The Duke of Dark Desires

by Miranda Neville

  Denford, who had been looking at her lazily as he listened, raised his black brows. “I didn’t expect that.”

  “Neither did she. Since she had always lived chastely, she realized it must have happened after the baron rescued her and left her unconscious. The father of her child might be a common soldier, or even one of her own servants.”

  “Did she not suspect the baron?” Denford asked.

  “Not for a moment. He had saved her and she knew him to be a man of honor. As a lady of honor, she could not accept his proposal and expect him to acknowledge her bastard as his own. At the same time, she needed to be married, or she would be disgraced, an outcast from her family and society. She placed an advertisement in the newspaper, asking the father of her child to come forward. Imagine her surprise when the baron appeared at the appointed time.”

  “Imagine,” Denford said.

  “You didn’t believe him honorable?”

  “I have few illusions about what men will do, even so-called gentlemen. Did the contessa wed him?”

  “She was reluctant at first but finally she agreed for the sake of their child. They had a son and in the end their marriage was a happy one.”

  The duke frowned. “I don’t understand why a lady could ever forgive her deceiver. He wasn’t just a seducer, he raped her when she was vulnerable and in his care.”

  “Women must forgive much if they are to survive. What choice did she have?” Unable to maintain the measured tone in which she recounted the tale, her voice fell to a whisper. “Besides, he had saved her life. She was in his debt.”

  Julian watched Jane gaze into her brandy as though it held the secrets of the universe. It was a good story she had told, one he would have enjoyed had he read it in a novel. Yet he didn’t believe it entirely invented. She was telling him something about herself, but what? Which part?

  Removing her glass, he set it aside and covered her hands with one of his. “Look at me, Jane.” She didn’t move a muscle. “Is that what happened to you?” A tiny shake of denial that he didn’t believe. Taking her by the chin and making her look at him, he was appalled by the dull hopelessness in her eyes. “Were you violated like that? Did you have a child?”

  “Not like that.” He could hardly hear her. “And there was no child.”

  “Will you tell me? I would be honored by your confidence,” he said, despite the inherent irony of speaking of honor at present. He had precious little honor himself, and apparently Jane had been the victim of a man or men who had none.

  Though her eyes glistened with tears, it was better than the dead look. “I can’t tell you everything, but a little. He did not force me, but he had saved my life and he made it clear that he would not continue to do so if I didn’t surrender to him. So you see, I gave in willingly.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Fifteen.”

  A massive rage gripped Julian’s chest. As far as he was concerned it was rape, and he’d like to find Jane’s violator and give him what he deserved. “Where is he now?” Not on the island of Saint Lucia, he’d be willing to bet.

  “He is dead.”

  “Painfully, I hope.”

  “He was a soldier and killed in battle so I expect it wasn’t pleasant.”

  “But he was never punished for his crime?”

  “I lived with him as his mistress for three years. I’m sorry that I am not a proper person to live with your sisters.” She smiled gallantly. “You were right about that, you see.”

  “I find you eminently proper. I am not going to blame you for what happened when you were little more than a child. I only wonder that you could bear to live with him, to lie with him.”

  She shrugged. “He was kind to me, mostly, and I was fed and clothed and not dead. Like the contessa, I made the best of things. Do you think it is impossible to forgive a wrongdoing?”

  He shook his head. “There are some sins so dreadful that they can never be forgiven.” He should know. He had committed them himself. “Let me comfort you, Jane. You have nothing to fear from me.” He leaned back against the cushions, scene of feverish imaginings involving Jane Grey, and pulled her down so her head rested on his chest. One arm encircled her waist, while the other stroked her hair. “I will never let anything happen to you.” A stupid thing to say.

  She made no effort to escape his embrace but settled into it, laying her palm flat over the heart that was racing fit to burst from his ribs. He’d nurtured a hope that tonight would end with Jane in his arms, but not like this. How could he seduce a woman who had been so abominably used? He concentrated on the simple delight of holding her, inhaling her scent, letting her hair tickle his nose, sensing the rise and fall of her breath as she pressed against him. “I will come back,” he murmured. Returning to England alive mattered because he had three sisters who relied on him and their governess whom he wanted to protect, even if her abuser was dead.

  Fifteen. Maria’s age. It was also the age of the oldest Falleron girl who had gone to the guillotine through his carelessness. He preferred not to think about that now.

  “Was it after this brute’s death that you became a governess?” he asked.

  “I don’t want to talk about it and I don’t like to think about it.”

  He knew just what she meant. “What would you like to talk about?”

  “I think I would like you to make love to me.”

  “Look at me, Jane.” She raised her head from his chest and he found her as unreadable as ever, not ablaze with passion as he had so long anticipated. “Why?”

  “Because I desire you. Did you not think so?”

  “I hoped. I also feared you far too sensible to succumb without a long, hard siege.”

  “There’s no time for the siege, with you leaving tomorrow. And now you know that I am not as I should be.”

  “Don’t say that. Never say that.” The self-disgust in her voice twisted his heart. “You are exactly as you should be: clever, kind, witty, and beautiful. Even had you not surrendered your virginity by force, it wouldn’t matter to me. It would be deeply hypocritical for me, or for most men, to condemn your so-called lack of virtue.”

  “Few women would agree with you, not respectable ones.”

  “Try not to care about them.” He kissed her lightly and briefly, refusing the invitation of her clinging lips. “Honored as I am by your request . . .

  What am I saying? Honored is a namby-pamby word. I am enraptured by your request.”

  “So? Why do we wait?”

  “You are a member of my household, Jane. One of my dependents. It doesn’t sit well with me that you should feel any obligation. Not after what happened to you before.”

  She rested her arms on his chest. The glow in her mahogany eyes made him dizzy. “I feel no obligation. Remember, you gave me the key.”

  “I am ashamed you had to ask for it.”

  “Your Grace, I never felt in danger from you, except from my own desires.”

  “Julian.” He stroked her hair. “My name is Julian.”

  “Julian.” His name on her lips, and her smile, made his heart thud. “Kiss me, Julian. Make me forget.”

  She had turned the tables and seduced him.

  “Come here,” he said, and pulled her over so that she was on top of him, lying between his splayed legs. Jane was such a graceful creature, almost ethereal in her movements, that it was a pleasurable surprise to find her substantial in his arms. No fairy creature of light and air, but a woman of bone and flesh that he would finally explore. Through her sensible cloth gown he felt curvaceous hips and a firm, plump bottom. He couldn’t wait to see her naked.

  But first he kissed her. A lot. She was sweet and spicy and completely responsive and their two previous kisses hadn’t been nearly enough. He intended that this evening should last a long time, even if the rocking of her body stimulated him to a perilous degree of arousal.

  “Let’s take this slowly,” he murmured. She might not have had a lover for a long time a
nd, if that villainous ravisher was her only one, she would need a good deal of coaxing to be pleased, an effort he would not spare. He relished the challenge.

  For a while they lay still, not even kissing, as he continued to caress her back and let his raging desire abate a little. It was Jane who made the next advance, burrowing under his coat and working loose the buttons of his waistcoat. Her fingers were warm, first through linen and then on the skin of his stomach. She’d tugged the shirt loose from his breeches. He squeezed his eyes shut and shuddered. “You’ll kill me, Jane.” Without a word she continued the blissful torture until he could take it no more. He rolled her over and pinned her hands above her head. “My turn.”

  Despite his fantasy of raising her skirts and taking her fully clothed, he wanted more than a quick tumble, at least this time. From the front, her sensible gown was an impregnable fortress, so he kissed her some more, then flipped her. “Buttons,” he said in response to her protest, half laugh and half squawk. “If you must wear clothing that fastens behind, expect to find yourself prone. Now she was definitely laughing and he wasn’t paying enough attention because halfway through the job she pushed him off and reversed their positions again, ripping off his neckcloth. So with mirth and panting they eventually found themselves kneeling opposite each other on the divan, naked but for her stockings and his unbuttoned breeches barely clinging to his hips.

  He drank in the sight of her. “You are beautiful,” he breathed, reaching out to touch the little plump breasts tipped with dusky, brownish nipples. “Perfectly soft.”

  “You too,” she said, mimicking his movements and caressing his chest.

  “Soft?”

  “Not there,” she said, eyeing his rampant cock with a wicked little grin that gave him ideas about her mouth. Her experiences hadn’t damaged her beyond the ability to joke in bed, but he needed to go slowly. Any confluence of his cock and her mouth would have to be initiated by her. He hated, hated, that her dastardly soldier might have forced her to perform a deed that disgusted her.

  “I’m afraid I’m a hairy man, black Irishman that I am.”

  “I like it.” She fingered the dark thatch over his chest. “And I love your hair.” In the struggle to undress, his queue had come loose. She wound the inky tresses around her slender white hands and brought them to her lips. He was her captive and she was his, manacled by locks of hair. There and then he was grateful he’d resisted every impulse to cut them.

  Her hair remained up, though rumpled like an unruly schoolboy’s. But she was nothing like a schoolboy, nothing at all. His fingers explored her small, firm breasts, down over the gentle curve of her belly, to her lower curls, dipping into wet heat. His tension eased a notch. She was aroused. Gently he disentangled himself. “Let’s lie down.”

  He let his breeches drop to the floor and joined her. Stretched out on their sides, they lay face to face, continuing their mutual exploration of any part of the body within reach. Finally he settled on one elbow, nuzzling her lips with quick kisses and compliments while his other hand explored the wet cradle of her quim, stroking her clitoris until he felt her tension begin to mount.

  “Come,” she said through heightened breathing. “I want you now.” She grasped his cock imperiously and gave it a sharp tug. She knew what she was doing.

  “I surrender,” he said, and let her pull him down on top and guide him in.

  Surely nothing in his thirty years on earth had felt as extraordinary as she: hot, tender, magnificent. Moving as evenly and deliberately as he could manage, he kept an iron control on his roiling sac, which urged him to pound away and release as soon as possible. He would see to Jane’s pleasure if the effort killed him. And he wanted their union to last, forever if possible. If the rest of his life should be spent entwined with Jane Grey he had no objection.

  “Why did you stop, Julian?” she moaned. “Don’t stop.”

  “I’m collecting myself,” he said tightly. “I don’t want to finish before you.”

  “Don’t worry about me.”

  Julian added the words selfish oaf to the list of epithets attached to her ravisher. “I most certainly will.” He withdrew altogether and started to pleasure her with his hand while sucking hard on her taut nipple. She arched into him, rolling her hips to match his rhythm, and uttering tiny, muted cries. “Shout if you want to,” he said, raising his head to witness her expression as she reached her orgasm. “No one will hear you.”

  But she came quietly, just a little diminuendo rippling from her throat. He caught it with a kiss and held her tight as her shudders faded.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, and flung her arms about his neck, kissing him desperately, sucking on his tongue as though she’d devour him. “Incroyable, Your Grace. Magnifique.”

  “Et toi aussi.” He had no objection to a little French in bed. “La plus belle dame de ma connaissance.”

  She jerked her head and blinked.

  “What?”

  “Your turn now,” she said.

  “If you will take your pleasure again, first.”

  She had powerful legs that gripped his waist when he entered her again. The muscles of his arms strained so that he could see her face as he worked. Her eyes were closed, her mouth ajar, and he wished she would look at him and he could read her thoughts. Yet he could tell from her breath and the grip of her passage on his cock that she was close to fulfillment again. He longed to increase his speed and attempt to finish at close to the same time. The feeling of intimacy would be incredible, but he dared not try. He was approaching a state of total mindlessness and he might be too far gone to pull out. Instead he let her go over the edge alone, allowed himself a few hard thrusts, and withdrew. Panting, he snatched up his shirt and spent into the linen folds.

  Jane lolled on her back, then, seemingly suddenly aware that every inch of her was open to his gaze, pulled a silk pillow over her sex. “Why? Why did you leave?”

  “I don’t want to get you with child.”

  She pursed her lips together with a puzzled frown. “I understand that. But surely you could have remained with me a little longer.” Her cheeks colored delicately, which he found delightful given their nakedness and recent activity. “It would be more normal, surely, to rejoice in my arms.”

  “That safeguard against pregnancy doesn’t always work. I don’t want to risk leaving you with a child when I may not come back to you.” With the tale of the contessa fresh in his mind, he wasn’t going to risk abandoning Jane alone in the world in such a condition.

  She sat up, still clutching her pillow, and stroked his cheek. “You are a good man, Julian.”

  He kissed her again. “Not so good that I don’t look forward to a repetition on my return, with a better method of preventing conception.”

  The pillow forgotten, she hurled her arms around him and buried her face in his neck, gulping back a sob. Alarmed and touched, he rubbed her back and tried to comfort her. “I’m coming back, Jane,” he said. “I promise.”

  She hiccupped. “I will never see you again.” Apparently the act of love had disordered her emotions. He found her disquiet flattering and understandable; he felt the sorrow of their parting too. But instead of desperation, he was filled with a new determination.

  “I won’t let anything, either my enemies or passing bandits, stop me from returning to you. When I make up my mind to something, I get it. Expect to meet me again in this library within a month.”

  She sniffed hard, an endearingly mundane action. “I am foolish,” she said. “Will you kiss me good-bye again?”

  “I will take any excuse to kiss you, but this is not good-bye.”

  The kiss turned into several. Each time she tried to turn one into a spoken farewell, he gathered her close and silenced the words with his lips. When he withdrew, knowing he must let her go, she clung to him, as loath to part as he. Finally it was he who brought the evening to a close, afraid that the housemaid would discover them naked when she came in at dawn to light the
fire.

  “I must let you go,” he said reluctantly. “This is only au revoir.” He found her shift, pulled it over her head, and took a last quick kiss. “Within a month. The usual time and place.”

  Julian watched Jane leave the room, half dressed and hoping no servants had strayed from their beds. He sat tailor-style on the divan wearing nothing but his breeches and thought about her. His Jane.

  He was confident that she was not in league with his enemies. He could now tell when she told the truth because he knew when she was lying. That was when she told him just about anything about her past. But she hadn’t lied about the monster who had violated her, though he didn’t have the whole story. Julian would bet heavily on the man being French. When she spoke of his orgasm she’d used the word rejoice, an odd choice in English but a direct translation of the French term.

  Though he had acquitted her of villainy, he was glad he had hired a Bow Street Runner to investigate Jane Grey. He was ragingly curious to know everything about her and couldn’t wait to return to her arms.

  Both confident in his return and more fearful than he had ever been that somehow he might not make it back, he sat at his desk and wrote two more notes. One to Blackett, desiring a substantial sum be handed over to Jane Grey when the governess left her employment. And one to Jane herself.

  Chapter 12

  Jane sat at the writing desk in the duchess’s chamber, tracing the marquetry of the piece with her fingertips and making a conscious effort not to open the drawer containing the key. It would be so easy to let her unfastened garments fall to the floor and to walk naked into Denford’s rooms, his bed, and his arms.

  He could be hers one last time if she would but use the key.

  She’d enjoyed sleeping with Henri, who prided himself on his prowess in bed. But Henri had been a selfish man and now she had confirmed that he was a selfish lover. He pretended to want her pleasure but his own came first. In Henri’s bed her first duty was to like what he liked and to pay for his attentions with fulsome praise. Her enjoyment bolstered his belief in his own superiority.