“How many?”
“Six.”
“Six!”
“How is that possible?”
Harold shrugged. “I have travelled, Elizabeth. But they were always flings, over within a day and never thought of again. I want to marry you, to make you my wife, and to serve you well. That is the truth of it.”
She looked into his eyes and tried to gauge if he was being dishonest or not. As far as she could tell, his feelings were sincere, but how was one to know? For all she knew, he had used these same exact lines on the other six women. But there was the lust, as well, that was calling out even now, as she looked at him. How she wanted to touch him more, and have him touch her more. How she wanted to go further than a kiss…
Stop it, she told herself. Stop thinking like this. It is not proper! You are a lady!
But thoughts of that kind were not so easily extinguished. “I would have some proof that you really wish to marry me,” she said slowly.
“How am I to prove it to you?”
Elizabeth shrugged. “I do not know. But that is that I require.”
“If I can prove that I am sincere, will you marry me?”
“Yes,” she said, far too quickly. She laughed at her own eagerness. “Yes,” she repeated. “If you can prove it.”
The Duke nodded and then rang the service bell. The freckle-faced girl Elizabeth had seen around the Castle walked in. “Katherine,” Harold said.
“Yes sir?”
“Have you heard the good news?”
“The good news, sir?”
“Yes! You haven’t heard? Elizabeth and I are getting married.”
The girl’s face lit up, and she congratulated the two of them before retrieving the plates. Harold grinned for the first time since Elizabeth had met him. “You see?” he said. “She will tell the other servants, who will tell the messenger boy when he comes in the morning. Before you know it rumors will be all over England. We are, for all intents are purposes, publically engaged. But just to make it more definite…” He rose and walked to a table upon which rested a quill, inkpot, and paper. He scribbled quickly and then handed Elizabeth the paper.
It read:
Mr. Hawk,
I am delighted to inform you that your daughter and I are engaged,
Signed,
Harold Stonewall
He folded the paper and enclosed it in an envelope, which he sealed the Stonewall seal. “I would be a flagrant liar indeed if I denied that I wrote this letter, seeing as it bears my signature and my seal. Now, I will send this off immediately.” He rang the service bell again. A different servant entered this time. She grinned as she collected the plates. “Congratulations, m’lord, m’lady.”
News does travel fast.
“Take this letter to town and have it sent to the Hawk residence immediately,” Harold said. “I wish for England to know of our engagement as soon as possible.”
After the servant had left, Harold returned to his seat and smiled at Elizabeth. “Is that sufficient proof, my lady?”
“Harold, I want to ask something of you, but I fear it may be monstrously un-ladylike.”
“Ask away, Elizabeth. Social mores have never overly interested me.”
“Would you accompany to my bedroom?”
Her mouth was dry as she said this. She was worried that the Duke might laugh at her, or turn on her utterly. Instead, he rose to his feet and walked around the table. Standing over her, he offered her his arm. “Let us retire for the morning, my lady,” he said.
*****
Harold placed her on the bed as though she weighed nothing and began undressing her. Every part of Elizabeth was alive with anticipated pleasure. Her private area was pulsating with warmth. Harold’s body was strong and firm over hers as he unlaced her bodice and threw it upon the floor. Soon she was naked, laying on her back and looking up at him. He pulled off his own clothes until he, too, was naked.
His body was muscular, rippled with strong, tense muscles. His skin was white and hairless. Scars marked him here and there, but they were faded and did nothing to detract from his attractiveness. “I will be inside you soon, my lady,” he said.
His private area was hard and big. She had never seen a man’s parts before, but as soon as she saw this one, she knew it would be amazing. She reached out, and he walked toward her, and then her hand touched it. “What shall I do?” she said.
“Rub it, my lady,” he said.
She rubbed it up and down, gripping it in her hand and hoping she was doing it right. She was so excited that with her other hand she reached down and began to rub her private parts, that special hot spot on the outside that she sometimes rubbed even though she knew she shouldn’t. Harold began to moan. He reached down and grabbed her breasts, pushing them together, tweaking her nipples with her fingertips.
Then he leaned over her and parted her legs with his knees. “It will hurt at first,” he said. “But then it will feel amazing.”
Slowly, gently, he pushed himself inside of her. He was right. At first, for the first few minutes, the pain was extraordinary. She bit her lip and closed her eyes and waited for the pain to pass. And then, as he began to go quicker, the pain faded, and a white-hot pleasure replaced it. It was warm and wet and like nothing she had ever experienced.
She lifted her legs and began to move with the motions of his thrusts, pushing down as he thrust into her. His private went deep inside of her, touching a hot spot that caused pleasure to pulsate through her body. She closed her eyes and bit her lip as something built within her, like water against a dam, building, building. All she knew now was his private entering her, the heat between her legs, the tingles all over her body. She pushed down again and again, and then—
Everything released in one rush; the water washed over the dam. Pleasure washed over her body. She let out a loud moan, and Harold pushed into her harder and faster, pushing and pushing, thrusting hard and deep. Both of them were moaning now; pleasure had captured the two of them at the same moment.
Harold rolled onto his side when it was over and took Elizabeth in his arms. “That was incredible,” she whispered. “I never knew it would feel like that.”
“I never knew it could be like that,” Harold said. “It was never like that before.”
They lay there in silence until around midday when Elizabeth woke to a kiss on the forehead. Harold was leaning over her, his hands in her hair. “I have an idea, my lady,” he said.
“What is it?”
“Let’s get married today, right now.”
“Harold, are you—”
“Yes, I mean it. If we did not love each other, we would be in a terrible situation now. The only decent thing for me to do would be marry you. Luckily, I want to marry you. I think I love you, Elizabeth. Why should we wait?”
Elizabeth did not need to think about it any longer. The only possible negative was that Father and Mother would not be able to be there. But if Father came he would only ruin it in some way, and Mother would never come without Father. She jumped to her feet, still naked, and threw her arms around him. His hands reached down for her buttocks and began to rub. “Later, we’ll do it twice,” he said into her ear.
She giggled and kissed his neck.
“I will call for the parson,” Harold said. “Dress, and we will be married within the hour.”
He left the room, and Elizabeth went to the dresser and sorted through the clothes.
What an odd series of events, she thought, a wide smile on her lips.
*****
She had chosen a simple white gown for the wedding. Harold was dressed in his military garb. The parson gave a traditional speech about the sanctity of marriage and then asked them both if they wanted the other person. Elizabeth had no problem saying I do, and neither did Harold. Within the hour, the two of them truly were married.
Afterwards, they walked the grounds of the Castle hand in hand. It was good to feel his bare hand against her bare hand, skin on skin,
and not have to worry about scandal or retribution of any kind. They were man and wife now; it was the most natural thing in the world for man and wife to walk hand in hand together. They walked into the woods and far away from the Castle until they came to an enclosed copse of trees where they could sit and pretend that the greater world did not exist. Sitting on an upturned log, Elizabeth truly felt as though they were the last people alive.
“This is only the start,” Harold said. “My lady, we will have a beautiful life together. I believe that a man and wife can never fully know each other, but I promise to do my best to know you as well as I know myself. I want us to become one, my lady.”
“Where do you think we will be in five years, my love?” Elizabeth wondered.
#
The Hawk family is no longer spoken of with such vindictiveness. The marriage between the Duke of Summerset and I put an end to that. Soon after our marriage, the Duke paid off the our family’s debts in full, and invited Father and Mother to come and live in the Castle (in their own wing, of course). This allowed us to check Father’s gambling before it started. He has not gambled in five years, and he grumbles less, too.
The Duke and I are as one; or, rather, the Duke and our two children our as four. He was everything I wished him to be on that day long ago in the woods, where I rested my head on his shoulder and talked of the future, and he laughed and said he would give us everything. The King has even visited us once or twice, and Charlotte practically begs me to come to some social function or other.
But I am content to lay awake at night in the Duke’s arms, breathing heavy from our love-making and looking to the future which still looks so bright.
Perhaps, Ms. Diary, this proves something. Perhaps this proves that one does not have to conform to cunning and meanness to get along in the world. Perhaps this proves that one need not have a heart of ice. Take the Duke, for example. He used to be cold, but now he has thawed and grows warmer every day.
Perhaps ice often hides the warmest hearts.
*****
THE END
The Duke of Hearts – A Regency Romance
I would like to dispel the myth that I, Sarah Archer, the daughter of what is usually referred to as a “minor family”, am in any way inferior to my peers. This is commonly muttered amongst lords when they see how I interact with the “common folk”. That I do not spit in their direction is considered a slight against the most privileged of society. That I, in fact, do not flinch at the idea of sharing the same air space is positively scandalous. Perhaps this is why at the age of twenty-three I was not yet married.
I first saw Francis Seymour in London in 1806 To say I was immediately captivated and intrigued and astonished and beguiled by him would, of course, be unseemly; and yet it is the truth. It was not a planned meeting, and, indeed, no words were exchanged between us, I being in town for a meeting with friends, and he being in town for reasons unknown to me.
We passed mere inches of each other on a thoroughfare not far from Westminster. He carried himself differently to the Dukes I had seen before. His arms were by his sides, like a fighting man, and his steps were not ladylike in the slightest, but heavy and probably “uncouth”. He wore dress far beneath his economic powers, with only the slightest frill and flare adorning his jacket and breeches and boots.
As soon as we passed, I asked my maidservant who the man was, and, she being a surprisingly well-informed source of information of that kind, she told me that he was Francis Seymour, and had recently come into his Dukedom in Somerset. I admit my heart was beating fearfully quickly; I thought it may break out of my bodice. There, I have said two unrespectable things in the space of a few words! This will cause quite a stir if it is even found, I am sure. Perhaps I will arrange for it to be published after my death, but that is morbid and a concern for another time.
Being thus informed about this man, to whom I felt a pull altogether astounding and perplexing to me, I decided without hesitation that I must see him again. This impulsive and unflinching behavior has, on several occasions, caused men to refer to me as “no kind of woman at all”. Several courtships have met swift ends because of it. Hoping that this mysterious man would not be the same, I set in course motions for my arrival at Berry Pomeroy Castle, under the guise of a social visit to coincide with the fayre.
“Are you sure you want to go all that way for a fayre, daughter?” Father asked, in that timid and slightly reproachful way of his.
“Father, I am positively suffocating. My sisters are all off having children or visiting abroad – they are all, in short, engaged in some kind of adventure – and I believe I am entitled to a little adventure of my own. You need not worry. I will keep the breech-wearing and pipe-smoking to a minimum.”
“Sarah!” Father exclaimed, but there was a smile behind his beard, which he grew despite criticism. We were both out of sorts, Father and I.
Charlotte came to my chambers soon later, with a knock on the door. I bid her enter, and she fluttered into the room like a rose petal blown in the wind. “Sarah!” she cried, holding my hands. “He said yes, didn’t he! We’re going to the fayre! Oh, do you think it will be wonderful? I bet it will be wonderful!”
I admit I was taken up with the girl’s enthusiasm, and we talked at length about how wonderful it would be. It was truly an event for her, and it warmed me to see her so moved. My own sisters having long since moved away, and my brother away making his fortune in London, Charlotte was like family to me.
That night I could not sleep for thinking of the fayre, a mere three months away. Guilt broiled within me, warring with the excitement. I was behaving, after all, in a cunning and “unwomanly” way.
But we women are so often the pawns. I thought it was time we played the chess master for once.
*****
Having been acquainted with castles since a young age, I was not befuddled at the sight of Berry Pomeroy, though I had to admit it was grand and beautiful. The three months had passed in much the same way as the three months before; I have often wondered if my obsession with the Duke would have been so intense had not those months elapsed since our accidental and secret meeting.
We arrived just when the tents and festivities were being erected outside the castle. Jugglers and mummers milled around the tents, waiting for their chance to shine. That the Duke allowed this fayre to be held on his land was another sign to me that he was a man, unlike others. To be sure I talked among the mummers and jugglers and common folk for quite some time, with the intention of firstly enjoying their conversation, as they had none of the sickening tightness of lip and sternness of face that is so common among our class; and secondly to see if I could learn aught about the mysterious Duke. No man there would hear of his name being spoken of in any by a flattering light. My instincts thus reaffirmed, I prepared for my formal introduction to him.
We were welcomed into the main hall, in which several lords and ladies stood in tight circles, clutching their chalices and talking softly to one another. I was accustomed to being stared at as a member of that dying family Archer, and so it did not overly bother me. Presently Duke Francis Seymour walked through the crowds and stood before me.
“My lady,” he said, bowing before me. His eyes were pale blue like ice and his face was kind and strong. He took my hand in his and, before everybody in the room, and brought it to his lips. “It is a pleasure to meet you,” he murmured softly, the warmth of his kiss still upon my hand.
I confess I was at first stunned by this display. I had never met this man and had no thought of his ever showing me any affection. I almost wrapped my tongue upon itself in trying to reply, but then I recovered some of my poise and smiled at him, as charmingly as I was able. “It is a pleasure to meet you,” I replied, withdrawing my hand.
“Meet me later, in the gardens,” he whispered, so only I could hear.
I should have been outraged by such a proposition. It is no kind of thing for a lady to agree to. And I am sure my peers will thin
k me incredibly dishonorable for entertaining such a sordid idea. But the Duke’s voice did not allow for hesitation, and I admit I was beyond curious at this point. I have him the slightest of nods, at which point he began to talk with other guests, leaving me shocked and excited: leaving me broiling with feeling.
*****
The word “later” being somewhat ambiguous, the first task handed to me was trying to work out what time, exactly, Francis wanted me to arrive at the gardens. There was no way to know for definite, so, wishing not to appear over keen, but also wishing not to miss him entirely, I waited until the sun had reached its noonday peek and began to descend for two hours before casually mentioning to Charlotte that I wished to stroll the gardens. She was taken up with the jollity of the fayre, and I bid her stay and enjoy herself. Thanking me, she freed me and allowed me to walk unescorted to the gardens.
I knew what I was doing to wrong and socially unacceptable, and yet I couldn’t forget this man. It is no way for a woman to behave, it is true, and yet I couldn’t just walk away and pretend that I had never seen him. I felt as though there was an affinity between us; I felt as though his ice-blue eyes saw past whatever element it was that ever men seemed to find so repugnant in me. Other men, after talking to me for a few minutes, will often make some excuse and flee to some quieter girl. Perhaps this has something to do with my habit of reading “unwomanly” literature, or my penchant for walking alone on the grounds around my father’s home. Whatever it is, I have been called intimidating by men, and now I take that as a compliment.
I did not think it likely, however, that I would intimidate the Duke. He had a fine, muscular build, his jacket and breeches word tight to accentuate his form. His face was strong and kind, with a solidity that was only heightened by his ice-blue eyes. He had the overall appearance of a wind-besieged mountain range, wild and dangerous and strong. I was more than intrigued. I was enthralled.
Romance: Teen Romance: Follow Your Dreams (A Nerd and a Bad Boy Romance) (New Adult High School Sports Romance) Page 44
