Lord Ruin by Carolyn Jewel Read Free Book Online Page A

she repeated loudly and very clearly. Her mind rejected what her disjointed memories suggested. “I remember dreams,” she said calmly. “Nothing more.”
    “Not dreams, Anne.” Staring hard at the cushion in his hands, Aldreth took a breath. “I am so dreadfully sorry.” He hurled the pillow. It hit the sofa back and bounced to the floor.
    “What do you mean, Aldreth?” But she knew. In her heart she knew the disaster was hers.
    “I mean you must be married.” He snatched up the pillow and after the briefest of moments tossed it gently onto the sofa. “You must be married to Cynssyr.”
    “Surely, you’re jesting.” He had to be. But the sick feeling in her stomach increased, and a tiny, unwelcome voice told her he wasn’t.
    “Good God, Anne. Do you think I’d be so cruel? I wish it were a prank. I wish it were.”
    She turned from Aldreth to Cynssyr but words failed to come. All she managed was a mute plea for denial.
    Ruan stared at the woman. Dressed in a wholly unflattering gown, without any curls to frame her face, with the spectacles perched on her nose, he could yet see the woman who had made love to him without a shred of inhibition. A jolt of lust hit him when he remembered her mouth and the body that might have been made for his tastes. “I thought you were a whore.”
    “Damn you.” Benjamin whirled and grabbed Ruan by the lapels, jerking hard enough to move him a step or two. “Damn you!” Ruan did nothing, made no attempt to defend himself. Under the circumstances, Ben was showing a great deal of restraint.
    “Aldreth, please,” the woman said. “I’d hoped for an honest answer. He has given one.”
    Ben released him with a slight push. “You let your prick do your thinking, that’s what happened. If you hadn’t been such a randy bastard you might have realized your mistake before it was too late. I warned you this would happen one day. I warned you!”
    “Ben—”
    “How the hell could you not recognize her? Damn you!”
    “It’s not the first time some female decided to avail herself of my bed without telling me beforehand. And not the first time Dev has sent me a whore, either. She wasn’t wearing her blasted spectacles, which is all I would have known her by. I told you I couldn’t remember her. I ask you, what was I to think? There she was in my bed with legs to here and tits like a man only dreams of getting his hands on and—” He stopped because he suddenly remembered the object of his vitriol was listening.
    She looked a good deal like he felt; as if the world had suddenly disappeared from beneath her feet. Oh, indeed, Ben had warned him and here sat his future, a bespectacled spinster with eyes that couldn’t even decide whether to be blue or gray.
    “Anne,” said Ben. “I am so sorry. As for you, Cynssyr, if you don’t apologize, I’ll beat you to a damn bloody pulp, so help me I will.”
    “Miss Sinclair. You have my profoundest apologies. I’ve no excuse. None whatever. I stand ready to make any and all possible amends.”
    The woman hadn’t any choice but to marry him. He knew that. Ben knew that. But he was interested to see that she did not, for she had yet to show any sign of acceptance of her situation. Better women than she had schemed for just such an outcome as this and failed miserably. Might she actually choose disgrace over a duchy?
    “What is your answer, Anne?”
    She turned to Ben. “I don’t remember,” she said, as though by so saying she negated everything they’d told her. “Aldreth, I don’t remember. I mean, I remember thinking how odd that Lord Ruin should—” Her hands gripped the chair arms so tightly her knuckles went white. “Then, I felt. ...” She maintained, just barely, the tatters of her dignity when she saw the duke’s complete dispassion. “You weren’t here last night.”
    “I arrived about half past one this morning.”
    The moment became so deep it threatened to consume them all. She blinked once. Twice.