A Duke's Temptation (21 page)

Lord Anonymous.

Was it real?

But surely he needed protection, too.

She needed a few moments to reflect. To reconcile his identity with the man he showed himself to be. She had to admit she found Gravenhurst as wickedly alluring as she did Lord Anonymous. Imagine her accusing him of being a woman. How he must have been laughing inside.

And how completely he had won her heart. He had taken her under his wing and made her feel comfortable as part of the household. Everyone at St. Aldwyn had. He had chosen his staff well. Lily would like to think he had chosen her for her character, too. Compatible—that was the word. None of them perfect, but all fitting together.

Now he had confided his deepest secret in her. Why would she ever want to leave?

If he took a mistress or a wife, could she bear it?

She could manage his household, but she had no influence over his intimate affairs. It would grieve her to watch him fall in love with another woman. Still, he was eligible and it was bound to happen. She was the one who had sworn off romance, who had said she would never marry.

She had traveled all this way to put such complications behind her. Yet Samuel was the most tempting complication she had ever come across. She must admit it was too late to do anything about it. She was bound to him by more than her signature.

She felt his presence from the door directly behind her. She slowed, listening, waiting for him to follow. The fountain splashed from the terrace shadows outside. She did not hear Samuel’s footsteps. She turned, looking around the hall. A door half-hidden behind a hanging tapestry caught her notice. She walked toward it and pushed aside the tasseled fringe, testing the knob.

Unlocked. She assumed that the small antechamber within held a private stairwell to the duke’s suite. He had given her freedom of the house. Would he object if she took him at his word? She decided not.

She stared up the smooth oaken stairs that rose to her right. Did Lord Anonymous write in one of the darkened rooms that she had previously been forbidden to enter?

She grasped her skirts and took the first two steps. The wood felt different on the third. The tip of her slipper pressed a concealed device that chirped only once before a skeleton dressed like a dashing cavalier popped up from a hidey-hole on the first landing. Her heart pounded as she skirted his leering skull.

Thus assured that her quest would prove entertaining, if she could survive it, she proceeded at a slower pace up the remaining stairs.

L
ily had never done anything as brazen and indecorous as to invite herself to a gentleman’s bed. Samuel had hidden his identity from her, but not his desire. Until his confession, she had not realized that she wanted to be the one to fulfill his desires, as rudimentary as her knowledge of the carnal arts might be. By all rights she should have been in a bridal bed, not posed like a wanton on the duke’s unmade four-poster.

The rest of society would view her behavior as further proof that she no longer belonged. She agreed. She was much better suited to Samuel than to the man she had intended to marry.

She reached across the bed for the book she spotted under the pillow. She had not found his office. To judge by the desk in the corner that overflowed with ink-stained papers, playbills, and hand-drawn maps, he worked here, too.

She held her breath at the sound of footfalls outside the door. An expression of shock crossed Samuel’s face when he entered the room and saw her on the bed. She smiled. So did he, recovering quickly enough to drop his evening coat on a chair and close the door before she could look away.

“Reading before bed?” he asked, folding his arms with the self-possession of a man accustomed to finding an uninvited partner in his bed. “I hope it’s entertaining.”

She swallowed a laugh. “There are certain parts. It is Book Three of the tales.”

“Not overwrought?”

“At times. But I’m finding a new meaning as I reread.”

He advanced stealthily, discarding his neckcloth on the way, and pried the book from her hands. “You’ve strayed into my room. Into my bed. Was that a mistake?”

Her courage wavered. His vital energy charged the air. She looked up from the knees of his pantaloons to his chiseled face. His arrogant grin gave her palpitations. He glanced at the book before placing it on the Chinese chest at the foot of the bed. “Lily,” he said quietly, his frame suddenly overshadowing her. “Why are you here?”

“I was looking for your office.”

“Ah.”

“But then I peered inside and saw the desk—”

“And decided that you would stay?”

She flushed and started to slide her feet to the floor. He sat down on the bed without hesitation, his body leaning against hers.

“Don’t go,” he said, cradling her chin in his hand. “Stay. You do belong here, Lily. I’ve been waiting for you to give me the slightest sign.”

If he hadn’t kissed her then, she would have further shamed herself by insisting that he did. She sank back, feeling his arm slide around her waist. He brushed his lips across hers. His kisses unraveled her senses until it felt natural when his other hand began unlacing her dress. Her swollen breasts spilled against his palms.

“Put out the lamp, Samuel,” she whispered breathlessly.

He broke the kiss for only the moment it took him to reach his hand to the nightstand, an act he appeared to have done numerous times in the past. Lily felt his eyes lift to hers. He bent again. His body pressed into hers, groin to belly, his shaft against her mound. Her veins thrummed, sang in anticipation. The rustle of her skirt and petticoat, the linen sheets, mingled with his rasping breath.

She resisted the urge to shield her nakedness from his heated scrutiny. “I have a feeling that we aren’t going to read.”

He stroked the tips of her breasts, twisting them between his long fingers until her hips rose off the bed and it was an effort to breathe. “Not in the dark. It’s bad for the eyes.”

She swallowed a gasp. “I didn’t come here for a bedtime tale.”

He laughed quietly. “I didn’t think so.”

“Samuel.” She brought her hand to his face. He swallowed tightly, still for several moments. “Aren’t you going to undress?”

He laughed again. “Of course.” He stretched back, his arms crossed. Then, pulling off his waistcoat, shirt, pantaloons, and stockings, he said, “In the words of Master Will, ‘When he falls, he falls like Lucifer.’ ”

He was her literary devil. She was obliged to him in word and soon would be his in deed. Possession. Pleasure unbridled. She wanted to please him. She stole glimpses of his lean body from her lowered eyes. What little modesty she had left prevented her from staring.

Villain. Writer. Duke. She shivered when she felt his fingers stealing down the inside of her arm. He caressed her skin as though he were savoring the texture of silk. She wanted to hold still, but his hands would not let her. He had a master’s touch in more ways than she could withstand.

“Wait,” she ordered him firmly, the tempo of her breathing uneven. It was all she could do not to steal touches of her own. She should have felt vulgar, not voluptuous, ripe, restless for him to finish what she had started. “Kiss me again,” she whispered.

“Where?”

She couldn’t answer. It had never occurred to her that there were places other than a woman’s mouth meant to be kissed.

He leaned up on one elbow. “From the bottom up?”

Flames danced down her spine. He levered himself a little higher. Her gaze dropped from his chest. Longwand he was. Broadsword, too. That she could confirm in the dark. She closed her eyes. His impudent voice whispered above her.

“Why don’t I just kiss you at random and you can tell me when I come to an especially sensitive spot?”

“So that you will stop?”

“What do you think?”

She
couldn’t
think.

His seduction was so potent that her body seemed to dissolve. She held her breath as his mouth wandered downward, as he drew the peak of her breast between his teeth. “This is a nice place to kiss.” Then, “This is another good spot,” he whispered, releasing her tender nipple to bite playfully at her belly.

“Samuel,” she moaned, “not there!”

“Then here?”

She arched, shivered at his scandalous pursuit. His tongue teased the hood of her sex. She moaned softly, tight inside. Tighter and tighter until she unwound, moving against his mouth without shame. She was slowly falling back to earth when he lowered his chiseled body to hers. She felt his thick member prodding between her thighs. She squeezed her legs together. He gently pried them back apart. In another moment he would be practically inside her, where she hurt for him the most.

“I don’t—”

He raised himself up on his arms and silenced her with a deep, delicious kiss, his tongue thrusting inside her mouth.
Oh, yes.
She felt her body dampen, resist, until she surrendered to instinct and let go of all restraint. Pure reaction. He led the way. To where? Her mind did not care. A place of red mist and aching delights. Release.

“I’m lost,” she whispered, panic and pleasure intermingling.

“I have found you.”

“I’ll never marry anyone after this, even if I wanted to.”

“You’ll never marry anyone else, you mean,” he said.

Her eyes locked with his. “I don’t think I’ll make you a good mistress.”

He smiled. “I am sure of it.”

 

 

 

He had wanted her, it seemed, for an eternity. She was the elusive heroine in every story he had written. She was the woman who would redeem him by making him the man he ought to be. His deepest feelings for her had indeed become overwrought and sentimental. But right now, on the lower plane, his member pulsed as if to burst. He had waited forever, and that organ of anarchy and impulse would not behave until this pact was closed. He was desperate for fulfillment.

He spread her hair across the pillows, plucking loose her scattered pins. He wished he could see her more clearly in the dark. He studied the symmetry of her shoulders, her generous breasts, and her distended nipples, the tangle of curls above her thighs. As often as he’d pictured her nakedness, she was more beautifully made than his imagination had dreamed, lush, designed for erotic delights. Soft contours to cradle a man. Skin as tempting as fresh cream.

He knew she had bathed for the night. He’d seen the procession of hot-water buckets carried to her room. He would have preferred her natural fragrance. He was a man who indulged his every sense when he made love. Her sweet aroma made his mind swim.

“Lift your legs around my back, Lily,” he said, taking an uneven breath as she complied.

He knelt over her, uninhibited, encouraging her to follow her impulses. He stroked his hand over her belly and gripped his pulsing sex to guide his entry. He ached with self-control, rubbing lightly against her. Teasing her. A little longer. The more aroused she became, the greater his own pleasure. She whimpered, a sound that tore his willpower apart. Not yet. She arched her back, pushed her breasts at him. Delectable.

He eased himself between her folds. The temptation to penetrate her became unbearable. He slid one hand under her bottom and imprisoned her in a gentle hold. She shook helplessly and strained to lift herself against him until she had taken the tip of his sex inside. He released a soft groan as her quivering muscles closed around him. “Lily,” he said in desperation. “Don’t do anything like that unless you want me to—”

“I do want,” she whispered. “Whatever it is, please. I want it.”

He didn’t have to be asked again.

His hand gripping her buttocks, he eased another inch deeper and thrust. He felt a primal thrill of domination, possession. She was his from this moment on. His body took charge. His mind emptied. He pushed deeper and ground harder, as if he would impale her to the bed. He could not help it, even as he broke through her maidenhead, and she swallowed him whole. Too soon pleasure crested, muscles uncoiled, convulsing with a force he could not hold back. On and on.
Merciful God.

Then stillness. His blood hammered in his head, his groin, slowly receding into a lingering beat. His thoughts began to focus, fragments settling like a kaleidoscope.

Lily’s legs slipped from his damp back to the bed.

He stared down at her, trying to breathe, to control the male triumph that threatened to overwhelm his concern for her.

She looked ravished, flushed, as well pleasured as he felt. And now she was where she belonged. He released the longest breath of his life.

“The deed is done,” he said in unconcealed satisfaction, stretching out alongside her. “And well-done, if I say so myself.” He kissed her lips, whispering, “Lily. I can’t tell you how wonderful you are.”

“The deed,” she teased, curling against his chest, warm, heated female. “That sounds like something Renwick would say.”

He combed his fingers through her hair. “He did.
Wickbury
, Book Three, Chapter Last.”

“Samuel,” she whispered, “you are a thoroughly entertaining man. I wish I had met you first.”

“I do, too, Lily.”

She closed her eyes. “It would have been so different.”

“There is no doubt.”

“What will it be now?” she whispered.

“Whatever you want it to be. Whatever you permit. I won’t limit you in any manner.”

“Storyteller,” she murmured. “You cannot make up our lives as we go along.”

“Why not?” he asked, his hand slipping down her nape to her shoulders.

“I don’t know.” She raised her head to smile at him. “Go on and try.”

L
ily woke up just before light. She saw a room filled with the shadows of unfamiliar Gothic furnishings, and the duke, fully dressed, moving furtively toward the door. She was tempted to bury herself in the eiderdown bedding and pretend she was still asleep.