The Last Duke (The 1797 Club Book 10)

by Jess Michaels

  His hands roamed her body, fingertips skating over her hot skin, cupping her breast, stroking her sensitive nipple so that she broke her mouth from his with a harsh gasp of pleasure. He smiled and his dark head bent as he covered that same place with his mouth. His tongue was rough as he stroked it along the peak, nipping and sucking as she writhed beneath him in a pleasure she had never dared imagine. It pulsed through her very blood, settling between her legs, teasing her with the release he’d shown her earlier in the day.

  While he switched his tongue from one breast to the other, his hands roved down her body, fingers brushing her ribcage, her stomach, her hip, his nails gently raking her thighs, and she arched beneath him helplessly. Finally, he settled his hand between her legs and her sigh turned to one of relief. Now he was touching her. Now she would be free.

  He opened her gently, massaging the sensitive folds of her sex, teasing the nub of her clitoris as he smoothed her own juices over her shaking body.

  “I want to help ready you,” he gasped as he broke from her breast. “It will feel strange. Let me know if there’s pain.”

  She nodded. Her mother had vaguely spoken of what happened between a man and woman. Not particularly kindly, mostly of bearing a husband’s touch, but no details. Isabel had been more open, but there was nothing to prepare Sarah for the exquisite feeling of Kit’s index finger gently breaching her trembling body.

  When she gasped, he slowed his entry and looked up at her face. “Pain?”

  “No,” she breathed. “I don’t know what it is, but it isn’t pain.”

  He smiled. “I’ll teach you what it is, Sarah.” He pushed a little farther, always gentle as he stretched the untried channel. She felt a twinge of discomfort, but it wasn’t pain. Just a strangeness that another person was inside her body, a fullness as he stroked inside of her, a shocking pleasure at the wickedness of this act.

  He pressed a thumb to her clitoris as he fully seated his finger inside her. She gasped at the electric sensation that sizzled through her. He stroked, thrusting as he circled her clitoris, slowly, gently. Until she was gasping in pleasure, until the same explosion of release that had happened earlier in the day overtook her and she gripped the coverlet with both hands and called out his name in a long groan.

  When he withdrew his finger from her body, she saw the streak of blood and blushed. “I’m…sorry,” she gasped.

  He wrinkled his brow. “Why? My purpose was to ease the way. Of course we would encounter your maidenhead. But now it should be easier for you.”

  She swallowed as he rolled over her, his big body covering her, but not crushing her as he braced himself away. She opened her legs out of pure instinct, giving him a place to rest between them, and he moaned softly as he settled there so that his cock nudged where his fingers had just departed.

  “I can’t keep this from hurting,” he whispered. “I wish I could. Do you still want this? Because you don’t have to do anything else. We could lay together, I could—”

  She shook her head, shocked at how easily he could give without expecting a damned thing in return. After all those years she’d thought him cold and judgmental, he was so far from that. That man she’d thought she knew did not exist.

  Just this one who she loved.

  “I want you,” she whispered, cupping his cheeks and drawing him down for a kiss. “I want this.”

  His mouth took hers gently, probing and claiming with an almost lazy rhythm that mesmerized her. Enough so that when she felt him shift, felt the head of him at her entrance, she no longer feared what would happen. He slid forward, taking just an inch, and she gasped at the invasion, parting their mouths.

  He watched her, careful, caring as he thrust a little more. His finger had been nothing compared to this, this claiming that was a mix of utter magic and unexpected sensation. He continued, claiming more and more. When she squirmed with a twinge of pain, he slowed, stopped, let her grow accustomed to his girth stretching her. When she gasped in pleasure, he took more, until finally he was fully seated inside of her and he rested his forehead on hers.

  “How does it feel?”

  She laughed. “Odd.”

  He lifted his head to grin at her. “You will make me blush.”

  “Well, I’ve never had a person inside me,” she teased. “Give me a moment to adjust. How does it feel to you?”

  He grunted a sound of pleasure. “Like a hot, wet glove was made to fit me perfectly. Your body grips mine and if I died in this moment, I would be completely content.”

  She leaned up and kissed him. “Please don’t die, I have a feeling we aren’t finished.”

  “Not by any stretch of your wonderful imagination,” he whispered. Then he ground his hips against hers.

  She barked out in surprise, pleasure. His pelvis hit her in the most amazing way and it was like someone had jolted her entire body with sensation.

  “Do it again,” she gasped.

  He obliged, not once but over and over. His body ground inside of her, against her, in shallow thrusts. Her fingers dug into his bare shoulders as he took her, her body adjusting to his feel, accepting his claiming and finally, finding pleasure. It built inside of her, different than before because her body had something hard to brace against as the flutters of release began.

  “Kit,” she mumbled, burying her head into his shoulder as her hips ground of their own accord, her body jolting against his.

  He thrust harder in response, his brow sparkling with sweat, his neck straining. He was waiting for her, drawing all her pleasure from her. It was only when her orgasm at last subsided that he let out a long cry, withdrew and spent. Then he collapsed against her, his arms coming around her, holding her like she was a treasure and he didn’t want to let her go.

  Kit smoothed his fingers through Sarah’s tangled hair and she snuggled against his shoulder with a contented sigh. He had no idea how much time had passed since he claimed her and she surrendered with such sweet, passionate responsiveness. Time seemed to have slowed as they lay in the silence of the growing dark.

  She sighed and then sat up, dragging his sheets with her as she smiled down at him.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  He frowned. Her thanking him felt like he’d done her some kind of favor. Or that she owed him a debt. Neither of which was true. He’d asked her here because he wanted her here. He’d wanted what they shared.

  She moved to slide from the bed and he caught her hand. “Where are you going?”

  She looked back over her shoulder, utterly unaware of how sensual she looked with her blonde hair love-mussed and her naked body just hidden by the sheets and the angle of her position.

  “Come, Kit,” she whispered. “We both know this is a night stolen from time. And it was wonderful—I’m so glad I came here and risked what I was told to protect. But I have to go back to my room, my life, my reality.”

  She pulled her hand from his and walked away, now totally naked as she gathered her chemise off the floor and pulled it over her head.

  He watched her as she held up the gown, examining it closely before she stepped into it. Then she turned her back to him. “Would you help me?”

  He wanted to refuse, to ask her to stay, but her body language made it clear that she wanted to go. Or felt she had to. Perhaps both.

  He got up, standing behind her just as he had when he removed the beautiful gown, then slowly buttoned it as he breathed in the lilac scent of her hair and tried to permanently mark it on his mind.

  She faced him. “I hope this isn’t going to make things…awkward between us.”

  He shook his head. “No, I see no reason why it should. We were two adults who agreed to what we shared. But Sarah…”

  She worried her lip and he saw the anxiety she’d been trying to mask. “Yes?”

  “You act like you want this to end. That you don’t want to do this again. Is that true?”

  She swallowed hard and
reached out to catch his hands. “You don’t know how much I want to come here to you every single night and surrender to what we just shared. How much I want to pretend that I can straddle my world as your servant and this fantasy where I’m your lover in her beautiful gown. But you must know that isn’t possible.”

  “Why?” he whispered.

  “Because no one can balance on that kind of precipice forever.” She bent her head. “And we both know Phoebe needs me as governess more than you need me as your mistress. So that’s what I must be.”

  He frowned. He’d spent his life being careful and prudent, and he knew that what she said was exactly the right thing. But he didn’t want it to be. Didn’t want her to walk away from him and know that it would be forever.

  “This was an odd set of circumstances,” she continued as she glanced over her shoulder toward the door. “Your father’s death, our bonding over grief, that horrible day at the lake. And it led to this, and I’m not sorry. But I have to walk away, Kit. Or else I risk so much pain in my future.”

  Pain. Yes, he felt that pain right now, low in his gut. The pain of losing her, losing this thing that had built between them, this connection he’d never allowed himself to acknowledge even though perhaps it had always been there.

  She lifted up to her tiptoes and brushed her lips over his. When he caught her arms and deepened the kiss, she smiled against his mouth and gently extracted herself from his grip.

  “I have to go,” she whispered, then turned and left the room without another word.

  He watched her leave, filled with an emptiness like nothing he’d ever felt before. And he wished he knew how to keep things just as they were, and knew he couldn’t because the world didn’t work that way. And now his world was a darker, lonelier one.

  Without her, he feared it always would be.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Kit sat at the desk in his study, leaning back in his chair as he pored over the book in his hand. His father’s journal.

  There was a light knock on his door and he started as he glanced up to watch Hugh, Duke of Brighthollow, enter the room. Kit glanced at the clock and shook his head when he realized it was after nine in the morning.

  He wiped the tears that had collected in his eyes as he read and stood to greet his friend. “Good morning. Up early, aren’t we?”

  Hugh smiled. “I’ve never been one to be idle,” he said. “Drives Amelia mad, and I admit it is much harder to leave a bed when she is in it.”

  Kit turned his face, for his friend’s words couldn’t help but remind him of his night with Sarah. That was why he was in his study, after all. He couldn’t sleep after she left and had come down to distract himself from his desire to chase after her and try to convince her to change her mind.

  Only he couldn’t do that. It felt impossible.

  “Are those your father’s journals?” Hugh asked as he craned his neck to look at the pile of books.

  “Yes,” Kit said. He motioned Hugh into the chair across from the desk and returned to his own place behind it. “I’ve been reading for hours. This is the last one I found in his drawer.” He tapped the cover of the one book he hadn’t opened. “Though I’m not certain it belongs in here. Barrymore said my father would file the journals on a special shelf in the library once a year had finished, but what I’ve read filled up this entire year until shortly before his death. So it must be a leftover from last year.”

  “Hmmm,” Hugh said, then smiled at him gently. “And what have you discovered by reading all his words?”

  “That Sarah was right,” Kit said as he rubbed his tired eyes. “These books are a gift. His last to me, I suppose.”

  Hugh’s brow wrinkled. “Sarah?”

  Kit jolted. Had he just casually mentioned the woman like that? To his friend who was now looking at him far too closely. Reading him, as Hugh was wont to do. Kit shrugged like it didn’t matter. “She was here in the study discussing some household matter with me just after I found the journals.”

  Hugh nodded slowly. “I see. And so the subject came up.”

  “Mmmm,” Kit murmured, he hoped noncommittally. He’d had too many conversations about Sarah as of late—he didn’t want to start another when he was so raw about the subject.

  Not that Hugh cared. He leaned back in his seat. “It seems you and Miss Carlton are becoming quite close recently.”

  Kit bent his head as images of his night with Sarah flooded his mind. Her body lifting beneath him, her sighs of pleasure echoing in his mind. Her expression when she claimed it was a night that could never be repeated. That she could not straddle two worlds and had no expectation that he would offer her more than passion.

  “Kit?”

  He shook away the thoughts. “I suppose,” he said. “But it is hard to imagine there could be a future there. Look at our past.”

  “The past can only destroy if you allow it to do so,” Hugh said, and his lips thinned. “Christ, I tricked Amelia into marrying me. I lied to her for weeks. It isn’t exactly an auspicious beginning, but we chose to overcome it. Thank God she could forgive me.”

  There was no doubting his friend’s passion when it came to his wife. Nor his true belief that the past could be overcome. And when Kit thought of it in those terms, certainly his coldness toward Sarah was not so bad when compared to what Hugh and Amelia had gone through. Or Robert and Katherine. Graham and Adelaide. Hell, all his friends had endured their own troubled paths toward the women they loved.

  But that was love. Worth any risk. Kit didn’t…love Sarah. Did he? He wanted her. He liked her. He thought of her a great deal. But love her?

  That seemed so fast to him. That a few weeks of comfort after his father’s death could lead to such a powerful connection.

  He fiddled with the cover of his father’s final journal as he considered it. “It feels different,” he said.

  Hugh shrugged. “That’s how you know.”

  To avoid the subject, Kit flipped open the journal absently. He expected it to have a date on the first page, a launch into minute details of his father’s day, anecdotes about his life that almost made him seem alive again.

  But instead, there was something else scrawled across the top of the first page in his father’s familiar handwriting. Something that made Kit straighten up and stare.

  Hugh cocked his head. “What is it? You look troubled.”

  “This…” Kit blinked a few times. “This isn’t a journal.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “A list,” Kit breathed, and slid the book closer.

  Hugh laughed. “What did he always say? A life of lists is a life well lived.”

  Kit shook his head. “Told you that, too, did he?”

  “He did. I took it to heart. Amelia is always teasing me about my never-ending lists that she stumbles over on my desk and in the bedroom and in my pockets.” Hugh’s smile widened. “So what is this particular list about?”

  Kit pointed. “It is titled ‘Kit’s Foolishness.’”

  Hugh leaned forward. “It is not! What did he feel you were being foolish over?”

  “He likes the girl,” Kit read from the scrawl beneath the title. “Whether he admits it or not. I am compiling this list of each time he mentions her to prove it to him when the time is right.”

  “The girl?” Hugh repeated. “Who did he mean?”

  “Sarah,” Kit choked as he looked over the list of detailed recounting of his interactions with her. “And the date of the first mention is in 1809, a year before the nastiness with Meg.”

  “Mr. Smith was a very…w-wor—wort—”

  “Worthy,” Sarah encouraged absently as she listened to Phoebe read along in her copy of The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes. It was part of her lesson for the morning. Normally Sarah would have enjoyed this time together.

  Today, she couldn’t stop thinking. Just a few hours ago, she had been in Kit’s bed. In his arms. The soreness of he
r muscles reminded her of that every time she moved, but it was a delicious pain that made her recall every moment.

  There had been passion there. Pleasure. She had given him something that no other man could ever take, even if she did find someone else she ever wanted to share herself with. She couldn’t regret that. She wouldn’t.

  Even if she knew it wouldn’t last. Couldn’t. And that ending things as she had was better for everyone involved.

  “What is this word, Sarah?” Phoebe asked, holding up the book.

  Sarah blinked and pushed away her inappropriate thoughts as she leaned in and looked where her charge was pointing.

  “Charitable,” she said. “That one is difficult. Remember that c and h together make the ch sound, yes?”

  “Ch-ch-ch,” Phoebe repeated with a wide smile.

  “And we should end there this morning—you did a wonderful job. But it’s time for us to get ready to say goodbye to your houseguests. Some of them are leaving this morning and the rest this afternoon. Except for the Duke and Duchess of Willowby.”

  Phoebe’s expression fell and she set her book aside with a thud. “I don’t want them all to go.”

  Sarah nodded. “I understand. It’s been lovely having so many friends here during such a sad time. For you and for your brother.”

  Phoebe sighed. “And I’ll miss the babies.”

  Sarah edged closer and gently swept an auburn curl from Phoebe’s forehead. “You like having the little ones around. You’re such a good help with them, I know they will miss you, too.”

  “It’s not so lonesome when they’re here,” Phoebe sighed.

  Sarah frowned. Of course the little girl would be lonely. The estate was filled with adults who up until recently had been dealing with the passing of her beloved father. The fact that she was alone here, with no one her age to play with, would weigh heavily on her.

  “Perhaps they’ll come back again soon. Or you’ll see them in London,” Sarah said. “And there are children in the village. I’ll speak to His Grace about allowing us more trips there to meet some girls your age.”