Well. A little honesty at last.
“Hobbs,” she said, softening her tone. “I have nursed both my father and brother when they were unwell. Sickbeds do not alarm me. If Exton is feverish, taken a chill, or perhaps his stomach is troubling him, I can help.”
“I am sure, madam. I know His Grace has made the correct choice in spouse.”
On a different night she would have commended the loyalty of Exton’s valet, especially after the behavior of the other servants. But right now she wanted to spit fire. “Then why are you not moving?”
“I cannot,” he said, albeit with real sympathy in his gaze.
“The servants are talking,” she said abruptly. “About him. And about me. Do you know how it looks when a bride and groom do not spend their wedding night together? Do you think this is assisting my new position in this household?”
Hobbs hesitated. “No, Your Grace.”
“This townhouse is in a shameful state. The servants are running amok. But no one will listen if they sense division between myself and His Grace. Help me help him.”
The valet closed his eyes briefly, then stepped back and opened the door wide. “Very well, madam, but I must warn you…”
His words trailed off at Lilian’s indrawn gasp. Because two things were immediately clear: Exton lay fully-dressed and fast asleep on the oversized ducal bed, and the ridiculous gilt-laden and very un-Exton-like bedchamber absolutely reeked of brandy.
Turning back to Hobbs, she clenched her fists. “He is not ill but passed out drunk?”
“I suppose you could say—”
“Not could,” she retorted. “There is no could about it. This room smells like the inside of a decanter! And Exton started even before the ceremony, did he not?”
“Your Grace, please—”
“Not one more word. I shall retreat to my own bedchamber and see His Grace in the morning.”
And with that, Lilian turned and marched back through the door, closing it firmly behind her. Only then did she slide down onto the cool wooden floor and allow her tears to fall.
Yes, she had done her duty and saved her family from ruin, but that victory seemed hollow when faced with the stark reality of marriage to a stranger who already didn’t want her. Not for a moment had she thought it might hurt so much. Her sisters and brother still had the chance of finding love, enjoying a happy marriage, but she…
She would be trapped in an empty union.
Until death they did part.
He had a foggy head, and his mouth felt like the floor of a henhouse.
Slowly sitting up in bed and shuddering at the cloying, suffocating feel of sweat-damp clothing clinging to his skin, Gabriel narrowed his gaze on Hobbs, who sat quietly in the corner of the bedchamber brushing some jackets.
“Explain yourself.”
His valet jerked in surprise, then smiled. “You’re awake! You must be famished, I can arrange for the kitchens to send up a tray, or if you prefer downstairs, whatever you wish can be made. Bacon, kippers, rare beef, coddled eggs, toast and preserves—”
“I didn’t ask for a goddamned menu. I want an explanation.”
Hobbs visibly braced himself. “Your foot. Don’t you remember?”
“I remember brandy and balm. Not laudanum.”
“Ah.”
“Yes, bloody ah,” Gabriel snapped. He hated laudanum, the way it wrenched away control and sucked him down into an abyss, as well as the lingering aftereffects.
“I had no choice, sir. It was a bad attack. You were in so much pain. The brandy wasn’t even taking the edge off, and the balm takes time to seep in and work.”
Gabriel glared at Hobbs as he swung his feet onto the floor and gingerly put a little weight on them. Naturally, the day after his nuptials, the vicious, clawing cramps, and debilitating pain had abated to nothing more than the usual scar tenderness. “Drugged on my goddamned wedding night!”
“You couldn’t even walk by yourself,” retorted the older man as he continued to brush a jacket sleeve. “On the bed you were curled in half, shaking, your entire body drenched in sweat. Not even you could have bedded a woman in that condition.”
“Lilian…”
“Her Grace knocked on the connecting door about midnight. I tried to dissuade her from coming in, but she insisted. Unfortunately, she saw you unconscious, smelled the spilled brandy, and, ah, drew her own conclusions. The duchess left before I could explain about your foot or the laudanum.”
Gabriel groaned as he stumbled over to a basin of fresh and blessedly cool water. “My wife thinks…I’m a wedding day drunkard. Christ.”
“Humblest apologies, sir.”
“But you’d do the same again.”
“Every time,” said Hobbs grimly. “And you know why.”
Sighing heavily, Gabriel peered into the small mirror over the basin and tried not to wince at his drawn features and bloodshot eyes. Indeed, he did know why. Years ago, when he’d been a captain and first permitted a batman paid for by the British Army, he’d plucked the enlisted Hobbs from otherwise extremely harsh conditions, and offered a far better post. His impulsive choice of an older man, weathered, stoic, and possessing a wide range of useful skills had proved to be inspired. Hobbs had been steadfast from the first, although that loyalty had turned into something akin to worship after Gabriel had saved his life, fighting off several persistent French soldiers, then shoving him up over the bank that had been the difference between freedom and capture at Bayonne. “Yes. I know.”
“You require more than a sponge bath. I’ll have a copper tub brought up. There is time, Her Grace has not yet left her chamber.”
“Very well, Nanny,” Gabriel agreed, as he had a rather pungent air about him. Sweat and spilled brandy would never be a seductive mix, definitely not the combination to attempt an apology to a wife probably thinking the worst of him right now.
Hobbs grinned like a choirboy and marched over to the door. “Did you want a tray sent up?”
“I think so. Nothing heavy. Actually, send up breakfast for two.”
“At once, Your Grace.”
When bathed, shaved, and dressed, he almost felt human again. Armed with the peace offering of an ingenious wheeled breakfast trolley boasting hot tea and lemon, a pot of chocolate, toasted bread and butter, berry preserves, raisin pastries, coddled eggs, and thin slices of ham, he knocked once on the connecting door and entered his wife’s bedchamber. Lilian wasn’t still abed as he’d assumed, but curled up on the cushioned window seat with an embroidery frame. Her hair was in its usual tight braided coil, and she wore a simple pink gown, plain, high-necked and with sleeves to her elbows.
“Good morning,” Gabriel said hesitantly. “I come bearing breakfast. Have you eaten?”
Lilian shook her head, her expression politely blank. “No. Not yet. I wasn’t sure what you wished me to do in the mornings. I can make myself very scarce.”
He winced. “About last night…”
“There is no need to explain, Exton. You are the duke. I will of course honor and obey, as vowed.”
Hell. Much worse than he’d thought.
Positioning the trolley between the two chairs in front of her bedchamber fireplace, he settled into the right hand one so she wouldn’t have to look at his facial scar. “Join me.”
His wife nodded and walked over, but her face could have been a mask. “Goodness me. What a nice little bounty.”
“I don’t know…what you enjoy for breakfast. So I asked for several choices.”
“I am hungry. I didn’t eat very much yesterday.”
Gabriel handed her a fine china plate. “Then get to work, corporal. You can’t march…on an empty stomach.”
Her lips twitched ever so slightly as she added a slice of toasted bread and buttered it. “So they say.”
“Tea? Or chocolate?” he added, feeling like a fool, but breakfasting with a virgin wife was never going to be anything other than awkward.
Lilian glanced longing
ly at the chocolate pot, then sighed. “Tea.”
He poured her a steaming cup of the rich chocolate. “Here you go.”
“I asked for tea.”
“But you don’t want tea. Just as I suspect…you’d rather have something…other than plain toast.”
She stilled. “Is something wrong, Exton?”
“No.”
“Have you…” her voice dropped to a whisper, “have you been drinking?”
Gabriel put down the chocolate pot and rubbed a hand across his jaw, as the monstrous scar decorating half his face began to tingle. Mocking him. “Not today.”
“Then why are you speaking as if you have been?”
Humiliation struck like an arrow. Exactly why he tried to keep his sentences short, otherwise he did sound three sheets to the wind even when sober.
Yet she needed to know the truth, about this at least. “My scar. The Army surgeon…did the best he could. But the damage…”
“Exton.” Lilian’s cheeks went regimental scarlet. “I am sorry. Nobody ever mentioned…how foolish of me. It is so obvious. Does it hurt to speak? Oh, I do beg your pardon. You don’t have to answer that.”
Oddly, some of his tension eased. “I’ll answer if you eat. And drink chocolate.”
She blinked in surprise. Then lifting her chin, added some coddled eggs and two slices of ham to her plate, and a spoonful of berry preserve to her toasted bread. After sampling some of each, she met his gaze with a haughty raised eyebrow and took a mouthful of chocolate.
Gabriel almost smiled as he tested some coddled eggs and toast on his empty gut. Remarkably, they, and a raisin pastry, went down without fuss. “It doesn’t hurt to say a little. But more and my jaw aches. And I sound ridiculous. Why did you ask for tea? And only take a little toast…when you’re so hungry?”
Lilian seemed to take forever to finish a bite of ham. “Partly habit. Now I think back, the household economized long before Father informed us of, ah, matters.”
“And mostly?”
“Grandmother taught us gluttony is a sin,” she replied primly. “A lady must eat like a baby bird…why is that amusing?”
He couldn’t help it. “It’s not. But you have a spot of jam…on your face.”
“Where!?”
“Here,” he said, touching his chin, almost laughing now as she frantically scrubbed at her face and somehow managed to miss the spot entirely.
“Is it gone?” she cried.
“No. Lean over.”
Pushing the breakfast trolley away, Lilian tilted her face up toward him.
As soon as he touched her, his tension returned. Her skin was soft. Like creamy satin. Quickly scooping the tiny dab of jam with his thumb, he brought it back to his mouth and licked it off. Then he reached out again.
“Didn’t you get it all?” she asked, her voice not quite steady.
“No,” he lied gruffly, as his cock began to throb. “Little more…here.”
Slowly, so slowly, he traced her carnal, rose pink lips with his thumb. Back and forth, around and around, until her lower lip grew even poutier, and her breathing came in short, quick pants.
“Exton…”
“Stand up, Lilian. Now.”
What did Exton want of her?
It felt like she’d been walking on an abandoned bridge from the moment the archbishop had pronounced her and Exton married, trying to step on solid ground and finding only air. Their wedding day. The horrible wedding breakfast. A new husband who drank himself unconscious rather than bed her. The shame of waking still a virgin, utterly unsure what to do. But this morning, Exton had almost been a different man. Bringing breakfast. Making conversation. Smiling as though he didn’t dislike her.
And now touching her.
His thumb had been so warm. Slightly rough. And the way he’d traced her lips, over and over, until they tingled…shockingly, she’d felt it in other places. Her nipples had tightened, and that secret place between her legs had begun to ache.
“Lilian. I said stand up.”
His words were even, no hint of anger, but there could be no doubting an order. And the way he loomed over her, so huge and hard and uncompromising, made her tremble.
Slowly, she got to her feet, keeping her gaze on a spot over his left shoulder. “As you wish, Exton.”
“I wish many things,” he said in a low voice that seemed to rasp over her skin. “Look at me.”
Every sense she possessed screamed a warning as his big hands settled on her shoulders. Her gown might not expose a square inch of skin, yet the heat of him soaked straight through the fabric to burn her. Oh God. It was happening again, that sensation of her gown being far too small, the fine muslin and soft linen petticoat chafing her flesh.
Reluctantly, knowing somehow for her own self-preservation it wouldn’t be the sensible thing to do, Lilian glanced up.
And her breath caught.
His eyes, so dark they were almost black, seared right through her. His bronzed skin made him appear rougher, even primal. And that scar, that terrible, terrible scar that dissected his face and made speaking so difficult, looked stark and painful. Unbidden, her right hand rose toward the injured, uneven flesh to stroke and soothe, but Exton made a low, growling sound and his huge hand enveloped hers and firmly pushed it away.
“Do not touch my face,” he rasped. “Or body. Only my hands. Or forearms.”
Startled at the unusual instruction, Lilian stared at him, uncertain. The words were plain, and yet…
“Very well,” she whispered eventually. “Husband.”
Exton groaned, and in a lightning fast movement, he secured both her hands behind her back in one of his. Seconds later his other hand clamped around the back of her neck, and his mouth crashed onto hers.
Fire.
The word flashed in her mind as the softness of her lips were both bruised and worshipped by the hardness of his. Her late fiancé had never kissed her like this and the contrast was overwhelming. Exton wasn’t gentlemanly or coolly polite, yet as her senses whirled and blood fizzed, she didn’t want him to be. For once, she didn’t have to think. To decide. Only feel.
Greedy for more hot intimacy, Lilian daringly shuffled forward until the bodice of her pink gown just brushed the lapels of his jacket. Somehow like this, his height and broad shoulders weren’t frightening but reassuring, and his firm grip on her wrists a welcome anchor as his mouth plundered, rested, plundered again and threatened to send her floating away. Surely it must be wrong. Too carnal for a married couple. Yet when his tongue touched her lips, demanding entry, she helplessly obeyed. And what had been hot became scalding.
A tiny sound escaped, part sigh, part whimper, as his tongue darted into her mouth, flicking and teasing, encouraging her tongue to move in return. Tentatively she touched it to his, and he growled as he flexed his jaw then kissed her harder, before dropping the hand about her neck to her hip, scandalously sliding it around to caress her bottom.
“Exton,” she gasped, as her hips instinctively tilted, yet not quite sure what she offered.
“You’re so beautiful. Taste so sweet. I need to be inside you…to fuck you…” he said rawly.
Lilian froze in shock, both at the forbidden word, and at the very large and very hard thing now nudging her belly.
His man part? That would be shoved inside her during marital relations?
No. Impossible. He would tear her in two with something so big.
Wrenching away, Lilian stepped back until a gap of several feet separated them. “This…” she whispered, trying to marshal her scattered thoughts, trying to control the fear icing over what had just been so hot, “this is not proper.”
Exton stared at her incredulously. “What?”
She looked over his shoulder at the clock on the mantelpiece, unable to meet the intensity of his gaze, knowing how ridiculous the words were, even as she spoke them. He was her husband, and they were alone in her bedchamber. No one would dream of disturbing them. “It’s not p
roper. It’s ah, morning!”
“I’m aware of the hour. Not what that has to do with…kissing my wife.”
“It has everything to do with it! We are a duke and duchess.”
Exton stilled. “What is the matter? Didn’t you like the kiss?”
“It is all wrong,” she burst out desperately, refusing to answer the question, refusing to admit she had liked it very much, because that might lead to more questions and she was so tired of always being the one on uneven, shaky ground. “Marital relations is done at night! In the dark! And I will be bathed, and my hair in a braid, and wearing my nightgown in bed when, ah, when you visit for the first time. That is how it is to be. Not like this. Not standing next to…next to breakfast dishes!”
Surprisingly, a faint blush highlighted his cheekbones, and he inclined his head. “You are right. I forgot myself. You are a lady.”
“Yes!” she replied sharply, summoning righteous anger and grasping his words as tightly as he had grasped her wrists not so long ago. “I am a lady. A duchess. Certainly not some hot-blooded wanton!”
All expression left his face. “Point made, Lilian. I’ll leave you alone. But know that tonight…we will dine. You’ll bathe and attend your hair. Wear your nightgown. For me. Understood?”
Her knees practically knocked together, but she managed a curtsy. “Yes, Your Grace.”
“Good day, wife,” he said with a small bow, then her husband turned and limped from the room, closing the door connecting their chambers with a firm thud.
Stumbling across to the window seat, Lilian sank down onto it. Her whole body felt cold and shivery now, even though the fire burned merrily in the fireplace. Swiftly, she snatched up an embroidered cushion and held it tight against her churning stomach.
How would she make it through the day, knowing what was to come? Everything that Grandmother had said before the ceremony now swirled and twisted in her mind. Pain. There would be terrible pain. And Exton would do the horrid thing to her with his too-large man part over and over again, until whatever needed to happen, actually happened, and she got with child.
It might not be all horrid. You liked him kissing you.
Duke in Darkness (Wickedly Wed Book 1) Page 5