Invitation to Ruin (30 page)

“I don’t want children. I have nothing against you personally. I’m sure you’d make an excellent mother. I, however, would make a dreadful father.”

Melissa’s mouth gaped. Her hands curled into fists. “Then why marry me at all? You could have paid my brother’s debts and provided me with an income to live quietly in the country. Why go through this charade?”

Anthony shrugged his shoulders. “I had several reasons if you must know. Protecting your reputation was one of them.”

“I don’t believe you. You’re rumored to be coldhearted and incapable of love. I didn’t want to believe it—but now …” She hissed, “I want the truth. All of it.”

He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood facing her. “I wanted my mother to stop shoving debutantes in my face. I wanted everyone to think I’d soon sire an heir, even when I have no intention of ever providing one. Now married, my mother and brother will leave me alone.”

Melissa paled and gripped the bedpost for support. More tears slipped down her beautiful face. She tried to brush them
away. In a voice he could barely hear, she whispered, “You selfish—loveless—bastard.”

“I’d like to think of it as practical. As you so often advised, a logical solution. I saw a solution that would help us both.”

“Help me …” Her head snapped up, anger shining through her tears. “Help me! You’ve taken everything from me—my ability to have a proper marriage, to find love, to have children, and now you’re taking my freedom.”

Trembles racked her small frame. His gut tightened. “I’m sor—.”

She held up a palm. “Don’t. Don’t you dare say those words to me. Not after what you just did. You used me for sex. It wasn’t me you wanted. It could have been any woman—any thighs to sate your lust between.”

She stood there, her body gloriously displayed. Her pert breasts heaving in anger. She was wrong—he had wanted her, only her. He despised himself for it. He wanted her so much he’d almost given in and damned the consequences. It was true. Already he felt his body stirring at the thought of taking her again and again and again …

She was right. He should have told her about the white marriage before making love to her. He should have confessed all. But he’d been a coward. His self-loathing rose to throttle him. He needed to end this before his compassion for this beautiful woman overrode his common sense and he dropped to his knees and begged her for forgiveness. Begged her to be a real wife to him.

“I fucked you because you kept throwing yourself at me. I told you not to dress the whore for me.”

She sunk down to her knees, arms folded on the edge of the bed, and gave a sob. “God, I’m such a fool. Richard told me you were nothing like your father, but he was wrong. You don’t care what happens to me as long as I do my job. Stay caged at Bressington letting the world think—think what?” She gave a choked gasp. “That I’m barren?”

He turned away and reached for his trousers.

“Don’t ignore me. Answer me like a man. Was it always
your plan to use my body when you saw fit—making sure I never conceived? Never created the one person who’d love me unconditionally?” Her hatred slashed him with each blink of her eyelashes. “You’re just like your father. A coldhearted bastard, incapable of one ounce of emotion. You’ve treated me like a lowly slave you’d buy at market. Well, that’s the last time you ever touch me. Do you hear? I’m not here simply for your pleasure, at your whim.”

“This is your fault. My plan was to find a willing mistress. But you asked me not to give the position to Cassandra. I have yet to find a replacement. I have waited too long to bed a woman, and your naive attempts at seduction overcame my good sense.”

Like a queen she lifted her head off the bed. “Get out. Get out of my room. Now!”

“It’s my room actually. Everything in this house is mine. You’d best remember that.”

Melissa’s face paled and she gagged. “You’ll never own me. I’ll not be a slave—not for anyone. You didn’t stand up to your father, but I’m strong; I’ll never submit to you—never.”

Not stood up … she had no idea what he had endured under his father’s dictates, how hard he had fought. He had the scars—both external and internal—to prove it.

Fury pushed him beyond reason. He leaped over the bed and pulled her roughly up and into his arms. His mouth took her lips in a punishing kiss. He lifted her, as she squirmed in his grasp, and threw her down on the bed. Her eyes widened with shock.

He came down on top of her before she could move, his weight pinning her beneath him. He grabbed her wrists and pinned them above her head. He could feel her lifted breasts squashing against his chest, still taste her on his lips. He nudged her legs wide and settled between her thighs.

“First and foremost you will submit whenever I damn well feel like it.” Her body tensed under his, her eyes filling with fear. “Secondly,” he growled, “this is my house and you are
my wife; you belong to me.” He took her lips once more, forcing his tongue into her mouth.

She twisted her head away from him and let out a gut-wrenching sob. “You told me once that you would never knowingly hurt me. If you take me now, against my will, you’ll destroy me.”

He stilled above her. Guilt knifed through him until his body was awash with pain. He felt ill. What was he doing? He rose up off the bed. He couldn’t bring himself to look at Melissa, but he could hear her quiet sobs.

Anthony gathered his clothes off the floor. Rufus’s words came back to haunt him—
slavery takes many forms
. He felt his world tip on its axis and send him spiraling down to hell. He
was
his father. He left the room without a backward glance.

In his bedchamber he poured himself a drink and dropped his head in his hands. What had he done? He loathed himself beyond measure. He could hear her soft cries through the open door. How could he almost have raped his wife, what was wrong with him?

The whole sickening scene reminded him of the time his father forced him to …

He gulped the whiskey down in one swallow.

Melissa’s words had fed such a rage. A rage he thought he’d managed to conquer. He’d prided himself over the years of managing to contain his darkness. Yet, all it took was one taunt from her—his wife—and his inner demons surfaced with a vengeance.

What a pathetic fool he had become, a weak pathetic fool who had let a woman he did not even want to marry affect him!

Appalled, he knew he had to get away. Away from her. He had hurt her as he predicted. Ironically, he’d succeeded. He’d wanted to do something to make her hate him, to leave her repulsed by him.

He had achieved that and so much more.

He could safely say his wife would never want to lay eyes on him again.

Unfortunately, he hadn’t expected to feel so desolated, and so alone, at the news.

He hadn’t expected to fall in love with his wife.

   The tavern was dank and stank of vermin, both the animal and human sort. The smell of alcohol didn’t cover the stench, and Anthony had to stifle the urge to cover his nose with a handkerchief.

He’d ridden directly from Cambridge to Great Yarmouth, stopping to briefly rest over the arduous four-day journey. Yet every time he closed his eyes and tried to doze, he saw Melissa’s tear-stained face, and self-loathing assaulted his body to the point where he felt too ill to sleep.

Now he’d been in this godforsaken town for three days, his disguise of a local farmer seeking refreshment after selling his wares at market seemed to be intact. In the days he had spent in and around the taverns near the docks, he’d had little luck in gathering any kind of information on Rothsay’s whereabouts or if he had ships in port.

He was sitting in the Nags Head tavern waiting for Rufus’s contact. One of Rufus’s agents had uncovered a lead. He’d just lifted his tankard to his lips when a small boy appeared at his side and pressed a note into his hands. The boy took off before he could ask any questions.

As per the note’s instruction, he left the tavern and entered the small alleyway at the side, ready for any treachery. He got almost halfway in where he heard a scrape and a match blaze to life as a man lit a cheroot.

“Lord Wickham, I presume.”

Anthony tensed. “And you are?”

The man took a long draw on his smoke. “No names, if you please. If you’ll follow me I’ll take you to a man who may be of interest in your quest for Baron Rothsay. We are holding him in custody for a matter relating to treason, but
he had the poor judgment to boast about knowledge of a white slavery ring.” He moved into the lamplight, but his head was covered by a large hat. “He may have some information for you. Lord Strathmore says I am to provide you with every assistance.”

“Lead on.”

They reached the jail minutes before midnight. If he’d thought the tavern stank he was wrong. The prison smelled as if he’d stepped into hell. Nothing could cloak the smells of rotting flesh and excrement. This time he did use a handkerchief to cover his nose.

As they approached a cell, the jailer said gruffly, “You there. Get to your feet. You ‘ave visitors.”

A hulking brute of a man rose up from a pallet of straw and spat on the ground. He spied the man at Anthony’s side. “Come back to try and beat more information out of me? You’ll not get it. I’m dead anyway; do your worst.”

The man beside Anthony quietly said, “Simon Clune, even though it goes against every principle I possess”—he sighed deeply—”in exchange for information on another matter, the Foreign Secretary has instructed me to offer you transportation to the colonies—for life.”

An evil smile broke across the man’s battered features. “I won’t hang?”

“No,” came the curt reply.

Anthony eyed the prisoner, trying to ascertain if he could believe a word that came out of the man’s mouth. After all, he could tell them anything simply in order to avoid hanging.

As the silence drew out, Clune grew more triumphant. “You must want this info pretty bad. I’ll not dob on my friends.”

“We don’t want details on your mangy pack. We’ll have most of them rounded up by morning. It is a completely different matter.”

Clune turned his gaze to Anthony. Unflinchingly, Anthony returned his stare. He kept his voice gentle. “I’m after information on a man named Rothsay.”

Clune’s eyes narrowed. “What sort of information?”

“You know him then? In that case, you’ll have some idea of what intelligence I wish to gain.”

Clune turned back to Anthony’s contact. “Is this on the up? You’d spare my life for any information on a slavery ring?”

Anthony lost his patience. “Yes. A white slavery ring, Mr. Clune. Do you know of it?”

“Well, God is smiling on me. This is my lucky night. Aye, I know of it. Rothsay’s been operating it since the end of last year, when the navy increased its patrols on the Atlantic route. I’ll tell you all you want to know. The bastard almost killed my Alice after I lent her to him for the night. He’s a pervert.”

Anthony’s breath hissed out between his teeth. That was when he’d provided the navy with information that led to the seizure of three of his ships. “Do you know which port he operates from?”

Clune nodded. “He doesn’t use only one. He’s clever. He uses smaller vessels to hold women on, schooners that the navy thinks are too small to be of any interest. Then sails them to wherever he has a merchant ship sailing out of a port and transfers them far out at sea. That’s why he’s never been caught. It could be any boat, docked anywhere.”

Anthony’s raised hopes were dashed. It would be nigh impossible to track smaller boats at every port. Rothsay was clever. But if they had to search every smaller vessel, at every port, just prior to sailing, he would see to it. Anthony stepped closer to the bars, the light revealing his face. “Is there a particular vessel he uses to ferry the women? Anything you could remember about these boats? Anything to narrow our search?”

Clune frowned. “I know you. You’re Lord Wickham; you used to be in partnership with Rothsay. He pays good money for any information on your business. He’s taken a real personal interest in you.”

Anthony couldn’t help the shiver that racked his body. “Stop wasting my time. Do you know anything else?”

The silence was deafening. Anthony was turning to leave when Clune uttered, “He sometimes uses his own pleasure craft. A thirty-foot schooner called
The Master
. It’s often docked on the Thames near London. The streets of the city are easy pickings for a wealthy lord. Plenty of women to abduct and none the wiser. Who’d notice one missing from thousands?”

Contemplating the prisoner, Anthony was certain he’d get nothing more from him. “Thank you, Mr. Clune. Enjoy Australia.”

Anthony followed his contact’s lantern back out into the night. “Thank you. That has been most helpful.”

“Thank Lord Strathmore. If I had my way, Clune would still hang. But I have given my word.”

Anthony didn’t return to his lodgings. He made directly for the stables and was soon on his way back to London.

M
elissa felt waves of nausea begin to rise. She was too ill to even lean over the edge of the bed to reach the bowl. Thank God for Theresa. Theresa held back her hair with one hand, the bowl with the other.

It wasn’t just the guilt making her sick. Guilt from the afternoon when she had stood just where Theresa was standing now and told Anthony he was just like his father. She closed her eyes. What made her say such a thing? She knew nothing could be further from the truth; the mere remembrance of what she had said, what she had hurled at him, made her belly lurch again. But she was now certain it was not only her remorse making her ill.

“It’s been over six weeks since his lordship left. Stop pining for him. You’re making yourself ill.”

Melissa gave a wan smile. Even though she was exhausted and emotionally spent, she knew Theresa was wrong.

Wearily she sank back on her pillows. The past few weeks imprisoned at Bressington had been an incredible, while horrifying, journey into Anthony’s past. There were only a few servants remaining from when Anthony was a young boy, but the stories they told her still had her reeling.