The Ruin Of A Rogue (22 page)

Tossing a finger of bread onto the plate, he stood up. “We shouldn’t be betrothed,” he burst out. “I shouldn’t have offered and you shouldn’t have accepted me. Luckily it’s not too late to draw back. As you say, no one will know.” Standing by the fire, he gesticulated wildly. “As far as the world knows you were trapped here by the flood. Your reputation will be a little tarnished, but so great an heiress will always be forgiven. You told me yourself.” She’d never heard Marcus speak so desperately, with so little calculation. He wanted her to withdraw her acceptance and make their engagement the shortest on record.

She sank back against her pillows, searching for warmth.

“You’re cold,” he said. Crossing the room, he found a quilted cotton banyan and placed it around her shoulders in a caring gesture that failed to comfort.

She shrank away from him. “I understand. You only offered for me because you are a gentleman. Now you want me to withdraw, also because you are a gentleman and cannot do so yourself.”

“I don’t know what it will take to convince you that I am no gentleman.”

She blinked back tears and struggled to remain composed. Last night she’d flung herself at him, both her body and her affections. If this was the end of it she would retain her dignity. Never mind that she wanted to howl because Marcus didn’t want her without her fortune and if he didn’t, no man would.

Sitting up straight and folding her hands on her lap, she prepared her speech. “If you don’t wish to marry me, I withdraw my acceptance. Let me assure you that I have no desire to wed a man who doesn’t truly want me. It would have been kinder not to mention the subject at all. You let me make a fool of myself.”

She would not cry.

Marcus wanted to tear his hair out. Despite her disheveled presence in his bed, Anne appeared like the prim, collected young lady he’d first met. Only a telltale dampness in the corners of her eyes betrayed how much he’d upset her. Of course she was upset! He’d made a thorough muck of the encounter. He allowed himself to touch her rigidly clasped hands.

“My darling—” The endearment slipped out unawares. “If you marry me you’ll lose everything. How can I ask you to give up so much? Your guardian will never accept me as a suitable match for you.”

“No, he probably won’t and I don’t care. But perhaps you do. From what you said earlier I gathered you knew about the situation. If you won’t take me without my fortune I understand.”

Her desperate bravado twisted his gut. “With or without your wealth, any man would be lucky to win you. And I especially. Because for what it’s worth I care for you. Very much.”

“Then I don’t see the difficulty.” Her voice wavered. “Do you think you could kiss me again? You make me so happy.”

This was not a request he had the strength to deny. He climbed up beside her and gathered her in, slender in his arms with a fragility that belied her inner strength. She was tough and clever, Miss Anne Brotherton, soon to be Lady Lithgow if she didn’t come to her senses. And so very sweet. That he had apparently won the love and hand of such a woman made his head reel.

I love you, Anne
. But he wouldn’t say it aloud because he didn’t trust that it was true. What did he know of love?
I love you
. He tasted the words that he knew she wished to hear, but above all he owed her honesty.

The unspoken words melted into their shared breath as though there were no boundaries between feelings and deeds. Through a long kiss he let himself pretend everything would be fine. That this was the first in a lifetime of shared embraces between avowed lovers. That they set out on a long life together. That she was his very own.

But self-deception was a luxury he’d never been able to afford. He broke away, allowing himself only the pleasure of an arm about her shoulders, his fingers lightly caressing the joint beneath his draped banyan.

“Because I care for you,” he said, resuming his argument as though the romantic interlude hadn’t happened, “how can I ask you to give up one of England’s greatest fortunes?”

Her arms encircled his torso and held him tight. “I hate my fortune. It has nothing to do with me and brings me no pleasure,” she said with rising ferocity. “I don’t want to be tied to the duty of my estate. I reject it. I want to live with you, the man I love, here at Hinton or wherever else we decide and I don’t give a jot if we are poor.”

“Thus speaks the woman who never lacked for anything. I promise you wouldn’t enjoy it.”

“I don’t imagine my trustees, even Morrissey, would allow me to starve. They just wouldn’t turn over the Camber estates to you.” She raised her head from his chest to face him. “Would you mind too much?”

“What do you think? I pursued you for your wealth,” he said brutally.

She tossed him a saucy grin. “Too bad. Now we’re betrothed and I’ve decided I
won’t
release you from your engagement.”

“You never did tell me how you discovered I was an unrepentant fortune hunter. Or was it merely a good guess?”

“Not at all, you had me quite deceived.”

“Glad I hadn’t lost my touch.” Incredibly, they were joking about his despicable behavior.

“I was halfway in love with you when I overheard you talking to the Duke of Denford over the garden wall at Windermere House.”

Marcus cast his mind back, trying to remember a conversation that had been clouded with brandy and cigars. He and Julian had engaged in their usual competitive nonsense. “What were you doing outside late at night in the cold?” he asked severely.

“Thinking about you.”

“Oh dear. What did I say?”

“You said I would soon be begging for your attentions.”

“What an ass.”

“And you called me a spoiled heiress.”

“I didn’t even believe that, not when I first knew you. I suppose you decided to show me how such a woman would behave. With great skill, I may add.”

“I was angry, more angry with myself than with you, I think. Caro warned me, Lady Ashfield warned me. Everyone warned me against you but I thought I knew better.”

“I won’t argue with their assessment.”

“And now I’m angry with you again,” she continued, “because you
should
argue with me. I know you are a better man than you believe, yet you wallow in your unworthiness. You can change your ways. You already have. The selfish man I first knew wouldn’t have gone to so much trouble for the Burts.”

“I’m trying, Anne. I am. But I can never be the man you deserve.”

She pulled out of his arms and knelt on the bed in front of him. It was cold without her. The way she flung back her hair spoke to her frustration. “Why are you so sure of that?” she said. “Why shouldn’t we be happy?”

He rested his elbows on his knees, his head down to evade her fierce interrogative gaze. “My father was a fortune hunter too. My mother didn’t have one tenth of your wealth, but it was early in his career so it must have seemed enough. He ran through her money, betrayed her with other women, and made her miserable. After she died—and he may as well have killed her—he took me away with him and taught me all he knew.” His mother’s letters haunted him, as did the memory of her last days.

He raised his head to look her dead in the eye. “That’s who I am, Anne. Right now I want to live with you and our children, grow old with you and be buried in the same grave. But it won’t last. I’m just like him.”

Through an age of silence, he awaited his fate. She knelt before him utterly still; the tension in her body matched that of her face, pale and serious in a cloud of hair. She was going to throw him over and it was for the best. For her. Damn it, why hadn’t he pulled out early to prevent the risk of pregnancy? Selfish bastard that he was, he hadn’t even taken that elementary means to protect her.

“When your father offered for your mother, how did he regard her? Did he want to live with her forever and share a grave?”

“Hah! Lewis Lithgow? He never had a romantic idea in his entire wretched life. His only use for love was as a weakness in others for him to exploit.”

“If you mean what you just said, then I’d say there’s a big difference between you and your father.”

Anne had never seen a condemned prisoner reprieved but she wasn’t entirely without imagination. Her knees gave way and she slumped back onto her heels at the transformation of Marcus’s expression from raw misery to hope.

“You don’t have to be like your father.” She pressed her advantage. “Be yourself. Do what you want and what you think is right.”

“I wish they were the same thing.”

“They are.”

“What makes you so sure, Anne Brotherton?”

“My grandfather always said I was a wise little thing.” She gave a wry little smile. “Of course, he usually said it after I’d given in to him on some matter.”

“Are you going to tell me I’m wise?” She’d missed the mischief in his voice.

“Not until I’m sure you’ve given in.”

“I have, I have. I surrender to the greater wisdom of Anne Brotherton.”

“That will be Lady Lithgow, thank you very much.” Happiness rose in a bubble of mirth. Marcus hadn’t said he loved her, but she suspected he did. In a way his failure to avow his love convinced her of his sincerity. With the old Marcus the lie would have slipped from his tongue as easily as a false compliment. Deep in her heart she knew that he cared for her and that was more important than three little spoken words. She launched herself at him, grasping his shoulders, and somehow fell in a twisted heap with him sprawled on top. Shared laughter turned to kisses that turned from celebratory to heated.

“Don’t do that.” She turned her head sideways and batted at hands that attempted to remove her shirt. “It’s daylight.”

“You have a lot to learn, oh wise one.”

Anne felt they ought to be continuing the serious conversation about their future. On the other hand his touch felt awfully good. What she now knew to be desire came roaring back. But he wanted to take off her only garment. During the day. And see her body. He’d seemed to like it in the dark but she knew she wasn’t exactly the ideal of feminine beauty. No sinuous curves or bountiful breasts.

“I want to see all of you,” he said firmly, and before she could protest he’d rolled her off him and whipped off her shirt. Panicked, she sat with her knees bent, arms crossed over her bosom. Her face must be the color of boiled lobster. While Marcus, the wretch, was fully covered even to his tall boots. Heat surged in her core and she found it perversely thrilling to be stripped naked before him.

His intent gaze held no trace of disappointment. “You’re so beautiful,” he murmured hoarsely. “I want to see your legs.”

“My legs?” He thought she had lovely legs. She extended the limbs that she’d never given much thought to, flexed one at the knee to show off, until she realized what she exposed by the movement and snapped them together. “Do they live up to expectations?”

He shifted back to kneel at her feet. “Exquisite. Longer than the Via Appia. I’m going to start at the feet and kiss every inch, all the way up.”

That sounded delectable and extremely naughty when she considered what lay at the end of the journey. Excited and alarmed, she pressed her thighs together, and the glow inside her intensified.

It turned out to be quite impossible to keep them clenched when she was being kissed, licked, and nibbled from the tips of her toes on up. She learned that the backs of her knees were particularly sensitive, drawing happy little moans when subjected to wet tongued kisses.

“Stop!”

“Truly?” Thankfully the question was rhetorical and her objection ignored. As he moved north, her heart wavered between longing and apprehension. Surely he’d stop before he got
there
.

No. No he didn’t stop. He actually put his mouth over the entrance to her most private place, breathing heat and making her writhe with embarrassed bliss. His tongue followed and he was consuming her with powerful strokes, raising her desire to a raging fever. Leaning back against the pillows she watched him, genuflecting before her like a worshipper at a shrine. A shrine of which she was the presiding goddess.

It didn’t seem right.

“Marcus.” He continued his ministrations, licking and sucking and driving her wild even as she wanted him to stop. She wanted him to continue but she also wanted something more, or something different. “Marcus! Stop!”

He looked up, his eyes reflecting her own pleasure. “It gets even better.”

“I’m not doing anything.”

“This is all for you. Just let me love you.”

“I want to love you too. I feel as though . . .” She struggled to express her feelings. “I feel like you are serving me.”

“What’s wrong with that? I want to make you happy.”

“It doesn’t seem fair. It doesn’t seem . . . equal.”

He wasn’t upset, more thoughtful, pondering what she’d said. “It pleases me to please me.”

“And it would please me to please you.”

“You please me by letting me please you.”

Untangling the exchange took a moment. “I see what you mean. I just don’t like”—she hesitated and fell back on her original thought—“I don’t like to see you serving me.”

“Would you prefer me to plow in and take my pleasure without regard for yours? If that’s what a gentleman does, I thank God I am no gentleman.”

Anne shivered. Taken. Seized and taken without regard for her own needs. Already sensitive from Marcus’s attentions, her private place throbbed, wet and hot. “I think I might enjoy that,” she whispered.

“Your request has been duly noted. Now lie back and let me pleasure you.” He smiled broadly. “It will be my pleasure.”

So she ceased complaining and let herself enjoy something that half an hour earlier she would have found unimaginable. His straight hair, coarser than hers, brushing her thighs; his faintly bristled chin rubbing the cleft of her bottom; that relentless tongue demanding her response, offering no quarter. She was torn between wanting him to stop, because she couldn’t bear the gratification that bordered on pain, and aching for the ecstasy that lay the other side of a steep hill, if only she could climb it. Firm hands grasped the hips that twisted with longing, forced her to be still and suffer and revel in what was done to her. Squeezing her eyes shut, she released her anxiety and trusted him to take her on the final ascent, then stroke her over the top into shattered bliss.