He rested his elbows on his knees, his head down to evade her fierce interrogative gaze. “My father was a fortune hunter too. My mother didn’t have one tenth of your wealth, but it was early in his career so it must have seemed enough. He ran through her money, betrayed her with other women, and made her miserable. After she died—and he may as well have killed her—he took me away with him and taught me all he knew.” His mother’s letters haunted him, as did the memory of her last days.
He raised his head to look her dead in the eye. “That’s who I am, Anne. Right now I want to live with you and our children, grow old with you and be buried in the same grave. But it won’t last. I’m just like him.”
Through an age of silence, he awaited his fate. She knelt before him utterly still; the tension in her body matched that of her face, pale and serious in a cloud of hair. She was going to throw him over and it was for the best. For her. Damn it, why hadn’t he pulled out early to prevent the risk of pregnancy? Selfish bastard that he was, he hadn’t even taken that elementary means to protect her.
“When your father offered for your mother, how did he regard her? Did he want to live with her forever and share a grave?”
“Hah! Lewis Lithgow? He never had a romantic idea in his entire wretched life. His only use for love was as a weakness in others for him to exploit.”
“If you mean what you just said, then I’d say there’s a big difference between you and your father.”
Anne had never seen a condemned prisoner reprieved but she wasn’t entirely without imagination. Her knees gave way and she slumped back onto her heels at the transformation of Marcus’s expression from raw misery to hope.
“You don’t have to be like your father.” She pressed her advantage. “Be yourself. Do what you want and what you think is right.”
“I wish they were the same thing.”
“They are.”
“What makes you so sure, Anne Brotherton?”
“My grandfather always said I was a wise little thing.” She gave a wry little smile. “Of course, he usually said it after I’d given in to him on some matter.”
“Are you going to tell me I’m wise?” She’d missed the mischief in his voice.
“Not until I’m sure you’ve given in.”
“I have, I have. I surrender to the greater wisdom of Anne Brotherton.”
“That will be Lady Lithgow, thank you very much.” Happiness rose in a bubble of mirth. Marcus hadn’t said he loved her, but she suspected he did. In a way his failure to avow his love convinced her of his sincerity. With the old Marcus the lie would have slipped from his tongue as easily as a false compliment. Deep in her heart she knew that he cared for her and that was more important than three little spoken words. She launched herself at him, grasping his shoulders, and somehow fell in a twisted heap with him sprawled on top. Shared laughter turned to kisses that turned from celebratory to heated.
“Don’t do that.” She turned her head sideways and batted at hands that attempted to remove her shirt. “It’s daylight.”
“You have a lot to learn, oh wise one.”
Anne felt they ought to be continuing the serious conversation about their future. On the other hand his touch felt awfully good. What she now knew to be desire came roaring back. But he wanted to take off her only garment. During the day. And see her body. He’d seemed to like it in the dark but she knew she wasn’t exactly the ideal of feminine beauty. No sinuous curves or bountiful breasts.
“I want to see all of you,” he said firmly, and before she could protest he’d rolled her off him and whipped off her shirt. Panicked, she sat with her knees bent, arms crossed over her bosom. Her face must be the color of boiled lobster. While Marcus, the wretch, was fully covered even to his tall boots. Heat surged in her core and she found it perversely thrilling to be stripped naked before him.
His intent gaze held no trace of disappointment. “You’re so beautiful,” he murmured hoarsely. “I want to see your legs.”
“My legs?” He thought she had lovely legs. She extended the limbs that she’d never given much thought to, flexed one at the knee to show off, until she realized what she exposed by the movement and snapped them together. “Do they live up to expectations?”
He shifted back to kneel at her feet. “Exquisite. Longer than the Via Appia. I’m going to start at the feet and kiss every inch, all the way up.”
That sounded delectable and extremely naughty when she considered what lay at the end of the journey. Excited and alarmed, she pressed her thighs together, and the glow inside her intensified.
It turned out to be quite impossible to keep them clenched when she was being kissed, licked, and nibbled from the tips of her toes on up. She learned that the backs of her knees were particularly sensitive, drawing happy little moans when subjected to wet tongued kisses.
“Stop!”
“Truly?” Thankfully the question was rhetorical and her objection ignored. As he moved north, her heart wavered between longing and apprehension. Surely he’d stop before he got there.
No. No he didn’t stop. He actually put his mouth over the entrance to her most private place, breathing heat and making her writhe with embarrassed bliss. His tongue followed and he was consuming her with powerful strokes, raising her desire to a raging fever. Leaning back against the pillows she watched him, genuflecting before her like a worshipper at a shrine. A shrine of which she was the presiding goddess.
It didn’t seem right.
“Marcus.” He continued his ministrations, licking and sucking and driving her wild even as she wanted him to stop. She wanted him to continue but she also wanted something more, or something different. “Marcus! Stop!”
He looked up, his eyes reflecting her own pleasure. “It gets even better.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“This is all for you. Just let me love you.”
“I want to love you too. I feel as though . . .” She struggled to express her feelings. “I feel like you are serving me.”
“What’s wrong with that? I want to make you happy.”
“It doesn’t seem fair. It doesn’t seem . . . equal.”
He wasn’t upset, more thoughtful, pondering what she’d said. “It pleases me to please me.”
“And it would please me to please you.”
“You please me by letting me please you.”
Untangling the exchange took a moment. “I see what you mean. I just don’t like”—she hesitated and fell back on her original thought—“I don’t like to see you serving me.”
“Would you prefer me to plow in and take my pleasure without regard for yours? If that’s what a gentleman does, I thank God I am no gentleman.”
Anne shivered. Taken. Seized and taken without regard for her own needs. Already sensitive from Marcus’s attentions, her private place throbbed, wet and hot. “I think I might enjoy that,” she whispered.
“Your request has been duly noted. Now lie back and let me pleasure you.” He smiled broadly. “It will be my pleasure.”
So she ceased complaining and let herself enjoy something that half an hour earlier she would have found unimaginable. His straight hair, coarser than hers, brushing her thighs; his faintly bristled chin rubbing the cleft of her bottom; that relentless tongue demanding her response, offering no quarter. She was torn between wanting him to stop, because she couldn’t bear the gratification that bordered on pain, and aching for the ecstasy that lay the other side of a steep hill, if only she could climb it. Firm hands grasped the hips that twisted with longing, forced her to be still and suffer and revel in what was done to her. Squeezing her eyes shut, she released her anxiety and trusted him to take her on the final ascent, then stroke her over the top into shattered bliss.
As her shudders subsided, he laid his head on her stomach. With trembling fingers, she touched his hair, caressed his cheek. She was going to marry Marcus Lithgow and he’d just licked her between the legs. Both facts were slightly incredible and
wholly delightful.
“Marcus,” she said, craving the greater intimacy of complete union. “Will you take me now?”
“With the greatest of pleasure.”
She sat back to watch him strip off his clothing and learned two things. Firstly, that she’d won herself as fine a specimen of male beauty as any statue. And secondly, that the male organ, or cock, when excited was long and hard and often depicted in artifacts by the Romans.
“You knew what that belt buckle was,” she said. “And the pendant in that London shop. I am mortified.”
“Would you have preferred it if I’d said something at the time? Either time?”
“I have to admit I would not. I had no idea studying the Romans would be indecent.”
“You never know what new vistas education will open.”
She didn’t like the look on his face. Or she liked it very much. “Vistas?” She could hardly get the word out. The vista he presented, kneeling before her, sucked away her breath and revived a sharper desire. The play of skin and muscles across his chest was perfection itself, marred only by a small jagged scar in his side. One day she’d ask how he’d acquire it. For now she had no wish to hear the exaggerated tale of villainy he’d doubtless feed her. No longer interested in Marcus’s disreputable past, she cared only for their better future and glorious present.
His hands grasped her ankles and tugged. Before she knew it she lay flat on her back with her legs over his shoulders. She’d never felt so vulnerable when he folded her like a sheet of paper, her knees framing her breasts and her opening utterly exposed to his eyes and the swift, sure entrance of his male member.
With the new posture there was no trace of discomfort, only a marvelous fullness deep inside and mounting pleasure with each firm thrust. Best of all, in daylight she could see Marcus’s face, focused, intent, muscles straining. Their eyes held as they found a rhythm and she understood why the carnal act was one of union, of the bodies and the emotions. Love consumed her mind and body until there seemed no divide between the two. Once again she ascended to the peak of bliss, easily this time, as though strolling up a shallow rise on a gentle spring day, and fell over the edge in a smooth glide. Quivers of delight shot through her veins. As her sinews slackened she murmured his name and her love and watched his dear face grow wild and uncontrolled as he drove his way to his own finish.
This time, however, before she felt the exploding warmth within, he pulled out at the last moment with his final shout, and lay panting between her legs.
“Why?” she asked, stroking his damp forehead.
“To prevent getting you with child. It’s what I should have done last night.”
“Does it matter? We’re to be married, after all. With or without consent I can wed whomever I want after my birthday in February.”
“Better to be careful,” he said. “We can’t be sure what will happen.”
A puff of chill wind ruffled her joy.
Chapter 22
Anne was full of plans for the villa once spring arrived. Her grand scheme involved scaffolding, a protective roof, and a team of laborers trained by her to dig with due care. Marcus loved to see her so excited and had no objection to anything she wanted to do. Except for the expense. Though his bride-to-be believed herself a lady of simple tastes, she was unaccustomed to consider cost when anything took her fancy. She was equally full of ideas for the manor house: new curtains, more comfortable chairs, repaired plasterwork, improvements to the kitchen and other domestic offices. “Travis and Maldon will be much happier with a new laundry. And of course a laundry maid,” she remarked when once again she’d discovered Travis doing his endless ironing on the kitchen table. “I daresay a cook wouldn’t allow him to work in here.”
In truth her expectations were modest. She had no craving for jewels, a fashionable wardrobe, or fine carriages. But every time she said, “We must order that once the bridge is restored,” whether a volume on antiquities or a stouter pair of boots, he inwardly flinched.
If she retained her pin money, their income would be sufficient for a quiet country life, conducted with economy. Fired with a new virtue, Marcus hoped to make the Hinton estate profitable. He would do so. But to be unable to provide his wife with the necessities of a genteel life was intolerable. His mother’s last years still troubled him, though he was buoyed enough by Anne’s confidence to put every effort into being a good husband.
The only way he would feel worthy of her, and safe from his own baser nature, was to accumulate a reasonable capital sum. Since he couldn’t win it at the tables, the sole recourse remained Lewis’s legacy. Convinced that the villa was the likely hiding place, he couldn’t search there while the hard frost continued and the ground was frozen.
“Tell me everything you remember about your Mr. Bentley.” For the second time they shook out every volume on the shelves of the study. “He’s the best candidate I have for our mysterious ghost. He may be quite innocent but until I can get across the river I can’t find out anything about him.”
“You think he may have searched the house?”
“The servants were frightened off before I arrived. During that time someone made free of the place. Let’s assume he found nothing.”
“We certainly haven’t. The good thing is by the time we’re finished there won’t be a speck of dust left in the place.” She took a rag to an ancient estate ledger and replaced it on the shelf.
“If Bentley is our man, he may have decided next to try the villa but you had already taken possession of the ruins. He wouldn’t be able to find what he wanted at night and couldn’t risk being discovered in daylight.”
“He seemed a respectable man.” Her voice held a note of doubt.
“Perhaps he is. What is he like?”
“Like any country gentleman, I suppose. Though he did say he lived in London and didn’t spend much time in Wiltshire. I had the impression he had also traveled abroad.”
“Where he could have met my father.”
Anne creased her brow. “I’m trying to remember our conversations. He knew your mother and he was well acquainted with Mr. Hooke. He knew all about the excavation. His memory was quite helpful.”
“What does the fellow look like?”
“Quite handsome, I suppose.” Damn villainous charmer, cozening Anne with antiquarian chatter. “But there’s something about him I couldn’t quite like. Almost as though he was trying to make up to me. I hate flirtatious men.”
He flicked a smudge off her nose and kissed it. “Good. In that case you won’t be tempted to flirt with anyone but me.”
“If not for him, I wouldn’t have known where to look for the hypocaust and furnace.”
“And you wouldn’t have nearly died.”
“Never mind that.” She waved her hand dismissively as her face lit up with excitement. “I’ve thought of something. Mr. Bentley definitely implied that Mr. Hooke never found the furnace chamber, but obviously he had. Perhaps Bentley was away from the county and didn’t realize it had been uncovered—”
“Or maybe he knew it was a likely hiding place and wanted you to take off the top layer so he could get in without anyone noticing.”
At the end of their second day together the weather turned. They found the villa enveloped in a warm winter mist and made straight for the furnace.
“Be careful!” Marcus said. “We don’t want you tumbling in again.”
His lady was not to be held back once her enthusiasm was aroused. She fell to her knees and peered over the crumbling edge of her recent prison. “I can’t see much.”
From his superior height he could tell the ice had melted, leaving a murky pool. “When you were trapped, did anything strike you as unusual?”
“Having never been in a Roman furnace before, everything was unexpected.” She pursed her lips and thought. “There was quite a lot of loose stuff at the bottom. I assumed it was broken bricks and other debris. I was too busy trying to find a way out to give it much attention,
except,” she said wryly, “when I fell on my bottom and struck something sharp. There’s a sort of ledge of bricks a couple of feet from the ground. I groped around it but I could have missed a part. Can you see if anything is sitting on it?”
“No. I’ll have to go in.” He walked around the edge, testing the ground, which seemed firmer now that it was dry. “I think this is where I lay to pull you out.”
“I’ll climb in again. We know you can get me out.”
“It would be more sensible to fetch a ladder.”
“I don’t want to wait.”
He didn’t either, and he had no idea whether he owned a suitable ladder, or where it would be kept. “I’ll go.”
“Didn’t we speak before about gentlemen having all the fun?”
He threw up his hands in surrender. “I hope I won’t regret this.”
Daylight made things easier. With his help, she dropped down to the ledge, and thence to the floor. “The cold water is soaking my boots.”
“You insisted. Look quickly then.”
“It’s not very deep. Less than an inch.” Even on his knees he couldn’t see exactly what she was doing, and had to content himself with the sound of her fumbling on the floor, and listened to a running commentary on bits and pieces she lifted and discarded. “I don’t think there’s anything much down here. Now I’m going to look at the walls and ledge. Oh! How fascinating! I’ve found the flues that conducted heat into the hypocaust chamber.”
“That’s very interesting, but could you postpone your antiquarian speculations for the moment? More to the point, is there anything in them?”
“They’re clogged with earth but one looks promising. Hold on, I’m going to stand on the ledge and see if I can get a closer look.”
“Careful you don’t damage any important historical evidence.”
She tilted her head and stuck her tongue out at him. “Reach your hand in. I shall grab it for balance as I step up.” She missed and the essay ended in an ominous crunch and a shriek as she once more ended up on her behind.
Miranda Neville Page 22
