ADDICTED

CHARLOTTE FEATHERSTONE

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MILLS & BOON

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To Joe and Olivia, who have sacrificed so much for me to fulfill my

dream. I love you more than words can say, and I thank you for being

supportive, understanding and easygoing when the house looks as

if a bomb has gone off, and we have frozen pizza or hot dogs for yet

another dinner. I swear, I’ll make it up to you at Disney!

And for my sisters who make up The Line of Pigs.

Donna “Double D,” a kindred spirit, and Tinker. Gisele,

whose brown eyes are always full of laughter and mischievousness.

Lynda, who shares my “trashy romance” fetish, and Rhonda, who is

fast becoming another romance junkie—told you Edward was hot!

To Amy, the quiet one of the bunch, whom I hear giggling when we

talk about “swords,” and another Edward groupie. Last but not least,

Joanne, aka Daisy, the lady of the group. Where would I be without

you to make the shifts tolerable? Thanks for the 4:00 a.m. chats and

giggles. Please know that you’re more than friends, you’re family,

and I could not imagine going to work and not having you there with

me. Shift after shift, you keep me going, but more important, you

keep me laughing, and isn’t that what life is all about?

Opium unites the souls of smokers who recline around the same lamp. It’s a bath in a thick atmosphere, a reunion in one bed with heavy covers, a veritable coupling that one can’t resist. There is, certainly, in each opium addict an unhappy or unsatisfied lover.

—Robert Desnos, Le Vin est Tiré

Prologue

Slave. Minion. Fiend. The others who have come before me have been called such things, but I prefer to think of myself as a disciple; a devout follower of my voluptuous mistress.

They say my lover is a sinister beauty, and perhaps they are correct. But when caught in her heady embrace there is nothing sinister about her. How can she be evil, when she bathes my body in a thousand raptures? How can she be anything but a radiant sorceress when she takes me to heights never before experienced?

No, my mistress is many things, but not a succubus in a gossamer cloak. True, she demands much from me, but I know how to coax and coddle her so that her black flesh responds to my skilled hands. Between my fingers, she melts like a woman in the throes of climax.

I warm her, care for her, wait patiently for her to cloak me in her sensual and supple embrace.

I worship her.

My relationship with my mistress is uncomplicated. I know what she desires of me; at the same time, she understands and fulfills my needs. As any mistress she is, at times, demanding to the point of suffocation, always wanting more—needing more. But when I come to her, she loves me like nothing—or no one—ever has.

All she wants is my return to her, night after night, hour after hour. And I do return with eager anticipation. She always welcomes my homecoming with outstretched arms and together, we make the sweetest, most decadent love, a love where two become one. Where I become so coiled in her powers that I never want to leave.

She is here now, I realize, as I see the gray fingers of her arrival begin to swirl up from the altar I have prepared for her. Soon she will be curling her fingers in my hair, caressing my face and covering my mouth with her evocative beauty. I will taste her heady fragrance on my tongue, inhale her bittersweet scent deep into my lungs. My mind will cloud, will begin to wander and float. I will fall back on my red velvet cushion, drunk with anticipation as I observe the couples surrounding me make love. I watch them like a disembodied voyeur. Not even the sounds and sights of an orgy surrounding me can arouse me so well as the thought of my mistress does.

Lush female bottoms, naked and pale, are before me. Breasts of every size and color attempt to beckon me. Quims, glistening, ready for the taking try to entice, but I wait for my mistress, as any dedicated lover would.

It is worth the wait, because when I am aroused and eager, my bewitching paramour will consume me with her fire and satisfy me with her skilled attention—ministrations that are much more pleasing than watching the dreamy specter of couples naked and writhing before me. While they enjoy each other’s bodies, I can only find satisfaction and pleasure in the arms of my enchantress.

Among the gossamer tendrils my mistress rises like Venus from the shell. She beckons me and I allow her to take over, her greedy hands swathing my body and mind in a frenzy of orgasmic temptations.

With a smile I forget about the women at my feet. I no longer hear their moans, the sounds of flesh hitting flesh. I no longer see them riding the staffs of men as they flick their hair over their shoulders and cast me glances that invite me to join their party.

Instead, I fall back and allow my mistress to fully shroud me until I feel smothered in her intoxicating perfume.

Soon her ethereal mist will begin to evaporate and part like the branches of a tree in the wind, revealing the flesh and blood woman my body desires. The flesh and blood woman who will never be found here in this den of pleasure.

This is the moment I live for with my mistress. This power she has to conjure up my most sacred, private fantasies. The beckoning enchantment she entices me with is the glimpse of the woman I crave, the woman who has ruled my heart for so long that I can see no others except her. Desire no one but her.

Through heavy-lidded eyes I will see my flesh lover, her pale skin tinted the color of cream, her long, golden hair glistening like corn silk in the sun as she stands before the candle and brass burner. Through the vapors, I watch her disrobe for me, her breasts spilling from her gown. Unbound, they are lush and full, the pale pink nipples pearled, waiting for my hands and mouth to show her pleasure. Slowly, as if to extend my torment, she waits to reveal the rest of her lovely form.

But patiently I wait, allowing my mistress to keep her hold of me until the beauty can walk through the twisting tendrils of smoke and fall at my feet.

She is always naked, my angel, and she always desires me. The real me. The man I am. Even though my mistress is there watching, whispering into my ear.

It is always a ménage, this coming together. Always my mistress comes between my flesh lover and me. But in this world of red smoke and dreams, the two who hold me enraptured, live harmoniously side by side. There is no anger. No petty jealousy for my attention. No demands that I give up the other.

For I couldn’t. I need both like I need breath.

One rules my mind and my strength; the other, my heart, soul and body.

The one knows me as a man, an aristocrat with a secret.

The other knows me for what I am. An opium addict.

Slave, minion, fiend. I suppose I am. But I prefer to think of myself as a disciple. It is so much more palatable to believe that this path I walk is based on devotion and faith—not the bonds of slavery.

1

Bewdley, Worcestershire, England 1850

“Up and at ’em, milord.”

The valet’s gruff voice reached through the thick fog in his brain, disturbing the peaceful slumber and the lingering effects of the red smoke. “Sod off, Vallery,” Lindsay groaned.

His valet, ever the dutiful gentleman’s gentleman, groaned under Lindsay’s weight as he pulled him up from the brocade divan. “Any other time I would, milord, but Lord Darnby and his chits will be here within an hour and I’ve got a day’s debauchery to rid you of.”

Lindsay felt his arm being thrown around Vallery’s thick neck. His head lolled just a bit, forcing him to open his eyes. He was in his pleasure den, the remnants of last night’s bacchanal still surrounding him.

With his valet’s steadying hand and a few blinks of his burning eyes, Lindsay found himself slowly acclimating to the world around him. From the windows, he saw that the sky was not bright with the sun, but dark, the color of twilight. Bloody hell, what time was it?

“’Tis nearly seven, milord,” Vallery answered as he saw Lindsay’s confused gaze focus on the darkening skies. “You’ve been asleep all day. Now ’tis time to clean up.”

Yes. A bath and shave would set him to rights. It always did.

“Now then, will you bathe in the waters or do you wish me to take you to your apartments via the servants’ stairs?”

“My mother is around, then?”

The coarse visage of his valet came sharply into the line of his vision. Vallery was no effeminate Frenchman who clucked over him and his clothes. His unorthodox background and upbringing was what had made Lindsay desire him as his most trusted servant. It was Vallery’s steadfast loyalty that Lindsay appreciated most, not the intricate folds of a starched cravat.

“Would I be traipsing up those rickety old stairs carrying you if the marchioness was not about, flying high in the boughs?” Vallery grumbled.

Lindsay chuckled and removed his arm from his valet. He was sober as a monk now, although he could tell from the look in Vallery’s gaze that his appearance still lingered with a hint of debauchery.

“I think my mother is probably clucking about like a mother hen. She usually does when company is expected.”

“Thought you might like to know that the Duke of Torrington has already arrived.”

“And Wallingford?”

“Not yet, milord.”

Lindsay snorted as he pulled the already untied cravat from his neck. “I’m not surprised. Wallingford has made it his solemn vow to never be in his father’s company. Why would things change today?”

Vallery said nothing as Lindsay continued to strip out of his clothes. Like the dutiful servant he was, his valet reached out for the wrinkled garments, draping them carefully over his arm. “So, it’s the baths then, is it?”

With a nod, Lindsay draped his trousers over Vallery’s arms and headed for the mineral bath. He stepped into the hot water and allowed it to engulf his body and soak his muscles. With a sigh, he looked up at the arched ceiling above his head, then back down to the water that bubbled around him. A hot mineral spring ran beneath the house, allowing him this small luxury. Naturally, he had designed his pleasure den around the baths, which now resembled a Middle Eastern hammam. It was something straight out of the Arabian Nights. The only thing it lacked was a lovely odalisque.

Lindsay smiled to himself. He knew exactly who he would like to have in that particular role. She was going to be there in his home tonight. Already desire swirled in his veins. He had denied himself for too long. It was time, far past time in actuality, to see if the lady desired him in the same manner.

“You’ll need to be quick about it this evening,” Vallery called over his shoulder. “You will not want your Lady Anais to see you in such a state.”

Lindsay closed his eyes against the prick of pain in his chest. He did not want her name soiled with his other vice. How well Vallery knew him, for the last thing Lindsay wished was for Anais to know how he dabbled in opium. Anais would not understand.

“You place your arrows well, Vallery.”

“I intend for them to wound, milord. Never kill.”

“And wound they have.” Lindsay knew what Vallery thought, but his valet was wrong. He could stop. He was not a habitué. He could and would stop. Once he had Anais in his life and in his bed he would have no further use for the opium.

He dunked himself beneath the water, no longer desirous to see his valet looking at him with what Lindsay knew was concern. When he arose he wiped the water from his eyes, shook his curly mane free of wetness and pulled himself out of the bath. Vallery was there, holding out a black dressing gown.

“I wanted to tell you last night, before your…celebration,” Vallery said awkwardly as he glanced at the elaborate spread, “how thankful I am for you allowing me into that stock sale. I made a bundle, and I wouldn’t even have been allowed in the Exchange if you would not have placed my bid for me.”

Lindsay slapped his long-suffering valet on the shoulder. “We both made a packet, my friend. Besides, knowledge is to be shared amongst men—amongst all classes. You frown now, Vallery, but mark my words, you’ll see in another twenty-odd years how the middling classes will supersede the aristocracy. Like the dinosaurs on display at the British Museum, the aristocracy will one day weaken and become extinct.”

“If you say so, milord.”

“You doubt me, but I believe what I say.”

“Your thoughts will get you kicked out of parliament once you gain your seat.”

“There are others like me, Vallery. There is a whole class of men who think just as I think.”

“That was university, when you were young and idealistic. Every young man at that age wants to change the world. Everyone thinks they can. Then they get out into the real world, and they then decide that the privilege of their birth is more important to fight for than the miserable lives of those born below them.”

“Idleness and indolence. That is what you always say of my class.”

“I do not mean to insinuate that you are always indolent, milord.”

Lindsay reached for the towel Vallery held out to him and dried his hair. “But you do think my wealth could be better spent than on lavish opium dens.”

“You have been known to be gone for days, milord.”

“Let me worry about that. You worry about what I’ve said. The world is changing, Vallery. Slowly, but surely. I know it can change. I know it will change.”

“The haves will continue to have, and the have-nots will continue to go without. It is the way of things. The foundation of our empire.”

“I see the failures of our aristocratic forebears. No longer can our huge estates thrive and survive on the backs of the working man. In time, Vallery, we aristocrats will be working men, too.”

“You already do, milord. Making money is your full-time vocation.”

Lindsay grinned. “I do have a knack for it, I’ll admit. But what I find just as thrilling is teaching others how to double, triple their income.”

“You’ve the heart of a merchant, hoarding your treasures and counting your money, you’ve the mind of a mercenary who strategizes every move. You will forgive me for saying, my lord, but you are unlike any aristocrat I’ve ever met.”

“And that’s why you jumped at the chance to be my valet once your soldiering days were over.” Vallery, the taciturn man, rolled his eyes. Lindsay threw the wet towel at him. “You may accuse me of many things, but never of withholding knowledge from the everyday man. They, too, deserve a chance. I’m only seeing to it they get it. Why should it only be blue bloods who are given the chance to increase their fortunes? We’re born rich, the untitled man is not. He is the one who needs the chances in life.”

“You’re a good man, my lord. I wonder when you’ll see it? You are not your father, nor are you likely to become like him.”

Lindsay grimaced. “Good God, Vallery, don’t go all sentimental on me now. It gives me hives. I’d rather you call me a stupid ass for my behaviors than talk this melodrama. I’ve told you time and time again, I’m a dabbler. A dilettante, if you please. I am no rookery addict.”

“Of course, milord.”

Lindsay knew the man was lying. Knew his manservant was worried. But there was nothing to be worried about, because he could throw out his pipe whenever he damned well pleased. He did not have a habit.

“I am always available to you, Vallery. Lord knows you’ve put up with enough of my shenanigans since Cambridge. The least I can do is see to it that your retirement will be prosperous.”

“There is no denying your skill at the ’Change. You’ve certainly saved this place from demolition,” Vallery muttered as he looked around the lavish Moorish architecture that surrounded them.

“My father has wallowed in his cups for too many years. He hasn’t seen to the proper running of this place for decades.”

“I hope he knows to whom he is indebted.”

Lindsay laughed as he tied the sash around his middle. “My father is too busy drinking and whoring to notice what has gone on around him. Hell, the walls could crumble about our heads and he’d be too drunk to notice—or care. No, my father worries about his hounds and his drink, my mother and her comforts have been gone from his mind for many years.”

Running two fingers over his chin, Lindsay felt the growth that had erupted since last night. He bent and looked at the shadowed reflection in the mirror. “What do you think? Too much?”

“I think you will frighten off the ladies, milord.”

“Really?” He doubted Anais would be frightened of a little beard. Not her. She was not a silly chit. Perhaps she might even like it. He grinned, running his fingers over the stubble. Perhaps Anais would care to learn the benefits of a little facial hair. With the proper tutor, Anais might very well welcome such lessons. Certainly she would enjoy the scrape of his chin against her soft, fleshy thighs. He knew he certainly would.

“It is not my place to ask, milord—”

“When has that ever stopped you?” Lindsay interrupted as he took a chair and allowed his head to be tipped back in preparation for a shave.

“You do allow me unheard of freedoms, milord.”

“Yes, well, I’m a Renaissance man. I keep telling you that, Vallery.”

“And I keep telling you I don’t know what that means.”

Lindsay saw him reach for the silver blade and swirl it in the water of the blue ceramic basin. “It means I am rather liberal and my way of thinking is new and perhaps a bit nonconformist.”

Vallery grunted and brought the blade to Lindsay’s throat. “What I was going to ask, milord, is if you wanted the blue jacket and the ivory waistcoat this evening.”

Lindsay could almost hear his valet finish his question with “you know, the new ones you’ve been saving for just the right evening.”

“You must have found the box I hid in the waistcoat.”

Vallery flushed. “I did, indeed, milord.”

“What did you think of it?”

“I think you shall have to get the lady some sort of support for her hand. That gem is the largest I think I’ve ever seen.”

Lindsay smiled. “It came all the way from India. Cost me a packet, but what does that matter when I shall have the privilege of seeing it every day on her finger. I think of it as my brand, Vallery. I hope to claim her with that ring.”

“I think any woman would be claimed by such a bauble, my lord.”

Lindsay chuckled. The diamond was very big, but not garish. He hoped it said devotion and undying love, not greed. “Do you think tonight would be a good night to ask her, Vallery? Is that what you are suggesting?”

“It is not my place to suggest, milord.”

He laughed. Bloody hell, his bossy valet was always suggesting. Just last night he suggested that he’d had enough of the red smoke. Lindsay had spited him by blowing another cloud.

All finished with the shave, Lindsay stood and strolled over to the divan where Vallery had prepared his evening clothes. The new blue jacket and ivory brocade were there. Lindsay wondered if his valet had been kind enough to put the brown box containing the emerald and diamond ring in the pocket.

“You’ve the look of the cat that just ate the canary,” Vallery muttered as he cleaned up the shaving things.

“It’s obvious, is it? And how am I to help it?” he asked. “I’m going to ask the most beautiful woman in the world to be my wife.”

“What a relief,” his valet taunted. “Now I won’t have to listen to ye bellyache anymore over the girl.’ Tis unnatural how you’re lovesick for her.”

“No,” Lindsay whispered as the image of Anais came to mind. “It’s the most natural thing in the world to love her as much as I do.”

“Well, you had best get yerself out of this wicked pleasure den and make your way to your mother’s salon. You’re late.”

Lindsay dressed quickly and left the den, which had, at one time, been his mother’s sorely neglected and run-down conservatory. When he’d come into money from his business investments, he’d claimed the crumbling monstrosity for his own and made it into an escape. Designed like the Alhambra in Spain, it was the height of decadence. With its Moorish influence, and the hot spring bath, it was a world within a room. An escape he craved at the end of the day.

He thought of it as his harem. And he’d decorated it as such.

“Ah, here he is at last,” his father, the Marquis of Weatherby said in a voice that was already slurred by drink.

“Good evening, sir.” Lindsay nodded in the direction of his father, then reached for the gloved hand of his mother.

“Mama, you look lovely this evening.”

Her gaze drifted over his, as if taking stock of his appearance. There was nothing left in his eyes for her to catch on to. Nothing but the dutiful and loving son standing before her, kissing her hand. The stains of his mistress were washed away from his body. He was clean. For how long, he didn’t know. It didn’t matter, for tonight he was not thinking about her, and when he would next require her services.

He made quick work of the introductions, all the while resisting the urge to search out Anais. It was a game he liked to play, to see how long he could endure it, not seeing her.

His body was now as tense as a bow. His mouth dry from talking. His eyes hungry for a glance of her ripe body and lovely face. As if the dinner guests knew of his need, they parted, revealing Anais standing by the hearth, talking to her younger sister.

She must have felt his burning gaze, because she stopped talking and turned to look at him. Her smile went all the way to his core, hitting like a rush—like that first great inhalation of opium.

If a man’s future was truly preordained—his destiny written while still in the womb—then he was looking upon the woman who was his fate, the woman he knew had been created solely for him.

He had always known that someday Anais would belong to him. She would be more than his friend. He’d always believed it, but never more than this moment as their gazes collided together, and their bodies became aware of each other.

She always took his breath away. They’d been friends forever, since young childhood, but his feelings were no longer chaste or platonic. No, his feelings and desires were hot. Passionate. Erotic. And the perfumed dreams he had of Anais last night had been the most erotic yet. The things she had let him do to her…

One day, they wouldn’t be just dreams and fantasies.

“Good evening, Lindsay.”

Her soft voice washed over him like a caress, and he felt himself grow aroused. It was so hard to hide his feelings from her. He doubted he could for much longer.

Her gloved hand felt so right in his palm as he raised her fingers to his lips. Her eyes, those beautiful, mesmerizing pools, captured his attention, watching as his lips slowly descended to her fingertips. He lingered there, inhaling her perfume, watching the rise and fall of her breasts in the tight bodice. She moved in, just a hint, and the cloud of her rich perfume rose up to coil around him.

She had scented her breasts with the French perfume he had purchased for her.

Desire gripped him, and lost to everything but need, he closed his eyes and inhaled the heady scent. In his mind, he could see the golden liquid trickle between the cleft of her breasts. He saw the cut crystal bottle stopper in her hand as she trailed it along her cleavage. One day, he vowed, he would lay negligently in their bed, which would be rumpled from their lovemaking, and watch her at her toilette. One day, he would come and stand behind her and take the stopper from her hand and trace her breasts with it. One day, she would look into the mirror and see him standing there, desire in his eyes.

“Lindsay?”

Slowly, his eyelids opened and there she was. Her head was bent, her lips ripe for his mouth to plunder. It would be no trial—and highly arousing—to pull the little puffy sleeves of her gown down her arms and expose her. He knew she would be wearing a corset, but in his dreams, she would be naked beneath, bared to his eyes and hands.

His gaze swept over her face, which was so lovely to him, then down her throat, which he longed to brush his lips over, down to the pulse that fluttered like butterfly wings. Every inch of her was as luscious as a sweet from the candy shop. And God above, he was beyond wanting a taste of her.

“Good evening, my angel,” he said over her hand. “You look ravishing, as always.”

“You have been practicing your flattery, my lord,” she said with a little laugh that was too high. Nervous? Aroused? Her laugh seemed unnatural. “The ladies in London must swoon at your skill, sir.”

“I do not know. I do not share any compliments with ladies other than you, Anais.”

Her eyes told him she was dubious about his sincerity. “Truth,” he whispered in her ear.

She bristled at the sudden contact of their bodies. He was forgetting himself, forgetting where he was. Forgetting that in Anais’s mind they were friends, not lovers.

Yet, in his mind they’d been lovers for years. Carnally, he was very well acquainted with every inch of her enticing body. What man wouldn’t dream of a woman like Anais? Plump and womanly, she would feel so damn good beneath him with her hair, that was golden blond and long, draped over his chest. Her breasts, large and firm, would cushion him, would beckon him to taste and play—would amuse him for hours. Her décolletage, which was always so elegantly but tastefully displayed in her gowns, never ceased to capture his notice, nor his imagination. Hell, there wasn’t a part of her body that didn’t entice him. He wanted to span her hips with his hands and crush her to his pelvis, grinding into her. He wanted to feel her soft belly cushion his cock, he wanted to fill his hands with her firm bottom, and knead as he plunged his tongue between her soft lips. He wanted to strip her down and study the body that held him captive for so many years.

His hands, he knew, would worship her curves, and he would lose himself in those lovely blue eyes that reminded him of a clear sky. Her shy smile would be his undoing—it always had been.

Anais was built for loving, for the type of bed sport be enjoyed. With Anais he wouldn’t have to feel as though he were going to break her. He wouldn’t have to treat her like a fragile flower. He could indulge in that luscious body for hours.

But more than her body, Lindsay lusted for her heart, that piece of her she guarded so carefully. He wanted to mean something more to her than friend. Lover, confidant, he wanted Anais for her body, her sharp mind, and the friendship he had always relied upon.

Of course, seeing her tonight, friendship wasn’t on his mind. Her décolletage, and the elegant line of her throat covered with his lips had suddenly rushed to the forefront of his thoughts.

One day, he knew he was going to see her naked, and that visual would be a hundred times more arousing than it was in his dreams.

“I think that was the bell for dinner,” his mother announced over the drumming of voices that filled the salon.

“Allow me?” Lindsay held his arm out to Anais. She slipped her hand so easily around his forearm and pressed into his side. His body hardened as he felt her hips contour against his. He wished he could drag her off to his den and confess all to her. But first he had to do the pretty and be a gentleman.

“You look different somehow,” she said as she looked up at him.

“Oh?”

She nodded and a curling strand of golden-blond hair slipped from a pin, only to land on the crest of her breast that was exposed by her low-cut bodice. God help him if that strand was going to lie there all evening long. He couldn’t drag his gaze away from it, nor vanquish the image of his lips brushing it aside.

“I’m not sure what it is. You just seem…different. It’s in your eyes.”

Heat. Longing. Desire. He knew what was reflected there. He couldn’t hide it.

“Lindsay, are you all right? You’ve been acting strangely ever since you arrived back from London two weeks ago.”

Yes, he was perfectly sound. Just needy for her.

“Meet me tonight, Anais. At the stables.”

She cocked her head to the side, studied him, and he felt the compulsion to shrink back in horror and shame. Was it not his amorous feelings she saw reflected in his eyes, but something else? The other side of him he hid from the world.

“I’m worried about you.”

He smiled and clutched her fingers. “There’s no need. Now, after dessert, tell your mother you’re going for a ride. We’ll ride into the forest and I might even let you beat me.”

She laughed then, her eyes sparkling. “Oh, how you delude yourself. For I am going to trounce you. Just you wait and see.”

God willing he thought, as he led Anais into the dining room. Although he had the feeling that they were both thinking two different things when it came to trouncing.

Something was afoot. Anais stole another sidelong glance at Lindsay, who sat to the right of her. There was a feral intensity about him this evening, one she had never seen before from her longtime friend.

Whatever had brought on his bizarre behavior this evening had obviously been beleaguering him for the past fortnight. Lindsay had simply not been himself these past two weeks.

Perhaps it was the extraordinarily lovely Lady Mary Grantworth who had made his wits addled. Mary certainly stared enough at him from her spot across the table. She had also engaged him in conversation for the better part of the dinner.

What man wouldn’t become addled in the presence of Mary’s violet eyes and lithe figure? A figure that was trim, unlike her own dumpling body.

Did Lindsay prefer small, pert breasts and narrow hips? If so, Anais knew she hadn’t a hope, for her breasts were much too big, and her hips wide. Hers was a body that was soft and curvaceous. The type she had told herself that men desired in a woman whom they were about to make love to. But perhaps she had erred in thinking that a man would desire such things.

She couldn’t help the way she had been created. She had always been well endowed, even from a young age. She had accepted herself, and her body, and had even grown to admire her bosom in a low-cut bodice, and the flare of her hips from her waist that dipped in like an hourglass. It had been aeons since she had wished to change her body. Until tonight. Until she saw what she perceived as her rival sitting across the table from her, looking at her smugly. Mary was beautiful, thin, fashionable. Anais, while pretty enough, with her long, blond hair that was given to curl, was neither slim, nor fashionable, thanks to her mother’s belief that a body like hers was best left in plain clothes.

What did Lindsay think? Was it Mary’s little bosom, rising above her bodice like two firm apples, that enticed him? Or was it hers, soft, warm, inviting in its display of perfect peach skin, which she had so carefully scented.

Which woman would Lindsay want to feel beneath him? She had always dreamed it was her he desired. But now, sitting across from the perfect Mary, she wasn’t so certain.

“You scowl,” Lindsay suddenly whispered to her, startling her.

“Merely in thought,” she replied, refusing to look at him. His face was close to hers. She could feel his breath, the way it caressed her neck. She couldn’t look into that beautiful face and show every feeling she possessed.

“Are your thoughts so unsavory, then?”

Oh, they were! They were thoughts of the beautiful Mary and Lindsay together. There was no doubt about it, Mary Grantworth wanted Lindsay, and for more than just his title.

All Anais had ever wanted was him. His title be damned. It was the man she desired. The childhood friend who had grown into a strong man, a man of good standing and intellect. A man who was not an idle gadabout waiting to come into his title and inheritance.

Lindsay was so much more than a viscount and heir presumptive to a marquisate.

“When you pout, angel, every man looks at you, wishing he could kiss away the sadness from those lovely lips.”

Yet how could she or any other woman resist him? With his dark good looks, he was everything a young woman dreamed of in a man. He was tall, broad and well muscled, yet he walked with a predator-like grace that held a woman’s gaze and captured her imagination. His clothes were immaculate, well tailored to accentuate his shoulders and toned legs. His hair was onyx colored, and he wore it long to his shoulders, where it hung in loose waves she had longed to run her fingers through. His eyes, the color of Irish moss, were fringed with long, black lashes that were utterly wasted on a man. He was beautiful, the very epitome of a brooding poet, but with his hair worn long, and the sinful curve of his mouth, which was usually shadowed with a night beard, he reminded Anais not of a poet, but a fallen angel, the sort who would tempt any woman into an indiscretion with a smile and a flash of his eyes.

That was what made Lindsay so alluring. He was a mix of romantic sensitivity, with an underlying aura of sinful masculinity. There was a part of Lindsay that called to the romantic girl, and the other part that called to the womanly needs she kept so carefully hidden from him.

Her gaze strayed to his hands, long, elegant, artistic, she shivered as she imagined those beautiful hands traversing her body; and his lips, good God, she could not look at those strong lips and not shudder as she thought of him kissing every inch of her.

It was no wonder that Mary had set her sights on him. Anais herself could hardly bear to look away from his hansome profile, or stop herself from imagining what he must look like beneath his waistcoat and jacket. She had no doubt, though, that what lurked beneath his clothes would be every bit as perfect as his face.

She had no doubt that sharing a bed with Lindsay would be beyond what she could ever possibly think of while she pleasured herself. As if he knew her thoughts, he looked at her, his gaze burning, his lips lifting in a secret smile.

Yes, wicked. Wanton. She wished he would lean into her and whisper into her ear all the naughty things he whispered to her in her dreams. Instead, she swallowed and broke the spell of his gaze holding hers.

Her gaze lifted, landed, as she suspected they would, on his face. There was no teasing in his eyes. No smile.

“You attempt to flatter me,” she said as she stole a look at Mary Grantworth. She was watching them with unabashed venom.

“No, Anais. I would never speak false words to you. You know that.”

Of course she did. They were friends, after all. Friends. How the word began to feel like a noose around her neck. She did not want to be friends with Lindsay. She wanted more. She wanted the same things she dreamed about. The same feelings coursing through her body as when she pleasured herself, while dreaming it was him touching her.

She felt her face warm and glanced away. If Lindsay knew what thoughts she had of him. How erotic. How unchaste and unmaidenly those thoughts were, he would run as fast as he could in the opposite direction.

While he might not speak falsely to her, he certainly could not mean anything by his words. They were meant to be kind, to help a friend. She mustn’t read more into them, or into the scene they had shared in the salon. She must not think it anything of import, how he had pressed closer to her, how his mouth had lingered over her hand and he had seemed to inhale her essence deep within his chest.

No! She was being fanciful. Allowing her bedtime wishes to become real. Lindsay did not desire her the way she desired him.

“My lord, shall you be attending the agricultural fair next week in Blackpool?” Mary Grantworth asked, drawing Lindsay’s attention away from Anais’s face.

“I had not considered it, Lady Mary.”

“No? You should. My uncle has entered his Belgian Warm-bloods to be judged. I know he plans to sell a few of his stallions. As you are known around town as the most accomplished horseman, as well as a connoisseur of flesh—”

“Flesh?” Lindsay asked with a raised brow.

Mary colored prettily, but it was far from innocent. “A connoisseur of horseflesh, Lord Raeburn. I thought perhaps you would be interested in the sale of those stallions, since you are interested in starting a breeding program here in Bewdley. At least, I assumed that was what you meant when you spoke of breeding during our walk last week.”

Mary shot Anais a look of triumph from across the table as she waited for Lindsay’s reply. With a stern nod that bordered on impolite, Lindsay shifted his focus to his plate and the piece of prime rib that sat on it. He gave no answer to Mary’s inquiry and Anais saw a look of pure menace cloud Mary’s beautiful expression.

Anais’s appetite abandoned her at once. She couldn’t possibly stomach anything, not when her insides had turned to lead. Anais struggled for composure, for inner calm against the tumultuous thoughts running with abandon through her mind. Just when she thought she’d go mad with her thoughts, she felt the softest of caresses against the top of her hand as it rested on her lap beneath the table. It was followed by another, then another. The tingling rose up her arm, covering her skin in gooseflesh. The caress reached higher, until it wrapped around her wrist.

Lindsay.

She looked up at him, saw the way his gaze had darkened; saw the way he looked down at her. Then he took her hand in his, entwining his fingers with hers, and placed their hands on his thigh. With his free hand he traced her knuckles and the veins beneath her skin in such a tender way she began to tremble.

It was singularly the most erotic thing ever done to her. To be holding hands and touching beneath the supper table while two dozen guests sat around them was the most scandalously wicked thing.

“I want to kiss your lips,” he murmured for her alone as his gaze slipped to her mouth. “I want to have you all to myself—alone,” he clarified. “Do you want that, Anais? To be alone with me?”

He’d taken his hand off hers and rested it on her leg where his fingers traveled lightly over her thigh. She could barely think, couldn’t breathe as his hand slid inexorably closer to the apex of her thighs.

“Be with me, Anais?” He rose from his chair, carefully removing his hand so no one would see. He dragged his palm across the taffeta of her gown, the motion slow and teasing. He made a show of bending down, a pretense of reaching for his napkin, but instead he took that moment to whisper in her ear.

“Come to me.”

He straightened, made his excuses and left the table. Anais finally let out her breath. Come to me… The words tumbled through her mind for the next half hour.

2

Blue eyes flashed at him from behind the veil of her curling golden hair. Her lips parted, taunting him with innocence. Lindsay’s gaze slipped to those red, plump lips, telling him of the sinful delights that could be found in her mouth. Sweet innocence mixed with forbidden sensuality.

She was a lady born and bred. His childhood friend, although a child no more. She was a woman, with a woman’s mind, a woman’s body. But had she the appetite of a woman? Did she hunger for him? Would she allow him to appease the ache—the same damn ache that had gnawed at his insides for years?

The way they had touched, their hands hidden beneath the table, had told him that she might just welcome an advance from him. He had felt her tremble as he made the caress more intimate. There was no mistaking his intent. No more denying what he wanted.

“You’re falling behind, Lindsay,” Anais called as she looked over her shoulder and through the long curls that waved and flapped in the cold evening air. “You should have ridden the chestnut bay. Now I’m going to beat you to the stables and you are going to lose our wager,” she said with a laugh. Urging her mare forward, she bent low over the saddle, her full, lush bottom perched in the air as she brazenly rode astride.

Desire curled in Lindsay’s belly as his gaze strayed to the roundness of her bottom. He should have stayed in London, should have kept himself buried in Tran’s opium den, numbing himself to these wanton appetites. In truth, he could no more keep his distance from Anais Darnby than a moth could keep from flying into a flame.

A familiar ache settled in his gut and he gripped the reins in his gloved hands, urging his mount forward as he closed the distance between him and Anais.

He should never have offered this evening ride. Should never have tempted himself by touching her beneath the table. Bloody hell, he should have known not to ask her to accompany him—alone. He knew better. He had been unable to take his eyes off her during dinner. Had watched her eat, studied the erotic play of her tongue on her lips, the fork. He had hungered and lusted through the entire damned meal. He’d been humiliatingly erect watching her, his blood heating with the desire to make Anais more than just a friend. Damn it, he should have known that a bruising ride through the woods would not assuage the dangerous desire he had flooding his veins.

Again, she glanced over her shoulder, her eyes widening when she saw how he was coming up hard on her heels, preparing to overtake her mare. She smiled in challenge and his blood heated more.

He couldn’t think when she looked at him like that, like a seductress with pouting, skillful lips. She was his friend—his best friend. He treasured their easy friendship—the rarity of it. What he was contemplating, what he desired, might very well ruin any feelings she held for him.

But he needed—had—to have at least one taste of the pleasure she could give him. One taste. One simple, forbidden taste…

He should have been thinking about the ring he’d left in his den. Thinking about how he should be proposing marriage before taking their relationship further. Anais was a lady, after all, not a demirep. He was a gentleman who knew how to treat a lady. Except, at this moment, all he could think about was how much he needed Anais sexually.

The stable was now in sight and Anais’s mare galloped full speed toward the open doors. His heart was pounding a furious pace. It always did when he was riding. But there was something else there. An irregularity; a skipped beat when he thought of turning his relationship with Anais from innocent friendship to an intimate session of shared delight. Pink, flushed skin. Swollen lips, parted in pleasure. Her fingers digging into his shoulders as their bodies heated and glistened with desire… Yes, that was what he wanted, the shared delight of flesh.

He wanted her as a companion. A wife. A lover. He didn’t think he could stand the agony of enduring another day, another month, another year of dreaming and longing. How damned torturous it was to have her near him and not be able to touch her. Had she any idea what he wanted to do to her as they sat by the pond and twirled the blades of grass between their fingers? Did she know how much control it took for him to resist lying atop her as she stretched out onto the grass and gazed up at the sky?

The bay snorted heavily as they tore into the stables. He heard the hard snorting breaths of Anais’s mare and he urged the bay to the stall. Before him, Anais was dismounting, the toe of her half boot caught in the stirrup. A flash of a stocking-clad ankle met his eyes and his cock hardened again. The hunger he had kept tightly reined in over supper broke free of his restraint.

Within seconds he had his hands around her waist, lifting her free of the stirrups. She gasped, a womanly, husky pant, and he didn’t think. Didn’t care that she might not want him like he wanted her. This was the moment he had been waiting for. The moment of truth. The destiny that had been ordained for him.

“I can go no longer, Anais.” His breathing was deep, his words husky as he brought her up against the stable wall. “It’s agony watching you from afar. It’s bloody torture thinking of you in the night when I am alone and wanting the feel of you against me. For so long I have needed and wanted you.”

Her eyes widened. Shock? Passion? He didn’t know, but the uncertainty ate at his belly. “I can’t look at you anymore with only friendship in my mind. I want your body beneath me. I want you flushed and hot in my arms. I want to be inside you.”

He didn’t wait for her answer. Didn’t want to hear it if she told him his feelings and desires were one-sided. He only wanted to feel her wind-chafed lips beneath his. One kiss. He would stop at a kiss if she said so. But to deny himself that, to resist the temptation, was a torment he could not withstand. If she allowed him any liberties, he would confess his love. He would sweep her away and marry her. He would make love to her in all the ways he knew how.

“Do you know what I want you to give me?” he asked, lowering his mouth to hers.

“Yes,” she whispered breathlessly.

“Will you give me what I want?” He pulled his gloves from his hands, dropping them to the stable floor. Unbuttoning her cloak, he let it fall from her shoulders, before he smoothed his palms down her arms and the delicate silk of her gown.

“If you say no, Anais, I will not press you.” Their gazes met, and he saw the war waged in her eyes. Waiting for her answer was a lesson in agony.

Another frigid blast of north wind howled angrily from the snowcapped hills. The shutters on the window flanking the wall behind Anais creaked against the bricks as the wind gusted yet again, sending icy air through the cracks of the old, weathered casement window, the sound distracting her from her thoughts.

She should have been shivering with cold after being out in the elements for so long, but she did not feel the sting of the bitter winter air, only a ravaging heat that enveloped her in a fevered warmth.

“Anais, I shall go mad if I deny myself any longer,” Lindsay’s deep voice whispered in her ear. “Please,” he pleaded, sliding both her dress and chemise down her arms, baring the white stay beneath her shift. “Say yes,” he implored as his long fingers sought the ties of her corset. “Or tell me to cease these attentions before I cannot stop.”

What was she to say? She knew what she should say, but the word would not come forth. No had never felt so impossibly hard to say as it did now. She did not want to speak the word, for she knew that Lindsay would honor her refusal. Refusing him was something she didn’t want to do. She wanted this, despite the fact it was against everything she had been taught. She wanted his lovemaking, regardless of the fact she could find herself ruined in the eyes of society.

“Anais?”

“Don’t stop,” she said on a gasp. “Oh, Lindsay, please don’t stop.”

With masterful skill, he undid the bow on her corset, pulling on the strings before releasing her straining breasts into the cool air. She shuddered, feeling the sexual awakening flooding her hot blood like a glass of fine champagne.

Lowering his mouth to the valley of her breasts, he trailed his lips along her flesh, making her burn hotter. Raking her hands through Lindsay’s thick, curling hair, Anais clenched her fingers in the silky strands as his lips trailed openmouthed along her skin. Her breath froze as his mouth descended lower. Closing her eyes, she allowed her held breath to pass in a soft exhalation of yearning—a desire she knew was forbidden. No woman of her class would do such a thing without the benefit of marriage, and in a stable no less! Only common strumpets would allow a man such liberties where anyone may happen upon them. But the forbidden was the most succulent of fruits, especially when it was Lindsay offering the illicit taste.

She didn’t think, only felt as his mouth followed the descent of her gown. It was followed by the slow slide of his fingers hooking beneath the waist of her petticoats as he drew them over her generous hips till they lay in a lace heap around her feet.

Gasping, Anais pressed further against the cold stone when Lindsay dropped to his knees and began to nuzzle the damp flesh between her thighs. His hands cupped her breasts as his mouth moved eagerly—hungrily—over her wet sex as he lapped at her.

How was she to deny him? How was she to deny herself this sinful pleasure, especially when she had desired—no, loved— this man her entire life? It was neither fanciful thinking nor melodrama in the heat of sexual frenzy, but the truth. She had loved Lindsay for…well, forever. To be here with him now, in the stables of his estate, to feel his mouth caress her in forbidden places and exotic ways was beyond what she had ever dared hope for. And she had hoped and longed for this moment for so long…

Blood pounded fiercely in her ears as Lindsay’s hot mouth covered every inch of her flesh. She heard the rapid fire of her heart mixing with the erotic sounds of his tongue laving her. The way he pleasured her made her wish for him to devour her whole and she encouraged him on with her husky breaths and the way she instinctively gripped his hair.

“I knew you would be this responsive,” he said in a guttural voice as he sunk his finger deep inside her, coaxing more wetness from her. “My God, you’re beautiful,” he rasped, suddenly standing up and studying her naked body as she stood vulnerably before him.

“You know that isn’t true,” she said through trembling lips, even though she wished it was.

“It is.” His voice was forceful as he stroked his fingertip along her swollen nipple. “Haven’t you ever noticed how I can’t keep from watching you? Haven’t you ever wondered why I need to be near you? You’re an angel, Anais. You’re my angel. You’re perfect.”

Lindsay was looking at her like a man starved, like a man possessed by the power of lust. She knew that he had to finish what he had started. She could think on things later. When she was alone in her room she could try to understand why now, after years of friendship, he had decided to turn their relationship into something more.

The feel of his hands stroking her breasts chased her thoughts away. He swirled his thumb along her nipples until the buds were hard pebbles and her womb was clenching in longing. Over and over he teased her with his thumbs, plucking at her nipples until little tremors raced down her back.

“I want to feel you tremble like this when I’m buried deep inside you.” She met his gaze and he smiled slowly—sensually. “Let me make love to you.”

“Yes,” she hissed as he ran his tongue along her nipple before slipping it between his lips. “Yes. I want this—so much.”

Picking her up as if she were light as a feather, he carried her to the corner of the stable where bales of hay were stacked. He lowered her to stand beside him. Pulling his shirt from his shoulders he placed it atop their makeshift bed. Picking her up again, he placed her on the linen, which was damp from his sweat.

They had ridden hard on their ride through the woods. Even now she could see the rivulets of perspiration trickling down his chest as the silver moonlight filtered through the window and reflected on his chest. She loved the masculine texture of his damp shirt beneath her and the scent of him—male and musky—surrounding her. She didn’t care that she was going to be tumbled on a bale of hay in a stable for her first time. She didn’t care, because this was Lindsay, this was his world—the world they had always shared together.

Sitting back and resting on his heels, he studied her, all the time running his hands along her body. “So soft, so beautiful and pale,” he said, sounding awed. “I want to remember you like this, stretched out, waiting for me to take you for the first time.”

Her thighs trembled. She shoved aside the awkwardness. Now was not the time to be gauche. Now was the time to indulge her deepest, most private fantasy—making love with Lindsay.

He ran his hand over her nipples, then down her ribs till he reached her hip. He caressed and kneaded, watching her response, listening to her sounds of pleasure before he ran his fingertips along the inside of her thighs, eliciting a flush of gooseflesh along her skin. He played there for a while, touching her, heightening the anticipation until she was clutching at his shoulders and urging him down. She had liked his mouth between her thighs, and greedy as she was, she wanted it there again.

He knew what she desired, and with a wicked smile that made her toes curl, he lowered his head and set his mouth against her sex. She arched at the intimacy, brushing her damp flesh against his cheek and lips. She heard his groan, a sound of approval and delight before he raked his tongue against her.

She cried out his name as she felt his tongue part her folds and she covered her mouth with the back of her hand, silencing her wanton pleas. He only teased her more by flicking his tongue slowly up the length of her before circling the sensitive bud of flesh. She tensed and looked down, only to see him looking up at her as he slowly raked his tongue around the hood of her sex. That sinful visual was enough to stop her heart.

“I’ve always wondered how you would taste coming in my mouth. Now I know.”

Wicked, wicked man! But the words would not come, only the uncontrollable shaking of her body beneath him as she climaxed into his mouth. When she could utter a sound, it was in hushed, stuttering breaths, pleading with him to stop. He would not listen. He pushed her on. His tongue hungrily, forcefully licked her until she clutched at his head and raised herself on her elbows. She watched as he tormented her with his tongue.

Her hips moved in time to his probing tongue. She heard him growl, watched as his gaze lowered to her breasts, which were swaying with her efforts as she climbed the hill to orgasm once again.

Lindsay continued to study her breasts as she cupped one in her hand, stroking her nipple with her thumb, just as she did at night, hidden beneath her bedsheets, pretending that it was Lindsay doing all those wicked things to her body and not her own hands.

“Little minx, you’ve done this before, haven’t you?”

She smiled a slow half smile and continued to palm her breasts, teasing him, delighting in his husky growl when she rolled her nipple between her thumb and finger. “It was you that I dreamed of when I brought myself to orgasm, Lindsay. But it never felt like this. This intoxicating.”

Sitting up, he pulled off his boots and tossed them down to the flagstone floor. He tore at the flaps of his breeches, pulling them along his hips, allowing her only a glimpse of black curls and his rampant erection before he pressed his hot, damp body on hers.

Holding out her arms, she reached for him, allowing his chest to cover hers as he buried his face in her neck and the hair that spilled out over the hay. He pressed inside her, filling her so full that she could only slide up and away from the intrusion, but he reached for her hips and held them firm in his big hands.

“I’m full of you,” she breathed, feeling the thick length of him still sinking farther into her. He groaned, still clutching her hips, holding her still so that he could surge up inside her.

The pain she expected did not come. A brief, stinging sensation made her wince, but it was quickly soothed away by the exquisite sensation of Lindsay buried deep. They were one now. She could no longer tell where she left off and he began.

He reached his hands around to her bottom, gripping her tight, stroking her deep, quickening his thrusts as he watched her breasts dance and sway. She arched her back, feeling the pressure building inside her once again. He kept thrusting until she felt his shoulders stiffen beneath her fingers.

“Anais,” he groaned. “Angel.”

She held his gaze steady as he thrust into her slowly at first, then steadily deeper and faster. My beautiful, beautiful Lindsay, how I love you…

A draft crept in through the barn boards, caressing their naked bodies. Anais shivered, snuggling into Lindsay’s warmth. He reached up and pulled a woolen blanket down from an iron hook.

“You don’t mind, do you?” he asked, covering them up with the tartan wool. “I know it’s not silk brocade, but I confess I’m not ready to let you up. I want to feel all this against me,” he murmured, running his hand over her body.

She pressed up against him instead of slapping his probing hand away. In truth, she couldn’t get enough of his compliments, or the way his hands seemed to continuously stroke her body in the most reverent of ways.

“How many more times do you expect to do this tonight?”

He chuckled and pressed his chin against the top of her head. “I don’t know. I can’t get enough of you. I have a lifetime to make up for, you know. So many years of watching you. You don’t know the tortures you’ve put me through. Tonight in the salon, when I first saw you standing by the hearth, I nearly carried you off then, I wanted you so badly.”

His fingers reached out, capturing a curl that lay over her shoulder. She watched as he studied the blond strands in the golden light. “I’m so bloody glad I finally got up the courage to take you to bed,” he murmured, before dropping her hair and smoothing his fingers down her shoulder.

“So am I.” It was about time he saw her as a woman.

He caught her hand and slowly entwined her fingers with his. “I don’t want this moment to end, but I suppose it’s getting late and I shall have to give you up. No doubt your mother and father are waiting to go back home. We’ve been riding,” he said with a grin, “for an inordinately long time.”

She nodded, knowing he was right, but wishing he wasn’t. She didn’t want this moment to end, either. She had waited too long for a sign from Lindsay that he desired her as a woman, not just a friend.

“Are you going to the Torrington masquerade on Tuesday?”

“Yes,” she groaned, hating the very thought of having to dress up.

“I thought you loved Valentine’s Day. What better way to celebrate it than with a masquerade?”

“I do love Valentine’s Day. I just don’t care for masquerades.”

“Why not?”

She sat up and the blanket slipped down, baring her large breasts. “You would not like them, either, if you had a mother who forced you to wear a shepherdess costume.”

His green eyes turned darker. Reaching out, he circled her pink areola with the tip of his finger. “I think you should go as an odalisque. I can’t imagine anything more arousing than seeing you dressed as though you had just stepped out of a harem. Would you do that for me, Anais?” he asked her, looking up at her through his impossibly long black lashes. “Would you dress as a houri? My houri?”

Anais decided she would move heaven and hell to make a costume that would please him. She would indulge him in his penchant for anything Eastern. She would play the part of the harem girl if that was what he desired.

He smiled and wrapped his fingers around her neck, bringing her closer to him. “Will you let me have my wicked way with you, my houri? Will you find a way to come to me that night and make love with me?”

What could she say? This was simply a dream come true. “Yes.”

Lindsay lowered his mouth to hers, kissing her in a soft, lulling, almost drugging kiss. His hand moved to her breast and he caught it in his palm before running his hand along the side of her body in a slow, sweeping manner—a loving manner.

“Can you feel how hard I am growing against your warm belly? Just the thought of you makes me this way, Anais. I want you again, to spend inside you once more so that you can feel me inside you for the rest of the night. I want you every night for the rest of my life.”

How many years had she waited for such a declaration? “Are you asking me to marry you?” she asked incredulously. She had almost given up any hope that Lindsay might return her affections. Yet here they were, naked in each other’s arms, talking of forever.

“We will marry. But as to the asking, I have plans. When I propose I want it to be special. Be assured you’re mine. You will be my wife. Trust me in this, Anais.”

A crash echoed outside the stable window. Anais smothered a squeal as she reached for the blanket, covering her nakedness.

“Just some barn cats that have gotten into the old tin milk cans, that is all,” he murmured. “Don’t worry, sweeting. Now then, put your pretty legs around me and ride me like you do your mare.” He brushed his hands down her backside and sought her sex between her folds. “I’ve watched you riding, wishing those lovely thighs were wrapped around me and not Lady.”

Anais rose to her knees and peered out the window, fearing she saw the shadow of someone running from the stable. “Perhaps we should be getting back.”

“How can I convince you to stay with me?” he asked, coming up behind her and holding her tight in his arms. “What could change your mind?” He pressed small kisses along her spine, sending gooseflesh down every nerve as he cupped her breasts from behind. “What if I were to beg you? Or coerce you with pretty words? What if I just took you?” he suggested darkly. “Now that is an interesting thought, me just taking you—”

“Where the hell are they?”

Anais straightened as if she had been lashed with a whip. It was the booming voice of the Marquis of Weatherby—Lindsay’s father. “I’ll whip that son of mine if he hasn’t kept that cock of his in his trousers.”

“Get dressed,” Lindsay commanded, helping her down from the bale and turning her so that he could tie her corset strings. “Hurry,” he whispered, helping her into her chemise. “Now then, hide in the hay.”

“Lindsay—”

“Do it,” he commanded, as he tossed her gown to her.

“Boy!” his father called from outside, his voice loud and sounding very drunk.

Anais shot Lindsay a nervous look before hurriedly stepping into the heavy taffeta gown.

The marquis was a drunken sot. As useless as the day was long, and nothing but a whoring drunkard, her father always said. The man was capable of anything while in his cups. She feared for Lindsay and what his father might do.

The stable door was flung open. Frigid February air gust in, followed by swirling wind and snow that caused the horses to whinny nervously. Anais peered through the slats of the barn board walls, seeing that the marquis loomed large in the doorway with his hands fisted at his sides. His head turned in her direction and she whimpered before dropping down beside two bales of hay.

“Where are ye?” the marquis growled, prowling into the stable before slamming the door firmly shut. He tripped over a footstool in his drunkenness and with a violent kick, he sent the stool flying down the length of the stable.

“Ah,” Weatherby snarled when he fixed his gaze on Lindsay. “There ye are. Fixin’ your shirt, I see. This isn’t the time to be diddling with the staff, my boy. If you wanted a go with one of the maids, you should have waited till our company departed.”

Lindsay shrugged into his shirt then reached for his boots, ignoring his father.

“You weren’t prickin’ that Darnby chit, were you?” Anais saw Lindsay’s broad shoulders go rigid, but he said nothing as he reached for his second boot. “Lord knows that girl—Anais—” Weatherby snorted “—needs a good, sound tupping. Far too above herself, that one. Forever looking down her nose at me like I was nothing but a common slug. But your mother, you know. The idea of you defiling the sweet and innocent Darnby chit—plain, nothing little thing that she is—would send her to bed for a week. I can’t have that. I’ve a party of gents coming at the end of the week. I’ve got a large packet riding on this and I can’t have your mother skulking about, confined to her bed. I want her gone to London, with you. So, if you’ve been amusing yourself tonight with Darnby’s girl, it’s high time you put your cock back in your trousers and made yer way back to the house.”

Lindsay finally turned his attention to his father, his face showing barely restrained contempt. “Lady Anais returned to the house immediately after our ride.”

Lord Weatherby snorted. “Didn’t want to raise her skirts for the likes of you, eh? No doubt she thinks of you the same way she thinks of your sire. Fat lot she knows, the frigid little shrew. Don’t know why she’s so high in the instep. Her mother was nothing before she married Lord Darnby. Came from nothing, she did. Only had her looks, and I can tell you—” Weatherby leered “—her mama did not come to her marriage bed a virgin.”

“Father!” Lindsay snapped, glancing in her direction for a brief second before returning his gaze to his insolent father. But Lindsay knew as well as she that her mama was far from a saint. In fact, her mother was nothing but a hypocrite, preaching one thing and doing the exact opposite. Anais harbored no grand illusions about her mother. She had long ago come to terms with her mother’s behavior.

She’d been eight years old when she first saw her mother flirting with her father’s friend during a picnic. That night, as she snuck out of the house toward the lake to watch the fireflies with Lindsay, she had seen her mother, dressed in a white wrapper, running across the lawn to the orangery. Her father’s friend was there, waiting. Her mother had fallen into his arms before the door had even closed behind them. The last thing Anais heard was her mother pleading with her lover. “Take me away from all this hell,” she’d begged. “Erase the touch of my husband, a man I despise. Treat me like a woman, for my husband never has.”

Even at eight, Anais had known what her mother was. A social climber. A fraud. An adultress. That incident, Anais had admitted, was unlikely the first for her mother. It was certainly not the last.

Years later, when Anais had been in her early teens, she had discovered her mother in the attic with a young, handsome footman who had just been taken on. Anais hadn’t run away like the other times she had seen her mother betraying her father. She’d confronted her.

That was when her mother had told her the truth she’d long suspected. That marriage to her father had brought her riches and social status. That was the only reason she’d married him. His money brought her happiness and lovers. His physical affection made her ill. So, too, did looking at the children she had to produce in order to keep her husband appeased. She hated her children for what they had done to her body. She loathed the time she was forced to spend with them, even though it was minimal. And she despised Anais the most, she had told her, because she out of her two sisters most resembled her father, both in looks and personality.

Morality, her mother scoffed, was not a trait worth a pence. It gave you only misery, and the feeling of a noose closing ever tighter around your neck.

Anais had left the attic room, which at one time had been her nursery, a thought that disgusted her. Seeing her mother engaging in such debauchery in a room where she and her sisters had slept as children sickened her and made her realize just what sort of a heartless tart her mother was.

She had not confided the news to her father because it would destroy him. She had not told her oldest sister, Abigail, because in truth, Abby was more like their mother than any of them. Ann, the youngest, had still been a child. So she’d turned to the only person who she trusted. The only soul she had ever confided in. And like always, he’d been there waiting for her at the stables, her horse had already been saddled and both Lindsay and her mare had watched patiently for her arrival.

Anais had fallen into his arms sobbing, just like her mother had fallen into the arms of her lover all those years ago. Lindsay kept her safe. Had held her close to him and allowed her to dampen his shirt with her tears. He’d been eighteen then. More man than boy. He could have left her; she was, after all, still considered a child, even at sixteen. But he hadn’t, and she’d clung to him like the ivy on the walls of her home as he stroked her back with his palm that she recalled felt so strong and warm along her spine.

Confiding in Lindsay had taken the pain away, but the realization that her mother’s cold and ruthless blood swam in her own veins was something that always terrified her. She still had not made peace with the knowledge.

She did not want to become her mother. She would not become her mother, she vowed as she listened to Lord Weatherby spew his venom. Venom she knew was the truth.

“What exactly is it you don’t want to hear, boy?” his father taunted, drawing her gaze away from the muscle that flicked in Lindsay’s jaw. “What is it that makes you so irate? The fact that I can’t stand that little bitch you call a friend, or the fact I pricked her mother?”

“Stop it,” Lindsay demanded.

His father chuckled and slapped Lindsay’s shoulder. “Don’t act all honorable, son. You’re not, you know. I know all about you and your habits. So, tell me, how does it feel to be a chip off the old block—nine and twenty and friggin’ all the household help?”

“Thirty,” Lindsay snapped before reaching for his evening coat.

“What’s that?”

“I turned thirty last month. But you cannot be expected to remember that. After all, you’ve spent the last years in a drunken haze in London with your mistresses and your cronies.”

“Well, thirty, then,” his father said unrepentantly. “How does it feel to be a man, to take some comely little maid in here and give it to her hard against a wall?”

“I have been a man, with a man’s responsibilities for many years, Father,” Lindsay growled as he shrugged into his jacket. “While you have been whoring and drinking the years away, I have grown up. I have become something you are not—a gentleman.”

His father leaned forward and winked, unaffected by Lindsay’s rebuke. “Was it that buxom little Sally? I had her the other day. Lively little thing, and skilled, too. Beautiful wide mouth. Oh, come now.” His father grinned wickedly when he saw Lindsay’s scowl. “You were doing what comes natural. At least what comes natural to you and me,” his father teased, elbowing him in the ribs, then staggering to the left. “What man doesn’t enjoy a woman’s mouth around him from time to time? Best damn release you can find, my boy, a willing mouth eager to please. A mouth—” his father sneered “—you won’t have to marry or have harping at you for the rest of yer days.”

“You disgust me,” Lindsay said with a snarl.

“I’m happy, boy,” his father declared, heedless of Lindsay’s censure. “I’m right happy with the reports I’ve been getting from Town. Seems it’s true, apples really don’t fall far from the tree.”

Anais watched the color drain from Lindsay’s face. He was now a ghastly, ashen color. She had never seen Lindsay looking so discomposed. Was it because his father had talked of his previous conquests, and she was present to hear it? Was Lindsay concerned for her feelings, especially after what they had shared?

She knew, that at Lindsay’s age, he had knowledge of other women. She wasn’t naive to believe that he had saved himself for her. Besides, she’d known his skill by the first touch of his hands on her body. And while she felt jealous and hurt, she believed that what they had shared was more than what he had with other women.

She had to believe that, because to believe anything else would be too painful to bear.

“Well, then, I’m off, back to the house to tell that pompous ass Darnby that his shrew of a daughter is not out here with you—I knew you had more taste than to go tupping someone like that—but your mother,” he scoffed as he staggered away, “your mother wouldn’t be appeased until I left my port and hand of cards to search for you. That damn woman, I don’t know what I ever did to deserve her. And,” Weatherby snapped as he whirled around, “you might consider being a trifle more civil to the Grantworth chit. She’s worth a fortune and far prettier than the Darnby girl. She’s got one of the biggest dowries on the marriage mart this year and she fancies you. See to it you make arrangements to go driving or attend that blasted fair. I want an heir from you before I die. Do I make myself clear?”

When the stable door closed, Lindsay looked back at Anais, an expression of shame marring his handsome face. “He was drunk,” she murmured quietly while pulling stray bits of hay from her hair. “He didn’t know what he was saying.”

It was the same excuse she had heard Lindsay use for his father since they were small children. She despised the words even as she said them. There was no excuse for such a wastrel. The marquis was always in a state of grotesque inebriation. She had seen him falling down drunk and groping women who were not his wife more times than she cared to admit.

But then Anais could not fault Lindsay for trying to soften the embarrassment of having such a father. She did much the same with her mother. Anais had dealt with the shame, not by defending her mother’s actions, but writing her out of her life. Anais dealt with the disgrace by pretending she had no mother. And her mother couldn’t have been happier for her absence.

“After what we’ve just shared, you must know that I hold no liking or desire for Mary Grantworth.” Anais smiled, happy to hear it. “She wanted you to believe that we had gone on a walk together and spoken intimately. The truth, Anais, is that I met her coming out of the apothecary, and I talked with her for less than a minute.”

“Thank you for telling me, Lindsay. Not that you needed to.”

“Yes, I did. I was worried the whole time he was going on about women, and about Mary Grantworth, that you would hate me and believe what my father was saying. I was terrified that when I finally was able to come to you, you wouldn’t believe me when I told you that you’ve been the only woman I’ve ever wanted permanently in my life.”

The coldness that had suddenly gathered inside her melted away and she reached up on her tiptoes and brushed her mouth against his. “I believe you, Lindsay.”

“I’m not like him, Anais. I’m not my father. I don’t share his vices.”

She cupped Lindsay’s face, forcing him to look at her. He told her he would never speak a false word against her, and she believed him. “You don’t?”

“No. I…” His eyes turned unreadable and he tried, tried so very hard, she knew, to hold his gaze steady. In the end he couldn’t and he was looking over her shoulder at a spot on the wall behind her when he said, “I swear it. I’m not like him.”

Something in her began to hurt, but it was soon replaced by the great love she had for him, and the need to believe in him. She could handle whatever he was afraid to tell her. Nothing could stop her from loving Lindsay—nothing. At this moment, everything was too new. They needed time to adjust to the way things were now between them.

“Then everything will be all right, won’t it?”

He nodded as he ran the pad of his thumb along her lips. “This is right,” he said emphatically, as if he were trying to convince himself and not her. He clutched her face, peering down into her eyes as he rested his forehead against hers. “This bond we have, it must never be broken. Promise me,” he said, cupping her cheeks in his hands. “Promise me that this chain that binds us will never come unlinked.”

“I have always been bound to you. My heart will forever be yours, Lindsay. Never forget that.”

“I need your goodness in my life, Anais. I need you to keep me from becoming my father.”

“You won’t, Lindsay.”

“Swear to me, Anais. Swear you will always be there for me. Say you will never change.”

“I swear, Lindsay.”

“And will you remember me tonight?”

“I will. And will you think of me, Lindsay?”

“I have your scent on my hand. The taste of you on my tongue. I will never forget, Anais.”

3

“You’re keeping secrets!”

Anais looked up from the purple-and-gold silk that lay in her lap. Rebecca, her closest friend in Bewdley, sauntered into the room, looking more radiant than what was fair. Rebecca was so exotic-looking, with sable-colored curls and amber eyes that were almond-shaped and fringed with lush, sooty lashes.

Anais watched as Rebecca flopped down on the bed and propped her chin in her delicate doll’s hand. Her friend was everything she was not. The only virtue Rebecca lacked was fortune and family connections. But that fact hadn’t seemed to deter the numerous swains that had attempted to court Rebecca over the years. There had been many times as Anais stood on the peripheries, alone and unnoticed, watching her friend smile charmingly at the latest rogue pursuing her, that she wished she possessed a fraction of Rebecca’s beauty. Anais would have handed over her dowry for only a pittance of her friend’s charms and smoldering looks.

“Well,” Rebecca challenged, raising a perfectly shaped brow. “You were gone riding for a very long time. What in the world did Lord Raeburn do with you after he all but stole you from the salon?”

A small smile lifted her lips upwards. She had almost completely forgotten that Rebecca had been in attendance at dinner.

“Come, now, Anais, spill your secrets! I know you must have had an impassioned tryst in the stable.”

“And what makes you think that?” Anais thought back to the moment when she had heard a crash outside the stable, and had seen a figure fleeing through the window. Had Rebecca been spying on her? But why?

“Anais, we have been friends much too long. All the signs of a torrid embrace were there on your person when you arrived back in the salon. Your color was high, and your lips,” Rebecca teased, “were as pink and swollen as anything. Either you were stung by a bee in February, or you were utterly and pleasurably ravished! Now do not keep me in suspense any longer. I am positively dying to learn what happened between the two of you!”

Anais flushed and stabbed her needle through the purple silk, trying to prevent her hand from shaking and making the hem uneven. She wanted this costume to be perfect.

“Anais,” Rebecca said teasingly, “we’ve been friends too long, you know. You cannot hide the truth from me. He kissed you, didn’t he?”

“Perhaps,” Anais said, unable to hide the huge smile that parted her lips.

“You fiend!” Rebecca cried, coming off the bed and tearing the fabric from her hands. “Two days you’ve kept this from me! Tell me all of it. Was it divine? Does he have strong lips?”

“Rebecca, I’m quite certain you already know that it was heaven. After all, you’ve been kissed many times before.”

“But never by anyone as deliciously wicked as Lord Raeburn.”

For some reason Anais did not want to discuss Lindsay with Rebecca. It was not that she didn’t trust her friend to be discreet and keep her secret. She trusted Rebecca implicitly. But she realized that what had happened between her and Lindsay was meant to be kept just between them.

“Well?” Rebecca prodded.

“I’m quite certain Lord Broughton is just as deliciously wicked, Rebecca. A fact I’m certain you shall discover when he proposes marriage to you.”

“Oh, I’m afraid Lord Broughton is the most pious of gentlemen. Deliciously wicked are two words I would not use to describe him.”

Anais frowned and thought of the man who had been courting Rebecca. Garrett, Lord Broughton, was a gentleman. Handsome and rich, Garrett was much sought after by the marriage-minded girls and their mamas. He was a gentleman and given to quiet introspection, true, but there was no disputing that Rebecca had captured his attention.

“What are you making?” Rebecca asked suddenly, running her finger along the gold cording that Anais was busy sewing to the purple silk.

“My costume for the masquerade tonight.”

“You told me you were going as a shepherdess. I thought your mother already had your costume made up for you.”

“I’m not wearing that hideous monstrosity.” Anais glanced at the costume that hung on the door of her wardrobe. “I’ll look as wide as a frigate in that hooped skirt.”

Rebecca’s gaze roamed over the costume. “It is revolting, isn’t it?”

“I’m not wearing it.”

“So then, what are you wearing?”

“I’m going as an odalisque.”

Rebecca’s mouth hung open before she snapped it closed again. “You do know what an odalisque is, do you not? You’re aware that you’re going to be baring a great deal of…” Rebecca swallowed and looked pointedly at her. “You’ll be baring a great deal of your person, Anais.”

“Oh, I will incorporate the appropriate modifications that will allow me to be presentable in society—never fear that. But I have it on good authority that I would look rather fetching dressed as an odalisque. Lindsay suggested the idea and I want to please him.”

Her friend’s eyes went round with disbelief. “Icannot believe that of Raeburn. Well, not that he shouldn’t find you attractive,” Rebecca said in a rush. “It’s just that after all these years…after years of being…well, seemingly uninterested in that sort of relationship…” Rebecca murmured before trailing off altogether.

“I can hardly believe it myself. Oh, Rebecca, I do believe he loves me. He says we’re going to be married.”

“Are you certain, Anais? I would so hate for you to be disappointed.”

Something in Rebecca’s words made Anais’s blood freeze. The sinister coils of doubt began to unfurl, slowly choking out her new self-confidence, but she shoved it aside. Lindsay did want her. She had seen it in his eyes, heard it in his voice, felt it in his touch.

“Come, now. Let us not dwell on gloomy thoughts. Of course he loves you, Anais. How could he not? You’ve been traipsing in his boot tracks for years. It was only a matter of time before Lord Raeburn tripped over you and took notice of your presence.”

Is that what had happened? Had Lindsay merely relented? Was he tired of always having her near? Had he just resigned himself to the inevitable and finally given in to his mother’s fondest wish—a desire his mother had taken no pains to disguise?

“Anais,” her sister Ann’s voice rang out. “You have a letter.”

“Quick.” Anais jumped up from her chair and scooped the purple-and-gold skirt from the bed. “Help me hide this.”

Rebecca helped her tuck the costume into a coarse muslin sack seconds before the door was flung open and her fourteen-year-old sister came rushing into the room, her ringlets bouncing and her cheeks flushed pink with excitement.

She looked like an excited little pixie, with her gently upturned nose and sparkling, pale blue eyes. Ann was slight and petite, her hair was paler, more silvery than gold and straighter than Anais’s curls. Her skin was like porcelain and her features, while aristocratic, held a certain fragility that made her seem almost ethereal. But her bubbly personality stopped her from being untouchable.

One day, Ann Darnby was going to be stunningly beautiful and the most sought-after woman in England, and Anais suddenly couldn’t wait for her sister to find the man of her dreams.

“A valentine,” Ann announced, her voice breathless with her exertion.

Anais reached for the red wrapping and tore it out of her sister’s hand. Turning her back, she stripped away the wrapping to find a heart-shaped piece of vellum tucked neatly inside.

Your pasha awaits, you. At midnight, on the terrace.

“Well?” Rebecca asked, excitedly. “Who is it from?”

“An admirer?” Ann said coyly. “Do you have a secret admirer, Anais?”

“Ann, do stop being a pest,” their mother said from the door. Her mother’s expression suddenly sobered as her gaze fixed on Anais. “Of course your sister does not have an admirer, don’t be a goose, Ann.” Her mother’s lovely eyes raked over her and Anais saw the familiar emotion of displeasure shining in them.

Anais was well aware she was a disappointment to her mother. Such a lovely, passionate name, quite wasted on that plain creature. She had heard that remark many times, most of which had been uttered in her mother’s bitter voice.

How many times had Anais overheard someone say at a ball that there had to be at least one plain one amongst all the beautiful Darnby women? However, the truth of that statement wouldn’t hurt so much had she not had the misfortune to be the plain one.

Her older sister, Abigail, who had been the belle of the ball and was now the Countess of Weston, had been the raving beauty of the family, not to mention her mother’s favorite child. Her mother never failed to remind Anais of Abigail’s beauty or cachet in snaring a most sought-after husband. Now Ann, her youngest sister, was poised to be a great beauty—even more beautiful than Abigail, and much less conceited about it, too—thank heavens.

“Now then, girls, it is time to get ready for the Torrington masquerade. You will require much time, my dear, if we’re to get you presentable. Marriage, Anais,” her mother lectured while she waved her perfectly manicured finger before Anais’s nose. “You must remember that an advantageous marriage is a well-bred young lady’s primary goal in life. You’re already at a disadvantage. Now with your age—well, it’s going to be impossible to find someone suitable, what with the debs coming out this Season.”

“Mother…” Lord, she hated when her mother talked so in front of Rebecca.

“Well, it is true. You’ll be eight and twenty next week and you’ve little to recommend you beside your dowry. In my day a woman was firmly upon the shelf at your age. Why, I had already bore my husband two children by five and twenty.”

“Mother…”

“Look at Rebecca, here. Poor as a church mouse and with little in the way of family connections. Had it not been for your father and I, as well as her uncle, she would have amounted to nothing more than a governess. Despite all that, she has made a splash in society, even capturing the attentions of someone who is notorious for being most discerning. Rebecca’s charm and beauty have made Lord Broughton forget that she hasn’t any money or family connections. You will forgive me for speaking so frankly, dear,” her mother whispered remorsefully to Rebecca. “I’m just trying to make Anais understand, you see, that it is not enough to be rich, one must be beautiful, as well.”

“One cannot help if they are beautiful or not,” Anais muttered, twisting her fingers in her apron.

“True enough,” her mother said, patting her flaxen curls. “But one can at least make an attempt to work with what attributes one has.”

“I think Anais is pretty,” Ann said, coming to her defense.

“Come, Anais,” her mother said with a superior tilt of her chin. “Rebecca, dear, your uncle has sent his carriage to fetch you. It’s waiting in the lane. Do not keep me waiting, Anais,” her mother warned with a pointed look as she reached for the door latch.

“I think you’re lovely, Anais,” Ann said proudly. “Furthermore, I overheard Lindsay remark to Lord Wallingford that he thought you were a perfect blend of beauty and brains. He called you his angel. I think he’s going to propose. I truly believe—”

“Enough, Ann,” her mother said with a glare. “Good Lord, I’d love nothing more than for him to marry her and take her off my hands, but we haven’t a chance now for that. If he hasn’t proposed after all these years, nothing will induce him to now.”

“Mama, I heard—”

“Enough of this nonsense. There will be no custard for you after dinner.”

“Mama!” Ann cried.

“You’re getting a bit thick in the middle, Ann. One night without bread pudding will serve you well. You must be conscious now of maintaining your figure. A man will go a long way before seeing a figure like yours. You must guard it most carefully,” her mother lectured as she promptly left with Ann, who was protesting loudly over the loss of her pudding.

“Well?”

“He wants to meet me!” Anais said excitedly, forgetting about her mother’s nagging, she showed Rebecca the valentine Lindsay had designed for her.

Rebecca read it and when she looked up at her, she had a strange intensity to her amber eyes. “How lovely.”

“What are you wearing tonight?” Anais asked excitedly as her gaze strayed to a sack by the door. “How will I know you in the crowd?”

“Never fear, you will find me,” Rebecca groaned, reaching for the muslin sack she had dropped on the floor when she came in. “Mrs. Button informed Uncle that she had the perfect costume for me. Of course, as you know, my uncle bows to every one of Mrs. Button’s wishes.” Rebecca pulled out an old brown cloth and held it out to Anais.

“A nun?” Anais croaked, laughing at the image of Rebecca wearing the brown sack.

“Hmm. I’m certain that this costume will not inspire Lord Broughton to dare enter the realm of wickedness.”

“You never know,” Anais teased. “The night could bring anything.”

“How right you are, Anais,” Rebecca said quietly, gathering her sack that lay atop the bed. She shoved the brown tunic inside before smiling brightly. “One must work with what fate hands them.”

Lowering himself onto the red velvet settee, Lindsay spread his arms wide on the back of the wooden frame as he surveyed the small room that had become a means of escape from the theatrics of the ballroom one floor below.

The air in the salon was thick with curling smoke, heavy with the perfume of spilled claret and Turkish tobacco. Numerous pillows had been strewn about, while braziers were lit with incense, emitting a heavy, almost sensual aroma he was all too familiar with. The heady perfume of fine Turkish opium clouded the room, blanketing him in an intoxicating aroma.

In the center of the room, dressed as a pasha, sat the Earl of Wallingford. The eldest child of the Duke of Torrington. Wallingford was an indolent wastrel of the highest order—he was also a very good friend.

“I wondered when you would escape the clutches of those marriage-minded debutantes my father insisted on inviting to his masquerade,” Wallingford said with a grin. “Virgins are so damn insipid and tiresome. Give me a courtesan with the knowledge and talent to rouse me over a simpering, blushing virgin.”

“It was a trial avoiding their snares, but I managed,” Lindsay said, laughing as he thought of the numerous young ladies that had tried to corner him in one of the many dark alcoves of the ballroom. Virgins might be inexperienced in the bedroom, but they were master manipulators when it came to seeking an advantageous marriage.

“Well, then, what do you think, old boy?” Wallingford asked, making a sweeping gesture with his hand, indicating the decor of the salon that had recently been redecorated in the Eastern style. A style that was currently all the rage amongst artists and poets who thought themselves Romantics in the manner of Byron and Shelley.

“You’ve managed to convert me at last, Raeburn—I’ve turned Turk,” Wallingford said with a sharp satirical laugh. “Oh, I know it doesn’t quite scratch up to that room of yours, but it is a start, wouldn’t you agree?”

“It is indeed,” Lindsay said, inhaling the heady fragrance from the incense stick that was suddenly lit beside him. He leaned over and inhaled the smoke, sighing appreciatively as he sank farther into the plump cushions of the settee, feeling the gnawing hunger in his belly slowly uncurl and subside.

“I was quite pleased with the results. It will no doubt serve adequately as we pursue our pleasures. Of course, when I saw how it enraged my father, I became even more enamored of it,” Wallingford drawled, his smile wolfish. “Makes him wonder what I will do with this gothic monstrosity once he goes to his just reward. I confess, I do enjoy torturing him with glimpses of what may be. Perhaps I’ll turn the place into a bordello, or better yet, an opium den where the wicked and idle may sprawl out and smoke themselves to sleep. Of course we shall have ladies lying about, makes the scene that much more debauched, don’t you think? That ought to make the old goat twist in his grave. But enough of my father, the duke. Come and have a drink, old boy,” Wallingford slurred drunkenly. “We’ll only have so much longer before we shall have to return to my father’s insipid ball. We’ll need fortification.”

“I’ll pass.” Lindsay watched as Wallingford reached for the hand of a young serving girl dressed in silks and veils. He pulled her atop his lap, his claret sloshing over the rim of his goblet, landing on the young lady’s exposed cleavage.

“Oh, look,” Wallingford drawled, his eyes glistening wickedly. “A new way to sip your evening tipple.”

Male laughter erupted in the room as Wallingford bent his head to the girl’s bosom and licked the trickling red liquor as it dribbled between her breasts. Instead of acting shocked, the girl, obviously a professional courtesan, giggled and clutched his face to her décolletage.

“Come, let us see what else we can have dribbling between these,” Wallingford purred as he raised himself onto unsteady feet, his gaze never leaving the large ivory mounds of the courtesan’s breasts.

Lindsay looked away from the departing couple. He had witnessed more drunken debauchery at his father’s hands than he cared to recount. He had no wish to see Wallingford make an ass of himself—nor had he a wish to follow him down the drunken path of nothingness.

Searching the room and seeing that several other men had sequestered themselves with other willing women, Lindsay sighed and plucked the incense stick from the wood-and-brass holder. Waving it under his nose, he let the curling tendrils caress his skin before inhaling the scent, dissecting the pungent fragrance like a connoisseur. The aroma was rich, earthy with a touch of moss and sandalwood. Definitely Turkish. Nothing smelled quite as potent as Turkish opium.

Closing his eyes, he rested his head against the settee, glancing at the clock. It was not quite midnight. He had a bit longer yet before he would meet Anais on the terrace. He thought about her and how she had looked standing naked before him in the stable. What a beauty she had been with her honey-blond hair lying loose around her shoulders and her wide blue eyes, eyes that were always full of life and mischief. Mentally he conjured up the memory of her full, rose-tipped breasts and the delightfully rounded mound of her belly. He had not spent enough time worshiping her belly, nor had he allowed himself to linger over the soft space between her thighs.

He had stared at the soft triangle of space where her lush thighs grazed together and the downy curls of her mons connected. It was a mysterious space, a place where he was drawn, a place for his mouth, his fingers, his cock. Lord, but he was hungry for her. He’d had her twice two nights ago. Instead of abating his desire, it had only fuelled his need for her.

How long it had been since he’d desired to have her in his bed? He’d been sixteen. That was how long he’d been fantasizing about Anais. Fourteen long, agonizing years—seeing her, hearing her, being next to her. So many years of yearning, of imagining her face on the women he’d bedded.

He’d waited too long, he sighed, tossing the used stick atop the table. He’d wasted too many years. But he’d been uncertain— of her and himself.

Up until two nights ago, he hadn’t known what she truly thought of him. Her letters to him while he was away at Cambridge had always been warm and personal while staying just on the side of propriety. He hadn’t been able to glean what truly lay inside her heart, although he had spent many a night rereading every letter she had sent him, searching for the slightest sign that she returned his affection.

He in turn had started countless letters, declaring his love for her, his physical need for her. But he’d only balled them up and flung them into the fire, afraid of alienating her from his life with his lustful thoughts and actions. So he had bided his time, trying to make certain that she returned something of his regard.

But it hadn’t only been her he’d been unsure of. He’d been worried about his own worthiness.

Anais might be a shy, and somewhat self-conscious woman, but she was also a gently bred lady who knew what she was about. She wasn’t like the other women of his acquaintance— overblown and concerned only with money and fashion. That was the beauty of Anais. She didn’t have any idea how damn desirable she was or how to use her voluptuous body to get what she wanted. Anais was not that sort of woman. She was strong in her convictions with unwavering loyalty. Anais thought only in black and white, good and evil.

For Anais, there weren’t any shades of gray in her life—and so much of his life was nothing but a gray veil of mist. And yet, as unbending in her views of right and wrong were, she was kind, thoughtful and sweetly innocent. Simply put, Anais was the angel to his demon.

Her friendship had meant the world to him. He treasured it as if it were the rarest of gems. He had told her things that he’d never told another soul. She knew him more intimately than anyone did, or, he thought, anyone ever would. There was something about Anais that allowed openness and honesty. She had a way of making him feel calm and peaceful and loved.

Whether she realized it or not, she had carved out a place in his heart, settling herself so deeply inside him that she would be forever entrenched in his soul. She had stood by him through thick and thin, despite her obvious distaste for his father and his libertine ways.

How many times had he spoken of his father? How he feared for the way he might grow up? How often had she reassured him that he was not his father? That his father’s weaknesses and excesses would not be his?

She had such faith in the man he was, in the man she knew he could be. He would never do anything to harm that trust, because Lindsay knew that if he lost Anais’s faith in him, he had nothing. Without Anais, he would be his father’s son in more than just blood.

“Evening, Raeburn.”

Lindsay opened his eyes in time to see Garrett, Lord Broughton, flick his dress tails out behind him and sit on the cushion beside him.

“Evening, Broughton.”

“An interesting little scene of debauchery, isn’t it?”

“Hmm,” Lindsay murmured, before lighting another incense stick and passing it to his friend who shook his head. Lindsay shrugged and waved the opium beneath his nose, inhaling the curling smoke.

“I don’t know how you abide that stuff.” Broughton coughed. “I damn near suffocated the instant I walked into the room. It makes my head feel damned strange and I nearly always purge my guts into the nearest potted palm.”

Lindsay shut his eyes once again, allowing his senses to slow. “Nothing like a little quality Turkish Delight to facilitate the mind, Broughton. It is supposed to elevate the senses and carry you to another place and time. It’s like living out a dream,” he murmured, remembering all the wicked dreams he had of Anais over the years. Passionate, carnal dreams of making love to her in every conceivable way. Dreams of passionate lovemaking and heated, carnal fucking.

“I’m afraid the only Turkish Delight I indulge in is covered in powdered sugar.”

“Stop being such a stick in the mud and light up. Blowing a cloud would do you wonders, you know. The Magic Mist hinders melancholy, begets confidence, converts fear into boldness and makes the silent eloquent. You’d be amazed at the things you can imagine when the smoke is caressing your face. Hell, you may even discover a hidden poet inside that dutiful breast of yours.”

“I haven’t the imagination, I’m afraid,” Broughton grumbled.

Lindsay was no poet, but he certainly had a healthy imagination. Even now, with his blood slowing and thickening in his veins, Lindsay could imagine Anais on her knees, loving his cock with her mouth. He wanted to see that lovely pink mouth taking in his thick shaft. He wanted to see it glistening from her wet mouth and pulsating with the urge to spend freely along her full, high breasts.

“I don’t need anything to facilitate my mind, thank you. Furthermore, neither do you,” Broughton lectured. “Have you seen enough?” he asked, suddenly sounding perturbed. “You look as though you’re about to fall asleep.”

“Mmm,” Lindsay smiled, feeling languid and relaxed. He could fall asleep, right in Anais’s arms—and he would, tonight, as a matter of fact, right after he had thoroughly made love to her. Tonight he was going to take her home—to the divan that was filled with pillows. He would carry her, his odalisque, off to his harem. He was going to disrobe her, licking, devouring her for hours.

He had planned it all, right down to the valentine he had waiting for her and the way he was going to propose to her. He thought about holding her in his arms as she lay spent from her release. He imagined himself leaning down and kissing her softly as he asked her to marry him. But then the image of plunging into her open, waiting body took hold. He could see himself thrusting deep inside, claiming her and watching her lips part in pleasure. He would sink into her again and whisper his proposal. Yes, definitely that, he thought, feeling his cock thicken. He would propose as he was filling her with his body and as she shuddered in release. As he spent his seed inside her, she would agree on a husky pant that she would be his wife.

“My lords?” a soft and feminine voice demurred.

“No, no thank you,” Broughton grunted, stiffening beside him.

Lindsay opened one eye, peering down at a pair of ivory breasts that were spilling from the bodice of an exquisite beaded top—a houri’s bodice he thought, taking in the gold shimmer of the silk cording that edged her overflowing bodice.

“Try it, Raeburn, old boy. A Turkish delicacy,” Wallingford taunted from across the room as his evening’s entertainment slipped her hand down the front of Wallingford’s trousers.

Lindsay opened his other eye and saw that the houri held a silver tray before him. He looked up into her eyes and saw them gleaming. He had seen those eyes before, but where, he couldn’t quite remember.

“Come, Raeburn,” Wallingford jeered. “Have a taste. The Greeks have their grape leaves, the Turks their Passion Lips.”

With a shrug, he reached for the pale yellow circle that resembled a poppy seed cake.

“I think you would find the red more to your liking,” the houri purred seductively.

“Very well,” he said, taking a red cake from her tray. He popped it in his mouth and chewed the tough texture. “Bloody awful,” he mumbled to Broughton. “The Turks may keep their Passion Lips. I’d take a grape leaf any day.”

“That girl looks very familiar,” Broughton said thoughtfully as his gaze followed the houri’s progress through the room.

“Perhaps she will look even more familiar as the night progresses?” Lindsay asked with a grin.

Broughton shot him a disgruntled look. “May I remind you that I’ve been courting Miss Thomas?”

Lindsay shrugged and looked away. As far as he was concerned, Rebecca Thomas was no damned good for his friend. There was something about the girl he couldn’t quite put his finger on, but that unsavoury feeling was there nonetheless. He had never cared for Rebecca. She was manipulative and uncaring. Calculating coldness was always blatant in her eyes. Furthermore, he did not care for the way the conniving Rebecca had wormed her way into his gentle Anais’s friendship.

Anais, he thought, searching through the thickening smoke for the clock. “Well, then, I’m off,” he said when he saw it was nearing midnight.

“And where are you going?” Broughton asked as he stood, straightening his already immaculate waistcoat.

“I’m off to meet a charming young lady on the terrace.”

“Take care of her.” Broughton’s voice held a hint of warning that Lindsay did not particularly care for.

“I love her, Broughton.”

“I know, but sometimes…” Lindsay knew what his friend was going to say. Sometimes you’re not worthy of someone as good as Anais Darnby.

“My Cambridge days are behind me, Broughton. I am no longer the neck or nothing youngblood you knew in university. Then I was searching for what I wanted in life and I know I was reckless. I no longer need to do that. I know what, and who, I want.”

Broughton reached for his arm and stayed him. “Do not make the mistake of thinking you’re the only one who cares for her. Anais has been my friend as long as she has been yours. I would not want her feelings trifled with.”

“What are you implying?” Lindsay asked with a glare.

“I think you know what I mean, Raeburn. If your intentions are not honorable toward her, then do not pursue her.”

Lindsay brushed Broughton’s hand off his arm. “I would never dishonor her.”

“I would hope not. I would hope that you would strive— always—to be the sort of man she needs and deserves.”

With a brisk tilt of his head and the clenching of his teeth, Lindsay turned and made his way to the door, slightly disoriented from the heavy vapor of smoke hanging in the air. Opening the door, he let himself out, waiting for the fresh air to clear the cobwebs that were suddenly taking root in his brain.

Anais, he thought, reaching to the wall to steady himself. I’m not like my father. I’m worthy of you. I can be the sort of man you need. I swear it.

“Good evening, Lindsay.”

He whirled around. The corridor narrowed sharply, making him experience a nauseating bout of syncope. The candle flames flickered madly, almost as if they were leaping from their wax stands and he reeled back as he watched the flames jump out at him, threatening to land on his clothes. The vision was gone as soon as it appeared, replaced by a kaleidoscope of bright swirling colors that clouded his vision.

Blinking, Lindsay looked up from the black-and-white floor that seemed to ripple like a ribbon in a breeze beneath his feet. And then he saw her, Anais, standing at the end of the hall dressed in a wonderfully seductive purple-and-gold gown.

“Anais?” he asked in a disbelieving voice. He tried to step forward but couldn’t. He could barely see straight or focus his gaze on her.

Bloody hell, what was the matter with him? The Passion Lips, he suddenly remembered. What had the houri fed him? Certainly nothing he recalled ever dabbling in before. He had never imbibed anything quite so potent.

“Lindsay,” Anais cried, calling his name and running toward him.

He caught her in his arms and pressed her against the wall. He ran his hands along her curves, delighting in her soft skin, in the flare of her hip above the low-slung skirt. His fingers became tangled in the filmy purple chiffon and he growled appreciatively, suddenly as randy as he had ever been in his life.

“Kiss me,” she purred in a low, hypnotic voice that made his already hard cock rear in his trousers. “Kiss me, Lindsay,” she said, over and over again, as if she were chanting a Siren’s seductive call.

He searched for her mouth and kissed her, slow at first, then more carnally as she slipped her tongue between his lips. He groaned as she rubbed her mound against his throbbing arousal. He couldn’t make himself stop. His blood was humming. His body felt languorous, as if he had all the time in the world, as if they were already back in his bedchamber and not standing in a hall where anyone may happen upon them.

She moaned and reached for his bulging trousers, stroking him boldly. Bloody hell, where had she learned that? “Touch me, Lindsay. Take me into your mouth as you did in the stables.”

“Mmm, yes,” he said, feeling the floor shift again. He lowered her bodice and cupped her. Opening his eyes, he struggled to focus on the pale breasts in his hands. But instead of two full, round breasts, he held four blurred globes, with nipples that danced and swayed before him. He blinked, trying to still the image so he could fasten his lips onto her and suckle her, but the more he blinked, the more his vision seemed to swim.

“Taste me, Lindsay,” she encouraged, filling his hands with her breasts—breasts that he had thought felt much bigger two nights ago. But then, he wasn’t in his right mind now. Something was ruling him. He was certain it wasn’t just the power of lust he felt rushing through his veins.

He tried to push the doubting thoughts aside. It wasn’t right to take her like this. He had taken her virginity in a stable, for heaven’s sake, she did not need to be taken against a wall. But he could not tell his prick that. He needed her, to be buried deep inside her. He needed to hear his name on her lips as she cried out in her pleasure. He needed to hear that she loved him.

Old fears crept into his mind. He shoved them away, but they came back, more demanding, clearer and more persuasive. No, he was not like his father. He would not destroy her in the manner that his father destroyed his mother. He loved her. He would love her forever.

Needing to show her, he lowered his head to her breasts and took her nipple into his mouth, suckling her greedily till she raked her hands through his hair and panted his name wantonly against his temple.

“I need you, Anais,” he murmured in a harsh voice. “I need you so much.”

Something was wrong. He could not keep that thought from snaking in and out of his head, despite the magic in Anais’s touch. There was definitely something about Anais that was not right. She didn’t feel right beneath his fingers—she was too thin. He wanted her to feel the way she had the night in the stable— all soft and curvy and voluptuous.

“Give me the words,” she coaxed, gripping his cock so that he groaned in pleasure and pain. “Tell me how much better this is than the first time.”

He couldn’t deny her, not with the way she was stroking his shaft through his breeches. He was ready to explode; yet his mind kept resisting. But he wanted to please her. He wanted so damn much to be the sort of man she desired. And he needed release. God, he needed that. To spill himself in her hand and press his face into her sweetly scented throat.

She unfastened his trousers and slipped her hand into the front of them, finding his cock and swirling her finger around the wet tip. “How aroused you are. You’re wet already and leaking your seed.”

His cock stiffened further and he shoved his hips forward encouraging her to stroke him. He was unable to believe that his shy little Anais was being so bold. But it excited him. The more she stroked him, the more aroused and reckless he became. “You’re a little cock tease,” he murmured as she cupped his cods in her palm.

“And do you like how I tease your cock?”

“I should think you know the answer to that, especially after the other night.”

“And am I better than the other night?” she demurred, inflaming him further. “Am I a better cock tease?”

He raised her skirt and stroked her bare backside. A backside that felt much different from the delightful heart-shaped derriere he recalled. But this was Anais. He sensed her as he always did. It was this damn thing that had poisoned his brain, making him think such crazed thoughts.

“What do you want me to do with this?” she asked boldly, cradling his shaft in her hand.

“Suck it,” he groaned, the words spilling out in a long rush of breath as he gave voice to his deepest fantasy. And then almost violently he captured her lips with his and kissed her, needing her in a desperation he had never felt before. “I have to tell you. I can’t wait. I love you,” he said passionately between long, hard, drugging kisses. “I always have. I can’t hide it anymore. I don’t want to hide it. It’s only ever been you—it will forever only be you.”

A heartrending gasp shattered the sound of their breaths. He looked up at the woman in his arms and blinked, his vision still swimming before him. And then, the image slowly danced into focus and he felt the contents of his stomach threaten to come up and spill onto the floor. He looked from the woman who was pressed against him to the sound of the frantic breathing he heard coming from beside him. His mind whirled with the impossibility.

Anais stood frozen, shocked, horrified. The implications of what she was witnessing spun with dizzying speed in her head. Her chest began to rise and fall too rapidly and she felt as though she were being choked by the blue ribbon around her throat. With shaking hands she tore the bonnet from her head. How could Lindsay have done this to her? How, after what they had shared with each other in the stable, could he so easily fall into the arms of another?

“Jesus, how long?” She wasn’t certain if Lindsay knew he said the words aloud.

“Long enough to see you with her and hear that you love her,” she whispered, choking back a sob. She looked away, sickened by the sight of him and saw, for the first time, the woman who was pressed against him.

“Why?” she asked in what was little more than a half-strangled whisper. But she could not finish the sentence. She could not look at Rebecca pressed against Lindsay, her breasts glistening from Lindsay’s mouth. She could not stand to see the woman who had been her trusted friend wearing her costume—the only thing she had ever owned that had not been designed or ordered by her mother. The only thing she had ever wanted Lindsay to see her wearing. Oh, God, what a stupid trusting fool she had been to think that Rebecca had picked up her muslin sack by mistake. It had not been by mistake, but by design—a cruel, ugly design.

“It was you I said those words to. I thought she was you, Anais,” he stammered. “Let me explain—”

“I don’t think the words are necessary, darling,” Rebecca purred, reminding Anais of the snake her friend truly was. “I think what Anais saw speaks for itself. We needn’t hide it anymore.”

“Don’t touch me,” Lindsay snapped, shaking off Rebecca’s hold on his arm. “Goddamn you, what have you done?”

“It’s what you have done, Lindsay,” Anais replied. “You have done this.”

“Let me explain,” he muttered, staggering closer. “I was with Wallingford. I was…slipped something…that is, I took something that made me confused. I thought Rebecca was you. I believed, Anais, that it was truly you.”

“How could you think such a thing? We look nothing alike.”

“Nor are we the same size.” Rebecca’s voice dripped with venom.

Lindsay shot Rebecca a murderous glare as he held on to the wall, supporting his wavering frame. “Anais, listen to me. It was a drug. I’m not drunk. I swear it. It was a mistake. I thought it was you. Believed it was you…believe me, Anais.”

“Lies,” Anais whispered brokenly as she fixed her blurry gaze on Lindsay. “Everything you said, everything you told me…it was nothing but lies. What we did, that was a lie, too. You were just amusing yourself with me—God, how you must have laughed at me, falling for your seductions so easily.”

“Don’t say that, Anais.”

“What, that you were bored silly that night so you thought you’d take me—plain, undesirable spinster that I am—out to the stables for a little amusement? You probably thought you were doing me a favor by sleeping with me. You must have really felt sorry for me that night to put up with such an inexperienced wallflower like me—especially when you could have had…” Anais glanced at Rebecca and felt her throat squeeze shut. “When you could have had someone beautiful, someone as desirable as her.”

“I wanted you—I want you,” he corrected with a frown. “You know that. Just remember how it was, Anais.”

“I remember all too well. I remember a woman who is not beautiful, a woman with a round body that is too full in the belly and the hips, a woman who thought she was beautiful enough for someone like you. Obviously I was an evening of sport until you could move on to better and prettier things.” God, to think of the way she had blindly believed him. Never questioning his sincerity, actually believing that he had not proposed after making love to her because he wanted it to be special like he claimed. And she had fallen for it.

“No, this is a mistake. It’s not what it seems,” he began, taking a staggering step toward her while using his hand against the wall for support.

Anais felt her lips twist with disgust. He looked so very much like his father, stumbling toward her, fumbling with the fastenings of his trousers, his curling hair in disarray, his shirttails hanging outside his trousers. She could hardly look at him without wanting to vomit. This was not the Lindsay of her childhood. This was not the man she had lain with two nights ago. This was a stranger—a dissipated wastrel she had never seen before.

“No, please. Don’t look at me like that, Anais. Don’t look at me like you do him. I’m not like him,” he roared, staggering toward her. “Listen to me and let me explain. I don’t want Rebecca. I don’t want anyone but you.”

Anais was suddenly aware of a strong presence beside her. Without looking, she knew that it was Lord Broughton. His arm around her waist was strong and comforting and she sagged against his side.

“Broughton! Thank God…tell her—tell her about the drug…” Lindsay pleaded, lurching toward them. “Broughton knows…he was with me—”

“For as long as I live I shall remember you this way,” Anais gasped through trembling lips as she tried to stem her sob of pain. “Never have you resembled him more than you do now. You’ve broken my heart.” She covered her mouth once more, praying she would be able to leave before she completely broke down. “I wish I had never let you touch me.”

“No, Anais,” he said, his voice pleading. “Christ, no, don’t say that!”

But she turned from him, and Garrett, who was just as shocked by Rebecca’s betrayal, reached for her and took her into his arms.

“I’m sorry,” Lindsay cried. “Christ, don’t leave!”

Anais closed her eyes, blocking out the sound, hating the words she had heard him say so many times before. Such meaningless, empty words. Such a meaningless act. What a fool she had been. A hopeless, romantic fool.

“I will not lose you!” Lindsay roared as she turned and walked away, still holding fiercely onto Garrett’s arm. “You cannot run from me, Anais. I will find you. Anais!” Her name, ripped from the depths of Lindsay’s tortured soul, echoed throughout the hall and Anais shivered, still hearing him calling her name even after the carriage wheels had set into motion.

4

Ten months later

“Anais, you must come downstairs, at least for a cup of tea. It is Christmas Eve, you cannot possibly spend it up here in your room, oh—” Ann’s voice broke off when she came waltzing into the room and spotted Anais lying in bed with Robert Middleton’s ear to her breast.

“I’m sorry,” Ann mumbled, clearly horrified that she had walked in on her sister in such an intimate position.

“Don’t be silly, Ann. Dr. Middleton was just finishing with me, were you not, sir?”

“Indeed I was, Lady Anais.” He straightened away from her. “I shall check in with you tomorrow to see how you are faring.”

“Surely you do not need to call on me tomorrow?’ Tis Christmas morn, and you have a wife and child that you will not wish to leave.”

He reached for her hand, clasping it tightly in his warm one. “I shall see you tomorrow, Lady Anais. Sleep well and remember you are not to exert yourself.” He snapped shut the wooden cylinder he had used to listen to her chest. “It’s utterly amazing. Your heart sounds much stronger than it did two days ago. If you keep this up, you shall be wandering about the woods in no time.”

“Thank you, Dr. Middleton.”

“Just Robert,” he murmured as he placed his hat over his dark blond hair. “We have, after all, known each other since we were in swaddling clothes.”

“Thank you, Robert,” Anais replied, knowing he would not be happy until she did so. And truth be told, she did feel silly acting so formal around him. She had known him all her life. He was Garrett’s younger brother after all.

“Send word to The Lodge if you need me. And remember, you are not to be near drafts or the cold air. The cold makes it harder for the heart to pump the blood. Your heart doesn’t need the strain. I’m afraid you shall have to miss out on the church service this evening. Your condition is delicate, you must not take any risks.”

“Mother says that she believes you are much too young to attend me,” Anais said, laughing at him and his boyish pout.

“No doubt she puts more stock in that old physician of hers, the one whose medical books were written in the time of the Bible.”

“She’s threatened to send him to me.”

“Whatever you do, don’t let him bleed you, Anais.”

“I won’t, Robert.”

“Well, then, if that is all, I shall be on my way. The weather, it appears, has taken a turn for the worst.”

“Never know what winter will bring in Worcestershire.”

He nodded and reached for his brown pigskin bag. “It’s much the same in Edinburgh. Well, then, good night, Anais, and happy Christmas to you.”

“To you, too. Wish Margaret the same and give your daughter a kiss for me.”

“I shall,” he said, beaming a wide smile at the mention of his child. “I certainly shall. Happy Christmas, Lady Ann,” he said, inclining his head as he passed her sister.

Ann came over to the bed and sat down beside her after Dr. Middleton had closed the door. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize he was still here. He was up here for a very long time.”

Anais shrugged and picked at the loose thread of the woolen blanket that covered her. She couldn’t help but notice how pale her fingers still looked and how her veins, so blue and cold, could be seen through her skin, as if her flesh was nothing but transparent tissue that was used for papier-mâché.

“You are improving?” Ann captured her gaze. “You must be, for you look much better than you did a month ago when you returned from France. Lud, you looked on death’s door when Lord Broughton carried you in. I vow, it was providence indeed that you met up with him in Paris, for Aunt Millie would have been in hysterics had she to deal with you alone, and in a foreign city.”

“It was very fortunate that I met up with his lordship,” she muttered, not wanting to talk about Garrett and the events that had taken place.

“Has Dr. Middleton told you what your delicate condition is? He’s mentioned it several times to Mama and Papa, but he is rather vague to its cause.”

Anais let her sister see her impatience. “I have told you, Ann, that it is nothing more than a bit of fever and malaise.”

Ann arched an intelligent, blond brow, clearly not believing what she was hearing, but letting the rebuke slide. “Mother told Father that it is most likely your womanly organs rotting away in spinsterhood that is causing your heart to fail. But father believes that you’ve caught some sort of virulent brain fever from the French.”

Anais smiled and reached for Ann’s hand. “I vow, Ann, my womanly organs are just fine. And I am not allowing that quack, Dr. Thurston, to talk Mother into believing that my condition is nothing more than hysteria caused by my woman’s parts.”

Ann chuckled. “When you say it, Anais, it sounds like such flummery. How can a woman’s organs make one hysterical?”

“They can’t. Dr. Thurston just despises women, that is all.”

“Louisa has come to me.” Ann sobered. “I thought you would want to know that your maid is concerned that your last flux lasted nearly two weeks. It was rather…er…according to Louisa, it was rather heavy.”

“For heaven’s sake,” Anais groaned, blushing all the way to her scalp. “Is nothing sacred in this house?”

“Of course not,” Ann said with a grin. “In a house filled with women, how can a subject like monthlies be kept quiet? Still, Louisa fears that it may indeed be your womanly organs that are making you ill after all.”

“The humiliation!” Anais said with mock horror. “What? Do all the maids line up in a row while they gather our monthly padding and discuss our courses? Does the entire house know when one is early, or one is late?”

“I should think the late bit would be most talked about,” Ann said, sticking out her tongue in a cheeky manner. “Imagine the gossip if one of us were to miss our monthlies. Mother would interrogate us for hours if she ever found out.”

“Mama cares only about Mama. I doubt she’d care a tuppence about something as mundane as monthlies.”

“True,” Ann agreed. “But still, I thought you would like to know. And I want to know that you are on the mend. The bleeding has stopped, hasn’t it?” Ann asked, concern once again creeping into her eyes.

“It has.”

“Father said there was nothing wrong with you that rest won’t cure. He always takes up your side, you know.”

“You are right about Father having a soft spot for me. And thank heavens for that, because if it were up to Mama, I would be in the care of Dr. Thurston, being bled every day and confined to bed with my womanly organs while he contrives to find a way to keep them from making me mad.”

“Yes,” Ann said, laughing. “Papa adores you as I know very well that you adore him. Every man you have ever met is held up to him, aren’t they? He is the pinnacle that your suitors must strive for.”

Anais felt herself blush. It was true, no matter how silly the notion sounded. Her father was a good, kind, honest man. Was it so wrong for her to desire that the man she choose to marry and commit her life to, be nothing short of the sort her father was?

“And then there is Mama,” Ann said with a groan. “She is forever making me fuss over my appearance. She is only interested in me when I am looking pretty and am dressed in frilly gowns with layers of flounces and bows. She never bothers to read my poems, and furthermore, I don’t believe she listens to me when I sing, unless of course I’m surrounded by potential beaux. Then she uses it to her advantage to inform everyone, most embarrassingly, I might add, what a wonderful wife I shall make. I vow, Mama never has a substantial thought in her head. She never thinks of anything other than fashion and her toilette. How could father have married such a shallow person?”

“Love is blind, I suppose.” Anais thought of how she had been blinded by love. Love had stopped her from seeing what Lindsay was truly like. Naiveté had prevented her from realizing that Rebecca was not truly her dearest friend. She had been so blind to many things this past year.

“Anais,” Ann asked, her tone suddenly somber. “I wish to know if anything happened between you and Lindsay. You both left Bewdley so suddenly. I never heard a word about you going off to France with Aunt Millie and her companion, Jane. And suddenly, you were gone. Then Lindsay arrived and I heard him yelling downstairs in Papa’s study, demanding to know where you were being kept. He was distraught. I could not help but think his choice of words was rather bizarre.”

“Perhaps you misinterpreted them.”

Her sister frowned. “I did not. And do not pretend to believe that you don’t think Lindsay’s sudden disappearance is not odd. I don’t believe that he just poof—” Ann puffed between her lips as she waved her hand as if she held a magic wand in her fingers “—he just disappeared into thin air without a word to anyone. Not even his mother, Lady Weatherby, knows precisely where he is. He has been gone over ten months, Anais, with no news of him. Are you not concerned?”

“I’m tired, Ann.” She was feeling weak and fatigued, but most of all she did not want to talk about Lindsay and what had happened between them the night of the masquerade ball. She had told no one, not her father, and most certainly not her mother. She had to divulge a few of the details to Aunt Millie. Aunt Millie’s companion, Jane, knew a bit more than her aunt, but Anais had convoluted the truth to suit her needs. The only person who knew the full truth was Garrett, and he had been remarkably supportive, not to mention silent.

“I’m very disappointed in Lord Raeburn,” Ann said, stroking Anais’s hand with her fingertips. “I thought for certain he would propose to you. How wrong I was.”

“It’s all right, dearest,” Anais said, trying to smile for her sister’s benefit. “It wasn’t meant to be.”

“But you loved him, Anais.”

“In truth, it would not have been a sound alliance.”

Her sister shot her a dubious look. “And an alliance with Lord Broughton would be more sound, then?”

“Ann,” she warned. “I am not talking about such things with you.”

“I’m fifteen now,” she wailed, “and Squire Wilton’s son kissed me beneath the Maypole. I’m a woman, Anais. I know about such things as love and marriage.”

“Really? Then you are much more educated than I, for I understand none of it. Now, off to church you go. I think I hear Mama calling your name.”

“What of Lord Broughton, Anais, are you going to marry him?”

“Garrett is a friend, Ann. A very dear friend.”

“Just like Lindsay was your very dear friend?”

Anais looked toward the window, to the black night beyond and the white snow that fell in a straight, heavy line. “Lindsay was a dear friend. But that was before.”

“I’m sorry that Lindsay ran off instead of proposing to you. I would have liked to have him for a brother-in-law. He is much more sporting than Lord Broughton.”

“Lord Broughton is a very kind man. He is very loving, very forgiving.”

“And what has Lord Broughton to forgive you for?” Ann asked, immediately pouncing on the little slip.

“For not marrying him despite—” Anais looked away and brushed a small tear that escaped unchecked from her eye. She did not finish her thought. Could not finish it, despite the very great need she had to confide in someone. She felt so alone, so empty inside. But then, she had made her own choices and the consequences were hers alone to live with.

“I hope someday you shall be able to tell me the truth of what happened between you and Lord Broughton in Paris, Anais. Perhaps you have convinced Mama and Papa that this mysterious illness of yours is nothing but a trifling fever, but you have not fooled me. I would hate to think you could not share confidences with your own sister.”

“Confidences can be such burdens, Ann. I contracted my illness while traveling abroad. Lord Broughton returned me home to convalesce, there is nothing else to say.”

Ann’s blue eyes swept along the covers that shielded Anais’s form. Anais could not help but draw her knees up farther, hiding deeper beneath the blanket. “I suppose time will tell us, won’t it?” Ann said with a sad wistfulness. “Good night, Anais.”

“Good night, Ann.”

Her sister smiled and let herself out. Sighing heavily, Anais looked about her room, feeling tired and drained. Her body was tired, her mind and the worries that constantly plagued her further drained her of what little strength she still possessed. She wondered if she would ever be free of the worries she harbored. Perhaps it was her penance to live every day in fear that her secret would be found out and exposed to the world.

The clopping of horse hooves on the cobble lane outside broke through her thoughts and she slipped out of bed, watching as her sister and mother were handed into the carriage by a footman dressed in his blue-and-silver livery. Where was her papa? she wondered. Perhaps he was already in the carriage. But it was not like him to not wait for the ladies of the house to enter the carriage first.

The carriage door slammed shut and within seconds, the four white horses were in motion, carrying her family the short ride into the village and the Christmas Eve church service.

Reaching for the book that sat atop her bedside table, Anais reached for it only to have it slip from her fingers and land with a loud crack against the floor. She startled in surprise. It was a loud, ringing sound for so slim a volume, and the resonance echoed throughout her room. The echo, she noticed, was followed by a peculiar thudding on the stairs below.

Strange. Who could be running up the stairs in such an undignified manner? Shrugging, she bent at the waist to retrieve the book and straightened in horror. The almost overpowering scent of smoke wafted up between the floorboards and she ran to the door, breathless despite the minute exertion. Throwing open her chamber door, Anais saw that the hallway was engulfed in fire. The staircase, that only minutes before Ann had descended, was swallowed in black smoke and orange flames. Shutting the door as the wind came from below and licked the flames into a soaring giant tower, Anais scrambled to her dressing room, praying she could escape down the stairs before the fire consumed that portion of the staircase. But as she reached for the latch, she realized it was locked and the key missing. Squelching the panic that arose in her breast, Anais fought to clear her head of the dizziness and the burning sensation in her chest. She was trapped.

The house, nearly two centuries old and built entirely of wood and plaster, would be engulfed by fire in no time. She did not have minutes to waste in panic.

Anais looked to the window and ran to it, flinging open the sash and ignoring the bitterly cold air that rushed in. Tearing the velvet draperies from the wooden rods, she ignored the heaviness in her chest and went to work tying them together before she reached for her blankets and drew the coverlet from the bed.

There was no recourse left, the window was her only means of escape.

5

The wind howled through the forest and down the mountains, only to whirl around the lumbering conveyance. The chill air somehow found a way through the tight seams of the carriage frame, plummeting the temperature inside so that the interior felt like an icebox. Burying his chin into the folded depths of his greatcoat, Lindsay felt another chill race down his spine.

“Damn cold,” he grunted, burrowing deeper into the warm Yorkshire wool of his coat. What bloody timing to arrive back in England during a snowstorm.

As the rhythmic rocking of the carriage continued, Lindsay fought to stay awake, but soon his eyes grew heavy until it was impossible to hold them open. Within minutes he was dreaming. Dreaming of dry, arid heat and the scent of Arabian spices that sifted through the waving branches of cypress trees.

In his dream he was back in Constantinople, where the saffron-colored sun hung heavy on the azure horizon, illuminating the cobalt and gilt tiles of the Islamic columns of the Kapali Çarsi. The sun burned hot on his cheeks. The scarf he used to protect his head from the heat rippled in the breeze as the salt-scented air rolled in from the Sea of Marmara. That salty, spicy breeze was the only reprieve from the scorching heat of the midday sun and the sea of humanity that swarmed inside the covered bazaar.

Inside the Kapali Çarsi, viziers and pashas smoked their hookahs while their slaves and attendants bartered for goods for their richly furnished homes. It had been there, in Constantinople’s covered bazaar, that Lindsay and his traveling companion, Lord Wallingford, found themselves meandering through the hundreds of stalls that sold everything from spices and nuts to hashish and beautiful women who were bought by rich men as new acquisitions for their harems.

Constantinople’s voluptuous exoticness was so different from his genteel England. He was so very far removed from the glittering ton and the fancy town houses in Mayfair. Far away from his responsibilities to his family and the estates in Worcestershire. Yet Constantinople had not been far enough away from the reaches of his past. He still remembered how Anais had fled from him the night she’d discovered him in the hall with her best friend. No physical distance could make him forget that strangled cry of shock and hurt, nor the distraught look in her eyes.

Now semiawake, he struggled to find his way back to his dream—to a time where nothing had mattered but the warm, lazy days spent in decadence. To the days when the hookah and a beautiful concubine had been all he needed to wile away the hours and deaden the pain of his failure.

But damn him, the dream would not return. It remained elusive and he was faced once more with remembering how Anais had seemed to vanish into thin air after she left the Torrington masquerade. He had looked everywhere for her, but she had evaded his pursuit, denying him the chance to explain that he had not set out to seduce her friend or to destroy her faith in him.

After searching throughout England he’d traveled across the channel to France. He had learned from Anais’s mother that she had gone abroad with her aunt—a trip, Lady Darnby had told him, that had been planned for some time. But he knew better. She’d gone to France in order to be free of him.

He had immediately set out for the continent, but hadn’t been able to locate her in Paris. It was then that Wallingford grew frustrated with him and his obsession with finding Anais. After weeks of fruitlessly searching Paris, Lindsay had allowed Wallingford to persuade him into accompanying him to Constantinople where Lindsay had been seduced, not by beautiful women, but by the allure of opium. Opium, that heavenly demon.

The carriage swayed sharply, pitching to the right. Lindsay found himself fully awakened, and he shook his head free of the memory of his time in Constantinople, as well as the bitter memories of Anais.

“You were dreaming,” Wallingford said, tossing him a fur for his lap.

The temperature had dropped again and the carriage, despite its cushioned silk and thick blinds, could not keep out the chill from the violent winds.

“I was remembering how warm the breeze was when it blew in from the Bosphorus. Perhaps we should not have left the warmth of Constantinople,” Lindsay muttered, lifting up the blind and seeing nothing but the blinding whirl of snow outside the window. “I had almost forgotten how damn cold England gets in December. Although, this amount of snow is quite rare so early in the season.”

Wallingford nodded as he puffed on his cheroot. “It is bloody cold. But three months ago we were not thinking of winter when we left Turkey. We were thinking of other things—like the beauty of the woods in the fall. The sound of the wind howling through the forest as it blows from atop the Malvern Hills. We had had enough of traveling, had we not? We were anxious to see England again.”

“Indeed.” But had he not experienced that dream of Anais all those months ago, he might still be in Constantinople, wasting away his days in lavish Eastern decadence. He had been lost for days at a time, the opium his only companion in a world of silk veils and velvet pillows. Where he had only had a taste for opium before, he now had a consuming hunger.

“Sir,” one of the footmen called, rapping his fist against the back of the carriage. “We need to stop, milord.”

With a tap of his walking stick against the trap door, Lindsay signaled for the coachman to bring the team to a stop. As the six grays came to a prancing halt, Lindsay threw open the door and covered his face with his arm as snow, wild and angry, gusted inside the carriage.

Lindsay could not help but notice how red-cheeked and shivering the footman was, despite the beaver hat and numerous layers of thick woolen capes. “The stallion is rearing in the box carriage, milord. Jenkins says that the animal has begun to suffer from the cold.”

“Not acclimated yet,” Lindsay called over his shoulder to Wallingford. “I’ll ride him the rest of the way. That should warm him up.”

“Bloody fool,” Wallingford yelled after him after Lindsay disembarked from the carriage. “You’ll get yourself killed riding that animal in this weather.”

“I spent a fortune on him. I’ll be damned if I allow him to die from the cold. He’s going to stud my stables and he can’t very well perform when he’s frozen, can he?”

“Damn it, Raeburn,” Wallingford grunted as he tossed his cheroot into a drift of snow. “You know I won’t let you go alone. Not in this weather. Bloody hell, man.”

Lindsay tossed his friend a smile. “Come, it will be like old times, when we were neck-or-nothing youths galloping at breakneck speeds down the mountainside.”

“Our bones were not so easily broken in our youth,” Wallingford grumbled as he raised the collar of his greatcoat to protect his face from the biting wind. “Nor were our heads, for that matter.”

“You sound like Broughton when he used to chastise us for our foolish recklessness.”

“I’m coming to believe that our dear friend was the more intelligent of the three.”

“Come,” Lindsay said, not wanting to think of how he had betrayed Broughton, as well as Anais. Instead, he stalked to the box carriage to where his prized Arabian stallion was snorting and stomping.

“Lead on, Raeburn,” Wallingford said, following in Lindsay’s wake. “And if we are so fortunate to make it home alive, the first to enter the stables may buy the other a warm pint of cider and a hot woman.”

Lindsay gained the stallion’s saddle and took up the reins, turning the Arabian in the other direction. Through the snow, he ran the animal as safely as he could while ignoring the biting wind. On instinct, Lindsay guided the horse down a path he had followed countless times in his lifetime.

As the familiar sites came into view, Lindsay slowed the stallion as it pranced along the icy path that overlooked the town of Bewdley nestled snugly in the vale below them. Ice pallets floated aimlessly atop the black waters of the Severn River, reminding Lindsay of the paintings he had once seen of the remnants of an iceberg after it had crumbled into the sea.

Tossing its sleek black head, the Arabian’s billowing breaths misted gray and evaporated amongst the snowflakes that were circling about them. Tightening the reins, Lindsay settled the rearing animal before casting his gaze to the roof of St. Ann’s Church that dominated the view of the town.

Below the ridge lay the sleepy village he had called home since birth. But tonight, the quiet little village of Bewdley was coming alive. Its residents were strolling down the cobbled streets, candles in hand as they made their pilgrimage to church. To the west of the town center, huddled in the valley where a small tributary broke away from the Severn and formed a creek, lay the first of four prominent estates that anchored Bewdley’s aristocratic society. Wallingford’s family estate bordered the forest. Broughton’s was to the east and only minutes down the ridge. His own home, Eden Park, rested on the other side of the bridge. And directly below him lay Anais’s home, which he had not seen in nearly a year.

Scouring the Jacobean-style mansion from high above the valley, Lindsay blinked back the snowflakes that landed on his eyelashes. The earthy, acrid smell of wood burning in the cold air drifted up to meet him and he inhaled the scent, so familiar to him, yet so long since he’d been home to smell its aroma.

It was Christmas Eve and the coal was replaced in the hearths of the faithful with aYule log that would burn throughout the holiday. Lindsay watched the smoke billow out of the three large chimneys that loomed above the peaked roof. The calming scent took him back to the time when he was young and carefree. A time when he once sat beside the hearth and ate plum pudding and custard with Anais after the Christmas Eve service.

His gaze immediately focused on the last window on the right side of the house. A gentle glow from a lone candle flickered lazily. He could almost imagine Anais sitting on her window bench staring out at the sky with her chin propped in her hand. She adored winter. They had sat side by side so many times watching the snow falling gently to the ground. No, that wasn’t entirely the truth. She had watched the snow, he had watched her; and he had fallen more in love with her than he had ever thought possible.

He slid his gaze from her window and allowed it to roam over the land where the verdant green fields were now covered in a thick white blanket that shimmered like crystals in the silver moonlight; where the hawthorn and holly hedgerows that marked each farm were weighted with snow. Only the occasional red bunch of holly berries could be seen peeking out beneath its white winter blanket.

Again the wind began its low moan through the branches of the forest behind them, and Lindsay brought the collar of his greatcoat around his chin, staving off the cold and the chilling wail of the wind. It was a melancholy sound that somehow resonated deep within him.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Wallingford asked, reigning in his mount to stand beside his. “The wilds of nature are unparalleled here, are they not? Nowhere can you appreciate her more than in the Wyre Forest. I shall have to paint this view when I get home,” he said, scanning the grounds below them. “I’ve never seen the vale looking so desolate and untamed, yet so hauntingly beautiful.”

“Spoken like a true artist,” Lindsay drawled, unable to keep his eye on the hedgerows. Unfortunately, he kept stealing glances at the lone candle in the window, wishing Anais would appear; hoping the dreams he had of her were not the omen his soul believed them to be.

“When shall you call upon her?” Wallingford asked quietly after noting the direction of Lindsay’s gaze.

“I don’t know.”

“When we left Constantinople you were hell-bent on finding her. For the three months it’s taken us to arrive in England you’ve been having nightmares about her. You’ve feared the worst. Now you lack the conviction to see for yourself if your vision was real or merely a deception of the sultan’s hookah?”

Lindsay recalled the crippling fear that had lanced through him as he awoke from his startling dream. “It was real.”

“The hookah is a magical thing,” Wallingford said, watching him curiously. “It makes us see ghosts in the vapors. It makes us feel things that are not there and the things that are there no longer matter. It is so easy to run from our ghosts with the hookah as I think you discovered.”

“It is never easy to run. I shall never outrun this ghost.”

Wallingford pursed his lips tightly together and studied him, his expression growing somber. “This particular ghost has an otherworldly hold on you, Raeburn. I’m afraid she always will. She is going to destroy you.”

“I already am. I brought about my own demise when I foolishly allowed myself to be weak. I should have resisted the lure that bitch Rebecca offered me. Had I resisted temptation instead of pursuing it, Anais would have been my wife by now. I would not be standing here on Christmas Eve, longing for her, wishing I could find a way to magically erase the past.”

“What did you see?” Wallingford asked. “What was so terrible that you had to race back here to the woman who would not even allow you to defend yourself? A woman whose love is so fleeting that she cannot allow you an ounce of forgiveness?”

In the vision, Anais arose amidst a veil of gossamer smoke, her beauty unveiled amidst curling tendrils that cloaked the air. Her softly rounded body and her rose, taut nipples were clearly visible beneath the pale pink gown that hugged her body. Her long blond curls were unbound and her arms outstretched, beckoning him to come to her, and like a slavish disciple he had gone to her. In that moment, she had taken him in her arms, whispering absolution.

He had lowered her onto the silk pillows that were scattered about the floor of his room. He could smell her—the scent of her petal-soft skin—despite the heavy and sensual cloud of incense that hung like a haze above the divan.

She had felt warm and alive in his arms until suddenly she grew stiff and cold. Her beautiful, sparkling, cornflower-blue eyes grew dim and distant as she stared unseeing at him. And then he saw the crimson liquid that slowly began to engulf them. It glistened in the candlelight from the lanterns that hung above them as it began to cover her pale skin. And she kept looking at him with those cold, lifeless eyes. He could not bear it, could not stand to watch her taken from him. As he pushed himself away from her, her lips parted and she softly said the words that haunted him for months. “You did this to me, Lindsay, you have killed me.”

He had awakened, shaken by the vision, terrified that it had been a sign that something was wrong—a sign that he had to come back to her and make amends. A sign he could not ignore.

“Raeburn, look,” Wallingford commanded, drawing him from the horror of his mind. “There are flames coming from the side of the house.”

Snapping to attention, Lindsay focused his gaze on the level below Anais’s window. From his position above the house he saw the brilliant orange flicker that was reflected by the glass.

“That is Darnby’s study,” he said, setting the stallion into motion. “And the hearth is next to that window. Come, Wallingford,” he yelled, racing down the path that led to the vale.

Lindsay wondered, as he blinked back the snow from his eyes, if this was not the reason he had felt compelled to come back home.

Jumping off his horse, Lindsay ran up the manor stairs and threw open the doors. The house was in a state of chaos with servants rushing here and there, screaming and running wild and frightened with buckets of water. He watched as two burly footmen emerged from a thick cloud of smoke, dragging a coughing and sputtering Lord Darnby from his study.

“Oh, Lord Raeburn,” Anais’s lady’s maid gasped when she saw him through the smoke. “You’ve come back.”

“Where is your mistress, Louisa?”

“Trapped upstairs. Roger and William have gone to fetch her, but they canna see or breathe for the smoke.”

“See to Darnby,” Lindsay ordered Wallingford who had followed him inside. “Bring him to Eden Park. I shall meet back up with you there.”

Lindsay could see the blood running in rivulets down Darnby’s balding head. “He’s injured,” Wallingford called. “He’ll need a physician.”

“Then do it, man,” he barked, shrugging out of his greatcoat. “I shall find Anais.”

“What the bloody hell is going on?”

Lindsay whirled around and came face-to-face with Broughton. The last time he had looked into his friend’s face, he had been standing before him with a brace of dueling pistols in his hands.

Broughton had called him out the next day, after the debacle with Rebecca. The duel had not been about avenging Rebecca’s honor, or Garrett’s. No, Broughton had called him out to defend Anais, and Lindsay had agreed to it, hoping to gain some measure of his own honor back. Only they had not been able to go through with it. Putting a bullet in each other would never satisfy, could never wash away the pain that Lindsay had brought to everyone he had ever cared about.

They had both fired their shots in the air, then turned their backs on each other.

“What the devil are you doing in here?”

Lindsay did not miss how Broughton’s face went white as his gaze furiously raced back and forth between the burning staircase and him.

“Anais is trapped up there. I’m going to get her.”

Garrett glared at him, “You cannot possibly manage the task on those stairs, Raeburn. It’s unsafe. If you don’t get yourself killed first, then you’ll hurt her on the way down. No, the only way is from outside.”

“No,” Lindsay barked, already racing for the stairs. “It’s thirty feet at least to the ground. She cannot possibly lower herself out the window from that height.”

“The stairs will be gone by the time you find her. It will be the only way down.”

Ignoring Broughton, he rushed up the stairs and saw that the flames were already licking their way up the door of Anais’s chamber. “Anais,” he shouted through cupped hands. But there was no sound save for the cracking and splintering of wood and the roar of the flames.

Shouldering through the door, he saw that he was in Anais’s dressing room. Running over to the door that connected to her bedroom, he prayed he would find it unlocked. He was not so fortunate. By the time he was able to thrust it open with his shoulder, she was dangling outside the window, the gigot sleeve of her muslin wrapper caught on a wire hook in the curtain she had used to make her escape.

“It’s all right, angel,” he said, fear eating at him as he saw the delicate fabric begin to give way beneath her weight. Her fingers, blue and trembling, would not be able to sustain their hold on the curtain rope much longer. Her eyes were round as saucers as she slipped farther. There was no recognition in those familiar blue eyes, just terror, he realized as she looked blankly up at him.

“My wrapper…I’m pinned,” she gasped, choking as the smoke filled the chamber.

“Don’t look down, Anais. Here, reach for my hand. Trust me, love. I’ll save you, Anais. Have faith in me.”

She looked down at Garrett who was standing below, his arms outstretched. Lindsay knew what thoughts were running through her mind. Garrett could be trusted to catch her. Lindsay feared that he was just a specter she saw through the growing smoke. The distrust he saw in her eyes, the hurt and pain made him realize the depth of the destruction he had caused. Never before had she chosen Garrett over him, but it was clear to Lindsay that Anais was going to put her trust—and her life— in Garrett’s waiting arms.

“Damn you, reach for my hand,” he ordered, leaning out of the window as his shirtsleeves billowed in the wind. Terror was ruling him now. There was no way that Broughton could catch her from this height. His arms would not bear the weight or the force of her fall. She would be crushed and broken, and Lindsay could not stand to think that he would bear witness to it.

“Anais, reach for my hand. Do it,” he commanded. “Do it now!”

And then he saw the delicate muslin cuff give way. Saw her eyes go round and her pale mouth part on a silent sound. “No!” he roared, heaving himself forward in a desperate bid to reach her, but she slipped through his fingers, and he was forced to watch her fall backward, her arms stretched out to him. Her hair, loose from its pins, floated about her. Her name was ripped from his soul as he saw his vision being born before his eyes.

He watched her, helpless, frozen in time as his gaze stayed locked on her wide, frightened eyes, and he swore he could almost hear her say, “You’ve done this to me, Lindsay. You’ve killed me.”

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