Page 93 of The Heir
Since their first encounter several days ago, Anna had not repeated her declaration of love, and he had not raised the topic of her virginity. The moment had never been right, and he wasn’t sure explanations mattered. Many unmarried housekeepers were addressed as Mrs., and the single abiding fact was that she’d chosen to give him her virginity.Him.
“So what can you tell me?” he asked, sitting back and regarding her. She was beautiful but also tired. He was keeping her up nights, and he knew she wasn’t sleeping well in his bed. In sleep, she clung to him, shifting her position so she was spooned around him or he around her.
In sleep, he thought a little forlornly, she trusted him.
“When my grandfather died and my grandmother fell ill,” Anna began, staring at her drink as she rocked, “things at home became difficult. Grandpapa was a very good and shrewd manager, and funds were left that would have been adequate, were they properly managed. My brother was not a good manager.”
Westhaven waited, trying to hear her words and not simply be distracted by the lovely sound of her voice.
“My grandmother encouraged me to take Morgan and flee, at least until Grandmother could meet with the solicitors and figure out a way to get my brother under control. But she was very frail after her apoplexy.”
“You came south, then?” The earl frowned in thought, considering two gently bred and very young women traveling without escort far, far from home. Morgan in particular would have been little more than a child and much in need of assistance when away from familiar surroundings.
“We came south.” Anna nodded. “My grandmother was able to provide me with some references written by her old acquaintances, people who knew me as a child, and I registered with the employment agencies here under an assumed name.”
“Is Anna Seaton your real name?”
“Mostly. I am Anna, and my sister is Morgan.”
He let that go, glad at least he was wasn’t calling her by a false name when passion held him in its thrall. “You found employment.”
“I took the job no one else wanted, keeping house for an old Hebrew gentleman. He was my own personal miracle, that bone the Almighty throws you to suggest you are not entirely forgotten in the supposedly merciful scheme of things.”
“The old Hebrew gentleman was decent to you?” the earl asked, more relieved than he could say to realize whatever price Anna had paid for her decisions, she’d kept her virtue until such time as she chose to share it with him.
“Mr. Glickmann knew immediately Morgan and I were, as he put, in flight. He had scars, Westhaven, from his own experiences with prejudice and mean-spiritedness. He’d been tossed into jail on flimsy pretexts, hounded from one village to another, beaten… He knew what it meant, to live always looking over your shoulder, always worrying, and he gave us the benefit of his experience. He told me the rules for surviving under those circumstances, and those rules have saved us.”
“And is one of those rules to trust no one?”
“It might as well be. I trusted him, though, and if he’d only lived longer, then perhaps he might have been able to help us further. But his life had been hard, and his health was frail. Still, he gave us both glowing characters and left us each the kind of modest bequest a trusted servant might expect. That money has been sent from heaven, just as his characters were.”
She fell silent, and Westhaven considered her story thus far. Difficult, he tried to tell himself, and sad, but hardly tragic. Still, the what ifs beat at him: What if the job nobody wanted had been working for a philandering lecher? What if they’d been snatched up and befriended by an abbess upon their arrival to London? What if Morgan’s deafness had meant no jobs presented themselves?
“Go on,” Westhaven said, more to cut off his own lurid imagination than because he wanted to hear more.
“From Glickmann’s,” Anna continued, “I got employment in the home of a wealthy merchant, but his oldest son was not to be trusted, so I cast around and found your position. The woman the agency picked for the position was at the last minute unable to serve, as she was sorely afflicted with influenza. Rather than make you wait while they interviewed other more suitable candidates, they sent me over, despite my lack of experience and standing.”
“Thank God they did,” the earl muttered. Anna’s fate was hanging by threads and coincidences, with social prejudice, influenza, and pluck standing between her and tragedy.
“What of your brother?” he asked, rolling back his cuffs. “I gather he is part of the problem rather than part of the solution?”
“He is,” Anna said, the tart rejoinder confirming the earl’s suspicions.
“And you aren’t going to tell me the rest of it?”
“I cannot. Grandmother has bound me to silence, not wanting to see the family name dragged through scandal.” The earl stifled the urge to roll his eyes and go on a loud rant about the folly of sacrificing one’s name for the sake of family pride.
“Anna.” He sat forward. “You have no idea—none at all—how lucky you are not to be serving men in doorways for a penny a poke, you and Morgan both, as the pox slowly killed you. Sending you south was rank foolishness, and I can only consider your grandmother devised this scheme because she considered the situation desperate.”
“It was,” Anna said, “and I do know, Westhaven. I have seen those women, their skirts hiked over their backs, their eyes dead, their lives already done while some jolly fellow bends them over to have a go before toddling home after his last pint.”
If she’d been close enough to see that much, Westhaven thought… Ye gods.
“Let me hold you,” he said, rising and tugging her to her feet. “When you are ready, I will hear the rest of it, Anna. You are safe with me now, and that’s all that matters.”
She went into his arms willingly, but he could feel the resistance in her, the doubt, the unwillingness to trust. He led her up the stairs, her hand in his, determined to bind her to him with passion if nothing else.
Each time they were together, he introduced her to new pleasures, new touches, new ways to move. Tonight, he put her on her hands and knees and had her grip the headboard as he sank into her deeply from behind. She met him thrust for thrust, and when her pleasure had her convulsing hard around his cock, he couldn’t hold back any longer. And like a stallion, he let his spent weight cover her, resting along her back, his cheek pressed to her spine.
