Desire Never Dies

by Jenna Petersen

  Not to mention the real work she and Meredith and Ana did would be compromised. Invitations would cease. The case she was currently investigating would be destroyed…

  What a price to pay for passion. She stole a glimpse at Lucas and found him watching her. His face revealed nothing of his own reaction to this turn of events. He was still stoic, still calm. How she wished she could see his heart. Did he hate her for this? Was he sorry?

  Did he even care?

  And what about tomorrow? The day after? The year after? Would he grow to resent her? Bore of her? Somehow that thought troubled her most.

  The door to Lucas’s carriage opened and Lady Dannington stepped inside. Ana turned away, too humiliated to face her after what she had witnessed. Dear Lord, what she must think of all this!

  The carriage began to move.

  “Anastasia.”

  She looked up, surprised that Lady Dannington was addressing her by her given name, and so kindly. “Yes, my lady?”

  “Lavinia,” she corrected with a soft smile. “I believe we have crossed any barrier that might have prevented you from calling me Lavinia.”

  Ana shook her head in disbelief. “I never intended—”

  Lavinia raised a hand. “Of course you didn’t.” She shot her son a dirty look. “That is the way of passion, I suppose. Sometimes you have no intention, only consequence. Ah well. A rushed marriage would not have been of my choosing, but it is only hurrying what the entire family was already looking forward to greatly.” She reached out and covered Ana’s hands with her own. “I believe Lady Westfield to be discreet. This does not have to be a scandal. A quick marriage will put a halt to any talk that does crop up. Society already seems to be enthralled with the romance between you two. They’ll forgive, even if there are a few whispers.”

  Ana could hardly breathe. The weight of this situation was coming down upon her fully. It was crushing and overwhelming to think that within a few days she would have no choice but to exchange vows of love and forever with a second man.

  Yet behind the fears and guilt that wracked her, she couldn’t ignore another reaction. A dark, delicious thrill that she wanted to squash, but it was persistent. She looked at Lucas. He was still watching her. Just as he had while she shivered with pleasure. Just as she sometimes found him doing when they spoke, when they worked side by side.

  What had he said to her in the park a few days earlier? That he would only marry for passion? Somehow she doubted a marriage to her, forced or no, would be any different.

  The carriage came to a stop, and Ana looked outside to find they had come to the home she and Emily shared. Lucas shifted as the footman opened the door. Lavinia squeezed her hands.

  “We will discuss this more tomorrow evening. You’ll come to our home for supper.”

  Ana found herself nodding, powerless in her numb state. The servants helped her down and Lucas followed, catching her hand to put it in the crook of her arm before he took her to the door.

  “I’m sorry, Ana,” he whispered, still holding her hand for a moment.

  She shook her head. “You offered me a way out…more than once. You told me to say no.” Tears stung her eyes. “This is no more your fault than mine. We can discuss it tomorrow.”

  He nodded as her door opened. She slipped inside and peeked around the curtain beside the door. Lucas stood staring at the closed door for a moment, then headed back to the carriage, shaking his head.

  As she let the curtain drop, Ana pressed her forehead against the wall beside the door. Tears she had been holding back began to slide down her cheeks in an unstoppable waterfall.

  What in the world had she done?

  Ana paced to Emily’s window, then back to the fireplace, ringing her hands in front of her with every step. She felt Emily and Meredith’s sympathetic expressions, but they couldn’t help her. Not anymore.

  “Won’t you sit down and have a cup of tea?” Meredith asked, motioning to a seat beside her. “Please. You hardly slept at all last night, and I know you refused breakfast this morning.”

  “How do you know that?” Ana asked, wrinkling her brow.

  Emily smiled, but it was distant, a little sad. “We aren’t the only spies in this house, you know.”

  Ana managed a smile. House servants must have been the original spies.

  She took the seat Meredith offered, but refused to touch the cup of tea that was poured for her.

  “I want to ask you something,” Meredith said, exchanging a brief glance with Emily. “And you may not like it. What will you do now?”

  Ana started, sitting up bone straight. “What do you mean?”

  Except she knew exactly what her friend was asking. It was the same question she’d repeated over and over to herself since last night.

  Emily met her stare with an even one of her own. “Do you plan to make this marriage real or will you continue to keep Tyler at a distance?”

  Trust Emily to be so blunt. Ana leaned forward and put her elbows on the table. She rested her head in her hands as a mass of emotions raged in her. Fear, sadness, lingering pain from the losses of the past…but also desire. Anticipation of the future. There were so many things in her heart, so many new sensations, she wasn’t certain what to do or feel or say.

  “I just don’t know,” she whispered.

  “Lady Whittig, there is a guest waiting for you in the parlor,” Benson’s voice intruded from the doorway before either of her friends could provide council.

  She rubbed her fingertips over her eyes, wishing she could block out the world as easily as she could block out the light. “Let me guess. It’s Mr. Tyler.”

  “No, madam. It is the Dowager Lady Whittig.”

  The world Ana had been wishing to block out suddenly came into stark relief, sharpening and brightening to a painful degree. Her ears rang and her heart throbbed as she staggered to her feet.

  “T-Tell her I will join her momentarily. And be sure she has whatever she desires while she waits.”

  Benson bowed away. When he was gone, Ana covered her mouth and turned to her two friends. Both of them looked as pale as she felt. “I did not know my mother-in-law was in Town,” she whispered, but her voice sounded far away, like she’d slipped beneath the surface of the water.

  Meredith got to her feet. “Would you like me to come with you?”

  Ana pondered that for a moment. It would be so easy to hide behind Meredith, but she couldn’t. “No. I owe Francesca a private audience.” She shivered as she moved to the door. “She’s heard of this engagement, I’m sure. And if she desires to let me know how angry and hurt she is…well, I owe her that, as well.”

  The walk down the hallway was the longest one of her recollection. With every step she was bombarded by memories of Gilbert and of his family. Francesca had been nothing but kind to her, like a second mother. She dreaded the moment where she lost that welcoming embrace or kind smile.

  But there was no avoiding it. She had made this particular bed. She had surrendered to her body’s desires, even let her emotions become involved. Now she would suffer every one of the consequences.

  Opening the parlor door, she put on a smile that she did not feel. Francesca got to her feet as the door opened. For a long moment, the two just looked at each other.

  Gilbert had inherited his mother’s bright blue eyes. It always shocked her to see them, but never more so than today. It was like having her husband look at her, his stare full of questions and worries…perhaps even judgments. Then she shook her head and the moment was gone.

  Her mother-in-law was a slight woman, very pretty, and was aging well. Yet in her face there was a lingering sadness. Muted by the passage of time, but lingering. She’d never gotten over the loss of her son. She never would.

  “Francesca,” Ana said, forcing herself to come forward with hand outstretched. “I’m sorry it’s been so many months since I last saw you.”

  To her surprise, the other woman’s face lit up like a crystal chandelier,
and she stepped toward Ana, drawing her into an embrace no less warm and welcoming than ever before.

  “My darling, congratulations.”

  Ana stood in shock. Congratulations? Had she heard Francesca correctly?

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered as she let her embrace tighten. “I should have written, but everything has happened so quickly and I—” She hesitated. She owed this woman the truth. Or at least as much of it as she could give. “I was afraid of how you would feel.”

  Francesca drew back. She looked confused and concerned by that statement. “Afraid? Do you mean you thought I would be angry that you have found love a second time?”

  Ana flinched. That was the rumor she and Lucas had perpetrated. A great love formed in secret and then developed for society to see. But hearing those words out loud still surprised her. Shocked her. Stirred her in ways she stuffed back down deep into her soul. She did not love Lucas. Desire, yes. To her own detriment, overwhelming desire.

  “I’m sorry, so sorry,” she whispered.

  “Oh, Anastasia,” Francesca took her hand and led her to the settee. They sat together. “My sweet girl, I could not be angry with you. You loved my son. I know you did. And he loved you. That was cut short.” She hesitated and Ana saw the sparkle of tears in her eyes. “Far too short. But Gilbert never would have wished for you to mourn him for the rest of your life.”

  “But I promised—” Ana began.

  “You kept whatever promises were made.” Francesca shook her head. “Please don’t tell me that you’ve hesitated in the fear that you would betray Gilbert.”

  Ana dipped her gaze away. She had been doing that. For years she had locked herself away, preserving her life in the exact way it had been when Gilbert died. Only Lucas had forced her out of that mold she created for herself. Only Lucas had awakened the person she forgot lived inside her, a person she had never let free before.

  Francesca cupped her chin. “Darling, you are still so young. Keep a piece of Gilbert in your heart, but you must love and live again. You mustn’t hold back in the fear of what he would think. He loved you. He would want your happiness. He would want you to have a happy home and make a family, not be his grieving widow forever.”

  The words sunk in, pushing past the shroud of grief Ana had surrounded herself with since the day Gilbert died. Would he wish this for her? Feelings for a new man? A life with Lucas? Perhaps even children and a future?

  Wouldn’t she have wanted that for him if the tables were turned?

  “When is the marriage to take place?” Francesca asked.

  Ana started. There was no avoiding this. “In a few days. We’re marrying by special license.”

  Francesca looked at her in shock for a moment, but then the corners of her lips tilted into a knowing smile. “I know Lady Dannington in passing. You will be very happy in that family.” She got to her feet. “I only arrived in Town today and there is much for me to do. I wanted to see you, though.”

  Ana clamored to her feet. “Will I…see you again?”

  Francesca tilted her head. “Of course! You will always be my daughter in my heart. I hope to see you often, and meet this new husband of yours. Now, I must go. But I’ll speak to you after your wedding.”

  Ana walked her to the front door, numbed by shock. There, Francesca turned and embraced her again. This time it was tight, like she was saying good-bye to Gilbert one last time. And Ana realized that perhaps she was. The next time they saw each other, she would be another man’s wife.

  “Be happy, Anastasia.” Francesca kissed her cheek and then she was gone.

  Ana closed the door and turned to lean back against it. Her mind was spinning. She’d expected a lot of things from her meeting with Gilbert’s mother, but not this. Not this permission to live again. Not this order to love. Not this feeling that Gilbert himself had blessed her union and told her it was time to let go.

  She covered her mouth. Let go. Was that truly possible? To give up the life she had forced upon herself for so many years and perhaps find a new one?

  There was only one way to find out. And she needed Lucas’s help to do it. She could only hope he would assist her, and that she would find a way to reconcile the feelings of her past with her inevitable future.

  Chapter 18

  L ucas stepped on the overhanging branch of the large beech tree. He looked down. The trick of it was to get to the window ledge without slipping. The rosebushes that would break his fall did not look particularly pleasant. He could only imagine picking thorns out of his ass for a week.

  Still the window was partly open, so he pushed off and leapt for the ledge. He landed perfectly, catching the edge of the window for balance before he swung it open and stepped inside.

  Anastasia turned from the fire at his grand entrance. She looked less than impressed, though very beautiful. After enduring her in widow’s weeds for so long, he didn’t think he’d ever tire of seeing her in color. Like tonight, in rich green that made her brown eyes dark and alluring.

  “You’re late.”

  He shut the window and latched it before he turned back to her, arms folded. “Good evening to you, too. Thank you, I managed to get inside just fine. No, I’m not injured in any way. Yes, I would love a drink if you have anything.”

  Her lips pursed at his sarcastic tone, but she moved toward a table in her sitting room where a decanter of scotch was waiting. He doubted that was her drink of choice, which meant she had asked for it for his pleasure. As she handed him a tumbler and he took a sip, he smiled. Perfect.

  It was a little suspicious.

  “Well, my lady, you beckoned and I have come as you asked. Though I don’t know why you required me to risk my neck coming through your window.” He took another sip of his drink before he set it down and looked around. So this was Ana’s chamber. The sitting room they were in was pretty and feminine, understated in its elegance. And then he noticed the pile of scribbled notes. The empty beaker.

  Some things were absolutely Ana. He couldn’t help but smile.

  “The last thing I wish for is more gossip,” she said with a sigh. “But I needed to talk to you tonight, so I thought sneaking in was the lowest risk.”

  He nodded, but he was paying more attention to the way her lips moved than to her words. He hadn’t seen her since the night before when they’d been caught in such a delicate, delicious position.

  They certainly hadn’t had much time to discuss these suddenly impending…and very real nuptials that were being planned. He sighed. Today he’d made arrangements for the special license. His mother was busily throwing together the rest.

  Ana just stood staring at him. Was it possible for her to be less interested in their wedding? In a marriage to him at all?

  The pain that accompanied her reaction was swift and powerful, jolting through his body like a knife stuck through his heart. With violence, he shoved that reaction away, buried it deep. It was the last thing he wanted.

  “Why did you need to see me tonight?”

  How he wished he could squelch that insistent part of him that wanted to stake a claim on Ana. Not on her body, but on that part of her heart and her soul that she was always withholding. The part that clung to her late husband like he was a lifeline on a sinking ship.

  She’d rather love a dead man than give herself to him.

  “The estate where my husband is buried is half a day’s journey from here,” she said, breaking their eye contact as she fiddled with the hem of her sleeve. “And I want very much to go there tomorrow. Would you take me?”

  “You—You want me to take you there?” he repeated in shock. This was the last thing he had expected.

  She nodded slowly.

  “Why?”

  Her gaze snagged his, and her hands clenched at her sides. “I—Do you want the honest answer?”

  At the moment, he wasn’t sure, but he nodded. “Always.”

  She swallowed hard. “Going there is difficult for me, and this time will be eve
n more so. But when I’m with you I am”—a dark blush suddenly swept across her cheeks—“more brave. I would like your support, though I know it is a strange request.”

  Lucas stared, unsure whether to be warmed by the fact that she wanted him by her side, or horrified that she was asking him to chaperone her trip back in time. But when she looked at him like that, so open and trusting, and told him that he made her brave…how could he refuse?

  He managed to smile. “If that is what you want, I’ll take you there.”

  Her face relaxed with relief, and she stepped toward him. Her fingers trembled as she reached out and briefly touched his hand. Her skin was so soft, so warm against his own. But the moment was all too brief. She almost immediately pulled away.

  “Thank you.”

  “Is there anything else you want?”

  He tilted his head to chase her gaze, looking for any sign of her heart and mind. She looked at him for a long, silent moment. It seemed an eternity stretched out as she opened her mouth, readied herself to speak. He found himself leaning forward in anticipation and hope…hope for something, though he didn’t know what for certain.

  But then she shook her head. “No. That’s all I needed.”

  He pursed his lips. Of course. “Very well. I will come around to fetch you tomorrow morning just after dawn.”

  He pushed the window behind him open again and stepped onto the ledge and the cool night air. He sighed as he looked at the tree and thought of the long voyage down to the bottom and a cold, empty bed at home. Casting a final glance over his shoulder, he looked at Ana. She was watching him as he went, the emotion in her eyes hooded and her face unreadable.

  She was getting to be a better and better spy. He just wished she wouldn’t use those talents against him.

  “Until tomorrow,” he murmured before he made his hop and began to pick his way down the tree.

  Lucas slammed the door behind him and stalked toward his office without even bothering to greet the stunned servants who peered into the hallway at his entrance. He raked a hand through his hair and found a little twig tangled. With a growl, he tossed it aside and the reminder of how it had gotten there.