She stared down at him, his urgent blue eyes and that disheveled black hair, and she teetered at the edge of a cliff. There was no way to know what lay at the bottom of the drop, but safety lay behind her, if she would just refrain from jumping.
She shook her head, closing her eyes so she wouldn’t have to see the flash of disappointment in his. It didn’t matter, because in the next moment, she was coming apart, her fingernails digging into his chest as she shuddered from head to toe with her release. Andrew arched up under her, letting out a long, guttural groan before he followed her into oblivion.
Some time later, as she lay on her side with her eyes closed, she felt, more than heard, him whisper against her temple. “Do you want me to leave tonight?”
No, no, no, stay.
She nodded. Yes, he needed to leave, if for no other reason than that she so desperately didn’t want him to.
Without argument, he slipped from her bed, pressed a kiss to her shoulder and left her alone in her room.
Chapter Seventeen
“These inscriptions lend credence to Kipper’s theory that the civilization had been thriving in the region far earlier than previously thought.”
Andrew dropped the journal on his desk and rubbed a hand across his eyes. The Journal of the British Archaeological Association had arrived and included an article on Roman trade routes by Dr. Wilkins that he’d been anticipating for some time. Ordinarily he’d close himself off to the outside world for hours when he had something like that in his hands, but after reading the same passage three times without retaining a word, he had to admit his mind was on other things. Her.
He wasn’t even sure where she was at the moment. They’d gone out riding this morning with Mr. March. He’d seen more evidence of the magic she’d wrought in her time at Briarwood. More wrecked things made whole, more lives improved, more tenants extolling her virtues. She was no doubt off even now restoring something else that had been ruined or creating something lovely out of a mess not of her making. It would seem to be what she did best.
Ignoring the journal—perhaps for the first time in his adult life—he reached across his desk for the little statuette he’d brought back from Italy, the brass charioteer he’d unearthed last year, the one proving they were on the right track. He’d dug this out of the ground in Italy the week after he’d become betrothed to Victoria. At the time, he’d been so sure it was proof he’d chosen right by leaving her in England and returning to Italy. How hard he’d hung on to that idea.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were in here.”
Victoria hovered there, sunlight outlining her shape in the doorway. She stepped back, already turning away.
“No,” he called out in a rush. “It’s all right. Did you need something?”
“Just some writing paper. I seem to be out.”
“More letters?”
She considered him as she hung in the doorway, as always, uncertain of how to respond to him when he teased her. Things were improving. She’d left off anger, and even forgot herself now and then and fell into bantering with him. But she was still wary, like a wild animal he was trying not to scare off.
He pushed his chair back from the desk and spread his arms. “Please. Help yourself.”
As she bent over his desk and opened a side drawer, his eyes roamed over her. The blue-gray dress she wore set off her creamy skin until she glowed like a pearl. Her hair—that glorious hair he was nearly obsessed with—was caught up in the loose chignon she seemed to favor when she was at home. His fingers twitched, imagining pulling out the few pins holding it in place and watching it tumble down.
As she continued to sort through the contents of the drawer, he gripped the bronze statue from the dig in an effort to keep from reaching out to touch her. If he touched her, she’d become flustered and withdraw from him all too soon. When she located her paper, she closed the drawer and straightened.
“Did you find what you needed?”
She waved the paper. “I did. Thank you.”
He reached across his desk, carefully setting the bronze on the back edge. Victoria eyed it with badly concealed curiosity.
“Do you like it?” he ventured, bringing it back to show her.
“Is it from your dig?”
“Yes. I found it early last spring. It told us we were on the right track.” He held it out to her. “Would you like to look at it?”
With an encouraging smile, he extended the statue again. Her fingers curled around it gingerly as she examined it.
“How old do you think it is?”
“About two thousand three hundred years. Give or take.”
Victoria gasped, holding it away from her like it was on fire. “Maybe I shouldn’t...” She began to hand it back, but he stopped her with a laugh.
“It’s bronze. And it’s been buried in the ground for two millennia. I doubt you can do any lasting damage.”
Her expression said she didn’t quite believe him, but she brought it closer to look at it. “It’s quite lovely. Not what I would have expected.”
“What did you expect?”
“Something like those marbles at the British Museum. Marble. Classical. This is so simple. Primitive, but it’s also elegant.”
Her untutored observation drew a wide smile from him. It was the first thing he’d thought when he’d first dug it up. “I think so, too.”
“They must have been a remarkable people to produce something so lovely.”
“It’s why I’m so set on uncovering this tomb.”
“Can you imagine what else you might find?” Her eyes were wide with wonder, the wonder he first felt when he began his studies.
“I imagine it often, actually.”
Her expression sobered as she seemed to come to some sort of realization. With a last look at the sculpture, she set it carefully on his desk. “I understand why you’re so eager to return to Italy.”
He stood up and met her eyes. “It will keep for the time being. I told you that.”
“It’s your life’s work. You can’t give it up.”
“It was different when Edmund was alive. Even while my father lived. My responsibilities weren’t the same. But now there’s the estate and the girls.”
“I think I’ve managed both well enough,” she said with a hint of brittleness in her voice.
“You have, without a doubt. But, Victoria, I think we can both agree my absence was hardly ideal. I mean to do better going forward.”
As she had whenever he attempted to connect with her, she looked away and changed the subject. “I apologize for the scant selection of books. I’ve had some new ones sent from London, but I’m sure you’ll want to order your own, considering your work.”
“Yes, the shelves are looking a bit bare, aren’t they?”
“There wasn’t much worth saving after it had been neglected for so long. There were one or two interesting things we unearthed...” Once again, she trailed off when she caught herself engaging with him.
“Like what?” he urged.
“Well, I found the journals of the fifth Duchess of Waring. They proved quite interesting and instructional.” She turned towards a bookshelf, rearranging a row of books. Even unconsciously, she was always putting this place to rights.
“Ah, that’s how you know this house’s history inside and out. But you know so much about England, too. How did you come to be so well-versed when you’re American by birth?”
She looked at him over her shoulder, as if she was assessing why he asked and whether she was safe answering truthfully. For weeks, he’d done nothing but share himself with her, but she’d steadfastly refused to open up in return.
She drew a deep breath, but then shook her head and laughed slightly. “Never mind. It’s silly.”
“No,” Andrew protested, leaning closer. “I want to know. Tell me.”
She reached out and ran her fingertips along the spines of an old set of Shakespeare’s plays. “I was born in America, but we moved here when I was eight. All part of my mother’s plan to see me well married. She wasn’t content to wait for cash-strapped nobility to come fortune-hunting in New York. She came right to the source.” She paused and took a breath. There was a bitterness that laced her voice every time she spoke about her parents. It had been there from the first, had he chosen to listen to her.
“You have to understand something,” she began again. “From the time I knew what marriage was, it was made clear to me what mine would be like.”
“And what was that?” How had she viewed their union? For him, it had been a necessary evil to be endured, but what was her view of it? Perhaps very different from what he’d long believed.
“My mother told me over and over that I would only be wanted for my fortune. It was my job to wed the highest-ranking man I could manage. Love or affection had no place in it. So you see, the stories young girls like to read—stories about a knight fighting for a lady’s hand, stories about a princess falling in love with the prince who wakes her from her sleep, stories about true love breaking the witch’s spell—none of that had any place in my future. I wasn’t permitted to indulge in those kinds of fantasies because love was never going to be an option.”
Tendrils of hair curled around her jaw and the nape of her neck, glinting gold in the light from the window behind her. Reaching out, he tucked one back behind her ear. Her breath caught as his fingers skimmed her neck, but she didn’t draw back.
“So what kind of stories did you indulge in?” He was afraid to breathe too loudly for fear of scaring her away. Not now, not when she was finally letting him.
Her eyes shifted up to his, wary and uncertain. Whatever she saw in his face must have reassured her because she finally smiled, soft and a little sad.
“England. I was still a girl when I came here. It was so different from New York. Cold, ancient, rather forbidding. But I loved it. Everything in America is so new. Everything here was old. Not just old, ancient. I was fascinated. And since the plan from my earliest years was to marry nobility, England’s story was one I might have a part in. So England became my fairy tale. I was made to memorize the peerage, but I probably would have done it anyway because I found it so interesting. I liked to read about old houses like Briarwood. There’s something comforting in its age and its history. Think of all this house has seen, all the people who’ve come and gone in these rooms. Think of the stories Briarwood could tell. And now I’m part of it, if only in a small way. It’s not much of a fairy tale, but it was the best I had. I suppose you think it’s foolish,” she whispered, ducking her head in embarrassment.
“No, I don’t. I think it’s rather lovely, Victoria.”
She looked up at him and he was tempted, with her so close, to reach up and cradle her face. Her elegant, self-controlled veneer, the one he’d once thought masked a dark, greedy heart, was gone. All that was left was this woman he’d come to know on her own terms—the one who loved his sisters, cared for his tenants, made his wrecked legacy into a warm and welcoming home. They’d both been pawns in this game. Could they turn it around and emerge as the winners? It remained to be seen, but they were closer now than they’d ever been before.
For all her strength and resilience, in this moment, she seemed fragile and so alone. He wanted to kiss her and it seemed she might not push him away if he tried. But the great-grandfather clock out in the hall rang out the hour, shattering the moment.
Victoria inhaled and took a step back. “It’s time to dress for dinner.”
Before she could withdraw further, he reached out and captured her hands in his, pulling her back in to him. She came, even though he could see the fear clouding her eyes. Raising her hands to his lips, he kissed her knuckles, first one hand and then the other.
“Thank you for sharing that with me.”
She said nothing, but she also didn’t snap at him and pull away. Perhaps it was time to push things a little further, to see how far into herself she’d allow him.
He turned her hands over and lowered his head, pressing a kiss to her palm. Her breathing grew shaky.
“I’m looking forward to tonight,” he murmured against her skin. He could sense the spike in her arousal. He’d spent enough time exploring her body to recognize it. “When I can give you something in return.”
“Wh-what?”
He smiled against her palm as she stumbled over the word, then moved to kiss the other palm, openmouthed, teasing her lightly with his tongue. Her hands trembled in his.
“You shared with me. So now you’ll get something in return.”
“That’s...I didn’t...you don’t have to.”
He raised his head and smiled at her. “Oh, trust me, I want to.”
She looked petrified and ready to flee, so before he could scare her off and undo what had been accomplished today, he released her hands and took a step back.
“So I’ll see you at dinner?”
She blinked, as if surfacing from deep under the water. “Yes, dinner.”
Motioning to the door, he let her turn and precede him from the room. Yes, he was looking forward to tonight. They were on the edge of something momentous, if he could only bring her with him to the other side.
* * *
Victoria dug through her hair for pins. She’d been at it for ten minutes and her hair still wasn’t free, but only because her mind was fully occupied with other things.
He was making this arrangement almost unbearable. When she’d agreed to it, she honestly thought she’d be able to keep him at arm’s length, even as she offered up her body. It’s what she’d always imagined the marriage bed to be anyway.
But when he came night after night and refused to be rushed as he explored her, she forgot herself, she forgot how much she’d hated him, how much she didn’t want that from him. He made her want it. And the worst part was, he wasn’t content with simply possessing her body. He kept tugging at her heart, trying to get her to open it to him. Today he had. She’d let him in and left herself vulnerable to him. So far, he hadn’t hurt her, but would he? Because she was fairly certain he still had the power to, as much as she’d tried to convince herself otherwise.
“What are you thinking about?”
She startled at the sound of his voice. He’d slipped soundlessly into her room and now he stood behind her at her dressing table, watching her wrestle with her hair.
“Nothing. Just trying to find all the pins.”
“May I?”
She hesitated before dropping her hands to her lap.
He went to work, seeking out the pins and tossing them one by one onto her vanity. Her hair slowly began to tumble down. As each section came free, he ran his fingers through it from scalp to tips to loosen the strands. The temptation to lean into him and relax against him was almost overpowering. Her neck ached with the strain of resisting it.
“God, I love your hair.” He stroked his fingers through it. His voice sent a frisson of sensation across her skin. “All day long, I fantasize about this. Taking it down and touching it.”
Her breathing grew heavy. She was sure he could feel it, but she couldn’t seem to help it.
“I fantasize about much more than that, of course,” he continued, still dragging his hands through her hair. “I think about taking you in the most inappropriate places. The desk in the study where we consult with March. I’ve thought about taking you there more times than I can count. And in the library, always a particular favorite of mine. And in the breakfast room, on the table—”
Weakened by the onslaught of imagery, she closed her eyes and sagged forward. “Andrew.”
His hands closed
around her shoulders and he pulled her to her feet. “Shh. I didn’t tell you all that to get a response from you. I wanted you to know how often I’m thinking about you. How badly I want you.”
He took her face in his hands and brought his face close, so close their lips were almost touching. But not, because she didn’t let him kiss her. As if it had prevented anything. “Right now I want to kiss you,” he said. The words washed across her lips and she ached for the same thing.
Her throat closed up with a sudden surge of emotion. Too much. It was entirely too much. “I don’t—”
“Shhh. I know. I won’t.” And he didn’t, moving to kiss the side of her neck, making her squirm with desire and unsatisfied longing.
“Every inch of you is beautiful,” he murmured, kissing his way down her throat and touching his tongue to the hollow at the base. With a trail of hot, openmouthed kisses, he moved across her collarbone to her shoulder, tugging her nightgown off it to bare her skin.
There was always this pang of anxiety when he stripped her of her clothes. Her clothes were her armour. If he couldn’t have all of her body, he couldn’t have all of her. It was untrue of course. He managed to reduce her to a quaking mass of need their first night back together and he’d left her nightgown on for all of it. Indeed, he’d used it as part of her seduction.
He began nudging her back toward the bed, his mouth never leaving her body. It was a kiss on her cheek, or one on the edge of her ear, or the hollow under her jaw. His hands came up and cradled her breasts. She stifled a moan of pleasure. Good heavens, she was already slick and aching. How did he draw this out of her so quickly?
When her calves met the edge of the bed, he stopped, his hands gripping her hips, his mouth moving over her skin, everywhere but her lips, until she was desperate to move things along. Yes, he’d shatter her, but the sooner he did it and left, the sooner she could start convincing herself it didn’t mean anything.
She slipped a hand between them, attempting to loosen the ribbon ties on her nightgown, but he stopped her. “Let me.”
A Duchess in Name Page 22
