Christie Kelley
Authors: Every Night Im Yours
“Kiss me, Avis. We’ll only go as far as you wish,” he whispered.
She had no control of her head as it slowly lowered toward him. Using only the slightest of touches, she caressed his lips with hers. But it wasn’t enough. She wanted the fire. She wanted to be seared by his passion if only to prove to herself that plain, old, spinster Avis could indeed flame Banning’s desires.
As she parted his lips with her tongue, he groaned. He tasted like scones and chocolate…or was that her? Either way, it was delightful.
Banning deepened their kiss as he rolled her over onto her back. She stiffened and then forced herself to relax. No easy task when he trailed hot kisses down her neck. A moan escaped her. Never in her twenty-six years had she imagined a sensation as exciting as Banning’s lips on her body.
As he undid the pearl buttons of her nightrail, cool air swept over her right breast. His kisses stopped. Avis peeked at him through her lashes. He stared down at her breast with a sensual smile on his face.
He skimmed a finger down her chest until it reached the tip of her breast. Tremors coursed through her body at his light touch. She wanted him to do more than just tease her like this. But what? What more did she want?
Everything.
To my husband, Mike:
Thank you for believing in me and
pushing me to do the thing I love most.
I love you!
I would never have come this far without my fantastic critique group, The Tarts. Kathy Love, Janet Mullany, Kate Dolan, Kate Poole, and Lisa, you ladies rock!
A special thanks to Kathy Love and Sheryl Fischer for reading this book more times than any person should have to. And another thanks to Kathy for giving me the hardest villain’s name to type.
Mom, thanks for all the support the last seven years!
Thank you, Laura Bradford, for getting this book where it needed to be for publication. You’re amazing!
Mike and the boys, I love you all.
VERY
N
IGHT
I’
M
Y
OURS
London, 1816
“Let me love you.”
The shadowy figure moved over her, not quite touching her. Yet she felt him with every fiber of her body. His heat, his strength, his desire. Or maybe it was her desire. She burned for him, ached for his touch.
Helplessly, she writhed, begging with her body for his touch. Her body understanding more of what she wanted than her mind did. The shadow shifted. He was closer. Right there, his body nearly grazing hers. Each barely there touch, making her throb with this uncontrollable need. His warm breath caressed her skin, his rich, almost spicy scent making her dizzy. His lips, strong yet velvety soft, brushed the side of her throat. She whimpered, reaching for him, wanting to feel the pressure of his body. She needed something more substantial than this shadowy lover. But when her fingers would have brushed his chest, his shoulders, his dark, spectral hair, his voice stopped her.
“Let me love you.”
This was what she wanted, what she needed.
“Yes. Yes. Please.”
No! Avis Copley sat upright, blinking against the watery light that still managed to make her bedroom seem unbearably bright. Not that dratted dream again. She yanked out the secret volume she’d stashed under her pillow last night and threw the book against wall. This was entirely the book’s fault.
Ever since she found the volume among her late father’s belongs two weeks ago, she’d been plagued by dreams. Not just any dreams. Sensual, erotic nightmares that tormented her with feelings of longing, until she awoke drenched in perspiration and aching for the one thing she could never have—a man.
She groaned and pulled the coverlet over her head, cocooning herself in darkness. In her seclusion, the images of her dream revealed themselves in vivid detail and her traitorous body responded again. Her breasts ached to be touched, and she gave into the need, hesitantly skimming her hands over the cotton of her nightrail. Beneath the fabric, her nipples puckered and became even more sensitive. What would it really feel like to have a man touch her this way? Touch her bare skin? Suckle her breasts and draw her nipple into the hot recesses of his mouth as her dream lover had?
The thought alone made her body tingle, the flesh between her legs pulse. Would it feel as good if she touched herself there? She squeezed her legs together to stem the growing ache but realized her efforts only added to her torment. Wrenching up her nightrail, she lowered her hand and slipped her fingers between the moist folds—
“Good morning, miss.”
Oh Lord, this morning couldn’t get any worse. “Good morning, Bridget,” she mumbled from under the coverlet. Heat scorched her cheeks with the mortification of being caught with her hand between her legs. She quickly adjusted her nightrail but refused to leave her sanctuary under the covers.
“Happy birthday, Miss Copley!”
Her birthday
. Clearly, her morning
could
get worse. It wasn’t horrid enough that she was regularly dreaming of a man in her bed, or that she had nearly been caught in a very private position, now she was reminded that she was twenty-six years old. Twenty-six and she’d barely experienced anything in life.
“Just leave my breakfast on the table, please.”
“Yes, miss.”
Avis listened as her maid placed the tray down and walked out the door. Slowly, she emerged from her hiding place. Staring up at the coffered ceiling, she knew she couldn’t go on like this, playing at really living. It was time.
The time had come to make a decision that could affect her life forever.
“I’ve decided to take a lover.”
Avis couldn’t believe she had just blurted out her news in such an indelicate manner. It was not quite the way she’d imagined telling her friends.
Jennette held her floral teacup halfway to her lips. Sophie’s mouth gaped open. Hardly the reaction Avis had expected from either of them. Silence filled the small room, deafening her with the empty sound.
“You cannot be serious,” Jennette finally said.
“Think of your reputation,” Sophie added. “You have always managed to keep your reputation intact even when you scorned your cousin’s generosity and decided to live on your own. Taking a man to your bed will ruin everything you have strived to keep sacred.”
“Why would you do such a thing?” Jennette implored.
Avis stood and paced the carpet by the fireplace. “I have given this much thought.” She had thought of little else for the past week. She knew she couldn’t tell them the truth. They just would not understand. Instead, she recounted to them the lie she’d practiced all week. “I never feel I capture the true…true…essence of the relationship between my characters. I don’t understand physical love.”
“Surely you have been kissed before?” Sophie asked.
“No,” Avis denied far too quickly and then turned to avoid Jennette’s prying stare. Only Jennette knew about her one and only kiss. A kiss on a wager, and not
her
wager.
“Really?” Sophie shook her head as if unable to believe a person could reach the age of six and twenty and never have kissed a man.
“Avis, why now?” Jennette asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You haven’t been yourself since your birthday last week. Is there something you’re not telling us?”
Avis sighed. “I am twenty-six. There are nineteen-year-olds who know more about what happens between a man and a woman than I do.”
Sophie tilted her head and asked, “Can’t you just read a book about it?”
She had tried that already and look where she landed—feeling even emptier than before. “A book will not give me the answers I need,” she finally replied.
“You must rethink this plan,” Jennette started again. “Your reputation would be at risk. Everything you love—your chances of publication, the parties and balls you enjoy, even our friendship. My mother would never let me associate with you again if word of this reached her ears.”
“And if you get with child?” Sophie asked softly.
Avis had to admit this one complication had not crossed her mind. A child. She could never have a baby—a child meant a husband and she would never have one of those. “It will only be one time. I certainly won’t get pregnant the first time.”
Jennette chuckled. “Remember Susanna Lindsay?”
“How do we know she really did that only one time?” Avis asked.
“She swore it was one time in the garden at Lady Wentworth’s ball.” Jennette twirled a strand of black hair around a finger. “One time, Avis.”
“There are ways to prevent conception,” Avis countered. Although she had no idea what that might entail.
“There are ways to prevent an unwanted pregnancy but they aren’t foolproof,” Sophie said. “I’m a perfect example of that. I wouldn’t be here today if these methods were perfected.”
Avis supposed a bastard daughter of an earl and an actress might just know a little about prevention. She sighed and sat back against the sofa, deflated.
“What if you change your mind regarding marriage?” Sophie asked. “Many men would not be pleased to learn you’re damaged goods.”
“I will never marry,” Avis replied with conviction. “I understand my reputation might be at risk, and I understand the other risks. If I get with child I can sell my house and move to the country as a ‘widow.’”
She sipped her tea and continued before her resolve weakened any further. “But I have decided on the perfect man. One who would never let a soul know what we have done.”
“Who is your victim?” Sophie asked.
Of course they wanted a name. “I really shouldn’t say.”
“I daresay she doesn’t wish to kiss and tell,” Sophie said with a laugh. Her comment brought giggles from Jennette.
Her censorious glare did nothing to stop their irreverent laughter. “Very well. Emory Billingsworth.”
All laughter stopped and a strident silence filled the salon. Sophie frowned. Jennette looked concerned and neither of her friends spoke for a full minute.
“Mr. Billingsworth?” Sophie echoed.
Jennette shifted in her seat. “I’d heard a rumor of him with Lady Hythe recently. They have become quite close. Some even speculate she would be willing to accept an offer from him.”
“I am quite certain he would have told me about that,” Avis said with a wave of her hand in dismissal. “He tells me everything.”
“Why would he tell you about another woman when you are—”
“He tells me everything,” Avis said before Jennette could speak of the money Avis loaned Emory when he needed it. Only Jennette knew about the money, and only because she had overheard them one day.
“I know my brother thinks rather poorly of him,” Jennette remarked.
“Why?” Avis asked, not that it mattered one way or the other what Lord Selby thought of Emory. She had known Emory for three years and he was a perfect gentleman and friend to her.
“I don’t know for certain. I just know he doesn’t have a good thing to say about him.”
“Have you spoken with him yet?” Sophie asked.
“No. The last time he called was on my birthday. He’s been occupied writing his book.”
“Oh,” she said in obvious relief. “Are you certain he is the right man for you, Avis?”
“Of course. He is a writer like me. He’s a wonderful and caring friend.”
“Yes, but do you truly desire him?” Sophie asked softly.
Sophie’s question stopped her short. Emory was quite handsome with his blonde hair and brown eyes. Just because her dream lover appeared to have much darker hair didn’t mean anything. Besides, Emory would do anything she needed and not because he was in wild, passionate love with her, but because they were close friends. She had no need for wild, passionate love. She only wanted to discover what happened between a man and a woman and how it felt. Perhaps then her dreams would stop frustrating her.
“I do think Emory is perfect for me.”
Sophie’s gray eyes bore into hers. “If you say so.”
“I will talk to him at my cousin’s ball tomorrow night. It will be far easier for us to slip away from the crowd unnoticed.” Avis smiled up at her friends. “You will be there, won’t you?”
“I have plans with my Aunt Harris,” Sophie said quickly. Which Avis knew meant her cousin had scratched Sophie’s name off the guest list.
“Yes, my brother said Lord Watton has some business to discuss with him so we must attend,” Jennette replied.
Avis wasn’t surprised. The new Lord Watton had not been pleased when he discovered the title came with the ancestral pile in Wiltshire and not much else. The majority of wealth her father had generated during his lifetime went to Avis upon his death two years ago. More than likely her inheritance provided him some relief from his guilt, not that the money offered a salve to her wounds.
A knock on the door sounded and Lord Selby’s low voice resonated from the hallway.
Jennette glanced toward the doorway then leaned in closer. “Think carefully on what you are about to do, Avis. You might be making the biggest mistake of your life.”
Avis grimaced. “I am quite certain I am not.”
“Only time will tell,” Sophie said in a haunting voice. “Only time will tell.”
Avis looked over to see Jennette’s highly annoying older brother Banning standing at the threshold. She pressed a hand to her stomach at the sight of the Earl of Selby. His black hair gleamed from the drops of rain he hadn’t yet wiped away.
He was wet, dripping water all over her marble floor. Now was her chance. She had waited weeks to get back at his last spiteful comments to her.
“You look like a drowned rat, Selby.”
His lips twitched slightly. “Hardly a rat, Miss Copley. Much more like the legendary selkies of Scotland.”
A selkie! The arrogance of the man astounded her. “Oh but I think the human form of the selkies is supposed to be irresistible.”
“And most women would say that was true of me,” he said with a wink and a smug smile.
“Not all women,” Avis replied tartly.
“I understand you recently had a birthday. So just how old are you now?”
“Still younger than you,” she bit out.
“Also true. But an aging man is seldom looked upon in the same light as an aging, unmarried woman.”
“Banning,” Jennette exclaimed. “That is enough.”
Avis turned her back on him for a moment. She hated how his comments always struck so deep with her and once more, he’d responded only to her waspish tongue. She should have bit her tongue rather than behave like such a shrew. Why after eight years couldn’t she put their animosity behind her?
“So where is the rest of the Spinster Club?” he drawled, leaning a broad shoulder against the door-frame.
The Spinster Club. The name he coined for the five of them years ago, before they were even considered on the shelf. Now most of the
ton
thought of Avis and her four friends as spinsters.
“Victoria and Elizabeth could not join us today,” Avis replied.
“Banning, I think we should take our leave now,” Jennette said.
“But I would be remiss in not wishing Miss Copley a belated happy birthday,” Selby retorted. “Happy birthday, Miss Copley.” He took her bare hand and gently kissed the top of it.
Sparks leapt up her arm from the brief contact. She tugged her hand back and looked away from him.
He moved back toward the doorway near Sophie but didn’t leave the room.
“I forgot to show you what Mr. Billingsworth gave me for my birthday,” Avis said to her friends. She held out the small pearl chain.
Selby muttered something, which made Sophie’s eyes widen but Avis couldn’t make out his comment. Most likely another derogatory remark about her age.
“It’s lovely, Avis,” Jennette said.
“Yes, lovely,” Sophie concurred, and then sent another strange glance toward Selby.
“Happy birthday, Miss Copley,” he said. “We really must take our leave now.”
“Good day, Lord Selby,” Avis said. She breathed a sigh of relief as his footsteps echoed down the hall.
Banning climbed into the carriage after Sophie and Jennette. The two women seemed unusually quiet after their visit with Avis. But after calling on Lady Ledbury’s daughter, Anne, and listening to her endless prattle about the musicale she attended last night, the silence of the carriage was more than welcome. There wasn’t one young woman currently out that made him want to consider marriage. His father had always spoken of the importance of finding the right woman for a wife. She must come from a good family, no scandals attached to her name, and wealth would only be a plus.
Lady Anne had all those qualifications, but the idea of spending the rest of his life with her set his stomach roiling. He had promised his mother he would seriously pursue marriage this Season. At one and thirty, he knew it was long past time to settle down and have children. The idea of children made him smile. The idea of a wife set his lips in a downward position.
Sophie’s light cough drew him out of his musing. Banning glanced at both women and knew something was going on between them today. Instead of talking, they kept giving odd looks to each other, which they appeared to understand, but he certainly did not. He wondered if he should ask them about their lack of conversation and then decided it was best to let the normally chatty ladies stay quiet.
Until Sophie could no longer hold her tongue and blurted out, “We can’t let her do this.”
“This is not the time,” Jennette warned, with a quick nod toward Banning.
“This may be the perfect time. Your brother might just be able to help us.”
Help them? With what? Instead of asking, he decided to wait to see what they would do. He leaned back against the velvet squabs of the carriage and crossed his arms over his chest.
“Sophie, she needs
our
help. Banning could never help her.”
Sophie raised an eyebrow. “Tell me, Lord Selby. What do you know of Emory Billingsworth?”
Warning signals flared throughout his brain. Was there more to Billingsworth and Avis’s relationship than friendship? “He is not a man I would want a friend of mine associating with.”
Sophie gave Jennette a smug smile.
“Why not?” Jennette asked.
“He’s not a man to be trusted,” Banning said.
“Could you give us a little more information?” Jennette complained. “Why can he not be trusted? What has he ever done to you that leads you to believe he is not a good man?”
Banning grimaced. Dreadful memories flashed through his mind. He couldn’t tell them everything he knew about Billingsworth, but he could give the women a reason to warn Avis if she was indeed the reason they were worried.
“Emory Billingsworth has a sordid past. His last three books have not sold. He is living on handouts and not just from Miss Copley.”
Sophie played with the folds of her gown. “So Mr. Billingsworth is using Avis for his own gains,” she concluded.
“I believe you understand me.”
The carriage pulled to a stop in front of Selby House in Grosvenor Square. Banning climbed down and held out his hand to assist both women from the carriage while a footman attempted to cover them all with an umbrella. Assuming their conversation finished, he walked inside his home, handed his wet greatcoat to Battenford and headed straight for his study. He didn’t need to know any more about what Avis Copley had in her head. In fact the less he knew, the better…at least for him.
Banning flexed his fists in frustration as he paced in his study. The woman made him insane.
What was she about? And how was Billingsworth involved?
Bloody hell. Avis Copley meant nothing to him.
Instead of thinking about her any further, he walked to the decanter on the corner cabinet and poured a brandy to chase away the chill from the cool June rain. The smooth liquid eased his irritation and warmed him. He dropped into the leather chair behind his mahogany desk, determined to put the infinitely frustrating woman out of his mind.