“Back to Briarhaven, you silly fool. I’m not wanted here and I won’t stay.”
“You didn’t tell me why you came in the first place.”
“It wasn’t important.”
“Good God, Diana, sometimes I’d like to wring your beautiful neck. You can be the most stubborn and uncommunicative woman I’ve ever known. Just admit to me that you’ve had a change of heart and want to apologize to me. Is that so hard to do?”
“Yes!” she snapped. “It’s very hard to do when you’ve got a woman parading around our house in a red negligee and acting as if she owns you.”
A delighted grin split Tanner’s sensual lips. “Annabelle wasn’t wearing her red negligee just now.”
“But she has, I bet.”
“I guess so,” he said with all seriousness, “but I’ve never noticed. You’re the only woman I think about or want, and it’s damned distressing to be so in love that pretty women hold no allure for me. If you don’t rescue me by apologizing to me, Diana, I might have to enter a monastery.”
“You’re definitely not cut out for that sort of life,” Diana agreed, and noticed a definite leer in his eyes. “So I suppose I will have to apologize to you.” Diana’s face crumbled suddenly, and she started to cry. “Oh, Tanner, I’m so sorry for not trusting you. Clay told me what you did. I should have believed in you. Forgive me, please for … give … me.”
Barely a second passed before Diana felt the warmth of Tanner’s lips pressing against her own. Hungrily, she kissed him back, realizing that he had forgiven her, that with Tanner, words weren’t always important. “I’ve missed you so much,” he breathed between kisses. “I’ve been miserable without you, so grumpy and unpleasant that it’s a wonder Cammie and Curtis didn’t shoot me.”
“I’m glad they didn’t,” she told him, “otherwise I wouldn’t be able to do this.” With nimble fingers Diana began unbuttoning the front of his jacket and pulling it off.
“We have guests,” Tanner reminded her, but the way he held her told her he’d forgotten them.
“That never stopped us before.”
“And it won’t now.”
Fiery sparks, as brilliant as diamonds, exploded between them when Tanner pulled at her cloak. Diana trembled with raw anticipation; her body ached for his possession and instinctively she pressed closer against him, heedless that her cloak fell about her feet. The warmth of Tanner’s hands when he reached into her bodice and temptingly caressed one of her breasts nearly undid her.
“You are a hungry wench,” he whispered against her ear.
“Hmm, hmm, but only for your expert touch, Tanner, never anyone else’s … ever.”
His mouth slid sensuously along her neckline, findings its way to her collarbone and coming to rest atop the tempting swell of her breasts. With ease, Tanner pulled her gown past her shoulders at the same time as her camisole gave way, baring her enticing bosom to his lusty gaze. “You’re more beautiful now than you’ve ever been,” he praised as he worked the lacings at the front of her gown lose. “Especially now.”
“Now?” Diana was so lost in her own passion that she didn’t realize that Tanner wasn’t blind to her condition.
He smiled and placed his hand upon her abdomen. “Our baby,” he reminded her. “I only received Marisa’s letter telling me about the baby yesterday. There was a postscript at the bottom from your Aunt Frances, taking me to task for not coming home.”
Diana’s high color faded some. “Are you angry with me for not writing you that I was having a child?”
“Some.”
“I’m sorry, I should have. I wanted to share my joy with you, but I’ve acted like a fool for weeks. You really shouldn’t forgive me at all.”
Tanner finished with the last remaining lace and watched while Diana shrugged out of the gown. “With the way you look now, my sweetheart, I’d be foolish to be angry at anything you did.”
Diana immediately came into his arms again, wanting, aching for him. Powerful arms lifted her gently from her feet and placed her on the bed. Diana’s eyes glazed with desire as she watched Tanner undress, knowing in her heart of hearts that no man could ever be as handsome or strong or forgiving. She was so lucky to have his love, and from now on nothing would mar their happiness.
Tanner walked across the room and bolted the door. Smiling at him, Diana was more than ready for his kiss when he joined her on the bed. Almost instantly she felt his mouth move from hers and seek her breasts. Pressing them together, she made them more available for his greedy feast, moaning when he drew a lush mound into his mouth and erotically tugged upon her nipple.
His hands journeyed along her thighs, coming to rest near the soft down that shielded her femininity from his rapacious gaze. With expert fingers he found it, stroking and priming until Diana could stand no more of his torment that was both torture and heaven. “Oh, Tanner, that feels so wonderful,” she panted and writhed wantonly upon the bed. “I want … you.”
“Is it safe?” he asked in concern, but his face was dark with passion. “I don’t want to hurt you or the baby… .”
“If you don’t, you’ll hurt me worse,” she told him, and kissed him with such fire that her intention was clear.
Rising above her, Tanner straddled her and inch by heart-stopping inch, he slid into her. Her breath caught in her throat and she exhaled on a wave of blinding passion. Her body responded instinctively to the rhythm of his strokes. They moved in unison, their bodies glowing like twin torches in the dark of night, flaring and straining for the ecstasy. Diana sensed that Tanner held his passion back, probably because he didn’t want to hurt her or the baby. But Diana wanted all of him, and she pushed her body into his, writhing against him, communicating as no words could how much she wanted him. It was then he lost control and gave her all she craved, pushing them both beyond the earthly bonds to spiral and merge with the universe.
“I think I finally got it right,” Diana said later.
Tanner kissed her. “You’ve got it down to an art.”
“I owe you so much, Tanner, much more than I can ever say to you or repay. You’ve taught me passion… .”
“Shh, Diana.” He placed his fingers on her mouth. “Whatever I’ve done for you, I’ve done out of love. I want you to remember how much I love you.”
Diana shifted her weight and moved behind him. Her fingers gently traced the scars on his back. “You suffered the sting of the whip because of Kingsley’s lie about me. I’m surprised you forgave me at all, but you did forgive me, even after you thought I had told Kingsley and Harlan that you tried to rape me. You never mentioned the incident to me because you loved me and didn’t want to bring me pain. But I wish you had told me. I would have understood so many things.” Her lips touched each scar, tenderly kissing every inch.
“Oh, God, Diana!” Tanner pulled her to him, and tears streaked his face. “I never wanted you to know about that. Who told you?”
“Your mother. She hates me, and I can’t blame her. You suffered because of me.” Diana held onto him tightly, knowing that this man truly loved her. “Don’t cry,” she crooned to him as if he were a small child. “Everything’s all right.”
Tanner framed her face in the palms of both his hands. “I’m going to spend the rest of my life making amends to you. There are so many wasted years…”
“Time is never wasted where love exists,” she whispered. “Our love wasn’t destined to happen years ago, but now it is. Think of the time we spent in preparation for this very moment. No matter what we both suffered in the past, we’re free to love now, to touch and kiss. We belong to one another, always and forever.”
“Forever,” he said and kissed her forehead.
“And soon we’ll have a daughter. So you see, our love was predestined.”
Tanner didn’t stifle the grin that rose to his mouth. His hand tenderly massaged her abdomen. “You seem certain we’re having a girl. If so, I’d say from the look of things, she’s going to be a big gir
l. Maybe she’ll be able to lend a hand in the fields when she’s older.”
“Oh, Tanner, you’re impossible!” Diana pretended outrage. “All women look like this when they’re expecting. Don’t they?”
“No,” he said and drew her back down upon the pillows, and fondled the spot between her thighs. “Not all expectant women look like you. If they did, their husbands wouldn’t get any work done but would spend all their time in bed making love to their wives.”
“That seems like a very pleasant way to pass the time,” Diana said, growing breathless and shaking anew with desire.
“Oh, it is,” Tanner agreed and kissed her until she could no longer speak.
~
Annabelle lounged on Marisa’s bed in the Delaune home, radiantly flushed after just having made love to Samuel. In fact, if the truth were known, she barely paid any attention to Samuel, who now puffed on a cheroot. He could be anyone as far as Annabelle was concerned. After she’d finished with the man who bedded her and made certain she’d received her own gratification, she wanted only to sleep for a while. But apparently that wasn’t to be the case tonight.
“I think we should discuss something,” Samuel began, grinding the cheroot on a porcelain tray that rested on the bedside table.
“Can’t it wait?” she asked testily. “I’m so utterly drained.”
Samuel didn’t hide his smirk. “You are a lusty piece who requires quite a ride before you tire, and that’s what I love about you.” He stroked her rounded derriere. Despite her protest of tiredness, Annabelle responded instantly. Samuel, however, got out of bed and pulled on a dressing robe. “I think you should know my plans.”
“What plans, Samuel?” Annabelle resolutely sat up and arranged herself against the pillows, pulling the sheet about her. There would be no more play tonight.
“In case you haven’t realized it, we’ve lost this war. Yorktown’s fall nearly three weeks ago is more or less the end. I expect that soon we’ll be packing it up and sailing for England. God knows I’ll be glad to return.”
This news was a bit startling to Annabelle, who’d been a spy for a number of years and couldn’t imagine what it would be like when the British were permanently gone. But unlike Samuel, she had no real desire to return to England. She’d had an unhappy life there, filled with too many things she’d rather forget. “I fail to see how any of this shall affect me. Certainly I’ll miss you, but I have a life here.”
Samuel gave a huge guffaw. “With Tanner Sheridan, I presume. Well, think again, old girl. If Sheridan wanted you at all, you would have been in his bed tonight and all those other nights, but instead you come sneaking over here. When are you going to accept what’s offered you instead of always reaching for the unattainable? Or is the allure in trying to have something you know you can’t?”
Sometimes Samuel amazed her. Of all the men she’d ever known, he was the only one who seemed to know what drove her. And she had to admit that he was a good lover, but he wasn’t wealthy. Why was it that all of the men she could have cared about never had money? Why did she constantly make the same mistakes over and over? Either she thought she loved a man she couldn’t have or she got rid of one she could have had only to realize too late that she’d erred. Like with Tanner.
“Maybe I enjoy reaching for the moon,” Annabelle confessed. “It’s so much farther away than a brass ring.”
“But, Annabelle, the moon is impossible to reach, unless you can sprout wings or somehow wish yourself there.” Samuel came and sat beside her and took her hand. “I love you. For the first time in my womanizing existence, I’ve fallen in love. You haven’t a clue what that means, I can tell you don’t. Well, I’ll tell you that over the years I’ve been a faithless cad, a man who’d have pulled up the skirts of any woman and had my way with her. I had convinced myself that I was such a handsome piece of work that any woman would fall willingly under my spell with little effort on my part. With you, I’ve tried harder than I thought possible to make you love me. Annabelle, I want to marry you.”
“Oh, Samuel, please, I’m going to cry if you keep this up. I don’t want to marry you. You’re too poor. Tanner is my last hope at getting what I want out of life. I can make him want me again, I can do it.”
Samuel stared at her a long time, and Annabelle began to fidget. Finally he sighed and handed her her dress. “You better leave now. My driver will take you back to the Sheridans.”
“But … but I’m not ready to go yet.”
“I want you to leave.”
“Samuel…”
“Go, Annabelle.”
Stiffening her shoulders, Annabelle got up and started to dress. She’d have cried if she hadn’t been so annoyed by Samuel’s highhanded treatment of her. What had gotten into him? If he loved her as he said he did, he shouldn’t behave so callously toward her. “Will I see you before you leave Charlestown?” she asked, though she wasn’t certain why she cared if she did or not.
“I doubt it.”
“Good bye then, Samuel.”
Annabelle headed for the door without looking back, expecting him to call out to her and forget all of this silliness. They’d spend the night together and everything would be forgotten. However, she didn’t hear a word. Departing the house with as much dignity as she could muster, Annabelle stepped in a huff into the carriage that waited outside the house.
The driver started off, the dark night enveloping the interior. No carriage lantern had been lighted. Annabelle found this oversight most baffling since Samuel’s driver was quite efficient, but she didn’t dwell upon it. Instead, Samuel’s marriage proposal and his departure weighed heavily upon her.
Suddenly a creaking noise drew her out of her reverie. The hair on the back of her lovely neck stood on end, for now Annabelle sensed a presence in the carriage. It was a man. She knew it. She smelled him, as one grown long accustomed to the male scent. And as far as scents went, this man needed a good washing. The stench was odious. Yet she also knew he didn’t want her body; he wanted something else. She could tell because he didn’t grab for her.
“I know there’s someone here,” she slowly said. “What do you want? Who are you?”
“The question isn’t so much what I want but what you want, Annabelle Hastings,” came the disembodied voice.
“And just what might that be, sir?”
They passed under a street lamp at that instant and Annabelle saw the bearded man, instantly taking in his ragged attire and the feral gleam shining in his greenish-brown eyes. She shuddered in revulsion, but she’d dealt with worse in her time. “Tanner Sheridan, my dear,” he answered. “Do exactly what I say and he’ll be yours. All yours.”
By the time Annabelle had heard out the man and had returned home to sleep in the room across from Tanner and Diana’s, she didn’t find the man in the carriage to be so revolting.
18
Diana thought they made an odd threesome: Tanner, Annabelle, and herself whenever they took their meals. She knew that if she demanded that Annabelle leave, Tanner would send the woman packing, but Diana didn’t say a word about the beautiful woman’s presence in her home. In fact, Tanner was the one who finally brought up the subject the day after Diana’s arrival. “I’ll tell her to go,” he proclaimed. “I’m certain Annabelle can make other arrangements. Sure of it. Samuel Farnsworth admitted to me that he’s in love with her and wants to marry her.”
“Poor Captain Farnsworth.” Diana woefully shook her head but she was smiling. “Annabelle is welcome here, Tanner, for as long as she wants to stay. There’s no need to put her out on my account.”
Diana recalled Tanner’s stunned silence. She was a bit stunned herself for her liberal attitude. But now as she swallowed a sip of her wine and sweetly smiled at Annabelle, who was regaling Tanner with gossip about acquaintances they had once shared in common, Diana knew she’d done the right thing by not forcing the hussy to leave. Annabelle was up to something, she just knew it, but what she couldn’t discern. The
woman had been more than friendly to her, given the odd circumstances. Diana believed Tanner when he told her nothing had happened between them since New York, though Annabelle constantly made sly references to the contrary. Annabelle must realize that Tanner wanted to be rid of her; most of the time he just tolerated her or was indifferent. And she treated Diana so sweetly, always casting a ready smile in her direction, that Diana knew Annabelle was false. But what was she up to? This is what Diana aimed to discover.
When Tanner reached for a cheroot after dinner, Annabelle was at his elbow, ready to light it for him. “My, Annabelle, you are accommodating,” Tanner noted. “But I could have done that myself.”
“Oh, posh, Tanner, I just wish to be useful. I am a guest here and don’t want to wear out my welcome.” Annabelle glanced at Diana, who sat at the opposite end of the dining table. “And, may I say, Mrs. Sheridan, that you’ve made me feel so at home. Thank you so much.”
“You’re quite welcome, Miss Hastings.” A becoming smile fringed Diana’s mouth. “May I call you Annabelle? And you can call me Diana.”
Annabelle clapped her hands in glee, almost like a child. “I should like that!”
Confusion, and a touch of suspicion, clouded Tanner’s eyes, yet he said nothing. After the meal had ended he went into his study and the ladies retired to the parlor, where Cammie placed a silver tea service and dutifully poured both women a cup of the warm brew before leaving.
“Cammie is a most dutiful servant,” Annabelle noted as she sipped her tea.
“Yes, she keeps an eye on everything around here. Nothing escapes her notice.”
“Really?”
“Yes, Annabelle, and to prove how nothing gets past her, just this evening she told me that she discovered you in our bedroom after Tanner and I left for church this morning. I’d appreciate knowing what you wanted there.”
“I was looking for an earbob I’ve misplaced, and I thought it might have been in there. I’m sorry if I’ve overstepped my bounds, Diana.”
“Please don’t enter our bedroom again, Annabelle,” Diana said, her voice dripping with honey. “But if you’d like, I’ll have Cammie search the room for you.”
Savage Deception (Liberty's Ladies) Page 24