Lord Ruin by Carolyn Jewel Read Free Book Online Page B

Aldreth tugged at his collar. Cynssyr didn’t move so much as a muscle.
    Anne spoke into the grave-like stillness. “This can’t have happened. It can’t,” she whispered. “Not to me.” Her eyes darted to the duke and found him without any expression whatever. Not compassion or sorrow or anything at all, just a horrible stillness. A sob escaped her but she somehow stifled the impulse to cry. “Dear God.” Her mouth had been on him, on his most private parts. “I can’t have.” She had actually said those words.
    “Miss Sinclair,” Cynssyr replied in a hateful, matter-of-fact tone. “Collect yourself, if you please.”
    Aldreth gave him a black glare and snapped, “Have you no pity, man? At least let her get over the shock.”
    “To what end?” he asked.
    “I should have let Devon hit you.”
    “Devon?” said Anne, horrified. “Devon knows?”
    “Hell, Anne. Everyone knows.”
    Ruan laughed. Amusement without mirth. Dark and quite ugly. Now that he’d recovered from his fit of lust, he remembered the consequences of his indulgence. “At this point, Miss Sinclair, the trick would be finding someone who did not.” He caught a glimpse of pale eyes wide with disbelief before he deliberately turned to Ben. He would not feel sorry for her. He absolutely refused. Ben, unfortunately, had nothing to say.
    Anne tried to take a deep breath and discovered she could not. “I don’t know him, Aldreth. I don’t even like him. How can we be married?”
    “Naturally, the choice is yours,” Cynssyr said.
    “The hell it is,” said Aldreth.
    “You cannot force her to marriage, Ben.” She stifled another sob. He wondered if she was going to faint. But, no, she caught her breath, and the tears he expected failed to materialize. She earned his grudging admiration for that. “If you refuse, Miss Sinclair, and later discover I have got you with child, you have only to apply to me and I will settle a sum of money upon you and the child. And,” he added as an afterthought, “I will acknowledge it as mine.”
    She gave Ben a panicked look.
    “The possibility exists.” Ruan spoke as if he referred to the odds of rain spoiling a picnic, so as not to send her completely over the edge and into full-blown hysteria. Despite her age, despite his having had her lovely mouth on his manhood with him ready to scream he was that close to coming, despite everything they had done, she was so innocent such an outcome stunned her. He wondered if he had indeed made her pregnant.
    “Oh, dear God,” she whispered. “Dear God.”
    Ben tugged on his cravat. “An illegitimate child would destroy Cyn as much as it would you.”
    As for him, Ruan reflected, in such a case, he would spend the rest of his days rusticating far from anything or anyone who interested him. Savage gossip he didn’t mind, but under the facts of this case, the loss of his good name was not recoverable, not to be overlooked by the people who mattered. She said nothing, just looked at him as if he were a hunter with his finger on the trigger and her a doe with nowhere to turn. Well. So. Rather apt, actually, he thought ruefully.
    “Think of the consequences, Anne,” Ben said. “Your father will turn you out, don’t doubt that for a moment. You will live the rest of your life in shame and disgrace, and so would the child.”
    That gave Ruan a start. The child Ben so blithely spoke of would be his child. His flesh and blood. And the child’s mother innocent of the shame.
    “I do not want to marry him,” she said in a sort of hopeless voice.
    “Anne,” Ben said sadly as he delivered what Cynssyr knew would be the killing blow. He knew Ben loved her too well not to use every weapon, however despicable, at his command. “You were unconscious when the two of you were discovered. If you do not marry Cynssyr, with what he has done, with so many witnesses to your incapacity when it happened, he is finished in society. Forever. He took your innocence.” Ben