by Tracy Sumner
Camille looped the basket over her forearm and settled a linen napkin atop the bounty inside. “I’m jilting Ridley, Bel. I sent a letter in this morning’s post. A very humble, apologetic message, taking all manner of responsibility for the decision.” She glanced at her aunt, then away, through the wall of windows. The sky was a clear, brilliant blue. As sure as her decision. “But it’s jilting just the same.”
Bel puffed out her cheeks and released a gusty breath. “Not especially nice to announce this right before Christmas. His mother will be distraught, poor thing. You’ll be on her list, and I’ve heard she has a long one. Expect to be cut dead when you see her, for the rest of her life. The dowager viscountess never forgets or forgives.”
“Better that than marrying her son when I don’t love him.”
Picking a splinter of wood loose from the bench, Bel twirled it between her fingers. “No one believed it was love, darling.”
Camille stepped close and grasped her aunt’s hand. Tears pricked her lids, and she blinked them back. “I can’t save Longleat. Not by marrying a man I don’t want, who doesn’t, if he considers it carefully, want me. I’m too independent, too stubborn, and I would have made Ridley miserable. I thought I could do it, marry him to save us. But I find, after…well, I find I cannot. Please forgive me.”
Bel drew her into her arms, and love flooded Camille’s heart. “Oh, my lovely girl, you have nothing to apologize for. We’ll find a way to save the estate, never you fear. If you marry Mercer—”
Camille pushed from her hold, the basket banging her hip. “Tristan and I aren’t going to be together. He feels he can’t marry, and I won’t accept anyone else.”
Bel frowned in confusion and nodded to the basket. “But you’re picking fruit for him!”
“He liked the plums. I’m going to give them to him before I seduce him.”
Fanning her cheeks, Bel looked around for a place to sit. “I feel faint. Elated but faint.”
Camille grabbed a wooden bucket and flipped it over, settling her aunt atop it and crouching beside her.
“Dear me,” Bel said and dropped her head to her hands, her body wobbling with the rock of her seat. “Seduce him, you said?”
Sitting back on her heels, Camille searched for a way to explain. She understood her rationale but didn’t expect anyone else to. “If I’m not to marry, what’s the harm in letting myself experience passion? With someone I’m attracted to. Someone kind. Someone I trust.”
“A gorgeous duke we suspect is excellent in bed,” Bel said from between her fingers. “Don’t leave out the best part.”
“Are you going to try and stop me?”
Bel knocked her bonnet aside and gazed from beneath the twisted brim. “Why would I when I agree?”
Camille blinked. “You do?”
She cupped her niece’s cheek, her eyes full of affection and fond memories. “You could have married Ridley and been content, I suppose. If you didn’t know passion existed. I’m guessing something happened with Mercer at the ball, and now you do. I could have done the same, married for convenience, for money, a business arrangement beneficial to both parties. But there was a man, long ago, a baronet without a penny to his name. Not a farthing. My family wouldn’t allow it, of course, and I was too young to know to fight for him. But he…” She sighed and laughed, her gaze sliding to her slippers. “He ruined me for marriage. After his kiss, his touch, I could accept no other as my husband. Better this”—she indicated her life in one broad gesture—“than that. I’m content. I made the right choice.”
“He’s going to break my heart,” Camille whispered, closing her eyes at the thought of it.
“Oh, darling.” Bel bussed her cheek. “I think it’s more likely you’ll break his.”
#
Tristan pictured the gentle curve of Camille’s breast for the fourth time in minutes and smashed his thumb with the hammer. Hissing an oath, he stepped back from the pile of decaying boards he’d stripped from the hunting lodge’s wall and shook his throbbing hand. His childhood hideaway, he’d come here when his parents began hurling insults and dishes, when he was lonely or scared or bored. It had been his castle. Over the years, his father had allowed the dwelling to slide into a deplorable state along with the rest of the estate. Tristan had a team of workers doing repairs at Tierney Hall, but here, in this most personal of places, he wanted the work to be his and his alone.
He wanted to propel himself into a state of exhaustion as he restored his ancestral home, fatigue leaving no room for dreams of war or women.
He wanted to forget about her, the girl who’d tried to pet a swan, the woman who’d waltzed with him beneath the glow of a thousand candles.
The woman he’d taken in his arms and whispered his secrets to.
She made him want to share himself.
His past, his future.
Before, he’d believed he was broken. Now, he suspected he was only wounded. Healing slowly, but healing. Even the little he’d told her about Waterloo had released the pressure in his chest like he’d jammed a nail in a cask and let the contents trickle out. Miraculous, that reckoning, a furious flood of sunshine after two years of gloom.
Tristan dropped to his haunches to trace his finger along a split in the rotted walnut paneling, his taut exhalation fogging the morning air. Somehow, his childhood nemesis, the girl he’d fondly considered a bothersome nuisance, was helping him find his way.
He hadn’t anticipated falling in love, which he believed might be happening. Uncertainty, confounding joy. Unadulterated distress. The first person he hadn’t been able to shove from his mind no matter how hard he tried to.
Obsession. Fascination. Bewilderment.
Sounded like love to him.
Which left two choices. Either fight for her—or let Ridley win. Tristan brought the hammer down on a rotted board at the thought.
While he kneeled there, his mind in turmoil, the faint scent of orange blossoms whispered through his senses, and he turned to find Camille standing in the doorway, basket in hand, sunlight oozing around her, the certainty of his feelings confirmed by the answering flicker of happiness lighting his soul.
He stared, unable to find a witty retort. Compose a plea, a confession, an avowal. Make light of an impossible situation with a smile, laugh, or wink. He was undone by her beauty, by the bashful look on her face. By the knowledge she’d loved him when he wasn’t lovable, that she’d cared and, somehow, miraculously, hadn’t gotten over it.
Her eyes swept his body, her cheeks flushing, and he recalled his lack of proper clothing. Shirtsleeves rolled to the elbow, faded trousers ripped at the knee and thigh, braces hanging limply at his hip. “I jilted Ridley,” she murmured when her gaze crawled back to his, so quietly he struggled to hear the admission.
But he did—and he was on his feet and across the room, pressing her against the doorjamb before either of them took another breath. Her basket slipped from her hand, plums bouncing along the scuffed planks.
“I know you can’t, that we won’t—”
“Don’t,” he said, his mind and heart tied in a feverish knot. “Just let me touch you with no one between us.”
She brought her hand to his chest. Don’t leave, he thought and pressed his lips to her hair. The silken strands smelled of pine and nutmeg, the kitchens and her conservatory, and he drew deeply, feeling grounded, feeling like he was home for the first time in forever.
“I’m not leaving,” she whispered and bounced to her toes, pressing her lips to his in an eager, artless move that pocketed what remained of his heart until she owned it all.
Grasping her shoulders, he moved her away from the door, slamming it shut with his boot. Then he dove in, meeting her hungry kiss with one providing what he’d long denied giving. Himself, love, forgiveness.
Everything.
He slowed, one hand sliding to her hip, the other rising to cradle the nape of her neck, taking each languid beat of time to show her. How they fit, how the
y belonged together. His tongue caressing hers, swirling, engaging, as she mirrored his efforts, turning the tables until she taught, and he learned. What she liked, what she craved, what made her release those helpless, panting breaths against his lips. Mouths molded, blood racing, hearts thumping.
Hand moving to her lower back, he brought her in, hips pressed, his body straining for release.
Want, need, yearning.
She whimpered and wiggled from his grasp, brought her hands to his shirt and fumbled with the bone buttons. “Off.”
He smiled and tipped her head high, her eyes meeting his. “I can’t promise to make it last, not the first time. Not when I want you this badly. I’ll be better after. It’s been…it’s been a long time, Princess. It’s been forever.” Swallowing hard, he pressed an impatient kiss to her brow. “Tell me you’re sure. I need to know you’re sure.”
She mouthed the words—first, after—with curiosity in her eyes, and his heart bottomed out. She hadn’t known…? Had believed touching her once would be enough?
Grabbing her hand, he pulled her down the short hallway and into the lodge’s lone bedroom. A fire blazed in the hearth, a breeze from the window he’d cracked to allow winter entry sending the flames dancing. He’d been sleeping here, not the main house. Which was evident from the linen shirt tossed across the armchair, the book of Shelley’s poems on the bedside table, his razor and strap sitting atop the nicked armoire. His ledgers and correspondence scattered over a desk he’d appropriated from storage.
Brushing past him, she walked to the center of the room and turned in a tight circle, taking it in. His private space. His private life. “So, this is where the duke lives.”
He waited for her gaze to make it back to his. Her eyes were magnificent in the muted light, as blue-green as the lake on the western edge of his estate. “This is where Tristan lives. The duke you speak of”—he shrugged, not able to answer—“I don’t know him well. Maybe someday, I will.” He moved a step closer. “But know this. I want you here. I want us here. More than you can imagine. And this is a place I’ve never brought another living soul.”
She crossed to him and wordlessly started unbuttoning his shirt. When he took a stuttered inhalation as her fingers brushed his chest, she glanced at him through long, dark lashes. “I propose we get the first time out of the way since you made the second sound so thrilling. Apologies for being forward.”
“I like it,” he whispered and allowed her touch, knowing he was giving her even more of himself than she imagined. When she saw…
As his shirt fluttered to the floor, her soft gasp lit the air. Witnessing the mottled scar on his shoulder for the first time, she didn’t react as expected. She didn’t ask him to share a memory he wasn’t sure he could share yet. She simply pressed her lips to a wound that had almost killed him on a somber battlefield, healing him as the calvary’s surgeon hadn’t.
When she began to shadow the trail of hair arrowing down his chest and into his waistband, his lips seized hers, and he backed her toward the bed. His cock couldn’t take direct contact, not if he wanted to make it inside her without shattering.
With a wicked smile, he wrapped her hands around the bedpost and stepped behind her. “Hold on, Princess. As hard as you need to.” Then he began to undress her—ties, buttons, hook and thread loops—deliberately relaxed, caressing each bit of skin he exposed to his hungry gaze. A light dusting of freckles on her shoulder, a pale scar on her lower back. Slim hips, firm thighs, delicate ankles. Leaving no part of her untouched, he recognized he was unjustly seducing her, kissing, nibbling, stroking, retreating, leaving her naked, gasping, aroused.
When she released a pointed growl of impatience, he kicked aside her puddle of clothing and rose to his feet. “I’m being unfair,” he murmured and began to slide her hairpins free. Leaning in, he brushed his lips along the delicate curve from her shoulder to the nape of her neck. “Inequitable attention.”
“You’re a bounder,” she sighed, her cheek pressed to the bedpost, her eyes closed, her skin moist, her breathing heavy.
“You’re the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen, Camille Bellington. I want you to know that before I lose myself in you, when I’ll be unable to string together a sentence, I fear.” He drew his thumb down her spine, rolling over each pressure point with deliberate intensity. “Turn around.”
“Take the trousers off. And the drawers. Every piece while I watch. To balance out the inequities, you see.” Opening her eyes, she gazed at him over her shoulder. “Then, I’ll do whatever you like.”
His fingers fumbled with the buttons on his close, trying to hide his surprise that she was willing to play. He loved exploring, loved going off-script. But it wasn’t customary. One had to be extremely comfortable to follow such impulses, and he wasn’t sure he’d ever truly been comfortable with anyone.
Not completely. Not like this.
“Oh,” she breathed when he finally stood before her, unclothed, rigid, aching with need. She’d turned around, as promised, her gaze doing a painfully laborious study.
“You’re killing me with that look, Princess.”
She laughed, pressing back into the bedpost. “I’m sorry, but you’re bloody beautiful, Tris. If those spitting cats had any idea you looked like this beneath your stylish layers, they’d break down your door.”
He smiled sheepishly, embarrassed for the first time in memory. He was not the most beautiful person in the room. But a blush was lurking just beneath his skin and admitting this would unleash it.
With a knowing grin, she crooked her finger, beckoning. “Come here, Your Grace, and make it up to me for telling the world about my Serpentine battle with a swan.”
#
Camille didn’t know where she got the courage to laugh. To act like she had any idea what she was doing in this arena. To trade glib barbs with the handsomest man in England while he leisurely peeled off his clothing.
Now, Tristan Tierney, Duke of Mercer, naked as the day he was born, was pushing her back on his massive bed and crawling atop her. Breath short, color high, as if she’d shaken him as he’d shaken her.
Sucking her earlobe between his teeth, he settled with a groan between her thighs. “I’m too heavy.”
He was. And it was glorious.
She wanted to chronicle this night, slap mental paint to canvas, but his hands were everywhere, making her lose sense and intellect. He hummed beneath his breath and slid his arm underneath her, lifting her against his turgid length. His lips capturing hers as he began to move, a surge and retreat she followed, skin to skin, going liquid at her core. He seemed to know what she needed, cupping her breast, sweeping his thumb over her nipple. Back and again, circling, leaving the nub peaked and throbbing.
Leaving her to do naught but plead for more.
Obeying, he broke the kiss and skimmed his way south, replacing his thumb with his lips. She arched off the bed at the feel of his teeth catching her nipple, the stubble on his jaw a luscious abrasion, her ragged moan frantic, her fingers sinking into his hair and guiding his movements.
“Your body is a treasure, Princess.” He suckled the curve of her breast, his hand sliding over her stomach, her waist, her thigh. “And I’m going to worship at the altar.”
His touch, when he slipped his fingers between her legs, was familiar. Like she’d known, without truly knowing, that he would be the man to introduce her to pleasure. He stroked, lightly, tenderly, warming her body and her mind. Returning to kiss her, his touch grew determined as he slid a long finger inside her and gave it a small twist…and then it was too much to document.
His weight atop her, his breath on her cheek, his tongue leading hers into a dance he echoed below her waist. The scent of them tangling with the scent of starched bedding and burning wood and winter frost. She wanted to touch, too, her hands on his shoulders, his chest, thumbing his nipple. He delighted in each caress, his groans mixing with hers until they couldn’t be separated, those raw sounds of delight. Lou
der than the tick of the mantel clock, than winter’s whisper shooting in the raised windowpane.
He stroked her once, the same place that had made her shatter the night of the ball, and the spiral began low in her belly. Pleading, she released a choking sound and lifted her hips.
“This?” he whispered against her lips, his voice frayed, and gave the tipped nub a harder caress.
She nodded, unable to speak. Yes.
He touched her more persistently until, her back arching off the mattress, she broke into a thousand pieces.
Then, he was there, murmuring soothing words and sliding inside her as tremors rocked her, his entry so gentle—and her body so open to him—she experienced only the slightest instant of pain. Dazed, she clutched his shoulders and lifted her hips, rising, bringing him deeper…deeper. The feeling of fullness and, ah, being transported to another world entirely was incredible.
“Cami,” he murmured into her moist skin, the tension in his body proving he was as affected, as taken, as she was. “Slow down. I can’t keep up, I can’t think. I’m losing control.”
Their pelvises bumped when he was fully entrenched, and she grasped his face between her palms, bringing his gaze to hers. His eyes were as green as a midnight forest, the dark pupils swallowing them whole. Sweat beaded his cheeks, his jaw, pooling in the hollow beneath his neck. She wanted to taste him, drink him in. Wreck him as he was wrecking her. “I don’t want you in control. I want you feral, insatiable. You. Your body, your soul. Your mind can stay behind for now. Take me, I’m begging you,” she said and dragged his lips to hers, whispering against them, “there’s always the next time for control. The after, remember?”
Palming her thigh, he raised her leg high on his hip and settled, unbelievably, deeper inside her. Slow strokes progressed to swift, pounding ones, the joining of their bodies the only sound except for choked breaths and muffled moans. The bed began to rock and creak. Slick skin and grasping hands, a frantic joining of lips, tongues, teeth. She was a bird flying through the night, and he was her guide.