He caught his breath again as her fingers wrapped around him. “Did you enjoy the theatre tonight?”
“I did.” She took full advantage of his young body’s resiliency and worked him quickly to a cockstand. “I missed you, though. I had to sit between Mr. Landis and Baron Collison’s eldest son, who bathes as infrequently as his father if I am any judge.”
Alastair caught her hand, interrupting her rhythm before she made him come in his drawers. “The play’s the thing.”
She laughed, kissed him again, and kept her hand still. “Has Breckenridge finished with her?” she asked with perfect indifference. “You have not said why she returned.”
“Didn’t I?” It still astonished him that he could speak at all in this woman’s presence, but at the moment of his crisis he never knew what would spill from his lips. He recalled his father’s caution, but it was difficult to keep it front and center when she was milking him dry. He eased his hand away from hers and did not discourage her when she threw a leg across both of his, rose up, and straddled him. “I thought I did.” He groaned as she pressed on his fly with her palm just before she released him. He sprung erect, a fine soldier in want of inspection. She was thorough, as always. “Olivia returned because of Lady Breckenridge.”
Mrs. Christie’s cool smile edged closer to scorn. “Oh? She is only now learning that he is married? My, but she was an innocent. I had no idea.” She lifted her hips and eased herself slowly onto him. He pulsed inside her. “I suppose she has come to understand he will not marry her. Dashed hopes.” She drew her nightgown over her head and flung it away, then bent forward to kiss him. “What a pity.”
Alastair murmured something incoherent against her mouth. It was only as she was sitting up again that he was able to give distinction to the words. “I don’t know what hopes Olivia harbored, but it is Lady Breckenridge’s return to London that sent her packing.”
“Her return?” Mrs. Christie removed Alastair’s hands from her breasts and set them firmly on her thighs. “Do you mean to say that he’s found her? She’s really alive?”
Alastair dug his heels into the mattress, seeking purchase so he could pump his hips. “Of course she’s alive,” he said between clenched teeth. “Why wouldn’t she be?”
“Because everyone thinks she’s dead. There are still a great many people who believe he murdered her.” She thwarted his movement by seating herself more heavily on his groin and ignored the rush of air that left his lips.
Alastair felt beads of sweat form just below his hairline. He allowed that there were less pleasant tortures than the one he was experiencing now, but God’s truth, he was praying for her to rotate her hips just so. “Everyone seems to be wrong,” he said, appealing to her reason. “If it is rumor, it is certain to be a very old one. I’ve never heard of it.”
“Notthatold. Naturally, you would not know it. You only patronized his hell. You did not rub shoulders with Breckenridge’s intimates.”
The sharpness of her tone warned Alastair that he had offended her. Apparently using the word “old” had been enough to poke at her sensibilities. “I doubt his intimates are the ones wagging their tongues.” He felt her thighs tighten as she pinched him between her knees. Her frustration was likely to take the breath from him, but Alastair was quite certain it would be worth it. He eased his hands out from under hers and cupped her hips. His fingertips pressed the smooth skin of her buttocks.
Alys stared down at him, more amused by his single-mindedness than aroused by it. She made herself tight around his erection and drew a small moan from his parted lips. When he urged her upward, she didn’t resist his effort. She circled her hips. “Is this what you want, my darling boy?”
Alastair bucked under her in response, driving himself deeply into her even before she’d fully settled on him. He surprised a sweet moan from her. “Is this what you want?”
He was not such a boy after all. She rose and fell again, watching his eyes darken at the center and his skin flush. He was a beautiful young man, prideful as well. Already there were signs that she would not always be able to lead him around by his cock, but just now he gave himself over easily enough. She moaned again, this time as she let her head fall back. She drew her hands between her thighs, then higher across her belly until she cupped her breasts. The square cut emerald ring that she wore on her thumb glowed in the candlelight. Twenty-one diamond chips sparkled as she rubbed it over her budding nipple. She closed her eyes, confident that he was watching her, seeing the ring, and feeling all kinds of powerful as he drove himself hard into her.
Alys Christie permitted him to make himself proud.
Olivia frequently had breakfast in her room. Alastair, if he was in residence, did not rise until much later. In the afternoon, he made calls upon his friends or visited the clubs, and because there were deliveries from Bond Street, Olivia knew he also shopped. As she had no interest in the same, she walked daily in the park that was the centerpiece of Jericho Mews. Mrs. Beck was not always available to act as a companion, so there were mornings that she walked alone. Griffin would not have stood for it, but Alastair made no objection.
While her brother was often gone of an evening, he did take tea with her. It was in this manner that she was kept abreast of the activities in town, those that he attended as well as those he only read about in theGazette. He had remarked on several occasions that there was no word of Lady Breckenridge’s presence at any of the affairs that drew the notice of the paper. He’d also heard nothing whispered in any quarter that she’d returned to London, and while he no longer visited Breckenridge’s hell, his friends had observed no change in the operation of the establishment save for the regrettable absence of Miss Ann Shepard, more familiarly known as Honey, at the faro table. This last was communicated to her in reproachful accents.
Olivia did not try to explain what she did not understand, and her resolute silence on the subject of Lady Breckenridge both irritated and impressed her brother, though she’d had no particular wish to do either.
She read in the drawing room where the light was better. Sometimes she applied herself to the tablecloth and accepted Alastair’s critical observation that she took as many stitches out as she put in. She played card games with him when tedium would have otherwise strained their tempers, but resisted showing him all the clever tricks she’d been taught, afraid that he’d use them unwisely and make himself the target of a pistol ball.
Olivia avoided asking about the state of the household accounts. When Mrs. Beck sought her out with some concern, she resisted the urge to settle the matter and turned the housekeeper in Alastair’s direction. It was obvious to her that he’d been managing his affairs in her absence. He might prefer to rely on her to attend to the details he found onerous, but preference was not the same as need. In truth, once again, she required more of him than he required of her.
Olivia pushed this last thought to the back of her mind and laid out a row of seven cards. She dealt from the deck, adding to the piles in a neat and orderly fashion. She did not often play solitaire, but she’d brought out the cards in anticipation of Alastair’s return. The teapot and cups rested on the silver tray to her right, ready for service upon his arrival. She kept her hands busy to refrain from stealing a biscuit. He’d look at the tray, count the sweets, and know she’d pilfered one. His teasing would not be entirely kind.
Her head came up as she heard the front door open. She cocked it to one side at the sound of him stamping his feet to remove the wet from his boots. He had not let the day’s steady drizzle stop him from leaving the house and was likely soaked through. It was easy to imagine him throwing off water droplets like a puppy, sending a cold spray into the far corners of the entrance hall.
Her faint smile faltered when he came through the door. He’d given over his hat, but Mrs. Beck was trailing after him trying to relieve him of his coat. His movements were uncharacteristically brusque and his eyes were grim. She started to rise but what she saw in his face had her sitting again. The cards slipped from her nerveless fingers.
Alastair pressed his coat into Mrs. Beck’s hands and waved her out of the room. Turning, he withdrew a folded copy of theGazettefrom under his frock coat and advanced on Olivia. Complementing his impatient stride and bleak expression, the tone he took with her was severe.
“You will have to read it yourself, Olivia. You will not want to hear it from me.” Using the folded edge of the paper, he pushed aside her cards. He opened theGazetteand placed it before her. “Page three.”
Frowning, Olivia smoothed the paper with her palms. Her fingers, she noted, were trembling ever so slightly. Alastair was already walking away, turning his back to her at the fireplace as she carefully turned the page. Even without further direction from him, it took her only a moment to find.
The family of Elaine Ellen Wright-Jones,neeStoppard, Viscountess Breckenridge announced her passing on 25 March, 1823.
Olivia’s vision blurred. Individual letters floated in the tears that gathered at the rim of her eyes; the words bobbed like flotsam. She could only make out that the account, like the viscountess’s life, was altogether too brief, and it was this brevity that struck at Olivia’s heart.
