Her fingers continued to tangle through his hair, clenching when arousal coiled and tightened in her belly. She watched him lave her breasts, and whenever he looked up at her, he watched her face while wickedly swirling his tongue around her nipple, sending sharp pains of desire deep within her.
“I could feast on you for hours, angel,” he said while his fingers stroked her thigh. Drawing little circles on her skin, he made his way to her knee. With little encouragement, she let her leg drop so that her mound was exposed. He studied her there, not touching her. Then lifted himself off of her and pulled his shirttails from his trousers. Flinging his shirt down beside them, he undid the front of his pants. She met his gaze, then leisurely let her eyes roam the expanse of his chest, which was broad and heavily sculpted. The muscles of his belly were taut and chiseled. A silky line of black hair swirled around his navel only to disappear below the waist of his trousers. How breathtakingly beautiful his body was.
As if he knew her thoughts, he smiled, a wicked, lusty grin, then slowly pushed aside the fabric. He grasped his erection in his hand. Anais felt her eyes widen at the size of him, but also at the way he intimately and shamelessly stroked himself. Impossible to believe, his shaft actually thickened and widened, and Anais looked up to his face and saw that he stared at her.
“Do you think I’ve never done this before while thinking of you? Always, only you, Anais.”
Empowered by his confession, Anais watched as his erection slid between the space between his thumb and index finger. Slowly at first, he stroked, up and down, reaching only as far as the pink tip. His grip was loose and slow, his hips moving in time with his hand. But soon his breathing increased, as did his hold. Soon he was gripping his shaft, working it hard and assuredly, watching her as she studied him. The sight was so erotic, that Anais could not help but reach out and glide her finger along the rigid length of him. Suddenly he stopped, deprived her of her feeling him and stood. Lindsay removed his trousers and stood naked before her, his shaft thick and throbbing between his thighs.
“Sit up, angel,” he commanded before walking behind her. When he was seated on his knees, he brought her knees up and spread her thighs wide. “Have you touched yourself, while dreaming of me, Anais?”
She nodded as he entwined their hands and placed them on her sex. “Show me, Anais, and let me watch,” he asked, kissing the hollow below her ear. He slid his fingers along her sex and parted her. She felt his hot gaze there where his fingers played in her folds. “You’re already so wet, angel,” he said, touching her ever so softly. Then he stopped, brought his finger to his mouth and licked, “and you taste every bit as good as I remember.”
Lost in him, Anais luxuriated in the feel of Lindsay’s hand gliding down her side to her thigh, his gaze moving with the motion of his hand as it trailed along her pale skin, assessing her like a slave at a bazaar. His lashes flickered, then lifted to meet her face while his hand skated over her rounded belly.
“I have dreamed of this, Anais, this physical reunion between us. It was at once my torture and my salvation.”
Before she knew what was happening, her night rail and wrapper were pulled from her shoulders and Lindsay was lying on his back, urging her on top of him.
“Let me look at you, angel,” he whispered as she sat astride him. Anais crossed her arms over her breast and belly. The shadows, she was afraid, would not hide everything she wished. He forced her arms to her sides, and Anais noticed how his gaze hungrily devoured her breasts in one glance. With his palms he traveled along her body, cupping her breasts before sliding his fingers over her waist and allowing them to follow the curve of her hips. Over and over he repeated the action until Anais was moving slowly, gliding her hips back and forth. She was restless. Hot. Her back was arched and her arms were behind her. Her own hands were tangling in her hair as she began her dance of seduction.
Lindsay was whispering encouragement as he plucked at her nipple with one hand. With the other, he gripped his erection and was brushing the silken tip along her plump buttock. She felt the warm wetness against her skin. He was already wet, leaking his seed.
It made her more wanton, and she writhed a bit more seductively, her movements less stiff, more sensual and undulating. She had lowered her arms and caught her breasts in her hands, massaging them as he watched. Pressing them together, she squeezed, then parted them in invitation.
With strong hands, he gripped her hips and lifted her up, bringing her higher onto his chest. “Lower yourself onto my mouth, Anais, and let me taste you.”
With a whimper of surprise and excitement she did. Her fingers clutched onto his shoulders, his hands anchored her hips, tilting them until her mound was angled toward his mouth. Then the sensation of his hot tongue brushing the length of her made her moan long and deep.
The thin beard on his chin abraded and sensitized her skin, making the sensation so much more consuming. Soon her fingers were pressing into his shoulders as she moved atop him, showing him with her hips the direction she wanted his tongue to move.
Anais looked down to find Lindsay’s black head between her thighs. A strangled sound escaped her and he looked up, his eyes wickedly gazing back at her as he slowly licked, showing her his tongue on her. She reached down and touched herself, sliding her fingers up to her clitoris, allowing her fingers to glide against Lindsay’s tongue. He licked her wet fingers while she played with her sex.
“God, you’re so beautiful,” he murmured as he watched her fingers stroking herself. The pressure was building deep within her when suddenly she felt his fingers inside her. It was too much, he held her tight, pressing her sex to his mouth, trembling as he sucked—drinking all of her in.
“Lindsay!” Anais rocked shamelessly against him. When at last she stilled, she pulled away from him, sliding down his body and burying her face in his hard chest.
“Anais,” his voice was soft and soothing, much like his fingers as they raked through her tousled hair. “You were so beautiful and passionate. I’ll never forget the way you looked on top of me.”
She blushed and pressed her face into his neck. She hoped he forgot, or at least thought it was a fantasy induced by opium, for if Lindsay remembered this night, her plan to feign disinterest in him would be ruined. How could she reasonably tell him she no longer desired him after what she had done tonight?
Lindsay held her tight as he smoothed his palm along her spine. Their breaths merged, syncing in time with each other. Anais felt a peace still over her and she closed her eyes, allowing herself to stay for just a moment longer in Lindsay’s arms.
“I’m sorry, angel,” he murmured against her. “So sorry for everything. If you were here now, I could tell you, but you’re just a figment of the smoke. The smoke, it’s always so real, but I know when I open my eyes I will be all alone.” Lifting her head, Anais could not help but kiss him. If circumstances were different, if she had not turned to Garrett for help, if she had not done something so terrible, then they might have been able to be together.
“You’ll be gone. Won’t you?”
“Yes, Lindsay. I will be gone.”
“Then I shall smoke more, and you’ll come back to me. You always come back to me, walking out of the smoke and into my arms.”
12
Morning sunlight streamed through the frosted windowpane and glinted brilliantly off the highly polished silver tea service that sat in the middle of the dining table. Sounds of cutlery eagerly clanking against bone china shattered the quiet of the breakfast table. Conversation was at a minimum and Anais could not have been happier for it. The sooner she laid waste to her plate, the sooner she could leave the room and not have to feel Lindsay’s bold gaze boring into her from across the table.
Keeping her eyes downcast, Anais forced herself to swallow a bitter bite of the deviled kidneys a footman had placed on her plate from the sideboard. Her stomach lurched as her teeth bit into the tough texture. Choking the bite down, she reached for her napkin, shielding h
er repulsion behind the white linen.
Confident that she was not going to disgrace herself by retching, Anais reached for her teacup and drank the entire contents in one long swallow, washing down the acerbic after-taste of the kidneys.
Finally feeling composed, Anais looked up, straight into Lindsay’s quizzical gaze. With an arch of a questioning brow and a glance at her plate that was laden with kidneys and a slice of stuffed beef heart.
She looked away, resisting his blatant stare.
“Have Lord and Lady Weston no room for you?” Lord Weatherby grumbled.
“My daughter and her husband are in Cádiz. They are not expected to return until the spring. We shall stay with my sister-in-law in London, just as soon as we are able to send word to her.”
“When shall you write to your husband’s sister?” Lord Weatherby slapped his folded news sheet atop the table. “Soon, I hope. Darnby looks to be out of imminent danger. I’m quite certain he will survive his mishap and will no doubt linger for years to come, delighting in being a damned thorn in my side.”
“I have agreed to undertake the correspondence with my aunt, my lord,” Anais replied after clearing her throat. “If I may bother Lady Weatherby for some paper and nibs, as well as a pot of ink, I shall write to my aunt directly after breakfast.”
“You may have a ream of paper and a half-dozen pots of ink if it will get you out of my house faster,” Weatherby growled before shoving a forkful of eggs in his mouth.
“My lord, really,” Lady Weatherby murmured discreetly, but Anais could see the stain of embarrassment tinting the marchioness’s ivory cheeks.
“Well, what am I to say, Eleanor? That I am pleased to have the entire Darnby household thrust upon me? Shall I pretend to be enjoying their company when any fool with eyes and half a brain knows that I wish for nothing but to have my home to myself?”
“We are very thankful, my lord, for your generosity toward our family,” Anais murmured, hoping she sounded contrite enough to placate an obviously surly and hungover Lord Weatherby. “My family and I will make every attempt to vacate the premises as soon as may be.”
“You may thank my wife, not me. It is her hospitality and her damnable, annoying friendship with your father that keeps you here. Had it been up to me, I would have shut the door and not looked back. Damned inconvenient, the lot of ye.”
“Father,” Lindsay growled in warning from down the length of the table. “That is enough.”
“Enough?” Weatherby snorted. “I have been roused from my bed at the god-awful hour of ten when everyone in this house, including my blasted valet, knows that I do not flutter my lashes till at least noon, let alone actually get up out of bed. And if that is not enough, I am ordered, during my morning ablutions, to behave myself in a manner befitting a host by not only my wife, but my son, a son, I may add, who has frigged off to parts unknown for the past year. Oh, no, my boy, I have not yet begun. Perhaps I may start right now, with your unexpected return after months and months of bloody silence. Months of not knowing whether my son was alive or dead. Months of wondering if any day some damn Eastern infidel would arrive on my doorstep with your dead body.”
“Charles,” Lady Weatherby whispered softly and Anais watched as Lindsay’s mother placed a gentle hand atop Weatherby’s wrinkled fingers. To Anais’s shock, the old marquis clutched his wife’s hand.
“The Darnbys are like family, are they not?” Weatherby grunted. “Is that not what you are forever telling me? Well, damn me, Eleanor, they can listen to our family squabbles. I’m certain that even a woman like Lady Darnby here would feel some inkling of maternal instinct if one of her chits squandered off for parts unknown without a damned word to anyone.”
I wouldn’t bet on that, Anais thought silently, as she looked at her mother’s bored expression. Her mother was completely lacking in the finer female sentiments. She had conceived her children, carried them and delivered them. After that, she had promptly given her daughters over to a nanny, washing her hands of them until they were of an age to shape into perfect china dolls in order to catch the perfect son-in-law. A son-in-law who would prove perfectly useful in furthering her prestige in society, while generously giving his money to his ever spending mother-in-law.
“Damn me, boy,” Weatherby said with a scowl, “who the devil is to run this place when I am gone? Have you no inkling of responsibility?”
Anais’s gaze swung to Lindsay, whose expression had turned hard and unyielding. His father’s accusation was cruel, for Lindsay had been responsible for overseeing the running of Eden Park since he was sixteen years old, thus allowing his father to spend his days in London, whoring and drinking and frittering away his life. In that, Lindsay had never shirked his duties. Lindsay may have gotten caught up in opium. He might have hurt her, albeit unwittingly, but he was not a gadabout. He did not evade his responsibilities. Without Lindsay’s head for investments and his tireless work ethic, Eden Park would have crumbled into the ground.
And the way Lindsay had always taken care of his mother was something to be commended, and his father, too. A father who had always been too drunk, too indifferent to his son to see him raised in the manner of a gentleman. Despite all that, Lindsay had grown into a respectable man of influence and wealth. And even though his father hadn’t spared a second of his time on his son, Lindsay still provided for him, making certain both his parents were comfortable in their homes. The sudden recollection of Lindsay’s childhood made her realize how soon Lindsay had been forced to grow up. Sadly she wondered who had seen to Lindsay’s needs and happiness.
Their gazes met across the table, and Anais felt her insides twist as Lindsay’s expression, still glazed from the smoke he had imbibed in last night, held an emptiness that tore at her heart. It was then that she had her answer. Opium gave him what he needed.
“Well, what the devil have you to say for yourself, boy?”
“Charles, you’re upsetting your digestion.”
“Hang my damned digestion, Eleanor!” Weatherby thundered. “I am dying. Any simpleton can see that. I am dying and I want to know if my son, my only son, is prepared to stick around and see to his duties. Or does he plan to run off the next time a muffed piece of tail decides to hold him captive by the short hairs.”
“Your language would make an old roué blush, Father. This is not the sort of talk considered polite or appropriate for the table, not to mention in front of mixed company,” Lindsay said, glaring at his father. “Might we adjourn this conversation until another time?”
“Coward,” his father taunted, “she still has you by the bollocks.”
Lindsay threw his napkin to the table as if it were a gauntlet. Sliding his chair back, he began to rise, like a cobra uncurling itself, preparing to strike an unsuspecting victim. Anais had seen that implacable look in Lindsay’s eyes before.
“That is quite enough,” Lady Weatherby demanded, her voice shaking with rage. “It is the Christmas season, and we have guests. Can you not behave yourself, Charles? For once, will you please refrain from doing your utmost to humiliate me? Our son is home, safe and sound. Should we not be rejoicing such a fact? I despise this fighting…this constant needling between the pair of you.”
“My pardon, Mama, I seem to have forgotten myself,” Lindsay murmured, nodding to his mother in apology. He slowly regained his chair, but his hands were fisted tightly. Anais knew he was raging inside. She knew, too, that Lady Weatherby was close to tears, and her own mama was smiling that grin that was smug and haughty, a grin that let everyone at the table know how far above them she thought she was.
“I am aware how very difficult it is to have one’s routine upset,” Anais said, avoiding the uneasy glances of her sister, as well as that of Lady Weatherby. “I assure you, my lord, that I will inform my aunt, in the most ardent terms possible, that her immediate assistance is required. In the meantime, sir, we shall endeavor to stay out of your way and attempt to make certain that our presence here will cause the
minimal of upset to your routine. I promise you, my lord, that we will not overstay our welcome.”
“Ye already have,” Weatherby muttered as he continued to shovel his breakfast into his mouth. Lady Weatherby shot her an apologizing look that spoke of too many years of shame. Anais could not imagine having to live with such a boor for a husband and for some reason her gaze shot to Lindsay, whose own eyes seemed to cry out to her, I’m not like him.
“Tea?” Anais inquired politely as she held the teapot up, hoping to break the considerable tension at the table.
“Please.” Lindsay held out his cup and saucer to her.
“Do you still take sugar?”
He shook his head and raised the steaming cup to his mouth. “Scandal and love are the best sweeteners of tea. We have had a bit of scandal, now what shall we do about love?”
Anais colored and shot him a warning scowl, but he only arched his brow in return. Try as she might, she was drawn to him. Perhaps she was as addicted to Lindsay as he was to the opium.
“I have had a missive from the vicar, Mr. Pratt,” Lady Weatherby said as her gaze volleyed between Anais and Lindsay. “He’s asked permission for the villagers to skate on the little creek that runs from the village through the estate. Might I inform him, my lord—” she turned to ask her husband “—that the villagers may do as they please? It is Boxing Day, after all.”
“I don’t give a bloody damn what the villagers do, as long as they pay their rents they may skate and slide about all the way to London for all I care.”
“I shall inform Mr. Pratt,” the marchioness replied. “Immediately after breakfast. I am taking Lady Darnby and Ann into the village to Mrs. Jennings’s shop. She promised to have at least a day dress ready for each of them. The rest of their trousseau shall be ready within the week, I hope. Anais, you must come, too. Mrs. Jennings was not able to see you for a fitting. But before all that, we shall make the vicarage our first stop.”
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