Midnight Bride

by Marlene Suson

  Peters looked startled by the duke’s order, but he stepped aside to allow her to enter, then went out the door, shutting it behind him and leaving her alone with the duke. She was thankful that he had sent the valet away. With Peters’s censorious gaze upon her, she would have found it very difficult to plead the groom’s cause.

  The duke was standing near the heavily carved tester bed with its curtains of scarlet brocade. After her faux pas in mistaking his valet for him, Rachel was too mortified to raise her eyes to his face.

  He moved toward her, but her flustered gaze remained fixed on his muscular torso. His handsome coat of midnight blue was perfectly tailored to his broad shoulders and chest. To her surprise, the same odd sensation she had felt when she had first seen his groom twisted within her.

  “Your Grace,” she began, still unable to look at his face and so nervous now that she could hardly get the words out, “I have come to tell you how brave—”

  “I know why you have come,” he interrupted, his voice coldly cynical now. “You want to stake your claim ahead of Sophia.”

  Rachel had no idea what he was talking about, and her head snapped up in startlement.

  For an instant she did not recognize him with his blond hair neatly brushed back and tied at the neck instead of curling around his face in wet, unruly curls. Then she stared into those unforgettable blue eyes, as icy now as they had been when she had first looked into them by the river.

  Her jaw dropped in shock. “You!”

  “Surprised are we?”

  “Dear God, what are you doing here?” Her heart was suddenly pounding.

  “Since you seem to mistake my servants for me and vice versa, let me introduce myself. I am the Duke of Westleigh.”

  She stared at him in disbelief. “Then who was the man you saved this afternoon?”

  “My groom, Ferris.”

  “You cannot be the duke,” she said with conviction.

  “Why not? Your logic escapes me.”

  “Because you were so brave.”

  His mouth twitched in amusement. “Can a duke not be brave?”

  “Yes, but from what I have heard of Westleigh,” she blurted, “he would never risk his own life to save a groom—or anyone else.”

  “Then you will have to revise your erroneous opinion of me, will you not?” His sensuous lips curled in a humourless smile. “And now let us get down to your real reason for coming here.”

  He pulled her roughly into his arms. His mouth came down on hers in a hard, ruthless kiss.

  Rachel was frozen by shock. Before she could recover from her paralysis, his lips gentled on hers, caressing them sweetly, warmly, sending shivers of pleasure through her. Her shock melted in the slow heat enveloping her.

  She had never known that a kiss could be so exciting.

  Not that she had ever been kissed like this. Although three of her besotted suitors had attempted to steal them from her, only Sir Waldo Fletcher had managed to touch even one corner of her mouth with his lips. And then Rachel had felt nothing but revulsion and outrage.

  Now, however, disconcerting, wondrous sensations were exploding within her.

  Her legs seemed to turn to mush. As if sensing her sudden weakness, his arms tightened around her, supporting her.

  His tongue touched her lips, brushing them as lightly as a butterfly’s wing, tasting her as though she were a particularly enticing sweet. His warm breath teased her face.

  It was quite wonderful.

  She kissed him back. She could not help herself. Emulating his example, she opened her mouth and touched his lips lightly with her own tongue.

  He groaned and lifted his head slightly so that there was a scant half-inch of space between their lips. His voice was rich and husky. “I knew that you were bold, but I did not credit how truly brazen you are, my dear.”

  His words bewildered Rachel. She did not know what he was talking about, but before she could ask, his lips returned to hers as his hand came up to cup the soft weight of her breast.

  His thumb rubbed its crest through the mustard silk pleats of her gown. The pleasure that rippled through her was so delicious that, despite her shock, she was helpless to protest his audacity

  Then his tongue invaded her mouth, exploring and tantalizing it with a rhythm that stoked a yearning, as intense as it was mysterious, deep within her. She scarcely noticed that his hands slipped down to the hem of her short overgown.

  She clung to him, lost in the sweet storm that was swirling within her.

  Eleanor’s suggestion echoed in Rachel’s bemused mind: “Perhaps you should try to fix Westleigh’s interest.”

  She had indignantly rejected the idea then, but suddenly it seemed like wonderful advice. No man had ever made her feel as he did.

  Her breath caught as she felt the warmth of his hand on her breast again. She revelled in the pleasure his touch gave her. Belatedly, she realized, though, that there was no silk buffer between her and his caressing fingers.

  Startled, she wrenched her head back, breaking the contact between their mouths, and looked down. His hand had stolen up beneath the pleats of her pleated mustard sacque to claim the prize hidden beneath.

  Rachel was startled out of her sensual torpor. “No,” she protested, trying to push him away.

  For a moment, she did not think he meant to let her go. But then, after a visible shudder, he released her abruptly.

  “Damn you!” he growled, looking incensed as his hand dropped away from her gown.

  “Why are you angry at me?” she asked, baffled by his sudden change toward her from tender to furious. “It is—”

  “For God’s sake, spare me any feigned outrage,” he growled scornfully.

  She blinked in puzzlement. “But you were—” Her voice faded away in embarrassment.

  “And it was you who invited me to.” His eyes were as hard as winter ice. “You were so eager to capture a duke, you invaded my bedroom before we were even introduced.”

  The contempt and disgust in his voice flayed Rachel like a whip’s lash. “I do not care that you are a duke! Indeed, I liked you better when I thought you a groom!”

  “Did you now?” he retorted with shrivelling sarcasm. “So you are one of those ladies who has a taste for tumbling with the lower orders?”

  Deeply insulted, she cried, “I tumble with no one!”

  “Then why did you come to my bedchamber?”

  “Certainly not to be tumbled!” she cried in indignation. “How could you think that I came here for that?”

  “Well, what the devil was I to think? That is the only reason a lady seeks to be alone with a man in the sanctuary of his bedchamber.”

  Rachel was aghast. “Is that true?” She remembered the contempt on his valet’s face. “I did not know,” she gasped, mortified to the tips of her toes. “No one told me.”

  Jerome could not doubt that Rachel was telling the truth. Not even the very best of actresses could feign such dismay and embarrassment. Her face was as scarlet as the brocade bed curtains.

  Hell, she was a damned innocent.

  After the bold perusal she had given him at the river and the brazen way she had come to his room, who would have guessed it?

  Certainly he had not.

  Especially after the way she had kissed him. His blood heated at the memory

  Then he recalled how she had frozen with shock when he had first placed his mouth on hers. He had intended to give her a punishing kiss, but her stunned reaction had prompted him to gentle it and to coax a response from her.

  And he had succeeded in spades. Her rigidity and resistance had melted away and then she had returned his kiss with such sweet, untutored passion that it had taken his breath away.

  A fresh wave of desire washed through him, and he ached to take her in his arms again.

  When she had knocked on his door, Jerome had thought it was Sophia again. The vixen had already been to his room twice since his arrival, but Peters had turned her away both ti
mes. Jerome thought Sophia had returned for a third run at him. He had been astonished to see Rachel instead.

  He had been a fool to allow Peters to let her in, but his body had been aching for relief since he had met her at the river. Thinking her shamelessly offering it to him, he had seen no reason to resist.

  He inquired dryly, “Since you did not come to me for the obvious reason, why are you here?”

  Her face was still the colour of the bed hangings. “I wanted to help your—I mean, you.”

  “I was not aware that I required any assistance.”

  “But I thought you did.”

  She looked utterly flustered—and disconcertingly delectable. If Jerome thought he had been aching for relief before she had come to his room, it was nothing to the way he felt now. “Why would you think I needed help?”

  “Fanny means to insist to the duke that he turn you out without a character.” Her voice rose in indignation. “I was afraid that Fanny might succeed if he were not aware of what truly happened at the river and how brave you were.” Admiration turned to chagrin in her voice. “Only you are the duke! But I did not know that.”

  Another wave of hot scarlet flooded her beautiful face. “I feel like such a fool. You must think me an idiot!”

  He thought her the loveliest female he had ever seen with her guileless violet eyes and burning cheeks.

  But his deep distrust of such beauty instilled in him by hard, painful experience, made it difficult for him to believe her. He doubted she was capable of giving even a passing thought to a servant’s fate. “I am astonished that you would care what happened to a groom—especially one you do not even know.”

  “I would have done it for any person who was as brave as you were today.” Rachel’s eyes were suddenly alight with admiration.

  Jerome found himself basking in their glow God, but he wanted her. He hoped to hell that she continued to keep her gaze fixed on his face. If the lovely innocent looked down his body, she was in for a shock.

  He cast a quick, rueful glance at his bulging breeches. How the hell was he supposed to assume his haughty ducal facade and go down to dinner in his present state of splendid and clearly visible arousal?

  Jerome studied the dazzling beauty before him. Her long ebony hair had not been dressed in one of those elaborate styles he abhorred, but cascaded in lovely, casual waves about her shoulders. He was torn between flaming desire and a nagging incredulity that Lady Rachel could be as innocent and forthright as she seemed.

  Yet if she were intent on seduction, she surely would have worn something other than the god-awful gown that so successfully hid the tempting curves of her beautiful body. Its ugly mustard colour must be the one shade in the palette that could dim the lustre of a complexion as soft and velvety as white rose petals.

  She looked old enough to have had two or three seasons in London. Yet, if she had, he was certain he would have heard of her. Even in that sophisticated city such rare beauty would not go unheralded.

  “How old are you Rachel?”

  “Twenty”

  “Have you been to London?”

  “I have never been outside Yorkshire.”

  So that was why she was still such a delightful innocent. That would change, though, once she got to London. Then she would become as faithless and promiscuous as every other damned beauty

  Her poor husband’s life would be hell, spent wondering who her lovers were.

  He had narrowly escaped that fate once when he had been young and stupid. His father had warned him, but he had been too wildly in love with Cleo to heed him. Jerome had learned his lesson then. It had been a bitter one, paid for with scandal and his broken heart.

  No, Jerome told himself savagely, much as he hungered for Rachel’s lovely body, Emily Hextable was the perfect wife for him. Although he had never mentioned marriage to Emily, he felt committed to her. Both his father and hers had wanted the union. Jerome knew that Emily—and everyone else acquainted with them—expected him to offer for her.

  She was what he wanted for his duchess: a woman who devoted herself to good works, not some selfish beauty who would think only of herself as Cleo had. Nor would he have to worry about plain, pious Emily cuckolding him or presenting him with an heir that was not of his making.

  Yet, remembering the stunning moment when Rachel had returned his kiss with kindling passion, he was enveloped by a yearning for her as fierce as any he could remember.

  Wingate Hall offered a temptation that he had not anticipated. Jerome was much shaken to discover that neither his rigid self-discipline nor his loathing for beautiful women was protection against Lady Rachel. He needed to get away from her as quickly as possible.

  He hoped to hell that Morgan would keep their appointment tomorrow morning so that he could be gone from here by tomorrow night.

  Chapter 5

  Sophia Wingate swooped down on Jerome as he stepped into the drawing room. She was an overripe beauty with a generously endowed body and a heart-shaped face that bespoke either her or her maid’s skill with powder and paint. Her flame-red hair was dressed in an elaborate style piled high on her head, and a black, crescent-shaped beauty patch decorated her cheek.

  She smiled seductively at him. Sophia had a reputation for being eager to bed aristocratic men. The higher their title, the more eager she was. Which was no doubt why she was looking at Jerome now as though he were an especially coveted prize. She purred, “I am delighted I could lure you to North Yorkshire.”

  It galled Jerome to let her think he had come because of her, but since the real reason for his visit must remain secret, he did not correct her.

  Her green satin overgown was cut so precariously low at the neck that it scarcely contained her ample breasts. It was not the sort of gown a lady usually wore to her own dinner table.

  But then Jerome doubted that Sophia was a lady. No one in London had heard of her until she had married her elderly, socially prominent first husband, Sir John Creswell, who had died less than a year after the union. His widow did not mourn him long. She married Alfred Wingate four months later.

  Jerome, curious about her origins, inquired politely, “Are you a native of Yorkshire, Mrs. Wingate?”

  “No,” she said, her voice suddenly sharp.

  “Then where?” he pressed.

  She hesitated, as though debating how to answer, then said, “Cornwall.”

  Jerome smiled at her choice, which was as remote as she could get from Yorkshire. He doubted she was telling the truth. He had an acute ear, and he could discern no trace of a Cornish accent in her speech.

  “Where in Cornwall?”

  “A—a remote village near Land’s End.”

  “What is its name?”

  She did not immediately answer him. Jerome was willing to wager that she was frantically searching her memory for the name of a Cornish village. Finally, she said, “West Curry.”

  His knowledge of Cornish geography was considerably better than hers. West Curry was not in southwest Cornwall near Land’s End, but in the northeast. The truth about Sophia’s origins might prove the most interesting thing about her.

  Jerome looked around at the half dozen other persons in the room. Two middle-aged couples he did not know were conversing among themselves on the other side of the room.

  Alfred Wingate, Sophia’s husband, stood by the fireplace, talking to the thin youth with straw-coloured hair who had helped pull Ferris from the river. Jerome was shocked at how much Alfred had aged since he had last seen him. His dark hair had turned white, and he seemed to have shrunk into a timid, stooped old man.

  The drawing room door opened, and Jerome looked eagerly toward it, hoping to see Lady Rachel. Instead Lord Felix Overend, the Marquess of Caldham’s son, swept in. Jerome’s mouth tightened in distaste. Felix was both a fop and a fool, and Jerome had no patience with either.

  He had thought himself inured to Felix’s flamboyant dress, but the coxcomb had outdone himself tonight. His canary yellow sat
in coat, worn over breeches of the same colour, was lavishly embroidered with silver and brilliants. Flemish lace cascaded from his wrists. His white waistcoat and his yellow high-heeled shoes were embroidered with bouquets of yellow roses, pansies, and jonquils.

  Felix loved to ornament himself and everything that surrounded him. His horses and carriages must always be the most showy; his dress, the most ostentatious. He delighted in attracting attention and had not the wit to discern the difference between stares of admiration and those of affronted sensibility.

  He approached Sophia and Jerome. Even in his high heels, Felix was several inches shorter than the duke. Jerome’s nose twitched at the overpowering smell of musk. Felix must have bathed in the damned scent.

  Jerome despised musk.

  He felt the same way about Felix.

  As Caldham’s second son, Felix had no expectations from his father, but he had been the favourite of his maternal grandfather who had died when he was six and left him his vast fortune. Jerome doubted that grandpapa would have been so generous had he lived to see his favourite reach foolish manhood.

  “Heard you were expected, Westleigh, but I did not credit it.” Felix’s voice was high pitched and querulous. “Too far north for his grace to come, I told myself.” Diamonds winked from the gold buttons on his coat and the rings on his fingers, and from the buckles at the knees of his breeches and on his high-heeled yellow kid shoes.

  More than a little revolted by this display, Jerome said dryly, “You are looking quite—er, sparkling tonight.”

  Sarcasm was lost on Felix. “Thank you, thank you.” He proudly held up the arm of his canary yellow coat. “My tailor assures me this shade will be all the rage next season, now that I have taken it up.” His eyes darted about the room, and he said to Sophia, “Your niece is not here, ma’am.”

  She swished her fan coquettishly. “Dear me, Lord Felix, you make me feel quite ancient when you call me ma’am like that. You should know that I am only six years older than my niece.”

  That would make Sophia twenty-six. Jerome no more believed she was that young than he believed she had been born in Cornwall. He pegged her to be at least thirty