Addicted (2 page)

“I wanted to tell you last night, before your…celebration,” Vallery said awkwardly as he glanced at the elaborate spread, “how thankful I am for you allowing me into that stock sale. I made a bundle, and I wouldn’t even have been allowed in the Exchange if you would not have placed my bid for me.”

Lindsay slapped his long-suffering valet on the shoulder. “We both made a packet, my friend. Besides, knowledge is to be shared amongst men—amongst all classes. You frown now, Vallery, but mark my words, you’ll see in another twenty-odd years how the middling classes will supersede the aristocracy. Like the dinosaurs on display at the British Museum, the aristocracy will one day weaken and become extinct.”

“If you say so, milord.”

“You doubt me, but I believe what I say.”

“Your thoughts will get you kicked out of parliament once you gain your seat.”

“There are others like me, Vallery. There is a whole class of men who think just as I think.”

“That was university, when you were young and idealistic. Every young man at that age wants to change the world. Everyone thinks they can. Then they get out into the real world, and they then decide that the privilege of their birth is more important to fight for than the miserable lives of those born below them.”

“Idleness and indolence. That is what you always say of my class.”

“I do not mean to insinuate that you are always indolent, milord.”

Lindsay reached for the towel Vallery held out to him and dried his hair. “But you do think my wealth could be better spent than on lavish opium dens.”

“You have been known to be gone for days, milord.”

“Let me worry about that. You worry about what I’ve said. The world is changing, Vallery. Slowly, but surely. I know it can change. I know it
will
change.”

“The haves will continue to have, and the have-nots will continue to go without. It is the way of things. The foundation of our empire.”

“I see the failures of our aristocratic forebears. No longer can our huge estates thrive and survive on the backs of the working man. In time, Vallery, we aristocrats will be working men, too.”

“You already do, milord. Making money is your full-time vocation.”

Lindsay grinned. “I do have a knack for it, I’ll admit. But what I find just as thrilling is teaching others how to double, triple their income.”

“You’ve the heart of a merchant, hoarding your treasures and counting your money, you’ve the mind of a mercenary who
strategizes every move. You will forgive me for saying, my lord, but you are unlike any aristocrat I’ve ever met.”

“And that’s why you jumped at the chance to be my valet once your soldiering days were over.” Vallery, the taciturn man, rolled his eyes. Lindsay threw the wet towel at him. “You may accuse me of many things, but never of withholding knowledge from the everyday man. They, too, deserve a chance. I’m only seeing to it they get it. Why should it only be blue bloods who are given the chance to increase their fortunes? We’re born rich, the untitled man is not. He is the one who needs the chances in life.”

“You’re a good man, my lord. I wonder when you’ll see it? You are not your father, nor are you likely to become like him.”

Lindsay grimaced. “Good God, Vallery, don’t go all sentimental on me now. It gives me hives. I’d rather you call me a stupid ass for my behaviors than talk this melodrama. I’ve told you time and time again, I’m a dabbler. A dilettante, if you please. I am no rookery addict.”

“Of course, milord.”

Lindsay knew the man was lying. Knew his manservant was worried. But there was nothing to be worried about, because he could throw out his pipe whenever he damned well pleased. He did not have a habit.

“I am always available to you, Vallery. Lord knows you’ve put up with enough of my shenanigans since Cambridge. The least I can do is see to it that your retirement will be prosperous.”

“There is no denying your skill at the ’Change. You’ve certainly saved this place from demolition,” Vallery muttered as he looked around the lavish Moorish architecture that surrounded them.

“My father has wallowed in his cups for too many years. He hasn’t seen to the proper running of this place for decades.”

“I hope he knows to whom he is indebted.”

Lindsay laughed as he tied the sash around his middle. “My father is too busy drinking and whoring to notice what has gone on around him. Hell, the walls could crumble about our heads and he’d be too drunk to notice—or care. No, my father worries about his hounds and his drink, my mother and her comforts have been gone from his mind for many years.”

Running two fingers over his chin, Lindsay felt the growth that had erupted since last night. He bent and looked at the shadowed reflection in the mirror. “What do you think? Too much?”

“I think you will frighten off the ladies, milord.”

“Really?” He doubted Anais would be frightened of a little beard. Not her. She was not a silly chit. Perhaps she might even like it. He grinned, running his fingers over the stubble. Perhaps Anais would care to learn the benefits of a little facial hair. With the proper tutor, Anais might very well welcome such lessons. Certainly she would enjoy the scrape of his chin against her soft, fleshy thighs. He knew he certainly would.

“It is not my place to ask, milord—”

“When has that ever stopped you?” Lindsay interrupted as he took a chair and allowed his head to be tipped back in preparation for a shave.

“You do allow me unheard of freedoms, milord.”

“Yes, well, I’m a Renaissance man. I keep telling you that, Vallery.”

“And I keep telling you I don’t know what that means.”

Lindsay saw him reach for the silver blade and swirl it in the water of the blue ceramic basin. “It means I am rather liberal and my way of thinking is new and perhaps a bit nonconformist.”

Vallery grunted and brought the blade to Lindsay’s throat. “What I was going to ask, milord, is if you wanted the blue jacket and the ivory waistcoat this evening.”

Lindsay could almost hear his valet finish his question with “you know, the new ones you’ve been saving for just the right evening.”

“You must have found the box I hid in the waistcoat.”

Vallery flushed. “I did, indeed, milord.”

“What did you think of it?”

“I think you shall have to get the lady some sort of support for her hand. That gem is the largest I think I’ve ever seen.”

Lindsay smiled. “It came all the way from India. Cost me a packet, but what does that matter when I shall have the privilege of seeing it every day on her finger. I think of it as my brand, Vallery. I hope to claim her with that ring.”

“I think any woman would be claimed by such a bauble, mylord.”

Lindsay chuckled. The diamond was very big, but not garish. He hoped it said devotion and undying love, not greed. “Do you think tonight would be a good night to ask her, Vallery? Is that what you are suggesting?”

“It is not my place to suggest, milord.”

He laughed. Bloody hell, his bossy valet was always suggesting. Just last night he
suggested
that he’d had enough of the red smoke. Lindsay had spited him by blowing another cloud.

All finished with the shave, Lindsay stood and strolled over
to the divan where Vallery had prepared his evening clothes. The new blue jacket and ivory brocade were there. Lindsay wondered if his valet had been kind enough to put the brown box containing the emerald and diamond ring in the pocket.

“You’ve the look of the cat that just ate the canary,” Vallery muttered as he cleaned up the shaving things.

“It’s obvious, is it? And how am I to help it?” he asked. “I’m going to ask the most beautiful woman in the world to be my wife.”

“What a relief,” his valet taunted. “Now I won’t have to listen to ye bellyache anymore over the girl. ’Tis unnatural how you’re lovesick for her.”

“No,” Lindsay whispered as the image of Anais came to mind. “It’s the most natural thing in the world to love her as much as I do.”

“Well, you had best get yerself out of this wicked pleasure den and make your way to your mother’s salon. You’re late.”

Lindsay dressed quickly and left the den, which had, at one time, been his mother’s sorely neglected and run-down conservatory. When he’d come into money from his business investments, he’d claimed the crumbling monstrosity for his own and made it into an escape. Designed like the Alhambra in Spain, it was the height of decadence. With its Moorish influence, and the hot spring bath, it was a world within a room. An escape he craved at the end of the day.

He thought of it as his harem. And he’d decorated it as such.

“Ah, here he is at last,” his father, the Marquis of Weatherby said in a voice that was already slurred by drink.

“Good evening, sir.” Lindsay nodded in the direction of his father, then reached for the gloved hand of his mother.

“Mama, you look lovely this evening.”

Her gaze drifted over his, as if taking stock of his appearance. There was nothing left in his eyes for her to catch on to. Nothing but the dutiful and loving son standing before her, kissing her hand. The stains of his mistress were washed away from his body. He was clean. For how long, he didn’t know. It didn’t matter, for tonight he was not thinking about
her,
and when he would next require her services.

He made quick work of the introductions, all the while resisting the urge to search out Anais. It was a game he liked to play, to see how long he could endure it, not seeing her.

His body was now as tense as a bow. His mouth dry from talking. His eyes hungry for a glance of her ripe body and lovely face. As if the dinner guests knew of his need, they parted, revealing Anais standing by the hearth, talking to her younger sister.

She must have felt his burning gaze, because she stopped talking and turned to look at him. Her smile went all the way to his core, hitting like a rush—like that first great inhalation of opium.

If a man’s future was truly preordained—his destiny written while still in the womb—then he was looking upon the woman who was his fate, the woman he knew had been created solely for him.

He had always known that someday Anais would belong to him. She would be more than his friend. He’d always believed it, but never more than this moment as their gazes collided together, and their bodies became aware of each other.

She always took his breath away. They’d been friends forever, since young childhood, but his feelings were no longer chaste
or platonic. No, his feelings and desires were hot. Passionate. Erotic. And the perfumed dreams he had of Anais last night had been the most erotic yet. The things she had let him do to her…

One day, they wouldn’t be just dreams and fantasies.

“Good evening, Lindsay.”

Her soft voice washed over him like a caress, and he felt himself grow aroused. It was so hard to hide his feelings from her. He doubted he could for much longer.

Her gloved hand felt so right in his palm as he raised her fingers to his lips. Her eyes, those beautiful, mesmerizing pools, captured his attention, watching as his lips slowly descended to her fingertips. He lingered there, inhaling her perfume, watching the rise and fall of her breasts in the tight bodice. She moved in, just a hint, and the cloud of her rich perfume rose up to coil around him.

She had scented her breasts with the French perfume he had purchased for her.

Desire gripped him, and lost to everything but need, he closed his eyes and inhaled the heady scent. In his mind, he could see the golden liquid trickle between the cleft of her breasts. He saw the cut crystal bottle stopper in her hand as she trailed it along her cleavage. One day, he vowed, he would lay negligently in their bed, which would be rumpled from their lovemaking, and watch her at her toilette. One day, he would come and stand behind her and take the stopper from her hand and trace her breasts with it. One day, she would look into the mirror and see him standing there, desire in his eyes.

“Lindsay?”

Slowly, his eyelids opened and there she was. Her head was bent, her lips ripe for his mouth to plunder. It would be no trial—and highly arousing—to pull the little puffy sleeves of her gown down her arms and expose her. He knew she would be wearing a corset, but in his dreams, she would be naked beneath, bared to his eyes and hands.

His gaze swept over her face, which was so lovely to him, then down her throat, which he longed to brush his lips over, down to the pulse that fluttered like butterfly wings. Every inch of her was as luscious as a sweet from the candy shop. And God above, he was beyond wanting a taste of her.

“Good evening, my angel,” he said over her hand. “You look ravishing, as always.”

“You have been practicing your flattery, my lord,” she said with a little laugh that was too high. Nervous? Aroused? Her laugh seemed unnatural. “The ladies in London must swoon at your skill, sir.”

“I do not know. I do not share any compliments with ladies other than you, Anais.”

Her eyes told him she was dubious about his sincerity. “Truth,” he whispered in her ear.

She bristled at the sudden contact of their bodies. He was forgetting himself, forgetting where he was. Forgetting that in Anais’s mind they were friends, not lovers.

Yet, in his mind they’d been lovers for years. Carnally, he was very well acquainted with every inch of her enticing body. What man wouldn’t dream of a woman like Anais? Plump and womanly, she would feel so damn good beneath him with her hair, that was golden blond and long, draped over his chest. Her breasts, large
and firm, would cushion him, would beckon him to taste and play—would amuse him for hours. Her décolletage, which was always so elegantly but tastefully displayed in her gowns, never ceased to capture his notice, nor his imagination. Hell, there wasn’t a part of her body that didn’t entice him. He wanted to span her hips with his hands and crush her to his pelvis, grinding into her. He wanted to feel her soft belly cushion his cock, he wanted to fill his hands with her firm bottom, and knead as he plunged his tongue between her soft lips. He wanted to strip her down and study the body that held him captive for so many years.