Griffin Stone: Duke Of Decadence (Dangerous Dukes Book 3)

by Carole Mortimer

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he murmured as he slowly turned in her arms.

  Bella’s breath caught in her throat as she found herself so suddenly facing him. It had been so much easier to hold Griffin when she was not looking up into his mesmerising and handsome face.

  When she could still breathe.

  When her thoughts had not suddenly turned to mush.

  When he could not see how her body was betraying her responses to him. Her face felt flushed, eyes fever-bright, and the tips of her breasts had become swollen and sensitive beneath the material of her overlarge gown. She also felt an unfamiliar sensation low down between her thighs.

  Griffin’s large hands moved up to cup her cheeks as he tilted her face up to his, looking down searchingly. ‘Are you a witch?’ he murmured gruffly.

  Bella could not look away from the compelling heat in those silver eyes. ‘I do not think so.’

  He gave a slow shake of his head. ‘I think you must be.’

  ‘Why must I?’

  His eyes darkened, his expression grim. ‘Because you have made me want you!’

  Her heart leapt in her chest at the fierceness with which he delivered the admission.

  There was such an unmistakeable underlying anger in Griffin’s voice, telling her that he resented those feelings.

  Because he still loved his dead wife, and the desire he now felt for Bella was a betrayal to those feelings?

  Or was his anger with himself rather than her, for feeling that desire for someone he did not know or completely trust?

  He gave a humourless laugh. ‘You can have no idea how much I envy you, Bella!’

  She blinked at the strangeness of the comment. ‘Why on earth would you envy me?’ At the moment she had nothing. No past.

  No future. No name. Even the dress she was wearing belonged to another woman.

  Griffin’s hands tightened against her cheeks. ‘Because your lack of knowledge about your past means you have no memory of pain or loss, either. Or the mistakes you might have made,’ he rasped harshly. ‘Because the blank of that past allows you to start afresh. To decide what that past might have been, and to make the future your own.’

  That was one way of looking at this situation, Bella supposed.

  Except she would much rather know her past. Whatever that past might be.

  To not know who or what she was gave her the constant feeling of walking along the edge of a precipice, when one misguided step or action would hurtle her over the edge of that precipice to her certain death.

  She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. A movement Griffin followed hungrily, causing Bella’s heart to falter in her chest as she found herself suddenly unable to speak.

  ‘You are a witch,’ Griffin groaned throatily, no longer able to resist the lure of wanting to feel those lush and rosy-coloured lips beneath his own. He lowered his head towards hers.

  Her gently parted lips felt as soft as rose petals beneath his, as he held back his hunger to plunder and claim but instead kissed her with restrained gentleness, her taste as sweet as the nectar between those petals. A nectar Griffin wanted to lap up greedily with his tongue.

  Dear Lord!

  Griffin groaned low in his throat, hungrily deepening the kiss as he felt the tentative sweep of Bella’s tongue against his own like hot enveloping silk, her arms now clinging tightly about his waist as she pressed the soft length of her body eagerly against his much harder one. So eager, so trusting.

  Damn it, he had made a promise to Bella to protect her while she remained in his household. And she had left him in no doubt that she now trusted him to ensure her safety. Even from himself.

  It took every effort of willpower on his part, but he finally managed to gather the strength to wrench his mouth from hers, breathing heavily as he put her firmly away from him before releasing her.

  He hardened his heart against the look of pained rejection in Bella’s reproachful gaze. If he weakened, even for a moment, he would give in to the temptation to take her back into his arms. And he knew that this time he would be unable to stop kissing her, touching her, caressing her, and it would end with him craving more than she was ready to give.

  ‘It is past time I returned to my study,’ he barked before turning sharply to cross the room to the door.

  Bella reached out a hand to grasp the back of the chair nearest to her, barely able to stand on her own two feet. The onslaught of emotions she had known in Griffin’s arms had left her feeling light-headed.

  ‘I will be going out for some time after luncheon, paying calls to some of my neighbours,’ the Duke—for that was surely who Griffin now was; that aloof and disdainful Duke whom she had met this morning!—informed her distantly.

  ‘Do you wish me to accompany you?’ Bella had no idea how she felt about leaving the safety of this estate. Fear, perhaps, at going out into a world she did not know?

  As much as she felt a nervousness at the thought of Griffin being nowhere nearby for her to call to if she should need him?

  ‘I believe, for the moment, you should remain here, out of sight,’ he dismissed coldly, his back still turned towards her as he paused with his hand on the door handle of the bedchamber. ‘You may pick some flowers from the garden, and bring them into the house, if you wish.’

  There was no doubt in Bella’s mind that he made the concession as an apology. Whether that apology was for his mistaken accusations over Arthur Sutton, or for kissing her just now, she had no idea.

  Either way, Bella did not need to be humoured as if she were a child!

  She had been a willing participant in their kisses just now, and she had revelled in the experience, in the rush of emotions she had felt at being held so tightly in Griffin’s arms: pleasure, arousal, heat.

  His rejection just minutes later had been as if a shower of cold water had been thrown over her.

  She gathered herself up to her full height as she stepped away from the chair. ‘I do not wish, thank you.’

  Griffin gave a wince as he heard the hurt beneath Bella’s haughtiness of tone.

  Because he had called a halt to their kisses?

  Because she had enjoyed them as much as he had?

  But what other choice did he have but to stop? She was a young woman staying as a guest in his household. A vulnerable young woman he had offered his protection to for as long as she had need of it. She said she trusted him.

  Yet surely he had just violated that trust?

  He would not be accused of violating her too!

  Griffin gave a terse inclination of his head. ‘Do as you please,’ he dismissed coolly even as he wrenched open the door to the bedchamber and made good his escape.

  Bella blinked back the tears of self-pity that now blurred her vision. She would not allow herself to cry again.

  She refused to cry simply because Griffin so obviously regretted kissing her.

  But what a kiss!

  Delivered with a depth of feeling, a passion, that had shaken her to the core.

  Had it also shaken Griffin?

  He had been so cold when he’d pulled away from her so suddenly. Very much the Duke of Rotherham.

  He was tired of her, tired of the burden she’d become.

  Perhaps it would be best for both of them if she were to leave here.

  To leave Griffin.

  * * *

  Griffin’s mood was one of deep impatience by the time he rode through the Shrawley Woods on his way back to Stonehurst Park late that afternoon.

  If his neighbours had been surprised to receive a visit from the Duke of Rotherham then they had quickly masked the emotion, their manner effusive as they’d offered him tea and fancies.

  Even when Felicity had been alive Griffin had always hated, had actively avoided, such visi
ts.

  The fact that he was now a widower, and an eligible duke at that, obviously had not escaped the notice of his neighbours. The Turners and the Howards had taken advantage of the opportunity to introduce him to any and all of their daughters who were of a marriageable age, the MacCawleys to a niece who was residing with them for the summer.

  Only the Lathams had no daughter or niece to thrust at him, and unfortunately they were away from home at present. The butler had informed him that Sir Walter, an avid member of the hunt, was currently in the next county looking to buy a promising grey, and his wife was away until the end of the week visiting friends.

  Not that the latter was any great loss to Griffin; several inches taller than her rotund and jovial husband, Lady Francesca Latham was exactly the type of woman Griffin least admired. A blond-haired beauty, admittedly, but Lady Francesca also had a cold and sarcastic sense of humour, and spoke with a directness that Griffin found disconcerting, to say the least.

  All of those visits had been a waste of his time and energy anyway, as he had not managed to ascertain any information from his conversations in regard to Bella, or Jacob Harker.

  So the slowness of Griffin’s pace on his journey back to Stonehurst Park was not due to any lingering enjoyment of his afternoon, but more out of a reluctance to see and be with Bella again.

  He no longer trusted himself to be alone in her company.

  The way he had responded to her earlier was unprecedented. He’d experienced a depth of arousal that had resulted in his continued discomfort for more than an hour after the two of them had parted. He had breathed a sigh of relief when she had asked to have her luncheon on a tray in her bedchamber, leaving him to dine alone in the small family dining room.

  But Griffin knew he could not continue to avoid her. They would have to put those kisses behind them, by ignoring the incident, if by no other means. Although Griffin doubted he would be able to forget his response.

  ‘Oh, thank goodness you are returned, Your Grace!’

  A harried-looking Pelham came hurrying down the front steps of the house as Griffin dismounted and handed his reins to the waiting groom.

  ‘There’s been such a to-do! I did not know what to do for the best.’

  ‘What is it, Pelham?’ Griffin frowned his concern; Pelham had been butler here at Stonehurst Park since Griffin was a boy, and as far as he was aware this was the first time he had seen the elderly man in the least discomposed.

  ‘It is Miss Bella.’

  ‘Bella?’ Griffin quickly looked up towards the house. ‘Has she fallen? Been injured in some way? Did someone come here while I was out?’ he demanded belatedly. He knew someone would almost certainly be looking for Bella, following her escape, but Griffin had not thought they would dare to come here, to Stonehurst Park. ‘Out with it, man!’ he barked his impatience at his butler.

  Pelham obviously did his best to calm himself, although there was still a light of panic in his eyes. ‘We were just finished afternoon tea in the servants’ dining room when we heard such a screaming and carry on.’

  ‘Bella?’ Griffin knew he was the one who was now less than composed. ‘Did someone attack her? If someone has dared to harm her—’

  ‘No, no, it is nothing like that, Your Grace. It seems that she must have fallen asleep some time after lunch, and had a nightmare. Mrs Harcourt is up in her bedchamber with her now, but Miss Bella is inconsolable, and we did not know what to do for the best.’

  Griffin was no longer there for the older man to explain the situation to; he was already ascending the front steps two at a time in his rush to get to Bella’s side, throwing his hat aside as he hurried across the hallway to ascend the wide staircase just as hurriedly, all the time berating himself for having left Bella.

  He should not have left her alone after all that she had so obviously suffered.

  Nor should he have parted from her so angrily earlier, when he was the one who had been at fault for kissing her.

  He was an unfeeling brute, who did not deserve—

  ‘Griffin!’

  He had barely stepped inside the bedchamber, his heart having contracted the moment he took in the sight of Bella’s tear-stained face, when she jumped up suddenly from the bed to rush across the room and launch herself into his arms.

  His own arms closed tightly about her as he held her slenderness securely against him, feeling as he did the terrible trembling of her body.

  ‘I am here now, Bella. I am here,’ he assured her softly as she continued to sob and cling to him.

  Her face was buried against his chest. ‘It was... I was... It was so dark I could not see, only hear, and—’

  ‘You may leave us now, Mrs Harcourt.’ Griffin curtly dismissed the housekeeper; there was no need to add to the mystery of Bella’s presence at Stonehurst Park. ‘Perhaps you might have Pelham bring us up some tea in half an hour or so?’ he added, to take the sting out of his dismissal as he saw the housekeeper’s crestfallen expression.

  ‘Yes, Your Grace.’ She bobbed a curtsy before hurrying from the room, obviously as discomfited as Pelham by this upset.

  ‘You are safe now, Bella,’ Griffin assured her as he bent to swing her up in his arms and carry her across the bedchamber, where he sank down into the armchair, settling Bella on his knees as her body still shook uncontrollably.

  She buried her face against the side of his throat. ‘That is not my name.’

  Griffin stroked a soothing hand down the length of her spine even as he lightly brushed the tangle of dark hair from her face. ‘We have agreed it shall be for now.’

  ‘No,’ she sobbed emotionally. ‘I meant that it really is not my name.’ She raised her head and looked at him, eyes red, lashes damp, her cheeks flushed. ‘I believe my—my real name is—I heard someone in my dream call me Beatrix.’

  She had spent a miserable morning in her bedchamber, pacing up and down as she’d tried to decide what she should do for the best. What was best for Griffin, not herself.

  He was so obviously a man who preferred his own company.

  A singular gentleman, who did not care to involve himself in the lives of others.

  A wealthy and eligible duke, who had not remarried after his duchess died six years ago.

  And she was responsible for disturbing the constancy of his life.

  What Bella should do now was leave here. Remove herself from his home. Before news of a woman’s presence at Stonehurst Park became known, as it surely would be if she remained here for any length of time. The last thing she wanted was to blacken Griffin’s name.

  Except she still had nowhere else to go, nor the means to get anywhere.

  The tears of frustration she had cried had not helped to lessen the helplessness of Bella’s situation in the slightest.

  Any more than her best efforts to try not to think of the way Griffin had kissed her earlier. Or that he had called her a witch for having tempted him.

  It had been in that state of despair and emotional turmoil that Bella had finally fallen into an exhausted asleep.

  The dreams had seemed harmless at first. Just images, really. Of a smiling, laughing young lady, with fashionably styled dark hair, dressed in a beautiful gown of gold silk as she’d twirled about the room with another lady, older, but so like the first that they had to be mother and daughter. A seated gentleman had looked on and smiled at the two of them indulgently.

  Then had come the overwhelming sadness as that image had faded and she’d seen the young lady again, dressed in black this time, her face ravaged by grief.

  And she’d known, without a doubt, that the young woman in the dream was herself, and that she stood at the graveside of the same man and woman who had looked so happy in the previous image. She’d known instinctively that the man and woman were her father and her mother.

&nb
sp; That image had faded to be replaced by hands reaching for her in the darkness. A hand placed over her mouth. The warning not to scream, before something, a cloth of some kind, had been placed over her mouth and her eyes, and she’d been dragged kicking from her bed before something had hit her on the side of the head and she’d known no more.

  She had tried then to wake herself from the terror she’d felt, but she had not succeeded, that terror only increasing as instead the next image had been of waking to the painful jolting of a travelling carriage as she’d lain huddled and bound on the hard floor, unable to see, speak or move.

  Even so, she’d known she was not alone in the carriage, had been able to smell an unwashed body and hear another person breathing, sometimes snoring, as they’d slept, but never speaking, except when the carriage had stopped and she had been dragged outside and told to relieve herself. She had refused at first, having had no idea where she was or who was watching her, but had roughly been warned she would be left in her own mess if she did not do as she was told.

  The dream gave her no idea of time, of how long she had been in the carriage when it had finally stopped and she’d been dragged outside. There had been the sound of a door opening and closing, a degree of warmth, before she had been pushed to the floor and she’d felt ropes being twined about her wrists and ankles as she had been secured in place. The cloth about her mouth had been ripped away and she’d gagged as some stale bread had been pushed between her cracked and dry lips, followed by blessedly cool water.

  She’d had images then of being forced to eat more stale bread, followed by that delicious cold water.

  Even the smell of unwashed bodies had become normal as the time had passed and she’d known herself to be a part of that smell. As all she’d known had been that fear and hunger and cold. Until her jailer had been joined by another. And that was when the pain had begun.

  The man’s rough voice would ask her questions, and another person, someone who remained absolutely silent, had administered the kicks and slaps when she’d failed to give them the answers they’d seemed to want from her.