“You wish to marry me? Me, Warwick?” If her tone was incredulous, it could not be helped, for her shocked mind spun in a deluge of questions, concerns, and disbelief.
“You,” he agreed intently. His eyes bored into hers. At long last, his large hands settled upon her waist, finding it without err beneath the billowing muslin of her gown, his grasp possessive and not at all unwanted. “No one else will do.”
He dipped his head then, his mouth seeking hers. She may have sighed into him, opening for the thrilling quest of his tongue. She may have run her tongue against his, tasting him, the spirits that he must have shared with her brother during their tête-à-tête. He was dark and decadent and everything she had never imagined she would want.
He kissed her with a slow languor that set fire to her from the inside. She felt flushed, aching, desperately in need of something she could not yet define. Something only he could give her. And she wanted it, how she wanted it. Wanted him.
But the logical part of her balked. That part of her had far too many questions that needed answers. She pulled her mouth from his with reluctance, staring up at him and noting that the dashing grin remained upon his lips. Lips that had kissed her. Soundly.
Looking upon him now, she rather felt like the child she had once been, gazing with longing at the most perfect apple on the tree. High over her head, the apple had been fiendishly out of reach. Now, it was as if the best apple on the tree had fallen into her lap. Hers to scoop up and savor.
With a swallow, she forced herself to find her composure. She was not ordinarily given to flights of fancy or romantic urgings. It was not her way. But this—Warwick—was changing everything. Kissing him was akin to looking into the night sky and seeing a new star for the first time, realizing that nothing was ever constant, that the universe was one of limitless possibilities.
The way he looked at her, the way he kissed her, she could almost believe this possibility was her new reality. But she would not capitulate so easily. “If you are to be believed,” she said slowly, “you truly wish to marry me. Yet you have not yet asked me if I should like to wed you, Warwick.”
His dimples disappeared, and she wished she could say their loss dampened the blinding effect of his masculine beauty, but the plain truth was that it did not. Nothing could diminish that tousled, mahogany hair, those slashing cheekbones and wonderfully formed lips, the flashing blue eyes, or his wide, angular jaw.
His right hand left her waist, and while she inwardly protested, he quickly mollified her as he trailed a finger down her cheek. Somehow, he had removed his gloves without her taking note, for his hand was bare. Skin met skin. Warmed and tingled wherever the firm pad of that long finger touched.
“You did not yet give me the opportunity, my dear, and I shall remedy it now.” His finger stroked down her jaw to her throat, leaving a trail of fire. “I have never met another lady whom I admire more. You are intelligent, capable, and lovely, and all that is kind and good, despite your propensity for referring to me as a sapskull.”
He won a laugh from her, the rogue. “You are a sapskull, Warwick.”
But his words had warmed her in a place she hadn’t known existed, deep inside. Could it be true that he admired her mind and that he thought her lovely even when she knew she was not? Or was it merely false flattery from a man who had a whispered string of conquests numbering in the dozens?
“I am,” he agreed, his expression serious, and so intent that it seemed to pierce her. “I will be the first to admit that I do not deserve a lady of your immeasurable worth. And yet, I find I am horridly selfish. Even should I search to the ends of the realm, I would not find anyone more suited to me than you. Will you be my wife, Lady Lydia Brownlow?”
As he asked the question, he opened his hand directly over her heart, soaking in its frantic beats. Lydia searched his gaze, struggling to sift through thoughts muddied by his nearness and his touch, by her body’s overzealous reaction to him. Did he truly mean those words, or were they meaningless flattery, easily spoken from his silver tongue?
“I do not…that is to say…” Her words trailed away as she struggled to make sense of it all. “Warwick, you cannot be serious about this. I have never been aught but a nuisance to you, trailing after you and Rand where I was not wanted. Why, we do not even get on, you and I.”
He shook his head slowly, his eyes dipping to her lips. “Never a nuisance, Freckles. As for getting on, need I remind you of all the time we have enjoyed together at this house party?”
No. She did not require assistance in recalling his searing kisses or smoldering glances, or the way it felt to be held in his arms. The rightness of it all, in spite of herself. The yearning he had brought to life in her foolish heart.
She frowned. “You are well-versed in the art of kissing, Warwick. Such is the way of things with all rakes, I imagine.”
He leaned nearer, his mouth almost upon hers once more. “Who said anything about kissing, Freckles?”
She flushed, forcing herself to ignore the delightful way his body pressed into hers, the rich scent of him, pleasant and inviting, the breadth of his shoulders in his coat. Above all, she would not be affected by the wicked dimples that had chosen that moment to once again reveal themselves as he smiled.
“You are a scourge,” she muttered. “I cannot think why my brother would consider your offer for my hand.”
But of course, she could. They both could. Rand was his friend. Warwick was a duke, and Lydia was on her last season before retiring firmly to the shelf. He very wisely refrained from pointing that out.
“Perhaps he thinks, as I do, that we would suit immensely. I want to gaze up at the night sky with you, to waltz with you, to make you laugh. I want you to be my duchess, to bear me children, to walk through this life with me.” His tone was earnest. He pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth. “Lydia, sweet. Tell me you will be mine. I want to begin the new year with you as my bride.”
I want to gaze up at the night sky with you.
Perhaps it was that single phrase. Perhaps it was the passion of his gaze burning into hers. Mayhap it was even the slow seduction of his wonderful mouth so near to hers, hovering at the corners, settling over her bottom lip, teasing and tasting. Or his tongue, swiping the seam, slipping inside to taste her. His hand, sliding beneath her heart to cup her breast through her gown. His body, crowding her into the wall until there was no escape, and all she could see, feel, and breathe was him.
And it still wasn’t enough.
She wanted more.
She wanted everything he spoke of. Most of all, she simply wanted the Duke of Warwick, with a ferocity that scared the wits out of her. She could not—would not—turn him away now, but neither would she simply acquiesce. “I will agree to be your wife, Warwick, but I do have requirements.”
“Requirements,” he repeated, as though she had said she would like to venture to the moon.
“Yes.” She warmed to her cause, knowing that while she would have precious few rights as a married lady, Warwick was a gentleman. While he was undeniably a rake, he still possessed scruples. She had seen his kindness, gentleness, goodness, and honor. If she asked him to honor her wishes, she had to believe that he would. As things stood, her options were to either marry Warwick—the devil she knew—one of her other suitors, or to become a companion. She chose Warwick, just as he had chosen her.
“These…requirements, Freckles. What can they be?” His brow furrowed, and he seemed less imposing in his vexation.
Lydia smiled, sensing she had already won this particular battle. “First is fidelity, Warwick. I do not wish to marry a gentleman who will keep a…”
“Mistress.” His dimples returned, diminishing her defenses once more. “You have my word that I do not currently have one, nor will I take one, as you are all that I desire.”
His words sent a fresh surge of heat and yearning through her, but she tamped it down. Could it be that he desired her? That the Duke of Warwick, handsome,
self-assured Corinthian, desired a plain, plump spinster who preferred burying her nose in a book to dancing at a ball?
Silver tongue, she reminded herself. He is a rogue.
Still, he seemed genuine. She forced herself to forge onward before she lost her nerve. “Second: you will agree not to become an impediment in my thirst for knowledge.”
“Gads no,” he was quick to respond. “I admire your sharp mind, Freckles. I do not seek to bury it.”
Excellent. “If I wish to read a book that is not considered suitable material for a lady, you will not object.”
His grin widened, showing twin rows of even, white teeth. “What sort of book have you in mind, love? I may have a tome or two that you would find of interest.”
Of course, he did, the knave. How was it that he could charm her with his raffish ways? Nor did she overlook that particular term of endearment that had rolled so fluently off his tongue. Love.
Oh, heavens. Why was it so blessedly stuffy in the chamber all of a sudden? And why was he looking upon her with expectation, as though he awaited her next words? Belatedly, it occurred to her that she was meant to be setting up the foundation for their union, not gazing at him with witless adoration.
Adoration? Who was she, and where had the real Brownlow gone? Drat. Had she just thought of herself as Warwick’s pet name for her? Indeed, she had. Obviously, she was a hopeless cause.
Think, Lydia. What other concessions would you have him make?
“If I am to marry, I would hope that my husband could be my friend. That we would look after each other. Help each other. Respect each other.” She paused, thinking of the sort of marriages common to the ton, the sort she did not wish for herself. “If you cannot meet these requirements, tell me now. I would sooner be a companion than accept anything less.”
“Freckles.”
The way he said her name answered a hunger deep within her.
She could not look away from that burning gaze. “Yes?”
“I agree to each one of your demands, my lady pirate.” He paused, a wicked grin curving his lips. “Now, will you consent to be my duchess?”
The time had come to make her choice, and it was not at all how she had imagined it would be. For she knew instinctively that a marriage with Warwick would be unlike anything she was prepared for. He was sensual and dangerous, and so very different from her other suitors, who seemed somehow bland and tepid in comparison. Her other suitors were the safe perch atop a hill in the midst of flood waters. Warwick was the flood.
But something within her whispered that he was her flood. And she wanted to be swept away for once in her life. To take a risk. To leave caution and fear behind her, moving forward into the unknown. She looked at Warwick now, really looked at him, and she longed to be reckless. Full stop.
With a deep, calming breath, Lydia tipped up her chin and answered. “I will.”
She had no time to rethink the wisdom of her acceptance. His mouth pressed to hers at last, and it was as if he kissed her for the first time, tender and masterful, a gentle claiming, and she thought then that if she wasn’t careful, she could fall in love with him. His tongue traced the seam of her lips, sweeping inside to taste her. Someone made a sound of yearning. Her? Him? She wasn’t sure. She clutched his broad shoulders; he cupped her breast. Her nipple pebbled into his palm.
More was all she could think as she sucked his tongue, swallowed his taste, committed the sensation of his solid body beneath her eager fingers to memory. More was what she wanted. Needed. How and when had he become precisely what she longed for?
They broke apart for a breath, and it was then that Mother returned, noisily thumping into the door so that it landed with a dull thud against the wall. Lydia turned away from Warwick, breathless, hoping her mother had not seen their embrace.
Mother smiled, holding the embroidery she had been working on for the last month aloft. “My needlework has been found, and just in time, I should think.”
Lydia’s cheeks burned. Well, then. How mortifying, but all told, she rather liked being referred to as a lady pirate. Indeed, it was a mantle she would wear with pride.
“Merry Christmas, Freckles,” Warwick murmured to her.
“Merry Christmas,” she whispered back.
Perhaps Mother had been right about the day after all.
Chapter Six
One month later
Nothing could have prepared Alistair for the moment when he crossed over the threshold separating his chamber from the duchess’s quarters and saw Freckles for the first time.
His wife.
Breathtaking perfection.
She wore a demure white robe de chambre adorned in lace, belted loosely at her narrow waist. Her lovely auburn curls—coiled in an elaborate affair for their wedding ceremony earlier that day in St. George’s—was unbound and hung down to her waist in striking contrast against the light fabric. Her feet were bare, her nicely turned ankles barely visible beneath the hem. Her face was pale, arresting. He could not stop staring at that full, pink mouth. Those gray-blue-flecked eyes, her elegant cheekbones, the delicate arches of her brows.
His mouth went dry.
He stopped where he was, drinking in the sight of her, and a realization hit him with the force of a rampaging stallion, straight in the chest. The odd sensation that rushed through him whenever he was in her presence, the anticipation from the moment he left her side until he could be back again. The pounding of his pulse, the restless need to be with her, to have her in his bed, to make her his once and for all…the reason no other lady would do as the Duchess of Warwick…everything made sense. It was as if someone had lit a lamp in a dark cellar and he could now see with perfect vision.
He loved her. He loved Freckles.
Damn and blast. He could not move. Could not think. She was his at last, standing nervously before him in her wedding night finery, his to touch, his to kiss.
His to take to bed.
Nothing had ever seemed so right, and yet he remained trapped. Rooted to the Aubusson in wizened old oak tree fashion, brain wildly fumbling to make sense of what he felt and what he knew. Could it be true? Did he truly love her? He, who had not ever imagined he possessed the capability for such an emotion? He, who had always rather imagined love to be the sort of rot more suited for plays and operas than real life?
That strange sensation whenever he thought of Freckles? The way he could not get enough of her scent, or how the sound of her voice thrilled him to his bloody toes? Or how he longed to kiss her every time he saw her, the utter torture he had suffered these last two months in waiting for this very moment, this precise night, when he could at last make her his. As she ought to be. In every way.
Why, then, could he not move?
“Husband,” she greeted hesitantly into the awkward silence he had created by lingering at the threshold like a lumbering oaf.
One word from her, and his cock went rigid.
Ridiculous though it was, she seemed more composed than he, a seasoned rake who had charmed more than his fair share of females in his day. “Freckles,” he returned, his throat thick with unspoken emotion and pent-up need. Good God, what if she didn’t love him?
She fidgeted with the ends of her lustrous hair, the only sign that she was at all discomfited, and that only because he knew her well. Her luscious pink lips formed a smile, and he wanted to feel it beneath his mouth. “Will you not call me Lydia now that we are wed, Warwick?”
She had always been Freckles to him, from the moment she had been a spirited little hoyden running wild up until now, when he understood that Freckles would no longer do. That chapter of their life had closed. She was his duchess now.
She was Lydia.
His love.
He cleared his throat, feeling as if he were hopelessly adrift in a boat on the ocean that he had only just learned was taking on water. But he would have to do something, would he not? Say something, certainly. She gazed upon him expectantly, her beauty almost ethere
al in the chamber’s soft light.
“Lydia,” he said simply before thinking better of it and trying again. “Lydia, my love.”
Her eyebrows arched at the endearment, and he wondered for a brief, breath-stealing beat whether she would ever return his feelings. She had not agreed to this union with the keen enthusiasm one might have expected of a bluestocking facing a future as a companion to a cantankerous old curmudgeon. He had gone to Oxfordshire to spend Christmas with her, followed her about like an obedient pup, and she had still rattled off a list of requirements before reluctantly pledging her troth.
He did not begrudge her the requirements, for they were reasonable and every bit of it was quintessentially Freckles, but he rather fancied she could have been a trifle more thrilled at the prospect of marrying him. He was considered a good catch, after all, and neither his face nor his form had ever met with feminine disapproval. Quite the opposite, in fact. More than anything, he wanted, with a ferocity that shook him, for her to love him back.
Sweet Christ, he was besotted.
“May I call you Alistair?” she asked, her voice hesitant.
She sounded so unlike her ordinary, authoritative self that it was enough to nudge him at last from his impromptu vigil on the threshold. His hands itched to hold her, to acquaint themselves with her lithe curves and learn her every dip and swell. In just a few strides, he stood before her, the tempting scent of violets teasing his senses. With Herculean effort, he checked the urge to take her in his arms and throw her to the bed before ravishing her senseless.
Lydia was not one of his usual conquests. She was innocent and perfect, and unlike every other woman he had bedded before her, she mattered to him in a way that humbled him to his very toes. He drew an arm around her, pressing his palm to the gentle curve of her spine just before the flare of her bottom. With his other hand, he traced a featherlight touch over her cheekbone, savoring the silken smoothness of her skin.
“Yes,” he murmured, falling into her riveting gray eyes. “Call me Alistair, my love.”
Wishes in Winter: A Wicked Winters World Book Page 5