Trusting the Rogue (3 page)

Anna’s lips twitched as if she knew of the discomfort in his breeches, but he refused to look down to confirm the sight of his desire.

“I know, and told her as much.”

“Did you?” he asked, pleased, and at Anna’s nod he added, “Did she say anything else?”

“I would not betray her by telling you anything, even if she had, Andrew.”

He glared at her, though Anna did not look concerned by it.

“Fair warning, though—she asked if you attend Goodrich Hall.”

He pondered that. “Has she attended?” He was sure he would remember her if she had. Though the thought of her in the throes of passion with another man set his jaw tight—an odd reaction for a man with no calls to claim over her, or any other woman, for that matter.

“Hardly,” Dicky snorted, earning a fierce look from his wife.

“Hannah is not like us, Andrew. She does not see sex in the same light,” Anna said rather sadly, and rubbed her belly. “But then again, after this child I may never let you near me again, husband.”

Dicky looked unconcerned. Andrew, too, thought little could turn Anna from the act. The woman was a siren and craved pleasure more than air—or had done, until she’d grown so large with this child that she could barely move.

Andrew frowned at her comment about the duchess not liking sex, though.

“How do you mean?”

“The late duke only sought her out to sire his heir and, once that was achieved, he never went to her again. From what little she has said, he never prepared her for the beddings and the whole experience was rather painful for her. I could never convince her to attend Goodrich Hall so she could learn otherwise. She doubts my words at how wondrous it can be.”

Andrew felt his short nails digging into his palms as he clenched his fists. Whether his anger stemmed from the pain the duchess had suffered, or the thought of another man bedding her, he wasn’t sure, but regardless, it was a foreign emotion in this circumstance. Never before had he felt protective over a woman, but he felt the pang of it now. He wasn’t certain he liked it, either.

* * * *

“May I, sir?”

Andrew nodded to Smith, the Goodrich Hall butler, as he shrugged out of his coat. The droplets of rain from the light shower outside glistened in the soft candlelight of the Hall’s entrance. He also handed the man his gloves and top hat, then ran his fingers through his still dry hair.

“Much of interest this evening, Smith?” he asked the man. Smith had been at Goodrich Hall prior to the club’s commencement several years ago. Andrew could not imagine the place without this servant. He was as wicked as the rest of them—the only difference was his birthright.

“I am sure you will find something to your liking this evening, sir.”

Andrew nodded with amusement. He generally did.

Moving through the lobby, Andrew came to the table stationed in the centre of the room. A large bouquet of flowers had been positioned in its middle, and was surrounded by glass jars, each containing strings of beads in a different colour. He paused by the blue beads, the set he normally sported.

Goodrich Hall was a place that few had stepped inside, but that many of the
ton
had heard about. It was a place where nobility—those few whom Anna and Dicky had inducted into the secret society—could fornicate without judgement or fear of their association becoming known. It was a place where desires and pleasures ran free. It was a place Andrew knew well.

He dipped his fingers into the jar and retrieved a sting of the blue beads, yet he felt a reluctance to sport them this evening.

The beads symbolised what the wearer wished to participate in. Blue beads signalled willingness for every activity except anal penetration of the one who wore them. He was no keener to experience it tonight than he had been on any other, but in truth, he did not feel like fornicating at all this evening. His mindset was contradictory to the arousal that he had sported inside his breeches all day.

He sighed loudly and dropped the beads back into the jar, then shifted two jars down to reach for a set of yellow. He placed them about his neck somewhat reluctantly before he moved for the door.

The chime of music reached his ears as the footmen opened the large wooden doors beyond. The ballroom was full of familiar faces, most looking upon him when he entered. He nodded towards a few and accepted a brandy from a footman who came forward with his usual drink. They knew his tastes well, servants and guests alike.

“Yellow? I feel the loss deeply, Sir Andrew. Are you ill?”

Perhaps.
He certainly felt out of sorts. Andrew smiled down at Lady Ashley, who pushed her small-framed, naked body into his side, her breasts pillowing against his arm. Odd—a sight that normally had him salivating, his heart racing, tonight offered him nothing. His cock did not even stir in interest. “I am sorry I will not be of assistance to you this evening, my dear.”

“You are truly just going to watch us have all the fun and not participate at all?” she asked, doubt clear in her voice.

He offered a defeatist nod. “It is the case, I am afraid. I simply desire to watch all you lovely ladies go about your pleasure.” Though he wasn’t sure even that was the truth.

She sighed loudly before giving a playful pout. “Such a pity. I will simply have to ensure you receive a good show, that is all,” she said wantonly, skimming her fingers down his body and rubbing them up against his flaccid cock.

Andrew watched her rounded rear as she moved across the room to where several other ladies sat on cushions, roaming their hands over one another while they conversed and kissed. Men stood idly around, some naked, some clothed, watching, stroking their stiff cocks and waiting for an invitation to join. It would come soon—it always did.

As he leant back against a marble pillar and tried to admire Lady Ashley’s retreating figure, it puzzled Andrew that the vantage did not arouse him, not even slightly. Generally, he was hard with anticipation upon entering Goodrich Hall, yet this evening…nothing, not even the slightest rise of interest.
How odd.

It struck him for a moment that perhaps he should hold concern, but his thoughts quickly moved to the duchess—her ample bust line, lush lips and wounded but captivating blue eyes. It was then that he felt his cock twitch with awareness. He frowned into his glass as he took a sip.

* * * *

Harold’s had been pressing his eager face up to the glass windows lining the street all morning. Whether his vantage point had been the nursery, dining room or parlour, it had not seemed to diminish the boy’s excitement for Sir Andrew’s arrival. Hannah, however, felt nothing but trepidation at the prospect.

At ten, as Hannah tried in vain to focus on her
Lady’s Monthly Museum
magazine, which had arrived in the morning post, Harold let out a cry of glee and fled from the room, her calls to him seemingly going unheard as he dashed down the hall. She tossed her reading material aside and hastily moved after her son, finding him scrambling out of the townhouse, almost tripping up a footman in the process.

Harold ran up to Sir Andrew and his stallion as the man dismounted, but it was the other horse standing by his side that brought Hannah to a halt as she came outside.

“Good morning, your Grace, Harold,” Sir Andrew said with an affectionate ruffle of her son’s hair. “Ah, your Grace, I can see you recognise your mount.”

Her gaze snapped back to him. “My mount?”

“Indeed,” he said, with a devilish smile. “Lady Anna was kind enough to lend her to me. She said, since she could not ride, it seemed only fitting to send her mare over for your pleasure. I think she was rather surprised she had not thought of it earlier,” he added amused.

“And when did you see her, Sir Andrew?”

“Why, yesterday, as she returned home from calling on you,” he said easily, then chuckled as his steed playfully nuzzled Harold’s hair.

“She called on you after me?” Hannah almost screeched.

He glanced up and frowned, the crease of his brow dipping ever so slightly. “No, I was calling on her husband and she mentioned she had called on you that morning when she returned. I was commenting on how I planned to hire a steed for you to ride on our outing, and Anna suggested her mare. It was nothing untoward, I assure you.”

Hannah felt shame at her hasty assumption at his reply, and by the innocent expression he was now sporting. Indeed, Anna would never betray her, and she was ashamed for having quickly jumped to the wrong idea.

She looked back to the horse. “I have not ridden in some years…” she murmured.

“Lady Anna felt assured you could handle the mare,” Sir Andrew said with worry, and he too gazed at the horse, which was held by a groom Hannah recognised from her friend’s household.

“And she is likely right,” she admitted on a sigh. It had simply been a very long time, that was all.

The late duke had feared horses, and upon their marriage had forbidden her from riding again. His determination for his wife to be as far away from horses as possible had only increased when she’d discovered herself with child. He had not allowed her out of the house, even to ride in a carriage, but it was not as if she had done much calling on her friends before. It had been an unexpected and rather disappointing discovery that she had been relegated to life inside her home. Few had ever been allowed to call, as the late duke had preferred a solitary life. For Hannah, it had simply been a lonely one.

“I need to change,” she said and eyed her son, who was still fussing over the large, black stallion.

“I will watch over him, your Grace,” Sir Andrew said with a smile, but Hannah hardly felt reassured. There was something about this man that sent her heart racing, her blood pumping and her breathing erratic. It was unpredictable and she did not like it, not one bit.

* * * *

A smile had graced her features for the last half an hour, and to be truthful, Hannah did not care in the slightest.

As a widow drawing to the end of her mourning period, but regardless still in it, she needed to act respectfully at a loss over her husband’s death, but for the first time in a long time, she was in high spirits. How she had missed riding, being at one with the powerful animal beneath her.

The winding forest path moved into a clearing and Sir Andrew slowed his steed—which carried himself and Harold—before her. Hannah could hear the boy’s disappointment as the horses slowed. It mirrored her own.

“Aww, can we not turn about and go back, fast like we just were?” her eager son asked Sir Andrew.

As Hannah rode her mare beside Dusk, her chest tightened. There, nestled in the cage of Sir Andrew’s strong arms, was her son, with windblown hair and rosy cheeks, looking up in awe at the man who rode behind him.

Sir Andrew chuckled. “I promise we can canter once more before we depart for home, but we must rest the horses at a slower pace. We do not want to injure them, do we?”

Harold puffed out a sigh and looked down at Dusk. “No, we don’t want that,” he said, and leant forward to stroke the horse’s mane.

“Are you glad to be back in the saddle, your Grace?”

Hannah’s eyes snapped up. “Indeed. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed it.”

He gave a nod. “I understand.”

Moreover, Hannah thought for a strange moment that he did. He too leant down and patted his horse, the affectionate action speaking of the tenderness of his touch. Her gaze moved to his other hand where it lay, softly wound around her son’s middle, ensuring that no harm would come to him.

Hannah looked away and blinked back tears she would not allow to fall. She would never demonstrate to another man the weakness she had shown her husband—it was too shameful a fate to consider.

* * * *

The clatter of the hooves upon the cobblestones sent the groom, waiting in the unused stables of Holsworthy House, rushing out to greet them.

Hannah noted that the cook’s son, not much older than her own, also came out to take the reins of Sir Andrew’s steed, while Lady Anna’s groom assisted Hannah to dismount.

Her son practically bounced when Sir Andrew placed him on the ground.

“When can we do it again?”

Sir Andrew laughed. “Whenever you wish it.”

“Really?” Harold asked eagerly.

“Indeed. If I am not engaged in matters of business and such, I would be more than happy to accompany you and your mother for a ride.”

“Did you hear that, Mama?”

“Indeed, I did. How about we retire inside for some tea?”

Harold grasped Sir Andrew’s hand and pulled him inside. The man laughed, but went along easily enough. He did look back at her, though, offering a warm smile as they moved ahead.

What was that smile for?
Hannah was just pondering this when Miss Eliza, Harold’s governess, appeared at the foot of the stairs.

“Are you ready for your lesson, your Grace?” she asked her normally eager student.

Harold scowled up at her. “No, I am not. I am entertaining.”

Sir Andrew pursed his lips, no doubt to stop them from mirroring the amusement that twinkled in his eyes. Miss Eliza frowned and looked at Hannah.

“Harold, you are already late for your lesson with Miss Eliza. Sir Andrew and I will take tea in the parlour and will call on you so you can offer your goodbyes before he departs,” Hannah said sternly, not at all impressed by how he had just spoken to his teacher.

Harold sighed, seeming to understand her scorn, but he did not look intimidated by it. “Very well. But you will call?”

“Indeed, I will not depart without wishing you a good day,” Sir Andrew offered with a squeeze of her son’s shoulder, before he gave him a gentle nudge in the direction of the stairs.

Morris led them into the parlour and once they were seated, he left the door open for propriety’s sake. For this, Hannah was thankful. It was not as if she thought Sir Andrew would attempt anything untoward with her, but there was a small part of her that longed for it, which confused her even more. What was wrong with her? She placed her hands in her lap and clasped them tightly. She was hardly a virgin miss—she was a widow, and her fear of this man was foolish. Anna had vouched for his character, therefore her thoughts were simply absurd.