by Cerys du Lys
Oh yes, he understood exactly why Hugh had taken her. With those plump curves, rich mouth, and smoldering eyes, he could ride a woman like that all night and all day.
Except she wasn’t the sort of woman who looked like she knew anything about being ridden, or how to wrap herself around a man. Her defiance came from her prim-young-lady’s knowledge that she was destined for better things. To be a dutiful wife and mother. Like it was something to aspire to.
“Sir. Will you please release me.” She said it as an order, no question or plea, but her voice shook.
He didn’t reply. He picked at the knots where they were rubbing the skin on her wrists to a weeping sore, but they had become tight. In the end he had to grab a knife and slash through, so that she crumpled to the ground. Naked and crouching, her blonde hair fell about her shoulders and face, making a tent of protection.
Jesus. What was he supposed to do with her? Dress her and turn her loose, he supposed. “Come on, get up,” he said gruffly. “Where are your clothes, do you know?”
“In the office,” she said quietly, nodding towards the corner room.
“What are they doing in there? Oh, never mind. I think I can guess. Come on, then. Let’s sort this out.”
He had to help her to her feet. Her flesh was soft and warm and he couldn’t help brushing his fingers over her skin. Ahh, women; they were so inviting yet so tainted. Beatrice had been like this. Beautiful and rotten. Oh, his sister.
Anna trembled but walked next to him, not pulling away, as he led her into the office. He kicked the door half-closed behind him, and stood by it while she gathered up the tattered garments with shaking hands.
He noticed the dress was torn. He started to realize that he hadn’t actually interrupted proceedings before they began - something else had occurred.
“What exactly did they do to you before I arrived?” He was a cad; he had guessed, but he wanted to hear her say it. He stared at her long flanks as she tried to patch the dress around her again, and licked his lips as she covered up those temptingly bouncing breasts.
She was flushed but her redness deepened. Her undergarments were torn but she was able to mostly cover herself and use her ribbons to hold her clothes closed. “Sir, Mr. Craythorne…”
“My brother, Hugh…”
“Yes, sir. He…Oh, I don’t know how to say it. Or if I ought to say it.”
“You might observe, Miss Rossington, that there is little love between my brother and I. Speak on.”
“He brought me in here, first, sir, and had his way with me.”
“He fucked you?” He tasted the obscenity made sweeter by her tension and reaction.
Her fingers knotted tightly, her knuckles white, though whether that was at his coarse language or the recollection of the deed, Tristan didn’t know. “Yes, sir.”
“Raped you. You were a virgin, I suppose?”
“Sir. Yes, I was.” Accent on the was.
Tristan sighed. The only daughter of a well-connected man, and a bore and a bully to boot, and here she was, violated and now without worth. What a mess. “Just in the cunt?” He had a hope that Hugh might only have fucked her arse, which would mean she was still a virgin. Technically.
“Yes, sir…”
Oh - she knows the right words. That is interesting. “And what else?”
“Nothing, sir. He then took me out there, and tied me up, and the men were about to… continue. But you rescued me. Thank you!”
Oh God, he didn’t need her simpering gratitude. He frowned at her. “What the hell were you doing out on your own? Was that true?”
She looked down and he rolled his eyes. Christ, don’t start fucking crying. To his surprise, she took a deep breath, lifted her head again, and said, “I was on my own and I was simply taking some air. Now I should like to be escorted - to a carriage. So that I might make my way home.”
“In that state?”
She pulled at her ragged, once-fine dress. “Even so.” She had pushed her feet back into her dirty slippers and tried to bundle her hair back into a bun. She looked well-fucked, and he wanted to keep her that way.
“I didn’t mean your clothes. I meant now you’re fallen.” Some demon prompted him to taunt her. Maybe it was because she was looking so appealingly wanton; he wanted to punish her for her beauty. “What if you have got a baby in that belly?” he continued spitefully. “Hugh will come after you for it, you know. For his son and heir.”
“There will be no child. I shall see to that,” she hissed, and he was reminded of a lioness. There was something in her spirit that fired him - she was a challenge. No one, not his brother, not this woman, ever got the better of Tristan Craythorne but he did enjoy letting people try.
Their downfall - their inevitable defeat - was always so sweet.
“I don’t have time for this,” he muttered. He was losing track of what he should do.
“For what?” she challenged. “Just take me to a carriage, sir.”
“You think you’ve been rescued.”
There was a wary light in her eyes. “Yes, sir. And I thank you for it.” Tightening her grip around her waist, she stepped towards the door, walking with her head high, as if she were descending a flight of stairs to a ballroom.
“Stop. Whence comes this courage of yours?” He slammed out a hand to hold the door closed, his forearm two inches from her face. She flinched slightly but looked at him, and the sudden flat dullness in his eyes hit him in the gut - he was expecting to see more fire and defiance.
“It is not courage, sir. Just an absence of…”
The pause hung in the air. An absence of caring? The woman had layers of meaning. Like all women, he reminded himself. Tricky, deceitful, manipulative. Don’t try to understand the wily bitch. He let go and opened the door, mocking bowing to her as she swept past into the warehouse.
“You can’t let her go!” Hugh shouted. He was on his feet, holding his jaw which was shading already to red and purple.
“I am going, sir.” She strode towards the door, but Tristan noticed she walked painfully, with an awkward limp. Her satin slippers were stained and barely better than bare feet.
“She will ruin us!” Hugh cried. “Danny, stop her. Bar the door!”
Danny looked from one brother to the other, and moved in front of the door, causing the young woman to stop. Her shoulders sagged and she looked back over her shoulder at Tristan, her eyes still dull.
Something had got to her. Something had reminded her of what she had, or did not have. The fire was going out, and his suspicions were confirmed when she placed one hand on her belly. Yes, he thought, you had not realized the implications of what has been done to you. It’s sinking in now, isn’t it?
“Let me go, or kill me, one or the other,” she said. “But stop this debate.”
At that, Tristan snorted with laughter. “Kill you! How delightfully dramatic.”
“We might as well,” Hugh said, “but can’t we fuck her first? There’s a lot of bounce left in her, yet.”
“We have to do something.”
“We can’t let her go - unless…”
Tristan whirled on his brother. Why, even after beating and beating, did the irritating little shit never learn his lesson? He had been like this as a boy and he still hadn’t grown up. Even Beatrice in her darkest hour had not seemed to have brought Hugh any understanding. “No, Hugh. I know what you’re going to say. No. This gang is ours.”
“But to join the Earl-”
“No! I do not think we would have the protection you believe we would have.”
“Yes, we would. If we merged, then-”
“No, he would take what he wanted for his own ends.”
“No, Tristan!” Hugh’s eyes were shining with mad excitement. “We would take over, and control both gangs, the biggest in London.”
“And what of Andrew Gallagher?” Tristan spat.
“A commoner, and a ruffian.”
Tristan shook his head. “You have
no idea. No, Hugh. We run our own businesses our own way. As for the girl… I shall take her with me.” He barely knew what he was saying. His mouth had made up its own mind.
“Where?”
Tristan looked at her, slender and shivering at the door, Danny leering at her up and down while he awaited orders. “To our house, while I decide what to do with her.” Stop thinking with your cock, Tristan; you’re no better than Hugh!
“Ha!” Hugh’s face split into a grin. “You are just jealous I got first ride on her, and you want to fuck her yourself. I don’t blame you. She screamed so nicely…”
Tristan punched Hugh again, and he staggered back into some bales of cotton. “Shut the fuck up. Come on, you,” he said to the woman. “Give me your arm.”
He wrapped her thin arm in his, and held on tightly, leaving her in no doubt that she was his prisoner. Maybe Hugh was right. He could have her for a few nights, and then take her to a house of fallen women, or leave her in the streets, or sell her to a brothel. But the problem of her parents plagued him, and he didn’t like feeling unsettled.
Killing her quietly and dumping the body was going to be the easiest way.
He walked quickly to his coach and roused his man from his slumber. “Home.”
“Sir.” The coachman was huddled in a deep-collared dark cloak. He jumped lightly down and fiddled with the straps of the patient horses while Tristan lifted her into the back of the coach, and settled her in a dark corner.
She watched him all the way to his townhouse, questions in her large eyes.
Questions he couldn’t answer. Fuck, kill, dump, sell?
He’d start with the fucking.
Chapter Four
Anna’s mind was a whirl. How was it possible for one person to believe or want two different things at the same time? Yet it was possible. She wanted to curl up and die and have the whole sorry business over and done with.
And simultaneously, she wanted to fight and run and emerge victorious and take hold of her own future again.
Her head throbbed. She curled in the corner of the coach, jolting and bumping on the inadequately padded seat, and fixed her eyes on her unlikely rescuer.
He was no hero, that was for sure. He glanced her way from time to time, but looked right through her. He sprawled over the seat, his long legs taking up as much of the carriage as he pleased. She held herself close, not wishing to accidentally brush against him.
I must want to live more than I want to die, she thought, else I would be fighting him still, so that he would throw me from the coach and I would be run over by a horse. As soon as she decided that, her resolve hardened. She would find a way to escape, if she could.
Why was he taking her? She could only think of one reason; he meant to abuse her, as his brother had done. No, she decided. No more. I shall get away from all this.
She tilted her chin defiantly, and he turned when he caught her movement. Something in her demeanor amused him, and he smiled with a hint of humor actually showing in the corners of his eyes - it wasn’t just his lips that lifted this time.
He was an attractive man when he smiled.
But it was soon wiped from his face and he returned to dark brooding, and she reminded herself of the danger that she was in. There would be no point appealing to this violent man’s finer feelings. In spite of his upper-class accent and expensively tailored clothing, he was a low ruffian underneath, built for fighting and raping.
Remember that, Anna. Do not trust him. Think only of escape.
Within a short time they had come to a stop and the coachman let her down from the carriage. She alighted, feeling as if for the first time how sore her feet were, and thinking what a mean, low man he was for not even escorting her properly out of the carriage.
And then she looked up.
“Oh my goodness.” Her exclamation was involuntary, and temporarily pushed all her thoughts of his ruffian nature aside. His townhouse was huge, over five floors, and with four wide windows either side of the wide dark blue door. A man in a long liveried coat opened the door for them and she peeked inside a cool, yet light hallway. Potted plants stood along the walls, their fronds half-obscuring sculptures and statues, and the floor was polished marble.
“Do you live here alone?” she asked, overawed by the sight. She was used to fine houses - after all, her own family had their London residence, their house in Bath, and a country manor in Sussex. Her background meant she was readily able to spot the signs of lavish wealth and appreciate the little touches. True money showed itself in small ways, not the size of the house though that was considerable. No, it was in the way the carved staircase was edged in gilt. The way the servants wore individually tailored clothing. And somehow this opulence was the more shocking because it was associated with this brute of a man.
“You mean, do I have a wife?” he said, his lip curling. He barked an unpleasant laugh and did not answer. “Come on in.”
“Do I have a choice?”
The coachman turned away hurriedly and leaped back up to the wooden seat at the front of the carriage, clicking his tongue to urge the horses away down the street. Tristan stood close to her, and gripped her elbow very tightly, whispering in her ear, “No, no choice at all. I was merely bowing to your sensibilities by allowing it to appear as if you were here by choice. But if you wish to resist, I am quite happy to drag you into my house, kicking and screaming. I assure you that no one will come to your aid.”
She straightened her back and marched fully into the cool atrium. He kept his hand on her arm, and propelled her to a door on her right. He twisted the coral handle and she found herself in a lavishly-decorated morning room, bristling with dark wood furniture, with dark red hand-printed wallpaper and a series of thick, overlapping rugs. He let go of her hand and closed the door behind them with a dull sound of finality.
She folded her arms. It was an uncouth gesture and she could imagine exactly what her mother would say about it - “standing like a fishwife on a corner, Anna Rossington!” - but she needed to stop her hands from shaking so she pinned then under her arms.
Tristan prowled the room, crossing to the window to glance out between the lace drapes onto the street at the front, then he passed behind the assorted cluttered furniture to walk a full lap of the room. She watched him, trying to work him out. He paced like a tiger - she’d seen them when the circuses passed through, prowling in their barred coaches - though she had never been allowed to visit one.
Anna realized he was a man of action, not someone who was happy cooped up in a pleasant sitting room. He needed to walk to think. He paced back to the door, and finally stared at her, his face quite set in thought.
She decided she had to seize the initiative while he was still undecided. “Sir,” she began, her voice more level than she’d expected. “Sir, I appreciate your actions very much. Though certain events have occurred that are regrettable…” - Jesus dear sweet Lord do forgive me… regrettable? Oh! I know I sound so formal but it is like an armor to me - “...your timely intervention prevented any further calamity. And you have brought me here, out of danger. Now, I must request that you allow me to leave. I can be of no use to you, I am afraid, and I should hate to be a burden on your household.”
Her little speech lifted him from his thoughts. “Well now, how prettily you have composed all that in your head. Let me address your points, in reverse.” He came away from the door, and walked towards her. She took a step away but his hand darted out and grabbed her, snaking his arm around her waist as if they were two lovers cavorting in a park. His musky smell invaded her nostrils and his solid warmth was appealing - something to cling to - even though she could feel his dark intent simmering below.
“One,” he said. “A burden on my household? Nothing is a burden to my extensive staff who are well paid for their duties. Two, you request I allow you to leave? No, not yet. Three - what else? Oh, that you can be of no use to me… and yes, that I have brought you here out of danger?”
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nbsp; He laughed, and pressed his face to her neck. She squirmed, her body hot with new and unfamiliar feelings. His breath was warm on her skin, and then she felt a dampness as his tongue flicked out and nibbled on her earlobe. His arm was like an iron band around her waist, and she wriggled but she could not get away.
“Sir!” she said desperately, trying to keep her voice steady. “Sir, I beg of you. Please.”
He suddenly released her and she staggered, falling against a purple and pink couch. She held on to the arm, supporting herself. “Please,” she repeated. “Simply let me walk out. Why these games?”
“And where will you go, Miss Rossington? I have met your father. I can tell you now that he will not take you back in your defiled state. What if a baby grows within you?”
“It will not.”
“You don’t know that. I can assure you that my brother is a virile sort of chap. Ask half a dozen women of Cheapside and Covent Garden who have borne him bastards. Wasn’t it your father’s brother who cast out his third daughter when she was caught tumbling with the stable-boy?”
Anna swallowed. How did he know this? Truly he was well-connected but then, men of a certain class moved in the same circles and they seemed to gossip as much as women. She remembered the scandal attached to Kitty.
“She was the third daughter, as you say,” Anna reminded him. “My other cousins were well married and he had a son, as well, so she was…”
“Disposable? And you think you are not?”
It was true that her mother and father would not allow her back into the family fold. She knew that, with the same certainty that she knew her father would beat her mother for this transgression, and that her mother would not speak to her again. The engagement would most certainly be over, and a strange and inappropriate glee rose in her throat. Good-bye to fish-eyed Stapleton Jones, at least. “I have other relatives, and some of them are kindly. I shall seek a governess’s situation somewhere far away, where I can make a fresh start and work for an honest wage.”
He blurted out a laugh, so loud and startling that she jumped. His eyes creased in genuine amusement, and he rubbed his face. “Oh, really?”