Love's Promise (29 page)

She smiled. “I won’t change my mind.”

“Good, because I’ve been wanting this for a very long time.”

“You have?”

“Yes, you silly fool.” At the admission, his discomfort was obvious. “Why do you suppose I’m always so angry with you?”

“I’ve never had any idea.” And she truly hadn’t. She’d simply thought they were a horrid mismatch, like two combustibles stored in a shed so frequent explosions had occurred.

Had it been love all along?

“You frustrate me,” he said, “when you refuse to succumb to my numerous charms.” He grinned and stepped to her. “Turn around.”

She obeyed, but glanced over her shoulder. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to unbutton your dress and unlace your corset.”

“Will you remove...everything?”

“I’ll let you keep your chemise. For now.”

He was so handsome, with his thick golden hair and magnetic green eyes, and he was rippling with a passion that she’d generated. He shrugged off his robe, his upper torso bare and tempting, and she was thrilled—in a totally feminine way—with what she’d wrought.

“Would you hurry?” she said.

“That’s my girl.” He leaned in and stole a kiss.

“I feel as if I’ve been waiting for this my whole life.”

“So do I.”

He made swift work of her attire, providing ample evidence of his familiarity with female garments, but she declined to focus on the fact. She wouldn’t think about his other women or his bachelor’s existence, wouldn’t think about
her
life with the Duke and what would be left of it after they were through. She would live for the moment, would grab every speck of happiness she could possibly find.

He stripped her to her chemise, and he snuggled himself to her, his front pressed to her back all the way down. He nibbled at her nape, and she shivered, but not from the cold.

“You’re very beautiful, Anne,” he whispered in her ear, “as beautiful as I always dreamed you would be.”

She moaned with delight, but also with despair over all the lonely years she’d withered away in her father’s house. Desperate to forget them, she spun so he could pull her into his arms. He kissed her and kissed her until she was weak at the knees, and if he hadn’t been holding her upright, she would have collapsed to the floor in a puddle of desire.

In the past, she’d often wondered if there wasn’t conduct like this, conduct so torrid and decadent and wild, but she’d had no frame of reference to indicate whether the fantasy was close to the reality. She was tickled to note that the reality was better and more amazing than anything her virginal imagination could have conjured.

He went to the bed, and he stretched out and brought her down with him. There was nothing awkward or fussy about it, and his casual manner made it all so easy. When eventually, he drew off her chemise, it seemed the most normal thing in the world to be completely naked.

He kissed her breasts; he kissed her stomach. He rolled her and stroked her and licked every inch of her, until she was a writhing, pitiful ball of yearning and greed.

When he finally touched her between her legs, just the slightest graze of his thumb along her privates, she was so aroused that she cried out his name with a strange abandon that had him preening.

He nudged her thighs apart, and he settled himself, his hard, manly rod positioned directly where it needed to be.

“This will hurt you,” he murmured, “but only the first time.”

“Does that mean we get to do it more than once?”

“Yes, my dearest Anne, we definitely get to do it more than once.” He wedged himself into her sheath. “If I could be here like this with you, and I died immediately after, I would feel my entire life had been worth it.”

“Oh, Phillip...”

At the sweet sentiment, tears flooded her eyes again, and he hugged her, kissing one eyelid, then the other.

“Don’t be sad.”

“I’m not. I’m just so glad you were home. I’m just so glad you allowed me to stay.”

“How could I have sent you away?”

He wedged in a tad farther, and she tensed.

“Take a deep breath,” he advised, and she did. “Let it out.” She did. “Now smile for me. Smile just for me.”

In the end, it was so simple to give herself to him. Gradually, he pushed in and filled her, but he kept himself very still while her anatomy acclimated to its new condition. More tears threatened.

“You can’t be sad. Remember?”

“I’m not sad. I’m very, very happy.”

“I am, too.”

He began to flex his hips, and he was very gentle, taking her in a smooth, effortless rhythm, and she was surprised at how quickly and eagerly she joined in. She knew just what to do, as if she’d been born to the debauched behavior.

She met him thrust for thrust, stretching and straining to titillate and please him, and she succeeded. He couldn’t hold back, and much before she was ready, his passion rose and peaked. She cradled him to her bosom, thinking that life could never become more precious than it was at that very moment.

With a soft sigh of satisfaction, he relaxed onto her, but he didn’t feel heavy. His large torso covered her in a possessive way that was exhilarating.

She caressed his hair, his shoulders, and she could sense him grinning. He slid from her and shifted onto his side, and he turned her so that they were facing each other.

“Well, my Lady Anne”—he used her title, but not in a mocking fashion—“you’re no longer a virgin. What do you have to say for yourself?”

“I didn’t need that silly old maidenhead anyway. It’s not as if I was keeping it for a special occasion.”

He snorted. “Did I hurt you?”

“Just for a second. When you...ah...”

“It will get better.”

“I know.”

“It will be wonderful between us. Every time,” he insisted, “it will be wonderful.”

He rolled her so they were spooned together, his belly and thighs cocooned around her.

“What now?” she asked.

“Now we rest a bit, then we’ll do it again.” He nuzzled her hair and neck, a lazy arm draped across her waist. “Unless you’re too sore?”

“Never too sore for you.”

“I’m delighted to hear it.” He chuckled and snuggled her nearer. “Do you have to be home soon?”

“I don’t have to go home ever again—if I decide not to.”

He pondered the statement, but didn’t question her as to why. Instead, he swatted her on the bottom. “Close your eyes. You have a busy night ahead of you.”

Yawning, she did as he suggested, cuddling in the quiet and reflecting on how it was the most marvelous part so far. In all the yammering by her acquaintances, they’d never explained this calm, peaceful interlude after.

She thought she could lie there forever, that she might never leave his bed, and when a vision of the Duke tried to intrude, she shoved the image away.

Morning would arrive, whether she wished it or no, and there would be plenty of opportunity to worry about the future.

At present, she was content to drift and doze, with the promise that when she awakened, Phillip would be there with her.

CHAPTER TWENTY

“Are you sure this is the house?”

“Yes, this is definitely the house.”

Fanny flashed a wan smile at Thomas, then glanced out the window of the hackney they’d rented once they’d reached London.

“Mother will be glad to see us, won’t she?”

Fanny wished she was anywhere in the world but at Camilla’s home, and under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t have trusted Camilla’s offer of shelter, but Fanny was pregnant and desperate and out of options. She muttered a prayer that Camilla had been sincere in asking them to come, that she would at least pretend—for Thomas’s sake—to be delighted.

“Of course she’ll be glad. My friend, Lady Rebecca, said that Camilla couldn’t wait for us to arrive. You remember Lady Rebecca, don’t you?”

“Yes, I remember her.”

He frowned, knowing Fanny’s comments were a lie, knowing that a terrible event had occurred after Lady Rebecca’s visit, but he couldn’t quite identify what it was.

“I don’t understand why we couldn’t have stayed in the country with Uncle Michael.”

“I told you, Thomas. He had business to attend.”

“He left on
business
before, but he always came back.”

They’d been having the same conversation for days, and she could barely keep from snapping at him.

“He planned to be gone a long time.”

“I thought you were happy there.”

“I wasn’t.”

“I thought you and Uncle Michael might...might...”

“Might...what?”

“I thought you might get married. I thought we could be a family.”

If Fanny’s heart hadn’t already been broken, it would have cracked into a thousand tiny pieces. She felt dead inside, and she was running on instinct, going through the motions, but not really cognizant of what she was saying or doing.

How will I survive this?
she asked herself.
How will I?

“We never would have wed, Thomas, and I wasn’t invited to remain in his home. As it was, I seriously imposed on his hospitality.”

“That’s not true. He fancied you, and he was so...”

“Thomas! He’s getting married in a few weeks—to someone else!”

He gazed forlornly out the window at Camilla’s residence, and very quietly he said, “It was a pretty dream, Aunt Fanny.”

“But that’s all it was, and I don’t wish to discuss it further.”

The driver grabbed their two bags and dropped them on the ground. They landed with a muted thud, then he yanked open the door, impatient to be shed of them so he could move on to better fares.

Thomas climbed out, then Fanny, and she peered up and down the street. They were in a wealthy neighborhood, and the buildings looked new, the sorts of places where rich merchants or successful lawyers might live.

Camilla’s house was three stories high, constructed of red bricks. There was a tidy drive, wrought-iron fencing, tall windows, and window boxes that would brim with flowers in the summer, though it wasn’t summer now.

The November afternoon was very short, the sun setting, the temperature plummeting. The sky was gray, icy rain likely, the atmosphere about as bleak as it could possibly be.

The hackney pulled away, and at the prospect of seeing his mother, Thomas was distraught, but Fanny tamped down her guilt at having brought him with her.

She should have left him at Henley Hall, where there’d been a cadre of servants to watch over him, but she’d been forced to say goodbye to Michael, in the most horrid and abrupt fashion imaginable, and she simply couldn’t say goodbye to Thomas, too.

“I don’t want to stay here,” Thomas complained. “I don’t like it.”

“We don’t have anywhere else to go, Thomas, and your mother is expecting us. It will be fine.”

“We could have gone to Wainwright Manor. It belongs to me. Uncle Michael said so. You would have liked it there.”

“I’ve explained this to you before: If you went back, I couldn’t have come with you. I would never be able to see you again.”

He stared up at her, his blue eyes guileless and astute. “You keep telling me that, but Uncle Michael wouldn’t have treated me that way. He cares about me
and
you. He wouldn’t want us to be separated.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, “but you just have to accept that he wouldn’t have let me accompany you. There was no use asking him.”

He was a smart boy, and she could have revealed the truth—that the Wainwrights deemed her too inferior to have any continuing contact with him—but such an admission would only upset him.

Her recent stresses were taking their toll. Tears flooded her eyes, and he couldn’t help but notice.

“Don’t be sad, Aunt Fanny. Don’t cry.”

“I didn’t know what to do, Thomas, but I couldn’t bear to leave you behind.”

“I don’t understand grown-ups. I don’t understand why we couldn’t all be together, why we couldn’t all be happy.”

“Some things aren’t meant to be.”

He appeared ready to argue the point, but she was too miserable to bicker. She scooped up their bags, and she walked to the stoop.

She knocked and was surprised to be greeted by a butler who provided ample evidence of how Camilla’s fortunes had risen on the Wainwright tide. He studied her intently, his attitude indicating that he didn’t believe she was Camilla’s sister, and he shut the door in her face, advising her to wait while he checked out her story.

They loitered like a pair of beggars, and eventually, the man returned and ushered them into the foyer as Camilla was hurrying down the stairs.

She was half-dressed, wearing naught but a corset and petticoat, a robe thrown over top, and the hem wafted out as she marched toward them. Her hair was more blond than it had been, her eyebrows neatly plucked, her cheeks painted with cosmetics.

She looked like what the Wainwright money had allowed her to become: a rich, stylish, independent female who was preparing to go out for the evening.

“Fanny!” she seethed. “What are you doing here?”

Camilla never could conceal her emotions, and Fanny’s spirits flagged.

Why was she such a gullible fool? Why had she listened to Lady Rebecca? Camilla had proved over and over that she couldn’t be trusted. Why had Fanny been so naively eager to suppose that Camilla had changed?

Fanny had spent the cash Lady Rebecca gave her to purchase coach fare. There wasn’t a penny left. The only choice was to brazen it out.

“Lady Rebecca said that you asked me to come.”

“She said I asked you...
here
?”

“Yes. She even paid for the trip.”

“That stupid witch,” Camilla fumed. “I knew she’d cause trouble. I should have refused to let her in the house.”

“She insisted that you’d invited us.”

“Us!”

Thomas had been hiding behind Fanny’s skirt, and when Camilla glanced down and saw him, she shrieked with temper.

“Thomas! Why the devil are you here?”

“Hello, Mother,” he said very solemnly.

Fanny was desperate to deflect Camilla’s rage. “We’ve been visiting Lord Henley in the country, but we require new accommodations.”