by Grace Burrowes, Shana Galen, Miranda Neville, Carolyn Jewel
She let him in, let him taste and beg and tease and beg some more even as he tugged the infernal bow free of her braid and slipped the scrap of silk into his pocket.
“You’ve used your tooth-powder,” he muttered, walking her back until she sat on the bed.
“You’ve used yours.”
Then she was at him again, pulling him over her, until he was crouched above her on the bed. Some dim, despairing corner of his mind knew he was behaving badly, but being a paragon was damned hard, lonely work.
Being a swain apparently had much to recommend it. Who knew?
Hardcastle gently palmed a breast through Ellen’s nightclothes. “I want to devour you, and you’re not telling me to stop.”
“I’ve wanted to devour you for three years, which is why—”
Three years? Three years they’d wasted with civilities and fine manners and thirty-three-day silences?
“Which is why you’re not stopping me now,” Hardcastle said, unbelting the homeliest quilted dressing gown ever to enshroud a man’s dearest dreams. “You can stop me, Ellen. If you order me from your room, I will get off this bed and return to my chambers.”
“I should,” she said, brushing his hair back from his brow. “I’m leaving in two weeks, Your Grace. This folly, precious though it may be, changes nothing.”
This was not folly. This was the beginning of a course they would chart together, one that would end at the altar.
“You shall not leave me,” Hardcastle said, getting off the bed, lest he disgrace himself in his haste. “I did not come here intending to seduce you.”
Not consciously, at least. A small fig leaf for his pride.
Ellen tied her dressing gown closed, then scooted back to rest against the headboard. She was oblivious to her braid coming unraveled, while Hardcastle could notice little else.
“You cannot tell me what to do, Hardcastle. I’m leaving your employ, and that is my final word. You are welcome to stay with me or quit the room as long as we’re clear on my plans.”
Less and less was becoming clear, except that Hardcastle was in the presence of his future duchess.
He began a circuit of the room, blowing out candles as he went. “You’d allow me the privileges of a lover, Ellen?”
God help him if she sought to become his mistress. Other women had offered to take his coin in exchange for enduring his intimate attentions. He’d set up such arrangements three times after coming down from university, and all three times he’d been disappointed—nigh disgusted—with the results.
“I am offering to be your lover,” Ellen said, drawing her feet up and linking her arms around her knees. “Though the notion shocks me. In two weeks, I’ll return to Derbyshire and resume a life with my parents and my sister. Our means are limited, and spinsterhood will be my lot.”
The hell it would.
“And if I were to propose?” Hardcastle asked, blowing out the last of the candles on the escritoire. Thank God for the sophistication of the English language and the delicate possibilities of conditional phrasing.
“I’d refuse you, Hardcastle,” Ellen said, without an instant’s hesitation. “You are discommoded by the ladies here at the house party, and you see decades of such house parties before you. Rather than entrust your future to the first debutante who can get herself compromised with you, you’re turning to a known quantity who’s already a member of your household. Your thinking is practical, but I could not accept such an offer.”
Good God. Her stubbornness would be admirable if it weren’t so baffling. “What could possibly motivate you to refuse a tiara, madam?” He knew why a sensible woman would reject his suit—he was ill-tempered, as she’d said, much consumed with estate business, and completely lacking in… charm.
Ellen gazed at her toes, whose acquaintance Hardcastle was very pleased to make. Rather than take a seat at the escritoire, as any sensible duke might have done, he slid onto the bed and took the place beside her, resting against the headboard.
“I will not be your duchess of convenience, Hardcastle. You’re simply having a bad moment. We all have them. I’ll get you through this house party, and you can tell your grandmama you’re considering possibilities. She’ll leave you alone for the next two years, at least.”
Hardcastle did not want to be alone. He took Ellen’s hand in both of his. “I’m to content myself with some shared pleasure where you’re concerned? A casual affair such as house parties are notorious for?”
She blinked at her toes. “Yes, and I will do likewise. I’ll have my pleasure of you and retire to Derbyshire with some lovely memories.”
What a foul abuse of a tender pair of hearts that would be. Something else was afoot here, but two things prevented Hardcastle from further interrogating the woman so resolutely rejecting his marriage proposal. First, he needed to think, to consider angles and possibilities, and this he could not do while reclining on a bed in full sight of Ellen MacHugh’s exposed toes.
Second, she’d accepted his offer to become her lover. Not even a ducal paragon could give strategy his attention when faced with that distraction.
So he kissed her.
*
Three years of living with Hardcastle had convinced Ellen of two things. First, the duke would not be rushed. Not at table, not when exchanging pleasantries in the churchyard, not when reviewing Ellen’s written reports regarding Christopher’s progress.
Second, when in pursuit of an objective, Hardcastle could not be stopped either.
This second attribute was a great comfort as His Grace situated himself on all fours over Ellen, kissed her, then pressed his cheek to hers, like a cat trying to inspire caresses. She should stop him, and she should order him from the room, but Derbyshire loomed in Ellen’s nightmares.
Beautiful scenery, the loving arms of family, and endless loneliness. As Hardcastle’s duchess of convenience, she’d be lonelier still, and yet, Ellen could not deny herself a night in the duke’s arms.
She’d have decades to regret this folly, but only now to indulge in it.
“Shouldn’t you take your boots off, sir?”
Hardcastle sat back on his heels and shot a disapproving look at her. “If you can think of boots at a moment like this, my kisses are clearly wanting in some material particular.”
“You’re overdressed for a moment like this, Hardcastle.”
His gaze went to the knot of her dressing gown’s belt.
Oh no you don’t. “Boots off, Hardcastle. Now.” Ellen used the same tone she’d apply when Christopher aimed longing glances at the main stairway’s banister railing.
“Your servant, madam,” the duke replied, bouncing to the edge of the bed.
“Was it so difficult to follow an order for once, Hardcastle?”
“In this bed, Ellen MacHugh,” he said, yanking off first one boot then the other, “I will follow any orders you give, even the ones you can’t bear to put into words.”
Those were legion. He should choose a duchess he could love, one who loved him, not merely settle for a convenient woman to whom he was attracted. He should make time for amusement, play the color game in all its silly pointlessness. Laugh, smile, flirt with the dowagers, and be late for meetings. Sleep in on rainy mornings and stay up half the night reading lurid novels.
“You grow silent,” he said, draping his waistcoat over the chair at the desk. “Silence is not permitted if it means you’re changing your mind. That’s an order you must follow, madam. You’ve given me leave to be your lover, and lovers talk to each other.”
“You’ve had so many?” She hoped he’d had a few. Lovers, women whose company he enjoyed, not merely sexual passing fancies.
He pulled his shirt off, and moonlight slipped through a crack in the drawn curtains to gild shoulders heavy with muscle. Hardcastle was an avid equestrian, and often went for long tramps with his stewards to call upon the yeomanry.
He was fit and beautiful, and that was before he shed his stockings and bree
ches.
“I’ve had enough experience to know what I’m about, Ellen. You must not be nervous. Whatever encounters you’ve had, including the great scandalous ones that sent you into service, they don’t signify.”
Hardcastle stood beside the bed, as confident in his nudity as he was in all his Bond Street finery, but what was he trying to tell her?
“Are you forgiving me for having a past?” Ellen had paid dearly for that past and could not expect him to ignore it.
The duke climbed onto the bed and kept coming, a predator on the scent, until he was once again crouched over Ellen, though this time, he wore not a stitch.
“I’m asking you,” he said, “humbly suggesting, in fact, that you set aside your preconceived notions, about what happens next, about yourself, about me, and allow me to pleasure you as a lady deserves to be pleasured.”
Ellen hardly knew what happened next, though she was very sure she wanted Hardcastle to be the one to show her.
The tone of his words was imperious, while the tone of his kiss was beseeching. Hardcastle’s mouth was all delicate patience and tactful entreaty as he pressed his lips to Ellen’s. His explorations were the gentlest invitations, and his presence became one of sheltering warmth rather than masculine demand.
When Ellen cradled his jaw with her palm, he moved into her touch. “Tell me,” he whispered. “Say what you long for.”
Ellen longed for time to absorb this beguilement, for years to explore Hardcastle’s unexpected capacity for tenderness. Even more tempting, she sensed he longed to lay still greater treasures at her feet.
“I long for you,” she said, the most honest summary of her dreams. “Only you, all of you.”
He rested his forehead against hers, and she took the moment to savor the silky texture of his hair as she slipped her fingers through his dark locks. He bore the lemony scent of a hard-milled French soap, and his back and shoulders were hot beneath her touch. In winter, sleeping next to him would be…
Some other woman’s privilege.
“If you’re to have me,” he said, rising from the bed and turning down the counterpane, “and I dearly hope you shall, then I’d best get under the covers.”
A more prudent woman would use the moment to extract a promise from him that he’d support any children resulting from this encounter. Ellen didn’t bother to ask, for of course he would. The greater question was, would she even let him know she’d conceived, when his child might be all she ever had of him?
“Shall I take off my night robe?”
Beneath her night robe, Ellen wore only a summer-length chemise. The fabric had worn thin over the past five years, but Emily had helped with the white work on the hem. Sentiment thus kept near what practicality would have surrendered long ago.
“Do you want to take off your night robe, Ellen?”
Of course she didn’t. She was not young, her breasts were modest when men supposedly liked an ample bosom. Her hips were generous, and she—
“My dear?” the duke asked, unknotting the sash of her robe, but making no move to take it off of her. “To be next to you, right next to you, skin to skin, heartbeat to heartbeat, would be a rare and privileged pleasure, but your wishes must come before all else.”
He’d wait all night, while Ellen dithered away another three years. She wiggled out of the night robe and handed it to him, then drew the chemise over her head and scooted under the covers.
“You may hide your treasures, for now,” Hardcastle said. Ellen expected him to toss her chemise aside, but he instead remained by the bed, running his fingers over the hem. “Part of your trousseau, I’d guess based on this embroidery. The work is very fine.”
“I enjoy needlework,” Ellen said. “Though it’s hard on the eyes.”
His Grace was the opposite of hard on the eyes. Hardcastle’s belly was divided into small, rectangular fields of muscle, arranged on either side of a trail of dark hair. The trail first narrowed before widening as it went south, and then….
Then Ellen had to look away. The sight of Hardcastle’s bodily anticipation of their pleasures would stay with her for the rest of her life.
He bunched the fabric of Ellen’s nightgown beneath his nose. “Lavender. Lilacs. You.”
The nightgown went sailing to the foot of the bed as the mattress dipped. In the next instant, Hardcastle was under the covers, fourteen stone of hot, naked, unstoppable duke.
“You peeked,” he said, sliding an arm under Ellen’s neck and drawing her against his side. “I’m quite flattered that you peeked, and you a woman of such iron self-discipline.”
“I could hardly avoid the sight of your wares right before my eyes. You gawked,” Ellen countered, finding the perfect place to rest her check against his chest. “I wasn’t flaunting anything, sir.”
“You needn’t flaunt your delights,” he replied. “I can learn all I need to know about your various attributes by tactile exploration. You may make similar forays upon my person, and I will adore you for them.”
Adoration wasn’t love, but Ellen hugged the admission close to her heart anyway. “I didn’t expect you to be so warm to the touch,” she said, tracing a single finger down the midline of his belly—halfway down.
His reply was to take her hand and wrap her fingers around a hot, smooth shaft of male flesh.
“You didn’t expect me to be so beastly aroused, but a duke is simply a man, Ellen. He’s a man with more responsibilities than most, but no less human.”
More human, maybe? Hardcastle’s hand fell away, leaving Ellen holding… the ducal succession, as it were.
“What does one do…?” she asked, running a finger around the tip.
“One indulges one’s curiosity, or—this is your only warning—two indulge their curiosity about each other.”
Ellen could not have said how long Hardcastle endured her explorations, how many ways she touched and teased and tasted him, how varied were the kisses they shared. She let go of the entire burden of propriety, let go of all the tomorrows and next years, and reveled in intimacy with the only lover she’d ever have.
Hardcastle was relentless when it came to her breasts. He kissed, he fondled, he applied nuanced, maddening pressure, he put his mouth on her and drew forth groans such as no governess uttered in the company of her employer.
Ellen would have let him arouse her thus all night, except she gradually grasped that he was waiting for her permission to become her lover in the fullest sense.
She tugged on his hair, which he seemed to like. “Hardcastle?”
“My name is Gerard,” he muttered, Ellen’s earlobe between his teeth. “You even taste like lavender. When I put my mouth between your legs, will you taste of lavender there?”
Gracious heavens. “You would not dare.”
He would, though. The reserved, sophisticated duke was nowhere in the bed. In his place was a lusty, lovely fellow who dared much and teased more.
“I can feel you blushing.” Hardcastle sounded thoroughly pleased with himself as he shifted over her. “You have the most delectable ears, madam.
“Hard—Gerard, you’ve humored my maidenly vapors long enough. If I can’t have you now, I will think you’ve had a change of heart.”
His palm cradled the back of Ellen’s head, and she pressed her heated cheek to his shoulder.
“Are you sure, Ellen?”
Now he asked that? Now, when she was so overwrought she was ready to bite him? But in this, he would be not the duke, but the gentleman, and the last piece of Ellen’s heart not in his keeping slipped from her grasp.
“Now, please, Gerard.”
Hardcastle braced himself on his elbows, a blanket of warmth and attentiveness. “I’ll do this part, while you luxuriate in my desire and consideration, else I shall disgrace myself.”
He was serious, also waiting for Ellen’s acknowledgment of his pronouncement.
“I’m luxuriating, Hardcastle. You have my word on that.”
“God knows
, I’m desiring.”
Despite that desire, he joined them slowly, with many lazy kisses, a detour here to draw on a nipple, a frolic there to nuzzle at Ellen’s temple. She caught his rhythm, learned the tempo and phrasing of his passion, and of her own. Of discomfort, there was none, but along with a growing wonder, Ellen also suffered a yawning sense of loss.
Hardcastle’s duchess would share this with him a thousand times, would hold him as passion crested higher and higher, would gather up the endearments lurking in his lectures and proclamations.
How could making love with him feel so blessedly, absolutely right, a long-awaited union of unlikely souls, a pleasure beyond description, and yet, all they would have was this short, drenching season of bliss, and then—
Hardcastle shifted, so he was more over Ellen, and that lined them up at a new angle, on a trajectory of sheer, mindless ecstasy. Ellen undulated into his thrusts, locked her ankles at the small of his back, and let desire pour into all the bleak questions and empty years ahead, let bliss have its long, lovely moment.
When Ellen could bear to ease her grip on him, Hardcastle was barely breathing hard, while she was panting in a near swoon.
“Now would also be an appropriate moment to luxuriate,” he whispered, “for I assuredly am.”
“If you move, Hardcastle, I will not answer for the consequences.” Ellen would surely start crying, just as soon as she wrung herself out in his arms again.
“You move,” he said, giving Ellen a lazy thrust that made her ears hum. “Play the color game. Close your eyes and see hues of passion, satisfaction, desire, and pleasure.”
“I’d lose every round,” Ellen whispered, smoothing a hand down Hardcastle’s back to grab a muscular fundament. “For I cannot think, cannot form sentences.”
“Splendid.”
Splendid, indeed. Hardcastle drove her through the maelstrom again, and then once more, the last loving sweet and lazy and all the more wrenching for the deliberation with which he pleasured her. When Ellen could bear no more, he gently withdrew, stroked himself a few times, and spent his seed on her belly.