“Your Grace, surely you aren’t trying to blame someone else—”
“No, of course not,” he said quickly. “I’m only explaining to you what I thought. And when I found myself falling in love with you, I kept focusing on my duty. My responsibility. I kept telling myself that I am your guardian and my duty is to protect you until you have married, not polish you until you marry me.”
“You did no such thing to me, Your Grace.”
“I know.” He took her hand and thanked God she didn’t pull away. “And when I met you, and finally got to know you, I realized how different our lives were. How different we were as people. You are such a kind and free spirit, and above all, you are courageous enough to go after what you want. I always fancied myself the same but after meeting you, I realized I am nothing close.”
He turned her hand over in his palm, rubbing his thumb over the back of it. “But I aspire to be like you. I want to be able to give into my feelings, to let my heart take over instead of my mind. I want to be strong enough to tell you that I love you with all my heart and I didn’t realize that I was until I found you on that day. All I kept thinking was that I never wanted to be apart from you again, that I never wanted you to leave my side. I realized that no amount of duty could ever tear me away from you, which is why I am by your side every day, hoping that you will forgive me.”
He didn’t realize the tears that were streaming down his face until his throat closed up. He blinked and they ran like a river, forcing a sob out.
Not for a single moment did David ever think he would be brought to tears confessing his love for a lady, but here he was. He didn’t know how he could get any more sincere than this.
“I love you, Miss Isabel,” he said through the tears. “I love you with all my heart and I wake up every morning praying that you will honor me by accepting my love.”
Like last time, she said nothing at first. David bent his head, getting out the last of his tears while not wanting to look her in the face if she rejected him. He didn’t know how he would be able to handle it, except he would have to. He would have to pick himself up and try again the next day.
“I love you, David,” she whispered to him.
He lifted his head. Miss Isabel wiped the tears from his cheeks and smiled softly. “You don’t mind if I call you David, do you? Since you will be my future husband.”
For a moment, he didn’t dare react. He didn’t dare believe that he had finally done it. But then, he couldn’t hold it in any longer and he picked her up off the bench, twirling her in his arms.
“Are you aware that you just made me the happiest man on Earth?”
“Yes, because I know I’m the happiest woman on Earth.”
And then he kissed her. She was his betrothed. They were to be married, sharing their lives as they did their hearts. He couldn’t not kiss her, and kiss her again and again until they were both laughing, basking under the rays of the sun and their elation.
Epilogue
The wedding was only a month later. Isabel floated through the weeks leading up to it feeling lighter than air, so happy that she could hardly believe it. She spent nearly every moment she could with the Duke. If he was occupied with work, she busied herself by helping Lady Pemperton with the preparations for the wedding.
At first, Isabel had been a little nervous about telling Lord and Lady Pemperton about what happened, but when she finally broke the news to them, they stated that they had already known all along. Apparently, Lady Pemperton had figured it out a long time ago and Lord Pemperton had found out the night Isabel was abducted, when his wife had confronted David about it.
Isabel had been in disbelief when she heard that. All this time she had thought no one knew about her feelings for David except for Elisa, but it wasn’t that much of a surprise when she remembered how observant Lady Pemperton was. In fact, she should have expected it.
Lord and Lady Pemperton had been very happy about the betrothal, but Lady Pemperton had expressed her concerns about how it would look to the ton. Everyone knew that Isabel was the ward of the Duke of Ventbury and though they hadn’t announced her betrothal to Lord d’Ylles, everyone had seen them together and had already assumed that they were courting. Lady Pemperton was afraid that it would create a bit of a scandal.
But Isabel didn’t care how she looked to the ton. She only wanted to spend the rest of her days happy with the man she loved, forgetting about the pressures of the society they lived in. Those very same pressures had remained as a blockade between their love and she refused to allow it to continue.
Thankfully, David had mentioned a notable point. Lord d’Ylles suspicious death had already been announced and so he thought it wouldn’t look very bad as a result. He believed that since everyone already noted that they were courting, his death would serve as a decent excuse as to why she was marrying someone else, even if it was her guardian. Isabel wasn’t as sure but Lady Pemperton seemed confident in her ability to present it in the right way.
And as a result, the guests to their wedding had been many. Isabel had hardly recognized any of them even as they gave her well wishes. She had been much too happy to focus on anything else but the gentleman who was now her husband, the person she had given herself to wholeheartedly.
It was a beautiful wedding, filled with tears from her—but mostly from Lady Pemperton—and now that it was over, she was looking forward to spending the rest of her life with her husband.
Only, when they finally found themselves alone, she no longer thought of the future but of the present, of what she knew was about to happen.
“I must say, my love,” David said as he pulled her closer. She smiled up at him, pushing the over-awareness of the fact that they were now standing alone in his bedchamber to the back of her mind. “You make a lovely bride.”
“And you make an even lovelier groom,” she said, kissing him on the lips.
His smile widened when she did and he returned the favor. It was such a simple gesture that her heart fluttered in her chest.
Or perhaps it’s fluttering because of where I am right now, and the fact that there is an empty bed behind us.
His soft kisses deepened all of a sudden, stirring that fire that never seemed to go away in his presence. She moaned a little against his mouth as she wrapped her arms around his neck. David rested his hands on her hips and gently steered her backwards until her legs hit the bed.
He broke the kiss and she slowly sank onto the mattress. She held his gaze because she couldn’t look away, couldn’t ignore the burning in his eyes as he began to undress. It didn’t occur to her exactly what he was doing until the first article of clothing fell to the floor and then her stomach tightened with lust. She could only watch, enraptured, as her husband became naked.
The sight of him was glorious. She had felt him before, against her leg when she had sought him out in his study, but seeing it in the flesh was something else entirely. She itched to touch it, to feel the skin beneath her fingers but he stopped her hand before she could and gently placed a kiss on the back of it.
“In time, my love,” he murmured.
Isabel thought she would combust. He tugged gently on her hand and raised her to stand. As he did with his own clothes, David started undressing her as well. Every slow movement, every simple brush of his hands against her skin underneath, had her tensing with need. When she was finally naked before him, she stood still as he drank her in, feeding off the lust in his eyes and tic in his cheek.
“I’m yours, David,” she murmured back. His eyes shot up to meet hers at that and then, as if he could no longer contain it, he kissed her again.
This time, when he lowered her onto the bed, it wasn’t so gentle. He nudged her legs apart with his knee as one hand began to fondle her breast. Isabel kissed him back with everything in her, unable to keep from writhing in ecstasy at the feel of his hand on her, of the way he pinched her nipple. When he broke free from her lips, his own descended onto her breast and she gr
asped the sheet beneath them to contain the pleasure.
It was filling her body at an immense rate and when she felt his hand hovering at her intimate spot, she didn’t know if she would be able to handle it.
She gasped loudly when his finger slipped inside her without warning. The feeling wasn’t invasive but welcoming, a foreign sensation that made her want to cry out. The finger moved slowly, curling against her as his mouth made quick work of her nipple. Then he returned his lips to hers, his finger still moving within her.
“Oh, yes,” she whispered and she felt him smile against her lips. Slowly, David slipped his finger out of her and lifted himself off her. She kept herself still, knowing what was coming next and still not entirely prepared for it when it arrived.
He filled her completely, and she gripped his neck, staring into his eyes as he slowly began to pump in and out. She knew her mouth was open but she couldn’t bring herself to close it. She knew that she was gasping loudly and she couldn’t quiet herself.
The faster he moved, the deeper he went, the more she lost herself. She was in someplace else, knowing that she would reach her peak soon. She felt it building inside her with every move he made and when she finally gave into her release, she cried out.
David was grunting along with her. His body shook with his own release and he gripped the sheets next to her head as they both rose and fell together.
At long last, David collapsed on top of her. She felt weak from what had just occurred and so she just held him, running her hand over his back. The position was comfortable because she liked to hold him like this and she was enjoying the feel of him still inside her.
“God, I love you, Isabel,” he whispered against her ear when he finally fell to her side. Isabel smiled at him. “I won’t let a day go by without letting you know how much I love you.”
“Making up for all the time wasted?” she asked.
“Of course,” he said, grinning back. “And because it makes me happy when I see you smile like that. I love you, I love you, I love you.”
Isabel beamed as he kissed her on the nose. Even though she knew she was perspiring, she felt beautiful under his attention. “I love you too, David. With all my heart.”
And that, Isabel knew, would never change. After everything they had been through, she knew they had a love that would last a lifetime.
The End?
Extended Epilogue
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Preview: P.S. I'll Make You Mine, My Duke
Prologue
The salty sea-stained summer air whipped up around the Royal Marines as they squinted through the blackness of the night, rowing as silently as they could toward the Spanish shore. The glow of the Spanish fortress was unmistakable at the top of the rise as her cannons shot down into the dark channel, and the host of British ships anchored there returned fire, at a small place in the Canary Islands called Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
The sound was all encompassing, a constant back and forth of sharp pops and cracks, deepened by their menace and their echo off of the Spanish walls. It was a hard thing, to stand on the deck of a ship and go toe to toe with a fortress battery, but it was far harder to take a landing party nearly one thousand strong ashore in secret.
Horatio Nelson’s plan rested on the surprise landing, and his men, who all loved him so fervently, wanted with all their hearts to give him that gift. One of those men was a proud Captain named Martin Carter, The Duke of Cloudfield. His Grace was a fine looking man by any account, with a strong jaw and a set of broad shoulders which looked a perfect fit beneath his naval officer’s uniform, and well-kept chestnut hair that accented his well-tanned skin from so long aboard a ship.
His thoughtful brown eyes lingered on the portraits of his wife and young son, contained in the small locket that rested in his palm. He took one last longing look at their images, and then clasped the locket shut with two fingers, and slipped it back around his neck. He could see the shore, and it was so close. He could see Nelson, leading the assault, drawing ever closer to their prize. It would only be a matter of minutes now, of that Martin was sure.
“Ready then, lads,” he whispered out to the boat full of Marines around him. “Nearly there. Keep hard on the oars, boys, and all else prepare your primer.”
They followed his orders diligently, making ready their powder horns as the oarsmen hauled away, and for that moment in time it looked as if they would sweep onto the Spanish beach without any resistance, and then easily overtake the battery which suppressed the engaged division of the English Navy.
“Come on, lads!” he whispered as loudly as he could through gritted teeth. “Let’s take this ruddy place for Nelson, for England! Row! Row! Row!”
Then the cannons opened up, and lead balls began to splash violently into the water around them as the Spanish ramparts facing them erupted with fiery wrath, and their smoke was illuminated by further flashes of ignited gunpowder.
“The jig is up, lads!” Martin screamed out. “Faster now! To victory! To Nelson! Look there! He is ashore! After him now! Row! Row! Row!”
Martin pointed with his sword toward their commander, and all the Marines behind him cheered, waving their muskets in the air as the cannon fire rained down toward them. All around, the shots sent shock waves through the water, each seemingly drawing closer than the last.
Horatio Nelson had his sword high in his right arm, and although they could not hear him from this distance, they knew he was bound to be screaming all sorts of inspirational calls to action, and they loved him for it. They loved him so much, that they would give him this fortress, or die trying. Nelson’s skiff hit the beach, and his men began to pour off of it like the Myrmidons landing at Troy, and Nelson was leading them the only way he could—with valor and brutish courage that would carry him into the annals of history.
Then the unthinkable happened. It was not unthinkable because it was unlikely, rather, because people had not dared to dream of it, for Nelson was too beloved, and too successful a commander to ever be taken away from them. And yet on that late summer evening, they all watched in horror as Nelson fell backwards into the landing boat, his arm washed away in red by the cruelty of cannonade.
Martin felt utter shock and disbelief to see his leader fall, but he knew his men would feel the same, and that if ever they were to reach the shore alive and capture that fortress, he would have to steer them from depressive thoughts. Now was not the time for mourning.
“Give ‘em hell, lads!” he seethed, waving his sword about. “For Nelson! Bring us ashore! Are you with me?”
“Aye!” they screamed, poised to spring from the bow behind their officer. “Then row! Row lads, row! Bring us there! For England!”
Then everything suddenly shifted like an eerie and violent tide. Martin’s craft was clove in two by a Spanish ball, and the planks creaked and cracked and were rent from each other in a matter of seconds. Martin was in the water, along with all of his Marines, and he felt entirely numb, ignorant to the splinter of wood stuck through him. The weight of his equipment began to drag him slowly downward, and Martin noticed a strange serenity there beneath the waves. He could not much hear the cannon any more, nor the scattered shouting of Marines and their muskets as they tried to storm the beach.
As he sank, his locket, still around his neck, drifted upwards gently, and cracked open by the impact, Martin could see his wife’s face looking back at him. He smiled to himself as he looked then to his young son, that bold face that Martin suspected would grow into a rather dashing fellow. How he loved them, and how they loved him. That was his last thought, and his body tou
ched softly to the sandy bottom of the shallows as he died, and the British attack failed.
* * *
The news came on a silver tray, delivered by a well-dressed man who had no clue to the gravity of the letter he carried. Little Reginald Carter poked his head around the corner of the foyer. He was being stealthy, for it was well past his bedtime as a three-year-old, but he possessed keen interest whenever the doorbell rang, for he hoped it would be his father come home from the war.
Reginald watched a servant take the letter as his mother stepped into the room. Reginald shrunk lower behind the metal legs of a suit of armor which his father had filled the house with so prolifically.
“Who would send a messenger at this hour?” his mother sounded cross, her hands on her hips as she approached the servant.
“It is from the Admiralty, madam,” the servant answered softly, and Reginald could see concern in both of their eyes, but still he dare not reveal himself.
“Oh,” she stumbled slightly backwards, feeling the wall behind her for support. “I see.”
Daring Deeds 0f A Forbidden Duchess (Steamy Historical Regency Romance) Page 26
