“Is he that bad, the Duke of Bedford?”
Marcus replied with a great sigh. “I fear I don’t exaggerate in saying my uncle is known for two things apart from his love of this monstrosity.”
“What are the other two?” She was almost afraid to ask.
“His hot temper and his cold heart.”
Lydia cringed. “I can hardly imagine a more unpleasant combination.”
“Indeed. He has been a formidable patron, as nearly all bow to his will for fear of incurring disfavor.”
She was struck with a keen awareness of what Marcus’ actions may truly have cost him. “Yet you chose to return to Westminster when he expected you? Oh, Marcus, how foolish you are!” The thought weighed heavily on her heart.
“If I am a fool, it is all for love.” He smiled and kissed her. “I could have done no differently, you know. One more day and I would have died in my want of you.”
As the chaise set off to the carriage house, two more footmen appeared to flank their progress to the massive double doors.
His eyes grew dark with desire. “I’ll instruct Sally to have your things moved to my bedchamber.”
“Is that done, Marcus?” she asked. “Would it not be scandalous for us to share a bedchamber here?”
“I don’t care. I’ll be hanged before I sneak through the halls like a thief to claim my own bride.” His words made her shiver in anticipation.
The doors opened into a marbled foyer with soaring ceiling and silk-covered walls adorned with old masters. It was a struggle not to gape at such opulence.
Marcus followed her gaze and shrugged. “The Dukes of Bedford are renowned for their art collection.”
They had only been divested of hats and cloaks before Nicholas and Mariah descended the stairs, looking sleepily disheveled. Lydia noted curiously how they avoided each other’s gaze.
“Where the devil have you been?” Nick cried. “I don’t envy your position at the moment. Bedford is in a thunderous temper over your absence and your mother has spent the night in a near swoon, certain you’d been set upon by brigands. She only retired after taking a sleeping tonic.”
“She did not receive my missive? I dispatched a messenger from the coaching inn before we turned back for London.”
“Why the devil would you have done that? Turned back to London?”
“Let us say I discovered an urgent need, a matter I was certain would allow me no rest until satisfied.”
“Given the circumstances, you could not trust your errand to me?”
“No, dear boy. This was a business requiring my own delicate touch.”
Marcus struggled to maintain a straight face and Lydia’s burned white-hot from his blatant innuendo.
“Shall we continue this discussion in the morning, Nick? It has been a long day and will assuredly be an even longer night.” His meaningful look sent a bolt of heat to Lydia’s belly as well as her cheeks.
“You must be exhausted, Lyddie,” Mariah said. “I’ll show you to your chamber. It’s adjacent to mine.”
Lydia looked to Marcus who interceded. “My wife will retire with me.”
“Your wife? ” Nick and Mariah exclaimed in unison.
“Aye,” Marcus laughed. “For that’s the true cause of our delay and the crime for which I must plead clemency in the morning.”
“You mean to say you really—”
Marcus gave Nick a quelling look and turned back to the maid. “Sally, please see that Lady Russell is properly settled.” He took Lydia’s hand. “I’ll repair to the library with Nick for a short while and give you time to…refresh yourself.”
“Of course,” she breathed. “You won’t be long?”
“I assure you, I won’t be long.” He brushed his lips across her fingers and Lydia’s heart fluttered at the dark and decadent promise in his eyes.
****
Sally helped Lydia to undress and took down her hair, all the while nursing a smug smile that Lydia did her best to ignore. Dismissing the maid, Lydia examined her reflection with dissatisfaction. In the cotton night rail and lace-trimmed wrapper, with her long braid falling over one shoulder, she appeared modest, demure, and far closer to the young girl of their betrothal night than the siren she wished to be when her new husband entered the bedchamber.
Letting loose her hair, she discarded the night rail for the wrapper alone and then cast her anxious gaze about the room, wondering where she should await him. Would he expect her in the bed? She was still deliberating when his soft knock sounded upon the door. As promised, he hadn’t kept her waiting long. With hammering heart, she opened the door. He entered silently, closing it behind him with a soft click. He stood back for a long moment, drinking her into the indigo depths of his eyes.
“My Lord Marcus,” she greeted him. “Husband,” she added in a whisper.
“Lady Russell,” he spoke her new name, the sound warm and melodic to her ears. “My wife. My love.”
Still, he stood back as if awaiting her next move. “Are you going to make love to me, Marcus?”
The blue flame came to life in his gaze. “Are you not overly wearied from the long journey?”
“I had a long nap, do you not remember? But perhaps you are too fatigued to perform your conjugal duty?” Her eyes gleamed with challenge and Marcus was upon her in three strides, pulling her into his arms, his voice a low growl in her ear. “My mind was filled with nothing but this moment the entire drive from Mayfair, Lydia.
Nothing but your reticence would stop me from claiming you now.” His kiss was ravenous, toe curling. Her fingers were already working at buttons and yanking at his cravat. “Then by all means, husband, take me to bed.”
Marcus pulled her hands away to shrug out of the coat and waistcoat he flung to
the floor. One more clean tug removed the choking cravat. Lydia yanked his shirttails from his breeches. Too impatient to wait for its removal, she sought the warmth of his chest. Backing her toward the silk-covered tester bed, he worked the knot of her wrapper. She shrugged. The loose folds slithered to puddle on the floor.
His mouth caressed that newly bared skin. “You are a goddess, Lydia, my own Venus rising straight out of my dreams.”
She clutched his hair, urging his head, that heavenly mouth to her breasts. He readily complied, kissing, suckling, caressing. She reached for his breeches. Her thighs were already moist, her insides throbbing with desire. “I want you, Marcus. I want you now,” she murmured.
He groaned, his hands joining hers, clumsy and fumbling to free his jutting erection. Stepping back only long enough to shed his remaining clothes, he rejoined her, pressing her back against the bed. Lydia jolted with pleasure at the velvety heat of his shaft against her mons.
He gripped her waist and lifted her onto the bed. “Open for me, my love.” His voice soothed her nerves, quieted her qualms. He pressed her quivering knees farther apart, wedging himself between her thighs. One hand stroked her belly, gliding along her hip, sliding down to the apex of her thighs. The air between them was redolent of desire, thick with the essence of arousal.
“Are you ready for me, love?” He slipped his fingers into her hot, wet folds, satisfaction gleaming in his eyes. “Have the hours of agonizing anticipation prepared your body for mine?”
“Yes, Marcus,” she breathed. “I am ready. I want to feel you, all of you. I want you to fill me up and spend your seed deep inside me.”
By answer, he kissed her long and deep and laid her back on the bed. Guiding the head of his staff, he circled her clitoris and wet it in her slick folds. She arched and whimpered, grinding up against him.
“Shh…” he soothed. “Patience just a bit longer. I don’t wish to hurt you.” Hands under her knees, he raised them up while lavishing sweet kisses before placing her feet on the edge of the mattress. One big, warm hand fondled her breast as he guided the head of his cock to her entrance, tracing, gently probing.
“Please, Marcus. I am ready,” she moaned.
“Are you certain?” She could hear his struggle for self-control.
“Yes, my love. I am certain.”
“Then your wish is my command.” Rearing back, he plunged into her. The pain that made her cry out was sharp, searing, but blessedly brief. She gazed up into tortured eyes. “Are you all right?”
She returned an encouraging smile of love and desire and reached for him. “Kiss me, Marcus, and all will be forgotten.” Relief washed over his face, he leaned over her, meeting her in a lover’s kiss as he filled and pulsed within her.
Lydia was first to move, shifting tentatively, searching his eyes. At her silent urging, his hands gripped her hips. He began to rock his own. She ground against him and her mind went blank with the ripples elicited deep in her belly. He pulled back and returned with an experimental thrust. On instinct she rose to meet him, watching him as they began a slow, deliberate rhythm. His face was harsh in the dim firelight, his brows deeply furrowed over hooded eyes.
“Am I pleasing you, Marcus?” she asked.
“God yes,” he groaned with a deeper thrust. “I am engulfed in hot silk. You are exquisite.”
“You are not hurting me,” she said. “Don’t hold back your need.”
His lips curved as if she’d granted an unspoken wish. His eyes shut and Lydia followed suit, closing out the world to drown in the ineffable feeling of being filled. The plunge and drag of his shaft, the movements of his hips came quicker, harder, deeper. The friction increased, the tension in her belly coiling tighter. His breathing was harsh and ragged, her own coming in short gasping bursts.
He drove into her harder. She raised her hips, bucked against him, her body seizing, her sheath gripping and convulsing around him in spasm of rapture. Marcus cried out with short, jerky movement followed by a hot, liquid sensation, sending her tumbling into that blessed place of heavenly release.
Wordlessly he collapsed beside her, pulling her into his arms where they joined together in an exhaustive, well-sated slumber.
****
“What the devil can you mean by this, Marcus?” His Grace, the Duke of Bedford, thundered. Marcus knew better than to breathe a word of reply until the passionate tempest waned. “I spend years grooming you, paving your way in the most elite circles, only to be treated with insolence, with contempt? This Congress was to have made your career, yet you could not deign to make a punctual appearance for dinner? You’ve lost it, b’ Gad! Sandwich will promote Edward Montagu to First Secretary—with my blessing, I should add.”
Marcus winced at the news he should have expected, but the stab to his pride was no less painful than the duke’s continued tongue lashing.
“You all but had it in your ill-begotten hands! It confounds me how my brother could have sired such an ungrateful whelp. Well?” the duke demanded, his gaze black and ominous. “Have you nothing to say for yourself?”
“I am wed.”
“What?” the duke scowled.
“Uncle, I got married yesterday.”
“Married? Who the devil gave you leave to marry?”
“You and my father both. Six years ago when I was betrothed to the daughter of Sir Timothy Trent. Do you not recall?”
“Sir Timothy? A capital man and a good, solid patriot. His presence has been sorely missed in the House of Commons.” The duke’s expression softened marginally. “His daughter, you say?”
“Aye, Miss Lydia Albinia Trent is now Lydia, Lady Russell.”
“Why the devil wasn’t I apprised of this?”
“I can only plead your forgiveness. It was an impetuous act on my part.”
“And damnably suspicious. Did you fill her belly, Marcus?”
Remembering the night before, he struggled to suppress his smile. “If you mean did I get her with child, the answer is no.”
“Then why such haste?”
“Sir Timothy’s passing left Lydia in uncomfortable circumstances, a situation I only learned of with my recent return to London.”
“Sir Timothy has been gone at least a six-month, and you only learn of it now?”
“I was a very remiss bridegroom.” Marcus looked abashed.
“A damned fool, you mean!”
“That too,” Marcus replied, suitably contrite. “I nearly lost her for it. Thus, you understand my haste in tying the knot.”
“I understand nothing of the sort! I would have expected far better of you after your work at Breda. Yes, yes,” the duke waved a hand. “You impressed the hell out of the Dutch and Bentick insists your return with Sandwich.”
“You mean I am still to join the delegation?”
“Our second Ambassador Robinson still has need of a secretary, but I don’t see how you can fulfill your diplomatic duties when you now have a wife to settle. What a bungling mess you’ve made of it!”
“I’ll take her with me.”
The duke’s scowl returned. “Aix-la-Chappelle is no place for the daughter of a country squire.”
“She is not what you think, Uncle,” Marcus insisted. “I have complete confidence in her abilities. She will be a remarkable hit.”
The duke remained skeptical. “This entire idea goes utterly against my inclination, but I will let Sandwich be the judge.”
“He will be charmed,” Marcus replied with a smile of utter confidence. “As the entire diplomatic delegation of Aix-La-Chapelle will be.”
Chapter Nine
Aix-la-Chappelle—18 October, 1748
CATCHING SIGHT OF LYDIA, the mincing little gentleman adorned in vibrant silks and elaborate white-powdered wig halted his progress through the crowded ballroom to make a beeline in her direction. In a manner bred exclusively at the court of Versailles, he placed his hand symbolically over his heart in execution of his bow, complete with an almost ridiculous sweeping flourish to accompany his words. “I lay my heart at your feet, Madame.”
“Ridiculous display,” mumbled Marcus.
Dipping into an obeisance to the Count St. Severin, she addressed her husband sotto voce, “Jealousy is both exceedingly ugly and unfashionable.” Lydia chuckled.
Brandishing his lace-trimmed handkerchief with a fatuous smile, the ambassador extended his hand to raise her from the curtsey, gushing as he took hers to his lips, “La Bella Russell! Il mio cuore delizie. My heart delights. Might I have the pleasure of the next dance?”
“Damned swarthy little popinjay,” Marcus hissed through his smile.
Casting Marcus a triumphant look, Lydia answered the count in his own native Italian. “Il mio piacere, mio signor. ”
“My heart delights,” answered the count.
“Minx,” Marcus said in an undertone.
“I knew it would serve one day,” she laughed and departed on the little man’s arm.
“She needn’t encourage him,” Marcus mumbled, admiring the graceful sway of his wife’s departing form.
Witnessing the end of the exchange, Lord Sandwich remarked, “How now, Russell? Do you fear St. Severin aspires to poach your wife?”
“St. Severin is in good company.”
Sandwich raised a brow.
“Let us say I take particularly heed to cause no man affront these days. There are any number of gentlemen in this ballroom who would be well-pleased to make La Bella Russell an eligible widow.”
Making no attempt to conceal his own admiration, Lord Sandwich laughed. “I daresay you don’t exaggerate on that score. Your new bride is a charming and beautiful woman. No doubt she will prove a considerable asset in your new assignment.”
Marcus regarded him blankly.
“Although we today celebrate the signing of the peace, I fear our work in re-stabilizing Europe has only begun. The terms of the peace leave several diplomatic voids which must quickly be filled.”
“Indeed, my lord. The Austrians are far from happy in losing Silesia and there is much uncertainty in regard to the Italian states returning to Spanish control.”
“That is precisely the question I wish to address. With ou
r Spanish relations still on shaky ground, we have need of a talented and trustworthy envoy at both the courts of Genoa and Modena.” Sandwich gazed out at the swirling lines of the dancers, catching sight of Lydia and St. Severin now talking with the restored Duke of Modena, whose expression appeared enraptured.
“It seems your lovely wife has found much favor with the Italians within our midst.” He tilted his head in their direction. “Thus I wonder if you might be the most suitable diplomatic candidate for the post at Modena?”
Marcus was astonished. “I don’t know what to say. This is so unexpected. I am honored.”
Lord Sandwich smiled. “Of course you will need time to put your private affairs in order, but don’t take too long. There’s much work to be done to reassemble the mess war has made of this continent. Pray convey my most sincere compliments to La Bella Russell. ”
****
The next morning Lydia awoke to the earliest rays of sunlight streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows of their lavish palace bedchamber with the sensation of warm breath and soft lips tracing the contours of her belly. She opened her eyes with a slow smile and a lazy feline stretch to find Marcus propped on his elbows over her.
“You were magnificent last night, Lydia.” He traced a long finger around her navel.
“How so?” she asked.
“You had the Italians eating out of your pretty little hand.” He followed the same trail with his moist tongue. He looked up at her with a sly smile. “Do you think you would care to visit the duchy of Modena for an extended stay?”
“Modena? What are you saying, Marcus?”
“That thanks to the talents of my beautiful bride, I have just been offered the position of First Consul to Modena.”
“Oh, Marcus! How wonderful for you!”
“It pleases you then?”
“Immensely!” Her eyes lit up. “When do we go?”
“Since you are amenable, as soon as can be arranged. I imagine we will be in the Italian states by the new year. We’ll of course need to return home for a brief spell to attend to a few personal matters.”
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