Page 42 of His Scandalous Lessons
“Pressured how?”
She swore softly, some honest vocabulary that he had taught her. In any other instance, he would have chuckled to hear it, commented about what an apt pupil she had become, but now was not the time. “I never told you, but my father has blackmailed Kendal for years. It’s how he convinced the duke to offer for me.”
Richard absently caressed her back as he considered her words. He ought to have figured that Stanton Sheffield had been blackmailing a man as influential as the Duke of Kendal into marrying his daughter. After all, what sort of grown man offers for a girl at the age of twelve? What sort of father accepts? Sheffield must have been desperate to sell off his only daughter at such a young age.
“You work on your father,” Richard told her, “and I’ll see what I can uncover on Kendal.”
Anne stared up at him. He could not begin to understand such a look, the complexity of it. There was more depth in those eyes than in the deepest parts of the sea, he wagered.
Words were not necessary, he thought, as she settled her lips against his. She could express so much more with her kiss, her touch, and he would do the same. He whispered her name, undoing the buttons of her dress until he'd bared the tops of her breasts, her collarbones, her shoulders...
But as he leaned in for another kiss, he noticed the bruising on her skin in the shape of fingers.
His blood ran cold. “What the fuck are these?” When she didn’t reply, he prompted, “Anne.”
Anne looked away. “Kendal is not gentle.”
Something inside him broke. His voice was hoarse when he asked, “Did he — has he forced himself on—”
“No,” Anne said. “Not that. He tells me he’s preparing me for our wedding night.”
“Christ,” Richard breathed. “I’m going to kill him. I’m going to—”
She shook her head. “Please,” she whispered, “help me forget. Just for this moment, help me forget.”
Richard thought about resisting. He wanted to take her away from this place to somewhere safe. But she would not allow that. Anne was not a woman he could command, not one he could push into doing what he willed. If he did, even if for her safety, how would he be different than every other man in her life? There to dictate her choices.
So he kissed her. He kissed her with everything in him. He couldn’t put into words how he felt, and so he did it with his lips, his hands. He treated her with the reverence she deserved because this woman was brave and beautiful and she deserved better than the life she had been dealt. He was determined to do everything in his power to give her a better one.
She made a noise in her throat as Richard pushed her back against the door. Frantically, she had her hands at his trousers, undoing buttons to free his cock. Richard considered going slower, but his need matched hers.
He pulled up her skirts and found the slit in her drawers. Shoving the material aside, he brought her thighs around his waist and drove into her.
“Yes,” she breathed against the pulse of his neck. “Yes.”
“God, Anne.”
He buried his face against her throat and drove into her again and again, hard, desperately. He ought to have been gentle, but she did not seem to want gentle. She urged him on, her fingernails biting through his jacket as she clutched his shoulders.
He loved hearing her. He loved her body against his. He wanted to listen to her every morning and every night like this.
But like before, their coupling was short. Always too short. Richard came with a rough groan, breathing hard against her skin. She held him there for a moment, as if understanding his need for quiet, as if she needed to hold onto him, too.
“I have to go,” she whispered. “Before Kendal wonders where I’ve gone.”
He tightened his hold, only for a moment, before releasing her. He helped her settle her skirts in place, and fix her bodice, and then he kissed her one last time. “Anne, I—”
She placed her finger against his lips. “I know.”
His heart ached as she left.
Chapter 23
Anne had been measured for her wedding dress. She had been poked at, prodded, her weight analyzed, her body measured. She felt as if she were a doll; not a person, not a human, just a toy created for the comfort of a duke. Her diet consisted of bread and water, and sometimes she woke in the morning wondering if she’d faint getting out of the bed.
But she endured because she had to. Her father had caught the scent of something.
“Out,” Stanton said to the maid as he came into her room. “My daughter and I have something to discuss.”
