Shameless Duke

by Scott, Scarlett

  “Bunton,” he repeated, vaguely remembering his housekeeper recommending one of the more experienced maids for the task of assisting Miss Montgomery.

  “Yes.” She gave him a small smile. It was slow and secretive, beautiful and thrilling. He wanted to kiss it from her lips.

  He refrained, settling for clenching his hands instead.

  “Well,” he said. “Surely it was Bunton who was responsible for the tea.”

  “Lemonade,” she corrected him, with a knowing look.

  “Lemonade then,” he said dismissively, as if he could not be bothered to even recall the proper name of the beverage in question. In truth, he hoped the lemonade had buoyed her spirits and brought a touch of happiness back to her after all she had endured.

  He glanced away from her, diverting his attention to the cityscape beyond the carriage window. London by the light of day seemed decidedly less menacing. So too the men responsible for the atrocities carried out on the railway the day before. They were mere men, all of them, and he would hunt them down and make them pay for what they had done.

  “Why?” she asked.

  Once more, she commanded his attention. He devoured her with his gaze. Her full, pink lips, her dark hair, those shockingly blue eyes. Those goddamn legs.

  He jerked his gaze back to her lovely face. “What are you asking me, Miss Montgomery?”

  “The lemonade was sent by you,” she charged, without heat. “Why pretend otherwise?”

  Because he could not bear to face what the longing for her, deep inside him, meant. He did not believe in love. He did not want a wife, had vowed to never take one. His blood was tainted. Tender affections toward any female on his part were dangerous indeed. They were not to be entertained. And if he needed a lover, one could be obtained, with far fewer complications than bedding Miss Montgomery would create.

  “If you wish to believe I sent the lemonade, I shall not stop you,” he said coolly, even as he wondered if she had found it to her liking. He had not a clue how a trousers-wearing Pinkerton agent, originally from Georgia, preferred her lemonade.

  “It was delicious,” she said, as if reading his thoughts.

  He frowned at her.

  “Thank you,” she repeated, smiling at him once more, that coquette’s smile he could not seem to gird himself against.

  Bloody hell. Would her stubbornness know no end? And would his susceptibility to her prove a bottomless well? It would certainly seem so, on both counts.

  Perhaps a change of subject was in order.

  “I read your notes,” he told her.

  “All of them?”

  “Yes.”

  Her brows rose, then she winced, as if in pain. “When?”

  “Is your head paining you?” he asked. Damn it, she ought to have listened to him. She should have remained at Lark House, lying abed and plied with lemonade. She had worked hard enough, and suffered enough, for her dedication to her cause. The woman deserved a respite.

  “My head is fine.” She frowned at him. “When?”

  “A few days ago,” he admitted. “The day after…”

  And then he realized what he had been about to say, so foolishly, and promptly stopped.

  But Miss Montgomery pressed the matter. “The day after?”

  “My study,” he bit out, hating to even acknowledge what had occurred between them, because the mere thought of their heated session upon his desk was enough to make him as hard as coal. He had thought about it in all the intervening moments since. Especially when he was alone. In bed. Naked.

  Fuck.

  “You finally read my notes the day after what happened in your study,” she repeated, her voice thick, her eyes dipping to his mouth, before jerking back up to meet his gaze. “Was it because you felt guilty, Arden?”

  “Guilty over what transpired between us?” He paused, considering his response, weighing his words. “Yes. I felt immeasurably guilty. I took advantage of you, and I dishonored you, without a thought for the consequences. You are my partner and worthy of my respect. A respect which I did not give you.”

  He meant what he said. As much as he had initially resented both her and the mere notion he was to be saddled with a partner, he could not help but to see she was an asset. She was intelligent and driven, compassionate and brave, loyal and fierce. The information she had gleaned in New York was valuable, and though they had not been able to stave off yesterday’s bombings, he had no doubt she had provided them with information that would prove vital moving forward.

  “You did not take advantage of me,” she said then, interrupting his whirling thoughts and sending him reeling once again.

  “Miss Montgomery,” he protested, for he was still mired in confusion over what had happened between them.

  Of course he had taken advantage of the situation. He had wanted to kiss her, and she was beautiful, and he had pressed his suit, without thought for the repercussions which would inevitably follow. He knew better than to dally with an unmarried female. His honor was important to him, and he deeply regretted allowing his lust to overrule his mind. And yet, there was also another part of him that knew, if given the opportunity, he would kiss her senseless all over again.

  “You did not,” she repeated, her voice low. Rife with an emotion he could not define. Husky, almost. Alluring, to be sure.

  He had to resist his base impulses. “Regardless,” he forced himself to say, “my actions that day were inexcusable.”

  “I wanted you to kiss me,” she blurted. “You cannot take advantage of someone who is willing. And not just willing, but longing. That is how I would describe the way you make me feel, Arden, in spite of myself, and in spite of all the rules I have created over my years working as a Pinkerton agent. I would forget my rules for you.”

  Her words resonated, sinking deep inside him, the blossom of something which felt a whole bloody lot like joy unfurling. Or perhaps it was lust. Or blind, sheer stupidity. He knew not, nor did he care to examine it. Hazel’s words had settled within him, and the sudden urge to possess her seized him anew.

  I would forget my rules for you.

  God, yes.

  He moved, shifting himself to her end of the carriage. He settled upon the bench at her side, cupping her face in his hands and looking into her eyes. What he saw glistening within those endless depths shook him.

  Terrified him.

  There was only one way to answer the fear and the need both.

  He lowered his lips to hers and claimed hers in a kiss. She was soft, so soft; her cheeks in his palms, her lips beneath his. He forced himself to go slowly, to savor her. Just yesterday, she had been savaged, and he wanted to banish the memory of her lying helpless and lifeless on the floor with his mouth.

  She did not hesitate, kissing him back, opening to him on a sigh. Her tongue played against his, and she tasted of sweetness and citrus and nothing had ever been more delicious. A fierce pulse of desire tightened his ballocks, testament to how badly he wanted her. One kiss, one meeting of lips, and he was hard and ready, even in a cramped carriage on his way to the bloody railway station.

  He knew he should stop. Strike that—he knew he never should have begun—but he was helpless, a slave to his need for her. When she sucked on his tongue, he groaned, kissing her harder, deeper. They struggled over control. She kissed the way she did everything, with brazen vigor, and he could not get enough.

  He tore his mouth from hers, hungry for more, for the taste of her skin, for the breathy sounds she made when she liked what he was doing to her. He dragged his mouth down her throat, kissing his way to the place where her neck and shoulder met. And there, he could not resist biting gently into her skin.

  Lucien had never wanted another woman more than he wanted her.

  “Hazel,” he murmured, against the pounding of her pulse.

  She could never again be Miss Montgomery to him now. Had he ever thought her an abomination? It seemed impossible.

  “Arden.” His name on her lips
was a sigh, a prayer.

  She must have removed his hat, because her fingers were tunneling through his hair, nails raking his scalp. He sucked harder, so hard, he was sure there would be a bruise on the tender, creamy flesh. Lucien could not resist skimming his hand over one of her lush thighs. He breathed into her skin, inhaling her scent, relishing her, this wild American spitfire, so submissive in his arms.

  Up her inner thigh he traveled, and she parted her legs for him, granting him access. Higher still, to where her heat warmed the tips of his fingers. Higher, to the mound hidden from him by the billowing drapery of her trousers. He cupped her there, where he wanted to drive himself home.

  She made the most erotic noise he had ever heard, half growl and half mewl, as she arched into him. Pure, animal lust tore through him, sudden and fierce. Everything in him clamored to claim this woman. To make her his. But somewhere in the dim recesses of his mind, in the part of him that was a gentleman and the leader of the Special League, the part of him who still believed in honor above his own selfish wants, knew he could not possess her here. He could not tup her in his carriage as if she were not worthy of being worshiped.

  For no other woman alive had been more made for worship than Hazel.

  So instead, he took her mouth again. He kissed her lingeringly, making love to her lips the way he longed to do to her body. With great reluctance, he left the apex of her thighs and slid his hand higher, to the waistband of her trousers. Buttons, thank Christ.

  He slid them from their moorings, one by one, as he buried his tongue in her mouth. The fabric gaped, and there remained only one layer now, between him and her warm sweet curves. Still kissing her, he found the slit in her drawers. Wet heat met his fingers as he parted her folds and found her pearl. She bucked against him when he circled the tender flesh with his forefinger, just the lightest of touches.

  She moaned into his kiss, her tongue playing against his with greater urgency. Her hips rolled, silently begging him for more. And so he gave it to her, increasing his pressure, toying with the turgid bud. How desperately he longed to take her in his mouth. But that would have to wait. There was no time for leisurely lovemaking now.

  But there was time for her to spend. And he was a greedy bastard when it came to Hazel. He wanted to make her come undone again. Wanted her husky cries of ecstasy, her head thrown back, her cunny thrusting against him. He wanted everything, and he wanted to be the man who gave it to her.

  He wanted to be her man, even if it could only be for this fleeting moment, this carriage ride. This next ten minutes. This next breath, this next kiss. He would take it. He would take it all. He would take whatever he could.

  “Hazel,” he said against her lips, kissing her again, working her hungry flesh, before breaking away to gaze down at her. Her cheeks were flushed. Her eyes were glassy. Tendrils of her dark hair had come free from her loose coiffure. Her mouth was swollen from his kisses. But her eyes were closed.

  “Hazel,” he said again, stroking her harder, faster. “Open your eyes and look at me when you come.”

  Her eyes fluttered open, and a cry tore from her throat at the same moment her body convulsed against his hand. Wetness coated his fingers, and he could not resist delving deeper, circling her entrance, teasing them both. She was even wetter there, and the thought of plunging his cock into her tight passage was torment.

  He wanted inside her so badly.

  The carriage stopped.

  So did Lucien. His sanity, or what remained of it, returned gradually. He withdrew from her, his fingers coated in her essence. Glistening in the light of day. God help him, but he had not bothered to draw the curtains over the windows, and anyone could have glimpsed what they were about.

  She was still breathing heavily, flushed and gloriously disheveled, watching him with a curious expression he had never seen her wear before. Complete befuddlement, he expected, as if she were asking herself the same perplexing question he was posing to himself: What the devil came over me?

  He could blame his lack of discretion and control upon lust, but he feared the way he reacted to Hazel Montgomery was caused by more than such a base urge. He respected her, admired her even, and he could not recall a time when he had ever appreciated another woman in the way he did her. His affairs had not been many, but when he had sought lovers in the past, it had always been based upon primal need, rather than anything else. He had never conversed for hours on end with his lovers. He could deny it all he liked, but Hazel was…different.

  Which meant she was a risk.

  He reached into his coat and extracted a handkerchief as his driver knocked discreetly upon the door. It was old habit, ordinarily unnecessary, but Lucien was grateful for Cobb’s discretion today.

  “A moment,” he called, his voice hoarse and strained, even to his own ears. His erection was still raging, desperate for relief he could not indulge in; not now, and not ever.

  Hazel’s eyes had gone wide at the unexpected intrusion, and she instantly stiffened, her hands rushing to restore the buttons of her trousers to their proper places. He was about to wipe his hand clean, but it occurred to him, if this was to be the last time he ever touched her, he could not deny himself the forbidden knowledge of what she tasted like.

  He raised his fingers to his lips and sucked them clean. She was earthy and musky, and squelching his groan of pure, libidinous enjoyment required all the effort he possessed. She looked back up at him as she smoothed her waistband into place and righted her bodice.

  He ought to have been ashamed of himself. She was an unmarried woman. He was a gentleman. She was also his partner. But a rush of pleasure went down his spine and settled in his groin at the knowledge she was watching him savor the traces of her, which remained upon his skin.

  “I should apologize once more,” he told her, finally using his handkerchief to wipe his hand. “But I cannot find a speck of contrition within me for what just occurred. Instead, I will promise you it will not happen again.”

  She stared at him, saying nothing, simply devouring him with her unnaturally pale gaze, until he wondered if he had robbed her of speech. Her lips, still dark and swollen from his kisses, parted at last.

  “That is a pity, Arden,” she said at last. “Because I can think of nothing I would like better.”

  With that parting volley fired, she rose from the bench and threw open the carriage door on her own, alighting without waiting for Cobb to offer her his aid. Lucien watched the tempting swell of her backside and her luscious legs as she descended, a grim sense of finality settling over him. Hazel Montgomery was more than a risk.

  More lethal than dynamite. More tempting than the lure of the Sirens.

  “Bloody fucking trousers,” he muttered to himself, before he followed in her triumphant wake.

  Hazel stared down at the notes she had made in her journal the evening before, doing her utmost to remain impervious to the presence of the very large, very handsome, very proficient kisser seated behind the massive, elaborately detailed desk in his study. She was pacing the rug back and forth as she was wont to do when deep in the cobwebs of her own musings.

  “There have been no sightings of Sean Flannery or Thomas Mulroney?” she called over her shoulder to Arden, progressing through the items on her list.

  “Not one,” he confirmed.

  “Blast,” she muttered to herself, continuing to pace to the opposite end of the cavernous chamber as she attended to the next item upon her list.

  It had been several days since she and Arden had visited the damaged railways to examine the aftermath of the explosion. Broken glass had been everywhere. Carriages had been transformed into mangled wreckage, scattered like felled beasts in eerie silence. Pipes and telegraph wires inside the tunnels had been ruined by the blast, office windows shattered. Miraculously, no one had been killed, though many had suffered serious injuries. She still shuddered to think of the intensity of the damage left behind, to imagine how terrified the passengers must have been in
the wake of the detonation, destruction all around them, everything plunged into darkness.

  The Home Office’s Chief Inspector of Explosives had determined the cause of the blasts, and it had not been a gas leak. Rather, Fenian bombs. London was a city clenched in the grip of terror. Police had been stationed on the railways to stave off further attacks, and the pressure to find and arrest those responsible for colluding to plan and carry out the bombings was tremendous.

  “Has there been word from the agent I was working with in New York?” she asked next, irritated anew that Eli was not being permitted to send her telegrams directly. The Home Office regulated all messages containing sensitive information, which meant she had been forced to beg for information Eli passed on from either the Duke of Winchelsea or Arden himself.

  Arden had taken note of her repeated requests to contact Eli, and she did not miss the manner in which his nostrils flared and his shoulders stiffened whenever she mentioned him. Eli Fairchild had been her partner in New York City for the last several months, and she was as concerned for his safety as she was eager for any new information he could offer her.

  “Are you referring to Fairweather?” Arden asked from the opposite end of the room.

  She spun about to face him and looked up from her notes, frowning. “Eli’s surname is Fairchild, as you well know.”

  “Hmm,” was all he said, his attention riveted upon the documents he had laid out atop the surface of his desk.

  His lack of concern for Eli’s well-being nettled her as much as the manner in which he treated her as if she were another piece of furniture in his study did. “I wish to know whether or not he has been informed that Flannery and Mulroney recognized me. While I was in New York, Eli posed as my husband, and if word reached the Emerald Club that Eli’s wife turned up in London under suspicious circumstances, he could well be in danger.”

  “Mr. Fairchild has been informed,” was all Arden said, his tone cool.

  “I would like to contact him myself directly,” she said, though this was not the first time she had made such a request. Nor would it be the last if he denied her once more.