Hugh shifted. It seemed every woman in his life was determined to look through his hard shell and poke at the hidden soft spots beneath. “You make me sound cold as ice.”
Lizzie’s lips parted and she grabbed for his hand. “You know I think you nothing of the sort. I know your warmth and caring, your deep capacity for love and patience. I only meant that you ponder, you consider, you weigh options.”
Hugh couldn’t argue with that. His sister knew him far too well. “And so?”
Lizzie’s gaze shifted back to Amelia below them. “I cannot believe that you simply saw this woman across a crowded room and decided to leap into a lifelong commitment within days.”
Hugh almost laughed, though her description gave him no pleasure in the slightest. Nor did the truth, at present. “It wasn’t a room. I looked at her from a terrace much like this one and knew what my future would hold.”
She wrinkled her brow. “Why?”
“I wanted to…” He sighed. “Protect her. Be near her. Save her.”
“Save her?” Lizzie repeated. “What did she need saving from?”
Hugh glanced at her. He could see Lizzie’s worry clear on her face. And if she knew the truth…oh, how it would devastate her. It had been over a year since her ill-conceived escape with Walters, and he sometimes still caught a shadow of grief, pain, fear, regret on her face. She held herself utterly responsible for her decision, to the point that he suspected it kept her up nights.
If she knew Amelia had been engaged to Walters, herself? If she found Hugh’s new marriage had been undertaken merely to thwart that bastard’s cruel intentions?
He had a feeling his sister would spiral back into a deep and powerful sadness that had terrified him for months. And he feared it would damage her budding relationship with Amelia, who his sister seemed to like so much right away.
So she could not know the truth. Just as Amelia could not know the truth. The lies were difficult—they went against what he’d always believed to be his nature. But that was how it had to be.
“You worry too much,” he said with a smile as he took her arm. “I appreciate it more than you know, but it is unnecessary. Amelia is my bride and I am…” He trailed off and glanced down at her again. “I am discovering every day what that means to me.”
His words didn’t seem to fully appease Lizzie, but she rested her head briefly against his shoulder. “I only want you to be happy.”
He leaned down to kiss the crown of her head and barely held back a sigh. “I am doing my best to be just that. Come now, let’s join Amelia in the garden, shall we? I’m certain no one could give her a better tour of this estate than you.”
Lizzie worried her lip, and he could see she had a hundred questions, a thousand fears. Only she said none of them. She shrugged and said, “Very well.”
She had surrendered, because it was in her sweet nature to do so, to trust and believe in him even if he didn’t deserve it at present. So as he took her down the flight of stairs that would lead them to Amelia, he felt worse than ever. For deceiving her, for deceiving his wife.
And perhaps, if he looked close enough, too close, deceiving himself, too.
Amelia sat on the settee in the parlor, slippers off and legs tucked up beneath her, and laughed as Hugh and Lizzie put on a shadow puppet show of epic proportions on the wall across from the dancing fire. It was clearly something they had done many times before, for they were truly wonderful at it, twisting their hands into fish, fowl and animal alike. They even had characters and laughed together as they made them interact in funny voices.
It was yet another side to Hugh that Amelia had never expected to find when he stormed into her parlor and made his devil’s bargain with her father. She’d tried so hard to harden her heart to any of his good qualities in London, despite the desire he engendered deep within her.
But now…here in his home with his sister near him, there was no denying that the man she’d reluctantly married had much more depth to him than the stern surface she’d been so frightened of when they first met.
All day she’d seen his many faces. He’d been quiet as Lizzie took her on the grand tour of the estate, smiling as his sister waxed poetic about the library and the music room and chiming in here and there as tales were told of their childhood in this place. Sometimes she caught him watching her, a look of anticipation on his face, and she was drawn back to the moment the night before when they had looked up at this beautiful manor house and he’d asked if she approved.
He wanted her to love this place as much as he and Lizzie clearly did. Even though it didn’t really matter what Amelia’s opinion was. This was her home—circumstances dictated that to be true. But he still wanted her to connect to it.
And she did. How could one not? It was beautiful, sophisticated, but still somehow warm and welcoming. The servants were kind and seemed happy and well taken care of. The grounds were vast and beautiful. She had never dreamed of such a lofty situation when she dreamed of her future as a girl, but somehow she didn’t feel out of place here.
“Won’t you join us, Amelia?” Lizzie laughed as she made her shadow fox run after Hugh’s shadow rabbit along the wall.
Amelia shook off her musings and got up to join them. “I’ve never been very good at this. I only know one animal,” she laughed as she wedged herself between the siblings. Immediately she was keenly aware of Hugh’s presence at her left. The warmth of him. The brush of his knee against hers.
“I’m sure you are as proficient at this as you seem to be at everything else,” Hugh teased, his tone suddenly thick with double entendre.
She shot him a look and then locked her fingers together carefully. On the wall a clumsy bird appeared and all three laughed as she swooped it toward Hugh’s rabbit and Lizzie made her fox flee.
“You two have made a meal of me, I think,” Hugh said with a smile.
Lizzie giggled as she leaned back against her palms on the carpet. “Oh, this was a wonderful day.”
Amelia glanced at Hugh and found him looking at her in return. She blushed as she said, “It was. Thank you for making your home so welcoming to me.”
“It’s your home now,” Hugh said softly. Those four words hit Amelia in the gut. Home. Could this be her home? Could this man become her home in some way? Was it possible to believe that after so short an acquaintance? After so difficult a beginning?
Lizzie nodded with enthusiasm, unaware of Amelia’s torn heart. “Indeed, it is. And you fit here so perfectly—soon it will be impossible to remember a time when you didn’t belong to our family.” She let out a happy sigh that turned to a yawn. With a shake of her head, she looked at the clock. “Oh goodness, it’s getting late. I should go to bed.”
All three got to their feet, and Amelia smiled as Lizzie stepped into Hugh’s arms and gave him a hug. Their bond was so lovely and pure, it warmed Amelia’s heart to see it.
“Goodnight,” Lizzie said, and turned to Amelia. They both smiled and then Lizzie grabbed her and tugged her in for a hug of her own. Amelia was stiff in surprise at first, but swiftly relaxed. There was no denying her new sister’s sweetness and kindness.
“Goodnight, my dear,” Amelia whispered.
“I’m so glad you are here,” Lizzie said in return, then drew back to smile at her. “I’ll see you both tomorrow. And I think we should go fishing if the weather is fine.”
“An excellent notion,” Hugh said as she moved to the parlor door. “Until tomorrow.”
Lizzie gave a last wave and left the room. For the first time that day, Hugh and Amelia were alone. Immediately, her heart began to pound just a little harder and all the ease she’d felt faded, replaced by anticipation and a flare of heat she could now identify as pure desire.
It must have reflected on her face, she knew it did, she could feel it there, for Hugh’s body shifted, his pupils dilated and he gave her one of those wicked half smiles before he strode to the door and quietly closed i
t. She heard him turn the key in the lock and shivered.
They were alone at last. No interruptions to come.
She faced him and watched as he tossed the key onto the sideboard.
“Drink?” he asked, motioning to the decanter.
She swallowed. “No,” she whispered. “I don’t need a drink.”
His eyebrows lifted. “What do you need, Your Grace?”
Her body tingled as she stepped toward him. He didn’t move, though she could see his hands twitch at his sides, his gaze track her like a bird of prey she had so clumsily created earlier in the shadows on the wall.
“I had a nice day,” she whispered. “But…”
She trailed off. She had been raised to be a lady, raised to squash down those twinges in her body that she had not been able to name. Now she was driven to speak them. To claim them, and it was still an awkward endeavor.
“But?” he encouraged as she reached him. They were inches apart now, so close to perfection.
“But I missed you,” she admitted with a shake of her head.
He smiled. “I was with you the whole day.”
He would make her say it, clarify it, and she glared at him. “I meant I missed…touching you. There were so many times today when I looked at you and all I could think about was…was…”
He stepped in and caught her waist, dragging her flush against him. His mouth lowered, inch by painful inch, and he whispered, “This,” before he claimed her.
Claimed was the right word. His mouth crushed down on hers with a passion that had been bubbling between them all day. Immediately the tone in the room shifted. There was no more playful teasing or friendly games. The powerful physical connection between them took over, and she wrapped her arms around his neck to lift against him as he drove his tongue hard into her mouth.
His hands slipped around her back, and she felt him slide two buttons of her gown open in rapid succession. She broke her mouth from his and stared up at him in shock and wonder.
“What…here?” she whispered.
“The door is locked and I can’t wait to take you upstairs,” he said. “Isn’t it so much more wicked to think that we could take our pleasure here? And then every time you come into this room, you’ll look at that settee…” He motioned across the room to the pretty upholstered couch near the fire. “…you’ll know you rode me there until we were both spent with pleasure.”
Her eyes went wide at the highly descriptive and specific nature of that statement. “Ride you?” she repeated, her hands shaking as she opened his jacket.
He chuckled and returned his hands to her buttons, stripping them open as he backed her across the room toward the settee he’d indicated. He tugged her dress and it fell forward, drooping at her arms. She expected him to remove it, to do all those wicked things she’d been dreaming about all day.
Instead, he stepped away. Holding eye contact with her, he shrugged off the jacket and waistcoat she had been tugging on, then removed his shirt. He sat on the settee, wrenched off his boots and slouched down, watching up at her through a hooded gaze.
“Can you imagine what in the world you might want to do with me, Your Grace?” he whispered.
She wet her lips nervously. A dozen possibilities filled her mind as she stared down at him, in the dominant position for the first time since he’d touched her the night of their engagement ball. Torn between uncertainty and a deep well of desire that told her to touch and lick and take like he would.
“I’m still figuring out what I can and cannot do in general,” she admitted as she tugged the gown from her arms and shimmied out of it. She stood before him in her chemise and drawers and felt the heat of a blush fill her cheeks.
He leaned forward and slid his hand under the hem of her drawers, gliding his rough fingers over the smooth expanse of her thigh. She shivered at the sensation, at the answering tug she felt deep in her sex.
“You can do anything you like, Amelia,” he said, lifting his gaze to hers. “Whatever feels good to us is what is right. You can’t make a mistake in this, I promise you that.”
There was something hypnotic to his low, seductive tone. Something that convinced her, more than any words, that he wanted her and she wanted him, and that would be enough.
She drew in a shuddering breath and then slid the thin straps of her chemise away from her shoulders. Slowly, she let the fabric roll away from her breasts and down her stomach, crumpling it at her feet so all that was left were the drawers.
He muttered something under his breath. She wasn’t sure if it was a curse or a benediction. Both, perhaps, rolled up into one. He flopped back against the settee, hands gripped against his muscular thighs, and watched her with a hungry gaze.
She felt answering hunger in her chest, in her limbs, in the slick heat that pooled between her legs. She swallowed hard, emboldened by the shared madness of this never-ending desire. Slowly she edged forward, nudging herself between his legs until her stomach was right in front of him.
“Untie me,” she ordered, her voice shaking at how powerful she felt.
He glanced up at her, that wicked half-smile cocking his lips once more. “Yes, Your Grace,” he murmured, and reached out to tug the silky tie on her drawers. He moved purposefully, teasing her as he let his fingers trace the waistline of the last thing she wore.
Finally, he loosened the knot and looked up at her as he let his fingers move beneath the fabric and pull them down her legs. She kicked them away, moaning as he let his hands travel back up her hips, cupping her backside as he tugged her in to press a searing kiss against the flat plane of her belly.
“Yes,” she whispered, dropping her hands into his hair and pulling it from the queue. “Yes, yes, yes.”
There was no other word but that one, and he listened to its every meaning. His mouth traced down to her hip, he sucked on her thigh and his fingers slid along the path until he rested his palm on her sex and teased her open.
She knew she was already wet, already hot and waiting. When his fingers slid inside of her, there was no resistance. She’d been waiting for this since the previous day in the carriage, and now he was touching her and she wanted nothing more than to give herself to him all night.
He was watching her as he filled her with one finger, then two. She bore down on him as he pressed a thumb to her clitoris and ground it gently. Her breath became short as the pleasure she had been denied for more than twenty-four hours returned in a heated rush.
He stroked her for a while—she had no idea how long, for time had lost all meaning. It was clear he was in no rush to bring her release. He wanted to tease, to draw out her need, to make her take it or beg for it.
And she was ready to do both. Especially when he withdrew his fingers from her clenching sheath and lifted them to his lips, where he licked them clean with a smile.
“Come down here,” he said, catching the back of her knee and gently guiding her to place it on one side of his thighs. She lowered herself to straddle over him, feeling the thick outline of his cock as she moved into position. Her hips flexed of their own accord and she ground over him.
Her eyes widened. Ride him. This was what he meant. Once he unfastened his trousers and freed his cock, she could take him inside and do just that. Ride until she was spent, until she had milked every ounce of pleasure from them both.
She thrilled at the idea. But once again, he seemed in no hurry. He slid his fingers into her hair, tugging her chignon loose so waves fell around her shoulders, her back, their faces. He slid his hands into the locks, cupping her scalp as he angled her head for a deep, probing kiss.
She melted against him, tasting his desire as their tongues tangled in languid, unrushed passion. There was no need to go too quickly, even if her needy body disagreed. They had all night—and after tonight, the rest of their days—to explore each other.
And that was far more comforting a notion than perhaps it should have been.
&n
bsp; He cupped her backside and tugged her flush against him, rocking her and stealing her breath as she dropped her head back with a gasp of pleasure. One that increased when he caught one nipple between his lips and began to suck gently.
She flexed her hips against him in time to those glorious sucks and licks and nips, feeling pleasure rise in her, push her toward release, toward madness. And it affected him, too. He was already hard, but every rolling flex of her hips made him even harder.
She reached between them, hands shaking, and traced the line of his cock. He lifted his gaze and met hers, and in that moment she knew they were both ready. No more teasing or preparing. She lifted slightly and he tore the buttons of his trousers open. His cock pushed on the loose fabric and cast the front fall away, revealing him in all his naked, hard glory.
She couldn’t find words as she lowered herself back into place. He slid a hand between them, positioning himself at her entrance, and then she was taking him inside as they let out a moan in unison that echoed in the quiet chamber.
Once he was fully seated, he reached out and dragged her down to his lips again, kissing her as he flexed his hips up, thrusting from below as she dug her fingernails into his bare chest. She met his stokes, grinding her hips down to his. It took her a moment to find the rhythm, but once she did, she let out a soft cry at how very good he felt.
And how right their joining always was. Like their bodies were made for each other, made for these illicit pleasures. She wanted them, wanted him, wanted to learn all the ways he liked to be touched, all the ways they could make each other shudder like they shuddered together now. And that wasn’t just a general desire, an ache that needed to be filled by any person in her orbit who could do so.
She wanted this man. No other. It was shocking, but it was true. Long gone were thoughts of Aaron or of some fairytale ideal she’d spun for herself as a naïve girl. All that was left was Hugh, and as the first flutters of release ripped through her, he was all that mattered.
The Duke Who Lied Page 14