Yes! No! I’m so confused!
He’d erected a hard shell to keep her out, and she had to pierce through it. As he’d mentioned, it had only been a few days. How could his affection have vanished so rapidly?
It couldn’t have.
She closed the distance that separated them, and he watched her come. He was wary, unyielding, but she was determined to evoke a response.
She wrapped her arms around him and pressed her body to his. Though he pretended apathy, his cock stirred, and at feeling it, she could have wept with joy.
“How long have you been courting?” he asked.
“What?”
“Benedict Mason. How long? Were you fornicating with me while playing the shy maiden for him?”
She pulled away and scowled. “He is courting. I am not.”
“You could have fooled me.”
“It was my brother’s idea. Not mine. I haven’t a clue why Oscar proposed it or why Mr. Mason agreed. We have nothing in common, and I loathe him.”
“I saw you after church on Sunday. You didn’t look as if you loathe him.”
“I can’t be uncivil. Oscar has decreed that I submit to his attentions, so I must comply.”
“You’re such a mouse, Mrs. Merrick. How do you live with yourself?”
His disdain exhausted her. What did he know about her tribulations? What did he know about anything?
He could never imagine how difficult it was to placate Oscar or how feverishly she worked to keep him happy.
Her existence had constantly been the same, and she couldn’t envision any other life. Oscar was a bitter, cruel man, but she’d always been ruled by bitter, cruel men. The home she shared with him was no different from the one she’d shared with her father, then her husband. It was no different from the one she’d share with Mr. Mason if Oscar forced her to marry.
It was dangerous and impossible to stand up to her brother, to speak out or defend herself. She could only plod forward, praying that she would survive with her sanity intact.
Stephen Price, with his stellar career, steady income, male independence, and rich brother was in no position to chastise.
How dare he judge her!
She was sick of his contempt and resolved to push and push until he behaved in a manner more to her liking. There was a way they connected, a way he couldn’t resist.
She rose on tiptoe and touched her mouth to his. For an eternity, he was stiff as a board, fighting his attraction. She stroked her hands down his back, across his buttocks, to his loins. By the time she reached between his legs and stroked his balls, he relented in a hot torrent of need.
He grabbed her and braced her against a post, her legs around his waist. His lips never parting from hers, he managed to unbutton his trousers and raise her skirt. In a trice, he was impaled, and she cried out in pain and relief.
He thrust like a wild bull, his cock ramming into her over and over. He opened her dress and shoved at the fabric, baring her breast. As he fell to her nipple, as he sucked hard, he came in a fiery rush, his seed flooding her womb.
Then, with a furious jerk, he drew away and stood her on her feet. Their frenzied coupling had left her off balance, and she stumbled over and collapsed onto the bottom stair. He moved to the opposite wall, a palm on the rough brick, as he struggled to mediate his breathing.
Finally, he calmed and straightened. With clumsy fingers, he repaired his clothes, then spun toward her.
“What do you want from me?” He looked tormented. “You ask me to go away, so I oblige you. You start courting someone else, yet you show up here and practically ravish me. What do you want!”
“I can’t marry Mr. Mason, but Oscar is determined.”
“How is that my problem? I’m not your father. I’m not your kin. Why would you presume on me?”
“Aren’t you my friend?”
“I could have been—once—but you weren’t interested. I’m not a fool, and I won’t waste my energy on a lost cause.”
“I didn’t want you to leave me alone!” she wailed.
“You couldn’t prove it by me.”
A dozen pleas raced through her mind: Save me! Wed me yourself! Don’t let Mr. Mason have me! Fight for me! Make me your own!
But she didn’t utter any of them aloud.
“Mr. Mason doesn’t love me,” she complained.
“So? What has love to do with matrimony?”
“I was wed previously to a brute I detested. I won’t endure such agony ever again. If I have to marry, then I insist it be to a husband who is glad to have me.”
It was the perfect overture for him to propose, and she gazed at him with beseeching eyes, but the thick oaf didn’t grasp what she was requesting. How could she get him to figure it out? Would she have to hit him alongside the head with a club?
“A few weeks ago,” he said, “when my brother initially traveled to Stafford, do you know why I came with him?”
“I assumed you were eager to see the estate.”
“No. It’s because I plan to settle at Stafford after I retire from the army.”
“Well . . . good.”
“I’m bringing my family here.”
“Your what?”
Gad! Was he married? If he was, she’d kill him, and she’d never suffer an ounce of remorse. She’d go to the gallows with a smile on her face!
“My family,” he continued, “with the exception of my brother whom I can barely abide, consists of my very illegitimate daughter.”
“You have a daughter?”
“Yes. Born out of wedlock.”
He stated the fact like a boast, as if he imagined she might swoon over the shocking news, and she had to admit that she was unnerved.
Illicit fornication was a terrible sin, but when it resulted in a baby, it was even more egregious.
“What’s her name?” Jo inquired.
“Annie.”
“Who is her mother?”
“A camp follower I scarcely knew.
