“I hope your intentions are benign,” Westhaven said, staring out the window toward the stables, “for I have no wish—no wish whatsoever—to assume Moreland’s place.”
That much was obvious, and Douglas did not envy the man what lay before him. “Yours is not a happy family.” Though compared to the Allen family, the Windhams seemed to muddle along adequately. Douglas spared his mother a silent prayer, though whether for recovery or for admittance to the celestial realm, he could not say.
“Would you be happy were your brother dying?” Westhaven asked.
“My brothers are both dead,” Douglas said, “and yet happiness is within my abilities.” He wasn’t boasting—the words were a surprise to him, and yet they were true.
They had become true when he’d made a certain journey to Sussex.
“I shall be inspired by your example, then,” Westhaven said, refilling his glass. Westhaven might well be slowly getting himself drunk, though seeing the despair in the earl’s green eyes, Douglas felt not disgust, but compassion.
“If it weren’t for the way His Grace dotes on my mother and sisters,” Westhaven began, but he caught himself and offered Douglas a rueful smile. “Shall we join the others in the stables, Amery, or philosophize away our afternoon over cards and liquor?”
“I would prefer to keep an eye on His Grace, if you don’t mind.”
And on Guinevere.
And Rose.
When they got to the stables, Rose stood on a box, grooming a fat, furry bay pony known as George. George was in equine transports to have the attention, and the duke stood by, beaming at one and all.
While Guinevere was pale, tense, and making a visible effort to hold herself together. Douglas took a position beside and slightly behind her, standing a trifle closer than propriety allowed.
“If you groom him much longer, Rose,” Douglas said, “you will have more of his coat on you than he has on himself. I believe there’s a playroom in the house your grandmother would like to show you.”
“Cousin Douglas,” Rose caroled, “this is George, but I am going to call him Sir George, and he looks just like Sir Regis. He’s a bit shorter, so I might be able to ride him by myself. Grandpapa says I may have him, because George is lonely, but I will have to come here to visit him.”
“How lovely,” Douglas remarked, larding his comment with sufficient irony to penetrate even the duke’s thick skull. “I’ll bet George will canter for you, too, won’t you, George? But George doesn’t have to live here in his lonely stall, Rose,” Douglas went on. “You have plenty of room for him at Enfield, or even at your cousin Andrew’s stud farm at Oak Hall. We could also keep him on one of your cousin Gareth’s twenty-two different properties, or at a holding of dear Cousin David’s, who has land on at least three continents.”
Douglas met the duke’s glare and charged on, heedless that he was engaging in tactics as childish as the duke’s. “Of course, I can only add my few properties to the available list, but they are all close at hand, and each has adequate mews as well. If your grandpapa has truly given you this pony, you may choose from one of many, many other places to keep him besides this lonely stall here at your grandpapa’s.”
Rose’s hand stilled. “George can stay at Enfield with me, like Daisy used to?”
“If he is truly yours.” Douglas shot a cool stare at the duke, daring His Infernal Almighty Grace to take away the equine bait he’d dangled before Rose.
“Is he truly, truly mine, Grandpapa?” Rose asked, heart in her eyes.
The pony’s grooming having been interrupted, the little beast stamped an impatient hoof.
“I suppose he is,” the duke conceded. “I gave him to you, so he’s yours. Shall we go tell your grandmama?”
And so back to the house they went, Rose tugging on her grandfather’s hand, Guinevere silent on Douglas’s arm, and Westhaven sending Douglas brooding looks from Guinevere’s other side.
“And when will you be coming back to visit us again?” the duchess asked her granddaughter as the party gathered later to say their farewells.
“Mama?” Rose asked, swinging her mother’s hand. Guinevere’s glance slid furtively to the duke’s bland smile before she met the duchess’s eyes.
“Any time Your Grace would like,” she said. “Rose and I have unlimited welcome in my aunt’s households, and estate matters at Enfield are quiet this time of year.”
If Douglas hadn’t been looking directly at the duke, he would have missed the gleam of satisfaction in the older man’s eyes. It flickered, unnervingly bright, and then disappeared.
As soon as Douglas had mother and daughter ensconced in the coach, Rose began to blather merrily about her new pony, though Guinevere looked almost haggard. Her complexion was pale, her expression taut, her eyes shadowed with fatigue and nameless dark emotions.
When they got to Lady Heathgate’s stables, Rose hopped out and bounded down the barn aisle, squealing her delight to find her cousin Andrew unsaddling his tall black gelding.
“Magic!” Rose crowed to the horse.
Magic, not the steadiest of fellows generally, nonetheless met the oncoming charge by lowering his big head to Rose’s level and sniffing at her delicately.
“Greymoor.” Douglas nodded a greeting to Guinevere’s younger cousin. “Guinevere and I would be in your debt were you able to keep Miss Rose occupied for a few minutes.”
“Hullo, Gwennie.” Greymoor swung under his horse’s neck to greet them. He hugged Guinevere with one arm around her shoulders, then stepped back and frowned, surveying her. “Town life is not agreeing with you, sweetheart. Shall I take you and Rose back home with me?”
To Douglas’s shock, that simple, barely teasing comment shattered Guinevere’s control. She turned and fled, tears falling, leaving Rose, Greymoor, and Douglas to gape after her.
“Why is Mama crying?”
Douglas lifted Rose up and tossed her onto his back.
“She needs a nap, Rose,” Douglas improvised. “She very badly needs a nap.”
As do I, preferably in the same bed at the same time.
“Greymoor, until later?” Douglas bowed low enough to provoke giggles from the child on his back then followed Guinevere into the house. A nursery maid took over the job of putting Rose down for a nap, and when Douglas caught up with Guinevere, he found her in her bedroom, sound asleep.
He debated the kindness of waking her when she clearly needed rest, but it simply wasn’t in him to wait for an explanation for her tears, for her brittle mood, for the despair he’d glimpsed in her eyes. Anxiety nagged at him, a sense that doom was closing in on them even as death stalked Rose’s father.
“Guinevere.” He spoke her name quietly and got no result. Thinking to do no more than hold her, he eased his coat, boots, and stockings off and slid onto the bed beside her, and thank a merciful God, she was at least wearing her chemise.
“Guinevere,” he murmured, lips near her ear. “My dear, we must talk.”
He sensed when she drifted up from sleep before her eyes opened. Lying on her back, she gazed up at him with such hopelessness, Douglas’s sense of foreboding nudged toward panic.
“What?” He brushed his fingers across her forehead. “What did Moreland threaten you with? Tell me, Guinevere, and I will see him held accountable.”
Brave words from a penniless viscount, when it was a powerful duke whose actions were in question.
She brought her hand up to cradle his jaw. “Make love to me, Douglas. I need you to make love to me.”
Sixteen
Guinevere gave Douglas no time to think of a reply to her demand, much less to push common sense or scruples from his brain to his lips, before she was kissing him desperately.
“I need you so,” she whispered, tears in her voice even as her hands went plundering under his shirt. She was frantic to touch him every
where, and Douglas’s ability to think dissolved in moments.
She kissed him, nuzzled him, breathed him in, and in every way possible seemed bent on consuming him with her senses.
“Clothes off,” she begged. “Please.”
A diabolical moral conundrum clamored for Douglas’s attention. He shoved it aside on the realization that, as much as he might wince at the notion that he was making love with a woman legally entangled with Victor Windham, he would regret more denying Guinevere what she sought—what she needed.
And Windham had not, in fact, asserted the status of husband, despite many opportunities to do so.
Douglas obliged Guinevere’s request as readily as he could while the woman was assaulting him bodily. He peeled off his breeches without leaving the bed, and got his cuffs open while Gwen’s chemise went sailing to the floor. She had his shirt over his head in the next instant then resumed her ravenous kisses.
She was on fire, and even as the fire ignited an answering passion in Douglas’s blood, he couldn’t help but sense the desperation in her touch. This was more than passion, more than intense arousal.
Many emotions could drive a woman beyond all reason. Anger, certainly, and fear, and Guinevere was entitled to both, but in her relentless questing hands and her wild eyes, he recognized an old and very personal adversary.
What Guinevere’s body was expressing, in addition to passionate arousal, was intense grief.
That insight allowed him to harness the firestorm of desire burning through his veins, and to gentle his kisses. He caught her hands and held them still above her head.
“Easy,” he whispered. “We have time for this, Guinevere. We do.”
As he slowly nuzzled and kissed his way across her chest, over her face, and around her neck, her breathing slowed. She heaved a sigh, and Douglas felt her desperation wane.
“Better,” he said, looking down at her. She was pale, tired, and troubled—very, very troubled. He sensed she could not talk to him now, except to communicate with her body.
“You will explain yourself to me later,” he informed her, rolling them so she was on top of him. Guinevere curled down against his chest to rest her ear near his heart.
The grief still had her in its grip, but she was mastering it. He moved his hands in slow circles on her back, feeling the supple muscles and elegant bones under her soft skin. When he slipped his hand down to knead her derriere, she began to truly relax against him.
Better still, and if this was all she wanted of him, a bit of cuddling and petting, then from some untapped well of self-restraint he’d manage—
Gwen’s tongue touched the pulse at his throat, and Douglas closed his hand around the feminine abundance of her backside.
“Please, Douglas.”
“My love, I can deny you nothing.”
He would regret this—regret the intimacy, the endearments, the ambiguity of their situation, all of it—but he would regret it later.
Guinevere arranged her hips so her sex cradled his erection, and she began to move.
The slow sweep of her damp, intimate flesh over his breeding organs put patience almost beyond Douglas’s reach, but at least he could distract her. He slid his hands from her back to her shoulders then trailed caressing fingers across her throat and sternum. When Guinevere’s eyes fell closed, he slipped his hands between their bodies to gently palm both breasts.
Her eyes flew open. “I seem to be inordinately sensitive.”
Wonderfully sensitive. In Sussex, her breasts had been sensitive, but not quite this sensitive—not that Douglas was complaining. He lightened his touch to a near whisper and kept his gaze on Guinevere’s face. Her expression said she felt what he was doing, felt it keenly, and thrust along his erection more firmly.
“Douglas?” Her breathing was accelerating, her voice not quite steady.
“Yes, love?”
“I want to be… I want to be on my back,” she got out, head falling back.
“Why?”
She blinked, as if Douglas had posed the question in a foreign tongue. “Why?”
“Yes, why.” Douglas brushed a fingertip across each nipple. “I am reasonably comfortable where I am, you see.”
“No.”
“Yes,” Douglas countered. He was, in truth, not comfortable at all. He was dying, burning, and screaming to be inside her. If he kept her above him, she could control the nature and pace of their joining as she had the only other time they’d had the luxury of a bed. In his present state of near-mindless need, Douglas frankly did not trust himself to show her sufficient consideration if the deed were left exclusively in his control.
“No,” Guinevere repeated, lurching to the side. She flopped down beside him on the mattress, then—with surprising strength—tried to wrestle him into position above her.
“This once,” she said as he gave up and settled above her, “just this once, I want your weight on me. I love the feel of you, all around me, inside me. Especially inside me.”
And what more might she have told him had they had time to talk and touch at leisure? On the strength of that small grief, Douglas gradually gave her more of his weight, the feel of her breasts against his chest sending tendrils of glory through his body. He sensed she wanted to be covered, blanketed with his body, protected by him and yet open to him all at once.
Douglas probed at her sex gently, almost languidly, even as he felt the tension in Guinevere’s body rocket back up. But she must have had some notion of their destination, for she permitted his deliberate pace without protest. When he had achieved a shallow penetration, she moved with him in slow, hungry lunges.
“Hold back,” he coaxed. “Enjoy it a moment at a time.”
She no doubt tried, but her body was too intently focused on its goal, and within moments, she was writhing beneath him, bucking greedily and clutching his wrists as gratification overcame her.
Douglas, from somewhere, found the strength to hold to his deliberate, relentless pace even as Guinevere battered herself against him in the throes of pleasure.
He gave her no time to recover, but added power to his slow, deep thrusts.
“I’ll make you come again,” he whispered, “harder, Guinevere. Hold me, wrap your legs around me and hold tight.”
She did as he bid, and it changed the angle of her hips, allowing Douglas to drive her more steadily toward the next peak.
“Douglas…”
“I know, love.” He thrust into her with a studied intensity that had her flying apart, leaving her keening and helpless in his arms. He sent her further into the maelstrom with deep, powerful thrusts, then fitted his mouth to hers and echoed the rhythm of his hips with his tongue. She drew on his tongue, whimpering her pleasure into his mouth and clinging to him with arms, hands, legs, and… even her sex.
When pleasure had wrung her into boneless torpor, Douglas remained inside her, matching his breathing to hers, nearly afraid to move for the tenuous grip he had on his self-restraint. Gradually, Guinevere’s limbs eased from around Douglas’s body, her fingers went slack in his hand, and her breathing evened out. He lifted his face from the crook of her shoulder to see her slipping into sleep beneath him.
Sleep—or complete oblivion, a mercy to which she was entitled.
Leaving her was difficult, heart wrenching, sexually frustrating, and possible only because she did not rouse. When Douglas stood fully clothed by the side of the bed, he unfolded a comforter from a rocking chair by the fire and tucked it around her. Guinevere slept on, drifting further toward dreams, and—Douglas hoped—real rest.
He left her room, boots in hand, and sat on the top step to put them on.
“Now what am I to make of a man who steals from my cousin’s room without his boots on?” Greymoor’s tone was pleasant, aggravatingly so, as he sat on the steps next to Douglas, his expression innocently
curious.
“You don’t know I was in Guinevere’s room,” Douglas replied, “and I defy any man to remain comfortable with a pair of well-fitted boots on his feet all day, particularly when it is this cold out.”
“The temperature is dropping,” Greymoor agreed. “At least outside.”
“Do you have a point, Greymoor?”
“My wife seems to think I do, but its substance defies my recollection. Now, what had Gwennie so out of sorts earlier in the stable?”
“I am honestly not sure.” Douglas pulled on his second boot but did not rise. “She went to her room and fell asleep before we had a chance to discuss it.” He had not quite lied for his lady, though it was a near thing. “I suspect the good duke threatened her somehow.”
“She didn’t strike me as angry. Coercion would anger her.”
“She is terrified,” Douglas concluded, certain of it in his very bones. “I suspect the duke threatened her through Rose.”
“Moreland threatened to take Rose?”
“At the least. He had given Rose a pony by the time I got down to the stables, but alas, she was supposed to keep her pony at dear Grandpapa’s, of course.”
“Are we to threaten the duke right back?”
“We already did.” And who was this “we,” and when had Douglas become part of it? “I explained to Westhaven the ducal finances would be summarily unraveled were his father to misbehave. Fairly offered to see to that.”
“The good viscount comes in handy. Has good taste in sisters, too.”
Was the man never serious? “He does at that. I put the message into Westhaven’s hands, though I’m not sure it will reach the duke with sufficient clarity.”
And this bothered Douglas. Like a loose tooth, his mind couldn’t leave this niggling, irksome thought alone. He felt the pull of it, the same way he’d rifled the morning’s correspondence, half-searching for a carping, whining letter from his mother, despite knowing her incapacity.
“What do you mean, the threat won’t be made clear to Moreland?”
Douglas: Lord of Heartache (The Lonely Lords) Page 28