The Duke's Daring Debutante (Regency Historical Romance)

by Ann Lethbridge

  He tipped her chin with a fingertip and gazed down into those fascinating eyes. ‘Well, brat,’ he said softly, ‘shall we make the best of it?’

  And would she let him seduce her this time?

  * * *

  The heat in his gaze made Minette feel giddy with longing. He almost had her believing he wanted this marriage. Almost. The recollection of his face when he’d realised they’d been caught in a compromising position had faded but not completely disappeared.

  ‘I did not arrange for us to be found in the library,’ she said. ‘The last thing I wanted was to ruin my reputation.’ For Nicky’s sake.

  ‘I believe you.’

  ‘You do?’ She could not keep the surprise from her voice. It was rare for any man to admit he was wrong.

  ‘I do,’ he said firmly. ‘While you were reckless in coming to my club to find me, foolhardy in the extreme, you were open and honest about your intentions. At Gosport’s ball I let past experiences colour my judgement. I should not have said what I did to you that night. But we can’t keep apologising for something that has happened. We have to move on.’

  Guilt washed over her. ‘To be truthful, I wasn’t displeased that it happened. It suited my plans.’ He went to speak, and she touched a finger to his lips. ‘You must understand.’ She stared into her teacup as if it would give her the words she so desperately needed. ‘If all else failed, I might have thought trapping you a perfectly acceptable strategy.’

  He chuckled softly. ‘Honest to a fault. I think my rush to judgement that evening was coloured by your previous partiality for cheating.’

  ‘That I did to annoy you,’ she admitted ruefully. ‘You seemed so irritated by your role as bear leader. As if you would sooner be anywhere else than playing cards with me.’

  ‘Irritated? So much so I couldn’t make out one card from another. All I could think about was kissing you.’

  His eyelids dipped a fraction, his gaze dropping to her lips, his mouth softening.

  Her breath caught in her throat. The man was positively seductive when he set his mind to it. And his kisses were deliciously tempting, especially as there had been no kissing in her life after coming to England, except for his. There had been no one else she’d wanted to kiss, if she was truthful. Not after Pierre. But there was something else playing on her mind. He was a duke. He had to marry and produce an heir. How would she feel once Moreau was caught and she cried off and he married another?

  She would be lying if she said she wouldn’t care. She wouldn’t like it one little bit. Not now that they had become co-conspirators, friends and perhaps something more.

  Yet what right did she have to hold him to his promise of a marriage of convenience, forced upon him by circumstances in which she had played an active part, even if it had been unintentional?

  How could she marry him when she’d given away her virtue to a man he considered an enemy of his country? It didn’t matter how honourable Freddy was, or how kind; once Moreau was dealt with in a way so that he could never harm Nicky, she must cry off. For his sake. Whether or not the miniature came to light.

  Letting him make love to her, as he so obviously wanted to do, might be one way to make sure he didn’t object to her ending their betrothal. He’d know for certain she was no innocent miss.

  ‘So you want to kiss me now?’ she asked.

  ‘Can’t you tell?’

  Eyes hot, he lowered his head, and she lifted hers to meet him halfway.

  This she would have. This would be accomplished between them, or she would regret it for ever. She wound her arms around his neck and parted her lips to welcome the most sensual of kisses. The strokes of his tongue against hers. The taste of him. The feel of his heart beating against her breasts. Their loud, frenzied breathing.

  His hands were large and warm, one on her spine, the other cradling her nape. She felt cherished. Wanted. She stroked his cheek with her fingertips and slowly they broke apart. His eyes were heavy-lidded, his lips curved in a smile, his chest rising and falling in ragged breaths.

  Passion personified. Her blood heated, her core fluttered pleasurably, her nipples felt uncomfortable in the confines of her gown. All that with a kiss and a glance. Dark and delicious passion. The man was a wonder.

  In a swift, almost negligent move he lifted her onto his lap, one hand casually stroking her shin while the other toyed with a curl that had slipped from its pins. He had a lithe strength that appealed to her femininity in blood-stirring ways. Made her limbs feel languid.

  ‘What if someone comes in?’ she said.

  A small smile curved his lips. ‘One advantage of being a duke. No one enters unless sent for.’ He ducked beneath her chin and first kissed and then licked the base of her throat with the sounds of a connoisseur enjoying a fine wine. ‘You smell and taste of my favourite things.’

  ‘And what would they be?’

  ‘Aroused woman and jasmine.’

  She couldn’t help a smile at the sheer devilment in his voice as he drawled the shocking words. She put a hand to her knee to stop his hand wandering above her garter. ‘What about your mother?’

  ‘Believe me, that would never happen.’

  Utter confidence. And why not? His mother would never arrive unannounced. Not because she was discreet or understanding, she realised with sadness, but because it would never occur to the woman to visit her son.

  ‘Why the worried face?’ he murmured, twirling that unruly curl around his finger. He cast her a sidelong glance that glittered in the light of the candles. ‘Are you hoping for rescue?’

  ‘Quite the opposite.’

  He cracked a short laugh of genuine amusement. ‘You are so hard to read. I never have a clue what you are thinking.’

  ‘That is a good thing. A man needs to be kept off kilter.’

  ‘Who told you that?’ he asked as he raised his head to look at where his mouth had been. ‘Your sister?’

  ‘Something I overheard once.’ Minette should not have been listening. But it was how she had learned just what Nicky had endured to keep her safe. She had learned other things, too. Things that had made her feel oddly breathless and hot. Later, she’d understood. She’d also realised what sort of man Nicky’s husband had been. His death had not been much of a loss.

  He must have heard a note of bitterness in her voice because he gave up teasing her breast to look at her face. ‘Unhappy memories?’

  ‘Things best forgotten.’ She smiled and pushed up to kiss his cheek, knowing full well the effect of the added pressure on his groin.

  He ran his fingers in a light caress down her shin. ‘Do you know what attracted me to you the first time I saw you?’

  ‘No.’

  His hand closed lightly around her ankle. A gesture of possession that she found very much to her liking. ‘This. The prettiest ankles I have ever seen stepped on board that ship. And then, when I looked up at your face, I was done for.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Do you know what the next thing I saw was?’ He nipped at her ear lobe, and a shiver shot through her body. ‘Gabe’s face. Giving me the fish eye.’

  ‘Fish... What?’

  ‘Glaring murder. Warning me off.’

  ‘And so you were following orders when you were so rude.’

  ‘Mmm.’ He dipped his head. Hot lips seared the rise of her breast, his hand curving beneath the swell to plump it up for better access. ‘Delicious.’

  Delicious indeed. His mouth hot and wet and his tongue teasing at her flesh.

  He groaned softly and caught her around the shoulders so he could kiss her with open-mouthed ardour. A kiss of skill and temptation that set her body on fire. She turned into him, her breasts, heavy and sensitive, pressed against his hard chest. He cupped her buttocks and lifted her, adjustin
g her position on his lap, and she felt the hard ridge of his arousal against her hip.

  Once she was settled to his satisfaction, he skimmed a hand up her thigh beneath her skirts and a low sound of approval rumbled through his chest.

  Chapter Fourteen

  When she’d arrived at his club, he’d done his absolute best to remember she was his best friend’s sister-in-law. The woman he’d held in his arms was a passionate, sensual female who appealed to his most primitive of male instincts. Warm and delicious in every way.

  An unexpected gift in his life he had no intention of refusing. Not when it would ensure she became his wife. And perhaps, since she wasn’t objecting, she wanted the decision taken out of her hands. Please, all the saints above, she didn’t say no this time.

  The rest of it he’d deal with later. Find a way for them to be together. There were ways a man could make love to his wife and ensure no children resulted. If he was careful.

  Her tongue tangled with his, her body melted into him. Her sweet, lush bottom rocked against his rock-hard arousal. Lust clawed at the cage of civility. It was all he could do not to lower her to the floor and take her on the carpet. She deserved more. Better than him, better than this. But it was too late for her to have choices.

  She may not have intended their discovery in the library at Gosport’s ball, but from that moment on it had been too late to turn back. From that second she’d become his responsibility, no matter what she thought. His to protect.

  He stood with her in his arms, found his centre of balance and headed for his bedroom, where he’d closed the curtains and lit the candles after dressing for dinner.

  A pang of regret twisted in his chest. Tonight his aim was to make her admit the inevitability of their marriage.

  ‘Oh,’ she said softly, as he pushed open his chamber door. ‘How unexpected.’

  He looked around. Tried to see what she saw. The pile of books on the nightstand. His cricket bat, unused for years in the corner. A bow and arrow next to his shotgun on the wall. The rapiers with which he and Reggie had practised swordplay in the Long Gallery above the mantel. The things he and his brother had collected—birds’ eggs, rocks, an old flint arrowhead on the desk in front of the window. It was the bedroom that belonged to the boy, not the man. ‘I don’t spend much time here to be bothered to change it.’ In truth, he had never found the heart.

  He lowered her feet to the floor, enjoying the friction of her soft body down the length of his, and nuzzled at her throat, licking and nipping until she turned her head and bit him hard on the jaw and lifted her face, offering her lips.

  His body hardened to granite.

  He took her mouth softly, wooing her with lips and tongue, nudging her backwards in the direction of his bed. She broke free with an awkward laugh. Had he read her wrong? Had the promise of passion he’d sensed in her, the blatant sensuality of a woman ready for more than play, been driven by hope?

  The hunger raking at his body did not want to be denied, but forcing her was not an option.

  She turned in a slow circle, her face full of puzzlement. ‘You aren’t the person I thought.’

  A cold hand fisted in his gut. It was the sort of thing Mother would say. ‘Your meaning?’

  ‘There is a lot of affection in this room, when you often seem so cold and withdrawn. I like it.’

  Not quite the comment he’d expected. Mother always complained about the clutter. He was certainly far from cold at the moment.

  She opened her arms.

  He stepped into them, gazing into her smiling, welcoming face, and felt something shift deep inside him. A change that was both tender and painful, as if something had broken and been formed anew from the pieces, yet they didn’t fit perfectly.

  Odd thoughts. Why question what was being offered with such generosity of spirit?

  He glanced down at the rise of her breasts, slowly caressed the curve beneath with one hand while the other explored the dip of her waist. The full swell filled his palm and rose in creamy magnificence above the neckline of her gown. Such exquisitely generous flesh and so bounteously exposed to his feasting gaze. So temptingly displayed, yet their full glory hidden from his view. Leisurely, despite the urgings pounding in his veins, he paid them homage with his hands and then his lips and then his tongue. They tasted of honey and cream and delicious woman.

  Her fingers threaded through his hair, and his skin sprang to life beneath her touch. His own body ached for the same gentle exploration.

  He slid one hand down her leg and drew her skirt upwards, stroking the underside of her knee and the soft silken skin above her garter, sensing her shivers of pleasure in the little catches in her breathing.

  She cupped the sides of his face in her small hands and rose up on tiptoe to brush her lips against his, pressing up against him, her hips arching into him. ‘Freddy,’ she murmured, her hands wandering down to clutch at his shoulders, her breathing increasing until she was panting, her hands fumbling at the buttons of his coat.

  The longing in her voice required no explanation.

  His heartbeat quickened. Naked. He wanted her naked.

  He tore off both his jacket and waistcoat. Spun her round. Her head fell forward. Vulnerable. He pressed a hot open-mouthed kiss to her nape, inhaling the scent of jasmine and summer, then made short work of her fastenings, pressing small kisses to each inch of her back as he worked the gown down her hips until it slid to the floor. The corset went next, leaving her in nothing but her sheer chemise and stockings, the swell of her hips and buttocks so tempting beneath the filmy veil as she lifted one foot, using the bedpost for balance.

  He prowled around her, admiring every inch of that sweetly tempting female body, high, full breasts, long, slender legs with the dark triangle at the apex of her thighs.

  He went down on one knee, removing first one slipper then the other, the scent of her arousal making him so hard it hurt. Lifting the hem of her slip, he untied a garter, peeling her stockings down over her calf and off before massaging her small, perfectly formed ankle and foot. He kissed her knee and the inside of her thigh above the remaining garter. She gave a soft moan. Pleasure. Longing. Want.

  His hands shook as he removed her other stocking while she balanced with her hands on his shoulders. He pressed a quick kiss between her thighs, feeling the heat and the dampness against his lips and shuddering at her gasp of shock.

  Slowly. He had to go slowly.

  He lurched to his feet, relieved when she didn’t react to his clumsiness.

  To his surprise and delight, she hopped up the steps, arms held out like a tightrope walker, and leaped into the middle of the bed. The bed creaked as it accommodated her weight. She cast him a look from beneath her lashes that was pure wickedness. ‘Care to join me?’

  With an answering growl, he leaped from the floor to the bed, kneeling beside her, taking her tempting mouth in a searing kiss.

  Her hands fluttered over his chest and shoulders, sending delicious hot chills down his spine.

  Slowly, she yielded to his weight and sank back against the pillows. Their lips clung in a long, lingering moment then he lifted his head and looked down at her, so lovely, flushed with desire, lips full and rosy from their kisses, eyes dreamy with sensual longing.

  He had never desired a woman as much as he did Minette. The knowledge she also desired him and yet insisted that she would leave him once their quest was over drove him to the edge of madness. Instead of the respect she deserved, he was going to engage in seduction.

  A pang of guilt. Easily vanquished.

  It was for her own good after all.

  Taking his weight on his knees, he gazed down at her and removed his shirt.

  Her gaze roamed his upper body then lifted to his face. ‘Magnifique.’

  * * *

  She had always th
ought of him as lean. Elegant. She hadn’t expected his musculature to be so well defined. His lithe figure and grace belied his now clearly revealed strength. The masculinity of the dark patch of crisp hair on his chest, the ridges of muscle across his abdomen awoke her darkest desires, the longing to taste, to bite. She raised herself up on her elbows and licked at the closest nipple. Rough hair rasped across her tongue.

  His hiss of indrawn breath tightened a chord deep inside her with a pleasurable pulse.

  She suckled at the beaded nub.

  A groan vibrated through his chest.

  She released the suction and blew across the damp peak.

  His hips involuntarily rocked against her core.

  Cold on the outside, this man was molten heat within.

  Surprise bloomed in his eyes, warning her she’d been too forward, shown too much knowledge for the innocent he’d no doubt expected. She had no wish to scare him away quite yet. He’d discover the truth soon enough.

  Next time, if there was one, she would use her powers of seduction to make him writhe and moan and perhaps even beg. She sank back against the pillow and languidly raised her hands above her head, offering him access to her body, handing over the reins, at least this time.

  Eyes hooded, his lips curved in a sensual smile, his hot gaze roved the length of her with hunger. The heat of him washed over her body in waves. He pushed up the hem of her chemise until all but the apex of her thighs were exposed to his gaze. ‘Lovely.’ He stroked her inner thigh with unbearable tenderness, sending sparks of heat all the way to her core. Of their own accord her thighs parted and he shifted one knee between her legs, looking down at her, raking every inch of her with his gaze, his hands following the path in slow, gentle strokes, down her side, over her breasts, traversing the plain of her belly.

  He cupped his hand over her mound and pressed its heel against her sensitive bud. So sweetly painful. She arched into his hand, seeking more of the pleasure just out of reach.

  He groaned softly and took her mouth, stretching out beside her, one thigh encased in fine wool over hers. The fabric was silky smooth against her skin and his thighs pressed against the juncture of her thigh, while his hand moved to her breast, gently weighing and softly squeezing, his thumb teasing at her nipple. Heat darted along her veins, the muscles in her core tightened until they hurt.