The King of Threadneedle Street (14 page)

She tried to swallow but couldn’t manage it. Too often she had wondered what he was doing the past few years. He had not been studying the entire time. Of course not. Alysia had long prepared herself for the moment she must smile and curtsey to his wife. Judging by the rush of jealousy as he confessed his affairs, she would probably have to settle for not scratching out the future Lady Preston’s eyes.

He added, “Substitutes,” at the same moment she said, “Saints help me.”

Neither explained their comment. Alysia waited pensively, and finally she felt him trace his hands down her sides from ribs to hip.

“Where is the rest of you, Lisa?” Apparently he had stepped closer, because now she could feel his breath on her neck.

“The rest of me?”

“You are too thin. So you live in the gourmet cuisine capital of the world, and you drop two stone in weight?”

“Not
that
much, Drew,” she matched his teasing tone of voice but felt unsteady.

“Your figure was different last year.”

“I hardly know what to say.”

“What? You are embarrassed I notice you?
All
of you?” He wrapped his arms around her and nuzzled her ear, and she lost her clever reply. She couldn’t recall her own name at the moment.

“There was more
here.
” He gave her sides a gentle squeeze. “And here.” He slid his hands down onto her hips where they dimpled at the joint. “But mostly I miss what was
here
.” He stroked his hands back up her sides and let his fingers graze only the sides of her breasts. “But still quite… hmm.”

Alysia swallowed a gasp.

He brushed across her collarbone. “So beautiful.” He must feel her heart pounding. “What is it, Lisa? You missed me so sorely you couldn’t eat?” His velvet bass voice worked her head into riddles while his hands set her skin on fire.

“Could have been that,” she answered in a dusky voice she hardly recognized as her own. “Or chocolate. I haven’t had
du chocolat
in ages and I am wasting away.”

“Then you shall have it.” Andrew blew air on her neck with his chuckle then kissed behind her ear. “By the pound, until you are healthy again.”

She should move away and send him out, but feeling his heartbeat through her back was mesmerizing. His breath on the side of her neck made her skin tingle in anticipation. Then he brushed his fingers from her jaw to shoulder.

Oh, no. He was about to do it.
Andrew knew she went weak-kneed if he kissed her on the neck, and she didn’t relish being witless. Her throat let out a helpless little squeak. Every nerve alert, a raw, electric feeling—

All he did was graze the tip of his nose down her throat, and she surrendered.

She wanted his lips on her skin more than she wanted good judgment. She tilted her head, exposing her neck, offering it. He made her wait a moment longer while he cradled her face, a predator baring her neck for the kill. He grazed his lips along the length of her neck and pressed feather-light kisses at her pulse, following the line down the sensitive nerve there.

She had been holding her breath — his lips sank into the nape of her neck in a passionate open-mouthed kiss, drawing her skin into his mouth and nipping it with his teeth. She gasped and her knees gave out, but he already held her firmly against his chest.

Alysia couldn’t help herself. She turned to face him and pulled him in for a kiss. Their first in well over a year. A long, lonely and empty year wherein every night a reunion like this played in her mind as both a heavenly dream and a nightmare. She kissed him once gently, and her eyelids dropped at the sheer pleasure of it. His lips, soft and firm, and sweetly familiar, were so delicious that her next kiss was more like an attack. She locked her arms around his neck and gave in to the desperate feeling.

She was unaware of tipping him off balance. He caught the arms of a chair and sank into it, pulling her into his lap. It was all the permission she needed. Alysia grabbed the sides of his jaw and kissed him like the world was coming to an end. The way he kissed her back convinced her it was.

As it had happened last summer, she was heedless of her actions until a warning bell clanged in her head. She had turned in his lap and straddled him. Her hands were on the skin of his chest, greedily kneading the warm knots of muscle. He was just as she remembered him when she had drawn him a year ago.

She didn’t remember removing his necktie and unbuttoning his shirt. What made her pause was that as she knelt to kiss along his temple and tease his ear, she was situated with her neckline at his mouth. If she encouraged him any further, he would likely to do more than just kiss the slopes under her collarbone. He had never done anything like it before, and the feel of his lips on her skin there was exhilarating but alarming.

She pulled back and tried to speak but found herself completely out of breath. He looked at her from under his eyebrows, dangerous and irresistible, his lips wet and curled in a pleasure-pain sneer. With visible effort he dropped his hands, which had somehow found their way to the tops of her garters under her skirt. Her hair tumbled loose over her shoulders, and she brushed a stray lock out of her eyes.

“Lisa,” he groaned and dropped his head back against the chair. His nostrils flared, and he seemed about to erupt.

“I am so sorry, Andrew—” She paused to right her sleeves on her shoulders.

“Not your fault. I am weak and vulnerable, you know.” His lips pulled into a smile, but he closed his eyes as though blocking her image from view. “I haven’t been with a woman since I fell madly for you last summer.”

“I wish I didn’t want you the way I do,” she confessed. It sounded awkward. Rather than face him, she collapsed against his chest and tried to recover her sanity. It had fled the moment he brushed her neck.

“Someday, Lisa. Someday we will do this all night until we fall asleep in the same bed. When we can do so without worrying what will happen the next morning, I won’t bother to stop.” He sighed, sounding irritated. “Send me away. Tell me to go. Another moment and I won’t care a fig about the noble things I just said.”

Alysia didn’t answer; she was aghast with herself. His words had knocked her judgment back into place, and she hated the sinking, guilty feeling burning over the residual pleasure. She extricated herself and stood back, ignoring the ache of deprivation. For being so adamant about resisting him, she had certainly caved rather easily. And it was as much her fault as his.

****

Alysia bathed and changed into her nightdress. She brushed her hair until her head ached then tried to read a book. She couldn’t banish the encounter with Andrew from her mind, or the remorse. Agitated, she doused the lantern, crawled into bed and tried to trick herself into falling asleep. She whistled, conjugated verbs, and recited Shakespeare sonnets. She sat in the windowsill and stared at the moon. She went back to bed and stared at nothing. Every time she heard bells toll in the distance, she was no closer to finding sleep.

Sometime past two in the morning her door opened. She knew it was Andrew before he called her name. “Lisa? Are you awake?”

“Yes, Drew. I simply cannot sleep.”

“May I come in?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I brought you chocolate.” How could he sound so cheerful and untroubled?

She sat up and pulled the counterpane to her shoulders. She hadn’t thought anything of the Parisian-style silk nightdress trimmed in lace, but now, even in the near-darkness she was embarrassed. Andrew pulled up a chair and sat by the bed. He tossed a small package in her lap.

“I couldn’t sleep either.” He laughed quietly. “Do you remember when we used to sneak out at night and go for a swim? Here I hardly know what to do with myself. There is no lake.”

“You could bathe in the Medici Fountain.”

“Humph. Who would bail me out of jail, then?”

“Not me.” Alysia opened the package and inhaled the rich aroma of chocolate. It had been over a year since she had enjoyed such a treat. She took one bite and moaned, then sighed. It was utterly
divine.

Andrew chuckled. “I have heard such sounds from a woman before, but not from enjoying chocolate.”

“Hmm,” she groaned again, exaggerating it for his benefit. “I should offer to share, Drew, but I don’t think I can.” She took another bite and hummed suggestively, just to tease him.

“Is it true that you want me? Did you mean what you said?” he asked abruptly.

“Yes, Drew. I shouldn’t have said so, but it is the truth.”

“No, I’m glad to know I am not burning alone.” It seemed he wanted to say something else; the loaded silence usually meant he was deciding whether or not to tell her.

“You can just say it. I can’t imagine there is anything forbidden between us.”

“Hmm,” he stalled. “I
was
wondering — not that it really matters — but I think I would like to know, if you will forgive me for asking…”

“Ask me what?”

“Hmm. No, I can’t. Forget it. How is the chocolate?”

“Utterly divine.”

She waited, knowing he would come out with it in less than a minute, whatever it was. He always did.

“Are you a virgin?” he blurted. “Mme. Desmarais boasted you were, but you have been in Paris, after all, and in the company of, ah, liberally-minded people — whom I like, by the way. Your friends are charming, the ones I met.”

She smiled at his nervous rambling. “Yes, I am.”

“Oh. So… I could be your first.”

Alysia barely knew how to answer, especially considering their near miss earlier. “That is… a nice thought.”

He exhaled in relief, a humble, endearing sound.

“I confess I have imagined it many times. I don’t think I would be nervous.”

“Oh, but
I
would be.”

“Why?”

“Hmm. I have never, ah, deflowered anyone before.”

“Oh.”

“Lisa, I just remembered I wanted to ask you something else. It’s rather important, but I can’t say why yet. Will you tell me anyhow?”

“I suppose. What is it, Drew?”

“Did you know your father?”

“What? No. The Comte de Mercoeur died long before I was conceived. My mother never answered when I asked about it, so I don’t know. I have no doubt I am illegitimate, at any rate.”

“Was he French, do you know?”

“I remember living in Paris before coming to Ashton, so he might have been. But my mother also kept company with foreign men; it really could have been any of them.”

“Do you remember anything about an Austrian man? Any memento, stray comment, letters, money?”

“No. My mother kept her career quite separate from being a mother. Our situation with Lord Courtenay at Ashton was singular.”

“You know nothing at all?”

“Nothing. He could be a circus acrobat as easily as the emperor, for all I know. At any rate, whoever my father is, it’s clear he either didn’t know about me or wasn’t pleased. Therefore it doesn’t matter.”

“Hmm.”

She didn’t mind the lingering silence.

“Lisa, are you thinking this is like the talks we used to have at home? I used to believe I could say anything to you in the dark.”

“I apparently do; I have said too much tonight.”

“You tell the truth in the dark.”

“But does it solve anything? No. The same obstacles will exist tomorrow. I suppose that is what you meant about not wanting to wake to regrets in the morning. I don’t think I could bear going to bed with you then feeling badly about it afterward.”

“But knowing you feel as I do will get me through the waiting. If I thought you were indifferent, I couldn’t do it.” She heard him lean back, rustling or perhaps wagging his knee as he often did out of habit. “As badly as I want you now, I am also thinking of our future. What if I got you with child? I am not certain we could marry before it was born. Any other way would not be honorable.”

“You are the model of honor, Andrew, but we
cannot
marry. You must abandon the idea once and for all.” She didn’t know a breaking heart actually made a sound, a fresh tear down the middle where it had started to heal the past year. “Please don’t make me explain about duty again. I am already feeling ill about it.”

“Two years. My family can’t stop us, and I
will
have you, Alysia.”

“Andrew,
please.
We have a little time together now — don’t spoil it.”

She saw his silhouette a few paces from the edge of the bed. Faintly the bells chimed three o’clock.

“May I?” he asked finally.

Someone who hadn’t grown up with Andrew and shared afternoon naps in a hayloft or window seat wouldn’t understand what he meant by his simple request.

“Yes.”

He sat at the edge of the bed, and she heard his shoes drop to the floor, followed by the sound of fabric; perhaps his robe. He lifted the sheets and stretched out beside her. The mattress dipped, rolling her against his side. He slipped one arm under her neck where she fit perfectly in the hollow of his shoulder, and his other arm draped across her waist with his hand resting over her heart.

Feeling the bare skin of his chest and arms alarmed her, but only for a moment. Warm. Familiar. Splendidly comforting. She smelled soap on his skin, mixed with the spicy scent like freshly cut wood that was his own. It reminded her of home.
Ashton,
she corrected herself,
not home.
She traced lazy circles up and down his arm with her fingertips, and it chased away those melancholy thoughts.

Andrew reached up to stroke her hair, tucking it behind her ear and under his chin. She hummed in contentment, and he answered with the same, masculine version of the sound. A mutual acknowledgement of satisfaction. Neither spoke again, and before the bells tolled once more, she floated to sleep in the comfortable rhythm of warm breath and shared heartbeats.

Chapter Nine

'Tis one thing to be tempted, another thing to fall.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream,
William Shakespeare

In the morning Alysia woke with her fingers around the stem of a rose, a light lavender color and dethorned. Tied to the stem were a wrapped chocolate truffle and a note from Andrew.