Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
Silas had never been more nervous about going to bed with a woman.
As Anna closed the door to their bedchamber and removed his greatcoat from her small frame, he felt his desire rise like a fire inside him.
It had been so long since he had been with anyone, longer than he had ever waited before, and now that he had kissed her and tasted the hunger there, he couldn’t turn back.
He eased his sling off his shoulder, wincing slightly but wiggling his fingers easily.
Thank God the wound hadn’t impeded his movements.
He tested his elbow. That was more painful, but bearable.
Anna had slipped off her shoes and noticed what he was doing.
“How is it?” She crossed over to him, taking hold of his right hand and turning it gently, testing the range of motion, clearly oblivious to the sparks her touch ignited inside him.
“Well enough.” Silas swallowed, moving the hand from her grasp to rest at her waist, slowly pulling her closer. “Though it is limited.”
“Let me help you then.”
Anna undid the cotton stock at his throat, pulling his shirt tails out of his breeches and then, carefully, lifting his shirt over his head.
He noticed how her eyes widened as she took in the breadth of his shoulders, the hard, rigid muscles of his chest and stomach.
Hands trembling lightly, she rested her fingers against his collarbone.
Silas kissed her, long and deep, trying to tell her with his body what he couldn’t say with words.
She was pliant as a young reed in his hands and as responsive as he had dreamed she would be.
“Come,” he breathed against her lips, sitting on the mattress and drawing her close to sit beside him. Her eyes were bright with desire and her cheeks flushed. She sighed as he lifted a hand to touch her golden braids, closing her eyes softly.
“Undo your hair,” he whispered.
She did so, nimble fingers unwinding them until her golden curls tumbled in a shining mass over her shoulders. Silas sighed, reaching for a handful and pressing his face into the honey-scented waves.
“I love you like this,” he muttered, moving his lips from her hair to her cheek, drifting down to the rapid pulse in the cleft of her throat. He smiled against the hot skin there, feeling the rise and fall of her chest. “You are so beautiful.”
“Silas,” she whispered, “I-I don’t know what to... to do.”
He kissed away her worries, taking her anxious breath into his mouth and calming her with the closeness of their bodies.
“It is all right,” he said. “I can show you.”
It was like a dream to Silas, the way she lay softly back with her hair spread around her like a halo and the way she drew his hand to the hem of her nightdress so that he could feel the delicate skin of her thighs.
So often he had imagined this moment in the seconds close to sleeping and waking that he could not be sure it was real until the moment his fingers climbed higher, finding the burning core of her and she gasped, her eyes wide with amazement and surprise.
Silas stopped moving, stopped breathing, and stared into his wife’s eyes.
He felt the liquid flesh of her tight around his finger, felt her steady beating blood pulse so close to his fingertip, but did not move.
He waited, using every ounce of self-control, until Anna’s eyes fluttered closed and she lifted her hips, beginning to move against him.
He followed her instincts, matching his rhythm to hers and moving his thumb to the soft mound of her sex, touching her as softly as he could.
She began to moan rhythmically, delicious gasping sounds that had an unprecedented impact on him.
He was desperate for her but also wanted to make her first time memorable and powerful.
Hence, he took his time, drinking in this incredible vision of Anna rushing towards her first climax.
When she cried out, her body vibrating with spasms, he knew he couldn’t wait any longer.
He lowered his breeches and finally entered her.
She gasped as he filled her, turning her face to the side but her hips rose, inviting him further in.
He was so overcome with need that he pressed up on both his arms to thrust slowly against Anna, ignoring the sharp pain in his shoulder.
Silas groaned at the sight of his wife, gasping and writhing beneath him, her neck flushed with passion and soft moans on her lips as he rode the waves of her pleasure.
“Silas,” she whispered. “Lucifer, please...”
Many women had used his nickname in bed, but none had said it with such gentleness and love. It was too much for him to bear.
“Oh god!” he moaned, spilling inside her with a shuddering moan. “Persephone! My love!”
He collapsed beside her, his mind foggy with exertion. Still, he was aware enough to withdraw carefully, watching his virgin wife carefully as she winced but then rolling to face him, smiling softly.
“Are you hurt?” Silas brushed a tendril of golden hair away from her warm face.
“Not really.” She sighed, satisfied. “I expected to be a little sore. I didn’t expect to be so tired!”
Silas chuckled softly and kissed her forehead. “Try to sleep then.”
She snuggled close to him, and Silas felt his own eyes weighing down with sleep.
Only as he was slowly falling asleep did he realize what he had said in the moment of passion: My love.
He felt his heart constricting and pulled Anna closer, pressing his lips to the top of her head.
Love. He had never said the words to another person aside from his sister, not since his mother had died.
He didn’t know if he loved Anna the way other men loved their wives, but he knew that what he felt for her was more intense, possessive and passionate than what he had felt for any other woman.
Yet even as he held her close and felt the comforting steady thump of her heart, his thoughts turned to darkness.
Willy Dugby was out there somewhere, and he had somehow already worked out that Anna was important to him.
He recalled with anger how Dugby had treated the young children he had trafficked around Europe.
The idea of that monster coming anywhere near his wife turned his stomach, and Silas instinctively clenched his hand into a fist in Anna’s hair.
He breathed heavily, trying to steady his panic but he had never felt so vulnerable.
It was as if his intimacy with Anna had stripped him raw and now, he was facing reality completely unguarded.
He needed to find a way to regain control of the situation.
He needed to act. If he did care for Anna more than anyone else, then he needed to protect her.
He sighed, staring up at the canopy. He resolved at that moment not to rest or waste another minute until Willy Dugby was found.
“I don’t care what they said, he’s somewhere in London, I know it!” Silas shouted, tossing a sheaf of papers onto the fire.
“Silas, we’ve had eyes in every part of London,” Giovanni spoke cautiously behind him. “No one has seen him.”
“I know he’s there!” Silas gritted his teeth. He was exhausted and frustrated but he refused to give up. Dugby would not get away from him this time.
“I don’t care what you have to do, or who you have to hire, find him!”
Giovanni sighed. “I will send some men to the docks. Maybe some of the other smugglers have seen him.”
“Thank you.”
“Why don’t you take a walk with Mrs Klane, sir?” Giovanni suggested, reshuffling a pile of papers that Silas had spread all over the desk in frustration. “You’ve not left the study in several days.”
“No.” Silas snapped. “Not until he is found.”
Silas had risen early on the morning after he and Anna had been intimate and had purposefully not revisited their bedchamber since.
He wanted to, desperately, but he couldn’t bear it.
Not until Dugby was captured and he could go to her unburdened by the thought of how their marriage put her in imminent danger.
He had cried off shared meals together, preferring to take refreshment in his study, and hadn’t gone to read by her side in the evening.
He could tell she was confused by this behavior, but Silas didn’t have the words to explain it to her.
He suddenly heard the whispers of spoken Italian from the doorway and turned to see Giovanni and Anna conversing quietly.
His heart ached to see her face. God, she was so beautiful.
When he saw her standing there, he couldn’t help but remember how her body was underneath him, her hair flowing freely around her. He swallowed hard and looked away.
“Silas?”
He turned back towards Anna’s voice. Giovanni had left and Anna was standing with her back against the door, her eyes sad.
“Yes?” He turned away from her gaze, staring at the letter in his hand with unseeing eyes.
“Is.... is something wrong?” His heart clenched at her plaintive tone. “You-you haven’t been to see me,”
“I’ve been busy.”
He crossed to the desk and sat down, dipping his pen in his ink and beginning to write, barely paying attention to the words put down—the room filled with silence and the rough scratching of the metal nib on the thick paper.
“I thought you weren’t going to do this anymore.”
Silas looked up. Anna’s voice was no longer sad, but taut with anger. She glared at him, her small hands balled into fists by her side.
“Do what?”
“Push me away. Keep secrets. I thought we had reached an understanding about what was necessary for this,” she gestured at the space between the two of them, “to work as a marriage. So, I’m asking for the last time, is something wrong?”
“Of course not.”
Silas forced himself to stay seated. He had to protect her, even if his every instinct was screaming at him to jump out of his chair, cross the room, and take her against the door.
“I don’t know how I could think it would change.” Anna closed her eyes and sighed heavily. When she opened them, he was pained to see her eyes shining with unshed tears.
“I am going to go to visit my mother.”
Silas felt as if a heavy stone had settled in his stomach.
“For the night?” he asked, his throat dry.
Anna shook her head. “For a few days, maybe a week. I am not sure.”
“I see.”
Maybe it’s for the best, he thought, trying to calm his racing heart. Maybe being away from me is the only way to protect her.
“Well. I’m leaving.” Anna shrugged her shoulders helplessly as if his lack of response had finally defeated her. His chest tightened as she turned her back on him, opening the door.
“Anna, wait.” He was out of his chair and had crossed the room before he knew what he had done. His hands took hers, his heartbeat calming as soon as he felt her touch.
“What is it?”
She looked up into his eyes, her expression cautious.
He knew then that he had let her down too many times already to have earned her trust. There was nothing he could say to help the situation, but he could do this.
He tipped her chin up and kissed her, long and slow, trying to put everything he felt for her, all the longing and fear and hope, into each second.
When they broke apart, Anna’s hands were tangled in his hair.
His hands were tightly spanned across her waist, pulling her close, so her hips were pushed against his thighs.
“Silas,” her eyes were cloudy with desire. Silas pushed a finger against her lips.
“Travel safe,” he whispered. “I promise we will talk about...” he placed and hand on her breast and then rested it on his own. “This when you return.”
Anna raised herself up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek.
“Stay safe, Lucifer.”
Silas smiled. The title that he had hated, borne with disdain as a marker of his own monstrosity, was becoming a secret name spoken between them. Instinctively, he held her closer so he could whisper in her ear.
“You too... Persephone.”
He let her go, his body aching as soon as she moved out of the warm circle of his arms. He stepped out into the corridor, watching her walk away, wishing that she would turn back but also knowing that if she did, he would not be able to stop himself from asking her to stay. She didn’t look back.
Silas tried to keep himself busy that night, working until the late hours with Giovanni, but he couldn’t shake a lingering feeling of restlessness.
His mind constantly returned to Anna, wondering if she had arrived safely, trying not to worry about how she would feel being in her father’s company again.
Eventually, he found himself lying in their bed, the stitches in his shoulder itching and his body aching for his wife.
As the night waned and dawn broke, Silas finally fell into a broken sleep with his face pressed into Anna’s pillow, breathing in the ghost of her scent.
When he jerked awake hours later, it was because he could hear shouting coming from the grand staircase of the house.
He launched out of bed, ignoring the sharp pain in his shoulder as he ran down the portrait hall.
Beatrice stood at the foot of the stairs with Giovanni, her face full of worry and her hair loose around her face.
“Silas!” she cried as soon as she saw him. “This letter was sent by messenger!”
“Miss Klane took the message before I could get to the door,” Giovanni said, raking his eyes over the paper as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “It is from the Marchioness of Willington.”
Silas’ stomach dropped. He felt a sudden weakness in his knees and gripped the banister to steady himself.
“Where’s Anna?” he asked, trying to keep fear out of his voice.
“They don’t know.” Tears began coursing down Beatrice’s cheeks. “She never arrived. They sent a man to the post at Richmond, our carriage was there but there was no sight of her. The Marchioness says it’s like she’s disappeared.”
Disappeared or taken. He stared at Giovanni.
“Does he have her?”
Giovanni nodded reluctantly. “I think so.”
Silas slammed his fist into the banister, feeling the wood crack under it and an explosion of pain in his shoulder.
“Silas, your arm!” Beatrice exclaimed.
“Damn my arm!” Silas shouted, gripping his hair tightly as he crouched into a ball of despair. “How could I let this happen?”
“Stop it!” He heard a clatter of footsteps and Giovanni’s strong arms pulling him up.
“Basta! Enough!” Giovanni shook him, glaring at his master with his fierce, Italian eyes, his accent much more pronounced in rage.
“Come, Silas, be strong. We must go and get your wife now. We must go and get Anna back.”