A Most Unusual Duke

by Felicia Greene

  She gasped as he reached for her. He shook as he took her in his arms, holding her so close that she could feel his heart beating. ‘My God, Diana.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You told me you hadn’t… that you and he hadn’t. I should have—I should have listened.’

  ‘You weren’t ready to listen. And I didn’t know the—the nature of his plan.’ Diana squeezed his hands, her chest tight with expectant joy. She was so full of euphoria, dizzy with it, that she half-feared she would lose consciousness. ‘I didn’t know that there was a plan at all.’

  ‘A ridiculous plan.’ Wesley shook his head. ‘But the only one that meant we would be thrown together. I would have ignored any—any attempt to meet.’

  ‘And I wouldn’t have understood any overture apart from the one he chose.’

  ‘I… I have been a disloyal son. A terrible son.’

  ‘No. You haven’t. He understood the way you behaved.’ Diana stroked her thumbs over his palms, hoping against hope that the despair would leave Wesley’s face. Such strange, splendid news couldn’t leave him as melancholy as everything else had. ‘And with this final act… I think he knew that he would earn your forgiveness.’

  It was all too much to take in. Wesley’s world had been upended, leaving him floating—but his face showed happiness, such happiness, alongside the sadness and the pain. The complexity of his sentiments, the rough wrapped inextricably with the smooth, left Diana breathless as he stared at the man she loved.

  A final gift. The gift of reconciliation, for both the living and the dead. A gift that couldn’t make up for the indignities that had been committed during life, but… but it almost, almost absolved them.

  I know that you will both do what is right.

  ‘I love you. I have always loved you.’ Wesley whispered the words, kissing her forehead. ‘I love you more than anything and anyone.’

  ‘And I love you. Can you believe me now?’

  ‘Yes. I should have believed you from the first. The fact that I didn’t will break my heart—as I must have broke yours.’

  ‘But you will mend my heart, and I will mend yours.’ Diana took his hand, squeezing it. His father’s letter crumpled between their two palms, the words smudged with the heat of their skin. ‘We will.’

  She gasped as Wesley kissed her, a new, urgent passion in his voice. ‘We’ll mend it now.’

  It wasn’t the perfect time. No time could ever be perfect to finally meet as husband and wife—it was simply necessary, as necessary as breathing. Harrow couldn’t stop his hands from trembling as he pulled her to him, the floorboards of the attic softer than any feather-bed as they sank down onto them together.

  None of the anger that had moved him in the library was in him now. Only the passion that had nearly overwhelmed him there was in him now, touched with the sense of wonder that he’d felt when he had first met Diana. The feeling of holding a deity in his arms, a goddess—a goddess who had chosen to smile upon him.

  Everything was quiet, close, intimate. No grand gestures were needed—the adjustment of a thigh, a hand, a slow rustle of a skirt. Harrow was ready, deeply ready, and from the quiver he felt through Diana’s body when he touched her, she was ready too. Ready to kiss him, to look at him with the same quiet shock of discovery that he felt when he looked at her.

  With soft, gentle kisses, he made his way along the sinuous line of her body. When he found himself at the meeting of her thighs, the material of her gown cool against his fingers as he pushed it away, Harrow stared with pure longing at the patch of dark curls exposed to him.

  ‘Please.’ Diana’s murmur was fervent with need. Harrow knew what she was asking. ‘Now.’

  ‘Let me make up for lost time a little.’ Harrow kissed her thigh, breathing in the scent of her. The wild, intoxicating perfume of the woman he’d loved, and hurt—oh, Lord, let him redeem himself. Let him love her here and now, and show her the passion he had in him. ‘Please.’

  ‘You can make up for lost time later.’ Diana’s fingers tightened in his hair as she pulled his head up. Her breathless, commanding tone sent a delicious shiver of lust through Harrow as he listened. ‘Our time is now, and—and I want you here.’

  ‘Where is here?’

  ‘Don’t make me say it.’

  ‘Then show me.’ Harrow pushed back down to her thigh. He parted her flushed inner lips with his tongue, tasting the seat of her pleasure with a growl of lust before Diana could pull his head up. Her cry of surprised bliss was music to his ears, sweet, delirious music, before he found himself dragged up by his hair.

  ‘Now.’ Diana moved her hips upward; Harrow gasped as his cock slid between his thighs. Thank God he was here, now, pressing against her entrance. ‘Please.’

  Thank God he was hers, and she was his. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Ohhh.’ Her sigh as he moved in her was his absolution. ‘Yes.’

  They lay together, wrapped hastily in a dust sheet, the attic creaking and whistling as it settled back into its usual silence. Harrow watched Diana intently as she stretched out, smiling in a catlike fashion, idly brushing a lock of hair from her face as she attempted to rise to her feet.

  ‘Come now.’ She laughed softly, pushing his hands away as she reached for her dress. ‘The servants will be wondering where we’ve gone.’

  ‘I don’t care what they’re wondering. We can stay up here forever. We’ll live like bats in the rafters.’

  ‘I don’t think we can count on their ignorance of what we’ve done. Lavinia’s far too intelligent for her own good.’

  ‘Lavinia? The girl who’s always frowning?’ Harrow smiled. ‘Perhaps we’ve given her a reason to smile. We’re married, after all—we’re allowed to be in love.’

  ‘Yes we are.’ Diana smiled, her eyes full of cautious curiosity. ‘Which is why the serious cast to your face concerns me.’

  ‘I just don’t want you to go. Not now.’

  ‘And I’m not going anywhere. I’m merely going to leave the dusty attic for more salubrious climes. The morning room, perhaps. You’re more than welcome to follow me, draw the blinds and begin all over again.’

  ‘I… I don’t know how you could wish to stay with someone who has behaved as I have.’ Harrow stood hurriedly as Diana did, her gown gathered at her waist as she slowly adjusted her underthings. Layers of silk and cotton made a sweet-scented backdrop to her pale skin, her tumbling curls, as she arranged herself into something approaching decency. ‘I really don’t.’

  ‘I can stay quite happily with someone who seeks to ravish me in an attic.’

  ‘You know full well what I mean. I made you go through that terrible wedding. The wedding that you didn’t want.’

  ‘I wanted to be married to you. Please don’t forget that. And I hadn’t told you that the wedding wasn’t as—as modest as I would have wished for.’ Diana smiled. ‘You can hardly blame yourself for that.’

  ‘I can and I do. I should have asked you. I should have read your mind.’

  ‘Reading my mind would be atrocious, and you shouldn’t attempt to try.’

  ‘Understood. I would probably discover the most terrible things about myself.’

  ‘Less terrible than you’d think.’ Diana stroked his face. The potency of his love for her left Harrow briefly wordless. ‘Truly.’

  ‘We can have another wedding. Or another gathering. Exactly to your taste. I’ll annul the marriage, just so we can have the wedding you wished for.’

  ‘That seems a somewhat extreme way to resolve an ultimately unimportant matter.’

  It’s just... I’m sorry. Christ, I’m so sorry.’ Harrow sank to his knees, unable to bear standing over her anymore. He murmured the words into the dust sheet, tears blinding his vision as Diana stroked his hair. ‘More sorry than you can ever know.’

  ‘It is forgiven.’

  ‘How can you forgive me, after how I spoke to you? After how I thought of you?’

  Harrow clutched her apron, the cotton bunch
ed in his fists as he shook his head. ‘I’ve behaved unconscionably.’

  ‘You were angry, and frightened.’ Diana knelt down; Harrow pulled her to him immediately, burying his face in the soft, warm hollow between her head and shoulder. Her scent, her warm sigh of belonging, steadied him as she spoke quietly to him. ‘And I’ve never allowed you to overstep your bounds.’

  ‘Not trusting you was an overstepping of my bounds.’

  ‘And I believe I told you in no uncertain terms what an absolute fool you were being.’ Diana’s soft laughter tickled his ear. ‘Would you like me to repeat it?’

  ‘You can say it to me every night before bed. I need to hear what an idiot I am. My friends don’t tell me nearly enough, and they tell me frequently.’

  ‘I don’t think you need to be told what an idiot you are.’ Diana’s fingers pressed into his back as she held him close. ‘I think you need to be loved. And I think that I need to be told how wonderful I am.’

  Harrow smiled, grateful laughter filling his voice. ‘You are more than wonderful. You are exquisite.’

  ‘I am your wife. I am yours, and you are mine, and we love one another. Nothing else matters, especially anything before this.’ Diana shook her head, her hair soft and perfumed as it brushed against Harrow’s cheek. ‘Nothing at all.’

  ‘Nothing at all.’ He had married the only woman he had ever loved, and she was in his arms. It really was the only thing that mattered.

  THE END

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