by Tarah Scott
She nodded. The line of her brows deepened. “This is so…so unexpected.”
“Aye.” He dropped his voice. “Now, I fear, I cannot ask you to wed me any longer.”
Olivia blinked. “I never took you seriously, Nicholas.”
“You should have.” He threaded his fingers through hers. “Now, it is too late. I can no longer ask. As a duchess, now, it is you who outranks me.”
A light entered her eyes. Her lashes lowered. “Shall I ask you to wed me, Lord Blair?”
“I accept.”
He kissed her, deeply, taking his time in tasting the sweetness of her mouth.
She tore her lips from his. “Take me,” she whispered.
Take her. He would make her his. At last. How fortunate that they had picked a room with a bed. He caught her up in his arms and carried her to the bed, his cock hardening in anticipation as he lay back with her across the counterpane. As the ribbon about her waist fanned across the bed, he found himself grinning. With one swift jerk, he tore the ribbon free.
“Nicholas!” She stared at her ripped gown.
The tear revealed the curve of her breast. Blood rushed to his cock at the sight. He set the ribbon aside for later and slid his hand through the opening to cup her breast. She moaned and closed her eyes. He knew she’d like that. He caught her nipple between his fingers and teased it into a peak. He withdrew his hand, grabbed the material in each hand, and ripped her dress the rest of the way. Her eyes flew open in surprise.
“It’s already ruined,” he murmured lightly, quite enjoying himself and the sight of her breasts laid bare to his eyes.
Any further objection she might have had was shushed when he latched onto her breast and began to suck.
“Yes.” She laced her fingers in his hair.
She was so responsive, so sensual. He swirled his tongue around her flesh and grazed her nipple with his teeth as he pulled the shreds of her gown and shift free from her winsome form.
Finally, she lay naked beneath him, just as he liked. He released her breast and began kissing his way down. She knew what he wanted. She opened her legs. Wide. He buried his face in her folds, tasting her dew on his tongue as he licked the line of her crease. Already, he was tugging at the buttons of his breeches.
“Yes, Nicholas.” She arched her hips up to his tongue.
As the last button pulled free, he rose to his knees. She watched him shrug free of his shirt, then his breeches until, at last, he knelt beside her, as naked as she. Rising on an elbow, she reached for his cock. He inhaled sharply as she traced his length with a fingertip, up, then down, and then back up to outline the sensitive head.
When she, at last, collapsed back on the bed, he eyed her with a wicked lift of his brow. Then, he slid his body over hers. Skin met skin. She was so soft. Like velvet. He kissed her, hard, as he slid a palm down her belly and slipped his finger between her folds. She was wet. Ready. But still, he didn’t want to take her, not yet. Sucking her bottom lip, he slowly let it go and reached for the ribbon.
“What are you doing?” Her eyes locked onto the length of satin.
He took his time tying the ribbon about her waist. He suckled each breast and played with her folds more than once before finally, he’d fastened the satin about her waist and looped the long ends around her back to draw them up between her folds. The sight of the ribbon encompassing her body was even more erotic than he had imagined. His cock lengthened. It was torture, an exquisite one, viewing her pink folds wrapped in ribbon.
Finally, he could no longer resist. Sliding the ribbon aside, he aligned his shaft with her entrance and slowly pushed forward. The sight of her body accepting him, inch by inch, only fueled his passion. By God, he felt harder than marble. He thrust his hips forward, pushing deeper until he felt her maidenhead resist him.
He paused. “This will hurt, my love.”
“Quickly,” she panted. “Take me, quickly.”
She'd scarcely said the words before he granted her wish. In a single stroke, he was through. She gasped, rising up, but he caught her in a kiss. Almost at once, she began to buck, signaling her pain had already eased. He met her eagerly.
She was so sensual, such a wildly passionate creature, so perfect a match. They moved together, with an ever-increasing vigor. She was sweet blessed heaven, taking him completely, her flesh molding around his. He felt his seed rise.
He couldn’t finish before her. Desperately, he held onto every shred of control. His breath turned ragged. He knew she was close. He’d watched her release enough times over the past few weeks to recognize the signs. She closed her eyes, moving freely, uninhibited by her passion. She began to shudder. He thrust harder. With a gasped, he released his seed, as she bucked in the throes of her release.
Finally, when the last waves of their passion faded, he slid his body off hers and lay by her side. “My love, will you marry me?”
She opened her eyes, slowly. “Is this a jest?”
“Nae,” he whispered. “It never was. Not once.”
Her eyes widened, then, she said the words he so longed to hear, “Yes, my love.”
Epilogue
A Year Later
“I understand, Olivia,” the Duke of Lennox said as he prepared to enter his carriage.
“They will try every trick, grandfather,” Olivia advised.
The old man’s eyes gleamed, as they ever did whenever she called him that. Nicholas suppressed a smile. Now that he knew the man better, it was clear from the start that his gruffness had always been more a show than genuine.
“Don’t settle for more than the agreed upon sum,” she continued as the carriage door snapped shut behind him.
“I will pay less,” he replied testily before drawing the curtains across the window with a jerk of his wrist.
Olivia grinned as the carriage lurched away. “He will,” she said with a note of pride. “He’s the best negotiator I could ask for.”
“Well, you will need him,” Nicholas said with a yawn. “Now that you are opening your second publishing house in London.”
“True.” Olivia nodded absently.
Nicholas guided her from the carriage drive to the gardens behind his mother’s house. The past year had rendered Olivia a wealthy woman. Her reputation as a music publisher and a woman with a fine ear for talent had spread beyond Scotland and England to the continent.
“We should visit France,” Olivia murmured. “No doubt, the venues to—”
“Hush,” Nicholas interrupted.
She blinked and glanced up at him. “Why?”
He grinned. “Do you not know where you are, my love?”
She glanced around, and then understanding dawned in her eyes. “The hedgerow.”
“Where we first met,” he teased. “The kiss that changed my life.”
“And mine,” she was quick to say.
Then, she stepped up to him and ran her palms over his chest. The minx. She knew exactly what her touch did to him.
“Kiss me.” She peered up at him through half-lowered lashes. “Kiss me, again.”
“I will not stop at a kiss. Did I not tell you from the start? When a man sees something he wants, he goes after it.”
Olivia laughed. “No more than a woman.” She slipped her hand into his breeches.
He moaned with pleasure as her fingers closed around his shaft.
Aye, they were the perfect match.
###
If you haven’t read Book One in the Lords of Chance series, here’s a sneak peek
A Stranger’s Promise
Lords of Chance
Book One
Tarah Scott
Penniless and jilted, Charlotte Atchenson accepts a position as governess to Lord Alistair Cassilis ’s illegitimate children. When Eliza sets foot in the Scottish lord’s carriage, she faces the most dangerous foe a woman can face: a charming rogue. The danger is not only to her heart, however, but to her life, as well.
In an effort to deny her son�
�s illegitimate children, Alistair’s stepmother insists on a dour governess who will break their rebellious spirits. Alistair, however, decides that the pretty lass with a colorful French vocabulary who shows up in his stepmother’s drawing room is exactly what the children need. If the notion offends his stepmother, all the better. If the lass is what he needs…well, a man can’t ask for more. His stepmother doesn’t intend for Alistair to open his heart to her grandchildren, or the woman who cares for them. Her plans include forcing them onto the streets.
Chapter One
London, February 1814
“Scandalous.” Captain Edwards sniffed in disdain. Charlotte tried not to wince when he turned his icy gaze from the store window to her. “No wife of mine would even look at such a gown.” His bearded jaw clenched, he added in an even stronger censorious tone, “Frankly, Charlotte, I am disappointed.”
We aren’t married—yet, Charlotte retorted in her mind, and caught herself mid-roll of her eyes.
She pushed her prim straw bonnet back from her face and turned back to the shop window for another look. The gown floated there like a dream come true. Cut in the latest fashion and trimmed with embroidered rosebuds, lace, and tiny seed pearls, its sweeping, crimson silk skirt fell in a tumble of soft, sensuous folds. The dressmaker had even angled several mirrors around the masterpiece to highlight the different views.
Charlotte grinned. If she squinted her eyes and tilted her head just a little to the left, she could almost imagine herself wearing the confection. In her mind’s eye, an obliging shaft of winter sunlight caught the playful spark in her eyes along with the brilliant gold of her unruly brown curls, a contrast against the cream taffeta as she whirled in the dress.
Her future husband’s heavy hand fell upon her shoulder. She jarred back into the moment and caught his reflection in the window. A toned and muscular tower of a man, resplendent in a Queen’s fine scarlet coat with its gold braid and polished brass buttons. A gallantly handsome figure, to be sure—at first glance, anyway. A deeper inspection revealed chilling blue eyes and the vein on his forehead pulsed in disapproval, a vein that betrayed an ever-present simmering rage.
“I insist we leave, Charlotte.” He grasped her arm. “A virtuous woman would never soil her father’s good name—nor mine—by wearing such an abomination.”
Charlotte suppressed a snort. “I merely thought it pretty, Captain Edwards.”
“As my future wife, I insist you think no such thing.” He looped his arm through hers and pulled her away from the shop window.
This time, she did roll her eyes. Heavens, did the man seek to control her thoughts? She snorted.
Captain Edwards paused midstride and peered down at her through narrowed eyes. “Are you mocking me?”
Charlotte thinned her lips in a grim line. She’d witnessed the Captain’s temper often enough to regret her acceptance of his marriage proposal—a proposal her father had pressured her to accept at the tender age of sixteen. Her father, a major in the Queen’s army, found Captain Edwards quite the catch. Not only was he a decorated captain, but a distant cousin to a baronet. Later, she learned her father owed the man a great deal of money. The discovery gave her courage. She’d begged her father to allow her to end the engagement, but he thought it far too late, and reminded her that he valued loyalty and faithfulness above all else—after the balance of his bank account, of course.
Still, she tried to change his mind, but whenever she broached the matter, he invariably replied, “It is you who must change, Charlotte. You are proud and willful. Be grateful the man still wants you. Heed his guidance. Marriage isn’t pleasure. Marriage is work. When you’re older, you’ll understand. Now, enough of this foolishness.”
Well, now she was older and she understood very well. Her father sought only to protect his own interests—not hers.
“I am speaking to you, Charlotte.” Captain Edwards gave her arm a rough shake. “I repeat, are you mocking me?”
Charlotte blinked. She cleared her throat, then answered in the most placating of tones, “No, sir.”
He searched her face, clearly—and rightly—suspicious of her sincerity before nodding in satisfaction. Anchoring her arm tightly under his, he resumed their walk down the icy, snow-covered street.
“I know you think me harsh, Charlotte,” he said. “But I’ve only your best interests at heart. Be grateful I am here to guide you. Because of me, you have blossomed into a virtuous woman, a woman worthy of becoming my wife. You’ve changed so much from when I met you as an undisciplined young girl of fifteen.”
Charlotte looked away, in an effort to keep her anger in check. If only she hadn’t met him that summer six years ago, that dreadful day when he’d first stepped foot in her father’s home. She’d been far too young and impressionable to see what he truly was: an insufferable, judgmental boor of a prig—and a prig with a raging temper at that.
“Now, you are of an age where one expects you to have overcome your flaws,” he droned on, puffing his chest pompously with each judging word. “The unhappy catastrophe of your mother’s death as a child resulted in your lack of a proper upbringing, but…”
Charlotte let his voice fade into the background and took a deep lungful of the crisp, clean winter air. She’d heard this speech countless times. Her mother had died in childbirth, leaving her newborn daughter with only a name and a leather-bound cookery book. And with her father stationed in far-off India, Charlotte and cookbook passed between various family members for a time. She’d finally found a happy home with an elderly, distant relative, a retired Navy man who taught her Greek philosophy and the fine art of swearing. She’d been delightfully happy. Then he passed away and shortly after, her father returned from abroad.
“A humble, subservient wife, Charlotte,” the pompous man at her side continued. “One who wears only modest attire. You must be the very model of propriety…”
A dark cloud passed over the sun. Stifling a yawn, Charlotte stared at the sudden snowflakes swirling down from above and tracked their descent from the sky as they flurried around the streetlamps along the lane. If only she could be as free to simply float away.
“Respect, duty, and honor,” Captain Edwards kept on. “Discipline and fortitude. A woman to remain by my side through life’s fortunes and misfortunes. Do you not agree that these are the obligations of a proper wife, Charlotte?”
“Yes, sir,” she mumbled dutifully.
A break in the buildings ahead offered a sudden tantalizing glimpse of the Frost Fair spread out on the frozen Thames below. She’d read about it in the papers, but in person, it was fabulous, a living painting of women in brightly beribboned, feathered bonnets, men in velvet top hats, and children skating on the ice, toffee apples in hand. Painters lined the river banks, squinted in the darkening afternoon with brushes in hand as they captured the gaiety of the wondrous occasion on their canvases. Men on stilts threaded through the crowds gathered to watch the puppet shows and gape at the elephant by Black Friar’s Bridge, used periodically to test the strength of the ice.
Suddenly, Captain Edwards cupped her chin and forced her eyes up to his. “What do you say to that?” he asked in a deep voice.
Charlotte blinked, startled by the unexpectedness of his move. He usually railed on for a good half hour or so. She twisted her lips and tried in vain to recall his words. “Da—uh…dare I agree, sir?” She caught herself at the last second and swiftly changed damnation into dare.
His blue eyes remained aloof, cool, and critical. She bit her lip, in hopes her reply a sufficient one to whatever he’d asked.
His lips spread into a slow smile. “I am pleased, Charlotte.”
She let out a breath of relief.
“Then we agree,” he said. “We will wed this summer. At last.”
Charlotte choked. This summer?
“Charlotte!” a woman’s frantic voice called from behind. “Charlotte!”
Charlotte whirled. The butcher’s wife waved her apron as she ran
toward them, sliding in the icy snow.
“Go home, girl, home. At once,” the woman wheezed as she arrived. “It’s Major Atchenson, your father. There’s been an accident.”
* * *
An accident. Two simple words that changed Charlotte’s life forever.
Alone in the empty London townhouse, Charlotte huddled next to the kitchen stove in a solemn mood, as howling winds brought more snow. The coal hadn’t lasted more than a week after her father’s death. Unable to afford more, she’d resorted to what wood she could find, but with harsh winter weather, everyone in London searched as well, and she found precious little. She’d been reduced to buying twisted sticks of soiled straw from the hotel stables at the end of the lane, but it flamed so fast it provided little heat.
Now, she stared at the stove, wondering what she had left to burn. The creditors had taken everything.
Well…she had her relatives’ letters.
With a bitter, mirthless smile, she tossed them into the stove, lit the match, then watched the heartless missives catch fire, all of them variations of the same we cannot provide any assistance… Cannot or will not? It didn’t matter. She’d find her own way.
Shawl drawn tight around her shoulders, Charlotte remained seated before the stove long after the last letter curled into ash. She now understood the meaning of ‘nightmare.’ She’d been living in one the past few weeks.
“An accident,” the constable had called her father’s death. He’d fallen through the ice and drowned in the Thames. She hadn’t believed them. She still didn’t. Not after seeing the elephant standing on the river ice that very same day. How could her father break ice that could withstand the weight of an elephant? The idea stretched the imagination beyond credibility, but what could she do? No one cared—even before the creditors descended upon her like wild dogs.