I Married the Duke (13 page)

“I don’t want to pay you. I don’t intend to pay you,” she said swiftly. “I only want . . .” Her lashes flickered with uncertainty, then entreaty.

Luc counted to ten. To twenty.

She said nothing.

He turned and strode out of the building. He went through the trees toward the water, seeking refuge and sanity where he had always found them.

She came after him and touched his arm, and he succumbed to madness.

H
E PULLED HER
into his arms, bent to her mouth and kissed her. He kissed her quite thoroughly, with no pretense of hesitation, and Arabella did nothing to halt him. It was what she most wanted and why she had run after him. He made her want things she should not want and do things she should not do, and this was no doubt the worst of all because she did not only want to be kissed. She wanted to feel weak-kneed from something other than fear. But the only thing other than fear that had ever made her feel weak-kneed was him. He made her forget that she had been kissed by men who did not want to please as they took pleasure.

He clearly wished to please. Flat across her back, his palms slipped to her waist and he tugged her against his body. She allowed this too. He was hard and strong and she wanted for a moment to lose control.

He sank his fingers into her bound hair, tilted her head back and put his mouth on her throat. She sighed, pleasure fanning through her until it was everywhere inside her, in the tips of her breasts and between her legs. It made her want to touch him, to feel him with her hands. She trailed her fingers along his arm, then grasped gently. The muscle beneath his coat shifted beneath her touch. A sound of pleasure rumbled in his chest.

“You have hands after all, do you?” he murmured behind her ear, his mouth hot upon her skin making her feel wild inside. “Use them on me, duchess.”

“I mustn’t.”

“I invite you to.”

“You frighten me.”

He released her. His chest rose upon a hard breath. “This is worse than war. At least in battle a man knows where he stands from one moment to the next. Usually.”

“I am only being honest with you! I—”

“
Yes
or
no
?”

“Yes.” She closed the space between them and laid a light palm upon his chest. His hands covered her behind and pulled her flush to him and his knee came between her thighs.

Arabella lost her breath. She lost all thought. She felt only the hard shock of his muscle against her most intimate place.

He kissed her neck and tugged at the fastening of her cloak.

“What are you doing?” she whispered, her words lost in the rhythm of the surf and need inside her.

“Undressing you. Touching you. Let me touch you.” His palm smoothed along her collar and over her breast. But she did not move away or chastise him or tell him no. She knew it was wrong to let him touch her, but she wanted to feel pleasure. She wanted, even for a moment, to be as mad as a pirate.

S
HE DID NOT
push him away. She met his kisses, and Luc filled his hands with her as he had fantasized.

The reality of her was sweeter. It made him insane for more. Her breasts were small in his hands and he wanted to suck on them until she moaned and came for him. But she was motionless, barely touching him, her eyes closed and shoulders stiff. He pressed his hand along her spine and cinched his arm low around her waist, trapping her to him, making her straddle his thigh. She arched her back, tightening the fabric of her gown across her breasts.

“Unbind your hair.” The words were too abrupt, like a command he might give his men aboard ship.

Miraculously, she obeyed. Reaching up to remove the pins, she separated the thick cords of copper from the binding. But she watched him through lowered cinnamon lashes. When all of her hair fell down her back, he slipped his hand beneath the magnificent mass and speared his fingers into it. It was heavy, like water and silk and molten copper, and warm. Strands of it stirred in the night breeze, fluttering across her raspberry lips. He wanted to see it clothe her, sliding over her naked body—nothing but her hair and his hands.

“You did not purchase a new gown?”

“I did not.”

“You are obligated to. It was our agreement.” He turned her around so her back was to him and still she did not protest. Swiping the hair aside, swiftly he unfastened the gown’s hooks at her nape then the tapes that crossed beneath her breasts.

“Will you undress me here,” she said, “in the open where anyone might see?”

“All are abed, including the moon.” He bent to her neck to taste the satin of her skin, and she sighed. “Only I will see.”

“I am not beautiful,” she whispered. “Not round and voluptuous. You will be disappointed.”

“You are not beautiful,” he lied, because at thirty he knew the folly of trying to convince a woman of what she refused to believe about herself. He peeled off the bodice and drew the sleeves down her arms. “You are too lean. A woman should have more flesh.” Flattening his palms over her abdomen, he hooked his thumbs around her hips and drew her tight against him. Soft and round, she cushioned his erection. “Much more.”

“You have no regard for my vanity.” She arched her neck and his fingertips dipped. She caught her breath. “You haven’t since the first.”

“Vanity is not the worst of your faults, duchess.” He kissed her neck, breathing in her scent of lavender and roses. “It is pride.”

“As though I held a monopoly on pride here. I should not have concerned myself over owing a debt to you. You are no gentleman, after all.”

“And you have a sharp tongue, which no man can like.” He turned her to face him and lost his words. The petticoat barely covered the stays and her chemise was thin, the mere scrap of fabric he’d seen through in the stable. The heavy ring hung in the shallow gully between her breasts, strands of bright copper silk tangling with the plain ribbon. Her skin was like cream, the curve of her hips exquisite.

“My sharp tongue is irrelevant at present,” she said. “We were not speaking of my character faults, but my lack of beauty.”

“I want you. Now.” He could think of nothing else.

Her quick breaths pressed her breasts against the stays. “Yes,” she whispered.

He flung his sword, pistol, and coat to the ground and went to his knees before her and put his hands under her skirts. Her legs were glorious, and she wore stockings of a noisomely practical kind he wanted to tear off. He slid his hands up her calves to her thighs and she said nothing, did nothing, moved not at all. But he could feel her trembling.

He needed her beneath him. Seeking with his palms, he cupped her buttocks. Her hand clenched on his shoulder.

He drew her to the ground.

She let him kiss her lips, the arch of her throat, the swell of her breasts, and she let him drag the petticoat and shift down so that the stays no longer contained her breasts. Her nipples were taut, and dusky like her lips against the pale of her skin in the dark.
Beauty
. Pure beauty. He stroked a fingertip across one peak. Her trembling was fierce but she did not speak and her eyes closed. Bending to her breast, he circled his tongue around her arousal—soft as rose petals, her skin, her breaths. He passed his tongue across the peak, tasting her, and her lips flew apart on a silent gasp of pleasure.

He was undone.

He sucked on her, his cock pushing at his breeches. Her breaths quickened, and he bit. She arched beneath him, her palms pressing into the ground.

A groan of frustration broke from him. She was his fantasy, naked and unbound for him, lying on her back, finally acquiescing. But she was stiff and silent beneath the whoosh of the pounding surf.

He didn’t want her acquiescence. He wanted her fire.

“Open your eyes, duchess.” His voice was too harsh. It had been too long since he’d had a woman, and too long wanting this woman. He could not wait. “Speak.”

“I feel,” she whispered upon a jagged breath. “Is that not enough for you?”

He pushed up her skirts, tore at the fall of his breeches, and thrust deep into her.

Heat
.
Tightness
.
Wet
.

“Oh, God.” He was dying. His cock surged forward. He would come now. Blessed quick release. Too long without. So hot and tight. She was beauty and angel and seductress, and she was saving him.

But she was gasping, clutching the cloak beneath her, her throat working.

Ice slithered down Luc’s spine, lodging in his balls. He grabbed her chin, surrounded her face with his hand, willing her eyes to open.

“You are a virgin,” he said like gravel.

“I—” She tried to pull her face away but he held her firm. “I told you I was not what you believed.”

“Open your eyes.” His body shook with restraint. He was in agony.
“Open your eyes.”

She obeyed. “Don’t . . .”

He heaved in air and braced his arms to remove himself.

“Don’t go.” She grabbed his sleeve. “Do it.”

“Forgive me,” he whispered, and thrust into her. He could not do otherwise. He pulled out and thrust in again, deeper, groaning from the sheer relief of it, the power and pleasure of taking her. He worked his way into her, slowly at first, pushing against her resistance, and then because he was not able to continue slowly, he went faster.

She was immobile beneath him, her wrist slung over her eyes, her lips closed.

“Now,” he groaned. “Duchess, I beg of you.” He grabbed her hips and pulled her to him and she cried aloud. He forced himself into her again and her lips opened upon a moan. Her hand clutched his arm, and her hips jerked against his. She sought him now, moving in rhythm with each thrust, her beautiful lips parted.

Words came from his mouth, prayers, curses. The ecstasy on her face now drove him and his urgent need to fill her. Her fingers gripped him hard and her eyes snapped open, astonishment in the cornflowers. Then she was gasping again, throwing back her head and calling her pleasure.

Chapter 9

The Vows

A
rabella laid her wrist over her eyes and shut out the stars, witnesses to her ruination.

Men had been groping and pawing at her for years. She had fought off amorous upper servants and employers, twice at the cost of her positions. But she’d had no idea what those men really wanted, no idea of the pleasure that could be had in the act, and no idea that she could feel such sensations or that with his touch a man could wind himself around her heart and make her want to sing and laugh and scream and beg for more all at once. And give him everything.

Now she knew.

Lying on her back, her body warm with satisfaction, she pressed down on the panic. She had ruined herself. The virtue she had guarded closely for years was now gone forever. She could not retrieve it.

She had tried to remain unmoved when he touched her. She hadn’t wanted to fight him off, only to live for a moment of madness not in the distant, hazy past or the uncertain future, but in the present. She thought she could let herself feel pleasure for that moment.

Instead, she lost control. She had let him into her.

Was this how her mother had begun, with one man? One act? One moment of madness?

What had she done?

“No payment, hm?” he said.

He sat away from her with his back to a tree. In the bluish hue of starlight she could see that he had unbuttoned his waistcoat and untied his neck cloth, and his elbows rested upon his knees. His broad shoulders were rigid.

“That was not intended as payment,” she said. Only the need to experience a moment of danger that had nothing to do with violence or force, but with her need and her desire. “I told you the truth.”

“You might have told me the entire truth.” He was silent a moment. “Why didn’t you stop me?”

She pushed up to sit, combed her hair with her fingers to free it of sand, and began the long process of braiding it again. She could not quite look at him. “I did not want you to stop,” she said to the length of hair in her hands. “I wanted to feel what it would be like.”
With him
. Something inside her had panicked that she would never see him again and must have something of him to carry with her into the uncertain future. “After tonight and those men . . .” Not only those men. Plenty before. “What happened frightened me.”

“You said I frightened you.” His quiet words were almost lost in the sound of the surf.

“I wanted it to be on my terms.” Her fingers worked the hair swiftly, twisting, binding. “By my choice.”

“I ought to feel used, but in such a noble cause I suppose I cannot.”

“Don’t mock me.”

“Forgive me.”

“You are foolish.”

He came to her and wrapped his palm around the side of her face. His touch was warmer than the night and he brought with him the scents of sea and danger and intoxication. She didn’t need brandy. He made her drunk simply by coming near.

“I am not in the habit of deflowering governesses.”

“I am not in the habit of being deflowered by pirates. Shall we consider it a draw?”

But he did not laugh as she intended. His grip tightened. Where his collar gaped, she saw a man’s body, bone and muscle and skin so unlike hers. Even after everything, the mere sight of him made her feel shaky.

“I must braid my hair now,” she made herself say. “Release me.”

His hand slipped from her and he sat back on his heels. Arabella’s fingers shook but she hid them in her activity.

“Tonight I have done this,” she said, “but tomorrow—”

“Tomorrow is another world,” he said gravely.

She knew his gaze remained on her while she bound her hair securely. The evening air touched her damp neck. The cool and control felt safe and familiar.

“I have not been honest with you,” he said.

She stood, grabbed up her cloak and pulled it about her. “I may have quite recently been a virgin, Captain, but I am not entirely naïve. Men are never honest with women they wish to bed.”

“There is something I must tell—”

“No.” She backed away, her heels sinking in the sand. “You claimed to have no wish to know more about me and I share that sentiment in reverse. Good night, Captain.”

The moon had disappeared, the only light now from the stars and the lamp at the inn’s door. He did not follow her; she knew he would not. He commanded dozens of men and the respect and friendship of naval captains and lords of the realm, but he had never forced her to do what she did not wish to do.

Except sleep in his bed without him.

She strode toward the inn swiftly, pressing down on the rising panic inside her. When she heard the captain’s oath behind her, she imagined he uttered it because of her flight. Then she heard the other men’s voices and knew he had not.

H
E HAD NO
time to defend himself. His sword and pistol lay in the sand yards away.

But the dagger was in his boot.

It didn’t matter. Just as the crash of the waves had obscured their approach, the darkness obscured sight of them. His thorough bemusement, and simple exhaustion from the beating he’d taken earlier and more recent exertions, ensured his fate. They were upon him before he could react. Two of them seized his arms from behind while the third sprang from the trees to his right. His bruised shoulder lodged an agonizing protest.

A glittering flash of steel cut through the starlight.

The pain was not immediate, only the shock and ice in his gut. He wrenched an arm free and swung out. His fist snapped against a jaw.

Then the pain came, complete and crippling. He doubled over, grappling for his dagger. His fingers grasped it and yanked it free.

Blindly he swiveled, thrust with the dagger, and met flesh. Someone howled. He prayed it wasn’t him.

A woman screamed. His attacker fell back.

Luc struck again.

A boot slammed into his leg. His injured shoulder hit the ground. He could only groan.

The ice slid free of his gut, and his attackers spoke to each other in furtive whispers.
Italian
.

Then they were gone.

Were they? The darkness enveloped him. The surf lulled. He panted for breath. He tried to move.

Ohh, God.

Right. Stillness was better. Stillness was in fact superb.

He curled around the hole in his belly, pressing inward hard with his knuckles, cursing. He mustn’t bleed to death now, not after all the other injuries and horrors he had sustained and yet survived. To die now would be idiotic.

But after a moment, as the strength went out of his arms and he could no longer even stanch the wound sufficiently, so he found himself bleeding through his fingers, a quick death seemed a perfectly reasonable option.

A
RABELLA WAS CLOSE
enough to see the men run and to see one of them stumble not far beyond the tent and fall. He did not rise.

She ran forward and threw herself to her knees beside Luc. His face was contorted.

“No.” She grabbed for his arm and drew it back from his waist. He did not resist. His waistcoat and shirt were soaked in blood.
No
. “No no no.”

She had nothing to halt the bleeding. She pulled his coat aside and searched for a kerchief.

“Now you use your hands on me?” he whispered. “Poor timing.”

“I didn’t know I might not have another opportunity.” Her words caught in her throat. She found his kerchief and pressed it to the darkest patch of blood.

“Not—” His jaw was like a rock. “Not what I had in mind.”

“Be still.”
What could she do?
The man on the ground beyond the treeline had not moved. But the others might still be close. “You mustn’t speak.”

“Bedwyr,” he said on a tight breath.

“No. Those men will return. I cannot leave you. Where is your sword?”

“Go.”

Biting back on her fear, she ran.

The earl opened the door to his bedchamber bleary-eyed, his shirttail hanging over his breeches and feet bare.

“He is hurt. Badly. You must hurry.”

He went into his chamber and came forth with his boots and a pistol. Pulling on his boots, he gestured down the corridor. “Wake Masinter and Stewart.”

Captain Masinter swung the door open, sword in hand. “Wh-What?” His eyes went wide. “Good God.”

Dr. Stewart’s eyes were shot with red but instantly alert. He grabbed his medical bag off the floor.

They went swiftly and quietly out of the inn along the path to the beach.

Luc lay as she had left him, motionless. But now his face was slack.

“No!” She leaped forward.

Captain Masinter grabbed her arm. “There there, Miss Caulfield. No place for a lady.”

She pulled away from him. “But—”

“Father Stewart knows best what must be done.” The earl set a lamp beside Luc and the priest kneeling before him.

“Too much bluid’s been lost,” Dr. Stewart muttered. He set aside the saturated kerchief.

The earl looked down at him. “Will he die, Gavin?”

“You . . .” The barest whisper. “ . . . wish.”

Arabella’s heart lurched. Luc had not moved.

“Occasionally.” Lord Bedwyr knelt on the ground in his elegant breeches. “But not so ignominiously, you know. I am not as insensible to our amicable past as you are.”

She dropped to her knees on Luc’s other side. His breaths were so shallow she could barely see them.

“What would you have me do now, Lucien?” the earl said. “I am yours to command.”

“God’s breath, lad. Not nou.” The priest thrust aside another reddened cloth. He opened the satchel beside him and drew forth two small bottles and a leather envelope. A needle and spool of thread were within. “Chairles, yer cravat.”

The earl unwound his neck cloth and put it in the priest’s hands. “If we are not to speak of it now, Father, then when shall we?” he said, and returned his attention to the wounded man. “What say you, cousin?”

“Cousin?” Arabella dragged her gaze from Luc to the earl.

“Yes, Miss Caulfield. I share in the blood that is now discoloring this beach.” The earl tilted his head. “Ah, a detail not confided to the lady, Luc?” He smiled slightly. “You rogue. But I suppose you simply cannot abide it that we own the same blood. Not since our little quarrel, that is.”

“Damn . . . you.” Luc did not open his eye.

“Damning me with your final breaths is shockingly poor form, old boy.” The earl settled back, stretching his long legs before him and leaning on one hand. If not for the dark, he might have been at a picnic. But there was no real pleasure in his face. It was an act, Arabella thought. Lord Bedwyr was pretending nonchalance.

“Consider this, Lucien,” the earl drawled. “When you die, which you may very well do shortly—and no, I do not intend to speed it along—”

“Good . . . of you.”

“The two of you are horrible. Captain Masinter, make them stop this.” Arabella pressed her palms to her cheeks. “This cannot be real.”

“It is, my dear,” the earl said. “Terribly real. And Luc is pondering that very thought at this moment. More precisely, he is thinking that if he dies today, indeed momentarily, he will die childless.”

“Childless?”

“Childless, Miss Caulfield. Without issue,” the earl said very carefully it seemed.

Luc’s face had become more drawn, his breaths quick and shallow. Father Stewart was sewing the wound closed and she knew the pain of it must be agonizing, but even so, Luc remained conscious. His life was fleeing, his strength and vitality and passion, and inside her she was screaming that it simply could not be. He had kissed her, made love to her, and never forced her. He had seen her drunk and said she was not beautiful and she thought perhaps she loved him a little bit for that.

“What does it matter if he is childless?” she demanded. He was
dying
.

“What does it matter, Luc?” the earl repeated. “Is your heir fit to fill your shoes, old friend?”

“His heir? Heir to what?”

The earl remained silent.

“Captain Masinter, tell me!”

“His property. Whatnot. Usual sorts of things.” He was frowning, eyes intent upon the earl.

“This cannot be real.” She turned to Lord Bedwyr. “You cannot possibly be speaking to him in this manner now simply because you have quarreled and should he— should—” Helpless anger washed through her. “He has a brother.”

“That he does.”

“Is that what this foolishness you speak of is about? His bad blood with you or his brother?” She looked between the three men. Luc was very still. She knew he had not slipped into unconsciousness only by the tight lines on either side of his mouth. Father Stewart still worked at his side, and a bitter scent twined through the air. She could do nothing for him.
She could do nothing
.

All her life she’d fought against helplessness. At the foundling home when they neglected her infant sister she had complained and was beaten for it, but Ravenna had not gone hungry. When the Reverend had said she must be the daughter of a harlot because no modest woman would have such hair, she made him promise upon the cross never to say such a thing in her sisters’ hearing if she cut it short. When her employer’s son had accused her of seducing him after she fought him off with teeth and nails and then was dismissed, she warned his mother that if she did not write a glowing letter of reference for her next position she would tell the world how her youngest daughters were not her husband’s. And when a fortune-teller had promised that a prince would reveal the truth of her past, she had worked until she found her way to a prince’s doorstep.

She had never accepted helplessness. But now she could do nothing, and they spoke of a man’s life ending as though only possessions mattered.

“I cannot believe this is what you speak of now,” she uttered.

“It is what he wishes to speak of, my dear,” Lord Bedwyr replied.

“No. No. I—” She struggled to her feet. “There must be something I can do.” She could not remain idly by and watch him die. “I must—”

“Duchess.” It was barely a whisper. Luc’s hooded gaze was black in the pale glimmer of predawn.

“Aha.” The earl leaned forward. “So you are thinking what I am thinking, cousin.” He nodded. “I had imagined so. But will the lady be amenable?”