My Lady Rival

by Ashley March

  A lex chuckled as she disappeared through the doorway. “Good night, Jo.” Her voice drifted back. “Good night, A lex.”

  He wouldn’t let Willa go. Not yet.

  Chapter 21

  As Willa sat before her dressing table while Ellen worked on her hair, a knock came at the door. Willa groaned and waited for Ellen to halt and step away so she could rise.

  Willa opened the door with a smile. “Oh. Hello.”

  Half her hair hung down her head, she wasn’t wearing her slippers yet, she was fairly certain a smudge of chocolate stained the corner of her mouth, and A lex Laurie stood on the opposite side, fist still raised. He returned her smile and bowed. “Good evening to you, Miss Stratton.”

  Willa rubbed a knuckle at the corner of her mouth. “What are you doing here?” A lex shook his head and leaned toward her. “You missed it.” He touched his thumb to her lips.

  Willa narrowed her eyes. “If you’re trying to help me with the chocolate on my face—and I assure you I don’t welcome your help—may I point out that it is on the other side of my mouth.” Her lips moved against his thumb as she spoke, and it was almost like a caress.

  Ridiculous, she corrected herself. It was nothing like a caress; it was simply an unmoving thumb.

  Or rather, it had been an unmoving thumb. “A ha!” A lex said, his smile growing wider as he slowly traced the line of her lips to the other side of her mouth. His eyes grew dark. “Yes, there it is. A ll gone now.” Lowering his hand to his side, he added, “Glad to see you’re enjoying the presents you asked me to stop sending you.”

  Willa scowled. “A gain, I ask you: what are you doing here?”

  “I wanted to see you.”

  She stared at him, then started to close the door. His foot caught in the space between the door and the frame.

  “I love you.”

  She stared at the door, her mouth still open.

  “Willa, is everything all right?” Sarah poked her head around the corner into the antechamber, frowning at the foot in the opening.

  Willa waved her away.

  “Would you mind opening the door again?” A lex asked. “I’d like to give you your present.”

  He loves me. He loves me. He loves me.

  “A nd my foot hurts, too.” He paused. “Just a little, though.”

  “You said you loved me.”

  “You said you loved me.”

  “I did. I must confess I was sort of hoping you would say you loved me, too.” Her heart slammed against her ribs, and she noticed her breath was coming fast as well. “A nd if I don’t?”

  “Then I will make you love me, of course, with my charming ways and handsome face. But first you have to open the door, Willa.” She did, swinging it wide until they were face-to-face. Or rather, nose to shoulder until she looked up.

  “There you are.” He smiled at her, although it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Do you remember when we were at the inn in Northamptonshire and you asked me who I was?” His voice was low, almost hoarse.

  “Yes.” Only now did she take the time to study his face, to see the dark skin beneath his eyes, the weary lines creasing at the corners of his mouth. Her hands itched to smooth over his face, to erase the tiredness etched into his skin, to pull his mouth down to hers.

  “I am still a man who wants you. I will never stop wanting you.” Willa stepped forward. Her breasts brushed against his chest.

  He sucked in a breath and raised his hands to frame her face. He kissed her.

  Softly, gently, reverently. “But I would be lying if I said that wanting you is enough. I love you, Willa Stratton. More than I could express in any letter, more than I can tell you, standing here now. Don’t leave me,” he whispered against her lips. “Don’t leave me.”

  He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tight against his chest, opening her mouth to stroke inside. Coaxing her, wooing her. A nd Willa let herself surrender to him there in the doorway, his kiss consuming every thought and every doubt, every fear.

  Too soon he pulled away, chuckling breathlessly. “I actually came here to give you a present, not to tell you that. That was to come later.” Bending down, he lifted a white box from beside his feet, then handed it to her with a crooked smile.

  “A thank-you gift. I promise I have no ulterior motives, although it may seem like I do when you open it.”

  “A thank-you? For what?” The box was light in her palms, as if it contained nothing but air.

  “For helping me to see past my own fear. Go ahead. Open it.” Willa held the box in one hand and opened the flaps with the other. She peeked inside, but it was too dark, and she put her hand in the box. Her fingers smoothed along something soft, a cloth that felt like satin or silk. She met A lex’s eyes, blushing at the look in his gaze, as if he were remembering their time at the Three Crows, as if he were undressing her in his mind now.

  She drew out her gift. “A pink chemise.” She smiled. “A t the opera—”

  “Yes. I remember everything you say, you know. A s I said, this is a thank-you gift. Thanks to you, I now have twelve investors who have already agreed to help Laurie and Sons with our move into developing the nonsaturation process on a large scale. You, my darling, are holding ‘one of the greatest inventions of this large scale. You, my darling, are holding ‘one of the greatest inventions of this century.’”

  Willa laughed softly as she returned the chemise to the box. “I hope you don’t intend to make it a habit of quoting my words back to me all the time.”

  “Only the ones where you continually compliment me and my inventions. A nd when you tell me you love me, too.”

  Willa looked down. She closed the box. “Thank you, A lex. I’m glad I could help you. Truly. Hopefully in some small way it makes up for the deeds of the evil princess in the past.”

  His hand touched her wrist. “You sound as if you’re still intending to leave.”

  “I can’t stay.” She ached all over, her chest and belly. No, she was numb, her limbs heavy and almost unable to move. “Good-bye, A lex.” Tugging her wrist from his hand, she stepped back and shut the door.

  Chapter 22

  As Alex stayed in Holcombe’s bedchamber, at first he thought the image at the foot of his bed was the dead earl’s ghost, finally come to fulfill all of Kat’s predictions and haunt him.

  “A lex.”

  He came fully awake at the ghost’s whisper, blinking against the shadows.

  “Willa?”

  She moved toward him, sliding her palms along the edge of the bed. “You screamed a little. A re you all right? I didn’t mean to scare you.” A lex snorted. “I didn’t scream. A nd what are you doing here? I’m not complaining, mind you; I’m just curious how you came to be in my house, in my bedchamber, in the middle of the night.”

  “Thomas let me in,” she whispered, and A lex knew he loved her without a doubt when she didn’t say anything more about him screaming at a ghost.

  “I think I like Thomas the best of all the servants.” A lex sat up and scrubbed his palms over his face, then looked at her again. “Holy God.” She smiled, smoothing one hand down the side of the chemise, its color the shadow-kissed pale gray of the night. A lex’s gaze followed the slide of her hand past her hip, then returned to the scalloped oval of her bodice where her breasts threatened to spill out.

  “Thomas didn’t see you like this, did he?”

  “No.”

  “Good, because even if I liked him best, I’d have to dismiss him if he saw my wife dressed in nothing but her shift.”

  She stilled, standing beside him. “You truly want to marry me?” He reached for her hand, pulled it to his lips. “More than anything, my love.” Her breath hitched. “Even though I’m not part of the ton?” He kissed the back of her hand, the valleys and hills of her knuckles, then turned her wrist over and kissed her palm. “You have to realize that you’d be accepting my family in addition to me. Even if the nonsaturation process failed now, even if I lost every
thing I had, even if your father burst through that door with a gun in his hand. You might not want me then, but I—”

  “I love you, A lex.”

  His throat got caught on the rest of his words, and he swallowed. She’d said it.

  It must be true. She couldn’t take it back. “I love you, too, Willa.” They stared at each other in the shadows, her hand in his, until he finally laid his other hand upon her hip and leaned forward. “Come here,” he said, and pulled his other hand upon her hip and leaned forward. “Come here,” he said, and pulled her toward him.

  She climbed onto the bed and leaned over him, the braid of her hair gleaming white over her shoulder. A lex lifted his hands to her face and stared. A tease of a smile played at the corners of her lips, and her eyes shone in the darkness. A lex released a long breath. “My God, Willa.”

  Her smile widened. “What?”

  “You’re beautiful.” He pulled her down to lie across his chest as he captured her mouth. His hands worked at her braid to loosen her hair. He’d only seen it unbound once before, and suddenly to see it that way again was all he wanted in the world.

  That, and to stay like this with her, forever.

  With a laugh he broke their kiss, then appeased her when she protested by placing brief kisses against the corners of her mouth, across her cheeks. “I’m afraid you’ve turned me into a hopeless creature who doesn’t want to live without you,” he murmured. “You won’t leave now, will you?”

  “No,” she replied quietly. “I’ll never leave you.”

  No other words were needed. The soft sound of sighs and gasps punctuated each movement as he helped her to remove the chemise and straddle his hips.

  A lex arched beneath her and moaned at the brush of her hot wetness over his cock. She leaned over him, teasing his mouth with her breasts as she slid down his length, her spine warm and supple beneath his palm.

  A low hiss, a long moan.

  Her loose hair flowed down on either side of his vision until all he could see was Willa, rocking steadily above him, her head tilted back, shadowed with her own pleasure. He met her downward stroke with a push of his hips and she gasped.

  “A lex.”

  Willa paused, bowed over him, her body still vibrating from the sensation.

  “A hhh.” She slid down again, a sinuous movement.

  She loved this position, loved watching his face below her. Sometimes he stared up at her, his gaze locked with hers. Sometimes he watched her breasts hungrily and caught them in his hands, driving her pleasure higher. Other times he closed his eyes and pressed his lips together, as if he couldn’t handle any more.

  Willa stroked a finger down his cheek. His eyes opened and met hers. Smiling, she rode him faster, harder, until only breathless staccato moans mingled with the creaking groan of the bed broke the night’s silence.

  The first acute pinpoints of ecstasy fled to her fingertips, her toes, and Willa cried out, clutching his shoulders. He urged her on, his hands firm on her hips, and she shuddered over him, then collapsed onto his chest as he spilled his own release inside her.

  Not on the bed or the sheets. Finally, he made her his.

  He wrapped his arms tight around her back afterward. Willa breathed in the scent of his skin at his throat: warm, male, salty with sweat. She wondered at the scent of his skin at his throat: warm, male, salty with sweat. She wondered at the sweetness inside her chest, a fullness she couldn’t name. It had been building ever since she met him, but was only now complete.

  “I love you, A lex Laurie,” she whispered.

  “I love you, Willa, though we’re going to have to see about changing your surname very soon.”

  “I agree.”

  A few minutes later, she said it again: “I love you.” Then she sighed and mumbled, “I’m afraid you’re going to have to push me off. I don’t think I can ever move again.”

  The low rumble of his laughter vibrated beneath her, and suddenly she knew: Joy.

  “Click here for more books by this author”

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  enchanting Victorian romance

  from Ashley March

  Romancing the Countess

  Available now from Signet Eclipse

  London, A pril 1849

  As on most every other night, Leah lay in the center of the bed and watched the shadows cast from the firelight flicker across the canopy. The steady lash of rain and wind rattled the windows in their cases, a buffer against the usual silence.

  Lightning flashed through the room, and her breath caught as she stared at the illumination of silver-threaded flowers overhead. Even if the bedchamber had been suffused in darkness, she still could have recited each detail of the bed’s rococo-style construction. The fluted mahogany posts with their serpentine cornices. The shallow frieze of interwoven palmettes and draperies of lush, midnight velvet. The feet fashioned as lion heads below and the domed canopy above. When the lightning came again, Leah measured her breath, anticipating the accompanying growl of thunder.

  She imagined the women who had come before her: her husband’s mother, his grandmother. Had they, too, stared at the canopy so long that they began to dream of its embroidered ribbons and flower garlands, of shimmering, silvery threads and roses turned black by the shadows? Had hours and hours passed until they imagined they could see each impeccable stitch, counting them only to forget the number when a sound downstairs erupted from the silence, startling them into awareness?

  With her heart pounding, Leah waited for the sound to transform into footsteps up the stairs, to distinguish itself into the pattern of Ian’s steady, swaggering gait.

  How foolish she’d once been to admire the way he walked—to admire his easy grin, the golden shine of his sun-swept hair . . . anything about him. A nd how even greater a fool she was now to dread his arrival into her bedchamber, when she knew he would easily accept her plea of a headache. He might even be glad for the reprieve.

  Still, as the echo of footsteps climbed within her hearing, she remained in the center of the bed. Neither on the left nor the right, but rigidly in the middle, as if the few feet on either side could serve to sufficiently delay the moment when he leaned across her and began stroking her breasts in solicitous, husbandly regard.

  He could have spared her that, at least.

  Leah’s breath hitched at the sound of footsteps in the corridor. Then, slowly, she sighed with relief. It wasn’t her husband. These footsteps were too hasty, the stride too short. Her gaze retreated from the door to the canopy overhead, her fingers released their stranglehold on the counterpane, and she began counting the stitches again.

  One, two, three, four . . .

  “Madam?”

  Leah’s gaze stumbled over the width of the ribbon and flew toward the direction of the housekeeper’s voice.

  “Mrs. George? I apologize for disturbing you . . .”

  “No, no. Not at all,” Leah called. Tearing the covers aside, she hurried across the

  “No, no. Not at all,” Leah called. Tearing the covers aside, she hurried across the room. A nything to leave the bed. She had already opened the hallway door and raised her arm to invite Mrs. Kemble inside when she froze, arrested by the housekeeper’s expression. Gone was the woman’s usual implacable cheerfulness; in its place was a face worn with time, each wrinkle sagging with the weight of her age. Her brows were lowered, her teeth buried in her upper lip, and the hands clasped at the front of her waist trembled as she met Leah’s eyes.

  “I’m sorry, madam. There’s . . . there’s been an accident.” Leah blinked. The housekeeper’s mouth seemed to be moving at an extraordinarily slow pace, as if each syllable struggled to escape. “A n accident?” she repeated. A nd somehow, simply by saying the words, she knew that he was gone.

  “Yes, Mr. George . . .”

  They stared at each other for what seemed an impossibly long time, until Leah was certain she could have counted at least a hundred canopy stitches.

>   Finally, she forced the words out. Not as a question, but a blunt, sure statement.

  “He’s dead.”

  Mrs. Kemble nodded, her chin quivering. “Oh, my dear, I’m so sorry. If there is anything—”

  Gone. Ian, her husband, was dead. Never again would she lie awake at night, waiting for him to return from his lover’s arms. Never again would she listen for his footsteps or count the stitching or bear his torturous, sensual lovemaking.

  He was gone.

  A nd Leah, who had vowed never to cry for him again, sank to her knees, her hands clutched in the housekeeper’s skirt, and wept.

  “Rook to queen. Check.”

  Sebastian nodded and considered the whimsical dance of the fire’s shadows as they played across what little remained of his ivory army. He slid a lonely pawn forward.

  His brother uttered a low oath and planted his bishop near Sebastian’s king.

  “Checkmate. Damnation, Seb, that’s four in a row. Do you even realize you’re losing?”

  Lifting his gaze from the chessboard, Sebastian raised an idle brow. “Yes. A nd I thought you’d be happy.”

  James swept aside the pieces and began arranging them anew. “I’d be happy if you found a new role. Something other than heartsick lover. A t least condescend enough to pretend to notice my presence. It’s only been half a day.”

  “Fourteen hours.” Sebastian rolled the ivory queen between his thumb and forefinger.

  Precisely fourteen hours had passed since A ngela left for their country estate in Hampshire, but already he was going mad without her. In three years of marriage, they’d spent only a few nights apart. Even though their lovemaking had been sporadic since she’d taken ill in the autumn, he was still accustomed to their usual domestic routine: sitting before the fire together as she brushed her hair, usual domestic routine: sitting before the fire together as she brushed her hair, discussing the day’s events. If she didn’t feel well, a kiss good night before they separated for their individual bedchambers.

  James paused in the act of replacing the last ebony piece. “Fourteen hours . . .