There was a particular hardness in his body where he was pressed against her. Having lived in the country most of her life, she realized what it meant, and she knew she ought to stop him, but as she moved against him, it felt so good, she could not will herself to call a halt. She squeezed her eyes shut in shame and delight, and relished the feel of his body against hers. She must be drunk, she decided, for never, even in her most secret, romantic dreams, had she imagined a man could make her feel like this.
But as dazed as she was, as glorious as it felt, she hadn’t completely lost her wits. When his hand slid between their bodies, she instinctively guessed his intent, and when he began to unbutton her jacket, she flattened her palms against his shoulders to stop him. It was a token resistance, however, for his kisses seemed to have robbed her of all willpower.
He ignored this halfhearted protest and continued to kiss her, sliding his hand inside the front of her jacket. He opened his hand intimately over her breast, embracing it through the layers of her shirtwaist, corset, and chemise. She moaned with pleasure as his hand began to shape and cradle her breast, but when he began to unfasten the buttons of her shirtwaist, she knew her virtue was in serious jeopardy.
She broke the kiss, sucking in a deep gasp for air as she once again pushed at his shoulders, more forcefully this time. “We have to stop.”
“Why?” He tilted his head and kissed the base of her throat as he continued unfastening buttons. “This is what married people do.”
“We’re not married yet.”
“The wedding is in six weeks. I think it counts.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head, knowing that was nonsense. “I’m a respectable woman,” she said, trying to remind both of them of that fact.
His hand slid inside her shirtwaist. “I respect you.”
He sounded sincere, but no man, even a man as noble as Rhys, could be trusted on this particular point. Her own mother had discovered that painful truth about the male sex, as had many a girl-bachelor at the lodging house. She strived to remember all the times Mrs. Morris had sat with young women in the parlor of Little Russell Street, listening to tales of what men had promised, handing over handkerchiefs, inquiring about family, and sometimes murmuring a delicate suggestion that seven months or so of country air at a discreet place in Hampshire could do a brokenhearted girl a world of good. But with Rhys’s fingertips caressing her bare skin just above the lacy edge of her undergarments, his palm cupping her breast, it was hard to remember cautionary tales.
Prudence began to waver. They were going to marry, it was only a matter of time. But perhaps her mother had thought that, too. The wedding her father promised had never happened, and she had been the result. Desperate, feeling a wave of panic, she seized his wrist. “We can’t,” she whispered, opening her eyes. “Not until after the wedding.”
He stilled, his breathing hot against her throat. “Prudence, I want to touch you. I’ve wanted this, dreamed of it, from the very first moment I ever saw you.”
His words thrilled her to the very core, but she tightened her grip on his wrist, clinging to virtue, trying to remember sanity.
“I won’t let things go too far,” he told her, nuzzling her throat. But when she still did not relent, he took a deep breath and lifted his head to look into her eyes, caressing her breast as he braced his weight on his other arm. “I give you my word. Just don’t stop me yet.” His hand tightened and he closed his eyes, swallowing hard. “For God’s sake, not yet.”
He was an honorable man. She knew that as surely as she knew anything. He wouldn’t ever deceive her. Her grip on his wrist relaxed. “Not yet, then,” she whispered, unable to deny him just a little bit more of what he wanted.
He shifted his hand, sliding it inside the top of her corset and chemise. His fingertips grazed her nipple and she cried out, her body jerking sharply. She wanted to pull away, but his hips pinned hers to the berth and she could only writhe helplessly beneath him as he rolled her nipple between two fingers. She began to moan low in her throat, and he kissed her, long and deep, taking the sounds of her agitation into his mouth as he groaned in reply.
As he kissed her, his hand tightened, shaping her breast and toying with her nipple within the tight confines of her clothing. She stirred beneath him, but the weight of his body on top of hers limited her movements, and a strange tension began to build inside her. What he was doing felt so exquisite, and she began to yearn for more. When he withdrew his hand and rolled to his side, she cried out again, this time in vexation.
He laughed, the wicked man, blowing warm breath against her neck. “I thought you wanted me to stop,” he murmured, and grasped a handful of her skirt in his fingers, pulling it upward. “Do you want me to stop now?”
She shook her head, unable to think clearly, knowing only how she felt. “Not yet,” she gasped. “Not yet.”
Rhys’s hand slipped beneath her skirt and petticoat, then glided up her leg, across her hip and between her thighs, his touch scorching her beneath the thin lawn material of her drawers. The tension inside her continued to build as his fingers eased inside the slit of her drawers, and when he touched the dark curls there, she felt her whole body blushing in response.
“I could stop,” he said, the tip of his finger caressing her in her most intimate place. “Is that what you want?”
She tried to speak, but a frantic, “N-N-N…” was all she could manage, for her body was on fire with shameful excitement, excitement that flared higher with each touch of his fingers. As he stroked her, she could hear strange sounds coming from her own throat, sounds like none she had ever made, primitive, high-pitched animal sounds. Her body moved in frantic little jerks that she could not stop.
“What, then?” he asked softly. “If you don’t want me to stop, then what do you want, sweetheart? Hmm?”
Prudence didn’t know how to answer him. Need clawed at her, need for something she could not name. She shook her head, desperate, helpless to articulate what she did not understand.
“Is this it?” His finger began circling one particular spot in a way that was feather light and yet made her sob with pleasure. “Is this what you want?”
“Yes,” she panted, desperate, frantic, unable to say anything beyond that one word. “Yes, yes, yes.”
And then the feelings swirling within her seemed to coalesce into a ball of fire. The pleasure became unbearable, and she cried out his name as everything within her flared up and exploded in a white-hot flash, followed by waves of the most exquisite pleasure she had ever felt, waves that seemed to go on and on as he caressed her and she gasped his name.
Afterward, as the wild euphoria ebbed away, she felt him withdraw his hand, and she opened her eyes to find him leaning over her.
“My goodness,” she whispered, amazed by the extraordinary thing he had just done to her.
He smiled at that, and her heart twisted with the same aching sweetness she always felt when she saw him smile.
She smiled back. “You kept your word.”
He kissed her nose and tugged her skirt back down. “Damned heroic of me, too.”
His voice had that light, careless note, but his breathing was ragged, as if he’d been running, and she could still feel the hardness of him pressed against her hip. She thought again of the whispered stories at the lodging house about gentlemen’s animal nature, and she knew it couldn’t have been easy for him to keep his word.
“Very heroic,” she agreed, and lifted her hands to touch his face. He held himself above her, motionless, as she traced the lean planes of his cheeks and the square lines of his jaw and the thick, blunt, brown lashes of his eyes.
This was the man who would soon be her husband. Of all the women in the world, she was the one he thought luscious. She was the one he wanted to marry, the one he had chosen to be the mother of his children, the one he wanted to share his life with. The way he had touched her was the most extraordinary thing Prudence had ever experienced. Her heart overf
lowed with happiness. “I love you,” she whispered.
His smile vanished, and she felt a vague uneasiness ripple through her. But then he smiled again, lowering his gaze to her mouth. “Well, I should hope so, tipsy girl,” he murmured, closing his eyes as he kissed her, “since you’re marrying me.”
With those words and that kiss, her momentary disquiet vanished as if it had never been, and her happiness returned tenfold. And when he deepened the kiss, Prudence’s soul opened up, unfolding like a flower beneath the bright, golden rays of the sun.
Winter Park, located in Oxfordshire, was the property closest to London, making it their first destination. It had been built in 1820 and was one of the primary ducal estates, Rhys explained as they had luncheon in the dining car with her aunt and uncle, but he seemed reluctant to talk about the house in any detail.
“You’ll see it for yourself soon enough, darling,” he told Prudence, deflecting her questions. “We’ll be there in time for tea.”
His voice was light and he was smiling, but as she studied him across the table, she had the feeling that the smile was a mask. When he changed the subject and asked Uncle Stephen about his estate in Sussex, she was certain of it, and felt as she had the afternoon of their picnic—as if a door had just been closed between them.
By his own admission, the estates were in poor condition, and embarrassment could account for his demeanor, though she had the uneasy feeling there was more to it than that. She wanted to inquire further but had no intention of doing so in front of her aunt and uncle, and set her curiosity aside for the time being.
The train arrived at Dunstable Station that afternoon. Half an hour before tea time, their hired carriage pulled into the graveled drive before a massive, fantastical structure of gray stone that looked like a storybook medieval castle, but since it had been built less than seventy-five years earlier, it was not actually a castle at all.
Rhys’s mother was in residence, they learned upon their arrival. Remembering what he had told her about the woman that day at the National Gallery, Prudence wondered in some amusement if Lady Edward De Winter were truly capable of devouring Aunt Edith in one bite, for it was something she’d rather like to see.
She doubted Rhys shared her amusement, however. By his admission, he and his mother did not get on. But if he was displeased by the news that she was staying at Winter Park, he did not show it.
“How delightful,” he told Channing, the butler, as they paused in the immense staircase hall. “We shall see her at dinner, then?”
“I believe Lady Edward was thinking to be introduced to Miss Abernathy at tea, Your Grace. She is eager to meet the bride.”
“Yes, I’ll wager she is.”
Prudence heard something different enter his voice with those words, something hard that echoed off the austere Gothic architecture of the hall, something so cold it startled her, and when she looked at him, he was wearing that mask of a smile. “Tea it is, then,” he said. “Channing, show our guests to their rooms, if you please, and arrange for our things, will you?” He turned to Prudence and her aunt and uncle. “I shall leave you to refresh yourselves, and I shall see you at tea. Now, I must meet with my steward. If you will pardon me?”
He kissed her hand, but it was a perfunctory gesture, hastily done. He bowed to her and to her aunt and uncle, then departed, his boot heels echoing on the black and white marble floor with strides so rapid, he was almost running.
Prudence watched him go with a troubled frown, wondering what in such innocuous conversation had caused him to practically bolt from the house. She thought of that day in Little Russell Street, remembering his reluctance to even embark on this tour. He had only agreed to come because she had wanted it.
“This way, miss,” the butler called to her, and Prudence turned to follow the others up the grand staircase. It was a fantastic structure of elaborately carved stone balustrades, newel posts, and railings. As they mounted the stairs, their footsteps echoing on the cool gray stone, she studied her surroundings and couldn’t help feeling awed, for the house was a bit like a Norman cathedral. This wasn’t even the primary ducal residence, but it was terribly grand, although she thought the gargoyles atop the newel posts were rather ghastly. It was a house that spoke plainly of the glory and power of an old, aristocratic family.
She caught glimpses of some of the other rooms as she followed the butler up the stairs and noted that though the furnishings were sparse, the carpets threadbare, and the draperies faded, the house was hardly the wreck Rhys had warned her to expect.
Her bedroom was an almost luxurious contrast to the rooms she had passed on the stairs, possessing thick Turkish carpets, pretty landscape paintings, and a mahogany four-poster canopied with ivory and teal brocade. Coordinating draperies bracketed the windows. Prudence walked to one and looked out over a weedy garden. Beyond it, a wide expanse of green turf speckled with dandelions was flanked by overgrown boxwood hedges. Past the lawn, there was a rectangular, moss-encrusted pond with a stone folly behind it. In the distance, park and woodland stretched for miles. Though it was somewhat neglected, it was a fine property, much more lofty than anything she was accustomed to. It was certainly a long way from Little Russell Street.
Of all this, and four other households, she was to be mistress. Like everything else in her life lately, it still seemed unreal that she was going to be a duchess. His duchess.
She stared out the window, and the view outside receded as an image of her future husband came to mind. Her cheeks grew hot as she remembered what had happened that morning in her train compartment, the things he’d done to her, the intimate touches that led to such an unexpected and glorious conclusion, a physical explosion like nothing she could have imagined. Even now her skin seemed to burn where he had touched her, and she closed her eyes, her breath quickening as she began to imagine again his hands on her body.
A scratch on the door interrupted this decadent daydreaming, and Prudence turned with a start, then ducked her head, her cheeks burning. She returned her attention to the view outside, but watched out of the corner of her eye as Woddell entered the room, followed by two other maids in gray dresses with white aprons and caps. They carried soap, towels, and pitchers of hot water. Under Woddell’s direction, they placed the toiletries on the papier-mâché dressing table, dipped curtsies, and departed, closing the door behind them.
“What do you think of the duke’s house, Woddell?” she asked, turning to lean back against the window behind her as the maid opened one of the trunks on the floor.
“It’s a grand estate, isn’t it, miss?” Woddell pulled a tea gown of rose-pink mousseline de soie from the interior of the trunk and held it up inquiringly. At Prudence’s confirming nod, she laid the loose-fitting garment and its matching, floor-length jacket on the bed, then began pulling various undergarments from the trunk. “House seems a bit empty, though,” she added, placing a pair of ivory satin slippers at the foot of the bed.
Prudence thought of Rhys’s voice echoing up the gray stone staircase and shivered, as if a goose had just walked over her grave. “It’s a cold house,” she said, surprised by her own words. “Winter Park is a fitting name for this place. I don’t…I don’t think I like it.”
Woddell paused and glanced around. “Your room’s ever so nice, though. Mr. Fane told me His Grace ordered it all done up with pretty things for you.”
“Really?” The maid gave an affirmative nod, and delicious warmth stole over Prudence at his thoughtfulness, banishing her sense of foreboding. But as she walked into the drawing room half an hour later for tea, she once again had cause to feel cold.
The icy atmosphere hit her like an arctic wind the moment she entered the room. Rhys was there, leaning against the fireplace mantel, his pose casual and indolent, yet she could feel his tension. As he performed introductions, she once again heard the hard inflection of his voice as he introduced his mother.
“My dear.” Lady Edward De Winter came forward. Her hands were ou
tstretched in a welcoming gesture and she was smiling, but as Prudence looked into the other woman’s face, she was not deceived. When Rhys said his mother would slice Aunt Edith into pieces, devour her, and feed her bones to the dogs, Prudence had thought his words an exaggeration. She hadn’t really believed him. Somehow, she believed him now.
Despite that, Lady Edward must have been a beautiful woman once. In physical appearance, she and her son were not unalike, but where Rhys’s green eyes reminded her of the lovely autumn meadows at home, this woman’s eyes were like icy green jewels. Rhys’s smile warmed her like sunshine, but this woman’s tipped-up curve of the lips seemed an effort, as if she feared her frozen face might shatter. Prudence, who believed strongly in her own first impressions, knew she had never met a colder woman than this one.
“How do you do?” she murmured, glancing at Rhys as he introduced Mr. and Mrs. Feathergill to his mother. She sensed that he had once again donned a mask, the mask of the respectful son.
Lady Edward poured tea, her demeanor attentive and interested as she made inquiries about their journey from town and their plans for the coming weeks. When she stood up and crossed the room to hand Rhys his cup, he accepted it with a smile. “Waiting on me yourself, Mama?” he inquired lightly. “Why, how…motherly of you.”
“I’ve always done my best,” she answered, returning his smile with one of her own.
“Of course you have.”
Prudence watched them, sensing something else beneath this polite exchange, something almost violent, and as she observed them smiling at one another, she realized the truth in the space of a heartbeat.
They loathed each other to the very core.
Lady Edward patted her son’s shoulder with all the appearance of maternal affection, then took her seat and turned the conversation to wedding plans. She offered to come to town and assist with the nuptials in any way she could. Prudence, however, still watching Rhys’s face, decided that despite the demands the wedding was placing on her, she would not seek the assistance of her future mother-in-law. She murmured a polite, noncommittal reply.
The Wicked Ways of a Duke Page 18