Chapter 3
Anna could not think of something to say. She was too busy drawing a breath to scream.
As she opened her mouth, she felt a hand clamp over it, silencing her. Her eyes were wide in both shock and fear, but as her ability to think returned to her, she realized just who had come for her.
It was the same man she had been hoping to see. The same man she had tried to lure to his abandoned home.
Spencer’s eyes burned into hers, and she quivered beneath his touch.
His palm lay flat against her back, burning through the fabric of her dress and holding her in place.
It was not that she was fearful of him, but she had not expected to see him, and certainly not in her bedroom while their guests were in the ballroom tens of feet away.
“Did you truly think that I was dead?” he asked, half-smiling.
He released her, and she staggered back, feeling a sudden chill as he lifted his hand from a patch of the small of her back. He had been holding her in place, and though it had been a surprise, it had been rather pleasant in spite of everything.
“What are you–”
“What am I doing here?” he interrupted. “Well, I heard a rumor that the Duke of Wutherton had passed away. A hunting accident in Africa, yes? I thought that, given that I was rather close to the gentleman, it might be best that I pay my respects. Tell me, Your Grace, did they find a way to return the body, or did the lions do away with him entirely?”
“I do not find you amusing.”
“Nor do I enjoy any of this– this spectacle. Truly, Anna, what were you thinking?”
“Do you want to know what I was thinking?” she snapped. “Do you want to know my only thought for the past year? It was of you, and how you abandoned me after saying perhaps ten words to me. You did not tell me where you were going, nor if you were ever going to return. What else was I to do?”
“Not this! As you can see, I am alive. How do you suppose that we explain this?”
“What difference does it make? You and I both know that you will be gone again the moment you can leave.”
His shoulders lowered, and with a rough sigh, he lit a candle. In the soft light, Anna could see that he was quite different from before. His black hair was much less neat, and he was broader than before, but there was no mistaking the deep blue eyes that were searching hers.
But he was stronger than before, larger, as though wherever he had been, he had been doing something greatly physical. There was a tiredness in his face, too, and in spite of her fury, she could not help but picture him going to bed right there in her room, with her crawling into it beside him.
She shook the thought from her mind.
“I understand that you have your grievances,” he continued, towering over her, “but that does not give you the right to do this.”
“Then I shall ask you again what you would have had me do. I was alone, Spencer, and that was because of you. If you do not like what you drove me to do, then you should not have been away for so long.”
“You could have written to me.”
“And where, pray tell, should I have written to?”
“In any case,” he dismissed, “you had no right to ruin my name and reputation over… well, what was it exactly? Were you bored?”
Anna wondered if this was him daring her to talk back, or him trying to intimidate her into silence, but that was not going to happen.
“I find ways to entertain myself. The question, Your Grace, is whether or not this marriage has ever meant anything to you at all. I have been waiting for you to return, and the only way I seem to have found is by causing a scandal. Tell me, does your reputation truly mean more to you than your wife?”
“You knew what our arrangement was,” he said bluntly, not looking away from her.
She could feel the anger blazing within her. The gentleman standing before her had abandoned her, then had the audacity to tell her that she should have expected it.
“I knew what you told me,” she said as steadily as she could muster.
“It was to be a loveless marriage, one without passion and adoration, and that was…acceptable to me. I was prepared to marry a man who had little interest in feeling such things for me, but you never once told me that you would immediately walk away, leaving me here in this cold household with no indication that you would ever return.”
“That is not what happened.”
“Oh? Then do enlighten me, Your Grace, for I am more than willing to hear what truly happened, and where you have been all this time. As if I do not know.”
“Where exactly do you think that I have been? You have a most accusatory tone. One might have expected you to simply be pleased that I have returned.”
“Yes, that would have been convenient for you indeed. Unfortunately, though I may not have meddled in your affairs, you should know that I am aware of them. Were they prettier? Or were they simply not expecting you to return, and you liked that about them?”
For a brief second, he did not look smug. It almost brought a sense of satisfaction to her to know that he was not completely impenetrable. It was a bold accusation, but she was certain of it. There was nowhere else for him to go, not for as long as his absence had been.
“You had no right to do this,” he repeated. “You have brought shame upon me, my title, and my family. It is inexcusable, regardless of what you think of me.”
“I am your family, in case you have forgotten. Whether you like it or not, you chose to marry me. You were not forced like I was, and you entered into it knowing what you wanted. You may feel humiliated now, but that pales in comparison to the humiliation that you have subjected me to for a year.”
“You have been taken care of.”
“You have abandoned me for another woman, and you never bothered to produce an heir before running the way you did.”
He looked at her in thought for a moment, and then his lips twisted upward into a grin. There was no apology, nor was there any remorse in his eyes at all. He did not regret what he had done to her; that much was clear.
“An heir?” he echoed. “I see what this is all about.”
He stepped toward her, and when she stepped back, she realized that she was pressed against the wall, with him keeping her there. He put a hand by the side of her head, and her heart began to pound. In spite of everything, she was still his wife.
He could do anything he wanted to her.
“You are upset,” he rumbled, “because we never consummated the marriage.”
“That is not– I–”
Her heart beat faster, cheeks flushing at the very suggestion, and her words left her. No clever thoughts remained, only the fact that she very much had wanted to experience such delights as the ones she read about for herself.
But not with him, not after what he had done. That was what she repeated to herself as she felt the heat rising in her cheeks. He pressed the back of his fingers to her skin, chuckling softly at her.
“Warm to the touch,” he commented. “Perhaps you are not as stoic as you might want me to believe.”
“Even if that was what I wanted, it does not make a difference. You need to fulfil your duties, Your Grace.”
“And fulfil them I gladly would.”
His fingers dropped to her jawline, stroking it with his thumb. She felt her knees weaken, but she held herself upright. She could not allow herself to forget her anger. It had been the only thing that kept her going at times.
And yet, as his hand traveled further down, tracing a line down her neck and across her shoulders, she could not help but shudder. She had never been touched before, not like that, and in spite of her resistance, she knew what she truly wanted.
“If this is what you have been missing,” he said in a low voice, his fingers running through her hair, “I can help you.”
“It is not,” she protested, but she knew it was a lie.
It was precisely what she had been craving, and within ten minutes of his arrival, he was offering to give it to her. She wondered if it was his way of asking for her forgiveness, but she refused to be that easily won over.
“Then why are you gasping like that?” he asked, his fingertip running along the boning on the top of her corset.
The darkest, most foolish part of her wanted him to tear it off, but if she were honest, she would have been satisfied with a mere kiss.
He had beautiful lips; even in her anger, she could see that, and she wanted to feel them against her own.
He had been a terrible husband, but he made her feel so wicked that it was almost possible to forgive it.
She pouted, hoping that he would accept her signal, but the moment she did, his eyes fell to her lips, and he smirked at her.
“I thought as much,” he laughed darkly. “Unfortunately, it appears that I have a prior commitment.”
“You are leaving again?”
“On the contrary. It would seem that we have guests downstairs, and I ought to tell them that I have returned from the dead.”