All I Want Is You (14 page)

‘Nothing to drink for me,’ he said. He sounded curt. ‘You told me you’d some ideas for saving the estate and
paying off the death duties. You must realise that’s the only reason I’ve come to you, Beatrice. Not for anything else.’

‘I think I can make you change your mind about the
anything else
,’ she said.

I was trapped there. I could do nothing. My satin undergarments were flimsy but still too hot, too confining.
Breathe, Sophie, you idiot. Breathe.

‘My plan is quite simple, Ash.’ Beatrice drew out a cigarette and lit it, taking her time. ‘I’ve always had a hankering to be a duchess.’

He replied almost instantly, ‘A pity, then, that your plan went wrong and Lord Charlwood died.’

‘Oh, I haven’t given up on my desire for the title – not in the slightest.’ There was a purr in Beatrice’s voice. ‘I’ve made fresh plans. My dear Ash, I think it would be an excellent notion if you and I were to get married. What do you think?’

In the deathly silence that followed I imagined I could hear Beatrice licking her red lips. Then the coals on the fire shifted and crackled and he replied calmly at last, ‘I don’t imagine you go round making proposals like that every day, so I suppose I should be flattered. But as it happens, I’m afraid I’ve not the slightest wish to be married – to anyone.’

Beatrice didn’t hesitate. ‘Sit down, Ash, and listen,
please
.’She settled herself on the settee and he sat on it also, keeping his distance. ‘You’re aware, I’m sure,’ she pressed on, ‘that my father is very wealthy. He was devastated when Charlwood died, so I’ve talked the matter over with him, and he’ll give you half a million pounds if you’ll marry me.’

I smothered a gasp at this truly incredible sum, but the Duke merely gave a low, lazy chuckle. ‘Dear Beatrice,’ he said, ‘at times I confess I find you amusing, but neither that nor half a million pounds is a good enough reason to commit myself to lifelong devotion.’

‘I wouldn’t expect it,’ she answered promptly. ‘Your…
devotion
, I mean.’

He’d risen to go, but now he turned round slowly. ‘What, precisely, do you mean?’

I despised myself for it, but I was riveted by what was unfolding before me. From the darkness of that bedroom I saw Beatrice get to her feet, sinuous as a cat, then kneel on the thick rug at his feet, softly stroking his thigh. ‘Ash. Darling Ash. We’d be so well suited, you and I. I’d love to be a duchess – you’d love my money. As for devotion and commitment, I wouldn’t expect it, and neither should you. I would bring you far more than that. I would
entertain
you.’

‘I’m in the habit of buying all the entertainment I need,’ he drawled. ‘You surely know that.’

She rose to her feet, her head a little on one side. ‘This is for free, my dear.’

She went to put a record on the gramophone. She started to dance slowly and let her kimono slide from her shoulders to the ground, revealing her pale blue undergarments.

He laughed softly. ‘Oh, Beatrice, Beatrice. Not very original, I’m afraid.’

‘No?’ she breathed. ‘You’ve not seen my little surprise yet.’

She put out all the lamps except one, while he watched
her with a slight frown on his face. Then she opened the door to the bedroom – I was on my feet by then, trembling anew – and she beckoned me into the sitting room. She whispered warningly, ‘
The books. No one would take your word against mine, you little fool
.’

I still didn’t know if she was lying, but I knew she could have put me in prison. Slowly I walked into that room in my lingerie, with some vague hope that he wouldn’t recognise me in my scanty attire, with all the face paint Lady Beatrice had applied. Of course I realised by then that she’d drugged me. My senses were hazy, but I wasn’t sleepy, oh no. I wanted something – I wanted
him
– quite desperately. My breasts were heavy and aching, my lips swollen, and between my legs I burned with torment, so much so that I guessed one touch, one simple touch from his lean fingers would topple me over the edge.

I sidled towards him while she, Lady Beatrice, leaned against the wall with her arms folded, smiling to herself. When I stumbled clumsily on my high heels I saw him start; I saw him make a move towards me, then freeze as his expression turn to raw, bitter anger. And even Beatrice must have registered his exclamation of scathing astonishment.

‘
You
,’ he said.

How did I feel? I think, by then, I was hardly conscious of what my brain was telling me; I was only conscious of my body’s demands – and my body wanted him. My heart shook with wanting him. I felt myself swaying towards him; I think I was looking up at him from under downcast lashes, a classic whore’s
trick. I knew all the time that I was being cheap, I was being stupid; I remember that even in the ravishing intensity of my desire I felt quite sick at heart. Oh, God, I wanted him. But there was, in his beautiful, hooded eyes, an expression of pure scorn.

I swayed so close to him, yet he didn’t move a muscle. He kept his arms rigid at his sides and his gaze was on me, burning into me. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, and doubtless that was just as well. I took his left hand and lifted it up to my mouth. I kissed that ravaged scar tissue, and I felt something like a harsh sigh ripple through him. Then I placed his palm over my breast, where the silky fabric ended and my sensitive flesh was bare.

His touch was glorious. My blood pounded so heavily I thought I might faint. I remember I moved myself beneath him, so he must have felt how my nipple pressed yearningly through the silk against his palm. The sensation shot straight to my lower abdomen; I caught my lip between my teeth and breathed his name as that damned champagne throbbed through my blood.

I lifted my head to meet his blue gaze. ‘I’ve missed you,’ I whispered. ‘I’ve waited for you, for so long. But your hands, your poor hands…’

Tears came to my eyes as I raised his hand to my mouth and kissed it again, feeling the scar ridges beneath my lips. I can guess well enough now what he must have been thinking: that the innocent girl he’d once done his best to help had become a painted blonde in silk underwear and high heels, drugged to do work she found repulsive.

He snatched his hand from mine and I nearly fell. He let out a low exclamation and steadied me; I leaned against him with my cheek pressed to his chest. I clung to him, murmuring endearments.

I heard him say sharply to Beatrice, ‘For God’s sake. What have you given her?’

Beatrice gestured at my almost-empty glass. ‘She’s a little too fond of champagne. There’s nothing unusual about that.’

‘This isn’t just champagne. Her pupils are like pinpricks…’

‘Don’t leave me again, Mr Maldon,’ I whispered to him. ‘
Please
.’I ran my hands up and down his back, over his shirt but beneath his jacket. He felt so warm, so strong, and all my years of loneliness, all my longing for this man flooded tormentingly back. ‘Please don’t leave. Please don’t be cross with me. Books. There were some books, you see…’

Suddenly I was aware that Beatrice had put on another record to drown out what I was saying. It was ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band’, a tune that I have come to detest. She came over to take me away from Ash, holding out her hands to me, and when I didn’t move she pulled me close. Away from him. ‘Dance, you little fool,’ she hissed at me. ‘Dance.’

By then I hardly knew what I was doing. ‘Of course.’ I smiled at her, tripping again on the rug in my high heels. ‘Of course. I’m going to be a dancer on stage in London.’

‘You are,’ she said between gritted teeth. ‘You are.’ Then she whispered, so only I could hear her: ‘
If you
damned well do as I say
.’ I could tell she was furiously angry with me.

She took my hands, and we danced together. Then I stumbled again, and Beatrice steadied me; I found myself in her arms. Suddenly she kissed me, her tongue sliding between my painted lips, and though I hated her, my body was on fire again. Hungrily I pressed my breasts against hers, feeling the silk of her brassiere and the creamy coolness of her flesh against mine.

I heard the beautiful man in the corner whisper, ‘
What the hell
…’

She was still holding me close, kissing me more slowly, more deeply, until I could hardly bear the exquisite torment any longer. I imagined it was him, imagined it was his beautiful mouth coaxing mine, his tongue teasing my lips, my inner flesh.

I reached to stroke Beatrice’s short dark hair and her scent was heavy, smothering me. She started to slide off the narrow shoulder straps of my flimsy brassiere, and once more I heard the hiss of Lord Ashley’s indrawn breath as he caught sight of my painted nipples. Still Beatrice and I danced in one another’s arms, as she lowered her head to draw the tip of my breast into her mouth…

He jammed the arm of the record player. The record stuck, kept playing the same phrase over and over.
Come on and… Come on and…

He said to Beatrice, ‘What the hell is this? Are you turning into some kind of damned brothel-keeper, Beatrice?’

Come on and… Come on and…

Beatrice had whitened, but she smiled defiantly, keeping her hand on my arm. ‘It’s a gift, Ash. A surprise, my dear. I wanted to show you that life with me would never, ever be dull.’

‘So you’re offering me a tart?’

She flinched a little, but her smile never wavered. ‘Wrong, Ash. You don’t know
how
wrong. She’s a virgin, a complete innocent. And I’ve saved her, I’ve prepared her, for you and you only…’

He’d grabbed the champagne glass I’d drunk from and swirled the dregs beneath his nostrils. ‘You’ve given her cantharides,’ he said, ‘or something very similar. My God, I feel as if I’ve walked into the lair of the Borgias here.’

‘But Ash, darling Ash—’

He looked round, snatched up Beatrice’s silk kimono from the floor where she’d let it fall and wrapped it round my shoulders. I stumbled against him. Felt his arms around me.
Oh God, this was where I belonged.
But it had all gone so wrong. I was shaking badly.

Still holding me, he said to Beatrice, ‘I’m taking her to my room.’

I saw her smirk with satisfaction. ‘Of course. We’ll both come. You’ll not regret it.’

He answered flatly, ‘My primary purpose is to get this girl away from you, Beatrice. And to find out – from her, not you – what the hell is going on.’

She tried to speak again, but he guided me out and shut the door in her face. He led me along the corridor to the suite that he occupied; he was practically carrying me, I think. Thank God we saw no one. I was still trembling. I was devastated that he despised me so.

He got me into his suite where, as in Beatrice’s, there was a sitting room with his bedroom leading off it. He made me sit in a chair by the embers of a fire onto which he piled more coals, perhaps because he’d noticed I was shivering, though it wasn’t on account of the cold. He locked the door, then walked back to me.

I can see him now, tall and lean and wide-shouldered, wearing black slim-fitting trousers that clung to his thighs; and beneath his black jacket his white shirt emphasised the power of his chest. With his rumpled dark brown hair he looked so beautiful, so dangerous; like one of my knights, I thought again, or like some exotic creature – a tawny lion or a panther, lithe and deadly…

His blue eyes blazed with danger. He said, ‘Now tell me. Tell me when you and Beatrice started planning your cheap little scheme.’

The effects of the champagne and the ‘cantharides’, whatever it was, were wearing off and I felt heavy and tired. ‘I had to do it,’ I whispered at last. I clasped my hands in my lap and looked down at them in despair. ‘I didn’t know. I didn’t realise, when she talked of Lord Ashley, that… it was
you
.’

His eyes narrowed, then he poured me a glass of water. ‘Here. Drink this. So you’ve become a little tart, set up by the ever-enterprising Beatrice to somehow trap me. Is that it?’

I gazed at him, quite agonised. Suddenly I thought,
He might be beautiful. But perhaps he is just as hateful as everyone has said.
I moistened my dry lips, wishing my brain would work properly again, guessing that if I explained about my dream of being a dancer and how Beatrice had promised she would help me; if I explained how she’d threatened me with prison over the old Duke’s books, he would just think I was lying.

I lifted my head, looking steadily into those beautiful, sad blue eyes I’d remembered always in my dreams and I said, ‘I’ll go now if you want.’

He just stood there a moment, gazing at me. Then he reached out and slowly drew me into his arms.
Deliberately he slid the silk kimono from my shoulders.

My body jumped; my pulse rate accelerated again.
Oh, my.
I realised his hand was resting at the base of my spine, half on my skin and half on the silk of my knickers. His palm glided up my ribs and I gasped as sensation spiralled through my body; it took a conscious effort to hold myself still and to meet his dark eyes.

Get out now, you little fool, Sophie. Get out while you can.

But I didn’t. I didn’t listen to that lonely voice of sense – and, anyway, where could I go, dressed –
undressed –
as I was? Back to Lady Beatrice’s room?

‘Show me your tricks,’ he said almost bleakly. ‘Before I send you back to her. You’re damnably sweet and pretty for a whore.’

‘No,’ I whispered. Beatrice had told him I was a virgin but he hadn’t believed a word – this was all going so horribly wrong. ‘No, you don’t understand…’

Suddenly I realised I could hear faint music in the distance. Was Beatrice playing her gramophone again? Was it a trick of my imagination? Then I saw that he could hear it too, and he said, ‘Come and dance with me.’

I must have backed away in shock. He repeated more harshly, ‘Dance with me. And do something to earn the money Beatrice has promised you.’

He shed his jacket; he pulled me close, so I could feel the muscular heat of his body warming mine. He began softly singing the song we could hear; it was ‘Jazz Baby, Be Mine’ and he had, I realised, an adorable, melting voice. My bones became liquid and ripples of need
started to unfurl deep inside me. I was still mute with misery and shame, but he was already moving with me in time to the music while humming in my ear, his body hard and blissful against my fragile underwear, against my skin.