Ann Lethbridge - Regency Society

Darkness was their milieu, she decided, when the tendrils of night reduced any difference and the language between their bodies demanded no words.

Lord, even now the memory of it made her blush. As though he felt it too, his hand came against hers in a simple gesture, and the box of jewellery was laid down upon the desk, forgotten.

‘Beatrice?’ A question.

‘Yes.’ An answer.

The heavy slam of his heart was visible in the pulse at his throat. Not as unaffected as she might imagine.

She felt his hand skim across the line of her bottom and lift her skirt. The other one loosened his lacings and tilted her hips, entering slick wet and wanted, his breath against her throat as he pushed in further, no softness at all in it. Sheathed and tight. Full and intimate. Cold oak against the warmth of flesh, and the door unlocked.

Still, she could not pull back as his movements quickened, her hands splayed across the blotter, her head rolling as the same magic took her by surprise.

Anywhere? He could take her anywhere and she would follow? Her whimpers were quietened by his mouth as he covered the gathering waves of release and she was tipped into the place where nothing at all mattered.

He did not let her go when they had finished. Did not move apart or relinquish his tight grasp of her, his breath hoarse and the joining of their bodies tight in want.

‘God.’ Only that above the sound of breath, and the feel of cold air against her bare skin was sinful and exciting. The hot squeeze of his manhood still within her and the daylight exposing everything that night-time never had.

When his hands slid to where his body still lingered, she merely opened her legs further and let him explore, the scent of their lovemaking musky in the air around them.

‘More,’ she whispered and his answering laugh was as unguarded as she had ever heard it.

‘Much more,’ he returned as his fingers found a spot that made her whole body blush.

The sound of the clock brought them back and she had never felt so deliciously decadent as she ran her tongue across the outline of his lips.

‘Taris?’

His eyes sharpened as her fingers traced the scar across his left eye, the trail beginning in his hairline and finishing on the rise of his cheekbone.

Had any lover ever touched him in the way she was doing now? By the way he stayed so very still she thought not.

‘Did it hurt?’

The amber of his irises was brittle gold. ‘At first it did, though the ocean saved me, I suspect, for the salt leached away the pain. By the time we reached land again I could barely feel it.’

‘How long were you in the water?’

‘So many hours that we lost count. With the blood loss from this it was Ashe who dragged me with him finally, though the currents did their part in the rescue and deposited us on land on our second evening afloat.’

‘I have never heard any of this even whispered!’ she said.

‘Because of Emerald. It was her father who had caused the problem in the first place.’

‘Her father?’

‘Beau Sandford.’

‘The pirate? I am beginning to think that your family has as many secrets as I do.’

‘Which is why I tell them to you in the first place. Were you a woman without any past, I could not say a word.’

‘I would always take care of any confidences, no matter what.’

He smiled. ‘I know.’

Lord, Taris thought as he dressed that evening for the Davis country ball. He should tell Bea of his feelings for her, but something stopped him.

His blindness, if the truth were to be told and a dependence that he found repugnant, for the dream had been coming more frequently lately. The dream of the darkness without even a hint of light, lost in eternal black. The weariness and worry of it left him on edge but the child they had conceived together was also growing and the words that Beatrice had given him in the light of day as they made love demanded a response. From him.

Could he tell her everything?

Tell her of his fear and abhorrence of dependence and of pity. Tell her that his relationships with others were harder to maintain now with the sludge thicker, and negotiating a room full of people almost impossible without help.

Her help. He liked the feel of her arm against his, guiding him, lightly. He liked the way she stayed with him and talked, her easy conversation allowing him time to adjust and to avoid the pitfalls that he so often encountered.

He seldom took risks and yet today he had known that the door was unlocked. Anyone might have walked in. His fists tightened at his side as he realised what was happening to him.

Bea was making him live again. Live again even with the fear of tripping up, of being exposed, of having others seeing him in a compromised position.

He swallowed and swallowed again. If he lost her…No, he shook his head. He would not lose her, ever, and tonight when they were home from the party he swore that he would make her understand exactly what she meant to him and why.

Taris led Beatrice into the Davis soiree, his hand across her own.

‘I seldom attended these sort of outings until recently,’ he said to her as they came into the ballroom.

She smiled. ‘What has changed your mind, my lord?’

‘ You by my side.’ His eyes softened as he said it.

‘A lovely compliment,’ she returned.

‘Oh, I have many more, Beatrice-Maude. Later tonight, if you would let me, I could share them with you.’

‘Later tonight?’ she queried with a laugh. ‘Is that a promise?’

‘Indeed.’ The humour in his voice was easily heard. ‘And may I say that you look very beautiful this evening.’

‘You can see me?’

‘Imagination has its advantages.’

‘Such as?’

‘In my mind you are wearing the gown drenched in perfume that I found you in after returning from London.’

‘Rather revealing at a country ball?’

‘And your hair is down, floating in curls around your shoulders like the sirens on the rocks at Li Galli.’

‘If you heard me sing you might choose another analogy, my lord.’

‘Boudicca, then, of the Iceni, leading the Ancient Britons against the Romans?’

‘With poor Nero and his legions such an easy target!’

When they had both stopped laughing, she brought her fingers along the edge of his cheek.

‘Taris?’

He was very still and in the amber of his eyes she determined a vulnerability that she had never seen there before.

‘Yes?’

‘Thank you.’

‘For what?’

‘For making me believe that I am nearly beautiful.’

‘Ahh, Beatrice,’ he returned and held her closer, ’to me you are very much more than that.’

An hour or so later Taris sensed that something was not right. He felt it in the air around him, and in the tension inside him.

Leaving Bea with Emerald and Ashe, he went with Bates on the pretence of retrieving his glasses from his cape.

Normally he would have simply sent his servant, but tonight the prickling sense of unease that he so often had had in his years as an intelligence officer under Wellington was strong, and he needed the silence to listen. As he sifted his way through the crowds, the intuition that had saved him on the Continent was heightened here and intense.

As they gained the entrance hall he heard a muffled thump followed by a distinct groan. Bates drew away, his footsteps easily heard on the marbled flooring, and then another noise followed the first.

‘Bates?’ When his servant did not answer, Taris released the diamond points of his ring before unshackling the handle of his cane.

‘Bates?’ He tried again, feeling a shadow on his skin and a bristling sense of danger. Reaching out, he tried to fend off whatever was coming at him and the glancing angle of a hard wooden object skimmed the flesh on his forearm in a heavy well-aimed blow; a baton if he should make a guess, but his initial twist had been enough to escape the worst of the jolt. The scent of bergamot was strong.