by Gill, Tamara
What are you playing at minx…?
“And now that you’ve taught me how to kiss, what sort of passions I would like in a husband, Lord Weston may be open to my eligibility. Lady Hectorville is after all a lot older than himself. I think I’m more suited to him in age.”
Anger simmered in Dale’s blood and he fisted his hands in his lap. “You would kiss Lord Weston if given the opportunity?”
“Of course,” Lady Mary said, shrugging one delicate shoulder. “I kissed you, did I not? I’m three and twenty, more than old enough to know a little of what is to come should I marry. And I must admit that I find kissing very…” she pursed her lips and his body hardened. “Nice.”
Dale ground his teeth, having heard enough of Mary kissing anyone she deemed suitable. “Just because Lord Weston is your neighbor here does not make him a suitable candidate. I will not allow you to throw yourself at him.”
She stood, and he sat forward as she strode toward him, walked past and ran her hand up his lapels to his shoulder. His body roared with annoyance. She had not agreed to his terms. To her brother’s wishes. “You cannot stop me, your grace.”
The hell he couldn’t. He stood and stormed after her. He followed her into a nearby corridor that ran off the library, it was unlit and the bare wooden floors gave rise to it only being used by servants.
“I will tell your brother what you’re playing at, so I can stop you, Lady Mary.”
She rounded on him, pushing him hard up against the wall. He stared at her a moment, not quite believing she’d manhandled him in such a way, before all thought fled from his mind when he realized her hand was running down his chest to run across his stomach.
He lay his head back against the wall, watching her take her fill of his body, wishing that her hand would delve lower and wrap about his aching cock.
“Should I tell my brother what you did to me over the terrace railing, your grace? How you made me ache. How you made me crave things I don’t even understand? If I’m willing to throw myself at Lord Weston it all could be laid at your door?”
“How so?” he rasped, his voice laced in agony.
“Because,” she said, her hand running about his waist to drop lower and cover one cheek of his arse, squeezing it a little. Her lips were just a breath away from his. She smelled of wine and spices. Dale kept his hands locked at his side knowing that if he placed them on her, there would be no turning back with what he wanted to do with her.
“At night the pleasure you wrought inside of me is all that I think about. I want to have that again, and if Lord Weston marries me, then I can have that and everything else as well. My life here as it’s always been.”
“You do not need to marry to find pleasure.” Dale cursed his words, but he could not regret saying them. He wanted her. Wanted to taste and kiss every morsel of her body. Wanted her to shatter under his ministrations.
“And just as you instructed me in the art of kissing, you’ll instruct me in that art as well?”
“Hell yes,” he said, slamming his mouth against hers. She gasped, and kissed him back with as much fire, as much need as his own. His body was aflame, hot and wanting. He broke the kiss, ignoring her moan of displeasure and looked about. Seeing a door nearby, he pulled her toward it, opening it to find a storeroom housing linen.
Dale yanked her inside, closing the door and snipping the lock.
Before he’d turned back to her, she’d clasped his face and pulled him in for a kiss. A small part of him thought that she’d vexed him on purpose, brought on such a reaction from him. But right at this moment, he didn’t care. All he cared for was that she was in his arms and his to have.
He backed her up toward a small table and lifting her quickly he sat her atop it. For a moment he watched her, both of their breathing was ragged, her breasts rising and falling with each intake of air. In the meagerly lit room, her golden gown was a beacon. Her leg idly swung, her silk slipper falling to the floor and he bit back a groan, knowing what he was about to do to her could never be undone.
Dale kneeled, slipping her other foot free of her shoe. He ran his hand up her long, soft stockinged leg reaching up until he felt the ribbon about her garter. Untying it, he slipped one and then the other off her leg, unable to stop himself from leaning forward and kissing her inner thigh, her knee, her sweet, delicate ankle.
Her fingers spiked through his hair, and he looked up, meeting her gaze. Her eyes were wide, hungry, her face flushed with anticipation and perhaps a little discomfiture. She had no reason to be so. He’d never do anything to hurt or embarrass her.
He gathered the hem of her gown and slowly slid it up her legs and prayed she would not stop him.
Mary shook all over, her body thrumming with expectation and wonder over what the duke was about to do to her. She had goaded and teased him into acting out in such a way, but the idea she could find pleasure without losing her innocence was an opportunity she would never pass up.
He pushed her legs apart, leaving her vulnerable, and causing her to lean back on her hands. Heat bloomed on her cheeks but she could not look away, for she was mesmerized by what he was doing to her. He bestowed an open mouth kiss on her inner thigh, hot and wet. The action was so private, a ministration that she’d never thought a man would ever do to a woman. Mary gasped, biting her lip, uncertain of what he meant to do from this point on.
“Lie back,” he commanded, his voice a gravelly purr. The duke stood and pushed her to lay flat on the table. A stack of linens lay beneath her head and she gasped as cool air kissed higher on her leg, before her gown pooled at her waist.
His large hands slid over her abdomen, her thighs, before pushing her legs further apart. His hot breath above her most private of places warmed her, and then he was there, his mouth, his tongue, teasing, flicking and kissing her as he had against her mouth.
Mary reached down, clasping his hair, holding him to her and pushing away the little voice that shouted at her to stop. That this was not appropriate or becoming for a lady. But she no longer cared. All she cared was that his mouth was on her and whatever he was doing to her felt so perfectly delicious.
He clasped the underside of her legs and lifted them to sit on his shoulders. Pushing forward, he flicked her with his tongue, before she felt him run a finger down over her core, teasing her entrance.
Mary moaned having never felt anything so wickedly good before in her life.
“You taste so damn sweet,” he said, meeting her gaze as he pressed one finger slowly into her.
She bit her lip, wanting to scream at the pleasure of his touch. Instead she clenched around his finger, milking it and wishing there was another part of him that could fill and inflame her.
He teased her relentlessly for some minutes. It was all too much, but not enough. And then she was there, a pinnacle worth the climb and one she wanted to fall from again and again.
She gasped as pleasure coursed through her, and all the while the duke did not let up. He continued to pull and tease every last drop of bliss from her he could. Her muscles felt spent and weak and she sighed, smiling a little as he stood and helped right her gown, her stockings and the silk slippers that had fallen onto the floor.
“You look positively ravished.”
Mary sat up, leaning on her elbows. “And you, your grace look like you’re in pain.” She sat all the way up, flattening out her gown and checking that her hair was reasonably tidy. Running a hand over his jaw, she touched his lips, heat coursing through her with the knowledge of what they could do to her.
She shook her head. “I had no idea that a man’s mouth could be so very clever.”
He smiled, chuckling and stepping between her legs, his hardened member hard up against her own sex. She clutched at his lapels, fire coursing through her once again.
“You might be surprised just how very clever I am.” He kissed her and she could taste her own tartness. Such a thing should revolt her, but instead, she drank him in, loving the fact that he’d held no such r
emorse in bringing her pleasure while leaving her a maid.
She broke the kiss. “Tell me how I can please you.”
His nostrils flared and he stepped back, severing the contact. “It is enough that you did this evening. We need not do any more.”
He walked to the door and opened it a little, looking out into the hall. “There is no one about. You should return to the parlor or head to your room. I shall make an appearance and then retire myself.”
Mary shuffled off the folding table, checking that the linens behind her were as they had been when they entered the room. She came up to him, trying to gauge what he was thinking. What he thought of her and what they’d done. “Even with what happened in here tonight I do not want you to think that I expect anything from you. Marriage is not an institution that I want unless I’m certain I’ve chosen correctly, so please do not allow any gentlemanly honor to raise its head and insist that you make an honest woman of me.”
Something flickered in his eyes, relief, regret, that she couldn’t tell. He leaned down, kissing her lips and the action felt almost final. Like he was drawing a line beneath them and finishing the little liaison in his life.
“I’m glad you do not expect such a thing, Lady Mary, for as you know I also do not wish to be saddled with a wife, not for some time yet. I do not wish to give you false hope of something more even though I should after what I just did to you.”
She shivered at the reminder, her body wanting more of him. At least in this respect. “Then we’re in agreement,” she said, tapping his cheek with the palm of her hand before moving past him and leaving him in the linen closet. Mary started toward her room, not wanting to face anyone, and feeling as though they had both lost a sweet opportunity that was not offered to everyone in life.
Making her room, she entered and shut the door, stifling a yelp when she found Louise sitting on the chair before the fire. “Oh, you’re back. I wondered where you got off to. Your mama was looking for you and I said I’d come and check on you thinking you’d be in your room. But you were not.” Louise threw her a penetrating stare. “Where were you, Mary?”
Heat flamed her cheeks and for a moment she fought to come up with an idea that would quell her friend’s suspicions. But at Louise’s knowing stare, she knew it was pointless. Louise had always been able to read her like a book.
“I was with the Duke of Carlton. In a linen closet. Alone.”
Louise’s eyes flared in alarm, her mouth gaping like a fish out of water. “And were you talking to the duke in this closet?”
Mary sat across from her, pulling her legs up beneath her gown. “Oh yes we talked a great deal. He in fact used his mouth a lot.” Heat infused her face at the memory of his wicked mouth that even now her body craved to feel again.
“Be careful, Mary,” Louise said, her tone serious. “Or you’ll end up married before the New Year, nevertheless the next Season. I didn’t think you wanted a husband at all. Too stifling and controlling for your nature.”
All true, husbands had always brought forth an idea of selfish, lazy obnoxious beings who would tell her what to do and when. What to wear and how to act. And yet, the duke had not dismissed her lifestyle, or thought it was unbecoming of a woman. Perhaps the duke, as high and mighty as he was, was in fact not so very stuffy after all. He could perchance be different from all the rest.
“I’m still a maid. There was no indiscretion, Louise, so please stop looking at me so shocked.” Well, there was rather a nice one, but nothing that could ruin her since no one knew of it. Some things should remain private, and her rendezvous with the duke was one of them.
“You spoke of marriage with the duke?”
“Well, actually he brought it up, but only to remind me of the fact that he was not looking for a bride any more than I was looking for a groom. So we’re quite in agreement on that score.”
The thought left a hollow ache beneath her breast. She liked him, more than anyone else before and they were friends. Intimate ones at that.
But would he suit as a husband? Would he allow her to be who she was? Certainly now that she knew what a man could do for a woman, taking a husband wasn’t so foreign to her. The duke certainly had been the first man to ever inspire desire within her, and so she would not discount him too soon, even after what they’d both said downstairs.
She shivered, thinking of his touch, his wicked kisses over her body. Perhaps being married would not be so much of a chore after all. Not if they were all like the Duke of Carlton. And not if she were to continue on as she’d always had when not under the condescending gaze of the ton.
Chapter 11
Dale lay in his bed staring up at the ceiling, the dark winter night as chilled as his own respectability. He should not have touched Mary. Not one strand on her pretty dark-haired head.
His cock stirred at the thought of her beneath him, writhing and grinding herself against his mouth and he groaned. Damn it. He shut his eyes, willing the torturous memory away, and yet it did not. If anything, it became more vivid, tempting him to leave the room, stride to hers and finish what they’d started.
He’d not traveled to Derbyshire to marry a country chit who was too independent and bossy for his nature. He’d always pictured a nice docile woman by his side when the time came, a blonde goddess with angelic features. The harridan that slept only a few doors from his was the antithesis of all that he’d pictured.
And damn she tempted him. More than any had before.
Dale sighed, his body taut with unsated desire. He forced himself to stay where he was, not to move and seek her out. To show her more of what a man and woman could do together without compromising her maidenhead.
A slither of light burst into the room as his door opened, before it was closed just as quick. The snip of the lock had him sitting up.
“Who’s there?” he asked, trying to focus his eyes on the figure that moved slowly toward his bed.
He inwardly groaned when he recognized who was present. “You need to leave, Margaret. There is nothing in this bed for you.”
She came up onto the mattress, a pouty expression on her lips that made her look absurd and a little desperate. “Come Carlton. Let me love you as you like.” Her hand slid over his cock and he pushed her hand away, hating the fact that his body roared for release. But he didn’t want Margaret beneath him. He wanted the maddening miss who slept down the hall.
Dale pushed away from her, getting off the bed. He clasped her upper arm, pulling her toward the door. “Out. Before someone sees you in here. What we had is long past and I’m sure there are other gentlemen present at this house party who’ll welcome you into their beds.”
She glared at him, all seduction gone. “You used to be amusing.” He unlocked the door, ushering her out. At her little squeak, he looked up and met the shocked gaze of Mary.
Mary took a couple of steps backward almost stumbling. “I’m sorry. I’m just on my way downstairs. I left the book I was reading in the library earlier today,” she babbled, moving past them, pulling her robe closer about her and ignoring Lady Hectorville’s giggle and whispered conversation with the duke about being caught.
What the duke said in reply was lost to Mary as she headed downstairs. That she was actually heading to the duke’s room when he’d escorted Lady Hectorville from his company was not what she’d expected to see. Grateful she had been saved from her own foolhardiness she headed toward the library. She went into the library and picked up the first book she could find, an old tome on gardening in England’s northern lands.
Mary took a moment to calm her heart. She blinked, breathed in a deep breath to try and halt the tears that blurred her vision. This was why she was not suited to be the wife of any gentleman. They were unfaithful, rotten to the core; people who wanted all and everything without a care as to whom they might hurt in their pursuit of pleasure and vice.
The duke could have at least waited a day before stooping so low to invite her ladyship into his bed. “Bas
tard,” she mumbled. That she’d only parted from his company hours before, that he’d had his hands and mouth on her person the same day as her ladyship left a sour taste in her mouth and a dull ache behind her breast.
The door to the library opened and the duke came in, looking about the darkened space searching for her. Mary didn’t move from her place beside the door, not in the mood to help his cause in finding her in any possible manner.
He turned and spied her, shutting the door with a snap. “Mary, let me explain.”
She moved away from him, pulling her robe tighter about herself as if to protect her heart. “What I saw was more than self-explanatory, your grace.”
He strode over to her, his tall, imposing frame dwarfing her against the bookshelf. “I did not sleep with Lady Hectorville. She came to my room and I told her to leave. What you witnessed was my ousting of her.”
Mary looked up into his eyes and in the moonlight saw the determination there to make her believe him. He was a renowned rogue, rumored in London to have many lovers. Finding him in such a compromising position at a house party would not be out of character, but there was something in his tone that gave her pause. Stopped her from accusing him of being a liar.
“Why should I believe you?” she asked, needing him to tell her that she was wrong in her assumptions and he was being honest. “I’ve heard the rumors about you and Lady Hectorville. That she was once your lover.”
“That was a mistake that I made one night when I was in my cups. I have not made the error again. What you saw just now was me kicking her from my room.”
“So you forget often what you do when you’re drunk. Shows a certain type of fickleness of character, your grace.” She shook her head, hating the fact she’d allowed herself to think that there could be a possibility with him. A future. The duke was no different than every other gentleman in the ton. Only out for what they could get, whether it be women or blunt. To be married to a man, allow herself to care for someone who might simply imbibe too much one evening and sleep with someone else was not to be borne. She certainly could not stomach such an insult.
