The Unclaimed Duchess

by Jenna Petersen

  “Anne,” he groaned as she glided her mouth down his shaft once again. “Anne, move over me. Place yourself over my mouth and let me taste you.”

  That stopped her movement. She slowly withdrew his cock from her lips. The soft breeze moved over his hard, wet member and his eyes rolled back in his head from the shocking and pleasurable sensation.

  “Is that what you meant by tasting each other?” she asked, her voice shaking.

  He jerked out a nod. “Yes. If you straddle me, you can continue to suckle me, but allow me to pleasure you at the same time.”

  A flush filled Anne’s cheeks, but then she nodded. Slowly she positioned herself over him. He scented the heady perfume of her desire, felt the brush of wetness against his chest when she straddled him. He caught her hips and dragged her up, presenting her already trembling sex for his pleasure. She groaned as he did so and he realized she had been aroused by pleasuring him. She was just as much on the edge as he was.

  He wet a finger and slowly traced the entrance to her body. She cried out from above him, her gaze peeking over her shoulder. He locked eyes with her and leaned up to press a gentle kiss against her wet and waiting flesh.

  Anne bucked backward, her moans echoing in the quiet around them. He licked her, tasting her, treasuring every soft cry and sigh that left her lips.

  Anne still held Rhys’s cock in her hand and when he twitched, she looked down at it. Slowly she lowered her mouth and took him back inside. She wasn’t sure if what she was doing was right, but she did her best to mimic his actions when he made love to her. She drew him in, she eased him out, she took and then retreated over and over again.

  Although he had protested, Anne felt no shame in what she was doing. It was giving her husband pleasure, and that excited her almost as much as his touch.

  His breath increased against her aching sheath and the stroking of his tongue increased in time with her. She was spiraling close to the edge of madness, close to a release she craved to her very core. And then, without warning, it hit her.

  She arched back, crying out through the pulsating pleasure briefly before she took Rhys back into her mouth and continued to suck and lick him. He groaned, the sound vibrating against her soaked body. But before she could continue, he pulled himself from her mouth. His member pumped and he spent his seed away from her.

  Anne collapsed over his body, weak and satisfied. Slowly he shifted her until they lay pressed together on the blanket where they had shared a picnic and so much more.

  To her surprise and delight, Rhys didn’t push her away, he didn’t try to separate. There was no discomfort this time, only a sense of peace that allowed Anne to close her eyes and listen to the pounding of her husband’s heart. Little by little it slowed until it matched her own.

  She smiled as she felt the sun over her drowsy body. If their hearts could match, couldn’t they match in other ways? She looked at him to find he was smiling down at her with a lazy, satisfied expression that spoke of comfort and ease. They had made a connection today, not just of body, but of spirit. And even though they hadn’t fully made love, that connection of souls was proof to Anne that there could be more between them.

  More than ever she believed she could win this man’s heart. One day he would love her and all of this would be a distant memory.

  Chapter 9 “Will you help me?”

  Rhys turned from the place where he stood at the window and caught his breath as his wife entered the main room of the small cottage.

  She wore a yellow gown with pretty flowers hand-stitched across the silk in a fall of green and white. The warm summer color brought out the pretty golden highlights of her otherwise dark hair and brightened the green-blue of her sparkling eyes. Just the sight of her made Rhys smile and simply long to be near her, touch her, drink in her light and joy and pray he could make even a fraction of it his own.

  “My God,” he breathed as he crossed the room toward her. “You are beautiful.”

  Anne blushed as she pressed a hand to his chest briefly. “You are blind. Without a servant, I know I look a wreck. Will you button me in back?”

  She turned and Rhys swallowed. Her gown gaped, revealing the silky fabric of her chemise and the soft, bare skin along her shoulders.

  It had been two days since their unexpected and most pleasurable encounter on the picnic blanket. Even though it went against everything he had vowed, he couldn’t seem to deny himself the pleasure of being with her. Rhys had enjoyed every moment he had with his wife since then.

  He had spent years telling himself that a lady like Anne couldn’t and even shouldn’t be exposed to the full force of his desire, but she proved him wrong at every turn. She was a passionate lover, letting him teach her how to touch him, how to pleasure him, without ever recoiling or simpering. And she was as responsive as any woman he had taken to his bed. He’d begun to learn where to touch her to bring her almost immediate release, or how to tease her and draw out that pleasure for hours.

  In fact, he would have said he was utterly satisfied, except that he hadn’t claimed her body. And he wanted to. He dreamed of it nightly. He ached for it. A few times he’d even come dangerously close to submitting to that craving for full possession.

  But it was the one thing he couldn’t have.

  Now, staring at her bare skin, smelling the fragrance of her freshly washed hair…he wanted nothing more than to fall into the narrow bed they shared and make her cry out his name again and again.

  “This is only a village gathering,” he said, fumbling with the buttons. His fingers suddenly felt thick and useless. “You shall certainly outshine everyone there.”

  Anne turned and her smile brightened her face. “Thank you, Rhys. Now let me straighten your cravat.”

  Her delicate fingers lifted and he watched, mesmerized as she fiddled with the restraining neck-wear. He had gone so long without such finery that it felt odd.

  “We are a mess, you and I.” She laughed as she flicked lint from his jacket. “It has been such an eye-opening experience to realize one is not capable of taking care of oneself. I never knew how much I depended on Mally and the other servants until I no longer possessed the ability to call on them.”

  Rhys frowned. He, too, had been rather shocked by how much he needed the help of others. The people he had so easily dismissed and looked down upon in his life had evidently been much more important than he had ever realized.

  “Rhys?”

  He shook away the troubling thoughts and looked at his wife a second time. She was staring up at him with a smile tilting her lips, though it did not entirely reach her troubled eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” he murmured as he reached down to stroke her cheek with one finger. “I was woolgathering.”

  “It appears to be more than woolgathering that troubles you,” she whispered.

  He stared at her. Over the days she had been here, he’d wanted to tell her the truth so often. In fact, the feeling seemed to grow with each moment they spent in each other’s company. Anne, just by her very nature, offered him a respite from his pain, an oasis in the desert of the consequences he’d soon face.

  But he couldn’t, so he did the one thing that always distracted him from such foolish desires. He cupped her face gently and kissed her. The moment he touched her, she melted, parting her lips, letting him in without hesitation or manipulation.

  But this time, as the kiss deepened, she drew away. Her mouth was swollen and she lifted her hands to cover her lips briefly.

  “As much as I’d like to do exactly what your mouth offers me,” she whispered, “I think we need to be around other people. You need it. You’ve been hiding far too long.”

  Rhys frowned. He’d always prided himself on being able to hide his emotions, but Anne saw through him and managed to say exactly what he needed to hear, though often not what he wanted her to say.

  “No,” he snapped, more sharply than he intended. “What I need is—”

  He broke off the sentence
as he turned away. It wasn’t fair to say what he needed. He was already being desperately unfair to the woman he had married. Slowly he drew a few breaths to calm himself and then he returned his gaze to her evenly.

  “Very well,” he said through clenched teeth. “We’ll go to the village fair as originally planned.”

  She smiled as she held out an arm. He took it and led her outside. The walk to the village wasn’t a long one. Twenty minutes perhaps, down golden paths that seemed to sparkle in the setting sun. Rhys breathed in the salt-tinged air and couldn’t help but smile as the tension left his body. It seemed his wife was right, as always. Being away from the cottage was good for him.

  They heard the music before they saw the crowd, and Anne laughed as she turned toward him with excitement. He was captivated by her expression, drawn in by how his wife could live her life with such vivacity and verve.

  He wasn’t capable of living up to her example. Even tonight, as they crested the hill and found a village full of people dancing, laughing, and indulging in a good time, he bristled. He couldn’t help but notice the dirty bare feet of a pair of frolicking children as they raced by with giggles echoing behind them. The sight of a woman, her hair down around her shoulders, lifting a bottle and slurring loudly about the music, made him wince.

  All this was so far removed from the calm, regulated, utterly ordered and ranked life he had created for himself that he scarcely knew where to look or what to think.

  He sniffed his disapproval even as Anne snuggled closer to his arm, her soft breasts pushing into his side in a most pleasant manner.

  “Is it truly so awful?” she asked, her voice filled with both faint amusement and a twinge of annoyance.

  He shrugged one shoulder as they moved even closer to the merriment. “It is entertaining in a rather base way, I suppose. But not what I’m accustomed to.”

  She arched a brow. “No, I assume not. I cannot picture you and your stuffy friends pounding each other on the back while drinking fresh cider like those men over there are. Or any in our circles joining hands in the middle of a field and dancing with the raucous abandon that group there is.”

  “Would you wish for that?” Rhys asked, turning on her. “You could not in seriousness want such an utter lack of decorum or the neglect of the behaviors that separate our class from theirs.”

  In the rapidly dimming light, Rhys was surprised to see that the expression on Anne’s face was one of pity. As if he was missing or lacking something and she felt sorry for him because of it.

  “I wouldn’t wish to forever play and run and behave in such a way, no,” she finally said softly. “But from time to time, it is worthwhile to forget rank and position and simply be.”

  “Be,” he repeated with uncertainty.

  She nodded. “I’m defined by more than just my position as your wife, your duchess, my father’s daughter, the amount of money in my pocketbook, and the size of my home in Town. The person who I am is certainly changed by those things, but there are parts of me that are entirely separate from them. And I like those parts of me.”

  Rhys stared. He had so long defined himself by only the very things Anne described that he wasn’t certain he could say, with such conviction, that there was anything else to him beyond them.

  Before he could speak, Stuart Parks broke from the group and moved their way. The other man had a pleasant smile on his face as he stepped in their path.

  “Good evening, my lord, my lady,” he said. “How wonderful you could join our gathering!”

  “Good evening, Mr. Parks,” Anne said with another of those warm and welcoming smiles that made Rhys’s gut clench with desire and wonder. “Is your family here as well?”

  Stuart nodded. “Indeed they are. Mother is gossiping with some of the ladies of the village, my father is likely seriously discussing the politics of the day and prices for crops with his cronies. I believe my sister is desperately trying to catch a husband.”

  He laughed and Anne joined in it. “And are you being pursued by a gaggle of young ladies who consider you husband material?” she asked.

  Stuart blushed ever so slightly and gave a sheepish nod. “Indeed. It seems once one reaches the age of thirty, it is open season.”

  Anne laughed again. “Then it seems this gathering is very like the ones we have in London. Only the costuming and the music are slightly changed.”

  She said it to Stuart and he responded briefly, but Rhys hardly heard his once-friend’s response. He was staring at his wife in bewilderment. Had she just handily put him in his place once again? It seemed she was quite good at it.

  He looked around him once more, and this time he made an effort to see the party through her eyes. Indeed, it was not unlike a rout hosted by someone of rank in the ton. And when he saw it in that light, he saw people, not bare feet or inappropriate behavior or a lack of refinement.

  “Your Grace, perhaps this is too bold, but would you care to dance with our group?” Stuart asked, motioning over his shoulder toward where the musicians played.

  Rhys started and shook away his reverie. He stared at Anne. Certainly she wouldn’t go so far…would she? But it seemed she would, for she smiled brightly in response to the question.

  “I would greatly love to join you,” she said as she began to follow Stuart away from Rhys’s side.

  He caught her arm and pulled her to a stop. “Whatever are you doing?”

  “Your mother brought you here, so I assume these are lands that belong to your family in some way?” she asked, meeting his gaze evenly.

  He nodded. “Yes.”

  “Then we hold some responsibility to these people?”

  “I-I suppose,” he stammered, wrinkling his brow in confusion.

  “Then it’s my duty to show them courtesy,” she said. Then she flashed him a brief smile. “Aside from which, I haven’t danced in an age and this music is lifting my spirits. Fare thee well, husband. I promise not to fall in love with any fairy spirits.”

  With a laugh, she extracted herself from his grip and hurried to catch up with Stuart as the other man joined a small group of villagers in the field near the musicians.

  Rhys stared, too stunned and frankly curious to stop his wife. He could see, even from this distance, that Stuart was introducing Anne to the strangers around them. From their reactions and bows and curtsies, the villagers were surprised to see a lady of such power and influence in their dance circle, but Anne was…well, Anne. And soon they were laughing and smiling together like they were all old friends.

  The music lifted and Anne fell into a line of women on one side of the field. It took her a moment to learn the steps of the unfamiliar country dance, but she had always been a graceful dancer. During their long betrothal, Rhys had always enjoyed taking the floor with her. But he had never really watched her when she moved. Her eyes were bright in the lamp and firelight, her cheeks flushed as she made a quick circle around the men with the other women.

  She looked alive and happy and much like the fairies she had teased him about before she departed. Unable to resist, he found himself moving closer to her. The pounding rhythm of the music had him tapping his toe as he reached a crowd that had gathered to observe the dancers.

  He looked at their faces. A loving mother held her child, swinging to the beat of the music with a wide and generous smile. In her face, he saw his own mother holding him as a boy. And he also saw Anne, only with his son in her arms. He flinched at that image, knowing it was impossible.

  He saw friends, a bottle passed between them, grinning and pointing at the pretty girls in the group. They put him to mind of Simon and himself, in those last wild days at school when they’d played pranks together.

  The music picked up in tempo and Rhys’s attention was now drawn to the circle. The group there had begun to disperse, each person grabbing another to draw them into the dance and widen the effect of the fun and frolic. Anne met his gaze, laughing as she held out her hands and came toward him.

&
nbsp; He didn’t resist as she drew him to the center of the circle. He clasped her hands and they spun together as he abandoned himself to the music and the ample charms of his wife.

  Chapter 10 Rhys moved through the milling crowd, smiling and greeting those who looked his way, dodging the elbows of the exuberantly drunk and weaving bodies weary from exercise and excess. The night was in full swing now, and after several dances, he was thirsty and so was Anne.

  He saw a table a short distance ahead, laden with ales and a heady punch with some enormous level of spirits. His mouth watered just thinking of its sweet and tart flavor.

  When he reached the table, another man stood before him, back to Rhys, filling his own cup. Rhys waited, trying to maintain patience and not snap out an order as was his usual mode of getting what he wanted in this world.

  Finally the man turned, and all thoughts of drinks and irritations fled Rhys’s mind. Before him stood a person he knew. Someone he had grown up with. A man who belonged at this common village gathering no more than he did.

  “Caleb Talbot?” Rhys took a step back and stared.

  The other man looked at him for a long moment, almost with no recognition in his pale blue eyes. Rhys frowned. From all appearances, Talbot was well on his way to being drunk, and not in the playful way of others around him. From the looks of his sallow skin and haunted expression, he wasn’t enjoying the state.

  “Great God, if it isn’t the Duke of Arrogance,” Caleb finally drawled, if only briefly. “Have you come here to laugh at my sorry state, or tell me you knew I’d come to this, having no rank and all?”

  Rhys’s brow wrinkled. Caleb was right, as the second son of the Marquis of Stratfield, the other man had no rank, though he did have standing in Society due to the highness of his family and the respect with which others regarded his brother, Justin, who was currently Earl of Baybary, and his father. Still, as children, that hadn’t been enough for Rhys. Once he formed his “Duke Club,” he had actively shunned men like Caleb Talbot.