Ever Yours, Annabelle

by Elisa Braden

  “I nearly lost you here.”

  She should have been the one to speak those words, but Robert said them instead. Her eyes flew to him.

  He stared down at the water, his brow furrowed, his jaw flexing. “You were sliding through my hands. I wasn’t strong enough to pull you up, small though you were.” One corner of his mouth quirked. “All I could think to do was let you fall where you had a chance of surviving.”

  She moved into him, tucked his arm close. “You saved me, Robert. I am alive because of you.”

  His eyes met hers. “I also hurt you. I am sorry, Bumblebee.”

  Pressure in her chest wanted out. It gathered and pushed. Tightened her throat. Tears swam, making the light swirl. They spilled over. “It is I who am sorry,” she whispered. “For the accident. For needing you so much that I could not grant you any amount of distance. For thinking my love for you was greater than yours for me.” She shook her head. “How little I truly knew.”

  He propped his cane against his thigh and reached for her cheek, brushing away the tears. “You were just a girl. Neither of us knew what to do with this.”

  “If I could change that day, I would. A thousand times over, I would do it.”

  “Close your eyes,” he said, tenderly stroking her cheek. “Go on, then. Close them.”

  She took a shuddering breath and complied.

  Firm lips settled upon hers. Gentle. Sensual. “We are alive, Bumblebee.” His breath washed across her mouth. “You and I. Both of us survived, and we are stronger for it.”

  “I love you, Robert.”

  “And I love you, Annabelle.”

  Cradling his hand against her cheek, she opened her eyes. Endless, brilliant blue glowed with possessive ferocity. “Please forgive me,” she whispered.

  “Whatever needed forgiving, I forgave long ago.”

  She nodded. Kissed him. And slowly, the pressure inside her chest eased. Around her, heart-shaped leaves fluttered, water sighed against stone, clouds drifted through patchy blue. But she and Robert were here, alive, together, and that shimmering golden thread had grown into a rope—one strong enough to hold them both above the abyss.

  They left the bridge, hand in hand. He lifted her onto Dewdrop and climbed up behind her. Then, he guided the horse across the bridge, heading along the road toward Clumberwood lands. Before long, he veered left, leaving the road behind and wending deeper into thick woodlands. At a small clearing, he pulled Dewdrop to a halt. They were surrounded by lime and beech and rippling sunlight. The ground was cushioned with leaves, half the clearing guarded by enormous, mossy boulders. The spot felt magical.

  He dismounted and lifted her down. “I have something to give you,” he said, looking far too serious.

  “Does it rhyme with lock?” she quipped.

  It only took a heartbeat for his smile to start. “No.”

  “Hmm.” She stretched up and kissed his lips. “Perhaps it rhymes with miss?”

  His smile grew. “No. Although, I shan’t rule out either possibility in the very near future.” He retrieved a sizable package from Dewdrop’s saddlebag. It was perhaps eighteen inches long and twelve wide, wrapped in a wool blanket. He handed it to her with odd uncertainty. “I made this for you.”

  The thing was weighty, obviously constructed of wood, for it had hard corners. It was a box of some sort.

  Robert rubbed the back of his neck. “Colby helped. He has a talent for such things, whereas I have more eagerness than skill.”

  She removed the blanket, revealing smooth, rich oak. The box had an angled top, a small ledge at the base of the hinged panel, and decorative trim with heart-shaped leaves. “Oh, my,” she breathed, stroking fingertips along the sturdy edges.

  “It is a travel desk. See there, I’ve added a leather handle to each side. You can carry it with you. For sketching.”

  She beamed up at him. “I love it.”

  A worried brow cleared. “You do?”

  Nodding, she stroked her palm over the surface. “It is perfect.”

  Silence fell, filled only by wind and sighing leaves. “Look inside.”

  With a curious glance at her husband, she set the desk on a waist-high boulder. Lifted the top. And saw letters. Some were old—yellowed and careworn. They bore a familiar, flowing script. But others were new. Those had neat, bold writing in fresh, dark ink.

  “Wh—what is this?”

  “Hux gave me some of your letters.”

  She sifted through the stack. The older ones were letters she’d written to phantom Robert during their separation. The newer ones were—

  “These are my replies,” he said. “A bit late, I’ll grant.”

  Quickly, she scanned the first three in the stack. Filled with wonder at the love of this man, she closed the lid, tears streaming, heart pounding.

  “You don’t like them. Blast, I knew it. I’ve never been good with—”

  Forgetting herself, their surroundings, and his bad leg, she rushed him. Leapt into his arms. Buried her face in his neck. He caught her but stumbled back awkwardly against another boulder. Fortunately, he was able to lower them both so they were kneeling in leaves and grass with his back braced against mossy stone.

  Good heavens, he was strong.

  She did not care if her gown was stained. She did not care that their bed was a forest floor and their roof the sky. Proprieties be damned. She was busy. Her task was kissing Robert. Stroking Robert. Loving Robert.

  She kissed his mouth, tangled their tongues, yanked at his cravat, and grunted her impatience to see him naked.

  Now. She wanted him naked now.

  “So,” he panted as she straddled his thighs and frantically tugged at the buttons of his fall. “I take it you liked them, after all.”

  She growled in frustration. “You.” Kiss. “Are wearing.” Kiss. “Too many.” Stroke and kiss and nibble. “Dratted clothes, Robert Conrad.”

  His deep laugh was deceptive, for his body did not seem amused. No, indeed, the hard, lengthy ridge pulsing against her inner thigh spoke of urgency beyond imagining. His fingers dug into her waist and hips. “Slow down, Bumblebee. Else I won’t be able to …” He touched his forehead to hers. “I cannot be patient much longer.”

  She cupped his flushed cheeks in her hands. “I don’t want patient. I want you.” Kiss. “Inside me.” Nibble. “Now.”

  Something dark and primitive exploded in his eyes. A deep growl sounded across their magical glade. It rumbled through her body, inflaming her arousal to a fever pitch. Suddenly, she was tumbling backward, her riding hat rolling away. Powerful, masculine hands shoved silk-lined blue velvet up and up, tore delicate petticoats from his path.

  Until she was bared to him from hips to toes.

  Her breasts swelled inside her stays, jealous of the attention he paid her lower half.

  “Fast,” he panted, dark hair falling over dark brows. The blue lit her up like tinder. “Need you fast this time, love. Apologies.” His words were nearly unintelligible, as though he’d abandoned civilization for hunger and lust. Perhaps he had. His hand loosened the last few buttons of his fall and withdrew the thick, long stalk of his manhood. Flushed and weeping, it made her lick her lips with inexplicable desire.

  “Yes. Need you, too,” she rasped. “Please, Robert.”

  He fell over her, bracing himself with one arm while positioning his cock with the opposite hand. She felt the blunt tip at her opening, circling once before stretching her wide. Her eyes flared at the size of him. How had she forgotten? Granted she’d been so wet and swollen the last time he’d taken her, sensation had all merged together. Pain had been nothing compared to her need.

  Now, although she was slick, his first thrust made her gasp.

  “Tight,” he groaned, the skin over his cheeks and jaw tense and flushed. “So bloody tight.” He gripped her thigh in his hand and yanked her up and forward into his hips as he forged deeper.

  Th
e sudden, pressured stretch inside her body was both unnerving and unbearably arousing. She reached for his neck, but he clasped her wrists and secured them above her head.

  “Need you this way,” he panted, powerful arms trembling as he braced himself above her, sank his cock further inside her. His eyes glowed with possessive fire. “Let me.”

  Though it was a new sensation to be held captive beneath him, she nodded, trusting him to bring her pleasure. And he did. Oh, how he did. Shockingly, given the rough force with which his body began pounding away at hers, pleasure bloomed where they were joined. It began as pressure. Then heated from friction. It gathered momentum. Curled and coiled. Burned hot as a bolt from thunderous clouds.

  He touched her nowhere else—only her wrists and where they were joined. His thrusts grew increasingly brutal, deepening. Taking. It felt like a claim.

  Yes, this was Robert’s claiming. And oh, how taken she felt. How thoroughly, wondrously filled until she couldn’t imagine her body without his. As the pleasure gathered, building higher and higher, she held his gaze. And smiled. Wider and wider. Panting his name. Loving the deep, hard, relentless power of her husband’s claiming.

  The peak, when it came, was a launch from a precipice, sudden and explosive. One moment, her sheath quaked with spiraling pleasure. The next, she seized upon his cock with enough force to drive them both into a frenzy. Whirling, indescribable ecstasy coursed through her as she closed her eyes and cried to the heavens.

  Two more thrusts, and Robert followed her over the edge into deep, rumbling waves of rapture. His seed filled her, warm and wet. His hands held her, secure and safe. His eyes devoured her, possessive and possessed.

  They were one.

  Their connection hummed with power.

  Golden. Inexorable. And, at long last, whole.

  *~*~*

  EPILOGUE

  “If you can manage to tear yourself away from endless procreating, my boy, I should enjoy having your company and that of your dear wife at Grimsgate Castle this summer. Feel free to bring the children, provided they number fewer than twenty by then.”

  —The Dowager Marchioness of Wallingham in a letter to Lord Robert Conrad, the future Marquis of Mortlock, inviting said gentleman to a house party of some importance.

  *~*~*

  Dearest Bumblebee,

  The first time I saw you, though you were tiny as a teacup, I knew.

  The second time I saw you, a siren in silver, laughing your womanly laugh, I was reminded.

  You have always been my happiness. And that is why I shall always and forever be yours, Annabelle. Your husband. Your knight. Your love.

  With all my heart,

  Robert

  —Letter to Annabelle Conrad dated August 3, 1816

  *~*~*

  July 30, 1826

  Sunlight blazed yellow across green fields and blue sky. The open carriage rocked and creaked as they traveled from Rivermore Abbey to Clumberwood Manor. Birds sang. Children giggled. A cooling breeze carried away thick heat.

  Annabelle sighed as the scent of freshly cut grass tickled her nose. She kissed her youngest babe’s sweet head and peered out at fields of wheat ripening to gold.

  “You are not my nurse, Beatrice,” complained six-year-old Nathaniel. “Stop telling me what to do.”

  “Sit still, and I shouldn’t have to,” seven-year-old Beatrice replied with a sniff. “Boys wiggle about too much.”

  Annabelle shared a grin across the carriage with Joanna Bickerstaff, who cuddled Annabelle and Robert’s second youngest daughter. Hyacinth might have her father’s coloring, but she had Annabelle’s penchant for mischief. Just two years old, and she’d already stolen every heart within reach.

  “Perhaps if certain boys had finished their lessons as they ought, they’d be riding with their papa as your brother is,” Annabelle chided gently, nodding toward the pair currently on Dewdrop’s back, riding alongside the barouche.

  Robert, looking broad and dark and dashing while holding their sleepy youngest boy in front of him, merely raised a brow. “Your mother makes a sound point, son.” Brooding blue eyes met their perfect reflection in Nathaniel. “A ride on a day like this is a fine thing, indeed. A worthy reward for tending one’s duties.”

  “Driving in a carriage with ladies is boring, Papa,” Nathaniel replied, crossing his arms.

  “Hmm. In time, you’ll feel differently, I suspect.”

  Joanna leaned closer and whispered in Nathaniel’s ear. The boy’s eyes widened. He nodded fiercely. Then, wriggling his backside against the seat, he settled in and behaved like a gentleman.

  “Remarkable,” Annabelle murmured. “How?”

  Joanna merely laughed, winked, and bounced Hyacinth on her knee. “I have my ways, my lady.”

  Following the horror of Martin Standish’s attack, Joanna had struggled to reclaim her soul from the black-hearted demon’s grasp. It had been a hard battle, and numerous scars remained. But she hadn’t let her ordeal defeat her. No, indeed. Over the past ten years, Joanna had performed many roles at Rivermore Abbey—lady’s maid, nursemaid, charades instructor. Above all, she was a friend.

  Beatrice tugged at Annabelle’s sleeve. “Will Uncle Hux be at Clumberwood this time, Mama?”

  Annabelle smiled at her serious, commanding little girl, the only one of their five children to have inherited Annabelle’s dark eyes. “I’m afraid not, my darling. He is still in Scotland.”

  “It must be splendid there,” Beatrice said. “Uncle Hux does not ordinarily stay in a place so long.”

  Kissing Beatrice’s Huxley-brown curls, Annabelle sighed at her precocious daughter’s observation. Apart from “ordinarily” being Beatrice’s favorite word, it appeared even seven-year-olds could detect the change in John’s pattern. Annabelle’s brother had wandered from one corner of the world to the other in search of something he could not seem to find. Perhaps Scotland would be different. She hoped so. John deserved the sort of happiness she and Robert had built together.

  And happiness it was. They had suffered their share of storms, to be sure. One, in particular, had tested them in ways they could never have anticipated. But that was why ships were necessary. Big, strong ships secured with golden, shimmering ropes. Testing the ropes only strengthened them more.

  “Mama, I should like to hold her.”

  Annabelle smiled at Beatrice then looked down at the sleeping babe cradled against her breast. “Very well.” Carefully, she transferred her youngest daughter into her oldest daughter’s arms. “Gently, now. Mind her head.”

  With her hands now free, Annabelle’s fingers itched to draw. She leaned forward and retrieved her travel desk from beside her feet. Then, with a lingering glance at her family, she opened her sketchbook and set pencil to paper.

  First came her children—Beatrice was a mothering brown hen, Nathaniel a restless bear cub. Little John was a sleepy hedgehog, Hyacinth a sprightly fairy, and baby Dorothea a tiny teacup. Finally, with sweet sadness, she drew her sixth child—or, more rightly, her first. He’d been born two months too early, had departed a lifetime too soon. They’d named him Michael, and in her drawings, he was always an angel.

  Next came Joanna, a resilient willow, and Annabelle, a fluttering bee. Last, she drew her husband, a towering knight standing watch over them all.

  She drew her family on a ship—a fine, stout ship with golden sails. The winds blew powerfully strong, and waves licked the ship’s railing. But their vessel was carrying them to a shore where Rivermore’s ancient arch straddled a welcoming drive, where golden wheat and ripe grass rippled and danced, and where tall beech trees surrounded magical glades.

  “Where are we headed this time, Bumblebee?”

  She glanced up. Robert was smiling, nodding toward her sketch. She’d drawn many over the years—so many, she’d begun making them into books for their children.

  Looking at her husband, so strong and vital, she reached for him
helplessly. He moved Dewdrop closer to the carriage and clasped her hand in his, warm and dry. Love blazed down at her. Blue. Adoring. Ferocious. Her heart answered by filling past its capacity, flooding her with a golden shimmer.

  “Home, my love,” she replied. “Wherever else we may wander, our ship will always carry us home.”

  *~*~*

  MORE FROM ELISA BRADEN

  It’s far from over! There are more scandalous predicaments, emotional redemptions, and gripping love stories (with a dash of Lady Wallingham) in the Rescued from Ruin series. For new release alerts and updates, follow Elisa on Facebook and Twitter, and sign up for her free email newsletter, so you don’t miss a thing!

  Plus, be sure to check out the rest of the Rescued from Ruin series, available now!

  Ever Yours, Annabelle (Prequel)

  As a girl, Annabelle Huxley chased Robert Conrad with reckless abandon, and he always rescued her when she pushed too far—until the accident that cost him everything. Seven years later, Robert discovers the girl with the habit of chasing trouble is now a siren he can’t resist. But when a scandalous secret threatens her life, how far will he go to rescue her one last time?

  The Madness of Viscount Atherbourne (Book One)

  Victoria Lacey’s life is perfect—perfectly boring. Agree to marry a lord who has yet to inspire a single, solitary tingle? It’s all in a day’s work for the oh-so-proper sister of the Duke of Blackmore. Surely no one suspects her secret longing for head-spinning passion. Except a dark stranger, on a terrace, at a ball where she should not be kissing a man she has just met. Especially one bent on revenge.

  The Truth About Cads and Dukes (Book Two)

  Painfully shy Jane Huxley is in a most precarious position, thanks to dissolute charmer Colin Lacey’s deceitful wager. Now, his brother, the icy Duke of Blackmore, must make it right, even if it means marrying her himself. Will their union end in frostbite? Perhaps. But after lingering glances and devastating kisses, Jane begins to suspect the truth: Her duke may not be as cold as he appears.