Page 94 of The Wolf of Mayfair
Chapter 18
Virtue and taste are nearly the same, for virtue is little more than active taste, and the most delicate affections of each combine in real love.
—Ann Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho
A low-pitched rumble slipped into Helia’s deep, dreamless slumber.
She tried to open her heavy lashes, but far too content to burrow into a warm, welcoming heat, she gave up the fight.
The edge of consciousness she hovered on drew her back, deeper and deeper into that blissfully welcoming, calm nothingness.
Then there came another reverberation. This time, more resonant, it lightly shook Helia’s frame and released her from her torpor.
She managed to open her eyes, only to have them meet a curtain of inky blackness.
Still hazy from the fog of sleep, Helia blinked several times to adjust her gaze to the dark.
What in blazes? WhereamI?
All the while, she attempted to make sense of her whereabouts.
Her eyes more adjusted to the dimness, Helia looked about ... and froze.
Then it all came rushing back. The shameful, wicked, wanton, and God help her, wonderful climax Anthony had coaxed from her body.The feel of his tongue inside her. The lewd words he’d rasped against her womanhood—she’d loved every single one. She’d thrilled at the things he’d done to her and said to her and—
A low, sonorous rumbling—that same sound which had penetrated her sleep—cut into her unchaste thoughts and she glanced down.
Her heart stopped.
Anthony.
Her hair lay in a tangle of curls about his soundly slumbering form.
His body, rock-solid beneath her, conferred a delicious heat that erased any chill from a long-extinguished fire.
She was ruined.
She’d known that the moment she stepped through the doors to this house, and that’s why she didn’t feel panicked and horrified.
But this was a different sort of ruined.
Anthony, the Marquess of Wingrave and future Duke of Talbert, Helia’s lover, had ruined her for all men.
“Lover,” she whispered, tasting the sound and feel of it.
All her life, there had been expectations of her and for her. Her parents had envisioned a respectable Scottish husband for Helia. Mr. Draxton sought to make Helia his wife. There’d always been dictates about her and chains around her. She’d just not realized it until now, when she was fully and completely ruined, in every way.
Only, her life hadn’t turned out the way she’d thought it would. And now she found herself Lord Wingrave’s lover, and without a single regret.
Helia angled her head up and studied him.
Why would she regret having lain in his arms? She’d been ruined in name, which was ruined in every way. At least, she’d have known this wonderment she found with Anthony and in his arms.
From his slackened lips, slow, even breaths escaped him. Sleep lent a gentleness to the marquess’s otherwise harshly beautiful features. In rest, an aura of peace and softness hung over him. As if only in his body’s absolute quietude could Anthony truly let his walls down.
Helia laid her cheek upon his lightly furred chest. Underneath her ear, she heard the solid, steady, reassuring thump of his heartbeat.
Sighing, Helia closed her eyes and absorbed his warmth and strength. She gently stroked a hand back and forth over his shoulder.
