Falling for Anthony

Chapter Eight

Anthony stood at the window as the fingers of dawn slowly began peeling back the night, piercing the overhanging clouds with gold and blue.

Colin had been restless in the waning hours but had finally fallen into the daysleep. As the three of them had watched over him, Anthony had told Emily the history of the Guardians. Despite her earlier declaration, she had found his explanation a lot to absorb.

He glanced at Hugh, who had said nothing during the account, except to nod once or twice when Anthony had looked to him for clarification. His mentor was staring out the other window, ever alert. Though the nosferatu could not attack during the day, the demon Hugh had sensed could.

The chains jangled, and Anthony turned as Emily began unlocking Colin in expectation of the servants' return. She leaned over the bed for Colin's left wrist, and the hem of the nightgown lifted, revealing the delicate line of her ankles. His eyes skimmed up her form, allowing himself to linger for a moment where the robe pulled tight over the enticing curve of her bottom, and then he moved to her side to help her.

Wordlessly, she handed him the key and began unwinding the chains from around the bedposts. He looked over at her, and a smile tugged at his mouth. "My story has shocked you into silence."

"No," she said. "I am merely trying to comprehend it all and think of what should be done next." She dropped the chains to the floor with a sharp clatter, and Anthony pushed the pile under the bed with his foot. She slanted him a wry glance. "And perhaps I am overwhelmed."

"When one is inundated with information," Hugh said without moving from his post by the window, "that is usually the end result. My pupil has yet to learn that short summaries are easier to deliver, and easier for the listener to take in, than epic narration."

How typical of Hugh to want the details framed in the most boring, succinct manner possible. Anthony's lips quirked. Perhaps he had embellished too much, but Emily had been a captivating audience. Her eyes had been wide, her skin flushed with excitement, and he had enjoyed being the object of her rapt attention.

He was absurdly pleased that her expression betrayed no similar excitement when Hugh recited, "Quite simply: after the First Battle, a group of angels descended from Above to reside in Caelum, to protect humans from the manipulations of those Below. But the humans began to think of the angels as gods; the demons, out of jealousy, decided to wage another war, the Second Battle. They managed to create a dragon, which defeated the angels—but a human was able to stop it."

"Michael," Emily said with a trace of awe, and Anthony grinned. Michael's battle had been one part of the narrative he'd lingered over. "And the sword he used somehow came into my family's possession, and the dragon's blood imbued the metal with the power to defeat the original angelic orders."

"Correct. After Michael's victory, those Above decided to create the Guardians, a corps of men who would protect against demons and nosferatu in the angels' stead. The Guardians' humanity would allow them to move among the humans as the angels never could. Michael took up residence in Caelum and began selecting those who would be in the corps."

Emily was silent for a moment and then she looked at Anthony. Her dark eyes sparkled with repressed mirth, and he felt her glance spear through him and settle heavy in his loins.

"Thank you, Hugh," she said. "That was much less epic."

Hugh bowed his head in acknowledgment, and Emily's gaze became thoughtful. "Why hasn't the nosferatu tried to kill us since that first assault?"

"You spoke to me of a female demon who interfered that night," Anthony said, with a quick glance at Hugh. If it had been a demon, the nosferatu might be dead.

She raised her eyes to Anthony's face. "If it was a demon, why would she have saved us?"

"If it is Lilith, as I suspect, do not suppose a rational motive," Hugh replied. "She'll reveal herself soon—she can't tolerate anonymity, and last night's mischief suggests that she is tired of waiting in the background—and then we'll discover whether she has killed the nosferatu."

"And the sword?" Anthony asked. "If the nosferatu lives and was able to delve into Colin's memories as he did mine, he might have already discovered its location."

Emily was shaking her head. "Colin doesn't know where it is." A blush crept up her cheeks, and she looked away from Anthony. "I had it sent—"

"Don't say it!" Hugh broke in sharply. Anthony and Emily stared at him in surprise, and Hugh added in his normal, staid tone, "Their hearing is as good as ours. Perhaps better."

Anthony felt Emily's sudden tension, and her hand clenched tightly on his. He realized, "If they are listening, then they will know she has the information they want."

Hugh nodded, and Anthony wondered if his mentor had counted on something like this to flush out the nosferatu. To use Emily as bait.

Unease flitted across Emily's features. If the nosferatu came for her, it would tear her apart in its quest for the sword.

"It would be best if you did not leave her side," Hugh said.

His voice tight, Anthony promised, "I won't."

Emily slowly brushed her hair, studying the line of Anthony's back in the mirror as he paced the length of her room. He moved differently than he used to, with new confidence; before, he had walked as if he didn't care to be noticed, entering a room and sitting as quickly as possible in an unobtrusive location. Now, he seemed to frill her bedchamber with his presence, each long stride marking off. territory and claiming it as his.

Claiming Emily as his.

He turned and met her gaze in the mirror. Her cheeks reddened at being caught in a stare, but she refused to look away. A faint smile curved his mouth, and he resumed his pacing.

Emily set down the brush and pressed her cool palms to her burning face—but her hands could not soothe the heat that coiled low in her belly.

But his hands could.

The image of his fingers on her breasts, in the dark hollow between her thighs deepened her blush. Anthony caught her gaze again and, as if arrested by her heightened color, paused a few feet from her chair. His eyes darkened as they skimmed over her slim form.

Though her lips parted in expectation, he abruptly walked away.

Disappointment surged through her, but she could not find the courage to issue an invitation. She stared at her reflection, wondering when she had become a coward—and why she found it difficult to clearly state her desires now. In the past, it had seemed so simple to convince a man—including Anthony. A kiss or a coin and their objections fell away.

I don't want to have to kiss his objections away, she realized.

For the second time, he tested the lock at the door, and she sighed. "The servants won't come in; I've left instructions for them to let me sleep undisturbed."

He jiggled the handle again. "It would be unfortunate should one come in here and see me; I'm supposed to be dead, and most of your staff knows me well," he reminded her. "And I do not have Hugh's ability to go about undetected."

She rose from her chair, crossing the room and pulling back her bedding. "I wonder that I was allowed to see you," she said, and climbed into her bed. She sat, her arms curled around her knees.

"I'm not supposed to return while you, or anyone else I knew, still lives," he admitted. As if finally convinced that her room was as secure as it could be, he joined her at the bed and sat down on the edge. His hip was only inches from her feet, and she fought the urge to wriggle her toes beneath warm, firm muscle. "I have barely begun my training; I shouldn't have come back to Earth until another century had passed."

Her eyes widened. "Did you break the rules? Will you be tossed out like the demons, or a fallen angel?" The thought that he would be punished for helping her made her chest ache.

He grinned and dipped his head, and she could tell he was trying not to laugh. "No, Michael bade me to come. In any case, there is no punishment for a Guardian. Falling is simply making the choice to reverse the transformation. If a Guardian chooses to leave the corps before the first one hundred years, then he Ascends and waits for judgment. After the hundred years, he can either return to Earth and live out the remainder of his life or Ascend."

As a reward for service, it left much to be desired. "If you chose to come back, everyone you knew would be gone," she said sadly.

He gave a short nod. "From what I understand, most who choose to Fall decide not to return." He glanced up at her face, sucked in a breath as if she'd hit him. "Don't look like that—it's not worth your tears. I'm fortunate to be alive at all, and becoming a Guardian is an opportunity I never could have dreamed of," he said gently.

She buried her face in the cradle of her knees and waited until the burning behind her eyelids stopped. Finally, she raised her head and propped her chin on her fist. "You might like to know that your sister Elizabeth was married six months ago to Lord Ashcom."

"Oh?" He lifted an eyebrow, his tone bland. "My mother must have been pleased with such an advantageous match. They did not even wait to come out of mourning for me."

Death had apparently not softened his feelings toward his family. "I believe she will have a first advantageous grandchild very soon," Emily said with an arch smile and was rewarded as he feigned a scandalized expression.

"Hardly appropriate behavior for a lady!" he replied, and his sarcasm was not lost on Emily. His family had always insisted on respectability, had disapproved of Anthony for his profession, and yet it had likely been his sister's impropriety that had netted her a viscount. His family would never see the hypocrisy; Elizabeth's actions had gained a peer and access to a modest fortune. It mattered little to them that a physician was a respectable position in society; Anthony would have been paid for his services. His attempts to secure himself a comfortable living had relegated him to trade in their lofty view, no better than a merchant.

But it hardly signified now.

She opened her mouth to tell him so and was surprised to find his countenance overspread with a deep blush.

As if embarrassment had congealed on his tongue, he said stiffly, "Allow me to apologize, Lady Emily. I do not mean to suggest that your behavior has ever been less than appropriate, nor lowered your status in my eyes."

She stared at him, puzzled, until she recalled what he had just said of his sister. Then she burst into laughter.

"Oh, Anthony!" she said when she could manage the words. She wiped tears from her lashes with shaking fingers. "You of all people—" A giggle erupted, and she clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle the girlish laugh.

He watched her, his blush fading, replaced by the confident teasing of a long-time friend. "You were rather shameless."

Her giggles ceased as mortification struck, sobering and cold. She sighed. "You don't know the extent of my shamelessness, Anthony." She pleated the hem of her nightgown with nervous fingers, studying the wrinkles the folds left in the linen. She couldn't bear to look at him, to see the censure in his blue eyes as she admitted, "I didn't wait to mourn for you, either. I didn't even wait until I'd heard news of your death—within two weeks of your leaving for Spain I was in another man's bed."

She felt his stillness, his tension. She dared a glance at his face. He was looking blindly at his hands; a muscle in his jaw flexed, his chiseled lips held firmly together, as if he didn't trust himself to immediately speak. A flurry of emotions passed over his features, and those that she recognized twisted in her belly and made her regret her admission: hurt, jealousy, surprise.

His voice was hoarse. "Are you looking to me for absolution?"

"No." She took a deep, shuddering breath. "I'm at peace with the past; I don't know why I told you." But she did—he had always looked at her as if she was an untouchable romantic heroine with no faults, even after she had used him. She wanted him to know the woman, the whole woman, she'd become—blemishes and all.

He didn't reply. Silence stretched between them, and she was desperate to fill it. "Anthony." His name was a plea.

He finally turned to her. Her throat tightened with relief when she saw his lopsided grin, but the self-deprecation lurking in his gaze ripped at her heart.

"And all this time, I thought you'd fallen prey to my masculine charms and were wasting away in my absence," he said. "Who was this paragon for whom I was a substitute, and why isn't he married to you now?"

If her nightgown had been paper, it would have shredded beneath her anxiously working fingers. "They weren't—" She took a deep breath, tried to find a way to explain. "After that night—after you left—I was sick. A fever and infection. And when I recovered, I went out and sought the most unsuitable lovers I could find. I paid for their services and then their silence," she said in a low voice. She met his shocked gaze with her own, and added with force, "And you were not a substitute for anyone. They were… convenient."

"As I was?" The question was ripe with anger, but he quickly suppressed it. Though she wished she could deny it, he had the truth of it: he had been convenient.

He fell back against the mattress, staring at the ceiling. After a moment, he raked his hands through his hair and propped himself up on his elbow to look at her. She tore her gaze away from the collar of his shirt, the broad expanse of skin and muscle his new position afforded her.

His concern was as intense as his anger had been. "Whatever could have possessed you to risk your reputation, your future—your family? What happened that you would be so reckless? Were you in love with any of them?" The last seemed dragged out of him.

She shook her head, and a miserable smile pulled at her mouth. "I'd wanted that risk—with men with whom my father would not approve in alliance, so he might be as disillusioned as I was," she admitted.

"Why not tup the footman then?" he asked carelessly.

She could not keep the reproof from her voice. "Anthony."

He sighed. "I'm doing my best to reconcile the idealistic creature I knew with the woman who tells me that she not only used me out of convenience, but also a collection of prostitutes—in some plot against her father?" He reached forward and placed his hand over hers, stilling the agitated crumpling at her hem. "I knew you were not yourself that night—but frankly, whatever the cause, your reaction was ridiculous."

Her mouth fell open, and she laughed. In retrospect, it had been easy enough to call herself silly, yet she had always recalled the violent bitterness that had motivated her and justified herself with memory of that emotion. Put in Anthony's blunt manner, her motives did seem absurd.

"You will laugh," she said. "But it was because I found out my father loved a courtesan. His mistress, Mrs. Newland."

Anthony didn't laugh; instead, he looked at her as if she'd grown a third eye. "Emily," he said gently, like a mother imparting an obvious fact to a stupid child, "many men take mistresses before and after marriage; some even love them. Surely you didn't expect your father to mourn your mother forever?"

"Yes," she said simply. She tried to give a nonchalant shrug, to remind herself that it no longer mattered, but she couldn't keep the thickness from creeping into her voice. "Theirs was a romance that the ton still speaks of: the dashing earl and the beautiful daughter of a duke. He grieved for my mother so much that he could not love us; it gave him a reason to ignore Colin and me. It was a reason that was beautiful, tragic. I wanted love like that for myself." She paused, glancing down at their clasped hands. His thumb softly stroked the back of her fingers as he listened. "But if he loved his mistress, then his indifference toward us could not stem from his undying love for my mother. It simply meant that he never found us worthy of his love."

"Emily…" Anthony shook his head, a smile tilting the corners of his mouth. "You are an idiot. Colin loves you. The ton adores you," he said, and added with an uneven grin, "Even I love you."

"I used you horribly," she reminded him, but the heaviness in her chest eased, and Emily found herself smiling back. "You can't love me."

"Since I was fourteen years old," he said.

"Don't be absurd," she admonished, and her smile faded. "I was an idiot," she admitted with a sigh. "But I was young."

"It was only ten months ago."

"Many things can happen in ten months."

"Yes," he agreed quietly.

They sat in companionable silence for a few moments, until the absent stroke of his thumb abruptly stopped.

"Did you meet this courtesan? Was she the rumor in Leicester Square, where you learned—"

He broke off, and his gaze dropped to her lips. She suddenly recalled the words she had spoken to him.

I learned that if a woman takes a man's organ into her mouth, she can make him do anything she wishes.

His hand clenched on hers, and she knew he was imagining it as well. A restless ache swept through her, tightening the peaks of her breasts, settling warm and taut beneath her womb.

She slowly nodded; his expression intensified, his jaw clenched. She leaned forward, a liquid movement, and brushed his hair from where it had fallen into his eyes.

"This would not be wise," he said, a raw edge to his voice.

Desire thrummed through her; she could feel the answering tension in him and didn't need to question what he thought this was.

"We've already decided I have a tendency toward idiocy," she said, and then paused when Anthony pressed his lips together. She touched his mouth softly with her fingertips. "Why do you do that?"

He caught her hand in his and tugged her toward him almost playfully. "What?"

She rocked forward until her knees were against his thigh and sat back on her heels. An unladylike position, perhaps, but a comfortable one. "You don't allow yourself to laugh when you are with me. Am I so formidable?" She tried asking the question lightly, but she knew he would hear the anxiety that ran beneath her teasing tone.

"Yes." He turned her hand and kissed the inside of her wrist. An innocent kiss, but tongues of flame licked the length of her arm. Her body tightened, trembled. His gaze locked on hers, warm, rich blue. "Your every smile, your every word leaves me breathless and delighted. If I laughed as often as I wished, there would be no other sound in the room."

His words pierced her like arrows. She drew in a deep breath, her eyes searching his face. "You aren't laughing now," she whispered.

He sat up and rested his forehead against hers. "A nosferatu is stalking you. He would kill you and your brother."

"He sleeps, as does my brother," she said, and threaded her fingers through the hair at his nape. It was soft, and his skin was like silk beneath her hands.

"A demon waits."

"Hugh watches for her." Her palms smoothed down his shoulders and felt the strength of him beneath his shirt. He shuddered under her touch, his lashes swept down as he closed his eyes.

"When I leave, I will not return for a century."

"When you leave, every day I will stare up at the sky and thank Heaven and you for looking after a silly, stupid girl and her vain brother."

A laugh rumbled through him but did not escape. He sealed her lips with his, and she rose up against him, winding her slim arms around his neck. She immediately sought to deepen the kiss, opening her mouth, a soft moan of anticipation sounding low in her throat.

He yielded to her quiet demand, his lips parting. His tongue gently traced the sharp line of her teeth before dipping inside, tasting.

His leisurely exploration sent delicious shivers along her spine. She arched closer, but he pulled away with a long, unraveling sigh.

"You undo me, Emily," he said.

She wanted him to become undone. She raised her fingers to her lips and felt the lingering moisture. His impassioned gaze followed the movement and then with a low growl of frustration, pushed away from the bed.

He strode toward the window, but not before Emily saw the taut stretch of his breeches across his loins and the outline of his shaft.

Tempted to lure him back, she got as far as uncurling her legs from beneath her before he turned around and pinned her to the bed with a heated stare.

"They will hear," he said, his voice thick. "Hugh, the nosferatu, the demon—if they are listening, they will hear us. Every sigh, every word, every movement of my body against yours."

The images his words conjured sent pleasure coursing through her, even as she recoiled at the thought of being on display—particularly for creatures such as those.

"I will be silent," she said.

"I fear I will not."

She tucked in a grin and flicked a glance at his straining erection. "You were last time."

He chuckled, a rich, deep sound that filled the room. She hugged a pillow to her chest, smiling with pleasure. It wasn't an outright laugh, but it would do.

Shaking his head, he said, "Last time was possibly the least-fulfilling sexual encounter—outside the marriage bed—in the history of England."

Her face went scarlet, and she hurled the pillow at his head. He caught it easily, and his renewed humor was payment enough for her embarrassment. "Go to sleep, Emily," he said. "We'll discuss your ineffective courtesan-learned technique later."

"I've learned many techniques since then," she muttered, hut lay down, curling around her remaining pillow. She felt the warmth of his gaze on her and was certain that her roiling emotions and lingering arousal would never let her rest.

And then she slipped into dreams.

Anthony knew the moment she fell asleep. He heard it in the cadence of her breathing and the subtle relaxing of her form.

He still held her pillow in his hands, and he deliberately unclenched the fists he had sunk deep into its softness, grateful that it had not exploded into a shower of feathers under the pressure of his grip. He should not feel the jealousy that swept through him, nor the anger directed at those lovers she'd taken—he had her once, and his motives had not been pure. Yet he still wanted to tear apart every man who'd touched her, erase from her every memory of them: nameless men who had likely brought her more pleasure than Anthony ever had.

His erection rose taut against his lower abdomen, hot and insistent. Even now, with her back to him and sound asleep, the curve of her shoulders and hips, the nip of her waist, the spread of her hair behind her was an overpowering lure, the urge to bury himself within her silky depths irresistible.

God, he would have done anything to bring her pleasure now. But it was not the right time—there would likely never be the right time.

"Anthony."

Though several walls separated them, he had no trouble discerning his mentor's voice. His reply was quiet, to avoid disturbing Emily's sleep. "I'm here."

"Are you enthralled?" Hugh asked bluntly.

Anthony bit back the angry response that rose to his tongue; of course his mentor had heard Emily's and his exchange. And he knew that Hugh's real question was: Given your feelings, can you effectively protect her?

Emily sighed in her sleep, and he walked over to stand next to the bed. Her lips were gently parted, her lashed fanned against her cheek. Lavender and her unique, feminine fragrance filled his senses.

He could easily lose himself in her, but he would never permit himself that luxury if it endangered her. He would die before he allowed that to happen.

Again.

"No," he finally murmured. "Being near her has always affected me thus." A lifelong enthrallment.

There was a long pause and then Hugh said, "I will not listen anymore."

Anthony glanced in the direction of Hugh's voice, his eyebrows arching in amusement. Had the Guardian just given him leave to make love to Emily if he wished—and had he really thought Anthony needed that approval from him?

But he was not insensible to the tacit compliment accompanying the approval—if Hugh thought Anthony incapable, he would never have offered privacy.

"Have you sensed the demon?"

"Everywhere," Hugh said cryptically and then was silent. The short answer was a signal that Hugh either knew where the demon was but was biding his time before confronting her—or conversely, that he had no idea but did not want to alert the demon to her advantage.

Anthony tilted his head and tried to open his senses to locate the demon, as Hugh had once instructed him.

Nothing.

He sighed at the failure, but it did not dishearten him. He would have years to learn, and he was no stranger to study.

Emily turned over with a rustle of linen. Her nightgown climbed over her knee, revealing sleek muscles and satin skin. How simple it would be to draw his palm over the length of her limbs, to seek the dark secrets between them.

If he had eons to study them, it would not be enough.

He'd thought the taste of her he'd had long ago would be—though he had been aroused, there had been little passion; it had been swept away by his surprise and her bitterness. When he'd returned, he thought he could resist her sensuality, could keep his craving for her under control; the kiss they'd just shared had banished that notion. He knew she made him happy; he'd forgotten how she made him ache.

And with every move, every laugh, every word she reminded him, until it seemed as if there had never been anything else.