The Irish Duchess

by Patricia Rice

  “The ones who make demands of me on my wedding day!” Neville shouted back, sweeping his hand in an angry gesture. An assortment of ornaments from the mantel followed the path of his arm, crashing and bouncing across the stone hearth with metallic jangles. Momentarily astonished as a pewter mug rolled across his toe, he recovered and defiantly smacked the last tottering candlestick onto the hearth with the rest. He’d never had a tantrum before and found it heartily enlightening. “The ones who danced with you when I should have been the one at your side.”

  With wide-eyed amazement, she watched him strew candlesticks, tinderboxes, and flatirons to the hearth. “Why the divil I ever prayed you’d talk again, I’ll never know. I forgot just how damned arrogant you are!” A half sob, half giggle emerged as she picked up her hairbrush and flung it at the far wall, apparently attempting to emulate the clatter he created. When that didn’t work, she reached for another pillow and flung it directly at him.

  Caught by surprise, not so much at the pillow striking him as by the almost helpless noise she’d made, Neville flung the pillow back at her. Resentment soared again as he remembered the remark Eamon had made. “I suppose now that you know my head’s no longer cracked, you’re sorry you married me.”

  “That I am!” she raged with more vigor. “I’ve no worth to you but as a brood mare. I cannot roof your tenants’ houses nor buy your farm lands back. You should never have let Michael force us into this.”

  “So you know about that now.” Neville jerked off his tailored coat and flung it toward the overflowing trunk, his blood still boiling but his interest taking another direction. “And are you sorry that I’ll not have the coins to feed every orphan you find? Did you really think the likes of your doddering viscount would have done so?”

  Fiona had only briefly entertained that notion, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing that. Her heart skipped a beat at the sight of the duke standing there in starched shirt sleeves, his frilled cravat spilling over his white silk waistcoat. She gulped a little at the breadth of his shoulders as he stood arms akimbo, glaring at her. “If I cannot bring you money, then there’s no point in any of this, is there now?” she demanded. The sight of Neville really, truly angry left her breathless, but she fought him for the sheer pleasure of watching his eyes flash with silver.

  “Aye, but it’s an excellent brood mare you’re after being, aren’t you now?” he mocked.

  Fiona watched with wariness as he unfastened his waistcoat. “And if I’m not? There’s enough penniless hungry children in this world without my bringing in more.”

  The waistcoat sailed across the room to join the growing jumble of clothing. Candlelight caught the golden gleam of Neville’s hair as he stalked her. Fiona drew a deep breath of pleasure at the sight. Fired with anger, he was a magnificent beast.

  “It’s a little late to think of that now, isn’t it, Fiona, my wife?” His eyes glittered molten fire as he reached for her.

  Fiona dodged his grasping hands and clambered over the bed. “What if I don’t want children?” she demanded. “Will you force me?”

  Instead of following her over the bed, he placed his fists at his waist and studied her through narrowed eyes. Her pulse raced and her breath came in nervous gulps. She wasn’t afraid, not of Neville. What she feared was the way she felt when he looked at her like that, seeing through every sham and pretense. She didn’t want him seeing what she couldn’t see herself.

  “With any other woman, I would walk out of here right now,” he said slowly, as if pondering every word.

  Fiona halted her wild flight and watched him. Hope crashed against the walls of her heart like the tide against a flood wall. She said nothing.

  “But not with you, Fiona,” he said, his gaze holding her pinned. “I’ve held you in my arms. I don’t think your kisses lie. You can deny it all you like, but there’s something between us that won’t go away as easily as you might wish.”

  Fiona shivered and the goosebumps rose on her arms. She stared, trying hard not to believe this marriage was more than a trap.

  From below, over the crashing chairs and shouts of the brawl, emerged the sweet sound of a flute.

  “Michael,” Fiona whispered, still staring at Neville as if he’d gone mad. “They’ll quiet now.” Even as she said it, a fiddle joined the music of the flute.

  Shoving aside the debris he’d created, Neville approached the chaos on her side of the room. “Dance?” he inquired politely.

  Carefully, apparently unsure if she approached a madman or a lover, Fiona stepped over the remainder of her clothes. “Yes, please,” she said as politely as he, as if they hadn’t just raged and roared at each other seconds before.

  She felt damned good in his arms. Closing his eyes in pure joy as his hands finally encompassed Fiona’s slender waist and slid over her velvet bodice, Neville swayed to the haunting melody of the music below. He had no idea what kind of music it was, what kind of dance it involved. The steps were unimportant. What mattered was the living, breathing woman in his arms.

  The fresh scents of heather and lilacs wafted from her hair. Someone had pinned all those gorgeous thick curls into an improbable creation at the crown of her head, but their handiwork had come partially undone with the heat of exertion. Dazedly, Neville dug his fingers into the heavy mass and sought the remaining pins. Fiona offered no objection as her hair tumbled free and loose about her shoulders.

  Satisfied now that he could wrap his hands in her hair, Neville contented himself with gliding to the music while soaking up the pleasure of finally holding this will o’wisp in his arms.

  The beat of the music increased, reminding Neville of his jealousy at the flash of slender ankles beneath heavy velvet as his wife danced in arms other than his. He swung her harder, watching with delight as Fiona grabbed at her skirt and lifted it out of her way.

  Neville skipped her across the floor to the wild music of the fiddle, danced her over heaps of clothes and fallen candlesticks, swung her in a breathless reel, then danced her back again. Fiona rewarded him with a flash of ruby lips and white teeth. Fiery hair swung down her back as he spun her again.

  It was a heady magic he couldn’t resist. While the music played on below, Neville halted their wild cavorting to seek the promise of her laughing lips.

  Her arms slid over his shoulders, and Fiona breasts pressed into his chest so tightly he could feel the hectic beat of her heart pounding with his. Breathing unevenly, Neville demanded more. Without protest, she opened her mouth, and he captured that moist sweetness with his tongue.

  His bride moaned against him and dug her fingers deeper into his hair. Realizing that finally and at last he had the right to touch this woman as he pleased, Neville sought the laces of her old-fashioned gown and pulled them loose.

  Fiona’s cry of surprise scarcely matched his own groan of discovery that she wore nothing beneath the velvet. Cupping his hand over heated flesh, Neville smothered her in kisses of delight.

  She grabbed his lapels to steady herself, nearly tumbling them into the bed before he caught his balance. Deliberately circling her swollen nipple with his thumb, Neville gazed down into Fiona’s flushed and dazed features. “I want you now, Fiona. I want your skirts off and your bare flesh beneath mine. Will you accept me as your husband?”

  Fiona could scarcely think the words, much less say them. The eyes she’d once thought cold and hard as stone watched her with the heat of molten silver. The studious duke had transformed into a man flushed with triumph and arousal. His normally combed locks fell in golden-brown disarray. His cravat had come unfastened—she had a vague memory of pulling at it—and she caught a glimpse of hard male chest beneath the frill of his open shirt. She’d not had a chance to see him unclothed last time. The realization that she now had the opportunity—and the right—to see the duke fully nude brought a flush to her cheeks as she met his gaze. Without any further hesitation, she sought the buttons of his shirt.

  Before she coul
d unfasten more than one, Neville lifted her and pushed her heavy wedding gown over her hips and to the floor.

  Fiona defensively covered her breasts as he stared hungrily at her nakedness. “None of my chemises fit under that bodice,” she muttered.

  “I think I’ll order all your gowns that way.” He pushed aside her arms. “You are the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen in my life.”

  Since she felt certain he’d had his share of London’s beautiful courtesans, Fiona doubted that, but she liked the sound of it anyway. She had enough arrogance to enjoy the power of holding the attention of one of England’s most influential men.

  “Your turn, my lord duke,” she whispered. “I would see you, too, this time.”

  He seemed reluctant to let her go even long enough to unfasten his shirt, so she resumed the task on her own. As soon as her fingers touched his flesh, however, he jerked the linen over his head.

  Fiona stared in stunned fascination at the broad chest revealed as Neville’s fingers nimbly worked the buttons of his trousers. She hadn’t expected muscles on a man confined to a desk, but his shoulders and upper arms bulged as strongly as any laborer’s. She daringly touched his flat male nipples.

  “Fiona,” he growled as she tested the springy light hairs on his chest. “I’m a man on the brink of destruction. Be careful what you do.”

  The urgency in his voice liquefied her insides. Curiosity forced her gaze upward. She just had time to note the way Neville’s jaw clenched and his eyes smoldered before he bodily lifted her and threw her among the rumpled sheets of her bed.

  Fiona sprang to her knees before he divested himself of his trousers and shoes, not yet ready to lie flat and subservient beneath him. But her first sight of Neville’s full nudity robbed her of all defiance.

  He climbed on the bed, kneeling before her, pulling her hair until she leaned into him. “Red-headed heirs, Fiona,” he murmured. “Lots and lots of red-headed heirs.”

  The words traveled straight to her womb and burned like a hot poker. She gasped as his hands possessively pushed up her breasts. His lips fastening on her nipple melted all her remaining defenses.

  He had her flat upon her back within minutes, writhing and moaning as he worked his kisses down her throat. The sheets twisted beneath her as the music in the room below changed to a manic Irish jig. Her hips rose and fell to the rhythm, to Neville’s touch on magic places, to the music of her soul as he sipped at her lips and groaned with equal wildness.

  “Now, Fiona,” he muttered against her ear. “Let me have you now. I’ve waited too damn long as it is.”

  As the fiddle reached a frenetic crescendo, and the flute piped its wild melody, the music swept them away on a whirlwind. Fiona arched her hips upward in blatant invitation. She cried out in abandon as he accepted her invitation and surged into her.

  They moved with the music, with the pounding of their hearts and blood, with the rhythm of their souls. Fiona’s fingernails bit into Neville’s back as he plunged so deep she thought herself mortally wounded. She spiraled upward so fast, she screamed as Neville finally pushed her over the whirlwind’s edge.

  The scream fell into a dead silence from below, but neither of them noticed as their own melody continued to play in their heads. Fiona quaked and trembled again as Neville found new momentum, and fell with her into the dizzying aftermath of passion.

  Fiona woke some minutes later to Neville warming her breast with his hand. A heavy, masculine leg held her trapped against the wrinkled sheets, and the musky scent of their love-making was nearly as erotic as the play of his fingers against her skin.

  She supposed she should feel shame and wickedness at the lack of restraint she’d just displayed. Instead, she felt a strong stirring in her lower parts as Neville raised up on one elbow and studied her with a look of intent that she read well.

  “I like making you scream with passion,” he said in a voice more harsh than gentle.

  She drew her fingers down the line of his long jaw. “You will grow accustomed enough to my screaming, my lord husband, for I do it in anger as well as pleasure. Then how will you feel about your shrew of a wife?”

  “I think I’ve found the key that turns your anger into pleasure, my lady wife,” Neville replied mockingly. “I’ll simply turn the key whenever the need be.”

  He plundered her mouth, stifling her irate protest. Capturing her with his greater weight, he claimed her thoroughly as she parted her legs in surrender.

  She should have known a man who could command governments could command her too-willing body with impunity. She would never be fully herself again.

  Instead of frightening her as it ought, the prospect excited Fiona beyond imagining. She had never been a part of anyone or anything before. Catching the wide shoulders of the man above her, she arched hungrily into his embrace, and took him deep between her thighs. As he moaned and lost control, she knew she owned a piece of him as well.

  Twenty-seven

  Fiona ached in places she hadn’t known existed, yet at every twinge, she shivered in sensual anticipation. She moaned and curled into her pillow, hoping for sleep, except she had a man’s elbow up her nose and an insistent pounding at the door.

  The elbow shifted and a strong arm drew her closer. Fiona savored the exotic male smell, then wiggled her hips against temptation. She moaned again, this time in delight, at the discovery he was again ready for a romp.

  A firm hand gripped her curls and held her back as she tried to kiss him. Sleepily opening one eyelid, Fiona peered at her husband. His Grace looked the part of rogue or worse with his jaw bristled with stubble and his thick hair tumbled in all directions—until he smiled. Smiled. The mighty Duke of Anglesey actually smiled, and in the morning too.

  Fiona offered, a slow, almost timid grin in return. He was, after all, a man of far greater experience than she, and he’d generously offered to teach her more.

  “I don’t suppose the door is locked,” he asked as the pounding at the door was replaced with a maid’s voice calling for “Fiona,” followed by a hastily corrected, “Your Grace.”

  Momentarily startled at the title applied to herself, Fiona sought the rebellion that should erupt at the appellation, but Neville’s gaze dropped to her breasts, and any thought at all evaporated.

  “There’s not much point,” Fiona croaked as she realized she was shamelessly uncovered. Striving for insouciance, she continued, “Few of the rooms have keys and Michael’s made copies of them all. He’s trying to find some way of cutting them so they fit the locks missing their keys.”

  “I could lock it against the maid,” he suggested, raising a leering eyebrow.

  Remembering the destruction they’d wreaked last night, she propped up on one elbow and peered over his shoulder. “The tapestries will hold the maids out a while longer.”

  “It’s time and past to be up, your holy worships,” Michael called from the far side of the door. “The looms and orphans cannot wait. You can honeymoon later.”

  “But they will not stop the bloody earl. Couldn’t you throw another temper tantrum and tell him to go away?” Fiona inquired hopefully.

  “You liked that, did you, brat?” Neville shifted to nuzzle his bristly jaw along her ear. “But you’re the one who wishes to spend her dowry on McGonigle and the orphans, remember?”

  Fiona pressed her fist against his muscled chest and tried to wriggle from his grip. “And Michael holds the purse strings, as usual,” she said dryly, squealing only a little when he nipped at her nape.

  “He owns us,” Neville agreed. “Or rather, Blanche does. She just lets Michael have his way—unless I raise serious objection, of course.”

  “The unholy triumvirate,” Fiona muttered.

  “We’ve got McGonigle and his Whiteboys agreeing to leave Aberdare alone and to turn their energies to helping with the looms. I apologize if I did not have time to dance with you,” he said, holding her close to nibble her neck.

  “If you’re not out
of there within the half hour, I’ll tell Cook to put breakfast away and you can go without until dinner,” the earl shouted through the panel.

  Neville grimaced, turned over, and flung his pillow at the door. Apparently satisfied with his response, the intruders departed.

  “Apology accepted,” she agreed, knowing Aberdare was more important than a dance. Although she admired the view of her husband’s smooth, broad back, Fiona sighed and pulled the sheet up to her neck. “I’m starving.”

  “Why can’t someone bring breakfast on a tray?” Neville grumbled as he turned back to find her covered.

  “No one is trained for the job.” Fiona shrugged. “Besides, then we wouldn’t get up, so Michael wouldn’t let them.” She noted the gleam of lust in his eye and warned, “I don’t know about you, but I scarcely had a bite of our wedding breakfast, and if you will remember, we had no dinner at all.”

  Neville swallowed that reminder with obvious regret. “If we were at Anglesey, we could have trays delivered to our door and not leave bed for a week.”

  Fiona grinned at his frustration. “Not if Michael wanted you in London. He would blow open the door or come through the window and hold us at gunpoint or some such. I’m sorry, but you’ve married into the wrong family, if it’s rationality you want.”

  Neville frowned, appearing to contemplate that problem for a minute. Before Fiona could strike him for his insulting thoughts, he straddled her and buried his bristly lips against her throat. She squealed and shoved at his wide chest.

  “Cry ‘enough,’ my shrew,” he murmured, running kisses up and down her easily-bruised skin.

  “Never!”

  And rather than obediently climb from the bed, they tumbled out in an avalanche of sheets and blankets.

  ***

  January, 1823