Regency Scoundrels And Scandals. Louise Allen

try to sleep if you wish.’

      He fell back with a growl as Bel knelt, her knees either side of his hips. The power of what she was doing felt incredible. It was like sitting astride a thoroughbred horse; she could feel the leashed strength beneath her, knew she could not control it, that only his will was keeping him tame, biddable to her.

      Her hand slipped between her thighs, found him, hot, hard, impossibly aroused, and positioned herself. ‘Now,’ she whispered and slowly sank down, taking him within her, stroking every inch of him with her heat and her slickness and her desire.

      He growled, reached for her and she caught his wrists, leaning into him so she pressed them to the ground on either side of his head and the tips of her breasts caressed his chest. ‘Awake yet?’ she teased, her lips hovering an inch above his.

      ‘Ride me.’ And he surged up against her. Bel heard herself cry out, knew her body was responding, plunging, demanding, but it all became a blur, a wonderful, intense, heated blur with the only reality the deep blue-black eyes holding hers, the beat of his pulse under her fingers, the musk of their lovemaking as potent as drugged incense in her nostrils.

      Ashe bucked beneath her, then she was beneath him, her own wrists trapped, and she cried out again and again as she fell into a whirlpool of velvet darkness and he finally left her body.

      Some incalculable time later Bel felt Ashe roll away from her and reached for him. He was back in a moment, carrying pillows and the bedcover. ‘I like it on this fur. Here, these will make us more comfortable and preserve your chaste bed from disturbance.’

      Bel snuggled up against his chest again. Horace’s soft fur was warm and sensual beneath her, Ashe’s body was hot and smooth under her hand. ‘This is nice.’ This is Heaven.

      ‘You are addictive Bel,’ Ashe said ruefully, gathering her snugly against himself. Other women had curled against him like this, but none had ever seemed to fit so well. ‘But I am going to have to leave you for a few days.’

      ‘Leave? Why?’ Bel wriggled free and sat up, shaking her head at her own vehemence. ‘No, I am sorry, I did not mean to sound so demanding, or to pry. Will you be away long?’

      ‘Ten days, perhaps.’ He reached up and traced a finger round the curve of her jaw, enjoying the way she turned her head into his hand for more caresses. Bel was so sweet, so formal somehow—when she wasn’t in the throes of passion. She had even managed to be jealous in a polite manner. Ashe could recall mistresses and lovers who would have thrown ornaments at his head for less provocation than he had given her that morning. ‘I am going home. I should have gone at once, but somehow—’ How to explain to her?

      ‘Somehow what you had just experienced abroad was too raw?’ Bel suggested.

      ‘Yes.’ She understood what he sometimes had difficulty articulating to himself. Ashe lifted her hand and kissed the knuckles, then turned them against his cheek. ‘Exactly. But if I stay away any longer, they will start worrying that I am hiding something after all.’

      ‘And you can make arrangements for the house party you are going to give,’ Bel suggested slyly.

      ‘I had no intention of doing any such thing, although if you would come to it, I might be persuaded to change my mind.’

      Bel looked deliciously ruffled by the suggestion. ‘I could not bear to be so close to you and have to behave properly all the time.’

      ‘Who said anything about behaving? That is the whole point of house parties—camouflage for misbehaviour.’

      ‘I…I find I am shocked.’ She shook her head in wonderment at her own reaction. ‘How very hypocritical of me!’

      ‘You are not being uniquely wicked in taking a lover, you know, ma belle, other people have liaisons too.’ But in a way she was unique, Ashe realised. Bel would not move from him to another lover when this was over. This was an experience for her that she would sample because she had needed so badly to understand physical love, then put aside, never to be repeated.

      ‘What are you frowning about?’ She reached out and massaged the crease between his brows with the pads of two fingers. Ashe fought not to close his eyes and simply purr.

      ‘I’m not sure,’ he confessed, smiling at her anxiety. But he knew, all the same. He did not want to envisage life without Bel, he did not want to imagine her alone, chaste, unkissed and uncaressed and he could not imagine having another woman in her place, in his arms. But affaires ran their course, it would happen one day and they would move on. He would find someone else.

      ‘Tell me about your home,’ she suggested, snuggling down again, her hand drifting slowly up and down his chest in a way that predicted any conversation would be short.

      ‘Coppergate? Well, it is in Hertfordshire, out beyond St Albans in the hills. It was built in the seventeenth century by a Mr Copper, a merchant who made his fortune, bought by my ancestor when Mr Copper’s luck ran out and it has been with us ever since. There is a lake…’

       Chapter Eleven

      The lake was still as a reflecting mirror under the August sunshine as Ashe tooled the team through the gates and up the long curving sweep of carriage drive towards the old house.

      Home. And by some miracle he was approaching it unscathed, with all his limbs intact and not even a romantic scar for his sisters to exclaim over. No scars that showed on the outside at least and those that were hidden were far from romantic. But the nightmares were fewer now and he no longer woke confused about where he was, worrying that he had fallen asleep on duty. Bel had helped, he realised. He did not have to talk about it to her, but whenever the subject had come up, her empathy soothed him.

      Ashe rolled stiff shoulders to ease them, finding the very thought of Bel relaxed him, even if it provoked an uncomfortable physical reaction. He was going to miss her in so many ways. The curricle rounded a stand of ancient beech trees and there was the house, low, rambling and—thanks to Mr Copper’s original design and Ashe’s ancestors’ numerous additions—without any outstanding architectural merit whatsoever. But he loved it, even if he found it hard to stay there for long.

      The front door opened as his wheels crunched to a halt on the gravel and there was a flash of white fabric. For a moment he saw Bel standing there, her arms held out to him. Then the vision shifted and blurred and it was Katy, his youngest sister, running down the steps to meet him, her blonde curls flying, skirts hiked up. ‘Ashe! You are home!’

      ‘As you see.’ He grinned at her, jumping down from the curricle to return her enthusiastic hug. That image of Bel was disconcerting, but he did not want to explore why his mind was playing such tricks on him.

      The sound of footsteps behind him made him turn, his arm still round Katy’s shoulders, everything else forgotten as his mother, Frederica and Anna came to join the reunion. ‘You know I’m all right,’ he protested, as they patted and stroked him, trying to make himself heard over the babble of excited voices. ‘You got all my letters, I know you did, for you answered them all.’

      ‘Yes, dearest.’ Lady Dereham smiled happily. ‘You are such a good correspondent; we heard that you were safe almost as soon as the newspapers were reporting the outcome of the battle, so our minds were set at rest much earlier than many families, I am sure. And so many thoughtful letters telling us where you were and when you would be home.’

      ‘Why didn’t you come at once?’ Katy demanded as they walked up the steps, his two elder sisters still inclined to stroke his sleeves as he walked, as though to reassure themselves he really was there in the flesh.

      ‘Because Ashe had business to attend to, you know he explained that,’ Frederica reproved her. ‘And he probably needed a rest before you start bombarding him with questions. Look at poor Philip Carr over at Longmere Hall—the wretched man has had to escape back to town under the pretext of consulting