CHAPTER ELEVEN
There was a long silence as Reed and Anna stared at the gardener.
“Ghosts?” Reed repeated.
“Aye, sir. It’s ghosts right enough.”
Anna cast a glance toward Reed, then said, “Why do you think that?”
“Well, miss, it’s like this,” Grimsley began confidentially, coming a step closer to them. “I been workin’ out here fifty years or so. I spend all me time outdoors, workin’ here, walkin’ places, goin’ to visit me sister what lives in the Fell. And in all that time, I never seen any beast other than a fox or dog or such. But, now, ghosts—ghosts I’ve seen.”
Anna caught the scent of gin coming from the man, now that he was nearer to her, but she asked gamely, “You have? Where?”
“Why, right up there, miss,” Grimsley replied, looking surprised, and gestured toward the house. “I seen ’em at night. Lots of times. It’s the late lord and lady. Not your uncle, miss, but his father and mother, what died right here in the summerhouse.” He gestured off toward the left to where the summerhouse had once stood, Anna presumed.
“Why do you think it is they?” Reed asked.
“Well, they’d be the ones walkin’, now, wouldn’t they?” Grimsley answered unarguably. “Happens, dying sudden like that. ’Orrible death, burnin’. ’Sides, the lights always come along the gallery, you know, where he liked to walk.” Grimsley pointed toward the long row of windows on the right side of the house, where the gallery lay, then lifted his finger higher and over to the left, pointing to a set of four smaller windows, all covered with wrought-iron bars. “And they’re in the master’s old bedroom, too. It’s the old lord walkin’, like he used to late at night. I seen him oftentimes.”
“You saw lights?” Reed pressed, frowning. “When was this?”
“Oh, before you come back, my lord. Not all the time, of course. They don’t always walk. Stopped once you come back. I guess the old lord’s shy, like.”
“And how long has this been going on?” Reed continued.
Grimsley contemplated this question, his head to one side, and finally said, “’Bout a year now. More or less.” He smiled a little apologetically. “I’m not so good with the time anymore, you understand.”
“Yes. Of course. Well, thank you, Grimsley.”
The man nodded, seeming satisfied, and turned, going back to the bush he had been tending and picking up his shears. Reed offered Anna his arm again, and they strolled away.
When they were securely out of earshot of the old caretaker, Anna looked at Reed, saying in a wry voice, “Now ghosts?”
Reed half groaned, half laughed. “That is all I need. As if it isn’t bad enough to have homicidal man-beasts roaming about…”
Anna turned to look back at the house. “Do you think he really has seen lights in there?”
Reed shrugged. “I suppose it is possible. The house has been empty. Someone could have broken in—though the place certainly did not look as if it had been ransacked. And why else would someone break in except to steal things?”
“Well, I understand that ghosts don’t really steal things,” Anna told him, her eyes dancing.
He grinned at her. “Laugh if you like. I have a sister—not Kyria—who came to believe quite seriously in ghosts.”
“Really?” Anna looked at him with interest.
“Yes. I will tell you the story sometime. It’s the sort that sends shivers down your spine.”
“Thank you, I have no need of any more of those,” Anna replied.
“However, I find Grimsley’s story somewhat less reliable than Olivia’s,” Reed went on. “For one thing, when he pointed to the old lord’s bedroom, he was pointing not at the master’s bedroom but at the nursery, I think. Did you see the bars?”
Anna nodded. It was a common practice to bar the windows in nursery rooms so that children could not fall out of the high windows. “Yes, I thought that must be where those windows were.”
“Nor does it seem likely that the old lord—or lord and lady, if you will—should come back to haunt the place a year or two ago, after resting quietly in their graves for the past however-many years.”
“Forty-four or forty-five, I think,” Anna said. “They died a few years after the first Beast killings.”
“How did they die?” Reed asked.
“They were caught in a fire in the summerhouse,” Anna said. “I’m really not sure of the details. They died when my mother was quite young, only three or so, and she didn’t remember her parents. She was raised by her aunt—my grandmother’s sister—who lived in London.”
“She did not grow up here?” Reed asked, surprised.
“No. My uncle was away at school when their parents died. He was ten or twelve years older than my mother, and he had already gone off to Eton. Except for occasional visits, I presume the house must have stood empty for several years then, too. I believe he returned here when he finished at Eton, but my mother, of course, remained with her aunt until after her debut.”
“Did she meet your father in London, then?”
“No. After her first Season, she came here to stay with her brother for a few months. It was then that she met my father. An unequal match, some said. She was a beauty, and the de Winters were of higher birth. But she didn’t care for that. She and my father loved each other very much.”
Anna was unaware of how her face softened and her eyes warmed as she talked about her parents, but Reed could clearly see her grow even lovelier as she talked. He looked down at her, a more carnal heat stirring in him.
“My parents, too, were a love match,” he told her, and he could not keep his fingers from trailing lightly down her arm.
Anna’s breath quickened in her throat. She looked up at him, her eyes meeting his, and the heat she saw in them set up an answering warmth in her own loins. She remembered the moment earlier in the library when she had thought that he was going to kiss her. She wondered if he was going to now.
She wanted him to kiss her. However foolish or wrong it was, she wanted to feel his lips on hers, wanted to have his hands on her arms, sliding up over her bare skin, his fingers pressing into her flesh. Anna trembled, her lips parting slightly.
His eyes went to her mouth, and they burned suddenly with a silver fire. “Anna…you are so beautiful.”
Would it be so wrong? she wondered. Would it be so terrible to kiss him, to taste for a moment the joy, the pleasure, that she would never have?
But she knew the answer, even as she thought the question. Kissing Reed would only make everything harder. A taste of what she had given up would only leave her wanting more. And Reed…it would be unconscionable to do that to him. To stir his desire again. To let him know that desire still burned in her.
Anna stepped back, her gaze shifting away from him, even as everything inside her screamed not to.
“We ought to get back to the doctor’s journals,” she said stiffly.
“Of course.”
Anna glanced back at Reed. His face was set, his eyes unreadable. He extended his arm to her in a stiff, formal way. Anna took it; his muscles felt like iron beneath the sleeve of his jacket. They walked back to the house, the distance between them palpable.
They spent the rest of the afternoon in the library. Reed took a seat across the table from Anna, and he started on the doctor’s notes again, while Anne read some of the articles from the clippings that the doctor had given them.
The newspaper articles were by and large lurid accounts, full of overblown language and possessing few facts. They wrote of the innocent girl “ripped from life” and made references to the bloody legend of a “ravening beast” who roamed the area. They made, in fact, a great deal out of nothing, and Anna soon realized that they had learned far more from the few pages of the doctor’s notes than they would from the stacks of articles.
“These are useless,” she said at last, tossing down the clipping she had been reading.
Reed glanced across at her with a rueful smile on his face. He had finished with the doctor’s journals and had read a few of the articles, too. “I fear you are right.”
He stood, rolling his shoulders to get out the kinks put there by hours of reading. He strolled across to the window and glanced out. “It’s gotten dark.” He paused for a moment, then said neutrally, “Will you stay for supper? If I know the cook, it is nigh ready. We adhere to country hours here, apparently.”
Anna glanced down at the papers as if they could tell her what to do. “I—Kit will be expecting me.”
“I can send a groom over with a note, explaining.”
She wavered. The thought of dining alone with Reed, chatting and laughing, was appealing. That was the problem, of course. It was too appealing.
“No,” she said firmly, standing up and giving him a false smile. “I must go. I have spent all day on this, and there are things I need to attend to at home.”
He acquiesced gracefully, with no further urgings for her to stay, and a few minutes later the carriage was brought around. Anna found, perversely, that she was a little disappointed by his seeming lack of interest in whether or not she left.
He rode home with her in the carriage, making plans for the morrow, and bade her a polite goodbye at her door. Anna went inside, only to find that Kit had sent a note home saying that he had been delayed at one of the farms and would be taking his evening meal there. So she dined in lonely state in the small dining room and spent the evening reading in her room, reminding herself now and then why she had chosen to live her life without Reed Moreland.
* * *
It was something she had to remind herself of on several occasions during the next few days. She spent most of her time with Reed, searching for answers about the murders, both past and present, and, despite the gruesome subject, those days were some of the happiest she had spent in years.
She had forgotten how much she enjoyed Reed’s conversation, how witty he could be, the way his gray eyes danced with amusement. In quiet moments, she found herself turning to look at him, her eyes drawn to the full curve of his lower lip, the firm line of his jaw. Once, feeling her eyes on him as he read, Reed glanced up, and a slow smile spread across his face. Anna could not keep from smiling back, and she ducked her head quickly, returning her eyes to the pages she had been reading.
In every moment that they spent together, there was always the subtle running undercurrent of attraction between them. When he smiled, heat curled within her abdomen, and when he laughed, the corners of his eyes crinkling up, she felt a visceral tug. Anna could not look at his hands without thinking of the way his fingers had felt on her skin. When they looked together at a piece of paper, they leaned closer in, and his scent, his warmth, stirred her, making it hard for her to concentrate.
She wanted him, wanted him perhaps more than she had three years ago. He had never kissed her three years ago in that raw, desperate way in which he had kissed her at Kyria’s party, and that kiss had awakened something within her that was strong and primal, a hunger she had not felt before, even when she had been most in love with him. He was older and harder, and the changes in him drew her. He no longer treated her, she noticed, as if she were made of glass, and she enjoyed it.
After examining the doctor’s notes, Reed and Anna decided the best course would be to try to locate someone who might have had more immediate knowledge of the case. Since Susan Emmett had been a servant at Winterset, they set out to find another servant who had worked there. Reed started with his butler, who informed him a little haughtily that he was not a local, having been hired from an agency, and his last posting had been in Brighton. It turned out that the housekeeper, too, had been hired in the same way and was, in fact, from Devonshire.
“I remember Uncle Charles’ butler,” Anna told him. “His name was Merriman—although he was one of the sourest men I have ever seen. I believe he retired when Uncle Charles left, but I cannot remember where he went. I suppose he could have been the butler during that time, as well. He looked as if he might have been here since the house was built, frankly. But I don’t remember anyone else. I’m sorry.”
In the end, they turned to Anna’s housekeeper, Mrs. Michaels. Anna was surprised to see that formidable woman all but gush at being asked to sit down in the presence of the son of a duke and talk to him.
“Oh, yes, I remember Merriman,” she said, nodding. “Always had his nose up in the air because he’d once worked for an earl—as if the de Winters hadn’t come over with William the Conqueror himself. But I’m sorry, miss, he wasn’t the one who was the butler back when they had those other awful killings.” She gave an expressive shudder. “That was Cunningham. But he died several years ago. That was why his lordship took on Merriman.”
“Oh,” Anna said, disappointed. “What about the housekeeper back then?”
“Well, that was before my time, you understand,” Mrs. Michaels told her. “But when I came here to the Manor, I remember that it was a woman named—oh, what was it?” She frowned. “It will come to me in a moment, I’m sure. A regular tyrant, she was. That’s what all the girls who worked for her said.”
Anna wondered what the woman must have been like for Mrs. Michaels, who now made a bed check of all the servant girls every night at ten, to find her too dictatorial.
“Hart?” Mrs. Michaels said tentatively. “No…Hartwell! That was it. Mrs. Hartwell. I believe that she was there until your uncle left for that heathen island. And where did she go after that?”
“It’s all right, Mrs. Michaels,” Anna assured her. “We can find her whereabouts, I think. It just occurred to me that my uncle would have given her a stipend.” Though he might not remember, it was a certainty that her father would have. “Mr. Norton would be the one sending it, I imagine.”
Reed nodded. “Yes, of course. We’ll ask Norton.”
It took no more than a note to the solicitor, delivered by one of Reed’s grooms, and within an hour they had a missive in return, stating that Mrs. Hartwell resided with her son in the nearby village of Sedgewick. This seemed to them a hopeful development, and they set out the next morning in good spirits to visit the housekeeper.
They rode, rather than taking a carriage, and Anna could not help but enjoy the morning. When Reed had courted her three years ago, they had often gone riding, and simply being out with him this way again was enough to make her feel the way she had then—at least a little.
The cottage to which Mr. Norton had directed them was a pleasant half-timbered house of Tudor construction, well kept up, with a small, fragrant garden in front. When Reed knocked on the door, it was opened by an apple-cheeked young girl, who stared at them a little shyly and bobbed them a curtsey, then called for her mother.
A middle-aged woman appeared next, and when Reed explained that they were there to see the Mrs. Hartwell who had once been the housekeeper at Winterset, she gave them a puzzled look but invited them inside.
“It’s John’s mum you’re wanting to see, then?” she asked, leading them into a small but pleasant parlor.
“Yes. I am Lord Moreland. I live at Winterset now. And this is Miss Holcomb. We were—I had some questions regarding Winterset that I wished to ask Mrs. Hartwell.”
“Well, I—of course you can see her, if you wish, but I doubt there’ll be much you can get from her. Please, sit down, and I’ll get you some tea. Lizzie!” She bustled out of the room, and Reed and Anna exchanged a look.
The apple-cheeked girl returned not long afterward with a tea service on a tray, and a few moments after that, Mrs. Hartwell came in, her steps slowed to accommodate the old woman who leaned heavily on her arm.
The girl, who had been uneasily waiting, shifting from foot to foot, sprang forward to help her mother lower the old woman into a chair.
“Mother Hartwell,” the middle-aged woman said loudly, bending down and looking directly into the old woman’s face. “You have visitors.”
The elder Mrs. Hartwell turned to look blankly at her daughter-in-law, then swiveled her head to cast the same blank look at Reed and Anna, sitting on the couch across from her.
“Mrs. Hartwell, I am Lord Moreland. I own Winterset now, where I understand you used to be the housekeeper.”
The old woman blinked and turned back to the other woman, opening her mouth and making a few garbled noises. The middle-aged woman shot Reed and Anna an apologetic look.
“I’m sorry. It’s hard to understand what she says. She hasn’t been the same for the past few years, ever since she had the apoplexy. The doctor said it was a miracle she lived, but she hasn’t been able to walk or talk right since then.”
“No, it is we who should apologize for intruding upon you like this,” Reed replied. “We did not realize…”
“If you want to go ahead and ask her, I can tell you what she says,” the woman offered.
“We were going to ask her about some of the other servants who worked at Winterset while Mrs. Hartwell was housekeeper there,” Anna began.
They all looked at the old woman, who was nodding pleasantly. Encouraged, Anna went on, “We were especially interested in Susan Emmett. She worked there almost fifty years ago.”
The old woman continued to nod, smiling a little. The younger Mrs. Hartwell bent and asked her, “Do you remember Susan Emmett, Mother? At Winterset.”
The old woman made a few more garbled sounds, and her daughter-in-law turned to them apologetically. “I’m sorry. Sometimes she doesn’t make much sense. She said…I think she said something about an animal.”
“The Beast?” Reed asked.
The other woman looked surprised. “Yes, that is what it sounded like. Does it mean something to you?”
“A little.” Again Reed and Anna exchanged a look. It would be almost impossible to get any useful information about the murders from Mrs. Hartwell. “We were hoping she could tell us about Susan’s death.”
“Beast gor ’er,” the old woman managed to get out, the clearest thing she had said yet.
She added something, and her daughter-in-law cast them an embarrassed look. “I think she said that the girl was a silly chit.”
“Could you tell us, Mrs. Hartwell, the names of some of the other servants who worked at Winterset then?”
There was another long struggle to speak from Mrs. Hartwell, translated by her daughter-in-law. “I think she said, Cutting or Cunning.”
“Cunningham,” Anna supplied.
“Oh. Yes, I see. And then she said Arabel or Anabel, but she gave no last name. And then Josie—I’m pretty sure of that one—but I think she was saying that all of them are dead.”
Reed and Anna soon took their leave, thanking the women for their help. He threw her up in the saddle, then mounted his own horse, and they started down the street.
“I’m afraid that didn’t get us much of anywhere,” Reed commented.
Anna cast him a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry.”
He looked at her and smiled. “No one’s fault, really.” He sighed. “I wish we could get the names of the other servants. In his note, Norton said that only the butler and housekeeper had received stipends. He did not know the names of any of the other servants who had been in your uncle’s employ, and, of course, those may not even have been at Winterset almost thirty years before Lord de Winter left.”
Anna sighed. “No, I would imagine that most of them were too young to have been there that long ago.”
After a moment, Reed said, “There must have been record books.”
Anna glanced at him. “Why, yes, I am sure you’re right. I wonder we didn’t think of it earlier. They would have had household accounts books, and it would have listed the wages they paid the servants.”
“Now, if we just had any idea where those are.”
“Father probably took the most recent ones over to the Manor when he took over my uncle’s business dealings. But I would think he would have left all the old books at Winterset.”
“If the old books were still there, of course,” Reed inserted.
“It is a long time to keep them, I suppose, but our estate manager’s office has books dating back a hundred years or more. Of course, my Holcomb ancestors were a good bit more methodical than my de Winter ones, I’m afraid.”
“The de Winters were erratic?”
“The de Winters were colorful,” Anna said with a grin. “They tended to live their lives on a grander scale. Like old Lord Jasper—the one with the staghounds.”
“Mmm. ‘Colorful’ can be rather trying sometimes. And I can tell you that I speak from experience.”
“I cannot believe that your family is as odd as you say,” Anna told him.
“No? That is because you have never met them.”
“I’ve met Kyria. And Con and Alex. And they were all charming.”
“But just look at their names. Who would name twins Constantine and Alexander?”
“Someone who envisioned great things ahead of them?” Anna ventured.
“No. I’ll tell you who—the same person who named the other set of twins, my older brother and sister, Theodosius and Thisbe.”
“Oh, my.”
He flashed a smile at her, and she felt her insides melt. “You see? My father thinks little of importance happened after the fall of Rome.”
“And did not your mother object?”
“My mother, I believe, proposed my name and my sister Olivia’s. Kyria was something of a compromise, being Greek for Father and pleasant-sounding for Mother. But she is inclined to give in to my father on such issues as names, because her mind is concerned with more important things—social reforms, the vote for women, child labor laws.”
“I think your mother sounds like a very good person.”
“Oh, she is. So good, in fact, that one can sometimes find it difficult to live up to her expectations.”
“Surely you have not failed her expectations.”
“Of course I have. We all live in fear of her.”
Anna laughed. “What a piece of flummery! I don’t believe you for an instant. I have never met people who are less afraid of anything than you and your brothers and sister.”
“Ah, but you have never met my mother,” he retorted with a smile.
They continued with such banter as they rode back to Winterset, but once there, they set about looking diligently for the old household records.
First they searched the small locked room where the household silver had always been kept, but there was no sign of records there. They moved on to the study, then the library, but found no household accounts, new or old.
“The estate manager’s office!” Anna exclaimed after a moment. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it earlier. He had a small house on the grounds—it’s beyond the stables, and when my father took over the estate, he transferred everything to our own estate manager. The cottage has been closed up ever since, but I wonder if maybe they left all the old records there in his office.”
“It’s worth a try,” Reed agreed.
It took some time to find the appropriate key, and in the end, they came up with four that might open the office. Taking them all in hand, Reed and Anna strode across the yard and past the stables, walking the path that led past a copse of trees to a small house. There was a door on the side of the house that opened directly into the estate office.
One of the keys worked, although the lock turned with the creak of age and disuse, and Reed pushed the door open, revealing a small room containing a desk and some cabinets, as well as a few open bookcases. There were also two large trunks lying behind and beside the desk, and smaller boxes stacked up in every available space. A layer of dust coated every surface in the room.
Leaving the door open for the light and air, they stepped into the room. Anna looped up the trailing train of her riding habit and tucked it through her belt so that it would not drag across the dusty floor. She made her way through the maze of boxes to the single window and pushed the curtains aside, letting in more of the summer sunlight.
Reed sighed, looking around him. “This could take us hours. I should have brought a lamp.”
“Let’s start, anyway. If it grows dark before we find it, we can go back for light.”
“You’re right. Where do you suggest we begin?”
“Are there labels on any of the boxes?”
“I think so.” Reed brushed off the top of one. “‘Farm Accounts’ and a date. That’s not it.”
They ruled out several other boxes, but the trunks did not have labels attached to them, so they simply opened one and began to dig through it. It was impossible to avoid the dust, and their clothes were soon liberally smeared with it. Once they had reached the bottom of the first trunk, they opened the second. A cloud of dust rose from the surface as they lifted the lid. Anna let out a low cry of dismay.
“Oh! Look at this!” She gazed down at the dust that coated the front of her skirt. “Penny will never get this clean. She will think I have been out rolling in the dirt.” She wiped ineffectually at the dust, succeeding only in furthering the damage. “Oh, dear.” She sighed and raised a hand to brush back a strand of hair from her forehead.
Reed chuckled, his eyes dancing with amusement. “Wait. You are only making things worse. Now you have a streak of dirt across your forehead. No, don’t touch it. Here.”
He dug in his pocket and pulled out a large white handkerchief. Taking her hand in his, he turned it palm up and wiped the handkerchief over it.
Anna watched his hands at work on hers. His fingers were long and nimble, dusted with a sprinkling of black hair. She had always loved the look of his hands, she thought, strong and masculine, but not blunt or square. They were very capable hands, yet they could move with great gentleness and tenderness. A quiver of sensation ran through her, startling her, and she drew in a sharp breath.
Reed’s hands froze on hers, and he looked up at her. They stood that way for a moment, their gazes locked, his hands still around hers. Then he looked back down and continued to wipe away the dirt, his fingers moving slowly, gently on hers. Anna felt each stroke of his hand, his skin separated from hers by the silken cloth of his handkerchief.
“You should not,” she said a little breathlessly. “You are ruining your handkerchief.”
“It’s all right,” he replied, his voice faintly roughened.
He let go of her hand and took the other one, applying the same treatment to it. The silk cloth caressed her skin, stirring up a slow, curling heat in her abdomen. She felt suddenly, tinglingly alive, her nerves aware of every sensation—the slide of the cloth over her skin, the touch of air against her throat with each breath she took, the heavy thrum of her pulse.
Reed straightened, letting go of her hand. He took her chin between his fingers, holding her head steady as he wiped at the smudge of dust on her forehead. He was very close to her now, only inches away, his gaze locked on hers. Anna felt as if his eyes could see right down into her soul, as if they could discover the secrets of her heart. She gazed back at him, unable to look away.
His hand stilled on her face. The handkerchief fell from his grasp, fluttering to the floor between them, unnoticed. His hands slid around to cup her face between them. His skin was searing, and Anna could feel an answering heat flaring in her. A trembling began deep inside her, and she thought that her legs might give way beneath her.
Unconsciously, she leaned closer. She saw a light flare in Reed’s eyes. Then his lips were on hers, his hands sliding into her hair, sinking into the soft mass of her curls. All Anna’s firm resolutions went flying out of her head, driven away by the fierce heat of her desire. A tremor shook her, and she curled her fingers into the front of his jacket, holding on to him.
The passion she had kept hidden since the night he had kissed her flamed up again, fiery and demanding. He kissed her again and again, his hands tangling in her hair, popping loose the hairpins that Penny had carefully placed there. Her hair fell in a silken tumble over his hands and down to her shoulders.
Whatever small amount of control Reed retained fell away in that moment. His arms went around her tightly, grinding her into his body, and he kissed her as if he could never get enough of the taste of her mouth. They twisted and turned in a slow, heated dance of passion, locked together.
Anna clutched his shoulders, her fingers digging in, as he rained kisses over her face and down her neck. When the high collar of her riding habit impeded him, he cursed and fumbled at the large buttons that marched down the front of the military-style jacket. The two sides of the bodice came apart at last, and Reed shoved the sides of it back onto her shoulders.
His eyes went down to the front of her chest, exposed by her opened habit. She was clad in a white cotton chemise, her breasts swelling above the simple oval neckline. A pink ribbon was laced through the material below her breasts and tied in the front, and another ribbon ran along the neckline, tightening it halfway up her breasts.
Slowly his hand came up, and he took the top ribbon between his thumb and finger, then tugged. The bow came undone, and the chemise sagged open, revealing even more of her breasts. Reed ran his forefinger down between the soft orbs, then up across the top of one breast as it swelled above the chemise.
Anna’s breath caught in her throat. She knew that she should be embarrassed to have a man see her like this, but all she could feel was heat snaking through her body. It aroused her to see him look at her…aroused her even more to see the glitter that came into his eyes as he watched her, the way his face slackened with desire. She was aware of a shameless urge to be naked before him.
Reed slipped his hand beneath her chemise, cupping her breast, and Anna let out a little gasp of pleasure. He looked up at the noise and smiled at what he saw stamped on her face—not outrage or dismay, but pleasure and a sensual hunger that matched his own. Watching the play of emotions across her face, Reed squeezed her breast gently, his thumb playing across the nipple and making it harden.
Anna closed her eyes at the sensations that flooded her. Desire flowered between her legs, hot and wet, turning her restless and yearning. With every flicker of his thumb against her nipple, the pulsing ache increased.
Reed lifted her breast free of the fabric and bent to kiss the hard button of her nipple. His tongue circled it provocatively, and then he pulled it into his mouth, his tongue and lips working on her sensitive flesh. Anna jerked a little at the jolt of desire that shot down through her, and a soft moan escaped her lips. She sagged against him, and his arm went tightly around her waist, holding her up.
His mouth continued to roam her breasts, and with each new delight, the past slipped away from Anna, all reason and duty lost amid the onslaught of physical pleasure. She could feel nothing but want, understand only the pounding urgency of her own desire.
She murmured his name, her voice low and throaty with passion. He groaned deep in his throat at the sound of his name on her lips, and his mouth returned to hers, taking her lips in a long, deep kiss. Anna melted into him, her arms going tightly around his neck, and she stretched upward, pressing her body into his. The buttons of his jacket bit into her tender bare flesh, but she didn’t notice the discomfort. She wanted only to be closer, still closer, to him.
Reed’s hand smoothed down her back and curved over her buttocks. His fingers dug into the firm flesh, lifting her into him. Desire pounded in him, filling him and driving out everything else. He ached to sink deep inside her, to feel her around him, hot and tight. All the emotions he had ever felt for her tangled inside him, melding into a hunger so fierce he could feel nothing else. Driving into her, feeling her convulse around him, seemed, at that moment, more necessary than breath itself.
He bunched up her skirts in his fists, pulling them up until his hand touched her leg, separated from him only by the thin cloth of her pantalets. His hand trembled as he caressed her thigh and buttocks, sliding around to the front, seeking the hot center of her desire. His hand slid between her legs, and Anna shuddered, heat slamming through her.
And it was, oddly enough, this sudden, unexpected surge of pleasure that shocked her into awareness of what she was doing. She froze, then jerked back from him. For an instant she stared at him, her eyes wide, her heart pounding insanely in her chest, as the full realization of her actions swept over her.
“No!” she gasped, her hands flying up to the sides of her bodice and yanking them together. “No! I cannot!”
With a choked cry, she turned and ran out of the room.
Reed stood, stunned, then ripped out an oath and ran after her.