Authors: Tracy Anne Warren
She fought to find her voice. “I…that is…it is much improved. The remedies you sent up with Agnes were very soothing. Thank you.”
“I am glad you are feeling better, but your thanks should go to your maid. The specifics of the treatment were her idea. I merely informed her you were unwell.”
She nodded, lowered her head, stared at the patterned carpet beneath her feet. She dug her big toe into a velvety patch of midnight blue, aware of the silence hanging over the room like a shroud.
She drew a breath. “Adrian, I—” She broke off, recalling that they were not alone.
He turned, addressed his valet. “That will be all for tonight, Wilcox. You may retire.”
“Yes, your Grace. Good night.” Wilcox bowed, let himself out the door.
Adrian turned back to her. “Now, you were about to say, my dear?”
“I—” What had she been about to say? What was she doing, planning to give herself away? Perhaps she should, but…oh, she was such a dreadful coward.
She rushed forward instead, wrapped her arms around him, burrowed her face into his chest. “I missed you, that’s all,” she said, her words muffled against his shirt.
“Missed me? It’s been little more than an hour since we were together in the same room.”
She gazed upward into his vibrant eyes, into his irises of beautiful, luminous brown which never failed to stir her. She reached high, smoothed a palm across his cheek, finding it scratchy with stubble, strong and warm and impossibly masculine. “What I should have said,” she murmured, “is that I want you.”
His arms tightened at her back, desire firing his gaze. “Do you?”
“Yes.” She brushed her lips across his jaw, scattering kisses here and there, down his neck, across the exposed skin of his chest.
His hands slid downward, stroked her bottom, gathered her close. “Let me finish washing up,” he told her, dusting a pair of light kisses over her lips. “Shave this rough bristle off my face, and I’ll come to you in a few minutes.”
She tightened her hold. “No, I want you now.” She arched onto her toes, tall as she could reach, and pressed against him, his arousal firm against her belly. She plunged one handful of fingers into his hair, tugged his head toward hers. “I want you just as you are,” she sighed. “Always just as you are.”
Hunger roared to life inside him, clawing with the razor-sharp talons of an untamed beast. She pleased him and surprised him. She’d never taken the role of the aggressor before, never initiated their lovemaking. But tonight she was like an unstoppable storm, hot, wild and willing. She yanked at his shirt, skimming it up over his head with a heedless toss to the floor, racing her hands across his naked flesh, arms, shoulders, chest and stomach.
He sucked in his breath when she touched him low, her slender fingers making quick work of his trouser buttons. His eyes closed, lips falling open as her hand curled over him. He throbbed in her grasp, burned like a supplicant beneath her caress. She kissed him everywhere, even there, sinking to her knees until he could bear it no longer and hauled her once more to her feet.
He captured her mouth, savage and needy, the room spinning into oblivion, her possession his only rational thought.
She reveled in his touch as his hands dived beneath her nightgown, sliding up her bare thighs, her hips and waist, over her breasts and down around the fleshy curve of her buttocks. Cupping her, kissing her, fondling her everywhere but the one place that ached the most for his touch.
She cried out, wanting him, needing him. If he was to be taken away from her tomorrow, she wanted this. One last memory to keep her warm on the cold, solitary nights to come. If the worst should happen. If her secret should be revealed. But now the decision was not hers alone to make. All she could do was show him how she felt and hope it would be enough.
He stripped the nightgown from her body, stripped the last of his clothes aside as they moved together toward the bed. They rolled over the counterpane, greedy hands, greedy lips, hungry and unable to get enough.
His unshaven cheeks burned and abraded her delicate skin, turning it a glowing pink as he kissed and suckled and licked her, tip to toe. But she didn’t mind, the sensations, rough and soft, too tantalizing to resist. He flipped her onto her stomach, lavished the same attention upon her shoulders and back and buttocks until she bucked and moaned and shuddered. Calling out his name, her fists clenched in the sheets while exquisite pleasure buffeted her senses.
Then he touched her, using only the brush and stroke of his fingers to send her soaring up, up, up, until she shattered on an edge of primal delight. She convulsed, her body moist and mellow.
He turned her over, sank into her as far as his body could reach. She met him, matched him, catching his rhythm as he rocked into her. She smoothed kisses over his sweaty temple, his face buried against her neck, her legs looped around his back. He reached out, caught one of them in his hand and slowly stretched her, adjusting her thigh, her calf, her body and his, until her ankle rested on his shoulder. Then he moved her other leg.
She came instantly, the position taking him impossibly deep. But he wasn’t through with her yet, bringing her to peak one final time before his body exploded into hers.
Her name was a hoarse shout upon his lips as he found his pleasure. “Jeannette.”
She closed her eyes and let the heat and despair flood through her.
Slowly, he uncoupled from her, rearranging their bodies to snuggle her close. With her head cradled on his chest, they both fought to ease their labored breathing.
Her sister’s name still rang in her head, always the same agonizing taunt. Would he have felt the same, shared the same hunger and pleasure in Jeannette’s arms as he had just now in hers? Would their lovemaking have been meaningless if he knew her true identity?
She closed her eyes and held him, fighting away the tears. Yet they came anyway, squeezing from beneath her lids to leak in a salty puddle against his skin. She prayed he was asleep and would not notice.
He stroked a hand over her hair. “Are you all right?”
She nodded, snuggled harder against his chest, cheeks wet.
“Are you crying?”
She shook her head, certain her voice would betray her if she spoke.
Not fooled, he tugged her upright. “You are crying. What’s wrong?” He paused. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?” he asked, his tone absolutely appalled at the possibility.
“No,” she said, rushing to reassure him. “I’m fine.” She sniffed, wiped at her cheeks. “It’s just the release.”
“It’s more than the release.” He smoothed a hand along her arm. “What is it? Has your headache returned?”
“No, I told you, I’m fine. I just…”
“Just what?”
She stared for a moment, then wrapped her arms around him, decided to tell him the one truth she felt she could share. The most profound truth of all. “I love you,” she whispered.
He leaned back. “Do you?”
He seemed momentarily startled by the idea.
“I do,” she confirmed.
Finally, he quirked an eyebrow. “And that makes you cry?”
A laugh escaped her, despite her teary state. “Tonight it does.”
He gathered her close, crushed her mouth to his. “Then I shall have to find a way to relieve your distress.”
They tumbled backward upon the bed. Adrian, true to his word, found several inventive ways to drive away her sadness.
Only later, as she lay lax and dreamy beside him, did she realize what he had not said. An omission that confirmed the darkest of her fears. Justified the wisdom of her decision to keep her secret to herself, to maintain her lie.
He had not said he loved her back.
Autumn leaves crunched in dry, brittle clumps beneath Violet’s shoes as she made her way to the folly the next morning.
Set some yards distant from the house, the circular pavilion rose in a splendor of white stone columns and fancy Baroque scrollwork, the roof a fine domed cap adorned by a whimsical stone cherub.
She stepped into the pavilion, hugged her cloak close against the cold while she waited for Kit to arrive. To the east, a small flotilla of ducks passed, paddling and quacking their way across the glassy sapphire lake that ranged beyond. A fish flashed upward from the lake’s center. Its scales glinted silver in the daylight before disappearing once more into the water.
She willed herself not to tremble, half sick with nerves and dread.
She’d upset Agnes earlier, unable to eat more than a single bite of toast and half a cup of tea for breakfast. Her maid fretted around her, warning against a putrid ague that was making its way through the neighborhood. She’d urged her to stay in bed and rest, especially considering her headache of the evening before.
But she could not rest. Nor could she laze the day away in bed. She had an appointment to keep, her fate to confront, whether it would lead to disaster or reprieve.
She heard him approach. The capes on his greatcoat billowed in a gust of wind, his hatless head bared to the elements.
“Brisk out here,” Kit commented as he mounted the folly’s steps. “It would have been far more comfortable meeting again in the conservatory, nestled warm among all the hothouse plants.”
“I did not wish to risk us being overheard,” she said without preamble. “Though if you have decided to expose my identity, the location of our meeting makes little difference, I suppose.”
He rubbed his gloved palms together for warmth, nodded toward a short seating area that ringed the inside of the structure. “Shall we sit?”
She shook her head. “No, thank you, but pray do so if you wish.”
Not one to stand on ceremony, Kit accepted her invitation and sat down.
She paced one way, paced the other, then stopped on a sharp turn of her heel. “Put me out of my torment. Tell me what you have decided. I can bear it no longer.”
“Very well,” he began. “It was not an easy choice, I’ll tell you that. I did a great deal of thinking upon the matter last night and again this morning. Far more thinking, I must confess, than I am generally accustomed to engaging in. Made my brain fairly ache, what with all the strain I have been under of late.”
“Blast it, Kit. Would you just tell me,” she exploded in an outburst that surprised them both.
He arched an eyebrow, a gesture highly reminiscent of his brother. “This pretending to be Jeannette is really rubbing off on you, is it not?”
“Kit, please.”
He relented. “All right. Against my better judgment, I have decided to keep your secret.”
“Oh, thank the Lord.” Weak relief shot through her legs, making her wish she’d taken his suggestion to sit. She clutched one of the columns, suddenly afraid she might topple over.
“You’ll have to importune Him again,” he told her with a quick glance toward heaven, “and do a great deal of praying if Adrian ever figures you out. I meant what I said before. If he asks, I won’t lie to him about who you really are.”
“But you will not tell him?” she confirmed.
“No, I will not tell him. Not unless he asks me directly.” He sighed. “You’ve let her talk you into a real muddle, haven’t you? I should have known you weren’t Jeannette that very first evening I arrived. You were far too understanding about my predicament. Your sister, no doubt, would have laughed herself silly once she’d heard the particulars.”
Knowing her twin, she guessed that is precisely what Jeannette would have done.
“And you’re restful,” he continued. “Don’t know why Adrian hasn’t cottoned on to that irregularity. Your sister would no doubt be elbow deep planning for a ball of some sort by now, wanting to fill the house with every neighbor for fifty miles or more, despite being a newlywed. Thing is, my brother barely tolerates large entertainments. Likely he’s enjoying the peace and quiet so much, he doesn’t want to question his good luck.”
She clasped her hands, sank down onto the iron bench beside him. “Is it so very noticeable, then, that I am masquerading as my sister?”
His eyes glittered with irony. “It is now. Now that I can view everything through a lens of truth. But damn me if you aren’t good at fooling everyone. If it hadn’t been for your penchant for Latin, I very much doubt I ever would have realized.”
“Mama always said too much book learning would bring me to ruin one day.”
Her words settled between them, ticklish as feathers. They shared a smile that turned to a laugh, their former easiness with one another restored.
“In exchange for keeping my mouth shut,” Kit told her, “I expect some recompense.”
“Anything. What can I do?”
“Help me with my Latin translations, for one. That old man is likely to be the death of me.”
She laughed again. “Gladly. What about Greek? How are you with that?”
He looked thunderstruck. “Good God, you know Greek too?”
She nodded. “Actually, I am more fluent in Greek than Latin. Greek’s not a dead language, after all.”
He shook his head in amazement. “I’ll add that to your list of assignments.”
A long moment of silence fell between them.
He twirled a leaf he’d found on the bench, then tossed it aside. “I still think you should come clean with Adrian. It always goes worse in the end when you try to brazen it out. Believe me, I speak from experience. With my brother, it’s best to confess and face the fury. He’ll go easier on you if you do.”
But
would
he go easier on her, a woman who had deceived him in the most fundamental of ways? How did you tell a man he wasn’t married to the woman he believed he had wed? What did you say? “Darling, there is a trifling something you should know. I’ve been lying to you all this time. My twin and I switched places at the altar, isn’t that amusing? You married the wrong sister.”
The wrong sister. Is that what she was? Worse, is that what Adrian would think were he to discover the truth?
She shivered, but not from the cold. “I already told you. I cannot take the chance.”
He made no further comment on the subject. “We’d best return inside,” he said at length. “Wouldn’t do for either of us to catch a chill.”
“You are right,” she agreed.
He stood, offered a hand to assist her to her feet.