She repeated them with reverence. “I should have been with you.”
He did not reply except to tighten his arm around her, which was enough. She put her cheek to his chest, the heavy thrum of his heartbeat beneath her ear. She was with him now. And she’d stay all night if he’d have her, hang what her aunt and her brothers and sisters had to say. Eben needed her.
She’d stay all night. The next day. And the one after.
Until he found the words she knew he had to speak.
They lay in silence for a long time, until the candle at his bedside was barely a stump. Until Eben took a deep, shattering breath and told her his darkest secret. The one she already knew.
“I’m glad he’s dead.” The confession came on a whisper of fear, as though his father might hear him and take up haunting.
Jack did not loosen her grip. “As am I.”
“He was a drunk.”
“He was broken; unable to be mended.” Eben looked down at her, and she gave a little shrug. “And a bastard.”
His lips twitched at the forthright assessment. “That he was. Also a bad father. And a bad duke.”
“You shall be a better one.”
“You say that like it’s a foregone conclusion.”
She lifted her head, turning on the bed so she could rest her chin on his chest and tell him the truth. “It is.”
He let out a long breath and looked up at the velvet canopy once more. “Everything is going to change.”
“Nothing important.” Not this. Not them, together. Please. Not us, together.
“I’m a duke, now.”
“I always thought you weren’t impressive enough to be a marquess.”
He laughed, and joy spread through her at the sound. That hadn’t changed. She loved his laugh—like a secret between them. “You know dukes are higher than marquesses, don’t you?”
She matched his smile. “Yes, but marquess has such a stylish ring to it. I’d much rather be a marquess.”
“Well, I’m both, now.”
“And there you are, already an insufferable braggart.” She tucked herself closer to him.
His arm tightened again, and he whispered, “How am I to do this?”
The question heralded the change he’d foretold. It heralded the fear. The panic. The responsibility. Adulthood. She settled her hand on his chest, over his heart. “I shall help.”
“Do you have a great deal of expertise in being a duke?”
She didn’t like the question. Tried for levity. “No, but how difficult can it possibly be? Men bow and scrape to you and women wish to woo you.”
“That seems a fine assessment of the whole situation.”
“You shall be eternally grateful that I shall be there to keep you firmly on the ground.” He huffed a little laugh, and Jack worked to keep him there, in freedom, just for a moment. “How shall we begin? Shall I follow you about and remind you that you once struggled to find Constantinople on a map?”
“I did not. The map was upside down.”
She smiled at the well-worn argument. Solid ground. Equal footing. “Oh, yes, Turkey does move about on the map when viewed in reverse.”
“You think that my lack of geographical skill will impede my ability to woo women?”
She stilled at the question, time seeming to slow. “Are you interested in wooing women?”
“Isn’t everyone?”
What kind of women? She didn’t ask it. It wasn’t her business. Especially not tonight. After all, it wasn’t as though she hadn’t expected there were girls who had caught his eye. It wasn’t like she hadn’t imagined there were girls with whom he wished to…
But she hadn’t liked imagining them. That was all.
She’d hated it.
Not that it meant anything. It didn’t mean anything. He could woo women if he wanted. Good Lord, she wished she’d never invoked wooing. They were friends. And friends did not care about things like this.
Except, it seemed Jack cared very much about precisely this kind of thing. She closed her eyes tight and willed everything returned to normal. Except perhaps he was right. Perhaps everything was going to change.
And then he said, quietly, “Jack?” and she was a runaway carriage, unable to be stopped.
“Jacqueline,” she whispered.
“What?”
She did not look away from her hand on his chest. “I’m not a child, playing pirates any longer, Eben.”
He was still for a long moment, long enough for her to feel like she might perish from mortification. She looked up at him, into his wide eyes, confusion and surprise and something else—something like understanding dawning.
Oh, God. It was mortifying.
She put her head down. “Never mind.”
But it was done, and suddenly neither of them was a child anymore. And not only because he used her full name. “Jacqueline.”
She didn’t look at him, not even when she whispered her reply. “Yes?”
“I missed you today.”
She closed her eyes tight. Told him the truth. “I missed you, too.”
Quiet again. Then, “I don’t want to win women.”
Her heart began to pound. “Why not?”
“Because I don’t need them.”
She held her breath. “Why not?”
“Because I have you.”
She lifted her head at that, her eyes finding his, her lips parting on a little surprised breath when he dipped his head and stole them, just as he’d stolen her heart.
It was the first kiss of dozens, hundreds, thousands over the next two years, kisses that would blend together into a sea of memory, of clandestine moments and desperate desire. But that one—that first one—was not a part of that sea. It was memory distilled, singular because it was first.
For the rest of her life, Jack would remember every fumbling second of that kiss: the way he pulled her against him, the wild thoughts that tumbled through her as his fingers slid into her hair, holding her still as they explored each other, the warmth of his long body against hers, the rough scrape of his unshaven cheek, the firm planes of his torso, the certainty that this moment was perfection warring with uncertainty—could he possibly want her as much as she wanted him?
Except when his tongue traced the seam of her lips and she opened for him, letting him into her for the first time, he growled, low and deep, the sound like nothing she’d ever heard before. And, in a flash, the friend she’d once loved was gone. In his place, Jack found the man she would always love.
The man who made her wild.
Jack cast off her inexperience with gusto and leapt into learning, pushing against his chest to slide up and kiss him back, playing with pressure and sensation, her own tongue licking out to test the fullness of his wide, bottom lip, the softness of it.
Soft like heaven. Sweet like it.
When she sighed her pleasure into him, Eben went stiff, moving to release her. She pulled back from the kiss, her eyes flying open, meeting his clear green gaze with complete certainty. “Don’t you dare stop. This is my first kiss, and I don’t want it done until it’s done.”
A beat, and then a slow, easy smile. One she’d never seen before. One that had her stomach turning with wild pleasure. “You’re awfully imperious, you know. It’s my first kiss, too.”
The wave of pleasure nearly knocked her over. “It is?”
A flush spread over his cheeks at the question. He cleared his throat. “It’s not as though I haven’t had the opportunity…”
She grinned. “Oh, of course not,” she replied, wanting to kiss his rosy cheeks. “But you haven’t done it.”
He cleared his throat again. “I haven’t.” He paused, then added, “So, don’t I get a say in how it goes?”
She shook her head, her gaze flitting down to his mouth, her lids half-closed, wanting more of him. “You don’t, as a matter of fact.”
“Why is that?” he asked, the low rumble of his voice deliciously unrecognizable.
She tore her attention from his mouth. “Two reasons. First, because you’ll probably summon some misplaced sense of duty and stop.”
“I am delighted that you think so highly of my sense of honor.”
She shook her head. “I don’t. I think it’s bollocks tonight.”
He pulled her tighter against him. “Understood. And is there a second reason you’re to take charge?”
She nodded, happily. “Because girls dream of their first kiss with a duke, so I have to make sure this one measures up.”
His lips twitched. “Girls have fantasies of kissing dukes?”
“Oh yes,” she said, eyes twinkling. Was there anything better than kissing and laughter? “What with how old and powdered so many of them are, how could we not?”
“But I’m not old or powdered.”
She nodded, feigning disappointment. “As dukes are thin on the ground, I suppose you shall have to do.”
“You have a smart mouth.”
“Aren’t you lucky you are able to kiss it?”
In response, he rolled her over, pressing her back to the bed, leaning over her, staring deep into her eyes as her fingers threaded into his hair. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
She pulled his head down to hers. “Perhaps you’ll believe it with more practice.”
They practiced until the wee hours of the morning, when that familiar purple light spread across the horizon and he walked her through the dark halls of the house that was now his by name and right. When he opened their secret doorway and stole another kiss, it was the first morning of their second life—the one that had begun with that first kiss that neither of them would ever forget.
He’d nearly closed the door behind her when she put a hand to the painted oak and whispered his name.
When he looked to her, she smiled. “Happy Christmas.” And then she vowed, clearly and perfectly. “Nothing will change. I’m still here. We’re both still here.”
Of course, she was wrong. Everything changed.
CHAPTER THREE
Christmas Day
She was soft and warm and naked in his arms, like a gift, just where he’d dreamed of her forever. He pulled her close and breathed her in, an impossibly lush garden in the dead of winter. She whispered his name like sin. “Allryd…”
Thump. Thump.
He rose over her, pressing her back to the soft bed, burying his lips in the crook of her shoulder, tasting the sweet-salt of her skin, licking over the round of her shoulder as her hands stroked along his body.
“Allryd…”
His name again. A prayer. A promise.
He growled and explored lower, over the swell of her breasts, seeking and finding one straining brown tip, taking it between his lips and worshipping it with slow, languid pulls, knowing how much she loved him to play there…long and lingering until she was writhing with want.
Thump. Thump.
Her fingers were in his hair, fisting with a roughness she could not restrain, pushing him lower, directing him over her impossibly soft skin, past the warm, wonderful swell of her belly, to where he ached to be… His mouth watered as her thighs fell open.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Was that his heart? It must be. Pounding in desperation. Christ…How long had he ached for this? For her? For his love to return?
“Allryd…”
Wait. Something was wrong.
No. He tightened his hold.
She never called him that.
She was slipping away from him. Her warmth was disappearing. He lifted his head to find her eyes. If he could just find her eyes, maybe she’d stay.
Thump thump thump.
He couldn’t find them. He couldn’t feel her. She was gone.
“Fuck!” he roared as he opened his eyes, clutching the bedsheets, hard as steel, head and heart pounding, filled with fury and desperation and something dangerously close to madness.
Alone.
“Christ,” he whispered, rubbing his hands violently over his face.
He rolled himself up to sitting, letting his bare legs hang over the side of the bed in the cold room and paused, leaning forward, capturing his pounding head in his hands. They’d had ham for luncheon two days ago. Surely there was something to eat in the icehouse. Of course, that meant he had to go downstairs and outside.
And risk seeing her.
Not that seeing her would matter.
He didn’t care if he saw her.
And even if he did see her, he’d made it more than clear that he had little interest in seeing her again. That, he remembered. It was the bit after that was…uncertain.
Because he’d gone back to drinking.
Christ, the room was cold. He groaned, realizing that the fire had died in the hearth. The room wasn’t merely cold, but frigid.
Christmas meant no servants and no servants meant no food or heat unless he summoned it himself. Which he was more than able to do, if only the room would stop spinning.
Perhaps the cold air would temper the ache in his head. And the one in his cock.
He stood, cursing his choices from the night before and desperate for clear thought, which twelve years of Christmas Day experience told him he would not have for at least another six hours. Which was fine, because he planned to be alone, with his ledgers. He would find cold food and hot drink and he would check the accounting of his estates, as he did on the twenty-fifth of every month. December should be no different.
It did not matter that it was Christmas Day.
And it certainly did not matter that she was next door.
Thump thump thump.
Allryd whipped around at the sound, an echo of the dream now disappeared. His attention fell to the door to his chambers, upon which a massive beast seemed seemed to pound.
Thwack thwack!
Likely not a beast if it had climbed stairs and knocked on doors.
Maybe it was Jack.
It wasn’t Jack. He’d made it clear she wasn’t welcome here. That, and she wouldn’t have knocked. She would have entered and climbed into his bed, like she’d done a hundred times before.
Desire returned, the cold unable to combat the thought of her in his bed.
Except, she wouldn’t have climbed into it this time. This time, she had a fiancé. Who no doubt had his own bed.
And damned if the thought of her in another man’s bed didn’t make Allryd want to tear down walls to stop it.
Thwack! Thwack!
“Goddammit! Enough!” he called out, hating the sound of his own voice, the way it clamored through his skull like an axe. Maybe it was a beast at the door. Maybe it would put him out of his misery.
The door opened. “You look like proper hell.”
It wasn’t a beast. It was Lawton. Tall, broad, clean-shaven, and impeccably outfitted as the clotheshorse always was, boots shined to perfection, his cravat gleaming white against his black skin in elaborate folds and swirls, his crimson and gold waistcoat no doubt a nod to the date.
“What are you doing here?”
“Have you forgotten I have a desk below? Right next to yours?”
“I thought you had a holiday to observe,” Allryd growled.
“I thought so, too,” the other man said, leaning casually against the doorjamb, “but I work nearly as hard as you do, so I haven’t anyone with whom to observe it.”
Charles Lawton’s brother owned a tavern in Marylebone, where many of London’s dockworkers spent their evenings. The brother came with a fine wife and two boys who routinely turned up at Allryd’s house to boisterously hang about the trouser leg of their all-too-cheerful uncle.
Allryd narrowed his gaze. “That’s a lie.”
Lawton flashed a smile. “Joan doesn’t want you alone on Christmas.”
“Why is everyone so concerned with my holiday solitude?”
“Everyone?”
He certainly wasn’t telling Lawton about Jack’s arrival in the dead of night. His business partner was
an old woman at a church tea when it came to gossip. “You.”
“I don’t give a damn where you spend the holiday. And, truthfully, I think it’s less that Joan is concerned about you and more that she likes to tell her friends about the duke who comes to dinner. That, and the boys like it when the ‘strange toff’ comes.”
Allryd grunted, ignoring the hint of satisfaction that came at the words. The boys were fine, he supposed. Most of the time, he liked them better than their uncle, who was still speaking, to the detriment of Allryd’s pounding head. “Their affinity for you is perplexing, I know, as there’s not a thing about you that’s agreeable, but they’re children and therefore know very little.”
Allryd ignored the dig. “You’ve wasted a visit. You should have told them I was busy.”
“It’s Christmas Day, Allryd. No one is busy.”
“I am. I am working.”
“At what? Sleeping until all hours and struggling to stand?” Lawton said, coming into the room. “It’s freezing in here. And it stinks of stupor.” He moved to the window and threw open the heavy drapes there. “I should open this window and air you out.”
Allryd closed his eyes and turned his back to the sky beyond. “Goddammit, it’s December. Why is the sun so damn bright?”
Lawton turned to face him. “It’s snowing.”
He stilled. Jack would be elated.
No. He did not have time to think of Jack. Nor was he interested in how she might react to the snow. He cleared his throat. “Then you’d best get back to your dinner; you won’t like it if the snow keeps you here. As you convinced me to let the servants have the holiday, I’ve nothing to feed you.”
Lawton cut him a look. “Leaving aside the fact that I know the larder is stocked full, I assure you that your current state—naked as a babe and stinking of gin—is no kind of incentive to stay.”
Allryd reached for his dressing gown. “It was whisky.”
Lawton stilled. “My whisky?”
“As it was in my home, its ownership is not exactly precise.”
The other man narrowed his gaze. “Was its location precisely on my desk?” When Allryd moved to covered himself without replying, Lawton made a noise of disgust. “You don’t even drink. It was wasted on you.”
How the Dukes Stole Christmas Page 10