Regency Society Collection Part 2. Ann Lethbridge

open it, did you?’

      He looked a little stunned, but she had to hand it to him, he recovered quickly. ‘Aah, chérie, I knew you’d do anything to protect your sister. Even this.’ He bent his head and pressed his lips against her mouth, hard, demanding, ravishing. His tongue traced the seam of her lips and rivers of fire raced along her veins to burst into flame at her core. Her heartbeat drummed. She stood stiffly, resisting him with every fibre of her being.

      He lifted his head. ‘You resist me now, but you won’t. You never could.’

      ‘Any more than you could resist me?’ she said, only too aware of the breathiness of her voice. ‘Garrick, I don’t have your letter. I swear it on my honour.’

      His face fell. He spun away, anger and disappointment writ large on his face along with belief.

      ‘I think William does,’ she said to his stiff back. ‘He went back across the field, while I was in the cart. He must have protected you all these years, for my sake.’

      He turned back. ‘William?’ He lifted his hands from his sides, his shoulders rising. ‘It makes no sense. I’d swear he’d do anything to pay me back. Unless…’ His expression turned to horror. ‘Oh God. It could not be that.’

      He strode for the window and stared into the dark.

      ‘What? Tell me. You are scaring me.’

      He turned his head and met her eyes, his gaze clear, but his expression shuttered as if he was afraid she might see too much. ‘What if that letter exonerates me?’

      ‘I don’t understand.’

      ‘Why would he keep it hidden, if it proves my guilt? Think, Ellie. He hates me.’

      William wouldn’t. He couldn’t.

      Garrick must have seen the denial in her face because his mouth twisted in a wry smile and his eyes held pain. ‘You always believe the worst of me and the best of him. Get me that letter and you will never hear from me again.’

      He offered it like a bribe. Was that what he thought she wanted? ‘What if it proves your guilt? What then?’

      Agony blazed in his eyes. ‘It is not your business,’ he said harshly. ‘I want that letter before I leave for France.’

      She froze. ‘France?’

      ‘Where else would I go? The beloved emperor returns.’ Bitterness charged his voice, gave it a hard edge.

      ‘Are you telling me you are a traitor?’

      ‘I’m telling you nothing.’

      Fear constricted her throat. ‘And once you have the letter, I will never see or hear from you again.’

      He swallowed. ‘I swear it.’

      Her heart ached as if it had been pounded by a hammer. He truly believed she didn’t care. And if he went to France, he would be lost to her forever. Even the little flicker of hope she carried deep in her heart would go out. ‘Garrick—’

      ‘Don’t say another word.’ He grabbed her cloak, tossed it to her, turning away as if he couldn’t bear to look at her. ‘Just find the letter.’

      She clutched the soft fabric in her arms, struggling to comprehend his anger. ‘You hate me.’

      He turned slowly. Two strides took him to her side. He gripped her shoulders. ‘How could I hate you? You saved my life, remember?’

      A mistake, Garrick thought. Touching her, feeling her skin beneath his fingers. Seeing the flare of longing in her eyes, knowing the depths of her passion. It made letting her go all the more difficult. He’d been wrong to think he could seduce her all over again and feel nothing.

      She reached up with her other hand, smoothing his hair back from his forehead—a gentle, intimate caress.

      ‘I’ve missed you,’ she said. ‘Did you ever think of me?’

      He bit back the words in his heart: I never stop thinking of you, wanting you, looking for you. He dared not admit it. She’d find a way to use it against him. And still he wanted her, body and soul. As if without her he was incomplete, insubstantial, a wraith, walking through life on the outside looking in.

      Struggling for control, he breathed deep and stepped back. ‘Ready to go?’

      ‘Must we?’

      Anger at her naïvety sparked a brush fire in his veins. ‘What did you want to do? Reminisce about old times? There is only one reason a man brings a woman to a place like this. If you don’t go now, I can’t promise nothing will happen.’

      ‘Oh. I see.’

      Damnation, she looked hopeful and it was all the encouragement his raging desire needed.

      He caught her wrist and pulled her close. He fastened his mouth to hers, ravaging, demanding. And she kissed him back, arching against him, her mouth fervent, insistent. Four long years of loneliness rolled away as if they’d never been. Her kisses, the feel of her against him, was as familiar to him as his own face in the mirror. Perhaps more so, for his face had changed as she had not.

      In a wonder that felt almost reverent, he lifted his head to look into her face and found her eyes heavylidded with desire and with an expression of such abandon, it sent him beyond the edge of reason. Groaning with passion so intense his body shook, he swept her up into his arms.

      ‘Chérie,’ he whispered as he entered the bedroom lit only by a fire. He set her down gently on her feet next to the bed covered in snowy white linens.

      She reached up to twine her arms around his neck, her fingers running through the waves of hair that fell over his collar.

      He pulled her hairpins free, letting her hair fall in a golden river around her face and over her shoulders. He grasped a handful of it and held it to his face. He inhaled deeply. The unique scent of her. ‘Ma mie, je t’adore. It is the colour of spun gold and soft like silk.’ It was part of his memory.

      Then his hands were behind her, expertly unfastening her gown, as he carefully placed tiny, fluttering kisses on her face. She whimpered, a sound so small, but so filled with longing, it stole his breath and any shred of reason he had left. Her hands shaped the curve of his shoulders, then grazed his chest, caressing, stroking, as if they remembered.

      A moment later, she was pulling urgently at the buttons of his coat. He stopped unbuttoning her gown to allow her to push his jacket over his shoulders and shrugged it off. He tugged at his cravat till it, too, followed his coat to the floor. Feverish, on fire, he undid the top few buttons of his shirt and pulled it over his head. He heard the intake of her breath and drew in a hissing breath of his own as she pressed her lips to his chest.

      He placed his hand beneath her chin, desperate to feel her mouth on his lips and as he crushed her close, her back arched, her hips hard against his thigh. His heart drummed so hard he thought his ribs would crack.

      She wanted him. Always in this, he had her trust.

      ‘Turn around, mignonette,’ he whispered into her mouth. ‘I need you out of this gown.’

      Eleanor did not want to let him go, to lose his heat, the feel of his skin under her fingers in case she lost her nerve. It was dreadfully wrong, but this would be their last time together. He seemed to sense her need for his touch, for even as he pulled at the tapes he kept one arm around her waist, pressing her buttocks against his thighs, his erection evident. An illicit thrill clenched between her legs. Rough and fast, he pulled her dress down over her arms and her hips to the floor. The brush of cool air sent shivers down her spine, and her knees trembled. The stays went next, tossed aside, and she turned to face him, smiling, clad only in a fine white-lawn chemise, silk stockings and slippers.

      In the warm flicker of firelight, he loomed over her, tall, dark eyes licked with golden flame. Her gaze drifted down his lean body, fixed on a white indentation