Surrender To Ruin

by Carolyn Jewel

  “While you are a disreputable, reprehensible beast, my lord.”

  “Compared to you.”

  She was kissing his chest, touching his stomach, following the ridges of muscle. “I know what else you’re thinking.” She drew back. “It ought to be out in the open.”

  “Why, when I’d rather be doing this?” He leaned over and took her nipple into his mouth and sucked hard. Her chest rose with her intake of breath.

  “I can’t think when you do that.”

  He cupped her. “No? That’s a shame.”

  She put her hands on either side of his face. “You resent me because I’m not Anne. In fact, I think you hate me because I’m not.”

  His heart skipped a beat. Jesus.

  She was right, though. “You have her eyes.”

  “Mine are blue.”

  He touched the side of her eye. “The shape is the same. Your lashes are dark like hers.”

  “Yes.”

  “Sometimes when you smile, you remind me of her. But you’re nothing like her.”

  “Not at all.” She leaned close and kissed the bulge of his biceps, then his pectoral.

  He wrapped her hair around his hand and pulled her head back. Not enough to hurt. He was careful of that. “Your hair isn’t the same color.”

  “It’s not.”

  “Anne is taller. She’s gentle, always so gentle. So kind. She was always kind to me when I was a man no lady ought to know. She’s the finest mind of any woman I’ve met, and she’s loyal to a fault. She was a mother to you and all your sisters.”

  “She was, and we loved her for it.”

  “You aren’t her.”

  “Tell me how much you hate me.” She straddled his lap, and he put his hands on her bottom, either side. “Say it and be done with it. It changes nothing for me if you say what I already know.”

  He was hard and aroused by her ferocity and the perfection of her. “I hate that I want you like this.” He pressed his mouth to her shoulder and kissed her there while he worked his finger around to her sex. He bit her, not enough to break skin, but enough to make her gasp. He gripped her hard, and she sucked in a quick breath. A moment later, he pushed her onto her back and splayed himself over her, palms flat on the mattress on either side of her. Words poured out of him, a river of despair. “I hate that you’re beautiful. I hate that every time I see you, I betray Anne because I want you.”

  “Most everyone wants me,” she said without a hint of pride. “And some of the ones who do are married men who shouldn’t want any woman but their wives. There’s nothing special about you feeling that way.”

  “No,” he said. “There’s not.”

  She curled a hand around the back of his head. “I know,” she whispered. She held him close, but he pushed away. He did not want sympathy. Not from her. Never from her.

  He used one leg to push one of hers aside to make room for himself. He was so hard, so aroused, so full of anger and heartbreak, he was rougher than he should have been. She smiled and tightened her grip on his shoulders. They’d been almost this close to disaster once. He’d had one hand on her thigh and the other on his breeches’ buttons, and the Lord only knew how he’d managed not to ruin both their lives that day.

  “Do it now,” she said in a low, fierce command.

  He shoved inside her in one long, hard, savage thrust, into softness and heat, and he told himself he would not continue in this way. He would be gentler, soon. So soft, and already orgasm hovered, promising him the oblivion of sexual release.

  She made a small sound, a gasp, a catch of her breath that wound through him. She tensed, and by the time he remembered that, yes, this was her first time, she’d relaxed. She arched toward him. “Devon,” she said while he stopped moving. “My God, Devon. My lord. Do that again.”

  He fucked her. There wasn’t any other word that sufficed. He tried to start slowly, but she caught on quickly, and she held him tight and put her mouth by his ear and said, “It’s all right to hate me.”

  He reared back, and she did something with her hips, once, then again, and God in heaven, she was fucking him in return. He kept his weight on his palms and matched himself to her motion, harder, a little harder, and he had the wit and presence of mind to be sure he brought her along with him.

  He didn’t have to chase his orgasm, and he’d long ago stopped thinking about slender, delicate Emily Sinclair. Their intercourse was not polite or delicate. Together they were crude and raw. She came first, but he followed only moments later, a release that shattered him because he’d found his sexual match and because it was Emily, Emily, who was forbidden to him.

  He came hard, so hard, he found bliss.

  Afterward, though. Afterward. He sat up, legs hanging off the mattress. Her words echoed in his head, relieving him of his guilt, accepting his anguish as if she didn’t deserve better. “What have I done?” he said to the room. “Emily, what have I done to you?”

  The sheets and blankets slid around her as she sat up and put a hand on his back. “Nothing. You’ve done nothing.”

  He turned just enough to see her face. Guilt annihilated him. “Don’t forgive me for this. Don’t ever.”

  “Too late.”

  “Why, when I’ve consigned you to a life without the possibility of love?”

  Chapter Ten

  They reached Gretna Green the morning of their fourth day on the road. Twenty minutes later, she stood beside Bracebridge at the blacksmith’s shop. The anvil priest gave them a sloppy smile and took a drink from a flask he’d withdrawn from his coat pocket. He winked at them both, then at Frieda, whom Emily had convinced to sit quietly.

  “Hurry,” Bracebridge said with a glance at Frieda. “It won’t last long.”

  Panic scrambled Emily’s thoughts and turned her stomach into a hollow, acid pit. She struggled to regulate her breathing. Her life was about to change completely.

  “You’re not the first impatient groom I’ve had here,” the priest said, “and you won’t be the last.”

  Another couple waited across the room, arms around each other, both smiling. They made a handsome couple. While Emily tried not to stare, the gentleman brought his future wife close and tenderly kissed her cheek. When they separated, the other bride gazed into her lover’s eyes, leaning closer and resting a hand on his chest.

  “Get on with it,” Bracebridge said in a voice that sent a chill through the room. He brought Emily closer. “I intend to marry this woman.”

  “Go on, then,” the priest said to Emily.

  “I declare my intention to marry this man.”

  “About blessed time.” The priest laughed out loud, then completed his register, handed Bracebridge a barely legible certificate, and it was done. They were bound in matrimony.

  Married. Her stomach turned somersaults. She was married and, by God, this was both a miracle and the biggest mistake of her life.

  The couple across the room started toward the “priest,” but not before the gentleman brought his love to him and kissed her again.

  To Frieda, the couple’s approach was a certain sign of a new friendship. The dog whined and wriggled with enough forward motion to nearly pull Emily off her feet. For that reason, she was entirely unprepared when Bracebridge leaned over her. He pressed his mouth to hers in a quick, light kiss that landed nearer her ear because she had been unprepared and distracted.

  “Let’s be off, then,” he said without any acknowledgment of the awkwardness. He reached over and took the leash from her. It was just as well, for he put Frieda on his far side, and when she attempted to get around him to greet her new friends, he simply leaned into her and bumped her away with a sharp, “No!”

  At the door, Emily gave a final glance over her shoulder. The other lovers were before the anvil priest, their arms around each other’s waists. The woman rested her head on his shoulder. They had become husband and wife in the time it had taken for Bracebridge and her to cross the room. “May you have a hundred years
of happiness together,” she said softly.

  The young woman heard her and smiled at them with unadulterated joy. “Thank you, ma’am.” She curtseyed. “I wish you the same.”

  Bracebridge opened the door, and they exited to find the clouds ominously dark and the air sharp with cold. He increased his stride toward his rig, and she did the same to keep up. The boy Bracebridge had hired to watch the horses came to his feet on their arrival, and more coins exchanged hands.

  “Up you go, girl.” Bracebridge lifted the leash. After all their days on the road, Frieda had learned how to jump in. When the dog was settled, Bracebridge assisted Emily, then took his seat. In silence, they began their return south.

  Those dark clouds kept their promise of wet. An hour past Carlisle, a light rain began to fall. Before long, the drizzle became a steady beat.

  The rain continued more-or-less unabated until four days later when they reached the Nottinghamshire inn where they’d passed the first night of their journey north. The post was just leaving as they arrived, obliging them to wait for the courtyard to be clear. Emily covered her ears at the din of the departure: blaring horns, shouting, and all the noise of a carriage full of passengers and their luggage.

  Their journey south was remarkable only for the fact that they did not argue. They shared a bed at night, and though she was as giddy as ever when he slid between the sheets with her, there was none of the passion of that first night. In the main, everything felt . . . perfunctory, and she did not know how to break through to him, or even whether she should.

  Once the spectacle of the departing post was at an end, Bracebridge directed them to the interior courtyard.

  Though it was not raining at present, it had been recently, for gutters continued to flow, and water dripped from trees and eaves. Bracebridge opened the gig door for her, helping her down while reaching for the umbrella he’d bought.

  Like Frieda, Emily was now an experienced traveler under adverse conditions. She jumped from the step to save him the necessity of touching her and took back the umbrella. “Thank you, my lord.” Frieda jumped down, too, landing in a puddle she then lapped at. Bracebridge extended his arm to Emily, but she avoided the contact by putting a hand to her low back and arching. “I’m battered head to toe.”

  There. She’d broken the intractable silence of the past two days.

  He acknowledged that with a nod. “The weather was no help.”

  What a relief. The Battle of the Long Silence was over. Those were the first words they’d exchanged in the past twenty-four hours at least.

  “It’s been a long day.”

  He nodded. Ringlets of black hair were plastered to his cheeks and temples. She resisted the temptation to push that wet hair off his cheeks. He would not appreciate fondness from her, of that she was certain. He gazed steadily into her eyes without any sign he cared what she thought or how she felt. “I must see to my cattle.”

  She gave him a small curtsey, gripping Frieda’s leash in one hand and her umbrella in the other. The very best wife. “Shall I order you something hot to eat?”

  But he’d already turned away, hand raised to catch the attention of one of the grooms. A young man already had a hand on the traces, intending to take the rig to the stables and change the horses for Bracebridge’s original pair.

  Emily hesitated. He hadn’t actually told her to wait for him. Nor had he asked her to go inside without him. Did that mean his business with the horses would be brief enough she ought to wait here with Frieda?

  Bracebridge took their bags from the boot. Along with the umbrella, he’d also bought her a pair of gloves, a warm, thick cloak, several useful and much-appreciated toiletries, and a valise of her own. Uncertain whether she ought to wait for him, she tapped the tip of the umbrella against the paving stone. She could always leave the matter undecided by taking Frieda for a walk. Before she could, however, the tavern door opened so hard it rattled windows.

  A tall gentleman in a heavy greatcoat exited, unconcerned with whether he might have damaged the door. He took three steps into the courtyard, then broke into a run. Her stomach dropped to the bottom of the earth when he shouted, “Bracebridge!”

  Aldreth.

  Bracebridge had not heard him. He remained with his back to the inn, focused on the groom. She stepped into Aldreth’s path, but so intent was he on Bracebridge, he did not see her. Frieda, torn between the opportunity to greet Aldreth or rejoin Bracebridge, shivered with indecision.

  She called out, “My lord!”

  Bracebridge gifted her with one of his dead expressions, but then he saw and heard Aldreth. Too late, though. Her brother-in-law grabbed Bracebridge by the shoulders. He looked wrecked, near panic. “Is Emily with you?”

  Bracebridge pushed him gently away. “She is.”

  “Where?”

  Bracebridge extended his hand in Emily’s direction with a subtle come here motion of his fingers.

  Aldreth whirled, then he saw her standing with her umbrella in one hand and Frieda’s leash in the other. Her mouth went dry, and her stomach hollowed out. In three strides, he stood before her. He threw his arms around her at the same time she tried to curtsy. Her umbrella clattered to the ground. Frieda greeted him like a long-lost friend, wiggling, barking, and practically dancing.

  “Thank God you are safe. Thank God.” He took a step back and fired off a series of questions. “Where have you been? What were you thinking? Your sister has been beside herself with worry from the moment we learned you were missing.”

  His relief and anxiety brought home more of the consequences of her marriage. Aldreth and her sister had been worried, legitimately and deeply so. What had she done? Regret and guilt threatened her composure. She took her time retrieving her umbrella. By the time she’d straightened, she was confident she presented her usual self. “Good day, Aldreth.”

  “Where did you go? Why so far away?” He gestured at the coaching inn. “Tell me, please, please, that you did not take the post here. Were you attempting to reach Cynssyr? He’s not in Wales. He’s at Satterfield. If you meant to escape your father, you could have come to Rosefeld. Good God. I’ve been so worried!”

  “I never intended to worry anyone. I do apologize for that. To you and Mary.”

  “And everyone else who did not know where you were.” He hugged her tight again, clutching her as if he thought she might vanish from his arms. He set her back a half step but kept a firm grip on her shoulders. He looked at the dog, still wriggling with joy. “Frieda. Sit.”

  Frieda did no such thing. Emily tugged on the leash and managed to distract the dog by rubbing her ears. The groom Bracebridge had been talking to was adjusting the bridle of one of the horses still hitched to the gig, listening avidly.

  “Mrs. Elliot came to Rosefeld,” Aldreth said.

  “You know about Sinclair and Davener, then?” Bracebridge said in a bored tone.

  Aldreth shot a look at Emily then returned his attention to Bracebridge. “Once Mr. Rachagorla provided additional details about what transpired, I had my suspicions.”

  “I did not want to marry him,” she said.

  “All the more reason, Emily, for you have to come to Rosefeld rather than haring off to Wales. In any event, I went to the Cooperage to fetch you, only to be told you were not there, nor were you with the Glynns or with anyone else, nor at home when I returned to the Cooperage several hours later. And you”—he pointed at Bracebridge—“were also nowhere to be found. Mr. Rachagorla thought you might have returned to London, as did I, to be honest.”

  “Plainly not,” Bracebridge said in a wry tone.

  Aldreth waved his hands. “Not that it matters. I cannot possibly repay you for your quick thinking. Thank God you intercepted her on her journey to Wales. I shudder to think what might have happened had you not. Allow me to repeat, Emily, that Cynssyr is not in Wales. I don’t know what you were thinking.” Aldreth lowered his voice. “I would not have permitted your father to force you into a marria
ge you do not want.” He turned to Bracebridge again. “How far had she got before you caught her up?”

  “Not far,” he replied.

  “Not far?” Aldreth frowned. “How could it have been not far? Was she here all this time?” His gesture included the coaching inn. “Is that it, Emily? You’ve been here all along?”

  “No, Aldreth.”

  He lifted his hat, then resettled it. “I don’t suppose it matters much. Good God, it’s been a week. If not here, where have you been? You could have traveled to Wales and back in the time you’ve been gone.”

  Again, Bracebridge extended a hand to her. This time, she took it. “Wales,” he said with a dark smile. “Or Scotland.”

  “Yes, but—” Aldreth looked at her, then at Bracebridge. “Scotland?” he said slowly.

  “Yes.” One corner of Bracebridge’s mouth twitched, and he brought Emily closer. “Gretna Green, to be specific.”

  Silence bore down on them, and Emily braced herself for a storm. “You are married?”

  “My lord,” Bracebridge said with a glance at the inn. “Shall we go inside to discuss this?”

  “You’ve married Emily?” Under different circumstances, Aldreth’s confusion and disbelief might have been amusing.

  “Yes,” she said because Bracebridge only shrugged, and Aldreth clearly had not caught up with actual events.

  Aldreth blanched. “If this is a jest, I tell you I am not amused. It’s unbecoming of you, Emily, and Bracebridge—you ought to know better.”

  Bracebridge shoved his hands into his greatcoat pockets. “Let’s not discuss this here, my lord.”

  Aldreth glanced at the groom too studiously examining the bridle of the lead horse. His eyes had turned to chips of blue ice. His hand on her shoulder tightened. “Indeed.”

  “After you, Lady Bracebridge,” Bracebridge said when they reached the tavern door. He took Frieda’s leash from her and opened the door.

  Moments later the three of them were in a hastily evacuated private dining room that smelled of beef, boiled potatoes and old beer. The table glistened with the aftermath of a hasty cleaning. Aldreth stood sideways with one hand pressed flat to the wall. He surveyed her head to toe, then pointed at the table. “Sit. Both of you.”