The Lady By His Side

  To compulsion, yes. To hunger, definitely.

  To need?

  As she halted by the bed, grabbed the sides of his coat in both fists and hauled him to her as she stretched up, and he bent his head, it certainly felt like that.

  Their lips met—and that swelling need ignited. No tentative dipping of toes into desire’s sea—not for them. The tide raged, and they plunged in, and it swept them, swirled them, then dragged them under.

  And they went. Gladly jettisoning all vestige of restraint and all pretense of rational decision, with blatant abandon, they let passion have them.

  Their lips meshed and melded, their mouths devoured, greedy and needy, then she parted her lips, and he thrust his tongue past and claimed every lush inch of her mouth. He possessed and branded in flagrant mimicry of what was to come, then her tongue boldly tangled with his, and they fell into a duel of wills and wants, and he lost his last anchor to the world.

  She pushed, she challenged, and he instinctively met her, on this plane as on all others.

  Ardor burned brightly within them both, a near-incandescent flame. It heated, it lured—it drew and drove them on.

  Into ever-escalating hungers, into turbulent seas of passions unleashed.

  Desire burned, a fire in their blood, and hunger and need thudded in their veins.

  And compulsion reigned.

  Her small hands were everywhere, tugging at his clothes.

  He finished unbuttoning her gown, then acquiesced to her insistence and shrugged off his coat and waistcoat, both of which she’d already undone.

  An errant thought whisked through his mind; one day, they might manage to take this slowly, to draw the moments out, but that day was not today. Driven by something that was close to desperation, an increasingly urgent need to feel the other close—that close—they shed clothes like leaves swept away by the gale of their need.

  Until they came together, skin to skin, senses to achingly yearning senses, bodies flush and limbs embracing in the space beside her bed.

  Hands—hers and his—reached, stroked, and caressed. On a panting breath, he broke from the kiss and sent his lips cruising—over the delicate curve of her jaw, down the long column of her throat, following the sculpted line of her shoulder wide, before swooping down to pay homage to one breast. He filled his hand with her other breast, kneaded the already swollen mound as he suckled, and she cried out, her fingers digging into his scalp as she arched in his arms.

  As her naked hips pressed tight, then provocatively ground against his bare thighs.

  They stilled, all breathing suspended. Their eyes met for a fleeting instant, then they tumbled onto the coverlet, landing in a tangle of long limbs and searching, grasping, greedy hands. He seized the moment of unscripted wrestling to catch his breath, physically and mentally, and reached for what, in that sphere, passed for patience. For some lever—anything—that would slow them down; control might be beyond him, but surely experience would afford him some ability to at least guide…

  She wasn’t of a mind to allow it. She caught his head between her hands and yanked him back into a searing kiss—one that cindered all restraint. Then she undulated beneath him, her body sinuously tempting in a move as old as time.

  He reacted—it was impossible not to, to keep his body from answering her call.

  From covering her, settling heavily into the cradle of her hips, into the embrace of her slender, welcoming thighs—and then, with one thrust, he was inside her.

  Pleasure, laced by something far more profound, more acute, infinitely more heady, lanced through him.

  The jolt was a sensual shock potent enough, glorious enough, to make him draw back from the kiss simply to better savor it.

  From beneath his lashes, he looked into her face. Shadowed though it was, he saw her eyes gleam from beneath her weighted lids. For an instant, their gazes locked, held.

  And an ineluctable sense of togetherness welled—clicked, locked, and bound them.

  An invisible strand, one of pure physical sharing. A connection nonetheless, one they’d both intuitively reached for.

  In that split-second exchange, he and she both acknowledged that reality.

  Then her lashes lowered, and her lips curved.

  He bent his head, covered those alluring lips with his, and together, they plunged into their fire.

  They rode and burned, gripped and clung.

  Antonia thrilled to the beat, to the heavy, repetitive rhythm of their joining. Her skin was aflame, while he was pure heat. The sensation of his body moving on hers, against hers, into hers, sent her senses spinning, spiraling through a universe of ever-expanding awareness—of touch, of fire, of molten heat. Of the thud of their hearts, the compulsive surge and retreat, and the steady rise of that glorious, scintillating tension.

  Almost there.

  She gasped, clung, sobbed, and urged him on.

  The climax rushed up, an eruption of sensation that wiped all else before it and exploded across her senses in a starburst of glittering, unadulterated pleasure.

  Leaving behind a clean slate. And an emptiness that, a second later, he joined her and filled.

  As if they were two halves of one entity.

  An entity formed through long association, perhaps, yet forged in this fire.

  Welded in this furnace of passion and desire.

  Her senses slowly returned to earth. She realized he’d collapsed upon her, heavy muscles and bones slumped, wrung out, in abject surrender, and felt her lips spontaneously curve.

  If anyone had told her mere days ago that she would welcome his weight lying so heavily on her, trapping her and pressing her into the bed, she wouldn’t have believed them. But now…

  Lazily, languidly, she lifted her arms, reached as far around him as she could, and held him to her.

  There was a sharing in this moment, an intimate closeness that nothing else and no other situation could even aspire to; she held that closeness to her as she held him.

  She closed her eyes and let her mind drift into the beckoning, blissful oblivion.

  * * *

  Eventually, Sebastian returned to the land of the living. He had no idea how much time had elapsed. Which was…unusual, to say the least.

  Slowly, he raised his head, taking care not to jar Antonia awake. He looked down into her sleeping face, drank in her expression—Madonna-like in its moon-washed serenity—and mentally shook his head.

  He’d had women beyond counting, yet he couldn’t recall ever being this… Wrung out? Hollowed out? Whatever it was. So deeply sunk in the moment, so deeply enthralled, so profoundly connected and exercised—exorcized?—that it took such a long time for him to reconnect with the world.

  Moving slowly and carefully, he disengaged from her clinging embrace, then slumped beside her in the bed. He reached down, freed the covers, and tugged them over their cooling bodies. He felt ridiculously gratified when she turned on her side and, apparently still asleep, snuggled against him. He settled one arm around her, holding her close, then, feeling oddly mind-clear and nowhere near sleep, he raised his other arm, put his hand behind his head, and stared up at the ceiling.

  Unsurprisingly, his thoughts circled the conundrum curled, a warm and soft armful, by his side.

  She’d always been there, a part of his world, as far back as his memories ran. She’d always been different in some unspecified way—occupying a slightly different category than anyone else. She’d been one of the few, possibly the only person inside his inner palisade—able to connect with him on a different, more personal, more direct, and no-subjects-barred plane. That connection had been outside his control—not something he’d allowed so much as something that had simply been—a link she had, from her earliest years, instinctively exploited and used.

  Yet when he’d started looking for a wife, he hadn’t thought of her.

  If he was honest, he specifically hadn’t thought of her.

  Because he hadn’t wanted to risk what she cou
ld—would—do to his ability to control…himself. Her. Them.

  But now they’d flung caution aside, and there they were, with their feet inexorably following a path into matrimony.

  How was he—were they—to manage?

  Instinct, more primitive than educated, suggested he would be wise to set all thoughts of control aside. Witness his signal lack of success that evening.

  Even had he succeeded, she would have realized all too soon and wouldn’t have readily forgiven him—and would, no doubt, have taken steps to counter his manipulation, steps of which he wouldn’t have approved and wouldn’t have liked…

  Trying to exert control, even by his favored method of subtle manipulation, might well lead to worse problems than any he sought to solve.

  Now they’d embarked on this path, he needed to accept that reality.

  He would never control her, and she would never control him.

  So where did that leave them?

  As essentially equal partners, with different abilities and different strengths yet on a par with each other, as powerful as each other in this domain they were creating and shaping between them.

  The landscape of their future, of the life they would share.

  He stared unseeing at the ceiling. He had to admit there was temptation of a sort in that challenge.

  For it would be a challenge—of that, he had no doubt.

  He dipped his chin and glanced down at her. At the curve of her face he could see.

  Resolution, determination, strength—much of what he recognized in her he knew also lived in him.

  He’d lowered his arm. Caught in his web of contemplation—of her, of them—he ran a gentle finger down her nose. Like the rest of her, it was long, but in perfect proportion with the rest of her face.

  He shifted his attention to one lithely muscled arm and traced its length with his palm.

  He loved—

  His mind froze.

  After a moment, he tentatively considered, for once truly looked, then he shied away from the thought.

  But he didn’t bury it—just left it, unaccepted but not dismissed.

  He’d heard all the tales of Cynsters marrying only for love. Always for love. That any attempt to do otherwise—like his great-uncle Arthur’s first marriage—was doomed.

  But…the stories of the grandes dames were just stories, weren’t they? What currency did they have in the modern world? In the world he and Antonia inhabited.

  Another set of questions to which he didn’t have answers.

  He didn’t need more frustrations.

  Satiation still lay heavy in his veins. He closed his eyes, opened his awareness to the mind-numbing sensation, embraced the bone-deep glow, and surrendered to whatever dreams awaited him.

  Chapter 13

  Sebastian left Antonia’s room and returned to his as late as he dared, gaining his bed just before a footman crept in to lay and light the fire.

  Once the footman had gone, Sebastian lay beneath the covers he’d artistically disarranged and weighed up competing compulsions. Should he make another—most likely futile—bid to somehow convince Antonia to remain in safety with the other ladies? Or should he acknowledge his newly recognized reality and accept that she would be riding out with him?

  In the end, he realized that with a murderer among the guests, even with Sir Humphrey, Inspector Crawford, and the constables around the house, his inner self did not deem the company sufficiently safe for her, not without him by her side.

  He wasn’t sure how to regard that conclusion—was it realization or rationalization? Regardless, with his way forward clarified, he rose, washed, and dressed, and was loitering in the archway leading to the gallery when Antonia emerged from her room.

  She saw him and arched a faintly haughty brow, but made no other comment. That she’d donned her riding habit was a sufficient declaration of her expectations of the day.

  They walked side by side through the gallery and down the stairs.

  As they stepped onto the tiles of the front hall, she murmured, “It appears to be a good morning—given the lack of screams, it seems no one died in the night.”

  He humphed.

  A footman was passing, ferrying an empty dish back to the kitchen. Sebastian halted him and asked for a message to be relayed to the stables, to have the horses he and Antonia had ridden the previous day saddled and waiting in half an hour.

  The footman bowed and retreated.

  Antonia had halted and waited, listening. As Sebastian turned back to her, she bestowed an approving smile on him, then turned and walked on.

  Schooling his features to impassivity, he followed her into the breakfast room. They greeted the other guests already present—all the younger crew except for the Featherstonehaughs—then helped themselves from the sideboard.

  After piling several sausages onto a mound of kedgeree, Sebastian eyed the excellent spread laid out along the board. “With both master and mistress dead, who is running the household? Do you know?”

  “I believe Blanchard and Mrs. Blanchard have stepped up to the mark, and Mrs. Parrish has offered to assist if needed.” A plate containing one slice of toast, a small mound of scrambled eggs, and one slice of ham in her hand, Antonia turned from the sideboard, surveyed the table, then elected to sit beside Claire and Melissa at one end.

  Her friends eyed her riding habit with ill-concealed envy.

  “Half your luck,” Claire grumbled as Antonia set down her plate and paused to allow Sebastian—who had, of course, followed at her heels—to draw out the chair beside Claire’s for her. Claire went on, “I take it you plan to ride out again today?”

  Antonia sank onto the chair. “Yes.” She glanced at Sebastian as he circled the end of the table and helpfully claimed the place opposite her; she briefly met his eyes—he hadn’t heard the excuse for their absence she’d given her friends the previous day. “So far, we’ve covered only half the area Sir Humphrey and the inspector asked us to check for strangers. With luck, we’ll finish today.”

  “Well,” Melissa said, “I sincerely hope Sir Humphrey and the inspector bring their investigations to a speedy conclusion so we can leave tomorrow, as planned. I had to get out of bed at cock’s crow to move the chair I’d wedged against my door so the tweeny could come in.”

  “Cecilia had planned a ball for tonight”—Claire put down the slice of toast she’d been nibbling and reached for her teacup—“but I understand Sir Humphrey has sent word to all the neighbors, informing them of the murders and asking them to stay away.”

  “Just as well,” Antonia said. “This is the country. News of the murders is sure to have spread by now, and as we all know, nothing short of an instruction from a magistrate is likely to keep the curious at bay.”

  “That’s the last thing we need,” Melissa stated. “Having to receive the local gossips all agog for the scandalous highlights.”

  “Actually,” Sebastian murmured, his gaze on his plate, “the last thing any of us need is the press.”

  Melissa and Claire stared at him. “What an horrendous idea.” Claire sounded aghast. After a second, she asked, “When do you think they’ll arrive?”

  Sebastian looked at Melissa and Claire. “When did Sir Humphrey send word to the neighbors?”

  “Yesterday,” Melissa said. “Mrs. Parrish mentioned the ball to him, and he said he would call at the appropriate houses and ensure the word was spread throughout the neighborhood.”

  Sebastian’s expression turned cynical. “Twenty-four hours for the news to reach Fleet Street, then twelve or so hours before the hounds reach here. If we are released tomorrow, even if the constables succeed in keeping the newsmen off the property, you can expect to run a gauntlet at the gate.”

  A short silence fell while Antonia exchanged horrified glances with her friends as they digested that unwelcome prediction.

  Melissa slumped. “This was our first excursion out from under our mothers’ wings. We’ll never be allowed out alone
again.”

  Claire pulled a disgusted face.

  Sebastian grinned. “Wear veils and have your coachman whip up the horses twenty yards before the gate. The good gentlemen of the press will be too busy scrambling for their lives to notice who you are, much less demand answers to unwelcome questions.”

  Melissa and Claire considered that image; both perked up.

  Sebastian pushed aside his empty plate and caught Antonia’s eye. “We should get going.”

  “Yes. All right.” She drained her teacup, pushed back her chair, and rose. She glanced at Melissa and Claire, who were once again regarding her with resigned envy. “Pray God nothing else bothersome happens today.”

  “Amen,” Melissa said.

  “And that Sir Humphrey and the inspector either find the murderer or else decide he’s flown and allow us to go home.” Claire flashed a weak grin at Antonia. “Have fun.”

  Antonia hesitated, then replied, “Take care.” She looked at Melissa as well. “Both of you. And tell Georgia, too.”

  “Oh, all the ladies plan to stick together,” Melissa said. “It’s boring, but we all feel safer that way.”

  Sebastian, who had risen as Antonia had and circled the table to pull back her chair, nodded in approval. “An excellent idea.” He glanced at Antonia, hesitated for a second, then waved to the door giving onto the rear terrace. “Let’s walk around rather than go through the house.”

  With a last smile for her friends and a nod to the others about the table, Antonia led the way. Sebastian reached around her and opened the door, then followed her out and closed the glassed pane behind them.

  The day was overcast, but although darker clouds were massing to the north, there was no scent of rain, and the breeze, blowing fitfully from the west, was mild.

  They went down the steps from the terrace to the lawn, then strode side by side around the short central wing which, at ground level, housed the kitchen and associated facilities. A brick wall enclosed the kitchen garden, but archways in both side walls allowed them to walk through to emerge on the lawn below the rear terrace running beside the library. They cut across toward the stable, eventually joining the path from the side door.