Marcus swallowed down the hard lump in his throat as he imagined her dealing with all sorts of distressing scenarios. "You said you heard whimpering. Was it the sound of someone in pain, or more a mournful cry?"
She glanced at the floor in silent contemplation. "I'm not sure. I remember thinking it sounded sorrowful, but when I saw the apparition, then it became more a grieving wail."
Marcus straightened. "Apparition? But you said you didn't see the man who spoke to you." He could have kicked himself for not pursuing the matter earlier. But he had been so angry with her, so damn scared of some mysterious accomplice seeking revenge.
"It was more a white shrouded figure," she said calmly, yet he wanted to shake her, demand to know why she'd not mentioned it before. "I only saw it briefly. For a second, I thought it was a ghost. Indeed, when I followed it through the main door out into the night, it disappeared."
Marcus stroked his chin as he contemplated her words. "When you say a white figure, I assume the person wore light-coloured clothing?"
"Again, I can't be sure. It was similar to a cape, something long, floaty and white. And it had a hood."
Marcus sat forward. "What did your instincts tell you? Did you believe you had seen a ghost?"
Anna shook her head. "My first thought was that it could have been Andre or Selene. I have known of people walking in their sleep for miles without waking and well …"
It was as he suspected. One of his staff had lured her outside. Marcus would question them all again come first light.
"You're certain the man you spoke to was French, that he used your name?"
"Definitely. He sounded so like … like Victor." Her face turned ashen, and her bottom lip quivered. "I … I once told Miss Beaufort that Victor would find me no matter where I went. That there wasn't a place in the world where I would be safe. I … I thought he'd found me, Marcus. I thought he'd come to drag me back to the nightmare, which sounds ridiculous when you consider the fact he's dead. But what if it's true? What if he has come back to haunt me?"
She sucked in a breath. His heart lurched as a solitary tear trickled down her cheek. Before he knew what he was doing, he moved around the desk and pulled her to her feet to hold her tightly in his arms.
"I promise you'll never have to fear him again. I'm here for you." He almost choked on the sudden wave of emotion surging up to his throat. "I shall be your protector, the person who wipes away your tears. The person who makes you smile. The person who makes you forget all about the horrors of the past."
When she looked up at him, her eyes were brimming with hope, yet still tinged with sorrow. "I have prayed for you for so long. I have prayed to the Lord, for him to show me the way. Now when I am with you, I feel whole again."
Her words touched him. He felt a better person in her company. Until now, it had not occurred to him that he had used his assignments as a way to fill the emptiness, as a way to banish the loneliness.
"I have been waiting for you, too," he managed to say as the need to bury himself deep inside her luscious body took hold.
She shook her head and gave a weak chuckle. "Never in my wildest dreams did I ever believe I would find someone I could trust, someone I could depend upon."
Guilt drove a spear right through his deceitful heart.
At some point, he would have to tell her what he'd done. He would tell her that he had betrayed her trust, divulged information she had unwittingly shared. But now only one thing could force the Devil from his door.
"I need you." They were words he had never spoken to another. Words that he never imagined would fall so easily from his lips.
She replied with her body, pressing into him until he could feel the shape of her soft breasts squashed against his chest. She replied with her mouth, standing on the tips of her toes to claim his.
There was nothing sweet, nothing tame about the way they revealed their need for each other. With loud pants and guttural groans, he devoured her, plunged deep inside her mouth, their shared breath like a potent elixir. He tasted her over and over until every memory before her dissolved into nothing.
She was his life now.
He recognised the truth of it.
Without breaking contact, they shuffled to the door. He tore his lips away to turn the key in the lock. Frantic hands stripped him of his waistcoat, of his shirt, ran over his bare chest as though it was something wondrous to behold.
Drunk with desire, he did not think of their comfort, or for the need to preserve their clothing. Buttons hit the floor. He heard the sound of stitching ripped apart from seams. There was no time to prepare her, to sweeten the moment, to make it easier to claim her body.
God, he'd never been so desperate to bury himself inside a woman. He had never been so hard in his entire life.
Naked and locked in a passionate embrace, they writhed on the floor, possessed by an urgency to be joined, to cement the powerful feelings that would bind them forever. When he entered her with one long thrust, they both cried out — with relief, with pleasure, with the agonising truth that this still would not be enough for either of them.
"Please, Marcus," she panted as she wrapped her legs around him, dug her nails into his buttocks. "Make me forget."
A fierce hunger drove him on, pushing him harder. The thought of ensuring her pleasure fluttered through his mind and without a word, he slipped his arm beneath her and flipped them over.