by Lydia Joyce
She set her jaw and reached behind her, jerking up her skirt and petticoats so she could reach the crinoline tapes below. She untied them awkwardly, then tugged the hooped skirt down. Raeburn watched her impassively. As soon as it lay at her feet, he closed the space between them, pulling her roughly against him.
"Do you plan on keeping our bargain?" His face was only inches from hers, and she could feel the controlled rage in the force of his grip.
But that touch, as rough as it was, almost undid her. All she wanted in that moment was more of him, all of him, to take his pain and bury it in herself as he buried himself in her. She pushed away those mad impulses, pushed at the rising awareness that skated across her skin and the stirring warmth in her midsection. She forced her chin up and made her mouth speak. "Do you?"
With a muttered curse, he drove her backward, his legs plowing into hers until she fetched up against the wall. Raw emotion spilled across his face, fury and frustration and something almost like grief that twisted his eyes and roughened his voice. She shivered at his touch and the heat of his eyes, and warmth rushed across her skin.
"You don't know what you have gotten yourself into," he grated.
"I know better than you think."
Raeburn let go of her with one hand, reaching for the buttons of his trousers. "This is your last chance."
"I already made my choice." And she realized that she did not want to change her mind. Even then, with his face contorted in directionless anger, she wanted him, and all the quiet, sensible warnings in the world could do nothing to change that. Come to me, the wildness in her begged, and when she searched within for the power to resist that urge, the practical, steel-backed spinster she thought she was was nowhere to be found.
He yanked the last button open and tugged at his shirt, and his member pushed free, already swollen. Unceremoniously, he hiked up her skirts, piling them into her hands. She took them, gripped them, hardly able to keep herself from grabbing him instead. He found the slit in her drawers and lifted her up to pin her against wall with the weight of his body. He was heavy against her, his chest almost as hard as the wall against her back. Her hands were caught between their bodies, but even so, she turned them so that she could grip his coat in her fists, pulling him, urging him even closer, if such a thing were possible. His member slid through the opening in her drawers, following the path his hand had made, and pressed against her entrance. She bit back a moan as he slid into her, so hot and hard she feared he would burn her. He drove hard and fast, wrath and passion merged in each stroke, and her own breath came in pants, as if she were the one laboring.
She tried to tilt her hips toward his but the cutting pressure of her corset trapped her. His lips came down hard against hers, shoving her head against the paneling as he gripped her chin and tilted it back to take his kiss. She took him in, accepting, wanting more. Greedy for more. Her skin burned with him, with his anger, and she returned his kiss as hard as it was given.
"Damn it, Victoria, why do you choose now not to fight me?" he gasped, pulling his mouth away even as he continued to drive inside her.
"There is nothing to fight." She spoke against his neck, corded with tension.
Grinding out a curse, he jerked away from her and lifted her in his arms in the same movement. "You are a stubborn, contrary, frustrating woman, and the one time I want you to be difficult, you give in without a whimper."
His arms were strong around her, but even in his ire they were not frightening. Her body hummed in sympathy with his, need and anticipation winding tighter within her. "You might hurt me with your silence, but not with this. I can trust you with this."
He dropped her on the bed and wedged his body between her knees. "You aim to destroy me, and yet you trust me? What kind of madness is that?"
His tip found the junction of her thighs again, and Victoria braced herself, too distracted to answer, her breath quick and short in her lungs.
With a sharp movement of his hips, he was inside her, driving into her until he could fill her no more. She gasped and reached for him, but between his position and her corset, he was out of range, so her groping fingers found only the counterpane. She bunched it in her fists as he surged inside her again and again, his arms hooked under her knees, holding her against him. She knew what he was doing—trying to use her, to make her feel like the whore she'd named herself. But she didn't. She sensed the pain behind the rage, the defensiveness that made him lash out, and it couldn't hurt her. Instead, she rode with him even as he tried to leave her behind, a knot of pleasure bunching in her center so hard it was almost painful.
A moan escaped her lips, and he looked down at her, seeming to see her for the first time since he had dropped her onto the bed, and he gasped out a curse.
And with that, he was on top of her, his mouth seeking hers, hot and suddenly, unexpectedly tender. His hands were everywhere, in her hair, touching her face, popping buttons off her jacket in his impatience to reach her skin. Victoria gasped against this onslaught, far more powerful than his calculated forcefulness only moments ago. Her skin burned with his touch, with desiring him, and anticipation wound tighter within her. She felt the hairs on her arms and legs lift, her entire body prickling as he pulled her along with him, faster and faster.
She gripped his hips hard with her thighs when the wave first broke, shivering out of her core to roar across her body. She threw her head back, panting in the confines of her corset, and her vision dimmed and narrowed until all she could see was Raeburn's face above her, all she could hear was their mingled breaths and the rush of blood in her ears, and all she could feel was him, on top of her, against her, inside of her.
She braced herself against the bed as another white hot wave of pleasure bore her higher, urging Raeburn with her hands and thighs, urging him to carry her even farther, to join her.
And he did.
* * *
Chapter Fourteen
Victoria woke to a brush against her cheek and the sudden feeling of emptiness beside her. She fought against the dragging currents of sleep and opened her eyes to find Raeburn at his bureau, lamplight flickering golden across the broad expanse of his back and his tight, narrow buttocks below. As she watched, he drew on his drawers, then balanced with one hand against the dresser as he pulled on his socks one at a time. Still without a glance at the bed, he shrugged into his undershirt, tugging the cloth down to cover his muscled back before pouring a stream of steaming water from the pitcher to the basin and whipping up a froth of soap in his shaving cup.
She held still, naked under the blankets, not wanting to alert him to her wakefulness. She had never seen him thus, so utterly unaware of her. He went about his dressing with the preoccupied unself-consciousness of a man going through the motions of long habit. Each movement was performed with economy, speed, and a kind of fluidity that Victoria had never seen in him before. Usually, there was a restrained abruptness about him, as if every motion were fiercely controlled, constantly checked. Victoria realized that she was seeing him less guarded now than she ever had, but the revelation brought no sense of insight or intimacy.
Instead, she felt a world away, as if she were watching him from the moon through a spyglass. Since their week had begun, she'd shared his conversations, his days, his body, but the part of him that stood now before the mirror, flicking a long razor across the planes of his cheeks and chin—that part of him was not hers to share. That part of him was held aloof, separate, and she had the conviction that it was far closer to the uncomplicated heart of him than anything they had yet exchanged.
She only wished she had revealed so little in return. Raeburn had an uncanny ability to ferret her out, to cajole her until the customs of a decade and a half fell away. He had seen more of her true and hidden self than anyone, maybe even including her. And the deeper he penetrated the barriers between herself and the world, it seemed, the more he insinuated himself behind them and the harder she found it to hold him at arm's length. The night before, when they had ro
used from their first doze to continue their lovemaking, he had seemed to be everywhere, not just as a man, but as himself, and she'd been powerless to pull away and return their lovemaking to the realm of the strictly mechanical.
Raeburn must have caught a glimpse of her watching in the looking glass, for his posture changed subtly, growing more closed and reserved. He set down the razor and washed the last of the foam from his chin, then spoke as he wiped his face dry.
"You needn't rise so early."
Victoria smiled dryly, trying to shove from her mind her lingering sense of disquiet. "And a good morning to you, too, your grace. What time is it?"
"Nine, or scarcely after."
Victoria shook her head. "Don't you ever sleep? Or is that another of your quirks?"
Raeburn tensed at the reference to his oddities, but he answered easily enough as he pulled on his trousers and fastened them. "I have more quirks than you could dream of. Speaking of which, you still ought to be dreaming now." Two tugs, and his boots were on. "I shall send Annie up later with breakfast. Meanwhile, sleep." He crossed to the door carrying his braces, but he paused with a hand on the doorknob and looked back over his shoulder.
"It was good waking up to you," he said, his voice suddenly soft, but before Victoria could frame a response, the door had swished shut behind him and he was gone.
Byron put away the last of the rosewood dumbbells and chose the two lighter Indian clubs off the wall rack in his gymnasium. He was already damp with sweat and had worked up a pleasant burn in half his muscles. He braced his legs and began to swing the pins in slow, easy motions, savoring the flex and pull of each pass as the weights tugged against his arms.
He loved the hour he spent down among the weights and racks every day, the feeling of control as he pushed himself to his limits. Or at least the illusion of control. Here, at least, he could forget the bidden weakness of his body, how a single, sunny day could destroy him more thoroughly than a fall through a window or kick from a horse. Here, at least, he had power over his body. He could mold it into a machine of lean muscle, bone, and sinew, watch it reshape itself under the influence of his will.
If only his will could heal whatever disease of the blood so crippled him…
Victoria would ask about it again. He knew she would, and he knew he could not tell her. A corner of his mind cherished the dream of her accepting his debility without pity, without horror, without scorn, but with sympathetic openness and understanding. But he recognized that picture for what it was—a fantasy, one that could not stand against the test of experience and his knowledge of human nature. Will's young face, contorted in horror, rose without bidding in his mind. He shook his head, dispelling the memory. He should not be too harsh on the boy. After all, Byron loathed the sickness in himself. How could he expect anyone else to do otherwise?
Byron gradually slowed the swings of the clubs, finally letting his arms drop to his sides. He put away the light pair, selected the next set, and began to go through the same pattern of swings, enjoying the heaviness of his tiring muscles and the hypnotic repetition of the forms. No, he would tell Victoria nothing, whatever it might cost him. Then he'd still have the untainted memories of their first days together, and if they departed on strained terms, at least he would not have to carry the memory of her face distorted in revulsion to haunt his nights.
Not that it mattered. He was long past caring what any woman thought. He just saw no reason to expose himself to pointless ridicule.
And yet he had a very hard time convincing himself he believed that.
Victoria frowned doubtfully at Annie's back, holding the candle high enough to shed light for them both.
"You're certain he's in the cellar?" she asked as they started down yet another flight of stone steps.
"Yes, my lady, in one of the cellars." The girl tittered. "There are so many."
"Every day," Victoria repeated flatly. "He spends an hour in the cellars every morning."
"Of course. He's most regular in his schedule, my lady."
"I suppose he is," Victoria said, giving up trying to make sense of it. Every time she thought she was close to the duke, something else would spring up that made her wonder if she really knew him at all.
The staircase gave way to a narrow, stone-lined passageway, the ceiling so low that Victoria had to duck beneath the lowest part of the groin vaults. Annie continued a short distance, then stopped at a low oak door that pierced the blank gray face of the wall.
"Well, here we are," she said. "Does thoo want me to—Shall I announce thee?"
Victoria shook her head. "No need, I'm sure. Thank you, Annie."
The maid hesitated, and Victoria realized that she was carrying the only light between the two of them.
"Rather, I will see if his grace is within, and if he is indeed there and has a light, you may take the candle and go," she amended.
"Thank you, my lady." Annie bobbed gratefully.
There was no doorknob, only a large iron ring, so Victoria placed her hand against the door and gave it a tentative push. It swung open silently on well-oiled hinges, disappointing her expectations of a dramatic groan, and revealed a kind of stoop leading five steps down into a massive, vaulted chamber.
The room was empty except for a tall rack against one wall and Raeburn, who was standing in the light of an oil lamp with his back to her, swinging Indian clubs in a slow, rhythmic pattern. Without looking at the maid, Victoria passed her the candle. Annie's thanks and departure barely registered, for the duke held all her attention.
He was magnificent. There truly was no other word to describe it. His undershirt was damp with sweat and molded to every contour of his back. He raised the clubs, and the muscles bunched around his shoulders and neck. He swung them down, and the bulge rolled to his back and shoulder blades. Each movement had a poetic, forceful grace, something wholly masculine, wholly fascinating—and more than a little arousing.
Victoria stepped all the way into the room, closing the door of the corridor and descending the five steps to the chamber's stone floor. The flags were gritty under her boots, scattered with fine white sand that had been tracked from the corner by the rack. Raeburn must have heard her crunching step, for a moment later, he let the clubs drop to his sides and turned to face her. He said nothing, merely smiled slightly as if he could read every indiscreet thought that had crossed her mind in the last two minutes. She found herself coloring under his hazel gaze.
"I came to find you," Victoria said to break the silence.
"And why did you think I wanted to be found?"
Victoria snorted at his teasing, managing to be light despite the sense of reservation emanating from him. "And why do you think that I cared if you didn't? The bargain was for a week in your presence, as you so forcefully reminded me last night. There was no mention of me leaving you alone."
Raeburn crossed to the rack and hung the clubs beside a second, smaller pair. "Ah. Only now do I discover my mistake." He took a towel from the rack and wiped his face with it. "I hope that since you expended such pains in finding me you at least enjoyed the show."
"Greatly," she assured him. "To think that I had such an opportunity every morning and yet did not know it! It would be almost worth losing sleep over."
"And thus I am put most properly in my place-ranked right under an hour's sleep."
Victoria suppressed a smile, relaxing slightly. "That should teach you not to fish for compliments."
"I suppose with you I can always expect a shoe on the end of my hook if I do."
"Just so."
Raeburn threw the towel over his shoulder. "Any particular reason you sought me?"
Victoria shook her head. "Ennui. I suspected that there was little chance that you could be as bored as I was."
He chuckled. "I wouldn't know, for how can I judge just how bored you were? In any event, you oughtn't be too bored for the rest of the day."
"Oh?" Victoria arched an eyebrow.
"I've ord
ered Cook to pack a picnic for us. We'll ride out and eat it at Rook Keep."
"You remembered!" Victoria exclaimed, genuinely pleased.
"And kept my promise. If it suits you, I shall escort you back to the Unicorn Room now and then meet you in the front hall in half an hour. That will give you time to change—and me time to wash up."
"That suits very fine, indeed," Victoria said.
"Well, then, let's be on our way."
Raeburn was waiting for her next to the footman when she reached the front hall. He wore his strange, parson-like wide-brimmed hat and a silk scarf up to his chin, but other than that, he was dressed as any smart gentleman going out for a morning ride. He surveyed her as she approached.
"I have always hated riding habits on women," he observed.
Victoria stabbed the last few pins into her hat as she drew even with him. "Do you feel your rightful place usurped by such mannish dress on a lady?"
He smiled, extending his arm. "I am not so insecure as that. No, I merely find it silly to combine a suit and corset so blatantly. If poufs and froths of lace are a shade overdone, such severity is worse. And as for your hat"—he leveled a disdainful stare at the plumed, feminized version of a top hat that perched on her head—"why, nothing need be said, for it speaks for itself so eloquently."
Victoria took his arm and glanced down across the steel blue expanse of stiff silk that peeked out under her black cloak. It was certainly closer in both color and form to her own wardrobe than either of the other dresses Raeburn had ordered for her. "I rather like it," she said blandly, feeling the obscure need to needle him.
Raeburn just snorted and nodded to Andrew to open the door.
Victoria looked up uneasily at the dark, lowering clouds as they stepped out onto the gravel drive. It seemed more like dusk than midmorning. So that is why he is willing to go out this day, she thought. The foreboding in her gut mirrored the shadowed sky.
The groom brought up their horses. Both mounts were spectacular specimens, which didn't surprise Victoria in the least. While Raeburn was not the hunt-mad type—could not be the hunt-mad type—he was fastidious and proud enough to insist that his stables contain only the best horseflesh. But she still raised an eyebrow when she saw that the bay was outfitted with a well-polished sidesaddle.