, his fingers coaxing her to ease her bite. His expression intense, he studied her like she was some manner of riddle he must solve. “What are you doing?” he murmured with a slight shake of his head, and she knew he meant more than hurting herself. He meant everything. All her secrets and half-truths. Giving herself to him and then disappearing into the night.

“I’ll tell you everything.”

He smiled crookedly, ruefully—still so handsome that her heart ached—and she knew he did not quite believe her.

She would go back to Town with him. She would tell him everything. Every ugly truth. Starting with the fact that she was another man’s wife.

And then she would do the only thing she could to keep Owen safe—and possibly even herself, too. Although keeping Owen safe took precedence. She had dragged him into danger. She would see him out of it. He might have been able to handle Snyder tonight, but Bloodsworth was evil. He was capable of anything.

Her eyes suddenly blurred. She blinked the burning sensation back and stared at Owen as though her world were not ending.

As if she would not be returning to her husband.

Chapter Twenty-six

O
wen watched her sleep as they traversed through the streets of London. She listed to the side, her cheek pushed against the carriage wall, her lips parted slightly as she breathed deeply.

She’d fallen asleep almost instantly. By the time he’d finished overseeing the securing of his mount to the back of the carriage and joined her inside, she was fast asleep. Explanations could wait. They had waited this long. He’d let her rest.

The carriage stopped and he opened the door before any of the grooms could reach it. Turning, he reached inside for her and settled her in his arms. She murmured unintelligible words and burrowed into his arms. Her hair fell loose over his hand, the tendrils soft and silky.

Dawn suffused the sky with gentle shades of pink and orange, washing out the lingering gray of twilight as he carried her up the steps of his town house.

Mrs. Kirkpatrick emerged, poised to greet them. He shook his head at her, indicating for her to hold silent and not wake Annalise. She stepped aside for him.

He took the steps two at a time. Once in his bedchamber, he kicked the door shut softly behind them. He lowered her to his bed and carefully slipped off her cloak. Next came her boots.

Finished, he took two steps back and watched her, mesmerized at the unguarded view of her. She sighed and curled onto her side, her hand slipping beneath her cheek. She looked so innocent. Sweet and peaceful and beautiful in his bed. He never wanted her to leave. He wanted her in his bed every night.

He glanced over his shoulder to the door. It was morning. There were things he needed to do, but weariness tugged at him. He couldn’t recall the last time he had slept.

Bending down, he tugged off his boots. Next came his cravat and jacket. He eased down on the bed beside her, studying her as she slept, appreciating the dark fan of her eyelashes on her creamy cheeks. He knew when she woke she was going to tell him what had scared her into running away, but that didn’t scare him.

He closed a hand over the one that lay limply between them.

He laced his fingers with her slighter ones. Even smaller than his, the fit was so right.
Perfect
.

He marveled at the tightness in his chest, the warmth that pervaded him just staring at her. She did this to him. No one or nothing else had since he’d left home for India over four years ago. He wasn’t going to lose this feeling again.

He wasn’t going to lose her
.

W
hen he woke, it was hours later. A thin thread of light glowed from around the edges of the damask drapes. He quickly glanced to his side, almost as though he feared she had left him again.

But she was still here. His breathing instantly eased.

She’d moved onto her back. One arm was flung above her head, the other stretched out to her side. She slept like she did not have a care in the world. He smiled.

She sighed and her breasts pushed enticingly against her bodice. The slight stiffness of his cock became an insistent throb. Rolling to his side, he ran a finger along her jaw, savoring the skin that he knew to be soft.

His hand moved, drifting unerringly to the hem of her dress, which had risen to her knees in sleep. He tugged it upward, meeting her stocking-clad knee. He teased the inside of her knee there.

She released a small breathy sigh and parted her legs wider in unspoken invitation. He sat up, watching her face closely as his fingers moved along the inside of her thigh toward the slit in her drawers.

Her features loosened, her lips parting in a low moan as he cupped his hand over the very core of her. The heat of her filled his palm. She thrust her pelvis, pushing herself into his touch.

He eased a finger inside her, reveling in the sweet warmth of her surrounding him, tightening around him. He ached at the thought of his cock there, buried in her.

Her fingers clenched the counterpane and her spine arched off the bed, her legs widening even farther.

Her eyes fluttered open, glazed with a desire that fed his own, stoking the fires low in his gut. The rich brown gleamed like pools of dark chocolate. He came over her to lose himself in her eyes as his fingers plied her soft folds, adding another finger to plunge in and out of her slick heat.

“Owen,” she breathed, her hands coming up to grip his shoulders.

“Annalise,” he rasped a beat before he kissed her. She tasted of lemons and that indescribable taste that was hers alone. Her fingers dug into his shoulders as his tongue parried with hers.

He groaned, his hand moving for his breeches, never breaking their kiss as he anxiously freed himself. She cried out against his mouth as he drove into her. She lifted her legs to take him in deeper.

He slid his hands to cup the rounded swell of her bottom, holding her for his penetrating thrusts. She quivered beneath him and he knew she was close.

“Come, follow me, sweetheart,” he encouraged, not wishing to reach his climax before she achieved her own.

Her head came off the bed, her hair wild and dark all around her. Just as her eyes. So very deep and dark, they pulled at him and spoke to his very soul.

He reached between them, finding her pleasure spot, the tiny sensitive nub buried in her woman’s folds. She whimpered at his first touch. He pressed harder, rolling the sweet, little pearl as he drove into her.

Her arms came around him, her mouth open and arousing as hell against his neck as she released a sharp cry.

He groaned, spilling himself deep inside her. He collapsed over her, satisfied in a way he had never felt before.

“I’m crushing you,” he muttered, pushing himself up on his elbows on either side of her.

“I don’t mind,” she whispered, her hands coming up to frame his face, holding him, pinning him with her mesmerizing eyes.

“Annalise?” He smiled down at her, feeling that familiar tightness in his chest.

She held his gaze. A curtain fell over her eyes. Something he couldn’t decipher.

Wariness filled him. He started to pull away, but her hands tightened on his face.

“I—” Her voice broke suddenly, and that stark emotion in her eyes . . .

He suddenly understood it. She was afraid.

“What, Annalise?”

“I’m married.”

Everything inside him froze, revolted. She wasn’t married. She couldn’t be.

“No.” The word dropped like a stone between them. “You were a virgin—”

“The marriage wasn’t consummated,” she was quick to reply.

“Obviously,” he growled, her words sinking in. A dark terrible fury rose up in him. He climbed off her and dropped down on the bed beside her.

She rose to her knees, smoothing her rumpled skirts down. “Owen, please . . .”

“When were you going to tell me this, Annalise?”

She’s not yours
.
She can never be yours
. It was the only thought that rushed through him. Dark and clawing and deep.

She shook her head, and offered up the lame excuse, “I don’t want him . . . If I could go back and undo it . . .”

“But you can’t,” he said harshly, as much to remind her as to confirm it for himself.

Moisture gleamed in her eyes. “You are right. I can’t go back and unmarry him. I can’t change how naive and trusting I was. So desperate for love and approval that I could believe a man wanted me for more than my immense dowry.”

He
had wanted her. Owen blinked hard, demanding, “Is that your plan, then? Commit adultery so that he will grant you a divorce?”

“What? No.” She shook her head, looking genuinely surprised. “Nothing about this, about us, has been a manipulation. You are the only thing real, the only good thing that I have ever had.”

He snorted. “Nothing you say can be trusted.” Bile rose up inside his throat as the knowledge sank in that she was not free to be with him. She belonged to another. He forced the foul taste back down and turned, walking a hard line across the room.

“There’s more . . .”

“More?” He stopped and released a harsh, ugly laugh.

She nodded. “I’m the Duchess of Bloodsworth.” He watched her throat work. “He was the man you saw me with on the street.”

He closed his eyes in a hard blink, opening them to look at her, perhaps seeing her for the first time. He didn’t know her at all.

“The Duke of Bloodsworth? And yet he permitted you to leave with me?” The bile was back. “What game are you two playing at?” He shook his head, swallowing down the bitter taste. Coldness washed over him, numbness. “You certainly lowered your standards to let me in your bed.”

“No. Don’t say that.” She shook her head, her eyes enormous and pleading, almost reminding him of a child. Since the start, he knew she was hiding something, but he had not imagined this.

He had not imagined she was hiding the one thing that would keep her from ever being his.

Turning, he strode from the room.

“Owen!”

He continued down the corridor, the sound of his name on her lips like a knife to his back.

Chapter Twenty-seven

A
nnalise watched him go, a burning sob rising in her throat. She brought her knees to her chest and covered her mouth with both hands as if she could stop the sound from spilling out. She rolled to her side and buried her face in the bed. A mistake. His scent was everywhere.

Tears rolled hotly down her cheeks unchecked, their salty taste finding a way beneath her hands to her lips. She couldn’t help herself. She turned her face into the bed and breathed him in, desperate to memorize this last smell of him.

It was better this way. Better that she hadn’t told him everything. He’d been too shocked to press her for more details. She had seen that in his face. Perhaps he would hate her now. Hate her and put her from his mind.

If he knew all of it, that Bloodsworth had tried to kill her . . . that he was the one responsible for sending Snyder after her, he would be duty-bound to keep her safe. Again. His honor would demand it. He’d never let her return to her husband. But now he would.

She was another man’s wife. She had kept that all-important fact from him and that’s all he could see at the moment.

Fighting back tears, she pushed up from the bed. She moved mechanically, changing clothes, using the basin of water to clean herself. She splashed water again and again on her face, as if that would somehow wash away the pain.

Staring at herself in the looking glass, water dripping from her chin and nose, she marveled at how different she looked from the girl who had wed Bloodsworth months ago. No longer so frightened. There was strength in the lines of her face. Resolve in her brown eyes. She would not return to her husband as the vulnerable girl he had tossed into the water and left for dead.

Dressed in fresh clothes, she moved toward the vanity. Sinking down on a stool, she tidied her hair, sweeping the brown mass into a simple knot.

This time she wouldn’t bring anything with her. The clothes she had here didn’t belong to her. Nothing here belonged to her. Claiming her cloak from where Owen tossed it to the floor, she swept it around her and departed the room.

The door to the library was cracked and she heard the clink of a glass inside. She paused outside of it, envisioning Owen sipping from a glass of brandy. She longed to go to him, but the memory of his face, so stricken and horrified when she told him she was married, gave her pause. This was better. No need for him to glimpse her face. He might see the truth.

She loved him.

Totally. Completely. Unapologetically.

She could go to Bloodsworth because of him. Because she knew love. Her love for him made her stronger. Better. Strong enough to confront Bloodsworth. Strong enough to stop hiding. Especially since doing so would keep Owen safe. The risk would be hers alone. As it should be. She alone would confront her husband. Looking away, she hurried past the library door.

On the bottom floor one of the grooms stepped forward to intercept her as she opened the front door. “Miss Anna? Do you need the carriage brought around?”

She hesitated only a moment. “Yes, please.” Why not? It was no secret she was going . . . and no secret
where
.

In moments she was moving across Town. The streets were crowded with conveyances—members of the
ton
out for an evening of diversion. By the time she reached the duke’s Mayfair residence, dusk had fallen. The house was ablaze with lights, and she surmised her husband was entertaining for the night.

She didn’t knock.

One should not knock at the door of her own home, after all. A groom turned, startled, as she entered the vast foyer.

“See here—” he began.

She held up a hand, angling her chin just so. “Do you not recognize me?”

Even before their nuptials, she had visited the house countless times.

The servant frowned, scrutinizing her. Then he gaped, recognition lighting his face. “Miss Hadley? I m-mean, Your Grace?”

“Where’s my husband?”

The groom motioned vaguely. “He’s in the dining room. He and his guests only just sat down.”

She nodded. “Very good. Thank you.”

“Shall I escort you, You Grace?”

“I know the way.” She walked past him with sure strides straight into the proverbial lion’s den.

S
he has left again. I thought you should like to know, my lord.”

Owen looked up from his glass of brandy. “Thank you for that report, Mrs. Kirkpatrick.” He did not even bother to keep the withering sarcasm from his tone. He was in a foul mood and she approached him at her own peril.

“Edmond drove her to the Duke of Bloodsworth residence in Mayfair,” the housekeeper added, unfazed as she stared at him with such expectation. As if she was waiting for him to rise and
do
something. Go after her, he supposed.

“Again, thank you, Mrs. Kirkpatrick. That will be all.”

Pursing her lips, she nodded and swept back out of his library.

He finished his brandy in one long swallow. Annalise had wasted little time returning to her husband. As was right, he grudgingly acknowledged. She belonged to Bloodsworth. Standing, he sent his glass crashing into the wall. It exploded into a thousand pieces.

She should be with her husband. The man who had wed her before God. Who had lost her . . . and let her end up broken along the shore of a river.

And now Annalise was back in his hands.
Bloody hell. No. No, she was not
.

Not if he had anything to say about it.

Charging from the room, he stormed out of the house, suddenly not caring what was right or wrong. He only knew she belonged with him.