The Duke's Blackmailed Bride

by Leigh D'Ansey

  Northbridge set her down.

  “Your Grace, I—”

  He held her own hand against her mouth and silenced her. “Ash,” he corrected, “or Northbridge. I am not Your Grace.”

  “I need to tell you—”

  “You do not need to tell me anything. Show me.” He lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her, a kiss so at odds with his first ruthless assault that

  Vanessa’s breath was swept out of her body.

  At first she could not believe it when his tongue parted her lips and entered her mouth. She stood quite still, filled with amazement at the movements that incited indescribable sensations and brought her nipples to peaks against her fine undergarments.

  When he would have moved back, she held him there. Her fingertips curled into his crisp, springing hair. Daringly, she slipped her own tongue into his mouth, tasted the salt on his lips, reveled in the groan that came from deep inside him. He brought his hands down onto her rounded bottom and pressed her against the apex of his thighs.

  Vanessa squeaked as a hard ridge asserted itself against her belly. Irresistibly, she molded herself to the growing urgency of his shape.

  “You must show me,” she whispered against his mouth. “I have never done this before.”

  His chest heaved. He drew back from her and stared down at her with burning eyes. He shook his head in disbelief. Then a smile quirked his lips. “Did I not say I must never make assumptions where you are concerned?”

  Vanessa ran her tongue across quivering lips. “I know not how to please you.”

  He held her hands against his breast and lowered his forehead to rest on hers. She could not see his smile, but felt it. “Vanessa, Vanessa,” he said softly. “Making love is not only about pleasing me. It is also about pleasing you.”

  He kissed her again, lingering long, drawing the sweetness from her mouth. His arms came around her, his hands tightening on her shoulder blades. She brushed a lock of hair away from his

  forehead. “Are you disappointed that I am not a woman of experience?”

  “You could never disappoint me.”

  Vanessa smiled. “Not even when I’m in a fury?” “Especially not when you’re in a fury.” Dampness slicked the tender place between her

  thighs. She stood almost breathless while he removed her bride dress. The aquamarine silk fell to the floor like water.

  He ran his hands all over her voluptuous contours and then began to unlace her corsets. “These are very seductive but you do not need them. You are well shapely.”

  She caught her lip between her teeth as a column of hard flesh pressed against her with growing urgency. His teeth nibbled her throat and the sensitive point just under her ear. Gooseflesh peppered her skin all over.

  When the stays joined the bride dress on the floor, she slipped the shift down, her breasts rising and falling as they were exposed to his view.

  “You are the most beautiful creature I have ever seen.”

  He ran a trail of kisses from the tips of her breasts, along her throat, and ended by taking an earlobe between his teeth and nipping it gently. “Will you let your hair down for me?”

  Vanessa raised trembling fingers and unpinned her hair until all her locks tumbled about her shoulders in disarray. Northbridge brushed one honeyed strand away from a taut nipple.

  He cradled her face in his hands. His thumb stroked her lip. “Is it so terrible to be my bride?”

  Vanessa’s eyes brimmed. “I am beginning to think it wondrous,” she murmured, daring to close her teeth on the pad of his thumb.

  He allowed her to taste for a moment, then drew his thumb away from her mouth and traced the line of her jaw, around her shoulders and down to her breasts.

  He palmed each breast until her nipples were hard as pebbles, and then rolled each dusky bud between thumb and forefinger until the delight became too exquisite and she cried out for relief.

  Her knees were dissolving. A glimpse of the bed beyond had her closing her eyes. Desire spread through her like melting wax.

  “Do not stop,” she whispered.

  He bent his head and took one nipple into his mouth, sucking gently, scraping it with his teeth. Leaving it moist and achingly tight, he brought his mouth back to hers and kissed her for a long, slow time.

  Heat gathered at Vanessa’s center. She rolled her hips against him, eliciting a gravelly moan from deep in his throat. A gloriously primitive need asserted itself.

  “My drawers…”

  His hands moved to her hips. He pulled the tie undone, slid her drawers away from her, gathered her into his arms and deposited her on the bed.

  Vanessa swallowed. “Should you…should we…will you remove your garments?”

  She lay and watched him as he removed first his jacket and then his shirt and undershirt. He tore his neck cloth away and stood before her, his naked chest lightly covered with coils of dark hair that arrowed down his flat stomach and disappeared beneath his breeches.

  Vanessa could not take her eyes from the jutting outline of his masculinity. She moistened her lips with her tongue.

  Northbridge groaned. He came to the bed, boots and all, and knelt at her feet. When he inserted a hand between her thighs they fell apart like petals and her knees came up as if of their own accord. Northbridge eased closer.

  He removed her satin slippers, peeled each stocking away and kissed his way up her trembling thighs, his tongue tasting and grazing as he explored at will.

  His hand soaked up the heat of her golden mound, fingers tangling through moist tawny curls. Liquid pearled to meet his touch as he gently parted her femininity. “You must tell me if I hurt you,” he said hoarsely.

  Vanessa closed her eyes and lifted herself to him. It did not seem as if anything could ever hurt her again.

  She was slick with her own juices and Northbridge’s exploration incited further nectar. He invaded her tenderly. Sensations she had never imagined filled her with a need insisting to be filled.

  Her teeth sank into her lower lip as he dipped his head. His marauding tongue lapped against her and into her. He used his tongue as a sword, penetrated her most secret parts then withdrew and sucked her gently, drawing her swollen bud into his mouth and releasing it with a tender rhythm.

  Ecstasy gathered and intensified until it reached an unbearable summit and could not be contained any longer. An explosion of pleasure made her cry out. Ripples spread out from the center of euphoria, each with its own burst of delight, leaving Vanessa quivering in their wake.

  Northbridge licked and kissed her thighs and nuzzled her damp curls until she lay still.

  She brought him over her so that she could look into his eyes, glowing like pewter. “I did not know this could be such a beautiful thing,” she whispered.

  His pupils were glossy black. His mouth softened. “It is you who are beautiful. Do you know how much I love you?”

  Vanessa’s heart quickened. She reached out and touched his mouth. “I did not know you loved me at all.”

  “I believe I have loved you always.”

  “I thought you had made a vow against love.” “That was before I became reacquainted with

  you.”

  Vanessa twisted and rolled him over onto his back. The muscles in his firm belly rippled beneath her hand as she began her own exploration. Her questing hand ran down the rigid length of him.

  A growl rumbled in his throat. “God help me, I cannot wait another moment.”

  In seconds he was naked beside her, his manhood pulsing hungrily against her. Vanessa explored him with tremulous fingers, entranced by the steel beneath the velvet sheath.

  He held her face and looked deep into her eyes. “I will be gentle.”

  “I know you will,” she said with complete trust. She did not have to think about how to play her

  part. Her back arched and her hips moved of their own accord as he delved into her womanhood.

  Her nails dug momentarily into his shoulders, she drew in a swif
t breath, but he entered her with such tenderness the pain was quick, then gone. He was inside, filling her, his hips driving further, hers rising to meet his in a joyous union that could no longer be denied.

  Vanessa was all sensation. She gave Northbridge thrust for thrust, kiss for kiss. Their movements built to a crescendo until Vanessa felt again that indescribable surge of pleasure, the quivering release, the ripples of aftershock spreading all through her until she lay in his arms, limp and satiated.

  They lay together, hands moving languorously over each other, dipping here, lingering there, each mapping the other. Vanessa discovered the long scar of his war wound and kissed her way all along it.

  After a while she raised herself on one elbow. Northbridge’s eyes were closed, his mouth relaxed. She nibbled the scar at its corner, kissed his eyelids and then his mouth.

  “Northbridge?”

  He opened his eyes and smiled.

  “I’m glad you bought Melrose and left me without choice.”

  His eyes glittered. “Huh! It was you who left me without choice.”

  Vanessa tilted her head in inquiry.

  “That deed was incomplete. It should never have been delivered to you. That clerk is no longer in our employ.”

  “Poor clerk,” murmured Vanessa, brushing her palms across the hair on his chest.

  He pinned her hand beneath his. “Do you wish me to explain?”

  Vanessa nodded. Her fingertips tiptoed across one of his nipples.

  “Then you must stop that. Lie still,” he said on a hoarse breath.

  She curved her body against him, taking heat from his powerful flanks.

  “Tell me,” she said.

  “I knew I had no choice when you came marching toward me that morning you rode to Ashton. Storm clouds riding in your eyes, hair all a-tangle. You were magnificent.” He kissed the top of her head. “I knew I could not live without you. If you had not agreed to my proposal I would have swept you up, there and then, and carried you off to Gretna Green.”

  Vanessa wriggled. “Would you have tied me over the saddle?”

  “Loosely,” he said, stroking one large hand down the length of her arm.

  “But you were so distant.”

  “I was afraid that if once I touched you I would not be able to stop. How would that look, the Duke and Duchess-to-be of Northbridge taking a tumble on the library floor? As you are so careless of it, someone must guard your reputation!”

  “In the end, could you not resist kissing me?” Vanessa curved her fingers around him. He swelled and grew at her touch.

  “I could not,” he agreed, his breath catching as Vanessa coiled her hand upward.

  “I did not stay the night at Crockford Hall,” she told him.

  He kissed her shoulder.

  “It was an entrapment,” she explained. “I was lured under the impression there would be others dining. I became separated from my companion on some pretext and I found myself isolated with only Crockford and a handful of his servants. Understandably, they would not assist me.”

  “How did you escape?”

  “I feinted a swoon, knocked him over the head with his own walking stick, broke a window, and fled via the terrace.”

  Northbridge shook his head. “You are a wonder, my love.” His features turned grim. “It must have been late at night, dangerous for a lady to be abroad.”

  Vanessa lifted one naked shoulder. “Papa had always enjoined me to carry coins in my reticule,” she continued. “I was able to flag down a hackney coach and escape to an inn close by where Papa and I had enjoyed hospitality and the proprietor was well known to me.”

  Northbridge’s eyes slitted. “And Crockford?”

  “He put it about that I had stayed the entire night. Only more gossip and scandal would have ensued if I refuted his claim, so I chose to ignore it.”

  “I will kill him for you,” said Northbridge.

  “Please,” said Vanessa, lowering her mouth to be

  kissed.

  When that task had been accomplished to their satisfaction she said, “Now you know why I was furious when I thought you had entrapped me by purchasing Melrose. Women have little choice in a man’s world. Even Papa…”

  “You must grieve for your father, Vanessa. Weep and wail all you need. Do not hold your sorrow inside or it will only turn upon you. You will never forget him or the manner of his death but you will reach a kind of acceptance.”

  “If he had confided in me how excessively he had been playing the tables, I might have been able to avoid what happened. But I had no knowledge.” She searched his face and urged fervently, “Please do not close me off from how we live our life.”

  “Never,” he said. “In any case I love you as if we are one.”

  Vanessa smiled. “When did you first know you truly loved me?”

  “I believe I’ve loved you since that day you found me down by Huggleton Brook when we were young.”

  Vanessa sat up with surprise, so quickly her breasts bounced above him. He reached out to brush a strand of hair away from a dusky nipple. It tightened immediately, peaking out to reach for his

  touch and he thumbed it gently.

  Now it was Vanessa’s turn to stay his hand. “Truly?”

  “Truly,” he agreed. “I dreamed about it. In the days after Patrick was killed.” For a moment his eyes looked haunted. “I had heard of your exploits—I knew you to be disreputable—” Vanessa nipped his earlobe. “But I remembered how freely we’d laughed together, that day; how beautiful you were even then. It was a shining memory and I turned to it often, especially in those terrible days of war when men fell all around me with the most grievous injuries.”

  Vanessa put her hand to his cheek and he turned his mouth against her palm.

  “That memory sustained me and brought me back to Ashton after many years away,” he said. “I was weary of the bloodiness of warfare. Patrick had died in my arms. It came to me that even though I was not capable of loving another being, I could still make a family and be part of it.”

  “Did you come back expressly for me?”

  “I did.”

  “You were so brutally frank in your proposal.” “War makes brutes of men, Vanessa. At that

  time I was of the opinion that, even though I remembered you with fondness, I could not love you and that you would never love me.”

  He rolled over, reached past her to a table at the side of the bed and took up a set of documents tied with a narrow red ribbon.

  “These are the deeds you should have received. My wedding gift to you. Melrose Court will always be yours.”

  Vanessa took his face in her hands and kissed him on the mouth. “You could not have given me anything more precious.”

  Northbridge propped himself on his elbow. “Even had you not agreed to our marriage, Melrose would have been yours. I had heard of your misfortune and desired you to be able to keep your home, in honor of the memory that helped me to survive.

  “When I found you again, when you came marching toward me with your battle flags flying, I revealed nothing. I could not bear to think of losing you. It was dishonorable but I am not sorry for it.”

  Vanessa’s eyes twinkled. “Nor I,” she said.

  He twined his fingers lazily through her hair. “Do you think we have made any headway?”

  “Headway?”

  “At beginning that pack of girls.”

  Smiling, Vanessa slipped her hand down into the nest of dark, springing curls at the fork of his thighs and then back up to the spearhead where milky droplets slicked her fingertips. “Perhaps not entirely.”

  He brought her down to him and kissed her mouth. “We have wasted so much time, my love.”

  “Say it again,” Vanessa said, grazing her nipples against his chest.

  “My love,” he murmured against her lips, cupping her bottom and entering her again with one slow, smooth stroke.

  “My love,” Vanessa said, moving against him, welcoming him i
nto her. “We must not waste another moment.”

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  COMING SOON!

  THE BEAUMONT BETROTHAL

  SOPHIA HUNTER’S future and the security of her family seems to be settled when she reluctantly agrees to marry her childhood playmate, the oafish Freddy Beaumont, heir to an ancient Earldom. But when a broad-shouldered, slim-hipped stranger arrives in their midst claiming to be the firstborn son and legitimate heir, Sophia’s world is sent spinning on its axis.

  Born on an island in the Caribbean and raised in the Americas, BRUNO CAVANAUGH is astounded to discover the mother he never knew was the first wife of Jonathan Beaumont, fifth Earl of St Haugh. When he meets Sophia Hunter on the bridge over Huggleton Brook he is captivated but he soon learns she is betrothed to his half-brother Freddy. Bruno has already suffered the loss of a brother due to their entanglement over the same woman—of all the women in the world, Sophia Hunter is the one utterly beyond his reach!

  EXCERPT

  “Take care. You’ll get freckles,” said a deep voice from behind her.

  Sophia spun around to see a wide-shouldered long-legged gentleman with a thick crop of peat-colored hair, ruffled by the same breeze that teased her own. His high-bridged nose bisected a pair of bold, alert eyes. Something wild surged inside her. The air swirling up from the brook felt warm and syrupy.

  She brought a hand to her throat and drew in a quick breath, but did not look away, imbued with an unexpected recklessness. “I rather like freckles,” she returned, lifting her chin.