She assessed her position. “This is not exactly ordinary, is it?”
“Not completely ordinary, but not so unusual either.”
It felt quite daring. Exciting. She settled in better. A prod on her bottom startled her. She looked back and realized that the tip of his shaft poked at her, low on her bottom, as if searching for her— The possible implications left her astonished.
He kissed her crown and caressed her breast. She squirmed a bit. That prod responded. She wondered if she could scoot forward just a bit so—
“Do not worry. That is for another night, not this one.”
That hardly reassured her. She thought, however, that if she sat up, she might not feel as vulnerable. Once she did, she understood what he meant about this being better. She could see him nicely now, those shoulders and arms and his chest down to where she sat. She fluttered her fingertips over him, to judge whether all of him felt like his shoulders.
Better, she decided. She laid her palms flat against him high on his chest. She felt his heartbeat, its rhythm pulsing right into her, up her arm and down her body.
Other than a slow caress on her arm, he had left her to her explorations. Now abruptly he guided her head down and kissed her hard.
He held her like that, his hand behind her neck, while he ravished her mouth. She sensed the power of desire in him far more than she had the last time. His kiss did not so much lure as demand. Her body became sensitive all over, alive with anticipation. When his tongue entered her, he held her head in both his hands so she could not refuse, or in any way pull away even a small bit.
He kissed her breathless before releasing her. She pressed her weight onto her arms and hovered, thinking she might fall over.
He dragged the skirt of her nightdress up. “Take this off.”
She had to kneel up high to do that. She slid it up and over her head. The cool air lapped at the fine sheen of sweat that passion had raised on her skin. It seemed another tease, one more thing designed to make her think and care about nothing except being touched and kissed and driven to sensual insanity again.
Holding her around the waist with his two hands, he lowered her again. Only this time she landed a little farther back, and on top of his shaft. She felt it beneath her, hard and big, pressing against her softest flesh. Shudder after shudder trembled through her loins.
This position might be better for her to see him, but he also could see her. He watched her reactions when he gently stroked her breasts’ tips. He saw how she struggled to contain it, and deliberately made sure she could not. He aroused her until she could barely stay upright, and until her exposure to his gaze undid her. She wanted to hide her madness by cowering beneath him, not show him how he made her die of want.
Finally he guided her down for another kiss, then spoke. “Do as I say now, and I think you will know a pleasure most extraordinary, Lydia.”
He rose up and stacked pillows so his upper body rose. He reached for her and moved her forward. “Put your hands here and press to steady yourself.” Here was against the headboard, a foot above his head. Doing that meant angling forward while kneeling, so she hovered over his torso and head.
He moved her knees farther apart, wide. Her stance alone aroused her profoundly. He took her breasts in his hands and that made it worse. He caressed the tips again and again until she could not contain her cries.
“Some night I will put you like this, but kneel behind you and take you that way. Do you understand? But not tonight. Tonight I want you to accept the pleasure. I want you to weep and cry and scream with it. Obey me and you will be glad for it, I promise.”
Then he ensured she cried. Her breasts hung near his mouth and he used his teeth and tongue to push her past all sense of decency. The more he tortured her, the more she felt sanity slipping away. She pictured the night to come, when he would kneel behind her, and her bottom rose and her vulva pulsed as if he were there.
She had no choice but to accept the madness. It claimed her completely all on its own. It brought excruciating desire, however. He slid his hand into the slick damp atop her thighs, where her splayed legs left her open and helpless. He touched again and again, each sure, small stroke sending a sharp shock of pleasure into her chaos.
She cried out, frantically, shamelessly. With each touch she did again. When his caresses stayed on two spots of unbearable sensation, her cries turned pleading. As if learning what he needed to know, long deep caresses shook her essence. She moved to make it better, worse, more, and lost all control when she did.
Soaring now. Aware of nothing but pleasure so intense it was not real. It suffused her, then constricted more and more, increasing in power, frightening her.
Suddenly a shock of sensation burst out of the center of the intensity and shattered it apart, casting her into darkness. Wave after wave of bliss flowed through her while she existed in that unearthly place.
When she found some sense again, he was inside her and she was on her back. His palm now pressed the headboard while he leveraged his weight into a rhythm of thrusts. Not as careful as the last time, nor as gently, he thrust again and again until he too accepted the ecstasy.
• • •
He dragged himself back to alertness, and to the tangle of limbs they made. He moved off her and rolled onto his back, still half absorbed by the small death of release. He tucked her close instinctively, to ride out the rest in her warmth.
She stretched against him like a cat and snuggled against his side under his arm. They lay like that until his brain began working right again.
“You were right,” she said sleepily. “It was most extraordinary. Was it wicked of me?”
“We are married.”
“Yes. But . . .”
But still wicked, because he might as well have been a stranger, he guessed she meant. Wicked because women thought pleasure and love belonged together, unless a woman was a whore.
“What other experiences have you had in your determination to be extraordinary, Lydia?”
She yawned. “Not any this interesting.”
“You saw those men naked. That was not predictable for an innocent.”
“I can claim no credit. It was an accident, as I said.”
She pulled the sheet up, and curled on her side to sleep.
“Who were they?”
She went still. She did not speak.
“I know you are not asleep already, Lydia.”
She sighed. “If I tell you, do you promise not to do something noble and honorable about it. They cannot be blamed either.”
He liked that “either.” He suspected Lydia, the aspiring woman of the world, had looked at those bare asses good and long. “I will not blame them or ever speak of it.”
“Since you promise—it was Kendale and Ambury.”
Kendale and Ambury? Hell.
Very awake now, he glared at her peaceful, contented face.
“Are there any other extraordinary experiences I should know about?” He sounded a little harsh to his own ears. But the mind reeled. He remembered Kendale bringing up male brothels. It would be just like her to be curious, and visit one to see what it was all about.
No, that was a mad notion. She wouldn’t ever have done that. He eyed her. Would she?
“It would be best if I knew now, Lydia. For example, your brother mentioned something about a galley—”
She came alive in an instant. Her eyes opened and flashed anger. “I am going to scold him severely. How dare he speak of that. And to you, of all people.”
“He probably thought your husband should be prepared for prior adventures that might lead to talk.”
“No one knows about that. Except him. And now you. And of course the smugglers.”
“And of course the smugglers?”
“It was their galley, wasn’t it?” She sat up, exasperated at her brother’s indiscretion. “It was last summer. Do not tell anyone, but living on the coast as we do, we know some of the smugglers who ply the w
aters there. You really can’t avoid acquaintance with someone in that trade. One in particular we know very well. I think he helps Southwaite with that watching, but we have known Tarrington since I was a child. He is like you that way.”
“Except he is a criminal and I am a duke.” A small detail to her, no doubt, but one worth pointing out.
“He has galleys that go over to France and bring back wine and lace and such. Such adventure! Again and again he goes. I have never been to France at all.”
He covered his eyes with his hand. He knew, just knew, where this story was going.
“So I stowed away. He discovered me halfway over. It was so hot under the canvas pile where I had hidden that I had to come out. Tarrington was not very nice about it.”
“He knew your brother would have his head if anything happened to you.”
“So he said. Still, he did not have to turn around as he did. He could have at least finished the run so I could see France. He did not have to tell Southwaite either. And he most definitely did not have to make me help row. My hands were blistered for weeks.”
He knew Tarrington. His opinion of the man now rose with each of her sentences. “A few blisters on your hands was a small punishment. You were lucky your brother was not the sort of man to give you blisters on your rump for such a stupid and dangerous caprice.”
“It was stupid. I knew it was even as I did it. But it was still exciting.” She smiled slyly, turning their prior conversation back at him.
He hardened at once. He came close to throwing her down and showing her more excitement. Instead he stretched for his robe, threw it on, and left her to her sleep.
She might be nothing but trouble. She might try one outrageous extraordinary thing after another. As a duchess, however, the whole world would hear about most of it.
There was nothing else to do. He would be forced to see that her need for excitement was met in other ways. Duty called.
• • •
“It is very early for you to be going out,” Rosalyn said two mornings later. She sat in the morning room drinking coffee and eating the little cakes she kept instructing the cook to make. Her earlier than normal arrival for breakfast meant Lydia had not left before Rosalyn came down, the way she had planned.
Lydia pulled on her gloves. “I am going to Berkeley Square.”
Rosalyn considered that while she sipped and chewed. Finally she gave an expression of quasi-approval. “I suppose with your own family, the question of appropriate hours for calls can be ignored.”
“I am so relieved you think so. I almost did not dress until I received your agreement that it would not cause a scandal.”
Rosalyn’s lids hooded her eyes. “You do not fool me, Lydia. Nor will I allow you to make me the brunt of your disrespectful humor.”
“Then do not indulge your inclinations to treat me like a schoolgirl, Rosalyn. I do not need a finishing governess.”
“Do you not?” Her gaze raked Lydia from head to toe. “Better if you had not dressed before seeing me, I dare say. That dress will not do for a duchess, even if she only visits family.”
“Actually, I am going to visit Cassandra.”
Rosalyn’s brow puckered. Her mouth twitched. Lydia picked up her reticule and left.
It had been naughty to deliberately upset Rosalyn by announcing she would visit the unsuitable Lady Ambury. Very wrong. But each time she saw Rosalyn, Rosalyn managed at least one nasty poke. One criticism or one sigh or one expression of dismay. Under the circumstances, she could be forgiven for poking back. Perhaps in a few years she would become so mature that she would be able to resist doing that.
She instructed the coach to take her to her brother’s house. She entered it as he had insisted she feel free to do, without ceremony. She found Emma finishing her own breakfast.
Emma ate faster on seeing her. “I am ready. Just one more bite.”
“Has Southwaite come down yet?”
“No, but he will soon.”
“Then we should go. I would rather not lie to him.”
“And I would? I have already told him you and Cassandra insisted on taking me to some shops so I do not die of boredom. That was not a lie. We will indeed go to some shops before we return.”
Emma stood. Rather suddenly in the last week her condition had begun to show. The styles hid it still, but when she moved, the little bulge became visible beneath the muslin.
“It is so good of you and Cassandra to do this,” she said as she buttoned her spencer.
“I have been looking forward to it, Emma.”
They went out to the coach. It then circled the square to Ambury’s house. Cassandra appeared at the door as soon as it stopped. She came down the steps and accepted the footman’s help into the carriage.
Lydia took in Cassandra’s fashionable blue coaching ensemble. “You can hardly be useful wearing that.”
“I brought an apron.”
“You will cry off doing anything that might dirty that ensemble, apron or not. If I had to suffer Rosalyn thinking I had no style, you could have worn old clothes too.”
“Rosalyn only disapproved. Ambury would have been suspicious if I decked myself out like a servant. Now, let us go. I confess I am very excited, but I do not know why. Perhaps because we are on a secret mission.”
“How dramatic,” Emma said. “I hope you are as excited three hours from now. I fear you are in for a big disappointment. This will be hard work. I would have brought the servants if I could be sure they would be discreet.”
The coach rolled through Mayfair, heading south. It stopped near Piccadilly, on Albemarle Street. Emma led the way into a tall building that housed Fairbourne’s auction house.
A chaos of activity greeted them inside the exhibition hall. Men scrubbed floors and dusted high chandeliers. Others moved tables. Two hung paintings on one of the high gray walls.
They followed Emma through it all to a chamber in the back. She paused after she opened the door and audibly groaned. “It is even worse than the letter from Obediah admitted.”
All kinds of objects stuffed the chamber. Paintings and rolls of paper. Silver objects and fine porcelains. Small furniture pieces and stacks of leather-bound books.
A new presence hovered behind Lydia. She stood aside so Obediah, a slight, balding man with an avuncular manner, could enter.
“I am distraught that you had to come, Lady Southwaite.” He looked around, shaking his head in dismay.
“How long has it been since my brother was here?”
“A week or two. Maybe three.”
Emma’s eyes narrowed. “None of this is catalogued? The auction is less than a fortnight away. I will kill him.”
Cassandra patted her shoulder. “Do not become overwrought. We are here and in no time at all we will have dealt with this.”
Emma did not appear convinced. Stoic but unhappy, she studied the contents. Then she walked out.
“I will do it, as I usually do, because he does not. Here is how we must proceed. The items should be brought to me in the office, one by one. I will write them up, and you can dust them while I do. The men have too much to prepare and cannot be spared today, but hopefully they can help tomorrow.”
Cassandra shed her mantelet and donned her apron. Lydia removed her spencer.
“The silver first,” Emma said before disappearing through a door nearby, to the office.
Lydia gripped a heavy candelabra. Cassandra handed her a cloth.
“Do you think your brother will be angry if he learns she is doing this?” Cassandra asked.
Lydia thought about how her brother treated Emma. He was no one’s fool, least of all a woman’s, but they had a very special understanding of each other. “If he forbade it, yes, he will be angry, but mostly out of worry for her. He understands what Fairbourne’s means to her, so that will make a difference.”
She carried the candelabra to Emma. She sat at a desk, paper and ink at the ready. Her sharp eyes examined the base for
marks, then she scratched onto the paper. Dust flew when Lydia used the cloth.
She returned to the storage room. “We must dust here. She will be the worse for it if we do it in the office.”
She and Cassandra found a rhythm that wasted little time. It was hard work, however, especially when they handled the larger items. If Emma tired, she did not show it. The hours progressed in a series of passings, Lydia going one way while Cassandra went the other.
After delivering one of the rolls of drawings, Lydia returned to the storage room to find Cassandra waiting. “After she finishes with those, we must make her stop. It has been more than four hours. She will go all day and all night if we are not firm with her.”
“It was a rather thick roll. I expect it will take her some time.” Cassandra sat on a chair waiting to be catalogued. “It appears you and I have time for a chat. How do you fare at Grosvenor Square?”
Lydia moved a tapestry and sat on another chair. She had not really spoken to either Cassandra or Emma since her return to London. Oh, they had seen her that first day and showered her with expressions of happiness, but neither one had visited her yet, and no questions had been asked.
One just had been, however.
“I manage not to hate his aunt, although she does not like or approve of me and makes her opinions very clear. She is careful not to go too far, because she fears he will ask her to leave then. Only that restrains her, I think.”
“I was not really asking about his aunt, Lydia.”
No, she was not.
“I have learned that I like sharing a bed with a handsome, exciting man, even if I do not love him and hold a serious grievance against him. So I fare well, I suppose, in the one thing that could have made this marriage hellish.”
Cassandra’s smile barely wavered. Her gaze probed, however. “There are not many whose direct speech can startle me, but you have always been one whose words often do. So it was not a love match. I wasn’t sure. He always seemed to be around you the last month, and I thought, perhaps— Had you no choice, Lydia?”
“He insisted not, and I saw no way out. A comedy of coincidences and accidents lined up, leading to that church in Scotland. I wasn’t even really compromised. It only thoroughly appeared as if I had been. If that isn’t unfair, I don’t know what is.” She laughed, then sighed. “He probably feels he was trapped into doing the right thing, and I feel trapped into being a duchess. If you sympathize with his plight more than mine, I cannot blame you.”
The Accidental Duchess Page 19