The Dissolute Duke

by Sophia James

Mrs Berwick bustled in just before twelve.

  ‘The master was asking after you, your Grace.’

  ‘The Duke is up already?’

  ‘Indeed. Riding across the top valley would be my guess, on that black horse of his that goes like the wind.’

  Lucinda crossed to the wardrobe to find her bonnet and coat. Within a moment she was on the front portico, Mrs Berwick pointing out the formal gardens and the small pathway to the Ellesmere stables.

  Finally she was alone, the wind on her face and the sun appearing from time to time between ominous banks of high, dark cloud.

  A dog joined her on her walk a little way into the tumbled-down garden, his coat mangy and his head hanging. She could not even make a guess as to its pedigree, for the animal had the head of a Labrador, the body of a much thinner hound and the hairiest and longest of legs. Usually she was frightened of dogs, as she had been bitten badly once at Falder and had not been much in their company since, but this animal with its trusting brown eyes, its odd shape and a tail that curled twice before tucking under its back legs was so comical it was comforting. All day she had been alone, so when the animal’s wet muzzle came into the curl of her fingers she laughed.

  ‘Who are you?’ Her voice brought it to a stop.

  ‘His name is Dog.’ Taylen Ellesmere was suddenly behind her, his riding clothes splattered with mud and no sign on his face at all to indicate he had any memory of last night. Perhaps he had felt nothing. Perhaps for him the kiss had been like one of the many others he had bequeathed to countless beautiful women across his lifetime.

  ‘Is he yours?’ Lucinda hoped that the rush of heat on her cheeks did not show.

  ‘My carriage almost ran him over on the London riverfront and so I had him brought up here.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘The first day I arrived back in England, a month and a half ago now. It seemed a sign,’ he added, an unexpected lopsided smile having a strange effect on the area around her heart.

  ‘A sign of what?’

  ‘A sign indicating that I was meant to stay. An anchor, if you like.’

  ‘Mrs Berwick told me you had concentrated your efforts on bringing the farm cottages up to a habitable standard.’

  ‘The estate needs work, though there are some who do not like what I am trying to accomplish.’

  ‘Change always polarises people. Asher says that often.’

  He smiled, and nodded. ‘In a year I could have Alderworth profitable again …’ He stopped, a sense of wariness in the words. ‘But you probably have no interest in such things?’

  His query trembled into the space between them.

  ‘On the contrary. If this is to be my home, I could help you.’

  ‘Our home.’

  And just like that she was back again into breathlessness, enchantment shimmering in the air between them.

  ‘Do you have your riding clothes?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Then come with me and I will show you Alderworth from the hills.’

  ‘Now?’

  Nodding, he called the dog back to his side, its mangy spine rising into his hand where he patted it.

  ‘Give me ten minutes,’ she answered before breaking into a brisk walk.

  Taylen stood and watched her leave, desire seeping into a cold dread.

  Hugo Shields seemed to reach out from the grave and deny him any thoughts of hope, years after he had died with a bullet through his heart. His uncle had gone into his afterlife muttering the threats he’d made such an art form of whilst living, insults softening into pleas and then whimpers as the life blood had run from him. Tay had allowed him no forgiveness, simply watching with distaste and relief as he took his last and final breath. The Italian nobleman, who had shot Hugo as a card cheat, had taken ship back to the Continent that very night and a youthful Taylen had never spoken of the incident to anyone.

  Secrets and lies. It was who he was, what he had become, and no amount of longing could change it. It was why the nightmares never left him, but spun into the release of sleep like a spider gathering corpses. He could not hide the darkness inside him from Lucinda and if he tried to …

  He shook his head. He would have to be honest, for he owed her at least that.

  The dog’s whining made him tense.

  With her riding habit in place Lucinda rejoined Taylen at the front of the stables.

  The large black horse she had seen at a distance from the window of her room was twice as impressive close up. She stayed a good ten feet away from him as she looked over the lines of his body.

  ‘He is beautiful. What do you call him?’

  ‘Hades. My father brought his grandsire out from France after winning a lucrative hand of faro.’

  Taylen Ellesmere never seemed cowed by scandal; rather he threw any caution in the face of the wind and challenged comment. Attack was better than any defence. He used the maxim like an expert.

  ‘Your family is unusual.’

  ‘There isn’t much of it left.’

  ‘The very opposite of mine, then. Sometimes I used to think there were too many Wellinghams, but now …’

  She trailed off, but he finished the sentence for her. ‘Now when you see the alternative it makes you realise how lucky you are?’

  ‘I think that is true. They are not so bad, you know, my brothers. It is only that they are trying to protect me.’

  ‘From further ruin?’ He smiled unexpectedly, the green in his eyes paler today than she had ever seen it. The Dissolute Duke who watched over his estate out of a duty he could have refused, but didn’t.

  Sometimes her husband was so very like her brothers. Confusion made her ramble.

  ‘It is good to be away from town and Alderworth is a beautiful place despite the disrepair or perhaps because of it, I think, although I can imagine my mother’s displeasure at the state of your garden.’

  ‘I would be more than happy if you wish to oversee any repair, Lucinda.’

  She laughed. ‘Gardening being such a quiet and docile hobby …’

  ‘At least it might stop you from galloping ventre à terre.’

  She knew he would kiss her before he leaned over. She could see it in the way his face softened, humour changing to some other thing less discernible. As the wind lifted her riding skirt and blew the falling leaves into eddies around their feet, she simply closed her eyes and felt his warmth against hers and his solidness, his fingers on the skin of her arm, stroking down to catch her to him, no questions left. Just them with a beautiful horse standing behind, the yellow sandstone of the stables pitted with age and the peace of the early afternoon settling in.

  This kiss was different from the one they had shared the night before. This kiss came with all the knowledge of what they both wanted—nay, what they needed from each other.

  They came together with a hard edge of disbelief, thrown into a storm of movement, his hand around the back of her head, his body pressed against her own. This time she did not limit what she gave in return, her teeth biting down and tasting the power of abandon. She was not careful or circumspect or quiet. She was all woman released from the fetters of years of manners and demeanour that denoted a Wellingham daughter, the expectations of society a distant and unpleasant memory.

  She could no longer care. Her fingers wound through his hair as his tongue came inside her mouth, rough and urgent, no quiet asking in it as he held his hands on each side of her face.

  This was what she wanted, the taking and taking, moulded into desire, the loss of self in a thrall that held no end. A moment or an hour? It was his choice. She would have lain down upon the grass beneath the roses if he had asked her, opening to him, accepting the roaring release of a womanhood for ever tied to agreements and conditions and plain cold reason. Respecting the fact that he was a man caught in the complexities of family and trying to make the best of it, she could deny him nothing.

  Nothing. Her mouth widened as he came within, tilting her, his breath hoarse and r
aw, his thumb on the nape of her neck as she arched back and simply enjoyed.

  He could not remember ever revelling in the company of another as much as he did his wife. He had never had a confidante before, a person who might guard his back against the world despite everything that was said of him. The wonder of it was humbling.

  Lucinda kissed like the most skilled of all courtesans, allowing him things most ladies didn’t, gentle softness dispensed with under a building and aching need. When her teeth came down on his lip he smiled, the pain of it inciting urgency as he took her breath into his own, swallowing her air and exchanging it for his. He bound her mouth in a tight seal of authority, pressing down so that she had to trust him. She did not fight, though her eyes flew open, watching, glazed into submission, waiting while he fed her breath.

  He had never felt such a compelling insistence for any woman, not in all the years of his life enjoying the fruits of a reputation he had earned at the hands of parents who taught him not to care for anything or anyone. So very easy to take and to leave.

  But with Lucinda there was a betrothal that was impossible to break before man and before God, the edicts written in the law of the land and handed down through many centuries of union.

  Unions that produced the next generations, heirs who could hold the great estates in the palms of their hands and care for their longevity as no outsider would ever be able to.

  His heirs. Their heirs. The children of Alderworth who would follow in his footsteps.

  An agreement bound by time and gold.

  Breaking away from her, he ran his hands through his hair and swore. This was not how it was supposed to be, this desperate need to be inside her, a sense of for ever in his thoughts that was as scary as it was impossible.

  No one had ever stayed at his side through thick and thin, through richer and poorer, through the vagaries of trouble and the inadequacy of laws. No one at all, save Lance Montcrieff, who had died trying to show him such friendship was possible even as the last piece of life had bled from him, warm on the dusty turnings of earth and in a land that was far from home.

  His breath felt shaky and he turned from his wife’s sky-blue gaze, not wanting her to see things he had shown to no one before. Give a little of yourself and be punished for it. Trust another and that emotion would be thrown back as corruption and abuse. Or loss.

  After his grandmother’s betrayal he had allowed his uncle to see his vulnerability when he had come to collect him from the hospital in Rouen. Then another sort of deception had begun, one worse than his grandmother’s heavy hand, one wrapped in soft bare flesh and whispered words. It was then he had understood that love equalled pain and shame. When he had finally rid himself of his uncle’s depravities he had found a different enjoyment of the flesh. One that required neither trust nor honesty. One that allowed him the freedom to move on from a woman before there was ever the chance of more than a way to pass the hours of his life, superficial, numerous and unimportant.

  ‘I know there is a lot I need to learn about the art of kissing …?’

  He stiffened as he faced her, hating the worry so evident in her voice.

  ‘But I no longer wish to wait to make an heir. I want to know where a kiss like that one might lead to next, Taylen. I am twenty-seven years old and I do not wish for another single day to pass before I know.’

  Raw and honest with her chest heaving, Lucinda reminded him of everything that was good in the world.

  ‘Now?’ He did not recognise his own voice.

  She nodded, a small hint of nerves, but still she stood before him, unflinching.

  Tay could not believe she might mean it and yet in the aftermath of their kiss his body had hardened and risen. He took the chance of waiting no longer by simply holding out his hand.

  Her fingers laced about his own, intertwined.

  ‘Come, then.’

  Calling to his man to unsaddle Hades, he strode back through the gardens along the white shell paths, ten steps and then twenty, always assuming that she would pull away. She did not.

  He walked through the main salon at the bottom of the house, the servants watching them, a strange juxtaposition of the normal and the absurd.

  A bargain.

  A payment.

  An heir.

  He had never felt as he did at that moment, leading his wife towards his bedchamber and knowing what would happen once they got there.

  Mrs Berwick asked him a question and he answered, the warmth of Lucinda’s fingers burning need into his soul. He saw his wife’s eyes were lowered lest the truth of what lay inside was seen. Speaking in words that were empty, his mind replayed other words, stronger words, words that would change both of their lives for ever. He felt as if they were tied by a quivering single thread, its quicksilver need running through all the parts of him. Forcing him on.

  Up the stairs they climbed, Lucinda’s breath strained. Not from exertion, but from anticipation. He almost smiled then, although humour was far from what he felt.

  Then through the door they went, the heavy oak of it shutting behind them and the locks turning. The noise elicited a small involuntary flinch from Lucinda, but she did not speak. Pocketing the key, he moved away, dropping the contact, needing the space. For the first time in a life filled with indulgence and dissoluteness he did not know where to begin.

  His wife did it for him, undoing her jacket buttons one by one, her small hands mesmerising. The shirt beneath was of the finest linen, inset with lace, her flesh peeking through where the pattern of the stitches changed. He stepped forwards.

  ‘Let me?’

  She nodded, stood still as he drew her hair into his hands and released the mass of gold and wheat from restraint, running his fingers through the curls so that they were freed from the heavy chignon. He wanted to see her tresses against her pale skin, enveloping the curve of her breasts and hips. He wanted to lay her down upon his bed and mould the shape of her to his so that she would never forget him, marked and branded.

  The racing beat of her heart belied the bravado she was showing him as he undid the small mother-of-pearl buttons that held the last of her bodice together.

  He had done this before, in this very room three years ago, unlaced Lucinda and understood the beauty beneath the cloth, but this time was different. This time she was his wife, promised to him, bound in law and troth and honour.

  Marriage. His parents had never venerated the spirit of such a union, but to him … He stopped.

  Not empty words after all. The wedding ring he wore glinted in the light, catching gold.

  ‘Only for an heir …?’ She phrased this in a question, running her tongue around the dryness of her lips as her head tilted back.

  Asking for more.

  He pulled the cloth away and her breasts fell out into his gaze, then his hands lay across them, the fullness firm and pale.

  Lust ruled now, heating blood, shallowing breath, raising skin. His mouth came around one rose-hued peak and he sucked, hard, the burn of want and need, the ache of completion, the trembling primeval blaze. She groaned and he kneaded the other nipple, the thread between them snaking into hardness, snaring desire.

  ‘Now.’

  Her voice, and no longer a question. Raising his head, he simply picked her up, her bodice trailing downwards and the skirt she wore pulled up across his arms, the dainty beauty of her ankles and shins on show.

  She did not fight him, but lay still as he placed her on his bed. No resistance. His hands came beneath her skirt, into the silk of her petticoats, under the thin nothingness of her drawers. Until only skin remained, thick and swollen and soft feminine skin, wet with her wanting.

  ‘It may hurt, my love.’ He had to warn her as he unbuttoned his trousers. She did not look at his nakedness, for her eyes were closed now, the quiet blush of need on her cheeks, the trembling, too, of something unknown. He wished he could find the words that she wanted him to give her, but the truth was more important.

  ‘I n
eed you, Lucinda. I need all of you.’

  At that she opened her eyes, acquiescence and knowledge now in the blue as one arm reached out to caress the planes of his stomach before falling lower. An elemental virgin-siren, the release of her breath heard in the quietness, a thin line of beaded sweat on the top of her lips.

  Kicking off his boots and trousers, he lifted her skirt and opened her legs, the searing flesh of his manhood stilling as his fingers parted heat—balanced, waiting, poised on that moment of change that comes to every new bride.

  Slipping inwards, driving hard, breaking flesh as she arched up to him, slick in the coupling. Her hands tried to push him away, her nails digging into his back, the terror of it written into one single keening cry. And then stillness as he waited, engorged, filling her, tightening, the deep pain of loving changing into a different consciousness.

  Her breath came quick now, the dead weight of him pinning her down, unmoving.

  ‘Wait, sweetheart.’ It was all he could say. Wait until we become accustomed to each other. Wait until your body answers. Wait until the waves of response begin.

  And then they did. A slight quiver of flesh, an easing, a softening, the first call of her body as she moved and allowed him a different access. Slowly. Out and in again. Deeper. Faster. Wider. Harder. Again. And again. He prayed that the pain was lessening and changing into some life-filled thrall that was indescribable and heightened. He knew that he had her when her hands came around his back and she held him to her as if she might never let him go.

  She could neither breathe nor think. Every part of her was centred in the place between her legs where he was in her, joined by flesh, the hurt leaving now, not as ragged, and another pain building. A different pain. One that held her stiff and breathless, reaching for what was promised.

  One that made her shake and groan and stretch as his movements quickened, needing the beauty of it, feeling the togetherness of what brought a man and a woman into a single person, nothing between them save the knowledge of each other. His breath against her throat, the movements faster now, reaching up and racing against hope and heat and desperate need.

  And then a release, a melting ache of absolution quivering through the stiffness, widening and deepening, rolling across her stomach inside everything. She shouted out, her voice heard far away, the beaching waves unlike anything she had ever felt or known.