The Duke's Unexpected Bride

by Lara Temple

  ‘Max...’ she said it aloud, not expecting any response, but a figure detached from the shadows and moved towards her. She sat up abruptly, but then her body relaxed again. ‘Max.’

  He sat down on the side of the bed, the light of the fire gilding one side of his face and throwing the other into black shadows.

  ‘What happened? How did you find me?’

  ‘Here, drink this first,’ he said, handing her a glass and she drank the sweet, tart lemon barley water thirstily.

  ‘Now tell me,’ she insisted as he took the glass from her and he hesitated, his gaze roaming over her, his expression neutral, but there was something in his eyes that made her very aware she was in a bed, in the dark, dressed in nothing more than a rather sheer shift, alone with him...

  ‘Where am I?’ she asked, to cover her confusion.

  ‘In my bedroom.’

  Her eyes widened.

  ‘I...what time is it?’

  ‘Close to midnight.’

  ‘Oh, dear, have you told Lambeth? I don’t want anyone at Aunt Minnie’s to worry. And I was to meet Sylvie this afternoon.’

  A smile softened his expression.

  ‘I sent word to Lambeth. And not only will Sylvie not hold it against you, but she and Rob have come to stay in the guest bedroom to play propriety. Stop worrying about everyone. You’ll stay here tonight and tomorrow we’ll leave for Harcourt if you feel well enough. For now all you have to do is rest.’

  He pressed her back gently and she complied, watching him as he pulled up the covers over her. It was such a simple but intimate act her heart and lungs constricted painfully and without thinking she sat up again and grabbed his hand before he could move away.

  ‘Max... I did try to do this right, but this is just more proof I will never be what you need. I will always fall short, won’t I? I need you to tell me, honestly, whether you want to be released from this engagement.’

  Her voice wavered on the question and she bit her lip to regain control. Don’t ask questions when you don’t want to hear the answer, her mother had once told her. But it was too late for that. She didn’t want him to feel he was trapped into this just as he had been trapped with Serena. She forced herself to look up, trying not to let the stinging in her eyes turn to tears. Max’s hand tightened on hers and he sat down again.

  ‘You are the only thing I want,’ he said, his voice quiet and hopeless and it took her a moment to register not just the words but the pain that was there, the edge of despair. ‘I know I did this all wrong. From that day in the gardens, when you gave me Hetty’s sketch. If I had had an ounce of intelligence I would have known what was coming. You were wrong that Wivenhoe forced me, or that I offered for you because of Serena. I used him, and her, and that damn dog and whatever I could think of using in order to tie you to me without admitting that I needed you. That I was falling in love with you. Sophie...’ His voice was raw and immediate with pain, reaching out to her beyond the words and the intensity in the storm-grey of his eyes. He stretched out his other hand towards her, an abrupt, almost clumsy gesture ‘I need you. I’m asking if we can try again.’

  She stared at him, shocked at the raw need and pain in his eyes and voice. It was so far from what she had expected she couldn’t see how it could be true. As she waited the pain in his eyes intensified and he dropped her hand. She realised what she was doing and reached out, grasping his hand and holding it tightly between hers.

  ‘Oh, God, I want to believe you, Max,’ she whispered. ‘More than anything. You’re not just saying this? Please don’t if it’s not true...’

  His hand turned in hers, closing convulsively, and his hand other reaching up to cradle her cheek, his touch almost tentative, as if she were a soap bubble, shimmering on the edge of existence.

  ‘I love you. Sophie.’ He moved towards her, the energy building up in him, as if her question had given him part of the answer he needed. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever needed anything in my life, not deeply. I made certain of that. But you’ve done something to me and I couldn’t go back if I wanted to. And I don’t. God help me, I need you with me. I need you to see me. It’s selfish, but I can’t help it. I’m sorry. But I’ll do everything, anything I can to make you happy, I swear it. Just tell me what you want. I’ll do whatever it takes.’

  She raised his hand to her cheek, needing to feel him as she said the words.

  ‘You just have. That’s all I want. You don’t understand... I loved you from the beginning. I never would have agreed to marry you if I hadn’t. I’m just not capable. It’s been so hard keeping it inside. I didn’t want to push you away, but I rather thought it was obvious. I must be a better liar than we thought.’

  He didn’t move. She watched the withdrawal, but for once it didn’t threaten her. She reached up and touched his cheek gently, the line at the corner of his mouth, as if she could ease the wary tension she knew was taking over.

  ‘That isn’t a terrible thing, you know. You don’t have to go away, but it’s all right if you do. As long as you come back eventually. I’m here.’

  The wariness was replaced by confusion and then a look of mingled joy and pain.

  ‘Sophie...you deserve more than I can give you,’ he said hoarsely.

  ‘That’s not true, Max. All I want is to be with you. As I am. I want to love you without hiding it. Do you understand?’

  He nodded and pulled her towards him, holding her with infinite care. She traced her hand down his cheek, trying to smooth the tension in his jaw. She had no idea how to tell him how much he mattered to her, how much she needed him.

  ‘You didn’t tell me how you found me there,’ she said after a moment, trying to give them both some time to work through what had been said. His arms tightened on her briefly and then he moved back slightly, clasping her hands gently between his again.

  ‘You weren’t anywhere we could think of so I went to Wivenhoe. He’d told me about seeing you with Morecombe and that you mentioned something about having tea with him. We had a...a discussion and realised neither of us had supplied Serena with the poison—which meant Morecombe probably had and might be even more unstable than we’d thought. It wasn’t that I thought he might harm you, but if you had gone to see him someone at his house might know something. I didn’t know what else to do.’

  His voice was typical matter-of-fact Max, but she could read between the lines. It must have cost him a great deal to go to Wivenhoe for help. She was curious how the two men had dealt with each other, but perhaps it was best to leave that for another time.

  ‘I can’t help but feel sorry for Lord Morecombe. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for him, to know that in a way he was responsible for her death. He seemed so devastated.’

  He reached out and caressed her cheek with such gentleness her eyes burned. But his next words, even though they were uttered without emotion, shocked her out of her blissful warmth.

  ‘Wivenhoe said he told you I had poisoned Serena. Did you believe him?’

  She shook her head, holding his gaze.

  ‘No, Max. Even before we spoke I knew you would never purposely harm her, no matter what happened between you or how trapped you felt. Even if you had found that medicine for her, I knew you would never have harmed her on purpose and what happened to her must have been a terrible accident.’

  ‘You were willing to forgive me even that?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said, surprised, and he threaded his fingers with hers and raised it to graze his mouth over her knuckles lightly.

  ‘I don’t deserve you, Sophie.’

  ‘I told you that’s not true, and besides, this isn’t about deserving. Do you want me?’ she asked, her voice hitching.

  He bent forward, leaned his forehead against her hand. She could feel his tension in the way his hands pressed against hers, in his m
easured but not quite even breathing. She touched his dark hair with the tips of her fingers, brushing it gently as she absorbed what he was telling her without words. She was filled with joy and the need to promise him she would do anything to make him happy. But she just kept the gentle motion of her hand on his head until he looked up and then she smiled.

  ‘I love you, Max.’

  * * *

  Max absorbed the words, the truth in her eyes. How had he missed it? He was a greater fool than he ever could have imagined. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that whatever she said, he was luckier than he deserved and he had every intention of doing all he could to make sure she never regretted this. He touched the skin below her bruised cheek, wishing he had the power to erase it, erase anything that hurt her. It was foolish and unnecessary. She was strong enough.

  ‘Will you let me sketch you one day?’ she asked suddenly and he laughed, thrown back to that day in the gardens, to his instinctive need and even more instinctive resistance. He had been such a fool.

  ‘You can do whatever you want, Sophie. Anything, just love me.’

  ‘Oh, that’s easy,’ she said with a smile, tracing his lips with her fingers and he drew her towards him, doing the same to her, with his fingers, his mouth. She had such a beautiful, generous mouth. His, now. She was his.

  ‘Anything else?’ she asked, her breath meeting his, sliding her arms around him, drawing herself closer with the impatient need he loved in her.

  ‘No, just that.’

  ‘Oh, not this, too?’ She drew one of his arms around her, placing his hand firmly on her behind, and something between a laugh and a growl echoed through him and he pulled her on to his lap with more urgency than grace, realising he was hard as stone under her thigh.

  ‘God, yes. This, too.’

  She squirmed on him, her cheeks heating and the languid look that tore at his control entering her eyes. He wanted to draw it out, drag her to the edge of her control just as she did to him, keep her there until she begged for release. He teased her mouth with his, sliding over her, nipping, tasting her, but slipping away from her attempts to fix her mouth on his until she moaned in frustration.

  ‘You said I can do what I want, but you’re not letting me,’ she mumbled and the raw need in her voice shot such a surge of desire through him that he drew back.

  ‘We shouldn’t be doing this,’ he groaned, shifting his hands to her arms, trying to regain some control. ‘Rob and Sylvie are two doors down and tomorrow... I mean today we will go to Harcourt and we’ll be married in a week come hell or high water and then we can do anything we want... Sophie?’

  Something in the way she stiffened under his hold sobered him.

  ‘What is it, love?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Do we have to go there yet? I’m bound to do something wrong and your mother will hate me and whatever you say now, when it happens you’ll go all duke-ish on me and then I’ll be hurt and say something stupid and you’ll close down and...’

  His arms tightened on her.

  ‘Stop. Sophie, I’ve been a fool, but I will do everything I can to do better. You come first, do you understand me? Before everything. If anyone, my mother, anyone makes you uncomfortable, you do what you feel is right. Or you come to me and we will deal with them together. I trust you a damn sight more than I trust myself. You can indulge your beautiful heart to its fullest and it will only do good—to me and everyone around us. And if I go...“duke-ish”, then kick me. I don’t want to go through life like that any more. I told you, this is pure selfishness on my part. I need you to be happy. And I want you to be happy, more than I’ve wanted anything in my life. So don’t play by anyone’s rules but your own and if we clash we’ll deal with it. Together. Understand?’

  * * *

  Sophie nodded and leaned her cheek against his shoulder, shutting her eyes tight against the burn of tears. She loved him so much it was unbearable sometimes. She threaded her fingers through his and raised them to her lips, making a silent pact with herself to be brave enough to do precisely as he asked. There would be problems, plenty, she supposed, but she would try to be brave enough to deal with them in the open. She listened to the steady surge of his heartbeat against her, holding this moment to her as gently as possible. As amazing as it was she knew it was true, he needed her, and so much of what she had worried would stand between them had actually built this bridge of love and caring between them. Even his wary, duke-ish distance, because it was just the wall around the amazing person she loved and even that wall was beautiful. And she was so very, very happy. And becoming very, very soppily sentimental. She laughed against his shoulder and he pulled away slightly.

  ‘What’s so funny now?’ he asked, answering laughter lighting his eyes, warming them, opening him to her. This was what love looked like, she realised, and she had seen it in his eyes before but not recognised it. But she knew now and she would cherish it.

  ‘It occurred to me that I would never have met you if it hadn’t been for Marmaduke.’

  Max grinned at her, visibly relaxing. He brushed the hair back from her face, his hands sliding into her hair, down her neck, slow, measured caresses that were beginning to soothe away the fear and pain she had been holding inside her these past weeks. She knew this was just a prelude to the urgent heat that was gathering on the horizon, but for the moment she was content to abandon herself to his strength and love. She trusted him, she realised. Perhaps for the first time in her life, she trusted someone with her as she really was. Just Sophie.

  ‘I never thought I would owe my happiness to a pug,’ Max said, his voice as warm and caressing as his hands as they moved over her shoulders, sliding down her bare arms. ‘We shall have to get him a special treat.’

  ‘It wasn’t just Marmaduke,’ she murmured. She loved it when he touched that soft skin on the inside of her arm like this...like the day he had proposed, and then—was it just yesterday?—when he had turned over her arm gently and kissed her, so light and yet it had been so powerful. ‘I am very grateful you were so well trained. Otherwise you might not have stopped when I called him to heel.’

  ‘Any other demands you want to fling at my head, my lovely little madcap?’

  His voice, laughing and hoarse, filled her with a possessive joy she realised she could now set free. He was hers. She wanted to take all the time in the world to explore him, touch him, taste him until she knew every inch of him. Made him hers fully, because she could now.

  ‘Yes. I want to touch you everywhere,’ she said dreamily, without thinking, and his arms stilled and then closed on her convulsively as he shuddered, pulling her hard against him. She laughed, loving that just her words had the power to do this to him. She arched into his strength, the tingling heat rising, urgent, and her breath tightened and then released on a moan. His hands moved down her back, over her hips, gentleness replaced by a mirror of her urgency, and the sheer force of the muscles under her turned the tingling to a scalding need. She wanted him inside her, now. She didn’t have to keep her love to herself any more and it was most amazing thing in the world. He was amazing and he was hers. She wrapped her arms around his neck, leaning back against his arm and revelled in the brilliant storm in his eyes.

  ‘One more command, Max,’ she whispered, her breath hitching as his hand curved over the soft skin of her thigh, sliding her towards him, promising everything.

  ‘Anything...’ he said, his voice as lost as hers.

  ‘Lie down, Duke...

  * * * * *

  If you enjoyed this story, you won’t want to

  miss these other great reads from

  Lara Temple

  THE RELUCTANT VISCOUNT

  LORD CRAYLE’S SECRET WORLD

  Keep reading for an excerpt from THE BRIDE LOTTERY by Tatiana March.

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  The Bride Lottery

  by Tatiana March

  Chapter One

  Boston, Massachusetts, July 1889

  The night had fallen. In the darkness of her bedroom at Merlin’s Leap, Miranda Fairfax held up a single candle. The flickering light fell on the pale features of her younger sister, Annabel. “I don’t like leaving you behind, Scrappy.” Miranda used the childhood nickname reserved for moments of tenderness. “Cousin Gareth could set his sights on you next.”