Christmas in The Duke's Arms

by Grace Burrowes

  Dampness was good. Gently, he stroked her until he found her center, and then he slid a finger into that warm wetness. She inhaled sharply when he withdrew and went absolutely still when he returned with two fingers.

  The books had mentioned a small, sensitive nub, and he moved his thumb about, seeking it. When he couldn’t locate it, he pulled back and peered down at her.

  “Pierce!” She sounded scandalized.

  He didn’t look away. “Can I not look at you? You’re all pink and lovely.” It was true of her body in general. She was flushed, her skin every color, from sweet, pale rose to wanton scarlet. “Open your legs,” he said, surprising himself with the order. He half-expected her to refuse, but when he nudged her thigh with his knee, she complied.

  Ah. There was the nub he sought. Lightly, he brushed his thumb over it, and her hips rose off the bed.

  “You like that.”

  “I love that. Do it again.”

  He slid his fingers into her and swirled his thumb about her center. In and out he moved, pausing at one point to lick his thumb to wet it. She tasted sweet and a bit salty. Another time he would put his mouth there and taste her directly. He hadn’t thought he would want to, but now he knew he must.

  Eliza was beyond noting what he did. She might have been appalled or aroused by seeing him lick her wetness from his fingers. But her eyes were closed, her head thrown back, her breasts arched upward. He bent and closed his lips on a taut peak, sucking hard as he slid his fingers into her. This time, he pressed on the nub, then flicked it gently until she shuddered.

  “Please, please.”

  He thrust again, deeper this time, and when he filled her to the hilt, he moved his thumb rapidly until her entire body began to tremble. Her muscles contracted around his fingers, and though he was in awe of the feeling, he remembered to suckle her again, taking her swollen nipple into his mouth and teasing her with tongue and fingers, until she let out a muffled scream and dissolved, panting on the bed.

  Chapter Four

  ‡

  “That was…”

  Her lips fumbled the words. She lay in a sated stupor on the bed, all pleasantly heavy and full. Days or even weeks would have to pass before she’d be able to open her eyes, much less move. She knew what an orgasm was. She’d pleasured herself on the odd winter evening, alone in her cold bed, thoughts of Pierce making her restless. That was before he’d even known she was alive, much less looked at her as a woman.

  “This was…”

  What he’d done to her was so much more than she’d ever felt before. The pleasure had been violent and consuming, draining all of her strength. Her body thrummed with life and warmth, separate from that of Pierce’s body.

  The satin of his waistcoat brushed against her sensitive breast, and she forced her eyes open. He watched her. He was fully dressed, right to his knotted cravat—and wasn’t there something wicked about that?—and he made no move to take his own pleasure. She did not know what to say, did not know if her mouth would even work. Finally, she managed, “That was…”

  He propped his head on his hand.

  “Lovely.”

  “Lovely?” He straightened.

  “Wonderful?”

  His hand thumped the bed. “Perhaps I didn’t do it right. Let me try again.”

  She laughed and caught his hand. “I couldn’t possibly survive another climax like that one so soon. Perhaps I should have said it was explosive.”

  He curled his fingers around hers.

  “And that was in the books you read?”

  “That and more. Shall I show you?”

  Oh, yes. But she could feel sense beginning to creep back into her mind, and that always overcame passion. “Are you trying to kill me?”

  “Exactly the opposite,” he said, moving away. She immediately missed the feel of his body pressed against hers. “It is late and you need to sleep. Shall we meet again tomorrow?” He eyed her through lowered lashes. “To discuss the mission?”

  “Of course.”

  Barbican matters required she drag the coverlet over her body. “Surely the highwayman will strike tomorrow. It didn’t snow today, and the roads will be clear. If the weather holds into tomorrow, I think he will act.”

  “Too risky to wait long,” Pierce agreed, straightening his neckcloth. “The weather might take a turn any day.”

  “Then if we do not catch him tomorrow, shall we meet here again tomorrow night? To discuss the mission, of course.”

  “Of course.” He moved to the door, and still wrapped in the coverlet, she followed him. He peered out, looked left and right, then slipped into the darkness of the corridor. Eliza closed the door quietly then leaned against it, hands pressed to her cheeks.

  What was she going to do now?

  *

  Give me another chance.

  The request had surprised her. He wanted another chance. He’d asked for another chance. She would have had too much pride to do such a thing. Pierce had pride too. If he was willing to forgo it, wasn’t that an indication of love?

  Foolish girl. He wasn’t in love with her. He wanted to marry her because it suited his political aspirations. He was leaving the country, and there was nothing for her in Switzerland. Although, she supposed if she were going to design weapons, she could do it just as well in Switzerland as in London. The Barbican group wasn’t in Switzerland, but Pierce wouldn’t stay in Switzerland forever. He’d return to London in a few years, and with foreign diplomatic experience, be able to find a better job than as a clerk for the Foreign Office.

  The Barbican group was the most elite branch of the Foreign Office, and the most secret, but the fact remained that Pierce was still a clerk, no matter how elite the branch he served.

  What choice besides going abroad did he have if he wanted to advance his career?

  Eliza understood all of that. Was she was willing to sacrifice her own work? She did care for Pierce.

  She pulled the pillow over her head.

  Dare she say it?

  She had loved him. She loved him still.

  She wanted him to love her too. She wanted him to value the sacrifice she was willing to make. Last night had proved one thing to her—he cared about her. He cared enough to read books about lovemaking and to give her pleasure and not take any of his own. But was that love?

  Pierce thought love might come in time.

  What if it didn’t?

  She would not waste time dwelling on tonight and what might happen when he came to her rooms again. Perhaps they would catch the highwayman today. Then there would be no need for a midnight rendezvous.

  The thought made her unaccountably sad. She should have been eager to return to London, basking in the mission’s success. She shouldn’t want it to drag on another night. But she did…

  Eliza rang for the maid to help her to dress and breakfasted in her room, although that was not conducive to her purpose, which was spying on the patrons in an effort to discover the highwayman’s identity. After breakfast she spent an hour staring out her window and turning pages in her tattered copy of Animadversions of Warre. Finally, she had to admit she was avoiding Pierce, and she tucked her ancient book back in her valise and started for the common room.

  She arrived just as the coach did, which was truly fortuitous timing. She had a moment to observe which patrons were in the common room right before the coach passengers bustled inside to crowd the inn. Eliza felt warmth tingling on the back of her neck. Pierce watched her from a table in the corner. Situated in the back and well away from the hearth, what it lacked in warmth it made up for in location. He had a perfect view of the room.

  “Care to join me, Miss Qwillen?”

  “Thank you, Mr. Moneypence. The room does appear a bit crowded,” she added, in case anyone should be listening. She sat with him, ordered tea from Peg before the poor girl was besieged by travelers.

  “Peg and Mrs. Penter are accounted for.” The elderly woman was sitting hunched by the fire. “A
lthough I do not see her nephew, Mr. Wilson.”

  Pierce lowered his tea cup. “Mrs. Wattles will likewise be difficult to locate, although we might ask Peg if she is in the kitchen. As to our other suspects, I noted Cardy and Langrick. No sign of Freeland or Barber. Mr. Goodman left earlier, supposedly in answer to a summons from the duke.”

  “Barber is not a suspect,” she reminded him. “He was present when Mr. Dowell brought news of the last attack. Speaking of whom, where is Dowell?”

  Pierce nodded to a table on the other side of the room. “He came in with the passengers from the coach. Regaling them with tales of the New Sheriff of Nottingham, no doubt.”

  Eliza crossed off suspects and added others to the list she kept in her mind. “Very well. If there is an attack on this coach, and if no one mysteriously disappears between now and then, our suspects remain Mrs. Wattles, Mr. Wilson, Mr. Freeland, and Mr. Goodman.”

  She reached for the tea cup and bumped his hand. Mortified, she pulled her own back. “Your tea. Pardon.”

  Where was her damn tea? And why were her cheeks heating? She was a woman of five and thirty. She should not be embarrassed to think those same brown eyes that studied her now had studied a far more intimate part of her last night.

  “I concur,” he said. “It’s a simple matter to ascertain whether or not Mrs. Wattles is truly in the kitchen.” He paused when Peg returned to their table with Eliza’s tea. “Give my regards to your mother for the delicious breakfast,” he said. “She is the one who cooked it?”

  Peg bobbed her head. “She does most of the cooking, although we have an undercook who helps a bit. Anything else, sir?”

  “No. I—”

  But she was already away, weaving between tables and taking orders.

  Eliza rose. “I will wander into the back, pretending I became lost. I want to be certain Mrs. Wattles is there before we remove her from the list.”

  Peg was busy enough serving tea to the coach’s passengers that Eliza was relatively certain she had a few minutes before the girl would return to the kitchen. The coach would not stop long, and the girl had to hurry in order to serve all of the passengers before they were off again. Mr. Wattles was in the front room, assisting where he could, so Eliza followed the noise of clinking spoons and pots until she reached a small room behind the dining room.

  The door was closed, but she eased it open and peered inside. The room was hot, although cool air blew in from the door opposite, which opened into the yard. Plenty of windows allowed light to penetrate, and the two women inside moved almost in tandem from hearth to stove and chopping block. One woman was quite young, probably not yet twenty. The other was older and stouter. That must be Mrs. Wattles. The innkeeper must have loved his wife dearly to think she was still pretty as the day they wed. Her arms were red and chafed and thick as the trunk of an oak. Sweat poured from her temples and pooled at her armpits.

  She pointed a sausage-like finger at a large black pot. “Stir that now. Don’t let it burn.”

  “Yes, missus.” The young woman was respectful to Mrs. Wattles, though she had already moved to stir the contents of the pot before being told.

  Eliza was about to ease the door closed again when a figure moved through the yard, where the grooms were busy changing the horses on the coach. Eliza removed her spectacles, wiping the moist air fogging them, and replaced them. It was Mr. Wilson. Why would he be in the stable yard? Was he perhaps observing the coach and planning his attack?

  Closing the door again, Eliza stepped back and made her way back to the common room. She returned to the table she shared with Pierce. His plate was clean now. “Did you see her? Is she as pretty as Wattles seems to think?”

  “She…cooks well enough.” Eliza lifted her tea and sipped. It had grown cold but it was sweet. Had she added sugar before she’d stepped away? She didn’t remember doing so. “She and an undercook were hard at work.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “How do you know anything is amiss?”

  “I know you better than that, Eliza,” he murmured so no one else would hear him use her Christian name. The admission and the truth of it warmed her through.

  “It may be nothing,” she began, “but Mrs. Wattles had the outer door open.”

  “Not surprising,” Pierce said. “I imagine it grows rather warm with the oven.”

  “Yes.” She studied her tea. “Did you add sugar?”

  “Of course. That’s how you take it.”

  “Of course.”

  He remembered how she took her tea. She couldn’t have said how he took his.

  “Through that outer door, I spotted Mr. Wilson.”

  Pierce raised his tea cup in the direction of the elderly lady, coughing quietly near the hearth. “Mrs. Penter’s nephew?”

  “The same. I couldn’t think what he would be doing in the yard. Perhaps it is the fastest way to reach the inn, and he is coming to visit his aunt.”

  He looked pointedly at the elderly woman, who still sat alone. “Or perhaps not. Well done, Eliza.”

  She felt that infusion of warmth again. She couldn’t have said why his praise would matter so much to her, but it did. She was saved from a reply when the coachman called for his passengers to return, and the small group bustled back out into the cold.

  “Now we wait,” she said.

  He sat back, settling in.

  She looked up. The sad mistletoe was still above them. Was it her imagination or did it look less droopy? She studied the pattern on her tea cup and the scars on the table. She lifted her tea and ended up knocking the spoon onto the floor with a loud clatter. She retrieved it, bumping her shoulder on the table, almost upsetting it. Pierce righted the table and then grasped her shoulder. “Before you do any further damage, perhaps we might go for a walk.”

  “Excellent idea.” She’d thought she would have to dump tea in his lap before he fastened on that idea. She fetched her pelisse and met him outside. He offered his arm, and they walked along the road, newly marked by the coach’s wheels. “How I wish we had a horse,” she mused aloud.

  “So we could follow the coach more closely?” Pierce dropped his scarf about her shoulders. It smelled of bergamot and straw.

  “We’d scare off any possible attempt. Better to lie in wait for the man.”

  “But where?” She tried not to inhale the scent of him on the scarf, tried not to bask in the warmth it still held from his body.

  “I’m certain were we to walk the roads, we would find any number of sites conducive to ambush. The real test would be waiting out in the cold and hoping the man showed himself.”

  Eliza shivered at the thought. How did the agents for the Barbican do this sort of thing day in and day out? They endured worse conditions than the Nottinghamshire countryside in winter to conduct surveillance on targets. And here she was balking at a little cold air; although, truth be told, the wind had a bite to it this morning. It stung her cheeks and made her ears ring.

  The brisk country air made her feel invigorated. It smelled cleaner here than in London. There, she had to become used to the scent of unwashed bodies, coal fires, and refuse in the streets. Here there was the scent of snow on the air, pine trees, and sweet wood smoke curling from chimneys.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” Pierce asked.

  Was it cowardly to bury her face in his scarf again?

  “You’re not blushing, are you?”

  That comment brought her head up quickly. “Not at all. I’m not ashamed.”

  “Then what do you feel?” His breath curled out and hung in the cold air between them. “Did you like it?”

  “You know I did.” She glanced down at her sturdy brown boots, dark against the white snow. Bending, she scooped up a handful, packed it tightly, arranging a piece of ice on the outer rim.

  “Good.”

  She could hear the smile in his voice, and she loosed her missile on a hapless tree.

  “I do have a question.”

  He eyed
her warily, looking from the tree back to her.

  She scooped another ball of snow into her hands and packed it tightly. It would hurt more on impact that way.

  “Why?” She squeezed the cold snow.

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Why did you…do what you did? You didn’t even take any pleasure for yourself.”

  “Of course not. It was for you.”

  She flung the snowball like a catapult might and smiled to herself when he jumped. “Why?”

  “I told you,” he said, eyeing the tree she’d hit twice. “I want another chance.”

  “So you’re…you’re wooing me?” She gathered more snow in her hand, but he caught her wrist.

  “Yes. In a manner of speaking. I told you. I want you for my wife.”

  “And I told you—”

  A shot rang out in the distance. Pierce grabbed her arm. “The Sheriff!” she said, shaking him off and breaking into a run.

  “Eliza, be careful!” He was right behind her.

  She ran in the direction the coach had taken, the same direction as the sound of the shot. They couldn’t possibly reach the coach before the highwayman was away, but she would try.

  Slowly, Pierce overtook her. That was the advantage of long legs and the absence of cumbersome skirts. She would have hated him for making allowances for her, so she merely pushed herself harder. She would never match him stride for stride, but she managed to keep up with him for a half-mile or more. Finally, she could not catch her breath, and she had to slow and bend at the waist. Pierce glanced at her over his shoulder, but she motioned him to go on without her.

  Of course, the man stopped and walked back.

  “Keep going,” she panted. “I am fine.”

  He put a hand to his heaving chest. “I don’t like leaving you.”

  She patted her reticule. “I’m not without protection. I have a pistol inside as well as a fan with a hidden dagger.”

  “Are you certain?”