What Desire Demands, My Duke: A Steamy Historical Regency Romance Novel

by Olivia T. Bennet

Her grin transformed into a scowl. “Are you saying that I’m lying?”

  A smile flashed across his face before he wrapped his arm around her and rolled her onto her side, facing her away from him. “Sleep, Beth,” he murmured. “So that morning may come where I may tell you how beautiful you are and that I love you all over again.”

  Happiness exploded within her at his words. Elizabeth tried to contain it by doing as he said, by closing her eyes and willing herself to sleep. But as his words played over constantly in her head, she could not fall asleep until she heard his gentle breathing playing over her ear.

  Chapter 18

  The next morning brought a whole new host of pain with it. William’s entire body ached from last night’s altercation but the moment he realized that Elizabeth laid sleeping in his arms, he no longer noticed the pain.

  Somehow, she’d managed to roll over so that her body was facing him. Her head was lying on his chest, her hair fanned out around her. The golden halo, coupled with the slackness of her sleeping face and softly fluttering eyelashes, rivaled the gentle snore she let out with each exhale. It brought laughter to his lips, but he stifled it as much as he could, not wanting to wake her.

  William tried to shift his body upwards, to get a better look at her beautiful face, but the moment he moved, she did as well. Elizabeth raised a hand to her nose and rubbed lightly, her lips opening and closing a few times as her body slowly pulled out of sleep. Entertained, William waited patiently for her to open her eyes.

  When she did, their eyes met. Elizabeth’s brows furrowed for a moment, then she looked up as if to figure out where she was.

  “Good morning,” William drawled, watching as realization dawned on her face. “I take it you slept well?”

  “I slept here all night?” she gasped, sitting up. Her silvery-blond hair tumbled around her shoulders the moment she did, her brown eyes wide as saucers. “Heavens, what was I thinking?”

  “That I am irresistible, and you could not help yourself?” William suggested.

  “I must have been out of my mind,” she sighed. “It is already well past dawn. How will I sneak back to my bedchamber without any of the servants being any wiser? Goodness, Minnie is probably wondering where I am right now.”

  “If that’s the case then it’s far too late for you to be worrying. The damage has already been done.”

  Elizabeth cut him a soft glare. “You are not helping in the slightest.”

  “Good,” he said, pleased. He put an arm behind his head. “It was not my intention to.”

  Elizabeth scoffed and proceeded to get out of bed. William was crossed between keeping her by his side and enjoying the sight of her backside as she turned away from him. He settled for the latter, feeling those familiar tendrils of arousal course through his body.

  Last night, it had taken all the strength in his body to keep from going any further. He’d wanted so badly to take her and make her his, to let himself be tempted by not only her nakedness, but the way she’d opened up to him about her scars. He’d felt closer to her than he ever had before and had wanted to feel the same way with their bodies. It was a miracle he’d been able to step away.

  Now, that same temptation rushed through him as she sighed and put her hand on her hips. A part of him wondered if she would be embarrassed by what had happened, if she would grow flustered and try to run away like she’d done last time. But no redness shadowed her cheeks, no tears in her eyes or shaking of her hands. She seemed quite concerned, actually, still ruminating on how she would make it to her bedchamber without having any of the servants know. William felt his heart expand at the sight, knowing how comfortable she finally was with him.

  He felt the exact same way, but he couldn't show it to her until he told her the truth of why he’d left.

  “If you’d like,” William said, watching as she looked over her shoulder at the sound of his voice, “if you’d like, I could bring all the servants to one place as if I’d like to speak with them. Then you could sneak back on your own.”

  Elizabeth whirled to face him, brows raised. “Would you do that?”

  I’d do just about anything for you.

  “If you wish,” he confirmed with a grin.

  Elizabeth’s face filled with joy before her shoulders sagged and she shook her head. “No, there is no use going through all that trouble for me. I was brave enough to come all the way here in the first place, so I should be brave enough to return there knowing that others might assume what has happened.”

  William got out of the bed and went to her side. Without hesitation, he planted a kiss on her forehead. “I’ve always admired your bravery. You’re a stronger person than I.”

  Elizabeth huffed a laugh, rolling her eyes at him. But she didn’t move away from him. “Where shall we have breakfast this morning?”

  William thought about it for a moment. “In my study,” he said finally. “There is something I’d like to show you anyhow.”

  “Hm? What’s that?”

  William kissed her again, right on the slight crease between her brows. “When the time comes, you shall know, Beth. Now, you should hurry along.”

  Elizabeth sighed softly, nodding her head before stepping away. She made her way up to the door, and right before she slipped through, she gave him one last look. Though it was brief, William recognized what it meant.

  She wished to make sure that it hadn’t all been a dream, that he hadn't changed his mind again.

  She left before he could tell her that nothing in this world would cause him to make the same mistake twice.

  About forty-five minutes later, William arrived at his study to find Elizabeth already standing outside the door, alongside Harold. As usual, the butler stood with his back straight and his arms clasped behind him, his gaze trained unseeingly over Elizabeth’s shoulder.

  “What is this?” William asked, drawing nearer.

  Elizabeth turned to face him. “I was just asking Harold to have a physician come back later in the morning to take a look at your wounds.”

  “There are no wounds to look at,” William sighed.

  “You were nicked by a knife,” she pressed. “We shouldn’t ignore things like that no matter how small and inconsequential they might be. Do you not agree, Harold?”

  Harold nodded once. “Yes, My Lady.”

  William blinked in surprise. Harold was as loyal as an old dog, so even though he’d expressed his concern for William last night himself, William hadn’t expected him to join forces with Elizabeth. William stared at Harold, but his butler’s face was as unmoving as always.

  “There you have it, William,” Elizabeth said, satisfied. “Harold has spoken. I take it, you have no more objections?”

  “I do,” he said, dragging his eyes away from Harold to the small lady standing before the door of his study. “But I have a feeling that it will make no difference if I bother to voice them.”

  All Elizabeth did was smile sweetly at him.

  William sighed again, though his heart expanded at the beauty of such a smile. “Very well, then, Harold. Do what the lady says.”

  Harold bowed. “Yes, Your Grace.”

  “However, once I am through with breakfast, you and I should have a little talk.”

  He bowed again. “I look forward to it, Your Grace.”

  Surprise rushed through him once more as he watched Harold take his leave. Elizabeth took his hand, catching his gaze.

  “Come,” she said. “The meal has already been brought inside.”

  William allowed her to lead him inside, still baffled by Harold’s actions. “I see you and Harold have grown quite close.”

  “Not particularly,” Elizabeth said, making her way over to the armchairs to the left of the room. “I believe we have found a common theme of interest however.”

  “And that is?”

  “Our concern for you.” She sank into a plush armchair and instantly reached for a cup of tea. The meal was spread out on the end table sitting
between the rows of chair, with enough food to feed five people. William, without thinking, reached for the bowl of porridge and began to eat, watching as Elizabeth daintily sipped her tea.

  “I don’t think you realize, William,” she continued when she noticed him staring, “just how worried you made us when you came home last night. Even now I cannot help but fear for you seeing how much darker your bruises have become.”

  He touched his face. Indeed, he’d caught sight of his image in the looking glass in his bedchamber and had grimaced at how nasty it looked. “Yes, I suppose it would warrant some concern.”

  “Some?” she echoed, raising a brow. “When I think about what could have happened if things had not gone the way they had, it feels as if stones are sinking into the pit of my stomach. I’m only grateful that you made it out without any serious harm.”

  “As am I,” he murmured truthfully. He hadn’t expected to begin breakfast with a lecture from her, but he supposed he deserved it. He had acted a bit rashly, though he was not completely certain how else he could have gotten out of such a situation. “Enough about that,” he said. “There is something I would like to speak with you about.”

  Elizabeth lifted her eyes to his, filling with curiosity. “What is it?”

  Suddenly, he felt nervous. Last night, she’d been tentative to show him her scars, to let him see her insecurity. Now, William felt the very same way. “It is about why I left you seven years ago.”

  Elizabeth straightened, quickly putting down her cup. She bore her gaze into him, intent. “Will you finally tell me?”

  “I do not think it would be right of me to withhold that information any longer. Not to mention the fact that you are likely to hound me about it whenever you get the chance.”

  She scooted to the edge of her seat. “Please, go ahead.”

  William’s flaccid joke hung in the air before he sighed. Steeling himself, he began, “I am not sure where I should start. I suppose it is best to begin from the day my mother died, though it truly started when my father left England.”

  “I remember her,” Elizabeth murmured. “She’d always been so kind to me.”

  “She was very fond of you,” he went on, his stomach churning. Whenever he pictured his mother’s smiling face and happy green eyes, he felt sick to his stomach. “She would always tell me that when I became old enough, I should do whatever I could to treat you right. She told me that a gentleman should always take care to put the happiness of his lady first.”

  “She...she knew about us?”

  “She suspected, but I never got the chance to truly tell her how I felt about you back then. Now that I remember her words, I feel even more terribly for how I’ve treated you.”

  “I’m sure you had your reasons,” she said gently. Elizabeth’s eyes were kind as she urged him to continue.

  William drew in a shuddering breath. He kept eating, taking small bites so that it was difficult to speak. He didn’t know why he was doing so, considering he could not taste anything that went into his mouth, but he continued all the same.

  “The day my mother passed away was the day I lost a piece of myself. It had only been two months after the passing of Lady Gillet. Mother had always been such a jovial lady. Because her husband was not around, she would surround herself by friends and other family. She would never allow herself to be alone and I truly believed that she was happy. That was...until I found her dead in her bed with an empty bottle of laudanum on the bedside table.”

  Elizabeth gasped, her hand flying to her lips. William was already far too lost in the past to pay much attention to it.

  “There was a box lying beside her, with papers scattered all around it. They were letters she’d written to my father but never sent. I don’t know if she’d been too afraid to send them, or perhaps she simply did not know where to address them to, because none of them had any. But the letters spanned the years, and upon reading a few of them, it was clear she wished for him to come back. She told him how much she loved him, how much she wished he would return so that they could be a family again. But the letter I’d found in her hand had been far more important than all the others.”

  He swallowed, remembering the scribbles that had brought tears and anger to the fore. Now, the tears were long gone but the anger was the same.

  “It was a letter from my father. In summation, he’d told her all the things she did not want to hear. That he would not be returning. That he was enjoying himself in India and that she should take a lover because he was doing the same. He did not ask how I fared, nor anything about me, but simply went on to talk about himself. I believe that letter was what drove my mother to take her own life. But, of course, when my grandfather learned of how she died, he made sure to cover up the reason so as not to bring more shame to the family. And I…I couldn’t bring myself to tell anyone. Not even you.”

  “Oh, William, I’m so sorry.”

  He didn’t have to look up to know that Elizabeth’s eyes were filled with tears. He went on, not caring to stop. “Finding her body and that letter began an entire host of events. My father finally returned to England once he learned of my mother’s death, but he showed no remorse. It clearly didn’t matter to him that his wife had passed away, nor did he care that his son was so distraught at having found her first. As soon as he was back in England, he began to take lovers again, and began gambling away whatever riches he had left. It had caused such stress to my grandfather that it caused him to fall ill. That sickness claimed his life only a year later.”

  The next part stuck in his throat, bringing back a wave of sickening emotions he’d tried his hardest to be rid of. But William had learned long ago that this was part of his life he would never be able to forget.

  “I hated him,” he stated bitterly. “With everything in me, I despised my father. I believed he was the reason for my mother taking her life, and he was the reason for every other bad thing to happen to me. But I was weak. When he returned to England, I gave in to that hatred, using it to help forget how sad I was at my mother’s passing.”

  He could feel bits of that familiar rage right now, but it didn’t last under Elizabeth’s gentle gaze.

  “I was so…angry. My grief transformed into something terrible, something evil, and I wasn’t thinking properly. Most of my rage was directed at my father, but he was rarely ever home. Returning to England meant he spent all his time in the clubs, wasting away our wealth. And so, I took my anger out on everyone else around me—including my grandfather. I…he…”

  He didn’t know how to say it, how best to reveal what had happened without making Elizabeth hate him. Even though her eyes were tender, he was afraid they would become unyielding and hard once he managed to tell her the full truth of his misdeeds.

  “I fell into a bad crowd and no matter what he said, I would not listen to him. Rather, I would spend my time in the London slums, surrounding myself with gang men who stole and killed for a living. My grandfather caught wind of the things they would do, believing I’d gotten caught up with such things myself. One night…he went out himself to find me, intending to drag me home. But the men I’d considered my friends saw him as a perfect victim to rob and…they did just that. Once they’d learned of my status as a noble, they turned on me as well, but I knew not to bring valuables along with me when I went to such areas. They attacked me nonetheless, beat me until I was powerless to stop them from turning on my grandfather.”

  “Oh, William,” Elizabeth murmured gently.

  Tears pricked William’s eyes but he chased them away, forcing himself to continue. “They took no mercy on him. They stole everything he had on his person, then attacked him as viciously as they did me. I wanted to help, wanted to protect him, but a few of the men had me pinned down so that I couldn’t move. So I had to watch as they maliciously beat my grandfather until he stopped moving. Only a few months after my mother had passed away, so did the only other person in my life who cared for me.” He drew in a shuddering breath, l
etting it out through his nose. “It broke me. I became nothing but a shell of my former self, a ghost weighed by the death of my family. And I was left with that cur of a man who only cared about the inheritance my grandfather had left behind.”

  It hadn’t taken his father very long to go through the inheritance, wasting it away on cards and women. William supposed he had only one thing to be grateful to his father for—marrying his stepmother.

  “Nearly two years after, he met Lady Lily, the daughter of the Duke of Brandon. She, for some reason I fail to see, fell in love with my father and he saw an opportunity and took it. I could not believe how much luck such a horrible man had, how he managed to not only secure himself new wealth, but also secured the Prince Regent’s blessing to have the Dukedom reverted to him. He didn’t deserve any of it, but I could do nothing but watch as he grew more prestigious before my very eyes, hating him every second.”