An Introduction to Pleasure (29 page)

Lysandra stared at him for a fraction too long, but then she dipped her chin and took Weatherfield’s arm, disappearing out onto the terrace with another man. And all but disappearing to a new life where Andrew would no longer be able to call her his own.

Lysandra could hardly keep her breath as the terrace door closed behind her and left her alone with Lord Weatherfield. Not only was she with a man who would possibly be her next protector, but Andrew had sent her here, practically wrapped her as a gift for Miles.

A fact that made her want to cry, even though she didn’t do so.

“Ah yes,” Miles said as he guided her to the edge of the terrace and leaned against the wall there. “Our moon.”

Lysandra glanced up and a bit of her tension faded. It was a beautiful night. The moon was full and big in the sky, casting a glow down on them that was, by all accountings one could make, very romantic.

“Do you want to talk about the real reason I am here?” Miles asked her softly.

Lysandra stared at him for a brief moment, then swallowed hard. “Is that what happens next?”

He nodded. “I think for us, it should. Clearly you know that Callis has asked me here because you will soon be in the market for a new protector. And perhaps I am the man for that most pleasurable job.”

Lysandra shifted. Miles was very different from Andrew. Andrew was reserved, almost swept away by desire he did not want. But this man…he was something different. There was an attitude about him of pure confidence. And he didn’t seem the kind who would apologize for what he wanted or felt.

“I must let you know,” she said on the barest of squeaks, “although I have been…er…
trained
on the subjects of desire, I have little experience. I wouldn’t want you to be disappointed once you made a bargain with me or feel that I, or Andrew, tried to trick you into taking something you did not expect.”

Miles’s eyes grew wide and he edged closer to her. “You are a very unique woman, Lysandra.”

She looked at him, framed by moonlight. He was so different from Andrew. Almost his polar opposite in looks, where Andrew was blond and with bright eyes and Miles dark as a more moonless night.

But she couldn’t deny Miles was wickedly handsome. And she was, to her shock, attracted to him.

“Is unique a bad thing?” she whispered.

He smiled. “Oh no. Not at all.”

He moved closer again and tilted his head as he lowered his lips to hers. Lysandra sucked in her breath as he brushed his lips over hers and then gently probed her lips with his tongue. He tasted of mint and a faint hint of whiskey. A pleasant, masculine combination. But she hadn’t expected to be kissing another man on Andrew’s terrace, of all places.

She had to admit, though, the experience was not unpleasant, and soon her body took the control her mind could not. She slowly glided her hands to Miles’s forearms and held there, as close to an embrace as she could manage in this moment. She tilted her head and granted him greater access to her mouth while she parted her lips and darted her tongue to meet his in an erotic, slow dance.

He made a sound of desire deep in his throat and to her surprise, her body reacted even further. She felt her nipples tighten against the silk of her gown. Her sex grew wet, and a dull, familiar ache began between her legs.

She didn’t know if Miles sensed that shift in her desire or if he merely wished to test her willingness to express it, but he moved his hand, which had been resting against her hip, slowly upward until he cupped one breast.

She arched her back at the intimate touch, even as her mind raced with thoughts of Andrew. Andrew doing the same thing, Andrew making love to her sweetly, violently, pleasuring her.

She moaned against Miles’s lips and he strummed a thumb against her nipple as she swayed closer to him. When they parted, she looked up at him.

There was no doubt a man like this would give her security and pleasure. Clearly, her body would and did react to his touch. But when she stared at him, she felt none of the complex feelings that Andrew inspired. There wasn’t even a twinge of feeling that stirred her soul. She liked him, insofar as she knew him, but that was all.

And perhaps that was what she needed. To forget Andrew. To nurse her broken heart back to something that would never again be so foolish as to love a man who was incapable of returning that feeling.

“What do you think?” Miles asked.

She blinked, clearing her head of the wayward thoughts that troubled her. “Think?”

“You are staring at me with a most appraising gleam in your eyes, I can only guess you are rating my kiss, my touch, and I am more than curious about what your conclusions are. Am I the kind of man you could take as a lover?”

Lysandra swallowed. This frank talk was not something she was yet accustomed to, but this was the life she had chosen and she had to adapt.

“I think it’s clear that we could be…good together in very important ways.” She blushed, and he chuckled.

“Oh yes, that is
more
than obvious to me.” He became more serious. “I know your mother is a part of your life as a mistress. Andrew tells me she has been put up in a home and I will pay for her upkeep, as well as generously provide for your own. If you are interested in leaving your current position, that is.”

Lysandra hesitated, then shook her head sadly. “I believe that decision is entirely out of my hands. And I need a protector, so if you are willing to become that to me, I think we would be a good fit.”

He leaned down and brushed his lips back and forth against hers a second time, sending shocking desire through her already humming body.

“I look forward to testing that fit very soon, Lysandra,” he murmured against her mouth. “But I think for now we should return to the parlor. Andrew and I will have much to settle. I return to London tomorrow. Will you want to travel with me, or wait a few days to…” He trailed off. “Finish your business here?”

Lysandra froze. Tomorrow? So soon? Part of her wanted to cling to this place. To what she had shared here with Andrew. But in truth, wouldn’t that hurt even more?

She sucked in a ragged breath and said, “I think I should return with you, Miles. There is no use dragging out the inevitable.”

He looked at her for a long, charged moment and then nodded. “Very well, then, Lysandra. I will take care of the arrangements. Now let us go inside.”

She took his arm, but as they turned toward the parlor, she couldn’t help but blink at tears that stung her eyes. Tears she refused to shed. She couldn’t afford the pain they would bring.

Andrew stood at the window, staring out onto the terrace from a darkened room down the hall from his parlor. In the moonlight, he could clearly see everything Lysandra and Miles were doing. And he hated it.

They were talking so close and then the moment he had been dreading happened. Miles kissed her.

Andrew leaned closer to the glass, his breath short as he watched their kiss deepen and its passion intensify. He jolted as he realized that this moment of voyeurism wasn’t only inspiring anger, as he expected, but something more. He was growing hard as he watched the woman he had bedded so many times that he’d lost count become aroused by another man.

A thousand questions rolled through his head. Was she wet with desire? When Miles glided his hand up to cup her breast, did her gasp sound like it did when he did the same thing?

Worst of all, was she thinking of
him
as they gently ground together in a precursor to a bedding? He wanted to go out onto the terrace and touch her as Miles kissed her. To physically imprint himself on their relationship so that he would always be a part of it.

But although he and Miles had shared women before, often during very drunken nights half a dozen years before, he didn’t think he could manage that now. Not with Lysandra. Not with someone he cared for so deeply.

They were talking now, their bodies still touching, their heads close together, and the desire Andrew felt faded to nothingness. The passion he could take. That was Lysandra’s body. But this intimacy in the way they spoke was proof that he was going to lose her.

Soon.

They turned toward the door and he scurried to get back into the parlor where they’d left him, but his mind was racing.

What would he do when Lysandra was gone?

Chapter Twenty-Six

Andrew could control a great many things about his emotions. He’d had plenty of practice in doing so since the death of his wife. But as Lysandra and Weatherfield walked into the parlor from the terrace, he was fully aware that his expression was of anything but friendliness. He felt angry and he was sure he looked the same.

Not that Lysandra even noticed. She hardly spared him a glance as she wandered, wide-eyed, away from Weatherfield and took a long, bracing sip of brandy from her abandoned glass.

Weatherfield watched her as closely as Andrew did, and with as much concern on his face.

“My dear,” the Marquis said before Andrew could speak. “You look tired and with good reason. You’ve had a most trying night. Why don’t you go up to bed? It won’t offend us.”

Andrew clenched his fists as his sides. Who was fucking Weatherfield to order
his
mistress up to bed?

Lysandra didn’t have the same reaction. She sent Andrew the briefest of glances and then nodded. “I am tired. Good night to you both.”

She turned on her heel and left the room without a second look at either of them. Andrew stared at her, using all his self-control to keep his jaw from dropping open.

“I have to admit, I’m happy to see you so emotional,” Miles said as the door shut behind her and they were left alone. “Even if that emotion is anger toward me.”

Andrew glared at him as he picked up Lysandra’s abandoned glass and swigged her remaining liquor. He could see the mark where her lips had been and placed his own mouth there as the good-night kiss she had not given him.

“Look at me all you like,” Weatherfield said with a shrug. “But it’s clear you’d very much like to pound my face into oblivion right now. Though I don’t know why.”

“Don’t you?” Andrew snapped as he slammed the glass down on the table hard enough that a crack splintered up the side of the tumbler.

Both men stared at the broken glass, but then Andrew continued.

“You take
my
mistress out on the terrace, accost her as if I’m not standing just in the next room, and then send her off to bed like she’s already yours? How should I react?”

Weatherfield arched an eyebrow slowly. “Is this not why you brought me here? I thought you made that very clear to me today. You told me, point-blank, that you were finished with her and you thought we would make a good fit. Obviously, I must test that notion before I simply accept her as my mistress. We must have attraction. We must have some kind of connection beyond attraction.”

Andrew pursed his lips. Very true. Except that didn’t matter when they were talking about Lysandra.

“You could have been more discreet,” he muttered.

Weatherfield laughed. “A weak argument, indeed. Would you have preferred that I sneak up to her chamber tonight? I could. I heard her tell you to move her out of yours.”

Andrew squeezed his eyes shut to keep from seeing only possessive, red rage. He liked Miles. Or he had a long time ago. And he
had
called him here to do exactly as he was doing. But at this moment, he could not help but think of all the places he could bury the man’s body on his estate.

He rubbed his eyes to clear his thoughts.

“You know me,” Weatherfield said softly. “I would never pursue a woman you were truly interested in. I would never take a woman you cared for. So the question is, do you want her or not?”

Andrew stared at his friend. “Yes.
No
.”

Miles sat down and pulled a cigar from his front pocket. “Very clear, my friend.” He shrugged. “Look, you have buried yourself out here for years. I don’t think you want to bury her, too. You’ve asked me to offer to be her protector, and I have done so. I will take care of her and her family…if you tell me that is what you want. But make up your mind. I leave for London tomorrow and I’ll take her with me.”

Andrew flinched. Tomorrow. Dear God, he hadn’t thought the end would come so soon. That he would be forced to surrender her within hours.

“Now it’s time for me to return to my brother’s estate. It was good seeing you. Let me know by tomorrow after luncheon what your decision is.” His friend pushed to his feet and moved for the door, pausing only for a brief clap on his shoulder. “One way or another, you have to figure out a way to let this woman go.
If
that is truly what you want.”

Andrew grunted something, perhaps goodbye, though he no longer heard his own voice, and Miles slipped from the room. Andrew stared at the fire. Let her go. Yes, that was what he had to do. But she was his for one more night.

And he intended to enjoy that fact.

Lysandra sat at the dressing table in her chamber. Not Andrew’s chamber where she had spent her time here on his estate.
Her
chamber where her maid had led her when she called for her.