Only a Duke Will Do

by Sabrina Jeffries

  His face grew shuttered and he shifted his gaze out the window once more, a frown creasing his brow.

  That was the wrong thing to say. She didn’t want him angry. She didn’t want to be at odds with him anymore. The Simon who’d entertained the children at the prison was a man she could live with—as long as he stopped being a tyrant about her activities. “Simon, I know you’re probably very angry at me for—”

  “Defying me?” His gaze shot back to her. “Going off to the prison behind my back? Taking Raji to a place he’s never been without me?”

  Her heart sank at the edge in his voice. “Raji was fine, and you know it. Besides, you started this by conspiring with the king. Surely you see that was deplorable.” When his jaw tightened, she groaned. “But that wasn’t what I meant to say.”

  “No, I am sure it was not,” he said bitterly. “You probably meant to point out yet again how horrible I have been to you by marrying you and sharing with you my name, my wealth, my connections—”

  “I want cake,” she blurted out. When he blinked, she added in a soft voice, “That’s what I meant to say. I want cake. For both of us.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Dear Charlotte,

  A man may look affectionately upon his wife, but that does not mean that when faced with important decisions, he will allow her to influence him. I would not place too much hope in a tender glance, my dear.

  Your forthright cousin,

  Michael

  For a second, Louisa wasn’t entirely certain Simon had taken her meaning. Then a look of such stark, wild hunger crossed his features that her breath caught in her throat. Before she could even think, he’d reached across the carriage and hauled her onto his lap.

  “What are you doing?” she exclaimed, darting a glance at the window.

  “Eating cake,” he murmured. Then his mouth seized hers.

  She forgot about the crowded streets outside the carriage windows. She forgot about her anger and his machinations and her father. There was only Simon, plundering her mouth like a marauding conqueror, his hands sweeping possessively over her body, his breath wafting hot and heavy over her face.

  He paused to drag the curtains closed, but as he bent his mouth to hers again, she pressed a finger to his lips. When a scowl twisted his brow, she said hastily, “I want to make sure we’re in agreement. We both get cake. Which means you’ll let me participate in the London Ladies.”

  His eyes glittered a searing blue. “You will share my bed? And stop telling the servants to feed me things I detest? And give me back my cigars?”

  She gave a shaky laugh. “I didn’t think you’d noticed.”

  “Of course I noticed. The same way I noticed the trays outside your room and your absence at dinner and the cold, empty space in my bed…” His choked words seduced her as effectively as the kisses he now scattered over her cheeks, her nose, her brow.

  “The London Ladies,” she rasped while she still had the power to speak. “Will you let me—”

  “Do you mean to defy me again?” he countered.

  “I might.” She scowled at him. “If you make unfair pronouncements.”

  “Wrong answer,” he growled.

  She’d already opened her mouth to retort when she felt his hands unbuttoning the back of her gown. “We can’t do this here, for heaven’s sake!”

  “The devil we can’t.” He was disturbingly adept at undoing her clothing. “I’m not taking any chances with you this time, sweetheart. I mean to make you mine before you change your mind. I cannot go another night alone in my bed, thinking of you alone in yours.”

  Though his words thrilled her, they weren’t the ones she wanted to hear. “But you haven’t yet agreed—”

  “If you want to negotiate terms, give me some incentive.” After removing her gloves, he dragged her gown and chemise and stays down in one fell swoop to bare her breasts, then scoured her with his ravenous gaze, sending her blood into a frenzy.

  As she warmed to his clear admiration, he bent his head to seize her breast in his mouth, sucking it so sensuously that she squirmed on his lap.

  He devoured first one, then the other, while she buried her hands in his thick hair to hold him close. “Now this, sweetheart,” he rasped, pausing briefly to tongue her nipple, “is what I call cake.”

  Cake, yes. The dratted seducer had made her forget about the cake. “The London Ladies, Simon,” she whispered, though it got harder to speak when he was sliding his hands beneath her skirts. “Will you let me participate?”

  “Do you promise never to defy me?” he shot back.

  “It depends—”

  “Wrong answer again.” He found the aching spot between her thighs and thumbed it so that she gasped. “You are my wife. I will not have you going behind my back. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Never again do I wish to have some lord accusing me of not holding to my word because my wife lied to him.”

  She winced. She probably shouldn’t have told Lord Trusbut that her husband was meeting them at the prison. But how could she have known he would then run into Simon?

  “Is that understood, Louisa?” He brushed his mouth against her ear as his forefinger delved suddenly, shockingly inside her.

  She wriggled to get free, but that only made it worse when his finger swept along her cleft in a silky caress so erotic, she gasped. Then writhed against it in an attempt to feel more.

  Simon’s breath quickened as he laid her out across his lap to give him better access to her breasts.

  “Understood, Louisa?” he repeated, tugging at her nipple with his teeth. “No going anywhere behind my back.”

  When he punctuated the demand with a maddening caress down below, she whispered, “Yes…oh, good heavens, yes…”

  Then, realizing what he’d made her say, she stiffened. He was trying to seduce her into agreeing with him. And it was working.

  Very well, seduction was a game for couples, wasn’t it? As he teased her nipple with his devilish tongue, she untied his cravat and tossed it aside, then unbuttoned his waistcoat and shirt. He drew back only long enough to remove it all.

  She blinked. Now that was a chest, very nicely swathed in muscle, the way a man’s chest should be. She looked her fill, since it was her first look at her husband’s naked body. Dark blond hair trickled from his throat to where it broadened to take in his whole chest, swirling about his male nipples, then narrowing to a thin line over a flat, taut stomach before disappearing beneath his trousers. Which were noticeably bulging.

  And swelling even more beneath her gaze.

  “Don’t just look, sweetheart,” he said hoarsely. “Touch me, too.”

  With a blush she dragged her gaze back to his face. “Wh-what?”

  “Put your sweet hands on me.” He practically ripped loose the buttons on his trousers and drawers. “Anywhere. Everywhere. Here.”

  He seized her hand and tried to force it inside his drawers, but remembering her purpose, she resisted. “And where’s my incentive, husband? I get cake, too, remember?”

  Eyes smoldering, he slid his hand beneath her skirts once more, but she stayed him with her other hand. “Not that sort of incentive, drat you. Since I agreed not to go anywhere without your knowing, you should agree not to restrict my activities with the London Ladies.”

  When a frown touched his brow, she slid her hand beneath his drawers to caress his thigh. His naked, brawny thigh. He sucked in a harsh breath.

  Delighted to have such an effect on him, she slid her hand closer to his ballocks, skirting them, brushing them…teasing them. “You did promise me that when we agreed to marry, you know.”

  With a groan, he closed his eyes. “Yes, but…that was before I found out you were courting…radicals.”

  “According to my father,” she said as she stroked everywhere but his rigid flesh, “you knew I was. You said that’s why you married me. To stop me.”

  He squirmed beneath her hand. She slid one
finger along his heavy arousal, but when he pushed against her palm, she withdrew.

  His eyes shot open to blaze at her. “What do you want from me?”

  “Our original agreement—that you won’t restrict my activities with the London Ladies.” She fondled his shaft, and he groaned.

  “All right, damn you.” Sliding her off him and onto the seat, he knelt on the floor between her legs, then tugged her closer. “You can have your original agreement.”

  She beamed at him. “Thank you. That’s all I wanted.”

  “I do have one condition.” Eyes alight, he shoved her skirts back to bare her below the waist.

  She grabbed his shoulders. “Oh?”

  “Since allowing you to consort with radicals would damage my future in politics, you must let me advise your group on their choice of candidate. You owe me that, at least.”

  “Advise. Not browbeat.”

  “Advise,” he repeated, then bent his head to suck her breast. “Come now, wife, I am being most accommodating, and you know it.”

  “Fine, though undoubtedly I’ll regret it.”

  “I will make sure that you don’t.” Then a wicked smile crossed his face, and he shoved down his drawers and trousers.

  “Oh Lord,” she said as an instrument of rather sobering proportions sprang free. So that…beast was what she’d been fondling? It hadn’t felt so large. How on earth did any sane woman “lay there and let the man do what he wants” when he was assaulting her with that? “Um, one more thing—”

  “Negotiations over,” he snapped as he aimed the thick rod of flesh between her legs. “The only words I want to hear out of your mouth for the next hour are ‘Yes, Simon…more, Simon…please, Simon…’”

  “Please, Simon,” she whispered as the tip brushed her curls. “Try not to slay me with that beast of yours.”

  “Beast?” Simon halted to stare at her, then let out a choked laugh. “My God, you’re a virgin.”

  “Of course!” She drew herself up. “You didn’t actually believe what I babbled in the woods about having been with other men.”

  “Certainly not,” he hastened to say. “It is just that when I am with you I forget…I mean, you are so damned—”

  “Wanton?”

  “Wonderful.” He nuzzled her cheek. “I get carried away, and I forget.”

  He angled his shaft up between her thighs, a hot, heavy reminder of what they were about to do. When he caressed her between the legs with it, rubbing it up and down against her damp curls, she caught her breath, torn between the pleasure it gave and the pain it promised.

  “In the past seven years,” he went on, “you and I have made love in my dreams so often…I have to remind myself that you have not actually done it.”

  “You really dreamt of me?” Now he was opening her with his warm fingers, smearing her with her own juices. “That wasn’t just something you said so I would let down my guard?”

  “God, you have no idea,” he said hoarsely as he slid inside her.

  To take her mind off the strange and rather uncomfortable intrusion, she asked, “What exactly did I…do in your dreams?”

  “You tempted me with your hair and breasts and belly. You rubbed your nipples against my chest—”

  “Like this?” she whispered as she did what he’d said.

  He gave a harsh laugh. “Yes, Cleopatra, exactly like that.” His eyes glimmered. “And you put your hands on my a—…my buttocks. Try that, too.”

  Although she blushed, she did as he ordered, but when she went a step further and squeezed the firm flesh, he surged inside her. Instinctively she tensed to feel him so thick there.

  “It’s all right, you’re doing fine,” he said huskily. He slid his hand between them to find that spot that always seemed to crave his touch. When he stroked it, she relaxed, allowing him to slip even deeper.

  A groan escaped his lips. “That’s it, sweetheart, let me in. That’s even better than I dreamt.”

  “It’s not at all what I dreamt,” she said dryly.

  “What did you dream?” He continued to stroke her where they were joined, which did make it easier to endure him inside her.

  “I-I don’t know.” She remembered how Regina had once described it to her. “Angels…harps…like it was when you…did those things with your mouth to me in my bedchamber. Only better.”

  “Give me a chance, and you’ll have that again. But first…” He drew back to stare at her ruefully. “I’m told that purgatory comes before heaven for virgins.”

  She eyed him skeptically. “Purgatory?” She’d heard varying accounts of a virgin’s pain. The same varying accounts she’d heard about childbirth. And Lord knew how reliable some of those were. “Or hell?”

  “You tell me.” Giving her no time to tense up, he plunged deep inside her.

  The pain was sudden, intense…and brief. It took a few moments for it to pass. Then she sagged against him, relieved that it hadn’t been worse.

  He brushed a kiss to her forehead. “Well?”

  She wriggled experimentally, but there was only a lingering soreness. “Definitely purgatory,” she pronounced.

  “Thank God.” He clutched her hard against him. “Because after seven years, stopping now would be hell for me.”

  He began to move, and she caught her breath. It was…intriguing, to say the least. Quite…invigorating.

  Then he thrust particularly deep, and her pulse leapt. Good heavens. That wasn’t like anything she’d ever felt, not even that night in the bedchamber. There was something so…amazing about being joined to him like this.

  Now he was kissing her, his tongue hot and strong, surging inside her mouth the way he surged inside her body, and the multiple sensations began to swamp her. His thrusts beat in counterpoint to the swaying of the coach, the thundering hooves…the clamoring of her heart. Soon the wild rhythm quickened, building, growing, running away with her…

  “Do you want me, Louisa?” he tore his lips free to growl, reminding her of that day in her bedchamber when he’d made her beg.

  “Yes…I want you, Simon.”

  With a groan, he increased his pace. She grabbed at his buttocks to hold on, joining them even more intimately. He drove inside her over and over until her head spun and her body soared and she couldn’t stay anchored to the earth…

  “Yes, sweetheart, yes,” he rasped as he plunged to the hilt. “Yes!”

  And in that moment the heavens opened up, and angels and harps rained music down around her, blending with her cries.

  With a guttural cry of his own, Simon flooded her with his essence, clasping her so tightly she didn’t know where he began and she ended.

  For a moment she felt suspended in the heavens, joined to Simon inextricably for eternity while his seed still poured inside her and her heart beat a madly exultant rhythm.

  Then her heart began to slow and his breathing to settle. The creak of the carriage intruded in her thoughts, along with the realization that they were inches away from a city full of people who had no clue what they were doing.

  A little embarrassed, she loosed her hold on him.

  But he wasn’t done. “You are my wife now,” he whispered fiercely, still clasping her to him. “You are mine, Louisa. My wife. Say it.”

  “Your wife,” she echoed, the words feeling more like a vow than anything she’d said at their wedding. “I’m yours.”

  Some of the fierceness left his face, and he buried his face in her neck, his arms so tight around her that she could hardly breathe. “Don’t ever deny me your bed again. I don’t think I could bear it twice.”

  She stroked his hair, the rough pain in his voice melting her heart. Their joining was clearly more than mere lovemaking to him, and that made her regret being so harsh before. “There’s no need,” she whispered.

  Besides, today had made her realize the risk she’d taken. Denied an outlet for his urges, a man was liable to find it elsewhere. Especially a man like the Duke of Foxmoor, who could h
ave any woman he wanted. The very thought of him doing something like this with another woman made her ill.

  “You’ll be a real wife to me from now on,” he said.

  “Yes.” She hesitated, but she had to be sure. “As long as you’re a real husband to me.”

  He pulled back to eye her warily. “What do you mean?”

  “I won’t tolerate a mistress, Simon. I’m not sure I could even tolerate your going to a bawdy house.”

  Relief, then amusement shone in his face. “Didn’t you suggest only a few days ago that I do so?”

  She glowered at him. “Now see here—”

  “I am only teasing you,” he said with a light kiss to her nose. “Trust me, the last place you will ever find me is a bawdy house.”

  He said it with such conviction that she believed him. “And a mistress? You won’t take one?”

  His amusement faded to solemnity. “Not even if you banished me from your bed forever.”

  She swallowed, not quite sure she believed him. “Why not?”

  His eyes began to smolder as he lifted his hand to cup her breast. “Because I happen to like only one flavor of cake, sweetheart.” He kissed her neck. “Yours.”

  As he thumbed her nipple, the heat rose in her again. Oh, she truly was her mother’s daughter. And just now she was glad of it.

  “You see how easy I am to please?” he said. “Give me cake, and you can do whatever you want. At least until you find yourself enceinte.”

  She stiffened. Her sponges! Good heavens, she’d forgotten all about them. Too late to do anything about it now, but she must not forget again.

  He nuzzled her cheek. “I suspect it won’t be long until you are with child. Because when a man eats as much cake as I intend to, children inevitably follow.”

  The thrill coursing through her was tempered by the knowledge that she still intended to use her sponges. Just for a while. Surely she could be forgiven for that.

  You should tell him about the sponges. Simon would understand.

  Would he? No other man would. And Simon was more determined to have his way than most. No, she couldn’t tell him yet. But it would be all right; they’d been married less than a week. What was a few more days alone together before she had to think about children? Surely she could get past her fear eventually.