Blame It on the Duke

by Lenora Bell

  She was beginning to agree. Not entirely. But there was the noise of that rushing river, off in the distance, a trickle, a tributary, but somewhere it rushed, strong and loud, beckoning her to follow.

  “You’re so quiet, Dimples. Now’s the time to talk. Tell me what you want. Does this feel good?” He moved inside her, angling upward, and touched a place that did feel rather promising.

  “Yes.”

  He smiled and kissed her cheek, moving inside her faster, angling up more, and her cheeks heated and her body felt flushed, like she had a fever.

  It was so very raw and elemental. No wonder people wrote whole treatises on the subject; no wonder they wrapped it in poetry.

  “That’s nice, right there,” she said shyly as the rushing noise in her ears grew louder.

  “Alice. I need you to come now. I’m not going to last long.”

  “I . . . don’t think I can. I mean . . . there are signs. But you’d best find your pleasure. I’m not sure how much more of this I can stand.”

  It was good but it hurt. And she needed breathing space.

  The slide of him inside her grew deeper and more unguarded, and she wrapped her arms around him because even though there was discomfort, there was also an intense closeness.

  With a gasp, he withdrew from her completely, holding himself by the base. He lifted her shift out of the way and spilled his seed over her belly.

  He collapsed upon her breast, breathing heavily, pressing her into the mattress.

  A sudden welling of emotion startled her. Was she . . . going to cry?

  It was the same thought she’d had during their wedding ceremony. The feeling that maybe their union, this pledge with their words, and now their bodies, was supposed to have some deeper meaning, some transformative significance.

  Nick didn’t seem troubled by any such thoughts.

  With practiced efficiency, he used his discarded shirt to wipe both of them clean, and then he drew her into his arms and placed her head against his chest.

  “Did that answer some of your questions?” he asked drowsily, stroking her head. “You’ll be quite sore tomorrow.”

  “Does that make you proud?”

  “It might.” He tilted her chin toward him. “Lovemaking gets better every time.” He bent down and kissed her lips. “I didn’t spring a fully formed rakehell from my cradle, instantly knowing everything there is to know about the ways of a man with a maid.”

  Alice hadn’t considered that.

  “For men there’s uncertainty as well,” he continued. “Some initial fumbling. I had to learn the right way to pleasure a woman. And that means time and practice. Lots and lots of practice. We should practice every night.”

  She smiled against his chest. “I think we should . . . for educational purposes only, of course.”

  “Of course,” he murmured.

  She felt his body go slack beneath her and she snuggled closer to his warmth.

  She wasn’t quite sure who’d won that round, or whether there even needed to be a winner.

  Maybe this was enough, this intimate, wordless moment.

  She rested her head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat.

  “Nick?”

  “Mm-hm?”

  “Tell me about the Yellow House.” She wanted to know more about why he’d rescued Jane.

  “Thomas Coleman’s private madhouse in Bethnal Green.” His voice was soft and low but carried a hard edge. “Death house would be a more appropriate name. If my father were a pauper he could be there right now. Rotting.”

  “But Jane’s not a pauper.”

  “Some are paupers sent to the madhouse by their parishes who pay nine shillings per week for housing. Coleman profits from their keep. Others are conveniently declared insane and committed against their will by unscrupulous relations.”

  “Yes, that’s what happened to Jane. She said her husband committed her because she was insubordinate.”

  He lifted his head. “Did she tell you her full name or the name of her husband?”

  “She refused. She thinks it would put us in danger.”

  His head dropped back. “I’ll talk to her tomorrow.”

  “She told me that you saved her from near certain death. Her keeper hated her.”

  “I’ve never been inside the asylum. They chain the patients like animals. Keep them barely alive.”

  His body tensed and his voice rasped with emotion. “Alive enough to collect their rent from the parish. I don’t understand how the good churchgoing folk rest easy in their beds when they’ve relegated their fellow humans to such a hell on earth.”

  “I had no idea this was happening.”

  “Most people don’t. It’s all hidden away so that society doesn’t have to think about it. Some of the inmates truly are insane but the chief affliction of many of the inmates is poverty. I can only offer refuge to a select few.”

  “Mr. March.” Now Alice began to understand. “Was he in the Yellow House?”

  “Yes, and Bill as well. They have their oddities, that’s certain, but they should never have been committed. I have a man, Mr. Hawkins, a paid informant who is an underkeeper in the asylum. He alerts me to cases such as theirs.”

  “I take it that you wouldn’t normally accept a case such as Jane’s.”

  “I’ve never accepted a female before. I only did so because you were here to make her feel more comfortable.”

  “Poor Jane. I can’t believe she’s been declared insane. What will she do? Where will she go?”

  “Patrick Fellowes will be able to help when he returns from his vacation in Brighton. Jane will need a new name. Letters of reference. An entirely new identity. We’ll find her a place somewhere far from London.”

  “I think it’s wonderful what you’re doing for Jane. What you’ve done for others.”

  “I can’t save everyone,” he murmured, stroking the back of her neck.

  “Dr. Forster told me that he thinks your method of caring for the duke is highly effective for treating milder cases of lunacy and perhaps even for effecting a cure. He said he asked you to write about your method, for the benefit of others.”

  “I won’t be publishing any study about my father, Alice. It would expose me too much. I wouldn’t be able to continue helping other inmates.”

  She hadn’t thought of that. “Yes, but you could at least record your observations of your father’s behavior. Whether tending his orchids makes him less agitated, for example. Perhaps only for the eyes of physicians such as Dr. Forster.”

  “Perhaps . . .” His voice drifted off and his chest rose and fell beneath her cheek.

  So Nick and his friends saved people from madhouses.

  That didn’t mean Alice had to fall in love with him. It only meant he was a better man than she had judged him to be.

  And she had to make him see how much potential he had to do even more good.

  Now she had two tasks during the remainder of her time here.

  Finish the translation, which should flow better now that certain things were more clear, and convince Nick that he was so much more than he pretended to be. That if he’d only stop living in darkness, wallowing in the fear of going mad, he might have a bright, passionate, caring future.

  No doubt he’d think her meddlesome, and he might refuse to begin keeping a journal on the subject of his father’s illness, but Alice felt it her duty to try.

  Of course, she had more than two tasks remaining.

  She had sixty-four, to be precise. She snuggled closer to Nick, inhaling his spiced, masculine scent.

  She could indulge in fleshly pleasures, while remaining in complete control of her emotions.

  Because she was a Lady Rake.

  Chapter 20

  Love which is felt for things to which we are not habituated . . . is called love resulting from imagination, as for instance, that love which some men and women feel for the Auparishtaka, or mouth congress.

  The Kama Sutra of Vātsyāya
na

  Alice woke with a start. Disoriented for a moment, she lay still, rubbing her eyes.

  Large body curled around her, holding her close. Numb arm because his heavy form had her pinned. A soreness between her legs, a throbbing ache.

  Nick’s breathing, deep and rhythmic, rumbling close to her ear.

  It was still early morning.

  Kali hopped onto the bed and nuzzled her wet, cold nose against Alice’s cheek.

  “Where have you been, Miss Kali?” Alice whispered. Kali looked smug. There was a feather sticking to one of her whiskers.

  “Ah-ha,” Alice said. “Terrorizing birds.” She should tie a bell on her cat.

  Kali licked her lips and then licked her paw, climbing over Alice to investigate the sleeping marquess.

  He certainly slept soundly.

  Probably never left his bed before noon. Alice’s favorite time of the day was morning. Even on the evenings she stayed up late working, she still rose early to snatch a few more minutes of calm and peace.

  She had much to mull over.

  She lifted Nick’s arm and slipped out of bed. He muttered something and rolled over, crushing a pillow in his arms and curling up around it.

  Kali decided he made a nice bed, and draped herself across his ankles.

  Alice smiled. Kali wasn’t scared of Nick, which was unusual. She normally didn’t like large men. She’d loathed Fred, hissing whenever he came into a room, but she seemed to approve of Nick.

  In the washroom, Alice soothed her soreness with soap and water.

  The secret things they’d done during the night, aided by champagne and French corsets, were perhaps meant to stay in the darkness.

  But the acts described in the Kama Sutra were equally voluptuous. So why didn’t she balk at reading them? It was the remove between reading and doing.

  Palm leaves and palms holding her breasts.

  It made her pause. She’d been thinking of the text as a historical artifact, and a window into the minds and practices of an ancient civilization.

  But they had been people just like her and Nick.

  And today, because of sexual congress, she had a new awareness of her body . . . and the meaning of the Kama Sutra.

  She stretched before the glass, looking at her body. She’d never truly studied her form before. Nick thought she was beautiful, or at least he’d said so last night.

  She cupped her breasts, turning before the glass.

  There was a power in knowing the intimate workings of one’s body, Alice reflected. She felt sensual in a way she never had before.

  She could weave that sensuality into her translation. This was still a scholarly pursuit of knowledge.

  Nick was still the best man for the job.

  And she was still very much in control.

  Nick had slept late, as he always did, but Alice was already hard at work in her study.

  There was a striking contrast, he thought, as he watched her pen dance across the parchment.

  The scarlet corset–wearing wanton by night, and the prim, cotton-garbed scholar by day.

  He liked her contrasts . . . and her moans of pleasure.

  Last night had been extraordinary. And Nick wanted more.

  He drew closer and leaned over her shoulder, intending to kiss her cheek until a word on the page caught his eye.

  Surely that didn’t say . . .

  He stared at the page, reading and rereading.

  After the fifth pass, it still said what he’d thought it had said: When she raises her thighs and keeps them wide apart and engages in congress it is called the “yawning position.”

  Good God. Was his prim, scholarly wife writing an erotic novel? Perhaps she wasn’t quite as innocent and chaste as he’d assumed.

  “Ahem.” He cleared his throat, and she jumped.

  “What are you working on, Dimples?” He tapped his bare foot on the rug.

  Her eyelashes flapped rapidly. He knew by now what that meant. She was trying to think of one of her evasion tactics.

  He grabbed the top sheet of parchment from the stack.

  “Give that back,” she cried, reaching for the paper.

  He caught her wrist in his hand and leaned away, reading aloud, “When a man wishes to enlarge his organ, he should rub it with the bristles of certain insects that live in trees, and then, after rubbing it for ten nights with oils, he should again rub it with the bristles . . .”

  He gaped at her. Her cheeks were rapidly turning bright pink.

  “What in the name of all that is unholy is this?” he asked.

  “A recipe,” she replied defensively. “A lady’s private recipe. Not for your eyes.”

  “Bristles?” he sputtered. “I have no need for bristles.”

  “Not everything is about you,” she huffed.

  “Then whom is it about?”

  She let out an exasperated puff of breath. “This is the translation I’m working on. Now give it back.” She reached for the sheet again but he held it out of reach.

  “This is the translation? Of an ancient Hindu manuscript? But . . . I thought you said it was stodgy and staid.”

  Reverently, Alice touched the thin, elongated dried palm leaf pages which were bound together with a cord that looped through holes drilled in their centers.

  “I never said anything of the kind. You made an assumption. It’s a treatise on pleasure in all its many variations.”

  “Those bristles don’t sound pleasurable to me.”

  “The recipes are quite antiquated, though there are some that hold interest for a modern reader.”

  Nick shuddered. “Not this reader.”

  “You happened to have read one of the more painful-sounding recipes.”

  “I’ll say.”

  “There are some quite lovely and fragrant-sounding ones.”

  “Uh-huh.” Nick wasn’t convinced. He was still attempting to scrub his mind free from the mental image of rubbing his cock with insect bristles. Whatever that meant.

  Although the oil part hadn’t sounded that bad. He’d been known to rub himself with oil from time to time.

  Alice stacked her pages with precision. “This is only a fragment of a much larger work entitled the Kama Sutra. Kama means desire and sutra, taken literally, is sort of a thread that holds things together.”

  “So you’ve been translating a dirty book. I must say I’m shocked, Dimples.”

  “And awed?” she joked.

  “Well, I did rather assume that it was my kiss that had kindled your latent libidinousness. Now I find that it was this dirty book all along. Rather pricks a gentleman’s pride.”

  “It’s not dirty; it’s an important and illuminating glimpse into the minds of an ancient culture.”

  “More like a glimpse into the bedrooms. I mean . . . the yawning position?”

  “The prurient sections will ensure the work finds a wide audience. But the Kama Sutra is also a philosophical meditation on spiritual and physical fulfillment, as well as a guide to virtuous and gracious living.”

  “Is this why you asked me for instruction in the art of sexual congress? Are you . . . are you using me? Am I merely the most convenient cock to practice with and nothing more?”

  She stroked his arm. “You’re the best, Nick. That’s why I chose you, remember?”

  He didn’t know why any of this should bother him. After all, wasn’t this what he was to every woman who passed through his bedchamber? A pleasure ride and nothing more?

  But this was Alice.

  Not just any woman.

  He’d been so proud and smug, believing that his masterful powers of seduction had awakened her sensuality, when her curiosity had been sparked by a book.

  Why did he feel so disappointed? And why was this moment complicated in a way that his relationships were never complicated? Because they were married?

  She’d be gone in a month’s time, for Christ’s sake.

  “I wonder if you’ve thought that contributing
to the translation of such a scandalous work of literature could have consequences for your family’s reputation, even if it’s published under Fred’s name and not yours?” he asked.

  “Oh, I’m sure if he requested anonymity they’d grant him that. This is the missing portion of a much longer work. The Sanskrit professors I’ve been corresponding with think that with my chapters, they’ll be able to compile a complete manuscript.”

  “So you’re doing all of this not for glory but merely for the love of literature?”

  “I suppose so. Someday I believe the Kama Sutra will be widely read. I think it could be very educational for naïve young ladies who are kept in ignorance of the workings of their bodies and the particulars of sexual congress.”

  “I’ve been forced to revise my opinions and preconceived ideas about young ladies several times since I met you, Alice.”

  “Is that a compliment?”

  He smiled and touched her cheek. “It is. Of course, the fact remains that you’re using me for scandalous scholarly research purposes. And I’m not sure how I feel about that.”

  “Oh please. Isn’t the pursuit of pleasure your reason for living?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “You’re certainly not the first gentleman to make a lifelong study of sensual fulfillment. And we British didn’t invent sexual congress, you know,” she said with a purse of her full lips that for some reason drove him nearly mad with lust and made him forget all about his disappointment.

  “No. But we’re about to perfect it,” he growled, hauling her from her chair, lifting her into his arms, and stalking toward his bedchamber.

  He laid her across his bed and teased the edge of her bodice down enough for him to locate one pink nipple. He closed his lips around it, licking hungrily until she squirmed beneath him.

  “Nick, I was working.”

  “Mmm,” he answered, his mouth full. “So am I.”

  He noticed she didn’t protest too much, so he shifted to the other taut peak. Soon she was sighing beneath his lips.

  He raised his head. “We haven’t made love in the afternoon yet.”

  She looked pretty in early afternoon light. Glowing and warm, her hair threaded with gold and her lively, intelligent eyes shifting with darker shadows and brilliant green like leaves dappled by sunlight.