What Rumours Don't Say Read online

  He had meant to keep his desire reined in until after supper, which was one of the reasons why he had tried to keep his distance from her, but she had kept at him and as it was, he could no longer control his lust for her, his lips and tongue pressing firmly against her perfectly shaped mouth and fiercely holding her captive.

  She clung to him, fearful she would lose her footing from the force of his kiss, which was sufficient to knock the breath out of her lungs and cause a searing heat to course through her veins. Strangely enough, though, it did not terrify her. Rather, it made her chest swell with warmth to know the intensity of his desire for her and her head almost dizzy with excitement.

  “Damnation, Axelle, you certainly know how to drive a man mad,” he said as he freed his lips from hers only to kiss her again while his hands worked to rid her of her purple riding habit.

  When it was apparent he was struggling, she made an effort to assist him and when she was finally clad in just her chemise and her drawers, he led her to his bedchamber and laid her down on the bed where he kissed her again as he reached under her chemise to cup her breasts, delighting in how perfectly they seemed to fit in his hand and how they ripened at his touch.

  When he took one of them in his mouth, she threw her head back, a wave of excitement assaulting her. She was suddenly very aware of him, of his tongue on her taut nipple, his hand stroking the inside of one of her thigh and his manhood as it brushed against her leg, making her quiver.

  “Ssh.” He lifted his head to look at her, then, framing her face between his hands, he pressed a reassuring kiss on her forehead. “Do not be afraid, little one. It will be alright. I give you my word I will strive to be gentle.”

  She looked at him and for a moment was tempted to tell him that he needed not concern himself with her fragility but instead, said nothing, simply nodding, thinking that perhaps, for once, a little cosseting would not hurt her.

  He removed her drawers and settled between her thighs, stroking them before his hand came to rest between her legs. She closed her eyes, anticipating his touch in her most intimate of places and when she felt it, she gasped, his fingers stroking her soft mounds and making her lose control.

  When his finger brushed against a sensitive nub concealed in her nest of curls, she cried out, the pleasure overwhelming. Pleased by her reaction, he fondled the exquisite nub slowly with his thumb, which succeeded in eliciting another cry from her as she scored the sheets at her sides with her nails. Afterwards, he slid one finger into her softness. Instinctively, she tightened around him and he groaned.

  “You are so warm and soft and tight, my sweet,” he told her, his voice hoarse.

  She did not respond to his remark, her mind already clouded with lust that she could not form a coherent thought, and when he started moving his finger inside her, probing her, she felt as if she would go mad and she wondered if perhaps he was exacting revenge on her for having made him wait.

  As she looked at his face, however, she knew that she was not the only one suffering, his contorted features making it plain that he was exerting a great deal of effort to hold himself back. The knowledge that she could reduce such a powerful man to such a state had an exhilarating effect on her and she was suddenly filled with a desire to have even more control over him so that she lifted herself up and reached for his breeches, her fingers boldly tracing the bulge that had formed there.

  He hissed but did not protest, keeping still as she loosened his breeches. When she wrapped his fingers around his manhood, delighting in how it pulsated in her hand, he muttered a curse.

  “You are making it difficult for me to keep my word, Madam Wife,” he said through gritted teeth.

  “I am merely familiarizing myself with you, my lord,” she said, smirking as she moved her fingers across the impressive length of him.

  He hissed again. “I would rather have another part of you be familiar with me.”

  She paused, trying to understand the meaning of his words, and finally comprehending them, she lied back down, spreading her legs for him.

  He raised an eyebrow at her, regarding her with astonishment.

  “I trust you, my lord,” she simply said. Indeed, her fear had vanished, replaced only by curiosity and a certain excitement she had never experienced before. He was her husband, after all, and she knew that while he may never hold affection for her, he would care for her and never hurt her.

  She closed her eyes, readying herself for the invasion that she knew was about to follow, and as she felt his manhood brush against her, she sucked in a breath, which she did not let go until he was finally completely sheathed inside her.

  “Are you alright, Axelle?” he asked her, his voice heavy with concern.

  She opened her eyes to look up at him and nodded. Just as she had expected, there was considerable pain, enough to have made her wince, but it was tolerable enough and as she took deep breaths, she found it fading, a strange sense of contentment taking its place.

  As he started moving, she found that contentment turning into something more and she felt as if a storm was slowly building up inside of her, the intensity increasing as his thrusts into the depths of her became faster and harder until it was raging beyond her control.

  “Reeve!” she called out his name as it let loose, the force of it sweeping her away into depths and heights she had never before imagined.

  “Hold onto me, Axelle,” he told her huskily as he continued with his thrusts, and she obeyed, clinging to him even as she felt the strength draining from her still trembling body.

  Just as the trembling had begun to fade and her mind started to clear, she heard him release a series of grunts and a moment after, he buried himself inside her to the hilt, pouring his essence into her.

  She welcomed its warmth, knowing that now, she was his wife in every sense of the word, and she held him tenderly, ignoring his heavy weight on her, waiting for him to catch his breath and grow less rigid. When he did, he reluctantly pulled himself out of her and placed a kiss on her brow.

  “You did well, my sweet,” he said.

  She looked up at him. “I am glad, my lord, that I have fulfilled your expectations.”

  He frowned as he got off the bed. “I was under the impression you enjoyed our lovemaking as much as I did. Was I wrong?”

  “No, my lord,” she answered truthfully. “I am genuinely glad to have eased your displeasure.”

  He grinned as he changed. “I shall have supper brought up.”

  She sat up. “There is no need, my lord.”

  “Surely, you do not intend to go down to supper in such a state,” he said, his gaze on her reminding her that she was only in her chemise and that her hair was in disarray. Worse, she was even certain that her cheeks were flushed and her lips were swollen, making it clear that she had just been in bed with her husband even though the sun had only begun to set.

  “As much as I have no qualms about your current appearance, which I find becoming of you, Madam Wife, I would rather have myself be the only one privy to it,” Reeve added.

  “Very well, my lord,” she acquiesced.

  He grinned. “I shall tell Rosalind and the staff that you have been exhausted by your afternoon ride and have supper brought up. Then, perhaps, afterwards, we can spend more time making up for the past nights.”

  She looked at him, appalled. “Certainly, my lord, you do not mean to…”

  “I most certainly mean to,” he said, already knowing what she had been about to say. “And I trust you will enjoy it as much as I do. Nay, I shall ensure that you will.”

  True to his word, Reeve kept Axelle up and occupied for most of the night until daybreak and by the next day, Axelle woke up feeling as exhausted as if she had been riding a horse for two days and two nights. Though her body felt a little heavy, she felt strangely lighthearted, though, as she had never been, and she put on a smile as she came downstairs, which was returned by Rosalind and Mrs. Burrows’ own knowing smiles.

  They did
not say anything except ask her how she was feeling, though, to which she replied that she was fine, and then bid her a good day, allowing her to eat her breakfast in silence, after which she went to Reeve’s study as he had asked her to.

  “Good morning, my lord,” she said as she entered the room after receiving his permission.

  “Good morning,” he said, grinning. “I trust you slept well.”

  “You know very well my lord that I have not slept much,” she said as she took a seat.

  “I asked if you slept well, not much,” he pointed out.

  “That I believe I did,” she said, looking at him. “You said you wanted to see me?”

  “I did.” He took out a small package wrapped in brown paper from the drawer of his table and presented it to her. “I found this in London.”

  At the sight of the present, her eyes widened, and having a good idea of what the package contained, she tore at the paper like a child, gasping with delight when she saw the book inside.

  “One of my father’s books,” she said, running her fingers tenderly across the tattered cover. “Where did you find it, my lord?”

  “In a bookshop,” he answered. “I thought since I was in London, I might as well have the bookshops checked and it seemed as if I was fortunate.”

  “I am most grateful, my lord,” she said, clasping the book to her chest. “Where did you find it?”

  “I’m afraid I have forgotten the name of the bookshop,” he confessed.

  “Do not concern yourself, my lord,” she said. “The only remaining piece of my father’s collection is, after all, in Lord Elmsmoor’s study.”

  “I am not likely to forget the fact, considering how it has led to this marriage,” he assured her.

  “I suppose there is that.”

  There was a moment of silence before the Earl spoke again. “There was another matter I wanted to discuss with you.”

  “Pray, tell, my lord.”

  “I have decided to tell you about Anne.”

  She looked at him, surprised.

  “I know I have been adamant previously about matters pertaining to my first wife,” he went on. “But I have since changed my mind.”

  “May I ask why, my lord?”

  “Suffice it to say that it seems wiser to let you know about her.” In truth, it was because he had been impressed by her faith in him, quickly pronouncing him innocent of murder and even defending that innocence when so many had deemed him guilty, as well as because of what Aunt Lucille had said some days ago about Axelle deserving to know of his past, but he opted to keep those reasons to himself.

  “Very well, my lord,” she said, putting down the book on the table so she could listen attentively to her husband.

  He paused, pondering where to start. For a moment, he considered asking her what she had heard so far, but thinking that was probably not a good idea since there had been countless rumours at the time of Anne’s death, he decided to start from the beginning.

  “I met Anne at a park near the Ravenhall mansion in London,” he said. “She was selling flowers. Suffice it to say that she caught my eye and I fell in love with her.”

  She kept silent, urging him to continue with his narration.

  “I married her against my father’s wishes and so he disowned me,” he went on. “We went to live here in the countryside, in the house not far from here, hoping that the gossip would die down. A few weeks later, I went to London and when I returned, she was dead.”

  “Was she murdered?” Axelle asked curiously.

  “There was a bottle with greenish liquid on the nightstand,” Reeve answered. “I could only conclude that she poisoned herself. The doctor who came to examine her body said that she had been with child and I could only surmise that she had tried to kill herself because after learning of her condition, she found herself even more unworthy of me.”

  “So the child was another man’s?”

  “I never laid a hand on her,” he said. “She was simply too terrified of a man’s touch since she used to peddle her body on the streets.”

  “But she knew you loved her, didn’t she? And if she did, she would not have taken her own life.”

  “For a long time, I believed she did take her own life, but a few months ago, while I was in her bedchamber, going through her things, I noticed that she had begun to knit a tiny sock. It was then I realized that she did know about her condition and that she did not regret or detest it one bit. In fact, she was preparing to be a mother, perhaps waiting for the right opportunity to tell me about the babe.”

  “Could she have drank the poison by mistake?”

  “But where could she have gotten it?” Reeve asked her. “Mrs. Chapman said she had never given Anne any medicine or any concoction.”

  Axelle scratched her chin. “That is unusual. Granted, she could have known how to make herbal concoctions herself, but she would not have no reason to do that if she was not intent on poisoning herself, and we have already ascertained that was not her intent.”

  “Since that discovery, I have been trying to find out if there was someone who could have broken into the house and murdered her,” he said. “Perhaps someone who forced her to drink poison in her sleep or stabbed her and then made it look as if she had been poisoned.”

  “Why would someone want to kill her?”

  “I imagine some nobles wanted to drive me entirely to ruin, thinking that I would take my own life after Anne’s death, or make me look like a murderer. They never counted on the fact that my name would be cleared and that my father would reinstate me as his son and heir at his deathbed.”

  “You mean she was killed as a means of dealing a blow to you, my lord?”

  “Before I met Anne, I was engaging in some business matters in behalf of my father,” he said. “I persuaded some nobles to withdraw their investments from other business endeavors and invest in one of the new Ravenhall business enterprises instead. I imagine that would have left some people very displeased.”

  “I see.”

  “I had heard that Lord Elmsmoor had lost an investment around that time and so I was in his study, trying to find proof of that but I did not find any. Instead, I found you.”

  Axelle nodded, glad that he finally trusted her with the real reason for his presence at Lord Elmsmoor’s study.

  “I have hired a private investigator to narrow down a list of people who have cause to want to exact revenge on me,” he said. “As well as track down the father of Anne’s child. Whoever that man was, he might have persuaded Anne to go with him and when she didn’t, he killed her, preferring her dead than living on as my wife.”

  “That is a possibility, my lord,” Axelle agreed. “In fact, I find that more plausible.”

  “At any rate, I have already hired someone to investigate for me,” he said. “So I trust you will stay out of trouble and not try to find Anne’s killer on your own?”

  She grinned, thinking that he knew her far too well.

  “May I have your word, my lady?” he insisted.

  Still grinning, she looked at him. “You have my word, my lord.”

  “You are certain you never gave Anne any medicine?” Axelle asked Mrs. Chapman, the late reverend’s wife, the next day, as she stopped by during her afternoon ride.

  “I never even saw her, my lady,” Mrs. Chapman answered.

  “I see.” Axelle stopped to smell one of the plants in the large garden. “But you give medicine to the villagers?”

  “I give it to anyone who needs it,” Mrs. Chapman said. “Sometimes, even the servants working at Westbury Manor ask for them.”

  “Westbury Manor?” Axelle gave the older woman a puzzled look.

  “One of my daughters, Belinda, works as a governess there,” Mrs. Chapman told her.

  “Oh.”

  Suddenly, they were interrupted by an old woman who walked into the garden. Upon seeing Axelle, she gave a curtsy.

  “Forgive me, my lady, I did not mean to interrupt,” sh
e said.

  “It is perfectly alright,” Axelle said, smiling.

  The old woman approached Mrs. Chapman. “Do you have that concoction I asked for?”

  “Ah, that one. Give me a moment.” Mrs. Chapman turned to Axelle. “If you will permit me, my lady, I will just fetch something from inside the house.”

  Axelle nodded.

  Mrs. Chapman went inside the house and emerged moments later with a bottle which she handed to the old woman.

  “Here,” she said. “This should do.”

  “Wait,” Axelle said, the bottle catching her interest. “May I take a look at that?”

  Reluctantly, the old woman handed the bottle to Axelle, who held it up to the light, frowning at the greenish liquid that was inside.

  “What is this for?” Axelle asked.

  “Mrs. Owens here has a daughter who is with child,” Mrs. Chapman explained in a whisper. “But unfortunately, the poor girl is sickly and I fear she will die if she goes through with carrying the child.”

  “So this concoction is to make her lose the babe?” Axelle asked with an expression of puzzlement and horror.

  “Yes, my lady,” Mrs. Chapman said. “But please, do not tell his lordship I gave you this knowledge. He will certainly be displeased.”

  “Indeed,” Axelle agreed. She handed the bottle back to Mrs. Owens. “Is there any other concoction of this color?”

  “There are plenty, my lady,” Mrs. Chapman answered.

  Axelle frowned. She was about to ask a few more questions when they were interrupted once more, this time by a groom from the Ravenhall stables whom Axelle recognized.

  “His lordship wishes to see you, my lady,” the groom said. “I believe he is preparing for another trip to London.”

  “Then I must go to him,” Axelle answered. She turned to Mrs. Chapman. “Good day, Mrs. Chapman.”

  “Good day, my lady.”

  Quickly, Axelle went to her horse and followed the groom back to the Manor, knowing full well that Reeve did not like to be kept waiting. She found him at the stables in his riding habit, seemingly preparing for a journey just as the groom had said.