“Why did you run from me?”
The question was uttered softly, but in the darkest of tones, in a manner that spoke of barely tethered anger. The sound slithered along her nerves, fueling her own anger.
“I searched everywhere for you. Do you know that?”
Yes. She had known. He’d come nearly every day to the house, and finally, when she’d convinced her maid to tell him she had left for London, he had followed her there.
“Why did you run, Anais?”
“You know perfectly well the answer to that question. And I would beg you not to talk about such things here,” she said, smiling at Lady Weatherby, who was watching them intently.
“Where shall we have this conversation?” he asked, pressing closer to her. He was so close that his breath whispered along her ear. “For we will have it, Anais.”
“There is nothing to talk about. Nothing more to say. I witnessed the act. I saw the truth. No explanation is necessary.”
“Look at me.”
Oh, how she wished Garrett was here. He could extricate her from this very uncomfortable confrontation. He was excessively good at saving her. He could save her now, from Lindsay’s sensual gaze and the memories of those beautiful lips kissing her body.
Lindsay’s hand slid on the brocade cushion. His fingers found hers and he entwined them with her trembling ones, shielding his inappropriate touch in the folds of her skirt. “Please, look at me.”
She fought against the need she heard in his voice, but felt herself slowly weakening as his fingers pressed urgently against hers. She was saved, however, by Worthing, the Weatherbys’ ancient butler.
“If you please, ma’am,” he said, addressing Lady Weatherby. “Mrs. Jennings and her shopgirls are in the front hall, desirous to see Lady Darnby and her daughters.”
“Lovely,” Lady Weatherby said. “Put them in the crimson salon, Worthing. We shall be with them directly. Why doesn’t everyone wander into the ballroom?” she announced, rising from her chair. “There is a hot buffet set up and we shall have some dancing later. Ann,” Lady Weatherby said, motioning for her to take her hand. “Come along with me. We will see you settled first and allow Anais a few more minutes with my son. I’m certain they are both desirous to catch up on these past months of absence.”
“That would be lovely, Lady Weatherby,” Ann said before casting an apologetic glance in Anais’s direction.
“Well, come along then,” Lady Weatherby commanded as she clasped Ann’s hand with hers. With Ann in tow, she left the room, closing the door firmly behind her.
“I shall have to kiss her for that.”
Anais turned on her cushion, only to see Lindsay grinning rakishly down at her. “I believe I will leave. I really cannot afford to miss the opportunity to have Mrs. Jennings fit me with a new wardrobe. I certainly cannot keep borrowing Mrs. Middleton’s gowns, now, can I?”
“Indeed not.” She saw his eyes skim down the column of her throat to the white swells of her décolletage that could not be contained behind the bodice. “Obviously Mrs. Middleton lacks the bosom the gods have graciously bestowed upon you.”
“It was the only gown that was suitable to be seen in,” she said on a gasp as he suddenly pressed forward. The scent of him washed over her and it brought memories of last night racing back. She had smelled the same scent of him as he lay atop her—spice and man. Her body began to shake, reawakening to the sensations he had woken inside her, and she pressed back from him until she could feel the rolled arm of the settee between her shoulder blades.
“I need you.” He followed her movement. His chest was so close to her she felt the muscled contours of his belly rising and falling against the rounded mound of hers. “I want you back—I need you back in my life.” His arm reached out past her shoulder and his fingers curled around the settee, caging her. “I have never needed anything more, Anais. I cannot stand—”
“I forgive you.”
She had blurted that out in a hurried breath she feared sounded much too husky. Her breathing was rushed, her bosom threatening to spill completely from the ill-fitting bodice of her borrowed gown. A log cracked and snapped, sending Lindsay’s shoulders tensing as his gaze burned—unwavering—at her.
“I beg your pardon?” he asked, enunciating every word with precision.
“I have forgiven you.”
Behind her, she could hear his fingers curling into the silk of the settee. “Forgiven me?” He looked perplexed. His gaze slid to her trembling lips, then back to her eyes. “How is that possible when we left off under such wretched circumstances? You have not even allowed me to apologize, and yet you forgive me?”
“Forgive, and you will be forgiven.”
She had not meant to say those words, but they had slipped out effortlessly. How many times had the vicar preached the gospel of Luke? How many times had they heard those words growing up? Those words had become her mantra. She so desperately wanted to believe in the validity of those words.
“What have you to be forgiven for, Anais? It is I who seek forgiveness from you.”
She needed to leave before she made matters worse. He would be relentless. He would pry, would try to wear down her defenses until he learned what he wanted. She couldn’t let him.
“You have my forgiveness, now let me go.”
“Why, when I have not done anything to be worthy of your forgiveness? How is it you can easily accept what I have done?”
“Because I must,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “Because it is not for me to judge you and set your punishment. I do not mean to say that because I have forgiven you I have deemed your actions acceptable, for I do not. Rather, I mean to say I understand why you did what you did.”
“Just like that.” He snapped his fingers before her nose. “In a blink of an eye, and without a word, you forgive me for betraying your trust and the bond we shared together? How can that be? How can you forgive me so easily? Hell,” he raged, “I haven’t even come close to forgiving myself for what I’ve done.”
“I have moved on with my life, Lindsay. The past is the past. It is forgotten and forgiven.”
“Forgotten?” He clutched her face in his palms and forced her to look at him. “You cannot mean that. You have not forgotten me. Your body has not forgotten me.”
She held his gaze, forcing aside the weakening resolve of her body. “We shared a past. It was lovely and passionate. But our futures are separate.”
She tried to slip out from beside him, but he caught her about the waist. “Is there nothing left, Anais? Of us?” He placed his palm over her breast and smoothed his index finger back and forth along the apex of her bounding heart. “You don’t feel me here anymore?”
She fought to summon the strength to lie to Lindsay. The first of many to come, she told herself. It would get easier after the first time. It was for his own good, but she knew it was a lie. It was for her peace of mind.
“There is nothing left, Lindsay, but memories. It is best, I think, to leave the past where it belongs, behind us.”
“No, I won’t. I can’t! Damn it, I do not belong in your past, I am your future, Anais. I’ve always known it, and furthermore, so have you.”
“Things have changed. It is too late to drag the past out into the light.”
“That’s not true—it can’t be true.”
“I am afraid there is more going on here than you and I and what happened almost a year ago.”
His fingers sunk deep into her shoulders, biting her skin. “What the hell are you saying? Have…have…” His face paled and he made a strangled sound deep in his throat. “Have you found someone else? Are you in love with another man? Broughton—” He bit off in a strange choked breath.
It should be easier to lie the second time. So why couldn’t she? Why could she not bring herself to meet Lindsay’s wounded eyes and tell him she no longer loved him?
Anais took advantage of his slackened hold and slipped out from beside him. “I’m sorry if
I have caused pain to you, Lindsay. It was unconsciously done. I never meant to hurt you, as I know you never intended to hurt me.”
His eyes darkened and he rose from the settee, stalking her so that she stepped back from him. Step for step he followed her until she found herself backed up against the door. Towering above her, he stared down at her with his penetrating gaze.
“You were made but for one man,” he said fiercely. “Born for one man. You’re mine.” His voice was a painful whisper as his arms shot out and his hands rested flat against the door, effectively caging her. “You were made for me to love, Anais. And now you are trying to tell me that the glimpse I had—the taste of you—that you gave to me is what I can never have?”
The heat in his eyes singed her and she looked away. She had never seen him in such a volatile state. She was unnerved by the fierceness in him.
“I’m cold,” she said, shivering. She was lying and hating herself for acting as if she was timid and weak. But she had to get away from his intensity and the need she saw in his eyes—a need she was certain would be shining in hers if she allowed herself to tarry with him.
“You’re shivering, yes,” he murmured as he lowered his face to her neck and inhaled her scent. When he spoke she felt the faintest brush of his lips against her earlobe. “But it is not trembling from cold, but hunger—sexual hunger.”
“No,” she protested. Closing her eyes, she rested her head back against the door.
“Yes. Your body is reawakening to mine. Just as it did last night. You remember, don’t you? The feel of me atop you. My mouth moving along your skin, the roughness of my tongue laving your silky quim as you shuddered in climax beneath me.”
Her eyelids flew open. Too late, she saw the realization flash in his eyes.
“Of course you remember. You’re trembling because you recall what I did to you, and how you felt. You’re shaking because you remember what it is like to be filled with my cock, the pleasures of it thrusting deep inside you. You want that again. You want what I can give your body. You want what only I can give you.”
“I do not recall a thing.” Her breathing was heavy and her nipples were hard buds that rubbed against her corset, sending her womb clenching in excitement.
“I marked you,” Lindsay murmured darkly, making her toes curl in her slippers. “Remember how I allowed myself to spend on your belly? I sucked your breast as I lost myself in climax. Tell me, how will you hide my mark, Anais? When the village seamstress wishes to measure you, how will you shield the mark of my mouth—my passion?”
Anais covered the swell of her left breast with her palm. Lindsay smiled wickedly, triumphantly, as he peeled her fingers from her flesh and lowered the lace collar of her bodice so that crest of her breast, which strained above the ill-fitting corset, was exposed. But he did not stop until he hooked his finger along the edge of the linen corset, shoving it lower until the small purple bruise beside her areola was exposed.
“There is no denying last night.” Lowering his mouth to her breast, he kissed her so softly she could have whimpered. “Are you going to deny it? Are you going to pretend we weren’t on fire for each other? Will you try to claim that while you were lying beneath me and I was marking you, that you were thinking of whoever you misguidedly think will replace me in your heart?”
“I forgive you,” she breathed heavily, struggling to right her reeling senses and reaffirm her mantra. “Let that be enough.”
“It is not enough,” he growled, flattening his hand on the door behind her. “I don’t want this easy acquiescence. I want your anger. I want to feel it. I want to see it. Don’t you understand? I don’t want your submission. Submission means I have defeated you. Hate me, yell at me—hit me. But do not stand before me and pretend as though your heart is not racing and your body is not crying out for my touch.”
“Please don’t do this,” she whispered afraid of succumbing to the temptation that was Lindsay. His fingers trailed down her flushed cheek and he leaned in farther so that she could feel his breath upon her lips.
“Make me work for you, Anais. Make me earn your forgiveness. Don’t just hand it to me. A year ago you would have hung me by my bollocks for abusing you so terribly. Where is your sense of right and wrong?”
“What is it you want?” she cried. “What more can I possibly give you?”
“A chance to redeem myself in your eyes. Another chance to earn your love. Another chance for a future together.”
Anais held his gaze and tried to ignore the way her chest rose and fell in hard, gasping breaths. “I do not want a future with you. I don’t want your love.”
Lindsay’s head snapped back as though she had hit him. She bit her lip, fighting the urge to brush back the lock of hair that had fallen onto his brow. How easily she had once reached out and touched him. She had forever straightened his cravat and ran her hand through his hair in order to brush the unruly locks from his brow. How normal it seemed now, to reach out and feel him beneath her fingers. They had, at one time, been so intimate with each other. Now they were only strangers.
Sighing, Anais smiled sadly at the man who, at one time, had been her knight in shining armor; her savior, her lover. There were still glimpses of that man beneath the troubled shell. She saw him, the old Lindsay, trying to crawl out from under his darkness and she tried not to see his struggle—tried to pretend that what she felt was indifference. But indifference should not have felt this warm in her blood.
“You say you forgive me. Yet you do not want me in your life?”
“I understand why everything happened. You no longer have to pretend, Lindsay. I know your secret.”
“What could you possibly know?”
“That you had not set out to seduce Rebecca that night, but that you merely mistook her for me.” His face paled, and she saw his hand ball into a fist. “You did not betray me, did you? Your habit did.”
“And what habit is that?” he snapped, pushing himself away from her, but she saw the fear shining in his eyes.
“Opium. I know all about it.”
“Opium?” The word was a strangled cry from his mouth.
“You don’t have to lie,” she whispered. Reluctantly, she met his gaze and started at the hungry, haunted look in his eye. “You needn’t worry, Garrett explained everything.”
“Just what has he told you?”
“While you were away at Cambridge you discovered the lure of opium.”
“Well, who the hell hasn’t?” he thundered. “In case you haven’t heard, smoking opium, eating opium, drinking opium is the thing to do. There isn’t a fashionable salon that doesn’t have a smoking room. There isn’t a poet or a writer that has not used it to elevate his senses from time to time in order to allow the words to flow through his quill—Byron, Shelley, Dickens, Dumas, they have all dabbled in it. There isn’t a man of my acquaintance that has not experimented with it from time to time, and that includes Broughton.”
“Opium is a very false friend. It may be a useful servant, Lindsay, but it is a dangerous master.”
“It is not my master!”
“Garrett says you have developed a…a…sort of dependence.”
He clung to her, cupped her face in his hands. “I don’t have a habit.”
Tilting her chin, Anais eyed him defiantly. “Before you were to meet me on the terrace at the Torrington masquerade he was with you, and you were smoking opium—”
“I was inhaling opium-laced incense. There is a difference.”
“Smoking it, inhaling it, what does it matter,” she hissed, “it is still something that I cannot condone.” His face reddened, he was ashamed that she knew his secret, but she plunged on, knowing she was wielding a weapon that would likely destroy him. “I don’t want a future with you, Lindsay. I will not stand by and watch you stumbling about in the state in which I last saw you. I am repulsed whenever I remember the way you staggered toward me.”
“I was drugged that night—I didn’t know what wa
s in that cake when I took it. I truly believed it was just cake. But it wasn’t laced with opium. It was hashish—I never imbibe that. I never did before that night, and I haven’t since, I swear that to you.”
“But you have used opium since, haven’t you?”
His face fell and he looked away, unable to meet her eye. His expression confirmed her suspicions. “It does not matter, does it? I cannot be a party to your habit. I will not ignore it like your mother has ignored your father’s failings. I will not allow myself to be tied to a man who might mistake another woman for his wife when he is wandering about with his mind in an opium haze. I could never live like that, nor would I subject a child to that. A father is someone a child should look up to, not be ashamed of.”
“And this is what you think of me?” he asked, his voice sounding defeated. “You think I’m some dependent like De Quincey? Do you think my life is what is portrayed in his book?”
“I have not read Confessions of an English Opium Eater. I have no desire to. I have seen enough of opium and what havoc it caused that night on the terrace.”
“You think opium rules my life? That I have to have it? That I can’t stop using it?”
She couldn’t stand to think of Lindsay infusing his body with opium all these years. She did not wish to see him as his father and she looked away from him, from the man she had loved all her life, unable to admit the harmful truth to him.
“Look at me, Anais,” he pleaded as he held her face in his palms. “Do I look like a man with a habit?”
The pain in her breast was excruciating, almost as much as the pain she was witnessing in Lindsay’s expression. To deny him the truth of her love was like a knife stabbing her in the heart. Over and over she felt the blade of guilt being pulled deeper and deeper until she could barely breathe.
“Tell me, Anais, that I have another chance to win you,” he whispered, his words shaky and hushed. “Please tell me I haven’t lost you.”
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