Impassioned

by Darcy Burke

  “Probably not. I needed several new items for my wardrobe. I didn’t add anything last Season.”

  “You don’t need to justify the expenses. I’m sure they were necessary. I’ll increase your allowance. I don’t want you to feel as though you can’t have what you need. Or want,” he added, because why shouldn’t she? His gaze moved over her dressing gown once more, and again he felt a strong, undeniable attraction. “Is that new?” He vaguely gestured toward her.

  “Yes. Do you like it?” Unclasping her hands, she turned—she turned—and the gown gently flowed as she slowly spun about. With the movement, he could see her legs and thighs, and the enticing curve of her posterior. Every bit of moisture left his mouth, and he struggled to swallow.

  “I, ah, do.” He had to cough the cobwebs out of his throat. “Yes. It’s very nice.” Nice? It was bloody tantalizing.

  She took a step toward him, and he wondered if perhaps he wouldn’t leave after all. She was incredibly tempting, and right now his hand didn’t hurt in the slightest. In fact, he wasn’t even sure he still had hands. She did, though. And arms and smoothly sloping shoulders, and a captivating collarbone, along with a gorgeous neck he suddenly ached to kiss.

  She’d gripped her hands together again, rather tightly this time, as evidenced by the paleness of her knuckles. “I need to ask you something, and I hope you won’t find it gauche. Do you prefer the company of men?”

  He gaped at her. What on earth was she asking?

  As if she’d heard his thoughts, she clarified, “In bed, I mean.”

  Constantine couldn’t think of a single word to utter. Instead, a garbled stream of nonsense stole past his lips. “Er, buh, no, why, I, just, ah, erh, argh.”

  “I think I heard a no in there?”

  Who was this woman who looked like a siren and possessed a confidence he’d never once glimpsed in her?

  “Yes,” he managed, sounding as though he was being choked—and really, he felt like he was too. “I mean, no. Of course I don’t prefer men. I bid you good evening.”

  He spun about and left her chamber, closing the door more forcefully than he meant to as he rushed to get away from her. When he was back in his room, he latched the door and leaned back against it.

  What the absolute bloody hell had just happened? Why had she asked him that? How had she even known to ask such a thing at all? What was going on with her?

  He pushed away from the door and stalked toward the hearth. Once there, he pivoted and marched right back. He completed this circuit several times, his mind tumbling.

  She thought he wanted to bed men? Absolutely not. He’d honestly never given that any thought—it just didn’t apply to him. From even before the time his father had purchased his first sexual experience at the age of fifteen, he’d firmly fantasized about women.

  Fantasized? Did he actually do that? Yes, on occasion, but he was admittedly not as driven by lust as most gentlemen. He’d attributed that to his extreme sense of propriety and sensibility. He refused to be ruled by his baser instincts, and he was a model of self-control. While other gentlemen suffered the negative effects of gambling, drinking, and all manners of excess, Constantine was not beleaguered by such vulgar impulses. It was why he hadn’t taken a mistress.

  Lucien would argue Constantine suffered from an excess of self-righteousness, and perhaps he was right. He would also insist that Constantine was lifeless and tedious, and in desperate need of excitement.

  Perhaps he was right about that too.

  Constantine looked toward his wife’s bedroom. He imagined her doffing the beautiful dressing gown and slipping between the bedclothes. Had she been nude under that gown or was the undergarment simply so filmy and slight that he’d been able to see her form?

  Suddenly, Constantine was excited. And eager to demonstrate to his wife just how much he desired a woman in his bed. Not just any woman—her.

  He stalked into the sitting room. A moment later, he stood in front of her door, his hand poised to knock.

  A soft sound carried to his ears, making him lean forward so that he nearly pressed himself against the wood. Was she…moaning?

  Oh God. She wasn’t…?

  Sucking in a breath, he stood motionless as he strained to hear. The bed creaked and there was another sound—a deeper moan. Good Lord, he couldn’t—

  Constantine sealed his ear to the wood, desperate to make out the slightest sounds. There. Moaning, a whimper, another, a soft cry. At some point in the last few moments, his cock had gone painfully and irrevocably hard. But she couldn’t be pleasuring herself. Could she?

  At last, a louder cry engulfed him, making his body shudder with want. He finally drew a breath, now panting because he’d gone so long without. Pushing away from the door, he braced his hand on the frame, his head bowed as he fought to regain his infamous and currently absent self-control.

  When his breathing was finally regulated, he stood straight. He heard something new. Laughter? Yes, pure joy, from the sound of it.

  Constantine stared at the door for a long moment before returning to his room. His life suddenly seemed upended, unrecognizable, untethered. Why hadn’t he gone into her bedchamber as soon as he realized what she was doing? It seemed she was not at all the meek woman he’d thought her to be. She’d changed. But how?

  Perhaps you never really knew her. Perhaps everything you thought you knew about her—about marriage—is wrong.

  What if he was the one who was afraid? And if that was the case, what in the hell was he afraid of?

  One thing was certain: he was still painfully erect and if he didn’t frig himself, he would be sorry. Wounded hand, be damned.

  After a mostly sleepless night, Constantine found himself at his brother’s house the following morning. He paced in Lucien’s library as he waited for his brother to join him so he could ask for help.

  Constantine stopped pacing and stared at the window that looked out to the small garden at the rear of the terraced house. Was he really so desperate as to seek his brother’s counsel? There would be no end to Lucien’s taunts.

  Starting toward the door, Constantine stopped short as his younger brother appeared in the doorway. An inch taller and with dark hair that matched their father’s, Lucien was the more handsome, more charming, and, overall, more liked brother. He was always surrounded by friends and admirers, while Constantine preferred solitude and anonymity.

  Dressed in a dark red banyan over black pantaloons, Lucien prowled into the library with a subtle smile quirking his mouth. “Shouldn’t you be at church?”

  “I wanted to see you, and there’s no chance you would be there,” Constantine retorted.

  “You know me well. I can think of much better things to do on a Sunday, such as sleep.” He yawned. “But you’ve forgone church to seek me out, so this must be an important errand indeed. I can’t remember the last time you paid me a surprise visit.” He cocked his head. “Have you ever?”

  “Just sit down.” Constantine sat in a chair and balanced near the edge with a nervous tension that would send him from the room at the slightest provocation.

  Arching a brow, Lucien lounged in another chair. “How can I help?”

  Constantine flinched. He was here for help, and Lucien had saved him the pain of asking for it outright. Somewhat. Having to come to his brother still burned. Constantine could barely push the words out. “I need—” His tongue dried up, and he clenched his jaw.

  “You seem distressed.” Lucien sat forward, losing the air of nonchalance. “Tell me how I can help, Con. I’d like to if I can,” he added gently.

  “I don’t know why I came here. You aren’t married. You wouldn’t understand.”

  “You’re having marital problems?”

  “Er, yes.”

  “You’re correct. I am not married, nor do I plan to ever be. Which makes me think you came to me because it’s not necessarily due to your marriage—”

  Constantine interrupted him. “But it is. It’s
everything to do with my marriage, and the duty that’s required. I need an heir, dammit.”

  “Dammit?” Lucien cleared his throat. “Is there some problem with begetting an heir? I would think that would be the most enticing thing about a marriage.”

  “Of course you would say that.”

  Lucien laughed. Genuinely. Which was even more irritating. “What does that mean?”

  “As if you aren’t aware of your reputation.”

  “I have a reputation for enjoying sex? Why yes, I’m a breathing person. Don’t most breathing persons enjoy sex?” The humor abruptly fell from his face. “Con? Do you…not enjoy sex?”

  Constantine shot out of his chair. “Of course I do. Just not with my wife.” Lucien opened his mouth to speak, but Constantine cut him off. “I shouldn’t have come here. You have no notion of how things are between a husband and wife.”

  Lucien held up his hand in a calming motion. “That may be true, but I’m damn sure they have sex, and plenty of them enjoy it. If you like sex—and apparently you do—you should like sex with Lady Aldington.”

  “What if she doesn’t like it?” Except after hearing her last night, Constantine wasn’t even sure if that was true. It seemed he was the problem. With him, she was cold and aloof. Without him, she sounded quite…happy. He collapsed back into the chair and put his head in his hands.

  “Con? Are you all right?”

  “Fine.” He stared at the carpet between his legs. The reds, golds, and browns blurred together, and he closed his eyes.

  “I would like to help,” Lucien offered softly. “If I can. Since you’re here, you must think that’s at least possible.”

  Constantine dropped his hands and lifted his head. “I have limited experience compared to you. I would like to find a way to…pleasure my wife without scaring the hell out of her.” If he could. If she even wanted that from him. A child didn’t require pleasure.

  “Ah. Well. I’d ask if you considered spending time with a professional, but I know you did. I also know it didn’t actually happen. Perhaps you should allow Barbara to…tutor you a bit.”

  “I know what to do,” he snapped. He just didn’t know how to do it with a woman—his wife—who shrank from him in the bedroom. Was it even possible to seduce a woman who didn’t want you, who never had?

  “I mean this with the greatest respect and kindness, but do you really?”

  Constantine swore viciously.

  “Christ, Con, I didn’t know you could curse like that. Well done!” Lucien grinned at him. Upon receiving another glare, Lucien held up his hand once more. “My apologies. I’m just trying to bring some levity into this…situation. I really do think spending an evening or three with someone like Barbara could benefit you.”

  “When presented with the opportunity, I found it difficult to be unfaithful.” Which was sad or comical—or both—since his wife didn’t want him. Any other gentleman would have taken a mistress by now. “I think I was perhaps relieved when she and I came upon Overton and his ward.”

  Lucien’s brow knitted, and he leaned back in his chair. “Then why did you seek Barbara out?”

  Constantine shrugged. “It seemed like I should. I do like sex, and I don’t have very much of it.” He suddenly realized he was lonely. The revelation was distracting, as if he should have known and now wondered what in the hell was wrong with him.

  “Why not?”

  “It’s…complicated. And awkward. You know our marriage was arranged.”

  “Yes, but I thought you wanted to marry her.”

  “I did.” Until he’d learned she hadn’t wanted to marry him. The day before the wedding, his father had said the bride wished to cry off but that she would do her duty. Anything else would have been a scandal, which the duke would never have tolerated.

  Learning she didn’t want him, that she would have preferred to ruin herself than marry him had hurt more than he’d ever acknowledged. Not to himself and certainly not to anyone else.

  “She was a demure, sheltered young lady when we married. She knew absolutely nothing on our wedding night other than that I would come to her bed.” Which had made for a disastrous occasion in which he’d rushed through the act in an effort to get it over with as quickly as possible for her. She’d been absolutely terrified. He hadn’t sought to share a bed with her again for months.

  Lucien’s eyes widened, and he sat straighter. “Shit, who’s going to tell Cass about this sort of thing? That would have been Mama’s responsibility.”

  Constantine stared at him. “I don’t want to talk about our sister and sex!”

  “Someone’s going to have to speak with her. The duke expects her to marry by the end of the Season.”

  “Aunt Christina will do it.” As the closest female relative, their father’s sister was their younger sister Cassandra’s sponsor for the Season.

  Lucien snorted. “Will she? And if she does, can we trust her to do an adequate job, or will she bungle it as your mother-in-law did?”

  “Can we address my crisis first?”

  “It’s a crisis now, is it?” Lucien wiped his hand over his brow and apologized again.

  “You can’t seem to keep yourself from making light of this, which is precisely why I was hesitant to come.” A long-held frustration that had burned just below the surface finally boiled over in Constantine. “You taunt me at every turn. I know you don’t understand my reticence and love of solitude, but you don’t have to. You only need to accept me as I am and leave me the hell alone about it.”

  Lucien stared at him for a long moment during which Constantine’s chest felt lighter than it had in years. Finally, he blinked. “I’m sorry.” The words were soft and heartfelt. “You’re right. I don’t understand you—not entirely. You are too much like our father, who I rather dislike. Sometimes I allow that to affect my behavior toward you and I shouldn’t.”

  “Thank you.”

  “However, I stand by my belief that you should relax and be less restrained. Bask in your solitude and avoid people as if they carried syphilis if you must but pursue the things that make your life whole and wonderful.”

  Constantine wasn’t sure what those things were beyond his work, which, like his marriage, his father had pushed him into. That wasn’t precisely true. “I have my racing club.” He took great joy in that, actually.

  Lucien cast him a gimlet eye, then stood and went to the cabinet with his liquor. A few moments later, he returned carrying two glasses. He handed one to Constantine before retaking his chair.

  “Isn’t it a bit early for this?” Constantine sniffed the liquid, thinking it looked like whisky. And yes, it was—likely smuggled—Scotch whisky.

  “Is it?” The question was sardonic and completely rhetorical. Constantine sipped his whisky, grateful for his brother’s hedonism for perhaps the first time. Perhaps he should loosen up.

  “You said you wanted to marry Lady Aldington. You felt something for her then?”

  Feel… Constantine didn’t typically survey his emotions. “I thought she was the most beautiful woman in England. I still do.” And objectively, she was—or at least one of the most beautiful. But something had shifted last night. The pull he felt toward her went beyond an appreciation for her beauty. She’d asked him about his work, and she spoke with an intelligence and confidence he hadn’t known she possessed.

  “That’s a start,” Lucien said encouragingly. “How did you envision your marriage?”

  Irritation sparking, Constantine ran his hand through his hair. “I didn’t.” He’d just done the next duty on the list. “Can you stop asking me about our marriage and just tell me what to do?”

  “I need to understand the problem—as do you—before we can fix it,” Lucien said drily. “But fine, let’s get to the important part. You need to have sex with your wife, and you’d like for both of you to enjoy it. However, you are hung up on something that’s preventing you from just shagging her senseless, as you claim to know how to do.”


  “I never claimed any such thing. And there’s no need to be crass.” Except his brother was right. Her fear and agitation and the knowledge that she didn’t want him made it nearly impossible for him to bed her, let alone make it pleasurable.

  Lucien rolled his eyes in a thoroughly exaggerated fashion. “Jesus, Con, do not get distracted by the language I’m using. Do you know how to seduce her or not?”

  “Not her, no. She’s…different. I honestly don’t even know where to begin. I’m trusting you not to make light of this.”

  “I won’t. Not about this. Trust me.” Lucien looked him in the eye, reminding Constantine of when they were boys and they’d promised each other to keep whatever mischief they’d gotten into from their nurse. Neither of them had ever broken one of those vows, not even when Lucien had broken a windowpane or when Constantine had picked all of their mother’s favorite daisies.

  “I’ll try,” was all Constantine could say. He didn’t really trust anyone, least of all himself. How could he, when his father had always told him what to do and how to act?

  “I’ll do everything in my power to show you that you can.” Lucien took a long pull on his whisky, baring his teeth briefly as he lowered the glass. “You say Lady Aldington is different and you aren’t sure how to seduce her. A woman with practical experience, someone like Barbara, could help. She could tutor you in how to ease Lady Aldington’s apprehension while showing her there is pleasure in coming together. I could find someone to fill this role for you.”

  “You’re going to hire someone to tutor me in how to seduce my wife?” Hopefully this woman would have expertise in seducing the unseduceable.

  Hell, did he really think it was that hopeless? Clearly not, or he wouldn’t have come to Lucien. His wife was seduceable, just maybe not by him. Still, he had to try since she’d demanded a baby. Which he needed in order to cross the next duty off the list.

  “That’s my recommendation, yes. And if you prefer, you don’t have to actually have sex with her—then it’s not being unfaithful, is it?” Lucien swirled the whisky in his glass. “I’d argue it’s bloody altruistic since your entire goal is to pleasure your wife. She’ll thank you in the end.”