One Fine Duke

by Lenora Bell

  “And so Rafe has gone to meet this Le Triton with Miss Lachance? Why would he do such an idiotic, foolhardy thing? Does he want to impress your uncle so very much?”

  “Because he’s a . . .” She stopped abruptly as if she’d been about to tell him something and had a change of heart.

  “Mina.” He walked toward her. “There’s something you’re not telling me. Rafe’s not sober or noble enough to embark on perilous journeys to capture dangerous smugglers.”

  She perused the map, her back turned toward him. “The diary entry says that the Poseidon, which is the name of Le Triton’s ship, arrives in one week, which means that there are only three more days. It will be piled high with stolen antiquities—jewels, paintings, statuary, priceless treasures stripped from their rightful—”

  “Mina.” His hands settled on her slender shoulders and he turned her body to face him. She avoided his eyes. “This is my younger brother we’re talking about, whom I’m sworn to protect and aid. You need to tell me why he’s risking his life to apprehend a notorious criminal.”

  She remained mute but regret flickered in her eyes. She wanted to tell him, he could feel it.

  “Mina. Talk to me. I have a right to know.” He brushed the back of his knuckles against her cheek. “There should be no secrets between us. You already know more about me and my past than anyone else on this earth.”

  Her shoulders rose as she inhaled. Something changed in her eyes, softened. “I want to tell you,” she whispered. “But it’s against the code.”

  “What code? Mina, what is this all about? I know that you have something deeper in common with Rafe. At first I thought that you were in love with him but it’s not that. It’s as though you have a shared language, a shared history. It’s not just about antiquities and artifacts, is it?”

  “I can’t tell you,” her voice was anguished, her eyes pleading with him. “Please don’t ask me any more questions.”

  “Don’t ask you any questions.” He dropped his hand and took a step backward. “You’ve been accusing me of shutting you out, of remaining cold. Well you’re the one shutting me out now.”

  “You’ll have to trust me, Drew. Trust that there’s a reason I can’t tell you what you want to know.”

  “Very well.” He was alone again. This bond they’d been forging had been all on his side. She didn’t trust him.

  He strode toward the door. He had to pack. “I have to go after Rafe. The idiot will get himself killed. If I leave tomorrow I’ll be there in time to meet the ship.”

  Mina ran to him and grabbed his hands. “Stop, Drew. You can’t go after him alone. You don’t know what Le Triton is capable of—he’s ruthless. A brutal murderer who cares only for riches and power. He . . . he killed my parents.”

  “I thought they died while traveling abroad.”

  She tightened her grip on his hands and stared into his eyes. “My uncle is on a ship bound for France. I have no one else to turn to, Drew. We have to go together to help stop Le Triton. We go together.” She brought his hands to her chest and clasped them to her heart. “As a partnership.”

  “We won’t be much of a partnership if I don’t know the truth about what we’re doing.”

  Her heart beat wildly beneath his fists. Her jaw clenched.

  She nodded. “You’re right. I’ll tell you everything.”

  Once Mina made the decision to tell him, some of the weight lifted off her shoulders. He’d proven himself to be a powerful, formidable ally. She needed his help on this mission.

  He deserved to know.

  “I haven’t been lying to you . . . exactly.”

  “Never a good way to begin a conversation.”

  “There’s another layer, a secret layer.”

  She began circling Lord Rafe’s bedchamber, lifting paintings and examining the walls for small holes.

  “What are you doing?” Drew asked.

  “Shhh.” She pressed her fingers to her lips. She flung the door wide. No one was outside listening. She shut and locked the door. “I was checking to make sure that no one was listening. What I’m about to tell you can never leave this room.”

  His eyebrows rose. “Sounds like this confession might be eased by a brandy and a warm fire.”

  “That might help,” she admitted. She was so tense that she felt as though her shoulder blades might knit together permanently.

  When the fire was crackling and the lamp trimmed, Drew led her to an armchair and placed a glass of brandy in her hand. Then he pulled another chair close to her and folded his long body into a seated position.

  “Take your time,” he said gently. “We have all night.”

  We have all night.

  Did he know what those four words did to her? How they made her heart stutter and her insides melt?

  A whole night for talking . . . for touching. She could keep her secrets hidden and give him her body instead. Demand that he take what she willingly offered.

  She wanted him. He wanted her. But would he still want her after she told him the truth?

  She sipped the brandy, welcoming the sting and then the softening in her belly, the loosening of tension.

  What she was about to do frightened her. Once she confessed her deepest secret, he would know everything about her. And he could reject her, shut her out, refuse to partner with her anymore.

  Remove himself physically and emotionally as her parents had done, as her uncle had done, leaving her alone again. Alone and longing for connection, to be a part of something larger than herself.

  He could send her right back to Sutton Hall. She wouldn’t stay, of course—she’d run away. But her fate, once again, was in his hands.

  He’d lied for her, to give her freedom from Uncle Malcolm. She owed this to him.

  She gulped the rest of the brandy in one fiery swallow. Best to have done with it, to brave the sting of his reaction in one quick sentence.

  “My uncle is a spymaster who trains an elite force of agents for the Crown,” she blurted, the headiness of the brandy spurring the rush of her words. “Your brother is one of Sir Malcolm’s spies.” She stared into the empty bottom of her glass instead of at Drew.

  “Rafe is a spy?” he asked, his tone incredulous. “Drunken, disorderly, promiscuous Rafe?”

  “All part of his cover. He masquerades as a rake in order to extract information from criminal elements.”

  A snort. “Are you sure about that? Seems more like he might be masquerading as a spy in order to justify his life of debauchery.”

  “There was an incident. He was supposed to be investigating a gambling house suspected of being a cover for a ring of counterfeiters, but he ended up gambling away all the money and producing no information.”

  “Sounds like Rafe.”

  “He was disgraced. This is his way of redeeming himself, of proving to Sir Malcolm that he’s worthy to be reinstated as an agent.”

  She stared harder, wishing she could disappear into the nothingness inside the glass, a swirl of Mina swallowed away. It was too much risk to take to confess her role in all of this. But now that she’d started, she couldn’t stop. She must tell him everything and let him make his own choices.

  “I proposed marriage to Lord Rafe because I viewed him as my path to freedom. I was going to offer him my intimate knowledge of my uncle’s affairs in exchange for an espionage partnership like the one my parents had. They were both spies.”

  Now he would silence her. Send her away. Tell her that she was mixed up in something far too dangerous for a young lady.

  “You want to form a spy partnership with my brother?” he asked.

  She dared a quick glance at his face. Was that hurt in his eyes? “It was to be a marriage of convenience. Not unlike the one you are seeking.”

  “Except that you would be spies.”

  “Yes.” She couldn’t read his expression. He could be laughing at her, or he could be furious. He was so good at hiding his emotions, maddeningly so.

&
nbsp; He poured both of them more brandy. “That’s why you know about secret rooms behind bookshelves and coded diaries. That’s why you carry a flintlock pistol in your purse.”

  She nodded. “I found my mother’s hidden diary and I read all about her adventures. I begged Uncle Malcolm to allow me to become a spy but he refused to allow me even a small role in his secret world. He thought he was protecting me but it was a prison.”

  “Your mother died young.”

  “She died in service to the Crown. By the hand of Le Triton.” Her fingers tightened around the brandy glass. “When I see him I’m going to make him pay for what he did.”

  “You’re speaking of . . . bloodshed?”

  “You don’t know what he’s done—the blood on his hands. So much blood. If I have the chance . . . if we have the chance to bring him to justice and avenge my parents’ deaths, then yes.”

  “No.” He shook his head back and forth. “No, Mina.” He set his glass down and leaned toward her, resting his elbows on his knees. “I won’t believe that of you. You have your whole life ahead of you. Bloodshed, darkness, evil . . . none of it has any place in your future.”

  This was when he would tell her it was too dangerous. Send her away. “I know it’s difficult for you to understand, but I don’t make this choice lightly. I’ve thought it through carefully.”

  “It’s not difficult—it’s impossible. Mina, you’re too alive, you’re too filled with light. You were meant to bring sunshine to this world, not darkness. The life of a spy is filled with danger and uncertainty.”

  “Oh, and you’ve never done anything reckless or dangerous in your life?”

  “Many, many times. Too many to count. When I was a rake, I tried to use pleasure to blot out the pain. I drank myself into stupors, woke up not knowing what had happened the night before. I entered illegal boxing matches. Welcomed being thrashed nearly to death. Danger is a powerful addiction. I can’t imagine you harming yourself in the same ways. When I look at you all I see is unadulterated goodness and light.”

  “Good and pure and helpless. Made to be protected and sheltered. You’ve fashioned me into some kind of conventional paragon of womanhood in your mind.”

  “You’re mishearing me. I’m not idealizing you, I’m simply stating what I see. Why risk your life?”

  “Men risk their lives all of the time during war. This is no different. I was born into a family of spies. I’m meant to fulfill my destiny.”

  “You were meant for a long and happy life. I thought you wanted to have adventures, to travel and meet poets and debate with radical thinkers?”

  “I do. I want to make my mark on the world.”

  “The world I’ve retreated from.”

  “I believe our paths crossed for a reason. You’re part of my adventure. I believe that together we can defeat Le Triton. I want revenge and I want adventure and I want . . .” Could she confess the last of it? “I want you.”

  His eyes the color of firelight, one hand resting on his thigh, palm upward, inviting her touch.

  “I want you, too,” he said.

  “I can’t sleep because I’m thinking about you, Drew.”

  “I was thinking about you when you saw me in the window pleasuring myself. I had a dream about you that night. We were lying together in a field of daisies. Damned daisies. That’s what you do to me, Mina. You make me dream about daisies. Whole fields of them. Clean and sweet and sun soaked. But the things I did to you were depraved.”

  “I thought about you that night after I returned home and I touched myself as well. Dukes don’t have a monopoly on self-pleasuring. There’s nothing saintly or even ladylike about me, Drew. You’ve awakened something in me. You make me long for something I had no idea that I wanted. When I look at you I want to rip your shirt off with my teeth.”

  “Jesus, Mina.” He closed his eyes. “Do you have any idea what you do to me?”

  She stood on unsteady feet. “What do you want to do to me?” she asked.

  “I want you to touch yourself for me.”

  Touch yourself for me.

  His ragged, husky voice made her want to do bad, bad things. It vibrated along her spine like a bow dragged across the bass strings of a cello.

  Was she brave enough to do anything about it?

  She held his gaze and walked to Lord Rafe’s bed. She climbed on top of the covers, lay back against the pillows, and closed her eyes.

  Be brave, Mina.

  Fingers trailing from her throat, down the center of her chest, over her belly. She glanced at Drew and her heart nearly stopped. The ravenous look in his eyes was back.

  She wanted to force him to lose control, leap to his feet and kiss her again with that same rough, reckless abandon.

  Reach down and lift the hem of your skirts now, slide them over ankles, calves, knees . . . thighs.

  His sharp intake of breath gratified her, gave her the courage to keep going.

  Her fingers hovered over the apex of her thighs.

  “Lower your drawers,” he ordered.

  Did she dare?

  She undid the tie of her drawers. She wriggled her way out of the undergarments and allowed them to fall beside the bed.

  “Lie back on the bed,” he said, his breathing harsh and quick. “Spread your legs.”

  The most daring act of all. She parted her thighs slowly, savoring the low sounds he made, the desire in his gaze. The thin fabric of her shift still partially covered her most intimate place.

  He was giving the orders, but she held all the power. A new kind of power.

  She could get used to it.

  “Touch yourself for me, Mina.”

  “I suppose it’s only fair,” she whispered. “I saw you in the window. A pleasuring for a pleasuring.”

  “That’s right,” he growled with a roguish smile.

  She loved his smile, how it quirked one of his lips higher than the other and crinkled the edges of his eyelids. His smile ignited something inside her. A round hollow in the center of her chest, glowing through her skin.

  She was a heat source, a light source, and it was because of him.

  One soft, exploratory swipe of her finger over that most sensitive place. She arched her back off of the bed. She was already at a fever pitch of arousal.

  She’d been there since she’d met him.

  It was exquisite to touch herself but she would die soon if she couldn’t have his hands on her instead. A dangerous precipice to dance upon. She knew that she could fall.

  She couldn’t help herself. She wanted him too badly. “You say that you used to be wicked. But how am I to know that it’s true?”

  He straightened, rising like a cliff on the horizon, shoulders so broad and strong. “It’s a fact.”

  “Then prove it.”

  “Prove what?”

  “That you used to be a rake.”

  Chapter 24

  Prove it.

  Prove he’d been a rake. Prove that he still had it—the talent for giving a woman pleasure.

  Drew’s throat constricted and his chest expanded with longing.

  Oh, he could prove it—there was no doubt about that.

  In order to do it right you had to listen. Pay attention. Pick up on small cues, infinitesimal shifts in a mood, a body. The angle of her hips, the rhythm of her breath, her sighs.

  He wanted to prove himself to Mina, prove more than just his expertise with lovemaking. He wanted to be worthy of her trust, her partnership.

  She was right. He’d been building her up into something perfect and untouchable in his mind, placing her on a pedestal. She was a woman who defied definition. She was her own unique species. He had no way to define her or classify her.

  “Drew,” she whispered. “You’re thinking too much. You need to let go. Take a leap of faith. Stop thinking.”

  “When I used to be a rake, I didn’t think at all,” he replied. “I obliterated thinking with wine and whisky. I existed for pleasure, because pleasure
drives everything else away, at least in the moment.”

  “We don’t need wine.” Her eyes half lidded, fingers moving gently beneath her shift.

  “No, we don’t.” He paused at the foot of the bed. Damn, she was lovely.

  Hair loosened, flowing over the bed in silken loops and whorls.

  Curvy breasts spilling over her bodice, the hint of one darker pink areola.

  White stockings ending midway up her thighs, cinched by pink ribbons. Legs spread. Fingers between her thighs.

  One thin layer of muslin covering her sex from his gaze.

  Blood rushing in his ears like surf against cliffs, heart pounding, cock granite hard and at the ready. He had Mina spread before him like a feast.

  “What are you waiting for?” she asked. “You’re my adventure. I choose you. And you know.” She grinned. “If it’s not you, it will be some other wicked rake.”

  The hell it would be. That was it. She was offering herself to him, offering him the chance to give her pleasure.

  He could keep her at arm’s length—or he could wrap his arms around her and give her all of the pleasure and adventure she could handle.

  His mind screamed at him to keep a safe distance, push her away.

  His heart abandoned all of his defenses and pushed him over the edge, plunging him toward her.

  “I’m going to make you cry my name when you come, Mina,” he said.

  Her cheeks flushed to the color of a sunrise. “For someone who thinks he’s as cold as ice, you’re heating me through and through.”

  “Not yet though,” he said. “Hands above your head. Clasp them together.”

  Her breath stuttered, eyes hazy. She obeyed him, moving her hands above her head and clasping her wrists together.

  He reached for her waist and dragged her down the bed until her bottom was at the edge and her legs hung down.

  He sank to his knees on the carpet, gently pushing her legs wider and spreading the folds of her wet sex with his thumbs.

  She bit her lower lip. “What are you doing?”

  “Preparing you for my mouth. I’m at the perfect height now.”

  “Your mouth?”

  “I want to taste you. Satisfy you. Make you come with my mouth. Would you like that?”