‘It–it matters quite a lot if one insists on virginity as a pre-requisite for a woman to make a good marriage.’ Margaret held her breath. No, no–she was safe here, with him. She knew that in her bones. He would treat her well, however it ended. ‘And I am not a virgin, Mr. Duke. Not by any means.’
‘Oh.’ Henry paused. ‘I don’t care about that.’
‘... What?’
‘I don’t. At all. I’m aware that I’m probably meant to.’ Henry blinked. ‘But I’m not going to pretend to feel something I don’t.’
She would faint. Margaret bit her lip hard, quivering. She had told him one of the secrets that had weighed her down for years, like a millstone around her neck, and—and he had blown it away as if it were thistledown.
‘Are you well?’ Henry’s brow furrowed. ‘Have I said something wrong?’
‘No.’ This was what it was like to feel free. Unencumbered. ‘Not at all.’
‘Good. Have you considered my marriage proposal?’
‘I–I haven’t had enough time to give the matter full thought. I haven’t fulfilled my duties to you as a matchmaker.’
‘And… and if I asked you to give me instruction in carnal acts?’
‘As in…’
‘Yes.’ Henry shyly reached out, his large hands settling on her waist. Margaret felt a shiver of pure sensation run through her, making her glow from head to foot. ‘Could you do that for me?’
‘It’s a most unorthodox suggestion.’
‘I’m an unorthodox person. That much should be evident by now.’
‘And—and you wish to be prepared for your bride?’
‘As I said, I can’t bear to think of disappointing someone repeatedly for years. I don’t know if I’d be good at it. I like to do things well.’
‘I—I don’t think you’ll have any problems.’
‘Really?’
Lord, if only he’d kiss her again. ‘Yes. I doubt you’ll need any help.’
‘But I want help from you. Very much.’
He looked so handsome here, so close to her. So strong and vulnerable in equal measure. ‘And you shall have it.’
As soon as she’d said the words, she realised how far she was going. Too far, too much—too, too, too. But his face was so very close to hers, his hand cupping her face with infinite gentleness as he looked at her.
‘Can we begin now? I want to.’
‘We can kiss. Please kiss me again.’
‘Do I kiss well?’
‘You–you kiss me well.’
Henry frowned. ‘Does that mean I need to kiss other people?’
‘No! No.’ Oh, she should be less forceful, but the thought of him kissing someone else induced nausea. ‘It is best not to speak of kissing others when you’ve only just finished kissing one.’
‘I’ll kiss you now, Miss Barton, and never speak of anyone else.’
‘I… yes. Please.’
His mouth was on hers again, and everything dissolved into something approaching a dream. He had already grown more confident; she could feel the passion in him now, the baser want, shyly keeping pace with the innocence at his core. The kiss grew deeper, stronger; his hands were at home on her waist now, stroking her, her cloak and dress thin as gossamer as her skin burned beneath them. If he stroked his fingers up to her breasts, or… or if he moved further down, delving through her skirts, finding the meeting of her things to caress the hot, wet centre of her need…
‘The physical effect your presence has on me is–is much more pronounced now.’ Henry whispered in her ear as he pressed himself to her; Margaret bit her lip, a shameful rush of pleasure running through her as she felt the hardness of his cock. She’d been a thousand times more brazen with any number of gentlemen, but this felt different. Better. ‘Is it clear to you?’
‘Yes. Clear and–and welcome.’
‘I have an extensive theoretical knowledge of the acts involved. I feel it important for you to know that.’
‘I don’t think theory can compare to practice.’
‘I know the carnal act must be more complex, but I can’t imagine it feeling better than this. Than—than being with you here, like this.’
‘It does. It does when–when you’re inside me.’ How many times had she spoken brazenly of things done in the dark, whispered into a gentleman’s ear? But none of those times, not one, had ever made her as excited as she was now. ‘When you’re filling me.’
Her tongue was running away with her. Her thoughts, too. But tongue and thought were taking second place to instinct, to feeling–to Henry’s mouth on hers again, hungrier still, to his hands moving upwards, his grip firmer on her body as if wanting to feel the bare skin beneath her clothes.
If they weren’t interrupted, she would give free rein to her want. She would let him lay her down here on the warm stone floor–no, she would guide him downward. She would let her hand travel down to his cock, free it, show him every ounce of skill she had learned so long ago–the skill of giving unfettered, unrestrained pleasure…
‘Oh Harold, the snake! Whatever shall we–oh, Lord, did it come from there? Is it safe?’
‘My darling, if we cannot find a safe space to hide in the midst of all this chaos we must attempt to reach the carriage–’
The voices faded, but they still came too close for comfort. Margaret pulled away from Henry, placing her hands on his shoulders as she struggled to breathe.
‘I have a thought which probably shouldn’t be expressed.’
‘I like hearing the thoughts you don’t express.’ Margaret paused, torn between happiness and caution. ‘Express it.’
‘I don’t care if people come in. I don’t care at all. I–I probably should, I know.’
‘We must take care.’
‘I know.’ A half-smile hovered on Henry’s lips. ‘Especially if you’re still planning on presenting me to prospective brides.’
She was. She’d been very clear about that to both herself and him, which meant there was no excuse whatsoever for the sour note of disappointment in her throat. A moment of weakness in a snake house meant—meant less than nothing. ‘Of course.’
‘But not yet.’
‘At the Winterson ball, I imagine. A fortnight’s hence.’
‘That is my usual place to make introductions.’
‘Then come to dinner before that. Come to the house next week.’
‘I—I’ve never dined with your brothers before.’
‘You’ve dined with Anne a thousand times before. What’s so different about a dinner with all of us?’
The fact that I won’t be able to take my eyes off you. ‘Nothing.’
‘Then come. They know I’ve hired you.’
‘Have you told them about—’
‘We’ll speak of everything else but our arrangement.’ Henry smiled. ‘I promise. And…’
‘And?’
‘And afterwards… we could be alone together.’ Henry looked down. ‘I’m not sure how to phrase a request without sounding impolite. I rarely manage not to be.’
‘Make your request.’
‘I want to be like this. With you. But—further.’
‘Yes.’ She didn’t know how. All she could do was listen to her heart—how often she had ignored it over the years. How strongly it beat now. ‘Yes.’
‘Good.’ Henry stepped back. He bowed, suddenly as stiff and awkward as he had been during their first meeting. Only his face, glowing with a happiness that Margaret coveted, showed the import of what had occurred. ‘Then I’ll take my leave, Miss Barton. We’ve caused enough chaos. Would you like help getting to the carriage?’
‘No. The beasts won’t be interested in me.’
‘No. They know I’ve staked my claim.’
Margaret stood smiling in the snake house, smoke in the air, so much joy in her bones that her fear and caution briefly hid themselves. ‘Quite.’
There’d be time to question just what on earth she was doing with herself once she’d recovered her equ
ilibrium. For now, in this cramped, dark space with marauding animals outside, this was more than enough.
The servants at the Barton townhouse had never had so much to gossip about. Their lives were so confoundedly respectable under the iron hand of Margaret Barton, so devoid of talk or scandal of any kind, that they had been forced to speak of other households for the previous decades or their employ. Now, with all a-flutter and no time to speak of it at length without their employer finding out, they had only managed to establish certain facts.
Fact one: Miss Barton had accepted a commission from Henry Duke to find him a wife. Fact two: both Miss Barton and Mr. Duke had been at Menbrake Menagerie together, an unusual location to discuss potential matrimonial prospects—especially because the menagerie had undergone the most frightening act of vandalism during their visit. One could only speculate as to what had been discussed.
Fact three, and the most exciting fact of all. The one that below-stairs staff couldn’t keep themselves from excitedly discussing whenever they had a spare moment. Miss Barton was going to dinner at the Duke townhouse—not to see Anne Duke alone, but the entire coterie of Duke brothers—and presumably, Mr. Henry Duke would be in attendance.
The kitchens rang with rumours, sly allusions and honest hopes for wedded bliss. Margaret, in her bedroom with Cecile as she added the finishing touches to her evening gown, couldn’t hear a single word of it.
‘You look very well, my lady.’ Cecile picked up a final pin, gently but firmly sliding it through one of Margaret’s curls. ‘Very well indeed.’
‘Thank you.’ Margaret stared at herself in the glass. It had required a great act of courage to venture into a modiste’s–one far away from her house, of course, with no-one likely to recognise her–and request a gown so very different from her sober daily wear. Still more courage had been needed to go to every appointment, looking at herself in the mirror and agreeing to adjustments. In her courtesan days she had revelled in the pleasure of dressing, choosing every colour with an eye to seduction, but this gown was very different.
It was pink. The perfect, pale pink of a budding rose—exactly the pink that she had imagined while walking through Menbrake Menagerie. Not only was it pink, it was cut to a much more flattering shape than the respectable, staid affairs she usually wore.
It was a gown for an attractive, unmarried woman with the money to buy fripperies. Exactly who she was, if one removed all the layers of her past that had made seeing herself so difficult.
‘You seem in good humour, my lady.’
‘I am. It’s the first gathering I’ve attended in quite some time without being there in a professional capacity.’
‘May I say something slightly unprofessional, my lady?’
Margaret inwardly sighed. Given how desperately unprofessional she’d been with Henry at Menbrake, she wasn’t sure if she could manage if her maids began overstepping as well. ‘Will you regret it if you say it?’
‘No. It’s designed to offend no-one’s sensibilities, my lady.’
‘Then I suppose I must hear it.’
‘Thank you.’ Cecile took a deep breath. ‘I–I behaved most rudely during your first meeting with Mr. Duke, my lady. It was an unfair, uncharitable way to behave. And now that I see how–how happy you are to be attending a dinner at the Duke townhouse, which I presume Mr. Henry Duke will be attending as well, I–I simply wanted to make clear how in the wrong I was, and how right it is that you see happiness wherever you find it.’
Oh, Lord. How lovely, and how excruciating at the same time. Margaret slowly nodded, wondering how on earth to react.
‘Thank you.’ Sometimes she wished she could be warm with servants, but she was still too frightened. They would see through her artifice of refinement if she revealed herself completely. ‘Thank you… very much indeed.’
Even though Cecile demurely bowed her head, Margaret could tell that she was very gratified indeed. ‘Thank you, my lady.’
‘Is the carriage ready?’
‘Yes, my lady. As are you.’
‘Good.’ Margaret mentally shook herself. ‘Then find my gloves, please—and my wrap.’
‘Of course, my lady.’
Fortunately, the carriage ride to the Duke townhouse was relatively brief. There was little time to reflect on the fact that she was almost certainly making a terrible mistake—that she had invited danger into her life without fully considering the consequences. Panic only rose in her breast once she disembarked—once she was in the house itself, far more luxuriously furnished than it had been in the past, curtseying to the Duke brothers and their wives with a touch more awkwardness than in past encounters—and treating Henry with such icy, professional politeness that no-one could be left in any doubt as to her continued good conduct.
What had Henry told them about his meeting with her? She could hardly imagine him being reticent about what he felt, but neither could she picture him being salacious or gossipy. Perhaps the rest of the brothers felt uncomfortable at her presence, or had considered it a duty to invite her. On the other hand, maybe she was simply being overly-sensitive–all of the Dukes, Thomas, Robert, John and Edward, had done their best to make her feel as welcome as she usually did when making flying visits to their house.
She could tell that Anne in particular was full of questions. Anne had always been a shy, retiring woman, focused entirely on her work as a modiste, but her marriage had given her new leisure time–and new room to focus on the lives of her friends as well. Margaret, who had always attempted to keep every aspect of her private life unavailable for discussion even between her most trusted friend, hoped against hope that Anne wouldn’t attempt to get her alone and uncover the truth of things.
But even if she did, what was the truth of things? That she had tried to be professional with Henry for roughly half an hour, and then quickly succumbed to the most vivid temptation? That Henry still appeared to be determined to marry her, even though she had told him most firmly that it couldn’t occur? That… that she dreamed of doing exactly that, despite telling him that it was impossible?
Even the most curious friend would undoubtedly run for the hills after being faced with all that. Fortunately, Anne was as polite as she had always been–and Charlotte and Dorothea, two women who she didn’t know particularly well but who had always struck her as both pleasant and fortunate, behaved with such warm familiarity that very soon she felt at home. She smiled through the soup and fish courses, drank as much wine as was seemly and no more, and laughed at Thomas Duke as he told witty jokes at the head of the table.
Soon, her former discomfort was nothing but a distant dream. She even managed to look at Henry more than once without her throat closing, her heart beating wildly in her chest. Not for too long, of course–if she looked at him for too long, the true reason for this dinner would surface in her mind and make it impossible to concentrate.
‘Miss Barton?’ Thomas looked at her attentively from the head of the table, champagne glass in hand. ‘I’d love to know your view of this.’
Oh, Lord. She had lost her place in the conversation. ‘I–I would need a slower summary of the events, Mr. Duke. I’m afraid my powers of analysis aren’t fit for the task.’
‘Of course.’ Thomas smiled. Margaret sighed with relief; it was a poor trick, claiming ignorance when one simply hadn’t been listening, but there weren’t many polite alternatives. ‘That terrible business with the Wilton girl.’
The Wilton girl? Margaret thought briefly, her stomach swooping as she identified the surname. ‘Ah. The girl that was found to be–’
‘Yes. Not that we’re to speak of such subjects at dinner.’ Charles Weldon, a man who’d been welcomed into the bosom of the Duke family after his disastrous attempt at an engagement with Anne, smiled pleasantly as he took a sip of champagne. ‘But seeing as we’re amongst friends–’
‘–She was selling herself to a number of very rich gentleman in one of Covent Garden’s less salubrious establishments.’ Ed
ward rolled his eyes as his brothers looked at him in outrage. ‘What? It’s what we’re all dancing around.’
‘But it shouldn’t be referred to thusly.’
‘Why not? It’s the truth.’ Edward turned to Margaret, his expression slightly mischievous. ‘I’d be intrigued to hear your opinion as well, Miss Barton. As a matchmaker of some repute, I’d like to know how you’d manage to make the poor Wilton girl marriageable after this particular peccadillo has been discovered.’
It had to be a dream. Some horrible trick. Was this entire dinner an elaborate ruse to–to reveal her past, in the manner of a grotesque parlour game? Margaret opened her mouth, a shiver of horror running through her as she attempted to find the correct words.
‘It was in the Gazette, dear. In the gossipy part. I thought you read every piece of published gossip in existence.’ Anne frowned slightly, leaning towards her friend. ‘Did you really not read it? How busy you must be.’
Thank God. No trick. A friend as good as Anne would never be a part of such a horrible plan. Margaret inwardly sighed with relief, attempting a polite smile. ‘I haven’t read the story in question.’
‘It’s all the rage. Everyone’s discussing it, the poor thing.’ Charlotte’s eyes were alive with pleasure as she played with a discarded walnut shell. ‘I must say, when I was considering how to be scandalous before my marriage I never managed to dream quite so ambitiously.’
‘I doubt she did it simply for the scandal.’ John spoke quietly, looking into his champagne glass. ‘Wasn’t there some question of funds? The family had fallen into terrible debt, and didn’t tell anyone about it. I don’t believe she entered willingly into the profession.’
‘Come now. Don’t be naive.’ Robert laughed. ‘I think there has to be at least a little will there to enter such a dreadful trade.’
‘Why? What was her alternative?’
‘Dignity. Dignity and morality were her alternatives, and she refused them. I’ve met the Wilton patriarch–he’s hardly a beast. He wouldn’t have pushed her into the pleasure-house with a poker.’ Robert shook his head. ‘She chose her path. Now, I suppose, she’ll reap what she sows–but I’m taking up the time that Thomas dedicated to Miss Barton.’ Robert turned to her with an easy smile. ‘I’d love to hear your thoughts.’
Ravished in Rose: The Brothers Duke: Book Four Page 4