“You are mine,” he growls.
“Then prove it.”
He lifts me for better purchase and then pumps in and out of me wildly, the brusque movements so primal they thrill me.
And then he gives a shout and I realize he has found his spend. He convulses, groaning, and swears aloud, almost incoherently.
I cannot quite keep my eyes open. We are still joined, he is still coming down from his spend, but my eyelids feel leaden. I feel completely emptied, completely at peace, completely relaxed. The only moment that exists is this one with Alfred. It is my past, and my present, and my future.
Then Alfred swoops me up in his arms. I try to object—I am not a small woman and he might harm himself carrying me—but he shushes me. If I was less tired, I may have trulystopped him, but I feel nearly drugged, as if the four orgasms he gave me were an opiate. So I let him carry me out of the dining room, up the stairs, and into my—our—bedchamber. He lays me on the bed there and I fall instantly asleep. The last thing I remember are my husband’s arms closing around me.
Chapter 41
Annabelle
Iawake early the next morning, the feeling of queasiness from yesterday returned with a vengeance. Alfred sleeps soundly beside me and does not wake when I lurch upwards. I stagger to the floor and, searching frantically, find one of the antique chamber pots that still sit under the beds at Trescott Abbey. I wretch and then wretch again.
After casting up my accounts, I feel relief and close my eyes. I almost drift off to sleep.
But I cannot, not when the knowledge sits within me.
I know, of course, the symptoms of being with child.
It has been more than six weeks since that first time with Alfred. When the French letter split open.
If I am with child now, that encounter must have done it.
I got my wish immediately.
For a moment, I contemplate waking Alfred to tell him. I imagine rousing him, declaring the news. He wants a child so much. Presumably, he would be happy, albeit surprised.
Andyet I do not move from the floor.
I have neverbeenwith child before, so it is possible I mistake the signs. And even if I am, it is still very early. A miscarriage is still very possible, even probable.
The thought of causing Alfred to suffer such a disappointment makes me ill again.
No, I will wait. Until I am more certain. I don’t want to give Alfred false hope.
And then there is the other thing. My intention in originally bedding him. I know there is no reason to ever reveal it to him. He need never know. But the guilt of it still pounds over me, filling me with dread.
Perhaps it is because I have now successfully manipulated him into giving me the heir I wanted. I might feel different if I got with child later, from our coupling last night, for instance.
But this child, if it persists, is the product of my deceit.
I tell myself it doesn’t matter.
I shake my head.
I need to stop being so soft.
I rise, brush my teeth with paste, and tiptoe back to bed.
When my husband rises, he will be none the wiser.
Chapter 42
Alfred
