Her Deceptive Duke (Wicked Husbands Book 4)

by Scarlett Scott

  The chamber she’d been keeping as her own with him in residence was small. That was the first thing he noticed as the door closed behind him. It was cheerful enough, he supposed, with its yellow damask walls and its oversized window. The sun was up, filtering through the opened curtains to illuminate the space.

  But it was a guest chamber, and she was not a guest. A strange warmth pervaded his chest as he stared at the bed, which had been made and smoothed to perfection. It was where she slept, where she laid her head to the pillow each night. Yet, he couldn’t help but feel the inherent wrongness of it. This small, simple guest’s chamber was not where she belonged as the Duchess of Leeds.

  As his wife.

  And damn it, that was what she was. Even if she did her best to pretend she wasn’t.

  A gasp cut through his tortured musings. There, before him, stood a petite domestic that resembled nothing so much as a plump little sparrow. She pressed a hand to her heart, seeming not to realize that said hand contained a pair of her mistress’s drawers.

  And damn it if his mouth didn’t go dry and his cock didn’t twitch at the sight of that white, linen-and-lace confection. Knowing the delectable skin it would touch was enough to undo him…

  “Your Grace!” Her bosom heaved, her eyes going wide. “I did not expect you. Nor, I believe, did Her Grace.” She cast a worried glance in the direction of the bathing chamber that was connected to the room.

  Bless his father for his dedication to renovation at Leeds House. Each chamber had its own bathing amenities. And that meant Georgiana was at her bath. Which meant Georgiana was naked and wet.

  Oh, the possibilities.

  “You are dismissed,” he informed the lady’s maid.

  She stared at him, her face expressionless, as it was clear she warred inwardly betwixt loyalty to her mistress and loyalty to the man who was ultimately responsible for her employment. “Your Grace, I’m afraid that Her Grace was specific in her request. I am to set aside her clothing for the day and allow no one to disturb her. At any moment, she will call for me to wash her hair, and I need to attend her.”

  Even better. For once, the gods had smiled upon him.

  “You are dismissed,” he repeated. “In fact, if you do not leave this chamber at once, I will see you sacked without a letter of recommendation. Am I clear?”

  “Yes, Your Grace.” She curtseyed, laid the drawers across the end of the bed, and fled.

  Had he not been so singular in his determination to at last, after so many days, set eyes upon his wife, he would have been ashamed of his behavior. In truth, he would not sack the maid, especially not for her obvious loyalty to her mistress. But what he needed more than anything in the world at that moment was to at last see his wife.

  He found his way to the bathing chamber by rote. Opened the door. Lost his breath.

  Georgiana was sunk deep in the tub, water kissing her bare shoulders, the tops of her full, creamy breasts on display. Her eyes were closed.

  “Maude, I am ready for you to wash my hair whenever you are ready,” she announced, keeping her eyes tightly shut.

  He swallowed. The sight of her in the tub, naked, glistening, wet, so damn glorious that it defied description…he could barely move to do her bidding. She wanted her hair washed? To devil with the maid Miranda or whatever her name had been. He would wash her bloody hair. And then he would set his lips to the pulse on her throat, lick her there to see if she tasted as sweet as he remembered.

  Explain to her that he had meant everything he said. He wanted to be hers. For her to be his. That he had tired of this game she played. Their cat and mouse was over, and it was time for the cat to have his reign.

  For now, he kept his silence, grateful to have left his cane behind and for the chair the maid had conveniently placed behind the tub. He took care to keep his footfalls as hushed as possible so that she would not realize he had replaced the domestic. Fortunately, the sparrow was efficient and prepared, having laid out a cake of shampoo on the chair. He retrieved it and settled himself in the chair, not without a corresponding angry twinge in his thigh.

  Her glorious chestnut mane was wet, and her bath smelled of lavender. With the warm steam rising and the sight of her bare legs pale and beckoning beneath the water, gathering his control required a moment.

  “Maude?” Hesitation had crept into her voice. “If you were otherwise occupied, you needn’t have rushed in here on my account. I am not a particular person, as you know, and am more than happy to soak in my tub for longer if it will aid you in accomplishing your duties. Why, I still find it a marvel to take baths in a chamber devoted solely to this purpose. When I was a girl, we had a basin that we kept in the kitchen by the coal stove.”

  Had a halo produced itself directly above her head in that moment, Kit would not have so much as blinked. How was it possible that anyone could be so self-effacing, lovely, and compassionate? She was like a beautiful, glorious angel who had been sent to torment and distract him from his true purpose.

  These days, his life as a spy, forever feigning and deceiving, always one step away from certain death, seemed a dim memory. He had once been unyielding in his belief that his work for the Home Office made him feel alive, and yet he had begun to realize that those old sensations paled in comparison to the emotions and hungers Georgiana elicited from him.

  Dangerous, that.

  He plunged the cake of shampoo into the water, then lathered it in his hands. Lavender, orange, and ambergris filled the air. He inhaled, for it smelled that bloody good. The only way it could smell better was by being on her. Somehow, in addition to being a beautiful goddess universally loved by man and beast, she also had the capacity to render a man brainless by inhaling her scent.

  The moment his fingers began massaging the shampoo into her scalp, however, she stiffened. “Maude?”

  “Not Maude,” he admitted, for he had been caught out, and he would far prefer to wash her hair as her husband than as her bloody lady’s maid.

  A gasp tore from her and she whirled about in the water, facing him, crossing her arms over her bosom. Pink stained her cheekbones. Her emerald eyes flashed, her lush lips parting. She was the most gorgeous creature he had ever seen, with her hair unbound and wet, her shoulders bare and glistening above the water, her breasts a shielded temptation. Even her arms, meant to obstruct his view, made his mouth water. They were elegant, fine-boned, and smooth. All that skin on display had his cock rising to attention.

  “What the hell are you doing in here, Leeds?” she demanded, her tone decidedly frigid. And haughty.

  Here at last was the icy disdain one expected of a duchess.

  Pity it was directed at him. He’d never been particularly adept at being on the defensive, and that flaw hadn’t rectified with age.

  He raised his suds-covered hands, as if in supplication. “Washing your hair, madam. What the devil does it look like?”

  “I did not give you leave to enter this chamber.” Her brows snapped together into a ferocious frown that somehow only rendered her more delicious. “Nor did I ask you to wash my hair. What have you done with Maude?”

  What did she think, that he had committed some sort of nefarious act upon her lady’s maid? He raised a brow, deciding to bait her. Because she deserved it after a question like that. “I beg your pardon, but to whom to you refer?”

  “Maude,” she gritted. “My lady’s maid, you rotten man.”

  “Oh, her.” He feigned dawning comprehension. “I’ve ordered the plump little sparrow to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. I fear you will need to find another domestic to assist you from this point forward.”

  She stared at him for a tense moment before she relented. “You do think yourself amusing, do you not, Duke?”

  “I think myself a man whose hands are covered in shampoo.” He wiggled his fingers in emphasis. “If you would but return to this end of the tub, I could complete my task.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “No.”

  “No?�
� He quirked a brow. “Be reasonable, madam. Your hair is in need of washing. I have the means to accomplish the charge. Slide over here, turn around, and I shall do just as well, if not better, than the sparrow would have done.”

  “Kindly cease referring to Maude as a sparrow.” Her gaze bit into his, unrelenting. “Further, I am reasonable and rational both, which is why I have never accosted anyone whilst they were in the private moment of their bath.”

  “You are my wife,” he pointed out calmly, prepared for her argument.

  “In name only,” she reminded.

  “A fact that can be rectified.” He dropped the shampoo onto the chair and lowered his hands into the water, dunking and cleansing them of their soap before turning his attention to his shirtsleeves. Slowly, he rolled up each one, exposing his forearms. “That will be rectified.”

  Kit didn’t miss the way her gaze lowered to his arms, lingering and warm, before shooting back to his face once more. If he prolonged the moment to enjoy her wide, green eyes eating him up, he could hardly be blamed.

  He took his time, hoping she recalled the sensation of his hands on her, parting her flesh, driving her to distraction, playing with her clitoris until she spent. Lord knew he could think of little else. The slick heat of her cunny seemed to have been branded upon him, along with the sweet musk of her arousal, the breathy sound of her cries.

  His cock twitched, and he knew that he must end that errant vein of thought. He had not come here to seduce her but to woo her. At last, he scooped the shampoo back up.

  “You wish to force yourself upon me, then?” she asked, eyes wide.

  That rather quelled his ardor. He stilled, the shampoo in his hands. “Is that what you think of me, Georgiana?”

  She flinched, perhaps at the sharp anger of his tone. “Leeds…”

  “My name is Kit, goddamn it,” he burst out before he could control himself. “My name is Kit, and I am your bloody husband. Even if it were my right, however, I would never force you. And unless I am mistaken I would not need to, though you have been doing your best to make certain that our paths never cross these last eleven days. Tell me, who do you hide from, Georgie? Yourself or me?”

  She swallowed, seemingly attempting to gather her thoughts. “Georgie?”

  He hadn’t meant to create a sobriquet for her, but the moment it had left his lips, he’d known it was right. Her name was long, multi-syllabic, and cold. She was warm, passionate, and deceptively lovely. Georgie suited her better, and now that he had unwittingly decided upon it, he could not think of her as anything else. This name was his alone, and she brought out the fiercest possessive instincts within him. Nearly a year too late, but there it was. Honesty at its best and worst.

  She was still looking at him as if he were the most peculiar man she had ever beheld.

  So he blurted, “It doesn’t suit you.”

  She blinked. “What doesn’t suit me?”

  “Your name,” he elaborated. “It’s too long. Far too starchy, too lofty and aloof. Not at all the woman I’ve come to know since my return.”

  “Yet you scarcely know me,” she countered. “You have been here for little more than a month, Your Grace. I cannot be anything but a stranger to you.”

  “Kit,” he reminded her. Damn, the woman was vexing. But at least, he had finally cornered her. She could not run or hide or avoid him now. She had to remain in her bath, beneath the water, lest she reveal herself to him.

  Was it wrong of him to begin to pray that the water went cold sooner rather than later? Strike that internal question, for he had an answer. Yes, he had no doubt that it was. But he was a desperate man these days, going to desperate measures, and if it took his duchess to reach the point of teeth chattering to realize she needed to rethink her view of him, then so be it.

  She studied him with an intensity that stole his breath. “How can you presume to know what suits me, Kit?”

  Gratification hit his chest and reverberated through his entire body in warm, welcome ripples. She had used his name, and he couldn’t help but to hope that this time, unlike all the others preceding it, she would no longer revert to formality to keep him at bay.

  He didn’t waver. Didn’t blink. Didn’t breathe or look away from her mesmerizing emerald gaze as he answered her with all the honesty he could dredge from deep within himself. “Perhaps I want to become the man who knows what suits you.”

  Her lips firmed into a forbidding line, eyes flashing. “You forfeited that right by leaving me.”

  She had him there, and what could he say that would remedy it?

  The truth, a voice inside him prompted. The temptation to reveal all to her rose, until he had to clench his jaw to bite back the words. He’d been expelled from the League, but he still had a duty to the Home Office. To the safety of England’s citizens, who would never be free of the danger of being maimed or injured by the Fenian dynamite campaign without every last conspirator being caught and tried for his crimes.

  He stared at her, wondering when and how it had happened. The first time he’d lost control and kissed her? Listening to her tale of a small Georgie hearing the cannon of war? Watching the selfless adoration she had for her menagerie? He couldn’t say. For almost half his years, his life had been devoted to one cause, yet ever since his return, this small, fierce woman before him had slowly and steadily supplanted that. She was all he saw, and he spent each breath out of her charmed presence devising a means to land himself back within it.

  “I left you because I had to,” he told her at last, for it was not a lie. His covert mission in New York City had become imperative after the League had uncovered evidence that New York-based Fenians had constructed a submarine to be used upon passenger ships for maximum bloodshed. “Your bathwater grows cold, Georgie. Come here and let me wash your hair now.”

  But she was not about to relent, holding out her small hand, palm facing upward. “Give me the shampoo, if you please, Your Grace, and I shall do for myself. I’ve rather a great deal of experience in it as a juvenile American farm girl.”

  She needn’t have added the emphasis for him to recall his own callous words. He repressed a grimace as he thought of how he had condescended to her when he had first returned, wounded, in pain, and angry as two rival tomcats that had been thrown into a barrel.

  “But you are a beautiful American duchess now, and your penitent husband wishes to be of service to you. Will you not let him?” He held his breath, awaiting her answer, and he realized the sensation inside his chest—clawing, gripping, scrabbling—was hunger. Hunger for her.

  Georgie tipped her chin in defiance. He did not think she was aware that when she had uncrossed her arms and held out her hand to receive the shampoo, she had also once again removed any obstructions between his gaze and her full, gorgeous breasts. His gaze hovered over them now, and they were as perfect as he recalled, glistening, her pretty pink nipples just below the surface of the water.

  “Will my penitent husband tell me the truth about where he has been for most of our marriage and why he returned to London with a gunshot wound and an infection that nearly killed him?” she demanded. “Because if he will not, then I shall have a very difficult time believing in his contrition.”

  Damn the woman for being stubborn as a goat. Fitting, as she was so enamored of every animal that came across her path. Why, it was truly a marvel he hadn’t a herd of goats in his library eating all the bloody books and shitting on the Axminster. The rueful grin threatening to curve his lips at this very moment was proof that the woman had addled him.

  Perhaps her madness was catching. It was certainly delicious. She was delicious. And gorgeous. And vexing. And perplexing. And everything he had never dared to imagine could be his, more than he had ever wanted. More than he deserved.

  “Well?” She raised a dark brow, looking so damn luscious that a bolt of need made his cock go rigid in his trousers right then and there.

  Hell. He licked his lips, trying not to look at her nip
ples. Trying not to imagine hauling her from the water, her body bare and glistening and ripe for his tongue once more. I want to taste her everywhere so much it is a living, pulsing need inside me. Damn it, damn her, damn me…

  He also did his best not to think about taking one of those pert nipples into his mouth, raking it with his teeth. To refrain from recalling the cock-hardening sounds of her arousal. To stifle the memory of her moaning as he sucked her breasts and worked her pearl. Above all, to forget about how she had soaked his hand as she came.

  Bloody fucking fuck, control yourself, Kit. He cleared his throat. “If I were free to tell you, I would, Georgie.”

  She pursed her lips. He thought about kissing them.

  Damn, this entire tableau was becoming a problem.

  “I know enough of the truth to assume the rest.” Her gaze was shrewd as it singed his. “But I want to hear it from you.”

  Time to try yet another tactic. Deflect. Distract. He dipped the shampoo into the water, wetting it enough to work up a lather between his hands. “If you know, it hardly requires elaboration.”

  “You abandoned me on the day of our wedding.” A frown marred the perfection of her brow. “If any situation requires an elaboration, surely departing the country without warning and leaving your bride to settle into a new home on her own would be it. You did not even introduce me to the domestics. I arrived here after the wedding breakfast, alone and in the pouring rain. It was an omen.”

  When she phrased it thus, he could hardly argue the point. In truth, he had no wish to. She was right. Full stop. “Of course you deserve answers. I wish that I could give them to you, Georgie. If they were mine to deliver freely, I would. But there is too much at stake—the lives of so many good men and thousands more innocents. I cannot have that blood on my hands.”

  It was the most honesty he could give her, and even that was far too much.