by Aubrey Brown
An overwhelming feeling came over his chest as he fought for breath when she cuddled the boy after he had thanked her for his trinket. She was an excellent duchess. She knew her role well, and she fulfilled her duties. David had no complaints, but he was beginning to realize she was a wonderful woman.
He married her for the good of his family and to beget an heir, but his heart filled with longing for her to show that kind of emotion to him. He…wished for that level of love. And that realization scared David to death. He married her for the contract’s sake, not for love. He didn’t believe in love. David froze. He could not possibly love his wife.
By the end of the festivities, he had himself convinced it was the feeling of the New Year coming upon him. He was unused to celebrating. That was until he saw his wife come to bed late that evening. She was wearing a transparent negligee guaranteed to enthrall him.
He ravished her upon their bed that night. He first started with her most responsive spots, by licking and suckling her breasts. His hands molded her hips to his as he rubbed his cock along her wet cunt. She writhed beneath him. He watched as her eyes dilated, and her body flushed in excitement. David made love to his wife many times before, but this seemed new and different. He had no suspicion why, but it did.
Anna seemed to be in a dizzying passion. David was desperate in his lovemaking tonight. Almost as if he was trying to grasp her soul. She looked deeply into his eyes, and he could not make contact with her. She gasped as he finally entered her pussy. He plunged himself to the hilt and rode her as if she was a ship in a storming sea. She was sweating with need, and he was repeating her name.
David knew he should let up, but he could not seem to stop. He was desperate to shake the unknown feeling he had toward his wife. Her hands were busy running along his body, distracting him. So he clasped her hands above her head and drove more deeply into her. She screamed. He wanted her to come for him. As her orgasm came upon her, his did as well. He bucked against her one final time and landed on top of her, gasping for air.
Whatever this feeling was, David did not like it, and the only explanation that came to mind was that they were spending far too much time together. They had only been married a very short time. David needed to distance himself from his wife. He married her to protect the family name and produce an heir. Not to have feelings for her. He would have to start spending more of his time at his club.
Chapter Six
Christmas came and went, along with Boxing Day and her birthday. The New Year started with a change in David. He participated in the events, but the passion and heart that she seemed to bring out in him were now gone and replaced by distance. He was spending more time away from the estate, leaving Anna to her own devices. She had met his family during the holidays and found them to be pleasant enough, but distant, just as David was. Their midday trysts came to an end, as well as her seeing him during the day at all. He changed from the man she only just married.
She felt the need to march down to that blasted club of his and throttle him into answers. However, her mother’s advice the day of her wedding echoed through her brain. “I know you can be headstrong like your father, Anna. Even so, try not to push too quickly. Everything comes with time. Newlyweds can experience bouts of stress within the first year. Do not let it deter you.” So Anna kept her own counsel and hoped her husband would come back to her.
Every night, she went to bed alone, but was awakened by his passionate lovemaking. He would start kissing her into wakefulness and make sure she had no breath for words when he brought her to orgasm, before he entered her begging pussy. It seemed to Anna that her husband was the man she married at night, and then a stranger during waking hours. It was very stressful for Anna. However, she married him and she promised to weather whatever storm came into her marriage.
* * * *
Days turn into months
David spent a great deal of time looking over investments and traveling. He also spent a massive amount of time at his club. Every morning that he left his home, he could see the look of longing in his wife’s eyes. He felt a momentary pang at her plight, but he would not deter. He needed to keep this marriage on an even keel with the contract. He could not love his wife. He would not trust his heart to another person.
So as it always went, he left her to her devices much of the time. However, when he came to her at night, his passions ignited as he looked at her nakedness and gloried in their mutual pleasures. He knew he was an ass. At the same time, he had no idea of what to do. He craved his wife like a disease. When he was inside of her he felt as if he could love her, but in the light of the day, that changed somehow. So his lovemaking became furious and infrequent.
That particular night he made sure she was asleep before he came to bed. When he quietly peeled his covers back, Anna immediately moved toward him. She tried to speak, so he set his mouth to hers and began caressing her breasts. He knew where she liked to be touched and in what frequency.
“David…”
However, his mouth cut off her words, and he began to strip her bare. The virginal gown easily ripped under his fingers. He was able to see her glorious breasts and how they puckered in the cool night air.
His hands wandered over her body and brought her to a fever pitch. Her twat was wet and weeping for him, by the time his cock came to her slit.
He continued to kiss her as he pumped his hips against hers. Her eyes were closed, and her breathing was labored. When they came to a mutual orgasm, she shuddered beneath him, wetting his cock with her cum.
When he moved from her, he looked at her pale face in the darkened room and noticed a tear slip down the corner of her eye.
Feeling like a heel, he gathered his clothes and moved into his own bedroom.
* * * *
Months turn into their one year anniversary.
David and Anna’s marriage became intolerable to her. It was close to the holiday season yet again, and her husband had not changed since the last holiday. The closing to their first year of marriage was vastly approaching, and he seemed more distant than ever. Anna had held her tongue for as long as she could. The man had moved into his own quarters and only visited her chamber to treat her as a mistress.
Her husband came home late one evening, and Anna was waiting for him in his bedroom.
“What are you still doing awake, and why are you in my room?” David asked in annoyance.
“What has happened to you, David? Why are you so cold and distant? I have held my tongue for the entire year of our marriage, but I am through waiting,” Anna said evenly.
“I do not know what you mean, Anna. This is how a marriage to nobility is. I told you that when we married. If you are angry with anyone, be that of yourself. You knew my circumstance the day we wed,” David countered.
“The day you proposed, you promised that it could always be the way it was when you were seducing me. I want that man back, David. You said we would be a family. Families do not do this to one another.”
“A family, Anna, we have yet to have children to be called a family. It is your duty as my wife to provide me with an heir. You have yet to do your duty.”
She felt her face lose its color in stunned shock. “Is that why you have created this distance, because I have yet to have a babe? Is that the only reason why you married me?”
David’s temper looked to be uncontrollable. “That was not the only reason, wife. I had a contract to fulfill, and I have fulfilled it.”
“Oh my, God. Oh my, God.” Her hands shook as she sat heavily on his bed. She looked to David, and tears began to form behind her eyes. She was devastated. He did not love her as she loved him. All her hard work was for naught. Her marriage was a disgrace.
Anna could not feel her hands nor her other extremities. Her heart was dead and cold inside of her chest. Her husband saw her as nothing more than a contract needing to be fulfilled. A dicker between her father and David’s titled father…She felt well and truly ill. “You lied to me.
You told me we would have a happy marriage.”
“I never said we would have a happy marriage. I said we would make love, create children, and be a family,” David countered.
“That was my idea of happiness, but clearly, your idea and my idea on a happy marriage is very different.” Anna stood and walked extremely slowly to the door. “I will stay in my room. Do not come to me any longer.”
With that she quit the room. However, before she shut her door, she heard her husband sigh irritably and tear off his cravat. Her head hit her pillows as she burst into tears. Sleep came to her in the wee hours of the morning.
The next day Anna awoke with her eyes swollen and red from her tears. Her maid had come in early and noticed her state and kept the other servants away. Her Duchess was ill. A breakfast tray had been sent up for her consumption, but it sat full next to her uneaten tea tray.
During the night, Anna vomited twice into her chamber pot. She explained her stress and excessive crying for the sickness. However, this morning she had nothing in her belly, and she once again became ill. Her mother and sisters had explained to her that morning sickness or all-day sickness was a sign of pregnancy.
Anna missed her courses early last month and yet again this month. She had an inkling that she was in a delicate way, but had not told anyone until she was certain. Now she was. She felt a pinch inside her womb. A new life was growing inside of her. Instead of being elated, she felt terror from the thought that David would hate their child as he hated her.
She did not want to spend her anniversary or another holiday season with the duke. It would bring back too many precious memories.
Anna made a hasty decision. She would go to Wales and seek her auntie’s counsel and try to enjoy the holidays.
* * * *
Late that evening
David came home later that evening and walked directly to his rooms. His wife was absent from his bed, which did not surprise him. He felt a slight pinch within his breast at the thought of Anna. He had seen her face the other night and felt the bile rise. He knew he had hurt her.
He left the room to seek another drink to blot out the encounter before pursuing his rest. His butler came into the office to ask if David needed anything else for the evening.
David could not say what possessed him to ask this question. “How is the duchess of late, Basil?”
The butler looked at his employer and raised his brows. “Her grace has left residence, sir, with her maid and driver to visit her family for the upcoming holidays. I believe she wanted to travel when the weather was tempered.”
David felt his insides freeze momentarily over his pronouncement. His wife left the estate to seek her family. David finished pouring and dismissed Basil.
David poured another and yet another. By the time the decanter was empty, he was sloshed. His eyes closed on an image of his wife, sad and unreachable.
* * * *
Wales, Auntie’s home
Anna had reached her auntie’s country home and was admitted with open arms. The house was full of family, and Anna had yet to find a moment’s peace to speak with her. Children flocked around her skirts every waking moment, and Anna loved knowing that someday soon she would hold her own babe. It was only a couple of weeks before Christmas, and Anna seemed to recover in time to enjoy her family. This was love, and Anna felt the difference. She wondered as to what her husband was doing and how he was going to react when he found out she had left their home. Would he pleased or angry?
* * * *
The Duke of Kingsberry Estate, a few days before Christmas.
David’s wife had been absent from the estate for almost a fortnight, and his mother was asking questions. Questions David had no ready answers for. He did not want to face the possibility that she had left him.
He was sitting behind his desk when his mother burst forth into his office and took a seat in front of his desk. “Why do you not just come in, Mother,” David said dispassionately.
“Don’t you dare take that tone with me, David. I am your mother and you will respect me, even if you do not respect your wife. Have you taken complete leave of your senses?”
“Watch to whom you are speaking with, Mother. I may be your son, but I will not be treated like an infant.”
“Why not, when you are acting like a babe,” she inserted.
David held his tongue. It would not do to yell at his mother.
“You do realize Anna has been gone for a gossip-able amount of time and that there is talk around town. There was no celebration for your anniversary. Anna was not in residence!”
“And that is what everything comes down to in this family, reputation and talk,” David gritted.
“Explain yourself, David. What do you mean by that statement?” his mother asked.
“I married Anna to minimize the scandal father brought to this family. Every action I take is for the benefit of this household. When father disgraced us and left us alone every holiday, I had to make up for his downfall. I was forced into a marriage with a woman who wants something from me that I cannot give.”
David’s mother looked at him as if he grew a second head. “David, you cannot possibly believe that? Your father was an abysmal man, but I thought I had given you and your sisters enough love to compensate for his deflection.” When David said nothing, she went on. “David, we all had our trials with him. We all bore the disgrace. I did what I thought was best for you children in staying. If I had known the repercussions of his actions, I would have left. I am sorry, David, so very regretful. I never knew you felt this way.”
David shrugged his shoulders in indifference, and his mother pointed at him in horror. “You see. You looked just as your father did when I pleaded with him to love his family. Have you been ignoring your wife as your father did me?”
David’s face turned red at the insult. “No I have not. I cleave only unto her. I have never been unfaithful.”
“But have you been uncaring to her. Have you not shown her affection? Because I tell you that if you have not been making happy families with your wife, then you are doing the exact same damage your father did to me and this family. It was not only the fact that your father sought the comfort of other women. He did not love me and, in return, you children,” she finished with tears coursing down her face.
David sat shocked still in his chair. He was his father. He may not have slept with other women, but his indifference drove his wife out. Just as his father drove him out. The realization was crushing, and David had no idea of what to do.
“Perhaps I should let her seek a divorce. I do not know that I can give her the love that she seeks.” He whispered the last word.
David’s mother stood and walked to the door. Disappointment marred her face. “If you cannot love your wife more than you love yourself, then let her go, David. We have weathered scandal before, we shall do so again. However, let the girl find happiness. Let her find the love your father denied us.”
With that she left the room and David alone to process her words.
Later that evening, David was sitting in his office getting rip-roaring smashed when his butler walked in and asked, “May I assist you, Your Grace?”
David shook his head and downed another spirit.
“If I may speak freely, Your Grace?” At David’s nod, he continued on. “I have spoken with the servants, and they all love the duchess and wish she was here for the holiday preparations. I must tell you, there is rumor running about that I just heard this day, that her grace had been very ill before she left the residence. Especially in the morning, Your Grace.” The butler twitched his eyes at David’s confusion.
“She left here ill? Why would she leave in poor health?” David said, more to himself.
Then reality hit him. His wife was expecting. David bolted upright and said, “Thank you, Basil, have a carriage readied for me.” With that demand, David ran for his room and packed in haste. He was half crazed with fury and fear. His wife was pregnant with hi
s child, and she felt that raising the child alone was better than with him. Shame swamped him. He blamed his father for his own downfall, when his actions were to be blamed. He was an adult and capable of making correct decisions on his own.
A picture of Anna rose into his mind, her stern face from the pond. Her fire when she unmanned him, her taste, her genuine smile, and her love. David finally realized her every action was for him, that she loved him, and he gave her nothing. His heart, furthermore, shriveled inside of his chest as he saw her big and round and alone.
A startling clarity hit him. He wanted his wife and his child more than any title or any estate. He wanted her for himself, and not for his family. He loved her with everything he had inside of himself. He made haste to the carriage and stopped when asked their destination. Would Anna go home to her parents or another location? David smiled to himself and gave the address. He knew where his wife was. “And hurry. We need to make all swiftness to the home.”
* * * *
Wales, Christmas Eve
It was Christmas Eve, and Anna participated halfheartedly in all the festivities. She was not sleeping well at night. Images of David rose in her dreams. She had a slight bump to her tummy, and her auntie had finally asked about her condition. Her aunt was not shocked, but did tell her she needed to tell her husband about the babe. And Anna knew she was correct. She just didn’t know how.
Anna sat in her room during the night and looked to the heavens for answers. She knew she still loved her husband. Even though she tried to dismiss him, he was at the same time there in her heart.
The next morning a jostling came to their door. Everyone was seated around the massive tree when a disheveled David was shown into the room. Anna stood clutching her belly. He looked very unkempt, with a beard growing as if he had been on the road for days.