The Lady By His Side

  This—her as she was, in his arms, with her lips under his, her hands in his hair, and her mouth and her pliant body surrendered—was exactly what his inner self craved.

  Now he had her where he needed her, he was in no hurry to let her go.

  No more than he did she evince any desire to break from the engagement.

  Instead, she pressed more firmly into his embrace.

  Antonia had given up all hope of rational thought. All notion of following any plan. Feelings, impulses, and compulsions battered at her and drove her; recognizing and appeasing them made her wits spin. But of one thing she was ineradicably certain—she wanted more.

  More of everything.

  In that instant, she needed more of the sensation of Sebastian’s muscled body riding against her heated curves. Deliberately—blatantly provocatively—she pressed her breasts to his chest and shifted, needing to ease the ache that had spread over her skin and sunk into her flesh.

  Into her very bones.

  An urgent ache, one some primitive side of her recognized, an ache she yearned to ease.

  With her hands clutching his head, the soft feathery caress of his silky locks on the backs of her hands another temptation, she held him to the kiss, held herself open to it, and gloried in the exchange—in the fiery flow of desire between them. Hot, stirring, and flagrantly needful, a steadily rising tide of wanting that was not just hers but theirs, that compulsive passion swirled and welled and linked them.

  He responded to her tempting, her bold provocation, and closed one hard hand over her breast.

  Her heart leapt, then hammered—not in shock but in giddy delight.

  He caressed, stroked, then palpated the suddenly swollen mound, then his clever fingers found her nipple beneath the silk of her bodice and circled teasingly. Then he closed his fingers and gently squeezed.

  Her senses spiked, her nerves seized, and she lost what little breath she had.

  Eagerness swamped her. More—more…

  “Antonia?”

  They broke from the kiss. Eyes wide, for an instant, they stared at each other. Claire’s call had acted like a pail of cold water dumped over them both.

  Abruptly, Sebastian’s arms fell from her, and he looked up the path. Her heart tripping, she swung around to see, but her friend hadn’t come far enough into the room—yet.

  “Antonia—are you there?” Melissa, this time.

  Struggling to catch her breath, Antonia glanced at Sebastian. Features setting, he stepped back. He straightened his coat, then raked a hand through the hair she realized she’d thoroughly mussed.

  She glanced down at her gown and hurriedly tugged the somewhat rumpled bodice into place, then looked up. Only a few seconds had elapsed.

  His expression close to its usual arrogantly impassive mask, he met her eyes and nodded.

  She hauled in a still far-too-tight breath. “Yes—I’m—we’re here.”

  Even drawing on her years of social experience, she discovered it took every ounce of her will to keep her voice steady and her tone coolly composed, to plaster on an expression of serene assurance and get herself moving in a reasonably smooth glide up the path.

  Sebastian followed close behind—strolling easily, as if they’d merely been admiring the views.

  Her pulse seemed to throb just beneath her skin. She felt flushed all over and hoped it wouldn’t show in the poor light.

  Melissa and Claire appeared on the path. “There you are,” Claire said. “Cecilia said she thought you were in here.”

  Ignoring the large presence at her shoulder, Antonia airily waved down the path. “The view is quite pretty in the moonlight.”

  Her friends were too well bred to stare suspiciously at Sebastian. Instead, they smiled as if they believed her story.

  Melissa gestured toward the door. “We’re all going up.”

  In a group, the four of them made for the front hall, where they found the rest of the company gathering at the foot of the stairs.

  Over the heads, Sebastian glimpsed Worthington and Connell returning from the direction of the billiards room. A quick scan of the company showed everyone else was there.

  Cecilia made a gesture toward the stairs, and the ladies started up, the older ladies and Cecilia in the lead. Melinda Boyne and Amelie Bilhurst followed, then Antonia and her friends. Sebastian started up beside Hadley, who was trailing his wife.

  Sebastian threw Hadley a questioning look.

  Hadley rolled his eyes. He lowered his voice and said, “The older ladies, and Miss Boyne and Miss Bilhurst, have talked themselves into a tizzy over some itinerant having broken into the house and killed Ennis. Ergo, said itinerant might come back—God knows why—and we’ll all be better off safely in our rooms upstairs.”

  When Sebastian just looked at him, Hadley sighed. “Yes, I know. It makes no sense, but the rest of us decided we could do with an early—or at least earlier—night.”

  Sebastian glanced at the long-case clock on the landing—just as it whirred and started to toll ten o’clock.

  At the head of their small procession, Cecilia gained the top of the stairs and stepped into the gallery. She paused by the balustrade and glanced down at the rest of the company. “I’m hoping tomorrow will see us released. I’m sure we’ll all feel relieved to be able to escape this place.”

  The comment—and her tone—struck Sebastian as odd. Still slowly climbing, he focused on her. “Will you be returning to London?”

  She shrugged and didn’t meet his eyes. “It’s the atmosphere here.” She gestured vaguely. “The sense of being under the same roof beneath which violent murder took place so recently—especially as the victim was my husband…”

  “Indeed!” Mrs. Parrish put a motherly arm around Cecilia. “Hardly surprising that you would want away from this place, my dear.”

  “Even arranging poor Ennis’s funeral,” Mrs. McGibbin stated, “can just as easily be done from elsewhere.” She patted Cecilia’s shoulder in passing. “Just get a good night’s sleep, dear. Everything will seem more settled in the morning.”

  Sebastian watched Cecilia as she allowed Mrs. Parrish to guide her into her room. There was a certain brittleness about Cecilia’s demeanor that made him wonder…

  Directing his gaze at the floor, he blindly followed Antonia, Georgia, and Hadley to the east wing.

  He’d been Cecilia’s lover once upon a time; he knew her well enough to be certain she was nervous or acting a part. Or both. Experience—and what he’d overheard of that conversation in the conservatory—suggested it might well be both.

  He was fairly certain that neither Sir Humphrey nor the inspector would have pressed Cecilia—the grieving widow, and her grief was real enough—over whether she knew anything. Or suspected anything, which was rather more likely.

  Both Sir Humphrey and the inspector would have assumed that Cecilia knew nothing about her husband’s dealings. That was most likely true, but in this case, when those dealings involved plots and betrayal…

  They reached the corridor leading to their rooms. The others called goodnight, and he raised a hand in acknowledgment.

  He felt the very pointed look Antonia directed his way, but didn’t meet it. With a distant nod in her direction, he went into his room and firmly shut the door. He wasn’t ready to even think about what had erupted between them in the conservatory—what genie they’d released. He definitely wasn’t ready to take their interaction any further that night; on that score, he needed to think long and hard about how best to proceed.

  As he shrugged out of his coat, his mind swung back to Cecilia.

  She wasn’t stupid. Despite their various affairs, she and Ennis had still lived as a couple; he might have mentioned something over the breakfast cups that Cecilia remembered and that Ennis’s murder might have recast as having some deeper significance.

  Or she might have sensed something between Ennis and someone else—some man at the house party.

  He didn’t bother to r
ing for Wilkins but draped his coat over a chair. He stripped, tossed aside the silk pajama jacket, but donned the trousers, then slid between the sheets, turned down the lamp, slumped back, and stared at the ceiling.

  Courtesy of that incendiary kiss, he wasn’t going to find sleep any time soon. He was still half aroused, and desire thrummed through his veins, tensing his muscles and leaving his skin taut.

  Making a mental note to suggest to the inspector that questioning Cecilia more forcefully might bear fruit, he closed his eyes, willed his mind away from Antonia—from anything to do with her—and valiantly tried to think of something else.

  Chapter 10

  An hour later, he was still wide awake.

  Lying on his back, his arms crossed behind his head, he stared moodily at the shadowed ceiling.

  Hunger still prowled beneath his skin, yet he was determined to ignore it. To deny it. Taking any further step with respect to Antonia no longer featured in his plans for this house party. Not even simply to discuss what he’d intended to discuss with her before they’d been sidetracked; given what had occurred in the conservatory, he could imagine all too well how any such discussion—which would necessarily have to be conducted in private—would end.

  She’d wanted more. She’d had no intention of calling a halt, not until they’d been forced to.

  Recalling her responses—her blatant encouragements—he seriously doubted he could rely on her to toe any conventional line.

  And given how far their runaway passions had swept them, he couldn’t be one hundred percent certain he would be able to rein them—him and her in the grip of said passions—back.

  He could foresee the problem looming—one with which he’d never before had to contend.

  While he wasn’t about to make the classic mistake of imagining he could predict what she was thinking, he didn’t believe he was indulging in any overweeningly arrogant self-confidence. If he made it clear he wanted her, she would invite him to her bed.

  With alacrity.

  And then…heaven alone knew how matters would evolve.

  The threat of being unable to exert control—of not being in the driving seat—bothered him. Troubled him. A lot.

  If he was brutally honest, it made him nervous.

  Control—as in being in control of himself and any situation in which he found himself—was something he strove always to maintain. He’d been trained to wield power more or less since birth, and in almost all situations, control was power.

  He shifted in the bed, still restless—still nowhere near relaxed enough to fall asleep.

  Outside his door, the house had quieted, settling, as large houses did, into brooding stillness. His eyes had grown accustomed to the dimness; the moon had shifted and now shone sufficiently strongly through the uncurtained window to the side of the bed for him to see across the room quite clearly.

  The gentle creak of a floorboard outside his door drew his gaze to the panel.

  He blinked, focused, and confirmed that the door handle was slowly turning.

  He tensed to rise, then remained as he was. The shaft of moonlight fell across the bed; his face was in shadow. Anyone coming through the door wouldn’t immediately see he was awake.

  The latch clicked back; the door was slowly—very slowly—pushed inward.

  Eyes glued to the spot, he waited, breath bated, to see who would appear.

  Cecilia?

  The murderer?

  * * *

  Antonia drew in a tense, tight breath and slipped through the doorway into Sebastian’s room.

  One swift, wide-eyed glance at the bed showed the molded line of his long legs, unmoving beneath the covers. The upper half of the bed lay in shadow, but surely by now, he would be asleep.

  It had taken nearly an hour to conclude her internal debate. For her true self to win out—for her to accept that no matter the arguments against it, her best interests lay in pursuing their attraction to its logical conclusion there, at Pressingstoke Hall, where he and she stood on level ground.

  If she was ready and willing to forge ahead, so should he be.

  After that kiss, she had absolutely no doubt of what their future relationship would be, and if there was one fact that interlude in the conservatory had made abundantly clear, it was that he knew that, too.

  Regardless, she could readily imagine he would seek to put things off until they returned to London—and the ability to manage their interactions tipped his way.

  It would be unwise to allow that to happen—to allow them to return to their normal lives without establishing at least a basic framework for their future relationship. If she didn’t make a push to get that much settled now, while they were there, she might well find herself married without having gained the assurances she needed to make marriage with a man—a nobleman—like him work. And then getting that necessary framework in place would become a protracted battle.

  Such a scenario found no favor with her. If he had any sense, it wouldn’t find favor with him, either, but then, he was a man. A nobleman. One who thought he could manage damn near anyone.

  So it had to be there, and her moment was now.

  It was time for her to put her stamp on the relationship she was determined they would have.

  And regardless of whatever plans he might have made to the contrary, as witnessed by the fact he hadn’t come to her room, she knew perfectly well that if she issued a challenge, he wouldn’t—simply didn’t have it in him to—refuse to engage.

  Turning back to the door, she carefully eased it shut. No sense waking the tiger too early.

  She stood staring at the panel—this was her moment of no return.

  She drew in a breath, swung around, and determinedly walked to the bed.

  She halted beside it, blinking as she saw he was definitely not asleep.

  Blinking as her eyes drank in the sight of his bare chest, displayed in its muscled glory given he was lying with his hands behind his head, and the sheet lay across his waist.

  It had been a decade and more since she’d last seen his chest bare, and the image she retained from then was very, very different to what lay before her now.

  What lay before her now made her senses sing.

  Made her mouth water.

  Several more seconds elapsed before she finally dragged her gaze up to his face.

  And despite the dim light, met a look that was one step away from a glare.

  “What the devil are you doing here?”

  His voice was low, his tone aggressive, his diction clipped and forceful.

  Had she harbored any doubt that he held a definite view as to how their relationship should evolve—specifically, under his direction—those words would have eradicated it.

  She took her time studying him, then opened her eyes wide. “With all your years of experience, after that kiss in the conservatory, I would have thought you would know.”

  Her inner wildness had well and truly taken over; even to her ears, her voice sounded sultry, converting the simple words into a blatant provocation.

  She saw tendons in his arms shift as his hands fisted in response, but his lips had set in a hard line, and, stubborn to the last, he didn’t move. “I decided,” she continued, her tone a conversational purr, “that it was time we dealt with this—with what’s grown between you and me.”

  “Undoubtedly.” Sebastian seized on her words like a drowning man. “But is this the best venue for a rational discussion?” With her standing by his bed, gilded by moonlight, her hair cascading over her shoulders, her curves wrapped in a pearl-pink silk robe—with, he fervently prayed, a nightgown beneath—she was a sight designed expressly to addle his wits. Rational discussion was already far beyond him.

  It was all he could do to keep himself locked in position in the bed. His inner self was scrabbling to break free of his reins and seize her. And…

  Thrusting such thoroughly unhelpful thoughts aside, he fought to keep his eyes glued to her face and ignore the imp
ulses pummeling him.

  Her fine brows arched. Although her expression conveyed taunting amusement of a distinctly feminine flavor, he sensed something else in her shadowed eyes, in the steadiness of her gaze—a quality of steely determination, again with a definitely feminine feel that, he realized, he associated with her. Like a hallmark.

  A hallmark that declared her backbone was of the same tempered steel as her mother’s. As his mother’s, his sister’s. And all their ilk.

  He was a nobleman, but she was his equal.

  That last scale fell from his eyes as she quietly replied, “Who said anything about discussion—rational or otherwise?”

  And he knew from her tone this was one battle he wasn’t going to win.

  He made one last desperate bid for the reins. “Antonia—”

  Smoothly, with a determination that was all the more impactful because of her gracefulness, she drew the sash at her waist undone, and the sides of her silken robe gaped.

  He broke off with a damned-near-audible gasp as he saw his prayer for a nightgown had been rejected.

  Beneath the robe lay long, delicately curved limbs, perfectly rounded shoulders, breasts that promised to fill his hands, and hips that formed a perfect cradle that was—at least as his primitive mind saw it—shaped specifically for him, all sheathed in skin one shade away from alabaster white; the moonlight struck, caressed, and turned that skin exquisitely pearlescent.

  He felt as if he’d swallowed his tongue. He certainly couldn’t find it.

  His mouth had dried—he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been struck speechless at the sight of a woman’s body.

  He had a sneaking suspicion he never had been—not until now.

  She took his silence as acquiescence—as surrender, which it was. She shrugged off the robe, letting it slide with a sibilant susurration down her delectably long limbs to pool about her slender feet.

  Completing his capture. Starting the torture.

  He had, he realized, no defense against her. None whatsoever.