Regency for all Seasons: A Regency Romance Collection

by Mary Lancaster

He withdrew his fingers, drew them to first one nipple, then the other, painting lazy, glistening circles around each. And then he lowered his head to draw them into his mouth. He lingered on the last nipple, tugging with his teeth until she cried out.

  He wanted to prolong their joining for as long as he could. Wanted to make this night last, for the memories of it would be all he had left of her come the morning. He shoved that miserable thought from his mind, unwilling to acknowledge or examine it, for all he wanted in this moment was her, and he could not imagine anything beyond it. Could not fathom ever wanting anyone the way he wanted her, or feeling this soul-deep desire with another.

  Duncan released her nipple, met her gaze once more, falling into mossy brilliance. He knew she was as lost as he was. “I need you.”

  She nodded. “Yes.” Caught his face in her small, elegant hands and drew him to her for a kiss.

  He poured all of himself into that meeting of mouths. Lips. Tongue. She tasted of herself and of raw desire, of the forbidden, of need. Their tongues tangled. Moans rose between them. Hands were everywhere. His. Hers. Traveling, caressing, learning, memorizing, and tantalizing. Her skin was supple, warm and smooth, at once innocent and yet debauched. He could touch her forever. Kiss her forever.

  But a voice inside him reminded him their time was limited.

  He guided her to the center of the bed and joined her there, fitting naturally between her thighs. They kissed, alternating between long and slow and fast and hard. He tore his lips from hers, looking down at her, their ragged breaths mingling to become one, their eyes locked.

  “Are you certain?” he asked, for he would not proceed without knowing she harbored not a single doubt. It did not matter how much he wanted her. He had no wish to be her regret.

  “Yes, Duncan,” she said with aching seriousness.

  Her hands were on his shoulders once more, caressing with bold, tender strokes. She branded him. As long as he lived, he would never forget the sensation of Lady Frederica’s body, willing and lush beneath his, her hungry hands roaming his flesh as though he were someone worthy of her.

  Plainly, he was not.

  But neither was he such a gentleman that he would attempt to dissuade her of the wisdom of her decision—or lack thereof.

  “You want me?” he had to ask again, for some part of him could scarcely credit that Lady Frederica Isling—beautiful, innocent, bold—wanted him, misbegotten illegitimate son who lived a life of sin and decadence.

  That the god of the underworld and the goddess of spring could so meet.

  “You have woken me from a great sleep,” she told him then, her voice vehement, stirring an answering understanding deep within him.

  They were meant to be.

  For tonight, he reminded himself.

  Only for tonight.

  But oh, what a glorious night it would be.

  He kissed her, allowing his entire body to press against hers, from chest to ankle. The delicious fullness of her breasts, her hard nipples, the softness of her belly, the sweet mound of her cunny, the curves of her legs—they were fitted together everywhere. Perfectly.

  Their kiss deepened. Tongues and moans intertwined. Hands roamed. Bodies arched and flexed, accommodating, begging, needing with a desperation that seemed impossible. She had invaded his life for a sennight, and yet, she was all he could think about, see, breathe. She consumed him, and he wanted, in turn, to possess her. He wanted her to never forget the night when a baseborn bastard had given her pleasure.

  He would not last much longer. Not now, not with her tongue in his mouth and their bodies almost joined as one. He reached between them, stroking her flesh as he had learned she liked it. She rewarded him with a breathy sigh, a quick puff of air over her lips. His middle finger worked her nub from side to side, readying her.

  She jerked against him.

  “The time has come, my lady.” He kissed her jaw, her ear, her throat. “I am going to enter you. I will take care not to hurt you, but I have never before had a virgin, and I do not know what to—”

  Her arms wound around his neck and forced his lips back to hers, silencing him. He surrendered easily, readily, kissing her deeply, notching his cock to her entrance.

  “Hush, Duncan. Just take me,” she said against his lips.

  It was all the encouragement he needed. His fingers did one last sweep of her slick flesh, gathering her dew to stroke over his cock. And then he was poised at the center of her. His mouth took hers, tongue delving deep. With an agonizing slowness, he settled the tip of his cock inside her. Testing. Waiting. He had never been more terrified of hurting another in all his life.

  Her hips moved. Her muscles clenched, bringing him deeper. Inch by inch, he entered her. Laboring over it, loving it, savoring every moment of her hot, slick channel swallowing his prick. Yes, sighed every part of him. His hips rolled, and he sank inside her a bit more. Yes. His kisses never wavered as he sank his tongue deep and thrust his cock inside her another infinitesimal increment. Yes. Kiss. Yes. Thrust. Christ, yes.

  She was so tight, so small, engulfing him, claiming him. The squeeze of her internal muscles surprised him. So tough and yet so willing to give, much like the lady herself. One more thrust, and he felt the barrier give. Her maidenhead was gone.

  Gasps stole through the silence of the chamber, his and hers intertwined.

  He stilled, fearing he had caused her pain. Dropped a gentle kiss on her lips before raising his head, his gaze locked on hers. “Have I hurt you, darling?”

  Tears glistened in her luminous eyes, unshed. She caressed his face with more care than anyone had ever shown him. “You could never hurt me, Duncan.”

  Her trust in him was misplaced, but it nevertheless made a hot, stinging burst of gratitude crack open in his chest. The sweetness of her touch undid him. Her surrender, her acceptance, the offering of her body and innocence, all into his care…it was immense. Bigger than he was. He kissed the corners of her eyes, setting the tears free with his lips, licking the salt of her so that this, too, he could forever keep.

  He whispered her name as he moved his hips. Reaching between them, he found her bud, stroking. She responded with a mewl, a tip of her hips. Her muscles grasped him harder, drawing him in, her body welcoming him. Her mouth opened for him. Her tongue dueled with his. She moved beneath him in instinctive rhythm, taking him deeper. Deeper. Deeper.

  And he went with her, moving slowly, claiming her with as much tenderness as he could manage. Until he was fully sheathed inside her, and she was so warm and slick and constricting. He moved, just a tentative glide out then in, and she cried out. He worked her pearl relentlessly.

  Their mouths fused as their bodies joined. Words abandoned him, and so he spoke to her with his kisses, with the leashed savagery of his desire for her. With each stroke, he worshipped her. She stiffened beneath him, and he swallowed her cries as the next wave of release rushed over her. Her cunny tightened with such sudden force he nearly spent inside her. He had never wanted another woman the way he wanted Lady Frederica Isling.

  He moved faster, made his shallow thrusts deeper, and with a low moan of his own, withdrew from her, clenching his cock in his hand as his release hit him. Thick white spurts landed in the bedclothes alongside her as he came so hard his head thundered.

  Duncan fell to his back alongside her, heart pounding as his wits returned in gradual stages. Sweet Christ, he had just taken his first maidenhead, and not just any maidenhead but hers. Frederica’s virgin blood was smeared on his cock like an accusation, marking him. A sickening realization dawned.

  She had been wrong.

  He could hurt her.

  And, inevitably, he would.

  Chapter Thirteen

  She was ruined.

  How odd, for she did not feel ruined. Indeed, save for the soreness between her thighs and the lingering warmth pervading her body as she attempted to restore her wardrobe to some semblance of order, precious little evidence of her fall from grace rem
ained.

  The secret, for now, belonged to her and Duncan alone.

  As if her heart had conjured his touch, his arms wrapped about her waist from behind, hauling her back against his firm chest as if he longed to forever keep her there. Her heart ached as he pressed a reverent kiss to her nape, and then another to her ear.

  “How do you feel, my lady?” he asked, his warm breath brushing the shell of her ear and sending a trill down her spine.

  She allowed herself the luxury of covering his bare hands with hers, her head falling back to rest on his shoulder. In the aftermath of their lovemaking, he had exhibited such exquisite concern for her wellbeing. He had tended to her with a cloth and water, softly cleansing her aching flesh before once more settling his mouth upon her. His tongue had played over her overstimulated sex, and it had not been long before her body was taken once more by beautiful oblivion. She had shuddered beneath him and had fallen briefly asleep in the safe cocoon of his arms.

  But all too soon, reality had intruded, and he had roused her with a chaste kiss. She dressed with a heavy heart, not for what she had done, but for the knowledge she would never again see Duncan Kirkwood. Never again know his touch, his lips, or the delicious weight of his body atop hers.

  “I am well,” she forced herself to answer him at last, attempting a smile she did not feel.

  For how could she carry on with her life, knowing she could never again see him? How could she pretend saying goodbye to him forever would not split her heart in two?

  He kissed her throat, pressing his nose to her skin and inhaling as if he, too, was beset by the same painful musings. As if he was memorizing her scent for when she would be gone, nothing more than a ghost who had flitted into and then out of his life for one charmed sennight.

  “Regrets?” he asked, his lips grazing her as he spoke.

  That we can only ever be together once.

  But she did not dare speak the thought. Did not dare to say the words aloud. She swallowed against a sudden, unwanted rush of tears. “None.”

  Except giving you my heart.

  For she understood as she stood there in the warm glow of his chamber, surrounded by him, his body a hard, protective wall at her back, her body still humming with his possession, his arms around her, his mouth on her skin, that she had fallen in love with him. She had fallen in love with Duncan Kirkwood, a man who was not just unsuitable for her in the eyes of society but one who should be shunned. He was a man she was never meant to know, and yet, having known him—truly known him—she could see the sad hypocrisy of the world she inhabited for the first time.

  She had begun her time at The Duke’s Bastard thinking to write a novel that would condemn men like Duncan Kirkwood, and she was ending it knowing there was no story she could write save the truth. The baron was not the hero at all but the villain. He was not the victim of a cruel gaming hell owner. He was a slave to his own greed. And, like Duncan’s father had done to him, the baron would turn his back on his duty to those he should have protected. The baron would earn his silence.

  And Frederica…she would never forget the man who had changed her forever.

  Duncan kissed her neck, then her cheek. After the wild passion and unimaginable intimacies they had shared, something about his lips on her in such a chaste kiss felt like a confession from him. Or at least the only sort of confession a man like Duncan could willingly give. It occurred to her then how little she knew of him. Just small fragments, tiny pieces, jagged shards to explain the man he had become.

  “Thank you, my lady,” he said, his voice a low, beloved rumble. “You entrusted me with the greatest gift anyone has ever given me.”

  She closed her eyes against the fresh sting of tears. No matter what happened after they left this chamber, they would always have this stolen time together. They would always have the remembrance of the night when she had been Frederica and he had been Duncan, and together, they had been perfect.

  “It is yours. I am…a part of me shall always be yours, Duncan,” she returned when she was certain she could speak without a tremor in her voice to give her away.

  “Do you promise?” There was something in his voice—a hardness, the gritty texture of desperation.

  “Of course.”

  She would have said more, but for the sudden, abrupt rapping on the door. She jumped, jarred from the intensity of the moment to cruel reality. Somehow, she had allowed herself to become so overwhelmed by their idyll that she had not expected the outside world to intrude so soon. But she supposed she ought not to be so surprised, for his club was akin to a living, breathing beast. It needed constant tending.

  He stiffened, his arms tightening around her, almost protectively.

  “Kirkwood!”

  The voice burst through their insulated world, disturbing the last, fleeting moments of their time together. But it wasn’t the interruption itself that made Frederica’s heart thump with painful intensity in her breast. Rather, it was recognition.

  She knew that voice.

  Her brother’s voice.

  “Kirkwood, you lowly miscreant, I demand you open this door at once.”

  Duncan’s hold on her tightened. Behind her, his body too stiffened. “Damn it to hell,” he muttered.

  Though her entire purpose in attending the masque this evening and in slipping away to Duncan’s private chamber with him, allowing him to take her to bed, had been nothing but intentional—a decision she had made the moment she had first laid eyes on those curst lilies from Willingham—shock still claimed her. She had not expected anyone to discover her actions. Indeed, she had relied upon the fact that she alone would hold all the answers when it came to the extent of her downfall. Her plan had been to confront her father with the suggestion she was ruined, to reveal to him the various occasions upon which she had infiltrated The Duke’s Bastard.

  She had been hoping he might see reason at that point. That he would agree she had been compromised beyond all reason, and that she must necessarily withdraw from the marriage mart. She would not be forced to marry the earl, and she would decide where her life would next take her.

  But she understood, as her brother began pummeling the door separating herself and Duncan from the outside world, that her creative mind had perhaps taken liberties. That there would be no graceful means by which she could either extricate or redeem herself from this mess.

  Perhaps there was a small chance he did not know she was within…

  “What have you done with her, you cravenly bastard? I will break down this door if I must.” Her brother’s angry snarl, almost unrecognizable for the angry vehemence of his tone, dismissed that false hope instantly.

  Somehow, Benedict knew she was there. He was deliberately avoiding calling her by name in an effort to salvage what remained of her reputation.

  Duncan kissed her cheek once more. “I am sorry, angel. So very sorry.”

  Then his arms slid away from her, his strength and solidity leaving. She was bereft. Alone. Impossibly cold. She turned to face him, hugging her middle, watching warily as he strode to the door. Why had he apologized?

  *

  Why the hell had Hazlitt set the Marquess of Blanden upon him so soon?

  Duncan reached the door to the sound of her brother’s irate pounding and escalating threats. He had not yet been ready to say his farewell to her. To let her go. And now, he had no choice.

  He must.

  With the sinking weight of sick dread in his gut, he unlatched the door. Blanden stood in the hall, fist raised for another round of furious knocking. He hardened his expression, banishing all emotion, all thoughts, save one: his mother’s broken body. He could do this for her. He owed her this.

  “Ah,” he drawled. “The real Blanden has arrived at last.”

  “There is no other,” the marquess snapped, rudely attempting to shove Duncan out of the doorway.

  He held firm. He was taller, broader, stronger, and a hell of a lot more determined than his lordship. “I
do beg your pardon, my lord, for there has indeed been another Marquess of Blanden here at my club nearly every evening for the last sennight. Though he claimed to be you, I saw through his ruse instantly.”

  “Are you mad or soused, Kirkwood?” Blanden demanded, his tone sizzling with rancor. “I fail to follow your lunatic ravings.”

  “Neither, more’s the pity.” He sneered, looking over the marquess’s shoulder to where Hazlitt stood sentry.

  His man of business’s countenance was grim and disapproving. Duncan gave him a nod, indicating he could leave his post. The marquess, in addition to being boring as a stick, was as weak as a stripling. Duncan would mercilessly crush him in any match of fisticuffs. Hazlitt gave him a meaningful look before bowing and silently departing.

  “I demand entrance to this chamber at once,” the marquess was ordering.

  “Benedict, you must calm yourself.” The quiet, husky voice—the voice that had not long ago wept his name with pleasure—interrupted the impasse. She drew alongside him, pressing a hand to his coat sleeve, her gaze on his part beseeching, part questioning.

  Her eyes slayed him. She was so damned beautiful, a black-haired angel he could not keep. He was not a man given to sentiment, but in that moment, something inside him, a fragile piece of himself he had not realized yet existed, broke into ten thousand tiny, splintered fragments.

  He wanted to reassure her. To tell her all could be explained. But he could not lie. Could not bear to hurt her any more than he already would.

  “Explain what you are doing here, my lady,” growled Blanden, attempting once more to launch himself into the chamber.

  Duncan deflected him with ease, his eyes only for Frederica. “Your faith in me was your downfall, my lady,” he warned softly.

  “Duncan.” She gripped him harder, tears swimming in the brilliant depths of her gaze, as if she were drowning in the sea and he was the last bit of flotsam to which she could cling. “What is the meaning of this?”

  He shook his head. He was not her flotsam. He was not her anything, except for the first man who had known her. Gritting his teeth against the knowledge he was her first but another would be her last, he tamped down the bile and forced himself to speak.