Her eyes were wide, her pupils dilated. And yet, she said nothing.
Hungry for her words—nay, for her admission—he tightened his grip. “I repeat, madam, is there something you would like to tell me?”
Her eyes, flat and cold, met his. “There is nothing I want to tell you, sir.”
He shook his head. “No, my dear. I am afraid that simply will not suffice. Try again.”
She threw back her shoulders and tipped up her chin, the picture of elegant, wild defiance. It took him back to the mad days of their youth, just for a beat, until he banished the thought. He did not want to recall the girl he had thought he’d known, for she had been a chimera, and he had already paid his penance for his stupidity long ago.
“Go to hell, Mr. Ludlow,” she said coldly.
His patience died. His reason disappeared. In that instant, he could do nothing but feel, and the anger and resentment and unadulterated fury rising in his chest would not be denied. He drove her backward. Mindless, spurred by need and anger and Lord knew what else, he gripped her waist and stalked forward, moving them as one. Moving until her back was against the wall.
He did not even bother with pretense. Instead, he sank his body into hers so that every part of him—all the sinews, all the angles and planes, all the hardness and steel, fitted itself against her malleable curves. Their lips were scandalously close, their breaths mingling. Hers emerged in harsh pants to match his.
“I have been in hell these last eight years.” The admission was torn from him. “You sent me there without a moment of remorse. But I will forgive you for all your sins against me save one. What I cannot forgive, Ara, is you keepingmy sonfrom me.”
“He is not your son,” she denied, an edge of desperation entering her voice. “I insist you release me at once and cease your manhandling of my person.”
She was lying. He could see it in the way her eyes refused to focus upon him. In the way she held herself. In her every protest. The rage beating inside him was palpable. So too the devastation. He had thought she had betrayed him before, but this—keeping his son from him for seven bloody years and raising him as another man’s child—this revelation flayed his skin from the bone. It was as if she had taken his blade and sunk it deep into his chest.
“You, madam, are a liar,” he bit out, rage coursing through his veins. It was so strong, so violent it left a bitter taste in his mouth. Or perhaps that was her breath, scented with tea and fear.
“And you are a bastard, Mr. Ludlow.” She maintained her poise, even as he crowded her against the wall, even as he sensed the anxiety roiling through her. “Now that we have traded insults, would you mind removing your person from mine so I may exit the chamber and distance myself from your insufferable presence?”
He slid his right hand from her waist up her bodice. Over black silk he coasted, absorbing her heat, the softness of the fabric, the boning of her corset, the fullness of her breast. He did not stop until he reached her heart, his hand splaying over it, her mourning brooch a cool reproach, providing slick contrast to the warmth radiating from her. Her heart pounded, steady and hard. No indeed, she was not as unaffected as she pretended.
“Aye, I am a bastard,” he said. “That was the trouble for you, wasn’t it, Duchess? You wanted me, but when you realized how hard life would be as the wife of a bastard, you found yourself a duke instead. Did the poor devil ever know the lad was not his, or did he believe you went to his bed an innocent?”
It would not have been the first time a lady of quality went to her husband’s bed carrying another man’s seed. The notion of Ara marrying Burghly and deceiving him into believing Clay’s son was his made him ill. As did the thought of her lying with him. She had gone to her marriage bed carrying his babe, and she had chosen to bear and raise that babe with another man.
Her brilliant eyes settled upon his at last, bright in her pale face. “Edward is Freddie’s son.”
“Freddieis dead,” he spat.
She flinched. “I am aware my husband is gone, Mr. Ludlow. If he were here, you would not be.”
No, he would not. He would be assigned to a different mission, somewhere else. He would be going about his days without knowing he had a son. A son who thought his father had died three months ago in a Dublin Park at the hands of assassins.
Damn it, he hated Burghly as much as he envied him, for the man had been a father to the lad for seven years. He had usurped Clay’s place in his son’s life. In Ara’s life. Because she had chosen the duke instead of Clay. The knowledge made her betrayal so much worse than he had supposed.
She had lied to him. Lied to their son. To hell with the scar on his face. It was a trifling matter compared to the loss of seven years with Edward. Seven years he could not regain and she should not have stolen from him. But to think, had he not come here to Burghly House on this assignment, he never would have discovered the truth. He never would have met his awkward, sensitive, big-hearted lad with the blue-violet eyes and frame that was too large for his body. Such a vital part of himself—as necessary as his damn heart—and he would not have known.
Because of her.
All because of one woman.
“You would have allowed the lad to think Burghly was his father for the rest of his days,” he observed with a coolness he did not feel. Inside, he was raging. He was every emotion he had ever felt multiplied by a thousand and then set on bloody fire.
“Because Burghlyishis father,” she insisted, clinging to her lies. “I married Freddie shortly after you left for the Continent. It was a whirlwind courtship as we fell madly in love. You are mistaken in your assumptions, Mr. Ludlow.”
After her betrayal, he had needed to flee. With stitches yet in his cheek, he had gone as far and as fast as he could go. He had landed in France, then on to Italy and Prussia before settling back in Paris for an extended stay. He’d spent nearly six months as a wanderer, living life by the moment, some days drowning in his grief and others determined to purge Ara from his mind and heart however he could.
It had been a sinful time, most of it a blur as he looked back upon it. And all those lost months, as he had been trying to remove every remnant of her from his memory, his son had been growing in her womb while she had become another man’s wife. When he had returned to England and found his purpose in the Special League, his son had been a babe. Clay had been robbed of the opportunity to watch him grow. To hold him in his arms.
Her words struck him then. “How did you know I had gone to the Continent?”
“I went to Brixton Manor,” she said quietly. “I was informed of your departure.”
