by Amelia Grey
Loretta could have counted every rib if she’d had the courage to keep looking at him. Her throat closed and her heart went out to this youngster who’d been reduced to begging for food. It didn’t seem right. Suddenly he didn’t feel like a stranger, but a part of her household, and now her responsibility.
“I have some clothing,” Mrs. Huddleston said, rushing up beside Loretta. “Oh, the poor dear,” she whispered staring down on his frail body. “I’m here now. Out with the both of you,” she said brushing her hands toward the duke. “I’ll take care of him from here.”
“We want to help him,” Loretta said.
“I know,” the housekeeper said. “You’ve already done more than you should. I’ve got the girls to help me. This isn’t proper for either of you. Now go on, out with you. Go finish your dinner, your conversations, or what have you. Out.”
Loretta looked at the duke, and he nodded. Perhaps it was time to let Mrs. Huddleston take over. She would know best what to do to warm him quickly.
“All right,” Loretta said, looking at her housekeeper. “I’ll check on him in a little while.”
The duke looked down at Mrs. Huddleston, too, and said, “After you get him dressed and covered warmly, rouse him and give him something warm to drink. Do it often throughout the night.”
“I will, Your Grace. I’ll take good care of him.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Huddleston.”
The woman beamed a smile at him and turned to her task.
Loretta led the way out of Arnold’s room and back the way they’d come and toward the dining room. She was chilled and shaken. And she desperately wanted the boy to be all right.
At the entrance to the dining room she stopped and asked, “Would you like to go back to the table? I don’t believe dessert was served. I can do that.”
The duke shook his head. “I think I have a brandy waiting for me in the drawing room, unless you’d like to go back to your dinner.”
“No, I was finished.” She turned and they walked back to the drawing room.
The corridor was wide in the old house, and the duke walked beside Loretta. She didn’t turn to look at him but felt his presence. There was a calming sense of safety being so close to him. She entered the drawing room before the duke and walked over to the secretary where she’d left the glass of brandy she’d poured him earlier. The duke strode over the fireplace, picked up the poker, and stirred the embers before adding a piece of wood to the rekindling fire.
“I’m sorry we have so few servants here and you have to tend the fire yourself.”
He turned back to her and, after a slight chuckle, said, “Though I seldom have the opportunity, I actually enjoy doing some things for myself.” His gaze zeroed in on hers. “Besides, there’s something pleasing about stirring up warm, glowing embers.”
Loretta had a suspicion he wasn’t talking about the embers in the fireplace but the ones that had been simmering between the two of them all throughout the evening. She walked over and handed him the glass, holding it very close to the bottom so there would be no chance their fingers would touch. The sensations he’d stirred inside her last time were too confusing to repeat.
“Thank you,” he said, and took a drink.
Loretta glanced toward the window. The storm hadn’t abated. She could hear the sleet hitting the windowpanes and the howling wind whipping fiercely around the corners of the house. She breathed a sigh of relief that the duke had found the boy and that they were all safe inside. Shaking off the chill she felt, she rubbed her hands up and down her arms and moved closer to the fire. Her sleeves were damp from the short time she’d waited outside.
“I keep wondering what he was doing this far out. There are no other houses nearby, and it’s almost half a day’s ride to the village by carriage. We’ve had Gypsies once or twice stop and ask for food but not often. They don’t usually travel this far out. Perhaps he could have been running away from someone and became disoriented and lost.” She looked up at the duke and asked, “Did you have a chance to ask him anything?”
“No. He was already too weak to say much.”
“Do you suppose he has a family who’s out there lost somewhere in the cold, too? Should we go look for them?”
“No, Miss Quick. I can’t say for sure, but I doubt anyone is with him. Judging from his worn clothing, he’s probably been on his own for some time. He has the look of street urchins I’ve seen in London. Most likely he’s been wandering around out here for days.”
“Oh, no, Your Grace, I don’t want to consider that possibility.” She turned toward the fire and, without giving clear thought to exactly what she was going to say next, murmured, “It was just very disturbing seeing him looking so helpless. So cold. Thin.”
The duke took hold of her arm and turned her to face him. “Here,” he said and put the glass up to her lips. “Take a sip.”
She shook her head and leaned away from him. “Oh, I couldn’t possibly do that.”
“Yes, you can. You’re cold. It will warm you and help calm you.”
“No, I’m all right. Really, it’s just he appeared so lonely, neglected, and mistreated.” The image of her mother lying in the bed, weak with pain so forceful she couldn’t be still or quiet, flashed through Loretta’s mind. “I don’t want to see anyone suffering.”
“Drink it,” the duke commanded softly as the glass touched her lips again.
His expression was so comforting that Loretta opened her mouth and sipped. The thought of drinking from the duke’s glass was so foreign to her, so intimate and unheard of, she hardly noticed the sting of the strong liquid on her tongue and at the back of her throat as she swallowed.
“Another,” he said quietly.
There was something comforting about what he was doing and how softly he was speaking that she obeyed without further question.
He smiled at her. “I find it incredible that you are so strong you can not only hold your own with a duke, but give him a dressing-down, too, yet the sight of a poor derelict young beggar has you trembling.”
“I’m not trembling,” she argued defensively, but quickly added, “Not exactly, anyway. But it’s easy to worry about someone who is completely helpless. I won’t apologize for that.”
His eyes softened even more. “I wouldn’t want you to. It doesn’t astound me that you are a compassionate person. It pleases me.”
“Anyone would be under the circumstances. He looked so lost and frightened when he saw you. And then when I saw how tattered his clothing was, I just wanted to help him.”
He held the glass up to her lips for her to drink again. And she did.
“He’s not suffering right now. I think it’s best for you not to think about the boy at all until he wakes and we can talk to him and get answers.”
“I suppose you’re right,” she answered, some of her unease about him fading, knowing he was safe and warm now at Mammoth House.
“That probably won’t happen until tomorrow,” the duke added. “I think we need to let him rest tonight.”
She gazed up into the duke’s green eyes. “It was kind of you to go out into the storm after him and then help undress him.”
The duke finished off the brandy and placed the glass on the nearby table. “I may be a rake, Miss Quick, but I’m not heartless.”
“Of course not. I would never think that you wouldn’t help someone who was in such dire need of rescue.”
“You helped him as well.”
Loretta realized she was feeling calmer. Warmer. And for the first time in longer than she could remember, she felt softer. And still odder yet, she felt a strange closeness to the duke. It was as if both of them caring for the poor beggar had formed a bond between them, and she wondered if the duke felt it, too. Or perhaps what she was feeling was the direct effects of the brandy doing its job of relaxing her.
“Your hair is wet.” She spoke quietly, letting her gaze stay on his eyes. “So is your coat. And for the second time today. You nee
d to change out of your damp clothing.”
“I am fine. But look at you. There are glistening droplets of water in your hair, too.”
Feeling self-conscious, she lifted her hand to smooth her hair over her ear. First one side and then the other. “It was very windy outside.”
“You shouldn’t have stayed out on the portico watching for us.”
“Everything was being handled inside. It was the only thing I could do to help.”
“You missed a spot.”
He reached up and brushed his fingertips through her hair along the crest of her ear. His touch startled her for an instant and she reached up to smooth her hair again. The duke caught her hand in his, and the warmth of his touch sizzled through her as he kissed the back of her hand. His kiss was so unexpected and gentle that Loretta’s settled breathing became short, shallow gasps.
He continued to hold her hand in one of his while, with the other hand, he continued lightly threading his fingers through the side of her hair. A few strands tumbled from the chignon at her nape. The gentleness of his caress was soothing. Almost mesmerizing.
His fingers slipped farther down. Slowly, he outlined its shape before circling behind her ear to lightly caress the skin there and along the column of her neck.
The heat of his gentle touch seeped inside her soul. Her body soaked it up as if it were a dry cloth being submerged in a pan of cool water.
“Have you ever been kissed, Miss Quick?” He took her hand to his lips again. “On your lips.”
His voice was husky and low, and the muted gleam in his eyes was seductive. She didn’t want to be a victim caught under the sensual spell he was casting over her, but she had no will to fight what was happening between them. Loretta knew what their exchanged glances meant. Their mutual attraction was undeniable.
She stood there, barely breathing, and allowed him to titillate her with his compelling touch, provocative words, and anticipation of something more to come.
“Yes,” she answered truthfully. “Viscount Denningcourt kissed me.”
“Often?” he asked.
“Everyone has their own perception about things, about time. I don’t know what you would consider often, Your Grace.”
“Every time he saw you.”
“No.”
“More than once?”
She hesitated again and tried to pull her hand away, but his fingers tightened around hers. He wasn’t letting go of her. His gaze remained firmly on her face, searching her eyes. His expression was so intense, her breaths became uncomfortably shallow.
“Yes,” she admitted and looked down at the fire, needing to do something to distract from the tension that was building stronger between them with every second that passed. “But I only saw him a few times before the—” She stopped and looked back up at him again.
“The wedding?”
The almost wedding, she thought. Inhaling deeply, she turned back to the duke and stared into his searching eyes. “The planned wedding that never took place.”
He nodded once. “I stand corrected. What did you think of the viscount’s kisses?”
Another easy answer. “Nothing,” she answered honestly.
A smile twitched the corners of the duke’s handsome lips. “What did he say about them?”
Loretta lifted her chin and recalled the words. “That he was to be my husband and kisses were necessary.”
The duke bent his head closer to hers. His gaze swept up and down her face, lingering on her lips for a few seconds before capturing her attention again. “Ah, Miss Quick, kisses shouldn’t be necessary. They should be anticipated, desired, craved even, and most of all enjoyed. Tell me,” he said, sliding his arms around her waist and catching her up against his chest. “Did he sweep you up in his arms with an urgent eagerness like this?”
She inhaled a sharp startled breath. A surprised “N-no” passed her lips. Not certain what he intended, her body stiffened in his strong embrace.
His sure hands slid up to the middle of her back and pressed her tightly against his chest, confining her with his warm, powerful body. “Did he hold you possessively like this and make you feel as if you were someone too precious to let go?”
“No,” she whispered again on a raspy breath, trying to regain her composure before she completely lost herself in the wonderment of what he was doing and saying.
“Did his lips hover longingly just above yours as mine are now, just waiting for you to invite him to take a taste of you?”
“No,” she said for the third time, but for some reason her tremulous voice made it sound more like a desperate moan.
His face came closer still, his mouth less than an inch away from hers. His gaze was so penetrating, it was as if she were taking every breath he took. Excitement grew inside her. Her heart beat erratically and loudly in her chest, drowning out the sounds of the bits of ice hitting the windowpanes and the crackling of the fire behind them.
She wasn’t a blushing eighteen-year-old as she had been the first time the viscount held her. She knew what she should do now. Push out of his arms. Run away. Scream, or at the very least try in some way to dislodge herself from his strong embrace that held her captive.
But reality was never quite as simple as it should be. The invitation he issued was far too seductive to rebuff. Against her better judgment and relying only on her feelings, she chose to stay in his arms.
The earl leaned his hard, muscular body closer into hers. She felt his strength, his heat, and though she’d never felt it before now, she understood the meaning of desire.
In a low and suggestive voice, he whispered, “Did he kiss you with such fervor your breath left your lungs and your knees turned so weak they wouldn’t hold you? Did he make you feel like you were the only woman in the world who could satisfy his yearning for passion that churned like a raging storm in his soul?”
“No, of course not.”
The duke’s arms tightened around her even more and in a gruff whisper he said, “Then I’m going to do that for you, Miss Quick.”
Chapter 5
It is never proper for a gentleman to even attempt to kiss a proper young lady.
A PROPER GENTLEMAN’S GUIDE TO WOOING THE PERFECT LADY
SIR VINCENT TYBALT VALENTINE
His voice was low. Persuasive.
A hasty puff of air forced past her lips, and it was all she could do to not melt into a puddle of wanting. It was too late to run or even deny what she was feeling. She didn’t know why or even how it had happened, but the duke had her believing all he said. Stunned by the trail of her own thoughts, she realized she wanted what the duke had promised—a taste of unbridled passion.
Gazing into his summer-green eyes, she felt hot, excited. An uncommon eagerness to explore these new inner desires had enveloped her. She didn’t know exactly what the duke was going to do, but she knew without a shadow of doubt she wanted him to kiss her and to do it now.
His face descended closer, her eyes closed, and his lips lightly brushed hers with warmth, sweetness, and the merest amount of pressure. At first she didn’t really know what to do. She remained still. But then her lips softened beneath his, her mouth softened and she joined the kiss. Slowly, curls of pleasure budded into life and opened inside her. The pressing of their lips together was tender, languid, and powerful. There was no other word to describe the feelings but glorious.
Instinct took over. She had never been kissed like this, but it didn’t take long for her to learn how to follow the movements of his lips. Her body relaxed and, without conscious effort, she lifted her arms and let them slide slowly around his neck. She leaned her body into his, feeling as if she were melting into him. His lips moved seductively back and forth over hers, sending shimmers of sensations spiraling through her.
The touch of his lips to hers was delicate. Feathery. So enticing she couldn’t deny herself these moments caught up so passionately in his embrace. Their kisses continued and her stomach quivered deliciously. She opened h
er mouth and willingly accepted his tongue with a sigh of magical discovery as he teased and played with the tip of her own. Her hands roamed over and around his wide shoulders and then slid down his strong, damp back.
Some kisses lingered, others were short, but all were abundantly delicious. She welcomed and savored each one. She responded to each by matching his movements and sighs. The endearments of passion stretched and melted them together in a sea of pleasure. His lips left hers and kissed across her cheek, over her chin, and down her neck to the strand of pearls she wore, and then back up to settle on her mouth again. Chills of thrilling desire rushed through her.
Loretta felt his breath on her ear before she heard his whispered words, “Oh, yes. You feel as if you belong here in my arms.”
Strangely, she felt that way, too, but instead of letting him know she agreed with his assessment, she said, “I didn’t realize it would be so difficult to breathe while kissing.”
“That is a good way to feel, is it not?” He smiled against her lips. “That is supposed to happen. You are meant to be breathless, weak-kneed, and eager when you are kissed.”
“Yes, all of that and more,” she answered, loving, craving that giddy and breathless feeling that she’d always expected would come with kisses from a man.
The duke’s hand moved to the center of her back to press her tightly against him. The other slowly came around her rib cage to fully cup her breast in his large, gentle hand.
Loretta gasped, moaned, and then sighed contentedly. Through her clothing, he lifted and massaged her breast. His gentle fingers pressed into the soft swell of her flesh above her gown as his palm kneaded into the weight of it. Pleasure like she’d never known washed warmly over her and consumed her.
It was madness.
And it was wrong.
She shouldn’t allow the duke such unrestrained freedom to be so intimate with her. Yet how could she deny herself these exquisite feelings that had taken control of her senses, her body, and her mind? They were pure luxury, and she was completely overwhelmed by all the new sensations swirling through her.