Malia Martin (9 page)

“Come to help me at my bath, Duchess?” Trevor swaggered past Sara, closed the door to his bedroom and turned around with a grin. “I’m not yet schooled in all the mores of high society,” he shrugged, “but if it means I am to have women to help me at my bath like the knights of old, well now I may find myself getting used to being a Duke much faster than I originally thought.”

Sara had pivoted on her heel, keeping him always within her sight as Trevor stood his position between her and the door. “Your grace,” she said finally, “I do not appreciate your teasing at all.”

Trevor pressed his hand against his chest. “I would never tease, Duchess.”

Sara sighed, obviously displeased. “Your grace,” she said, the words this time sounding clipped through pinched lips. Again Trevor remembered his nanny, a strong-minded individual who was quite passionate that Trevor learn his letters. Poor woman. Trevor had driven her to drink.

“I realize you are quite young still.” Sara’s voice brought Trevor back from his musings.

“Young?”

“Yes, and I realize that becoming a Duke is a very big responsibility for someone of your ilk.”

“Ilk?”

“Yes.” Sara seemed to relax a bit, her shoulders dropping and her gaze drifting away from his own. “I just wanted to come and apologize for what happened before, your grace, and I wanted . . .” her eyes had registered the fact that he was still naked, and she stiffened again. “Well, goodness.” She blinked and trained her gaze once more on his face. “This is not at all the thing. I will speak to you when you have dressed.” She started forward, but Trevor did not move and so she faltered.

The devil made him stand there. Trevor rested his hand on the doorknob, cocking his hip slightly. She thought him young, did she? She haughtily referred to his ilk? As if she were some wise old biddy whose vast experience served her so well.

“Young?” he asked again just because it galled him so. There could not be a more naïve
looking chit in all of England, and yet she stood there wide-eyed at the fact that he wore only a towel and called him young. “And you are old and tired, I presume?” He stood a bit straighter, emphasizing the fact that she was a good head and a half smaller than he.

Sara linked her fingers together in front of her waist. “Of course that is not what I mean. It is just that, well, I
am
the Dowager Duchess. I am older than you.” She wrung her hands so that her fingers turned quite white. “I hold . . . well, a position of guardianship, of sorts, to you,” she ended lamely.

Trevor arched his brows and pushed away from the door. “Really,” he said. “I am intrigued.” He took a few steps toward her. “Were you thinking of hiring a nanny for me, perhaps?”

She rolled her eyes and started to argue, but Trevor cut her off.

“Because, if you are, I can only hope you would take a few of my”—he stopped when he stood about a foot away from her—“
preferences
to mind as you choose her?”

“Really, your grace . . .”

Trevor put his finger against her lips, and she stopped speaking instantly. Sara’s eyes blinked owlishly, and she pressed her lips together. They slid against his finger, and Trevor had to hold back a shiver.

He had meant to tease her, pull her down a peg, perhaps, but now he could not remember
what he wanted to do or where he had intended this all to go. He could just look at her lips, pressed against the skin of his finger.

She had a beautiful mouth.

Trevor moved the pad of his finger against her bottom lip, back and forth, back and forth. And then he let his finger drop to the small hollow just above her chin.

She stood without speaking, and Trevor understood why. It was as if some force kept them standing so close, and he knew they should not, but he didn’t dare move because then they would have to acknowledge that this was very wrong.

And it felt so very right.

It was not often that things felt good in Trevor’s life, especially not lately. He leaned forward, a lazy movement with enough time spent that they both knew what was going to happen.

And neither of them did anything to stop it. Trevor pressed his lips where his finger had been, a short whispery touch of mouths, nothing that would ever have gotten his fervor up before. But now, against the mouth of this woman, it felt as if every nerve ending in his body pulsed at the contact.

Trevor leaned into the kiss, opening his mouth. And she did the same. He felt her hands against his chest, her fingers curved slightly, tangling in the hair that curled there. He invaded her mouth with his tongue, and she let him.

He played there for a moment, tasting her clean, unique taste, then he slowly pulled her against him. He did everything slowly, not wanting to wake her from the fantastical moment. For he knew that the second she realized what she was doing, she would stop.

And he really did not want her to stop. Even though he realized clearly that this was not a very good idea. Yet, it felt awfully good, and, well, why mess with a good thing?

Trevor could feel Sara’s breasts against his chest, their fullness heaving against his bare skin. Ah, what ecstasy it would be to have them bare also. He slid his hand up her side, along the lovely, deep indentation of her waist, up her rib cage until he felt the curve against his finger.

Just an inch higher. Trevor held his breath and moved his thumb. Ah, there, he felt the peak of her nipple. He grazed it slightly, once, twice. Sara shivered within his arms.

He dared to abandon her lips and kissed a trail down her throat. He closed his eyes, hoping she would not push away. Instead, she leaned her head back, a wanton moan issuing from her full red lips.

It made him throb.

Trevor wrapped his arms around her small waist to support her and licked at the lovely hollow that pulsed with her quick heartbeats at the juncture of her collar bone.

With her back arched, Sara’s breasts pressed tightly against her bodice, pushing upwards
most enticingly. Trevor did a few moments of prayerful homage there.

Please don’t push me away. Please don’t push me away
.

He backed her up against the bed and carefully laid her atop the velvet coverlet, never taking his mouth from her skin.

He needed her mouth again, those lips and that taste. Trevor cupped her breast with one hand and plundered her mouth once more. She shuddered each time his thumb grazed her nipple through her damned dress.

Trevor slipped his hand beneath her bodice, his blood burning and making his legs weak when he felt the soft flesh of her breast against his fingers. And then her turgid nipple, hard against his palm . . . his member beat with the pulse of his heart.

“Oh,” she sighed against his mouth.

Trevor now knew exactly why the French called orgasm a small death. He felt as if he were running full tilt for the edge of a cliff, but rather than cringe at the thought, he hungered to plunge over the precipice.

He had never been quite this frenzied before, and he could not check his forward momentum. Trevor slid his hand out of Sara’s bodice and pulled at her skirts.

His towel had fallen to the floor at some point during their lovemaking. Trevor had never been naked against a fully clothed woman, and it made for quite a heady moment as the silk of
Sara’s gown pressed against his hardness.

He deepened their kiss, his tongue twining with hers as he finally felt the smoothness of her naked thigh beneath his fingers. He was close. Soon, he would jump. He tore his lips from hers, descending to her bodice and opening his mouth against the cloth, laving it with his tongue and finally feeling the hardness of her nipple through the cursed layers of fabric.

Sara arched beneath him, her fingers curling into the bed covers.

“Oh yes, oh yes . . .”

Yes, yes, yes. Trevor levered himself on top of her, his member hard against the silkiness of her thighs. Oh yes, small death take me, he thought.

And then she opened her eyes, looking not at him but above them and she went absolutely still.

Damn. Fantasy moment was over.

Trevor followed her gaze slowly and saw above them the most lewd painting he had ever laid eyes upon. Sara swallowed hard. She blinked, staring at the painting.

Trevor did not move. His hand against her naked thigh, her skirts bunched up between them and her bodice wet and sticking to her breast. This was not a good time for the Duchess to come back to reality.

“Oh,” she said softly. It was the most awful sound Trevor had ever heard. A sound of total humiliation and self loathing.

“‘Twas all my fault,” he heard himself say stupidly. “I’m sorry, Duchess. I . . . you . . . I just wanted . . . and . . .”

Not a good time to lose his conversational skills.

The Duchess pushed against him, her strength nothing compared with his, but he moved off of her quickly. She stood, shoving at her skirts with one hand and tugging at her bodice with the other. “Oh no.” She glanced at him, then slapped her hand across her eyes. “Oh dear Lord in heaven.”

Trevor snatched his towel from the floor. “I’m sorry, Duchess. Really . . . I . . .”

She twirled around. “I know, I know, you wanted it,” she cried. She stopped when she reached the door. “This will not happen again, your grace,” she said without looking at him. “It is very important that you realize your responsibilities and put your mind to the business at hand.” He could see that her hand shook against the doorknob. “You must put your philandering days behind you, sir!” She yanked open the door and then banged it shut behind her.

Trevor stood in the room feeling as if someone had just punched him in the stomach. What had he been thinking? Why on earth had he let it go so far? It was one thing to steal a kiss as he had done in the study in a moment of weak-ness. But this! He stared down at himself and closed his eyes. Truly, it was as if he had lost his wits entirely.

S
ara did not go down to dinner. She was not sure she would ever be able to leave her room, actually, with that man just waiting to laugh in her face the moment she stepped into his line of vision!

Sara paced, her hands clenched at her sides. How could she have allowed that man to touch her so intimately? She turned on her toes and stomped back across the room. “Ha!” she yelled out, and stopped before her mirror. “Man?” She shook her finger at her image. “He is a boy, you nitwit, not yet thirty. And you . . .” Sara took a step forward, leaning her hands on the dressing table and peering at herself. She lowered her voice. “You are the Dowager Duchess of Rawlston. You failed at the Duchess part; now let’s try to do the Dowager part right.”

Sara straightened and turned away. She paced again, an idea forming. Obviously it had been very bad to meet the Duke and not realize
who he was. She had allowed herself to form some fantasy in her mind of a beautiful pirate cook with artistic hands and quiet sensibility. Unfortunately, now that she knew he was the irresponsible lout who had ignored his people for nearly the last year, she could not strike her first impression from her mind.

With a deep breath, Sara went to the window and lifted the sash. The crisp night air felt good against her flushed cheeks. It cleared the heat from her brain and made it easier to think.

She was six years the Duke’s senior. She was the Dowager to his Duke. She must be a mother figure to him, making him realize what he must do.

Sara set her shoulders straight and nodded. She felt much better. She would just have to look at the Duke as if he were a son. His image crept into her mind; a faint remembrance of his taste upon her tongue tickled her senses.

Sara shook her head quickly and turned away from the window. This was going to be much harder than just telling herself to think of him as a son. She began to pace once more.

Making it all worse was the fact that she had more problems than her adolescent-like swooning when it came to the Duke. For she had clearly not fixed her problem by finally getting the Duke to Rawlston. If she were to meet the timetable of the curse, she still had two short months to get the man married. That loomed as a greater challenge than luring him to Rawlston
had been. And it had taken her ten months just to do that.

With a groan, Sara flopped down face first on her bed. And of course, there was the whole problem of who he would marry. Rawlston was not exactly brimming with eligible women fit to marry a duke.

In fact, that had been John’s mistake. He had been completely uninterested in marriage, and had refused to do the London season. As a result, Sara, the closest thing to gentry in the town, had ended up as his Duchess. And look where that had gotten the man!

Four miscarriages, and a son in the cemetery. Just to think of it made Sara curl into herself and squeeze her eyes tightly shut. For a moment, she looked into the abyss of self-pity. But she knew that would get her absolutely nowhere, so she rolled quickly off the bed and started to pace again. Activity would banish the memories, as it usually did.

She decided to go to the library and see if the Duke had at least dealt with the bills. She wrapped herself in her heavy dressing gown, hooked her finger in a candle holder, shoved her toes into her slippers, and padded down the hall.

She passed the Duke’s room en route and paused. Light shone beneath his door. Sara crept forward, half-thinking she should talk to the man, apologize . . . something. But she stopped quickly when she heard his low voice.
That melodic baritone reverberated through the door, and Sara held her breath.

He stopped talking for a moment, then said something more. It was as if he spoke to someone. Sara blinked, backing away quickly on stealthy feet. She stood staring at the door for a moment. There was someone in the Duke’s room with him.

Well, it did not take the man long to find company. Sara flipped her long braid of hair over her shoulder and turned toward the main stair once again. Fine, she thought, hiking up her skirts so that she might go a bit faster. It did not matter to her if the Duke entertained in his room at night, just so long as he paid the bills. She doubted mightily that the woman, whoever she was, would make a good Duchess, unfortunately.