Damn her curiosity. He looked away.
“James. Tell me why you don’t trust him.”
He pursed his lips. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You promised you would always tell me the truth.”
“Not about that.”
“James. About everything. I must insist.”
The look on her face nearly destroyed him. He supposed he’d better just come out and tell her. If he didn’t, indeed, Moncrieff would. James drew in a long breath. “Once, a long time ago—and that is a very important point, my dear, it was very long ago—I may have seduced his betrothed.”
“James. You didn’t.”
“Although, if I am being honest—and I am being honest, I would like to stress that point—it would be more accurate to say she seduced me.” He glanced at her and winced. “Darling, it was a very long time ago. Long before I met you.”
“Why ever did you do such a thing? He was your friend.”
“I was drunk. I did warn you about that whiskey.”
“You cannot blame the whiskey.”
“I was very young. And stupid. I regret it deeply.” He did. Had for years.
“You do realize there shall be no more seductions, James. I must insist.”
“Of course not.” He gusted a sigh, relieved at how easily that had gone. And then her expression changed.
“I did notice that I made a promise and you neglected to reciprocate.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I promised to be on my best behavior while we wait for the wedding. Will you?” What was it that caused the flicker of doubt, of sadness in her eyes? And what was she worried about? He was not the one living with a dread enemy—one who had every excuse to seduce another man’s bride.
“What precisely are you asking?”
“Will there…” She swallowed, glanced away. He tipped her chin back up.
“What, darling?”
“Will there be other women? I know how insatiable you are.”
His heart melted. He was insatiable, but only with her, God help him. “No.”
“No?” She blinked. He fixated on the long, slow flutter of her lashes. “No, what?”
“No. There will be no other women while we wait for the wedding.” Her face fell and he could have kicked himself for the qualification. “There will be no other women ever. Helena, I want only you. I adore you.”
“You adore me?”
Ah, yes. He knew what she wanted to hear. Knew what she needed to hear. They were words he’d never said to a woman before. So creaky and rusty he could barely get them out. But he did. Because she needed to hear them. “I love you. I love you with all my heart.”
“Oh James.” Yes, the light shining from her was worth the effort. She put her palm to his cheek again and he kissed it. “I love you too. I truly do. I couldn’t bear it if you—”
He smothered her words with a kiss. There was nothing for her to fear. Not anymore. Not now he had her. Not now she was his.
The kiss deepened. Passion stirred. James cupped her breast, thrummed a nipple, thrilled at her moan. His hand crept back down her leg to find her hem. This time she didn’t stop him.
Just as he found his way home, just as he brushed the hot, wet crux of her thighs, the coach rolled to a stop.
“Nooo.” She wailed her frustration. Her eyes, when they met his, were wide and limpid. And filled with frustration. “I cannot bear it. I cannot bear it, James.”
“Darling.” He gave her a quick buss and thumbed her clitoris. “You can bear it. If I can, you can.” The carriage rocked as the coachman descended. They had seconds before the door swung open. He caressed her again, quickly, and then slipped from beneath her skirts. “But if you get desperate?”
“Yes?”
He adjusted her bodice. “If you are lying in your bed thinking of me, tonight?”
“Yes?”
“You may stroke yourself.”
Her mouth dropped open. “James!” She was shocked, he could tell, but titillated too.
He gave her one more quick kiss—the last until they were man and wife. “For I, darling, shall be doing the same.”
“Will you?”
“Rather desperately.”
He pulled away and took the opposite seat just in time. The door of the coach flung open but it wasn’t the coachman who peered in with a razor-sharp gaze. It was a portly matron wearing a breastplate of pearls looped around her neck, a rather alarming hat arranged at a jaunty angle on her head and a stultifying brand of perfume, which surrounded her like a cloud.
A girl who looked shockingly like Moncrieff hovered behind, hands clasped together in a fretful mass.
“Hallo!” the matron warbled in a reverberating tenor. She looked them over, one after the other. Her nostrils quivered when she set her sights on James. He was reminded of a terrier spotting a big fat rat it wanted to gut. “There you are, gel. Do come down. Not you.” She forestalled James with a glacial glare. “We cannot have the neighbors getting a gander at you. Lady Helena has simply been out shopping this afternoon, do you understand?”
James cleared his throat. “Madam. This woman is my betrothed.”
She blew out a noise that sounded rather like a fart and waggled her head in a fashion that indicated, clearly, she didn’t give a fig about his arguments. “In future, when you come to visit it will be with proper decorum. With flowers at the very least. Chocolates would not be untoward.”
“Madam. We are betrothed.”
“But not married.”
“No. Not yet, but—”
“Pffft.” Another fart. “But nothing.” Her tone left no room for argument. “Until you are married, she belongs to me. I am charged with redeeming the propriety of this house and redeem it I shall. I will not have my girls sullied by any mischief.” She pinned him like a bug with her glare. Her voice dropped several octaves and took on a demonic treble. “Any mischief. Do you catch my meaning?”
She did not wait for his response. She ushered Helena from the coach—James had the sense she would have dragged her, kicking and screaming, if the need had arisen. But it had not. Helena obediently heeded that haughtily crooked finger and slipped out the door.
She glanced back at him, over her shoulder, with a woebegone expression.
James felt exactly the same. “I love you, darling,” he mouthed.
He thought she responded alike but the old bat slammed the door in his face so he couldn’t be sure.
Damn.
It was going to be a long, long month.
He snarled an address to the driver and threw himself back in the seat. It infuriated him that he couldn’t touch Helena, not kiss her or caress her for a full month at best, while Moncrieff would have unimpeded access to her.
“Faster,” he howled up at the coachman.
He needed to get that special license, and he needed it now.
* * * * *
James glared at Moncrieff across the tea table. And adjusted his trousers. He knew his knee was twitching uncontrollably but he couldn’t calm the tremor. He hadn’t been this tense since he was a lad called before his headmaster at school. When he’d been in short pants.
But the prospect of seeing Helena had him all in a wad. It had been so long, far too long. Nearly a month since he had kissed her. It seemed an eternity.
“Relax,” Moncrieff grumbled. “You’re making me nervous.” The duke had, at Aunt Hortense’s insistence, moved back into Wyeth House. She had also taken hold of his social calendar, which accounted for the fact that he was up and about and prepared for callers at eleven in the morning. He looked miserable, which delighted James to no end.
He knew, if anyone could crack the whip and manage the Dark Duke, it was Aunt Hortense.
“What do you think is taking so long?” James glanced over his shoulder at the door.
Edward snorted a laugh. “They’re women. Everything takes so long.” He took a sip of tea and winced. Aunt Hortense had
removed all the liquor in the house. Even the whiskey.
Thank God.
The door opened and James sprang to his feet, his heart lodged in his throat.
But when Hortense Bigby sailed into the room, it plummeted to his belly and lay there like a hard ball. He had truly come to hate the sight of her.
“Darlington.” She nodded. “How charming to see you. And Moncrieff.” She looked him up and down. “Presentable, I suppose.”
Edward shot her a charming grin and a wink. “Flatterer.”
Hortense would not be beguiled. “Do sit up,” she snapped. “Dukes don’t slouch.”
To James’ astonishment, Edward obeyed, straightening his waistcoat with a sharp tug without being told to do so.
Aunt Hortense opened her mouth, probably to say something even more diminishing, when a flurry of movement at the door distracted her. Two exquisitely beautiful girls floated in. James had eyes for only one.
When Helena saw him her face lit up and she clapped her hands in delight.
He realized, all of a sudden, he had come to adore that gesture.
God knew, he adored her. His body trembled at the sight of her.
“James.” She crossed to him with her hands outstretched. He took them in his own and kissed one, then the other. He pulled her closer, intending to drop a kiss on her lips as well—but Hortense cleared her throat in an ominous rumble.
“None of that,” she remonstrated with a glower.
Always rebellious, Helena went up on her tiptoes and placed a kiss on his cheek. He nearly fainted. It had been so long since he’d had a whiff of her. He ached with need.
“Come, Lady Helena.” Moncrieff’s mocking tone slashed through the moment. “No kiss for me?”
Helena merely laughed, which James found annoying. He would much prefer she slap his face at such an outrageous suggestion.
“I’ll give you a kiss, Edward.” Violet leaned down and placed a loud kiss on Edward’s cheek.
“Thank you, cousin.”
“You should shave.” Violet sat next to Edward and poured herself and Helena some tea. She glanced at the crumb-strewn plate. “Did Transom not bring any cakes?”
“Edward ate them all.” Holding Helena’s hand, James sat. She settled herself beside him on the divan, a bit closer than was acceptable but James was never one to complain. As Violet chastised Edward for wolfing down all the treats, James smiled at his little love. “I’ve missed you,” he whispered.
“And I you.” He wanted to sink into those crystalline green pools, wrap himself in that delicious golden fringe. “Not much longer now.”
“Far too long.” He leaned closer, drawn to her beauty, drawn to her soul.
Aunt Hortense chose that instant to hack her way through a cough. When he glanced at her, her glower made clear that cough had been for him. Hell. Could he not so much as touch her?
“James?” Helena called back his attention with a whisper.
“Yes, my darling.”
She gazed at him adoringly. “I did as you said.”
He blinked. What had he said? Oh so many things. “What, my sweet?”
“I did as you said,” she breathed. “Last night? I touched myself.”
Oh. Dear. God.
His cock sprang to attention like a thoroughbred at the starting gate. James could only pray for no false start.
“Darling—” Was that his voice, all strangled and wobbly?
“It was quite nice, though not as nice as when you did it.”
His temperature began to rise. Sweat dampened his armpits. “Darling—”
She leaned closer. “I made myself come.”
He gritted his teeth and crossed his eyes. “Dar—”
“I say, Darlington. Are you ill?”
James glared at Moncrieff. Sodding bastard.
But as he glowered at his friend, the door opened behind him again and Moncrieff’s features became a mask of horror. James swung around to see what sight could instill such terror into a duke of the realm. He cringed.
A veritable battalion of society matrons and their chicks flooded the room, babbling and chattering and gushing with female frivolity. Their notice fell on Moncrieff and silence descended. The younger girls stepped behind their mothers’ skirts and peeped at him, their eyes as wide as saucers. The older girls were less reticent. One stepped forward. Her mother grabbed her wrist with an iron grip and yanked her back.
Moncrieff sighed and parted his hair so they could get a better look.
Violet chuckled and murmured, sotto voce, “I assure you, there are no horns.”
“Do come in,” Hortense chirruped. “So nice of you all to call. I told you. I told you he’s quite tame, didn’t I?” She pointedly fixed her gaze on Moncrieff sitting in the drawing room in his morning suit, slurping his tea like a trained monkey. “Come in. Sit down. All of you. Transom!” Her voice shook the room. Small wonder Transom appeared on the spot. “More tea.”
“Yes, mum.” The butler slunk away with alacrity.
Edward stood and tugged down his waistcoat. “Ladies.” He bowed. “A pleasure, but I really must be going. Darlington?” He lifted a brow. “Care to join me?”
James glanced from Edward to the milling matrons. Would he care to escape? Would he much rather hie off to the billiard room and smoke a cigar and drink brandy with the lord of the manor? Yes.
But it meant leaving Helena. And he so did not want to do that.
He still held her hand in his, loved the warmth of her touch, loved that she gave him a tiny squeeze.
“You go on, Moncrieff. I shall join you later.”
Edward snorted and shook his head but he took the time to bow politely to the assembly before he took his leave. As he passed, he muttered, “Your loss.”
But it wasn’t. Not in James’ estimation.
In two days she would be his wife. And they wouldn’t be sitting on a sofa, hiding their linked fingers in the folds of her skirts as an army of society matrons scrutinized them with birdlike intensity.
He smiled at Helena.
She smiled back.
And her tongue peeped out, a teasing dab that sent a bolt of lightning through his bowels.
No. Not his loss. Not in the least.
He was the luckiest man on the face of the earth.
Epilogue
They curled together as one in his large, rumpled bed.
James pulled Helena closer and pressed a kiss to her glistening brow. Ah. She was his. Finally. His wife.
The wedding had been huge, with all the pomp an earl of the realm and his new bride should command. Everyone who was anyone had attended and all—and more—had followed to their grand reception at Wyeth House, hosted by none other than Aunt Hortense. And Moncrieff.
That is to say, Moncrieff had paid for it.
As glorious as it had all been, James couldn’t wait to get his wife alone. Couldn’t wait to get her in his home, in his chambers, in his bed.
He had taken her hard and rough. No sweet whispers. Not a whit of seduction. Simply his cock in her cunt, in and out as many times as he could bear before he exploded. She had reveled in it too.
He adored that about her. Never in his life had he imagined he could find such a willing bed partner in a wife.
He caressed her back, cupped her bottom And his palm itched. There was one other thing he’d missed. One other thing he’d ached for in the past month. One other thing that had left him hard and panting whenever he saw her.
She leaned up and smiled at him, dropped a kiss on his lips. Then she bounded from the bed and came back with a package she’d brought along when he’d stolen her from their reception. “I must open Edward’s gift,” she said.
James bristled, but halfheartedly. He was far too sated, far too pleased to dredge up much jealousy for his old friend. “What did he give you?”
She laughed and flopped down beside him, the slim package in her hands. “I cannot know, silly, until I open it.” She ripped off th
e paper. “Oh, look. It’s a book.”
James’ heart lurched. Ah, fuck. A book from Edward. That could mean only one thing.
She tipped the tome and read the spine. A pink tide seeped up her cheeks. “It’s by Lord Hedon.”
A snarl of annoyance curled in his gut.
Because she’d flushed before she’d opened the book. That meant she knew what Lord Hedon wrote. The thought appalled him. And thrilled him.
“Um, Helena?”
“Yes, James?”
“Have you…read any of Lord Hedon’s books before?”
“Of course not.” Relief gushed. Until she finished her sentence. “I’ve only looked at the pictures.”
He flung an arm over his face and swallowed his groan.
“Moncrieff had a full set in his library. Though I couldn’t find them again after Aunt Hortense arrived.”
“Imagine that.”
“This one is new, I think.”
James peeped out from under his elbow. “New?”
“Yes. It’s entitled The Wicked Lady.”
James sat up.
“It has a dedication.”
“Hedon never dedicates his books—”
“Oh my.” Her blush deepened.
James snatched the book from her and— Damn Edward.
To Lady H, it read, the sweetest bottom in Christendom.
“I’ll kill him.”
“Honestly, James. I cannot see why you are so upset.”
“You’re not reading this.”
She plucked it from his fingers. “I most certainly am.”
“Helena. Darling.” He infused his tone with what he hoped was a sufficient certitude.
She rolled off the bed, out of his grasp and began flicking through the pages of that dreadful monstrosity. Then she went unnaturally still. Stared at a page. “Oh.” A breath. “My.”
Trepidation coiled in his gut. What had Edward done?
She looked up, her mouth soft and rounded. A shudder passed through him at the sight. “James. She looks like me.”
“What?” He scuttled his particular inclination and skulked to her side.
“The wicked lady. She looks just like me.”
James peered over her shoulder and blanched. She flipped farther into the book and stopped on an unfortunate page. She tipped the book one way. And then the other.
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