Contents
Cover
About the Book
Also by Fredrica Alleyn
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Copyright
About the Book
Ambitious young interior designer Annabel Moss is delighted when a new assignment takes her to Leyton hall – home of the very wealthy Lord and Lady Corbett-Wynne. But the grandeur of the house and the impeccable family credentials are a façade for some shockingly salacious practices.
Lord james is spending an unusual amount of time in the stables while his idle son shows little interest in anything save his step-sister, Tania. Meanwhile, Lady Marina is harbouring dark secrets of her own. Annabel is drawn into a world of decadence where anything is allowed as long as a respectable appearance prevails. In an atmosphere of intensity and sexual secrecy, she becomes involved in a variety of interesting situations.
Also by Fredrica Alleyn:
The Bracelet
Cassandra’s Conflict
Cassandra’s Chateau
Deborah’s Discovery
Dramatic Affairs
Fiona’s Fate
The Gallery
Dark Obsession
Fredrica Alleyn
Chapter One
‘I CAN’T GO to Leyton Hall on my own!’ exclaimed Annabel, staring at David in disbelief.
David Crosbie, fifty years old and currently the most fashionable interior designer in the country, smiled at her. ‘Of course you can, Annabel. You’ve done enough renovations with me during the past three years to know what’s required.’
‘But that was with you,’ Annabel pointed out. ‘I’ve never done anything on my own.’
‘All the more reason to make a start. You’re twenty-three now. When Martin and I retire to the Seychelles you’ll be taking over the entire business. How can you do that if you’ve never worked on your own?’
Annabel ran her fingers through her long brown hair, pushing the unruly curls back off her face. ‘That won’t happen for years yet! Besides, I thought you’d start me off on something small. Lady Corbett-Wynne probably won’t accept a trainee. I wouldn’t if I were her.’
‘Darling girl, you’ve graduated from art college with Honours and worked alongside me for over three years. If that isn’t good enough for her ladyship then she’ll have to go elsewhere. I haven’t got the time to disappear into the Wiltshire countryside for what will undoubtedly be several weeks while she makes up her mind what she wants. I mean, look at her letter! Did you ever see anything less decisive in your life?’
Annabel smiled. ‘She does sound a bit unsure, but that’s why she’ll need you.’
‘No, it’s why she’s getting you,’ David corrected her. ‘You’ll bring fresh ideas and a much younger approach than I would. I’m getting tired of trying to salvage decaying country houses on tight budgets. Give me a London penthouse any day of the week.’
At that moment Martin Wells, David’s partner and long-time lover, joined them. He was ten years younger than David and whereas David was tall, slim and grey-haired, Martin was short, sturdy and with a mass of dark hair which looked in permanent need of a cut. Despite their physical dissimilarities they made the perfect couple. David was intense and prone to depression; Martin took life far more easily and had a keen sense of humour that not all of their clients appreciated.
‘What’s the trouble?’ he asked, pouring himself a cup of strong coffee.
‘I’ve just told Annabel I want her to take on the Leyton Hall job,’ explained David. ‘She doesn’t think she’s good enough.’
‘You’re good enough for anything,’ said Martin, sinking into a chair with the cup of coffee cradled in his hands. ‘God, how much did I drink last night?’
‘Too much!’ retorted David. ‘Did we wake you when we came in, Annabel?’
‘I hadn’t gone to sleep. I was trying to decide which shade of blue to use in Amanda Grant’s bathroom and …’
‘There you are, that’s precisely why I’ve chosen you for Leyton Hall!’ David said triumphantly. ‘You live your work. Night and day, awake and asleep. All you think about is interior decorating. From what I’ve heard you’ll need all that enthusiasm for Leyton Hall. I haven’t got it anymore, my dear, and that’s the truth.’
‘It will do you good to get away from us,’ said Martin, gradually beginning to feel more like a human being as the coffee took effect. ‘You need to meet some young people, socialise more.’
‘I don’t want to socialise. I love working here with you two. Besides, you’re my family. If my parents ever do come to London I doubt if they’ll think of looking me up. And if they did they wouldn’t recognise me. The last time I saw them I was seventeen!’
‘No one would mistake you for seventeen now,’ agreed Martin, looking at Annabel with detached interest. She always dressed well, and today she was wearing a navy and white striped jacket that ended about four inches above her knee and two inches below a matching mini-skirt. A crisp white blouse with a navy silk scarf tied in a loose bow at the neck completed the outfit and her slim legs were covered by opaque navy tights. The high-heeled navy shoes emphasised her shapely calves and not for the first time Martin wondered why she seemed to have attracted so few boyfriends during her time with them.
‘How am I going to meet young people at Leyton Hall?’ continued Annabel. ‘Lady Corbett-Wynne isn’t young, is she?’
‘No, early forties I’d guess,’ said David. ‘She’s Lord Corbett-Wynne’s third wife, rather pretty in a delicate way as I recall. Good bone structure too, but not young in the way you mean.’
‘There’s a son, though,’ said Martin. ‘I remember the Honourable Crispian very well indeed.’
‘There’s a girl too,’ said David. ‘She’s Lady Corbett-Wynne’s daughter, and I think she was adopted by her stepfather after the marriage. I’m not sure. I can’t remember her name, either, but she’s probably about your age, and they definitely both live at the Hall.’
‘It doesn’t really matter,’ said Annabel. ‘I’m not interested in the social side of things. It’s the work that interests me.’
‘You should be interested in more than work,’ said Martin. ‘At your age I don’t think I found much time for work. That came later, when passion had dimmed!’ He looked fondly at David and they both laughed.
Annabel sighed. She loved the pair of them and they’d been kindness itself to her, making her feel part of a family again, but she did wish they’d stop trying to push her into the arms of numerous young men. It wasn’t that she didn’t like men – she was beginning to think she had a low boredom threshold. No sooner had an affair started than she found herself tiring of the man in question. Recently she’d stopped bothering to take it that far; it only made it more difficult to disentangle herself without unpleasantness.
‘Have you asked Lady Corbett-Wynne whether it would be all right for me to take the job on?’ she asked David.
‘Not yet, but I intend to this very morning.’
‘And you really think I could do it?’
‘If I didn’t I wouldn’t give it to you. What you have to remember is that this is almost certainly a very bored lady with money to spend, time to kill and no taste at all. You’ll get a virtual free hand. Now, doesn’t that tempt you, even if the Honourable Crispian doesn’t?’
Annabel giggled. ‘I must admit it’s the more tempting pr
ospect of the two!’
‘One day you’ll discover the error of your ways,’ sighed Martin in mock sorrow. ‘You may know all there is to know about textures, colours and fabrics but when it comes to the pleasures of the flesh you’re an innocent abroad.’
‘I rather doubt that a few weeks at Leyton Hall will improve my knowledge in that direction!’ exclaimed Annabel, picking up her car keys. ‘Tell David I’ll meet him at the office. We’re meant to be seeing Amanda Grant at eleven-thirty, don’t let him forget.’
Remembering some of the stories he’d heard about Leyton Hall, Martin wasn’t sure that Annabel was right. If the rumours had any truth in them then she might return to London a changed woman. He hoped so. In his opinion she needed to realise that there was more to life than turning other people’s houses into beautiful homes. That was a very second-hand kind of satisfaction for an attractive young woman.
At the same time as Annabel was driving her way through the busy London streets, the occupants of Leyton Hall were slowly coming awake.
In his third-floor master bedroom, Lord Corbett-Wynne opened his eyes and mentally listed the things that had to be attended to that day. There were the usual estate matters, most of which he suspected his estate manager could handle standing on his head, and also the rather more daunting prospect of telling his wife that he’d invited their new neighbour over to dinner the following Friday evening. Neither of these two tasks caused him any great pleasure, but the third did – the matter of the new girl working in the stables. He’d caught sight of her the previous afternoon, her rounded buttocks tightly encased in jodhpurs as she mucked out Solomon’s stall. She’d looked up at him and smiled in what he could only describe to himself as a knowing way; it was the knowledge behind the smile that he intended to find out about this very morning. At the prospect his heavy, flaccid penis began to stir and he felt a thrill of excitement go through him. There was nothing he enjoyed more than breaking in his new grooms.
In the west wing of the house, Lady Corbett-Wynne had been awake for several hours. Her maid Mary had brought her Earl Grey tea and two slices of toast at eight-thirty and since then she’d been lying staring at the ceiling wondering whether today would be the day she’d hear from David Crosbie. She did hope so. She couldn’t wait to get her redecorating scheme under way. Running her hands absent-mindedly down the sides of her slender body she swung her legs out of bed and rang the bell.
Mary could run her bath, and then she thought that she might take a stroll round the grounds before attending to her needlepoint. For a brief moment it crossed her mind that at forty-four she was rather too young to be spending all her waking moments in solitary pursuits, but the alternative was far worse. At the memory of her husband’s amorous attentions, most of which had been bizarre and brought her no pleasure at all, she shivered. She was better off as she was now, but just the same there were times when she found herself imagining what it might be like if another man, more thoughtful and attentive to her needs, were to take her in his arms. Perhaps touch her where her fingers were roaming now, just between her thighs, the touch feather-light and undeniably sweet.
A tap on the door interrupted her thoughts and she quickly withdrew her hand and lay back on the bed again, astonished at her own behaviour. It must be the time of year, she thought as Mary began to run her bath. May was such a lovely month, and it always promised so much.
Back on the third floor, Lady Corbett-Wynne’s daughter Tania was also awake, but unlike her mother she wasn’t alone. She was lying crouched on all fours, her weight supported on her arms and legs while her stepbrother, the Honourable Crispian Corbett-Wynne, groaned beneath her as she clenched and released her internal muscles around his bursting erection. His hands cupped her firm upthrusting breasts tightly and when she ground her buttocks down hard against his lower abdomen he squeezed even harder, so that she whimpered with the delicious pressure.
‘Let me come, damn you!’ muttered Crispian.
Tania laughed. ‘Not until you apologise for flirting with Amanda last night.’
‘I wasn’t flirting, I was simply being polite. You know what Pa’s like. He wants me to marry her; surely you can’t blame me for making civilised conversation.’
His stepsister’s green-grey eyes were bright with malice and she suddenly sat upright facing away from him, ruining the steady build-up of tension that her skilled muscle movements had been arousing.
‘I think I’ll go for a ride before breakfast,’ she announced, and before Crispian realised what was happening she’d slid off him and was standing at the foot of the bed. ‘You’d better get back to your own room,’ she said sweetly. ‘What would your papa say if he found you here like this?’
Crispian glared at her. ‘You can’t just leave me now!’
‘I most certainly can. Perhaps we’ll finish later, after breakfast?’
‘I’ve got to go to some boring meeting with Pa and the estate manager.’
‘Too bad!’
‘You’re a bitch, you know that, don’t you?’ muttered Crispian thickly.
Tania picked up a brush and pulled it through her short auburn hair, smoothing it down into a pageboy style. ‘That’s why you love me,’ she declared.
Crispian stood behind her, his erection nudging against the cheeks of her bottom. ‘Bend over,’ he whispered. ‘Let me take you like this. You want it as much as I do.’
Tania shivered. He was right, she did want him, but he would have to wait. She liked to be in control, to keep him waiting until she drove him over the edge and he lost control. That was when she enjoyed it best; when he forgot everything except the sensations. ‘Later,’ she repeated as she started to dress. ‘Run off to Papa now. You don’t want to annoy him again, do you?’
‘I can’t afford to annoy him again,’ retorted Crispian. ‘If I’m not careful he’ll cut off my allowance, and then what would I do?’
Tania laughed. ‘You’d have to find a job. Or marry a rich wife.’
‘You know I’ll never marry anyone except you,’ Crispian said, suddenly fierce.
Tania’s eyes turned cold. ‘But I’m not good enough for your papa, am I? My mother was good enough for him, but he has his sights set higher for his son and heir.’
‘That’s because your mother’s a lady, and you’re not!’ Crispian taunted her.
Tania didn’t care. She knew that if she was more like her mother, Crispian wouldn’t be so enthralled, and she had no intention of leading the kind of life her mother did, shut up in the west wing doing needlepoint. She’d rather die.
Tania Corbett-Wynne was in another man’s thoughts that morning, apart from her stepbrother’s. As Sir Matthew Stevens walked around the Old Mill, a rambling seventeenth-century stone millhouse whose land adjoined Leyton Hall, he was thinking about the auburn-haired girl he’d seen riding near the boundary of his land. She’d glanced sideways at him the previous day when she’d passed him in the lane, as well.
Recently widowed, Matthew saw all women as a challenge. Since he stood six feet tall, had dark curly hair and a tanned face with an interestingly enigmatic expression he rarely had any difficulty in overcoming any initial opposition. Once he’d made his conquest he lost interest. It was rather like fox-hunting he supposed; it was the chase that provided the greatest thrill.
Whistling for his labrador which had gone off after an interesting scent, he wondered whether or not Tania would present much of a challenge. He doubted it, but it would still be worth the hunt. She was bound to know one or two interesting little tricks, and if she didn’t then he’d teach her some of his. Cheered at the prospect, and knowing that he would be dining with her family three days later, Matthew strode on. He loved May mornings.
At one o’clock when the estate meeting was over, Crispian and his father returned to the Hall for lunch. To the surprise of both of them, Crispian’s stepmother was waiting in the dining room. It was rare for her to venture forth from her own wing these days unless they were entertaining
, and her husband immediately thought something must be wrong.
‘What is it, Marina?’ he asked testily. He always became testy when unsettled.
She raised her perfectly arched eyebrows in a genteel expression of surprise. ‘Am I not allowed into the main part of the house? Strange, I imagined I lived here.’
‘Of course you live here, damn it, but it’s pretty difficult to remember that since you persist in shutting yourself off from the rest of us these days.’
‘I wanted to talk to you about redecoration,’ said his wife. Her voice sounded far more assured than she really felt.
Her husband’s face turned sullen. ‘I’ve told you, we can’t afford to spend a fortune. Things are hard enough as it is at the moment. Only this morning we were discussing …’
‘If you remember,’ his wife said in an icy tone, ‘I do have a considerable amount of money of my own. Some of that money I would happily use to civilise your family seat a little. Having failed with the human members I thought I’d turn my attention to the Hall itself.’
James, who could think of very little apart from the young groom he was due to see straight after lunch, did at least grasp that Marina was willing to spend some of her own money and he forced himself to smile at her.
‘In that case I’m sure we could find a way,’ he assured her.
‘I’ve also managed to secure the services of David Crosbie,’ his wife said, with what seemed to James to be a deceptively sweet inflection.
‘Good God! How much money are you planning to throw away?’ exploded James. ‘You must be mad. He’s the most expensive man in the country.’
‘He is also the best. However, it isn’t quite as bad as it seems. His assistant will be coming in his place. He assured me over the telephone this morning that she was highly qualified and extremely gifted. She will arrive on Friday morning and stay in the guest rooms for however long it proves necessary.’
‘A female! How old?’ asked Crispian.
Marina glanced at her stepson with distaste. ‘It never crossed my mind to ask.’
Dark Obsession Page 1