Lord Ruin

She looked a good deal like he felt; as if the world had suddenly disappeared from beneath her feet. Oh, indeed, Ben had warned him and here sat his future, a bespectacled spinster with eyes that couldn't even decide whether to be blue or grey.
"Anne," said Ben. "I am so sorry. As for you, Cynssyr, if you don't apologize, I'll beat you to a damn bloody pulp, so help me I will."
"Miss Sinclair. You have my profoundest apologies. I've no excuse. None whatever. I stand ready to make any and all possible amends."
The woman hadn't any choice but to marry him. He knew that. Ben knew that. But he was interested to see that she did not, for she had yet to show any sign of acceptance of her situation. Better women than she had schemed for just such an outcome as this and failed miserably. Might she actually choose disgrace over a duchy?
"What is your answer, Anne?"
She turned to Ben. "I don't remember," she said as though by so saying she negated everything they'd told her. "Aldreth, I don't remember. I mean, I remember thinking how odd that Lord Ruin should—" Her hands gripped the chair arms so tightly her knuckles went white. "Then, I felt. . ." She maintained, just barely, the tatters of her dignity when she saw the duke's complete dispassion. "You weren't here last night."
"I arrived about half one this morning."
The moment became so deep it threatened to consume them all. She blinked once. Twice. Aldreth tugged at his collar. Cynssyr didn't move so much as a muscle.
Anne spoke into the grave-like stillness. "This can't have happened. It can't," she whispered. "Not to me." Her eyes darted to the duke and found him without any expression whatever. Not compassion or sorrow or anything at all, just a horrible stillness. A sob escaped her but she somehow stifled the impulse to cry. "Dear God." Her mouth had been on him, on his most private parts. "I can't have." She had actually said those words.
"Miss Sinclair," Cynssyr replied in a hateful, matter-of-fact tone. "Collect yourself, if you please."
Aldreth gave him a black glare and snapped, "Have you no pity, man? At least let her get over the shock."
"To what end?" he asked.
"I should have let Devon hit you."
"Devon?" said Anne, horrified. "Devon knows?"
"Hell, Anne. Everyone knows."
Ruan laughed. Amusement without mirth. Dark and quite ugly. Now that he'd recovered from his fit of lust, he remembered the consequences of his indulgence. "At this point, Miss Sinclair, the trick would be finding someone who did not." He caught a glimpse of pale eyes wide with disbelief before he deliberately turned to Ben. He would not feel sorry for her. He absolutely refused. Ben, unfortunately, had nothing to say.
Anne tried to take a deep breath and discovered she could not. "I don't know him, Aldreth. I don't even like him. How can we be married?"
"Naturally, the choice is yours," Cynssyr said.
"The hell it is," said Aldreth.
"You cannot force her to marriage, Ben." She stifled another sob. He wondered if she was going to faint. But, no, she caught her breath, and the tears he expected failed to materialize. She earned his grudging admiration for that. "If you refuse, Miss Sinclair, and later discover I have got you with child, you have only to apply to me and I will settle a sum of money upon you and the child. And," he added as an afterthought, "I will acknowledge it as mine."
She gave Ben a panicked look.
"The possibility exists." Ruan spoke as if he referred to the odds of rain spoiling a picnic, so as not to send her completely over the edge and into full-blown hysteria. Despite her age, despite his having had her lovely mouth on his cock with him ready to scream he was that close to coming, despite everything they had done, she was so innocent such an outcome stunned her. He wondered if he had indeed made her pregnant.
"Oh, dear God," she whispered. "Dear God."