And with those four words, she sealed her fate.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Alister couldn’t stop himself from touching Lyra any more than he could stop the earth from spinning or the sun from setting in the west. This was something he’d wanted from the first moment he’d ever laid eyes on her.
And when she admitted she wanted him too…he forgot everything else. Any consequences would be dealt with later. Right now, he was going to give her the pleasure that had been long denied.
He returned his lips to hers, while his left hand began to gently massage her breast beneath her gown. He yearned to free her and put his mouth over that quivering flesh, but he still had the sense to know that any time they had together would be brief. One of the servants could come by at any moment.
Until then, he intended to make the most of it.
With his right hand, he brought up the hem of her gown, where he slowly trailed his fingers across her thigh. Lyra moved restlessly when he began to knead her flesh through the thin material of her undergarments. When she moaned, Alister had to clench his jaw. Already his erection was hard and straining to be free, and he hadn’t even touched the core of her yet. When he found the small bud of her pleasure, nestled among all that heat, his own desire nearly brought him to his knees.
She was wet and more than willing as the small cries that came out of the back of her throat would attest, and it took everything in him to fight the urge to throw her over the side of the bed and take what she offered so sweetly. He was on the brink of sanity, but he had to see her. He wanted to watch when she finally reached her release.
His breathing was harsh as he searched her lovely face. She was flushed with need, her eyes closed in rapture. Those tempting lips were full and slightly parted, glistening, as if begging for his next kiss.
It wasn’t until he increased the pace of his rhythm and he knew that she was getting close to her peak that he said, “Open your eyes.”
Slowly, those dark lashes fluttered open, so he rewarded her by inserting a finger into her tight cavern. “Come for me, Lyra.”
It was all the coercion she needed to break apart in his arms. He felt the pulsing shocks of her orgasm, and it filled his entire being. Several minutes passed before the tremors finally stopped and he removed his hand, letting her skirts fall back into place.
He couldn’t help but smile at the dazed expression on her face. If there was anything more that a man liked better than the sexual act itself, it was seeing that look of absolute pleasure on a woman’s face—and knowing he was the cause for it.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said softly.
Her dark eyes were glazed over, her lovely, golden curls in slight disarray. “I…”
But that’s all she got out before aclickbehind her filled the room.
Alister froze as Lyra slowly turned around. They both stared in surprise as a section of the wardrobe had come free to reveal a secret compartment.
He couldn’t help but stare.I’ll be damned.
Lyra had been convinced that nothing could have been more enthralling than what Alister had brought forth from her body, but the moment her hand had accidentally twisted the knob of the wardrobe and it revealed a secret cache, she had to admit it was a pretty exciting discovery.
She felt her jaw go slack as she turned to Alister. “How did you know?”
“I didn’t,” he admitted.
Together they turned back to where a section of the massive oak had fallen forward.
“It’s a hollow door,” Alister noted on further inspection. He ran his hands along the side of the wood and Lyra tried not to recall what those same fingers had been doing to her body just moments ago.
She cleared her throat and reached down to pick up a book that had been revealed. “This is it?” She peered around but found nothing else. Returning her attention to the leather bound novel in her hand, she turned it over and flipped through a few of the pages. “Sketches and Hints on Landscape Gardeningby Humphry Repton?”
Alister didn’t answer. He was staring at the book with an intensity that surpassed even her own.
She shook her head. “This doesn’t make sense. Mr. Repton did some work for us at Weston Manor, but I know for certain that Roger cared as much for horticulture and botany as I do. Besides—” She shrugged. “Repton’s Red Books are much more intriguing, but then, he was the self-professed successor to Capability Brown, who was, arguably, the greatest landscape gardener of our time.”
“I doubt Roger’s interest in this book had anything to do with plants and flower design,” Alister murmured. “In fact, I would wager a guess that this particular volume was hidden for more nefarious purposes.” He took out the cipher from his coat pocket and held out a hand. “May I?”
Lyra gave him the book. He went over to the bed and sat down. Opening the book, he placed it on his lap, along with the paper, and studied them intently for several minutes.
Lyra paced the floor anxiously, and just when she thought she couldn’t take any more anticipation, she heard him breathe, “It’s a code.”
“What?” She sat beside him and looked over his shoulder. She couldn’t see anything but the same set of incoherent numbers as before, along with a few notations scribbled on the sidelines of the book in red ink.
