by Sahara Kelly
She looked at where he was pointing, noting the terrain and the charming illustrations done by a long-ago hand. “I believe there was probably some sort of landslide here.” She gestured to the edge of an escarpment. “Those slopes are so gentle now. Nowhere near as steep as they’re shown. So if they fell…”
“They would push the river to re-route itself around them. Yes, I see. That does make sense.”
Ivy watched her fiancé pore with fascination over the ancient document. There was no pretence there, no effort to gain favour by praising a Siddington relic, just a clear and obvious curiosity.
Close enough to breathe in the fragrance of man, sandalwood and fresh air, she briefly closed her eyes and sniffed, inhaling, finding it very much to her taste.
As were his kisses.
In spite of his much-vaunted reserve, his Grace the Duke of Maidenbrooke possessed the skills of a passionate man; skills Ivy guessed he would bring to the marriage bed. She watched his gaze, riveted by something he’d noticed on the map. Would he bring that intensity to the act of love? Would he look at her the same way?
He held an old and respected title, his reputation was one of cold and unemotional demeanour—expected of the very wealthy—and he maintained that appearance almost all the time. Few would imagine he could be so intrigued by an old map. Even fewer would imagine the fire she had sensed within his kiss. And yet she knew it was there.
Which brought her around to the knowledge she was desperately trying to avoid.
She wanted him for her husband.
Fate had presented him in a neatly, if scandalously, wrapped package. The entire situation had forced her to this moment, the instant when she accepted her feelings about this man.
Was it love? She wasn’t sure. How did one know? He didn’t look any different to her, but she now understood the tiny shiver that made her catch her breath when he looked at her, and the quickened beat of her heart when he took her hand, or smiled at her, or danced with her or…
Oh, good Lord.
The distant rumble of thunder was echoed by a sudden accelerated thudding within her breast. Ever practical, Ivy closed her eyes for a moment or two—and accepted the truth. Yes, there was a very strong probability that she’d gone and fallen in love with the Duke of Maidenbrooke.
It was unexpected, improbable and unlikely, and yet it had happened. When, she couldn’t say, but there it was, staring her in the face, defying her to turn aside from the evidence.
“Don’t you agree?” He glanced up at her.
“Er…your pardon, Colly. My mind was wandering.”
Another rumble of thunder preceded a gust of wind that rattled the windows and drew everyone’s attention. Ivy was grateful that even the Duke looked surprised.
“Perhaps we should adjourn.” Lady Siddington stood. “Dinner at half-past six, my dears. Early, I know, but we keep country hours.”
“And this storm may well keep us up half the night,” frowned Elvina. “My bones are telling me it’ll be a rough one when it hits.”
Lightning flashed briefly. “You mean it hasn’t arrived yet?” The Duke blinked in surprise.
Lady Siddington smiled at him as she crossed the room. “Oh no. There are still a few hours before we feel its fury. Something to do with our hills and valleys, I’m told. It’s always been that way.” She inclined her head. “I’ll see you all at dinner.”
Ivy walked out with Colly. “I trust your room will be acceptable,” she worried. “A castle isn’t the same as a manor.”
“I should hope not.” His answer was determinedly cheerful. “How disappointing it would be to find oneself in a mundane room similar to one’s own, when inside a magnificent edifice like this.” He looked up at the high coffered ceiling, criss crossed with beams of dark wood and interspersed with panels that had aged to a rich ivory cream.
The wind howled, a mournful sound that always made Ivy shiver. “I used to think that was the cry of the Siddington ghost,” she chuckled.
“You have a ghost?” He stopped dead.
She couldn’t help her giggle. “No. Of course not. But one of my cousins thought it amusing to scare me when I was little. I am no longer scared of ghosts, but there’s something about that particular sound.”
He nodded and took her hand in his, a casually affectionate gesture that sent a completely different kind of shiver over her skin.
“Children can be cruel,” he commented as they strolled on. “But as you say, time passes. We become adults and leave such things behind.”
She wondered at that comment, but before she could pursue it, they arrived at his door. “Here you are, Colly.” Carved double doors heralded his chamber. “Not quite like Hartsmere House, would you say?”
She threw open the doors with dramatic flair, revealing a truly magnificent room. The walls were hung with tapestries, the bed a massive four poster complete with curtains, and a huge embrasure containing a chair, a desk and a couple of armchairs.
The Duke’s jaw dropped as he gasped. Then he turned to her, his eyes alight. “It’s…it’s perfect.”
“You wouldn’t say that in January, but I believe you’ll do well for a night or two.” She dropped him a little curtsey. “My room is down the corridor on the left. I doubt you’ll need anything, but if you do…”
“This will be ideal,” he smiled down at her. “Thank you. It’s everything I could have hoped to find in a castle.”
Thunder rumbled again, a sound that reminded Ivy she was quite alone with a man in his bedchamber. “I must change. I’ll see you at dinner, your Grace.” She nodded and turned, only to find his hand gripping her arm.
“Ivy.” He pulled her close and before she knew it his lips found hers.
There it was, that shock of sweetness and that savage dart of want streaking through her body from her eyebrows to her toes.
She barely managed to restrain the urge to throw her arms around his neck and climb him as if he were a tree. Slowly, she peeled her mouth from his.
“G-good Lord,” she stuttered. “I must go.”
Free of his arms, she spun around and fled to her room, afraid to look back in case his expression might betray something akin to the lust she was currently experiencing. Should they both fall prey to this eagerness, this temptation…well, that would push matters beyond what they should be.
Sighing, she leaned against her closed bedroom doors. Everything was getting complicated the more she thought about it.
Only one thing remained simple.
The joy she felt when she kissed the Duke, and he kissed her back.
*~~*~~*
Had anyone thought to inform the Duke of Maidenbrooke that he would have been thrown into a state of stunned shock and lust at the mere touch of a young woman’s lips, he’d have scoffed and immediately walked away.
The notion was, on the surface, absurd.
And yet here he was, in a chamber that would have made any of the early royal Henrys quite happy, in the middle of a fully-fledged thunderstorm, staring from his window and thinking wildly inappropriate thoughts about said young lady.
Dinner had been excellent, though simple, and Lady Siddington had kept to her promise of retiring early. He’d been aware, every moment, of Ivy as she sat next to him in the lovely old dining room, a distraction that astonished him. For the first time in his life, he struggled with the urge to just seize a woman and crush her against his body.
What had this world come to, when he could be so thrown off balance like this?
He flinched at a massive lightning bolt, which cracked loudly outside. He nearly jumped back for fear it would singe his toes. This was, as promised, a rough storm indeed.
But the fury around the castle merely echoed the confusion he felt inside. He’d asked Ivy to marry him on impulse; saving them both from an extremely embarrassing and scandalous moment. But he was honest enough to admit that he had developed a regard and a respect for her prior to that fateful evening.
And now he
was here, the taste of her lingering on his tongue, wishing for more. Would she feel the same way, he wondered? She’d not seemed reticent when it came to kisses, he knew. But he wasn’t convinced that she viewed their announced nuptials as an actual event. More like a lucky evasion of scandal for them both.
The thunder continued its barrage, rattling the old mullioned windows with its ferocity. So it must have been centuries ago when storms like this hit…rough and wild and probably frightening to earlier occupants who had little understanding of the battle taking place in the sky.
There would have been skins over the windows perhaps; or if Siddington was lucky, some very early glassmaker had put a pane or two here and there.
His mind wandered as he stared out into the eye of the storm. But even though the thunder rivalled cannon on a battlefield, he heard something else and turned.
Ivy was coming into his room, peering around the door. “Forgive me for disturbing you, but I wanted to make sure you have everything you need. Are you all right?”
“Yes,” he answered, drawing his dressing gown tightly around him. “As are you, I see. But should you be here?”
She shook her head as she closed the door. “No. I shouldn’t. But…I have questions, Colly. Matters upon which I would like some guidance.”
Still, he hesitated. “They could not wait until morning?”
She swallowed, her throat moving in the low light of the single candle. “I’d prefer now, but if you’re tired, then of course I understand…” She turned away.
“No, wait.” He moved toward her. “Please. Let’s talk. If it is important enough to bring you to my room at this hour, then we shall give it our fullest attention.” He drew her to one of the two chairs arranged near the window. “Now. Ignore the storm and tell me what it is that is troubling you.”
“I’m not sure it’s troubling,” she began, settling her own dressing gown around her feet. “But it is of concern to me.”
“Then by all means let’s hear it.”
She took a breath. “Do you really want to marry me, Colly?”
He opened his mouth to reply, but the words were swept away on a loud rumble of thunder. He sighed, waited, and tried again. “Yes.”
She blinked. “Oh. I wasn’t expecting…well…I didn’t really think…”
He wanted to grin, but managed not to. Her confusion was delightful, her presence brought a happy warmth to his heart and other places, and it appeared she wanted to talk about their wedding.
He proceeded carefully. “I don’t make such statements lightly, Ivy. Nor would I cry off. When I said we were engaged, yes, it was in response to the situation. But having said it…” he paused, trying to see her expression in the dim light. “I stand behind my words.”
A flash of lightning illuminated the look of surprise on her face. “You really do want to marry me?”
Once again he kept his answer brief. “Yes.” The less information he gave her, the less she could develop an argument against their marriage; something he suspected she might try to do.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you want to marry me? You could do much better. Many young ladies have vast estates, or boundless wealth to increase the Maidenbrooke coffers. Isn’t that how marriages are made in your world?”
“Ah Ivy,” he sighed. “Understand this, my dear. We live in the same world. Trust me.”
“I can’t…”
He took a breath, rose, walked to her chair and lifted her up out of it, ignoring her shocked squeak.
“Colly…”
Stepping back to his chair, he sat, plunked her down on his knees and held her there with one hand, while the other pushed her hair away from her cheek. “There. Now we can be quite comfortable. Talking is easier this way, wouldn’t you agree?”
Her expression was uncertain, but she made no move to rise. “Dreadfully improper.”
“You started it by coming in here.”
She sniffed. Then peeked at him, her lips slightly curved. “Yes, I suppose I did.”
“What is at the bottom of this, Ivy? What is troubling you?”
She leaned against him, relaxing, her body loosening as she shifted herself a little. “I am afraid I’ll disappoint you.”
He wanted to roll his eyes, but dared not, in case the lightning showed that scornful display to the worried armful of woman heating his lap.
“How could you possibly disappoint me?”
She hesitated, then raised her chin. “I am not experienced enough in the ways of the world to be your Duchess, Colly. I will make terrible mistakes. And then there’s the matter of…of the bedchamber…”
Her face was lowered and the last words mumbled, but he heard them all the same.
“Your concerns may be valid to you,” he said quietly. “But I hope you’ll believe me when I tell you that they are of no worry to me at all.”
“But…”
He stopped her words with his mouth. She was too close, too fragrant, too warm for him not to take what he so desired. She stilled for a brief moment, then parted her lips on a sigh, welcoming his tongue as she slid her arms around his neck.
This time, he could not hold back, drawing her up against his chest, moving so that she could feel the evidence of his need hard beneath her thigh.
“I want you, Ivy. There’ll be no trouble between us in bed, my sweet.”
“I…” she pulled back, her lids heavy. “Is this desire? This heat that burns inside me? I’ve never felt quite like this…”
He looked down at her thin gown, seeing the buds of her nipples sharply rising against the fabric. With a pained smile, he lifted his forefinger and brushed against one, loving the gasp of shock that gusted from her lips.
“This is desire, Ivy. Yes, I want you. You know how much because the evidence is beneath your leg right this minute. But this…” he ran his fingernail lightly across the hard nub, making her shiver, “this is your body telling me that you want me as well. That my touch is not unpleasant…” He repeated the move and she moaned. “It isn’t unpleasant, is it?”
“Nooo,” she breathed, her eyes closing. “Oh no, not at all…”
He shifted her a little, relieving some of the pressure on his cock and letting her gown slide away from her legs. “Everything we do will be pleasant, sweetheart.” He slid one hand beneath the thin silk and found more silk, this time warm and firm.
His touch brought another tiny whimper and as he moved his hand upward, her legs parted as if in welcome. “Colly,” she whispered.
“What?” His fingers played at the top of her thigh.
“I want…”
“What do you want?”
“I don’t know…”
He smiled, the storm outside forgotten as he began to encourage a storm inside Ivy. Her hips moved slightly as he found her, and then her head fell back as he learned her sweet heat, his gentle touch sliding between folds that were swollen and damp.
He teased her little secret pearl, leaning forward at the same time to find her breast with his mouth, soaking her gown as he licked and sucked her nipple, fighting the urge to rip off her nightclothes and take her, make her his.
She cried out, stiffening, rigid beneath his caresses.
He stilled, holding her trembling body as she rode out her release, watching her face in the flickering candlelight as she melted into the pleasure of it.
Finally, limp and breathless, she opened her eyes and looked at him. “Oh Colly…”
Chapter Ten
Ivy awoke with a sigh of lingering pleasure, stretching and feeling every tiny piece of her flesh humming. Last night had been—astounding.
She blushed as she remembered looking at Colly, his face slightly flushed as he slid his hand from her body. She had wanted to slap her thighs together and keep it just where it was, but didn’t have the nerve.
He’d whispered to her, telling her how beautiful she was in her passion, and he’d kissed her so sweetly befor
e tidying her gown.
She’d never imagined what having a lover would be like; it wasn’t something that had ever crossed her mind. But now? After what they’d done as the storm passed over the castle? Oh yes. She’d very much enjoy a lover. Provided it was Colly.
And deep inside, a yearning began. A yearning that she might actually become his wife and freely experience all that could be explored between a man and a woman.
But…there was always that little voice pointing out that just because he was a gentleman and rescued them both from a nasty spot, and just because he’d taken pity on her and touched her intimately—neither of those things meant they would or should be married.
She just couldn’t overcome her own objections to such a thing. She was wrong for him. All wrong. Being merely passable in looks would not reflect well on the Maidenbrooke lineage, populated as it was by some of the most stunning beauties. Her fortune was acceptable, but not huge, and her ancestry ranked along the same lines.
There was no way around it…he could do much better. Not many Dukes wed without considerable thought and examination of the business end of it. They had to, in order to maintain their position, wealth and holdings.
Ivy sighed.
It had been difficult to leave him, but they both knew she had to, if she wanted to retain her virginity. In fact the Duke had said as much, bluntly and with no attempt to find gentler words.
“I want you, Ivy. I want to take you to my bed and claim your body as mine.” His voice had been low and edged with a roughness that told her he meant every single word. “So please go now, before I forget who and where we are, and do as I desire.”
She had swallowed, watching his eyes follow the movement of her throat. “I…this is difficult, Colly. Because I think I want that as well. But as always, you’re right in your statement. It is neither the time nor the place.” She’d gathered what was left of her wits and composure, and managed to leave, refusing to allow him to walk her to her door.
