The Lady Who Loved Him

by Christi Caldwell

  She started. “His books and studies?” She was unable to keep the shock from creeping into her tone.

  A glimmer lit the duke’s eyes. Leaning toward her, he dropped his voice to a secretive whisper. “From before the sun rose to the moment it went down, Leo could be found with his head bent over a book. He was quite the student.”

  Chloe whipped her gaze back to her husband, and she tried to imagine him with these new, unlikely strokes painted by his uncle: Leo, as a boy, burning the midnight oil. “Indeed?” she murmured.

  The duke chuckled, bringing her gaze reluctantly away from her husband. “Don’t let him convince you otherwise.” He winked. “He’s kept that secret rather close.”

  The Duke of Aubrey paused for a moment before he continued the story. “He refused to go near that horse, no matter how many times his father demanded it.” A palpable fury flickered in the duke’s eyes. “So, he took Leo’s books away, one at a time. He found out which were Leo’s favorites from the boy’s tutors. He started there. And he systematically moved on through all the books in their household.”

  A sharp pang struck her heart as that imagery called forth a young Leo watching all those gifts he loved carted away. “But why did he not simply ride the horse?” Why, when nearly every English boy yearned to ride, had he fought his sire at the expense of his own pleasures?

  “Because he’s Leo,” his uncle said matter-of-factly. “He wouldn’t ride and had nothing to read… so do you know what he did?” Incapable of words, Chloe shook her head. “He wrote five books that summer.”

  Her mouth fell open. How odd was this explanation of Leo’s youth compared with the rake Society knew him to be. “How did his father respond?”

  The duke swiftly schooled his features. “That is a question for your husband.” He intended to say nothing more, and she wanted to stamp her foot in frustration.

  “We are done here.”

  They looked up. Leo towered above them, suspicion heavy in his gaze.

  “Lady Chloe,” the duke acknowledged, coming to his feet.

  Grabbing her cane, Chloe stood.

  “It was a pleasure,” he murmured, gathering her fingers. He raised them to his lips for a kiss. “My wife will insist upon a wedding breakfast.”

  Leo snorted. “There’ll be nothing of the sort.”

  “It was a pleasure speaking with you, Your Grace,” Chloe said softly. There had been a calming reassurance to both his presence and the tale he’d told about her husband that had made Leo real. But then, mayhap there was a greater danger in that…

  The three men who were witnesses to her wedding departed in a flurry, leaving in their wake a weighty silence.

  Alone. She was alone with this man—her husband.

  Chloe clenched and unclenched the head of her cane, searching for something to say, a question, an observation, a casual utterance. What was one to say? Or how was one to be?

  “You’ve gone quiet,” Leo observed in that seductive purr she despised, for its effect on her and its falsity. He drifted closer.

  “Did you practice it?”

  Her question brought him to a staggering stop.

  “Your speech, that is,” she clarified. “It’s dark and cynical and is surely the stuff of practice.”

  “It comes with experience,” he said. This time, his words were spoken in his smooth, melodious baritone.

  Her heart fluttered. There was far greater danger to a lady’s sensibilities than those natural tones that infused warmth and realism grander than the icy veneer he so often wore.

  She wet her lips. “I should…” Her mind raced. What should she do? The immediate answer was… run. But from what? Her body’s response to him? Their marriage? The uncertainty of both? Of all?

  “What should you do?” he enticed, lightly cupping her nape in a tender grip that allowed her all the power. One that she was free to separate from—if she wanted. “Leave?”

  So why did she not draw back?

  “Or do you wish to remain here, with me, so I can show you what we should do?” he whispered against her mouth.

  Shake your head. Push him away. For, with every sway of her body closer to him, she broke the terms she herself had set forth between them.

  “We’ve not yet sealed our arrangement.”

  “H-haven’t we?” she asked weakly. “I… we signed our contract, and there were the marriage documents and—”

  Leo flicked the pad of his thumb over her lower lip, quelling those ramblings. Her breath quickened. It was just a small touch, and yet, that subtle caress seared her flesh. “Where is the fun in merely inking one’s name to a sheet of parchment?”

  His uncle’s earlier revelation drifted forward.

  He wrote five books that summer…

  “You once enjoyed writing, though, didn’t you?”

  It was hard to say who was more shocked by her question—Chloe, for letting those recently shared words tumble free, or Leo, who stumbled back a step.

  His previously heavy lids snapped open. “You were speaking to my uncle,” he said bluntly.

  Unease gripped her, and she retreated, as every age-old fear she carried resurfaced. “He volunteered information, and I listened.” Gladly listened. She’d be mad to turn away information about the gentleman she’d wed. “You enjoyed books.” He jerked his gaze about, as if he feared they were being spied upon even now, and his reputation would be ruined from that reveal. “There is no shame to be had in that. Nor should you make apologies for—”

  Leo cupped her nape and slammed his mouth onto hers.

  Heat.

  Burning, searing heat, hotter than the summer sun on its warmest day, scorched through her as he slanted his lips over hers again and again.

  Chloe stilled. Then, with a moan, she released her cane and gripped the front of his jacket. He devoured her. His lips molded with hers, and God help her, this was what he’d spoken of. Passion. She melted against his chest, absorbing his strength, clinging to him for purchase as he parted her lips and slipped his tongue inside.

  That hot, velvety flesh stroked hers in a primitive meeting.

  She tentatively touched the tip of her tongue to his.

  A masculine groan of approval filtered from his lips, vibrating her mouth, emboldening her. And Chloe let herself go, turning herself over to the desire within.

  Climbing her arms about his neck, she looped her hands there and clung to him for all she was. She’d never known it could be this way. Hadn’t bothered to think of what a kiss could be beyond a curiosity about women who traded their freedom for a man’s embrace.

  Leo broke away, and she whimpered at the loss. But he swept her into his arms and guided her back down upon the sofa. He swiftly lowered himself above her. The springs of the sofa squeaked under the weight of his knee as he anchored it between her and the back of the seat.

  It was time enough for reality to intrude, but God help her, she wanted more of him… and this. He trailed slow, lingering kisses from the corner of her mouth, lower, to her neck. Gathering the flesh between his lips, he gently sucked and suckled at the place where her pulse pounded.

  She panted and tangled her fingers in his lush golden hair.

  “I’ve wanted to do this since I had you in Waterson’s offices,” he rasped against her.

  Chloe closed her eyes and angled her neck so he could better access her. “In-indee—shsh…” Her speech dissolved as he pressed a hot kiss to her modest décolletage.

  All these years, she’d prided herself on taking control of her life… and living for herself, when her mother and sister had once existed only for another. Now, lying in Leo’s arms, she reveled in the exquisite bliss of knowing this passion.

  Reaching between them, Leo guided her skirts higher and higher. A blast of air slapped at her stocking-clad legs, providing a welcome cool to the conflagration he’d caught her in. That relief was short-lived as Leo caressed a searching hand from her calf all the way to her thigh. Then, sliding his hand
under her, he filled his palm with her buttocks and drew her exposed lower legs around his thighs.

  A keening moan spilled from her, wanton and shameless and wholly foreign as he pressed the rigid length of his shaft to the flimsy barrier provided by her undergarments. He rocked against her, and the heavy ache at her core deepened.

  “Leo,” she pleaded, unknowing of what she begged for, but trusting implicitly that this man could show her.

  A proper lady would have been riddled with horror for the reminder that they were largely strangers.

  Chloe had never been proper, nor had she aspired to a decorous state.

  His mouth found hers once more, and she wrapped her arms about him. She eagerly met the bold thrust and parry of his tongue.

  He continued that quixotic movement, grinding himself against her until her hips lifted and fell of their own volition. The pressure grew—

  The air hissed from between her lips as he palmed her center.

  “You are so wet for me,” he purred as masculine pride dripped from that revelation. He parted the slit in her undergarments and slipped a finger inside her.

  She cried out, reflexively clenching around that long digit.

  He took her mouth again, his fingers moving in time to the stroking of his tongue.

  Moisture beaded on her brow as she lifted into his touch.

  He was a stranger. He was a rake. But her body didn’t give a damn for propriety. It knew only what it wanted. And Chloe wanted him.

  Panting, Chloe frantically arched. The yearning between her legs needed to be sated. She was so close. So close to some unknown goal.

  “Let yourself go,” he ordered hoarsely.

  His urging pulled her across that invisible barrier. Chloe exploded in a flash of blinding white light. A scream tore from her, echoing from the rafters in a symphony of keening moans and rapture. He continued to stroke her, wringing every drop of pleasure from her lips.

  Her breath coming hard and fast, Chloe collapsed into the comfortable squabs of the sofa.

  As the tremors abated and the remnants of her pleasure went with it, reality intruded, and horror seeped in.

  Leo removed his fingers from between her legs, and she shrank against the sofa.

  She’d demanded a pledge from him, one that he’d given, and she’d faltered not even thirty minutes after being married.

  Gripping his shoulders, Chloe used all of her body to roll him off of her.

  He grunted, landing hard on the floor. From where he lay, Leo trailed an appreciative gaze over her naked limbs.

  She gasped and swiftly lowered them into place.

  If he uttered one triumphant word. If he spoke one single, rakish jest, she’d clout him. “There is the matter of my family,” she said quickly. “I have to let them know… That is, I must…”

  He lingered his eyes on her legs before meeting her stare. “Should I accompany you to—”

  “No,” she squawked, her own surprise reflected back in his eyes. “That will not be necessary. My brother is gone to gather my mother, and I should speak to them alone. When the time comes. When they return. Simply because…” You are still rambling. She went silent.

  He leaped to his feet. “Of course,” he said stiffly, adjusting his cravat. “I will… if you’ll excuse me?”

  And as though the devil himself were at his heels, he bolted.

  A short while later, in her wrinkled brown skirts that had served as a wedding dress and curls freed from her plait, Chloe took the coward’s way out—and sent her family a note.

  Chapter 14

  When presented with sharing a residence with his new wife or fleeing as fast as his legs could carry him, Leo chose the latter.

  Since his uncle had ushered him into an existence where he served the Crown, sparing him from further abuse at his now-dead sire’s hands, Leo had resolved to be the best at what he did. When the Brethren had ordered him to transform himself from the pathetically weak scholar he’d been into a hardened rake whose womanizing and drinking were such to rival Bacchus, he’d done so.

  And through the havoc of the past two days, he’d found a diversion where he always had—in his work for the Brethren.

  Or he attempted to.

  Seated in his offices at Aldenham Lodge on the fringe of London, Leo stared at the files opened before him. Just as he’d been staring for the better part of the hour.

  He tapped the tip of his pen in a staccato beat on the corner of the folder, reading and re-reading the information contained within.

  The Cato Event

  Initial Opinion—a product of the London Irish community and trade societies; a scheme concocted by merchants and commoners.

  The Cover—a scheme crafted by members of the peerage, in effort to see through the passage of the Six Acts.

  Evidence:

  It was too damned obvious. With a sound of frustration escaping him, he tossed down his pen, the thick file muffling the thwack of his quill. Despite his earliest opinions, it could not be so easy as proper gents bent on controlling legislation. It was always about money and power… always about what a man could get…

  Think… think…

  He dug his fingertips into his temples. It was futile. Just as it had been since he’d fled his household.

  Oh, Leo had been forced into the role of a liar since his days at Oxford, but he was at least truthful enough to acknowledge his flight to the Brethren offices and his distractedness now had more to do with the minx who’d come undone in his arms ten hours ago.

  Each case consumed him. His investigations drove him. No detail went ignored.

  Until now.

  Chloe’s visage flitted forward, teasing, challenging, tempting, as she’d been since their first meeting.

  “Bloody hell. Enough,” he muttered, gouging his temples with his fingertips, wanting to rid his thoughts of her, drive back whatever pull had him so entranced.

  Only once had he made the mistake of believing he could have both a devoted wife and eventual family… and keep his role as a spy for the Brethren.

  One youthful misstep had nearly cost him the latter.

  It was a mistake he’d never make again.

  From that point on, he’d become precisely what his uncle and the Brethren wished him to be. Nor had he ever had a single regret after that. Any vulnerability was perilous, be it the mewling sentiments of love or the affections of a woman.

  Leo bedded women. He reveled in the release he found in their arms.

  After he was sated and his lover well-pleasured, he didn’t give another thought to her.

  Which was what made the whole of these last ten hours so fucking confusing. For when he’d brought Chloe, his bride, with her lists and logic to a release that still left her cries of surrender pealing in his ears, he’d not thought of his own pleasure. His own sexual gratification hadn’t been the ultimate urge that had compelled him, but rather the satisfaction of seeing her come undone.

  Reaching back, Leo gripped his neck and rubbed at the sore muscles there. After riding at a breakneck speed for his offices off Watling Street and spending hours bent over his work, he was tired to the core and in dire need of a hot bath. A hot bath, a brandy, and the clever massages he’d received from beauties in the Orient. Those sessions where the soreness was dissipated with an expert touch and then, afterward, dissolved by a hot, violent round of lovemaking.

  Except, when he thought of bedding just any faceless, nameless woman, it was his wife’s face that slid forward.

  With a groan, he lowered his head and knocked it silently against his desktop.

  A knock sounded on his office door.

  Leo jerked his head up. “Enter,” he barked, welcoming the distraction.

  His clerk, Lathan Holman, a bespectacled, tall, gaunt youth very much an image of the weak pup Leo had been a lifetime ago, ducked his head inside. “Is there anything you require, my lord?” He was also endlessly devoted after Leo had coordinated the young man’s placement with
the Brethren. If Leo sneezed from one end of the establishment, Holman would be there with a kerchief and a blessing.

  “A drink,” he muttered, and the boy sprang forward. “A woman.”

  That brought Holman up short. A fiery blush suffused the clerk’s pale cheeks. “Uh… I…” Apparently, Leo had determined the one task the boy was unwilling and unable to carry out. “I-I’ll s-see to it, my lord,” he stammered, breaking for the doorway and then stopping. “Or should I fetch your drink first?” He feinted left, toward the sideboard. “Or would you rather I see to the…” Holman’s large Adam’s apple bobbed. “To the…”

  “It is fine, Holman,” Leo mumbled under his breath and shoved to his feet. “I was jesting.” There was only one lady he wanted. And it was a wholly foreign concept for him, a man who’d eased himself in the body of the nearest, most eager, and inventive woman.

  Registering the absolute still to descend, Leo paused in his journey to the sideboard and glanced back.

  A pair of crimson brows lifted above the spectacles. “A… jest, my lord? But you don’t—” Holman immediately went tight-lipped.

  His neck hot, Leo hurried the remaining distance to the bottles of fine French brandy and Irish whiskey. “Did you need me?” he asked impatiently.

  “Oh, right. Of course. I’ve copied the notes pertaining to Waterson’s business contracts and…” His detailed accounting rambled on and on.

  Leo’s world had turned upside down, and insanity had begun. Grabbing the nearest bottle, he splashed several fingerfuls in a glass, thought better of it, and added another fingerful.

  Must you do that?

  Chloe’s quiet recrimination as she’d sought to negotiate the terms of their marriage intruded.

  Leo stared down into the pale brown contents of his glass.

  He answered to no woman. Nor persons, if one wished to be truly precise. His loyalties were reserved for the Brethren.

  As such, her barely concealed disappointment and annoyance at his drinking shouldn’t grate. Her words should have rolled off his back, along with every other dark insult that had been hurled at his head over the years. A groan of impatience rumbled up his throat, and he set his glass down hard.