He ground his jaw, stalked closer to her, not stopping until he stood before the chair she was using as a shield against him. Violets, the scent he had hungered for all this time and missed, assailed him in sweet remembrance. “Tell me, my lady. Do you wish to wed him?”
She paled, her nostrils flaring. “Who I marry, and whether or not I wish to marry him, is no concern of yours, Mr. Kirkwood. Indeed, I ceased being a concern of yours the moment you traded me for the vengeance you so desperately longed to obtain.”
Guilty.
He had done that. Yes, he had. But it had been because he had supposed he had garnered her the freedom she wished. It had been because he had been hopelessly torn between atoning for the past sins of Amberley against his mother and his need for Frederica. Because he had known there wasn’t a chance of snow in Hades that her father would ever allow her to wed him.
He had believed he was providing her with the best chance for happiness. That, given the proof of her ruination, her father would send her away, and she would find herself ensconced in some cottage by the sea, happily scratching her pen upon a stack of foolscap, writing The Silent Baron.
Foolishness, he realized now. Complete and utter foolishness. There was no simple, happy resolution in life. There had not been for his mother, not for him, not for Frederica. Fighting was a way of life. But he would fight for her. For them. He had gained his revenge, but he had lost something far more important. Her. But from this moment forward, he was willing to do anything to right the grievous wrong he had done her.
“There is something I never told you,” he began haltingly. “Something I do not speak of often…my mother was not always a whore. She was a simple country girl. She came to London and was instantly swept into a world of sin. Amberley plucked her from that world and made her his mistress. But when she became with child, he tossed her into the streets. She was forced to sell herself to any man she could, just to keep food in my belly.”
Her expression softened. “Oh, Duncan.”
But he did not want her pity. He wanted her to understand. He needed to explain his actions, if indeed he could. Mere words would not excuse them, but it would be a beginning. “It was Amberley’s duty to aid her, to give her some manner of restitution, and yet he cruelly turned his back. Just as it was Amberley’s fault, she was killed by one of the men to whom she sold herself, strangled and discarded as if she were no better than an old pair of stockings. I wanted revenge upon the duke for my mother’s sake. For the suffering she had, for the life of fear and worry and pain. And I am sorry, endlessly sorry, to have allowed you to become caught up in my need for vengeance.”
“I had not realized your mother was murdered, Duncan,” she said, her tone gentling with sympathy. With something else, too, but he could not define it.
“I found her,” he blurted before he could stop himself. Something about her wide eyes comforted him, something about her lulled him in a way no one else ever had. “She was cold and bruised, and all I could think about was how scared she must have been. I wondered if she thought of me, called out for me. She had sent me off with some coin to gather buns, and when I returned, she was dead.”
He relived the horror of that day once more, allowing it to engulf him. Only this time, he had Frederica Isling before him. This time, he did not feel as if he was drowning in an icy sea. Instead, he felt as if he had risen to the surface, as if he could swim to shore at last.
“I understand your desire to gain your revenge,” she said. “I always did, even before I knew what you have just revealed to me. But you walked away from me. Left me as if I meant nothing at all to you.
“You meant everything to me.”
“I wish I believed that.” Emotion thickened her husky tones. “Too much time has passed, Duncan. You are far, far too late.” Her voice was as pained as her expression, and it slayed him inside.
“Marry me,” he said baldly, half demand, half plea.
Also, not what he had planned. He had meant to woo her, to win her. To convince her of the rightness of shackling herself to him, even if he was a social outcast who had taken her innocence and walked away.
But the conviction, the pretty persuasion he would have offered disappeared, instead replaced by two words, and they would not be subdued. Once spoken, they could not be called back, and he could not honestly say he regretted them. He wanted her at his side, as his wife, in his bed. He did not want to abandon her again. To leave her at the mercy of her father and men like his half-brother.
Her lips parted, shock making her eyes go wide. Silence hung in the chamber seething with condemnation. It was not long before she found her voice. “Marry you? How dare you use me in another attempt at gaining your revenge upon Amberley?”
“Marrying you would be my honor,” he said, and he meant it, though he could not blame her for doubting him. He had provided her no reason to give him her trust. “I do not deserve you, and I know it. But taking you as my wife would have nothing to do with vengeance and everything to do with protecting you as I ought to have done from the moment I took you to my bed. Before that, even. From the moment I first kissed you.”
She stared at him, tears shimmering in her eyes. “I asked you to kiss me that day, just as I asked you to ruin me. I am to blame for the straits in which I now find myself, and I have made peace with my mistakes, Mr. Kirkwood. I will not be your duty any more than I will be your vengeance.”
Damn it, he was making a muck of this. He wanted to skirt the chair, remove the obstacle between them, and take her in his arms. But he was also aware he must do his penance. He needed to earn her. “I am not worthy of you, this I know. Regardless of how much wealth and power I amass, I will always be the bastard son, born on the wrong side of the blanket. I will never be a lord, nor do I aspire to be one. You will not one day become the Duchess of Amberley if you wed me. But I…I care for you, Frederica. I care as I have never cared for another. From the moment I first saw you in my club, disguised as a gentleman, I was drawn to you. My time away from you did not diminish that fierce spark within me. It only enhanced it.”
He spoke from the heart. Truer sentiments could not be found inside himself. He wished he had taken a different path on the day of the masque, that he had proclaimed to her brother and anyone who would listen that she was his. That he was keeping her, like Hades and Persephone. That they would rule his underworld together. Forever.
Her gloved hands gripped the back of the chair in a tight clench. “Why now? It has been six weeks.”
Had she, too, been counting? He took one more step, approaching her as he would a spooked horse. “Six weeks of agony,” he said. “I had convinced myself I had procured us both what we wanted the most. For me, it was revenge. For you, your freedom.”
A tear slid down her cheek at last. “You got your revenge, did you not? But in the end, I was denied my freedom. And you did not care. I saw you the day you came to see my father. You left with what you wanted most. If you had truly wanted me…if you had cared for me, as you now claim, you would have taken me with you then, when I was free.”
“Christ knows I should have,” he agreed. “I am so sorry I did not. I am sorry for every day, every hour, and every minute I have spent without you.”
She shook her head, another tear glittering as it fell. “You are too late now. The damage has been done. I am promised to the earl.”
Damn it. This was not what he wished to hear. One more step closer, and he was almost around the chair now. So near, he saw the clear delineation of the teardrops studding her dark lashes like spangles.
“Tell me something, Frederica,” he said, his voice raw. Hoarse. “Is Willingham the suitor you spoke of? Is he the one who forced his kisses upon you?”
“What do you care?” she lashed out angrily. “It is all settled now. Nothing will change it.”
“Because I know what manner of man he is,” he bit out, giving in to his instincts at last and closing the distance. Two more steps round the chair, and
they stood face to face, chest to chest. He allowed himself the pleasure of touching her then, framing her face with his hands. An innocent gesture that belied all the emotion, want, and need warring within him. “He will hurt you, Frederica. He will cause you pain, and he will enjoy it, and there will be nothing you can do to stop him.”
She bit her lip, saying nothing, and ice-cold fear replaced all else.
“Has he already hurt you, angel?” he asked with soft menace.
“Not recently, no. With the preparations, he has not been alone with me,” she whispered.
Duncan’s mind was made. He was going to kill Willingham. He was going to hunt him down, and he was going to beat him until his knuckles split and he heard the sickening crunch of the other man’s bones. “What has he done?”
“Nothing.”
She was lying, and he knew it. “Tell me, Frederica.”
“He…has forced kisses upon me. He…grips me with so much force I bear bruises later.” A shuddering breath emerged from her. “He told me I would grow accustomed to it, that he would teach me.”
The hell he would.
“You cannot marry him,” he told her, inwardly furious. Furious at the cowardly fop who had been given everything his entire life and yet still needed to inflict pain upon those weaker than him. Furious that Willingham had touched his woman. Had forced unwanted advances upon her. Furious at her father for breaking his word to Duncan and promising Frederica not just to a man she did not wish to marry, but to a man who would crush her beneath his boot.
“I must.” Her gloved hands settled over his. “I am betrothed to him.”
His gut curdled at the word, at its meaning. No part of him could fathom that he was in love with Lady Frederica Isling, and she was going to marry his half-brother. Indeed, every part of him refused to consider her anything other than his.
“I have a plan,” he said, searching her eyes. “Do you trust me?”
“No,” she answered without hesitation.
Well, Beelzebub’s brimstone. At least she was honest.
Chapter Seventeen
He had a plan, he said.
He cared for her, he said.
He wanted to marry her, he said.
Frederica stared into Duncan Kirkwood’s impossibly blue gaze, and in those inscrutable depths, she found hope for the first time in six interminable weeks. She did not dare trust him. He preyed upon the weaknesses of men for his living. Indeed, he had made a fortune from it. He had intended to use her as a pawn to gain his revenge upon his erstwhile father from the moment he had first discovered who she was.
He was beautiful.
Debonair.
Dark and dangerous.
He was the man who had taken her innocence and then cast her off with nothing more than an apology and one last glance back at her from the street. He was the half-brother of the man who took pleasure in bruising her tender flesh. Everything about what he proposed was wrong.
And yet, everything was right.
Too right.
Because Duncan Kirkwood’s delicious scent had invaded her senses, and his large, warm body was all but flush against hers, and they were alone in a bedchamber of all places, and his hands were upon her. And because she knew how delicious his kisses were and how talented his hands and mouth could be. Because she remembered how it felt to have him inside her, stretching her, marking her as his. She remembered how she had been so full, full of Duncan, full of life, full of love.
His plan could not possibly work. She swallowed, forced herself to return from the clouds. “Why would Willingham agree to your proposal?” she asked him, doing her best to remain strong against the devastating onslaught that was Duncan Kirkwood.
“Because I shall make him,” Duncan ground out, his jaw clenched.
Oh dear.
“I do not wish for violence.”
“No one deserves violence more, my lady,” he growled.
So protective, so fierce, Mr. Duncan Kirkwood. He was indisputably a man of hot passions and unapologetic convictions. When he spoke, he meant it. But where had he been? Why had he taken six merciless weeks to decide he wanted her in his life? Frederica closed her eyes, attempting to regain herself.
“No violence,” she repeated, her resolve weakening.
He was touching her. So near to her. And God help her, she wanted him more than she ever had. You can have him, her heart whispered, that cunning thing. Forever. How potent a lure was the notion of taking Duncan Kirkwood as her husband? Of kissing that sensual mouth whenever she wished, of learning his body and his desires, of allowing him to teach her the art of pleasure? More potent than the promise of immortality, she feared. Perhaps just as false.
“I will promise you anything but that, angel,” he said with such tenderness one would have supposed he was courting her with gentle wooing rather than threatening to beat the Earl of Willingham. “He hurt you, and I will hurt him in turn. We shall see how he likes to be the recipient of pain.”
“Duncan.” She frowned. “You must not. Not on my account.”
“It is a long time coming for him, angel,” he said, caressing her cheek with his thumb. His hands were ungloved, and his bare skin upon hers was like the charge of gunpowder. Explosive. “On your account and on account of every other female he has ever so injured without her consent. In my world, we believe it must be an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. He hurt my woman, and now he will know the same hurt.”
My woman.
How she liked the sound of that on his supple lips. She liked it too much.
“I am not yours,” she reminded him, for he had not earned the right to claim her. Nor was she certain he could, given the hopelessness of their disparate situations. “And I do not—”
His mouth was upon hers then, swift and unexpected, warm and wonderful, and tasting of Duncan and the forbidden, of sin and redemption, too, and—unless she was mistaken—chocolate. He tasted good enough to eat, and she had missed him. Had ached for him. Six long weeks of alternately yearning for him and hating him crashed upon her in that moment. She became desperate. Her arms wound around his neck, and she rose on her toes, kissing him back with as much unskilled urgency as she could manage without swallowing him whole.
Their tongues tangled. His hands were on her waist, drawing her against him and the unmistakable outline of his cock, full and thick. They kissed and kissed until she was making soft sounds of urgency and he was eating them up. Until his palms were planted upon her arse—yes, she knew the meaning of the word at last—cupping her, lifting her, and grinding her body against his. Her legs parted, her skirts having been gathered to her waist by his clever hands, and then her core made contact with his breeches.
She was bare, her swollen flesh impaled upon the stiff fabric. Upon the delicious ridge of him. Oh. How sinful. How wonderful. This was what she had missed. Duncan. His body. His knowing wickedness. Simply him.
He caught her in his arms, guiding her legs around his waist, and walked them several paces until her back met a wall. Deftly, he used his strength to pin her there, off the floor, pressed between plaster and his hard body. His mouth slanted over hers, at once gentle and possessive. Knowing and ruthless. Wicked and wonderful.
She was on fire, coming back to life. Everything she had felt the night he had made love to her returned, only this time stronger. More forceful. This time, she understood what the sensations meant. She knew what friction and pressure and Duncan would grant her.
And she wanted it.
She wanted to come undone for him. Because of him.
For so long, she had dreamt of him, had lain awake in her bed, miserable and isolated, thinking of him. Imagining him and his knowing hands and lips and tongue. She had touched herself, had worked her flesh in the same manner as he had, and she had experienced small tremors of satisfaction. But nothing she had dared try thus far compared to Duncan’s body against hers, his mouth voracious on hers, his tongue, his fingers, his…
He thrust
against her, the hard line of his cock glancing over the sensitive bud he knew how to pleasure so well. She moaned into his mouth, ravenous for him. She wanted more. Wanted everything. Her hands were in his hair, on his broad shoulders, down the solid plane of his back, finding his bottom. His was well-shaped, perfect handfuls, tight and firm. He angled himself against her more fully, driving against her in steady, rhythmic thrusts that mimicked lovemaking. Each pass of his cloth-covered cock over her bare flesh stoked the fires rising within her.
Her mind ceased to function. Instead, she was taken over by the sensory; Duncan’s masculine scent in her nose, his taste in her mouth, the burgeoning shape of him pressing into her most sensitive flesh. He drove against her, his mouth taking hers as his body once more led her to the oblivion of full and complete bliss.
She was desperate for him, needing more, raking her nails all over his body, offering herself to him as if he had never walked away from her. Because she belonged to him, just as he belonged to her. Because she needed more. She needed something she had not even imagined, something she had not fathomed, a mere hour before.
She needed contact. Friction. More of him. Starving. She was so starved for this man. For his flesh, for the sweet weight of his body atop hers, for his large hands, his mouth. His tongue. Good heavens, his tongue, long and willful and persuasive.
He settled himself more firmly between her thighs with ease, setting his lips to her throat. His pulsing cock was seated against her cunny. A sharp stab of need pulsed through her. She wanted him inside her, and her body knew it before her mind did, her hips arching in desperation, seeking to accept that which had yet to be offered. Except, even in that motion, she found minor comfort.
And so she did it again, dragging herself over his hard cock, longing for it to be buried inside her. Now that she had experienced such wild fulfillment, she had no wish to settle for anything less. But this…he jerked his hips into her, thrusting…oh, this, too, could make her lose control.
“I promised I would not ruin you,” he muttered against her mouth. “That I would not dishonor you. I want you so damn much, Frederica Isling. More than you will ever know.”
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