Page 24 of Obsession: The Unspoken Sin
Laurel’s eyes sparkled. “Oh, you must tell me. Please, please,please!” With every plea, she tugged at his hand. “Tell me.”
“I will,” he promised. Denbigh dropped his voice to an exaggerated whisper. “But first you have to promise me something.”
Alice’s daughter all too trustingly bobbed her head in an enthusiastic nod. The ease with which she capitulated onlyreminded him of all the boundaries out there. Who would be there to take advantage of her just as they had Alice? Never again. Not with this young girl. Over his dead body.
“Yes?” Laurel pleaded.
“You shouldn’t refer to me asmy lord. My father was the my-lord sort of fellow. I like to think of myself as just Laurence.”
Laurel flashed a dazzling smile to rival the brightest star in the clearest sky. “Okay,” she giggled. “‘Just Laurence’.”
Just Laurence. It was perfect.
Alice and her daughter…were both perfect.
Chapter 10
“Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker’s man. Bake me a cake as fast as you can.”
Clap, clap.
“Pat it and prick it and—”
As Alice’s daughter clapped her hands quickly in time, Laurence followed suit. Then, all of a sudden, he reached over, plucked Laurel up for the twelfth time since they had played the pat-a-cake game, scooped her up, and tickled her. Laurel erupted into giggles, laughing uncontrollably until she struggled to breathe. Laurence let up. He set her back, and they resumed their child’s rhyming game.
“Mark it with an L for Laurel…” Laurence intoned.
“And me,” Laurel piped in.
They exclaimed in unison as the partners in play erupted into laughter. Laurence’s bigger mightier and deeper laughter mingling with Laurel’s higher, lilting child’s cadence. Alice only fell even more deeply in love with the Earl of Denbigh.
She’d loved him forever. Despite his insistence all those years ago that she was like a sister, and his assumption that she’d seen him as a brother. She’d viewed him as a hero. He’d been a confidante. She’d wanted him to be a lover and even more. She’d wanted to be his wife. It had been he, however, who’d seen her as a sister. But she’d loved him with all the force of her woman’s heart, and she’d always secretly hated whomever the lucky woman would be who’d become his countess. Now, seeing the manner of father he would one day be to his own children only added an unholy, unforgivable envy within her.
Alice continued to stare while Laurel and Laurence began yet another round of pat-a-cake. Some other woman would be his wife, and she’d give him a child. Other children wouldbecome his babes, and Alice would be left alone, unmarried, with the mistakes of her past and the knowledge that there was a man who was all things good—loving, loyal, respectable, and honorable. He just wasn’t hers.
And yet a voice needled in her head. He’d insisted that she was only a sister to him. But when he’d taken her in his arms, there’d been nothing fraternal about the power of his desire. The only time she’d ever made love with a man had been with the dastard who’d taken her virtue. It had been quick, sloppy, and painful. His kiss had stirred her some, but that had been all. There had been no tender caresses. There had been no passionate embrace. He’d given her some slobbery kisses, yanked her skirts up, parted her legs, and inserted his member inside her. She’d been all too glad when it was over.
But when Laurence touched her, when he’d kissed her, there had been Vauxhall fireworks and explosions of warmth and hungering. She’d never known she could hunger for a kiss. In his arms, she—a woman who hadn’t been a virgin for a long time and who had a child—at last discovered passion. It had ended too quickly. And it appeared it wouldn’t be repeated. But hehadwanted her. She’d felt his desire for her. That organ, long, thick, and hard, had pulsed against her belly, an indication of his want for her.
From across the room, as if he felt her eyes upon him, Laurence looked up from whatever questions Laurel was currently peppering him with. His eyes held Alice’s.
God help her, he saw her, and there was no doubt he saw that which she couldn’t conceal—her hungering, her regret, her longing for more—with him. She knew by the way his tall, muscular body tensed and the spark of passion in his eyes.
The moment was shattered by Laurel’s loud, noisy sigh. It was time for the little girl’s nap. There came a clearing throat sound from over where Addien stood in the doorway.The young maid glared darkly at Alice and Laurence. Alice’s cheeks instantly went warm at having been caught observing her daughter and Laurence like a dazed, daft romantic who was about to get herself into significant trouble.
But then isn’t that exactly what you are?
“Oy, come along, Laurel, the angels are looking for you.”
The angels being none other than those women who’d been hired as nursemaids and caregivers for the prostitutes, servants, and serving girls who found themselves in the family way, or who’d arrived here with children. None were turned away. None who wanted work and were good, honest, and loyal to Dynevor and the Devil’s Den.
Instead of rushing over to greet the gruff Adeline, as she usually did, or whichever girl had been sent to retrieve her from whatever assignment her mother was working on, this time, Laurel lingered. She put out her lower lip that trembled and made a grab for Laurence’s hand.
“I don’t want to sleep,” she said miserably. “I want to stay with Laurence.”
And the aggrieved look in Laurence’s eyes indicated he wanted that very much too. The evidence of his desire and interest to remain conversing with her child left Alice filled with an actual physical aching for something that could not and would not be.
Even worse, when she wrenched her gaze from Laurence’s, she discovered a shocked and furious Addien staring back. Dumbfounded, when she was never anything but largely expressionless, Addien made no attempt to conceal her emotions.
