A Duchess a Day

by Charis Michaels

  She rocked again and Declan made a strangling noise.

  He moved a leg, dropping his knee beside her leg.

  Helena tried again to engage the kiss. He followed, although without focus, or intent or even much skill.

  She rocked her hips a third time and he answered her with a small thrust of his own, and Helena understood.

  Now her kisses fell off, and she turned her head to the side. “Yes,” she said, and he growled.

  “Truly?” he gasped, and she repeated the word.

  “Yes.” Not an answer, an affirmation.

  Declan made a vague sound of praise and relief combined. He resumed kissing her, really kissing her, and rocking into her.

  Helena gasped at the pounding, pressing shock of it all, but then she laughed, delighted—this was so lovely—and she kissed him back, meeting him thrust for thrust.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and lifted her knees, first to his haunches. He reached back and took one ankle, showing her, and she wrapped her legs around his waist.

  Declan rolled them, flipping her on top, and then rolled them again, driving into her when she landed on the bottom again.

  “More,” she huffed, and he flipped them again, rolling and rolling, tangling the fabric, fusing himself to her.

  Her climax took her by surprise. One moment she was kissing him, pressing against him, and the next she thought, Wait, wait, wait, I will—

  But she couldn’t say what she would, because she didn’t know—but then she did. Her world imploded from the junction of their bodies, pleasure radiating like a star, like a thousand stars, through every limb, shimmering and buzzing. She felt it under her skin, inside her belly, up her spine. She even felt it in her toenails.

  She cried out and Declan matched her cry, pumping into her once more, twice more, and then collapsing on her with a groan.

  For a moment they lay there, hovering somewhere between the soft fabric beneath them and the transcendental realm of glowing, pulsing pleasure mingled with pure, selfless love.

  Finally, Declan raised up. “Are you well?”

  She nodded.

  “Are you hurt?”

  She shook her head.

  “Have I pounded the voice from your lips?”

  “Yes,” she whispered, and she turned her head away. Without warning, tears filled her eyes. “Please do not go back to prison,” she whispered.

  He sighed wearily. “We shall make every effort.”

  She nodded. “Considering the threat of it, I can’t believe we waited so long to do this.”

  “Liked that, did you, my lady?”

  Another nod.

  He moaned and kissed her neck. “Do you know when I found it most challenging to keep my control? Around you?”

  She shook her head. “The masquerade?”

  “No.”

  “The wet carriage after Lady Canning's?”

  “No. My God, I’d only just met you. At that point I was blaming our attraction on prison.”

  She laughed. “It was Madame Layfette’s?”

  He nodded. “There was something about our coming together to make the plan happen. I’d just managed to admit that I was a mercenary. And then seeing you in that . . . in that—”

  “You know I can likely bring that negligee back—”

  “Nothing intended for Lusk,” he said. “Please. Only you. I want only you.”

  “And you shall have me,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck. “One of the girls will work out. Lusk will throw me over. We will go home to the forest.”

  Declan buried his face in her hair and breathed in, flipping them over again.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Titus Girdleston celebrated his birthday, Declan thought, like a five-year-old girl.

  The room swelled with pastel bunting, streamers, and pink roses. In December. Attendees were expected to bring a gift; each of which, according to Helena, he would open while they watched.

  The guests included friends, business associates, political allies, and all hangers-on to the Lusk dukedom by blood or marriage. Luckily, this meant that Helena had been free to invite her three potential duchesses.

  Declan had kept away on Sunday, the day after their (God help him) wedding and the night in his father’s shop. He’d left a note before they’d left Savile Row, tidied the shop as best he could, and returned Helena to her bedroom just before sunrise.

  Two hours later, all grooms were expected to help the footmen set up for the birthday.

  He saw Helena only in passing. He’d expected the encounters to be intense or steeped in longing, but he felt very much the way he’d felt every time he’d seen her within Lusk House.

  There she walks, the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.

  Is she safe?

  Is she comfortable?

  When will I see her again?

  The sameness of it, by no means insignificant, caused him to realize how very long he’d been in love with her. Being married did not change the strength of his love, but their shared secret did drive his anxiety to new heights. Their love should feel safe and accepted; instead, he scribbled down contingency plans and escape strategies, he thought of ways to hide her or abscond with her abroad.

  He thought of his family, too, and dashed off a letter of explanation, telling them what they must do to survive in London if he was on the run.

  It was terrible, and uncertain, but also so incredibly worth the risk. Helena Shaw was worth taking his already upside-down life and lighting it on fire.

  Guests to the party began to arrive at 2:00 p.m. The family received them in Girdleston’s beloved green salon, the large formal sitting room that housed his tabletop collection of miniature houses, carriages, and village buildings.

  Because Girdleston hoped to receive more of his beloved miniatures as gifts, and because child guests were prone to meddle with the display, he appointed two grooms to stand guard beside the tiny village. It was a stroke of incredible luck, and Declan volunteered immediately. Nettle partnered him across the table.

  Declan, his heart lodged in his throat, watched the salon fill like a soldier watches a battle unfold.

  Helena, in the pale-green dress she’d worn the day she’d arrived, stood beside her sister Camille, keeping a close eye on Lusk.

  The duke, a drink already in hand, stood beside his uncle, his flat eyes staring above the heads of the guests, engaging only when addressed. On occasion, he yawned. A footman assigned to his personal care stood nearby, a refresher drink ready on a silver tray.

  Miss Tasmin Lansing, the potential duchess they’d met in Hyde Park, was the first to arrive. She was accompanied by her mother, a baroness, and she brought a brightly wrapped gift. Declan exhaled. She’d come to play.

  Helena stepped up, nodding to the baroness’s smiles and gestures of gratitude, blah, blah, blah— Declan marveled that Helena could remain so composed. Miss Lansing, too, looked unruffled and fortified. She made little effort of cordiality but stared openly at the duke instead. She’d worn a golden dress, a stark contrast to her dark hair, distinctive and modern. Was it too tasteful and refined for the duke? Declan had no idea what Lusk wanted, but other men in the room stared.

  After a quarter hour, the duke drifted from the receiving line to a chair beside the fire. Miss Lansing saw the shift and smoothed her skirt and patted her hair. In two blinks, she transformed her face from impatient and suspicious to sugary and ecstatic. The change was mystifying. He had the errant thought that Helena had been true to herself, wholly authentic and open, from the beginning and the duke was a fool. Thank God.

  Across the room, Miss Lansing glided to the fireplace and lit on the arm of the duke’s chair. Declan took a deep breath. He’d stalked highwaymen through haunted forests with less anxiety.

  Another dozen guests arrived, along with them the next potential duchess, Lady Genevieve Vance.

  While Miss Lansing looked striking and aggressive, Lady Genevieve sparkled and flitted.
She’d worn red, like she had that day in New Bond Street. Today’s dress was a shade darker, more rose red, but it was just as fitted and it stood out in the green room like a berry.

  Helena spoke to her briefly—she’d warned each girl in advance that there would be other contenders at the party—and left her to circulate.

  Lady Genevieve descended on the duke within five minutes, her carousel of cheerful expressions calibrated to somewhere between loopy smile and ecstatic grin. The duke gestured to his footman for another drink, and Lady Genevieve was there, laying a gloved hand ever so lightly on his sleeve.

  Ten minutes later, the third and final potential duchess arrived: Miss Marten from the museum. She looked the least certain and most out of place, but Declan felt she was, by far, the most provocative. Her flaming red hair was swept up in a loose chignon. She took in the party with large, excited eyes. She’d worn pink, the perfect color to accentuate her hair. She glanced around the ornate salon with a look of someone determined to toss a ring at a country fair and win first prize. Covet, thy name is Jessica Marten. She wanted all of this.

  Helena greeted her, whispered some encouragement or strategy. Miss Marten located the duke, squared her shoulders, and moved in.

  Declan looked away. It unsettled him to watch. He sought out Helena, sitting among the family beside her sister Camille. When she looked up, her expression was anxious and pale; her cheeks were taut with worry.

  Declan’s chest hurt, seeing her distress. He forced a look of confident reassurance, caught her eye, and he gave her the slightest we will win this nod.

  She answered back with a heartbreaking tiny headshake. No.

  Declan looked back, not blinking. What’s happened?

  She shook her head again, blinking back tears. She mouthed one word.

  No.

  Helena could not control what the girls did or said, and it was killing her.

  It wasn’t their fault. They were trying, she could see them trying. Any normal man would have slipped away from the party for an easy assignation with any of them by now.

  Miss Lansing was witty and droll and rather naughty. She whispered dirty jokes and made sarcastic fun of other guests.

  Lady Genevieve was purer; she went straight for his vanity and his lust. She rubbed him like a shedding cat against a sofa, employing hands, shoulders, hips, and once she’d even inclined her head and leaned it against his shoulder.

  Not to be outdone, Miss Marten, shy at first, but clearly in possession of the most to lose (or rather, the least to return to), did it all. She laughed with the trill of a bird, she touched his knee, she fetched him drinks and fed him cake.

  Working together and separately, the girls were like a lesson in flirtation; they were so overt almost every guest noticed. What else was there to do at a party as boring and pointless as this one? Three beautiful women beguiling a duke was the only spectacle on offer, especially as the duke seemed wholly unaffected. He was, in fact, so inattentive Helena was forced to stop watching. The prospect of obvious failure frightened her too much. These three girls had been their key to freedom, her greatest hope. And now—

  She shoved from her seat to make a circuit of the room. A table of gifts stood near the door, and she snatched up a toy bridge and carried it to Girdleston’s doll village. By sheer force of will, she glanced only once at Declan.

  When she passed him, Declan said, “You’ll have to engage with the four of them. They’ve made a scene, and the future duchess must acknowledge it. If people see you laughing with the girls, it will give them less reason to talk.”

  “Really?” she asked. She balanced the bridge on top of the cottage.

  “It will give them something different to talk about.”

  Declan was right, it couldn’t hurt. She left the miniature village and settled among the three women and sleepy duke and endeavored to engage them like old friends.

  That is—the women chatted, while the duke said to no one in particular, “I’m only required to remain here for two hours. Does anyone know the time?”

  On cue, the three potential duchesses twinkled with laughter—such good sports, all of them—but Helena’s chest collapsed. They’d failed. The duke meant to go. There was no girl here who would cause him to throw her over and stand up to Girdleston. These women hadn’t even broken the surface. Forget beguiling him, the Duke of Lusk seemed annoyed.

  The more he ignored them, the more Helena wanted to take each girl by the shoulders and tell them, Save yourselves. No dukedom is worth this. Obviously he’s dead inside!

  But then she looked around, and she saw steely determination on the face of each woman.

  So be it, she thought.

  She glanced at Declan. Her husband. The sight of his strong, handsome face—her face, her strength—should have filled her with such joy and hope. Instead, she felt as if her heart was being torn apart, piece by piece.

  Why had fate set him in her path only to keep him forever out of arm’s reach? What had she done to deserve the machinations of Girdleston, and St. James’s Palace, Miss Knightly Snow, and her own parents? Must limestone and money and power fuel everything?

  Tears began to tighten her throat and she excused herself, quitting the room. Before she slipped out the door, she caught Declan’s eye. He winked, but the playful gesture felt like an arrow to her throat.

  She wanted to weep. She wanted to fling herself at the duke and shake him until he awakened enough to see these women, to really see them, and to acknowledge their ambitions perfectly aligned with every trapping of his life. If he could attach himself to one of them, if he endeavored to form some bond, they could build a life together. They could attend limitless parties and spend the year traveling in sequence to each of his lavish homes.

  Five minutes later, Declan sought her out in the corridor.

  “Helena, don’t,” he said, coming upon her two corners away from the green salon. He held a miniature chapel that appeared to have been snapped in two.

  “Don’t what?” she said. Her voice was thick with tears.

  “Do not lose your composure now.”

  “What could it possibly matter? Lusk has the same regard for these women as he does for my father’s dogs. Either he doesn’t enjoy women, he’s faithful to some paramour that I haven’t discovered, or he wants to move limestone on my river as much as his uncle. He will not budge.” She dropped her face into her hands.

  “Actually, the four of them look to be having a pleasant time,” said Declan. “Is Lusk ever excited about anyone? Perhaps we are striving for a reaction that does not exist.”

  Helena ignored him. “I cannot express how suffocating and trapped and bound it feels to extricate myself from this wedding! I’ve tried, and tried, and tried—and nothing works. No one listens except you. And what good has that done for either of us? Now I’ve pulled you and your family into greater peril. I’ve made you marry me—”

  “I married you because it was my greatest wish on this earth, Helena. Do not deceive yourself. You are frightened, you are disheartened, but you must not give in to despair.”

  “Why not?” she demanded. “I’ve not a single card left to play. Our only choice is to come to them with our marriage. The promises we made last night are so precious to me. They are pressed into my very soul; it sickens me to use our union as a bargaining chip.” She sucked in a breath, swiping tears from her eyes. “And you’ll be punished. And I cannot protect you.”

  “It was never your job to protect me, Helena. I am the protector.”

  “But you cannot protect me and yourself,” she cried softly. “And what of your father and sisters? They should come first. You’ve only just met me.”

  “You are my wife,” Declan bit out. “You are my family.”

  Helena did not hear him. She went on. “The men in charge of these aristocratic fiefdoms, and these mines, and the whole bloody world, will do as they wish. We are pawns. You said it yourself.” She cried into her hands.

  De
clan swore. A nearby alcove housed a statue of a woman in a toga holding a basket of fruit. He dropped the miniature chapel, now snapped in two neat pieces, into the marble fruit and reached for her. He pulled her close, kissing the top of her head.

  “Do not lose heart,” he whispered. “You are relentless, remember. My relentless wife. I’m not in prison y—”

  He stopped talking.

  Helena looked up, wanting to hear more, drawing hope and comfort from the very sound of his voice. He wasn’t looking at her; his eyes were trained on the corner. Gently but swiftly he set her aside. He walked two yards and edged against the wall, flattening himself. Carefully he looked around the corner in the direction of the party.

  “Bloody, bleeding—” he mumbled, baring his teeth.

  “What is it?” she whispered.

  “The person in the black cloak is here. At this party. I’ve just caught a glimpse.”

  “At Girdleston’s birthday?”

  A quick nod. “I may not be able to extricate us from the Lusk dukedom—yet—but I can bloody well discover who has been following you.”

  He was off the wall in the next instant, striding around one corner, then the next. Helena hurried after him, wiping tears from her eyes.

  When the entrance to the green salon came into view, she saw the lurking figure hovering outside the room.

  Declan walked faster, nearly running now.

  “Stop,” Declan called, his voice chillingly lethal. “Do not move.”

  The figure spun toward the sound. Declan closed in. Helena darted right, trying to see around his large body. Without warning, Declan threw his arms up. For a long, breathless moment, he was frozen in this position, his arms outstretched like he was breaking a fall.

  “Knightly?” he rasped.

  “Declan!” answered a squeaky female voice, dizzy with delight.

  Helena stopped so fast she almost lost her balance. She reached for the wall.

  The cloaked figure threw back her hood. The face revealed was female, young, and stunningly beautiful. She had pale skin, short ebony curls, and light brown eyes.