The Duke

by Kerrigan Byrne

  But Robert … dear Robert. His elder brother, his most ardent enthusiast and faithful friend. The true and deserving heir to the Trenwyth title …

  He would have loved her.

  Introverted and circumspect, Robert had been drawn to all things bold and beautiful. He’d had the heart of an artist. Abstract and soft. The soul of a philosopher. Fair and contemplative.

  Lord, they’d have been perfect for each other.

  A curious ache gathered in Cole’s throat as he followed the vibrant crimson blot Imogen had become through a suspicious film that obscured his vision. Had life not taken Robert from him, had grief not driven him into Ginny’s arms, had Cole not been broken in a foreign prison … would he and his brother have competed for the lovely widow Anstruther’s attentions? Possibly.

  Probably.

  Who would have won?

  “I say, Trenwyth, you look a little peaked.” The colonel interrupted his reverie. “Are you quite all right?”

  “Just fine, Colonel,” he muttered as something in his mind clicked soundly into place. “Excuse me.” He stepped around the man, intent on only one thing.

  He’d investigated Lady Anstruther, as well, in these days they’d spent apart. She’d been born Imogen Pritchard to a comfortable childhood in a firmly middle-class building off Sloane Street in the city. Then her father, overloaded with debts, had moved his family to Wapping, where their circumstances had continued to decline. He hadn’t been able to figure how she made her way through nursing college, but she’d worked for St. Margaret’s for only a handful of years before meeting Lord Anstruther. By all accounts, until becoming a countess, her life hadn’t been that extraordinary.

  She’d spoken of darkness, though. Of tragedy and disappointment. Not like someone who’d lost a little money, but someone who’d had a great deal else taken from her.

  But what? And by whom?

  A mystery, she was. A mystery wrapped in crimson silks. One he intended to uncover.

  Until now, Imogen had been little more to him than an alluring nuisance. A needling temptation. An unwanted distraction.

  But circumstances weren’t improving in that regard. Indeed, the prior night he’d dreamed they were in that crimson room, back there in the Bare Kitten. And instead of a pale, waifish, raven-haired Ginny, shyly blossoming to his touch, there had been Imogen. A golden-red lioness. A strong, lithe, and wild thing. A huntress in her own right, sun-kissed freckles and wanton lips.

  In his dream, she’d claimed him. Scorched him with her kisses. Seared him with her touch. When he’d awakened, his seed ready to burst from him, it had taken barely a brush of his hand to find a sharp and aching release.

  It had felt like betrayal at the time. Perhaps because of the startling inevitability the dream had validated. He desperately searched for Ginny one more time.

  One last time.

  Perhaps Ginny had been the Kitten name of poor Flora Latimer. Perhaps she’d died violently and he’d not been there to save her. His soul shriveled and bled at the thought. There was the chance that she’d moved on, somehow. That she’d created a new identity and a new life for herself. And if that was the case, it meant she didn’t want him to find her.

  God knew, he’d searched everywhere. The Americas, the Continent, here in London.

  Whatever had become of her, he hadn’t been able to be of assistance. But here was a woman in danger, a woman in need. One who set him ablaze. At times with fury, and other times warmth.

  But always with desire.

  Convention be damned, this next dance belonged to him no matter what it said on her card, and he intended to claim it. Because if he had to watch one more perfumed whelp put his soft hands on her, he’d open throats right in the middle of the Northwalk ballroom.

  He didn’t wait for the dance to end, nor did he excuse himself before cutting in. It was merely that a dark-haired fop was twirling her to Chopin one moment, and in two or three deft movements, Cole had taken his place, leaving the other man stumbling toward the fireplace.

  He did it without even spilling her champagne, he noted smugly as he led her in an effortless waltz. She didn’t flinch as her fingers gripped his alloy ones. She was warm silk against him, and her body fit into his arms with a magical sort of ease.

  Like she belonged there.

  Cole swallowed heavily and pulled her closer than any man had dared that night.

  Her eyes were two wide hazel orbs, the chandeliers gleaming off a gaze made cloudy by inebriation. “Your Grace,” she admonished with an oddly endearing slur. “I hardly think that was called for. Lord West … Westcher … Westireton…” Her brow furrowed.

  “Westershireton,” he supplied helpfully.

  “Well, in any case, he isn’t trying to murder me, he’s just shy.” Her voice carried to the couple to their right who peered at them as though not quite believing what they’d heard.

  Trenwyth covered her gaffe with a forced laugh.

  “Lord, but you’re handsome when you smile,” she breathed. Then hiccupped.

  “How many glasses of champagne have you had?” he asked from between his teeth.

  She looked up as though the memory floated somewhere above her head, which caused her to misstep. He easily caught her and covered the move.

  “Only one,” she slurred guiltily.

  “One?”

  “Only this one.” Her pouty lips drew down until she resembled a child expecting a severe reprimand. “Though I’ve lost count of how many times they’ve refilled it. Please don’t lecture me— What are you doing?”

  He gripped her in a way that made it impossible for her not to follow him as he led them into the crowd at a deceptively leisurely pace. “I’m taking you elsewhere before everyone realizes how drunk you are, and the night is ruined.”

  “Am I drunk?” she queried.

  “Undoubtedly.”

  “I’ve never been drunk before,” she said, casting a wistful gaze into her glass. “Champagne hardly tastes as strong as gin. Though I probably should have stopped when I started feeling the bubbles all the way to my toes.”

  “Do try not to speak nonsense until I get you out of here,” he muttered, fighting a wry sort of amusement as he wrested the glass from her hand and set it on the tray of a passing servant.

  Though the ballroom was overcrowded and the rest of the company increasingly inebriated, Cole knew they were already a bit of a spectacle and in danger of becoming a full-on exhibition. His searching gaze found Blackwell by the pillar at the entry, enjoying a cross breeze and a glass of something expensive. The canny bastard understood the question in Cole’s eyes immediately, glancing down at the countess nearly teetering on her feet. Dorian made a gesture with his dark head toward a door on the south wall, and stepped forward to call the attention of the gathering for yet another toast to his dear wife.

  The congregation thus distracted, Cole half led, half dragged Imogen through the appropriate door and down a dark and eerily empty hall. Securing her to him with his left arm, he tried to ignore the breasts crushed against his side, or the way her head lolled rather sweetly onto his shoulder.

  “We’re not spinning anymore,” she informed him with a sigh. “But everything else still is.”

  He tried a few doors and found them locked, until one gave way beneath his grip. Dragging her inside with him, he shut the door and threw the skeleton-key lock, shrouding them in sudden darkness.

  “Oh no.” The shadows seemed to draw her from her stupor as she squirmed clumsily in his arms.

  “Hold still,” he commanded gently.

  “No,” she gasped, twisting in his grasp like he’d seen many recalcitrant children do in the arms of a firm nanny. “No, this is wrong. I can’t be alone with you. I simply can’t.”

  “Why not? You know I won’t hurt you.”

  “You don’t understand.” Her fervor increased, her arms flailing out. “It is not I who is in danger. But you. We can’t be here, not alone.”

  A spe
ar of trepidation pierced him at her words, and he subdued her easily, shackling her arms to her sides. “Why, dammit?” he demanded. “What are you afraid of, woman, tell me. Did you see someone? Were you threatened?” She had nothing to fear. No one else would touch her tonight. On that they could both rely.

  “I’m afraid … I’m afraid I’ll kiss you again,” she lamented. “I seem to keep doing that when we’re alone in the dark. And then you’ll get angry. You’ll say or do something improper. Or something bad will happen right after.”

  Cole felt every muscle in his abdomen curl against her as he bit out a harsh, unfamiliar, repetitive sound.

  “Oh, please don’t laugh,” she begged. “It feels too … delicious. I can barely resist you when you’re an ill-tempered brute, how do I have any chance if you’re laughing?”

  He hadn’t recognized laughter. It had been too long since he’d experienced it.

  Delicious. She certainly had the right of it. Everything about this moment suddenly took on a rather epicurean atmosphere. The close room warm with the heady breath of a summer’s night. The creamy delight of her bare arms beneath his hand. The scent of her blooming around him, warm and floral. Suddenly he was Adam in the Garden of Eden, confronted with temptation, with a fruit too ripe and enticing to be denied. He shouldn’t taste her. Not like this, when her wits belonged to champagne, and her body belonged to him.

  As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he found that they were in a study of some kind, the furniture hulking and sturdy and decidedly masculine. The drapes had been left drawn open, the clear night casting the dark blue of the room in a silvery moonstone finish.

  “I won’t get angry,” he soothed, allowing his grip to become more cradling then commanding. “And I won’t let anything bad happen.”

  She froze in his arms. “What about the kissing?” she asked dubiously.

  Concealing his smile in the darkness, Cole let his head drop to settle beside hers, nuzzling into her hair, reveling in the scent of it, in the softness of the skin beneath.

  “I can’t make any promises about the kissing.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The night had been an enemy to Cole until this moment. A time and place where shadows loomed and remembered terror lurked. He couldn’t rightly tell which was worse. The nightmares he had when asleep …

  Or awake.

  In the past, he hated how darkness seemed to sharpen his every instinct, to heighten his other senses, intensifying sound, underscoring scents, and increasing the sensitivity of his skin.

  But now … when the noise was the sweet hitch of Imogen’s desperate inhalations as she turned into him. When the fragrance was champagne and berries on the hot breath that feathered against his neck and jaw. When the sensation was her silk-clad hand twining into the short locks at his nape, raising the hairs everywhere else on his body into vibrating awareness … well, he couldn’t say he minded the darkness so very much.

  Only that he wished to see her face. To read the desire in her eyes.

  He settled both his hands at her waist, noticing the slight clicks and creaks the hinges of his prosthesis made with the movement.

  “You didn’t promise not to say or do something improper,” she prompted.

  “I think we both know I’m about to do something very improper, indeed.”

  Aroused, inflamed, Cole pulled her in closer, fitting her to him. Her body melded into his, the soft shape that of an hourglass. He lowered his lips to play across her bare shoulder and hunt for the downy skin of her neck.

  He knew once his lips found hers, all semblance of honor and control would vanish like the stars behind low London clouds. He wanted to prolong this moment, with her pliant and willing in his arms. An almost innocent honesty bloomed between them. Yes, he wanted to keep this moment forever, to roll it up and wrap it in ribbons made of moonbeams and store it in that place they’d spoken of before. That secret place deep within, the one only he could visit.

  Except, now he thought he might keep her there, too.

  An errant sound escaped her as he found the sensitive hollow of her throat. Her fingers kneaded at his scalp and she tipped more heavily against him. “I—I’ve changed my mind,” she informed him unsteadily. “You may kiss me now.”

  Her lips found his temple, clumsily questing lower for his mouth, which he denied her.

  “How fickle you are, Lady Anstruther,” he teased low and soft against her ear.

  “I assure you, I am not,” she promised. “It’s only that, if my lips aren’t occupied, I might say something I shouldn’t.”

  Dear God, did he want to occupy her lips. In ways that would shock her. In ways that might upset and alarm her. Oh Christ, if only …

  Clamping down on the salacious beast that threatened the tenderness of the moment, he, instead, focused on the satin glove warmed by her palm, currently shaping his jaw with a soft caress.

  “You can tell me anything,” he said gruffly, turning his head to nuzzle into her palm like a wolf demanding affection. Using his teeth, he captured the tiny seam at the tip of her longest finger and pulled it loose. He did this to four fingers before the glove slid free of her hand.

  Cole tucked it in his pocket, thinking that he was beginning to start quite a collection of her gloves. “Do you know what I like about you?” he queried, charting the indent of her waist as his hand made its way up her spine. He thrilled to the little tremors of muscle he detected beneath his hand. “Your inability to hide what you feel. Your emotions radiate from you, even in the dark. They’re quite contagious, you know.” He caught a soft lobe between his lips and nudged with his teeth.

  Her gasp melted into a moan. “You don’t know what I hide,” she panted. “You can never know.”

  “Why?” He licked at the hollow behind her ear that tasted of salt and softness.

  “Because,” she breathed almost imperceptibly. Then her hands lifted to his chest, pushing at him until she bent back in his arms like a bloody contortionist.

  Her voice became stronger, the desperation rising above the husky desire. “Because, sometimes, when one keeps so many secrets for so long, one becomes reliant on them. One’s life could unravel in the wake of revelation.”

  “Tell me,” he cajoled, tightening his hold on her. “Tell me what you fear. Tell me your secrets and I’ll hold everything together.”

  “Must I?” she asked plaintively, melting back against him, her lips brushing along the place where his jaw met his neck. “Must the past matter so much now that you are back and I am who I am instead of who I was?”

  She was making no sense, but it didn’t matter. Her mouth left a moist trail down his jawline and was charting a dangerous course across his cheek toward his lips. Cole had the distinct feeling that she used the tantalizing slide of her mouth as a distraction.

  Damn her lovely hide if it wasn’t working.

  His beast both purred and growled simultaneously as he turned his head and claimed her questing mouth. Their tongues slid against each other’s in a dance of wet silk and raw, uncomplicated desire.

  She could keep her fucking secrets, Cole decided, so long as she stayed like this, soft and eager against him, overwhelming his honed senses until the entire world vanished but for the two of them. The room faded and even the moon seemed to dull against the flare of desire sparking through him with all the hot, white fire of a lightning bolt. The cosmos tilted, contracted, and expanded again, leaving them suspended in an eternal firmament, lit only by tiny explosions of unfamiliar stars.

  She placed her hands on either side of his jaw, one palm bare and warm, the other still gloved. Cole tasted her, devoured her, and yet her gentle grip held him utterly captive. Her hands slid down his neck, raising gooseflesh everywhere before they smoothed the swells of his chest, and tucked the lapels of his suit coat.

  A quiet curse escaped him as his lungs labored beneath her palms. Shivers of lust and fire ran up and down his spine, shooting thrills and shocks to the tips of his
fingers and scorching along nerve endings until he felt as though an inferno might erupt if he wasn’t soon rid of his clothes.

  She pulled back, and he almost didn’t let her. Pressing her cheek to his, he felt a tiny hint of moisture slide between their flesh, a tear smudged by their proximity. “I would fall in love with you if you’d let me.”

  Her agonized whisper shook the foundations of the ground beneath his feet. They were no longer suspended in a fantastical midnight sky, but crashed back to the hard and unflinching earth, spinning and spinning in an endless orbit toward eventual oblivion.

  She was here, in his arms. Not locked in a memory he couldn’t fully recall, or stashed on a pedestal constructed of the past. Here. Offering him her gentle, honest heart.

  Cole’s mouth dropped open, a reply posed on the boundary of his lips like a diver at the edge of a cliff.

  But as her hand stole lower, testing the turgid shape of his cock against the front of his trousers, it became apparent neither of them would ever know what he’d been about to say.

  With that one caress, she’d dismantled the last of his self-control and left his humanity in the fragmented shards of moonlight on the lush carpets beneath them. His beast roared to the surface, a low sound escaping his chest before he kissed her roughly, and reached down to lift her against him.

  Cole walked them both backward until something sturdy stole her weight from him. A desk. Excellent. He crowded her onto it, his tongue splaying against the heated silk inside her mouth, until her legs split to make room for his progress against her.

  She clung to him as though she might still fall, her skirts bunching as she gripped him with surprisingly strong thighs, enveloping him with both her arms and legs.

  Suddenly it wasn’t enough. He needed flesh against his flesh. Warm skin and wet desire. He needed rhythmic movement and to watch the arching strain of her lithe muscles as she came apart for him.

  He somehow rid himself of his own gloves before seizing great handfuls of her skirts, hauling them above her knees. He used his left arm to anchor her against him, and to hold her steady in the wake of what he was about to do. His right hand dragged up her thigh until he encountered the satiny skin above the ribbons of her silk stocking.