“Of course, milady.” He clucked to the dog, who followed Joshua up the curving stairs.
Dulcie turned back to Griff.
“I wanted to repeat that I owe you a great deal, Griff,” she began. “I started to tell you outside, but…well, I suppose I wanted to spend more time with you.”
He looked down into her face, remembering the faint sprinkle of freckles over her cheeks when they met for the first time last spring. He ached with longing. He wanted so badly to kiss her, take her into his arms, then carry her to bed, and make passionate love to her for days on end…maybe forever. Instead, he said nothing, just waited to see what else she might say.
“Must you leave, Griff?” She asked with her usual candor. “Do you have a place to stay?”
“Dulcie…?”
“Stay here with me.”
Her insides were in knots as she blurted out the totally improper request. “Please, Griff. I-I need you. If you say no, I don’t know what I shall do.”
* * * *
Dulcie reached out and took Griff’s hand, leading him into the first-level parlor. She shut the door behind them, leaned her back against the oak, and waited, expectantly, not letting go of his fingers.
“Dulcie…oh, dammit, Dulcie!”
Griff stepped closer and pulled her into his arms.
His hungry gaze seared Dulcie’s cheeks. His look ignited the flames of her own desire in the deep, hidden center of her soul. No way would she refuse anything he wanted. She raised her face to his, closed her eyes, willing him to kiss her.
She let her mouth fall open wide, and he dove into her sweetness, their tongues meeting in a carnal dance that heated the blood in their veins.
God, he tastes like ambrosia, as intoxicating as the wine they drank a hundred years ago last spring, Dulcie thought.
She leaned into his body, her arms wrapping around his waist and pulling him tight. She heard herself exhale in an audible sigh.
* * * *
Griff’s hands worked feverishly at the fittings that closed her gown. He wanted desperately to tear it open, to pull the fabric down off her shoulders, and let her breasts fall into his waiting hands. His cock had stiffened already, grown to enough size and length to reach her inner core.
Dulcie was as responsive as before and so willing, she was driving him mad. She clung to him. He found her more slender than he remembered when they first made love, but her breasts, were as soft and full as ever, and perfectly shaped for his hands. Her hips still dipped outward from her waist, and flowed into her generous buttocks. He couldn’t wait to get her in bed again, suckling those luscious nipples, his cock teasing her pussy.
Finally, he released her mouth, leaving it with tiny nibbles across its width. Her eyes were still closed. She was breathing almost as fast as he was. He reached low and cupped her rounded backside with his palms, lifting her up on her toes, and grinding her body against him. She must know what he was thinking, what he wanted.
“Oh, yes, Griff,” she murmured. “Please…”
Those same words were like music in his ears. She had begged him the night the countess drugged them into a fierce lust that never ended. He kissed her again, long and slow, more gently now, until she opened her glazed eyes.
“Don’t-don’t you want me, Griff?”
“More than anything in the world, Dulcie. But first…”
He wasn’t sure where to begin, but he needed to pour his heart out to her so that she believed him. Unfortunately, sometimes words were cheap, so he took his time to make himself clear.
He released her, then took both of her hands and held on tight.
Dulcie wore a puzzled expression, but Griff smiled into her eyes, hoping his emotions showed as she locked into his.
Slowly Griff dropped to one knee in front of her.
An element of surprise lit her expression as he watched.
He had promised to come back to her, and he had kept his promise.
He kissed the backs of both her hands, squeezed them hard, and looked up into her face. This morning had been his undoing. He had left his bed before dawn, pulled on some clothing and traversed on foot through the almost empty Mayfair streets to Portman Square. He faced Eberley House, trying to screw up courage enough to rattle the polished, brass doorknocker. He had sat on that bench in the park for a couple of hours in the cool morning air, desperately needing to confront Dulcie and learn why she rejected him so devastatingly last autumn. Instead, she had come out to meet him.
“I’ve never loved a woman, Dulcie, until you,” he said, resting on one knee. “You were my rock when I was on the Peninsula. I knew if I could cling to that thought, keep your face in my mind, I would come through the horrible maelstrom alive.”
Her surprised expression crumbled. Tears filled her eyes and ran down her cheeks, wetting paths to her jawbones.
“I was very fortunate, Dulcie. I was never wounded before, you see, I never got a scratch, while others fell on all sides of me. When a dagger-like piece of shrapnel slammed into me and tore my side open, I believed it was only a minor wound until…well, I learned I was mistaken. Nevertheless, I always believed I would survive in spite of it. I was…relieved. The war was over for me. I knew I’d be coming home to England…to you. And that kept me going during weeks of pain, delirium, and struggling to breathe.”
“Oh God, Griff.” Dulcie fell to her knees in front of him, joining him where he knelt, and grasped his arms. “I love you so much, Griff. I refused to marry you because…because I couldn’t let the countess get the better of me.”
His smile was tentative as he removed her hands from his forearms and squeezed her fingers again. “Dulcie, my darling, please marry me. I don’t want your fortune, but I don’t know what I will do if you reject me a second time. Like my father, I was once a dedicated libertine, but no more. I’ve changed. Can’t you tell?”
“I only know that you are a wonderful, beautiful, kind man, and I couldn’t…”
“Then tell me you’ll say yes,” he interrupted. “I’m lost without you, Dulcie. I-I love you deeply. I need you to help me get my life straight.”
She nodded, and smiled.
Griff decided then not to tarnish their marriage vows by rushing Dulcie into bed, although it was his dearest wish at that precise moment. He vowed not to take her until they were indeed, husband and wife.
Just then, someone tapped on the door. Both heads jerked, snapping upward. Griff rose quickly and raised Dulcie to her feet with him.
She swallowed once, and cleared her clogged throat. “Yes? What is it, Bender?”
“A message for you, milady. I thought you would like to know. I believe it is a letter from the countess.”
Chapter Forty-Three
Bender held out a small silver tray with a missive resting in the middle of it. Dulcie’s heart thumped in her chest. She looked up at Griff.
He read worry, consternation, and a modicum of fear flickering across Dulcie’s countenance.
“I’ll take that, Bender,” he said, picking up the square of parchment.
Bender bowed out, closing the door behind him.
“What shall I do with this, Dulcie?” he asked. “Do you want me to read it to you?”
She dried her lips. “No. I don’t wish to know what is in it. Throw it into the flames, Griff, and forget about it. I don’t want anything she says to mar our happiness.”
He moved slowly toward the fireplace. “As you wish,” he said then hesitated before dropping the note into the fire. He tapped it against his lips. “I’m curious as to what she wants.”
“I really don’t want to know, Griff,” she repeated. “Agina never liked me, was never kind to me, only civil at times, or sometimes downright cruel. I cannot condone or forgive that she would try to kill me for my inheritance.” Dulcie settled herself on the settee. “Please, just throw it away and let us be done with it.”
His back was turned to Dulcie when Griff leaned toward the flames. He couldn’t help
himself. It wasn’t good of him, because it was addressed to Lady Dulcina Trayhern. But he slipped the letter into his jacket pocket, unopened.
* * * *
Just before the wedding, Dulcie’s companion, Chastity Warren, was called back to Surrey. She left tearfully, happy that Lady Dulcie had found her true love, but sorry to miss the wedding. Reverend Carter, who suffered from the aches and pains old age, had found he needed his sister’s help again at the vicarage.
Dulcie was sorry to see her quiet companion leave. She had been like a mother hen to Dulcie during those months in London.
* * * *
The wedding took place three weeks after the banns were called a second time. Griff’s family attended. Rand Titus stood up as Griff’s groomsman. Dulcie asked Griff’s cousin, Desdemona, to attend her as bridesmaid. John Burlington gave the bride away. He and his wife held a small wedding breakfast at their town house for the newlyweds. Even Simon was present. He looked uncomfortable and pulled on the big yellow bow Dulcie had tied around his neck.
Later that afternoon Dulcie and Griff returned to Eberley House with Simon. A groom rushed to hold the horses’ bridles when the new bride and her husband arrived in a carriage driven by the Eberley coachman. The large, comfortable, shiny coach was bedecked with white streamers. Bender greeted the couple and their dog at the front door. Behind him, several liveried footmen and the rest of the London household lined up in starched white aprons, mobcaps, and pressed, gray gowns.
Dulcie had hoped they could leave for Surrey instead of stopping in London, but Griff held to his wish that they remain in Town to enjoy some of the frivolity inherent in the yearly Season.
“Poor Dulcie,” he had told her a few days before their wedding. “At this rate you will never make your come out.” He grinned at her and chucked her under the chin in a playful manner. He hadn’t kissed her since his proposal, just a brotherly buss on the cheek. And she wanted him to do so much more, she almost threw herself into his arms and begged him make love to her before the church service. In her mind, they were already husband and wife, since they had been intimate before.
Leaving their outer garments with servants, Dulcie asked Joshua to take Simon up to her bedchamber. The pair of newlyweds strolled leisurely toward the parlor where they had once begun to make love in the thrall of a wildly potent aphrodisiac. Griff immediately headed for the liquor tray and poured himself two fingers of brandy. “Would you like a glass of wine, Dulcie?”
She agreed, but suddenly she felt like a fish out of water. She almost wished Griff would slip a love potion into the wine, she was so nervous.
Dulcie lowered herself to the edge of the cushioned settee. Griff approached her and handed her the glass of wine. He held a brandy snifter in his other hand. He didn’t sit next to her, but leaned an elbow on the fireplace mantel.
“Allow me to salute my lovely wife, Lady Dulcina Spencer,” he said, tilting the glass in her direction. “I’m afraid, Dulcie, you are also plain Mrs. Griffith Spencer. Are you sorry about that?”
“No,” she replied, shaking her head, then added a quick, mischievous reply. “I was never a proper lady, Griff. You should have known that from the beginning.”
“I daresay I wished that you were…less a lady, I mean. In the beginning, you were more outgoing and quite intriguing, flashing your hoydenish ways. It was meeting you that I felt most comfortable. There was something about you I needed even then…”
“I was trying not to be intimidated by my stepmother … or anyone else.”
“You were quite the fierce tiger, Dulcie, defending Simon the first time I met you. You made me proud.”
She blinked, feeling herself blush.
“And more proud than ever when you stood up to Agina in your bedchamber in Bonne Vista and told her to go to Hades, ranting at her and me that you would never marry me.”
He chuckled.
“I’m not sure what gave me the strength to defy her, Griff. Or you. I was still feeling ill, miserable, and weak. Still, I knew after you left, that I wanted to marry you, not let our engagement be a farce, after all. For a long time after my birthday, I tried so hard to forget you, because I believed you had betrayed me with the countess.”
“But…”
“I know, I know. I was wrong. But I was foolish, so don’t ask me why.”
She looked up at him. “I was falling in love with you even before the first time you made love to me, Griff, but I didn’t know it.” She met his eyes with the same easy naiveté as when they had grown to be friends. Now she stood up, faced him, and put down her wineglass. “I want you to take me upstairs this minute, and make love to me as my husband. Will you do that?”
She wasn’t a nymphomaniac, but she had yearned for more of what Griff had given her during the wanton throes of the powerful love potion, and later, the strong carnal urges that engulfed her the night before he went back to war.
It took only two quick strides before Griff grabbed her up and pulled her into his embrace.
“God, yes, Dulcie.”
Griff had confessed long ago that he was a debauched libertine, his tainted reputation hung by a thin thread of respectability as he swam through the aristocratic waters of the ton. He told Dulcie that much last spring, in a moment of unusual candor. He never told her his name was blackened with appellations like ‘coward’ and ‘pervert’—things he never denied elsewhere. He could never tell her now. Perhaps he might, many years down the line. But right now, he didn’t think it mattered. She loved him, and told him so. That was what truly mattered.
He held her to his chest, gently, at first, breathing in her essence, the flowery soap she used on her hair, the sweet perfume emanating from her enticing body. Already he was aroused, half hard during the wedding ceremony and too-long breakfast at the Burlingtons. It wouldn’t take long for him to sink his cock into her warmth as she requested. But he didn’t want to rush things. She was his wife now, not some trollop, and certainly not the young, naive girl the witch had ordered him to ravish.
Griff’s lips lowered toward hers. Dulcie’s were slightly parted when he touched them with the tip of his tongue. He saw her eyes were half closed, so he shut his, too. He wanted to experience her in his mind’s eye as well as his body’s other senses. He rubbed his mouth across her lips, dipped his tongue into the welcoming heat, reveling in her taste. She hadn’t forgotten. Their tongues danced as if they knew how to waltz. Her breasts were flat against his chest; he pressed a muscled thigh between her legs, recalling how she rubbed against him in their first erotic encounter outside her room. He would do more that, and very soon.
Their mouths fused for interminable seconds until they were both breathing fast. When Griff looked down at her face, he recognized the hazy, glazed look of desire in Dulcie’s wondrous eyes. Quickly, he scooped her up into his arms, noticing she weighed less than he had thought. But the softness of her breasts and the roundness of her hips hadn’t changed much. He kissed her again, firmly, and left the parlor and strode up one of the flights of stairs.
“Please, Griff, don’t take me to her bedchamber. Take me to yours. Make love to me there again.”
Instinctively he knew why. That room had been the countess’s boudoir. He didn’t want either of them in that room or in that bed. Perhaps that might change at some future time, after they adjusted to one another and forgot that Agina once lived and taunted them in this house. But not today, not when it was to be their first wedding night.
* * * *
Dulcie clung to his shoulders as he slowly let her slide down the front of his body until her slippered feet touched the carpet. His arms loosened only slightly, still maintaining contact, touching her and hold her close. She felt the sensitive tip of his cock pushed against her. His kisses grew more insistent when he attacked her mouth. Dulcie’s breath blew hot, like a panting animal, and she kept coming back to him, hungrily, as if she needed sustenance. She knew he would give her anything she wanted. Do anything to please her. A low m
oan escaped Dulcie, and she tilted her head to the side. “Umm, Griff.”
His hands slowly slid from around her back, his palms searching for the weight of her breasts.
“Dammit,” Griff laughed into her mouth. “I suppose you had to wear that corset under your wedding gown.”
He shifted his kisses from her mouth to the side of her neck, nuzzling his nose and lips against her collarbone, licking and nibbling the expanse of skin exposed by the square décolletage of her raw silk wedding gown.
“As soon as I have you naked, I want to taste every part of you, Dulcie,” he whispered. “Every part I can reach with my tongue.”
“Then undress me now, Griff. Act my lady’s maid like you were at Bonne Vista,” she murmured, letting go of his shoulders and taking a step back, standing with arms hanging at her sides, waiting in submission.
“But first, please take off your jacket and waistcoat.”
“Mayhap, we should take turns,” Griff offered, with a sly grin. “Turn around, love, let me undo your gown.”
She turned, letting her eyes close.
Her wedding gown had myriad tiny buttons that opened down the back, but his fingers worked quickly, adeptly. Finally, the gown split wide. He reached up and pushed the fabric down her arms. It bunched in front, trapping her hands in the silk until she pulled her arms out of the capped sleeves, letting the rustle of cloth dribble into a puddle around her ankles.
Griff leaned down to bite tenderly along one bare shoulder.
Dulcie spun around to face him, reached for his shirt, and yanked it from his trousers. “Oh! Your wound, Griff. Show me where you were hurt.”
“Here,” he said, raising the hem to expose the scarred left side of his damaged rib cage. “It is well healed now, Dulcie. I hope the sight of it doesn’t revolt you.”
She carefully grabbed his shirt and pulled it up and over his head. “Let me see.” She bent close to examine the puckered and discolored scar.
He got a quick gander at the deep cleavage displayed by the whalebone corset that pushed her breasts up and half out of the satin casing.
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