A diversion, nothing more.
Anna had never met a man like Rufus before. A man so handsome. So self-assured. So intelligent. So wickedly amusing. So achingly, sinfully attractive.
She had realised the moment she’d seen him again that night, and the idea had grown as the two of them talked, as he made such delicious love to her just now, that somehow over the past six days her fascination with him had turned to budding love. A love that had burst into full bloom tonight. She was in love with Rufus Drake, the wickedly handsome Duke of Northamptonshire.
The fact that her heart was now breaking at that knowledge, as she now felt broken, would be of no interest to him. As she would be of no interest to him once he was back amongst his sophisticated London friends.
And she would not, could not, allow him to see, or even guess, her feelings for him, and the heartbreak of loving him. That would be the ultimate humiliation.
She raised her chin determinedly. “I had thought the droit du seigneur to have been abandoned several centuries ago?”
Rufus was taken aback. “You misunderstand my intentions totally.”
“I do not think so,” Anna murmured dismissively. “You invited my brother and me to dine here with you this evening, and then immediately proceeded to kiss me, to make love to me, the moment he was out of the room. You then pointed out that there is no one here to stop your attentions. And you— I— I am so ashamed!” She buried her face in her hands.
Rufus had done all of those things, but only because he had been so happy to be alone with Anna again. To be able to hold her. To make love to her.
He had obviously frightened her with the intensity of that lovemaking.
These possessive feelings were utterly new to him. Unprecedented. But that did not mean Rufus was not completely aware of what they were. What they meant to him. What Anna meant to him.
He had awoken every day these past six days full of anticipation, buoyant in the knowledge that he might see her again. Not only had he never before met a woman he desired as much as he did her, but he admired her intelligence, her sense of adventure, that wild imagination that had come up with the story of the kitten up in the tree. Anna made him laugh, at himself as much as anything else, and not in the bored or jaded way of his London friends.
She was also wise beyond her years in the way in which she had understood and soothed his feelings at the churchyard this morning. She’d helped him to see that life must be grasped, seized, before it was too late.
“Contrary to what you may think of me, Your Grace, I am not one of your London trollops!” Anna snapped as she turned her back on him, obviously waiting for him to refasten her gown.
Rufus frowned as he slowly refastened the tiny buttons. “I would never think that of you…”
“Nor,” she continued firmly as she stepped away from him, “am I a country bumpkin, who would feel so flattered and grateful for the attentions of a duke, that she would simply throw herself down and worship at your feet.”
This was why he wanted her, Rufus acknowledged ruefully. Because Anna, and damn it she would be his Anna, had shown him again this evening that she was not in the least in awe of him or his title. Instead she had treated him as if he were just the wicked gentleman she had met in the woods six days ago.
Rufus could not hold back a smile. “I believe I had in mind another part of my anatomy entirely which you might go down upon your knees and worship.”
She drew in an indignant breath, even as her gaze moved to the front of his black pantaloons, where the evidence of his arousal was unmistakeable.
Her mouth firmed as she glared at him. “You, sir, are a cad. A lecher. A despoiler of innocents— I fail to see what is so amusing!” she snapped as he began to laugh.
“Ye gods, Anna,” Rufus continued to chuckle. “I cannot wait to take you to London and introduce you to my friends, and most especially to my cousin Zachary!” He had no doubts that his cousin, of all the Dangerous Dukes, would understand exactly why and how this young woman had burrowed so deeply beneath Rufus’s skin in so short a time.
Anna was a prize beyond any jewels, or any amount of money, was beyond freedom, beyond anything that Rufus had previously so highly valued in his life.
“What are you suggesting?” Anna looked at him in alarm. “That you would like to take me to London with you when you leave so that the two of you might share me in your bed?”
“Absolutely not,” Rufus’s humour faded as quickly as it had arisen, his expression grim as he stepped forward determinedly before once again placing his fingers beneath her chin and tilting her face up towards his, his lids narrowed in warning. “You will never be with any other man, Anna. No other man will ever be allowed to see your nakedness but me. Do you understand me?”
No, Anna did not understand him at all. She knew she had been playing with fire when she had thought him merely a gentleman passing through the area the day they met in the woods. She had behaved even more recklessly this evening, when her longings had allowed him to make love to her so pleasurably.
But this man, the arrogant words of this duke, were surely beyond her comprehension.
Except he seemed to be suggesting he would happily take her back to London with him when he went. As his mistress?
And perhaps she deserved such disrespect from him. Perhaps her shameful actions this evening had led him to assume, to believe, that she would accept such a role in his life.
“I understand you perfectly,” she nodded abruptly.
Rufus looked down at her searchingly. “Do you?”