Читать книгу Addicted - Charlotte Featherstone - Страница 7

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Blue eyes flashed at him from behind the veil of her curling golden hair. Her lips parted, taunting him with innocence. Lindsay’s gaze slipped to those red, plump lips, telling him of the sinful delights that could be found in her mouth. Sweet innocence mixed with forbidden sensuality.

She was a lady born and bred. His childhood friend, although a child no more. She was a woman, with a woman’s mind, a woman’s body. But had she the appetite of a woman? Did she hunger for him? Would she allow him to appease the ache—the same damn ache that had gnawed at his insides for years?

The way they had touched, their hands hidden beneath the table, had told him that she might just welcome an advance from him. He had felt her tremble as he made the caress more intimate. There was no mistaking his intent. No more denying what he wanted.

“You’re falling behind, Lindsay,” Anais called as she looked over her shoulder and through the long curls that waved and flapped in the cold evening air. “You should have ridden the chestnut bay. Now I’m going to beat you to the stables and you are going to lose our wager,” she said with a laugh. Urging her mare forward, she bent low over the saddle, her full, lush bottom perched in the air as she brazenly rode astride.

Desire curled in Lindsay’s belly as his gaze strayed to the roundness of her bottom. He should have stayed in London, should have kept himself buried in Tran’s opium den, numbing himself to these wanton appetites. In truth, he could no more keep his distance from Anais Darnby than a moth could keep from flying into a flame.

A familiar ache settled in his gut and he gripped the reins in his gloved hands, urging his mount forward as he closed the distance between him and Anais.

He should never have offered this evening ride. Should never have tempted himself by touching her beneath the table. Bloody hell, he should have known not to ask her to accompany him—alone. He knew better. He had been unable to take his eyes off her during dinner. Had watched her eat, studied the erotic play of her tongue on her lips, the fork. He had hungered and lusted through the entire damned meal. He’d been humiliatingly erect watching her, his blood heating with the desire to make Anais more than just a friend. Damn it, he should have known that a bruising ride through the woods would not assuage the dangerous desire he had flooding his veins.

Again, she glanced over her shoulder, her eyes widening when she saw how he was coming up hard on her heels, preparing to overtake her mare. She smiled in challenge and his blood heated more.

He couldn’t think when she looked at him like that, like a seductress with pouting, skillful lips. She was his friend—his best friend. He treasured their easy friendship—the rarity of it. What he was contemplating, what he desired, might very well ruin any feelings she held for him.

But he needed—had—to have at least one taste of the pleasure she could give him. One taste. One simple, forbidden taste…

He should have been thinking about the ring he’d left in his den. Thinking about how he should be proposing marriage before taking their relationship further. Anais was a lady, after all, not a demirep. He was a gentleman who knew how to treat a lady. Except, at this moment, all he could think about was how much he needed Anais sexually.

The stable was now in sight and Anais’s mare galloped full speed toward the open doors. His heart was pounding a furious pace. It always did when he was riding. But there was something else there. An irregularity; a skipped beat when he thought of turning his relationship with Anais from innocent friendship to an intimate session of shared delight. Pink, flushed skin. Swollen lips, parted in pleasure. Her fingers digging into his shoulders as their bodies heated and glistened with desire… Yes, that was what he wanted, the shared delight of flesh.

He wanted her as a companion. A wife. A lover. He didn’t think he could stand the agony of enduring another day, another month, another year of dreaming and longing. How damned torturous it was to have her near him and not be able to touch her. Had she any idea what he wanted to do to her as they sat by the pond and twirled the blades of grass between their fingers? Did she know how much control it took for him to resist lying atop her as she stretched out onto the grass and gazed up at the sky?

The bay snorted heavily as they tore into the stables. He heard the hard snorting breaths of Anais’s mare and he urged the bay to the stall. Before him, Anais was dismounting, the toe of her half boot caught in the stirrup. A flash of a stocking-clad ankle met his eyes and his cock hardened again. The hunger he had kept tightly reined in over supper broke free of his restraint.

Within seconds he had his hands around her waist, lifting her free of the stirrups. She gasped, a womanly, husky pant, and he didn’t think. Didn’t care that she might not want him like he wanted her. This was the moment he had been waiting for. The moment of truth. The destiny that had been ordained for him.

“I can go no longer, Anais.” His breathing was deep, his words husky as he brought her up against the stable wall. “It’s agony watching you from afar. It’s bloody torture thinking of you in the night when I am alone and wanting the feel of you against me. For so long I have needed and wanted you.”

Her eyes widened. Shock? Passion? He didn’t know, but the uncertainty ate at his belly. “I can’t look at you anymore with only friendship in my mind. I want your body beneath me. I want you flushed and hot in my arms. I want to be inside you.”

He didn’t wait for her answer. Didn’t want to hear it if she told him his feelings and desires were one-sided. He only wanted to feel her wind-chafed lips beneath his. One kiss. He would stop at a kiss if she said so. But to deny himself that, to resist the temptation, was a torment he could not withstand. If she allowed him any liberties, he would confess his love. He would sweep her away and marry her. He would make love to her in all the ways he knew how.

“Do you know what I want you to give me?” he asked, lowering his mouth to hers.

“Yes,” she whispered breathlessly.

“Will you give me what I want?” He pulled his gloves from his hands, dropping them to the stable floor. Unbuttoning her cloak, he let it fall from her shoulders, before he smoothed his palms down her arms and the delicate silk of her gown.

“If you say no, Anais, I will not press you.” Their gazes met, and he saw the war waged in her eyes. Waiting for her answer was a lesson in agony.

Another frigid blast of north wind howled angrily from the snowcapped hills. The shutters on the window flanking the wall behind Anais creaked against the bricks as the wind gusted yet again, sending icy air through the cracks of the old, weathered casement window, the sound distracting her from her thoughts.

She should have been shivering with cold after being out in the elements for so long, but she did not feel the sting of the bitter winter air, only a ravaging heat that enveloped her in a fevered warmth.

“Anais, I shall go mad if I deny myself any longer,” Lindsay’s deep voice whispered in her ear. “Please,” he pleaded, sliding both her dress and chemise down her arms, baring the white stay beneath her shift. “Say yes,” he implored as his long fingers sought the ties of her corset. “Or tell me to cease these attentions before I cannot stop.”

What was she to say? She knew what she should say, but the word would not come forth. No had never felt so impossibly hard to say as it did now. She did not want to speak the word, for she knew that Lindsay would honor her refusal. Refusing him was something she didn’t want to do. She wanted this, despite the fact it was against everything she had been taught. She wanted his lovemaking, regardless of the fact she could find herself ruined in the eyes of society.

“Anais?”

“Don’t stop,” she said on a gasp. “Oh, Lindsay, please don’t stop.”

With masterful skill, he undid the bow on her corset, pulling on the strings before releasing her straining breasts into the cool air. She shuddered, feeling the sexual awakening flooding her hot blood like a glass of fine champagne.

Lowering his mouth to the valley of her breasts, he trailed his lips along her flesh, making her burn hotter. Raking her hands through Lindsay’s thick, curling hair, Anais clenched her fingers in the silky strands as his lips trailed openmouthed along her skin. Her breath froze as his mouth descended lower. Closing her eyes, she allowed her held breath to pass in a soft exhalation of yearning—a desire she knew was forbidden. No woman of her class would do such a thing without the benefit of marriage, and in a stable no less! Only common strumpets would allow a man such liberties where anyone may happen upon them. But the forbidden was the most succulent of fruits, especially when it was Lindsay offering the illicit taste.

She didn’t think, only felt as his mouth followed the descent of her gown. It was followed by the slow slide of his fingers hooking beneath the waist of her petticoats as he drew them over her generous hips till they lay in a lace heap around her feet.

Gasping, Anais pressed further against the cold stone when Lindsay dropped to his knees and began to nuzzle the damp flesh between her thighs. His hands cupped her breasts as his mouth moved eagerly—hungrily—over her wet sex as he lapped at her.

How was she to deny him? How was she to deny herself this sinful pleasure, especially when she had desired—no, loved— this man her entire life? It was neither fanciful thinking nor melodrama in the heat of sexual frenzy, but the truth. She had loved Lindsay for…well, forever. To be here with him now, in the stables of his estate, to feel his mouth caress her in forbidden places and exotic ways was beyond what she had ever dared hope for. And she had hoped and longed for this moment for so long…

Blood pounded fiercely in her ears as Lindsay’s hot mouth covered every inch of her flesh. She heard the rapid fire of her heart mixing with the erotic sounds of his tongue laving her. The way he pleasured her made her wish for him to devour her whole and she encouraged him on with her husky breaths and the way she instinctively gripped his hair.

“I knew you would be this responsive,” he said in a guttural voice as he sunk his finger deep inside her, coaxing more wetness from her. “My God, you’re beautiful,” he rasped, suddenly standing up and studying her naked body as she stood vulnerably before him.

“You know that isn’t true,” she said through trembling lips, even though she wished it was.

“It is.” His voice was forceful as he stroked his fingertip along her swollen nipple. “Haven’t you ever noticed how I can’t keep from watching you? Haven’t you ever wondered why I need to be near you? You’re an angel, Anais. You’re my angel. You’re perfect.”

Lindsay was looking at her like a man starved, like a man possessed by the power of lust. She knew that he had to finish what he had started. She could think on things later. When she was alone in her room she could try to understand why now, after years of friendship, he had decided to turn their relationship into something more.

The feel of his hands stroking her breasts chased her thoughts away. He swirled his thumb along her nipples until the buds were hard pebbles and her womb was clenching in longing. Over and over he teased her with his thumbs, plucking at her nipples until little tremors raced down her back.

“I want to feel you tremble like this when I’m buried deep inside you.” She met his gaze and he smiled slowly—sensually. “Let me make love to you.”

“Yes,” she hissed as he ran his tongue along her nipple before slipping it between his lips. “Yes. I want this—so much.”

Picking her up as if she were light as a feather, he carried her to the corner of the stable where bales of hay were stacked. He lowered her to stand beside him. Pulling his shirt from his shoulders he placed it atop their makeshift bed. Picking her up again, he placed her on the linen, which was damp from his sweat.

They had ridden hard on their ride through the woods. Even now she could see the rivulets of perspiration trickling down his chest as the silver moonlight filtered through the window and reflected on his chest. She loved the masculine texture of his damp shirt beneath her and the scent of him—male and musky—surrounding her. She didn’t care that she was going to be tumbled on a bale of hay in a stable for her first time. She didn’t care, because this was Lindsay, this was his world—the world they had always shared together.

Sitting back and resting on his heels, he studied her, all the time running his hands along her body. “So soft, so beautiful and pale,” he said, sounding awed. “I want to remember you like this, stretched out, waiting for me to take you for the first time.”

Her thighs trembled. She shoved aside the awkwardness. Now was not the time to be gauche. Now was the time to indulge her deepest, most private fantasy—making love with Lindsay.

He ran his hand over her nipples, then down her ribs till he reached her hip. He caressed and kneaded, watching her response, listening to her sounds of pleasure before he ran his fingertips along the inside of her thighs, eliciting a flush of gooseflesh along her skin. He played there for a while, touching her, heightening the anticipation until she was clutching at his shoulders and urging him down. She had liked his mouth between her thighs, and greedy as she was, she wanted it there again.

He knew what she desired, and with a wicked smile that made her toes curl, he lowered his head and set his mouth against her sex. She arched at the intimacy, brushing her damp flesh against his cheek and lips. She heard his groan, a sound of approval and delight before he raked his tongue against her.

She cried out his name as she felt his tongue part her folds and she covered her mouth with the back of her hand, silencing her wanton pleas. He only teased her more by flicking his tongue slowly up the length of her before circling the sensitive bud of flesh. She tensed and looked down, only to see him looking up at her as he slowly raked his tongue around the hood of her sex. That sinful visual was enough to stop her heart.

“I’ve always wondered how you would taste coming in my mouth. Now I know.”

Wicked, wicked man! But the words would not come, only the uncontrollable shaking of her body beneath him as she climaxed into his mouth. When she could utter a sound, it was in hushed, stuttering breaths, pleading with him to stop. He would not listen. He pushed her on. His tongue hungrily, forcefully licked her until she clutched at his head and raised herself on her elbows. She watched as he tormented her with his tongue.

Her hips moved in time to his probing tongue. She heard him growl, watched as his gaze lowered to her breasts, which were swaying with her efforts as she climbed the hill to orgasm once again.

Lindsay continued to study her breasts as she cupped one in her hand, stroking her nipple with her thumb, just as she did at night, hidden beneath her bedsheets, pretending that it was Lindsay doing all those wicked things to her body and not her own hands.

“Little minx, you’ve done this before, haven’t you?”

She smiled a slow half smile and continued to palm her breasts, teasing him, delighting in his husky growl when she rolled her nipple between her thumb and finger. “It was you that I dreamed of when I brought myself to orgasm, Lindsay. But it never felt like this. This intoxicating.”

Sitting up, he pulled off his boots and tossed them down to the flagstone floor. He tore at the flaps of his breeches, pulling them along his hips, allowing her only a glimpse of black curls and his rampant erection before he pressed his hot, damp body on hers.

Holding out her arms, she reached for him, allowing his chest to cover hers as he buried his face in her neck and the hair that spilled out over the hay. He pressed inside her, filling her so full that she could only slide up and away from the intrusion, but he reached for her hips and held them firm in his big hands.

“I’m full of you,” she breathed, feeling the thick length of him still sinking farther into her. He groaned, still clutching her hips, holding her still so that he could surge up inside her.

The pain she expected did not come. A brief, stinging sensation made her wince, but it was quickly soothed away by the exquisite sensation of Lindsay buried deep. They were one now. She could no longer tell where she left off and he began.

He reached his hands around to her bottom, gripping her tight, stroking her deep, quickening his thrusts as he watched her breasts dance and sway. She arched her back, feeling the pressure building inside her once again. He kept thrusting until she felt his shoulders stiffen beneath her fingers.

“Anais,” he groaned. “Angel.”

She held his gaze steady as he thrust into her slowly at first, then steadily deeper and faster. My beautiful, beautiful Lindsay, how I love you…

A draft crept in through the barn boards, caressing their naked bodies. Anais shivered, snuggling into Lindsay’s warmth. He reached up and pulled a woolen blanket down from an iron hook.

“You don’t mind, do you?” he asked, covering them up with the tartan wool. “I know it’s not silk brocade, but I confess I’m not ready to let you up. I want to feel all this against me,” he murmured, running his hand over her body.

She pressed up against him instead of slapping his probing hand away. In truth, she couldn’t get enough of his compliments, or the way his hands seemed to continuously stroke her body in the most reverent of ways.

“How many more times do you expect to do this tonight?”

He chuckled and pressed his chin against the top of her head. “I don’t know. I can’t get enough of you. I have a lifetime to make up for, you know. So many years of watching you. You don’t know the tortures you’ve put me through. Tonight in the salon, when I first saw you standing by the hearth, I nearly carried you off then, I wanted you so badly.”

His fingers reached out, capturing a curl that lay over her shoulder. She watched as he studied the blond strands in the golden light. “I’m so bloody glad I finally got up the courage to take you to bed,” he murmured, before dropping her hair and smoothing his fingers down her shoulder.

“So am I.” It was about time he saw her as a woman.

He caught her hand and slowly entwined her fingers with his. “I don’t want this moment to end, but I suppose it’s getting late and I shall have to give you up. No doubt your mother and father are waiting to go back home. We’ve been riding,” he said with a grin, “for an inordinately long time.”

She nodded, knowing he was right, but wishing he wasn’t. She didn’t want this moment to end, either. She had waited too long for a sign from Lindsay that he desired her as a woman, not just a friend.

“Are you going to the Torrington masquerade on Tuesday?”

“Yes,” she groaned, hating the very thought of having to dress up.

“I thought you loved Valentine’s Day. What better way to celebrate it than with a masquerade?”

“I do love Valentine’s Day. I just don’t care for masquerades.”

“Why not?”

She sat up and the blanket slipped down, baring her large breasts. “You would not like them, either, if you had a mother who forced you to wear a shepherdess costume.”

His green eyes turned darker. Reaching out, he circled her pink areola with the tip of his finger. “I think you should go as an odalisque. I can’t imagine anything more arousing than seeing you dressed as though you had just stepped out of a harem. Would you do that for me, Anais?” he asked her, looking up at her through his impossibly long black lashes. “Would you dress as a houri? My houri?”

Anais decided she would move heaven and hell to make a costume that would please him. She would indulge him in his penchant for anything Eastern. She would play the part of the harem girl if that was what he desired.

He smiled and wrapped his fingers around her neck, bringing her closer to him. “Will you let me have my wicked way with you, my houri? Will you find a way to come to me that night and make love with me?”

What could she say? This was simply a dream come true. “Yes.”

Lindsay lowered his mouth to hers, kissing her in a soft, lulling, almost drugging kiss. His hand moved to her breast and he caught it in his palm before running his hand along the side of her body in a slow, sweeping manner—a loving manner.

“Can you feel how hard I am growing against your warm belly? Just the thought of you makes me this way, Anais. I want you again, to spend inside you once more so that you can feel me inside you for the rest of the night. I want you every night for the rest of my life.”

How many years had she waited for such a declaration? “Are you asking me to marry you?” she asked incredulously. She had almost given up any hope that Lindsay might return her affections. Yet here they were, naked in each other’s arms, talking of forever.

“We will marry. But as to the asking, I have plans. When I propose I want it to be special. Be assured you’re mine. You will be my wife. Trust me in this, Anais.”

A crash echoed outside the stable window. Anais smothered a squeal as she reached for the blanket, covering her nakedness.

“Just some barn cats that have gotten into the old tin milk cans, that is all,” he murmured. “Don’t worry, sweeting. Now then, put your pretty legs around me and ride me like you do your mare.” He brushed his hands down her backside and sought her sex between her folds. “I’ve watched you riding, wishing those lovely thighs were wrapped around me and not Lady.”

Anais rose to her knees and peered out the window, fearing she saw the shadow of someone running from the stable. “Perhaps we should be getting back.”

“How can I convince you to stay with me?” he asked, coming up behind her and holding her tight in his arms. “What could change your mind?” He pressed small kisses along her spine, sending gooseflesh down every nerve as he cupped her breasts from behind. “What if I were to beg you? Or coerce you with pretty words? What if I just took you?” he suggested darkly. “Now that is an interesting thought, me just taking you—”

“Where the hell are they?”

Anais straightened as if she had been lashed with a whip. It was the booming voice of the Marquis of Weatherby—Lindsay’s father. “I’ll whip that son of mine if he hasn’t kept that cock of his in his trousers.”

“Get dressed,” Lindsay commanded, helping her down from the bale and turning her so that he could tie her corset strings. “Hurry,” he whispered, helping her into her chemise. “Now then, hide in the hay.”

“Lindsay—”

“Do it,” he commanded, as he tossed her gown to her.

“Boy!” his father called from outside, his voice loud and sounding very drunk.

Anais shot Lindsay a nervous look before hurriedly stepping into the heavy taffeta gown.

The marquis was a drunken sot. As useless as the day was long, and nothing but a whoring drunkard, her father always said. The man was capable of anything while in his cups. She feared for Lindsay and what his father might do.

The stable door was flung open. Frigid February air gust in, followed by swirling wind and snow that caused the horses to whinny nervously. Anais peered through the slats of the barn board walls, seeing that the marquis loomed large in the doorway with his hands fisted at his sides. His head turned in her direction and she whimpered before dropping down beside two bales of hay.

“Where are ye?” the marquis growled, prowling into the stable before slamming the door firmly shut. He tripped over a footstool in his drunkenness and with a violent kick, he sent the stool flying down the length of the stable.

“Ah,” Weatherby snarled when he fixed his gaze on Lindsay. “There ye are. Fixin’ your shirt, I see. This isn’t the time to be diddling with the staff, my boy. If you wanted a go with one of the maids, you should have waited till our company departed.”

Lindsay shrugged into his shirt then reached for his boots, ignoring his father.

“You weren’t prickin’ that Darnby chit, were you?” Anais saw Lindsay’s broad shoulders go rigid, but he said nothing as he reached for his second boot. “Lord knows that girl—Anais—” Weatherby snorted “—needs a good, sound tupping. Far too above herself, that one. Forever looking down her nose at me like I was nothing but a common slug. But your mother, you know. The idea of you defiling the sweet and innocent Darnby chit—plain, nothing little thing that she is—would send her to bed for a week. I can’t have that. I’ve a party of gents coming at the end of the week. I’ve got a large packet riding on this and I can’t have your mother skulking about, confined to her bed. I want her gone to London, with you. So, if you’ve been amusing yourself tonight with Darnby’s girl, it’s high time you put your cock back in your trousers and made yer way back to the house.”

Lindsay finally turned his attention to his father, his face showing barely restrained contempt. “Lady Anais returned to the house immediately after our ride.”

Lord Weatherby snorted. “Didn’t want to raise her skirts for the likes of you, eh? No doubt she thinks of you the same way she thinks of your sire. Fat lot she knows, the frigid little shrew. Don’t know why she’s so high in the instep. Her mother was nothing before she married Lord Darnby. Came from nothing, she did. Only had her looks, and I can tell you—” Weatherby leered “—her mama did not come to her marriage bed a virgin.”

“Father!” Lindsay snapped, glancing in her direction for a brief second before returning his gaze to his insolent father. But Lindsay knew as well as she that her mama was far from a saint. In fact, her mother was nothing but a hypocrite, preaching one thing and doing the exact opposite. Anais harbored no grand illusions about her mother. She had long ago come to terms with her mother’s behavior.

She’d been eight years old when she first saw her mother flirting with her father’s friend during a picnic. That night, as she snuck out of the house toward the lake to watch the fireflies with Lindsay, she had seen her mother, dressed in a white wrapper, running across the lawn to the orangery. Her father’s friend was there, waiting. Her mother had fallen into his arms before the door had even closed behind them. The last thing Anais heard was her mother pleading with her lover. “Take me away from all this hell,” she’d begged. “Erase the touch of my husband, a man I despise. Treat me like a woman, for my husband never has.”

Even at eight, Anais had known what her mother was. A social climber. A fraud. An adultress. That incident, Anais had admitted, was unlikely the first for her mother. It was certainly not the last.

Years later, when Anais had been in her early teens, she had discovered her mother in the attic with a young, handsome footman who had just been taken on. Anais hadn’t run away like the other times she had seen her mother betraying her father. She’d confronted her.

That was when her mother had told her the truth she’d long suspected. That marriage to her father had brought her riches and social status. That was the only reason she’d married him. His money brought her happiness and lovers. His physical affection made her ill. So, too, did looking at the children she had to produce in order to keep her husband appeased. She hated her children for what they had done to her body. She loathed the time she was forced to spend with them, even though it was minimal. And she despised Anais the most, she had told her, because she out of her two sisters most resembled her father, both in looks and personality.

Morality, her mother scoffed, was not a trait worth a pence. It gave you only misery, and the feeling of a noose closing ever tighter around your neck.

Anais had left the attic room, which at one time had been her nursery, a thought that disgusted her. Seeing her mother engaging in such debauchery in a room where she and her sisters had slept as children sickened her and made her realize just what sort of a heartless tart her mother was.

She had not confided the news to her father because it would destroy him. She had not told her oldest sister, Abigail, because in truth, Abby was more like their mother than any of them. Ann, the youngest, had still been a child. So she’d turned to the only person who she trusted. The only soul she had ever confided in. And like always, he’d been there waiting for her at the stables, her horse had already been saddled and both Lindsay and her mare had watched patiently for her arrival.

Anais had fallen into his arms sobbing, just like her mother had fallen into the arms of her lover all those years ago. Lindsay kept her safe. Had held her close to him and allowed her to dampen his shirt with her tears. He’d been eighteen then. More man than boy. He could have left her; she was, after all, still considered a child, even at sixteen. But he hadn’t, and she’d clung to him like the ivy on the walls of her home as he stroked her back with his palm that she recalled felt so strong and warm along her spine.

Confiding in Lindsay had taken the pain away, but the realization that her mother’s cold and ruthless blood swam in her own veins was something that always terrified her. She still had not made peace with the knowledge.

She did not want to become her mother. She would not become her mother, she vowed as she listened to Lord Weatherby spew his venom. Venom she knew was the truth.

“What exactly is it you don’t want to hear, boy?” his father taunted, drawing her gaze away from the muscle that flicked in Lindsay’s jaw. “What is it that makes you so irate? The fact that I can’t stand that little bitch you call a friend, or the fact I pricked her mother?”

“Stop it,” Lindsay demanded.

His father chuckled and slapped Lindsay’s shoulder. “Don’t act all honorable, son. You’re not, you know. I know all about you and your habits. So, tell me, how does it feel to be a chip off the old block—nine and twenty and friggin’ all the household help?”

“Thirty,” Lindsay snapped before reaching for his evening coat.

“What’s that?”

“I turned thirty last month. But you cannot be expected to remember that. After all, you’ve spent the last years in a drunken haze in London with your mistresses and your cronies.”

“Well, thirty, then,” his father said unrepentantly. “How does it feel to be a man, to take some comely little maid in here and give it to her hard against a wall?”

“I have been a man, with a man’s responsibilities for many years, Father,” Lindsay growled as he shrugged into his jacket. “While you have been whoring and drinking the years away, I have grown up. I have become something you are not—a gentleman.”

His father leaned forward and winked, unaffected by Lindsay’s rebuke. “Was it that buxom little Sally? I had her the other day. Lively little thing, and skilled, too. Beautiful wide mouth. Oh, come now.” His father grinned wickedly when he saw Lindsay’s scowl. “You were doing what comes natural. At least what comes natural to you and me,” his father teased, elbowing him in the ribs, then staggering to the left. “What man doesn’t enjoy a woman’s mouth around him from time to time? Best damn release you can find, my boy, a willing mouth eager to please. A mouth—” his father sneered “—you won’t have to marry or have harping at you for the rest of yer days.”

“You disgust me,” Lindsay said with a snarl.

“I’m happy, boy,” his father declared, heedless of Lindsay’s censure. “I’m right happy with the reports I’ve been getting from Town. Seems it’s true, apples really don’t fall far from the tree.”

Anais watched the color drain from Lindsay’s face. He was now a ghastly, ashen color. She had never seen Lindsay looking so discomposed. Was it because his father had talked of his previous conquests, and she was present to hear it? Was Lindsay concerned for her feelings, especially after what they had shared?

She knew, that at Lindsay’s age, he had knowledge of other women. She wasn’t naive to believe that he had saved himself for her. Besides, she’d known his skill by the first touch of his hands on her body. And while she felt jealous and hurt, she believed that what they had shared was more than what he had with other women.

She had to believe that, because to believe anything else would be too painful to bear.

“Well, then, I’m off, back to the house to tell that pompous ass Darnby that his shrew of a daughter is not out here with you—I knew you had more taste than to go tupping someone like that—but your mother,” he scoffed as he staggered away, “your mother wouldn’t be appeased until I left my port and hand of cards to search for you. That damn woman, I don’t know what I ever did to deserve her. And,” Weatherby snapped as he whirled around, “you might consider being a trifle more civil to the Grantworth chit. She’s worth a fortune and far prettier than the Darnby girl. She’s got one of the biggest dowries on the marriage mart this year and she fancies you. See to it you make arrangements to go driving or attend that blasted fair. I want an heir from you before I die. Do I make myself clear?”

When the stable door closed, Lindsay looked back at Anais, an expression of shame marring his handsome face. “He was drunk,” she murmured quietly while pulling stray bits of hay from her hair. “He didn’t know what he was saying.”

It was the same excuse she had heard Lindsay use for his father since they were small children. She despised the words even as she said them. There was no excuse for such a wastrel. The marquis was always in a state of grotesque inebriation. She had seen him falling down drunk and groping women who were not his wife more times than she cared to admit.

But then Anais could not fault Lindsay for trying to soften the embarrassment of having such a father. She did much the same with her mother. Anais had dealt with the shame, not by defending her mother’s actions, but writing her out of her life. Anais dealt with the disgrace by pretending she had no mother. And her mother couldn’t have been happier for her absence.

“After what we’ve just shared, you must know that I hold no liking or desire for Mary Grantworth.” Anais smiled, happy to hear it. “She wanted you to believe that we had gone on a walk together and spoken intimately. The truth, Anais, is that I met her coming out of the apothecary, and I talked with her for less than a minute.”

“Thank you for telling me, Lindsay. Not that you needed to.”

“Yes, I did. I was worried the whole time he was going on about women, and about Mary Grantworth, that you would hate me and believe what my father was saying. I was terrified that when I finally was able to come to you, you wouldn’t believe me when I told you that you’ve been the only woman I’ve ever wanted permanently in my life.”

The coldness that had suddenly gathered inside her melted away and she reached up on her tiptoes and brushed her mouth against his. “I believe you, Lindsay.”

“I’m not like him, Anais. I’m not my father. I don’t share his vices.”

She cupped Lindsay’s face, forcing him to look at her. He told her he would never speak a false word against her, and she believed him. “You don’t?”

“No. I…” His eyes turned unreadable and he tried, tried so very hard, she knew, to hold his gaze steady. In the end he couldn’t and he was looking over her shoulder at a spot on the wall behind her when he said, “I swear it. I’m not like him.”

Something in her began to hurt, but it was soon replaced by the great love she had for him, and the need to believe in him. She could handle whatever he was afraid to tell her. Nothing could stop her from loving Lindsay—nothing. At this moment, everything was too new. They needed time to adjust to the way things were now between them.

“Then everything will be all right, won’t it?”

He nodded as he ran the pad of his thumb along her lips. “This is right,” he said emphatically, as if he were trying to convince himself and not her. He clutched her face, peering down into her eyes as he rested his forehead against hers. “This bond we have, it must never be broken. Promise me,” he said, cupping her cheeks in his hands. “Promise me that this chain that binds us will never come unlinked.”

“I have always been bound to you. My heart will forever be yours, Lindsay. Never forget that.”

“I need your goodness in my life, Anais. I need you to keep me from becoming my father.”

“You won’t, Lindsay.”

“Swear to me, Anais. Swear you will always be there for me. Say you will never change.”

“I swear, Lindsay.”

“And will you remember me tonight?”

“I will. And will you think of me, Lindsay?”

“I have your scent on my hand. The taste of you on my tongue. I will never forget, Anais.”