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‘I hope you’re ready to get no sleep tonight.’
Her eyes widened, and then her lips curled into a seductive smile. He hadn’t wanted to touch her, but it was done now. He’d have time for regrets later, when this was over. By then, he hoped to have obliterated all unpleasant memories from her head for ever.
‘Weren’t we supposed to be doing something tomorrow?’
‘Yes.’ He’d planned a stroll through the village, but that could wait. He wanted as many of these glorious moments, losing himself in her, as he could get. ‘We’re spending the day in bed.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
POLOPONIESTHUNDEREDACROSSthe field. Bodies clashed. Sara flinched. Lance was in the thick it all, chasing a white ball on the ground somewhere. Her heart thrashed in her chest, part thrill, part terror. He had given her a quick lesson on the rules before they’d left for the charity polo match, organised to raise money for women escaping domestic violence. He said she needed to know when to cheer for him. But she didn’t want to cheer. It looked dangerous, with large and seemingly uncontrollable horses racing around, jostling each other. Riders with mallets held high.
A pony broke free of the rough and tumble.Lance.Whilst she didn’t know much about riding, she knew instinctively the man was an expert. He looked as if he were part of the horse, strong thighs gripping the saddle. She might have had heated fantasises about him, seeing the pictures of him on horseback when she’d searched him online, but looking at the man for real, face intent, directing some huge animal seemingly with the power of thought alone...
The heat of it speared through her and her breathing quickened. He was a magnificent animal himself, all taut, controlled muscle. She ached to have him alone somewhere, anywhere. Who knew she could have become so...wanton? No pretence any more. Working side by side during the day, with the excitement of finding treasure, and their nights entwined with each other. Heat pooled, deep and low, in her abdomen, all of her soft and willing and ready. Those memories. Making love till exhaustion claimed them, snatching sleep, making love again.
No. Not making love. There was no love here, was there. This, them, was only temporary. She’d never really been loved, she recognised. Not by her parents, or Ferdinand. She wondered what it was about her that was so...undeserving. The cut of that thought sliced deep. A sharp pain that could almost cleave her in two. This sensation with Lancewasn’tlove. It was something else. Dark, sultry. Moments of headiness that made her giddy. Though why did the merest thought of it being over make her want to curl in bed for days and weep?
The crowd cheered; they were quite uproarious given the supposed refinement of its members. Though champagne was flowing freely, which probably added to the rowdiness of the group. She took a sip of said champagne, then cheered along with them. Men. Women who stared out at the field. Stared at her, some with curiosity, some with daggers unsheathed. Though most interest was reserved for Lance. He was like the centre of the solar system for everyone there.
The match ended, and it seemed Lance’s team had won. He leapt from his current mount, a magnificent chestnut now gleaming with sweat, pulled his shirt out from his polo whites and wiped his face, showing a slice of toned, muscled abdomen she knew came from hard exercise, but also hard work, particularly in the stables.
She shivered, the anticipation of a celebration tonight coursing through her. She wondered whether, in the rough and tumble of it all, he’d have any injuries. She’d kiss them better. She’d kiss him all over. Lance had been a passionate, attentive lover who was not shy about telling her explicitly what he enjoyed. An announcer droned in the background as the crowd returned to other things, drinking, eating. She couldn’t wait for the afternoon to end. Because tonight...
‘You’re a surprise.’
The clipped haughty tone of a woman’s voice pulled Sara from her heated fantasies. She turned. A woman with a champagne glass held casually like an afterthought in long, manicured fingers. Everything about her was tailored and perfect. The gleaming golden hair casually curled at the ends, no unruly tangles there. Blue eyes, darker than her own, leaning to grey, were cutting and cold. The smile on her face was sharp like a blade, make-up expertly applied to look barely-there, in a way Sara hadn’t mastered without professional help. She was tall, elegant. Everything Sara was not. This woman’s looks were a weapon she wielded.
She resembled the women she’d seen on Lance’s arm in those tabloid photographs, and the ones that still showed up when she looked online, torturing herself with the untruths about their fake relationship. Initially she’d done it for amusement. To laugh at the fiction they wrote, because it was all a morass of lies. Which led her to contemplate the truth of what they wrote about Lance... But then there were the nastier comments. The talk of inevitable infidelity on his part, comparing her to his bevy of past lovers and finding her wanting in every way.
You’ll never have his heart.
No, she wouldn’t let the cruel memory taunt her. That didn’t matter. He might not want her heart, but she didn’t want Lance’s either. All she wanted was his body. Didn’t she? But that didn’t deal with the woman in front of her, one brow raised in a supercilious way, almost tapping her foot, waiting for some response.
‘Excuse me?’ Sara asked.
The woman elegantly waved one hand in the direction of the field. ‘Everyone wonders how you caught him. One moment he’s the world’s most wanted bachelor and the next, well, here we are.’
‘Love’s like that.’
‘Love.Of course.’ Said with disdain, as if Sara were some kind of fool. The woman took a healthy swig of her champagne and grabbed Sara’s left hand. In the shock of the moment, Sara didn’t have the wherewithal to pull away.
The woman glared at Sara’s engagement ring, her lip curled in what appeared to be a triumphant smile. ‘Pretty. But it’s not the Astill Amethyst.’
As if that jewel had some kind of mythic status. How did this woman know about it? When had she been close enough to see it? A tightness clenched in her gut, hard and sickening, as if she’d drunk sour milk. Sara wanted to see it now too. Even though, had they been engaged for real, she still wouldn’t have wanted it to grace her finger.
The woman looked impassive, cool and poised, like every woman she imagined Lance would spend time with. But it didn’t matter. Lance had chosen this ring for her.
‘Beautiful and complex, like you.’
That wasallthat mattered.
Sara plucked her hand from the woman’s grasp. ‘I don’t have the amethyst because I loathe the colour purple.’
The woman’s eyes barely widened a fraction. ‘Really?’
The word was loaded with so much that was unsaid. That Sara was too unpolished. Too gauche for a man like the Duke of Bedmore.
‘With the greatest of respect...’ Sara knew the woman meant none ‘...we hadn’t heard anything about you, and then here you are. From Lauritania as well. Everyone knows Lance despises the place.’
