Elizabeth took a sip of her sherry and sighed. “I do love Fallon so.”
“You mean the manor,” Rosalind said. Not the man.
“Evelyn and I used to joke that I was better suited to be the mistress here.”
Of course, the man came with the manor, but Rosalind held her tongue.
“As I recall you were pursuing a prince of some sort when Evelyn and I married,” Fallon said.
“Ah, Sergei. A fling. I should have known only an Englishman could make me happy.”
“Then, I do hope you find one.” Fallon lifted his drink in a toast. Scotch, and plenty of it.
Elizabeth tsked a few times. “When did you become so unpleasant?”
“You know damned well when and why,” he answered.
Rosalind’s head snapped up, and she stared at her husband. She’d seen him angry before—at her father and Lord Tewksbury. She’d never seen him rude.
Elizabeth seemed not to notice or care. In fact, quite the opposite. A tiny smile of triumph curled the corner of her mouth. “I daresay you haven’t seen this side of your husband before, have you, my dear?”
“She’s not your dear, so you can stop calling her that,” he said.
“Fallon…” Rosalind said softly.
“Don’t be concerned, sweet Rosalind,” Elizabeth said. “I’m used to his moods.”
“Elizabeth, I warn you…” he said.
“Evelyn and I could always provoke him,” Elizabeth continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “He’s a passionate fellow under all that fine clothing. But then, I’m sure you know that by now.”
Her cheeks heated, and she set her still-full sherry glass aside. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Stop it right there, Elizabeth.” This time, the threat came through clearly in his voice and posture.
“You needn’t be shy with me,” Elizabeth said. “I know what an animal he is between the sheets.”
Rosalind jumped to her feet as if she’d been burned. “I beg your pardon.”
“And so well-equipped,” Elizabeth said. “He is magnificent when he’s aroused, isn’t he?”
Not a word entered her head. She could only gape at the woman. Across the room, Fallon slammed his glass on the sideboard hard enough to make the decanters clatter. “Enough. We’ll all dress for dinner, and you will behave yourself.”
Elizabeth laughed. She’d played a game against both of them and had won, and she knew it. “Of course, darling. I’m always good. You know that.”
He went to her and glared down at her. “Now.”
Elizabeth got up, smiling. After raising her chin, she left the room in a swirl of sapphire silk.
Rosalind stood, unable to move, and stared at her husband. “Do you deny what she said?”
After a moment, his shoulders slumped. “I was very foolish.”
“So you did…know her?”
He fixed his blue gaze on her, begging with his eyes. “She means nothing to me.”
“I don’t think that makes it better,” she answered.
“It was in the past.” He walked toward her, but she took a step back, and he dropped his hands to his sides.
“She’ll be gone tomorrow,” he said. “Can you trust me just a little more?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“There are no more surprises coming, I promise you.” He hesitated. “Not of this kind.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’ve already sent for her father.”
“The word you had with Simms?” she said.
“She’ll leave us tomorrow. She won’t bother you again.”
* * *
Rosalind awoke suddenly, her breath coming fast and hard. The dream. Oh, Lord that dream. Her husband’s sex, swollen and hard in her hand, and yet he wouldn’t give it to her no matter how desperately she begged. He hadn’t let her climax, and how her body ached for the release.
Now, fully aroused, she stared up into the darkness, as the reality of the situation settled into her consciousness. The covers had been thrown back, and cool air washed over her body, except for at the place where her thighs met. Richard lay between them, his mouth over her pussy.
“Dear heaven, what are you doing?” she said.
He looked up at her, although only his eyes shone clear in the darkness. “Shh.”
“You can’t kiss me there.”
He didn’t say anything but went back between her legs. For a moment, he parted the lips there and circled her bud with a fingertip. Then, his tongue came out and…oh!
Oh, God. Wicked. Sinful. Sublime. He teased the sensitive flesh until she turned molten inside. She shouldn’t let him do this, but she couldn’t have stopped him if her life depended on it. Instead, she clutched his head, silently directing him with her mind.
Oh! A little higher. More, more. Don’t stop!
She shrieked as she came. It was so damned good. Her sex burst into spasms as the intensity squeezed the breath out of her.
In one motion, Richard rose over her and then thrust his cock inside her. The action drove her higher, his total possession prolonging the insanity until all conscious thought left her, save for the sensations of his hardness pounding into her while her inner muscles clenched around him.
Now, their voices joined and floated to fill the room. Hers high-pitched ecstasy, his low rumbling as he approached his peak. She held him—no, clutched at him—as he went rigid, pounding himself inside her a few more times as he came. Animal, yes. The male claiming his female in the most primitive way possible, claiming her as his own by filling her with his seed.
When they’d both finished, he rolled onto his back next to her, gasping for breath. She had to work to get air into her own lungs, and she trailed her fingers over her throat to feel her flesh. It had been real, not a dream. Without a word between them, her husband had fully owned her.
Too many words remained in her mind, though. Things she hadn’t said all through a dinner of pleasantries. The weather, the countryside, the latest novels. Everything but what burned like acid inside her.
“Did you do that with Elizabeth?” she said.
“Fuck her?”
“Put your face between her legs.”
Nothing answered but silence.
“Richard?”
“I don’t know,” he said finally.
She pounded the mattress. “How could you not know?”
“The three of us got very drunk one night,” he said. “I don’t know how I performed at all.”
She swallowed. “In this bed.”
“Elizabeth’s room down the hall.” He lay quiet for a moment. Neither of them turned to the other.
“Evelyn got to bragging about the size of my member and how good I was at using it. Elizabeth said she wanted to see for herself. I got puffed up with male pride and offered to demonstrate for both of them.”
“I see.”
“Don’t be polite,” he said. “I was stupid.”
“I wasn’t being polite.” Despite the darkness, she squeezed her eyes shut, but the images only came through on the backs of her eyelids. Her husband with two women. Them touching him. Kissing him. And him responding.
“At the time, I thought it an adventure,” he said. “I was married to one of them. I had their permission, even their encouragement.”
“Did you…” Damn, she had to ask. ““Did you enjoy it?”
“After Louisa, it felt wonderful. We were all very free with each other.”
Rosalind bit her lip and let him continue.
“They looked and sounded very much like each other. I didn’t know whose hand was on me. Whose mouth? I gamahuched at least one of them. Maybe both.”
“So, that’s why you don’t know if you’ve run your tongue over Elizabeth’s pearl.”
“I don’t. I’m sorry.”
She half laughed, half sobbed. “At least, you’re honest.”
“There’s more. Something I’ve never told anyone else.”
<
br /> “I don’t I want to hear it.”
“They…” He paused, but clearly he was going to share the whole story, whether she wanted it to not. “They were affectionate with each other as well.”
“Affectionate?” If only the mattress could swallow her up so she wouldn’t have to hear the explanation.
“Kisses. Touches. I’ll let your mind fill in the details.”
“Oh, God.” She rolled away from him and curled up with her hands around her stomach.
“It didn’t even register in my mind until the next morning when I woke up with one on either side of me,” he said. “They were sisters, for the love of God, and they’d done that with each other.”
She couldn’t speak but just lay there. The man who’d done all those things had married her, had taken her virginity and had just awakened her with the most intimate kiss of all.
He rolled over and touched her shoulder. “That’s the last of it, Rosalind. I never touched Elizabeth again. I continued to try for an heir with Evelyn, but I kept remembering that night.”
A commotion came from another part of the house. Far away, but loud enough to find them even through the door.
“Bloody hell,” Fallon said.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know what, but I can imagine who.”
“Elizabeth?”
“Who else?” He rose and scooped his robe from where it had fallen on the floor. “Stay here.”
A door slammed, and a woman’s voice screamed in what sounded like rage. After a moment, a tap sounded on the door.
“Your Grace.” The butler. “There’s been a problem sir.”
“I’m coming,” Fallon answered.
As she’d never undressed, Rosalind didn’t have to search for her gown. She climbed out of bed and went to her husband just as another shriek went up from out in the hallway. It was Elizabeth, although the sound hardly seemed like a human voice.
Fallon caught her shoulders. “I’m serious. Stay here.”
“You may need my help. She may respond to another woman.”
“I don’t think you’d like her response.” He kissed her briefly. “Stay here.”
A firmer knock sounded on the door. “Your Grace, please come.”
“Right.”
He left the room and closed the door behind him. For a long moment, Rosalind stood, listening. The shouting continued, and now her husband’s voice joined in the noise. What nonsense that she should stay here while some violence might occur in her own house. She was no timid little thing who’d faint at the sight of confrontation. If a woman who’d once seduced her husband was fighting him now, she had the right to witness what went on between them.
After lighting another candle, she found a wrapper in the wardrobe and threw it over her shoulders. She took the candle again and let herself out of the room.
In the hall, the shouts became more distinct. She followed them easily to the bedroom they’d given Elizabeth. Fallon, Simms and another servant—one of the footmen, a burly fellow—stood just outside. The woman herself was also there, half-clothed. She’d managed to get one arm out of her shift, exposing her breast. Her hair fell untamed around her shoulders and down her back, but that hardly matched the wildness in her face.
“Why, here’s the wife,” she said. “Come to join the fun?”
Fallon glanced over his shoulder at Rosalind. “I told you to stay way.”
“What’s going on here?” she demanded.
“I heard the two of you fucking,” Elizabeth said. “It made me hot.”
“She came to the servant’s quarters,” the footman said. “The only way I could get her back here was to promise to…”
“It’s all right, Tom,” Fallon said. “You did the right thing.”
“Bah,” Elizabeth said. “A house full of men, and I can’t find one who’ll satisfy me.”
“Go back to bed, Elizabeth,” Fallon said.
“I will.” She smiled, but the look in her eyes only became more crazed. “Now that you and the wife are here. Just like that other night. Do you think you can get hard again, Fallon?”
Rosalind put her hand to her mouth and took a step backward. This woman expected to recreate the threesome she’d had with her sister and brother-in-law.
Elizabeth pushed Fallon aside and approached Rosalind. “Would you like my face on your pussy? Would you like to taste yourself on my lips?”
Before Elizabeth could get much closer, Fallon caught her arms from behind and held her fast. Elizabeth let out a howl of protest. “Let me go, you bastard.”
“You’ll treat my wife with respect.”
“I’ll fuck her, and I’ll fuck you, too.”
“Elizabeth, stop!” he shouted.
“You killed Evelyn, you beast,” she shouted as she fought to free herself. “You killed her, and I’ll kill you. See if I don’t.”
“Enough,” Fallon said. “I’ve sent for your father. When he arrives, you’ll leave.”
“You’re murdering me. I’ll cut your throat.” Elizabeth managed to break free, and she turned and hurled herself on Fallon, using her fingernails as claws. Simms grabbed her, but she continued fighting until the footman helped Simms to pull her off her target.
Fallon rubbed his cheek. Even from a distance, the candlelight showed Elizabeth had managed to gouge him in several places. “Take her upstairs. You know which room.”
Rosalind gasped. The barred windows. He’d seen this sort of display before and had made that bedroom into a prison. Had Elizabeth suffered this sort of fit before?
The two servants took Elizabeth away, still screaming. Her threats echoed off the walls as they went. Finally, Fallon’s shoulders sagged, and he went to where Rosalind stood with the candle in her hand.
For a moment, he stared down at her as if searching for an answer. She stood quietly, gazing into the blue of his eyes.
“Come,” he said after a long pause. “I’ll explain.”
* * *
Rosalind watched as Fallon used her candle to light more in the sitting room and then waited for him on the settee. Before he joined her, he poured two stiff drinks and handed one to her. While he sat, she sipped hers. Brandy. Normally, she wouldn’t take liquor, but this did seem the occasion for it. Fallon drank half of his in one swallow and then cleared his throat.
“Evelyn was just as mad as her sister,” he said after a bit. “I didn’t know it when I married her, of course.”
“That’s why you had bars put on the windows in that room.”
“She threatened to kill herself many times. I only used that room during her worst periods.” He clutched his glass and stared straight ahead of him. “She called it her prison.”
“I’m sorry.” She touched his back. When he stiffened, she lowered her hand into her lap.
“Oh, the irony,” he said. “I chose her for her passion. After Louisa, I wanted a woman who’d come to me willingly. I didn’t dream I’d get two and they’d both be insane.”
“What happened?”
“Evelyn learned to hide her madness so she wouldn’t have to stay in her prison. After a while, I couldn’t tell if she was truly lucid or only pretending.” He took another swig of his drink. “It made me half crazy.”
Rosalind took a sip of her brandy and waited for him to continue.
“One day she fooled me and managed to evade us all,” he said. “She went to the very top floor of the manor and threw herself onto the drive below. Snapped her neck. She died instantly.”
“How horrible.”
“Secretly, I was relieved.” He stared at her. “What kind of human being is relieved when his wives die?”
She didn’t answer. What sort of reply could you give to a question like that?
“And now, I’ve put you in the middle of all this,” he said.
“Tomorrow, Elizabeth’s father will come. She’ll go home. We’ll go on without her,” she said.
He finished his drink and set it on
the table beside him. When she handed him her glass, he set that aside, too. For a moment, they sat, not speaking, not touching. Finally, he took her chin between his thumb and forefinger and turned her face toward the light.
“You’re so good,” he said. “How can you stay with a man as selfish as I am?”
“You’re far better than Tewksbury.”
He laughed softly. “Can you believe that I love you?”
“Love? We hardly know each other.”
“You don’t know me, but I’ve watched you for a long time.”
“Watched me?” she repeated. “How?”
“Once I’d seen you, I had to know more about you. I questioned everyone in your town who would speak to me,” he said. “Most people will cooperate with a duke.”
“What did they tell you?”
He took her hands. “They told me about your kindness and your intelligence. I already knew about your beauty.”
She looked away. “I’m not beautiful.”
“You are to me, but more than beautiful, you’re passionate,” he said. “Whenever there was a crowd, I disappeared into it to watch you. I couldn’t take my eyes off you.”
“It’s not easy for a duke to disappear,” she said.
“It was worth the effort. I’d found my prize. I began negotiations with your father. The fool didn’t realize I’d give anything to have you.”
“And then, I appeared here on my own.”
“I couldn’t believe my luck,” he said. “That leaves only one question.”
“What question is that?”
Instead of answering, he rose and went to the hearth. Although no fire burned there, he put his hand on the mantel and stared into it.
“What question, Fallon?” she asked softly.
“Will you stay with me now that you know what I am?”
“Where else would I go?” she asked. “I’m your wife.”
“You could have any of my estates you like.” He turned toward her, his expression unreadable. “I’d visit. I still need an heir. After that business is done, I’d leave you alone.”
The Devilish Duke Page 4