Gently, he undid her robe and pushed it off her shoulders, then ran his hands down her body to her bare legs.
“Tony, oh!” she gasped.
He moved down the bed and took her left foot in his big hands and kissed the sole, running his hand up her leg until he was caressing under her knee and other wholly unexpected places. She had thought he would push her gown up and proceed to deflower her, but instead he was doing the most unimaginable things with his teeth and tongue and hands. She giggled and wriggled, feeling as if she must be another woman completely in the dark, for she was experiencing a lightness of being she had never felt, a giddy sense of release from all care.
And they had not yet done anything but kiss.
He kissed her ankle, pushed her legs slightly apart, and trailed his tongue up her calf, above her knee to her inner thigh, while she sighed and squirmed, enjoying it all, and yet ardently wishing for his body under her hands. She grasped handfuls of the sheet and moved, while he pushed up her gown and suddenly his hot breath warmed her bare stomach. She tensed, quivering with an odd mixture of desire and apprehension.
“Anne, relax,” he murmured against her skin.
Her heart pounding, she tried. But couldn’t. “Kiss me, Tony … up here, on the mouth. Please.”
He obeyed in a split second, covering her mouth with his and her body with his. As his considerable weight sank her into the feather mattress she felt oddly comforted. She ran her hands down his back to his waistband, then to his firm bottom encased in the smooth fabric of his perfectly tailored breeches. Her fever began to burn.
He slid off her a little, and she felt him raise her gown, higher, higher, until he lifted it over her head and her body was naked to the night air. She slithered out of the gown and let him toss it off the bed, exposed to him, naked, for the first time. The dark was delicious, mysterious, his big hands skimming over her hips and stomach, then up to her breasts. It felt wonderful, tingly, the sensations trickling through her down to her female parts. While he was occupied, her hand skimmed his hip and she encountered the buttons of the fall front of his breeches. Shivering, flashes of heat rippling through her, she fumbled with the buttons and felt him still.
“Anne,” he said, his deep rich voice guttural, husky, dark with desire.
“Shhh,” she whispered. “No talk tonight, Tony.”
Fourteen
Anne stirred and opened her eyes; it was early, very early, first light just beginning to glow beyond the curtains. Darkefell was propped up on one elbow gazing down at her, no smile on his face. “What … what’s wrong?” she gasped at his solemn look.
“What is this?” he asked, touching her shoulder wound, now swiftly healing, puckered with a long scab.
“Oh, yes, that,” she said softly. “I don’t know for sure, but I think that is a gift from Hiram Grover. I believe he tried to shoot me two … three days ago, while I was at the gypsy camp.”
“You didn’t tell me,” Darkefell growled, examining the long gash. “Why?”
“I didn’t know for sure that it was from Hiram Grover. I still don’t.”
“That doesn’t matter. I want to know everything, Anne,” he said, caressing her bare shoulder. “Every minute detail of every day. I want you near me always so I can protect you.”
“Tony, you can’t protect me from life,” she said, examining his grim expression. She ran one finger over his frowning lips. “Why are you so ill-tempered this morning? I thought you would be more sunny, sir, after our night of exercise!”
Looking deep into her eyes, he threaded his fingers through her hair. “I have to go and I don’t want to. I never want to leave your side.” He ran his free hand down her body, lightly skimming her hip and stomach.
“Tony!” she gasped, but he silenced her with a quick hard kiss. She responded to his passion, nibbling on his lip.
He grabbed her by the waist without breaking their ardent kiss.
“Tony!” she gasped, struggling in his grasp, trying to steady herself. The only way to do that was to straddle his body, her long hair flowing over her shoulders and down to his chest.
He grinned wickedly and ran his hands down to her bottom, cradling it in his big hands and squeezing.
“Your mood seems to have improved remarkably quickly, my lord,” she said, her tone tart. She scruffed her fingers though the dark mat of hair on his solid chest.
His smiled died and his dark eyes held a world of tenderness. He pulled her down to kiss her and both were lost for a time in the sweet wilderness of love.
Finally, with a long sigh, he stopped. “I have to go,” he whispered, slipping from under the covers. “I would stay and kiss you for another hour, but I must go!”
She realized that she was naked and felt a blush mount to her cheeks. Strange, given what they had just done, but nakedness still felt unnatural to her. She pulled the blankets up to her neck and stared up at him. His jawline and chin were dark with his incipient beard and she reached up, scruffing the roughness with her fingernails.
He bent over and kissed her deeply, but then pulled away. “I must get my idiot brother out of this scrape. I know he’ll live through this, because he is the most fortunate fool to ever grace the surface of this planet. I have spent my entire life getting him out of scrape after scrape; it’s time he began to fend for himself. And so I shall tell him when I rescue him this time.” He bent, seeking under the bed, and with a shout of gratification straightened with his white lawn shirt in his hand. “Now, as much as I hate to toss you from my bed, if you would not be found here naked by the maidservant, my lady, I think you had best don your gown and go back to your own room.”
She felt cold, bereft, but as much as she knew his haste should be her byword, she was arrested by the view before her. His body in the gray light was fascinating. His back muscles and those of his bottom flexed and moved with such fascinating tension as he pulled his shirt over his head, then dipped a cloth in the water pitcher and scrubbed himself, ending with a quick cleansing of his groin. He tossed the cloth back into the bowl on the dressing table and turned, picked up her nightgown from the floor, and tossed it to her as he retrieved his breeches.
She must keep her mind off their night and morning of passion and on the unhappy truth: Julius was still in trouble. “What are you going to do?” she said, taking advantage of his back being turned to pull the gown on over her head and settle it down her body, pulling her long hair out of the gown with a practiced flick.
“I’m going to see if Grover will tell me now where Julius is. And if he won’t, I’m going to beat the truth out of him.”
“Tony, you can’t do that!”
“Why not?” he asked, turning to gaze down at her. “Of course I can. But for your sake, I will restrain my violent urges,” he said lightly. He reached down and coiled one of her tumbled curls around his finger, touching her face with his other hand, then cupping her cheek. “I would stay, my lady, if I could, but we must hurry. The sun ascends above the horizon in another half hour. Osei and I will be meeting my dastardly nemesis by then.”
She slipped out of the bed and began toward the door, only to be caught from behind and whirled around in his arms. “Tony!” she cried, caught off balance.
“Anne,” he said, winding his arms tightly around her and burying his face in her neck, his voice muffled. “Please forgive me for rushing off like this. If it weren’t for Julius …”
“Don’t be silly,” she said, holding his shaggy head to her shoulder. “Shh, it’s all right, Tony, it’s all right. You will find Julius and take Hiram back to Yorkshire to face justice and then we can … we can talk. About everything.”
He set her away from him again. “Go, before I grab you again.” He turned her away and smacked her bottom.
***
After the quickest of ablutions and a scrape of the razor over his chin to sweep away his heavy growth of whiskers, Darkefell strode across the dewy grass in the gray predawn light. It was a struggle to l
eave behind his passionate night with Anne to focus on the serious business of forcing the truth out of Hiram Grover. Osei, fortunately, came to his rescue as far as his soiled pillow and bedsheets and his earnest desire not to implicate Anne in their stained condition.
His clever secretary, having discovered the hierarchy of below stairs, swore he would be able to convince the Harecross Hall laundress (money was a powerful inducement) to immediately see to the sheets. He would say his employer had an “accident,” and no one wanted bloodstains to set in white linen. She would not believe Osei, probably, but something must be said and it was the only way to deal with it.
Anne. She thrummed through his blood. He had decided he must be in love many weeks ago, but now he understood it more deeply. He was truly a changed man, made over in a better pattern just for loving Anne. The unhappy truth was, if she decided she would not marry him, he would go mad with fury, grief, longing, and a hundred other shattering emotions. She must marry him!
“My lord,” Osei called out, stalking over the dewy grass at an angle to meet him.
“Yes?”
“Lady Anne accosted me with an idea as I was leaving the earl’s chamber.”
“An idea?” he asked, impatient and still moving. “An idea for what?”
“An idea of how to make Mr. Grover tell you where he has concealed Lord Julius.”
Darkefell stopped and searched Osei’s dark eyes. “Well?”
“It was something Mr. Grover said, about having someone helping him.”
“Yes,” he cried. “I remember. And she said, too, that someone must have seen or noticed something in this close community. I thought to begin questioning the villagers and others if Grover still refuses to speak.”
“She firmly believes that at least one of his ‘helpers’ is one of the gypsy men, and she must know better than anyone, I suppose. She’s on her way to the gypsy encampment right now.”
“What? On foot?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“With accompaniment, I pray?”
“No, my lord.”
“Damn her!” he shouted, thrusting one fist in the air. “Damn her independent soul. She is too confident by far. I should have tied her to the bedpost.”
Osei looked shocked, then his lips twitched.
“I suppose I shouldn’t say that so loudly, should I?” Darkefell said, glancing around, hoping no one had heard him. He would not soil her reputation with her own people, nor with anyone, even as angry as he was with her. He took a long, deep breath of cool, dewy morning air. “This is her home, so I suppose she knows better than I what is safe and what is not. Grover is confined, after all. Did you know that bastard shot her?” he cried.
“Mistress Mary told me, yes, my lord,” he said.
“Why was I the last to know?” Darkefell growled. “Well, I will see Grover first, then follow my lady.”
“Certainly,” Osei said, joining him and meeting his stride length as they circled the Hall and moved toward the distant shed where Sanderson still stood guard.
“In some ways, Osei, I think you know Anne better than I. You seem to understand the inner working of her mind better than I do, anyway.”
“I do not believe I know her better than you in a personal sense, sir. But I have seen society in a different way than you, my lord. Women—intelligent women—chafe at the bit as much as I do, in my position.”
Darkefell threw him a wry glance as they left the grass and strode down the crushed gravel lane, around, toward the abandoned shed where Grover was being held. His secretary’s slight limp was almost unnoticeable except as an odd rhythm in his gait. “Are you saying women are treated as if they are some kind of elevated servant, as a secretary ofttimes is?”
“In a sense,” he said, his thin, dark face unreadable, his eyes concealed by the glint of sunlight on his spectacles. “In other ways they are treated like children who will never attain the age of majority, never be allowed to make their own decisions. Frustrating for them, I dare say. Why did you make such a comment, my lord?”
He hesitated, but there was nothing he could not say to Osei. “You know much of how I feel about Anne, and know what we did last night. My hope is she will marry me now, as any woman in her position would.”
“Did you speak of this, my lord? Did she answer your proposal?”
“No. We were otherwise occupied for much of the night.”
“Then I would assume nothing. Lady Anne is incapable of behaving in any way one might expect, if what you expect is a conventional woman’s response. Your belief in my understanding of her is flattering, my lord, but still, I am a man and she is a woman. I think though there are things that bind us, there is a chasm, too, between us, that can never be bridged.”
Darkefell, as they approached the shed, nodded sharply at Sanderson and murmured to Osei, “You’re right about that, I suppose. Sometimes I fear there is no understanding her. She wants things I never expected a woman to want and she has thought more deeply on many subjects than I have, certainly.” He stared at the shed, a small sagging wooden structure some distance away from the other outbuildings near the stables. He had passed the stable, the dairy shed, a gardening shed, and a greenhouse, and they provided a barrier to sound that, if he were to beat Grover, he would need. It wouldn’t do to alarm the household staff.
He turned and stared at Osei. “But I will marry her, Osei. Her obstinacy makes me long for the days of the Sabine abduction. I could just carry her off and force her to do my bidding.”
“But still, my lord, the Romans then gave the women their choice, their freedom, and promised them that their rights would be respected.”
“Damn your classical reading. You’re right. There is no pattern for forced marriage there,” he said, with a grin that did not reach his heart. He grew more serious and even pensive. “I don’t think I’ll ever be satisfied otherwise, and after last night I know that no other woman would ever do. She’s mine and always will be.”
He forced his thoughts away from Anne and to his wayward brother, Julius, and the despicable murderer, Grover. “First I will see what this fellow will tell me after a night spent in the company of the glum Sanderson. Then, if I am unsuccessful in finding out my brother’s location, I will follow Anne’s path to the gypsy camp.” He strolled over to the taciturn Sanderson. “How is our captive this morning?”
“Moaning about ’ow poorly treated ’e is, milord.”
“Well, we’ll see if I can treat him even worse,” Darkefell said grimly.
Fifteen
The gypsy camp was almost deserted, for the men and older children were absent, doing their daily work for Harecross Hall and other local farmers, and the women were all either gone out to the fields with the men, caring for the younger children and babies, or clustered near a tent where one of the women was noisily giving birth. Anne took advantage of the scattered tribe to creep to the gypsy mother’s cart and stepped up into it unannounced.
“Madam, will you speak to me?” Anne asked of the woman.
The old lady, swathed in colorful quilts, her pallet draped around in scarves, opened her eyes and sat up, her jewelry jingling. Her dark hair, streaked heavily with gray, was in braids that circled her head like a coronet, and an indigo scarf held the braids in place. She stared at Anne for a long moment, then a sly smile lit her lined face and dark eyes. “You have changed, lady,” she said, wagging one finger at Anne.
“I am not here to discuss anything about myself,” Anne said stiffly. Her stomach clenched at the thought that this stranger could read on her face the change in her. Mary, that morning, had said much the same thing as she helped her dress. She felt as though she wore a pennant proclaiming her identity as a new-minted woman, maidenhead pierced, body claimed. Had she shamed her family? she wondered. Was it wicked to not care what others thought about her night with Darkefell? She forced her mind away from the night before, though her thoughts seemed to always return to that subject.
“First, I
hope you received my message that we have figured out why you and Robbie and Mrs. Jackson became ill.”
“Yes, lady, is nothing to do with us.”
They talked it over briefly; the gypsies had already disposed of the mushroom muck, and Anne had a feeling they would never trust a gajo’s food again. Anne could only pray that none of those afflicted suffered permanent harm. More important now was Hiram Grover and the question of where Lord Julius was. “I have figured something out, and though I don’t need your confirmation, I have something to say to you.”
The woman became watchful and leaned back on her cushion, a colorful affair of different patches of velvet and satin. She fingered a bracelet of coins around her wrist, for gypsy women wore their wealth on their persons. Her scarf was adorned with gold and silver, too, and she wore a chain around her neck, upon which coins jangled.
Anne leaned forward, breathing shallowly, for the heavy scents of perfumed oils and incense thickened the air. “One of your young men has helped the fat man, the ‘dead but not dead’ man, hasn’t he?”
Madam Kizzy said nothing, but Anne watched her eyes and saw the truth.
Straightening, Anne said, “Hiram Grover is a very bad man. What he has promised, he’ll never be able to do, for he has no money nor any power. He’s a murderer, madam, and I know your people do not condone killing, especially of a young woman who was with child. If I were you I would ally myself with my family and that of the twin gentlemen. If we so choose, we can reward your people.”
“But he is a cruel one, your man,” the old woman said. “If we have angered him, I have no thought that he will do such a thing as reward us.”
“He’s not cruel, he is decisive.” She thought about the last view the old woman had had of Darkefell. “And perhaps a little abrupt,” she amended.
“He dislikes us,” the woman said, her eyes narrowed. “I see it in him, the hatred. He judges us.”
Lady Anne 03 - Curse of the Gypsy Page 17