Sattler, Veronica (14 page)

"Oh!"
cried Ashleigh, partly in surprise, mostly in shock, for never, in all her
years at Hampton House, had any piece of information slipped down to her that
this was a way a man could take a woman.

"Hush!"
Brett rasped, even as he gave forth with another hard thrust. Then the thrusts
came even harder and faster, and Ashleigh felt herself caught up in the same
incredible whirlwind of longing as before. His arms wrapped around her from
behind and his hands found her breasts, cupping them while the thrusting rhythm
continued. Then Brett's face was buried in the mass of heavy hair at her neck
and she felt him tense momentarily before one final assault of his body told
her it was over.

Moments
passed while the room echoed with Brett's ragged breathing, and then, finally,
he rolled to his side, pulling her with him.

"An
admirable pupil, my sweet," she thought she heard him whisper, as she was
drifting off to sleep, exhausted and ashamed.

Robert
Adams was annoyed. Had he been the kind of man given to excessive emotions, he
might even have been said to be furious, but such was not Adams's manner.
Nevertheless, it took him a great deal of control to assume the well-modulated
voice and external appearance of calm he had always assumed—indeed, prided
himself on assuming, when dealing with others—as he stuck his head out the door
of his hired carriage to address the driver.

"Well,
my good fellow, what progress?"

The
driver, a short, burly man with auburn hair and side whiskers, answered in a
Scottish burr. "She's nae ready yet, sir, for a' the time it's cost, bu'
gie us anither fi' minutes an'— ah, there ye hae it, Davey! Well done, laddie,
well done!"

The
"laddie" was the driver's son, a brawny youngster of about fourteen
or fifteen; the pair of them had just spent the past two hours—and six minutes,
Adams calculated as he dared to peer at his pocket watch again—removing a
massive oak tree that had fallen across the only road that led from Cloverhill
Manor to Ravensford Hall. It had apparently been uprooted in an early-summer
thunderstorm that hit the area the night before last, and since the only ones to
use this road were members of the Hastings and Westmont households and those
who had business with them, Adams assumed it had not been cleared because he
was the first to travel this route since the storm, curse the luck!

He
had spent the afternoon at Cloverhill Manor at the request of Lady Margaret
Westmont, meeting with the Hastingses on behalf of the duke to set the wheels
in motion for an alliance between the two families. Adams smiled briefly at how
easy it had been. More than twenty years ago his father, Raymond Adams, had had
the task of setting up a similar arrangement between the Hastings family and
the Westmonts, and most of that paperwork had survived—the firm of Adams and
Adams kept meticulous records—forever. This had served him adequately as
guidance in what would prove to be a detailed and intricately wrought contract.

As
Adams felt the carriage lurch forward and heard its wheels grind beneath him,
however, his thoughts turned fretful again. Normally he exhibited the patience
of Job when encountering obstacles in the routine of his day-to-day affairs.
This was because Adams rarely left anything to chance. If he estimated a
meeting would take an hour to be completed, he always allowed an hour and a
half; if the distance between two points of business required a two-hour
journey, Adams allowed three. Punctuality was at the top of his list of virtues
in all his dealings, business and personal, and he rarely fell short of it.

This
morning, when he had arrived at Ravensford Hall at the behest of Lady Margaret,
he'd heard her request that he begin arrangements with the Hastingses and
planned his day accordingly. After a footman had been sent ahead to announce
his visit, he'd traveled back to the inn at noonday to gather his papers. He
dined well, though sparingly—Adams was vain enough to resist the gastronomical
temptations that would force him to wear the corset donned by many men of
fashion, the Prince of Wales included. He allowed what he thought would be more
than adequate time to conclude his business and be back at the duke's home in
time to intercept Brett before he arrived. At least, he'd
thought
he'd
allowed enough time.

But
during his visit with the Hastingses he'd learned that Brett was already
home—Lady Elizabeth had heard it from servants' gossip after his horse had been
spotted by a groom. The lady had also, Adams recalled, been highly miffed that
neither his lordship nor anyone in his family had taken pains to send her word
that he was returning home at this time, and it had taken a great deal of
diplomatic skill on Adams's part to smooth her ruffled feathers. This news,
however, had alarmed him greatly, for Lady Margaret had totally neglected to
inform him of Brett's arrival when she spoke this morning, and he'd feared his
plans to confess his sin of having kept Brett's grandfather in the dark
regarding his social life all these years, might already have been thwarted.

But
Lady Margaret's silence had also indicated to Adams that any disturbing
encounter between Brett and the duke had probably not occurred; surely, if
Brett had raged, or worse, laughed in the old duke's face, over their scheme to
present him with a whore's tutoring, he would have heard about it! Indeed, he
would probably have been called on the carpet by either the duke or his heir,
or both, once his well-intentioned duplicity was uncovered.

Strange,
Adams thought as he felt the carriage make the turn that would take it up the
main drive of Ravensford Hall. Why wouldn't that old witch have mentioned her
grand-nephew's return?

Adams
smiled grimly as he pictured the face of Lady Margaret Westmont, with its
elongated contours, long, straight nose and icy blue eyes. He had no illusions
about that woman. She was as formidable a personage as any he'd ever met in
breeches or pantaloons, and he'd spent the years in which he'd served the
Westmont family assiduously avoiding any confrontations with the one he knew
the servants called Iron Skirts. It was better, he'd long ago resolved—having
learned it from his father before him—to deal with the no-quarter-given, yet
open and forthright demands of His Grace than to become enmeshed in the
underhanded machinations of his sister.

Again
Adams smiled as he settled, with this last notion, on the probable reason for
her omission over Brett's arrival. She had been completely in her element this
morning, he thought, so wrapped up in her plans to see her matchmaking scheme
come to fruition, she could hardly be bothered with the arrival of the
grandnephew she'd always hated.

Adams
drew himself up rigidly.
Hated?
Had he actually used that word to
describe the woman's attitude toward her grandnephew? After a moment's pause,
Adams settled back in the carriage, nodding slowly to himself. Yes, it was
appropriate, all right, though he was damned if he'd ever figured out why she'd
harbored such deep feelings of enmity against the boy, feelings that went back
to Brett's
childhood!
Perhaps that was it, Adams concluded as he glanced
out the window and saw the magnificent brick facade of Ravensford Hall come
into view. She's never married and had any offspring of her own—although, if
his father were to be believed, she'd been quite an attractive woman in her
youth and had not lacked for suitors. She probably harbored an old maid's
resentment of those who had wed and produced progeny. There certainly had been
no love lost between her and her twin over the years, and the woman's sourness
and perversity had simply extended to the duke's progeny as well.

Well,
thought Adams as the carriage pulled into the great circular drive fronting the
Hall, enough time spent on figuring out the character and motives of that old
crone. Right now he had to be concerned with making some explanations to her
grandnephew.

But
as Adams alighted from the carriage and beheld the faces of several servants
who rushed out to meet him, he quickly realized those explanations would have
to wait.

* * * * *

Ashleigh
sat, brooding and stony faced, at the dressing table in the chamber where she'd
spent the past twenty-four hours. She succumbed to the careful brushing of her
long, heavy tresses by a young maid who'd arrived an hour before to help her
bathe and dress. Behind them, busily fluffing up the pillows on the huge tester
bed Ashleigh had come to hate the sight of, was an older woman who'd arrived
with the maid, cheerfully introducing herself as Mrs. Busby, the housekeeper.

Catching
sight of Mrs. Busby in the mirror gathering up the soiled linens she'd recently
replaced with fresh ones, Ashleigh quickly averted her glance. The linens
reminded her all too painfully of the look of abashed amazement on the older
woman's face when she'd begun stripping the bed a while ago and noticed the
bloodstains that bore silent witness to Ashleigh's loss of virginity.

I
won't cry in front of them, I won't!
she vowed as she forced her eyes to look
at her reflection in the glass. Not that it mattered. Any fool could see, by
looking at her, that she'd been weeping.

And
why? Because some insane mix-up had convinced Lord Brett Westmont that she'd
been a professional woman of pleasure, and despite her protestations, the
blackguard had arrogantly set about using her, ruthlessly, for hours.

She
resisted the temptation to part her dressing gown and glance down at her lower
limbs to see if there were any marks to testify to the soreness she felt about
her thighs and buttocks. She ached in several places at once, but it was not
the physical damage that threatened to overwhelm her; it was the shame... and
the anger.

Reluctantly,
her thoughts turned to the handsome fiend who had caused her—and cost her—so
much pain. He had spent the entire night here in the chamber with her, forcing
her, again and again—dear God, the
shame
of it!—to submit to all manner
of intimacies. He had taken her so often during the night, she'd lost count; it
seemed he was insatiable. Several times he'd allowed her to fall asleep,
exhausted, in his damnable arms, only to reawaken her a short time later, eager
to have his way again.

Then,
sometime late in the morning, he'd told her to get some sleep and left—without
another word. She'd waited until she was reasonably sure he wasn't going to
return right away and hurriedly dressed to leave. But when she'd grabbed her
valise and tried the door, she found he'd locked her in!

The
rest of the day she'd spent alternately weeping and shouting for someone to
release her, but whether anyone heard, she couldn't tell; no one came. Sometime
late in the afternoon she'd at last fallen asleep in an armchair near the
fireplace. (She'd resolved never to go near that bed again!)

Finally
she'd awakened to the sound of the door being unlocked, and Mrs. Busby and the
young maid had appeared, cheerful and solicitous, looking for all the world as
if a strange young woman's disheveled appearance in the guest chamber were an
everyday occurrence.

Perhaps
it was,
reflected
Ashleigh as her sapphire eyes narrowed and she thought of her tormentor. A man
like that's probably had no end of women, probably in this very chamber!

Oh,
she
seethed,
Brett Westmont, lord or no lord, someday I'll see you pay for what
you've done to me! Just you wait and see if I don't!

Just
then the door opened, and the object of her anger entered, looking as if he too
had recently bathed and changed. He was immaculate, from head to foot, dressed
in a dark blue evening coat and crisp white waistcoat, his cravat as expertly
tied as Brummell's.

Her
perusal of him stopped just short of examining the powerful thighs that were
encased in pale, skintight pantaloons; they were a reminder of parts of his
anatomy she had no wish to recall, but the effort of ignoring them cost her: in
the mirror she saw her cheeks flame.

Brett
saw this too—an observation prompting low laughter as his eyes found hers in
the mirror. But then he turned and bestowed the most gracious of smiles on the
housekeeper.

"Thank
you, Mrs. Busby. Your expert assistance is appreciated. That will be all for
now, I think."

Mrs.
Busby's cheerful countenance lit up like a chandelier at his praise. "Very
good, your lordship," she chirped. "Come along, now, Annie." She
addressed the maid who was busy giving Ashleigh's freshly washed hair a final
stroke. "The lady's hair looks just lovely."

Annie
giggled at the compliment and hurried to follow Mrs. Busby. Then the door
closed behind them, leaving Ashleigh alone again with Brett.

Ashleigh
eyed the closed door warily, then turned to her captor. "Why am I being
kept prisoner here?" she asked in her most demanding tone—although if the
truth were told, the inflection came with difficulty; she had never been
accustomed to demanding anything in all her years at Hampton House; it was not
an attitude that sat easily with her.

Brett
strolled casually toward her until he stood immediately behind her chair at the
dressing table. Giving no evidence he'd heard her question, he absently fingered
the plain cotton collar of her dressing gown for several long moments.
"Where on earth did you come by such an unattractive garment?" Then
he glanced at the worn valise lying on the floor nearby. "In fact, all
your meager belongings are beggarly. We'll order some new ones at once."