The Temptation of Your Touch (27 page)

This had to stop.
She
had to stop.

But instead she lifted a hand to his hair, sliding her fingers through his thick, dark locks just as she had longed to do for so long. His hand drifted downward, tracing the graceful curve of her throat and the delicate arch of her collarbone before finally dipping into her unbuttoned bodice to claim the softness of one breast.

Anne gasped into his mouth. She had accused him of denying himself pleasure, but he certainly knew how to give it. That much was evident in the deft brush of his fingertips against the throbbing little bud of her nipple. He gently tugged, knowing just how much pressure to apply to keep pleasure from turning into pain.

That irresistible surge of delight shocked Anne back to her senses. She’d been fool enough to trust herself to a man’s hands once before. She could not
afford to do it again. Not when so much was at stake.

“I have to go, my lord,” she murmured against his lips. “Coming here was a terrible mistake.”

Dravenwood’s hand went still against her breast, his long, masculine fingers still cupping its weight ever so gently. “I’ve made far more damning mistakes in my life. With far less reward.”

She leaned back to peer up into his face. “What would you have me do? Sneak into your bed each night after the others are asleep? Slip away in the morning before the sun rises?”

He lifted both hands to smooth her hair back from her face, his quicksilver eyes heavy-lidded with passion, his voice hoarse with need. “At the moment I can think of nothing in all the world that I’d like more.”

“I’m sorry, my lord. I’m not that woman. I can’t be that woman.” She closed her eyes and pressed her cheek to his chest to block out the sight of his hopeful face before whispering, “Not even for you.”

His arms tightened around her, binding her to his heart with a fierce tenderness. For one bittersweet moment, it was enough to pretend that would be enough for them. That a simple embrace would satisfy the craving in both of their souls.

Even when they both knew it would never be enough.

“Are you certain this is what you want?” he asked, burying his mouth in the softness of her hair.

Anne nodded, her throat too tight with longing and regret for speech. For a breathless moment, she was torn between fearing he wasn’t going to let her go and praying he wouldn’t.

But then he stepped away from the door and her, setting her free to flee back to the cozy comforts of her lonely room.

F
ROM THAT DAY FORWARD,
Anne would return to her attic each night to find a cheery fire crackling on the grate and a pitcher of hot water steaming on the washstand. Other treasures began to appear as well: a thick pair of new woolen stockings; some little cakes of French soap carved into the shapes of seashells; all three volumes of
Sense and Sensibility,
one of the novels she had adored as a young girl.

Had Dravenwood been any other man, she would have suspected him of trying to seduce her. But she had grown to know him well enough in the past few weeks to recognize that his gifts were given freely, without a price attached. He would never know how high their cost was to her yearning heart.

Anne’s only satisfaction came when she would catch Beth or Betsy scurrying guiltily down the attic
stairs as she trudged up them so she could mutter,
“Et tu, Brute,”
at them beneath her breath. Unfortunately, neither of them spoke Latin. There was no need for a translator to interpret her accusing glare.

“We’re never going to be rid of His Gracelessness, are we?” Pippa said darkly as they all gathered in the kitchen to prepare supper late one afternoon.

With every lamp and candle lit, the kitchen was even more cozy than usual. Clouds had been rolling in from the sea all day, bringing with them an early twilight and a gusty breeze scented with the threat of rain.

Pippa was wielding the pestle she was using to grind up some fresh parsley as if it were a cudgel. “He’s going to die of old age right here in his bed. A bed whose linens
I
was forced to change.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Dickon said, an amiable grin lighting his freckled face. He was perched on the edge of the kitchen hearth, an iron kettle propped between his knees. He was in such good spirits he hadn’t even complained about being tasked to scour out the kettle with handfuls of sand. “I’m starting to think he’s not such a bad sort after all. Why, just yesterday he asked if I’d take him down to the cove and show him the sea caves. And he’s talking about having the stable repaired and bringing in one of them fancy phaetons and some horses.
Real
horses, not just wild moor ponies.”

Anne kept her attention studiously fixed on the plate she was preparing. “I wouldn’t grow too attached to him if I were you, Dickon. Even without our
encouragement,
he’ll doubtlessly tire of the provincial country life soon enough and long to return to the excitement of London.”

Pippa shot her a resentful look. “Angelica certainly hasn’t been of much help lately. I’m beginning to think she fancies him for herself.”

“Angelica has had ten long years to learn patience,” Anne replied tartly. “She simply knows how to bide her time.”

What Anne couldn’t tell Pippa was that she didn’t think they would even need Angelica to drive Dravenwood away. She was perfectly capable of doing that all on her own. By denying him the thing he most wanted, she had made it nearly impossible for him to stay at Cadgwyck.

She could not quite squelch a thrill of pride as she gazed down upon her creation. She’d given up trying to starve Dravenwood out of Cadgwyck and started feeding him the same dishes she prepared for the rest of them. Tonight’s meal consisted of a miniature hen Dickon had snared in one of his traps, its succulent skin browned and crisped to perfection, roasted potatoes swimming in a sea of butter, and a salad of greens she’d grown herself in the manor garden.

“Have you finished filling up the saltcellar?” she asked Hodges.

“Almost!” he sang out. He was hunched over the end of the long table, pouring a stream of salt into a chipped crystal bowl. His childlike smile made Anne’s heart clench.

There was no denying his condition was deteriorating. Rapidly. Anne had learned that assigning him some simple task served the twofold purpose of making him feel useful and keeping him out of mischief.

Bess and Lisbeth came bustling into the kitchen. “The master’s at table,” Lisbeth informed Anne, while Bess fetched a silver tray from the cupboard and set it in front of Anne.

Anne placed the china plate on the tray, then arranged some freshly polished cutlery and a snowy-white linen serviette to compliment it. The last addition was a loaf of bread fresh from the oven.

“Just a minute!” she cried as Lisbeth held open the door so Bess could carry the heavy tray through it. Anne hurried over to whisk the saltcellar out from under Hodges’s nose, then plunked it down on the tray.

As the maids disappeared through the door with their burden, Anne sank down on one of the benches flanking the table, wondering what Dravenwood would make of her meal.

For reasons she didn’t care to examine, it was a pleasure to imagine him eating the food she had prepared—his strong, white teeth sinking into the crisp, juicy skin of the hen, his tongue curling around the buttery goodness of the potatoes.

She was still lost in that agreeable image when Hodges said, “I’ve always heard there’s only one way to rid one’s home of vermin.”

Distracted by her wayward thoughts, Anne murmured, “Hmm? What was that, dear?”

“Won’t be any rats dying in their beds of old age in
my
house.”

Pippa’s pestle froze in midmotion. Dickon slowly stood, his grin fading. Anne turned to look down the length of the table. Hodges was dusting off his hands, looking extremely pleased with himself.

Only then did Anne spot the glass bottle sitting in front of him—a brown medicine bottle with a black skull and scarlet crossbones emblazoned on its label.

“Dear God,” she whispered, horror chilling her blood to ice. “It’s not salt.”

Chapter Twenty-four

D
ICKON TOOK OFF FOR
the door at a dead run, but Anne still beat him to it. Lifting the hem of her heavy skirts to keep them from tripping her, she went pelting down the endless corridors of the basement and up the stairs to the main floor of the manor. In her mind’s eye, she could already see Dravenwood slumped over his plate, his mighty heart laboring harder with each sluggish beat, his piercing gray eyes slowly losing their focus. By the time she finally reached the dining room, her own heart was on the verge of imploding in her chest.

Lisbeth and Bess were just returning through the dining-room door with empty hands, laughing and talking among themselves. Ignoring their startled cries, Anne shoved her way past them and into the dining room.

Dravenwood was gazing down at his meal with obvious pleasure, his fingers poised to add a
generous pinch of salt to it. As the crystals rained down from his fingers to dust his food, Anne lunged across the room and used one arm to sweep everything in front of him off the table.

It hit the floor with an explosion of china and crockery, spattering food everywhere, including over the freshly polished leather of his boots.

Silence descended over the room. Lisbeth and Bess stood frozen in the doorway, gawking at Anne as if she’d gone stark raving mad.

Dravenwood slowly lifted his gaze from the carnage on the floor to her face. “Is there something I should know, Mrs. Spencer?” he inquired, the gentleness of his tone belied by the suspicious gleam in his eyes.

Fighting to steady her breathing, Anne tucked a fallen tendril of hair behind her ear, then wiped her sweat-dampened palms on her apron. “Nothing of any import, my lord. Dickon just realized there was a chance the hen might be rancid.”

“Indeed.”

Anne hadn’t even known it was possible for a single word to convey such withering skepticism. Fixing a shaky smile on her lips, she frantically beckoned the maids back into the room. “Don’t mind the mess. Lisbeth and Bess will get it all cleaned up while I fix you a nice mutton sandwich.”

Although he didn’t utter another word, Anne
could feel the steady weight of his gaze following her from the room, as inescapable as the coming storm.

I
T WASN’T HIS HOUSEKEEPER
who visited Max in his bedchamber that night, but his ghost.

Max had almost given up on her. He had been on the verge of being forced to accept Angelica Cadgwyck was no more real than the naughty nymphs and big-bosomed mermaids who had haunted his boyhood fantasies.

But that was before he felt her lips gently brush his brow, then drift lower to graze the corner of his mouth with bewitching tenderness. He turned his head to fully capture her kiss. He had no intention of letting her escape him this time.

Wrapping his arms around her, he tumbled her into his embrace and his bed. Rolling over, he trapped her beneath him, breathing in the sweetness of her sigh in the heartbeat before his lips descended on hers. She tasted like warm, ripe berries on a hot summer day. Like cool rain watering the parched sands of the Moroccan desert.

He tangled his fingers in the silky skein of her curls, thrusting his tongue deep into the lush sweetness of her mouth. His hips were already moving against hers in an ancient rhythm. The heat roiling off his naked flesh melted away the gauzy skein of
silk she was wearing until nothing was left to keep them apart. Not fear. Not time.

Not even death. He entered her in one smooth thrust, his soul singing in tune with his body.

She was here. She was real.

And she was his.

Until a gunshot rang out, snatching her away.

Max sat straight up in the bed, biting off a savage oath to find himself alone. He had been dreaming again. A dream so real it had left his body hard and aching for a woman who had died a decade ago.

He shoved aside the bed curtains and swung his legs over the side of the bed. Ever since he had learned about Timberlake’s treachery, he had been haunted by another image of Angelica as well—Timberlake shoving her down on the window seat of the tower, his cruel fingers biting into her tender flesh. Timberlake’s sneering mouth descending on hers to smother her screams for help.

He had wanted answers, but those weren’t the answers he had wanted. He would rather continue to believe Angelica had simply succumbed to the artist’s seduction, that she had stepped off the edge of that cliff still believing Timberlake was a romantic hero who had died adoring her.

Max dropped his aching head into his hands. He supposed he ought to be grateful he had slept long enough to dream. Ever since Anne had come
barging into his bedchamber, he had spent most of his nights tossing and turning until the wee hours of the morning. His sulking body still hadn’t forgiven him for letting her go. His body didn’t seem to care that she was his housekeeper, only that she was warm and alive and had more substance than a wisp of mist.

He had previously discovered she was capable of delivering a fine scold, but he hadn’t realized until that night that she could work herself into such a magnificent fury. Her ire had brought a most becoming sparkle to her hazel eyes and a healthy flush of color into her alabaster cheeks. With the soft swell of her breasts straining to overflow the confines of her bodice and that provocative curl tumbling out of its pins and over one shoulder, she had borne little resemblance to the prim and proper housekeeper with starch in her spine and vinegar running through her veins. He might have been able to dismiss her dramatic transformation if he hadn’t been fool enough to leave his bed and corner her at the door.