Guilty Series

by Laura Lee Guhrke

  Daphne cleared her throat. “You have returned.” Such an inane thing to say, but she could not seem to form the coherence of thought required to say anything more. She rose to her feet as he came inside, hugging herself against the frigid air that came with him.

  He shut the door and flattened back against it, his body and his face still in darkness. “And you are still here,” he said wearily. “I did not think you would be. December twenty-third was supposed to be your last day, was it not?”

  He had not even intended to say good-bye. Daphne pulled all her emotions into a tight, hard knot of pride. “I am leaving for Long Meadows tomorrow. I will spend Twelfth Night there, then the Fitzhughs shall take me to your sister’s home in Chiswick on their way to town.”

  He made no reply, and as the silence grew, so did her emotions. Provoked by his silence, she said, “What, no temptations to make me stay, your grace? No talk of our friendship and my beautiful eyes?” Her voice cracked. “No farewell and good wishes for a faithful member of your staff?”

  He shoved away from the door and started toward her, a shadow of black and gray. “God, Daphne, what do you think?” he demanded as he circled the table to stand behind her. “That I am made of stone?”

  “Is that not what you think I am made of?” she countered and tried to step around the table, but he would not let her.

  His hand came down on her shoulder, and the other touched the side of her face, brushing a tendril of hair back from her cheek. “No, not stone,” he answered, pressing against her back. “I think you are like a truffle.”

  “Thank you for comparing me to a mushroom,” she said, unfolding her arms and moving to step the other way.

  He put his other hand on her other shoulder to keep her where she was, and his laughter blew warm breath against the side of her face. “Not the vegetable,” he said, and kissed her cheek. “A chocolate truffle. A concoction of soft, sweet, delicious things hidden inside a hard, paperboard box.” He lowered his hands to reach for hers. “A frozen truffle, I fear. Your hands feel like ice.”

  The heat of his body behind her was making her warm. She wanted to be cold.

  “Let me warm you.” He let go of her hands and turned her around. He reached up and took away her spectacles. Folding the pair, he put them in the pocket of her apron. He cupped her face in his hands, then he bent his head, and kissed her, but she turned her face away.

  “I tried to stay away,” he said, pressing quick kisses to her lips, her cheek, her forehead, her chin. “Because if I came back to say good-bye, I would not be able to stop myself from doing this. Daphne, you have been like a shadow beside me for six long weeks, and everywhere I went, I could see you. I am not made of stone. I am just a man, and God help me, I cannot stop wanting you. Do not torture me anymore.” His tongue ran across the crease of her lips. “Kiss me back.”

  Her lips parted beneath his, and she closed her eyes, groaning into his mouth. So long. He had been away so long, and she had forgotten how it felt to have his mouth on hers.

  She seized the folds of his cloak in her fists, pulling him closer. In response, he deepened the kiss, tasting her with his tongue. She wrapped one arm around his neck, and tangled the fingers of her other hand in the thick, short strands of his hair.

  He broke the kiss, pulling back to look at her, his expression in the moonlight strangely resolute. “Say my name,” he ordered, lowering his hands to tug at the ties of her apron. He pulled the bows apart two at a time. “Anthony.”

  “Stop giving me orders, duke,” she said, rising up on her toes to recapture his mouth. “Don’t ruin it.”

  He pulled the pieces of her apron away and tossed them over her head onto the table behind her.

  She heard a rocking sound, followed by a shattering crash, and she knew he had just smashed that priceless ancient vase to smithereens. Her last day’s work wasted. She began to laugh against his mouth. “You broke it.”

  “What was it?” he asked, tearing away from her kiss to bury his face against the side of her neck.

  “Samarian vase,” she gasped, “made at Trier. Priceless.”

  He jerked at the ribbon of his cloak, and the heavy garment slid from his shoulders to land on the floor. “I shall mourn the loss tomorrow.” He pressed kisses against her throat. “Say it.”

  Daphne ran her hands along his torso, savoring the hard muscles beneath his clothes, feeling the excitement of all their past bargains. “And if I do, what do you offer me in exchange, your grace?”

  “What do you want?”

  She thought of that fresco, of that man and woman, his hand on her breast, their bodies locked together, and she decided it was time for her to start being honest with herself about what she felt and what she wanted. “The same thing you do,” she answered and reached for his cravat, but her inexperienced fingers could not loosen the tight, intricate knot.

  “Let me do it.” He made short work of the neckcloth, and it fluttered to the floor. He removed his waistcoat, then pulled off his shirt.

  Daphne stared at him. No view through a spyglass, this. She reached out to touch his chest, and found that he was not cold beneath her hands. His muscles were hard like stone, but warm. He did not move, but she could feel his gaze on her face as she studied him in the silver light and traced with her fingers every line and shadowed contour she had so often drawn with her pencil. She flattened her palms against the chiseled muscles of his abdomen and leaned forward to press a kiss to his breastbone.

  He stifled a groan and grasped her wrists. “Enough,” he said. “Now, say it.”

  She did not want to. Oddly enough, it seemed too intimate, even as she kissed his naked chest, she did not want to say his name and evoke all the feelings of her lovesick former self. This moment was no fantasy view through a spyglass. This was real, and the feelings coursing through her body spoke of desire, not love, not even infatuation. Her body ached for him. She lifted her gaze to his. Wordless, she reached for his hand, held it in her own, touched it to her breast.

  Anthony opened his hand over her, and she made a faint sound of surprise. Oh, the exquisite sweetness of it, spreading through her body like warm honey. He shaped and cradled her breast against his palm, and that warmth became a desperate longing that made her ache. She leaned into his hand, wanting more.

  She did not get it. He pulled away, but before she could protest this abandonment, she felt his hands at her bodice, and he was undoing the buttons of her dress.

  When they were unfastened, Anthony tugged the edges of her dress down her arms and pressed kisses to her neck just above the low neckline of her chemise. “My name,” he said against her skin. “I will have you say it.”

  She knew they were about to engage in the most intimate thing a man and woman could do, but she could still not bring herself to say his name. She shook her head and put her hands on his hips, pulling him closer.

  He brushed his fingertips back and forth over the bare skin at the tops of her breasts, and Daphne moaned, reaching behind her to grasp the edge of the table as her knees began to give way. He pulled back the edges of her gown, then unbuttoned her chemise, baring her breasts fully to the cool air, then covering them with the warmth of his hands.

  Daphne could hear herself making inarticulate sounds as he shaped her breasts in his hands, each caress of his fingers making her burn with need, a need that made her arch closer to him. She rocked her hips against his thighs, and the contact sent shafts of pleasure through her body.

  The contact seemed to spark something in him. He slid the gown and chemise back from her shoulders, then reached down, grasping folds of her skirt and petticoat in his fists and pulling them up around her waist. Cold caressed her bare legs above her stockings, and his hands burned against her bare buttocks as he lifted her onto the table.

  She felt the shape of his phallus hard and aroused against the outside of her knee as his fingertips glided along the sensitive skin of her inner thigh.

  “Yes, yes,” she m
oaned instead of his name, leaning back, resting her weight on her hands, his feather-light touch making her hips jerk in response. The sanded surface of the table felt like satin beneath her. Her dress strained against her arms, the braid edging cutting sharply into her skin, but she did not care.

  He bent down, unbuttoning more of her gown and tugging up the hem of her chemise. He kissed her belly, a hot, wet kiss over her navel, as his fingers moved farther down to touch her in a place she could not even name, each caress sending shards of indescribable pleasure through her. He knew it, too, knew what she wanted better than she did, for he was tormenting her with his relentless demand. “Say my name,” he breathed against her skin. “Say it, Daphne. Say it.”

  He touched her with his thumb, and that tiny movement unlocked something inside her, released all the repressions and restraints she had imposed on herself ever since she had first met him. With the force of a river breaking through a dam, pure, indescribable pleasure rushed through her, and she could no longer stop herself from giving him what he wanted. “Anthony,” she cried, “oh, please, oh, yes, yes.”

  He heard his name amid the almost incoherent rush of other sounds that came from her, pleas and sighs and moans that told him more clearly than any words what his touch was doing to her. God, she was sweet. So, so sweet.

  Anthony caressed her until she climaxed a second time, then he moved between her thighs. If he held back any longer, he would explode. He tore at his trousers, undoing buttons with frantic haste, then he moved between her thighs, spreading them farther apart.

  “Daphne,” he said, sliding his hands behind her shoulders, pulling her to a sitting position. She slid to the edge of the table, and the feel of her, moist and inviting against the tip of his penis drove away any thought but the need to possess her. With one hard thrust, he entered her.

  She cried out, and he knew he had hurt her. He stilled, but she wrapped her arms around his neck and tightened her legs around his hips, pulling him deeper into her, and he lost any semblance of sanity. He touched her breasts, kissed her face, and murmured words to arouse her without knowing what he was saying as he drove into her again and again, pushing himself to the edge of oblivion. When he climaxed, he went over that edge, falling into a white-hot heaven of pure sensation.

  It was only afterward, when they were lying on the table, when he had one arm wrapped around her and the other beneath her head as a pillow, only when his cloak covered them both and his body was pressed to hers to protect her from the cold—it was only then that he came to his senses, reminding himself of the inevitable consequences of what he had just done.

  Chapter 20

  Daphne felt him get up, and she opened her eyes. The hint of dawn that came in through the windows enabled her to see him standing beside the table, his back to her.

  She lifted herself onto an elbow and stared at his bare back. He was so close that she did not need her spectacles to see him clearly, so close that she could touch him. How wide his shoulders were, she thought, and how they tapered to hips narrower than hers. From her first sight of him at the excavation, she had known what an appealing sight a man could be without his shirt. Such strength, and yet he had held her so gently, touched her so exquisitely. Without the warmth of his body, the room was freezing cold, but just thinking about what had happened only a short while ago was enough to keep her warm. It was enough to make her smile.

  With a huge yawn, she sat up, pushing aside his cloak to pull the sleeves of her dress back into place on her shoulders.

  “I thought you were asleep,” he said, without turning to look at her.

  “No.” She moved her legs astride his hips and wrapped her arms around his waist. She felt feminine, beautiful, and absurdly happy at this moment, content with the world and everything in it. How delightful that coupling with a man could do that to a woman. It was an extraordinary thing.

  She laid her cheek against his back, and suddenly she realized how rigid he was in her embrace. She lifted her head with a frown. “Anthony?”

  He pulled away from her, giving her the barest glance as he bent to pick up his shirt from the floor. “Are you—” He broke off as he straightened and pulled his shirt on. Then he faced her, cleared his throat, and looked away again. “I hurt you,” he muttered, staring out the window into the dim gray light. “Forgive me. I did not mean to do that.”

  Was that what was making him so uncomfortable? It had hurt, but only a little, and only for a moment. “Oh, no,” she hastened to reassure him, sliding down from the table. She laid a hand on his arm. “There was nothing to that. I am perfectly well, Anthony.” She lowered her gaze to his chest, and the sight made her flustered and a bit shy, but venturesome, too.

  “In fact, I feel quite wonderful,” she confessed, smiling, her hand straying to his chest. Her fingertips touched his warm skin where his shirt was not yet buttoned. She looked up at him, hoping he would take the hint.

  He did not. His mouth tightened, and he bent down to retrieve his waistcoat from the floor.

  She watched him for a moment. “Anthony, please do not distress yourself on my account. My discomfort was insignificant.”

  He barely glanced at her as he put on his waistcoat. “I am relieved to hear it.”

  She felt an uneasy disquiet setting in. She turned her back and began to straighten her clothes, buttoning her chemise, then her gown. Both of them were silent as they dressed. When they had finished, he rested his hands on her shoulders for a moment, and she stiffened beneath his touch. He moved away and bent down to pick up his cravat. She turned around, watching as he pulled up the high collar of his shirt, slid the cravat around his neck, and began to tie it.

  “Anthony, what is wrong?”

  He finished tying the neck-cloth, then took her hand in his, lifted it to his lips and kissed it. “I take full responsibility for this,” he told her, and let go of her hand. “You need not fear for your future.”

  She stared at him in bewilderment, for she was not in the least afraid. “My future?”

  He picked up his coat from the floor. “We will be married after the banns have been properly posted. The ceremony will be here in the ducal chapel, if that is acceptable to you. If you prefer the parish church, simply tell me so.”

  Anthony was offering to marry her? She could not quite believe she had heard him right. He sounded so dispassionate, Daphne was not quite sure if she had just received a proposal of marriage or a comment on the weather. The delicious afterglow of their blissful experience was now completely gone.

  He put on his coat, turned away from her and walked to the window. “Until the wedding, you must stay elsewhere,” he said, staring out into the gray darkness. “Enderby will suffice. It would not do for you to be here. I will explain the situation to Viola. Due to the breadth of social difference between us, you will be the subject of gossip, and I regret that, but it cannot be helped.”

  He fell silent, standing with his back to her, the dawn light that outlined his profile hazy and indistinct to her eyes. She did not understand why he was talking of marriage now, but she remembered his words to his sister about never marrying for love, and she knew that one question had to be answered before she could even consider marrying him.

  She took a deep breath. “Have you fallen in love with me, then, that you wish to marry me?”

  He turned his head, but he did not quite look at her. “You must know by now that I have—that I have come to have—a strong, and very passionate desire for—attraction, I should say, to you.”

  “I see.” Daphne did not know the proper etiquette of refusing a marriage proposal, since such an event had never come her way, but she felt she should at least be able to see him clearly when she did refuse. She leaned down and pulled her spectacles from the pocket of her apron, which still lay on the floor. She put the spectacles on, then walked to his side and laid a hand on his arm. “Desire, as wonderful as it is, Anthony, is not enough. I will not marry you.”

  “We have no
choice now.” He did not look at her. “I took that away from both of us just now.”

  “You talk as if I had no control over any of this. This was a mutual decision, Anthony, for my feelings are comparable with yours. I, too, have a strong and passionate desire for you, but that is all. Without love, I see no reason to marry you.”

  He turned to face her, and in his expression there was no hint of affection for her, only a resolute determination to have his way, an expression she was coming to know quite well. “You should realize by now that you do not have a choice in this. We must marry. There is nothing else to be done.”

  “The musts and shoulds of your life do not apply to me, your grace,” she said, her voice as cool as his. “I understand that marriage is the accepted mode in situations such as this, but there are alternatives. No one knows of this but us. I shall go to London, just as I intended to do, and—”

  “That is out of the question. You may very well be carrying my child. What of that?”

  God in heaven, she had not even thought of a child. Her hand fluttered to her abdomen, and something sparked inside of her, a mixture of emotions. A wistful sort of hope and fear, and a sense of her own duty, and the courage not to have her destiny or that of her child dictated by circumstances.

  “We do not know if there will be a child,” she answered him. “Besides, you are an honorable man. I know you would take care of us and see that we are provided for. Illegitimate children of men such as yourself do not suffer any great setbacks in life, your grace.”

  “God, Daphne, what are you saying? That I make you my mistress?”

  Before she could make any answer to Anthony’s question, he answered it for her. “You cannot be my mistress. If that were possible, there are arrangements I could make for you, a house in the country, an income, but it is out of the question.”

  “You seem quite familiar with the appropriate arrangements for mistresses.” A thought struck her, and she looked at him. “Do you have one now? A mistress, I mean?”