The Confessions of a Duchess (18 page)

Laura shifted again so that her arm was brushing his and they sat side by side against the cold stone wall. The ribbons fastening her cloak had eased and it had fallen back to reveal the slender lines of her throat and the curves of her breasts above the neckline of the green gown. The smoothness and delicious richness of her skin in the lamplight made Dexter ache to touch her. The minute he allowed the thought into his head it crowded out all other thoughts. He was locked in a wine cellar with Laura Cole. He must not touch her.

He must not think about kissing her.

He must not think about making love to her.

He was locked in with a woman who made him think about nothing but making love
and he must not touch her.

His throat turned as dry as though he had swallowed a mouthful of sand.

“I think that you are foxed, Mr. Anstruther,” Laura said.

“I think I am,” Dexter agreed.

“I also think that you imagine you want a conformable wife,” Laura continued, her voice soft, “and yet if you had one you would probably find it was not what you desired at all.” She turned her head to look him in the eyes and suddenly her lips were very close to his. He wondered if in that instant she had any concept of what he really desired and how dangerously close he was to taking it. The restraint he had placed on himself strained close to breaking.

“Believe me,” Laura continued, “I was a perfect wife for years, at least on the surface, and neither I nor my husband was happy with it.”

“I am not like your husband,” Dexter said, feeling an instinctive need to protest against any comparison with the odious Charles Cole. He saw her smile and a tiny dimple appeared at the corner of her mouth and it was almost his undoing.

“No,” she said. “That is very true.”

Dexter had an unnerving feeling that with every word the conversation was slipping into ever more dangerous territory.

“For a start I would not have ignored you,” he said, with what he hoped was appropriate dignity. “I would never have allowed you to gallop around the county righting wrongs and setting fire to things.”

Laura’s smile lingered. She toyed with the champagne bottle, taking another sip.

“I am glad to hear that you would not have ignored me,” she said.

Ignore her? His difficulty would have been keeping his hands off her.
Dexter shifted again. His body felt coiled and tight and explosively aroused.

Laura’s smile faded. “I was so unhappy with Charles,” she said softly. “It drove me close to madness at times. And sometimes I did foolish things or even bad things.” She raised her gaze and met his eyes very directly. He felt his heart clench at the honesty in hers. “The night I spent with you…” she whispered. Her lashes flickered down. “It was wrong in so many ways,” she said, “but I wanted it.”

Dexter’s breath caught in his throat. He raised a hand to ease the constriction in his neck cloth but somehow he ended up touching Laura’s cheek instead and she turned it against his fingers in a gentle caress. His stomach contracted with lust and longing. Laura’s eyes held the dark, unfocused look of someone who had had far more to drink than was prudent. Her eyelids fluttered shut and her lips parted. Dexter teetered on the edge.

He was drunk.

He was taking advantage.

He was no gentleman, but then, she was surely no lady….

The need, the hunger and the frustration that tormented him each time he met Laura fused in one irresistible surge of desire. He closed the tiny space between the two of them and brought his mouth down on hers, gently at first then searchingly, wildly, seeking the response he so desperately needed to find in her. In that moment he knew exactly what he wanted. He did not want respectable. He did not want conformable. He did not even want to be in control.

He wanted Laura Cole like a fever in the blood and in that same moment he knew that no matter how he tried the fever could never, ever be cured.

LAURA KNEW
that her mother would say that no lady, still less a dowager duchess, should drink champagne and then find immodest and deeply satisfying pleasure in a man’s arms, but by now she was too blissfully adrift to care. It had taken her years to comprehend that there were plenty of things her mother had got wrong, and this was one of them. Once before had she abandoned herself to such heady delights and she had sworn never to do so again but now, with Dexter’s body hard against hers, her hands buried in his hair and his lips demanding a response from hers, she had no such doubts. She remembered vaguely that there were reasons why this was a bad idea. She knew there were secrets to be kept. If she let Dexter closer she would run the risk of exposing Hattie’s parentage. But she needed him so much. He drove out her loneliness. It felt so right to be in his arms.

She burrowed closer to the heat of his body.

He kissed her again. The impact on her senses was devastating. His mouth was warm and firm against hers, and she could taste the champagne on his tongue and it was absolutely delicious. His hands were equally warm as they slid beneath the velvet cloak to clasp her waist. She could feel the heat in him searing through the silk of her gown. His tongue curled intimately against hers, sweeping her mouth with lazy strokes. There was no hesitation in him and no inexperience. It was Laura who felt like the innocent one, trembling with a mixture of nervousness and desperation as barely remembered feelings and emotions raced through her. She was transfixed by the strength and the command of Dexter’s body against hers. As he crushed her against him with relentless demand, she felt her nipples harden and peak against the muscular wall of his chest. There were tremors of delight tingling low in her belly and she stifled a moan against his lips, leaning back against the wall of the cellar for support. Dexter followed her back, trapping her against the stone, deepening the kiss within the softness of her mouth, his tongue caressing hers until her body threatened to melt under the onslaught of such white-hot desire. She thought she had never, ever known such intense pleasure. After four years in the desert it was sweet and life-giving. She thought she would die of it. And then she felt Dexter’s hand slide up to free one of her breasts from the confinement of the bodice of her gown. His fingers brushed her bare skin in the lightest but most deliberate of caresses and her body curved like a bow drawn to his touch.

He kissed her again, slow and deep this time, sending her senses spiraling beyond recall, sinking down into pure ecstasy. His palm was warm against the curve of her breast and then suddenly, purposefully, his fingers pulled strongly on her hardened nipple, and then again and again, and Laura arched again as a sweet, molten sensation dissolved through her whole body. The wall was firm behind her, supporting her whilst Dexter dispensed with the cloak and his hands moved to free her other breast. The gown slid to Laura’s waist with a soft hiss of silk.

Dexter dipped his head to taken one swollen nipple in his mouth, licking it gently, and Laura writhed against the wall, shocked and fascinated at the instinct within her that made her want to press her breasts against his lips and teeth. She was driven by the need to demand from him the absolute satisfaction that she craved, and yet at the same time she was afraid her body would fracture under the sheer pleasure of the feeling.

“Dexter, please.” She struggled for words. “I can’t…I need…I can’t bear this. You have to stop.”

She heard him laugh. “I don’t think I will.”

It sounded like Dexter and yet it was so
unlike
him, so unlike the careful, conscientious man he was on the surface, that she felt another stab of pure lust pierce her.

“I cannot think….” she pleaded, but he only laughed again, lifting his mouth from her swollen skin a fraction so that she could feel his breath against its dampness.

“Fortunately there is no need for you to think at all,” he said, dipping his tongue to stroke her breast again, to tease and curl and flick at the aching peak until her legs trembled uncontrollably and she was afraid she would slump to the ground and only his hold on her waist held her upright.

“This is not like you,” she gasped. “Dexter—”

Her words broke off as his teeth nipped wickedly at her breast, making her groan again.

“It is me,” he ground out. His voice was harsh. “I don’t know myself when I am with you, Laura. I only know that this is what I want.”

Laura surrendered. “Then don’t stop,” she gasped. “Whatever you do, do not stop.” He laughed again and took her nipple between his teeth hard and flicked the end of it with his tongue and Laura almost screamed.

“Ah!
Don’t stop.
Please. Harder. Just a little bit harder…” Was that really her voice begging him in such broken tones to ravish her senses with this blinding pleasure? She felt both his hands clasp her waist tighter as he tilted her back a little against the wall. Her breasts were utterly exposed to his questing mouth. The cold air of the cellar wrapped its chill about her naked skin but the heat in her blood pounded through her and it was that that made her shiver. Dexter was nipping at both her breasts now, pulling her nipples into his mouth, pleasuring them so skillfully with his lips and fingers that the tension gathered and coiled deep within her belly. Her body trembled so violently that she thought she could not stand it.

“Please. I truly cannot bear this—”

He laughed and covered her breasts with tiny little biting kisses that drove a sob from her. She was helpless in his arms, utterly powerless, at the mercy of his strength. She shuddered so much she felt as though she was coming apart. Her body waited in an agony of longing.

The dark, burning pleasure centered deep and low within her, then spun out, turned to ecstasy, and Laura felt her body clench unbearably. She cried out, clutching at Dexter’s shoulders, and he kissed her again, his fingers continuing to tug gently on her nipple as a mixture of pleasure and pain racked her. The whole world flooded with light and she was shaken with violent shudders as she climaxed desperately, helplessly, in his arms.

“Dexter!”

It was such exquisite release that she lost herself for a moment, and when her senses finally began to revive she realized that Dexter had wrapped the velvet cloak around her.

He held her in the crook of his arm as the little tremors racked her body and died away at last. Her head was against his shoulder and she could smell the scent of his skin, and she felt warm with bliss and turned her cheek against the curve of his protecting arm. She thought fleetingly that perhaps they should talk now but her mind was too fuzzy with drink and sated pleasure. Later, she thought hazily. Later would be soon enough to talk. She felt superbly satisfied and happy. Without further ado she slept.

THE HOUSE RENTED by the Duke of Cole for the duration of his family’s stay in Fortune’s Folly was, by necessity, one of the grandest in the village. Nothing else would suit his grace’s consequence. Fortune Hall and The Old Palace were both already occupied of course, which was unfortunate, but he had still been able to acquire a short lease on Chevrons, a handsome town house built for a rich lawyer whose gout had now driven him south to Bath and a warmer climate.

Miss Lydia Cole, returning from the harp concert at the assembly rooms, tiptoed past the door of her mother’s chamber and devoutly prayed that the duchess would not wake.

Her mother, who had the constitution of an ox, had unexpectedly succumbed to a chill that afternoon and taken to her bed, consigning Lydia to the chaperonage of one of the other matrons. Lady Bexley was a great deal more lax than the duchess and thus Lydia had been able to escape her after the concert and accept the escort home of a certain gentleman. They had walked back from the assembly rooms quite alone. And then he had
kissed
her when he had bidden her good-night. It had shocked Lydia—she knew it was quite appalling of a gentleman to behave so badly—but she had also been surprised to discover that she had thoroughly enjoyed it. Even now she was still tingling down to her toes.

“Lydia? Come here!” The duchess’s stentorian cry gave no indication of a sore throat and with a sigh Lydia eased open the door of her mother’s room and went inside. It was stiflingly hot and smelled of the violet creams that her mother enjoyed eating and also of something else—a scent that Lydia did not know well but that she thought smelled rather like alcohol. Yes indeed, it smelled as though the duchess had been
drinking
. But Lydia was sure that was impossible. It must be some concoction her maid had whisked up for the chill that smelled so like wine.

“How was the concert, my love?” the duchess inquired, patting the coverlet to encourage her daughter to sit down. “Was Mr. Anstruther attentive to you?”

“Mr. Anstruther was not there, Mama,” Lydia said. Her mind was full of thoughts of another man entirely—of his smile and the glint in his eyes and the wicked touch of his lips against hers. She saw Faye’s face darken like a storm cloud and added hastily, “But Lord Vickery was there, and Sir Jasper and Lord Armitage—”

“Which is quite beside the point,” Faye snapped. “We shall never get any of
them
to marry you!” She glared at Lydia as though it were her fault Dexter Anstruther had been absent. “How provoking! Go to your room now. I need to think.” Sighing, Lydia went out onto the landing and closed the door with elaborate care behind her. The house was quiet. She knew that her father was not at home. Even in a small place like Fortune’s Folly the duke was adept at finding a willing maidservant to service his lust.

Lydia went into her chamber, threw herself down on her bed and lay dreamily gazing into space. It was fortuitous that Faye had dismissed her so abruptly because it meant she did not need to supply her mother with a moment-by-moment description of the evening.

On the rare occasions that Faye did not accompany her she always required to know everything, from the jewels the other women were wearing to the precise nature of the compliments the gentlemen had paid her daughter. That part usually took very little time to relate. But tonight…Lydia smiled. Tonight she could relive the memory of that kiss. She could lie here and indulge her memory, with no one to disturb her or nag her or threaten her that if she did not wed she would be cast out of the family.