The Heir

“I am lonely now, Westhaven.” She rose and turned. “I am desperately lonely, for you.” She pressed her lips to his, the first they’d kissed in weeks, and though his arms came around her briefly, he was the first one to step back.

“Anna, we will regret it.”

“I will regret it if we don’t,” she replied, her expression unreadable. “I understand, Westhaven, I must leave tomorrow, and in a way it will be a relief, but…”

“But?” He kept his expression neutral, but his breathing was accelerated from just that brief meeting of lips. And what did she mean, leaving him would be a relief?

“But we have this night to bring each other pleasure one last time,” she said miserably. “What difference can it make how we spend it?”

He had been asking himself that same question for days and giving himself answers having to do with honor and respect and even love, but those answers wouldn’t address the pure pain he saw in Anna’s eyes.

“I do not want to take advantage of you,” he said. “Not again, Anna.”

“Then let me take advantage of you,” Anna pleaded softly. “Please, Westhaven. I won’t ask again.”

She desired him, Westhaven told himself. That much had always been real between them, and she was asking him to indulge his most sincere wish. That it was his most sincere wish didn’t mean he should deny her, didn’t mean he should assume, with ducal arrogance, he knew better than she what she needed.

“Come.” He tugged her by the hand to stand by the bed and slowly undressed her, taking particular care she not have to move her right shoulder and arm. When she was on the bed, resting on her back, he got out of his own clothes and locked the door before joining her.

“We will be careful, Anna.” He crouched over her naked, his erection grazing her belly. “You are injured, and I cannot go about this oblivious to that fact.”

“We will be careful,” she agreed. Her left hand cradled his jaw and then slid around to his nape to draw him down to her. “We will be very careful.”

He remained above her, his weight on his forearms, even as he joined his mouth to hers and then his body to hers.

“Westhaven.” Anna undulated up against him. “Please, not slow, not this time.”

“Not slow, but careful.”

“Not that either, for God’s sake.”

He laced his fingers through hers where they rested on her pillow and raised himself up just enough to hold her gaze.

“Careful,” he reiterated. “Deliberate.” He slowly hilted himself in her and withdrew. “Measured.” Another thrust. “Steady.” Another. “But hot,” he whispered, “Hard… deep…”

“Oh, God, Gayle…” Her body spasmed around his cock, clutching at him just as hot, hard, and deep as he’d promised her. She buried her face against his shoulder to mute her keening groans of pleasure, and still he drove her on, one careful thrust at a time.

“I am undone,” she pronounced, brushing his hair back from his brow. “I am utterly, absolutely undone.”

“I am not.” The earl smiled down at her, a conqueror’s possessive smile. “But how is your shoulder?”

“You can even think to ask? My shoulder is fine, I believe, but as I am floating a small distance above this bed, I will have to let you know when I am reunited with it.”

“You are pleased?” he asked, lacing his fingers with hers. “This is what you wanted?”

“This is what I needed,” she said softly as he began to move in her again carefully. “This is what I sorely, sorely needed.”

“Anna… When you leave tomorrow…?”

“Yes?” She closed her eyes, making it harder to read her. He laid his cheek against hers and closed his fingers around hers, needing as much contact as he could have.

“When you leave tomorrow and I am not there, this will be part of it,” he said, turning his face to kiss her cheek then resting his cheek against hers again.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I will be thinking of you,” he said, “and you will be thinking of me and of this pleasure we shared. It’s…good is the only word I can find. Joyous, lovely, beautiful, somehow, even if it can’t be more than it is. I wanted you to know how I feel.”

“Oh, you.” Anna curled up to his chest tears flowing. “Gayle Tristan Montmorency Windham. Shame on you; you have made me cry with your poetry.”

He kissed her tears away this time and made her forget her sorrows—almost—with his loving, until she was crying out her pleasure again and again. He let himself join her the last time, his own climax exploding through him, leaving him floating that same small distance above the bed, until sleep began to steal his awareness.

He tended to their ablutions then stood gazing down at Anna where she dozed naked on her left side. It was time to go, he knew, but still, dawn was hours away.

“Don’t go.” Anna opened her eyes and met his gaze. “We will be parted for a long time, Westhaven. Let us remain joined just a little while longer.”

He nodded and climbed into bed, spooning himself around her back and tucking an arm around her waist. This night’s work was pure, selfish folly, but he’d treasure the memory, and he hoped she would, as well.

He made love to her one more time—sweetly, slowly, just before dawn, and then he was gone.

Anna slept late the next morning and considered it a mercy, as the earl had told her he was off to Willow Bend for the day. Val and Dev had ridden out, and so she had breakfast to herself. Her shoulder was itchy, and it took her longer to pack than she’d thought it would, but before long, she was being summoned for luncheon on the back patio.

“You look healthy,” Dev said. “If I did not know you were sporting the remains of a bullet wound, I would think you in the pink.”

“Thank you.” Anna smiled. “I slept well last night.” For the first time in weeks, she truly had.

“Well”—Val sat down and reached for the iced lemonade pitcher—“I did not sleep well. We need another thunderstorm.”

“I wonder.” Anna’s eyes met Val’s. “Does Morgan still dread the thunderstorms?”

“She does,” he replied, sitting back. “She figured out that the day your parents died, when she was trapped in the buggy accident, it stormed the entire afternoon. Her associations are still quite troubling, but her ears don’t physically hurt.” Dev and Anna exchanged a look of surprise, but Val was tucking into his steak.

Dev turned his attention back to his plate. “Anna, are you ready to remove to the ducal mansion?”

“As ready as I’ll be,” Anna replied, her steak suddenly losing its appeal.

“Would you like me to cut that for you?” Dev asked, nodding at the meat on her plate. “I’ve pulled a shoulder now and then or landed funny from a frisky horse, and I know the oddest things can be uncomfortable.”

“I just haven’t entirely regained my appetite,” Anna lied, eyeing the steak dubiously. “And I find I am tired, so perhaps you gentleman will excuse me while I catch a nap before we go?”

She was gone before they were on their feet, leaving Dev and Val both frowning.

“We offered to assist him in any way,” Dev said, picking up his glass. “I think this goes beyond even fraternal devotion.”

“He’s doing what he thinks is right,” Val responded. “I have had quite enough of my front-row seat, Dev. Tragedy has never been my cup of tea.”

“Nor farce mine.”

She didn’t see him for a week.

The time was spent dozing, trying on the new dresses that had arrived from the dressmaker’s, getting to know the duke’s daughters, and being reunited with her grandmother. That worthy dame was in much better form than Anna would have guessed, much to her relief.

“It took a good year,” Grandmama reported, “but the effects of my apoplexy greatly diminished after that. Still, it did not serve to let Helmsley know I was so much better. He wasn’t one to let me off the estate, but I was able to correspond, as you know.”

“Thank God for loyal innkeepers.”