“Very well,” Richard said after a long moment. “If that’s what you think.”
He reached for her, settling his hand on the back of her neck. Passion wasn’t necessary? That was what she believed?
She shivered as he pulled her closer, until his lips hovered over hers. Richard heard her draw in a breath, hold it, release it slowly. It was at the end of her exhale that he lowered his head and pressed his lips to her throat.
Anne’s eyes fluttered shut. She made some soft, helpless noise, and curled a hand into the fabric of his jacket. She kissed him, too, trailing her mouth along the shell of his ear, tracing it with her tongue, her lips, the lightest scrape of her teeth.
The croquet mallet she was holding hit the floor.
All at once, things changed. Anne pushed him against the column near the doorway and grasped his jacket, his shirt. Fabric tore. Buttons scattered across the carpet at their feet. There was something urgent in how her teeth set against the skin of his shoulder, savage and needy. Richard returned in kind. He shoved her petticoats up and gripped her arse. With his free hand, he found the slit in her drawers. She was wet. Christ god, she was so wet.
The heavy staccato of a sudden downpour broke through the roaring silence.
Anne froze, her breath soft against his neck. Abruptly, she shoved away from him and smacked at her skirts, willing them into a semblance of order.
But she could not fix her swollen lips, or the hair that had tumbled loose in their passion. Those were proof of what they had done. Undeniable.
“If you thought to make a point,” she said unsteadily, “you failed.”
“Failed, did I?” he drawled. Then, ever so slowly, he lifted his fingers to his mouth and licked them. They were still wet from where he’d touched her. “Tastes like desire to me.”
Anne’s mouth fell open. Her pupils dilated with the unmistakable glaze of lust, but then she looked away and reached for the cloak hung over the chair. “I’m going back to my room. Don’t follow.”
But Richard intercepted her before she reached the door. His body was burning — with longing, with anger. Hell, he was shaking with it. Shaking for her. “I never took you for a coward,” he said.
Her lips flattened. “Call me whatever you like. You won’t change my mind.”
“No? You can’t tell me you don’t still think about the gazebo,” he said roughly. “That you don’t still go to bed and dream of me sucking your nipples and licking your cunny and telling you honest vocabulary.”
Her small gasp felt like a confession, forced out against her will. “Richard—”
“You can’t tell me,” he continued relentlessly, “that you don’t touch yourself there at night and wish it were my hand making you come. That you don’t whisper my name in the darkness and wish I’d whisper back.”
Anne shut her eyes tightly. “You don’t understand.”
“How can I not understand?” He pressed closer, widening his stance to pull her between his thighs. There was not a fraction of space between them. She shivered, and it satisfied some perverse part of him that she responded to him so. “Do you feel that? You want honest vocabulary? That’s my cock, and it’s hard every damn time I see you. You asked me if I dream about the gazebo and here’s the truth: every night, I dream about fucking you there. For the rest of my life, I’ll regret not asking for it. So yes, I do understand.”
She shook her head, those beautiful wild curls coming loose. “Stop it. No, you don’t.”
Now Richard’s anger was threatening his composure. He kept it coiled tight because he would not frighten her. Never would he do that. “Then explain it to me. Explain to me why you think I can’t possibly understand why you don’t want passion in a marriage—”
“Because I’d pretend it was you.” At his stunned expression, she repeated,“I’d pretend it was you. Your earlier point was not some victory, Richard. Not a triumph. It was a reminder of what I can’t have.”
Richard was silent as she threw open the door and strode out of the cottage.
Chapter 16
She came to croquet in a green dress that matched her eyes. Richard tried not to watch as she flirted with Granby. She lightly touched his arm when he said a joke, threw back her head and gave a full bodied laugh that flashed those gorgeous dimples.
Every gentleman there stared at her. They tried charming and flirting with her, and Anne handled them like an expert. Her attention always returned to Granby, for he was her target. Her unwitting dupe.
No, Richard shouldn’t use such language for a skill he taught her. Dupe had such negative connotations. It implied trickery, a deception that would lead to some terrible fate. In truth, Granby was the luckiest bastard in the world. He probably knew it.
Hell, she’d even got the marquess to play croquet and it was well-known he loathed any sport that didn’t involve a horse. There was no question he was besotted.
Anne’s smile was dazzling as Granby knocked the ball through the wicket. How could she appear so happy when Richard felt as though he were coming apart?
He had returned to his room last night after she’d left the cottage, but he couldn’t sleep. After her confession, the ache in his chest became almost unbearable.
I’d pretend it was you.
Christ, if that wasn’t a blade to the heart. He didn’t deserve sleep after being such an utter bastard to her.
“Don't stare too long,” Caroline said, coming up next to him, “or you're going to put Anne in an unpleasant situation.”
“I wasn't staring,” he muttered, watching as one of the other ladies took her turn knocking the ball through a wicket. “Granby is being overly forward, don’t you think?”
Caroline wasn’t fooled by his casual tone. “He’s being a perfect gentleman with her, Richard. He genuinely likes her.”
“I know. That’s why I hate him.” His laugh was dry. “I’m being an utter boor, aren’t I?”
“You're not the only one.” She gave a small nod to where the Earl of Montgomery and Miss Cecil were arguing over where their balls landed. Miss Cecil was gesturing wildly with her mallet. “She's put Monty’s ball in a thorn bush.”
“Good show, Miss Cecil,” he murmured with a smile. “Monty could do with being knocked on his arse by a woman, don’t you think?”
Caroline, however, watched the duo with a somber expression. “Perhaps. But she shouldn't push him too hard. Nothing good comes of manipulating someone into loving you. It doesn’t work that way.”
“Voice of experience?”
“A voice of a woman whose husband left her for doing that, yes. There’s nothing more heartbreaking than losing a husband and a best friend with the same mistake. He just so happened to be both.”
“Caro—”
She shook her head. “Leave it, Richard. There’s nothing to be done.” A crack echoed across the green and Caroline forced a smile. “Excellent hit, Miss Sheffield!”
Richard looked over as Anne’s ball sailed through the final wicket and came to a rolling stop. She was grinning triumphantly, the whole of her attention on Granby. Richard felt something stir inside him, hot and ugly. Jealousy? He did not like it. She was not his.
I’d pretend it was you.
As if sensing him, Anne’s gaze flickered to his, and he put on a show of clapping. A wordless way of saying, I’m sorry. And also, I was an arse again.
Her small smile was a message returned. I’m sorry, too.
Chapter 17
Anne was falling in love with Richard Grey.
There was some tragedy, she supposed, in falling in love with one man while trying to convince another to propose marriage. Her freedom came with a price.
The ticking clock on the mantel in her bedchamber was a terrible reminder that the house party was soon coming to an end. Love could not interfere with her purpose here. She only had four days to get Granby to propose. Four days of seeing Richard.
Four days before she was forced to pretend Richard meant nothin
g to her at all.
But here was something else: that clock was a machine. It ran on cogs and springs, wheels and pinions. There was no imperativeness to its purpose; it existed only for the human benefit of telling time. The urgency Anne attached to that awful ticking was entirely in her mind.
The human heart and mind were more complicated. Once they grabbed hold of an emotion, it was near impossible to get them to let go. Love, she was beginning to discover, was like that.
She wished not to love; she couldn’t stop loving him.
So Anne settled for some middle ground: the idea of that clock. Taking advantage of the time she had with Richard.
Four days.
She did not want to spend it arguing over passion or marriage, or thinking about what her life might be like after she left Ravenhill. She wanted to make the most of these nights. She wanted honest vocabulary and plain speaking and someone who would listen. Things she’d never had before and likely would not have again.
For four more nights, Richard was hers.
Her future was a double-edged sword. If Granby didn’t propose, she would once again return to her father’s control. She’d marry the Duke of Kendal and spend the rest of her life with a man who loathed her because Stanton blackmailed him into offering marriage.
And if Granby did offer . . .
She would be his. She would bear his children.
Anne would lose Richard either way.
Richard stirred when she entered and shut the door behind her with a quiet snick. “I wondered if you would visit.”
“Are you glad I did?”
She heard the smile in his voice. “I was going to give you another five minutes before I let myself into your room. So yes, I’m glad you saved me the trouble.” When she didn’t respond, he sat up. “Anne? What is it?”
“I have four days left,” she told him. “I’m scared.”
He was quiet for the longest time. When he spoke, it was a whisper. “Come here, sweetheart.” He wrapped his warm arms around her. God, he was so strong, so solid. “Granby’s a fool if he doesn’t propose to you.”
She pressed her face into his shoulder. “It’s not only him.”
Richard kissed the top of her head. “What, then?”
She breathed him in. Richard’s skin was redolent with the scent of him: strong soap and brandy and something unique to his body. Magic, perhaps. The remnants of whichever enchantment made her fall in love with him against all reason.
She’d once told him that nothing was more beautiful than the aroma of the sea during a storm, and now she would have to amend it. That memory had been replaced by him, by the fragrance of rain on his skin in that gazebo, and by him holding her here in this bed. Maybe these moments served as some magic spell, for there was more kindness in them than she had experienced in her entire life.
“Richard,” she breathed, “will you kiss me? On the lips?”
He let out a soft groan as he tightened his hold on her. “Anne.”
“Kendal is the only man who has, and . . .”
He gently pushed her back so he could meet her gaze. “And what?”
Anne flinched. All she could think of was Kendal’s cold lips beneath hers, bruises on her shoulders, a punishing kiss meant to assert dominance. It was not for pleasure, no, but for control. A reminder that it wasn’t her he wanted, that he was just as forced by her father as she was. And he hated her for it.
“It hurt,” she told him. “Is kissing supposed to hurt?”
He made a soft noise. “No,” he said, his voice tight with some emotion. “Kissing is not supposed to hurt, sweetheart.”
Their voices were like smoke in the darkness. The barest of whispers, as if they were sharing secrets. This was magic, yes. This was witchery. It was a spell woven over them both.
She loved it.
“What should it be like?”
Richard touched his forehead to hers, his exhale soft on her lips. She considered closing the distance. That small, yet infinite space between them. But she left it up to him.
He cupped her cheek. “A kiss should always leave you wanting.”
“Wanting what?” she asked, but she already knew the answer.
“Everything,” he breathed, that moment before his lips touched hers. “Everything.”
He kissed her with such certainty, such assuredness, as if their flesh recognized each other. As if they were fashioned to fit together, two grooves of stone worn away into the shape of each other. This kiss was not a beginning of something, but the middle of some confession: Yes, I want this. Yes, I’ve always wanted this. Yes, god, more.
Anne had never known that intimacy could be like a conversation. When his tongue touched hers, she heard the sounds he made and communicated with her own. Little breaths that said, right there. Touches that said, keep going. Wordless ways of saying, more and more and more.
It was beautiful and terrible, that kiss. How could she begin to forget such a thing? How could she go about her life tomorrow, pretending as if her entire world were still the same? This must have been how Eve felt when she bit into that apple — knowledge was astonishing. It was terrifying.
It changed everything.
“More,” she moaned against his mouth.
Somehow, she ended up beneath him. Her hands slid across the skin of his bare back, nails sinking into his flesh in silent encouragement.
He whispered an agreement against her mouth, for he seemed as lost as she was. This was madness, yes. What else? What other explanation for how desperately they kissed and licked and touched and nipped? These movements were fevered. They were rough with need.
“Please,” she whispered. She longed to say all the words he knew. She wanted to share his honest vocabulary, the things he’d been taught. But she was limited. So she said the only thing she knew to indicate her desire, the first word he had ever taught her: “Fuck me.”
Richard tore his mouth from hers. He was breathing hard, his gaze unfocused. “We have to stop.”
Anne reached for him. “Richard—”
He grasped her hand and pushed it away. The distance between them felt more than infinite now, it was uncrossable. “You need to go.” He shut his eyes as if he couldn’t look at her any longer. “Fuck,” he breathed, shoving a hand through his hair. “You’re not for me.”
That made Anne scramble out of the bed. How could she ask this of him? Why hadn’t she considered that it would be every bit as difficult for him as it was for her? “Richard, I’m—”
He made a noise, a soft sigh that made her chest ache at the sound. “Just go, sweetheart.”
Anne fled the room.
Chapter 18
“I've so enjoyed our morning strolls,” Granby said, guiding Anne around a tree root. Even when we aren't speaking the silence is companionable.”
“Yes,” Anne said, trying not to sound distracted. “I agree.”
She had spent the entire morning recalling every infinitesimal second of the kiss she and Richard shared. Her mind, so perfect in its memory, gave her every physical detail: the heat of his lips, the texture of his skin, the way he tasted.
What it lacked was everything else: sensations she struggled to describe, feelings, thoughts, expectations, wants, needs. That singleminded desire for Richard to ease whatever it was that made her ache at night.
And, god, how she ached.
Hunger, that’s what it was. Her mind had created such a pale imitation, a charcoal drawing of a scene bursting with color. It could never capture the scent of him. The feel. The—
“Miss Sheffield,” Granby said, interrupting her thoughts. He surprised her by coming to a stop and taking her by the shoulders. “I've the feeling we could be more than friends. Do you agree?”
No.
Anne angered at the inexplicable thought. Was that not what she had wanted to hear from him? So why did his revelation make her feel so hollow? So manipulative? No better than her own father.
“Yes,” she told h
im, hoping she sounded convincing. “I . . . very much enjoy your company.”
Granby lifted her chin with a finger. “I’m glad. For never have I treasured a woman’s companionship the way I have yours. I feel as though you truly listen to me.”
Yes. Listen. Though she’d barely heard his words at all this morning. She was a villain. A fraud.
“And I think,” he went on, “we’re quite well suited, you and I. I would like to continue to—” He let out a small laugh. “I suppose what I’m trying to ask is . . . will you be my wife, Miss Sheffield?”
Anne ought to have leaped at the chance. Days ago, she would have thrown her arms around him and laughed with relief — but she could not summon the gumption that had spurred her to come here and find a husband.
Neither was she stupid. This was her chance, and she had to take it. So she forced a brilliant smile and said, “Yes. Yes, I will.”
Granby grinned and leaned forward to kiss her. It was so brief, his lips cold. It held none of the passion she shared with Richard. It stirred little else within her but disappointment.
“I’ll ask your father’s permission when we return to London, shall I?”
Anne pressed her lips together. “There’s something you should know.”
He looked puzzled. “What is it?”
“My father. He—” Anne let out a breath, hoping this would not deter him — yet she had to suppress a small, traitorous part of herself that wished it would. “He is determined to match me with Lord Kendal.”
Granby frowned. “I’m certain, once he sees how we are together, I can convince him otherwise.”
He was lovely. Anne did not deserve him. He deserved a wife who was not a liar, a swindler, a cheat. A woman who could come to love him. “Unfortunately, he’s not a man who convinces easily. I’ve been matched since I was twelve.” At his sharp inhale, she added, “I know. I should have told you. But I found that once we were together . . .” No, she could not lie, not even for this. She was not so talented. “It was not my choice. But you would be.”
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