by Devon, Eva
Chapter 14
All he wanted to do was worship Penelope’s body and her beautiful soul, no that he'd slipped her free of her garments.
Rafe lowered his mouth to her neck and kissed her skin ever so lightly. He traced his lips along her flesh. Nipping and caressing.
Bloody hell, she felt like bliss against his lips.
Taking his time, he kissed to her breastbone.
His lips lingered at her neck, and he felt the wild beat of her heart.
Her glorious, wonderful heart.
That was how she’d shaken him so. With her full heart and enthusiasm for life.
She was giving herself to him, and it occurred to him that, that actually meant very much.
He gazed down at her, one last self-recrimination skittering through his lust-fogged brain. She was innocent. In almost every sense of the word. “Penelope. . . Perhaps we—”
“I desire this more than anything I’ve ever wished, Rafe. Please, don’t dishonor my wishes.”
The strength of her conviction amazed and awed him. If he ceased now after such a declaration, he would be stopping not for her, but out of his own sense of arrogance.
In answer, he lowered his head to her breast and teased the delicate skin with his lips.
She gasped at his touch.
Ever so slowly, he slid his palm down her waist, then to her hip, and finally to the juncture of her thighs.
A soft breath escaped her lips as she drew him closer.
A self-satisfied smile tilted his lips. In all his life, he’d never known a woman of such fire and self-confidence. And she was here in his bedchamber.
Determined to show her pleasure, he pressed open-mouthed kisses over her ribs and belly. He knelt before her and nudged her thighs apart.
He allowed himself a single glance at her face. Vividly, she studied his actions. There was no fear. Only excitement upon her flushed features.
“Are you about to kiss me again,” she asked, her voice breathy.
“Would you like me to?” he asked, his chest expanding with deep, hungry breaths. Bloody hell, he needed to hear her say it.
“Yes,” she said.
“Whatever my lady commands,” he replied, his voice a low rumble.
“Kiss me, Rafe. Kiss me now.”
Unable to speak now, he positioned himself low, between her thighs, and carefully urged her to spread her legs.
Her beauty astounded him. He stared down at her slick folds, slick for him. She was his undoing and his salvation at once. That thought shook him to his core. . . But there was no going back now.
***
Penelope clasped his linen shirt, seizing his shoulders to keep herself steady.
Her body was ablaze with need. Need to know what so many risked so much for.
Though the pleasure she’d experienced at his kisses was intense, she knew that they would but pale compared to what he was about to do.
The first touch of his tongue caused her to gasp. Her entire body tensed with a jolt of pleasure. He wrapped his hands about her legs, holding her still.
The shocking nature of all this truly struck home as he traced her softly. So softly that she found herself arching her hips towards him.
A deep, pleased rumble met her movement.
A wild cry wrenched from her lips. It was so primal and amazed her so much she bit down on her lower lip.
If anything, her pleasure drove him to pleasure her more, never refraining from his pace or pressure.
She could scarce draw breath.
He lifted his gaze to meet hers.
In that instant, she felt her soul as if it had been set aflame, a fire that would burn for eternity.
Never had she felt anything as powerful as this. His eyes locked with hers and his mouth upon her body.
She could do nothing but keep his gaze as pleasure crashed over, around, and through her.
Even then, he continued. He teased and stroked until every last bit of pleasure had shimmied through her.
Gently, he guided her down to the soft rug before the fire.
Wordless, they stared at each other as if they were discovering new-found lands.
Without doubt, it was the most beautiful moment of her life.
Rafe kissed her again. Deeply, passionately.
As if she could hold him forever, she wrapped her arms about him. There was more. She knew it deep in her soul.
Somehow, it wasn’t enough. She wanted more.
As if he understood this, he took her hand carefully in his, giving her time to draw back. Slowly, he guided her hand downward.
Her fingers skimmed hard male.
This. This was what she desired.
She urged him closer, and he laid her back.
Rafe groaned and rubbed the tip of his shaft up and down along her wet heat. It was delicious and maddening at once.
He thrust forward, and her eyes widened.
Pressure. There was far too much pressure. The feeling was. . . Odd.
He hesitated.
She bit down on her lower lip and lifted her other leg, now hooking them about his back, wishing him to know it was what she wanted even if there was discomfort.
Rocking against her, Rafe eased deeper.
It hurt.
Her entire body felt stretched, but then in one deep push, he was through. The tension vanished from her body, and what had begun to feel like pain turned to more pleasure as he took a slow thrusting rhythm.
Passionately, he cupped her face with his hands and rocked forward.
That intense, wild feeling she’d just known crackled to life again. Once again, she found her gaze locked with his.
The intensity upon his face was a revelation.
As she arched against him, panting for breath, she was amazed by how different this was than her pleasure before.
That had been marvelous.
This joining of bodies was indescribable!
Their bodies began to move in harmony as he thrust deeper inside her core. Then he placed a hand between them and caressed her most sensitive spot.
Her world burst into a cascade of stars as wave after wave of pleasure washed over her again.
With one final deep thrust, Rafe called out her name.
Both struggling to calm their breathing, they rested against each other.
She felt perfect, as if this was the most glorious state one could ever hope to achieve.
They held each other then, and she knew without hesitation that the adventure of her life had begun. . . And that she wished for no one but him upon it.
Chapter 15
In all her life, she’d never gotten so little sleep, and yet Penelope wasn’t tired at all.
Life was absolutely marvelous.
Over the last weeks, most evenings, Penelope had slipped out of the house far after the clock tolled midnight, and met an arranged-for hackney so that she might join Rafe.
Adams awaited her every night to quietly give her unjudging admittance.
Rafe’s townhouse had become a whole new world where every evening was a revelation.
They made love hour after hour, until she felt his body was a land that she had explored and laid claim to, knowing every corner, every muscle, every hard curve.
Then they spoke until the dark hours were threatening the first kiss of morning.
But in those hours that they had, they read each other poetry and novels.
They positively devoured each other’s bodies and seemed to wish to consume everything they could about each other’s minds and hearts too.
It was no simple meeting of flesh.
Every morning, when the sun stretched across her room in the Dowager Duchess of Blackstone’s townhouse, she’d get up, not tired, but feeling completely fresh and awakened.
She and Rafe shared a bond now that filled her with so much happiness, she struggled to believe it was real.
Whenever they spotted each other at dinners or balls, they had a secret smile for ea
ch other.
They would dance one dance, and it would be the most exciting thing that one could ever experience, because they knew that later they would see each other.
Each bare touch, each skim of the wrist, each glance of the eye was a promise for what was to come later that night.
Despite the fact that she had been fighting off the beginnings of some sort of minor ailment for the last week or so, the happiness that filled her now was beyond contemplating.
As she rode her horse through Hyde Park, she grinned at the feel of the wind upon her face.
The weather was slowly changing into summer, and before they all knew it, it would be fall.
Every day seemed better than the last. . . If only she could shake the slight illness that clung to her most mornings.
Really, there was little more that she could have hoped for.
Persephone’s marriage was going well, or at least, so it seemed. Her cousin had gone off to the country with Drake, several of the dukes, and their wives that were their intimate acquaintance.
Rafe was one of them and had only just departed.
She didn’t know how she would pass the next few days without him, but she knew she would only savor him the more upon his return.
And perhaps a few days’ rest would allow her to shed the slightly unpleasant symptoms which had been dogging her as of late.
A few good nights of sleep would do the trick. She was certain. Whether she wished to admit it, so many nights of only a few hours of rest had likely taken their toll.
Yes, that had to be it. There was really little else to explain it.
Mary rode up beside her, quietly having started out late. They rode companionably away from Rotten Row, along one of the more isolated paths.
Mary cleared her throat. “I say, Penelope, are you well?”
Penelope looked at Mary askance. “Of course I’m well. Don’t I look well?”
“Well, you look well enough now,” Mary declared with all seriousness. “But you didn’t look particularly well an hour ago.”
“It is nothing. I simply need to devote a few hours to my bed.”
Mary nodded, but shadows filled her gaze, “You are being careful, are you not?”
“Careful?” Penelope asked, shaking her head.
“Yes, careful,” Mary said firmly, her black-gloved hands tightening on her bridle. “Royland? He’s being careful, is he not?”
Penelope blushed, she didn’t pretend to misunderstand. Yes, they had been careful. It was something that she’d learned. She did understand anatomy, of course.
Her father had believed the sciences to be an important part of her education.
Rafe had mentioned a few things and taken care of what he called precautions.
They’d had great fun since. Optimistic about Rafe’s knowledge, she had not given it much thought.
But suddenly, her stomach began to tighten. “Mary, what ever are you suggesting?”
Mary bit her lower lip. “I don’t wish to alarm you, but I have noticed you’ve been taking afternoon naps, and you’re not feeling particularly well upon rising. You have but tea and toast.”
Penelope nibbled her lower lip. It was true, there was no arguing with it.
My God, she wondered, could it be such a thing?
It was true that almost a month had passed since they had begun their affair. But no. Surely not?
She wouldn’t give such thing credence. Would she?
“Mary,” she said with false bravado. “You are simply being far too concerned.”
Mary did not yield. “Even if he has been using precautions. . . Some couples. . . They’re simply more likely. . .”
Swallowing, Mary rushed, “I’d rather be concerned than ignore it. And I must confess, I have seen my sister-in-law when enceinte, and she behaved rather as you do.”
Penelope swallowed, her mirth dying, and she began to think about all the aches and pains she’d felt over the last week.
She had felt a change in her body, but she had simply assumed it was the beginnings of a cold.
Surely, surely, Mary was wrong.
No, she wouldn’t give it another thought.
All would be well, and that was that.
Chapter 16
Except, all was not well.
A few days more passed with Penelope feeling more exhausted and more nauseous each day.
And then, worst of all, her dear friend, Persephone, had returned from London quite distraught.
She’d received a summons to come and stay, and given her own wish to disappear from society for a while, Penelope had happily gone.
Persephone had taken a small, but elegant house on the river.
Much to Penelope’s horror, her friend and her husband, the Duke of Drake, had separated.
Rafe had not come back yet from the countryside.
Penelope could barely hide her growing sense of alarm.
All had been going so well. Now it seemed as if everything was careening towards disaster.
Her symptoms had grown so severe she’d had no choice but to summon a discreet doctor, who had confirmed her circumstances.
Just she and said fellow knew of her state. At present, she could not bring herself to tell a single soul. She was still trying to understand her own feelings about the realization.
She was going to be a mother.
And she was being faced with the consequences of her actions.
There was really little that she could argue with.
She was with child.
She’d enjoy the act of it, and now she had to pay for it.
And it might be a terrible cost, but it was what she had chosen.
There was one thing that she knew for certain: Rafe would not abandon her, as he had promised.
She would not ask him to marry her.
That was not part of their agreement, but she knew that he would take care of her and their child. And that was enough.
Truth be told, even though it meant a complete scandal, she already felt an affinity for the small person growing inside her. It had been a most astonishing feeling that first tug of. . . love.
All would be well, and she would not have to worry. Still, she was nervous about the conversation she would have with Rafe. She did not wish him to think that she was trying to trap him into marriage.
Still, it had been he who had taken care of all the precautions as he put it. Penelope looked over at her friend, who was contemplating her tea and scone morosely.
The poor dear had been most put out for the last few days after coming back from a fierce argument with Drake.
Penelope put aside her own worries. How she longed to lift her cousin’s spirits. “Persephone, it will all be well in the end.”
Persephone frowned. “So you say, but I cannot help thinking of him alone and suffering, and—”
Penelope reached out across the small breakfast table and took her cousin’s hand. “Well, you are alone and suffering.”
“No, I’m not,” Persephone protested, her eyes red. “I’m here with you, a good friend.”
“That’s true. But don’t you think Drake has friends?” Penelope pointed out. “Rafe is a good friend of his.”
“Rafe,” Persephone said softly before she lifted her watery eyes to Penelope’s.
She shifted slightly in her chair, realizing how familiar a term that was to call a duke. “Yes, Rafe.”
“Are you two friends?” Persephone queried.
Penelope bit the inside of her cheek, not wishing to add to her cousin’s worries. “We have become friends.”
“I see.” Persephone squeezed her hand, before her lips parted in a careful smile. “Do you like him?”
“Yes, I do, very much.”
Persephone merely nodded her head. Then clearly lost in her own thoughts, she looked away.
“It will improve,” Penelope insisted, her heart heavy for her cousin.
“Will it?” Persephone lamented. “He was most cross
when I left. And I had to leave. I could no longer bear the lies.”
“People seem to lie a great deal, but they do it for many reasons,” Penelope pointed out. “Often, I find they don’t wish to hurt others.”
Persephone sighed then arched a defiant brow. “True, but could you live like that?”
The truth was Penelope was already living like that, keeping secrets from almost everyone. She was about to say something of the kind when Persephone suddenly stood and left the room, clearly needing a moment to herself.
Left alone, Penelope nibbled on the tip of her scone, but then decided she didn’t feel like eating at all.
How was she going to hide such a thing from her friend?
She would have to find a way, that was for certain.
She gazed to the windows and looked out at the river rolling on, a river that had rolled for thousands of years peacefully, placidly, powerfully, with little thought to the humans who used it.
There was nothing for it.
She needed to write Rafe, and to write him immediately. He needed to come. For, at least, he needed to know the circumstances. There was no getting around it.
She couldn’t hide from what needed to be done any longer.
So, she stood, put down her napkin, and headed towards her room, readying herself to pick up quill and set the summoning to paper.
She prayed he would come immediately.
After all, they were friends, were they not?
More than friends.
They were lovers.
And right now, her heart ached for him.
***
Rafe rode wildly from the castle that had been his home since childhood, his heart, dark and heavy.
What the devil was he to do with himself?
The secret that he carried now was far too much to bear, but he could not share it with anyone.
Could he?
Could he share it with his friends as Drake had shared his? Would it take the deep heaviness off of him?
It had been a relief when he’d received a letter from Penelope, asking him to return to London.
Once, he’d loved going home to the family castle.
Now?
Now, he only went out of obligation.
And he was regretting having chosen to stop there on his way back to Town.
He hated staying with his family, but he’d felt the need to visit. It was so difficult visiting, seeing his mother, distressed as she was.
