Chapter 4
Anthony wears a mask in his own home so he need not converse with me, Letitia thought. Such is the depth of his hatred. And I’m supposed to enjoy his hospitality while saying nothing of this odd affectation. What a farce.
She’d been roused in the middle of an admittedly gentle cleansing of her hair, shocked awake by the feeling of water dripping on her face.
Letitia knew not to attempt to wash without a careful brushing, but she’d been too dizzy after the flight from that strange townhouse and carriage ride to Anthony’s home to pay much attention to what was happening around her.
She was exhausted and resolved to sleep until the climbing vines on the exterior of the house snaked their way inside her window and covered her over.
Somewhere in the process, she’d lost her half-mask, and her face was now exposed to Anthony. Blast.
She suddenly remembered her papa taking her to see a chalk horse carved into the hillside in Uffington.
They’d walked from their home outside Wantage, and Papa had carried her when she grew tired.
Upon returning to her bed, Letitia had slept for an entire day, dreaming of those arcing white lines within the turf.
Such a strange thing to recall after so long, that very white horse.
“Would you mind terribly if I rose to fetch something from my bag?” she asked. He was gentle as ever with the brush, but she felt unnerved and wanted to return to her pleasant lolling.
Anthony’s hands stilled. “What is it you plan to fetch?”
That was hardly his business!
She was preparing a calm set-down when he continued. “Your favored cordial is laudanum, is it not?”
Presumptuous man! He wished to weave stories about her, did he? Luckily, she knew how to feed him a tale. Even if his assumptions were correct, that didn’t make them any less rude.
“Why, yes,” she said in a low, seductive voice. “However did you know? Won’t you be a dear and fetch it for me?”
Letitia thought she saw his eyes flash behind that mask, but he rose to where someone had placed her reticule on a handsome writing desk.
“In here?” he asked, pausing as if he was uncertain about going through a lady’s things. How innocent he was in some ways; anyone could see that she was not a lady.
She held out her hand for the bottle, and Anthony took that as a sign he should root around in that bag of tricks for her disappearing serum. At last, he pulled it from her reticule.
“That’s it,” she said, gesturing for him to put it in her hand.
He held the amber glass up to the light, watching how the fluid moved within.
“Strange stuff,” he said as if in a trance. “They say it’s made from poppies. Does it smell like flowers?”
“It’s the stuff dreams are made of,” she said, watching him. “Sweet. At first, it turned my stomach. Now…”
That seemed to get his attention. “Now?”
“I’ll be ill if I don’t have it,” she said honestly. “The scent makes my gums ache with desire.”
“Surely you don’t need it that much,” he said lightheartedly, shaking the thing to watch how the fluid inside reacted.
“Of course not,” she said, affecting a casualness that she didn’t feel.
Contradicting him might draw his suspicion that she was a fiend for the stuff.
Letitia Delemere hadn’t walked to London from Wantage after Papa succumbed to influenza just to die in a heap with opium eaters; laudanum was a lady’s helper, and she’d certainly needed help these past few years. It was the only thing that helped.
“Excellent,” he said, and tossed the bottle into the fire. The scent, now with a more pronounced burnt note, filled the room. She wondered if the vapors might be enough to soothe her nerves, but after an initial wave of euphoria, they were just as twisted as ever.
She’d let her guard down, and Anthony made her pay the price. Damn and blast.
“Why did you…?” she asked faintly, fearful of sobbing and revealing the depths of her pain.
“Seems a bad business,” he said blithely, “to be carrying the stuff around. Wouldn’t want to grow dependent, would you?”
Letitia clasped her hands together, hoping to disguise how they shook. He’d become cruel in the years since they’d known each other.
“I hardly think that a reason for tossing my belongings in the fire.”
He waved her off. “I’ll replace it,” he said. “As soon as I can get a doctor here, you’ll have a fresh bottle, provided your ailment requires it.”
Oh, that’s how he wanted to play things? Force her to disclose a diagnosis to a medical man in order to prove the need was legitimate? Rage descended upon her vision, the edges turning dark gray.
Letitia took up the scissors he’d left on the bed.
“What are you—?”
Snip. She cut the braid made with the hair he’d so carefully untangled.
“Letitia, don’t—“
Oh, he admitted to knowing her name now, did he? She took the scissors to the remaining mass of knots he’d been painstakingly working through, slicing the hair at her shoulders and shaking free of that damp, snarled mess at the bottom.
He wrenched the scissors from her hands in a way that hurt. She cried out, all the pain from past years suddenly registering in the twist of a finger.
Anthony was above her. She hadn’t realized it as it was happening, but in the process of overwhelming her physically so he might divest her of the scissors, he’d overset her person, caging her in with his long, powerful limbs.
“I didn’t want you to cut yourself,” he said, his voice less certain than she’d heard him in years. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
Nor did I, she thought. But that wasn’t entirely true. Letitia had meant to hurt him in the most temporary, superficial way, for his own benefit. To send him on to the pleasures of marriage and children without a moment of regret.
This familiar position under him softened her spine despite her brain telling her to be on guard, and she raised a hand to the ridiculous silk mask he wore. She recalled herself and pulled her hand back, but not before he noticed.
“Why do you wear it?” she asked. “What’s the real reason?”
His eyes flitted to hers, then darted away.
“I was scarred years ago,” he said hoarsely.
Concern must have shown on her face because he continued.
“A woman flung something in my face and burned me.”
Ahh, they had returned to the subject of her perfidy, taking the circuitous route back there.
Feeling his body over hers, the heat pouring from him took Letitia back to one of their first meetings.
They’d been introduced to each other at the opera, and they then bumped into each other during the second act in a hallway; he was looking for the men’s smoking room, and she was seeking the ladies’ retiring room.
Anthony had crowded close to her, pressing his waistcoat to her bodice, then boldly placing a hand at her waist.
He’d been reaching for her hem when they heard a noise from nearby and had to flee to their respective salons for fear of others catching on to the desire sparking between them.
Letitia let her hand come up to the mask, unable to contain her wish to touch him after so long. He flinched.
“You’ll think me funny,” she said.
“Will I?”
“It’s just that you make me recall someone I once knew.”
His mouth twisted. Anthony didn’t believe her, didn’t want her. That wasn’t new, and she’d go on, silently wanting him, as she had all this time.
“We were talking about your use of that stuff,” he said, nodding to the fire and not bothering to remove himself from over her body. “What can my staff bring you that will dull the discomfort of living without it?”
“I thought a doctor was going to come and prescribe me more,” she said wryly. How like him to take on the problems of the world, as if his surname was a divine mission. But Letitia didn’t need a savior; she’d saved him years ago and merely needed him to act on it!
Best to drive him away, then. Again.
She moved her hand to his well-formed ear and then thick hair, scraping her nails on his scalp in a way that used to have him shuddering and begging as she rode his cock to completion.
“There’s one thing that allows me to live without laudanum,” she said, allowing her voice to become sticky-sweet. Her mind felt sharp for the first time in years as she felt his waistcoat against her unbound breasts, only covered by her chemise.
Was she wet? It seemed an impossibility after so long without that happening naturally, but her cunt felt soft and swollen and slick enough to take even Anthony’s cock without tears or oils.
“And what’s that, madam?” he asked, his voice hard even as he stayed above her, the embroidery on his waistcoat catching on her peaked nipples every few breaths.
Letitia took his hand in hers. At first, he jerked at the feeling of her fingers, then he simply watched as she brought his hand to the short hem of her chemise. Then under it.
“Well, you see,” she began, shifting her legs apart, “I’m able to resist the bottle if I’m distracted. Pleasurably distracted.”
His clever fingers rested against her bare cunny lips, and he had to feel how wet she was for him.
The last tethers of her pride kept her from lifting her hips to rut Anthony’s hand like a dog in heat.
She was a fool: she set off down this path by claiming she wanted to drive him away, but all along she just wanted her lover again.
Wanted to feel his cock within her again.
“Is that the case?” he asked, moving so slowly Letitia couldn’t tell if it was intentional or not.
She whimpered. His teasing would kill her, and she couldn’t think of a better way to die.
“Indeed,” she said. “It’s necessary for my health.”
He dragged his knuckles slowly over the soft hair covering her nether lips, and she felt her channel expand and swell in anticipation of receiving his cock. Anthony was so close to dipping within her lips and finally caressing her nub—
“When you feel such a need, you may summon help,” he said, bringing himself up from her body and standing over the bed.
“One of the servants might be able to perform the task, if they so choose. Right now, you’re still under the influence of that poppy syrup, so please don’t request assistance, as they cannot assist until your mind is free of it. ”
And with that, he swept out of the room.
Letitia groaned into her pillow after he pulled the door closed. Damn him, couldn’t he take pity on her and just give them both the release that would feel divine?
She groused for a moment longer, then set about lifting her hem and handling the problem herself. It had been years since the urge had struck her, and she was out of practice, but she’d break her own wrists rubbing her kitty before troubling that block of stone and his servants for help!