For years, Ann had imagined traveling to London and confronting her absent husband. Finally, on her thirtieth birthday, she’d locked up her stack of filthy books, bought a train ticket, and set off to beard the lion in his den. That she’d encountered Clarence on the trip had been a stroke of luck, lacking though his strokes might be. It was the work ofa moment to show the butler a copy of her marriage lines and take possession of the bedroom that was rightfully hers. Her husband? Might take longer.
“What about your lady’s maid?” asked Edmund through clenched teeth.
“Stokes? She was kind enough to wait for me in her second class seat. You see, as a patient and thrifty wife living in the country, I am mindful of not being a spendthrift. With my husband’s money.”
Edmund had paled, and his cock, once huge and hard, had entirely wilted now. Good. Perhaps her presence would prevent the further fathering of babies. On other women, at least.
“You’ve seen and done nothing,” Edmund growled in the man’s direction.
“Of course! I know nothing of this house. This day. The names…you are most understanding,” said Clarence, his voice tremulous. He was a good sort, just not the man she wanted. “But I really must away.”
“But you’ve only just arrived,” said Edmund drily, eyeing the seed pooled on her belly as Clarence attempted to get his trousers closed.
“I’m staying at the Langham,” he said in a low voice to Ann. “Should you have any problems, please seek me out.”
He glanced in Edmund’s direction, then hopped off the bed to scurry away with one hand on his waistband and the other reaching down to scoop his hat off the floor.
Suddenly, it was all too funny. She tried to hold in her laughter, but the nervous energy racing through her body had her rolling into the mattress to giggle uncontrollably.
“You think it amusing to bring another man into our home?” asked Edmund, his expression stern.
Oh, he wanted to be a husband now, did he? Claim that this wastheirhouse rather than the one in which he’d hidden himself for all those years as she mouldered alone in the country? Her mood had never changed so swiftly. The bile rose in her throat as she considered what she had been denied.
“I do indeed,” she said, trying to sound blithe, while she knew her voice was tight. “You should have seen your face when you walked in! Why, I’d have almost been mistaken that you wanted me.”
She was stretched on that gigantic bed, her body naked as the day she was born, and wearing the remnants of another man’s seed. In her imagination, he’d rage at her, then cover her on the bed and shove his cock inside whether or not she cried out. She desired that reaction, longed to provoke him into acting as her husband and claiming her at last.
When he walked closer to the bed, Ann really believed that her dreams were about to come true. Her breathing quickened, andshe shifted her legs the slightest bit apart to give him a hint of what was wet and waiting for him.
Edmund paused for a moment, his eyes on her dewy curls as if he couldn’t look away. And then he did.
Her husband took up a corner of the blanket and wiped the remains of Clarence’s seed from her belly.
“What are you doing here, Ann?” he asked, his voice soft and tinged with something a little broken. As if she wasn’t the only one who had been suffering. She must have misheard.
“I hear London has everything,” she said brightly.
“Ann.”
“I had hoped to obtain something in London. Something I can’t get in the country. At least not without causing talk.”
“I could have sent whatever was needed to you.”
“No. You couldn’t.”
Edmund took a seat on the bed, closer to her than he’d been in over a decade. He had the look of a defeated warrior, his armor off, and acceptance of the blade in his eyes. She had to strike now to get what she wanted.
“I came to London for a baby.”
Chapter 3
Edmund was glad he’dtaken a seat before his wife lowered the axe to his neck.
“A baby.”
“Yes, I’m getting on in years,” she said, every bit of her radiating youth and good health, “and I cannot wait.”
“So you came to London to…get a baby by Clarence?”
