A Wicked Duke's Prize: A Historical Regency Romance Book

by Henrietta Harding

  Rebecca turned to the young couple, who seemed too petrified to move. “I’m terribly sorry to you both. He sometimes gets this way.”

  “We shouldn’t have said anything,” the woman stuttered. “I really didn’t imagine that he would react in such a…”

  “Not your fault!” Rebecca said, matter-of-factly. “He really doesn’t mean the things he says. We just need to take a breath of fresh air. Don’t we, my love?” She again blinked up into his eyes. Just lightly enough for him, and only him, to notice, she winked.

  She led him through the simmering crowd, sensing all eyes upon them. When they reached the shadowy darkness of the exterior hallway, he whirled around, separating them, and glared at her. Slowly, a sneaky smile etched itself between his cheeks.

  “What on earth did you do?” he asked.

  Rebecca rolled her eyes fully, this time. “Don’t be so dramatic.”

  “You’ve started a rumour that I’m a madman!”

  “I just grew annoyed with the constant congratulatory comments,” Rebecca said.

  “And so you assumed this would be a good opportunity to mess with my reputation. That’s remarkable. In fact, it’s enough for me to question your own sanity.”

  “What’s the matter with messing your reputation, anyway? You’re already engaged to be married. It’s not as though you need to impress anyone else. Only me, your dutiful future wife, who will care for you in sickness and in health. And, if tonight’s gossip is to be believed, there’s going to be quite a bit of sickness.”

  Owen glowered at her, yet his eyes flickered with humour. “You’re a ridiculous creature. I never imagined that I’d meet anyone quite like you.”

  “That’s what you said last time,” Rebecca returned. “I hope that you’ll vary your dialogue a little, if we’re to spend the rest of our lives together.”

  Owen turned towards the smaller door, off to the side of the hallway, which also seemed to exit out to the garden. Taking long, sure strides, he cut towards it and peered through the glass. “There’s a full moon tonight.”

  “So romantic,” Rebecca said playfully. She sidled up beside him to look out. Standing there, her nostrils filled with his musk, sandalwood and greenery, the outdoors, and something entirely his own, masculine and powerful. She stepped to the side slightly, overcome with stirring desire. She felt an urgent need to return to the party, yet when she gazed into his eyes, she felt she simply couldn’t.

  As if guided by another force, Rebecca pressed open the door and led Owen into the darkness. Neither of them spoke for a moment, even as they were cast in moonlight, their skin almost ghostlike. They walked for several minutes along the edge of the garden, listening to the tinkling sound of the fountain.

  “I spent a good deal of time at this estate when I attempted friendship with Baxter,” Owen finally said. “There’s something of a secret garden back here. Would you like to see it?”

  Rebecca swallowed, conscious that she’d suddenly been overcome with a strange panic. There she was, out beneath the moonlight with the man she was meant to marry. In a technical sense, this wasn’t even outside the bounds of propriety – not quite, anyway. Yet as they both officially yearned to end the engagement, wasn’t this irresponsible, especially when it came to the idea of protecting her heart?

  But she couldn’t resist. Owen looked far too good in the moonlight, his dark eyes marvellous and insightful. She slipped her arm into his elbow and said, “With you? I suppose I’d go anywhere. At least, for the next ten minutes.”

  “You have another event scheduled this evening that takes you away from me?” Owen asked.

  “Other men to dance with. More gossip to spread. That sort of thing,” Rebecca replied.

  “You are a busy woman.”

  The walk led them out past various garden beds, towards a rusty gate that screeched wildly as they entered. The garden itself was overgrown, overly lush, as though the gardeners had a secret affair with it, yearning to make it bigger, wilder, in contrast to the other, more trimmed gardens.

  The smell itself was extraordinary, making the air seem thicker, almost like frosting. Rebecca closed her eyes for a moment and breathed it all in, reminding herself over and over of the fleeting magic. Some day soon she and Owen would pass one another like strangers, with only a nod, perhaps, and nothing more. These were the last moments in their overly short story. She yearned to treasure them.

  “What do you think?” Owen asked.

  Rebecca’s eyes fluttered back open. She cut a single shoulder up and said, “It’s all right, isn’t it? Just a bit of a garden.”

  “Your eyes don’t lie as well as your lips do,” Owen said.

  “What a brash thing to say,” Rebecca whispered. Her heart pumped in her throat, and she found it difficult to breathe.

  “I cannot help you. You see, I have a tremendously horrific condition. I’m on the brink of going mad,” Owen said. He stepped closer to her, reached for one of her curls, and tucked it around her ear. All the while his eyes burned into hers.

  “Whoever marries you will have such a difficult time as you slowly devolve into madness,” Rebecca murmured.

  “Who said that it will be a slow devolution? Perhaps it will happen all at once. One morning, I’ll be fine. Clever, even. Reciting old literature. Spouting philosophy. And then that night…” He snapped his fingers.

  Suddenly, he moved toward her, his motions fluid and delirious. Her eyelashes fluttered closed once more as he kissed her fully, tugging her against him. Her breasts lifted and pressed hard against his chest, and a moan escaped her throat, buzzing against his lips as he kissed her deeper, harder.

  Slowly, he lifted her against him, so that her toes inched off the ground. When he dropped her once more, she stepped away from him, her eyes wet. She reached up to touch her cheek, her mind swimming with fear, with want.

  “Why did you stop?” she whispered.

  This seemed to be all he needed. He swept towards her, his hand across her breasts, his fingers ticking across the bulge of her skin. He tugged at the fabric to reveal her to the moonlight, the dark bead of the nipple there between his thumb and forefinger. They gasped with need for one another, with the clumsy and sudden desire to strip off one another’s clothes, to feel one another naked in the night. Rebecca’s hand cast toward the bulge at his crotch, the thickness of whatever lurked beneath, something she was hungry for. She pulled at his cravat as he pressed her hard against the gate, thrusting the rest of her fabric beneath her breasts so that they spilled fully open. She was exposed, a bright flower amongst the garden.

  HIs kisses grew more tender, as though he wanted to extend time. His lips dotted a line from her mouth down her neck, until he found her breasts once more. His tongue traced a circle around first one nipple, then the other. The pleasure of it forced Rebecca’s head back to knock against the wood. It clunked about, her eyes closed, as she fell into the many platforms of pleasure.

  Owen’s hand reached beneath her many skirts and traced a line up her leg, beneath her petticoats, to discover the juncture between her thighs. Fear permeated every inch of Rebecca’s skin. Her eyes bolted open as she gazed at him. But his eyes reflected back nothing but assurance. Slowly, she nodded as he pressed her legs open wider to feel the soft wetness between. He licked his bottom lip, his face sombre and clear.

  An urgent desire to know, to touch, overcame Rebecca. She ripped open his trousers and wrapped her hand around his thick, pulsing member, red hot to the touch. She’d never seen one before, let alone held one, and her heart raced in her throat. When she returned her eyes to his, he seemed just like the madman she’d invented back in the ballroom. He lifted her again and then stretched her out on the nearby bench, fumbling beneath her petticoats to find the wet juncture between. Slowly, his eyes on hers, he pressed the end of his rod at the very opening of her.

  “Do you want me to?” he murmured.

  “More than anything,” Rebecca whispered.

  Suddenl
y, he surged forward with a single, beautiful thrust, filling her. Rebecca cried out, then smacked her hand over her mouth and laughed, despite rollicking with pleasure. The last thing they needed was discovery. Her hands drummed over his back and her nails cut into the fabric of his jacket, digging into the skin below. For several minutes, as he thrust into her, filling her, and their gasps joined in the night, they were a single entity, joined in an impossible forever.

  Perhaps they would never marry. Perhaps they would never be anything but whatever they were that night.

  Perhaps Rebecca would have to face that forever.

  When it was over, there was very little to say. Their hearts pumped severely, and they gasped for air, then collected themselves. Owen attempted to style Rebecca’s hair, but Rebecca swatted him away and said, “I’m sure they’re all far too drunk to see how messed up it really is.”

  They walked together back to the ball. The sweep of the string instruments calmed Rebecca’s racing nerves. For a moment, she slipped her hand into Owen’s, yearning to pretend that this could be hers. But when they spotted the first people, scattered out on the front steps of the ballroom, Theo was amongst them. He stumbled down the steps, his motions volatile, and he grabbed Owen’s shoulder and cried, “I’ve heard that you’re a madman, Owen! Why haven’t you told me, all these years?” Then, he fell into wild laughter, his face scrunched. When he turned to Rebecca, a single tear raced down his cheek. “You came up with it, didn’t you? A cleverer woman, I declare, I’ve never met. You’re a real match for this scoundrel here, you are.”

  After the weight of what they’d just done, Rebecca felt unsure of how to approach this situation. Owen didn’t seem versed in it either. Theo gestured out to call for Zelda, who skipped over moments later, her eyes glossy with drink. “Isn’t she beautiful? We’ve spent the past hour dancing. I know, it’s been quite a scandal, hasn’t it?”

  “If only we were engaged, like the two of you,” Zelda said, with a heavy sigh. It was clear that she yearned for this far more than she wanted to let on.

  “But the future! What a terrible thing to plan for,” Theo said. “I’d much prefer that it came as it wished. That we didn’t have to set down plans, or think of what people might say, or…”

  Rebecca turned to Owen, overcome with panic and sadness and fatigue. She stretched her hand across his bicep, something she’d clung to so severely throughout their lovemaking, and said, “I should return home. It’s quite late, isn’t it?”

  “Nonsense!” Theo cried. “Let’s pour her another drink, darling Owen. We cannot allow her to leave. She’s the life of the party.”

  Zelda glowered at her. Rebecca shook her head, scrunched her nose. “I really must be going. My father is always anxious when I remain at these affairs too long.”

  She lifted her skirts and spun toward the stables. Still, the party rolled on, the string instruments singing off into the night. Rebecca cut her shoulders forward, stared at the dark ground as she raced. When she reached the stables, she found her father’s coachman swiftly and asked him, with bated breath, if she could possibly return home. He seemed perplexed.

  “I expected you in an hour or more,” he replied.

  “I know. It’s imperative that I return home now. My stomach.”

  He sighed and muttered to himself as he prepared the carriage, which was parked beyond the others, near the edge of the forest. Rebecca remained in the stable itself, shivering slightly despite the warmth of the night. When the carriage arrived, she leapt into the belly of it and wrapped herself in a tight ball. As the carriage raced along, the moon seemed to dip lower and lower, become fatter, as though one could reach out with a needle, poke it, and let it bleed out.

  It felt like a metaphor for Rebecca’s current emotional state. If she stared at it too long, analysed it from all angles, she felt sure tears would pour from her eyes and coat her cheeks. She would live in the misery of knowing that Owen still didn’t wish to marry her. To him, she was now a clown, something he’d assuredly used and could brag about later to Theo, another playboy.

  She’d always considered herself far too bright for such things. Had always assumed that she would have the last laugh. That’s how it had always been.

  Owen Crauford had changed the game. And Rebecca was at his mercy.

  Chapter 19

  Owen remained at Theo’s house the night of the ball. He sat stretched out, lazy, his head still buzzing with the wine, in Theo’s garden the following late afternoon. Theo passed him a scotch, “something to take his edge off,” and the two of them gazed out at the horizon. They’d spoken little of the previous night, as both had rolled along with their foggy hangovers.

  “She really is a darling girl,” Theo finally said.

  Owen hadn’t a clue who Theo meant. Throughout the night, he’d seemed to uphold several different semi-relationships, keeping the girls on a string, pulling them along with him.

  “Who do you mean?” Owen grunted. He wasn’t entirely sure he was in the mood for such frivolous conversation.

  “Who do you think? Rebecca, of course,” Theo returned.

  Owen’s shoulders slumped. Since Rebecca had raced away from him, her entire body tilted toward the stables as though she couldn’t get away from him quick enough, his stomach had stirred with apprehension. When he and Theo had re-appeared in the ballroom, several people had approached and asked him, firstly, where his fiancée was and, secondly, if the whole madman thing was really the biggest hoax of the year. He hadn’t been able to answer either.

  “I’m not quite so sure,” Owen said, stuttering over the words.

  “You seemed very cosy when I spotted you outside,” Theo said. “Almost too cosy. As though you’d said and done things you can’t take back.”

  “There’s nothing to report,” Owen said, his nostrils flaring.

  Theo adjusted in his garden chair, switching one foot onto the top of his opposite knee. He always looked overly casual, as though he’d never been uncomfortable in his life. “I don’t suppose you’ve given any thought to just marrying the girl? You seem to get on quite well. I’ve never seen you with anyone so similar to yourself.”

  The thought had, of course, crossed Owen’s mind. But eternally, he felt blocked by his perpetual sense of pride.

  “You know how I feel about marrying against my will, Theo,” he said.

  “Yes. You’ve gone on about it several times now. It seems you can’t really talk about anything else,” Theo said.

  The men were quiet for a moment. Owen scratched his beard and considered the fact that, in actuality, it wasn’t as though marrying her was against his will any longer. Of course, mustering the courage to say this felt outside the bounds of his personal strength.

  “I just have my pride to consider,” he finally said.

  “Of course. Your pride.” Theo chuckled slightly.

  “I want to help my father. I want to ensure we can all go on as we have. But it seems ridiculous that it should fall to this enormous decision. This alteration of my life and the way I live it.”

  Theo clicked his tongue and took a long sip of scotch. Finally, he continued.

  “Owen, we’ve known one another a very long time, haven’t we?”

  “Perhaps too long,” Owen replied.

  “That’s the spirit. Well, to put this bluntly, I am very rich. You know this. It’s not something we discuss all the time, but it’s fortunately very true. I never have to work a day in my life. Neither will my children, should I choose to have them. It’s a remarkable thing.”