Ann Lethbridge - Regency Society

‘Oh, yes, I most certainly do.’ He caught her hand, and placed it on the front of his breeches, so she could feel how ready he was. Then he began to undo his buttons.

She had just threatened to shoot a man, after attempting to seduce him, and now, she was going to make passionate love to another. If she looked into the mirror, would she recognise the woman she saw? ‘Do not be ridiculous. I cannot. I am still dressed. The door is not locked. I—’

He pushed her down on to the bed, kissing her in a way that left no doubts as to how much he wanted her, and how soon.

‘Well, at least take off your boots,’ she suggested breathlessly, recognising the old familiar Constance, trying to regain control.

He ignored her.

And the woman that she had become did not care in the slightest. He came into her fast and hard, and she arched as the shock of it ran through every nerve in her body and hummed in her blood. And as he thrust, he told her of things he wanted to do to her, and with her, and for her, each one more scandalous than the last.

And she wanted it all. She wanted his breath on her throat and his voice in her ear, and his body hard inside her for ever. But for now, she wanted him harder and faster, and she told him so over and over again until her breath was a gasp and her voice a sob and her body was trembling with the need for release. And when he demanded it, she came with him, and they collapsed, shaking with weakness, into a tangle on the bed.

He moved against her and she caught her breath in surprise as her body shuddered again, and he rolled away so that he could look into her eyes, reached a hand to her and stroked her to another climax.

And somewhere, deep down, her brain was screaming that this was madness, and it must stop. What had she just promised him? And what could he make her do, when he took her to this state? He knew her body, and he used his knowledge. She was helpless to resist him because it was all too good, and the waves ran through her again as she trembled at his touch.

She looked into his eyes. They were not empty, like Barton’s, but full of shadows. He looked into her soul and he knew her. But who was he?

She sat up and looked around her in confusion. She was lying fully dressed in her bed with a strange man, whose boots were leaving mud on the sheets. And he’d just taken her so violently that her body ached, and then soothed the ache away with his hand.

And he’d done it all because she begged him to.

Now, he was undressing her with exquisite care, undoing her gown and removing her stays, pausing to touch and kiss with featherlightness in ways that he knew pleased her. And now he was taking the pins from her hair and letting it down, combing it out with his fingers.

He knew every inch of her. He knew her life and her finances, and her body, all the intimidate details that she’d never dared share with Robert…

Why had she told him? And why had she not told her husband? Who had she become, now that she’d chosen to fall from virtue with such wanton abandon? Because she certainly was no longer herself.

And who was he? What did she know of him, other than that he was a thief, and that he said she could trust him?

And that he loved another.

He was still fully dressed, and she was naked beside him with her hair free around her shoulders. He was smiling his enigmatic smile as he admired her in her vulnerability.

She pulled the sheet around herself before she let him pull her down beside him and love her again.

He looked at her curiously, waiting for her to speak.

‘It is truly over, then, with Barton?’

‘He would be a fool to remain in the country, even if Patrick allows him to. I will turn the plates over to the Earl of Stanton in the morning, to be destroyed. If Barton reappears, St John will have no trouble hanging him as a traitor. You need never worry about him again.’

He might as well have been speaking nonsense. ‘You spoke of the plates before. What are they? And what does St John Radwell have to do with it all?’

Tony pulled away from her, and puzzled for a moment, before saying, ‘Ah. Yes. I’d meant to tell you about that. Barton was a counterfeiter. Or wished to be. And St John works for the government, and they wanted the plates back, so he hired me to steal them.’

‘So you are not a thief at all.’

‘Well, I am still a thief. A very good one. But currently, I steal when I am ordered to, by a higher authority.’ He grinned. ‘Perhaps I am a humble civil servant. I quite like the idea. It sounds most respectable.’

‘Then why did you not tell me?’

He looked evasive. ‘Frankly, it had not really occurred to me that there would be a difference. Stealing is stealing, and I have not much concerned myself with the reason. St John does not wish me to discuss our association, since the world knows little of what he does, and to reveal my part in it reveals his.’

‘So you are a spy, then.’

He thought about it. ‘I suppose you could say that.’

The truth began to dawn on her. ‘When I found you here, in this room, you were spying on me. And my best friend’s husband sent you. Because he thought I was a traitor. Just like Barton.’

Tony tried to laugh, but it came out sounding small and nervous. ‘I soon set him straight on that. The very first night, I told him you were innocent.’

It was some consolation, she supposed, to know that he thought she was innocent, even though he continued to spy upon her. ‘And this great secret, which you could not share with me to spare my feelings. Is that the only secret? Or are there other things that you have not told me?’

He looked positively uncomfortable, and had trouble meeting her gaze. ‘Well, everyone has secrets, I suppose.’

‘But you have more than most, I think. What is it that you are still not telling me, that makes you so evasive now?’

He attempted to laugh again, and failed completely. ‘You make it sound very ominous. I swear, I was not attempting to hide things from you.’

‘But you have hidden them all the same. I do not like being played for a fool, Tony. Not by my friends, and not by you.’

He flinched at the word ‘friends’ and then looked her squarely in the eyes. ‘I do not think you a fool, nor do I wish to play games with you. But I wish, Constance, that by now you would have looked with your own eyes and known the truth for yourself.’

‘So that you did not have to admit to it? What is it, that is so horrible that you cannot speak it out loud? You had the gall to offer me marriage, and yet you cannot manage to be honest with me.’

‘Perhaps it is because I knew how you would respond, should I tell you the whole truth. It is quite plain, Constance, that whatever you might pretend, on the subject of love you are as cold hearted as any woman in my experience. It was a hundred times easier for me to steal your heart than it would have been to gain it by honest means. If I came to you and presented my case openly, with the rest of your suitors, you would have dismissed me as unworthy of your time and gone after Endsted and his title.’ He was able to laugh again as he mocked her. ‘But it excites you if I approach in darkness and you let me take what I want from you.’

Then he touched her skin, and her body responded with a shudder of passion. ‘You want what I can give you,’ he said, ‘but you wish to be free of me when the sun rises, in case there is a better offer. And I let you use me, because, God help me, I cannot resist you.’

‘I was using you, was I?’ She looked down at her bare body, next to his. ‘When you threw me down and took me, just now? Of course, you did manage to get rid of Barton for me. Although you said before that you did not wish to wait for payment, until after the deed was done, I should think, after tonight, that our accounts must be close to even.’