Invitation to Ruin (16 page)

“I am Miss Melissa Goodly. You may call me Melissa.”

Anthony said, “Well, Alice, you’ll need employment and a place to live.” He turned and gifted Melissa a genuine smile. “My fiancée will no doubt need a laundry maid once we are married. The position comes with room and board and pays ten pounds per year. The job is yours … if you want it.”

Melissa blinked back tears.

Alice smiled at Anthony. “Thank you, sir. I would be honored to work in your household for your beautiful wife.” Alice turned and beamed at Melissa.

Returning the girl’s smile, Melissa warmly covered Alice’s trembling hand with her own. “Wait here in the carriage. We have one more slave to free.”

Anthony alighted and helped Melissa down. He held her close, longer than necessary. The air fairly hummed with tension, a tension neither of them seemed to deny. In unison, they faced the auction block and grimly waited for Theresa to appear.

“I wish we could save them all,” she murmured.

Anthony’s shadowy gray eyes regarded her speculatively, and then he grimly nodded his head. “One day we will. One day the House of Lords will see reason and support Mr. Wilberforce’s bill. I and several others intend to ensure that happens.” He smiled down at her. “I wanted to throttle you when I learned you were here.”

“You don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?”

“I’m the president of the Ladies Freedom Charity. We raise funds and try to educate slave owners and influence Society to see how wrong it is to own another’s life. It’s difficult to get men to take us seriously. Most think women are dim witted, too delicate to understand the economics of it all.” She sucked in a breath. “We understand. Money. Sometimes I think God’s word is right. It is the root of all evil. We just don’t have enough funds to buy them all their freedom. I can’t understand how anyone can condone the ownership of a human life.”

He took her hand and wrapped it possessively through his arm. Warmth streaked to the pit of her stomach, and for a brief moment, the horrors of the slave market faded. She felt stronger, more capable, now Anthony was by her side. Her fear that she may not be able to save Theresa gone.

“Greed. There are men like … like my late father, who’ll do almost anything for money.” He frowned. “When I learned you’d not been playing cards at Lady Humphrey’s, I thought you might have wanted the money to run away.”

“Once you know me better, you’ll learn I never run away from my problems,” she said, smiling a little. “I face them and try to work out a logical solution.”

“Logical? You made me think you’d sold yourself to me, to cover your brother’s debts and your own.” He shook his head. “Your logic is twisted. But I suppose you did it for Theresa. How do you know her?”

“Theresa was Lady Sarah Albany’s maid. Her father bought Theresa, many years ago, when she was a young girl, and when Lady Albany married, Theresa came with her into her husband’s household and became Lord Albany’s property.”

Anthony frowned. “I still do not see how Theresa ended up here.”

“Lord Albany was displeased with Sarah, and as punishment he took the one person Sarah called a true friend. Theresa was the one woman who protected her and who would never leave her.”

Anthony shook his head. “I still don’t understand. Lord Albany is quite capable of protecting his wife …”

At Melissa’s raised eyebrow his words petered out, and he made a small hissing sound. His eyes flashed with anger. “It is her husband she needs protection from.”

“Sarah is my friend, and when she asked for my help I couldn’t let her down.” She paused. “Now you know why I would prefer to marry for love. I wouldn’t want to be left in Sarah’s situation, with a man who despises her and cares nothing for her needs. It’s nothing short of slavery. Women are at the complete mercy of their husbands.”

Anthony stared at her for several minutes. “Are you afraid of me? Do you think I’ll act like Lord Albany?”

“No, Anthony,” she said with feeling. “Everything I have learned about you points to you always doing the right thing. Besides, you would never hurt someone weaker than you.”

Melissa felt the heat from his eyes leave a hot trail of fire as they studied her. “You are a remarkable woman.” His voice took on a husky sound. “I am sorry for the harsh words I spoke in Lady Sudbury’s drawing room and in the Cavendish garden.” He raised her hand to his lips.

Melissa blushed. “I was only asking Richard questions about you. I should have been braver and asked you directly, and then you would not have misunderstood. And this morning I should have trusted you enough to ask for your help.”

“Why didn’t you?”

She looked to the ground and shuffled her feet. “Richard told me about your father and that you’d at some stage worked for him. I couldn’t risk your displeasure at my objective. What if you had said no?” She reached for his hand. “From now on, if our marriage is to be comfortable, I realize there should be no secrets between us.”

   Gritting his teeth, he damned his father for forcing him into this dark world of deprivation. His father’s business had always nauseated him.

Then equally, he damned himself for wanting the woman standing beside him too much.

No secrets. Hell, his whole life was a secret. No one truly knew what he’d had to do to survive his father. A woman like Melissa would never understand, or likely forgive the horrifying things he’d done. He couldn’t even forgive himself …

“It’s Theresa.”

Anthony’s head snapped around to look at the stage. Theresa was neither a young woman nor a beauty, and as such, there was not much interest in the bidding. It was all over relatively quickly, and very soon, Melissa was hugging Theresa and helping her into the carriage.

Anthony swore under his breath. With her cheeks flushed with delight, Melissa looked stunningly beautiful. Damn, even in this disgusting place, she aroused him. She was going to be trouble. He knew it. Gruffly he stated, “I shall tie Dark Knight behind us and we can take the women directly to Craven House in your carriage.”

Melissa was about to thank him when a shadow fell over them. A man stood a little to his right, the stranger’s face hidden by the glare of the sun.

“Wickham,” a familiar voice said in a menacing tone. A voice that haunted Anthony’s nightmares. “Two slaves purchased. Doesn’t that go against your holier-than-thou sensibilities?”

Anthony practically shoved Melissa into the carriage to get her away from the bastard’s foul presence, and he slammed the door shut.

   The carriage door closed before she could get a good look at the stranger talking with Anthony. More startled than hurt from Anthony’s shove, Melissa wobbled onto the colorupholstered seat and peeked out the window. The brown-haired man stood with his back to her. The noise from Theresa’s and Alice’s excited chatter drowned out the conversation between the two men. But Anthony’s thunderous face told her the man was not a friend.

When Anthony finally entered the carriage, his horrid mood silenced Alice and Theresa. They set off for home in ominous silence.

“Who was it you were talking with?” Melissa calmly asked.

Anthony met her eyes, and she could read the anger still blazing in them. “No one of importance and no one you would know.”

Melissa opened her mouth, but one look at Anthony’s face had her questions dying on her lips. He didn’t wish to speak of it, and he needed time to gather his temper, so she snapped her lips shut.

She let her eyes drink him in, and his gaze pinned hers. A sharp flare of heat clutched at her as a hungry, almost predatory expression hardened his features.

In the confines of the crowded carriage, she experienced her first pang of sexual frustration. After everything he’d done for her today, she wanted a few moments of privacy to thank him properly—personally. She licked her lips. Perhaps even kiss him. And … well, there were all sorts of things possible since they were to be married.

She wondered if the light in his eyes meant his thoughts were along the same lines … She hoped so.

Surely they would have a few minutes to themselves at Craven House. Her pulse raced at the thought.
Couldn’t the horses go any faster?

   Lord Philip Drake, Baron Rothsay, watched the carriage drive away. He tapped his cane on the cobblestones. Who was the delectable creature with Wickham?

She was obviously someone Anthony cared a great deal about, for Anthony had sworn never to set foot in a slave market ever again.

She was a woman capable of getting the one man who never wavered from his path to do the one thing he’d sworn never to do—buy a slave.

This meeting was quite fortuitous. Philip thought of himselfas
a patient man, and he had waited and watched Lord Wickham for a long time. His revenge would be all the sweeter for knowing his enemy intimately. Finally he had stumbled across an opportunity.

He turned swiftly and walked back to Rawlings. “Do you know who the woman with Lord Wickham is?”

“Miss Melissa Goodly. One of them Ladies Freedom Charity women. She’s been here before but never to buy, only to disrupt.”

“Did she arrive with Wickham?”

Rawlings shook his head. “No. She was here for quite some time before he arrived. I remember because I was going to have the boys turn her away. I didn’t want no trouble. Some of the punters were more interested in her than the market.”

From what little Drake saw, she was a beauty, almost familiar, yet he hadn’t gotten a good enough look. He couldn’t think of where they might have previously met. Her name was not familiar.

Snapping at Rawlings he uttered, “Find out all you can about her and what she is doing with Wickham.”

This day had just become very interesting.

A
nthony needed a drink. A very large drink. His emotions were in turmoil. He didn’t want to feel anything for his fiancée, but God damn he admired her. He admired her selflessness in trying to help someone less fortunate than herself. She was prepared to shoulder his scorn and contempt to save a slave. He was proud of the way she put someone else’s needs before her own happiness. He’d never known another human being to be less self-serving.

He took a deep breath. But most of all he felt desire. A total, all-consuming need to lose himself in her softness. To feel her body wrapped around him, letting her goodness wash him clean. He didn’t deserve her.

But he wanted her. All of her.

Instead, he had to sit politely sipping tea while his mother monopolized the conversation. Lady Wickham was enticing Melissa into providing thorough details of what they had been up to this afternoon.

The butler had taken Theresa and Alice to show them the servants’ quarters and to explain what was expected of them in the future. Since their new mistress would not be taking up residence until the day after tomorrow, there was no need to rush.

Anthony heard his mother say, “Of course I’d heard of your work with the Ladies Freedom Charity.”

He frowned. If she’d heard of Melissa, she’d never mentioned it to him. But, then, they seldom had two civil words to say to each other.

He wished his mother would stop asking questions. He wanted them finished and Melissa gone. He could feel his defenses crumbling under the onslaught of the goodness radiating from her.

Like a hawk watching a fat, juicy field mouse, he observed her. She had noted the obvious heat in his eyes, and she returned his gaze boldly. The way she kept flicking her tongue over her lips had his body tightening. She was nervous, yet her skin had a hint of flushed awareness. He longed to feel those sweet lips all over his body.

God, he needed a woman, and soon.

On the carriage ride home, he’d given up all pretense that he could ignore his soon-to-be Countess. He couldn’t. Her self-sacrifice was compelling. Compelling him to believe there was still good in the world, and he craved a taste.

Driving him on was the thought that there were ways to pleasure a woman without impregnating her. Not foolproof, of course, but he’d made love to numerous women and as yet had not fathered a child.

He watched her while images of what he’d do to her body—the pleasure they would share—crashed through his head, making breathing difficult.

He remembered her naked and in his arms, moaning as his hands stroked her at the juncture of her long slender legs. He could almost feel how tight and hot she’d been.

He tried to get the naked image of her to leave his mind. He fixed his gaze on the fully clothed Melissa. The sunlight from the window behind her was lighting her dark tresses as if she wore a halo. He crossed his legs to hide his arousal. Halo. Yes. She was his fallen angel. He’d ensured her fall.

Watching his angel’s pink tongue once again flick over wet, ruby lips was once too much. He rose and crossed to stand directly in front of her. Knowing his actions verged on madness, he held out his hand. “Mother, I wish to show Melissa
the gardens. Please do excuse us. If the weather was up to it, we could hold the ceremony outside. I would like my bride’s valued opinion.”

“I must say it took you long enough. I was wondering how much longer I would have to keep up this prattle.” He watched Melissa’s mouth drop open in surprise at his mother’s words. “Go—be off with you. Due to circumstances there is little need for a chaperone.”

Melissa, with a perfectly respectable hint of hesitation, gave him her hand. At the feel of her fingers, so tiny in his, he almost shuddered.

It took a moment before she looked up at him, her face closed, masking her emotions. “I would be delighted to see all that Craven House has to offer.”

Once they stepped outside, the warmth from the sun was not nearly as hot as the feel of her arm through his.

“Is there something in particular you’d like to show me?”

He glanced at her suspiciously, trying to understand the siren-like murmur of her voice.

“The rose garden.”

Her smile deepened. “Is it private?” It was one of those smiles that every instinct he possessed distrusted, especially as she let her hip brush his. Who was seducing whom here?