For the first time in nearly a year, a smile tugged at his lips, straining the tense muscles and no doubt forming more grimace than grin.
The trio of women still clinging to one another’s arms tripped over themselves in their haste to back away from him.
Stone was the first to break the tense silence.
“Forgive me, Your Grace.” The agent who’d slipped into the unenviable role of butler glowered at Elsie. “This one has yet to learn her place.”
Any other man, woman, or child would have been properly quelled by the viciousness in that life-hardened gaze. Elsie narrowed her eyes. “I do not need to learn my place. I already know it.”
Stone took a jerky step toward her, and the minx matched his steps.
“Enough,” William said quietly, and the pair stopped. Still glowering at each other, neither paid him a glance. “You are dismissed.”
The trio of Covent Garden actresses smirked.
“Stone, if you would show my guests for the evening to the front door.”
“But…” started Joanna. The blonde actress had boldly come round back the servants’ entrance some months ago, seeking a place in his bed. Her words trailed off. She tightened her mouth, the tension transforming her sharp features into an unpleasant mask. “Come,” she snapped, patting her elegant coiffure. Whirling around, she marched off with Lucy and Diana close behind.
Stone lingered. “Your Grace?” He shot a questioning glance in William’s direction.
The meaning of the query was clear: Did William want to be free of the insolent Elsie Allenby?
For some unexplainable reason, when that had been the case with the company of all—his own family included—he didn’t want to turn the stoic beauty away. Nor did the need to keep her close have anything to do with lust, the one mindless emotion he’d allowed himself to succumb to this past year. Which is why you should send her away.
He hesitated, and glancing over the top of her dark, plaited hair, he gave a slight shake of his head.
Without hesitation, Stone stalked off.
Not a word was said, nor look exchanged, until the soft, nearly imperceptible tread of the other man’s footfalls had faded.
“You take exception with my company, Elsie.”
An endearing blush blazed across her cheeks. “I took exception with what you’d intended with your company. Had you sought proper companionship of those who wished to read or walk outside or… or play the pianoforte…”
“All suitably approved activities?”
“Undoubtedly.” Elsie folded her hands primly before her. “This is not the manner of residence I agreed to live within, and you are not…” She clamped her lips together, her words trailing off.
Nonetheless, he latched on to the unspoken remainder. “What?” he asked, resting a shoulder against the wall. “The manner of man you expected to find here?” He lifted an eyebrow. “Did you expect to find a broken, scarred man confined to his bed, like your injured animals?”
She smiled sadly at him. “You are no different than the figures you speak of.”
He jerked his head back reflexively. The abruptness of the movement strained the muscles of his neck and sent a familiar pain radiating up his jaw. “How dare you?”
“Isn’t it the truth, William?” she asked quietly, her matter-of-fact calm more infuriating than any insult she’d levy. “A man is not scarred or broken because he does not have full, functioning use of his body.” Elsie took a step toward him. “But rather, it is because of what exists and what has been done to this.” She touched her fingertips to her chest, to the place where her heart beat.
His mouth went dry, and the need to hurl invectives at her, and flee, ran strong within him.
The delicate beauty drifted closer, white skirts dancing about her trim ankles, casting a haunting aura about her, and holding him frozen, while everything within him said to run. She stopped so only a handful of steps divided them. “You are not confined to your bed, but this?” She stretched her arms wide. “This magnificent townhouse you refuse to leave? It is still a prison. And if you are well enough to—”
William kissed her, and there was an immediate rush of heat and energy that blazed to life within him. There was the familiar pain in using his jaw—but also, something more. Something that reminded him he was very much alive, when he’d merely existed this past year.
Elsie’s slender body went taut, and then she leaned into him and met his kiss, first with a tentativeness that bespoke of innocence, her hesitancy fleeting as it was replaced with the boldness she demonstrated at every turn.
Desire sucked him within its enticing hold, this woman ensnaring him with an allure that could only prove dangerous, that needed to be resisted.
Later.
Moments. Hours. Days. Just later.
Now, he wanted only her. So much that he’d take her mouth and welcome the agony because of the pleasure that eclipsed all pain.
And she met his hungering unapologetically. She gripped his shirtfront and dragged herself closer as they danced with their mouths in an age-old rhythm.
This embrace was no different than the countless others he’d known after his wife’s passing. Those, however, had been mindless unions. This? With her breath coming in rapid little spurts between each joining and then break and rejoining of their lips, this awakened some dormant part within him that he’d believed dead.
And it sucked him deeper and deeper into the bliss of feeling.
William parted her lips and slipped his tongue inside.
Elsie touched hers first tentatively to his, and he stroked her. Tasted her. Learned the hypnotic taste of her that was honey and mint and purity. And his body throbbed with the need to reclaim a hint of those sentiments, even as he did not deserve that gift.
But he’d always been a bastard.
With a groan, William filled his palms with her buttocks, cupping her. The modest wrapper and nightshift served as a flimsy barrier, and that only heightened his desire. He worked one hand between them and slipped loose the belt at her waist.
The fabric gaped slightly, exposing her flushed neckline to the cooler night air. Elsie moaned, the reverberations of her desire thrumming within his mouth.
His shaft throbbed against the soft swell of her belly. Everything about this woman, from her courage, to her strength, to her innocence, called to him. Through the fabric of her nightshift, he took her breast in his right hand, tweaking the pebbled flesh.
She moaned, undulating her hips.
Panting, William continued to stroke her, weighing her right breast. How perfectly she fit in his hand. She was unlike the voluptuous actresses and whores who’d come, enticed by his title and all the wealth it afforded him, and asked first the size of the purse that would await them.
Elsie pressed herself closer. Their kiss took on a frantic, primal ardor. There was nothing practiced or false or greedy, just whimpering moans that spilled from her throat.
God help him, she was all unrestrained emotion and feeling. All sentiments he’d sworn never to allow himself to feel again. His existence was to be mindless, with hedonistic pursuits all that drove him. Because that lack of feeling was what would keep him safe.
But this?
He devoured her mouth, and their tongues rasped against each other, two people who battled at every turn continuing that challenge here, now.
He slanted his lips over hers again and again, learning their texture, memorizing the taste of her. Wanting to lose himself in her.
The earth shifted, knocking him off-balance.
Or rather, a dog had.
Breaking the kiss, William cursed and quickly caught himself and righted Elsie.
Her eyes flew open, their green depths glazed with passion and confusion. She blinked and glanced about… as reality intruded—for the both of them. A slow, dawning horror lit her eyes.
The ugly mutt nudged William behind the knees with his enormous head for a second time, and this time, William antici
pated the angry dog’s response. “You should have kept to your rooms.” His heart thundered in his chest as he fought to get himself back to a place of ordered logic.
With a gasp, Ellie scrambled out of his reach, and he railed at that separation, cursing her damned dog to perdition. “I-I sh-should have,” she stammered, her always assured speech faltering for the first time, and not because he’d challenged her. Not because he’d snarled or snapped, but because he’d kissed her.
And I want to continue that embrace. He wanted to forget that they’d been dragged away from that too-brief interlude. And instead lose himself once more in feeling something other than anger or guilt or misery.
“S-stayed in my chambers,” she clarified, directing that at the tie about her wrapper that she struggled to collect. “I will, however, point out—”
“I was talking to your damned dog,” he muttered.
She paused midtask and stared up with impossibly rounded eyes. “Indeed? You talk to dogs?”
William’s neck went hot. “It is apparently a habit I’ve developed over the past two days.”
There was a softening in her eyes, some seismic shift. He blanched. That was too much.
“Here,” he said gruffly. Snatching the fraying strips from her hands, he set to work belting the tie at her trim waist with equally unsteady fingers.
“Y-you do not need to do that,” she squeaked.
Ignoring her protest, he tied the article.
Did she recognize the inherent silliness in that flimsy barrier? She hugged her arms tight to her middle. “I should not be here.”
“Yes, you’ve said as much.” And for the first time since he’d descended into a hedonistic state, he felt… shame. Shame that this woman, an innocent, had witnessed the depravity he’d surrendered to after his wife’s passing. “I’d advise you not to wander the halls, as you never know who you might encounter,” William said curtly. With that, he stalked off.
He made it no farther than three steps.
“You misunderstand me,” she called behind him, halting William in his tracks. “I did not refer to your corridors, but rather, your household.”
That brought him quickly back around to face her. He frowned. “What are you on about?”
Even as he knew. She was an innocent, a woman who by her speech and demeanor revealed herself to be respectable. She’d not tolerate life in a debauched household. She deserved more.
Her blush deepened, and she glanced back to where the three actresses had recently stood. “If you are well enough to… to…” Elsie shifted back and forth on her bare feet, her dainty toes peeking out from under the hem of her skirts, oddly enthralling.
He shot her an impatient look. “Miss Allenby?”
She immediately ceased her distracted movements and stood proud, shoulders back, chin up. “Do that, then you are capable enough to reenter the land of the living.”
She spoke of his leaving this household and again facing the world. Horrifying prospects that robbed him of sleep and riddled him with nausea. And yet, he could fix on only the former part of the spitfire’s words.
“That, Elsie?” he purred. “I’m afraid you’ll need to be more… clear.”
She scoffed. “Save your wicked rogue’s tone for the whores who’ll be waiting when I leave.” With that, she made to step around him.
After she left? His heart thundering with an unexplainable panic, William slid into her path. He’d known her but a day, and it was rubbish and nonsense and illogical in every way. But he was bereft at the thought of her gone. “You could always stay on in… other capacities,” he suggested, husking his voice. “Not as my nurse.”
“I’m not your nurse,” she replied automatically. “I was never here as your doctor. I was merely brought to assess your state.”
The coolly impersonal words spoke of a woman who did not want to be here with him, but had been forced into the task. As a duke who’d had women of all stations and levels of respectability clamoring for his attention, it was an unfamiliar state. “You do not simply get to leave, madam.”
“Don’t I?” Elsie flicked a cool stare up and down his frame, lingering on his bearded cheeks, and when she met his gaze, it was clear more than had she’d uttered the words aloud that she’d found him wanting. “That is, unless you intend to keep me as your prisoner?” This time, a flash of fear lit her eyes.
Who knew the sentiment shame could also be a physical feeling? It sat low in one’s belly like a stone and churned the gut. And how many men and women in your work for the Brethren did you make to feel this same way? “I would never force you here against your will,” he said with a gentleness he’d believed himself incapable of anymore. For at one time, he would have commanded her or any person if it had benefited him or the Brethren.
Some of the tension lifted from Elsie’s delicate shoulders. “Very good.” She nodded slowly. “Then please step aside so I might pass.” With an air of finality, she clapped her hands once.
Bear shot him a disappointed look before trotting over to join his mistress.
The pair continued down the corridor.
William fisted his hands. She was leaving. Good, let her go. In fact, she should. He’d crossed a line. And he’d done so quite deliberately, too. All with the intention of shocking, but also… testing. He closed his eyes a moment and then turned about quick. “No mistresses,” he called out.
Elsie stopped. With all the regal grace of a queen facing a lesser subject, she turned toward him. “Go on,” she said, her face as impressively blank as her tone.
“I’ll concede to… whatever treatment you advise.”
“And your drinking?” she shot back, glossing over the humbling concession he’d just given.
He stared quizzically at her. “You want me to give up spirits, madam?”
“I do.”
So she’d gauged that quickly the frequency with which he drank. He’d mastered his ability to handle spirits, and yet, she knew anyway.
“You had the smell of them upon you at our first meeting and… earlier, in the gardens,” she explained, again showing an eerie synchronicity with his very thoughts.
William stiffened. That was the first reference made to the volatile exchange in which he’d revealed anything to this woman about his late wife.
“I’ll not give up brandy,” he said tightly, his jaw beginning to throb. “I do not need it.” Since he’d awakened ten months ago, riddled with agony in facial muscles he hadn’t known a person possessed, William had taken care to say little. He’d used few words and moved his mouth sparingly. What was it about Elsie Allenby that made him forget that? At Elsie’s pointed silence, he snapped, “What?”
“Don’t you? Need liquor?” she clarified.
“I don’t,” he reiterated. You owe her nothing more than that. Save your words and mouth movements. “I enjoy it. Just as I enjoy an evening spent with women,” he added matter-of-factly. “Wanting something and needing something? They are vastly different beasts, Elsie.”
Her cheeks pinkened, but he’d hand it to the minx, she revealed no other hint of chagrin to that scandalous admission.
“When Bear was just a pup, he wandered away. I found him with his left paw stuck in a trap that had been set by one of the villagers.”
At the abrupt shift, William cocked his head.
Elsie sank to her knees alongside the mutt and stroked her hand down the creature’s front left leg. “My father believed we needed to take the leg,” she said softly, her distant tones belonging to one who’d forgotten William’s presence and saw only the memory in her mind.
Memory of another dog flickered forward. Smaller. His fur black and white spotted, but silky where Elsie’s dog’s fur was coarse. “He did not advise you put him down, though,” he murmured. God, he’d not thought of that dog in… a lifetime.
Elsie paused midstroke and looked up at him with stricken eyes. “And why should he have? He was merely injured, William. Not dead.” Elsie hugged her
arms about Bear’s neck and whispered something into the creature’s ear.
William stared blankly at the pair at his feet as a memory trickled in of another dog at another point in his life.
When he’d been a boy, his dog Honor had come up lame, and there had been no opinions sought beyond the lead stable master. His father had stood at William’s side while the bullet had been put through the dog’s head.
Injured creatures, not unlike injured people, serve no purpose, William. It is essential you learn that now, and let that guide you to what you are meant to be.
The Sovereign.
His stomach muscles clenched. He’d of course not known what his father had spoken of at the time. The lesson had come to make sense only later, when he’d ceded his rank within the Brethren to his son. “Most are not of a like opinion on injured animals.” Or people. “They are disposable,” he repeated flatly, in rote remembrance. Always remember that…
I did nothing when my father insisted Honor be put down. I simply… accepted it.
And who could imagine that act from long ago could cause new shame all these years later?
Elsie pierced him with a gaze. “Do you believe that?”
Something in him said that whatever answer he gave to her in this instant mattered more than anything. His response would ultimately determine whether she stayed… or left.
He opened his mouth to offer the obvious, expected answer. The one ingrained in him at the Home Office and by his own father. “I don’t know,” he conceded gruffly, a damningly weak admission, the first of its kind that he’d allowed himself. He tapped a hand against his leg, drumming a beat there until he caught Elsie’s stare on him.
William abruptly stopped the distracted movement. Why were they even now talking about this? She wished to leave, and he revealed nothing to anyone. Not even his own wife had been privy to those moments of his childhood. He contemplated the path over her shoulder that led to his chambers, but her gaze called to him, pulled him back.
Elsie motioned to the place beside her and Bear.
Her Duke of Secrets Page 10