box containing the emerald and diamond ring in the pocket.
“You’ve the look of the cat that just ate the canary,” Vallery muttered as he cleaned up the shaving things.
“It’s obvious, is it? And how am I to help it?” he asked. “I’m going to ask the most beautiful woman in the world to be my wife.”
“What a relief,” his valet taunted. “Now I won’t have to listen to ye bellyache anymore over the girl.’ Tis unnatural how you’re lovesick for her.”
“No,” Lindsay whispered as the image of Anais came to mind. “It’s the most natural thing in the world to love her as much as I do.”
“Well, you had best get yerself out of this wicked pleasure den and make your way to your mother’s salon. You’re late.”
Lindsay dressed quickly and left the den, which had, at one time, been his mother’s sorely neglected and run-down conservatory. When he’d come into money from his business investments, he’d claimed the crumbling monstrosity for his own and made it into an escape. Designed like the Alhambra in Spain, it was the height of decadence. With its Moorish influence, and the hot spring bath, it was a world within a room. An escape he craved at the end of the day.
He thought of it as his harem. And he’d decorated it as such.
“Ah, here he is at last,” his father, the Marquis of Weatherby said in a voice that was already slurred by drink.
“Good evening, sir.” Lindsay nodded in the direction of his father, then reached for the gloved hand of his mother.
“Mama, you look lovely this evening.”
Her gaze drifted over his, as if taking stock of his appearance. There was nothing left in his eyes for her to catch on to. Nothing but the dutiful and loving son standing before her, kissing her hand. The stains of his mistress were washed away from his body. He was clean. For how long, he didn’t know. It didn’t matter, for tonight he was not thinking about her, and when he would next require her services.
He made quick work of the introductions, all the while resisting the urge to search out Anais. It was a game he liked to play, to see how long he could endure it, not seeing her.
His body was now as tense as a bow. His mouth dry from talking. His eyes hungry for a glance of her ripe body and lovely face. As if the dinner guests knew of his need, they parted, revealing Anais standing by the hearth, talking to her younger sister.
She must have felt his burning gaze, because she stopped talking and turned to look at him. Her smile went all the way to his core, hitting like a rush—like that first great inhalation of opium.
If a man’s future was truly preordained—his destiny written while still in the womb—then he was looking upon the woman who was his fate, the woman he knew had been created solely for him.
He had always known that someday Anais would belong to him. She would be more than his friend. He’d always believed it, but never more than this moment as their gazes collided together, and their bodies became aware of each other.
She always took his breath away. They’d been friends forever, since young childhood, but his feelings were no longer chaste or platonic. No, his feelings and desires were hot. Passionate. Erotic. And the perfumed dreams he had of Anais last night had been the most erotic yet. The things she had let him do to her…
One day, they wouldn’t be just dreams and fantasies.
“Good evening, Lindsay.”
Her soft voice washed over him like a caress, and he felt himself grow aroused. It was so hard to hide his feelings from her. He doubted he could for much longer.
Her gloved hand felt so right in his palm as he raised her fingers to his lips. Her eyes, those beautiful, mesmerizing pools, captured his attention, watching as his lips slowly descended to her fingertips. He lingered there, inhaling her perfume, watching the rise and fall of her breasts in the tight bodice. She moved in, just a hint, and the cloud of her rich perfume rose up to coil around him.
She had scented her breasts with the French perfume he had purchased for her.
Desire gripped him, and lost to everything but need, he closed his eyes and inhaled the heady scent. In his mind, he could see the golden liquid trickle between the cleft of her breasts. He saw the cut crystal bottle stopper in her hand as she trailed it along her cleavage. One day, he vowed, he would lay negligently in their bed, which would be rumpled from their lovemaking, and watch her at her toilette. One day, he would come and stand behind her and take the stopper from her hand and trace her breasts with it. One day, she would look into the mirror and see him standing there, desire in his eyes.
“Lindsay?”
Slowly, his eyelids opened and there she was. Her head was bent, her lips ripe for his mouth to plunder. It would be no trial—and highly arousing—to pull the little puffy sleeves of her gown down her arms and expose her. He knew she would be wearing a corset, but in his dreams, she would be naked beneath, bared to his eyes and hands.
His gaze swept over her face, which was so lovely to him, then down her throat, which he longed to brush his lips over, down to the pulse that fluttered like butterfly wings. Every inch of her was as luscious as a sweet from the candy shop. And God above, he was beyond wanting a taste of her.
“Good evening, my angel,” he said over her hand. “You look ravishing, as always.”
“You have been practicing your flattery, my lord,” she said with a little laugh that was too high. Nervous? Aroused? Her laugh seemed unnatural. “The ladies in London must swoon at your skill, sir.”
“I do not know. I do not share any compliments with ladies other than you, Anais.”
Her eyes told him she was dubious about his sincerity. “Truth,” he whispered in her ear.
She bristled at the sudden contact of their bodies. He was forgetting himself, forgetting where he was. Forgetting that in Anais’s mind they were friends, not lovers.
Yet, in his mind they’d been lovers for years. Carnally, he was very well acquainted with every inch of her enticing body. What man wouldn’t dream of a woman like Anais? Plump and womanly, she would feel so damn good beneath him with her hair, that was golden blond and long, draped over his chest. Her breasts, large and firm, would cushion him, would beckon him to taste and play—would amuse him for hours. Her décolletage, which was always so elegantly but tastefully displayed in her gowns, never ceased to capture his notice, nor his imagination. Hell, there wasn’t a part of her body that didn’t entice him. He wanted to span her hips with his hands and crush her to his pelvis, grinding into her. He wanted to feel her soft belly cushion his cock, he wanted to fill his hands with her firm bottom, and knead as he plunged his tongue between her soft lips. He wanted to strip her down and study the body that held him captive for so many years.
His hands, he knew, would worship her curves, and he would lose himself in those lovely blue eyes that reminded him of a clear sky. Her shy smile would be his undoing—it always had been.
Anais was built for loving, for the type of bed sport be enjoyed. With Anais he wouldn’t have to feel as though he were going to break her. He wouldn’t have to treat her like a fragile flower. He could indulge in that luscious body for hours.
But
