“I’m going to destroy your feminine sensibilities with pleasure and obscenity,” he said, kissing her exposed bosom. “You are going to discover that your husband is a filthy beast with lascivious appetites who will devour and ruin you.” He transferred his mouth to her breast again, sucking through thefabric. “You, my lady, are not going to be able to walk when I have finished with you.” His hand crept up under her gown and cupped her between her legs.
He raised his head and stared straight into her eyes. “I want you, Annis, all of you. Tell me don’t want me even a little bit, and I’ll let you go.”
She swallowed. “I want you, Emrys,” she whispered.
A small smile of relief broke across his face, and he lowered his head to bury it in her bosom, murmuring softly, “Thank God.”
They reached The Castle just after five that afternoon, after a three-hour wait to see the Bishop of Leicester. Emrys lifted Annis down off Inigo and passed her into the duchess’s hands. He saw his horse taken care of and their baggage dispatched. Having divested himself of his damp overcoat, he followed the duke to the library and collapsed in a chair near the fire. If he was tired, he hated to think what Annis must feel like.
“Where did you find her?” asked the duke, passing him a generous tot of whisky.
“Just south of Swinford on the side of the road. The mail coach had become mired in mud. It was raining. She was soaked and out on her feet. We stayed the night at Swinford.” He paused to drink the whisky. “I’ve obtained a license from the bishop. I plan to marry her tomorrow in your chapel, if you’ve no objection?”
“You’re set on this course?”
“I am.”
“Well, who am I to stand in the path of—well, I’m not sure what this is. Do you love her?”
“I want her,” Emrys admitted, flushing. “And the children need her. I’m not sure I’m capable of exactly loving another woman after Caro. I don’t entirely trust my feelings at the moment. But I think we could suit each other. And she needsmy protection.” He finished off the whisky and stood up. “Also, there is something we need to check before it gets dark,” he said, heading for the door.
The duke swallowed his own whisky hastily and followed him. “Where are we going and why?”
“I’ll explain on the way,” said Emrys, leading him to the front entrance and donning his coat again, as it was still drizzling out. He had debated all the way back on what to tell Robert and had decided that he needed to know part of the truth at least. The attack had taken place on his land, after all, and involved his employee. If there was any danger to anyone in his household, he needed to know.
They struck out toward the ruins. “Annis has been persecuted for some time by a man. I don’t know his identity, but I mean to find out. He wishes to take something from her that was left to her by her aunt, Miss Janet Pringle. The lady is deceased—she died some years ago, I gather. The reason Annis fled two days ago was because she met with this man here in the grounds, by the ruins. She took steps to defend herself and she fears that she injured him, possibly fatally. She is quite convinced we will find his body.”
Robert huffed. “That is quite a tale. Why the devil didn’t she come to me with this?”
“She feared she would lose her post, Rob. She is alone in the world, has no one to rely upon, no one to support her if she were turned off without a reference, for example.”
“I would never do that! Good God, she is part of the family. She has been with us close on six years. The girls adore her.”
“I know, but I don’t think she is accustomed to trusting people. This man—” Emrys stopped to swallow the incandescent rage building under his ribs. “This man threatened her horribly. She was afraid. She has been living with this fear for several years. It has made her wary.”
“But what did she hope to gain by fleeing?”
“To be honest I don’t think she was thinking clearly. She panicked, fearing the worst.”
The ruins loomed up out of the gathering gloom, the gray cloud cover had obscured the sun and was making things abnormally dark for this time of year. The drizzle was persisting, and everything was damp and unpleasant. The ground, soaked now with two days of constant rain, was muddy, with standing pools of water among the grassy tussocks.
To Emrys’s relief, there was no immediate sign of a body. Though if there had been any blood or signs of a struggle initially, the wet would likely have obliterated that by now. It was still possible that the man may have staggered away to fall and die somewhere else.
“Let’s widen the search, make sure he is not hidden in the bushes farther afield.”
Robert nodded agreement, and they scoured the surrounding area for a good half an hour and found nothing.
Thoroughly soaked now and feeling the chill, they headed back to the house.
“He may have left the property and subsequently died of his injuries or even now be languishing somewhere. We have no way of knowing, but at least you are not implicated if the body hasn’t been found here.”
“That is true and, I admit, a big relief. I’d as soon not have the place crawling with Bow Street Runners.”
“Indeed.”
“And knowing all this, you still wish to marry her?”
“I wish to marry her all the more—she needs me. If the man comes after her again, he will have me to deal with. He’ll not find me so easy to intimidate. He may hesitate also to offer violence to a viscountess as opposed to a mere Miss Pringle, Governess.”
