A Love That Never Tires (Linley & Patrick Book 1)

by Jeleyne, Allyson

  “Why there is this need for competition between the two of you, I’ll never know. You are not rivals, especially not for my attention.”

  “Perhaps for your father’s attention, then. Though I must admit Archie is the clear winner in that respect.”

  She smiled at him. “Archie can have my father and you can have me.”

  “That is a good compromise,” Patrick said, grinning.

  ***

  As the sun sank behind the mountains, the Talbot-Martin team set up camp at the edge of the forest. The journey would be almost entirely uphill from that point on. Thankfully, the temperature cooled with the rise in altitude.

  Patrick sat at the edge of camp, as it was his turn to be on tiger duty. Somehow, Linley convinced the team he was capable of handling a rifle—something not even his own repeated assurances managed to do. To them, he was incompetent, spoiled, and downright idiotic. Archie slung insults at him. Reginald repeated every blunder Patrick made, much to the team’s amusement. Even Linley, the only person on his side, found his ineptitude endearingly funny.

  They wouldn’t be laughing when he saved them from being hauled off by a man-eater. As Patrick sat in the dwindling twilight, rifle across his lap, he fantasized about drawing a bead right between the eyes of a tiger. He’d drop the beast in the nick of time—just after it mauled Archie’s face, but before it took that final, lethal swipe of its razor sharp claws.

  No, they wouldn’t be laughing then.

  “I brought you some coffee,” Linley said, settling down beside him. “And I slipped a bit of whiskey in when Papa wasn’t looking.”

  Patrick took the cup from her. “Thank you.”

  “I hope you can actually shoot that thing.” She pointed to the rifle. “I went out on a limb persuading them to let you have your turn at the watch.”

  “I can shoot it.”

  She smiled. “Not that I think we’ll have any trouble with tigers. For the most part, they stay clear of humans.”

  Well, there went Patrick’s chance at glory.

  “Shall I sit with you tonight?” Linley asked. “I’d like to, if you don’t mind.”

  “I rather hoped you would.”

  “You know, Patrick,” she said, picking at a blade of grass. “I’m so glad you came here. Without you, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself.”

  “You’d get on. Time and absence have a way of working things out.”

  “Why do you think you are so dispensable to me?” she asked. “Am I replaceable in your heart? Will I be that easy to forget about when you go home?”

  “Linley…”

  “Sometimes I forget that I am one of dozens of girls who have passed through your life.”

  “Five,” he said.

  “What?”

  “You talk to me about memory, yet you forget entire conversations,” Patrick said. “Remember at the Museum? You asked me how many women I’d been with. I told you five. Not dozens. Only five.”

  “Did you love any of them?”

  “I cared for all of them,” he said.

  “That isn’t what I asked.”

  Patrick sat silent for a moment. “No. I did not love them.”

  “Do you believe in love?”

  “I want to.”

  Linley resumed picking at the blade of grass. “I want to, too.”

  The last rays of the sun disappeared from the sky. Only the glint of moonlight on waving grass moved across the landscape.

  “Do you think your sister loves Hereford?”

  Patrick swiveled his head to look at her. “I have no idea. Why?”

  “It just seems that no one ever expects to marry for love anymore,” she said. “That romance only belongs in fairy tales and spinster novels.”

  “Because it is a lucrative market—little girls and lonely women,” Patrick said. “But people like Hereford, and Georgiana, and myself don’t always have the freedom to marry for our hearts. We wed for practical reasons. To dream of anything more only leads to heartache and disappointment.”

  “So you had no problem marrying your sister off to a man she did not love, and who probably would not love her?”

  Patrick frowned. “Georgiana wanted to marry Hereford. It was her idea,” he explained. “She was expected to marry a cousin of ours. It was all but arranged. At the last minute, I told her I would not hold her to the agreement if she did not want to go through with it. So she didn’t. She married Hereford instead.”

  “Maybe they were in love after all.” Linley said, smiling.

  “You’re awfully romantic for someone who casually talks of taking lovers—or do you not remember that day in the garden either?”

  “I remember.”

  “As I told you, I’ve had five lovers and never loved any of them,” he explained. “The emotion of love and the sexual act are two completely separate things. You’d do good to keep that in mind when the time comes and you want to give yourself over to a man.”

  “Is that why you got so upset that afternoon?” Linley asked. “Because you thought I’d go to bed with a man believing it would make him love me?”

  “No. I was upset because you should not be discussing sex with me. Just as you should not be doing it now. If I were a gentleman at all, I would end this conversation.”

  “…So you’re not a gentleman?”

  “I am a gentleman.”

  “And this conversation is over?”

  “Precisely.”

  Linley smiled in the dark, certain that he was smiling, too.

  ***

  “Are you asleep?” she asked him.

  “No. Why?”

  “You got quiet.”

  Patrick shifted against the tree trunk he leaned against. “I’m not asleep.”

  Linley looked up at the moon, guessing at the time. “In an hour or two, go and wake Reginald. He will come to relieve you.”

  “For the rest of the night?”

  “Yes.”

  “No one told me that,” he said.

  “Probably because they wanted you to stay up the entire time.”

  Patrick moved the rifle from across his lap and placed it in the grass beside him. “I really hate your friends.”

  “Don’t worry,” Linley said, laughing. “They hate you, too.”

  “I’m going numb. Would you like to stretch out with me?”

  They shifted away from the tree trunk and lay on their backs. The tall grass formed a cocoon around them, leaving only the most beautiful view of the moon above their heads.

  Linley rested her head beside Patrick’s. “I want to live up there.”

  “Where?”

  “On the moon,” she said.

  Patrick crossed his hands behind his head, letting Linley use his underarm as a pillow. He watched the clouds move across the sky, thinking it was a perfect night.

  “I’d like to kiss you,” he whispered. When Linley did not answer, he thought she might not have heard him. “I would like to kiss you.”

  “I know,” she said, her own voice barely above a whisper.

  “May I?”

  Linley rolled over onto her stomach, her mouth only a breath away from his. “No.”

  Patrick tried not to let his disappointment show. Without a word, he turned his focus back to the moon and the stars.

  “You cannot kiss me,” she said. “Because this time I want to kiss you first.”

  His eyes shot back down to hers. This was turning out not to be a disappointment after all.

  Linley bent down and pressed her mouth to his. She was timid, and a little unsure. Their first two kisses had been so different that she did not know which way was best. In the room with Elgin’s Marbles, the kiss had been soft, fast. Upstairs in Kyre House, the kiss was rough, and lasted for a very long time.

  Because he knew she would never do it on her own, Patrick dipped his tongue into her mouth. Linley pulled away at the sensation, but the warm hand resting on the back of her neck kept her from escaping too far. Hi
s fingers danced up and down the skin there, threading loops of brown hair between his knuckles. Gooseflesh traveled in their wake.

  As their mouths moved against each other, as his lips slid back and forth over hers, the hand on her neck began to travel. It fluttered across her shoulder blades. Played against the ridges of her spine. Spread out in the shallow space just before the curve of her bottom. And then moved lower.

  At Patrick’s insistence, Linley ground her hips against his. He pressed his palm hard against her backside, squeezing her. Groping her. His lips broke free of hers and traveled down her jawline to her soft, warm throat. His other hand was still wrapped around her wrist. Linley pinned it back against the grass beside his head while she thrust her hips against his.

  Without her corset on, her breasts rubbed against the thin fabric of her blouse. There was little to protect them from the heat coming off Patrick’s body, which radiated through two layers of cotton and burned against her flesh.

  Patrick used the hand clenched to her bottom to push Linley upward. He wriggled beneath her just low enough to find her breasts, and drew one of her nipples into his mouth, fabric and all. Sweat, mingled with jasmine water, combined with the natural taste of her body flooded his mouth. Patrick drank it in, tugging on her nipple with his lips, and teeth, and tongue.

  Perhaps a little too roughly, because Linley let out a whimper.

  He released that breast, and moved to the next one. This time he remembered to be gentle. After all, she had never experienced such things, and Patrick had no idea what was going through her mind at that moment.

  For her part, Linley’s mind went blank. As she buried her face against his crisp dark hair, she thought of nothing at all. As if her brain could work at a time like this. As if anything else existed in the world except the pleasure he gave her.

  As if she would want anything to.

  Linley continued to grind against him, only this time she did it because her body could do nothing else. To writhe on top of him seemed to be its only function. She marveled at the attention he paid to her bosom. What would he want with those little breasts that, up until that night, had been nothing but a disappointment to her?

  And then she felt it—something growing hard between his hips and hers. She pulled away from him, shocked at the intrusion. And then she realized what it was.

  “Oh!” she gasped, part embarrassed and part intrigued.

  Patrick moved his hand to cover his erection. “I—I’m sorry.”

  She jumped up, dusting off the knees of her skirt. For some reason, she could not help but laugh. Patrick wanted to make love to her! She knew it, and now he could not deny it!

  Patrick rose to his feet. His erection subsided, and he felt he could face her now that it was gone. “Linley,” he said, turning her around to face him. “Linley, stop laughing.”

  She pursed her lips together to fight off another fit of giggles. “You’re blushing!”

  Patrick’s face was indeed hot. “You’ve embarrassed me.”

  “I’m sorry,” Linley said, composing herself.

  “No, I am sorry. That should never have happened.” He shifted from one foot to another. “I hope I haven’t shocked you.”

  She smiled at him. “Honestly, I’m a little flattered.”

  “Flattered?”

  Linley took a step forward, sliding her arm around his waist. “I had no idea I had that sort of effect on you.”

  “It has been longer than usual since I held a woman. Naturally, I would be a little…overeager.”

  She kept smiling, refusing to be dismissed. “Oh, so you are blaming it on your celibacy, and not at all on my feminine powers of seduction?”

  Patrick pulled her hand away from his waist. “I’m not going to stand here and stoke your vanity. I’ve already apologized, and I think we should leave it at that.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Patrick awoke to rain. Not the driving, relentless downpour he experienced in the jungle, but a steady, misting drizzle. As he listened to it spatter against the roof of his tent, he lay there and thought of the night before.

  How could he let himself get so carried away? He hadn’t acted like that over a woman’s touch since university.

  Well, not quite university, but not long after.

  He had been too serious of a youth to trouble with women while at Oxford. Young Patrick preferred to pour over books rather than chase girls, unlike almost all of his schoolmates. Even after he returned to Kyre, his life was too busy for pleasurable pursuits. He had an estate to run, a sister to raise, hundreds of tenants to look after, and somehow between all that, he was expected to find time for politics.

  By twenty-one, he was exhausted. He was also lonely. His friends knew he needed a woman, but did not think he needed a true companion. After all, he was young, relatively handsome, and held one of the most respected titles in all of Britain. Why would he want to commit himself to one woman when he could have his pick of the most beautiful ladies in the world?

  But Patrick would have none of them. He knew what those women were after—his title, or perhaps the hopes of snaring him with an illegitimate child or two. None of which benefitted him at all, yet his friends could not understand that.

  He smirked up at the canvas tent roof. Most of them understood now. Almost all his friends had sacrificed their titles to women they reluctantly call their wives. Some kept secret families hidden away, the greedy mothers looking for cheques every few weeks, threatening to show up on their doorstep if the money didn’t arrive on time.

  Yet, he thought of none of that when he crawled between the sheets with Lady Wolstanton. She was a few years older than him, already married to an elderly man, and had nothing to gain from taking him to bed. Everyone knew she willingly took on any man who wanted her. Hell, Patrick knew of three or four chaps personally. They assured him she was good and always discreet. All he needed to do was let her know he was interested.

  Lady Wolstanton seemed all too delighted to entertain him, especially once she discovered he was a virgin. One could even say she took advantage of him, in her own way. Patrick was her pet. Her handsome little lapdog who turned himself inside out to get a taste of what his friends bragged about.

  And in the end, he got his fair share.

  Lady Wolstanton relished in his inexperience. In fact, she seemed to draw more pleasure from watching him fumble around in bed with her than anything else. Remembering the way he shuddered and moaned as she took him humiliated Patrick to this very day. Even alone in his tent, he struggled to push the memory away, too ashamed to relive it again. All he had wanted was a companion, but what he got was a mistress in the most literal sense of the word—someone to control him.

  Yet it wasn’t a total loss. She managed to pass on a great deal of knowledge about women and lovemaking to him. When Patrick learned too much to be of any more fun to her, Lady Wolstanton sent him packing. But there were plenty more eager women to soothe the young marquess’ heart. The last of whom, Patrick had ended their affair just before Linley arrived in London.

  Her timing could not have been more perfect. Patrick still had his penchant for companionship and long, comfortable romances. He wasn’t one to hop from one bed to another. He enjoyed cultivating his relationships—getting to know the girl, and allowing the girl to know him.

  Patrick liked Linley from the start. He felt drawn to her, even in Morocco. When Berenice Hastings announced the presence of a young Miss Talbot-Martin at the Robeson’s ball, Patrick jumped at the chance to reunite with her. And he did not regret it. Linley proved to be just as beautiful as she was the first time he saw her. She was still her own woman. She did not try to be something she was not, even if it meant never making any friends in London.

  He respected her for that. She told it like it was, and would never toy with him or his emotions. Girls like Gaynor Robeson made Patrick’s skin crawl, and it turned out Linley was the antithesis of that sort of woman. Gaynor would never offer herself u
p to him the way Linley had last night. Would never embrace their passion as Linley had. The night before proved something that Patrick knew all along—he and Linley were partners.

  Equals.

  Companions.

  ***

  In her own tent, Linley sat cross-legged on the floor. She rolled her socks into little balls and shoved them in her bag on top of the shirt she wore the night before. The shirt. The one with his lips emblazoned across the front. If it wasn’t her only other blouse, she would have saved it—unwashed—to forever remind her of their moment together.

  But shirts were precious commodities in her world, so it could not be spared. A pity. She wanted something to remember him by besides a clipped-out photograph from The Bystander.

  When all her things were packed, Linley still sat in the sanctuary of her tent. She dreaded leaving the quiet solitude. There, alone, she could collect her thoughts, far from the watchful eye of her father and the others. Even from Patrick.

  Sometimes just the sight of him muddled her brain. He brought forth an onslaught of new and confusing emotions, and sometimes that frightened her. She never quite knew how to act around him. Slowly, she learned to flirt with him. To say things that shocked him because she sensed he liked that. Patrick liked it when she was honest with him, even when she told him things he didn’t want to hear. And she knew he liked to kiss her, although that was the latest development in their already confusing relationship.

  “I’d knock, but there is no door.” Patrick’s voice interrupted her thoughts.

  Linley almost jumped, fearing somehow that she’d conjured him up, or that he knew she’d been thinking about him. “What is it?”

  “Your father would like to get started.”

  She nodded, even though he could not see her. “All right, I’m coming.”

  Linley stuffed the rest of her belongings into her pack and crawled out of the tent. Patrick waited for her on the other side. She was convinced he knew she had been thinking about him. It was written all over his face—or rather, her face—and that was the problem. She was never good at hiding secrets.