Two lanterns hung from thick wooden beams and the orange flame danced behind the glass shield, casting shadows along the stable walls. A soft whinny erupted from the lighted corner; it was returned with the deep throaty snort of the stallion.
Drawing her cloak around her, Anais stopped before the giant beast whose head hung over the gate and whose huge brown eyes studied her intently.
“Shh,” she soothed, reaching inside her cloak and pulling out two cubes of sugar she had pinched from the pantry. “Here you go.” She held her hand, palm out to the stallion. He sniffed her gloved fingers then tilted his head, staring at her.
Running her hand down the long, proud line of his muzzle, she brushed back the coal-colored forelock from his eyes. “Your mane is as unruly as your owner’s,” she said, smiling when she saw the lock had slipped back over his one eye. “But you are a magnificent animal. I bet you run as fast as the wind.” The stallion continued to stare at her as if he could understand her words. “You’re wonderfully muscled and sleek,” she purred, running her hand appreciatively over his strong neck. “Spirited, too. I know how he likes his horses.”
The stallion tossed his head and she swore she saw the breadth of his chest increase. “You’re puffing yourself up, are you?” she laughed. “You know you’re the most beautiful creature in the world and I would give anything to ride you, don’t you?”
He tossed his head again and pressed his mouth into her hand, taking the cubes from her as she studied his high tail and the refined narrow head that made him the perfect Arabian specimen. The stallion’s back was covered with a thick blanket and his mane had been brushed until his coat shone to a spectacular gloss.
“You could not have found yourself a better master,” she whispered, and the horse whickered in response. “He shall take very good care of you, you know.”
A whinny erupted in the quiet and the stallion pranced back in his stall, away from her so that he was facing the line of stalls to the rear of his.
“Lift your leg, Lady,” Lindsay’s voice spoke in a gentle tone. “God, but you’re a bloody mess.” Startled, Anais looked about the stable, but could not see him. Only the line of lanterns hung from the walls told her where he would be. “What is it, Sultan?” Lindsay asked over the sound of the curry brush he must be pulling through Lady’s coat. “What has you prancing about?” The stallion snorted and stomped, tossing his head in agitation. “She is a pretty little thing, isn’t she? But I’m afraid she’s not for you.”
The Arabian snorted louder and stomped his foreleg against the stall door.
“What a bloody mess you’re in, my girl,” Lindsay muttered. “Darnby’s grooms should be whipped for taking such atrocious care of you. I should imagine your mistress has not yet seen the state of you.”
No, she had not seen Lady in months. How was it she had so easily discarded everything in her life that had ever mattered—Lindsay, Ann, her horse? Maybe she was just like her mother. Perhaps the same selfish blood of her mother did flow through her own veins. She had cared only for herself these past months, never thinking of what others might be going through. It was only her pain she had been concerned with.
“You haven’t been ridden in months. Look at you, yer as plump as a maid,” he laughed, slapping what Anais thought was Lady’s haunches. “She’s forgotten you, has she, just as she’s forgotten everyone else?”
He stood then, and Anais could see Lindsay’s head overtop of the stall. Could see his hair, so enticingly disheveled, sweeping across his brow. She sucked in her breath and was nearly overcome with the scent of hay and horse that served to trigger her mind to the last time she had been in the stable with Lindsay.
She turned to leave, hoping to keep her presence unknown. The Arabian snorted and stomped again and she used the noise to her advantage to creep along the aisle to the door. She was just passing the row of stalls when something strong manacled her wrist.
Her gaze flew up to see Lindsay standing before her, wearing a linen shirt with the neck gaping open and an unbuttoned greatcoat that was the color of deep moss.
“You’re the reason for Sultan’s frustration, are you? He has a roving eye, that one. He always spots the most beguiling fillies.” The smile in his eyes contained a sensual flame.
“He is a beautiful animal,” she said, glancing away from his lips. “I saw you riding him this afternoon. I had to have a glimpse of him.”
“Where did you see me riding?”
“My bedroom window,” she confessed in a whisper.
“Were you spying on me?” he asked, stepping close to her so that his coat brushed her thighs.
“I…I heard the pounding of hooves…I…thought mayhap some visitors…”
“You knew it would be me, didn’t you? No one runs at full speed into this stable except me, and at one time, you.”
He was right. She had known that the mad pounding of hooves so close to the stable would be Lindsay. He was a highly skilled rider, so adept with his mounts that no one other than him would dare to go charging through the stable at such speed. He was always one with his horses.
“I thought of you on my ride. I was wondering what I could do to get you alone.” He lowered his head to hers. She looked away, biting her lip. “You wouldn’t let me close to you this morning at the village. Had I a pistol, I would have shot Wallingford for monopolizing you. It is such a damned agony having to watch you from afar. It never used to be that way, Anais.”
She kept her face averted while she gnawed on her lower lip. But her indifference did not stop him from stepping closer to her. “You must know how I feel. God, Anais, I burn for you, and what is more, you burn for me. Why must we go on like this? Denying our bodies, our hearts? Instead, you shun me, keep me at arm’s length, pretending that you don’t want me.”
“We cannot go back to the past. The way it was for us, what was between us cannot be. How can I make you understand?”
“What was Broughton doing here today?” he asked, his voice holding a dangerous edge. “Is that how you intend to make me understand? By parading him in front of me?”
“You don’t realize,” she murmured, unable to concentrate on anything but how close Lindsay’s lips were to hers. She could smell the minty aroma of tooth powder and the scent of horse and sweat. Many women would have been repulsed by such scents, but Anais found her knees beginning to liquefy.
“You give so much of your time to Broughton that you have very little left for me. You always had time for me. I want that back. Tell me how and I will do it. Anything, Anais. Just tell me how.”
“He truly is a lovely animal,” she said, changing the course of the conversation as she kept her face averted from him. “Beautiful definition and perfect Arabian features.”
“Every time I look in that corner I can see you flushed and naked beneath me. In my mind I can still hear the way you said my name as you found release. I can feel the cascade of hot tears against my lips—the tears you wept when you shuddered beneath me during your pleasure.”
She was weakening, so much so that she did not dare look up at him. He was too close. “I must be getting back. I only came to check on Lady and I thought I might have a glimpse at the Arabian while I was here.”
“You still appreciate horseflesh, then? That hasn’t changed?”
“Not everything has changed.”
“Only the most important things,” he murmured. “Kiss me, Anais,” he said, brushing his thumb against her bottom lip. “Lift your face and look into my eyes. Touch your lips to mine.”
She fought to act as though she felt nothing for him. “Are you breeding him?” she asked, suppressing a shiver as he bent closer to her, his breath caressing her lips.
He raised his mouth slightly from hers, but his finger continued to brush her tender flesh. “Is this all you will allow, this polite conversation? Very well, I will take it, for now.
“I would like to breed him, but I’m afraid that he has taken a fancy to your mare. I had
intended to start a pure Arabian breeding program, with Sultan as the founder of his dynasty, but it seems that his roving eye has settled on a warm-blooded bay, instead.”
“I would not mind a foal from Sultan.”
“Would you care to ride him, Anais?”
The sparkle in Anais’s eye told him he had done the right thing. Everyone was tempted by something, and if he couldn’t tempt her then perhaps an invitation for a moonlit ride on his prized Arabian would be enough temptation for her to spend more time with him. And more than that, she would be seated before him, astride the animal, with his arms protectively encircling her.
Lindsay grew pleasurably aroused thinking of his hand resting atop her belly, then slowly sliding down the mound of her sex where she would feel hot, and no doubt, damp against his palm. He had not been able to get the memories of his vision out of his thoughts. Couldn’t stop thinking how warm and wet she had been on his mouth. How erotic it had been to ravish her in his opium den.
He had been in misery all day, waiting for this chance to be alone with her once again. On horseback, in his den, the stable, he didn’t care where he was, as long as he was with her.
“I am not suitably dressed for riding,” she said, indicating her gown beneath the cloak.
“When have you ever resisted the urge to raise your skirts and ride astride?” he challenged. “You did that night we made love. You answered my challenge in the drawing room and you were already raising your skirts by the time you entered the stable.”
“I shouldn’t, I…I haven’t been well,” she croaked, looking longingly at the stallion, then to him as she nibbled on her lip. “I really shouldn’t be out riding.”
“Admit you want to.”
His challenge hung in the air. As the seconds ticked on, he wondered if she would summon the strength to say no. The Anais he used to know would never have turned down an offer of a midnight ride. The woman he had loved would have answered his challenge and met him wearing a pair of his breeches and his shirt, the ones he would have sent over to her wrapped up in brown paper. She would have donned her boots, the ones he had Talbot in London make for her—the pair he kept hidden in his wardrobe so that her mother wouldn’t discover them.
Did she remember those midnight rides in which they ran until they were breathing hard and their mounts were huffing and sweating? Did she remember how they would climb down from their horses and walk them, allowing them to graze while they sat beside the Severn River, watching the stars twinkle atop the black waters? Did she remember the first kiss he had stolen? She had looked so damned beautiful—so damned much like a woman. He had read romantic poetry to her, and finally had given in to temptation and reached for her, pressing his mouth to hers as they sat watching the sun set in the tall grass.
It had been so pure, so innocent, that kiss. He had relived it a million times, heard her gasping breath and saw her eyes close as he slowly penetrated her mouth with his tongue. He had watched her during that kiss. A part of him knew he could have pressed her back and had his way with her, but he’d been trying to be a gentleman. Trying to be anything but his father. So he had ended the kiss and gone to Cambridge with the taste of her on his mouth and the need for her in his blood.
And then he had discovered something that took the edge of his need away. The same something that had now begun to rival even thoughts of Anais.
“Someone could very well see us,” she finally said, drawing him away from his memories.
“Someone could have discovered our rides years ago. It never stopped you then.”
“Still, I could not risk it now.” Suddenly she looked up at him and slowly a small grin curled her lips. “Let’s go.”
Within minutes he had Sultan harnessed and saddled and was atop him with his hand reaching out to Anais. She accepted it and vaulted up into the saddle, settling her bottom before him into the juncture of his groin. Lady was also harnessed and saddled, waiting obediently at the gates of the stable. Reaching for her reins, he wrapped them around his hand and led Sultan out of the stable, Lady trailing diligently behind the stallion. Once they were outside, he let Lady free and urged Sultan into an open run across the frozen snow beneath the black velvet cover of night.
Anais’s hair came loose of its pins and whipped back, brushing his face. He smelled the soap she had used and he pressed his face against the heavy mound so that he could inhale more of her scent. Her body soon matched the rhythm of Sultan’s movements, and he didn’t need to hold her any longer, but he could not bear to break his hold, and instead shifted his hand so that it rested against her belly.
She stiffened and brushed his hand away, allowing him to rest it against her hip. He felt keenly deprived of the intimacy he had felt when his hand cupped her belly and he fleetingly wondered how a woman reputed to be so ill for over a month could have such a deliciously rounded belly—a belly he found very erotic.
“Your body is lush, full—ripe with womanhood,” he whispered as his gloved hand sought her waist once again. “I like you this way, Anais. You have a body made for making love to a man. I will be that man again, Anais. I will.”
14
Sultan pranced along the edge of the ridge, tossing his sleek head as he snorted. Below, in the snow-filled vale, the last wisps of smoke from the pile of rubble that was once her home curled up into the black night, fading once they reached the heavy snow clouds in the sky.
“Are you cold?” Lindsay asked. “I can feel you trembling.”
Anais tried to stem the flow of tears as she looked down at the destruction. “I do not know why I am tremulous, only that I cannot control it.”
He pulled her close, wrapping both arms tightly around her waist, warming her with the heat of his body. “I wasn’t thinking when I brought you here. My apologies.”
“No, I’m glad you did.” She turned slightly in the saddle and looked up at him. “I needed to see for myself—to know that there is truly nothing left. Everything we had—”
“The most important things are still here. Ann. Your mother and father. The servants and the horses—you. God, I could not have lived had you died in that fire, Anais.”
She shuddered, remembering what it was like to be holding on for dear life to the curtain. Things could have been so much more deadly than they had.
“Did Papa say what happened?” she asked, her gaze straying once more to the pile of blackened wood. “I thought perhaps he might have discussed it with you this afternoon.”
Lindsay shook his head and glanced away, but not before she saw the lie in his eyes. “You know as well as I that fires can start anytime, Anais.”
Anais knew both men so well, that it was impossible for them to keep anything from her. Something had passed between Lindsay and her father that afternoon, something her father did not want to share with his family. “Lindsay—”
“Shh, don’t ask me.” He pressed his face into her hair that was blowing in the wind. “Let it be, Anais. Nothing can be done to change it. Let it go.”
Just like their past. For the first time in weeks, Anais allowed herself to think what if. What if she had not allowed Broughton to comfort her after Lindsay’s betrayal? What if she had never run from Lindsay in the first place?
But what-ifs had no place in real life. What-if was just a frustrating game that made one doubt everything they had ever believed in and every choice they had made. Even when, deep down, they knew the choice was the only one available to them.
“I have been wondering, Anais, you said you have forgiven me, but what of Rebecca?”
Stiffening in the saddle, Anais’s spine became as rigid as an iron rod. Her old friend’s name, spoken in Lindsay’s voice, had an odd effect on her, making her feel as though she was going to be ill.
Pinching her lips together in distaste, Anais replied, “She has gone to live in Town, if that is what you are asking. Word is rife that she is now the mistress of a rich gentleman who keeps her in a town house in Trevor Square.”
/> “I don’t give a damn where she has gone or what she has done with her life,” he growled. “What I want to know is if you have so easily forgiven her for her part in this sordid affair. After all, she was the one who disguised herself so that she could drug me and make me believe it was you I held in my arms.”
Anais closed her eyes against the remembered pain. “I have not forgiven her. I cannot be that kind. I hate her for what she did, but I understand why she did it. What other avenues are open to women of suspect birth and little money? They have their bodies and their allurements, that is all. If they are to succeed in this world they must be ruthless. I cannot condemn Rebecca for not wanting to spend her life as a governess. But what I can’t condone is that she ran roughshod over our friendship and my feelings in order to avoid such a life.”
“The Anais I knew would never have condoned such a mercenary thing as a woman resorting to seduction to trick a man into gaining her fortune.”
“The Anais you knew was nothing but an innocent, naive girl who had no real knowledge of the world or the hardships in life. I was always sheltered from those stark realities. I never knew what it was like to face an unknown future. Because of that, I thought only in absolutes—the fixed ideas that were taught to me by my father, my governess and by society’s dictates. But I have grown up, Lindsay, and that innocent girl has left me. I have had to make choices…difficult choices,” she whispered. “Those decisions have shaped me into the person I am today. I have become wiser and perhaps more sympathetic than I was a year ago. I am no longer blind nor ignorant to the ways of survival.”
“Was giving me up one of those difficult choices, Anais?”
Sliding from Sultan’s saddle, Anais expected Lindsay to reach for her and stay her, but he let her go and she looked up at him through her curls that waved in the cold breeze. “Yes. Giving you up was one of those decisions.”
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