The Duke of Ice

by Burke, Darcy

  His mouth left her breast, his tongue tracing up her sternum to her collarbone, then ascending her neck until he licked along her jaw. “Violet, do you remember when we were together before?”

  “Every moment.” She’d lived on those memories.

  “Open your eyes.”

  She did as he bade and saw him looking down at her, his gaze dark and dangerously seductive. Her body quivered with longing.

  “We didn’t talk beforehand—last time. If there’s anything you don’t want me to do, or anything you don—”

  “Just kiss me, Nick.” She clasped his neck and drew his head down so she could show him how badly she wanted him. She arched up with her whole body, spearing her tongue into his mouth.

  He slanted his head, and his fingers dug gently into her neck as he held her captive. The kiss was deep and dark, almost bruising. It was everything she’d wanted for as long as she could remember.

  His hips snapped into hers, and she could feel the length of his erection through his garments. She thrust back, wrapping her legs around his hips. The hand that was still between them worked her flesh, tormenting her until she pulled away and cried out, unable to contain her passion.

  “Kiss me everywhere,” she rasped.

  He obliged, his mouth moving across her cheek to her ear and making a slow, seductive descent. He paused at her breasts again, using his teeth this time to lightly nip her tightened flesh. She moaned and rotated her hips, seeking release.

  Then his lips were on her abdomen, leaving a trail of fire and need along her flesh. He gripped her hips and dragged his tongue downward. “Open your legs.” He pushed her thighs apart and then did the same to her folds, using his thumbs to stroke and tease her. Mindless with need, she arched off the bed.

  Then he answered her silent pleas and put his mouth on her. His touch was soft at first, gently licking her with his tongue as his thumb moved across her flesh. She thrust her hands into his hair and tugged at the locks, urging him to give her what she wanted, what she needed.

  He sucked her clitoris, stoking her release to the breaking point. When his finger slid inside her, she fell over the edge as an orgasm claimed her body. She shook with the force of it, her legs quivering and her breath coming in rapid pants.

  He tended her, his mouth and fingers taking her through her ecstasy until she emerged on the other side, spent and satisfied.

  “God, Violet, you are the most passionate of women.” He came over her and kissed her almost savagely. “You’re a gift,” he growled against her mouth.

  Satisfied was perhaps a premature assessment. Need built inside her once more—fast and hot. She reached between them and tried to unbutton his fall, but her fingers were made of jelly.

  He broke away from her and unfastened his pantaloons, then shucked them from his body as quickly as possible. While he was gone, she turned on the bed. He climbed up beside her.

  She caressed his shoulder, his back, trailing her hand down until she came to his backside. “I dreamed of this moment for so long,” she whispered.

  He moved between her legs, gazing down at her. “I would be lying if I said I’d done the same,” he said hoarsely. “I worked very hard to keep you from my mind.”

  “I understand.” She did, but that didn’t keep unshed tears from stinging her throat. “I know I hurt you, and if I could take it back, I would.”

  “Shhh.” He leaned down and brushed his lips over hers. “It wasn’t your choice. I know that.”

  “No, but I had choices.” A tear leaked from her eye and snaked down her temple into her hair.

  He kissed her forehead, her eyelid, her tear-stained temple, then smoothed her hair back, his fingers gently brushing the locks. “You didn’t. Not really. And I should have realized that.”

  “You would have if you’d gotten my letter,” she said bitterly.

  “We can’t look back anymore. I don’t want to.”

  She felt him tense and wondered if he was trying to convince himself as much as her. She cupped the side of his face, feeling the faint scruff of his beard at this late hour. “I want to look forward. With you.”

  He kissed her again, their mouths melding in perfect harmony. His hand moved between them, stroking her eager flesh. She moaned as he slid inside.

  She wrapped her legs around him, but he didn’t move. He simply stayed there, filling her, while he kissed her tenderly.

  Joy burst through her as ecstasy swirled, ready to explode within her once more. She clung to him as he started to pulse within her, withdrawing slightly, then thrusting back, increasing her sensation of completion. It was as if she’d found the part of her that was missing.

  She squeezed his backside and tightened her legs around him. He pulled back then, almost leaving her, before plunging back into her. Then he did it again. And again. And again until she was overcome with need. She clutched at him desperately, her harsh cries filling the room. When she didn’t think she could survive another moment, she came, her mind and spirit breaking into tiny, rapturous pieces that she knew he could put back together again. Having him here meant she could be whole.

  His body tensed, and she held him tight as his orgasm ripped through him. He shouted and, she laughed, unable to keep the happiness inside her.

  She stroked his back until his rhythm slowed, though his breathing was still hard and fast. He kissed her, touching her face, before he rolled to the side. She reached over and laid her hand on his chest as it rose and fell, eventually slowing to an almost normal cadence. His skin was warm, and she leaned close to press a kiss beside his nipple.

  “I don’t think I have words,” he said finally.

  “I don’t think I do either, but we should probably find some.” She rolled away from him and got up to tidy herself at the washbasin in the corner. She returned to the bed with a cloth for him.

  He took it, and she turned and went to pick up her robe. Before she could put it on, he said, “No. Please. Come back to me.”

  He pulled the coverlet back and slipped into the bedclothes, then beckoned her to join him.

  She did so, feeling suddenly shy, which was silly. He knew her as intimately as anyone ever had. As anyone ever would.

  She slid into bed beside him, and he drew her close. He kissed her hairline, his lips lingering against her. “What words do you think we need to find?”

  Gathering her courage, she turned to look him in the eye. “The words that will lead us back to each other.”

  Chapter 14

  Nick was confused. “I thought we had.”

  She traced her finger along his chest. “There are still things we don’t know—eight years is a long time.”

  Her touch was distracting, and he was already thinking of the next things he wanted to do to her. “If you don’t stop that, there will be no words. At least none that aren’t ‘please,’ ‘don’t stop,’ or perhaps ‘harder.’”

  Her hand stilled, but her lips turned up in a sultry smile. “You’re trying to avoid conversing.”

  “Perhaps.” It wasn’t that he didn’t want to. Actually, it was precisely that. “It’s difficult for me to talk about the past.” That his present held joy was astonishing. He was afraid of ruining his fortune.

  “Would you like me to start?” she asked softly, her lips curving into a gentle, sweet smile.

  He brought her head down and kissed her. She pulled back after a moment, and he gave her a lopsided smile. “If you must.”

  She swatted at his chest and lay down beside him, snuggling into the crook of his arm, her head on his shoulder. “I wished we’d run away together. In my mind, we did. I’d imagine us eloping to Scotland and never coming back. We’d live in a tiny cottage in the Highlands where we would have our children and our love, and we didn’t need anything else.”

  It sounded idyllic. “Why the Highlands?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Because it was far away, I suppose.”

  “I imagined us farther than that—America.”<
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  “Did you?” She leaned up to look at him again. “I thought you hated me.”

  “I did, but once in a while, I’d let myself fantasize about what could have been.” Particularly when he’d been miserable on campaign with the Fourth. “If you hadn’t been—” He stopped himself before he said something crude he would regret. She didn’t deserve that. He’d meant what he’d said, that she truly hadn’t had any choices. His twenty-two-year-old self hadn’t been smart enough to know that. “Forgive me,” he said.

  Her gaze turned soft. “There’s nothing to forgive.” She kissed his cheek, then settled back against him.

  He found he wanted to know the specifics. After all this time, he could learn the truth. “How long after you left Bath did you marry Pendleton?” He recalled reading about it, but didn’t remember—or maybe he’d purposely forgotten.

  “Almost immediately. It was about four weeks, I think. Just long enough for my father to arrange the marriage settlement and have the banns read.”

  “You had no say in the marriage?”

  “None. I sometimes wonder if they chose the worst possible person, someone who was bound to make me unhappy.”

  When he thought of what she’d already told him about Pendleton, he wanted to rouse the man from the dead and kill him all over again. But perhaps his anger was misguided. Perhaps he ought to direct it toward the living—namely, her mother and father. “Surely your parents wouldn’t be so cruel?”

  “I wouldn’t have thought so, but they refused to let me marry the man I loved.”

  Loved. She used the word in the past tense. He thought she loved him still, but she hadn’t plainly said so. Did he love her? He’d loved her then—as much as he’d grown to hate her, he didn’t doubt that he’d loved her first.

  “Tell me about Pendleton,” he said gruffly, both wanting to stoke his hatred of the man and realizing it would be torture to hear. He suspected she wanted to reveal her secrets. She’d been the one to ask for this conversation.

  She hesitated before asking, “What do you want to know?”

  “Whatever you want to tell me.” And when it became too much, he would say so.

  “He was a philanderer. I hated being married to him.”

  A philanderer...Nick tamped down his ire. What good would it do now? “I’m sorry to hear you had to endure such a marriage. And there were no children?” He, of course, knew she’d been unable to carry any, as Mrs. Linford had told him. He thought of her dream of the Highlands—there’d been children in it.

  “I can’t carry them.” Her response was so faint, he had to strain to hear it. “I became pregnant several times. After the third loss, Clifford decided I wasn’t worth lying with. As sad as I was, my relief was greater.”

  Nick squeezed her tight against his side. There was a unique pain associated with losing a child, and he suspected the desolation was the same even if they hadn’t been born. “Fate hasn’t been particularly kind to either one of us. How did Pendleton die?”

  “A lengthy illness, compounded by excessive drink, I believe. And perhaps laudanum. He started taking it for coughing fits. By the end, he was ingesting far more than the prescribed amount.”

  “I can’t imagine you were sad when he passed.”

  “No, which made me feel a bit guilty.”

  He kissed her head again. “You mustn’t.”

  “Was your marriage happy?”

  “Yes.” As happy as he’d expected to be after losing Maurice and then his uncle.

  She propped herself up on her elbow and looked at him. “Just yes?”

  His muscles tensed as discomfort tripped through him. “What more can I say that you would really want to hear, Violet?” He pushed himself up, thinking it was maybe time for him to go.

  She sat up too and moved close to him, placing her hand on his shoulder. “Pardon me, please. I didn’t mean to press. I am sure she was a lovely woman; otherwise, you wouldn’t have chosen her.”

  He angled his upper body toward her. She was so beautiful in the faint light of the candle behind her. Her eyes were rich and earthy, her hair pale and ethereal. She was a mixture of light and dark, of his happiest moments and his saddest. He didn’t want any more of the latter.

  He lifted a lock of her hair from her shoulder and fingered the soft tresses. “I prefer not to look backward. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to share things with you. I just want to forge ahead.”

  “I understand.”

  “And right now, I’m focused on the fact that we are both here, and you make me feel lighter than I have in years.” A smile tugged at his lips. “Well, once I surrendered to your persistence.”

  “My persistence?”

  “You don’t think you were persistent at the house party?”

  “I’m not sure what you mean. I wasn’t trying to pursue you.”

  He ran his thumb along her jaw. “Truly?”

  She tried to look him in the eye, but a laugh escaped her parted lips. “I tried not to. Your deterrence was rather effective.”

  “It’s difficult not to be won over by a woman who can hold her own after tumbling out of a boat, who can win an archery contest with ease, and who is eager to help my dearest friend.”

  “You make me sound far more exciting than I really am,” she said softly, looking away in embarrassment.

  He put his finger beneath her chin and drew her to look at him. He stared into her eyes, willing her to believe him. “You are everything I want right now.” He’d stopped thinking about what he wanted, because those things kept disappearing. Even as he said the words, fear gripped him. Maybe he should go…

  Before he could take flight, she cupped his face in her hands and kissed him. When she drew back, but only slightly, her brow curved into a provocative arch. “Right now?”

  “I think so.” He pressed her back onto the mattress and came over her. “Unless you think I should go. I will need to leave before morning, in any case.”

  She wrapped her arms around him and stroked the plane of his back, one hand trailing down to his backside. Her touch was divine and exactly what he needed to banish the darkness from his mind. He hoped forever, but accepted it would likely just be for now.

  Darkness had a way of finding him.

  * * *

  The gentleman looking back at him from the glass was hardly familiar. Violet had insisted that he wear something akin to court dress, which he despised and had worn on only a very few occasions. Rather than have something made, he’d sent for one of his suits of clothing from London. Now he was trussed up in a costume of dark green with lilies of the valley embroidered on the coat. The Queen liked flowers.

  He looked forward to seeing Violet in her court clothing, almost as much as he looked forwarding to divesting her of it.

  They’d spent the last three days in a rapturous bliss. He’d taken her for a boat ride in the canal on Friday, and that evening, they’d happened—on purpose—to encounter each other at a party celebrating All Hallows’ Eve. It had been a festive affair, despite Nick exerting a great deal of effort to avoid the various games of divination. He didn’t need such things telling him his fortune, not when he could be assured it would be bad.

  He’d meant what he’d told Violet—he wanted to live in the present and enjoy each moment. And that was precisely what they’d done. He hadn’t seen her today since he’d ridden out to meet the Queen’s procession. Tomorrow they would likely visit the Pump Room when the Queen was there, and the following day they would celebrate Gunpowder Treason Day with everyone else in Bath. It was, he realized, the happiest he’d been in a very long time. In forever, maybe.

  Nick turned from the mirror. “Will I do, Rand?”

  The valet sized him up and gave an approving nod. “Splendidly.” He handed Nick the three-cornered cocked hat, which Nick placed upon his head. “And now you are perfect.”

  “Harrumph.”

  Nick departed the house and climbed into his waiting coach. The traffic would
be abominable as people had been crowding the streets all day. The city was so illuminated with lanterns that it almost seemed like day.

  He wished he were fetching Violet along the way, but they’d decided they couldn’t arrive together. Still, he looked out at her house as they passed her street and saw her coach sitting before it. She hadn’t left yet. Good, he would watch her entrance.

  He was one of the first to arrive at 93 Sydney Place, where he was shown into a sitting room to await the time when the Queen would receive visitors. A scant quarter hour later, he was treated to a sight that took his breath away.

  Violet appeared in the doorway. She wore a gown of bishop’s blue velvet made wide and full with hoops. Snowy lace trimmed in gold fell from her sleeves, and several ostrich feathers stood high atop her head. Her blonde hair curled gently around her face, and sparkling sapphires adorned her ears and neck. She swept forward, and he couldn’t take his eyes from her.

  She was intercepted by a few people, but her gaze found his, and her lips teased into a soft smile. Impatient, he went to her. It was then that he realized the embroidery on her dress was also lilies of the valley.

  They exchanged pleasantries until the others moved on, leaving them alone, if only for a moment.

  Moving to her side, he leaned close to her ear. “You look stunning.”

  “Not as fine as you.” She raked his body with a lingering stare, causing his blood to heat and his body to harden in highly inappropriate places.

  “Stop regarding me like that. We’re due to see the Queen at any moment.”

  Violet gave him a saucy smile just before the footman announced the Queen was ready. There were several peers in attendance, but Nick outranked them all, save the Queen’s son, the Duke of Clarence, who was already with her. Of the guests in the sitting room, Nick was admitted to her presence first.

  Queen Charlotte sat in a wide gilt chair. She looked a bit pale, but then she’d come to Bath to take the waters in an effort to improve her health. Though seventy-three, her large, dark eyes were still sharp.