The Duchess in His Bed

by Heath Lorraine

  He gave her another kiss, this one on the back of her gloved hand, before assisting her into the carriage where she settled in against the comfortable squabs. Lushing had been a stickler for comfort.

  Aiden Trewlove leaned against the frame of the doorway and studied her. Or perhaps he was striving to find a way to invite her back in that wouldn’t wound his pride. “If you still want to be bedded on the morrow, return here.”

  As though her request had been a lark and she’d change her mind with the arrival of more time. “You vastly overestimate your appeal, Mr. Trewlove. You rejected my offer. I’m not likely to come crawling back.”

  He gave her another one of those saucy grins that were beginning to irritate her, even as they caused her heart to flutter. “We’ll see how you feel tomorrow after taking me into your dreams tonight.”

  With that, he slammed the door shut, shouted up an order, and the horses bolted forward. It took everything within her not to crane her head out the window and watch as her increasing distance from him caused him to shrink and disappear into nothing.

  After arriving at the residence, still in somewhat of a daze from the fervent kiss Aiden Trewlove had delivered, she removed the key from her reticule and unlocked the front door. The expanse of gardens, brick walls, hedgerows, and trees surrounding her would prevent any prying neighbor from catching a glimpse of her. Although at this time of night, it was unlikely anyone was awake to peer out of a window. The only ones who knew she’d gone out were her lady’s maid, Bailey, who had helped her dress, and the driver who had taken her to the notorious club. She trusted them to be discreet and keep her confidence.

  With the laces of her mask threaded through her fingers, she made her way up the stairs, her mind replaying those breathless moments spent within the arms of the club owner. Who would have thought that a kiss could be so encompassing?

  She must have kissed Lushing a thousand times, but she’d never opened her mouth to him, and he’d most certainly never thrust his tongue between her lips and claimed everything within, claimed her. Was it because Aiden Trewlove was a commoner that he took such liberties? Were those in her station simply too civilized to respond in such an animalistic manner?

  Opening the door to her bedchamber, she walked in, closed it, and leaned against the mahogany, remembering how Aiden had done the same. She glanced toward the bed, illuminated by a solitary lamp left burning on the bedside table. With a sigh, she realized she needed a moment to gain the wherewithal to prepare for slumber. She wondered what Aiden had been preparing for when he’d leaned against the door—not to ravage her perhaps. Her lips spread into the barest hint of a smile. She’d never before felt desired. It was an incredible—

  “Did you have success at getting bedded?”

  With a tiny screech, she jerked her gaze to the darkened corner where her brother sat, only his outstretched legs visible. She didn’t hide her displeasure as she marched over to her vanity, set the mask on it, and began tugging off her gloves. “What are you doing in here?”

  The Earl of Camberley slowly pushed himself to his feet. All of twenty-seven, he was not a towering man, and yet he had inherited their father’s ability to appear intimidating. Although she had no doubt Aiden Trewlove would brush him away as though he were merely a pesky fly buzzing about. “Making sure you saw to your duty.”

  She suspected her brother had mourned her husband’s passing more than anyone, because standing at the foot of the bed, watching as the Duke of Lushing drew his last breath, he’d looked over at her and said, “Pray tell me you are with child, lest we be ruined.”

  She couldn’t tell him what he wished. For seven years, in spite of her husband occasionally coming to her bed, she remained barren. Without a male heir, the title would become extinct and the entailed properties would pass to Her Majesty’s Treasury. It seemed her husband and what few relations he’d possessed had not excelled at procreating or surviving long. Perhaps a man as virile as Mr. Trewlove might have better luck at giving her what she required.

  Because her family, in spite of her brother’s title, was as poor as dirt. And she had a very short time in which to get herself with child. She could still claim it as the duke’s if it arrived ten months after his death. Babies sometimes arrived late. But after that . . .

  And if it were a daughter, while the title would still become extinct, the girl would eventually inherit all the entailed properties because the terms of the entailment allowed it to go to a female if she had a direct bloodline to the first duke—which Selena would ensure the world believed she did.

  What Selena was considering was deceitful and without honor, but she had need of the estates while the Crown did not. If Lushing had been content for everything to be handed over to the Treasury, he would never have married her, wouldn’t have tried to get her with babe. He had worked hard to ensure his properties were the finest in all of England. Surely he wanted to see his legacy carried on. Where was the harm in the world believing the child had come from his loins?

  She had always been a good and faithful wife. When the cold winds had blown across the moors and the snows had fallen and he had taken ill, she had nursed him hour upon hour, wiping the sweat from his brow, changing his nightshirt when it became damp, encouraging him to eat, reading to him until she was hoarse. She truly mourned the loss of him, riddled with guilt because she’d failed to give him the one thing he asked of her: an heir.

  Sitting on the cushioned bench, she began pulling pins from her hair while glaring at her brother’s reflection in the mirror. “Perhaps we’d all be better served if you’d attend to your duties as I’m well aware of mine.”

  “See that you are.” He headed for the door.

  “Winslow?”

  He stopped but didn’t look back at her. Their father had brought the family to ruin with his inability to make wise investments, his reckless spending and gambling, and his penchant for brandy. Lushing had money to burn but he’d been frugal—probably the reason he’d had so much squirreled away. While he’d been willing to help her family to a certain extent, it hadn’t been enough to see them well situated.

  The trustees of the entailment were presently limiting funds until it was known if she carried an heir. Apparently, they didn’t want her absconding with what they didn’t consider legally hers. “If anyone learns of this—”

  “No one is going to learn of it,” he said impatiently. “Only you and I know you are not presently with child. Only you and I know you will rectify that within the next week or so. As long as your lover doesn’t realize your womb was empty when you came to him . . . and if he does suspect, it will be his word against ours. Who will give any credence to the ramblings of a commoner? You did go with a commoner, didn’t you?”

  She nodded. Unfortunately, she’d chosen a very smart and clever one.

  “I do hope it wasn’t too unpleasant for you. It may take more than once, you know.”

  “I’m well aware.”

  He suddenly appeared uncomfortable, the first time he’d seemed so since he’d cooked up this scheme. “Take strength from the fact that we’re doing this for the girls.”

  The girls. Her three sisters. The twins, who were eighteen, and Alice, who was sixteen. She wanted them to have the choice she’d never had, wanted them to be able to marry for love.

  She glanced down at her hands, surprised to find them knotted so tightly in her lap. “What if I’m barren?” The words were barely a whisper, but the fear had dogged her heels for some years now. Her husband had frequented her bed less often as their efforts failed to get her with child. The last few months, he’d not come to her at all.

  “Mother wasn’t. She gave birth to seven children.”

  Although two had died in infancy. They had come after Selena was born and before the twins, which was the reason so many years separated Selena from her sisters. “I’m not certain that a vibrant womb is handed down from one generation to the next.”

  “The fault could have rested
with him. It’s not as though his family tree is teeming with descendants, at least not on his father’s side. Which is the reason you are now in a position to lose everything—or ensure that you hold on to it.”

  By passing another man’s child off as Lushing’s. The deception didn’t sit well with her, but their resources and recourses were so limited.

  “Was the club as decadent as Torie claims?” She was taken aback by his abrupt change in topic and the way his eagerness to know the truth of the establishment and his hope of its titillating nature reverberated through his voice. Torie, his mistress, had told him of the place, having apparently visited while Winslow was away in the country.

  He was the one who had suggested she go to the Elysium, but she hadn’t told him upon whom precisely she’d set her eye. “More so. As a matter of fact, once our position is secured, I’ll no doubt spend considerable time there.”

  “My dear sister, we are attempting to deceive the Crown. Should the truth come out, they’ll have our heads. No. Once some blighter’s seed takes root, you can’t risk returning, can’t risk anyone figuring things out. You’ll retire to the country and live out your life a grieving widow, much as the Queen has done since the death of her dear Albert. Sleep well.”

  As though she’d be able to sleep at all. He immediately strode from the room, before she had time to pick up her hairbrush and throw it at him with all her might.

  Despair and anger threatened to swamp her. It had always been left to her to save the family. First with marriage, and now through sin.

  Not in the mood to deal with anyone else, she didn’t send for her maid but simply saw to her own needs. She finished removing the pins, brushed out her hair, and braided it. With a great deal of effort, she managed to shed her clothing and slip into a soft flannel nightdress.

  As she walked toward her bed, a profound sadness and loneliness struck her. She glanced over at the door that led into the duke’s bedchamber. With a shuddering sigh, she opened it and stepped over the threshold into the room where her husband had always slept when they were in London.

  On tiptoes, she crept toward the bed as though there would be hell to pay if she were caught sneaking about in this room. On the nights when her husband had not come to her bed, she’d never had the courage to slip into his, to come to him. She felt rather guilty that she’d gone in search of another man earlier tonight. The action had been out of character for her, and yet Aiden Trewlove had certainly given no hint that he’d been put off by it. Perhaps she should have gone to Lushing as well.

  It was odd to be here now, but also soothing as she caught a wisp of his faint fragrance, lingering even though they’d not been back to the city since they’d attended the regatta in Cowes last August. Climbing onto the bed, she curled onto her side and brought up her knees.

  Running her tongue over her lips, she could still taste Aiden Trewlove, dark, oak, smoky, whisky. She’d had no idea a man could taste so flavorful.

  Why had Lushing never opened his mouth to her? Why had he never made her feel as though he wanted to devour her?

  His kisses had always been so polite, so respectful, so gentlemanly. On their wedding night, he’d even whispered, “I’m sorry,” in her ear before he worked his way into her. She’d always thought he was apologizing for the pain he knew their initial coupling would cause her. But now she was left to wonder if he’d harbored guilt because he’d known their passion would always be cool and reserved, their coming together a perfunctory thing, a duty, a task.

  He’d commented often on her beauty. He’d never made her feel as though he didn’t like her, wasn’t fond of her. But neither had he ever gazed upon her with the hunger Aiden Trewlove had tonight.

  Closing her eyes, she drifted off into slumber and did exactly as the club owner had predicted: she welcomed him into her dreams.

  Within the attic of his club, surrounded by numerous lamps because the solitary window provided insufficient light in the wee hours before dawn, amidst the chaos of clutter that soothed his soul, Aiden studied the face he’d sketched onto the canvas. It wasn’t much of a face, really. Her jaw, her chin, and that luscious, luscious mouth that haunted him still. The flavor of it, the desperation of it, the way she’d explored his with equal abandon, as though it were all new, a mystery to be solved. Not his particular mouth but kissing in general. Surely her husband had not denied her that pleasure.

  He’d lightly etched in her eyes, but the shape was wrong. He needed to see them without the mask because, unlike his other renderings, he yearned for this one to be a perfect reflection of her.

  He always sketched out what he saw before painting the image in oils. Few knew he had this talent because he never signed his artwork, but always hidden away faintly, obscured by brighter colors, was the word Ettie. In honor of Ettie Trewlove, the woman who had taken him from his father’s arms and given him reason to believe he had value.

  He was passionate about creating items of beauty, scandalous though they might be as he seldom covered his subjects in clothing, preferring instead the flow of lines that comprised the naked human form. But even those were often shadowed, faded, or blurred leaving much to the viewer’s imagination. He created illusions and allowed others to determine the reality. A woman waiting for her lover. A man haunted by unrequited love. Couples kissing, embracing, fornicating. One saw what one needed to see, what one felt inside. That was his talent, not so much the stroke of a brush, but bringing secrets out of the shadows, desire out of the darkness, allowing them to exist and flourish in the light.

  The rap on the door would have angered him had it come five minutes earlier, before he’d put to canvas what his eyes had beheld and his fingers had caressed. If he cupped his hands just so until they threw shade over the lines, he could almost feel her face nestled within his palms and experience the softness of her skin, cared for no doubt with expensive creams or lotions, protected from the sun with an assortment of bonnets. A woman named Selena was one who should be spoiled.

  The rap came again.

  “Enter.” When the door opened, he didn’t turn his attention away from the etching because he could tell by the shift in the air that his brother Beast had walked in. For one so tall and broad, he was incredibly graceful, and it was as though space, the atmosphere, and everything around him bent to his will, accommodated his size and movements, without hesitation, the way one might quickly issue obedience to a king.

  “That’s an unusual rendering,” Beast said, his voice deep but smooth, like fine whisky. “Or an odd way to etch someone. You’re missing the middle portion of her face.”

  Setting his charcoal aside, Aiden crossed his arms and gave the sketch a critical appraisal. It wasn’t yet what he wanted or needed it to be. “She wore a mask.”

  “One of the women who frequents here then.”

  “Frequent is too generous a term. She’s been here only once.” But he was hoping for more encounters, although after she had her bedding, she might not return—unless he gave her cause to want to, unless he ensured she found the fornicating an addiction she couldn’t live without. He clapped his hands in order to turn his attention away from her and focus on his brother and the purpose of his visit. Beast seldom stopped by without a pressing reason. “Care for something to drink?” He walked over to a small table where a decanter of whisky sat at the ready.

  “I wouldn’t object to two fingers.”

  Aiden poured the amber liquid into the tumblers and passed one off to his brother. “So what brings you here?”

  “Haven’t seen much of you lately.”

  “I’ve been busy. I don’t know how Mick does it with all the irons he has in the fire.” The first of their group brought to Ettie Trewlove, Mick was considered the eldest. He was tearing down decrepit parts of London and building them anew, with so many projects going it was impossible to keep track—but his brother had become a wealthy man in the process, gaining the recognition and reputation he’d always longed for.

 
“He thrives on keeping busy and has an unquenchable need to succeed.”

  “I’d say that describes all of us.”

  Beast gave a nod to that, sipped his whisky. “Even Fancy.”

  Their baby sister, the only one of them born to their mum, was the result of an unscrupulous landlord taking payment in sexual favors when Ettie Trewlove had been short of funds for her weekly rent. Aiden and his brothers had been fourteen when Fancy came into the world and they’d discovered the price their mum was paying to keep a roof over their head. They might have been lads, but they’d been big and strong—and there had been four of them. When they’d finished giving the landlord a taste of their fists, breaking his jaw, he’d never again darkened their mum’s door—or taken anything other than coins from another woman. They’d kept a close watch on him until he’d finally sold his properties to Mick.

  “We’re all gathering together this coming Thursday to help her get her shop ready for business,” Beast continued. “We hoped you might make time in your schedule to join us.”

  Fancy would soon turn eighteen, and they all spoiled her rotten, Mick worst of all. She wanted to open a bookshop, so Mick had given her one of his recently built buildings for that purpose. “She could have asked me herself.”

  “I’m not sure Mum is keen on her coming to your house of sin.”

  “Better here where I can keep a watch over her than elsewhere. She’s of an age where she’s going to be curious. Mum can’t possibly think she’s not going to engage in a bit of naughtiness somewhere.”

  “Her shop will keep her too busy for that. Then next year, if Mick has his way, she’ll have her Season and marry some lord.”

  “We all strive to keep Fancy innocent”—he thought of his duchess—“but eventually she’ll rebel. God help us when she does. It’s the quiet ones you’ve got to watch.”