"I understand," he said, and stood, the tortured look in his eyes gutting her. "I'll leave you now."
Cassandra vowed not to turn around and watch the earl leave. That she couldn't bear, but for some reason the infernal man took his time before she finally heard the parlor door open and then snick shut. Why in Hera's name had he lingered. Did he think she'd change her mind?
At the sound of finality of the earl finally leaving her parlor, she sank onto the window seat, pulled a cushion to her face andallowed herself a long, noisy weep that hopefully, none of the other servants would hear.
Friday,8 September
Earl's Bedchamber
Number One Townhouse, Grosvenor Street
Obadiah tried pulling the pillow over top of his head to hide the noises emanating from Adrienne's bedchamber, but the feather-filled pillow was no match for her ever increasing shrieks of pleasure.
He sat straight up in bed again. What the hell was the earl doing to her? More importantly, what had she done to encourage the man to such heights of depraved love-making?
A low groan was building to a crescendo when suddenly there was a change in the tone of Adrienne's voice. The previous low hums of pleasure had turned into pleas for mercy.
"Nooooo..." The tone in her voice now switched from pleasure to moans of pain. Obadiah leapt from the damned bed, pulled on his trousers, and raced bare-footed through the adjoining dressing room. When he flung open the far door to Adrienne's bedchamber, he feared the hinges wouldn't hold. By that time, the anger behind his eyes had built so precipitously he was in the throes of blind rage.
"Adrienne--." He searched wildly for the man inflicting such pain, but all he saw was the object of his terror sitting cross-legged on mussed silk sheets, munching calmly on an apple. She was clad only in a silk dressing gown trimmed with wide lace that left nothing to his imagination as to what lay beneath the barely closed wrap.
He swallowed and took a mighty breath before loosing his ire. "What in the hell do you think you're doing? Where is he?"
"He who?"
After that saucy reply, Obadiah did not trust himself to move or speak further. He stood seething in the middle of the room, clenching and unclenching his fists. "Explain yourself" was the only thing he could manage to get past his similarly clenched teeth.
"See, this is just what I thought you'd do."
"What?" His aversion to killing a woman as beautiful as Adrienne was all that kept him from throttling her.
"I had to find out." She took another juicy bite from the apple and glared back at him from beneath the long, dark curls he'd loved to run his hands through when she belonged to him. "You see, if Derek had been here, you'd have ended up at the wrong end of a hangman's noose for assaulting a peer."
After counting to one-hundred, twice, he ground out, "And that's why you performed this bedroom farce?"
"Of course."
Obadiah calculated how long the earl must have been gone and then surveyed her carefully staged scene. He snorted in derision before pointing a finger at the conniving woman. "You didn't have to stage this elaborate plan. You knew exactly what I'd do if I thought you were being harmed." This...this..." He spread his arms wide. "Is nothing more than a ruse to get me back in your bed. You want it all. You want the earl at your beck and call and me in your bed as well."
At that she threw the apple at him and climbed to her knees, causing the dressing gown to fall open. He spun away from the sight of the infernal woman's glorious breasts beneath the gown and covered his eyes, as if he could wipe away the memory of that view. He finally found the strength to speak again in low, guttural sounds. "Enough...I've had enough. You win. I'llask Captain El tomorrow to find someone else to guard your precious body." With that, he strode back through the changing rooms, back to the peace of the master's chamber and locked the door behind him.
Adrienne's achingknees brought her back to reality. What a pompous, egotistical bastard Obadiah Lassen had become. She supposed there were waves of willing women at Goodrum's that threw themselves at his feet nightly.
When she'd left him while he'd been at sea with Captain El, he didn't even try to find her when he came back. She meant nothing to him. She was just another mermaid in a sea of maidens eager to climb onto his cock. The thought of that scene brought her back to reality.
She sobered then and found a suitably plain dress in her wardrobe. Obadiah Lassen had always had a place in her heart. He still did and probably always would. She knew that better than anyone. Furthermore, Adrienne couldn't bear the thought of leaving all of the earl's mistresses to the mercy of some other guard in El's employ. Obadiah was the best. He'd keep all of them safe until the blackmailer was found and dealt with. She'd go apologize, beg, and grovel to keep him from leaving in a fit of pique over her subterfuge.
She giggled then and had to admit the sight of him in nothing but his trousers raging into her bedchamber had been worth enduring his wrath. She was certain he'd locked the dressing room door on his side of the master's chambers, but she knew another way in. There had been a short time, four years earlier, when she and Derek had shared the master's enormous bed.That was before the earl had become hopelessly entangled in Mrs. Collins' warm, hazel eyes and husky voice.
She knew the detour off the back servants' passage which led to a door hidden within the wallpaper pattern in the master's chamber. When she nudged the door, it swung open silently, revealing Obadiah sprawled in his favorite sleeping pose on his back, both legs bare outside the counterpane and his arms flung wide.
He didn't move when she crept across the room, but when she sat on the side of the bed, he sat up and pulled her toward him, crushing her to his powerful chest. "You scared me to death tonight. I thought he was hurting you."
"I'm truly sorry, but I only meant to test you to see if you'd stay away if you thought I was, um, with the earl."
He gave her a long, hungry stare in the light of the candle stub on the chest next to the bed. "And how did I do?"
"What do you mean?" She opened her eyes wide.
