by Marie Force
“Aubrey, we can’t. Not now. We’re expected for luncheon with your family.”
“We can. We’re newlyweds. They’ll understand if we miss luncheon.” He focused his attention on her neck, nuzzling her with kisses and light dabs of his tongue as he pressed his rigid erection against her core. “You can’t leave me in such a state. They’ll surely notice and be relentless in the grief they’ll give me. You wouldn’t do that to me, would you?”
The withering look she gave him was one that wives everywhere would recognize.
Freeing himself from his trousers with one hand, Aubrey kissed his way back to her lips, which were swollen from their earlier kisses. “We’ll be quick and only a few minutes late to lunch.”
“You’re never quick.”
He snorted with laughter. “I’ll be this time. I promise. You’ve got me so worked up, I won’t last but a minute.”
“Why am I always the one who is blamed for these situations?”
“Because it’s your fault that you’re so beautiful and alluring and soft and sweet and . . . ah, God, so ready for me.” The flood of moisture between her legs was nearly his undoing.
“That is your doing.”
“Ah, love, that is our doing.” He slid into her and bit his lip—hard—to keep from spending as soon as her tight, wet heat surrounded his cock. In all his life, nothing had ever felt better than being inside his lovely wife. “You feel so sinfully good.”
“As do you.” She combed her fingers through his hair in a gesture so loving and tender it made his heart skip a beat and the breath get caught in his throat.
He’d promised to be quick, but he hated to rush something that felt so damned good. Sliding a hand under her, he grasped her bottom and held her tight against him as he began to move faster.
She looked up at him, his gaze connecting with hers in a moment of perfect harmony that made him shiver and falter.
“Are you all right?”
He shook his head. “I’m quite undone by you.”
“And that is a bad thing?”
“On the contrary. It’s the best thing to ever happen to me.” He captured her lips in another torrid kiss as he continued to move inside her, the crisis growing and multiplying until it could no longer be contained or denied. “Maeve . . .”
“Yes, Aubrey. Don’t stop.”
He would never stop wanting her, loving her, needing her. The realizations came over him like a tidal wave, one after the other. In her he had found his perfect match, like Derek with Catherine and Simon with Madeleine. He understood now why they had risked anything and everything to have the women they loved, because he would do the same to protect Maeve and their fragile bond.
He would do whatever it took to feel this way for the rest of his life.
She raised her hips to meet a deep stroke of his cock, and that’s all it took to break him.
Aubrey reached the summit with a shout that came from the deepest part of him, his fingers digging into her hip and shoulder to hold her still as she experienced her climax right along with him.
“Shhh, they’ll hear us.”
“I don’t bloody care.”
Breathing hard, he collapsed onto her, every muscle in his body lax in repose. He couldn’t have moved if he’d had to.
Her arms encircled him as her fingers continued to comb through his hair, filling him with a profound feeling of well-being and contentment.
“That was not quick.”
His low chuckle rumbled through his chest. “I found myself exceptionally inspired by the magnificence of my wife and couldn’t rush perfection.”
She laughed, and as always, the sound of her laughter delighted him. “You’ve made a terrible mess of me. I’m going to need to change my wrinkled dress.”
“I love to make a mess of you.” He cupped her cheek and gazed down at her. “I love every minute I spend with you.”
“I quite enjoy our time together as well.”
“It makes me very happy to hear you say that.”
“I hope you didn’t wonder.”
“No, not really.” Aubrey still wondered if she were with him for the protection he could provide or because she genuinely cared for him. He didn’t know, and that uncertainty was the only thing keeping him from telling her the truth of how much he cared for her. Taking a deep breath, he let it out slowly as he realized he’d once again been careless about preventing conception. If she ended up pregnant, that would keep her with him, or so he hoped.
The uncertainty detracted from the happiness she had brought to his life and left him with a grinding fear of what would become of him if it turned out that she was only with him so she wouldn’t be taken home to Ireland to face murder charges.
* * *
Over the next week, Maeve found herself waiting. For what, she didn’t know, but she fully expected something to happen, something unpleasant that would destroy the bubble of happiness she had found with Aubrey.
His sisters had been friendly if reserved in their welcome of her. The children had been lovely, but they were unaware that they shouldn’t be too warm toward their uncle’s new wife due to her lowly heritage.
In America, the Irish were treated as second-class citizens, which she had known before she came, but with few options available to her, she’d come knowing she would most likely be able to find work there. She hadn’t expected to meet a man of society who had taken an immediate and overwhelming interest in her, nor had she ever expected to find herself married to such a man.
When he’d told her Mr. Tornquist had come looking for her, at the behest of Farthington’s family, she’d experienced panic so deep and pervasive it had stolen the breath from her lungs. Aubrey had been right there, offering her protection and affection and a solution to her most pressing problem.
Desperation had driven her to accept his outlandish proposal, and his obvious desire for her had added to the appeal of his offer. And in the days since then, he’d introduced her to pleasure beyond anything she could’ve imagined before she had known him. Maeve found herself anticipating time alone with him with a nearly sinful enthusiasm for what would transpire when they were behind closed doors.
He continued to surprise and delight and yes, embarrass her with the things he convinced her to do, but the end result was always the same—dizzying pleasure.
Since her arrival, his mother had kept her distance from both of them, but her disapproval of Aubrey’s choice of a wife was apparent in everything she said and did. She had completely ignored Maeve, apparently deciding that if she pretended her youngest son hadn’t married the Irish housekeeper, then maybe it would be like it hadn’t happened.
For a woman known for her volcanic rages, her silence spoke volumes.
Aubrey hadn’t noticed the way his mother completely ignored her, but Maeve had, and wondering about Eliza’s strategy kept Maeve in a constant state of disquiet, her stomach upset and her nerves stretched thin. Silence, in this case, wasn’t golden. If her intent was to keep Maeve in a perpetual state of dread, she had succeeded brilliantly. Not for one moment did Maeve believe that Eliza was going to accept her son’s marriage to the former housekeeper.
By the time a week had passed, the house was on full alert for the imminent arrival of the duke and duchess and the rest of their party, and no one was more excited to greet them than Eliza. Perhaps their pending visit was the only thing keeping Eliza from finding a way to banish Maeve from Aubrey’s life.
At the moment, she seemingly cared more about the social boost she would receive from the arrival of the duke and duchess than she did about the woman her son had married. But Maeve knew her day of reckoning was coming. Dread had her nerves stretched so thin it was all she could think about as she moved through her days pretending to be part of the Nelson family while knowing these halcyon days would soon be relegated to memories she would cherish forever.
Aubrey was attentive, sweet, loving and tender with her, seemingly delighted to be spending time
with her and his extended family at his favorite place in the world. He appeared to be a man without concern as he kept his pledge to oversee the staff, including a new housekeeper named Sarah who had arrived three days prior. Aubrey spent time every morning in the office with his father, catching up on business reports from his brothers in New York.
Maeve used the time he spent tending to work to walk the grounds of the estate and the nearby shore so as not to chance an encounter with Eliza while Aubrey was otherwise occupied. She had come to rely on his steady presence to keep her calm when she felt the grip of fear over what would become of her when his mother prevailed in convincing him to turn his back on her.
It would happen. Maeve had no doubt whatsoever about that. But not knowing when or how it would happen had her clinging to the edge of sanity while everyone around her indulged in summertime frivolity.
The day the duke and duchess were due to arrive, Maeve walked farther than she had before, traversing the path that wound along the shoreline. With warm sunshine beating down on her and a soft, early summer breeze coming from the ocean, she could almost convince herself she was back home in Dingle, except that the ocean faced the other direction here, something she had found remarkable when she first realized it. Naturally, that made perfect sense, but until someone had been on both sides of the vast ocean, the difference didn’t register.
When she’d walked to the end of the long path, she turned back, every step toward “home” making her more anxious. She was more than halfway back when she noted a familiar man coming toward her. After weeks as his lover, she recognized the shape of his body and the unique way in which he moved. A shiver of anticipation rippled down her back when she realized he had been looking for her.
In the seconds it took for him to reach her, she realized she’d made the critical, devastating error of allowing herself to fall in love with the remarkable man she had married, even knowing that at any moment, the dream they had created for themselves would turn into a nightmare. A woman like his mother would settle for nothing less than complete and utter destruction.
“There you are.” His face lit up with pleasure at the sight of her, as it always did.
Had anyone ever looked at her the way he did? No, never. She would miss him so much when she was forced to leave him. “Here I am.” She made an effort to match his cheerful tone so he wouldn’t know how tortured she was. Had he known, he would’ve reassured her, told her there was nothing anyone could do or say to make him not want her. He would say all the right things, but there were things that could tear them apart, and when—not if—his mother learned of how Maeve’s first marriage had ended, she would do everything within her considerable power to drive them apart.
Aubrey extended his arm to her. “Why do you seem troubled, my dear?”
Maeve tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow, realizing as she did it, that holding on to him had become as natural to her as breathing. How had she allowed that to happen? “I’m hoping your friends are having an uneventful journey and that they will find the accommodations to their liking.”
“I’m sure they will be delighted with everything you did to prepare for their arrival. I know I am.”
His approval meant the world to her. Pleasing him had become her most important daily task, because when she pleased him, he directed that warm, loving smile her way. That smile calmed and soothed her the way almost nothing else could. It gave her hope and faith that maybe they would survive whatever his mother cooked up to ruin them. But then she thought of the condition the house had been in and the lengths the previous staff had gone to exact their revenge on the woman who had tormented them, and the feelings of hope deserted her.
“Tell me about them,” she said, desperate to find something to talk to him about so she wouldn’t be tempted to unload her fears on him. “You’ve talked of them so often, but I still don’t know how you met the duke or much about the others in his party.”
“Derek and I met a couple of years ago when my mother strong-armed me into spending the Season in London in the hopes that I would land an aristocratic wife.”
“How devastated she must be now.” The words were out before she could consider whether she should say them.
“Her feelings have no bearing on mine. I was always very clear with her that I would only marry if I met someone I couldn’t live without, and that’s exactly what I did.”
His words went straight to her heart, making it flutter with delight. He really was the sweetest man she’d ever known. “How did you come to be acquainted with the duke?”
“You know the saying misery loves company?”
“I do.”
“Well, neither Derek nor I, nor his cousin Simon or dear friend Justin Enderly, wished to be anywhere near the ballrooms of London or the desperate mothers looking to make an aristocratic match for their feather-headed daughters.”
She glanced up at him, raising a brow. “Feather-headed?”
“That’s really the only way to describe the way they flit about, preening and posing and hoping against hope to land a duke or an earl or, if all else fails, a man whose family has struck it rich in the railroad in America. Although, compared to Derek, the rest of us may as well have been two-day-old haddock. He was the big prize—a wealthy, titled duke under the age of fifty who still had all his teeth and a face so handsome as to make the mamas weep. I quickly realized that having him for a friend meant that we would be surrounded at all times by diamonds of the highest caliber.”
The thought of Aubrey being surrounded by beautiful women made Maeve seethe with jealousy. “It must’ve been a terrible hardship to be so in demand.”
He stopped walking and turned to her, flashing that irrepressible grin. “Is my lovely wife jealous?”
“Of course not. You chose me over all those diamonds you could’ve had. What reason do I have to be jealous?”
“No reason whatsoever.” His expression became more serious. “It’s apparent to me now that I was waiting for the most flawless of all diamonds to cross my path.” He caressed her face and turned her chin up to receive his kiss. “The diamond I married has no peer on this or any continent.”
Maeve sighed with pleasure and delight at how efficiently he dispatched her unsettling thoughts. “You’re quite accomplished at flattery, Mr. Nelson.”
“I speak only the truth, Mrs. Nelson.”
“You mentioned Derek’s cousin, Simon, and his friend Justin. Are they also your friends?”
They began to walk again, taking their time returning to the house full of people that was about to get even more crowded with the arrival of the duke, duchess and their party.
“Indeed they are. The three are—or I guess I should say were—constant companions before Derek and Simon married the McCabe sisters.”
“And how did cousins end up marrying sisters? You told me some of it, but not the whole story.”
“Well, Derek had decided he’d had enough of the social Season in London, and even though he was under pressure to marry by his thirtieth birthday—”
“How come?”
“A ridiculous and legally questionable provision in his family’s primogeniture, inserted by the first Duke of Westwood, that compels all future dukes to marry by age thirty. While none of the previous dukes had come close to missing the deadline, Derek hadn’t wanted to question the legality of the provision with his scurrilous uncle waiting in the wings, panting for the power Derek possesses. The last thing he wanted was to cede to Anthony, but he couldn’t bear the Season for even one more day. He took his leave and headed home to Essex on his beloved horse, Hercules, and was nearly home when he found a woman digging on his property. At first, he thought it was a man, but it turned out to be Catherine McCabe, who had run away from an arranged marriage with a nasty viscount. I don’t know all the details, but upon learning of her disdain for the aristocracy, apparently Derek convinced her he was the estate manager, Jack Bancroft—”
“Jack Bancroft? That wa
s the name you used the day we met!”
“It was,” Aubrey said with a sheepish grin. “It was the first name that popped into my head after I realized you thought I was the new butler.”
“I see that deception is a trait you and your friend have in common.”
“We have both learned from our mistakes. I assure you of that. Derek and Catherine fell madly in love, and when the viscount came looking for her, Derek spirited her away in the night to Gretna Green where they were married.”
“Did he tell her then that he was really the duke?”
Aubrey winced. “Unfortunately, he did not. He decided to give them both a week of happiness that included his formerly dreaded thirtieth birthday, before he broke the news to her.”
“He must’ve been relieved to have met the deadline.”
“Indeed. That was a huge relief to him. His parents were killed in a carriage accident when he was just a boy, so he had always endeavored to make them proud. He felt that his failure to meet the deadline would’ve devastated them, especially seeing everything go to the brother his father had despised, who it turns out, was the one who orchestrated the deaths of Derek’s parents.”
“Oh, my lord. And that man is Simon’s father?”
“Yes, but fortunately, Simon is nothing at all like the man who fathered him. A more affable chap you’d be hard-pressed to find.”
“How did he end up married to Catherine’s sister?”
“Derek sent him to London to find out what was being said about Catherine and to determine if her fiancé, the viscount, was looking for her. While he was there, he met Madeleine, and I was there that night. He was instantly smitten by her, to the point that Justin and I couldn’t believe what we were witnessing. Simon had been somewhat of a rake, and to see him dazzled by a woman was startling, to say the least. And that the woman he’d fallen for was also considered the belle of the Season . . . We found it highly entertaining. There’s much more to the story but I’ll let Catherine and Madeleine tell you about it.”
“Do you think they will like me?”
