Whether Sebastian Grant had tickets, however, became immediately irrelevant, for the discussion was interrupted, and by the last person Annabel would have expected.
“Sorry, Sylvia,” Christian said, entering the dining room. “But I fear I must usurp your plans. Good morning, everyone.”
Annabel straightened in her chair, watching as he strode past the dining table to the sideboard where breakfast had been set out in warming dishes, but though he nodded politely to her mother and gave Dinah’s hair a tweak as he passed them, he didn’t glance toward her side of the table at all.
“Usurp my plans?” Sylvia echoed as he helped himself to bacon and eggs. “We haven’t seen you for two days,” she reminded him with mock severity. “And now you come waltzing in at breakfast, daring to usurp my plans?”
He paused to give her an apologetic glance over one shoulder. “I am the duke,” he said, and went back to filling his plate. “I’m entitled.”
“Well, I have to admit I’m delighted by this sudden interest in the social whirl, dear brother,” Sylvia said, laughing. “But what’s in the wind?”
“I’ve invited the Duke of Trathen to dine with us tomorrow night, and I’ve reserved a dining room for us at the Savoy.”
“Trathen?” Sylvia stared at her brother in surprise. “But we barely know the man.”
“You barely know him,” Christian corrected as he brought his plate to the table and sat down. “I’ve known him since Oxford. Fine fellow. Wealthy, influential, honorable.” He reached for the jam pot. “Unmarried, too.”
What was he up to? Annabel stared at him in bewilderment, but if she hoped for any sort of explanation, she was disappointed. He didn’t even look at her.
“And that reminds me,” he went on as he spread jam on his toast, “are we free on the seventh? I saw Sir Thomas Duncan at my club last night, and he invied us all to a picnic at Kew Gardens.”
“Did he, indeed?” Sylvia said, sounding as bewildered as Annabel felt. “I wasn’t aware Sir Thomas was in town.”
“Arrived a few days ago, I understand. Spied Miss Wheaton the other night at the ball, and was quite bowled over. Said she was the prettiest girl there, and he begged me for an introduction, so we’ve arranged a picnic. I hope you don’t mind, Miss Wheaton,” he added without looking at her.
“I think we’re free on the seventh,” Sylvia murmured. “Any other plans you’ve made on our behalf, dear brother?”
“Well, there’s Lord Pomeroy,” he went on. “Ran into him at Cook’s. I happened to mention our guests, and he asked if we’d be attending his mother’s water party on the fifteenth. I won’t be able to go, but I’m sure you’ll be able to do so. Pomeroy seemed very interested in meeting our guests, particularly Miss Wheaton.”
He was shoving other men at her, Annabel realized. But why? The question had barely crossed her mind before the answer came, and in her own words.
I want marriage. I want a husband and children.
He was giving her what she’d told him she wanted, she realized with a pang of dismay. Was this some horrible attempt to punish her for those words?
“Did he?” Annabel murmured, staring at him, trying not to believe it. “I suppose he’s single, too?”
“As a matter of fact he is.” Suddenly, he looked up, and in his face was something she’d never seen there before. Anguish.
He wasn’t punishing her, she realized. He was trying to be honorable. The look in his eyes ripped her heart apart, shredding all her desires but the one that was impossible. The desire to be with him.
“You saw Pomeroy at Cook’s?” Sylvia asked. “What on earth were you doing there?”
“Thought I’d go back to New York in a week or so,” he told his sister, his gaze on Annabel.
“New York?” Annabel and Sylvia cried at once, with equal surprise.
“Why not?” he countered, giving a careless shrug and tearing his gaze from hers to look toward his sister. “You’ve got things well in hand here, Sylvia, and I’ve got to continue with my own plans at some point.”
“I see,” his sister murmured, sounding disappointed. “But—”
He shoved back his chair and stood up, cutting off any more questions. “I do have my own life, you know,” he said, and walked out of the room, his breakfast unfinished, leaving Annabel, Sylvia, and everyone else at the table staring after him.
Christian left the house at once, but it took him all day and most of the evening before he felt sufficiently in control to return to Cinders. When he did, he picked up his letters from the tray by the door, stopped by the drawing room where Annabel and her family were gathered after dinner to issue a quick, polite good night from the doorway, and then he went straight upstairs to his bedroom.
Avoiding Annabel was the only decent thing to do. It was also the safest thing. If he was all the way on the other side of the house from her, she might be safe from him until he could leave London.
He occupied his time by reading his letters, which only served to depress his already glum spirits. The latest report from Saunders about the deteriorating condition of Scarborough Park was disheartening.
Even worse, Hiram Burke had sent him an invitation to dinner. Yesterday, he’d called on the American, who had arrived in town a few days earlier with his family and was leasing a house in Grosvenor Square. During their conversation, Christian had happened to mention those shares, and this request to dine was obviously Hiram’s answer. He had no doubt that if he accepted the invitation, Miss Fanny Burke would be at dinner, too, and since he could not accept either dinner or Miss Burke, he clearly had no chance of buying any shares in Hiram’s transatlantic telephone company.
Still, there was one bright spot in an otherwise thoroughly depressing slew of correspondence. Trathen had other plans for the following night, and would be unable to join them for dinner.
It made no sense to be relieved about that, since he’d gone to such pains to arrange it, but he was. His fellow duke was everything a girl wanting marriage could ask for—wealthy, of good character, amiable, and in search of a wife—everything, in other words, that Christian was not. And now that Trathen had declined his invitation, he was glad beyond all reason that he would not have to sit through dinner watching the other man begin courting Annabel and pretending he was happy about it.
He leaned back in his chair with a sigh. Trying to marry off a debutante when you wanted her yourself, when you wanted her so much that you felt sure you must be emanating lust every time you looked at her, was a hellish business.
He tossed Trathen’s letter aside and rose. Not bothering to ring for McIntyre, he stripped, tossed his clothes aside, and went to bed. Going to bed, however, didn’t mean he could sleep.
He didn’t know how long he lay there, but it was long enough to hear the other members of the household go to bed. In the distance, footsteps sounded on the stairs, good nights were said, and doors closed, but even after the house was utterly quiet, he was still wide awake.
He stared at the ceiling, listening to the mantel clock click away the seconds, one by one. He had to resign this ridiculous position as one of her trustees, for he couldn’t bear any more of this torture. As he’d told Sylvia, he had to get on with his own life.
The trouble was, he didn’t know what his life was anymore. He could go back to New York, as he mentioned this morning, carry on with the plans he’d made before becoming entangled with Annabel.
Just the thought of her made him ache with need, and he tossed back the sheets with an oath. This was ridiculous. There was no point in even trying to sleep.
He got out of bed. Naked, he walked over to window and pulled back the drapery a little. The moon was waning, but there was enough light for a walk, and it wasn’t raining. He turned from the window and reached for the clothes he’d tossed aside hours ago, the moonlight that spilled in between the draperies enabling him to find them in the darkened room. He pulled on his trousers, but before he could reach for his shirt, the pos
sibility of either a walk or sleep was taken entirely away from him.
The click of the door had him looking up, and when he saw Annabel slip inside his room, carrying a lamp and dressed for bed in a white nightgown and robe, he thought he must be asleep after all, because this had to be a dream.
“Annabel?” he said, frowning as he watched her close the door behind her. “What the devil are you doing in here? What are even doing at this end of the house?”
She pressed a finger to her lips. “Shh, not so loud,” she admonished in a whisper. “Someone might hear you. I came because I wanted to talk to you.”
“Talk?” His gaze slid down from her face, over the long braid of dark red hair that fell across her shoulder and down over her breast, all the way down to her bare toes peeping out from beneath the nightgown. Heat began pouring through his body.
“Christ have mercy,” he muttered, and turned to jerk the drapery beside him completely closed. If she expected him to stand here in his bedroom and hold a conversation, he’d have to hurl himself out of a window to avoid the torture. “Don’t you know the consequences of sneaking into a man’s room in the middle of the night? And carrying a lamp, to boot? What if someone was still awake and saw you?”
“I was very careful.”
“I daresay, but God, woman, don’t you know the risk in coming here?”
“Maybe . . .” She paused and licked her lips, looking suddenly nervous. “Maybe I thought you were worth the risk.”
He wasn’t. He ought to be noble and tell her that, but he didn’t. Instead, depraved soul that he was, he kept mum, hope rising inside him that this visit wasn’t a dream.
“I want you to tell me why,” she whispered. “Why are you pushing these men at me?”
That made him realize there was no way this could be a dream. In his dreams, Annabel would never come to his bedroom in the middle of the night to talk about other men. He wasn’t that far round the bend yet.
“What does it matter at this hour?” he asked, trying to make sense of out of these nonsensical circumstances. “And Trathen declined my invitation anyway. Prior engagement.”
“I’m glad. Because I don’t want him.”
“You haven’t even met him. You might like him,” he added a bit wildly. “He’s quite a decent chap.”
She made a sound of impatience, set the lamp on the dressing table beside his unlit one, and crossed the room to stand in front of him. “Will you answer my question please?”
He would if he could remember what it was, but she was standing in front of him in her nightgown, for the love of God, after he’d spent hours—days—thinking about her like some lovesick boy. How was a man supposed to answer questions of any sort in a situation like this?
He looked at her, unable to think, unable to move. In the silence, she stirred, coming closer, close enough that he caught the scent of orange blossoms. Its effect on his body was immediate. Just that, just the scent of her perfume, and all the desire he’d been keeping in check for three days came roaring back as if no time had passed since that night in Kayne’s gardens. Desperate, he took a step back, grasping at some shred of gentlemanly honor. “Annabel, you shouldn’t be in here. If anyone saw you come in—”
“No one saw me. Everyone’s in bed.”
He looked down, and his throat went dry at the creamy expanse of skin exposed by the open vee of her nightgown. “You have to go. Now.”
He lifted his hands to put them on her shoulders, thinking to turn her around and propel her toward the door, but he changed his mind at once and lowered his hands to his sides. Touching her was never a good idea. It always got him in trouble.
Unfortunately, she didn’t seem inclined to depart his room on her own. Quite the contrary, for she eased even closer to him.
“Why are you playing matchmaker?” she asked.
He stared into her upturned face, shaking inside with the effort of holding back. “You know why,” he said, his voice a harsh whisper in the quiet room.
“Yes, I do.” She moved another step closer. “I know you’re trying to do the right thing here,” she murmured, “but I don’t want any of those men, Christian.”
He was growing more desperate and more hopeful with each passing second. “You said you wanted marriage. A husband.”
For some inexplicable reason, that made her smile. “Well, the wedding doesn’t have to be next week.”
She closed the last bit of distance between them, coming so close that the tips of her breasts touched his chest, and he felt himself coming apart. He tried to step back, but he immediately hit the armoire behind him. “Annabel, for God’s sake—”
“I’ve been thinking things over, and I do want to get married. I meant that. But I also think I need to wait a bit between fiancés and just enjoy myself.” She rose up on her toes, still smiling, her lips so close, they almost brushed his. “Don’t you?”
She kissed him before he could answer, and he knew he’d lost. Any notions to do the right thing went out the window, his arms came up around her, and he broke the kiss only long enough to say, “God, yes,” before he captured her lips again and pulled her hard against him.
There was no sense trying to be honorable. He’d never been that sort of chap, and with her mouth on his, he saw no reason to change his ways now.
Chapter Fifteen
God, yes. To Annabel’s ears, Christian’s words sounded like the sweetest sweet talk she’d ever heard. His kiss was full, open against her mouth, and instead of fighting what she felt, she savored it, tasting him as deeply as he tasted her. This was what she’d come for, the hot, blissful beauty of his kisses. She wrapped her arms around his naked back, and his muscles felt hard beneath her palms, his skin scorching hot.
He broke the contact with her lips. “You’re sure about this?” he muttered, cupping her face, pressing kisses to her cheeks. “I’ve been trying to right the wrong I’ve already done you. This isn’t going to help.”
She smiled, hearing the note of desperation in his voice. “I know,” she whispered back. “But right now, I want you to stop trying to be heroic.”
“This isn’t a joke.” He pulled back enough to look straight into her eyes. “You know what it means if you stay the night with me.”
“I know what it means.” Her big, dark eyes looked steadily into his. “I’m no innocent virgin, Christian.”
She heard him catch his breath. “God damn us both for fools then,” he muttered. “We can’t make any noise,” he added, reaching for the sash of her robe. “If anyone were to find out, you’d be thoroughly ruined.”
Even as he said it, his fingers were tugging at the sash, and she gave a soft, shaky laugh. “I thought I’d have to work harder at seducing you after you tried shoving me at those other men.”
“I was seduced the moment you walked in here.” He pulled the robe apart, slipping it off her shoulders. It fell to the floor behind her, and he reached for the top button of her nightgown. He slid the tiny pearl buttons through their holes all the way down to where they stopped at her navel. Then, bunching the soft muslin in his fists, he dragged the nightgown off her shoulders, down her arms, and over her hips, letting it fall to the floor around her feet.
He stepped back, taking a moment to just look at her, and the sight of her lush, perfect breasts, her small waist and gorgeous hips made his throat go dry and his head spin. Her skin in the lamplight was the color of cream, and the sight of the dark curls between her thighs made him feel primal and savage.
He wanted to pull her down and take her without any of the time-consuming preliminaries. But he took a deep, steadying breath, striving to keep his own desire firmly in check, reminding himself that given the man she’d chosen her first time around, her previous lovemaking experience had probably been ghastly. He knew what she needed, and a quick, hot, primal coupling wasn’t it.
He kissed her mouth once more, then he wrapped an arm around her back and bent down to hook the other beneath her knees. He lifte
d her into his arms.
“Oh!” she breathed, a sound of surprise, as she entwined her arms around his neck. “Where are we going?”
“Well, making love on the floor is a bit uncomfortable. The bed would be better, don’t you think?”
He carried her to the bed, where he laid her in the center. But she glanced away when he reached for the top button of his trousers, and he decided he’d better keep them on for now. He stretched out beside her, and when his hard cock pressed against her thigh, she shied a bit, confirming his suspicion that despite her declaration of a moment ago, she was nervous.
“When I . . . when I did this before, it was on a dirt floor,” she said as if reading his mind, but she still didn’t look at him. Instead, she stared at the ceiling. “In a deserted shack down by Goose Creek. I could see . . .” She paused again and swallowed hard, laughing a little. “I could see the sky through the holes in the roof.”
“Not very romantic.”
“No, it wasn’t. In more ways than one.”
“I shall endeavor to do better.” He reached out, turning her face toward him so that he could kiss her again. He did it slowly—slow, soft, deep kisses, over and over, just as he had in the maze, until at last he felt her body relax. Then he pulled back to look into her face as his hand strayed to her breast. He cupped it, relishing the full, round weight of it against his palm. He toyed with her, smiling as he watched her eyes drift closed and her lips part, listening as her breathing began to quicken.
He bent his head, parting his lips over her breast, pulling her nipple into his mouth. She moaned softly as if in reply, and though he didn’t lift his head, he pressed the fingertips of his free hand to her lips as a reminder, for they could not afford to be overheard.
She nodded in understanding, and his hand slid down to her other breast, toying with it as he suckled her, relishing the way she shivered as his tongue gently drew the tip of her breast against his teeth again and again.
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