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fucked you until I couldn t see straight.
Anna felt each puff of his exhalation against her own lips. She flinched at the obscenity.
She wanted to deny it, to say that it did not describe the sublime sweetness they d
discovered together in London, but the words caught in her throat.
I was actually worried that contact with the prostitute you sheltered would ruin your
good name. What a fool you made me. How could you hold back your laughter when I
begged your pardon for kissing you? His hands flexed on her shoulders. All this time
I ve been restraining myself because I thought you were a respectable lady. All this time
when you only wanted this.
He swooped in then and devoured her mouth with his own, ravishing her softness,
making no allowances for her smaller size, for her femininity. His lips crushed hers
against her teeth. She moaned, whether in pain or desire, she could not tell. He thrust his
tongue into the cavern of her mouth without preamble or warning, as if he had every right.
You should have told me that this was what you wanted. He raised his head to gasp. I
would ve obliged you.
She seemed incapable of coherent thought, let alone speech.
You had only to say the word and I could have taken you on my desk in the library, in
the carriage with John Coachman up front, or even here in the garden.
She tried to form words through the fog of her confusion. No, I
God knows I ve been hard for days weeks around you, he ground out. I could ve
tumbled you at any time. Or can t you admit that you want to bed a man whose face
looks like mine?
She tried to shake her head, but it fell helplessly as he bent her back over his arm. His
other hand dropped to her hips and jerked them into his own. The unyielding hardness of
his erection pressed against her soft belly.
This is what you crave. What you traveled all the way to London for, he whispered
against her mouth.
She moaned in denial even as her hips arched into his.
He stilled her movement with an iron grip and tore his mouth away from hers. But almost
as if he couldn t leave the lure of her skin, he returned. His mouth trailed across her face
to catch an earlobe between his teeth.
Why? His question sighed into her ear. Why, why, why? Why did you lie to me?
She tried again to shake her head.
He punished her with a sharp nip. Was it a jest? Did you find it amusing to lay with me
one night and then play the virtuous widow the next? Or was it a perverse need? Some
women find the thought of bedding a pox-scarred man stimulating.
She jerked her head violently then, despite the pain when his teeth scraped across her ear.
She couldn t could not let him think that. Please, you must know
He turned his head. She tried to face him, and he did the most terrifying thing yet.
He let her go.
Edward! Edward! For God s sake, please listen to me! Strange that this was the first
time she had called him by his Christian name.
He strode down the garden path. She ran after him, her eyes blinded by tears, and tripped
over a loose brick.
He stopped at the sound of her fall, his back still to her. Such tears, Anna. Can you
produce them at will like the crocodile? And then, so softly she might have imagined it,
Were there other men?
He walked away.
She watched as he disappeared through the gate. Her chest felt tight. She thought vaguely
that perhaps she d hurt herself in the fall. But then she heard a guttural, rasping sound,
and a cold little part of her brain took note of what a strange noise her crying made.
How swift, how harsh was the punishment dealt for stepping outside her staid widow s
life. All the lessons and warnings, spoken and unspoken, that she d been taught growing
up had, in fact, come true. Although, she supposed her punishment wasn t that envisioned
by the moralizers of Little Battleford. No, her fate was far worse than exposure and
censure. Her punishment was Edward s hatred. That and the knowledge that she had
never gone to London merely for the sex. All along it had been to be with him, Edward. It
was the man she d craved, not the physical act. It seemed she had been lying to herself
just as much as she d lied to him. How ironic to have finally tumbled to that realization
now when all was ashes around her.
Anna didn t know how long she lay there, her old brown dress growing damp from the
overturned dirt. When her sobs finally died away, the afternoon sky had become overcast.
She pushed herself up with both arms to a kneeling position and from there lurched to her
feet. She wavered, but caught herself, one hand holding the garden wall for support. She
closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. Then she picked up the shovel.
Soon she would have to go home and tell Mother Wren that she no longer had a job. She
would face a lonely bed tonight and a thousand nights after for the rest of her life.
But for now, she d simply plant roses.
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