Dark Obsession (21 page)

As he parted her sex-lips and searched for the little bud that she knew would trigger her climax, Annabel felt him drawing her nipple and the surrounding tissue deeply into his mouth, sucking and licking frantically at her.

Already aroused by all that had gone before, Annabel’s clitoris quickly responded to the skilful manipulations of his fingers and within seconds she was balanced on the edge of her climax. She loved that moment, the moment when all the tension and heat gathered together into a focal point. She wanted to savour it, but Lord Corbett-Wynne suddenly slipped two fingers up around her clitoris in a V-shape, softly squeezing the fingers closer together until she could feel the pressure, at which point he stopped and the fingers remained quite still so that the pressure was maintained and all the time his mouth was tugging and suckling at her breast.

Annabel closed her eyes, still trying to delay that final moment of gratification a few seconds longer, but she
couldn’t
. Small shock waves travelled from where his fingers held her, up to her nipples, and as his teeth grazed the very tip of one she finally gave up the battle and allowed her body the release it craved.

Sandra watched as Annabel shook and trembled on Lord Corbett-Wynne’s lap, her mouth slightly open and her eyes closed as she revelled in the sheer sensuality of it all. The girl groom had an urgent desire to join in, to tease the free breast with the tip of her whip or replace his lordship’s fingers with her own, but she knew that wasn’t part of her role and had to content herself with watching.

When the last tremors of her orgasm had died away Annabel’s eyes opened and she shook her head, trying to work out how she’d ever allowed herself to take part, but her replete body was all the answer she really needed.

Climbing off the masked man’s lap she pulled on her discarded clothing and walked over to Sandra. ‘The key, please,’ she said calmly. Sandra retrieved it from her bustier and handed it over without a word.

As she unlocked the door to let herself out, Annabel glanced back for one final look. Sandra was unfastening his lordship’s blindfold and his hands were already reaching for her tightly laced breasts. Silently, Annabel left them. Martin had been right, she thought, once she regained the privacy of her own room. She was learning a lot about life at Leyton Hall.

For a time she sat on the side of her bed and considered what had been happening to her since her arrival. Quite apart from the work, which for some strange reason no longer seemed to be of much interest to Lady Corbett-Wynne, she’d become involved with Crispian and Tania in the kind of sexual games that she’d never in her wildest dreams imagined existed. Now, as though that wasn’t enough, she’d allowed Lord Corbett-Wynne to demonstrate his own particular fetish in front of her very eyes. The old Annabel would have been shocked, she thought
to
herself, but the new Annabel hadn’t just stayed – she’d stayed and taken part.

Wide-eyed she studied herself in the dressing-table mirror. She looked the same; her eyes were still wide and guileless, her face softly feminine but not overtly sexual, yet she didn’t feel the same. All the time now she was aware of her body; her skin felt sensitive, all the nerve endings nearer the surface, and her breasts would swell and the nipples harden at the slightest provocation. Worst of all, despite everything that she’d done with such enjoyment, she was being consumed with desire for Matthew Stevens.

The old Annabel would never have been so stupid. In the pre-Leyton Hall days if Annabel saw a man that she liked and nothing came of it then she quickly forgot him. This time she couldn’t get Sir Matthew out of her thoughts. In the daytime she’d imagine meeting him by chance in one of the large, deserted rooms and at night her dreams were of the pair of them locked together in a darkly erotic embrace, driving each other to fever pitch so that she woke drenched in perspiration and with a deep ache between her thighs.

‘I’m going to have him,’ she said softly to her reflection. ‘I know we’re meant for one another and I want him. I’m not going back to London until I’ve had a chance to find out if sex with him is as good as I think it will be.’

The reflection didn’t answer, but it smiled and Annabel realised that she was smiling in anticipation. The only problem was Lady Corbett-Wynne, whose lack of interest in Leyton Hall was, Annabel thought, almost definitely due to an affair with Matthew. He and Marina were close in age and lived similar lives, especially now she was taking riding lessons. All Annabel could do was wait for the night of the dinner party and trust that Crispian had been telling her the truth.

Giving herself a mental shake, she at last got out her plans for the house. She was very pleased with her ideas
for
the entrance lobby, and her employer had seemed delighted. She’d used an arched trellis screen and numerous plants to provide cover for the rubbish that would always be deposited there, and replaced the narrow marble table with a round, pedestal-style one in tan and cream, round which she planned to have three green lacquer chairs, while the floor would be pale-green Italian tiles. The music room too had met with approval, but still the dining room was a major stumbling block.

Reluctantly she went downstairs to have yet another look at what was rapidly becoming a nightmare room. Carefully, she consulted her colour charts and checked the design of the room itself. It was far too large for Lady Corbett-Wynne’s ideas to work. If it was all white with light furniture, it would look like a cross between an operating theatre and a French café, thought Annabel with a laugh. No, somehow she had to come up with more than her original suggestion of using green and pink fabrics combined with a new lighting system.

‘Red!’ she exclaimed suddenly as she gazed at the wall at the farthest end. ‘That’s it. If that wall were to be red and the woodwork stained just a shade lighter, then the other walls could be a neutral colour and lighten everything, but the room wouldn’t lose its richness.’

Excited that at last inspiration had struck she began to jot down all the changes that would be necessary, including some
trompe l’oeil
niches where Lord Corbett-Wynne’s plaster maquette horses by George Stubbs could be shown to good advantage.

Unnoticed by Annabel, Crispian and Tania had been watching her from the doorway for some time. In her crisp, striped multicoloured dress with its elbow-length sleeves and side slits she looked slim, cool and infinitely desirable.

‘Lunch!’ Crispian called softly when she next glanced up.

Annabel jumped. ‘How long have you been there?’

‘Just arrived,’ he lied. ‘Tania and I are lunching alone today. We thought you might like to join us.’

‘Where are your parents?’ asked Annabel as the three of them sat down together.

‘Step-mama’s probably “choosing a puppy” for the sixth time. Pa’s gone out for a ride on – sorry, with – Sandra!’

Annabel flushed and he looked at her in surprise. ‘Don’t tell me you didn’t know about my father and the stable girls?’

‘Yes, I knew,’ she muttered, seeing the morning scene again all too vividly.

Crispian’s eyes gleamed. ‘You’ve been peeking, haven’t you? I can tell, you’re looking guilty.’

‘I have not been peeking. Your father sent for me and when I arrived he already had one of the girls with him.’

‘I thought he’d soon be after you,’ laughed Crispian. ‘Did he ask you to join in?’

‘Of course not!’

Tania watched the other girl closely. ‘You mean you didn’t even stay and watch?’

Annabel shifted uncomfortably on her chair. ‘The girl locked the door. I couldn’t get out straight away.’

‘How deliciously decadent!’ said Crispian. ‘Did it excite you?’

‘Not much. Do you think we could change the subject?’

‘It excites me,’ Tania said slowly. ‘I often watch him when he goes out for rides with one of his grooms. They always tie up at this copse and it’s easy to get there first and hide in the trees. Once he gets going he’s far too wrapped up in the sensations to worry about the odd bit of leaf rustling. By the end I’m usually frantic for them to go so that I can pleasure myself. The other day Matthew came along just as they were leaving. I nearly called for him to stay and help me out!’

‘Naughty!’ reproved her stepbrother. ‘You know Matthew’s for Annabel.’

‘All I know is that I need two jars of maraschino cherries
and
a large sheet for the party games next Saturday,’ said Tania. ‘I wonder what kind of explanation the housekeeper will need when I ask for them!’

Crispian and Tania started to giggle, and Tania perched on her stepbrother’s knees with her arms round his neck at the exact moment that Susan brought in their lunch. She remained there being fed by him for the whole of the first course, and Annabel was left wondering exactly what the games were going to be.

Chapter Nine

THE DAY BEFORE
a dinner party, Lady Corbett-Wynne would normally have been driving the staff at the Hall mad with incessant instructions and queries. To their astonishment, after spending forty-five minutes with her housekeeper checking arrangements and a brief half-hour with her social secretary, she left them all alone to get on with their work.

The housekeeper watched from the kitchen window as her ladyship walked briskly towards the stables, dressed in very tight black jodhpurs and a smart, open-necked check shirt, riding hat dangling from her right hand. ‘She’s going for a ride!’ she exclaimed to Richard, the footman.

He smiled. ‘Makes a change!’

The housekeeper swung round to face him. ‘Mind what you say, Richard. At least her ladyship understands how things should be done, unlike her husband.’

‘If she doesn’t, she soon will,’ he muttered, tales of her riding lessons having come back to him via one of the lads who helped Jerry.

Marina felt an unaccustomed spring in her step as she approached the cobbled yard. Since her last meeting with Matthew, which had consisted mainly of a lesson in the
skills
required to provide good oral sex, she’d stayed away from the Old Mill. It wasn’t that she didn’t find Matthew attractive any more; she did, but somehow it wasn’t working out the way she’d hoped. Technically everything was fine. She always came away physically satisfied, but she sensed that Matthew’s feelings for her weren’t the same as hers were for him. Sometimes he seemed to regard her as a fascinating experiment rather than a person, and she didn’t like that any better than being expected to dress up in leather harnesses for her husband. She wanted to be able to be herself and have a satisfying sexual relationship at the same time, but was starting to wonder if this was possible with any of the men in their social circle.

She was keeping up with her riding lessons because, much to her surprise, she was enjoying them. Jerry had proved to be a very sensitive teacher, never attempting to hurry her but always willing to go at her pace. She wondered if he’d be the same where sex was concerned.

At that moment he strolled over the cobblestones towards her, lifting a hand in lazy greeting. He was undeniably very handsome in an unkempt way and she’d grown used to his offhand manner and habitual silences. Whenever his hands touched her, adjusting her grip, moving her legs into position or helping her on and off her horse, she’d feel a frisson of pleasure and her heart had lately taken to pounding fiercely in her chest. Having despised James for years for his liaisons with the girls from the stables it was disquieting to discover that she herself was attracted to the man in charge of them.

‘Good morning,’ he said briskly. He never used her title, and she no longer wanted him to. It placed too much distance between them, a distance that she was now anxious to dispel.

‘Today’s my big day then,’ she exclaimed with a nervous laugh.

‘That’s right; we won’t be going far. There’s a nice little bridle path once you cross the road that runs past the
south
wall; we’ll take that. We won’t be gone more than an hour.’

‘You mean I’ve got to ride Betsy on a public road!’ Marina said in horror.

‘Betsy could cross on her own,’ he laughed. ‘Come on, time to mount.’

Marina knew that she was now perfectly capable of getting into the saddle on her own, but she waited with one foot in the stirrup until Jerry came round and helped her on. His hands moved slightly from her waist and she felt them travel down over her hips where they lingered for a moment before he removed them.

‘Right, let’s go,’ he called, swinging himself onto his own horse, and with a click of his tongue he started them off on their ride.

At first Marina was petrified. She wondered now why she’d ever worried about organising dinner parties and mixing at large social gatherings; this was far worse. Her hands gripped the reins tightly and she kept her thighs glued to the horse’s sides.

‘Just relax,’ said Jerry after they’d negotiated the road and were on the bridle path. ‘That’s not the way you’ve been riding her back on the estate. You’ve lost all your rhythm; the poor horse must feel as though she’s got a ton weight on her back. Rise and fall like we practised.’

Marina tried; she tried very hard, but her legs had gone solid with fear and when she tried to rise and fall she ended up banging against the saddle like a sack of potatoes.

As they approached a clearing – a clearing that, unknown to Marina, was more used to visits from her husband – Jerry called a halt. ‘I think you’d better get off for a moment, stretch your legs and try to relax,’ he said shortly. ‘I’ve never seen Betsy get in a state before, but you’ve managed to rattle her out of her habitual lethargy!’

Marina half-fell out of the saddle and stood on the grass, her thighs trembling after gripping the horse so tightly.
‘I’m
sorry,’ she said quietly. ‘I know I did everything wrong, but I’m still petrified of falling off.’

He tied the horses to a tree and leant against the trunk. ‘Why should you? You’ve never fallen off yet with me.’

‘Betsy might bolt.’

He laughed. ‘She couldn’t bolt, she hasn’t got the energy!’