The bar was set so high that were he of a mind, Grif could not possibly ever hope to meet it, not even in his wildest imagination.
When he found his way into the gardens by chance, he turned and looked back at the massive structure. How terribly puny Talla Dileas looked in comparison.
He turned and walked, head down, into the garden with that knowledge piling onto the vague uneasiness that had rooted in him the day he’d touched Anna so intimately, and he felt his heart growing heavier and heavier with the weight of his desire for a woman he could not have.
He started badly when he saw them, Lockhart and Anna, entwined in an embrace on the path ahead. With her back to him, she shone like an exotic bird, with her long green pelisse drifting behind her, the flutter of ribbons in her hair.
Grif stepped quietly behind a stand of rosebushes and watched them. Their voices were carried away by a light wind that rustled the trees behind him, and he could not hear what they said. But he didn’t need to hear them, for it was painfully obvious—this was a lover’s meeting.
He shouldn’t have been surprised—after all, this was what Anna had wanted, had worked so hard to gain.
Nevertheless, when Drake Lockhart took her in his arms and kissed her with the passion Grif felt for her, Grif’s heavy heart snapped clean and plummeted into a pit of loathing. He pivoted about, walked out of that garden, his breath coming in furious pants, his fists clenched tightly at his sides.
This may have been what Anna had wanted, but she’d used him unconscionably to get it. She had practiced her feminine sorcery on him, drawing him into her flame until he was burning for her. He loved her. He could not bear to see her with Lockhart, he could not bear to think of her in another man’s arms, and at that moment he hated her with every fiber for having forced this on him.
But what he hated more than her was the situation that could not be altered, could not be made any different than what it was. There was no way out of the bloody quagmire.
Twenty-three
A s the guests began to filter into the grand salon to greet their hosts before supper, Drake Lockhart moved through the room with a bright smile. Years of bachelorhood had taught him that one of the great joys of life was moving among a sea of pretty women such as this, where a man might carry on to his heart’s content, and on occasion find a young woman willing to play more mature games in the privacy of his carriage house than the childish games played in drawing rooms across Mayfair.
He’d always believed Anna Addison could be one of those women. She had the reputation of being an adventurous sort, not one to put much stock in all of society’s rules for women. And she had let Drake know, on more than one occasion, that she could be seduced. After that torrid kiss in the Featherstone garden, he believed he was well on his way to having her.
There was a time Drake had not been so inclined, but then Anna had gone and shed her sharp exterior by some miracle; she’d come out of her cocoon to be the Season’s most surprising butterfly. Now she was a bit harder to please—she did not seem to long for his attention all the time, and, in fact, there were many times she seemed not to want it at all.
That was something of a bother, for Drake was discovering that the more she did not want his attention, the more he wanted hers.
On the other hand, there was Lucy—sweet, beautiful Lucy. She’d been a willing participant in his games, but in private moments, when he thought to act on their fierce flirtations, he had discovered Lucy was rather prudish. She was not willing to explore her desires, as he rather imagined Anna was willing, but nonetheless, Lucy’s renowned beauty made it impossible for him to ignore her. Since the darling had made her debut, Drake had amused himself on more than one occasion with the fantasy of debasing her perfect flesh, driving deep into that virginal womb and watching her eyes flutter shut with the ecstasy of it.
In recent weeks, he’d begun to have the same sort of fantasy about Anna (although in those particular fantasies he envisioned instructing Anna to impale herself on him).
And there were various assorted other fantasies involving most women of the ton, but none that could elicit so sharp a response in him as those about the Addison sisters.
He realized he was enjoying the game far too much. It amused him—Lucy needed adoration, Anna needed a battle of wits. There was just one small distraction—the bloody Scot was mucking up his fun.