When You Wish Upon a Duke (28 page)

“Then I’m glad I’m an improper one,” she said, grinning wickedly as she reached down at last to the buttons on his fall.

“Improper, indeed,” he growled. “If that is what you wish, I’ll show you improper, and to the devil with what anyone else may think.”

There was no refusing him, not the way he was kissing her now, and if he’d put an end to her charade as his valet, she couldn’t imagine a better way. She’d never seen his bedchamber, and she’d no time to admire it now. She’d only a fleeting impression of a great deal of marble and painted goddesses floating across the ceiling and an enormous bed with woodwork and hangings that were all black and gold. Then she found herself in the middle of that bed, sinking deep into the featherbed and staring up at a canopy of gold brocade. March was with her, too, his expression so dark and determined that she smiled with anticipation. This was what she wanted, what she’d had with him that one time and what she’d ached for ever since.

“March,” she said, her voice trembling with love and eagerness, holding her arms out to embrace him. But he didn’t join her, not as she’d expected. Instead he knelt between her legs, gently easing them apart and feathering
the lightest of kisses along the inside of her knees and her thighs. She liked having him tease her like this, his jaw rough and his mouth hot on her skin. She giggled, partly because it tickled, and partly from not knowing what he meant to do next. But she learned soon enough, when to her shock he began kissing her most private place.

“March!”
Scandalized, she tried to pull away. He’d promised her impropriety, and she couldn’t imagine anything more improper than what he was doing to her now. “March, please!”

“We will forget everything and everyone, Charlotte, exactly as you wished,” he said, his hands gripping her thighs to keep them open. “No one matters here but us.”

Relentlessly he kissed her and licked her and teased her with his tongue, and after her first surprise had faded, she realized how delicious this—this
devouring
could be.

She felt herself grow impossibly wet, swelling and filling with pleasure, and the more she writhed against him, the stronger and more delicious the feelings became, coiling and tightening her entire body. Shamelessly she arched against him, and clutched knots of the sheets at her sides. He’d complained of her torturing him, but nothing she’d done could compare to this. Still holding her legs apart with his arms, he gently used his thumbs to part her further and uncover the center of her pleasure. He licked her there,
there
, and the tension broke and joy rushed over her, waves and waves of it so bright and sweet that she cried out with it.

She was still limp and gasping when he came up beside her. She wasn’t surprised that he’d taken off his breeches or that his desire for her was blatant; she wasn’t surprised by anything now.

“I want this gone,” he said, shoving her shift up over her body. “I want to love you as you are, with nothing between us.”

She pulled it over her head, and when it tangled on her arm, he pulled harder, tearing the fragile fabric and tossing it aside with an impatience that excited her all the more. His much-prized control was in the same tatters as her shift, and knowing she was the reason was a heady feeling. When he kissed her, urgently, she could taste herself on his lips, the musky sweetness of her own arousal. Quickly he settled over her, between her legs. She hadn’t time to recover from her first pleasure, or to steel herself for the rough intrusion that she’d learned to associate with him.

But this time was different, so different she could scarcely believe it. When he entered her, there was no discomfort at all, but only a blissful friction that made her sigh with delight. With each powerful stroke, he filled her completely, wonderfully. She loved the feel of his skin against hers, the roughness of the hair of his chest against her breasts, loved the working of the muscles of his back as she held him and the deep, rasping groans as he plunged into her. Instinctively she curled her legs around his hips and moved with him, reveling in the tension that was building within her once again.

Abruptly he rolled onto his back, bringing her with him so that she was sitting astride him.

“There,” he said, his eyes hooded and his breathing ragged. “Ride me, my own brave lass.”

With her hands braced against his chest, she moved tentatively, sliding up and then down with a shuddering sigh. He seemed to fill her more completely this way, and the sensations were more intense.

“Take the lead,” he said, placing his hands around the narrowest part of her waist to guide her. “Race with it. Ride me hard, and find what pleases you best.”

She nodded, and began moving in earnest. Naked though she was, she still wore her earrings, and the pearls swung back and forth against her neck. Quickly she
found the rhythm that pleased her and him as well, or so she guessed by the way he bucked beneath her. Faster and faster she rode him, her heart thumping and her blood pounding and every scrap of her body intent on finishing the wild, glorious race with him. She was close, so close, and when he reached up to stroke her where she was most open to him, she climaxed again and brought him with her, his final cry of release a deeper match for her own.

Afterward he pulled the coverlet up and held her close, her body curled against his and his arm protectively across her. She’d never felt closer to him, nor more in love, either. She listened to his breathing, slow and calm, and when she twisted around to face him, she saw that his eyes were closed and his lips parted. With his dark hair tangled around his face and his features relaxed and at peace, he had never looked more content, nor more handsome. She was almost afraid to break the spell, yet she couldn’t resist brushing her lips over his in the gentlest of kisses.

“I love you, March,” she whispered, barely breathing the words as she drifted off to sleep. “Oh, how I love you!”

Later he kissed her awake and made love to her again, their passion as fiery as before. He’d bid her to face away from him and hold on to one of the thick carved bedposts for support. She’d laughed at the foolish posture, until he entered her from behind and she discovered that the deliciousness of it far outweighed any mere foolishness. Exhausted, she laid atop him, their sweaty limbs tangled intimately together.

“Why didn’t we do this before?” she asked drowsily. “Why, I wonder?”

“That’s easy enough to answer,” he said, and for the first time that night she saw the old darkness flicker
across his face, ready to close her out. “There’s reasons enough, aren’t there?”

No, no, please, no
, she thought desperately, now sharply awake.
Don’t retreat from me again!

“Forget them,” she said urgently. “Whatever reasons you might dream aren’t worth remembering. This is what matters, March, here between us. Please, oh, please recall what I said! Here we’re only lovers, March, and the only ones we need please are ourselves.”

“We did do that, didn’t we?” he said. “I’ve never loved anyone as I love you, Charlotte. More than the world, and the moon in the heavens, too.”

But there was weariness in his smile and melancholy in his kiss, and though he slept again, she lay awake long after that, her hand linked tightly into his as if that would be enough to keep him close and safe.

At last she slept, and woke with the sun streaming in fine lines between the still-closed curtains. She blinked, not recognizing March’s bed, then rolled over to find him gone and only his impression on the pillows remaining.

Of course. Of course. Though her heart plummeted, she knew she’d expected it to be so.

“Good morning, Your Grace,” Polly said cautiously, holding her usual morning tray as if they were in Charlotte’s bedchamber instead of March’s. Behind her stood an uneasy footman, his eyes carefully averted.

At once Charlotte jerked the sheets over her bare breasts and shoulders, clear to her chin. “Good morning, Polly. Good morning, Giroux. Is His Grace in the next room?”

“No, Your Grace,” the footman said, as intensely uncomfortable as a man could be. Still concentrating on the carpet, he stepped forward to hand Charlotte a letter. “His Grace was unavoidably called away to Greenwood. He did not wish you to be disturbed, ma’am. He left this for you, ma’am.”

To Greenwood. He’d run far this time, clear to the country, and her heart sank even lower. She might chase him from one room to the next in their house, but she wouldn’t follow as far as the country. She couldn’t, not with the distinct possibility that he might only run farther if she did.

No. Yet she didn’t doubt that he loved her. Even her ever-sinking heart knew that, and the glorious lovemaking of last night had proved it. Nor did she doubt that he’d come back to her, for the Duke of Marchbourne would never risk the public scandal of abandoning his duchess entirely.

But though the duke would return, it was the man she feared for. What demons drove him from her? What could make him feel such guilt over loving her, and being loved in return?

She forced herself to smile. “How kind of His Grace to let me sleep,” she said, taking the letter to read later in private. “Of course I recall now that he was to leave for the country so early. La, sometimes I believe I’d forget my own name.”

Polly smiled with relief. “Would you like me to fetch your dressing gown, ma’am?”

“Thank you, yes,” Charlotte said. “Giroux, would you please locate the address of the painter Sir Lucas Rowell, and have a carriage for me at eleven to take me there?”

As she moved her head, the pearls that March had given her swung against her neck, a silent reminder of her absent husband. She couldn’t begin to understand what devils possessed him, not yet, but she would. She
would
, and she would fight them, and she would win: for his sake, for hers, for theirs.

And she’d already a plan to start.

Charlotte sat on the same seat in the carriage, in the same place, as she did when traveling with March: facing forward, slightly to the right of center so he wouldn’t step on her skirts. Of course there was no danger of that while he was somewhere in Surrey instead of here with her in London, but sitting in the same place somehow made the carriage feel less empty and Charlotte less alone.

She looked down at her muff, a beautiful concoction of silk satin, loops of French ribbon, and white swans-down, large enough to hide March’s letter tucked deep inside. The heavy paper lay against her hand, the raised wax seal so thick she could read it with her fingertips.

She wasn’t sure why she’d brought it with her now, except perhaps as a talisman. It wasn’t really even a letter, but more of a note, and she already knew the hastily written words by heart:

My dearest Charlotte
,
Forgive me if you can for what I have done & know that I love you above all others
.

Yr. husband forever
,
M
.

There’d been no mention of what he’d done that needed forgiving, why he’d left, or when he would return. Not
that Charlotte had expected any. To her regret, it seemed that she and March had spent almost all of their married life together apologizing and forgiving, and she prayed that they’d soon learn simply to love and accept as ordinary people did.

She felt very young and very alone in this, and wished desperately for her mother’s wise counsel, the only person in whom she might confide without feeling she was somehow betraying March. But was this only part of learning to trust each other, one more part of learning to love? Perhaps every new husband was unsure like this, a devoted and consummate lover one moment, only to withdraw and flee the next? At least March’s note had ended with a pledge for the future, and those few comforting words of love—
know that I love you above all others
—were the ones she kept repeating over and over to herself.

Those same words had also given her the courage to be in this carriage now, on her way to the studio of Sir Lucas Rowell. She’d never met a true artist, let alone sat for one, especially not one with the daunting reputation and talent of Sir Lucas. She hoped to persuade him to paint her portrait as quickly as possible, so that she might send it to March at Greenwood. March held portraits in the highest regard; they were his favorite form of painting. She’d only to remember how much he liked and respected the portrait of the first duchess in his parlor, and how other members of his family stared down from nearly every wall in his house. To him portraits represented family and permanence, which was why he’d suggested that they have their portraits painted in honor of their marriage.

But Charlotte was determined not to wait for that. A portrait of her now would prove to March that she already considered herself his wife and his duchess, and always would. It would be a part of her there with him,
and she hoped her painted image would inspire him to return more quickly to the flesh-and-blood reality.

The carriage stopped, the door opened, and with her head high in her plumed hat, Charlotte waited while her footman knocked on Sir Lucas’s door. She still wasn’t accustomed to the response that her new title drew. Sir Lucas’s poor housekeeper nearly tripped over herself welcoming her into the artist’s house, while his dogs barked at her footman and other servants raced about like headless hens.