“Bainbridge is an arrogant, pompous, unyielding stone wall of a man,” Julian said against her skin, his tone suggesting he found the notion humorous. “I doubt very much he’d allow someone as free-spirited as Lady Bo to bend his brother’s ear.”
Clara thought of what her friend had said about the duke. Frigid as Wenham Lake ice. Disapproving of everyone save his superior self. “She’s been invited to the family home, so it couldn’t be as bad as all that. It’s some sort of country house event, or so I gather.”
“Good luck to her. Or perhaps I ought to say good luck to Bainbridge.” Julian made short work of the remainder of the buttons on her bodice, peeling it open. In another breath, he’d loosened her corset and tugged it and her chemise down, allowing her breasts to spill free into the humid summer air. “Either way, I’ve more pressing concerns at the moment.”
She moaned and arched into him as he sucked a nipple. “More pressing concerns? What could they possibly be?” As she asked him the question, she slid her hand down his taut belly to the rigid protrusion of his cock beneath his trousers. She cupped him, feeling an answering ache between her thighs.
He caught her nipple in his teeth before releasing it with a lusty sound. “I have a feeling you already know, Lady Ravenscroft.”
“Do I, Lord Ravenscroft?” She attempted a look of innocence. “Perhaps you ought to show me, just to be certain.”
In one swift motion, he scooped her up in his arms. “With pleasure.”
She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him soundly, her heart bursting with happiness. “I love you, Julian,” she said again, for she couldn’t speak the words enough, it seemed. She never wanted him to forget. He was a man so very much in need of love and so very worthy of it too.
“I love you too, little dove,” he said against her lips. “More than you know. Now, if I could only find the spot where you taste the sweetest.”
“It may require some research, my love,” she told him with mock seriousness.
He grinned down at her as he carried her back inside. “Never let it be said I’m not an excellent student.”
And he proceeded to show her just how excellent he was.
Darling Duke
Heart’s Temptation Book 6
An untamable hellion
Lady Boadicea Harrington is a scandal waiting to happen. She’s too outspoken, too opinionated, and far too much of a flirt to ever land a good match. But that doesn’t concern her. The last of her sisters on the marriage mart, she isn’t about to settle down. In fact, she doesn’t plan to marry at all. If only she could tone down her wild streak and force herself to behave…
A rigidly proper man
The Duke of Bainbridge is one of the most powerful men in England, so frigid that it’s rumored his own wife committed suicide to escape him. When Spencer learns his madcap younger brother is pursuing the unsuitable Lady Boadicea, he’s determined to put an end to their ill-advised flirtation. But his best intentions go awry when he discovers his own baffling inability to resist her.
Ice meets fire
Spencer never meant to so thoroughly compromise her that he’s duty-bound to wed her. Bo certainly never intended to enjoy being in his arms or to find him so wickedly tempting. Can her passionate fire prove enough to melt his icy heart, or are they forever doomed to a cold marriage of convenience?
Chapter 1
Oxfordshire, 1884
Of all the chits in England his nonsensical brother could have gone lovesick over, Lady Boadicea Harrington was, indisputably, the most unsuitable. Spencer had never been more certain of it than the moment he caught her in his library with a bawdy book in her hand.
Oh, she’d disguised the tripe in a pretty, embroidered cover. The ordinary observer would never guess the contents of the small book she’d held nestled in her elegant, fine-boned hands. But she’d dropped it when he startled her from her rapt reading.
Naturally, he’d played the gentleman despite his acute dislike of her. He’d known without a doubt she was trouble. Everything about her—from her bold auburn hair to her vivid blue eyes and her beauty so singular that the first time he’d seen her at close proximity, a jolt had gone straight through him—yes, everything about her was in bad taste.
She flirted with each able man in her vicinity. She smiled too much. She laughed too loudly. She was gauche and opinionated. Even her dress, a dark-scarlet satin trimmed with velvet rosettes, was far too attention-seizing and daring for an unmarried lady. Fresh from Paris unless he missed his guess, the gown hugged her body as though fashioned to bedevil any poor sod who gazed upon her in it.
But he wouldn’t think of the gown now. Nor her perfectly shaped mouth with the tiny beauty mark offset to the right like a planet in orbit around a blazing sun. And he most certainly would not contemplate the sudden snug fit of his trousers as the scent of her, jasmine and lily of the valley, hit him with the force of a blow to the gut.
Dear God. He could not possibly be aroused by such a creature. No. He was not.
Spencer forced himself to read another sentence in the small volume he held in his hands, just to be certain he hadn’t misjudged.
I was well-pleased at the tumescence of the shaft I held in my hand.
Jesus Christ. He snapped the book closed and pinned Lady Boadicea with the most cutting glare he could manage. “Lady Boadicea, you are trespassing in my personal library.”
A charming flush traced her cheeks. Her wide eyes attempted, it seemed, to judge how much of the obscene drivel he’d read. “Your Grace, please forgive me. I do have a tendency to wander, and I’m afraid the beckoning sight of books and these lovely windows were too much of a temptation to resist. I hadn’t realized, of course, that it was your private library.”
Damn it, that flush on her skin went down her throat and disappeared beneath her décolletage, making him wonder if her lush breasts were tinged pink as well. Bloody hell, this wouldn’t do.
His brows snapped together as he pinned her with the frown he saved for the truly recalcitrant. “See that you do not come here alone again, my lady. Not only is it most improper, but I treasure my solitude.”
“I have heard, Your Grace.” She held out her hand impolitely. “Once again, I do offer my sincerest apologies. If you’ll just return my book to me, I’ll be on my way.”
She had heard. He stiffened, wondering what else she’d heard. The whispers about him seemed to always abound, regardless of how much he tried to remain above reproach.
“You heard?” He could not keep the displeasure from his voice.
He despised being the target of others’ conjecture above all else. Too many years of his life had been steeped in ruinous gossip. Though he’d become adroit at numbing himself and the rumors about him no longer stung, he guarded his privacy with an intensity that even he had to admit bordered on fanatical.
Lady Boadicea blinked at him, a tentative smile curving that beautiful mouth of hers. “Why yes, from Lord Harry of course. Don’t worry. I shan’t tell a soul that we crossed paths here.”
Bloody hell. He didn’t need her promises. And he damn well didn’t need her smile. “Forgive me if your assertion is far from reassuring, my lady.” His tone was deliberately frigid and forbidding.
He’d feared her unacceptability from the moment Harry had requested he extend an invitation to their annual Boswell Manor house party for Lady Boadicea and her sister and brother-in-law, the Marchioness and Marquis of Thornton. But Thornton was a potential political ally for Harry, and Spencer had relented on that account alone.
Look what good his equanimity had done him.
“Make of it what you will,” the chit dared to snap at him in dismissive tones now, her hand still stretched out in anticipation of the lecherous volume he had no intention of returning to her. “My book, if you please, Your Grace?”
He tucked the slim volume inside his jacket. “No. I don’t think I’ll be relinquishing it.”
Her smile was gone, and some
ridiculous part of him—a part he’d thought long buried—felt the loss like a physical ache in his chest. She considered him, lips pursed, her expression shifting to one of irritation. Her hand remained open, waiting. Rude, damn it all. Even if some far more ludicrous part of him contemplated running a finger over her palm just to see if the circle was as soft as it looked. To trace the lines bisecting it with his lips and tongue.
“I’m afraid I don’t see why you’re so unwilling to return my property to me, Your Grace.” She cast a sweeping glance around her. “Surely you have a more than ample supply of reading material at your fingertips?”
The baggage had more temerity than he’d imagined. “Indeed, though perhaps nothing quite so…edifying. I wonder what Lord and Lady Thornton would make of your reading proclivities, my lady.”
Her eyes flared. “Are you threatening me, Your Grace?”
“Perhaps.” It occurred to him that he could use this discovery to his advantage. “Here is what I propose, Lady Boadicea. I’ll hold on to your little book and keep it our secret. In return, you stay the hell away from Harry.”
At last, she withdrew her waiting hand, bringing it to her waist as she struck a defensive pose. “You mean to bribe me?”
Had he thought she possessed temerity? That wasn’t the proper word for the impudence emanating from the lush beauty before him. First, she’d dared to trespass upon his private library. Not to mention he’d caught the hoyden reading the sort of filth that should make any proper, unmarried female faint from horror. Instead of being duly chastised, she dared to challenge him. She stood, as fierce and defiant as the warrior queen who was her namesake.
No question of it.
The wench was as troublesome as she was comely. And he had neither time nor inclination for beauty or trouble in his existence. All the more reason to send her on her way. He needed to keep her far, far away from his nauseatingly romantic brother. Leave it to Harry to have his head turned by a luscious mouth, a beautiful face, and a prettily nipped waist.
He gritted his teeth. “Bribery is rather an ugly word, is it not? I prefer to think of it as bargaining to achieve our mutual ends. Keep away from my brother, and I’ll give your lecherous book back to you at the conclusion of the house party. No one ever need be made aware of your depraved nature, and Harry won’t find himself shackled to a wanton tart masquerading as a lady.”
The alluring pink that had clung to her skin vanished as she paled at his viciousness. He ought to be ashamed, he knew, to speak with such savage indifference to a lady, albeit one with unseemly tendencies and a vulgar reading habit. Had Millicent destroyed all the good in him so that there was nothing left save cruelty and ice? Or, a more troubling question prodded him, was there something about Lady Boadicea that unleashed the beast within him?
Lady Boadicea didn’t remain silent or pale for long. In a heartbeat, twin flags of angry red rose on her patrician cheekbones. “Did it ever occur to you that it’s Lord Harry’s prerogative who he decides to marry?” She paused. “Or, for that matter, that perhaps a wanton tart wouldn’t want to marry into a family with the reputation of yours?”
The arrow of her insult found its intended target with deadly accuracy. He stalked toward her, closing the distance between them before he could think better of it, and stared down into her upturned face. But she didn’t look at him, as some in polite society did, with fear or suspicion. Every bit of her, from the irritatingly lustrous auburn locks that had been woven into an intricate series of braids, to the firm set of her sensual mouth, oozed defiance.
“The family is one of the wealthiest and most well-known in England, madam,” he growled as another note of her airy scent swept over him. Tuberose.
She raised a brow, challenging him still, seemingly unmoved by his proximity. “Is it? I confess, I hadn’t realized.”
Without warning the words he’d read returned to him. I was well-pleased at the tumescence of the shaft I held in my hand. Bloody, bloody hell. The vulgar words and her scent entwined, inciting a fire in his veins that pulsed through him and shot straight to his groin. For a moment, he imagined that fine-boned, slender hand of hers—the one that had awaited her book’s return—on his cock. Stroking.
What the hell was the matter with him? His brother was wearing his heart on his sleeve for the vixen. Yet here he stood, the Duke of Bainbridge, a man who had not wanted any woman in three goddamn years, fantasizing about her. A minx who was unacceptable in every way, who read obscene books in his bloody library and dared to defy him, whose name was as ridiculous and fierce and lovely as the rest of her. Hadn’t the last few years taught him anything?
The familiar coil of resentment and bitterness tightened within him as memories of Millicent returned to him again, chasing lust back into the dark recesses of his soul like Cerberus. He could control himself. His time of penance had cured him of the need to fulfill his desire.
He sneered down at her. “Hundreds of ladies would do anything to marry Lord Harry, and any one of them would be far more deserving of being his bride than you.”
But she refused to stand down like any rational, well-bred miss in her place would. Instead, her eyes flashed up at him. Her chin upturned with stubborn firmness. “Then perhaps he ought to ask for one of their hands, for the last thing I should like to do is marry a man with such an insufferable nodcock for a brother. Kindly return my book to me and go browbeat someone else with the misfortune of being beneath your roof.”
He didn’t bloody believe her. She still wanted the book. Still believed she could best him. Still tried him at every turn, as though she were in the right and he was the interloper here on his own turf.
“No,” he snapped. “Now get the hell out of my library and consider yourself lucky I don’t take this book and your behavior both to Lord and Lady Thornton.”
“Very well,” she said grimly.
But if he’d thought she had at long last chosen to show him deference and humbly go on her way, he was wrong. For in the next instant, she closed the final step between them. Her face was so near he detected a smattering of bewitching freckles over the bridge of her nose. Her full skirts swished against his trousers, and his cock went stiff again.
“My lady,” he warned tightly.
“Oh do shut up,” she said, and then she locked her arms around his neck and pulled his mouth down to hers.
* * *
Kissing the Duke of Bainbridge was a necessity, Bo told herself as she pressed her lips to his. She didn’t want to kiss the arrogant oaf. No, indeed. It was the most expedient way of killing two birds with one proverbial stone. Kissing him would distract him enough that she could fish her book from his jacket and it would silence his infuriating mouth at the same time.
A wanton tart masquerading as a lady.
His frigid words, so censorious and judgmental, mocked as his scent enveloped her. Who would have guessed that the Duke of Bainbridge smelled so irritatingly good, like pine and musk with a hint of masculine soap? She wasn’t meant to notice the way he smelled, drat it all.
Nor was she meant to be attracted to such a man, a hypocrite who dared look down his nose at her when his past was far more tarnished than her reputation could ever be. A man who would bribe her to keep her away from his brother, as though she wasn’t good enough to marry a duke’s second son.
But the strangest thing had happened the moment she’d looked up when he’d barged into the library with that commanding air and equally commanding stride. Some foreign, misguided sensation inside her had blossomed. Their gazes had locked, his forbidding green burning into hers. There had been—however unwanted—a searing connection in that moment. Until she’d dropped her book and he’d picked it up, read a few sentences, and deemed her unworthy of his brother’s attention.
Ah, yes, her whirling mind prodded. The book. She really did need to get it back. And he hadn’t pushed her away, had he? His hands had, in fact, gone to her waist. She felt the possession of his touch, those large hands, l
ike brands straight through all the layers of her dress and undergarments. He held her tightly, as if anchoring her to him.
The duke was a large man, for he had a good two inches on her, and she was tall herself by a lady’s standards. The resulting fit of their bodies seemed too natural, as if they had been made for each other’s arms, and the knowledge rattled her. Once, she had possessed a romantic heart, and she would have been swayed by such a thing. But now she was older, wiser, made of sterner stuff. This man was no match for her.
Even if his lips were firm and well-sculpted.
She drank in his breath, and it was sweet, with a hint of port. She couldn’t deny the unwelcome heat sliding through her and settling low in her belly. Undeniable, and thoroughly foolish. She was attracted to the Duke of Bainbridge.
The brother of her suitor.
A man she privately referred to as the Duke of Disdain.
The man who had just called her a wanton tart.
Before she could think better of it, she settled her upper lip into the seam of his, catching his full lower lip between her teeth. She nipped him. The breath hissed from between his parted lips, hot decadence to her senses.
A shock jolted through her like a current of electricity, sudden and dangerous. What was she thinking, biting the Duke of Bainbridge, regardless of how supple and sulky that lower lip of his was? Little wonder her mother and father despaired she’d ever make a decent match. But there was something about his arrogance that made her long to ruffle his feathers. He was so perfect. So dispassionate. So icy and rigid in his bearing and manner.
Before a further, coherent thought could form, his mouth moved, insistent, demanding. He kissed her as she’d never been kissed. As if he meant to consume her. As if he couldn’t get enough of her, his lips firming and claiming hers.
A growl tore from his throat. The hands on her waist tightened, and he yanked her into his chest so that her skirts crushed between them. The hard wall of his chest pressed against her breasts. His palm slid to her lower back as if it belonged there, forcing her closer. Another low sound of desire sounded between them, masculine and dark.
Heart’s Temptation Series Books 4-6 Page 54