Nobody's Duke (League of Dukes Book 1)

by Scarlett Scott

  But she said not a word of her suspicions. And once again, of course she did not, for his mother was a consummate hostess. She had spent her entire life being reviled for who and what she was—first as a songstress, then as the mistress to a duke. Such a woman, it seemed, could either harden with bitterness or turn her sunshine outward, sending her rays over everyone in her presence. Mother had always chosen the latter.

  She sent the lad a mischievous wink. “Oh my, how fortuitous. You see, the cook just made lemon and chocolate tarts, and there is nothing I love more than nibbling on some lemon tarts and telling stories. You do not happen to enjoy lemon tarts or stories about knights and dragons, do you, Duke?”

  For the first time since his arrival, the lad grinned. “I love lemon tarts and stories, Mrs. Ludlow.”

  “How wonderful. My son always preferred lemon tarts to the chocolate ones when he was growing up. I don’t suppose you are the same?” She placed a hand on Edward’s shoulder. “I am so dreadfully happy you like stories, as I have not had a young man eager for my stories in years. Would it be acceptable to you, Your Grace, if I took the duke into the kitchens so he may sample the lemon tarts whilst you settle yourself? Cook does make the most divine tarts, and I promise I shall have him returned to you in no time.”

  Ara nodded stiffly, her expression uncertain. “As long as that is what Edward wishes. Traveling does have a way of wearing one out, and I suppose the reward of a tart would not be remiss.”

  “Shall we, young Duke?” his mother asked the lad.

  “I should like that,” the lad said quietly, sounding younger than he looked. Sounding like a boy who had suffered far more pain, fear, and loss than he should have at his tender age.

  Clay watched his mother and his son disappearing from the main hall, bemused.

  Ara turned to him, her violet-blue eyes cool and assessing. “I shall oversee the unpacking of the carriages.”

  “No,” he denied softly before turning to the ever-efficient butler, who hovered nearby. “Keynes will oversee the unpacking while I escort you to your chamber. Will you be so kind, Keynes?”

  The butler bowed. “It will be my pleasure. Welcome to Harlton Hall, Your Grace.”

  The matter settled, Clay hastily conferred with his men about their posts before proffering his arm to Ara once more. “Come, Your Grace. I shall show you to your chamber.”

  He was aware that taking Ara to a chamber—any chamber, anywhere, on any day, at any time—was a dangerous prospect for him indeed. How he wished the anger and resentment still burning in his gut for her had a dousing effect on his raging lust. Alas, it did not, and though they walked in silence, a respectable distance between them, everything in him screamed with the need to haul her into the first empty chamber he could find and kiss her senseless. To finish what they had begun with their frenzied passion at Burghly House.

  He hated what she had done to him, to them, and most of all to their son. And yet there was an undeniable part of him that would always feel she was his. She was the first woman he had ever loved—indeed, the only woman he had ever loved—and nothing she did would change that. His heart had once beat for her, and it remembered still.

  “This is your home,” she observed, a bite of accusation in her tone as they walked beneath the carved stone galleries of the main hall and ascended the grand stair.

  “Aye,” he agreed, slanting a glance in her direction. Her cheek was pale, her lush mouth drawn thin with what he could only presume was disapproval. Did she fancy herself too good to stay in his bloody home? “Harlton Hall is mine.”

  As are you, something inside him said. But he had never felt such a primitive possession for this home and its sprawling acres as he did for her. He ignored the voice. He damn well never should have kissed her. His weakness was spreading like a weed that began as one seed and soon took over an entire garden with its promulgation.

  “You should have made me aware before our departure,” she said lowly. Angrily. “I would never have agreed to come here.”

  Irritation blended with resentment and unwanted lust. On the inside, he was a sick stew of uncontrollable emotions, all caused by one woman. They reached the top of the stairs and he ground his jaw down, quickening his pace so he could sooner deposit her in the chamber and rid himself of her disturbing presence.

  “You were almost murdered in London,” he reminded her tightly. “Harlton Hall—where no one will expect you to be—is the safest place for you until the Home Office has some answers about who is behind the attack.”

  “Why did you not tell me you were bringing me to your home?” she snapped, stopping in the upstairs hall and turning on him.

  Because he still did not think of it in those terms, not truly. He was a bloody usurper, claiming a life he could never truly own. Wanting what would forever be beyond his reach. Stupid. Foolish.

  Weak.

  So damned weak when he needed to be strong.

  “You already indicated you would not have agreed to come here had you known Harlton Hall is mine,” he said instead, unwilling to confess his vulnerabilities to her.

  She crossed her arms over her chest in a defensive posture, her eyes flashing. “I wish to leave.”

  “No,” he bit out.

  Color rose to her cheeks at last. “You cannot command me.”

  She was stubborn, the bloody woman. But she was no match for him. “Try to leave and see what happens.”

  Her nostrils flared. “Perhaps I will.”

  When she made as if to storm away, back down the hall to the staircase, he caught her arm. His grip was tight, though not punishing. “Ara, stop.”

  “Do not call me that, and do not presume to touch me.” She attempted to sidle free of his grasp but he held firm.

  “Do you know what I think, Ara?” He stepped forward, into her body, her skirts crushed between them, the brim of the hat she had yet to remove nearly grazing his jaw. “I think you have forgotten you truly are at my mercy.”

  Her eyes spit fire at him. “Release me.”

  He would not let go of her. He never had, and he never would. Not in this moment. Not in the matter of her safety. Good God, not ever. They were inextricably linked now, for the remainder of their lives. Their son was the common bond between them.

  But not the sole one.

  The sound of footfalls and commotion reached him before he could respond, and he recognized it as domestics making short work of the trunks, beginning to unpack the carriages they had brought from the train station. He was not finished with her or this dialogue yet, and so he marched into the nearest chamber, pulling her behind him and closing the door at their backs.

  Locking it.

  Perhaps the time for their battle had come at last.

  “What do you think you are doing, Mr. Ludlow?” Her voice was unnaturally high, breathless.

  He pivoted back to her, wondering if she was nervous to be alone with him. Surely she did not think he could possibly do her harm? He was duty-bound to protect her. He studied her face, searching her gaze, trying to make sense of the dynamic between them.

  “I am taking the opportunity to have the dialogue we should have had days ago, when you admitted I am the father of your son.” Though he strove to keep his voice cool, he could not quite excise the slight edge from it.

  Her countenance turned wary. “As far as I am concerned, we have nothing left to say to each other on the matter.”

  “I beg to differ.” He stalked closer to her, unable to keep his distance.

  He wanted to undo the ribbon ties of her hat. To tear it from her head and reveal her lustrous copper locks. To kiss the frown from her lips, to lift her skirts and bury his aching cock deep inside her.

  Realization hit him as he reached her, the scent of roses and a crisp summer day seeping back into his senses. The sweet, luscious scent of Ara and love and the forbidden. Of the young woman she had once been, of the nights when they had learned each other’s bodies.

  Her transgre
ssions against him did not matter as he stood there before her. His want for her was elemental. She was all he had ever desired, from the instant he had first spotted her watching him in the woods that fateful day. He had returned again and again, knowing she had been waiting, watching. Needing to know her. Longing for her.

  Her eyes burned into his, and he had to touch her. He lost all control of himself, his hands framing her lovely face. The same face he had loved so long ago, only now she had lines etched ever so faintly alongside her mouth and her eyes. Were they the marks of laughter or sadness? Why did he envy whoever had made those marks? Why did he hate all the years that had kept him from her?

  “Clay,” she whispered.

  There, before him, her façade crumbled and fell. He saw not the Duchess of Burghly but a woman who was frightened and alone. He saw the girl who’d claimed his heart. He saw, simply, Ara. His anger remained, swirling in his gut, but it was supplanted by the overwhelming need to take her in his arms.

  He had to know one thing. His heart, body, and mind clamored with the need.

  “What we had, Ara, did it ever mean anything to you?” he asked hoarsely.

  Part of him hoped her answer would be no. But the other part of him, the part that had not entirely forgotten the young man he’d once been, hoped otherwise.

  Say yes.

  Say yes.

  Please.

  Clay did not know where the words emerged from. Or if he spoke them aloud. All he did know was that he was falling into her. Mayhap, in a sense, this had been inevitable. Mayhap she would always be his, and he would always be hers.

  Her expression turned stricken. “It meant everything to me.”

  Bloody hell, I am lost.

  For the truth of it was, it had meant everything to him too. It still did. He had spent eight years trying his damnedest to forget her, only to find her again. With a simple sentence, he was back in the hunting cabin with her, secluded in the ancient woods. The last time he had ever truly been happy had been there, the night she had said she would marry him.

  He wanted to stop there, on that memory, and not move forward. Not in this moment. This moment wanted no heaviness, no grief or despair. It wanted only a physical relief. And here was the greatest comprehension of all: perhaps he could finally purge her from his life if he bedded her. If he took her until there was nothing left for either of them to give.

  He kissed her, deep and hard and ruthless. His lips melded with hers, his tongue sinking into her mouth, her breath mingling with his. She kissed him back, a soft sound of want emerging from deep in her throat. Her fingers sank into his hair, anchoring him to her, and her tongue boldly slid against his. She wanted him every bit as much as he wanted her. It was the way of things between them. How it had always been—raw and real and powerful.

  He went mindless.

  The ability to think fled him. His body ached and hungered. Eight years of longing reawakened, just for her. All for her. A hot, pulsing need began in his ballocks and made his prick rise stiff and hard against the placket of his trousers. Just kissing her was enough to make him lose the last of the reins he had upon his control.

  Every word he had intended to say was dashed, like a ship upon the rocks of a treacherous harbor in the midst of a storm. He had to be inside her. He was a locomotive, barreling down a track. The years, the pain, the scars, the ache, the worry, the fear, the wonder, the lies and betrayal, all fell away.

  They were man and woman.

  Need and want.

  Hunger and touch.

  Clay and Ara, just as they once had been. Before broken hearts and betrayal had torn them apart.

  Damn it all, he had never been so hungry in all his life, filled with an ache only she could assuage. He sucked her tongue, bit into her full lower lip. She moaned into his mouth, and he drank it in, savored it as if it were his own. Drew it deep down, all the way to his soul.

  As one, they moved.

  Providentially, Clay had chosen a bedchamber to enter. And though it had been entirely unintentional, he had forced them both inside what would be his bedchamber when he actually lived at Harlton Hall. There was a bed, large and inviting, occupying the far wall. He had never slept in it. He supposed he would have to now. But she would take the chamber adjoining though she did not know it yet, and that would help him ease to sleep at night.

  Their kisses never stopped. His hands tore away her layers—her hat, pelisse, gloves. All the way across the chamber they traveled, kissing and nipping and licking as one. When they finally reached the bed, he planted his hands on her waist, spinning her around. He did not wish to look into the face of the woman he had once loved. He needed her back to him, and he needed to take her from behind.

  There would be no question what this was—an exercise in unadulterated lust. Need simmered between them still. A hunger he could not deny. But that was all this was. All it could be.

  Just this once, he promised himself. And then never again.

  He wanted her. Had never stopped. But this was not eight years ago. He was not a fool. Or at least, he was not as great a fool as he had been then. His fingers tightened on her. He found her ear, licking the shell, biting the whorl. “Tell me what you want.”

  She did not speak, but her fists caught in her skirts, raising them. There was no mistaking the gesture. They moved against his trousers, traveled past her knees, and then on to her thighs. “You.”

  His cock twitched and his mouth went dry, but he required more from her than that simple admission. He fought the urge to grind himself into her skirts. “More specific, Ara.”

  “You inside me,” she murmured. “I want you inside me, Clay.”

  Finally, he was no longer Mr. Ludlow, the man she disdained in her frigid duchess tones. But some instinct inside him, depraved and sinful, wanted to prolong her submission. To heighten his own arousal by making her beg.

  He needed to hear her full confession. He wanted more. More desperate longing. More signs that what he felt for her was reciprocated. “What part of me inside you?”

  His left hand remained on her waist while the right found the hemline of her gown, just about over the delectable swells of her rump. He worked his hand higher, taking her ribbon-trimmed hem, finding her curves through the softness of her drawers, absorbing her heat while he held his breath. She was so bloody beautiful, a marvel of femininity and wit and everything a man could ever want.

  Except loyalty.

  But fucking hell if that did not matter now, not when his cock was ready to sink inside her. “Ara?”

  “I want you, Clay,” was all he could wrangle from her.

  For now.

  He was determined. He wanted her complete surrender. Today, he was storming her battlements. Destroying every impediment between him and what he wanted so badly he could taste it.

  Her. Her capitulation. Her surrender. Her sweet release. Her desperation. Bloody hell, he wanted to make her sorry for making him love her, for turning her back on him, and raising his son with another man. For leaving him with a scarred face and an even more mangled heart. For never trying to find him. For lying to him even when he had come back into her life. For every. Damned. Thing.

  He tongued the sweet dip of skin behind her ear, his hands never straying from her waist. “How?”

  A soft sound emerged from low in her throat, half purr, half moan. “You know how.”

  “No.” He kissed her throat, sucked her flesh. Tomorrow, she would bear a bruise here, and she would have to cover it with pearl powder or a high-necked gown. She would see it and think of his mouth on her skin, of how she had been desperate for him to take her. “I do not know how. Tell me, Ara. Do you want my tongue inside you?”

  She inhaled sharply, as if he had shocked her. But she was not a stranger to such loving, and he knew it. Here and now, he could still recall how she had bucked and writhed beneath him, how her fingers had twisted in his hair. How slick and plump her clitoris had been, how she had shuddered against him whe
n she spent on his tongue.

  When she did not speak, he grinned, nipping her neck. “Or perhaps my fingers?”

  “Please,” she whispered, her head falling back against his shoulder to grant him greater access to her throat as he feasted on her.

  He slid his hands from her waist until they settled atop hers, still gripping her skirts. “Higher,” he commanded.

  She raised her hem, not hesitating. Her travel gown was not as full and cumbersome as most fashion, and he was grateful for that now as she lifted her skirts to her waist. He stepped back, tearing his lips from her skin, and took her in. Her lustrous copper locks remained perfectly coiffed in a Grecian braid and coil. From the waist up, she looked as composed as ever, her shoulders straight, her gown of black silk with box pleats and lace trimming the bodice and sleeves.

  But from the waist down, she was a dream. He drank in the sight of her with her skirts raised for him. Black boots, narrow ankles, red stocking-covered calves, lacy white drawers. Her bottom was round and full, despite her small frame.

  A fresh bolt of need spurred him on. He caressed her hips, running his palms down her curves, relearning her. Her warmth permeated the fine fabric of her undergarments, burning into him. Breath hissing from his lungs, desire burning like a fire straight through him, he stepped closer. He kissed her bare nape.

  “Clay,” she said his name again, a plea, a prayer.

  “You never answered me, Ara.” He grazed her soft skin with his teeth. Then, he cupped her arse, his fingers trailing where they wanted in lieu of her answer. He found the slit in her drawers and dipped inside, skimmed over her hot, slick seam.

  Damn. She was drenched.

  Ara moaned.

  Lord God. His erection swelled. His ballocks pulsed. It had been a long time since he’d had a woman, but it had been eight godforsaken years since he’d had Ara, and he could not restrain the ferocity of his hunger for her now.

  He sank a finger inside her. So warm and delicious. She gripped him.

  “Are you always this wet, or is it just for me?” he growled, making his way, kiss by kiss, to her ear.