Page 46 of The Return of the Rake

“Thank me?” he repeated. “For last night, do you mean?”

Anne turned, her eyes flashing with indignation. The audacity of the wretched man!

“No, indeed,” she said tartly. “I wished to thank you for helping Mrs Jenner.”

She held the drink out to him and King took it, a glittering look of amusement lingering in his eyes.

“Ah. Well, that was Captain Dearborn, not I.”

“Nonsense,” Anne replied briskly as she sat down opposite him and set her own drink on the side table. “I suppose it was Dearborn who offered Tommy Tanner a job where he’d have a wage and shelter from the world, too?”

He regarded her, his expression unreadable.

“I had a letter from Miss Honeywell,” Anne explained, as he was clearly giving nothing away. “She told me what you’re doing for Tommy, and what Lucy Jenner said word for word. It was you who came between her and that brute of a husband.”

King shrugged. “We’ve history. I’ve knocked him down before now and he knows I’m willing to do it again. It was a small thing, but I was glad to help the captain get the poor woman away from him.”

“Would that we could make it permanent,” Anne said, feeling all the usual anger and frustration rise inside her. “I keep wishing he’d drown himself, may God forgive me,” she admitted, shaking her head.

“I rather got the impression the Reverend Honeywell might pray for something of the sort himself,” King replied with a wry smile.

“She’ll go back to him,” Anne said, toying with her drink where it sat but not lifting it to her lips.

King nodded. “She’s got nowhere else to go, and no right to go there all the time he lives.”

Anne gave a little growl of frustration and then started in surprise as King moved, lithe as a cat. One moment he had been sitting at his ease, and now he knelt before her, his hands braced on the arms of her chair.

“I’ve thought of nothing but you all the damned day,” he said, his voice low.

Anne’s heart jolted, heat rushing up her throat to burn at her cheeks. “I-I’ve thought of you too,” she admitted hesitantly.

King stared at her, and Anne looked back, searching his gaze.

There were so many opinions about this man, so much scandal and gossip. She knew he was a criminal, had known from the start. Yet the only side she had seen of him suggested he was a kind and honourable man.

Perhaps his rules were not quite those society would live by, but society would have Lucy Jenner return to her husband and let a poor neglected boy live wild in the woods. King had stood between the poor woman and that brute, though it was none of his affair, and he was taking that boy on, a boy who had no claim on him, even though the world would accuse him of taking up his own bastard. Such actions took courage and a strong sense of what was right and what was wrong.

Admiration burned in her chest as she gazed at his harsh features, took in the large, powerful hands grasping the arms of the chair, hands that had held her with such gentleness. Looking back into his eyes, she saw warmth and tenderness and knew this was a man who would rather protect than harm.

What had begun as physical attraction and had become admiration, now spread through her chest, into her veins, insinuating itself into every part of her and calling itself by a different name. Overcome by all she felt, by his nearness, by too many years spent striving alone and by a future that promised more of the same, Anne leant forward and touched her mouth to his.

King’s eyes closed, a soft groan sounding low in his throat, but he did not move. His knuckles turned white they gripped the chair so hard, but he moved not a muscle as Anne leaned in again, brushing her lips gently across his over and over. His breath quickened. She sensed his growing desire to move, to take hold of her, to do things from which there would be no turning back.

Anne knew she ought to stop this now, knew she ought not be here at all, but, giddy and reckless with longing, she twined her arms about his neck and slid from the chair. King gasped as she moved, his hands moving to her hips as Anne lowered herself down, somewhat startled to discover she was straddling his thighs. She hesitated, not having thought about the intimacy of the position in which she had placed herself, but then his mouth met hers and he kissed her with such need, such hunger, that nothing else mattered to her, except that she have more of him, more of this, that it might never end.

“Anne,” he murmured, his mouth moving over her cheek, trailing kisses down her throat as his hands moved over her, pulling her closer.

Anne gasped as their bodies pressed tightly together, shocked by the sudden closeness, by the feel of his arousal pushing against her so intimately.

He paused, drawing back to look into her eyes. “Don’t be frightened of me,” he said softly, stroking her face with such reverence she turned into the caress, closing her eyes. “I’d never hurt you, never do anything you did not wish for.”

“But I do wish for it,” she exclaimed, half laughing, half crying in despair. “But I dare not. I-I cannot!” She pushed from his embrace in frustration, getting to her feet on legs that felt unfit for the purpose. She stood with her back to him, not daring to turn and look for fear she would weaken at once and throw herself at him again. “My situation here is all I could have hoped for, could have dreamed of, but it is precarious,” she said, once she was calm enough to speak, though she still could not look at him. “People talk about me, silly rumours that I was mistress to a marquess. They’re not true, but—”

“I understand.”

Anne turned to discover him standing once more, and all the lovely feelings of desire and exaltation she had felt just moments ago turned to misery as she gazed upon him and knew she would never call him her own.

“Do you?” she asked, close to tears once more.