All I Want Is You by Elizabeth Anthony Page A

knowing this meant change everywhere, for everyone.
    The shutters of the great house were closed and funereal draperies were hung at the windows, as they had been for the deaths of Lord Charlwood and little Lord Edwin. The bell of the village church tolled across the mist-shrouded valley as I dressed Lady Beatrice in her mourning clothes. She was very calm, but I could tell she was brittle with excitement.
    ‘They’ve failed,’ she breathed to me. ‘The lawyers and all the old Duchess’s paid lackeys have failed to prove Ash is not the true heir.’
    It was naturally assumed that Lord Ashley – the new Duke of Belfield – would arrive for the funeral, but where exactly was he? No one seemed to know. The old Duchess was in such a storm of rage and self-pity that everyone except Beatrice was frightened of her. She walked around the Hall with her stick banging on the floor, frightening her own cats away and demanding again and again if anything had been heard from Lord Ashley. She refused to give him his new title.
    ‘How can the son of a wandering artist and a Frenchwoman – a man who owns
factories
– be allowed to become the duke?’ she was heard to wail. The rumours about his unsuitability grew and grew. The servants still called him Lord Ashley, too, and muttered angrily, ‘It’s not right that we should have to call him our master.’
    There would be hundreds of mourners for the funeral from all around the country, with dozens of house guests. I felt oppressed again, dreading Lord Ashley’s arrival, but Lady Beatrice was exhilarated. One afternoon, when I was tidying her room, she got me to take off her black bombazine gown and help her into a new frock of palest yellow silk with pleats that swirled light as swansdown from her hips. ‘Do you like this one?’ she asked me eagerly. ‘Do you?’
    ‘I think it’s exquisite,’ I said.
    She must have seen the sadness in my eyes, because she hugged me suddenly. ‘Soon I’ll be a duchess, Sophie, and everything will be so different, you’ll see. Ash
must
be on his way.’
    I think I shivered; she drew away from me, clickingher scarlet-tipped fingers impatiently, then went to pull a pastel blue frock from her wardrobe. ‘Put this on,’ she coaxed, twirling it before me. ‘Then you’ll feel better.’
    I did as she said, of course. Always now I wore the beautiful silk lingerie she’d given me, and she let her smooth white hands skim down over my hips with a sigh of satisfaction before helping me ease the blue frock over my head. She fetched two glasses from a cabinet and poured us both some gin.
    The dress was divine. But… ‘It’s so short,’ I whispered.
    ‘And why not? Your legs are beautiful, Sophie. So slender and shapely. When you dance on stage in London, the men won’t be able to keep their eyes off you.’
    Then quickly she went to put a record on and swept me into a foxtrot. She did that often, reminding me of my dream when she guessed I was becoming downhearted. I knew she was cynically using me, but her good humour was infectious, and as I thought again of my future in London my spirits soared. We giggled, we sighed, we kissed. Her mouth was sweet and warm; her tongue slipped between my lips, tasting faintly of gin and tobacco. By then we’d stopped dancing but her body was swaying slightly close to mine and she was rubbing herself against me. ‘Sophie,’ she murmured, ‘all day I’ve been thinking of you. Have you missed me?’
    Once again her silken arms drew me close and her tongue twined with mine. She drew me to her bed and we lay there, our lovely gowns rustling. Her fingers with their red-painted nails were subtle yet teasing as theyglided up my thighs and found my secret flesh there, toying with me until I was gasping, clenching myself around her. She’d pushed down the narrow shoulder straps of my gown and my brassiere; her mouth fastened on my breast and I climaxed almost instantly, grinding myself against her hand,