Kathryn Caskie - [Royle Sisters 02] (16 page)

He spread her legs wider then, and she felt his thumb against her again. Circling, making her toes curl as he thrust his hardness into her, just a little deeper each time.

It was maddening.

He lifted his hand away from her cleft and leaned over her stomach to kiss her mouth at the very moment he slammed into her depths.

She gasped as he thrust and rocked into her again and again. No more gentle prodding. No more long, slow strokes. He was moving into her…touching her everywhere…sucking at
her nipples, pushing so deep…kissing her.

Her fingertips dug into the taut muscles of his broad shoulders, and she held on as his rhythm grew faster and he pounded into her.

Her thighs were quivering uncontrollably now. The coiled tightness below was unbearable. She gripped him with her thighs as best she could, just in time.

Fire seems to burst from where he touched her, radiated down her limbs, pulsing. She squeezed her eyes tight and cried out.

A wash of heat skimmed his skin suddenly, and she felt his muscles contract as he pumped his seed into her. A cool moistness broke over his back as he collapsed atop her. Then he turned his head and kissed her throat.

Anne was drained and undeniably exhausted, but…thoroughly, giddily happy. She couldn’t help the smile that spread across her face.

Laird kissed into her throat again, and then he propped himself on his elbow and gazed down at her. She couldn’t hide her silly smile and didn’t even try.

The edge of Laird’s mouth twitched upward, the way she’d come to realize it did whenever he was about to say something amusing. He lifted
his brow innocently. “You weren’t…
pretending
, were you?”

Anne threw her weight against him, hitting his shoulder and knocking him onto his back. She rolled on top of him and kissed his mouth. “Well, I am known for my acting abilities.”

T
he emptiness that Anne had felt when she first entered the garden was all but a forgotten memory now. Everything was different. She had changed, for suddenly her future was as clear and bright as the morning sun streaming through the bedchamber window.

It was a new day and her future was with Laird.

Oh, they hadn’t discussed it, but she knew. She felt it.

There would be no more pretending. No more lies. It was a morning of new beginnings for both of them.

Solange slipped the last pin into Anne’s hair and had just turned to close the portmanteau when the parcel Mary had sent caught Anne’s
eye. “Oh, mustn’t forget Father’s
Book of Maladies and Remedies
!” She whirled, snatched it up, and tossed it into her leather portmanteau.

“You do not wish to bring it with you inside the carriage?” Solange asked. “It is a long drive to London; you might wish for something to read.”

Anne laughed. “I might indeed, but believe me, this book is not something I ever intend to read.”

She spun in a circle, happier and more content than she could ever remember being in her entire life.

Berkeley Square
That evening

“It wasn’t nearly as difficult as I had imagined it would be.” Anne threw herself on her bed and stared up at the ceiling as she spoke to her sister Elizabeth. “Actually, I think I am rather good at playing a countess-to-be.”

“Yes, I am sure you had grand time tottering about MacLaren Hall, but Anne, that is not why you were there. Did you bother looking for the
letters at all while you were playing countess?”

“Countess-to-be.” Anne rolled over on her side and propped herself up on her elbow. “Lord MacLaren and I have not exchanged our vows, Elizabeth.”

“Oh, right. I had quite forgotten,” her sister said quite sarcastically. “And when is the blessed day?”

“Well, we have not determined the date yet, but I expect we will take care of that detail after the betrothal ball.” Anne knew she was chattering, but so much had happened since she left London, and, la, she hadn’t been able to speak freely about everything with anyone in St. Albans.

Elizabeth sat down on the edge of bed and looked over her shoulder at Anne. “You are teasing me about the ball, aren’t you?”

Anne sat up. “Oh
no
. Lady MacLaren spoke of nothing else during the entire journey from St. Albans to Mayfair. She claims that this ball will be her claim to society immortality. The
ton
will have seen nothing like it—at least outside of St. James’s Palace, and she wasn’t entirely certain about that. The arrangements are still in the making, you see.”

“So how will you do it? You must have had
plenty of time to rehearse.” Elizabeth’s eyes were widening with anticipation.

“How will I do…what?”

“Cry off, you goose! Will you do it after the ball, or before? Oh, please say after, Anne.”

“What a thing to say! If I were to cry off before there would be no reason for a betrothal ball, now would there?”

Elizabeth laughed. “Why, you are so practical I think I might mistake you for our sister Mary.”

“Besides, I am not going to cry off.” Anne opened her portmanteau and tossed the partially unwrapped book Mary had sent, onto the bed.

Elizabeth completely ignored the heavy tome that had landed beside her. “What did you say, Anne—that you are not going to withdraw from the engagement?”

“That’s right. I have decided that I rather like the idea of being Laird’s wife. And once I became used to the attention, it was not so difficult to endure. Sometimes I have even enjoyed it.”

“But…I thought Lady Henceforth, and everyone who attended the ball at MacLaren Hall—which must have been half of London society—believes Lord MacLaren has reformed and is now a perfect gentleman.”

“Yes. It took some doing, but between the two of us, Laird and I, that is, we were able to convince them that he has redeemed himself.” Anne lifted a brow. “He even received a Writ of Summons to appear at Parliament and take his seat.”

“I do not understand. Why are you refusing to cry off? It makes no sense at all to me.”

“Well, it makes perfect sense to me. I will not cry off…
because I love him
.”

“You
love
Lord MacLaren?” Elizabeth stared at Anne for moment and then laughed. “Oh, Anne, you had me believing you there.”

“This is not folly, Elizabeth.” Anne met her sister’s gaze with a serious look of her own. “I love him.”

Elizabeth slid to the edge of the bed and came slowly to her feet. “Gads, you are being serious. You really do love him.”

“I do.” A gentle smile formed on Anne’s mouth. “I really do. He is a good man, with a kind heart. He worked so hard to prove that he didn’t need anyone, didn’t need love, that I was unaware of his true character and heart. But now that I have, I want to spend my life with him.”

“Does he know how you feel?” Concern was plain in Elizabeth’s eyes.

“Yes.” Anne smiled at the memory of last night in the south garden. “He knows.”

Cockspur Street
The library

Apsley shook his head so fiercely that his brandy sloshed over the lip of the crystal glass he was holding. “No, I don’t believe you, MacLaren. This is some clever way to renege on our wager, isn’t it?”

“We never had a true wager. If I remember correctly, and I do admit that night was somewhat of a blur to me, my mother interrupted before the bet was made.” Laird laughed and sat down in the chair opposite Apsley. “But to prove to you that this is not folly, set your stakes now, and the day I claim Anne as my wife, I will pay you.”

“Hardly convincing. There is a catch to your offer. I just have not yet determined your strategy.” Apsley swirled the brandy in his glass.

“There is no strategy, I swear it. I have fallen in love with her and I believe she loves me as
well. And so, if she will have me, I will marry her at St. George’s at our earliest convenience.”

“Then you have not yet asked her to marry you.”

Laird grinned. “What, are you telling me that I am supposed to
ask
her to marry me? I just can’t proclaim us betrothed?”

“All right, fair enough.” Apsley laughed for a moment, but then the expression on his face grew very serious. “You really love her?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Now, we are not speaking of Lady Henceforth, are we?”

“No
. I was mistaken about her.” The muscles along Laird’s jaw tightened.

“Now, now, no need to get yourself so worked up. I had to ask.”

“I do not love Constance. In fact, I don’t believe I ever did. I think my wish to marry her was driven more by a desire for respectability than anything else.” Laird exhaled. “But Anne…Christ, I never thought I would feel this way. When I am with her, I am a better man. She makes me feel that I have it within me to do anything.”

“Damn me, I’ve never seen you this way.”

“I’ve never felt this way.” Laird knew he was grinning like a fool, but he didn’t care. He was in love.
Love
.

“So…just to be clear, we are speaking of the chit who sneaked into your bedchamber to steal a bundle of secret letters—
correct
?”

“Apsley, you are trying my patience. Yes, Miss Anne Royle.” Laird leaned his head against the rest and looked down his nose at Apsley. “And about those letters…truth to tell, old man, I don’t know that they ever existed. Might be a story tossed out there by the Tories to discredit the prince.”

“You may be right there.” Apsley nodded his head, considering the notion. “But you know, I can’t help but think that Lord Lotharian knows more than he is telling. Word is, he was a friend to both Prinny and your father when he was a Whig. No one can read the old gambler, he’s so bloody good. They say he knows a man’s soul from the very first moment he meets him—and yet he only allows others to see what he wishes them to see.”

“So what are you saying, Apsley, that this effort to find the letters is part of some grander machination set in motion by Lotharian?” Laird
shook his head. “I don’t see the bank, Apsley. Other than helping to prove or disprove the Royle sisters’ lineage, how would Lotharian profit from such an elaborate ruse?”

“I don’t think he means to personally benefit at all. I think he always meant for Anne to benefit. I think when he and the Old Rakes sent her into your bedchamber, they knew you were already there. They meant for you to catch her.”

“Oh, Apsley, my fellow, you have had far too much to drink this night.” Laird came to his feet and walked across the room. Absently he peered out the window.

He looked back over his shoulder at Apsley. “So your theory is that my deciding, just this night, to marry Anne was somehow preordained? Preposterous.”

“No, you are right. Far too much would be dependent on chance for Lotharian to have had anything to do with it. Word at White’s is that he risks nothing.”

“Exactly.”

Apsley exhaled, then struggled to his feet and headed for the brandy decanter. “Not having any tonight?” He raised his eyebrows as he waved the bottle in the air.

“Not tonight.” Laird had too much to think about just now.

Berkeley Square

It was not yet dawn when Elizabeth flung herself forward and sat bolt upright in her bed. A droplet of cool sweat rolled down her neck to her collarbone, then over the swell of her breast to trickle down into the valley at her bosom.

She closed her eyes and struggled to steady her breathing. She’d had another dream, the sort that came true…at least half of the time.

Crawling from her bed, she padded to her washbasin. She splashed her face with a little water and stood over the basin. She blinked the moisture from her eyes and let the water drip from the edge of her jaw into the basin.

In her dream, Anne had been holding a large sheet of vellum in her hands. Elizabeth couldn’t see exactly what it was, but she knew, somehow, that Anne had found something of great importance in their quest to learn their heritage. Something
very
important. And then, suddenly, her dream shifted. Her sister was laughing and
happier than Elizabeth had ever seen her before. She was dancing in Lord MacLaren’s embrace, as Lady MacLaren and countless others looked on approvingly.

Elizabeth held her breath, hoping to slow her heart’s pounding inside her chest. How she wished the dream had ended there, but it hadn’t.

For suddenly the images had grown disturbing.

Apsley walked by what Elizabeth thought to be Carlton House on Pall Mall just as the bells somewhere in the distance tolled noon hour. She heard the clop of horses on the road. Then she saw Apsley turn, and suddenly Elizabeth was screaming—a horrible, bone-chilling cry. Then the image had jerked suddenly to another night. Now Anne stood in the middle of a ballroom, tears streaming down her face, and Elizabeth could not reach her sister, no matter how hard she tried. And then everything was dark, save the orange spikes of fire in a hearth as a woman’s slender hand fed paper into the flames.

Elizabeth dropped down into the wooden chair beside her washstand. Her chemise was damp and sticking to her skin. She pinched it
and pulled it away as she pondered the meaning of the dream.

But try as she might, Elizabeth could not decipher what she had seen. There was no logical order to it. Too many pieces of this puzzling dream were missing or distorted.

All Elizabeth knew was that something devastating was going to happen to Anne, and that there was nothing she would be able to do to stop it.

Her older sister Mary would have chided her for wasting money, but Elizabeth had already exhausted too much time coming to the decision to track Apsley. After all, she did not even know if the event she’d seen in her dream would happen today—if at all…and then there was her macabre scream. She shivered every time she thought of its ghastly sound.

By the time she had finished her tea and had scanned the morning newspaper for any mention of an accident on Pall Mall yesterday, hailing a hackney was Elizabeth’s only option if she wished to arrive at Carlton House’s entrance on Pall Mall before noon.

She slid a crepe mantle around her shoulders
and plopped a large straw bonnet down upon her head. A glance in the passageway mirror confirmed the utility of the bonnet. She’d only need to tilt her head, and the wide brim would conceal her face from view.
Perfect
.

As the hackney drew up before Carlton House, Elizabeth reached into her brocade reticule and withdrew the gold watch that had belonged to her father. She flipped open the case. Two minutes until noon. Snapping the watch closed, she flipped a coin to the hackney driver and stepped out onto the pathway lining Pall Mall.

She stood against the column-lined fence and peered past the guardsman, through the arched entrance to Carlton House. The only windows she could see facing Pall Mall were nearly at the roofline, making it impossible to see inside the royal residence. Still, she squinted and tried to peer in, wondering if the regent was at home. Who knew, maybe at that very moment the Prince of Wales was looking down to the street, wholly unaware that the young woman in the wide straw bonnet standing at the archway might be his very own daughter.

A bell began to toll in the distance. The hammer of its striker hit the bronze skirt of the bell
several times before the sound’s significance dawned on Elizabeth. She walked a few steps toward the road and glanced to the left.

There he was—Apsley. He headed toward her now.

Elizabeth turned her body, intending to conceal herself as best she could near the guarded arch entrance. She kept her eyes on Apsley as she rushed toward the arch. The twelfth reverberation of the bell clock faded gradually, and only then did Elizabeth hear the thunder of hoof falls coming from the archway. She wrenched her head around just in time to register a huge gleaming carriage and six bearing down on her.

A horrified scream rose up inside her throat and rent the air. Something slammed into her ribs, knocking the air from her lungs. She hit the pavers hard, and sparkles of light filled her head.