The Ruin Of A Rogue (23 page)

As her shudders subsided, he laid his head on her stomach. With trembling fingers, she touched his hair, caressed his cheek. She was going to marry Marcus Lithgow and he’d just licked her between the legs. Both facts were slightly incredible and wholly delightful.

“Marcus,” she said, craving the greater intimacy of complete union. “Will you take me now?”

“With the greatest of pleasure.”

She sat back to watch him strip off his clothing and learned two things. Firstly, that she’d won herself as fine a specimen of male beauty as any statue. And secondly, that the male organ, or cock, when excited was long and hard and often depicted in artifacts by the Romans.

“You knew what that belt buckle was,” she said. “And the pendant in that London shop. I am mortified.”

“Would you have preferred it if I’d said something at the time? Either time?”

“I have to admit I would not. I had no idea studying the Romans would be indecent.”

“You never know what new vistas education will open.”

She didn’t like the look on his face. Or she liked it very much. “Vistas?” She could hardly get the word out. The vista he presented, kneeling before her, sucked away her breath and revived a sharper desire. The play of skin and muscles across his chest was perfection itself, marred only by a small jagged scar in his side. One day she’d ask how he’d acquire it. For now she had no wish to hear the exaggerated tale of villainy he’d doubtless feed her. No longer interested in Marcus’s disreputable past, she cared only for their better future and glorious present.

His hands grasped her ankles and tugged. Before she knew it she lay flat on her back with her legs over his shoulders. She’d never felt so vulnerable when he folded her like a sheet of paper, her knees framing her breasts and her opening utterly exposed to his eyes and the swift, sure entrance of his male member.

With the new posture there was no trace of discomfort, only a marvelous fullness deep inside and mounting pleasure with each firm thrust. Best of all, in daylight she could see Marcus’s face, focused, intent, muscles straining. Their eyes held as they found a rhythm and she understood why the carnal act was one of union, of the bodies and the emotions. Love consumed her mind and body until there seemed no divide between the two. Once again she ascended to the peak of bliss, easily this time, as though strolling up a shallow rise on a gentle spring day, and fell over the edge in a smooth glide. Quivers of delight shot through her veins. As her sinews slackened she murmured his name and her love and watched his dear face grow wild and uncontrolled as he drove his way to his own finish.

This time, however, before she felt the exploding warmth within, he pulled out at the last moment with his final shout, and lay panting between her legs.

“Why?” she asked, stroking his damp forehead.

“To prevent getting you with child. It’s what I should have done last night.”

“Does it matter? We’re to be married, after all. With or without consent I can wed whomever I want after my birthday in February.”

“Better to be careful,” he said. “We can’t be sure what will happen.”

A puff of chill wind ruffled her joy.

Chapter 22

A
nne was full of plans for the villa once spring arrived. Her grand scheme involved scaffolding, a protective roof, and a team of laborers trained by her to dig with due care. Marcus loved to see her so excited and had no objection to anything she wanted to do. Except for the expense. Though his bride-to-be believed herself a lady of simple tastes, she was unaccustomed to consider cost when anything took her fancy. She was equally full of ideas for the manor house: new curtains, more comfortable chairs, repaired plasterwork, improvements to the kitchen and other domestic offices. “Travis and Maldon will be much happier with a new laundry. And of course a laundry maid,” she remarked when once again she’d discovered Travis doing his endless ironing on the kitchen table. “I daresay a cook wouldn’t allow him to work in here.”

In truth her expectations were modest. She had no craving for jewels, a fashionable wardrobe, or fine carriages. But every time she said, “We must order that once the bridge is restored,” whether a volume on antiquities or a stouter pair of boots, he inwardly flinched.

If she retained her pin money, their income would be sufficient for a quiet country life, conducted with economy. Fired with a new virtue, Marcus hoped to make the Hinton estate profitable. He
would
do so. But to be unable to provide his wife with the necessities of a genteel life was intolerable. His mother’s last years still troubled him, though he was buoyed enough by Anne’s confidence to put every effort into being a good husband.

The only way he would feel worthy of her, and safe from his own baser nature, was to accumulate a reasonable capital sum. Since he couldn’t win it at the tables, the sole recourse remained Lewis’s legacy. Convinced that the villa was the likely hiding place, he couldn’t search there while the hard frost continued and the ground was frozen.

“Tell me everything you remember about your Mr. Bentley.” For the second time they shook out every volume on the shelves of the study. “He’s the best candidate I have for our mysterious ghost. He may be quite innocent but until I can get across the river I can’t find out anything about him.”

“You think he may have searched the house?”

“The servants were frightened off before I arrived. During that time someone made free of the place. Let’s assume he found nothing.”

“
We
certainly haven’t. The good thing is by the time we’re finished there won’t be a speck of dust left in the place.” She took a rag to an ancient estate ledger and replaced it on the shelf.

“If Bentley is our man, he may have decided next to try the villa but you had already taken possession of the ruins. He wouldn’t be able to find what he wanted at night and couldn’t risk being discovered in daylight.”

“He seemed a respectable man.” Her voice held a note of doubt.

“Perhaps he is. What is he like?”

“Like any country gentleman, I suppose. Though he did say he lived in London and didn’t spend much time in Wiltshire. I had the impression he had also traveled abroad.”

“Where he could have met my father.”

Anne creased her brow. “I’m trying to remember our conversations. He knew your mother and he was well acquainted with Mr. Hooke. He knew all about the excavation. His memory was quite helpful.”

“What does the fellow look like?”

“Quite handsome, I suppose.” Damn villainous charmer, cozening Anne with antiquarian chatter. “But there’s something about him I couldn’t quite like. Almost as though he was trying to make up to me. I hate flirtatious men.”

He flicked a smudge off her nose and kissed it. “Good. In that case you won’t be tempted to flirt with anyone but me.”

“If not for him, I wouldn’t have known where to look for the hypocaust and furnace.”

“And you wouldn’t have nearly died.”

“Never mind that.” She waved her hand dismissively as her face lit up with excitement. “I’ve thought of something. Mr. Bentley definitely implied that Mr. Hooke never found the furnace chamber, but obviously he had. Perhaps Bentley was away from the county and didn’t realize it had been uncovered—”

“Or maybe he knew it was a likely hiding place and wanted you to take off the top layer so he could get in without anyone noticing.”

A
t the end of their second day together the weather turned. They found the villa enveloped in a warm winter mist and made straight for the furnace.

“Be careful!” Marcus said. “We don’t want you tumbling in again.”

His lady was not to be held back once her enthusiasm was aroused. She fell to her knees and peered over the crumbling edge of her recent prison. “I can’t see much.”

From his superior height he could tell the ice had melted, leaving a murky pool. “When you were trapped, did anything strike you as unusual?”

“Having never been in a Roman furnace before, everything was unexpected.” She pursed her lips and thought. “There was quite a lot of loose stuff at the bottom. I assumed it was broken bricks and other debris. I was too busy trying to find a way out to give it much attention, except,” she said wryly, “when I fell on my bottom and struck something sharp. There’s a sort of ledge of bricks a couple of feet from the ground. I groped around it but I could have missed a part. Can you see if anything is sitting on it?”

“No. I’ll have to go in.” He walked around the edge, testing the ground, which seemed firmer now that it was dry. “I think this is where I lay to pull you out.”

“I’ll climb in again. We know you can get me out.”

“It would be more sensible to fetch a ladder.”

“I don’t want to wait.”

He didn’t either, and he had no idea whether he owned a suitable ladder, or where it would be kept. “I’ll go.”

“Didn’t we speak before about gentlemen having all the fun?”

He threw up his hands in surrender. “I hope I won’t regret this.”

Daylight made things easier. With his help, she dropped down to the ledge, and thence to the floor. “The cold water is soaking my boots.”

“You insisted. Look quickly then.”

“It’s not very deep. Less than an inch.” Even on his knees he couldn’t see exactly what she was doing, and had to content himself with the sound of her fumbling on the floor, and listened to a running commentary on bits and pieces she lifted and discarded. “I don’t think there’s anything much down here. Now I’m going to look at the walls and ledge. Oh! How fascinating! I’ve found the flues that conducted heat into the hypocaust chamber.”

“That’s very interesting, but could you postpone your antiquarian speculations for the moment? More to the point, is there anything in them?”

“They’re clogged with earth but one looks promising. Hold on, I’m going to stand on the ledge and see if I can get a closer look.”

“Careful you don’t damage any important historical evidence.”

She tilted her head and stuck her tongue out at him. “Reach your hand in. I shall grab it for balance as I step up.” She missed and the essay ended in an ominous crunch and a shriek as she once more ended up on her behind.

“Heavens! Now I am wet. Oh my goodness!”

“What?”

“The brick I stood on fell out and there’s a hole behind it, a kind of niche. Marcus! I think I’ve found it. There’s a small metal box in here and it doesn’t look Roman to me.”

M
arcus had seen a lot of boxes lately, all of them containing revelations. His father’s old letter, the story of his mother’s marriage and death. Now that he’d found what he’d sought so long and arduously, he was afraid.

He wished he could enjoy another evening with Anne, playing chess, talking, making love. Then in the dead of night he’d slip out of her sleepy body, creep downstairs, and learn what shameful legacy his father had bequeathed him. Deep down he feared any gift of Lewis’s providing would be a Trojan horse.

Anne sat across the desk in the study, regarding him with innocent anticipation. The moment could not be postponed. Suppressing a sigh, he pulled his set of picklocks from a drawer and set to work on the stout little strongbox that had refused to yield to more straightforward methods.

“How do you come to have such tools?” Anne asked in wonder. “I never saw such a thing.”

“Just a little souvenir of my father’s education.”

The mechanism proved tricky and it took several tries before he felt the lock yield to his delicate pressure.

“Ooh!”

Every extended syllable of her exclamation was warranted. From a nest of crimson velvet two enormous gemstones blazed like cold fire.

“May I?” she asked.

He nodded, stunned into silence.

She held them up to the light. “I have never seen such huge diamonds. Oh my goodness, Marcus. They must be worth a fortune. If they are real you’re rich.”

The inevitable question of how his father had acquired them was thrust far into the deepest recesses of his mind. They were his and now he could marry Anne and restore Hinton.

I’ll never set a foot wrong for the rest of my life
, he bargained with the God he had resolutely ignored for most of his life.
This is the last time. Just don’t let Anne find out.

Anne was subjecting the jewels to the kind of attention she usually bestowed on artifacts of a more mundane kind. “I believe they are perfectly matched. I can see no difference at all. And how clever the setting is. They can be worn as either brooches or earrings. Look for yourself. The whole pendant is almost as long as the width of your hand.”

He laid one in his palm, this miracle of crystal whose thousand facets threw tiny rainbows onto the walls and desk. Before his eyes they vanished to be replaced by a different vision. Dams, bridges, and drainage ditches. Solid cottages for prosperous tenants. Horses for work and for riding and to pull a carriage. Maids and footmen and plasterers and painters. Warm winter clothing and sensible boots for a country gentleman and his family.

“The workmanship looks quite old. What do you think?”

Her question pulled him out of his agreeable reverie. The diamond drops hung from elaborate pendants of chased gold, studded with large and lustrous pearls and smaller diamonds. “Perhaps Tudor,” he said, “but more likely later. Seventeenth century, I think.”

“Such fabulous ornaments must have been made for a queen. We have nothing so magnificent at Camber.” His lovely girl was sometimes naïve but she was nobody’s fool. “How did they come to be here? To whom do they belong?”

“They belong to me,” he said firmly. “They were found on my land.”

“Are you sure? Ought we not to look for the true owner?”

“They’ve been at Hinton for at least fifteen years, if my father hid them here. But that’s mere supposition. They could have been hidden even longer ago by someone else. If they were acquired by underhanded means, it’s far too late to find the truth now.”

He spoke arrant nonsense. No one ever forgot gems like this. Disposing of them would have to be done carefully and he wouldn’t achieve full value from the sale. But it would be enough. Instinct and his own worldly knowledge told him that he had very special merchandise on his hands.

He steeled himself to face her candid gaze without wavering. Though a man to whom reserve was a credo rather than a habit, he had to fight the urge to confide his suspicions about where Lewis Lithgow had obtained these beauties. If she heard that it would be all over and he would have no chance of keeping them and the money he needed so badly for their future together. He had become accustomed to confiding in Anne, and deceiving her now felt almost like dying. It was for her own good, he told himself.

People were always ready to believe what they wanted to believe. He knew Anne so well he could follow her unspoken thoughts. He felt her dismiss her doubts and accept the wonderful and convenient truth that he was now in possession of a fortune.

They
were in possession. It was for both of them.

“Come here, love,” he said, holding out his hand. “How shall we celebrate our good luck?”

She fell eagerly into his arms, melting against him. He reveled in the press of her body against his chest, the scent of soap and starch, the taste of her fervent kiss, which had grown skilled and knowing with practice, enticing him to pleasure.

“Let’s go upstairs,” he whispered.

“In daylight?” She only expressed shock to tease him now. Propriety had become a game she played, and not with any degree of diligence.

No longer could he imagine living without Anne. He’d do anything to keep her. Anything.