Beyond Rubies (Daughters of Sin 4)

Araminta glanced up from attaching her earrings and offered a beguiling smile as a defense against the thickening of his tone, which never augured well. “Soon you will be amply rewarded for your patience, darling husband.” She smoothed her hair and contoured her lithe body with her hands. “You were not so anxious to court my interest when my body thickened, as it surely will again if you cannot show a little restraint,” she teased. It was hard not to sing to the treetops as she reveled in the freedom of her newfound curves. Debenham would claim her, inevitably, but as long as she ingested the Queen Anne’s Lace seeds immediately he’d claimed his conjugal rights, she could be assured, Mrs. Mobbs had told her, that she would not conceive. Mrs. Mobbs had apparently been dishing out Queen Anne’s Lace seeds to young women for decades, and declared it almost one hundred percent effective, when used correctly.

Debenham skimmed the top of her dressing table, then leaned against it as he watched her pluck at her gown.

“William will need a sibling. No need to look so horrified. I’m well aware you are not maternal by nature, and I don’t mean immediately.” He sent her a critical look. “I believe I visit our son a good deal more frequently than you do. Have you even been up to the nursery today?”

Araminta avoided looking at him while she pulled on her gloves, and tried to remember the last time she had looked in on the boy. “Millicent tells me he’s thriving.” She offered her husband a bright smile, then took several leisurely steps toward him, pressing her body against him and skimming her hand up the length of his arm. She felt safe being so flirtatious, knowing the carriage had already been called around. “Haven’t I been a clever wife, presenting you with an heir then getting my figure back so quickly? Aren’t you going to reward me?”

She wished she hadn’t spoken in such an unguarded fashion for immediately he said, “If Jane cannot be relied upon to have your ruby necklace sent back, I shall take you off to The Grange myself to fetch it. I’ve had some cursed luck lately, as I told you and I need it for security.”

All the happiness drained out of Araminta, but she was buoyed by the fact she really did need to see Teddy again. He’d know what to do. Goodness, but she hoped he’d be at Almack’s this evening.

“You don’t really intend selling my beautiful wedding present?” Her outrage was not feigned. “Debenham, I thought you were funning me, truly I did. Surely it is mine. You gave it to me.” It occurred to her this might be a good moment for tears, but she hardly wished to venture out with a blotched face and besides, Debenham

was notoriously unresponsive to such emotion.

“What is yours is mine, legally. However, I’ll buy you something lovely when next you deserve it and if I’m feeling particularly charitable and plump in the pocket.”

Without warning, he twisted her in his arms and crushed her to him, kissing her hard on the lips while he contoured her curves with his hands, ending with a squeeze of her breasts. “God, you are a vixen without a heart, but I’ll have you crying for more when I’m finally allowed to have my way with you.”

Araminta sighed internally as she anticipated the sweaty pleasuring with which she’d have to involve herself. In the early days, she’d enjoyed herself, but the only time Debenham hadn’t been a completely selfish lover was the night he seduced her at Miss Hosking’s betrothal ball. What a fiasco that time in her life had been, when she’d felt overjoyed at being saved from marriage to plain and unprepossessing Mr. Woking, which is all he had been then. But Debenham had tricked her. He’d blackmailed, seduced, and tricked her, and she now had a lifetime to look forward to burdened by his careless cruelty, his cold contempt, and his gambling and womanizing. The only bright side about that was that thus occupied, he left her alone.

“You’ll ruin my hair!” she cried, outraged when he started to run his fingers through her coiffure. Araminta flew to the mirror and tried to rectify the damage while Debenham chuckled.

“You know, Araminta; you really are at your most entertaining when you are fired up. All right, I’ll leave you to sort yourself out, but don’t be late. Dobson is here to tell us the carriage is waiting, I believe.”

Araminta’s spirits took an upturn, when, at the ball, she spied Lord Ludbridge among the throng. As she hadn’t seen him since before William’s birth, he was quick to marvel at her stunning looks. “Is it right and healthy that you are here?” he asked with a consideration for her well-being that made Araminta want to cry.

She tapped his shoulder playfully with her fan. “You are the kindest and most honorable gentleman I know, Lord Ludbridge. Debenham simply thought it was wrong to court scandal by returning to public life so soon, and was quite violent in the way he crushed me to him as we were about to step out.” She shuddered and dropped her voice making him bend his head to hear her. “Debenham can be a brute, and I fear returning to what we married women must endure when we are wed to insensitive men.”

The shocked widening of his eyes made her feel quite gleeful inside. “Why, Lord Ludbridge, I fear I’ve embarrassed you,” she gasped. “I must seem quite shameless, not to mention, jaded, when I speak of the realities of what you know nothing about.”

Awkwardly, he shuffled his feet and cleared his voice, but daringly he gripped her wrist as he moved her into the shadows where they were shaded from view by a plinth bearing a voluminous plant. “I wouldn’t say that is an entirely correct way of putting things.” He drew in a labored breath as he raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Dear God, Araminta, if only I could have saved you from this horror in which you find yourself.”

Araminta sent him a searching look at the same time as she softly, secretly, stroked the inside of his wrist. “But you can, Lord Ludbridge. You’re going to persuade your brother to give you that letter and you’re get my ruby necklace back for me so that Debenham doesn’t beat me most cruelly.”

She saw the rise and plummet of his Adam’s apple before he shook his head. “I sought out the woman who you mentioned was last in possession of it. I offered her a respectable sum, but she said it had been sold already.”

“Sold? I suppose that doesn’t surprise me. But to whom, Teddy? You surely asked her that so you could then track down this buyer.” She gripped his wrist even tighter and stepped a little closer, turning slightly as she brought his hand, as if incidentally, upon her right breast. “Teddy, if there is one service you can render to keep me safe, this is it.” She drew in a deep breath which made her bosom rise, taking his hand with it. Unable to drag his gaze—or his hand—away, he stared as though mesmerized.

Araminta’s voice became more urgent and a little strangled. “Please, Teddy, you must find my ruby necklace. I don’t have the money to repay you right at the moment, but I promise that I will reward you...however I am able...” She stared meaningfully at him to ensure he understood her, before dropping her voice to a whisper. “Otherwise, I don’t know what Debenham will do to me.”

Teddy dipped his head to put his lips close to her ear, his voice a passionate growl. “I would never presume to take such advantage when I want only to help you, my angel.”

“It wouldn’t be taking advantage, Teddy, you must surely know that!” Placing her gloved hand to her eyes, she whispered, “Darling Teddy, I know it is so wrong of me to say it, but...” She took her hand away to reveal her eyes blazing with passion— certainly, she was sure the expression she strove for could not be mistaken for anything else— “...you cannot know how I have longed to feel your arms about me. The night you asked me to marry you, I was the happiest girl in all of England. No, this planet, Teddy. This universe. And then with Papa in danger of losing all his money, and me being pressured into this marriage with Debenham—”

“You were to marry his nephew,” he corrected her.

“Yes, yes, but remember I told you that he was only pretending so as to help me.” Her brain raced to remember what, in fact, she had told Teddy, and was pleased she could embellish her story when she added, “And Papa was pressuring me to marry Mr. Woking, or rather Lord Myles, since he was certain that both of the doddery relatives who stood in the way of him were on their last legs, meaning he’d be inheriting more than Lord Debenham and that, of course, made him the catch of the season. Of course, all that turned out to be true, but I held out, and held out, explaining that you would come back, but you sent no word, Teddy. I was distraught!”

“My darling Araminta, I wrote every day, but my letters must not have got to you in a timely fashion. Oh God, that I have ruined the love that we could have known.”

“But we can still know that love, Teddy.” Her voice was breathy and tender now. “If I get my ruby necklace back, then I will be physically safe from Debenham whose roving eye means I am so often left to my own devices.” Briefly, she touched his cheek. “You, Teddy, are all I’ve ever wanted. Please! Once, you let your scruples get in the way of us finding love.” Her voice trailed off. “Don’t let them stand in the way a second time.”

Chapter Twenty-one

Kitty stretched her arms and rolled over in the bed, patting the empty space left by Nash, before sighing with pleasure as she opened her eyes to a repeat of the light tapping on her bedchamber door.

“Mornin’, miss.” Her maid brought in a tray bearing a pot of hot chocolate and dainty teacup and saucer, and set it on the table beside her. “There’s someone downstairs ter see yer, miss. Bin ‘ere a while only I said yer was asleep.”