Not Quite A Duke (Dukes' Club Book 6) (9 page)

He kissed and nipped and savored every sweet sigh of hers as he then lowered a hand to cup her perfect bottom.

Pulling upward, he cradled her hips against his hard cock.

She let out an exclamation of surprise but not protest.

If anything, she seemed as lost in madness as he. In fact, she pressed herself to him with even deeper intensity.

’Twas as if they’d both been starving for each other, having never even known what they were hungry for all these years.

Which was absolutely ludicrous, of course.

He didn’t believe in anything at first sight except lust. . . But this didn’t feel like simple lust.

Kissing her felt like being enveloped by an inferno.

An inferno that was as marvelous as it was terrifying.

Terrifying? What the devil had made him think that?

But yes. As he kissed her breasts then began pulling up her skirts, skimming her stockings with his fingertips, he knew he was terrified. But in the most magnificent way.

He was terrified because he felt on completely unfamiliar ground with Lady Patience because she truly was unlike any woman he’d ever known and so he had no idea how to manage her.

Stroking his fingers up her thigh, he traced the line of her silk garter. How tempting to pull the tie. Instead, he slid his fingers upward, wondering if she would allow him to slip his fingers between her thighs and discover if she was hot and wet for him.

Would she allow it?

Would oh so proper, terse Lady P permit such a thing?

But then again, in this moment, she wasn’t simply Lady Patience. She was an entity entirely unknown to him. She was P. Auden, the maker of worlds, the knower of those who’d experienced the most sensual temptations and the worst of destructions. She was a creator and destroyer and adventurer all in one.

And he wanted to brand her body with his.

The feel of her beneath his hands filled him with a hunger so wild, so deep, he felt as if he were about to lose himself and that was why ever so slowly, he didn’t wait to see what she would allow.

Retreat was the wisest action here. For if he traversed too far, he had a strong feeling that he would be flung forever from her lands.

And quite frankly, he wanted to discover every hill and valley of her.

It was jarring. Women had always been his domain, but not her.

She was terra incognito and he felt like an explorer which might either be wrecked by the unknown landscape or given the most bountiful lands depending on the route he chose.

So, he would travel with care.

Deliberately, he slowly lowered his hand and placed her skirt back. He straightened his spine and gazed down into her beautiful face.

She was flushed and as drunk on their passion as he, but there was still a reserve there as if she didn’t need the mask now on the ground to hide herself. Perhaps that strange reserve was what had allowed her to be so wanton.

He wouldn’t take that from her.

He’d already forced a closeness that she clearly hadn’t wanted, discovering her secret.

Charles cupped her chin then stroked the pad of his thumb over her swollen lip. “That is what I can offer you. The skills I can show you that Mrs. Barton cannot. That your imagination cannot.”

She let out a shaking breath. “I grant you, my lord, that you have, indeed, shown me something that no one else could do.”

“It could be just the beginning.”

“The beginning?”

“Allow me to show you my world. Allow me to take you deeper. Allow me take you further into the darkness that you find so fascinating.”

Fear danced suddenly in her eyes and he was certain he had said the wrong thing.

Perhaps she wished only to observe the demimonde, the half-world, from a safe distance. His offer was not for her to watch but to participate and he might have seriously misjudged her.

“Darling,” he whispered, “you needn’t be afraid.”

“Needn’t I?”

“I’ll protect you from the darkness.”

Her lips turned in a strange, knowing smile. “Ah. . . But, my lord, you are the darkness. And yes, I should like to know it better. Come what may.”

“Come what may,” he agreed and as he took her hand in his and squeezed, he felt certain he had found heaven. Or, possibly, hell. It was very difficult to tell. But he knew that after his doings with Patience, he’d never be the same again.

Chapter 9

Lady Patience sat in the opera box with her paid chaperone, Mrs. Peters, and lamented, not for the first time, that she couldn’t go out to normal places in London without a companion. Mrs. Peters was perfectly lovely company. In fact, she quite liked the older woman’s practical viewpoints and lack of foolishness.

However, there were times when she wished she didn’t have to live two such separate lives. A single young woman, even a spinster, couldn’t brazen about as a married woman. And so, she kept Mrs. Peters on hand for her visits to town.

It did beg the idea that she should simply marry to alleviate some of the rules that she was forced to follow.

And as she looked across the theater and over the audience as gilded as the surroundings, she spotted what society simply called The Duchesses.

They were all married ladies and were the most powerful married ladies of the
ton
. All were married to dukes. Tonight the Duchess of Darkwell, the Duchess of Hunt (Lord Charles’ sister-in-law), the Duchess of Blackburn, the Duchess of Roth and the Duchess of Aston all sat together in the head box holding as much court as any queen could do.

Lady Patience fought a sigh of envy.

They looked like they were having a very merry time.

All were dressed in flowing, verging on scandalous, gowns of the deepest jewel-toned hues. All bore jewels which had them shimmering like their own night sky. All were waving fans, gesticulating and sipping champagne as they chatted, glanced about and occasionally glanced down to the antics of the stage.

When Madam Ballantine took to the stage to sing her aria about seducing her lover by disguise, The Duchesses all paid rapt heed then burst into applause at the crescendo.

The audience took their cue and also clapped their hands together, giving a thunderous cacophony to the already loud hall.

Yes. The Duchesses were lucky, indeed.

But Lady Patience, as she continued to stare, knew that marriage could be a very risky business, indeed. That is why she’d never chanced it.

After all, the wrong fellow could sentence one to a lifetime of country living or far, far worse. A husband could potentially keep her from writing.

She let out another sigh.

“You’re staring,” Mrs. Peters said brightly. “They do look like they’re having fun though, do they not?”

She laughed then shook her own self-pity away. “Was it so very obvious? My observation?”

“My dear, if you’d stared any harder, your eyes would have fallen out of your head.”

“What a description.” It was a good thing Mrs. Peters was not an author with such blunt words. “I was envying them, it is true.”

But she needn’t wallow too long in self-sorrow. After the opera, she was meeting Lord Charles. He was going to take her to a secret gathering.

She wasn’t entirely certain as to what she’d agreed to with him.

She had a feeling he thought rather more than she did. If he thought she’d be his lover, he was mistaken.

That tryst in the garden was all she could allow. As a single woman, the risk of a child was far too great. And well, her books contained the all too tragic fates of women who had fallen in such ways.

She could never chance such a tragic end for herself or a babe.

No. No love affairs for her.

“Why don’t you marry?” asked Mrs. Peters bluntly.

“No one will have me,” she said, waggling her brows.

Mrs. Peters tsked. “Only because you offer so little encouragement to anyone. Rather you make fun of any man who tries.”

“Well, I am sorry prospects now, what with Uncle Reginald’s death.”

As far as she understood, the
ton
had spread the news of the loss of Barring House in a game of cards like fire through a dry hay field. She had no wish to make it widely known that she had a private income of her own. She certainly didn’t want people to question where that income came from.

The curtain to her box opened and a footman slipped in. “Lady Patience?”

“Yes?”

The tall, exceptionally handsome, young footman inclined his head. “The Duchess of Hunt would like the pleasure of your company.”

Lady Patience snapped her gaze across the gaggle of women she’d just been admiring.

The Duchess of Hunt lifted her fan and smiled then gestured with her fan for Patience to join them.

Patience resisted the urge to glance about as if the duchess were motioning to someone else.

After all, she’d never been one of the popular ladies of the
ton
and The Duchesses were nothing if not popular.

Mrs. Peters, hidden by skirts and chairs, kicked her.

Yes. Kicked.

She glared at the older woman, but they did have a relationship which allowed for such a thing. Cantankerous and intelligent, Lady Patience would never have survived
ton
gatherings with anyone timid.

She needed someone who would give her a good kick when she disappeared into her dream worlds. . . or at present, her self-conscious thoughts.

Nodding, Patience gathered her dark skirts and followed the footman down the candlelit hall to the grandest box of them all.

She lingered outside the heavy, velvet curtain befringed with golden tassels as the footman announced her.

Girding her loins, she entered.

All her life, she’d been bold enough. But she’d been an outsider. Odd. She’d known this. It’s why, once her required seasons were done and no one had offered for her hand, she’d happily retired to the country to her books. . . And then to her research.

She was uncertain how to be Lady Patience in the society of such women because she so seldom entered society now. Oh so proper Lady Patience was someone she only trotted out when absolutely necessary. Like tonight’s visit to the opera or Lord Charles arrival at Barring House.

Most of the time, she didn’t have anyone to speak to. So she never needed to worry about what she said or how she behaved and well. . . When she went out with Mrs. Barton, she could revel in the wilder side of her nature without going too far.

As soon as she stepped into the exclusive box, she felt her mouth dry. Whatever was she going to say to these ladies? Ladies who were the rulers of the
ton
.

Oh dear. What if they made fun of her or patronized her? After all, she’d been the subject of gossip recently.

“Do sit down, Lady Patience,” the Duchess of Hunt said gently, her emerald fan pointing to the delicate chair beside her. “Shall I make introductions?”

“I know you all by reputation, of course,” Lady Patience replied. And of course, it was true. Who didn’t know each duchess by sight if one read a newspaper or went to any event at all in London?

“Then let us not waste time with niceties,” the Duchess of Hunt said happily.

All The Duchesses nodded in agreement.

It was like being a sparrow amidst a flock of birds of paradise. But she did as asked. Suddenly, she found herself gaping at the three blonde ladies and two redheads wondering how the devil someone of her ilk had been summoned.

“How may I help you, Your Grace?” she asked, her voice surprisingly calm. She wasn’t going to think back to years at girls’ school where such beautiful creatures had made her life a living misery.

The Duchess of Hunt smiled, her beautiful face, transforming into kindness. “You know, that was exactly what I wished to say. Though not in those exact words.”

“I don’t understand.” And dear lord, she hoped she didn’t. The last thing she wanted was pity.

The Duchess of Hunt inched forward on her chair. “Well, you see, we all know Lord Charles.”

Did they, indeed? Well, given the bounder was the Duchess of Hunt’s brother by marriage that wasn’t surprising. “Yes?”

“He is the worst sort,” the Duchess of Roth, one of the redheads, said.

“A good fellow really,” piped up the Duchess of Blackburn, her blonde curls bouncing.

“But the worst in scruples,” the Duchess of Aston declared in her soft Scottish burr before she grinned. “Though the lassies don’t seem to mind.”

Patience cleared her throat, trying not to flush as she thought of his terrible scruples which enabled him to behave so scandalously in the dark hours of the night before. “Yes, Your Grace?”

The Duchess of Hunt frowned. “Really, there’s only one thing to do here.”

Patience folded her hands together, feeling as though the beautiful women were suddenly going to attack.

“We’d like to offer our assistance in any way we can,” declared the Duchess of Hunt.

Her spine stiffened. “I don’t take your meaning.”

Could they not stop? Did they really have to publicly point out the misfortune of her uncle?

“Oh dear,” the Duchess of Blackburn said, suddenly appearing dismayed.

“We’ve offended you,” said the Duchess of Darkwell.

“No,” Patience said calmly, “I assure you—“

“Yes, we have. I have,” the Duchess of Hunt said. She shrugged. “It’s no easy thing having a rake and card sharp for a brother-in-law but there you have it. And well, I think you a very nice sort of person who doesn’t deserve to have your house yanked out from under you.”

She opened her mouth but no words came out. This wasn’t at all what she’d expected.

The other duchesses nodded again exchanging murmurs and glances of agreement.

“Here, have a drink,” urged the Duchess of Blackburn, pouring a glass of champagne herself from the green bottle nestled in a silver bucket just to hand.

Smaller in stature than the others, the Duchess of Blackburn had to stand and cross to Patience so that she could hand her the full glass. As she did so, she winked. “A bit of liquid courage. We’re an odd lot, we realize.”

An odd lot? Patience blinked, took the glass, then drank. Then drank again.