“And where is your troupe now?”
“Manchester,” Lowell said. “Most of them have family there. They are taking a respite before the flurry of the summer season.”
“You intend to join them there?”
“No. They have only a few more days. They will spend the next weeks performing between Manchester and Birmingham. We will join them when we are finished.”
“Then you must have someone else running it?”
Lowell nodded. “My assistant of many years. He is up to the task, though it is only the second time I have left him alone. The first was last spring, when I went to Maddie in Wales.”
Sam didn’t respond to this, and the two men sat in silence for a while. Sam wondered why his mother and Élise were taking so long. Perhaps they were having their own awkward conversation down at the shore.
“She’s right, you know.”
Sam quirked an eyebrow at the older man.
“At Ironwood Park, you were given more than I could have ever offered. You and your sister both.”
Sam ground his teeth to prevent himself from making a noise of disgust. The man didn’t know a thing. How could he compare being raised fatherless in the cold halls of Ironwood Park to being with a whole family?
But neither this man nor his mother would ever understand how his childhood as the bastard son of the Duchess of Trent had shaped him. They might think they’d done right by him by making the choices they had. He knew differently.
But why resent them now? What was done was done. And poor Esme still didn’t even know whether her father was the Duke of Trent or someone else.
“You need to tell Esme,” he said.
The older man’s brows crept upward.
“Tomorrow, I’m going to take you and my mother to her. And then you’re going to tell her everything. Just like you told me.”
Chapter Twenty-One
What is your game with my son?” the duchess asked.
The older woman had handed Élise a towel to use to dry the dishes, and she’d been working on the second bowl when the question broke through the silence.
Élise swallowed. How odd, to feel the need to defend herself from an overprotective mother. Overprotective of Sam, too, who was the most capable man Élise had ever known.
She kept her voice mild. “There is no game, Your Grace.”
The dowager snorted. “Don’t call me that. I’m just Maddie now. Or Madeline, if you prefer formality.”
Calling a dowager duchess by her given name didn’t particularly strike Élise as formal, but she held her tongue.
The duchess continued. “No game, eh? Well, you are a married woman, so—”
Élise’s cheeks burned at the thought that the duchess believed she was having an adulterous affair with her son. “I am no longer married.”
The woman’s brows shot up. “No?”
“No. Dunthorpe is dead.” Élise hesitated, then added in a low voice, “Murdered.”
The duchess’s brows remained firmly arched high on her forehead. “How did you end up with Sam, then?”
“Circumstance,” Élise said cryptically.
The older woman’s brows lowered, and she gave Élise a hard look, as if trying to search under her very skin. Élise simply dried the bowl the duchess had handed her and pretended she didn’t feel the heavy weight of the woman’s gaze.
“Something to do with his secretive occupations, then?” the duchess asked.
“Perhaps,” Élise said elusively. She guessed she wasn’t nearly as good at evading this kind of question as Sam was.
“I see,” the duchess mused. Then, “You protect him. Good.”
Always. But Élise kept her mouth shut. Her need to protect Sam, even from his own mother, was so surprising to her as to be overwhelming.
Because I love him.
And that was what love meant. Part of it, anyhow. She was learning as she went.
“Don’t worry about me, Your Gr—Madeline,” she said, speaking the French name with its proper accent. “I want what is best for Sam. Just like you do.”
“Is that so?” the duchess said slowly. “No one has ever felt that way about Sam before, though I cannot imagine why. His is a heart of honor, yet he has been hurt again and again. By society, by his country and its enemies, by his wives, and by the old Duke of Trent. He has suffered enough. I should like to see him happy.”
Élise’s heart twisted, thinking of all these hurts. Some of them she understood completely; others, not as much. “He told me the duke ignored him.”
The duchess gave a mirthless laugh. “That’s true. Perhaps you have never been ignored, Lady Dunthorpe, but sometimes it is as harsh a punishment as being beaten.”
Élise considered this for a moment; then she nodded. “I understand.”
“And his wives were frivolous creatures. Both of them, though in entirely different ways.” She gave Élise a sidelong glance. “I don’t believe you are frivolous, though. You seem quite … earthy under that perfectly honed shell. Though I must say, ‘earthiness’ was not my first impression of you. I think we met at Lord Symonds’s ball a few years ago.”
“Yes, I believe you’re right.” Élise sighed. “I wore the mask of Lady Dunthorpe as well as I could. Though at times it was excruciating.”
“Oh, I understand that, my dear,” the duchess murmured, handing Élise another bowl. “More than you can possibly know.”
* * *
Late that night, Élise lay beside Sam under the stars. Hours ago, the older couple had retired into the tent, and all was silent in that direction.
She was awake, her mind tumbling with all that had been said earlier. Most of all, she thought of Sam, who lay silent but alert beside her. Sleep was elusive to him, and she couldn’t blame him for that. Tonight he’d been introduced to his father for the first time in his thirty-two years. A father who had never made an effort to know his son.
That kind of blow couldn’t be easy to recover from.
She lay, as she did most nights, in the crook of his arm, and she turned to press a hard kiss against his chest.
“I am so sorry, my Sam,” she whispered.
He tensed. “For what?”
“Hearing all that you heard. To deprive a boy of his father … what deeper pain can there possibly be?”
Sam released a long, stuttering sigh, and she squeezed him tighter.
“How is it that you understand but they do not?” he asked her quietly.
“I don’t know.”
His lips pressed into her hair. “It’s been like this between us almost from the beginning. You believed you should feel a certain way since I was holding you against your will, but deep inside, there has always been an understanding between us.”
“Yes,” she murmured. “There always has. It is inexplicable, really. But it is true.”
“I don’t want to be without you, Élise.”
She closed her eyes, letting the words float through her like sweet balm. “I don’t want to be without you, either.”
“I have never said this to a woman before … but I …” He hesitated, and she waited, as if on the edge of a cliff, wondering whether he’d pull her away from certain death or push her over.
“I love you,” he finished, his voice rough with emotion.
“Oh, my Sam. I love you, too,” she said, squeezing him tight.
“There is so much,” he began. “Dunthorpe. Adams and the Agency. They’ll do their best to kill me. If I cannot keep you safe—”
“Stop.” She pressed her fingers against his lips and whispered, “Stop. We will keep each other safe.”
He shook his head, and when she pulled her fingers back, he said, “We are just two people. They have money, men, resources. There is no way—”
“If I can prove I was never in league with Dunthorpe—”
“We told you. Adams never rescinds his orders.”
She ignored the pang of despair that shot through her. “We could go somewhere. America, pe
rhaps—”
Sam shook his head.
“Something. There has to be something we can do—”
“No,” he said. Pain laced his voice. “There’s nothing. I will fight for you until the end, but you need to promise me something.”
“What’s that?”
“That you will go to Trent. He will be able to protect you like no one else can.”
“I want to stay with you—”
“If I’m not here, you must go to Trent. Promise.”
She was silent for a long moment. Then she whispered through her dry throat, “I promise. But it won’t come to that.”
He began to shake his head again, but she caught his cheek in her palm and forced it in her direction so she could press a hard kiss to his lips.
And … all of a sudden, it became more. That hard kiss turned into something needy and desperate. The desire to be with him, to be one with him, exploded within her.
He must have felt it, too. His arms drew her against him, over him, strong iron bands pulling her to him as if he couldn’t get close enough. As if he couldn’t get enough of her. “Élise,” he whispered. “Élise, my love.”
Her eyes sank shut as pleasure washed through her. There was no greater joy to her than being Samson Hawkins’s love.
She kissed him harder, then moved her lips over his jaw, rough with the day’s growth of beard, then to his ear, which she nipped.
His erection grew quickly, straining against her leg. She pressed kisses down his jaw and the side of his neck, then over his shirt, her lips gentling against the jagged scar from his battle wound, then lower, against the thick muscles at the front of his chest.
She moved down his body, soaking up his essence with her lips. He was so intrinsically strong. So masculine and muscular. Such a protector. So different from any man who’d ever been in her life.
She reached his drawers and kissed his cock over the linen as she fumbled with the string. Finally she had it undone. She pulled his drawers open, then jerked them over his sex, exposing the long, hot length of him. He was fully erect and magnificent under the light of the moon.
She kissed him, breathing him in. His masculine, musky essence was so much stronger down here. She licked him, moaning with pleasure at his taste. Not only that, his texture, his length, his hardness. The sheer magnitude of his masculinity.
She swung her leg over him, then pulled the blanket up over her shoulders. She took his heavy length in her hand and probed between her legs until she found the slit in her drawers with the head of his cock.
She slid him over her slick flesh, up and down until she had to bite her lip to keep herself from groaning. Then she fitted him at her opening and pressed her body downward.
She took him in. All of him, until she could feel him reach the limits of her body, until she could feel him throughout every bit of her being. She stretched to accommodate him—a sweet, pleasurable pain that caused her to blow out a harsh breath.
He grasped her buttocks in both his hands, squeezing the flesh, spreading her and opening her for him.
Then she began to move, grinding over him, against him.
He filled her. She loved how he touched her. How he gripped her buttocks with one hand and moved the other to fondle her breast. Even over the fabric of her chemise, he teased her nipple until the sensation collided with the pleasure he wrought between her legs.
He was beautiful, her Sam. He made her feel whole, complete. Cherished, and … loved.
Tears stung at her eyes. Because the truth was, no one had ever made her feel those things until he’d come into her life. Sam was special. He was real, and he was inside her, and he loved her as fiercely as she loved him.
She could never give that up. No matter the cost.
She moved, sliding her body over him, feeling him glide through her body, almost all the way out before filling her completely again and again.
He felt so good inside her. So very, very good. Exquisite. Beautiful.
She ground against him, rubbing that sensitive nub above her entrance over him. The orgasm curled within her, tightening her muscles, condensing in a fiery ball at her core. She drew in, her muscles growing taut, her channel growing slick and hot and tight over Sam.
His fingers dug into the flesh of her bottom and her breast, and the pleasure-pain of his grip only added fuel to the fire.
And then she exploded, the ball of heat inside her fragmenting into fiery sparks that shot through her every limb. She slammed down over him, drawing him in deep. He held her tight against him as she pulsed and shuddered, gasping with the intensity of her release.
As the spasms ebbed, she sank over him. He was still wedged deep inside her, and he moved gently, causing sensation to rocket through her with every small motion of his body.
She moaned out loud before she could stop it. She was very sensitive now, so soon after such a powerful orgasm.
He gripped her tightly, both his hands sliding up her back over the fabric of her chemise and pressing her body against him. He rotated his hips, digging his cock wholly, deeply inside her, and she shuddered, burying her face against his neck, breathing him in.
He held her like that, locked against him, his movements starting slow and then increasing in intensity until he was thrusting upward, spearing into her, filling her so completely she began that rise to orgasm once more.
She began to move with him, matching his pace and his thrusts until a second orgasm washed over her, sweet and sharp, her body squeezing him, holding on to him as if she’d never let him go.
And then he came, too, with a low moan, pushing up into her, locked against her. He pulsed inside her tight heat, and they were both so slick and hot, it was like the sweetest inferno overcame them both, encapsulating them in white-hot pleasure.
She buried himself in the warmth of his neck, and as the residual spasms racked her body, she whispered, “I love you, my Sam. I love you so very much.”
* * *
It was just past noon the next day when they rode into Kendal—Sam, Élise, and his mother riding in Sam’s cart while Lowell drove the second just behind them.
Sam stopped in the yard of the Crown Inn and spent a few moments assisting the hostlers with the carts and horses. When he finally went inside and asked for Mark, Theo, and Esme, the innkeeper said they weren’t in.
“Do you know where they’ve gone?” Sam asked.
“Not at all, sir.” The man eyed his mother and Lowell up and down with a slight curve of disgust to his lip.
“Do they plan to return this evening?”
The man’s gaze jerked back to Sam. “Oh yes. I assumed they’d be back by nightfall. The gentlemen are always in for dinner.”
Sam nodded. “I would like to reserve two additional rooms for tonight, please.”
The man’s eyes flickered once again to his mother and Lowell, lingering on the duchess’s feet. Sam had noticed that she hadn’t worn shoes once. It was so odd—he tried to recall ever seeing her barefooted in the past, and he couldn’t remember one instance.
The innkeeper leaned forward. “A room for you and the lady”—he gestured to Élise, who was standing beside Sam—“of course. But I am afraid we do not cater to their sort here.”
Élise, who’d had her hand on his arm, squeezed hard, but it took a moment—a long moment—for Sam to register what the man was saying. When he finally understood, he gaped at the man in disbelief. Did he know he was talking about the Dowager Duchess of Trent?
He opened his mouth to say just that, but his mother hurried up to him. “Sam,” she said warningly, placing her hand on his shoulder.
Sam blinked through the red haze tingeing his vision.
“You mustn’t say a word,” she said soothingly. “It is all right. Steven and I will make camp somewhere outside town. It is how we prefer it.”
If not for the last few words, Sam would have said something—would have made that self-righteous innkeeper eat his words. But she was right—this
was the life she had left, because evidently, she did prefer sleeping outside.
“It is how I prefer it, too,” Élise murmured beside him.
He turned cold eyes on the innkeeper.
“Never mind,” he said, his voice chilly. “We will obtain different lodgings.” Superior ones, according to his three traveling companions. “We will wait outside until my brothers and sister arrive.”
The innkeeper turned away without saying another word, and the four of them returned outside.
Lowell gazed at him, and his voice was low when he spoke. “I see the anger on your face, boy. But don’t you see? This is exactly what your mother didn’t want for you. It is what she wished to protect you from.”
Sam looked away from him. He recognized the truth in what Lowell said, but still … it wasn’t enough.
He leaned back against the brick siding of the inn and crossed his arms over his chest, prepared to wait for his siblings.
His mother gave a hearty sigh. “We will need to set up a camp outside town.”
Sam nodded. “Go ahead. Élise and I will wait here.”
“We will be back.”
“Try to be quick about it. They could return at any time.”
His mother nodded and hurried over to Lowell, who was retrieving the horses. Sam noticed the hostler hadn’t even unhitched Lowell’s horses.
Something clenched within him.
This wasn’t new to him. He knew how society refused to accept people’s differences. But this was his mother. And his father.
He watched them drive away, feeling his shoulders deflate a bit when they turned a corner and disappeared from sight.
Élise stood beside him in silence. And he realized she’d had to endure a bit of that, too. Not to the extent of the gypsies, but she was still different, still considered an outsider. She was French, and France was currently England’s most hated enemy.
Even so, the British and French had a long-standing, complex relationship, and while she was an enemy, there was something familiar about her to any given British person. She wore the same fashions. She looked very similar to an English lady. She was an aristocrat, through and through.
Sam closed his eyes.
Beside him, Élise said in a low but vehement tone, “That man was hateful.”
The Scoundrel’s Seduction Page 26