Lisette (11 page)

Elisha was higher up in the bed. His hips
were close to her. His eyes were traveling slowly from her legs to
her ass, and up her back.

Finished with his wine, Elisha set it aside
and reached for her glass; crunching those muscles on his abdomen
when he took it and put it with his. She came up in the bed. He
scooted down, and while she kissed him, Lisette reached down and
moved that toweling—finding his sex stone hard and hot to
touch.

Lifting her head a bit to have a look, his
hold on her nape prevented her from it. She wanted to—after feeling
it inside of her. However, he had such an expression on his face,
that she was captivated by it instead. She did notice that he moved
her hand so it rested on his stomach instead.

“I am glad you climaxed—many times.”

She laughed quietly at the way he put it. “Me
too.”

He asked roughly, “This other time…”

She looked straight in his eyes. “I was at
the salon. I had too much wine and had been observing lovers most
of the evening. I had just the year before discovered...my
um…ah...”

He filled in, “That your body held
pleasures?”

“Yes. There was a young man there, not older
than myself. The kissing was nice, but I was dismayed at how it
progressed from that to him sticking himself in me. No lingering
looks, no touching there. Thankfully, it was brief, and only mildly
painful. As soon as it was over, I told him what I thought of his
idea of lovemaking. He was game for another go, did not get the
message apparently. I told him—to go bugger himself.” She
winced.

Elisha grunted, obviously amused. Then he
uttered very softly, “I’m a virgin.”

She did not jest or laugh—or do anything,
while that went through her mind. It surprised her. Yet, when she
could speak, Lisette whispered, “Not anymore.”

He did not jest either. He skimmed his
splayed hand down her back, and then up again. “I am twenty and
nine.”

“I’m twenty.” She shrugged.

His fingers found her hair and combed through
it as his gaze was going over her face. “I have the coach ordered
for a certain time. I must leave today.”

“I know.” She wanted to ask him a million
questions. She wanted answers to everything about him.
Nevertheless, she realized it was not going to happen.

“Why?” He cut through her thoughts. “Why now.
Why today?”

She sat back a bit, seeing he had moved that
cloth right back over his groin, and his hand lay casually over it.
On her knees, she met his gaze and since his other hand had landed
palm up, she put her own in it.

His fingers closed over it.

“Because I’m attracted to you. In our
encounters, you stir me to the point it was in my mind. Every sort
of pleasure is enjoyable, but I needed to feel closer to you. So
close you were inside of me.” She shrugged. “I felt—you wanted it
too.”

“I did,” he admitted.

“It felt more than right to me. Even now, I
remember how you felt inside of me. I needed to moan and cry out,
or I’d go mad.” She arched her brow. “I thought too, that you
needed to know that I trusted and wanted you, this much.”

He brought her hand to his lips, kissed it,
and then moved to sit at the side of the bed. Elisha pulled his
trousers up over an arse that was so muscled and tight, she wanted
to touch it again. He was putting on his boots when she sighed and
went to the other side and also dressed.

Lisette used a vanity mirror to coil her hair
back in the net. Eventually they were completely clothed and
regarding each other again.

Her heart and stomach sank at the image he
made—that tall, dark and aloof, Viscount Marston. He was bloody
good at going back into his shell. She did not know what she was
doing, other than trying, and she did not know what he was
thinking.

He murmured, “Thank you.”

“You regret it?”

“No.” He shook his head. “It meant more to me
than you know.”

She moistened her lips. “I don’t know what
you’re thinking when you pull into yourself, Elisha. You said some
things… but you never really say them.”

He looked away a moment before saying
quietly, “It’s better I don’t, Lisette. You define everything
between us, and that’s best for us both right now.” He glanced back
at her and suggested, “We’d best go. I’ll fetch the mount.”

She discerned he wanted to escape, so she let
him go. She went through the cottage, putting screens before the
fire—wishing she and Marston could stay until he told her
everything he felt he could not.

Lisette was soon outside and from the saddle;
he reached down and lifted her to sit across his thighs.

On the ride back, his arms around her, she
knew his mind was already a million miles away.

Elisha stopped within sight of the manor
house and climbed off, handing her the reins when she took the
saddle.

She would not weep, Lisette told herself. She
would not push him. She had discovered her feelings too long after
calling it all a game, and setting boundaries. Now, he wanted them.
She could not go back to the months he pursued her. Yet she almost
wished that man would merge with this one.

She was not so dense as to not see he was
using his aloofness to hide something and protect himself. He felt
something for her, but he was using it the same way. Something had
changed, and instead of being closer, getting what he previously
wanted, he was now building walls.

“Don’t say it.”

She blinked slowly, snapping out of her muse.
“Say what?”

“Anything.” He shook his head. “I have to
go.” He stepped up and reached to touch her face, looking at it as
if memorizing everything. “You took me to heaven, Lisette.”

She felt his touch leave her. Too soon, he
was walking away, toward the manor. She refused to linger until he
was out of sight. Lisette rode homeward feeling heavy and
emotionally anxious. The scenery was nothing, because all the
images of that time with him in that tiny bedchamber were in her
mind.

Chapter Five

London…

February in London was dreary gray and cold.
A layer of suet blanketed each night’s pristine snowfall. When it
was not snowing, there was chilly rain and icy slush. Winter seemed
determined to remind everyone it was there.

Marston walked the streets by day, observing
everything and everyone as an unfocused blur. He roamed the house
at night too. The wind and cold kept at bay by fires that were not
bright enough to banish ghosts. The voices came with the memories,
mostly in winter. He would drink deep of whiskey—until the whiskey
was not enough.

Hands to his head, he tried to shut them out.
He sat on the staircase, in the dark, and screamed at them to go
the hell away. The only thing that worked—was crawling back into
the memories of his hours with Lisette. When he could sleep, he
dreamed of her. When he breathed, he smelled her perfumed skin.
When he swallowed, it was the taste of her kisses. He would wake
himself whispering her name.

He told Smith one night, after he had
returned from his rambles, “I desired everything she was and is. I
just wanted to feel the life in her. It has a taste, a scent, her
passion. And when she touches me, I want it to kill me with
pleasure.”

“You became lovers?”

Sitting in one of the winged chairs by the
fire in shirtsleeves, Marston admitted, “After a fashion.”

There was a soft grunt of amusement, and
Smith murmured, “That is a step away from wife.”

“Wife. Wife?” Elisha got to his feet. “How
can I bring her to this…?” He spread his arms wide, his face
ravaged with emotion. “How can I drag someone like that, into this
tomb—into the misery that is my life?”

Smith stood and put a hand on Elisha’s
shoulders, his warm brown eyes capturing those silver ones. “That
darkness and misery is not you, Elisha. You walked out of it. You
by-God crawled out of hell to get where you are. This…” He looked
around. “This is just a building. The ghosts in your head are not
real, not alive. You are alive, Elisha.”

He put his palm on Marston’s heart. “This is
yours. This is you alive, and in love with an incredible woman. You
deserve this feeling. You deserve love.”

Elisha’s eyes were pools of pain. He rasped,
clutching Smith’s shirt, “She hasn’t said she loves me. But if she
did, what then? She will know everything and loathe me
instead.”

“No. Elisha.”

“To bring a woman like her, someone with joy
and life and passion into my existence, is wrong!” He released
Smith’s shirt. “Don’t you think I want to be selfish? Don’t you
think I fool myself that I can just have my life with her and
nothing else?” He sat back down in the chair and closed his
eyes.”

“You’re only a fool if let that evil
sonofabitch rob you of anything else.” Smith’s voice throbbed, “I’m
not going to let you do this, Elisha. I didn’t stay with you, to
watch you bury yourself.”

“I can’t have her.”

On his way out of the room Smith growled,
“You can have whatever you fight for, damn you! He is dead. He’s
not here to rob you of life anymore.”

A glass that had been sitting at Elisha’s hip
was flung and crashed into the side of the mantle.

It was one of Marston’s darkest hours.

* * * *

The wedding of Demetrious Willingham 4th
Viscount of Fielding and Haven Mulhern Fitzpatrick was a quiet but
joyous affair. Following a family celebration, they headed north,
to the Rose Hill estate with plans to return in April for a grander
gathering hosted by the Duke and Duchess of Wimberly.

Lisette spent those days and weeks after
Marston left writing in a journal and enjoying her sisters when
they were not at their studies.

She also visited Juliette, and in time opened
up about her affair with the Viscount. Not a complete surprise,
since Juliette had arranged the use of the cottage for them. There
was not much known of the Marston’s private life, not even to
Monty, so everything she tried, in answer her questions, were still
suppositions. Juliette was a great friend to her, supportive, and
she tried to keep her spirits up and offer distractions—but Lisette
was preoccupied with Marston—her memories of him, their lovemaking
haunted her through the colder nights. At times, she would wake up
in the dark and lay with her heart racing and eyes wide open.
Lisette could hear him call to her, in a voice so tormented, she
could only weep and beg him to tell her what was wrong.

It was difficult to play two parts, her usual
high-spirited self and the woman who slept with Marston, and was so
connected to him—so nearly obsessed with him, she feared. The past
and present memories, the unanswered questions dominated her
thoughts.

April could not come fast enough.

When it came, and near the time for the
party, she was in the billiard room absently rolling the balls
across the table when the duchess found her.

“Shall I invite the Viscount?” Her grace
wanted to know.

“Yes. And his friend, Mr. Smith.” Lisette
looked up.

“Very well.” Her mother walked over and
slipped an arm around her waist. “Set your course, Lisette and
follow it through. That is the only way for you to find
answers.”

“I know, mama.” Lisette kissed her brow.

The duchess left her, saying, “It will be
good to have all of my children here, though James is at sea and
shan’t be able to come. Still, I look forward to all of your
romping about.”

Lisette looked around the room, once more
alone. “Please come, Elisha. We both need to remember the joy we
found in each other’s arms.” She left, to write a note and send it
along with her mother’s official invite.

* * * *

Gray Heath…

“This came today,” Smith strode into Elisha’s
study.

Elisha, dressed casually in his shirtsleeves,
arose, and walked around the desk, taking the sealed missive over
by the French doors.

A spring sun bathed everything magnificently.
The scent of dark winter was banished, thankfully.

He held the missive for a long time without
opening it, aware that Smith half sat on a chair arm, lighting a
cheroot and watching him.

Marston broke the seal and caught the other
note in his hand while his eyes scanned the official invitation. He
refolded it and went to the desk, setting it there before going
back, opening the doors, and walking out into the budding
gardens.

He held the note to his nose and breathed in,
feeling, smelling, and remembering the bouquet of Lisette’s
perfume. It rivaled the buds and blooms around him. He found a
bench and sat, slightly leaned over, elbows on his thighs.

Dearest playmate.

He smiled his first smile in weeks.

“I hope you are not too busy to attend the
gathering my parents are hosting for Deme and Haven? I am looking
forward to seeing your friend, Mr. Smith also (if he can tolerate
the unconventional Wimberly’s.) I have thought of you daily over
the dreary winter months and hope you will allow me to make up for
your first visit this time. Do come, Elisha.

Yours. Lisette.

“Yours,” Elisha murmured. He held the note
and looked around, then closed his eyes. Yours. Lifting his lashes,
he got to his feet and when entering the study, told Smith that he
was included in the invite.

Smith said, “Accept for me, also.”

“I haven’t decided to go.” Elisha laid the
note on his desk.

“You will.”

Marston left without answering and entered
the hall and the grand lower floors of the manor, turning left to
the stairs. On the landing, he saw the nurse seated outside his
mother’s door. He started to continue to his sister’s chambers, but
walked towards the woman.

“How is she?”

“The same.”

Elisha always asked, and always, got the same
answer.

He opened the door to his mother’s rooms, his
gaze going to the wheeled chair by the window that she always sat
in. His boots hardly made a sound on the carpeted floor, but he
knew she was aware of his presence. Going round, into her line of
vision, he looked over her expressionless face and eyes, the hands
lax on the blanket over her knees. She had a shawl on her
shoulders. A cap covered her silver hair.