Lilliana struggled beneath him, trying to push him off, but he easily caught her arms and pinned them above her head with one hand. “You want my attention, Lillie, you have it,” he breathed into her neck. His mouth found her breast, and he laved the hardened nipple, catching it in his teeth, rolling it between his lips. With his free hand, he stroked her where they were joined, swirling around and over the tiny core of her pleasure. He heard her moan from somewhere deep inside, and slowly, he began to move.
He plunged deep inside her, thrusting harder with each stroke. In a frenzied attempt to reach the very core of her, he lifted her by the waist while he devoured her breasts with his mouth. He rode her until she was writhing uncontrollably beneath him, her hips thrusting upward to meet every onslaught. He denied his fulfillment until he could bear it no more, fearing he might literally explode.
And when she convulsed around him, crying his name, he released himself into her with white-hot fury, pumping his seed somewhere deep inside. Twice. Three times.
The fury ebbed slowly, and Adrian buried his face in the valley between her breasts as he released her hands. And still she did not touch him. He could not have imagined that it would affect him so, but the absence of her touch crushed him. He waited for what seemed an eternity, but she lay limply beneath him, her arms once again spread wide on the bed. At last he rolled away in disgust, off the bed, and hitched his trousers up, feeling very much as if he had tumbled a tavern wench in some dark alley.
“Was that attention enough for you?” he asked bitterly as he retrieved his waistcoat, and glanced at her over his shoulder. She was curled into a ball, her head turned where he could not see her face. He almost hated her at that moment. Or himself. He really didn’t know which of them he loathed more. “Jesus, what is wrong with you? Can’t you answer me?” he demanded hopelessly.
She gave him no response; his heart lurched and the fury took hold again, refreshed by her silence. “Perhaps you need time to think about what it is you want so desperately that you would treat this union like some dockside assignation! So help me, Lilliana, if you ever treat our marriage bed like you did tonight, I cannot be responsible for my actions, you may depend on it.”
The Princess did not so much as move. Adrian turned and strode out of her room, his heart leaden in his throat.
Twelve
STANDING IN THE master suite of his London townhouse, Adrian stared out the window at the dreary, mist-filled night, reminding himself for the hundredth time it was just as well that he had left immediately for London. It was just as well because if he had seen her before he left, she might have provoked him to murder, and God knew he was capable. The more he dwelled on that extraordinary episode in her bed, the more unsettled he became.
Dammit, but guilt had returned in full force and was exacting its recompense.
He deserved it—he had taken her in a moment of anger, a sickening realization. It didn’t matter that she had reached her fulfillment, crying out his name as he had rammed into her. It did not change the fact that he had taken his wife like a wench, spilling his anger deep in her womb in a shattering climax.
Sighing wearily, he turned from the window. The worst was that he had not been able to stop thinking about her. This quiet despondency was making him believe that he was at last slipping into madness. He had to be—only a madman would feel the extraordinary pangs of longing after an experience like that. This, he thought miserably, was the continuing evolution of the quality of his mercy—he was captivated by a lunatic.
God help him.
He picked up the note he had received this afternoon. Arthur had heard he was in town from one of his solicitors; he and Kettering were to the exclusive Tarn O’Shanter for a round of cards, the note said. Did Adrian care to join them?
Did he? Adrian had not seen the Rogues since the terrible events at Dunwoody, and he was loath to renew that painful memory on top of everything else. But he was in dire need of an escape from Benedict, and the Tarn O’Shanter was one of those exclusive clubs where men like his brother rarely ventured. A wry smile snaked across Adrian’s lips. The Rogues had given the out-of-the-way Regent Street club its exclusivity, having discovered it was a haven from the mindless routs and balls, angry fathers and incensed lovers.
In a moment of decisiveness, he tossed the note aside, picked up his gloves, and headed for the Tarn O’Shanter.
Arthur Christian knew Adrian was not himself the moment he appeared at the door of the Tarn O’Shanter. Immediately surrounded by those who had not seen him since the infamous incident at Dunwoody, he greeted them with a lopsided smile and a faint shrug of the shoulders that suggested nothing affected him. Just like the old Albright might have done.
But having known Adrian for more than twenty years now, Arthur could see he was not the same old Albright. Something had definitely affected him—his eyes were hollow and dark, his bronzed skin oddly pale. Phillip, Arthur thought wearily.
“I told you.” Arthur glanced at Julian, whose long legs stretched in front of their corner table, his eyes narrowed above his frown as he watched Adrian. “The fool will never forgive himself, will he?”
Wordlessly, Arthur shifted his gaze toward Adrian again just as Fitzhugh clapped him on the shoulder as if he was the prodigal son returning home. “You look well, Albright, indeed you do! Marriage agrees with you!” he boomed cheerfully, and unconsciously adjusted his coat around his goddammed prized pistol. The man was an idiot.
“It suits me as well as any, I should think. If you will excuse me, Fitzhugh, I’ve come to divest Kettering of all his money.” With that, Adrian effortlessly broke away from the men gathered around him and sauntered toward the Rogues’ corner table.
“Speaking of marriage,” Julian drawled as Adrian approached, “you might have mentioned it to a body.”
A faint smile appeared on Adrian’s lips as he dropped into a leather chair. “It all happened rather quickly,” he said casually, and signaled a footman.
“I suppose as those things go, it’s better that it go quickly if it must go at all,” Julian responded with a grin. “But next time you are thinking of doing something so terribly rash, do give a fellow an opportunity to talk some sense into you. Where is the lovely little countess, by the by?”
“Longbridge. I’ve only come to Town for a day or so.”
“So,” Arthur said, “you’ve gone and done it, have you? And where did you find our Lady Albright? Or did I somehow miss your tale of sweet love?”
Adrian snorted. “Quite the romantic, aren’t you, Christian?” he muttered, and lifted the snifter the footman deposited on the table, actually beating Julian to it, which in itself was quite a feat. “Lilliana Dashell hails from Newhall, near the Park,” he offered after swallowing a mouthful of brandy. “Her family has been known to mine for years.”
Known to his family indeed! For a man who had never claimed a particular attachment to any woman, Adrian’s sudden plunge into matrimony was nothing short of extraordinary. “Seemed rather sudden,” Arthur remarked. “You never breathed a word of your intent”
Adrian merely shrugged. “My intent? Isn’t it inevitably every man’s intent?”
“Hell no,” Julian responded flatly.
Adrian shot him a cool glance. “Personally, I saw no point in waiting. It wasn’t as if she was going to make herself any better known to me in the course of some rustic courting ritual.”
That caused Julian to snort with delight. “Good God, did you know her a’tall?”
Adrian did not answer immediately, but glanced about the room, nodding to an acquaintance who caught his eye. “I can’t say that I did.” He frowned lightly. “Can’t say that it would have mattered, either.”
Ah, so it wasn’t Phillip who’d put that look in his eye, Arthur thought, and was oddly relieved. This woman, whoever she was, had done it. But what woman could affect Adrian Spence? He had always been so smooth with the ladies, preferring Madam Farantino’s stable to a mistress or debutan
te. It was easier that way, he had said, no complications. But God, Arthur had never seen a man look quite so miserable, with the sole exception of his brother Alex. But he had been—
He suddenly leaned back and gaped at Adrian.
He had seen that look before, on Alex, when he had ended his long-standing engagement to Mariaine Reese. Because he loved Lauren Hill—desperately, completely, and to the point of throwing away everything he had ever been. Alex had worn that exact same look during those dark hours when he could not fathom the depth of his feelings for her. Mother, Mary and Joseph, was it possible that Adrian …?
No. Absolutely not. Not Adrian Spence, of all men. Not this Rogue. Albright needed no one! But it was that look—God help him but Arthur knew that look.
Adrian scowled at Arthur’s strange grin. He was beginning to feel a little like a circus oddity; old friends peered curiously at him, as if trying to see from what well the insanity had sprung the day he had killed Phillip. Lords Dwyer and Parker, both of whom had been in attendance that day, kept stealing glimpses of him from over the tops of their cards, and Arthur and Julian kept observing him as if they expected him to do something. Honestly, he was on the verge of assuring the entire room that he had not killed anyone recently.
Instead, he asked Julian how his sisters fared, then tried to look interested, ignoring the looks in his direction as Julian ranted about one very pregnant and very emotional sister between several snifters of brandy. He tried to ignore Arthur, who kept staring at him as if he was desperate to ask something. He tried not to think of Lilliana, or the discomfort of being here without Phillip, or the gnawing guilt at having avoided his brother so he would not be forced to invite him along. It took three snifters of brandy and an expensive cheroot provided by Julian before he finally began to relax a little.
But Julian grew increasingly restless the further he fell into his cups. In the middle of some convoluted story, he suddenly muttered, “What in God’s name is everyone looking at?” Clearly irritated, he glanced over his shoulder at a group of men who had cast several furtive glances in their direction.
Arthur grinned around a cheroot clamped firmly between his teeth. “That is the fourth time you have asked, Kettering.”
“It’s rather irksome,” Julian growled. “I don’t care to be watched so closely.”
“You’ve had too much to drink, my friend. There is no one watching you.”
“Well they certainly aren’t watching you,” Julian countered, glaring at Arthur.
“They are looking for Phillip,” Adrian said blandly. When his companions swung startled gazes to him, he shrugged. “It will never be the same for us, and they know it. Once there were four, now there are three, and one of us is responsible for the reduction in our number.”
His words had the same, instant effect as a bucket of cold water. Julian snubbed his cheroot dead with a snort of disgust and leaned back. “You can’t go on punishing yourself, you know,” he said as he tried to fit a hand in the waist of his trousers. “Bloody well time you stopped dwelling on it if you ask me. It was a goddamned accident.”
“Is that so?” Adrian asked with more bitterness than he intended. “Thank you, Lord Kettering, but as it was I who killed one of our dearest friends, I find it rather impossible to stop thinking about it. Forgive me if that annoys you.”
“It not only annoys me, it infuriates me,” Julian snapped. “On my honor, if we’ve told you once, we’ve told you a thousand times. You didn’t kill him precisely—”
“What precisely would you call it?” Adrian shot back, and shook his head. “I don’t know why I am bothering … just look at you, soaked to the gills. You’re just like him—”
With a start, Julian came forward, and so did Adrian. Arthur quickly inserted himself between them and held up his hands. “Please God, can we never put it behind us? Look here, Albright, Phillip wanted to die. He chose a vile way to do it, but he wanted to die. Yes, yes, I know you reject that theory,” he said quickly as Adrian opened his mouth to deny it. “But no one else does. He was determined, and if you hadn’t done it, one of us would have before he gunned you down in cold blood. He killed himself. You happened to be the unfortunate method he chose to do it.”
Adrian looked from Arthur to Julian, both glaring at him, daring him to disagree. There was no point in dredging up the fact that Phillip would not have gunned him down, that he had shot well over his head and had not even cocked the second hammer. They would believe what they wanted, cope as best they knew how. But he knew. Lord God, he knew deep in his soul that Phillip would not have shot him.
His head was suddenly pounding.
“Yes, Arthur, Phillip killed himself before he ever arrived at Dunwoody,” Adrian muttered as he rubbed his forehead. “And we can only blame ourselves for it. If even one of us had understood his course of self-destruction, it might never have ended like that. I didn’t pay him heed, you know. I turned a blind eye.”
“The same could be said for all of us,” Arthur said wearily. “God knows how often I have lain awake at night, knowing that I might have prevented it—”
“Do you lay awake, Arthur?” Julian snidely interrupted, and gave them both an impatient look. “Well I did pay him heed. I saw everything, every bloody self-destructive act, and yet I didn’t do enough to help him. Can you imagine how that feels? I let him fall,” he snapped.
Yes, one of them had fallen hard, Adrian thought bitterly, and he’d be damned to eternal hell if he let another one fall. He glanced at Julian’s empty glass; he had drained several more snifters than his companions had, and it made Adrian angry. It was so like Phillip! Looking for a solution to his grief in a bottle! Adrian lifted his gaze to Julian, who had turned his attention to the back of the room, in search of a footman. “You drink like a fish. Just like Phillip did,” he snapped, nodding his head toward the empty glass.
With a groan, Julian threw up his hands. “Thank you, but I don’t recall inviting any one of my sisters to join us. So I’ve had a few brandies!” he blustered angrily. “Don’t worry about me, Albright. I am not in debt, I do not want to die, and I am quite capable of walking away from it!”
“Perhaps, but I would be vastly relieved if I thought you could pass a single day without drowning your guilt in whiskey,” Arthur interjected, which earned him a look of indignation from Julian. “You, too, Adrian,” he continued, undaunted. “Between the two of you, I’m not sure who is more worrisome.”
“Me?” Adrian fairly shouted.
Arthur calmly nodded his head. “You cannot deny that something is eating away at you. You look like hell, man.”
“How very kind of you.” Adrian snorted with exasperation. “But at least I am not tearfully sentimental. You, on the other hand, rather do sound like one of Kettering’s sisters!”
Resentment flashed in Arthur’s eyes. “Well, forgive me for the unpardonable sin of caring about the two of you. But I look at Julian, who is well into his cups more often than not, and you, looking rather desolate, and I know that I have not had a decent night’s sleep since Phillip died! I know if I had paid him more heed, if I hadn’t shut my eyes to what was happening, he might bloody well be here tonight, begging us to accompany him to Madam Farantino’s!” he exclaimed loudly.
A stunned hush fell over the table as several heads swiveled to see what the commotion was about. An awkward silence fell between them; Arthur shifted uncomfortably, and Julian twisted about in his chair, now apparently desperate for a footman. Adrian winced; the last thing he wanted to talk about was this, especially with his head pounding like a drum. But Arthur was right, and he bloody well knew it. They had lost Phillip, not so much because he had pulled the trigger, but because each of them had ignored what was happening, hoping it would go away, and pretending it was no cause for alarm. They had pushed it down with everything unpleasant, as they so often did.
“Bloody fools, the two of you,” Arthur muttered.
“Oh God, this is really so unnecessary,
” Julian groaned. “Let’s change the subject, shall we?”
“I just want to assure myself that not another of us will fall,” Arthur stubbornly reiterated.
“Then perhaps we should prick our fingers and swear our fealty to one another,” Julian sarcastically shot back, and finally catching the eye of a footman, anxiously motioned him over.
“We’ve a vow between us,” Adrian carefully reminded them. “We swore at Dunwoody to meet for the purpose of assuring ourselves another would not fall.”
“Oh Lord,” Julian moaned. “All right, all right, we’ve a vow. Enough of this now, before the world discovers how impossibly sentimental the two of you are! Come on, then, I am bored with this place. Shall we call on Madam Farantino? I am quite certain she has missed our smiling faces.”
“Now that would be a perfect antidote to this morbid conversation,” Arthur drawled, and pushed his brandy aside.
Madame Farantino’s. It had been a long time since Adrian had sampled the delectable flesh there. “Go ahead then, why don’t you? I’ll find my way home well enough,” he said, surprising even himself.
“Oh no.” His tone grave, Julian leaned forward and peered closely at Adrian. “Don’t tell me that rustic wife of yours has made you soft!”
Adrian chuckled. “I beg your pardon, but I am married.”
“Yes, and so are the majority of patrons at Madam Farantino’s. Surely you will not deny yourself pleasure when she is safely tucked away?”
“Leave him be, Julian. He is smitten with her,” Arthur interjected with a broad grin. “As smitten as Romeo was with his Juliet.”
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