There was no way of knowing if Kitty was the light Byron needed. Margaret suspected she just might be. Particularly given his reaction when she let Lady Katherine’s name slip. His entire body had gone rigid, and there’d been an unmistakable spark in his gaze.
A spark Margaret had never seen before.
Whether he admitted it or not, there was something brewing between Byron and Kitty.
By the end of the house party, everyone would know exactly what that something was.
Chapter Nine
“How do I look?” Lifting the heavy cranberry colored skirts of her riding habit, Kitty spun in a circle before glancing back at her aunt over her shoulder. Tabitha had arrived late last evening, traveling all the way from Scotland by way of coach.
After four weeks of unanswered letters she’d finally responded to her niece’s plea to come and be her chaperone at a house party being thrown by (according to Kitty’s letter) ‘the man I am going to marry, Auntie. He’s dashing and handsome and incredibly churlish. I do rather think you’d like him. I certainly do, and I would very much value your opinion.’
Kitty hadn’t necessarily been expecting a reply, and she had been stunned – but happy – to receive one. Her happiness had only increased tenfold when Aunt Tabitha stepped out from her carriage and Kitty saw how well she looked.
For the first time in a long time her aunt’s face was clear and her eyes weren’t bloodshot. It was a pleasing transformation, made even more so by Tabitha’s announcement that she’d stopped drinking.
“Cousin Agnes helped me see that I was using wine to get over the loss of my Henry,” Tabitha had admitted last night when they’d stayed up late, eating sweets and drinking lemonade until their teeth ached. “When I was drinking…when I was drinking it almost felt like I was underwater, where everything was blurry and quiet and muffled, and I didn’t miss Henry quite as much. Then I would come to the surface and the pain would come back, and the only place I wanted to be was back underwater. I hadn’t realized…I hadn’t realized how much it had begun to affect me until I tried to stop and…well…I couldn’t.”
She reached out and took Kitty’s hand. “I know you attempted to help me more than once, and I’m appreciative that you’re the only one who cared enough to see I was drowning. But this was always something I needed to do myself, and I’m thankful that I was able to. I never knew Agnes once suffered from a similar malady, albeit gin instead of wine. She suspects it runs in our blood. The propensity to drink too much. I don’t know if there really is such a thing, but if it’s true then I want you to be aware of it.”
Kitty had always loved her aunt for her candor. It was what made Tabitha more of a mother than her own. She never tried to hide things, or gloss over the truth. Which was why she’d wanted her aunt here for the house party. If there was anyone who could give her valuable insight and advice where Byron was concerned, it was Tabitha.
“I am very glad you’re feeling better, and I’ll be careful.” Kitty hesitated. “Do you – that is to say, should I…”
“Have the servants hide all of the wine?” Aunt Tabitha said with a wan smile. “No, I should be able to restrain myself. All I ask is if you see me with a glass my hand and it isn’t water or tea or lemonade, you gently remind me that I am not to imbibe in spirits.”
Kitty nodded solemnly. “I can do that.”
“Very good.” Tabitha popped a sweet into her mouth. “Now then. Why don’t you tell me all about this future husband of yours…”
“Lady Katherine.” Glowering at the sight of Kitty riding towards him, Byron wheeled his horse in a tight circle so they were side by side. The rest of the chase field, comprised primarily of men sporting red coats and black top hats, galloped on ahead, following the baying hounds as they crested a hill and raced eagerly down the other side.
“Your Grace.” Reining in her mare, Kitty greeted Byron with an unnaturally anxious smile. She hadn’t planned on arriving halfway through the hunt, but by the time she changed her attire – for the sixth time – and arrived at Wakefield Park, the foxhunt had already been well under way. Faced with two options, to stay and wait with the rest of the women or chase after the field, she’d chosen the latter. Kitty simply didn’t have a waiting bone in her body, but now she wondered if it wouldn’t have been better to employ a little patience.
She desperately, desperately wanted to be well received by the duke. Until this very moment, she hadn’t known how much. A damning word and he could send her back to Glenmoore, then all of her scheming – and the kiss they’d shared in the alley – would have been for naught. A perilous thought; one that did not rest well on the shoulders of a woman accustomed to always getting what she wanted.
“Enjoying the hunt?” she asked, refusing to let herself be deterred by the ominous set of Byron’s russet brows or the scowl framing the corners of his mouth. Truth be told, she’d be more concerned if he wasn’t scowling.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said harshly.
“Why ever not? I received an invitation.” Slipping her hand into the leather reticule attached to Bacon’s saddle, she procured an ivory envelope decorated with the navy blue Wakefield insignia, a lion on its hind legs with a sword and shield on either side of it. “I apologize for my tardiness. I would have arrived yesterday with the rest of the guests, but I needed to wait for my aunt. She was visiting a cousin in Scotland, you see, and I–”
“Where did you get that horse?” Byron interrupted.
“You mean Bacon?” She patted the mare on her shoulder. “From the barn, of course.”
“For the last time, her name isn’t Bacon.” Whipping off his hat, he crumpled it beneath his arm before raking a hand through his hair. There was a dull gleam of perspiration on his temple and his auburn locks were slightly matted. At some point during the hunt he’d discarded his tailcoat and wore only a linen shirt with the sleeves rolled up past his elbows and a satin waistcoat with a partially tied cravat. Tight black breeches covered powerful thighs and of its own accord Kitty’s gaze dropped to his crotch. Heat bloomed between her thighs, and a blush that had nothing to do with the crisp autumn air settled high in her cheeks.
“Furthermore,” Byron continued as her stare returned hastily to his countenance, “she isn’t your horse. You’re a little thief. Do you know what they do to thieves?”
“Naughty things?” she suggested innocently.
His eyes narrowed. “Go home, Lady Katherine. Preferably all the way back to London.”
“Oh, I couldn’t do that.”
“Why?”
“Because you’d miss me too much.” Trailing her fingertips across his leg, she kicked Bacon into a canter and rode away before he could say another word.
Grimacing, Byron adjusted the fit of his breeches as he watched Kitty disappear over the edge of the hill. His first instinct was to go after her, but he wasn’t about to gallop into the middle of the hunt with a raging cockstand.
Damn that woman.
Damn her.
Just when he thought he’d finally purged her from his blood and from his mind, here she was again to set his bloody world on fire. It had been burning since she first sauntered into his life and if he didn’t act quickly everything was going to go up in smoke. Because if he didn’t stay away from Kitty it wasn’t a matter of if he bedded her. It was a matter of when. And once that happened…once that happened there would be no going back.
Byron wasn’t a complete bastard. If he ruined Kitty he’d do the honorable thing and marry her, but if he did that then he would break the vow he had made all those years ago in the pouring rain, and if he did that…if he did that he’d never be able to forgive himself.
All of his adult life he’d been living with one purpose: to damn his sire. Time and time again he had done everything he could to drive his heel into the dead bastard’s grave. From completely withdrawing from society, to refusing to take a wife and sire an heir, he had committed himself to a life the late Duke of Wakefie
ld would have despised. And it brought him cold comfort that his father was most likely rolling in his casket.
But then along came Kitty. Kitty with her big gray eyes and her plump bottom lip and her outrageous wit. And he began to think of things he’d never thought of before. Things like marriage, and children, and having a family. Things that frightened him. Things that chilled him to the bone. Because despite all his efforts to the contrary, what if he was more like his father than he thought? What if he’d inherited his sire’s cruelness along with his build? What if he had the duke’s temper along with the angle of his chin?
What if he had a son?
Byron had never struck another human being in his life. But he’d wanted to. On more than one occasion he’d felt that mad rush of anger pour through him and he’d found himself lifting a clenched fist. He never let it fly, no matter how infuriating the provocation, but what if one day he did? What if one day the madness that had infected his father came for him?
It was the uncertainty he struggled with the most. He thought he knew himself. He thought he’d never raise a hand to his child. But surely his father had once made the same promise, a promise he had broken a thousand times over. A broken promise that had nearly broken Byron in more ways than he cared to count. Which was why he wouldn’t – why he couldn’t – abandon his vow.
No matter how much he may have secretly wanted to.
Setting his jaw, he spun his horse around and headed back towards the manor, needing to put as much space between himself and gray-eyed temptation as possible.
Chapter Ten
Byron wasn’t at dinner that night, nor was he at breakfast the next morning. No one at the house party seemed to care or even notice his absence. The Duke of Wakefield’s reclusiveness was well known, and they were simply happy to have been invited.
But Kitty noticed.
And she very much cared.
Which was why, when everyone gathered in the front parlor to listen to Madeline sing, she slipped away to Byron’s study on the other side of the manor. The massive wooden door was shut but it wasn’t locked, and the brass knob turned silently under her hand as she stepped into a room cloaked in shadow and the scent of sandalwood.
The duke was sitting behind his desk. He did not look up when she approached.
“Thank you, Malcolm. You can put the daily correspondence there,” he said with a curt nod towards an uncluttered corner of the desk. The rest of it was covered in piles of parchment, envelopes, and books. “Is everyone still at my sister’s musicale?”
“Everyone but you,” Kitty purred as she lifted the hem of her dress and perched on the edge of the desk where the mail would have gone. Personally, she thought herself better than any package. And she was more than ready for Byron to unwrap her.
The graphite pencil he’d been had been using to calculate a long row of figures clattered to the floor as his head snapped around. For an instant there was only raw, naked desire in his eyes as his gaze raked hungrily across her, and then came the bristling hostility she’d come to expect.
“Lady Katherine. Are you lost?” he asked in the clipped, impersonal tone one might use with a distant acquaintance. It certainly wasn’t the tone one would use with someone whom they’d shared a passionate kiss. And yet, that was precisely what Byron and Kitty had done. Twice. Something which Kitty had no intention of letting him to forget, no matter how much he wanted to pretend it never happened.
Inching her way further onto the glossy mahogany surface of the desk, she draped one long leg over the other and bobbed her ankle thoughtfully in the air. Like a dog to a bone, she thought with feminine satisfaction as Byron’s stare immediately dropped to her calf and lingered on her silk stocking. Or in this case, a half-feral wolf to a stubborn debutante who refused to take ‘no’ for an answer.
“Lost?” A slender brow arched towards the curls piled artfully on top of her head. “I do not believe so. In fact, I think this is precisely where I should be.”
Adam’s apple jerking convulsively, Byron placed his hands flat on the desk and rose halfway out of his chair. “Remove yourself from my study at once,” he ordered.
Kitty knew she should have been intimidated by his very presence, if not his command. Like an arrow drawn all the way back, Byron’s entire body was quivering with tension. She could see the bulge of his biceps beneath the rolled sleeves of his shirt. Corded sinew ran the length of his neck. His jaw was clenched. His eyes were dark. The darkest she’d ever seen them, more black than blue in the muted light.
Yes, by all means she should have been intimidated. Gazing into the face of the devil himself, she should have been terrified.
But she wasn’t.
“Or what?” she whispered, a tiny thrill of anticipation rippling between her shoulder blades as she leaned fearlessly towards him.
Those dark eyes flashed. “Or we’re both going to regret what happens next.”
“I’m not,” she said simply before she took a chance and lowered her mouth to his. For a flicker of a heartbeat she was afraid he might push her away and then that would be it. Kitty may have been persistent, but she wasn’t without her pride. If Byron truly didn’t want her she wasn’t going to demean herself by begging for his affection. But just as she was about to draw back in bitter disappointment his mouth softened and he yanked her across the desk and into his arms.
Their tongues collided in a feverish kiss as he shoved his chair back to make room for her on his lap. Her thighs went on either side of his narrow waist, her fingers swept into his hair, her breasts rubbed against his chest. Heat exploded around them, between them, inside them as the tempest they’d been holding at bay finally reached land.
Kitty’s head rolled back on a gasp of breath as he feasted on her neck, his lips tracing the sensitive column of her throat until he reached her collarbone and the scalloped lace edge of her dress. With a growl – she did so love it when he growled – he yanked her bodice down and her breasts fell into his waiting hands.
Books flew onto the floor in a symphony of loud thumps when she stretched out her arms across the desk and arched her back, offering her hard nipples up to his hot mouth. He suckled first one and then the other, sending a wave of fire racing across her flesh and down towards her velvety core as she reached her hand down and felt the hard, pulsing length of him through his trousers.
They kissed again, their mouths melding seamlessly together even when he picked her up and carried her over to a wide sofa beneath one of the windows. Her gown slipped to her waist and then fell away to pool on the floor in a pile of lace and muslin, revealing a thin cotton shift and silk pantalettes that stopped Byron in his tracks.
“You’re bloody beautiful,” he said harshly. It was part compliment, part accusation, and all desire.
“You’ll do,” Kitty quipped back.
The heavy drapes stirred open as he lowered her onto the sofa, admitting a spill of morning sunlight that bathed her limbs in a golden glow. He locked his arms on either side of her, his chest rising and falling in a raggedly drawn breath as those devilish blue eyes pierced straight through to her soul.
“Is this what you want?” he asked, and she did not hesitate.
“Since I met you,” she said before interlocking her fingers behind his neck and dragging him towards her for another all-consuming kiss.
After that time seemed to slow. Or did it speed up? Kitty lost track as clothes were torn away and skin burned against skin. When he touched her between her thighs she nearly came undone, and he silenced her mewling cry with his mouth as his fingers parted her damp curls and discovered the sensitive pearl nestled within.
Wanting to give the same pleasure as she was receiving, her hand skimmed between their bodies and curled around his member, her thumb circling around the tip. It was wet, and throbbing, and he groaned when she tightened her grip.
Then he was over her, and then he was inside of her, his tongue sliding between her lips as his cock slid into her entrance. Sh
e instinctively tensed, her thighs pinching against his hips in an unconscious effort to stop his forward progression even as part of her yearned for him to go deeper. Sensing her hesitation he stopped moving, allowing her to grow accustomed to his large girth while his leisurely toyed with her nipples before causing her breath to hitch and her head to thrash from side to side when he flicked his finger against her swollen bud.
Colors blurred and sounds faded away until there was only the beat of his heart. It thumped against her breast, thump thump, thump thump, as he slowly sheathed himself within her and then began to move, in and out, in and out, while they both desperately climbed towards a peak of untold riches.
She gasped when he changed the angle of their penetration by lifting her ankles up over his hips. Her knees dug into his ribs, her nails dug furrows into his back. Their bodies moved in a sinuous rhythm, an ebb and flow as old as the earth itself. The storm within them grew. The winds howled. The rains lashed. And then, with a brilliant intensity that blinded, lightning struck.
As the tempest slowly withdrew so did Byron, and with a small, satisfied purr Kitty slid bonelessly off the sofa and onto the floor where their discarded clothing offered a soft landing. After taking a moment to pull on his trousers Byron laid down beside her, pressing his face into the nape of her neck as his arm draped protectively over her belly and their legs entwined. Light reflected off the perspiration covering their bodies in a glistening sheen. Neither one of them spoke. They didn’t have to. And for a few precious minutes, it was everything Kitty had ever dreamed.
It was ironic, really. For all of her methodical list-making this was something that hadn’t even been on the list. Because it was something she hadn’t even known existed.
Of course she’d wanted physical chemistry. That ‘spark’ that everyone talked about had been on the list somewhere above the minimum monthly allowance she wanted to receive and the number of teeth she required her future husband to have (which was to say, preferably all of them). But this…this feeling of complete and utter contentment, of loving and being loved in return, of reaching up and touching the heavens themselves…it was more than a spark.
The Autumn Duke (A Duke for All Seasons Book 4) Page 8