At his questioning glance she clarified. “Your weight. I like the feel of it.”
“Do you?” he asked, curious. “I thought ladies disliked being crushed.”
She raised one brow, in a mockery of himself, he guessed with an inward smile. “I don’t know what other ladies you might have been consorting with,” she said with asperity, “but this one feels differently.”
Her words made him wince. “I haven’t particularly been a saint, you know. There have been others before you.”
She tucked her head beneath his chin and began to draw circles on the surface of his chest. “I know that. I know how gentlemen are. I didn’t expect you to come to me untouched.”
He wasn’t sure he liked her comment about “how gentlemen” were. Because he knew much of her understanding of men had been formed by her husband and her father. Neither of whom were particularly fine examples of the breed.
“I wish I could have,” he said, knowing the statement made him sound like a ridiculous romantic fool, but he truly did wish he could have come to her without the memories and knowledge of the others. It wasn’t that there were so very many. It was more that he felt Perdita deserved more.
She looked up at him, from this angle her lashes long and lush and catching the candlelight. “I don’t mind,” she said. Her face turning sly, she added, “If you’d come to me without ever having done this before, you wouldn’t have known some of the things that I found the most … delightful.”
That was one way to look at things, he supposed. Though he could have done rather well with only books as his tutor. Even so it was a moot point now, so there was no going back.
“About the … French memo, was it?” she asked, returning to her exploration of his chest.
“Letter,” he corrected with a grin he was grateful she couldn’t see. He’d imagine the Foreign Office would be quite unamused if they found a stack of French letters had replaced their French memorandums.
“Yes, that’s it, ‘letter,’” she said with a nod that tickled his chin. “Where did you learn about those?”
This had turned into rather more of a discussion than he’d anticipated. But Archer was glad she trusted him enough to ask. And since these issues involved her own body she was entitled to answers.
He thought back to when he’d first heard about the lambskin sheaths. It felt as if he’d known forever but that couldn’t be true. “I suppose in school,” he said, frowning. “Or perhaps from one of my brothers. They were good about lording their knowledge about such things over my head.”
“Ah,” she said, laughing softly. “Siblings can be that way, can they not? Isabella used to do the same kind of things to me.”
“Boys can be especially annoying, though.” Which was an understatement. He knew Isabella and she could not possibly have acted as superior as his brothers had. There were advantages to being the youngest, but there were also drawbacks.
“How many are there?” Perdita asked. “Brothers, I mean. I knew you were the son of the Duke of Lisle but I didn’t realize you had lots of brothers.”
“Not so many,” Archer said with a shrug. “Four. We get along well enough now, but when we were children we tormented one another.”
“Tell me about them,” she said, looking up at him.
“Well,” he said, resting his chin on her head, “the eldest is Rhys, he is eight years older than me. He’s the Marquess of Duclair, and to my mother’s great distress has not married and filled the nursery with a passel of boys.”
“Goodness,” Perdita said, “it isn’t as if there is shortage of them already in the family.”
“One would think,” Archer agreed, stroking his hand over the soft skin of her back, “But I think they live in fear that something will happen to Papa and Rhys and things will be left in the hands of Benedick. He’s a bit of a black sheep.”
“Oh, dear, is he a terrible rakehell?” Perdita’s voice sounded sympathetic.
“Nothing like,” he said, reassuring her. “He’s a clergyman, actually. He left his position as a don at Cambridge to come home to Lisle Hall and take up the living on the estate.”
Perdita sat up so that she could look at him. “You’re funning me,” she said skeptically.
“Not a bit of it,” Archer said, raising his hands in defense. “My parents wanted him to go into the diplomatic corps, but Ben preferred the church. He’s the cleverest of us all. And I thought he was happy enough at college, but I think he came back to Lisle Hall simply to give my parents a hard time. Especially my father. He wished to have a son negotiating treaties and traveling the world, so that he could live vicariously through him. At least that’s my guess.”
“Your poor brother,” Perdita said with a shake of her head. “He must be miserable.”
“Actually he’s quite happy, I think. He really does enjoy the life of a country vicar. And he teaches Latin to some of the village boys so he is able to teach, too.”
“So that’s two,” Perdita said. “What of the others?”
“Next is Frederick,” he said, “who is an actual rakehell. He’s been in Paris for the last several years so you would not have seen him in town. But he is quite good company, and amiable. So there’s that.”
“Do you miss him?” Perdita asked.
Archer tried to decide if he did or not. “I suppose in a way I miss all of them. Though it’s not as if we all have similar interests. When we’re together we have fun, but it doesn’t take very long before someone says something that riles another and we are ready to separate again.”
“Next?”
“That would be Cameron.”
“And what does Cameron do?”
“What does Cameron do?” Archer repeated. “I suppose you could say that he collects things.”
“You mean like antiques or Limoges boxes?” she asked, clearly puzzled by that description.
“Stones mostly,” Archer said with a shrug. “And bits of fossilized bone. Things like that. He is a member of the Royal Society and presents papers on his findings. Something to do with beasts from long ago. Exploring.”
“How odd,” Perdita answered. “Though I suppose it can be interesting for some people.”
“Indeed it can,” Archer responded. Pulling her up so that he could kiss her. Properly.
But before he could touch his lips to hers, Perdita’s hand came up and touched him on the chest. Staying him. “You’ve told me what your brothers do,” she said, her eyes intent in the light of the guttering candle. “But what do you do?”
He thought to fob her off with some glib words about dreaming of being a duke’s personal secretary from a young age. But he knew she deserved the truth from him. “You of all people know that I am Ormond’s personal secretary. As I was to the duke before him.”
“But?” she said, waiting.
“But,” Archer conceded, “as you have perhaps guessed, I have other ambitions. Ambitions that have nothing to do with hanging about Parliament waiting for bills to be drafted or writing Trevor’s correspondence on his behalf.”
A line appeared between Perdita’s brows. “If you have other ambitions,” she said carefully, “then why have you remained here? You might have left when Gervase died. Indeed, it would have been perfectly understandable. Expected even.”
He paused for a fraction of a second too long, which allowed her to draw her own conclusion. One that wasn’t so very far from the truth. Her gasp let him know as much. “Dear God, Archer,” she exhaled. “Never say you stayed because of me.”
The words hung in the air between them as Archer tried to school his features into some semblance of normalcy. The truth of it was that he had stayed because of her. And he would be a fool to deny it. So he shrugged.
“Oh, Archer.”
“It’s not as pathetic as you make it sound,” he said stiffly, rolling onto his back to look up at the bed hangings overhead. “I wasn’t ready to leave when Gervase died. And I could hardly just go haring off without ov
erseeing things in his absence. No more than I could have left things to waste away while the dowager tried to convince Trevor to take up the reins.”
“Not pathetic,” she said fiercely, pushing up onto her elbows so she could look down at him. “Never pathetic. It’s just that I never got the feeling that you really enjoyed the work.”
“It wasn’t all bad,” he argued, knowing even as he spoke that the words were hardly convincing. “In truth, it was never my dream to be a secretary. It was my lot as the youngest son. I was smart, fairly politically minded, and I was familiar with the workings of a ducal household. It was a natural fit for me to accept the position when my father began prosing on about all of us finding our own lot in life.”
She was silent, and he could tell she wanted to ask questions, but he was grateful for her self-control. He needed to get the story out or he’d never have another opportunity.
“But, yes, when Gervase died I’d got to the point where I could have left and bought a small farm for myself and started to put some of the newer farming methods I’d been reading about into practice.”
“You want to be a farmer?” she asked, looking more shocked than if he’d admitted a fondness for opium eating. “A farmer? You?”
“What’s so surprising about that?” Archer asked, puzzled by her reaction more than anything else. “It’s hardly as if most gentlemen of property don’t need to know something about the land their tenants are farming.”
“Yes,” she said with a bemused shake of her head. “But it’s just that you’re so…”
“Soft?” he asked with one brow raised.
At the innuendo her cheeks turned pink. “Hardly,” she said with a grin. “But you just don’t seem like someone who would long to feel the soil between your fingers.”
Archer shrugged. “I always enjoyed going to visit the tenants with my father and his bailiff. And when I was younger I had hopes that Papa would allow me to take over for Vickers when he got too old to do it. But that wasn’t smart enough for my father. So it was off to London and into Gervase’s employ I went.”
“I wonder why it is that our parents often wish things for us that we ourselves would never choose? I certainly had no ambitions to become a duchess. That was all my father’s doing. I fell in love with Gervase, but it was really only after my father made it clear to me that I would wed him whether I loved him or not.”
Archer thought about what young Perdita must have been like, before she was exposed to the toxic influence of the late Duke of Ormond. “I’m sorry,” he said softly.
“And I’m sorry your father didn’t allow you to follow your own inclination,” she said, leaning over to kiss him.
“I’m not,” Archer said, realizing that it was the truth. “If he’d allowed me to have my way, I’d never have met you.”
A smile not unlike that of a cat who’s just been in the cream turned up the corners of her mouth. “That’s true,” she said thoughfully. “And painful though it is to admit, I wouldn’t go back and change anything from my past—even the bad things about my marriage. Because one small change might mean that I wouldn’t have this moment here and now, with you.”
Archer wanted to argue. But he knew there was a rightness to what she was saying, even though it went against the grain to admit as much.
“I like being with you here,” he said softly. “And now.”
He reached up and cradled her face in his hands, bringing her mouth down to meet his own.
When they were both breathless, he said, “I think perhaps we should spend a little time exploring the here and now.”
She kissed him again. “Good idea,” she said, slipping her hand downward to stroke his burgeoning erection.
He sucked air through his teeth. “Easy, unless you want this to be over rather more quickly than would be enjoyable for you.”
“I wouldn’t mind,” she said, lightly scraping her teeth over his bottom lip. “I’d like to watch you lose control.”
Of course her words had the expected effect and she gave an evil laugh. “You did that on purpose,” he said, flipping her neatly onto her back. “I think I’m going to have to get used to this naughty side of you, Perdita. I had no idea you had it in you.”
“I can think of something I’d rather have in me,” she said against his mouth as he pressed his legs between hers and pressed himself home. “Ahhh, yes, that.”
Archer brought her right knee up and sank into her even more deeply, the sensation of her warmth and tightness around his cock nearly bringing him off then and there. He struggled to think of something else. Conjugated a few Latin verbs before he felt his control return and then looked down into Perdita’s face. She was watching him, her lips parted, her arms clasped around his lower back, as she held him to her. “What you do to me,” she breathed.
He slowly pulled out and then just as slowly pressed back into her. Every inch stringing out the breathless moment between them. Their eyes held as he did it again and again, until Perdita wrapped her other leg around him, pulling him closer, and Archer lost control and began to thrust into her again and again. Perdita, in turn, began her ascent into the maelstrom and not long thereafter cried out her pleasure. Only moments before Archer cried out, spilling himself into her. One word repeating itself again and again in his consciousness.
Mine.
* * *
It wasn’t until he was pulling his clothes back on in the wee hours and found his cravat with the French letter that he realized he’d forgotten to use one the second time they’d joined. Cursing himself for a fool, he pulled his shirt on over his head and slipped from the room.
* * *
Perdita awoke the next morning much later than her usual time. Immediately she regretted that Archer had had to leave before the tweeny came to make up the fire. But she didn’t wish for them to generate talk among the servants. They would likely figure things out at some point, but she would rather it be later than sooner.
Stretching, she felt some twinges in places that hadn’t been used in a while. But she could have no regrets for what had happened between her and Archer the night before. Not only had he been tender, he’d also been exciting in ways she’d not anticipated. She wasn’t sure why, but she’d expected making love to him would be rather sweet. She certainly hadn’t expected him to make her feel like such a wanton. He’d brought her the kind of pleasure she’d always hoped to achieve with Gervase, but now she realized that her husband hadn’t been capable of such a thing. Now that she knew what it meant to have a man take care to ensure she achieved her own pleasure before he did, she knew that nothing she’d experienced before compared.
Archer had surprised her in other ways, too, she thought as she rose from her bed and pulled on her dressing gown. She’d known he was well muscled beneath his eminently civilized clothing, but she hadn’t expected to see such a perfect specimen of manhood when he removed them. From his broad shoulders to his taut middle and lean flanks, he was like the Elgin marbles come to life. All except for one particular part of him, which was much, much more impressive than anything she’d seen in the British Museum. She closed her eyes as the memory of all that male glory moving inside her sent a spasm through her. Oh, no, there was nothing about Archer that could be called unimpressive. She grinned, the euphoria of the night before washing over her as she rang for her maid.
When her maid arrived, she didn’t seem to suspect that her mistress had spent the evening before fornicating with the Duke of Ormond’s private secretary. Instead she was frowning as she brought a card forward and said, “Your Grace, Lord Dunthorp is here and wishes to see you. I tried to explain that you weren’t yet receiving, but he insisted. Shall I let His Grace or your sister know so that they can send him about his business? And you not feeling well.” She pursed her lips.
What could Lord Dunthorp want of her at this hour? Perdita wondered. He wasn’t the sort to press himself upon servants so there was likely a good reason that he’d insisted upon seeing h
er. She wondered if there was some problem relating to the Elphinstone rout.
“I’ll see him. It’s no bother. And I’m not unwell, I just wanted to sleep in since we were out so late last night.”
She allowed the other woman to dress her, and though she was famished, she went downstairs and entered the parlor to find Lord Dunthorp being entertained—though from his expression he didn’t find it particularly amusing—by Isabella and Georgina, who were chatting about the latest on-dit involving an elderly marchioness who’d run off with her footman.
“Lord Dunthorp,” she said, when the ladies stopped for breath. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?”
“Your Grace,” he said, springing to his feet and hurrying forward to bow and kiss the back of her hand. “I am sorry to see you looking so wan this morning. I have no doubt you were sleepless over what happened at the Elphinstones’ last evening.”
Well, Perdita thought, that was certainly forward of him. Aloud she said, “Actually, I slept rather well, Lord Dunthorp.” In between bouts of strenuous lovemaking, that is. She wondered for a second what he would say if she actually told him that. The idea nearly caused her to laugh aloud. Instead, she continued, “There is no need to fuss over me.”
“There is no shame in it, Your Grace. After all, every well-bred lady is entitled to a case of nerves when she encounters the sort of incivility that you did.”
“I assure you,” she said silkily, becoming annoyed at his insistence, “that I am well. I thank you. Now please, let us sit down and discuss what brings you here.” This did not bode well for her plans to marry the man.
Isabella and Georgina, who watched the exchange with varying degrees of shock and outrage, schooled their features and made a place for Perdita on the long sofa where they were ensconced. Seeing that he would get no farther with that tack, Dunthorp took a seat in the chair opposite.
“Your Grace,” he began, “I am here to discuss your protection. Last evening I had quite a productive conversation with Lord Coniston about what might be done to ensure your safety both while you are here at Ormond House and while you are away in other places in town. Obviously you will need to curtail those visits as much as possible, for leaving home will expose you to further attacks.”
Why Lords Lose Their Hearts Page 11
