The quiet ones, the shy ones, the ones who hid beneath masks.
Chapter 5
By half past six in the morning, dressed in black bombazine up to her chin and down to her wrists, Selena made her way down the stairs and into the front parlor where additional chairs had been brought in to fill out the various sitting areas because the wake for Arthur James Sheffield, Duke of Lushing, would be held here throughout the day and into the evening. He’d passed away shortly after midnight on Friday at the estate. It wasn’t until yesterday, Sunday, that they’d accompanied the casket to the train station for Lushing’s final journey to London. Servants had lined the drive at the manor house to pay their final respects. Villagers had gathered along the edge of the road leading to the depot. The Duke of Lushing had been loved by many.
So she wasn’t at all surprised now to see Viscount Kittridge occupying a chair near the gold satin-covered dais upon which the casket encasing the duke rested. It was a fanciful thing, Spanish mahogany inlaid with silver, bearing the ducal crest. Her husband had purchased it some time back, but when his fever was at its highest, he’d ordered it brought up to his bedchamber, so he could gaze upon his eternal home. She’d found it standing upright in the corner a morbid affair, as though it were waiting for him to get out of the bed, stroll over, and close himself up inside. Not that he’d have been uncomfortable there. The entire thing was lined with stuffing covered in satin. On the inside of the lid, the silk carried an embroidered crest, as though he expected to be able to view it from his position and take comfort in it. Like many of his friends, her late husband, bless him, had a macabre fascination with death.
The crinkling of her dress announced her arrival and the viscount rose to his feet. He appeared wan, with dark shadows beneath his eyes, and she did hope he wasn’t on the verge of succumbing to the illness that had taken the duke.
“You’re here early, Kit,” she said quietly as she approached him.
He sighed heavily. “I wanted to pay my respects in peace, before the others begin arriving.” Taking her black-gloved hand, he pressed a kiss to her knuckles, scrutinizing her as he did so. “How did you sleep?”
“Not so well,” she admitted honestly, knowing he would attribute the blue half circles beneath her eyes to her mourning when in truth Aiden Trewlove had been responsible for her restlessness. He’d come to her in her dreams, his luscious mouth doing wicked things to hers, filling her with guilt because all her thoughts should be focused on her dear departed husband.
Kit offered his arm for support as she lowered herself into the chair, before taking the one next to her. “I can’t believe he’s gone.”
Kit and Lushing had been the best of friends, hardly inseparable since their earliest days at Eton. Kit had accompanied her and Lushing on many of their travels. She did have to give her husband credit for that: through her marriage to him she’d seen a good bit of the world. She placed her hand over Kit’s, and he turned his up, threading their fingers together. “I fear the next two days will be trying.”
He moved his head nearer to her. “Hence, my reason for coming early. He was much respected and liked among his peers. They shall all come to express their condolences.”
The duke would remain in repose in the parlor until tomorrow morning when he would be paraded through the streets in grand style in a black hearse pulled by six black horses adorned in black ostrich feathers and laid to rest at Abingdon Park, the garden cemetery where he’d purchased two burial plots. Although she didn’t think he’d expected to make use of his so soon. His final words to her seemed to relieve her of any obligation to use the one designated as hers: “Love is all that matters. Find someone deserving of yours.”
As though he hadn’t been. It hurt if she contemplated it too much.
Despite being only thirty-seven, he’d designed every aspect of the ceremony that would mark his departure from the world. Tomorrow’s activities would not include her as she was too delicate for such a solemn and grief-filled occasion. The public was not to see her grieving. She was to stay in residence and do it privately.
“He had everything planned out, all the way down to his eulogy. Every Christmas Eve, he would pour himself a glass of brandy and rework his eulogy to better reflect his life at that moment. Who goes to such bother regarding how their death is to be handled when they are so young?” she asked.
“His three siblings never saw the age of twenty. On his father’s side, the members were plagued with ill health and accidents, which is the reason he has no relations from that half of his family. He once told me he saw himself as a lone survivor. It gave him a rather grim outlook, I fear. He always felt the cold scepter of death lurking. On the other hand, he did tend to appreciate more than most each day he was given, tried to make the best of it.”
“Was he faithful to me?”
Squeezing her eyes shut, she shook her head in order to erase the words spoken. But after the passion she’d experienced last night, she couldn’t imagine Lushing not seeking elsewhere the same sort of fire that she’d been unable to stir to life within him. Opening her eyes, she gave Kit a bashful smile, rather certain her cheeks were aflame. “I don’t know why I asked that. Please don’t answer.”
His blue eyes held sympathy and understanding. “He was involved with someone before you were married, but he had no relations with anyone other than you once your vows were exchanged.”
“Did he love her? Why didn’t he marry her?”
“It is not often that dukes are allowed to marry for love.”
“Is she the reason he had a falling-out with his father?”
He hesitated for several heartbeats before finally nodding. “His father didn’t approve of the choices Lushing’s heart had made. I think his father would have disowned him if primogeniture and the terms of the entailment hadn’t made it impossible for Lushing not to inherit. His father was quite furious and unforgiving. Thank God for the law that protected his inheritance.”
It was no secret that Lushing’s deep and abiding friendship with Kit had helped him to survive those trying years when his father had cast him out. Even upon his deathbed, as he succumbed to the ravages of cancer, Lushing’s father refused to allow his only remaining child entry into the residence in order to have a final farewell.
“I’m surprised he didn’t rebel and marry her.” If he had loved her enough to offend his father, why hadn’t he taken her to wife?
“The relationship was complicated. It would not have served him well in the end to make it public.”
She wondered if the lady had been married or perhaps a servant. Maybe someone uneducated who would not have fit in at all. Or a by-blow.
Kit gave her a warm smile. “Besides, you caught his fancy. You made him quite happy, Selena.”
While the physical aspect of their relationship might have been lacking, she’d never doubted that Lushing had cared for her, and until last night had never doubted his devotion.
“And if this child you carry is a boy, he will be smiling down from heaven.”
Her gut clenched, and her chest tightened. She’d needed to plant the seed of a possible heir early, so she’d decided to use him as her foil because he was so close to Lushing and people would take his word if he supported her claim regarding the child’s paternity. “There could be other reasons my menses is delayed.” It hadn’t been late at all, had ended a mere five days ago.
“I shall pray you are late for the most joyous of reasons. Lushing had begun to fear the mumps had left him infertile.”
Three years into their marriage, he’d confessed his worries to her. At nineteen, he’d contracted a rather severe case of the horrid disease that had caused swelling not only on either side of his jaw but in his testicles as well. He’d avoided looking at her when he’d shared what she realized was an incredibly personal and embarrassing situation for him. She’d feared the lack of ease between them when it came to the bedding had caused her womb to tighten up to such a degree that it would
n’t allow his seed to take root. “Please, don’t mention my possible condition to anyone, not until more time has passed. I don’t want to invite any bad luck,” she told Kit now.
“All your secrets are safe with me.”
He looked back toward the casket, and she couldn’t help but wonder what secrets Lushing had shared with him. More than she’d ever be willing to share. She certainly wasn’t going to tell him about Aiden Trewlove or her plans to return to the Elysium Club tonight. Only she wouldn’t settle for a kiss in the wee hours of the morning, no matter that her knees were going soft simply with the thought of his mouth once more on hers. No, Aiden Trewlove would bed her, or she’d move on to someone more willing to act quickly.
Time was not on her side.
Just as he had the night before, he spied her the moment she waltzed through the doorway. She wore the same gown of deep blue, no doubt purchased solely for her clandestine visits to his club, something she wouldn’t wear on any other occasion lest one of the ladies in attendance recognize it and realize she’d been recalcitrant in observing her proper period of mourning. That possibility had occurred to him as he’d been sketching what he did know of her features. Her fear of discovery had little to do with the sinning and more to do with the timing of it. He’d never understood the requisite mourning periods, spelled out so succinctly in books on etiquette. Not that he’d ever admit to reading about the subject, but he’d always been fascinated by what was considered proper behavior. Not to mention, as a boy, a secretive part of him had wanted to be prepared if his father ever deemed to publicly acknowledge him. He hadn’t wanted to embarrass his sire, even though his birth had managed to accomplish that, marking him as a child of shame.
So his widowed duchess was probably still in mourning. He’d wager tonight’s take on his having the right of it. With a bit of asking around regarding which dukes had passed within the past two years, he could probably discern exactly who she was. Odd thing, though. He who always wanted to know everything about his clientele and was quite skilled at discovering things they didn’t always know about themselves—family debts, by-blows, a distant uncle who liked to wear corsets, an aunt who had once posed in the nude for a famous artist, a sister who had turned to the church because of an affair—didn’t want to ferret out her secrets. He wanted her to confess them all, whisper them in his ear as their bodies writhed over satin sheets.
He didn’t make her wait for him tonight, even though he knew his eagerness to be in her company gave her power over him. He’d find a way to offset it, to ensure he didn’t become subservient to her desires, even as his for her were proving dangerous and reckless. While he flirted with the ladies who visited here, he never seduced them.
Her he wanted to seduce thoroughly and slowly, tormenting them both. For the life of him, he couldn’t discern this need that seemed to override all common sense. Perhaps it was because she’d stated so bloody succinctly that she wanted to be bedded, and he feared once she was, she’d traipse out of his life as easily as she’d traipsed into it. He already knew that for him, one fuck wasn’t going to be enough. No, he wanted a multitude of them, so many that they’d lose count, so many they’d still be going at it when they were wrinkled and silver-haired.
God help him. Not that many. He wasn’t going to spend the remainder of his life shackled to her—or even an abundant number of years. He merely wanted more than one go with her, the exact number or amount of time to be determined at a later date.
As he neared, he could see no bump on the ring finger of her left hand. She’d not worn the symbol that proclaimed she belonged to another. Good. He was going to take a great deal of pleasure in peeling those gloves off her.
She didn’t smile, didn’t seem glad of his approach. Rather she looked like a deer that sensed the hunter’s arrow aimed at it and believed it would remain notched as long as no movement disturbed the air. Yet still, she stood her ground, meeting and holding his gaze with a bit of defiance reflected in her eyes. Ah, yes, his duchess was accustomed to bending others to her wishes. He had the odd sensation that, like a tree caught in a windstorm, he was bending as well—only he wouldn’t realize the exact extent of his giving way until he was felled. Foolish thought there, as he was always aware of how much he was yielding and how much farther he would. It was the reason, until recently, he’d given his sire a large share of his earnings to save his brother from transportation to Australia for a crime he hadn’t committed. He’d been willing to give much more than the earl had demanded for his favor, but then, when it came to his family, Aiden would give damn near anything required of him. Not that he went around boasting of that little flaw in himself.
When he reached her, he took her hand, pressed a kiss to it, never removing his gaze from hers. “Were your dreams as naughty as mine?”
She averted her eyes then, and he watched as a swath of dark pink swept over her décolletage, her throat, her chin, and he cursed the mask for preventing him from seeing her cheeks blush a rosy hue. He took pleasure from knowing she had dreamed about him. “Perhaps you’ll tell me about them later.”
Her eyes swung back to his. “I very much doubt it.”
“I can be most persuasive when I set my mind to it.”
“My reason for coming here has not changed. However, if you can’t accommodate me—”
“Oh, I’ll accommodate you, and when I’m done, you’ll be ever so glad I did.”
A hitch of her breath, a parting of those lush lips, another blush, a deeper pink than the first.
He tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow in a way that even to him seemed rather possessive. “Come. I want to share with you one of the rooms we didn’t get to last night.”
She didn’t resist when he began to escort her along the outer rim of the gaming floor. He didn’t go through its center because he didn’t want any other lady snagging his attention or trying to divert him from his goal of seduction, especially as Selena had tossed down the gauntlet about accommodating her or she’d go elsewhere. Over his rotting corpse. He liked the challenge of her but was baffled by his reasoning for not simply tossing her on the bed, hiking up her skirts, and plowing the sweet furrow she was offering. He’d had women before who simply wanted a bit of the rough.
Perhaps that was all she wanted as well—to experience spreading her legs for someone beneath her. Why was he so deuced determined to ensure it wasn’t the bedding she craved but him? Why was it not enough to simply have a frolic? Why did he want what they experienced to have some meaning for her, to be more than the scratch of an itch?
Damn her, damn him, but he didn’t want her to be easy.
He took her to the ballroom, to the same door he’d opened for her the night before, up the same steps, into the same corridor, but past the room with the fainting couch to one at the end of the hallway. The footman posted outside it who, on an ordinary night, was to ensure any ladies within had all they required, had been told to gently tell any who wanted to make use of it that it was unavailable for entertainments this evening.
Once he spotted Aiden, he gave a curt nod, reached back, and opened the door. Aiden escorted her inside, the soft snick of the door closing behind them making the room seem far more intimate than it might otherwise.
“A billiards room?” she asked, clearly surprised, releasing her hold on him and wandering over to the green-baized carambole table.
He saw no point to answering the obvious. “Remove the mask.”
With a sigh, she swung around. “I told you that I can’t.”
He strode over to her until they stood toe to toe. “Then I’ll do it for you.”
This time her sigh was long and drawn out as she no doubt fought to come up with a scathing retort. “You’re so blasted annoying. That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”
“My man outside the room isn’t going to let anyone come in. There’s not a chance in hell that we’ll be disturbed. I won’t bed you if I can’t see all of you.”
“
I’d have thought you’d be a man who’d enjoy the mystery of it. You could envision me to have an appearance most to your liking.”
“Are you hideous then?”
“Would it matter to you if I were?”
“No.” His answer came without hesitation, without falsehood. He was intrigued by her reasons, what she had revealed of herself so far. She could be a crone beneath that mask, and he wouldn’t care. Well, he’d care a bit.
“Then why your obsession with my removing the mask?”
“Why your obsession with keeping it on?”
“It provides a shield, makes it easier to do what I ought not.”
“That’s the thing, sweetheart. You’ve already divulged that you’re a widow. You’re not being unfaithful to a husband. Not a single reason exists for you not to take pleasure where you can.” He skimmed his fingers along her jaw, then down the nose of her mask. “I want to touch all of you. You can see the advantage to that, surely. Besides, I don’t fancy feathers.”
Blue ones adorned each side of the mask. He was tempted to count the seconds, but instead simply let them flow into eternity, ignored while he waited, while her eyes searched his face, her lips flattened. “Trust me,” he finally said, surprised his voice rasped so rough and raw, as though he’d gone his entire life without a drop of water ever touching his tongue. He despised the desperation he heard there, hoped she didn’t note it. He shouldn’t care that she kept herself hidden from him. Other women did, had. A mask wasn’t required for keeping oneself hidden.
She gave two quick nods, and she might as well have delivered two quick punches to his gut for the way it tightened, almost painfully. It wasn’t so much that he was about to see exactly what she looked like. It was more about what her actions said regarding her feelings toward him. She wanted more than his cock, wanted to please him. Not as much as he wished to please her. He suspected that was impossible. But more could develop between them now. More than rutting.
The Duchess in His Bed Page 6