“Hmm. Joanna warned me you were ruthless at games,” he said, as they arranged their chess pieces. “She says you never let her win, even when she was a little girl.”
“I shan’t let you win either just because you’re a man,” she warned and made her first move, sliding her queen’s pawn forward.
“I should hope not.” He pushed out a pawn of his own. “Because I intend to claim a kiss when I win, but being a man of honor, I can’t claim it if I haven’t rightly earned it.”
His words and the low intensity of his voice caused her to look up, and when she did, she knew he meant what he said. His lashes lowered to her mouth, and her lips began to tingle. Her insides quivered. She wanted to think of something clever to say in reply, but she couldn’t think of a thing.
Wellesley, thank heaven, chose to enter the room just then, and she was spared any need to reply.
“Your port, Your Grace,” Wellesley announced, gliding into the room with a laden tray. “And the fruit.”
“Excellent.” He nodded to a table nearby. “Put it there, but move the table within reach, will you? And pour us both some port, unless the duchess prefers something else?”
“No, port is lovely, thank you, Wellesley.”
The butler poured out two glasses, though Edie suspected he was itching to point out that port was usually reserved for the gentlemen, and that ladies were supposed to drink madeira or sherry. “Will there be anything else, Your Grace?”
“No, thank you, Wellesley,” he said, and returned his attention to the board. “You may go. If we need anything, we’ll ring.”
“Yes, Your Grace.” He bowed and moved to depart.
“And close the door behind you,” Stuart called after him just as he reached the doorway.
“Was that necessary?” she asked, as the butler obeyed and the door clicked shut behind him.
“I thought it best to have privacy.”
She moved her knight. “You mean you’re hoping privacy is needed.”
He grinned back at her, unrepentant. “Well, yes, that, too. You could have objected.”
That, she realized in chagrin, was an irrefutable point. She hastily invented a reason for her acquiescence. “I don’t know what you’ll take it into your head to say or do. You might take up my hand again, or . . . or something else. So it’s best if the servants aren’t here. They might be embarrassed by such displays.”
“Oh, I see. It’s the servants you’re worried about.” He moved another pawn. “I’m glad to know that I can ravish you in private with no fear of embarrassing you.”
“No, you can’t!” she cried, catching too late the smile lurking at the corners of his mouth. She gave a sigh of exasperation. “That isn’t what I meant, and you know it. Stop teasing me.”
“But Edie, this is important. I don’t know which of my advances would be welcomed, and which would be spurned, so I am testing the waters at every opportunity.”
“I don’t know why, when I shall spurn them all.”
“Ah, but will you? I know you’re not indifferent to me, or you would have told Wellesley to leave the door open. And you admitted just this morning that the idea of another woman being with me made you jealous.”
Oh, God, he would bring that up. She stared down at the chessboard, feeling hot and prickly all over again. It was too late to take back the humiliating admission now, but she couldn’t help correcting him. “I said a little bit jealous.”
“I stand corrected.”
“And anyway, that seems like very flimsy evidence to me.”
“Possibly, but I know what happened between us on that terrace five years ago, and I know what you felt then because I saw it in your face.”
“You have a vivid imagination.”
“Well, yes.” His smile widened. “I believe I admitted as much this afternoon.”
She stirred, her body growing hotter at his reminder of their conversation earlier in the day.
“But,” he added, “I don’t need imagination to know when a woman is truly indifferent to me and when she’s not.”
She wanted to present him with nothing but indifference because then maybe he would give up trying to win her over, but she couldn’t seem to keep it up. He kept slipping past her defenses in ways he hadn’t been able to do five years earlier, and she didn’t know quite why. She wanted to be cold because then he might agree with her that separation was the only thing to do, but coldness was a hard thing to summon when he talked about what he imagined when she wore a white dress. “You know far too much about women, if you ask me,” she muttered.
“My fair share,” he admitted. “I was quite the ladies’ man back in my salad days.”
She didn’t tell him her friend Leonie had mentioned all the hearts he’d broken when he went to Africa the first time, nor the fact that she’d had no trouble believing it. Gray eyes that glinted with humor, the lean symmetry of his face, his brilliant smile, his strong body, his quick wit, and most of all, his instinctive understanding of what appealed to women—all of those must have made women swoon in what he called his salad days. She returned her attention to the board and tried to concentrate on the game.
“Sadly,” he went on, “that does me no good at all with you, since you ruthlessly cut me down to size at every opportunity.”
She didn’t reply. Instead, she moved her knight and took his bishop.
“That rather proves my point,” he murmured. “Still, I can be ruthless, too,” he added as he moved his rook and knocked down her bishop. “Check.”
Edie gave a huff of vexation as he pulled her bishop off the board. “You said you don’t play well.”
“I said I don’t play often. I didn’t say I don’t play well.”
She made a face. “If you are so accomplished at the game, then why do you insist on trying to distract me?”
“Because it’s a fundamental strategy of chess?” He propped his elbow on the table and his chin in his hand. “In all seriousness, I’m not trying to distract you because I want to win a chess game. I want to know more about you.”
Edie didn’t reply, and her silence caused him to give an aggrieved sigh. “Really, Edie, you are exasperatingly circumspect. I don’t want to just sit and push chess pieces around with you. I want to know what interests you and what you like and what makes you laugh. I want . . .” He paused, waiting until her curiosity got the better of her, and she looked up. “Edie, I want to know what pleases you.”
As she heard those words and looked into his eyes, she felt a faint answering thrill.
“What if we do this?” He leaned forward and slowly eased his hand over hers. “What if I tell you what I like, and you tell me if you like it, too?”
His hand was warm over the back of hers. She thought of the day before, when he’d kissed her palm, and this afternoon, when he’d talked about how she looked in white, and a melting sensation that had become quite familiar to her during the past few days started coming over her again. But then she reminded herself of his deeper desires and what was at stake, and she snuffed out that answering thrill. “I think I already have a fair idea of what you would like,” she said tartly, and withdrew her hand.
“And what’s that?”
He waited, watching her, dark brows lifted in inquiry, as if he didn’t know what she meant when they both know he did. As if he actually expected her to answer. As if she could articulate descriptions of masculine lust.
She flushed and looked away. “We shouldn’t talk of these things.”
“Why not? Any marriage worth its salt has to have honesty, so let’s not dance around the point you’re trying to make. Say it straight out. What do you think I would like?”
A flash of the summerhouse at Saratoga ran through her mind, and instead of pushing it away as she usually did, she used it now, used it like a shield. “You would like,�
�� she said in a hard voice, “to fornicate with me.”
There was a moment of silence before he replied. “When you say things about him,” he said, his voice equally hard, “look at me. Look into my eyes. That way, you’ll start to recognize the difference.”
She straightened in her chair and turned her head to meet his gaze head-on. She saw anger there, glinting in the silvery depths of his eyes. “Am I wrong, then?”
“You are, actually. Quite wrong. I don’t want to fornicate with you. I want to make love with you.” He paused, and the anger in his eyes faded, melting away and becoming something else, something warm. “There’s a world of difference between the two, Edie, and that’s the quandary I face. How do I make you understand the difference?”
She looked back at him helplessly, her shield slipping. “I don’t know, Stuart.”
“I know you’re afraid. I know you’ve had pain.” He paused, making a fist and pressing it to his mouth as if striving for control. “I’d take it away if I could,” he said after a moment, and lowered his hand. “But I can’t. So all I can do is try to find ways to make you feel the other side of it, the side that is good and right and beautiful. That’s what I want.”
She felt hope stirring, a faint spark in a long, cold darkness. She reached for her port and took a hefty swallow. “You want what I can’t give you.”
“I don’t think so, but I can see why you would believe otherwise. I admit,” he added as she didn’t reply, “that I want to kiss you and touch you and ravish you. Of course I do. I want to pleasure you. I know you don’t believe there is pleasure in the act of love, but there is, Edie. Sweet, sweet pleasure. I want you to have that with me. I want it more than anything in the world.”
His voice, low and resonant, beckoned to things inside her that she hadn’t even known existed. Tongues of heat curled in her belly, and her fingers clenched around the pawn in her hand as she worked to extinguish it. “You’re being very torrid today. First talking of how I look in white, and now this. Do you intend to make love to me with words, then?”
“Until I can make love to you with my body, yes. What other choice do I have?”
He seemed to have a special talent for asking questions she didn’t know how to answer.
“Which brings us back,” he said lightly, “to where we were, and talking about what I like and what you like, and where we might find some common ground.” He plucked a peach from the bowl on the tea table beside them and reached for the fruit knife. “For example, I like peaches. Do you?”
It was such an innocuous question, and yet, she felt a strange reluctance to reply, for she sensed he was playing a game, and she didn’t know the rules. “I think you already know I love peaches,” she said at last, giving him a wry look. “You probably talked to Mrs. Bigelow in the kitchens, or asked Reeves, or Joanna. And that’s why Wellesley brought us peaches tonight instead of raspberries or blackberries.”
He grinned. “I already warned you that I’d involve them in my nefarious plans. But that doesn’t alter the fact that I adore peaches, too.” Propping his elbows on the gaming table, he sank the blade into the flesh of the fruit and carved out a wedge. “Would you like a bite?”
In any other context, she would take the words at face value, but there was mischief in his expression, and it made her cautious. But she was also curious. Curiosity won. “All right,” she said, holding out her hand. “Yes.”
But he didn’t pass it to her. Instead, he shifted the knife to join the peach in his left hand and lifted the wedge of fruit in his right, carrying it to her mouth.
She looked down at the peach slice in front of her face for a moment, then back up at him. “I’m not a child. No need to feed it to me.” She tried to take the piece from his fingers, but he pulled it back.
“But I would like to feed it to you,” he said. “How would that be?”
“Silly.”
“You wouldn’t like it?”
“Why would I?”
He chuckled, and she had no idea what he was laughing about. “So much you don’t know, Edie. I look forward to a lifetime of bringing you up to snuff on erotic things.”
She didn’t bother to point out that she had no intention of giving him a lifetime of erotic things, or anything else. Still, arguing with him about that topic was a waste of breath, so she merely offered an unimpressed sniff. “It’s a piece of fruit. I don’t see what’s erotic about it.”
“Only one way to find out.” He once again held up the peach slice, and this time, she opened her mouth.
The fruit slid between her lips, slick, wet, and sweet. She chewed and swallowed as he lowered his hand and carved another piece. This time, he didn’t feed it to her, but held it out to her instead. “Careful,” he warned, as she reached to take it off the knife.
She heeded his advice, sliding the fruit off the blade, but when she moved to eat it, his next words stopped her. “Aren’t you going to share?”
She paused, the peach slice halfway to her mouth, and as their eyes met across the table, she realized what he meant, and her stomach gave a nervous dip. Slowly, feeling terribly self-conscious, she held the fruit to his mouth.
He ate it off her fingers, then he fed another piece to her. Only this time, he allowed his fingertips to linger against her mouth. Her heart stopped, then started again as he pulled away.
He was watching her, smiling a little, and she felt compelled to say something, anything. “This reminds me a bit of when I was a girl, and I first learned to skate on ice,” she blurted out.
His brows drew together, giving him that amused, quizzical expression he’d worn at the Hanford Ball. “I’m not sure I see the similarities,” he said as he carved out another wedge of the peach and held it out to her.
She slid it off the knife. “It makes me feel the exact same way.”
“Oh? How does it make you feel?”
“Nervous,” she admitted. “Excited.” She paused, grasping for adjectives. “Happy,” she whispered.
That pleased him. His eyes creased at the edges with a faint smile. “Good.”
“And,” she added as she lifted the piece of fruit to his mouth, “it also makes me feel sure I’ll fall, and it’ll hurt.”
“I won’t let you fall.” He took the fruit into his mouth, pulling her fingers with it, suckling her fingertips.
Pleasure flooded through her like a dark, hot wave. It was too much, and she cried out, shocked. Jerking back, she lurched to her feet, knocking over her chair in the process.
He stood up at once, setting aside the knife and the peach. “Edie—”
“It’s late,” she cut in, desperate to end this game he’d started, cursing herself for ever wanting to know what could possibly be erotic about fruit.
“My gazelle bounding away again,” he murmured. He started around the table. “Edie, tell me what’s wrong.”
“Nothing,” she lied, striving for calm when her senses were in tumult.
“Your hands are shaking.”
“Are they?” She turned away, mortified, reaching for a napkin. “Heavens.”
“I didn’t mean to frighten you, or offend you.”
“You didn’t.” She was panicky, not because of him but because of what he made her feel. It was crazy and wild and terrifying, and she didn’t understand it. She’d never felt anything like it before. “Sorry to act like such a rabbit. It’s just that I don’t . . . I’m not accustomed to being . . . being touched or have my hand . . . kissed.” Not that kissing her hand was what he’d done, precisely. “I don’t like to be touched.”
“I touched you yesterday,” he reminded softly. “I kissed your hand then. Remember?”
How could she forget? That kiss was still pressed into her palm like a brand. Without looking at him, she dipped a corner of her napkin in her water bowl and dabbed at the sticky traces of peach
juice on her chin and her fingers, but she feared it wasn’t going to be as easy to remove the memory of his touch. “It startled me, that’s all. I didn’t expect—”
“What?” he prompted when she fell silent. “You didn’t expect to be aroused by it?”
She shifted her weight, hot and uncomfortable, her fingers tightening around the linen in her hands. “No, but I’ll bet you knew I would be,” she mumbled.
“There’s nothing wrong with feeling desire, Edie.”
Is that what this was? She set down her napkin and didn’t ask that question. “I’m sorry,” she said instead, “but I fear we shall have to finish our game another night. I’m going to bed.”
“Of course.” He reached for his stick. “I’ll walk up with you.”
“No, please, don’t trouble yourself.”
“It’s no trouble,” he said, moving with her toward the door. “After all, it’s not as if we’re at opposite ends of the house. Our rooms are side by side. And you’re right. It is late. Probably best to seek our beds.”
They stopped beside the closed door, and he reached out to open it for her, but he paused, hand on the knob. “Speaking of how late it is,” he whispered, “what are the odds the hall boy’s asleep on duty? Shall we see?”
Slowly, quietly, he opened the door and peeked through the opening, then looked over at her with a nod. “Really, Duchess, such laxity among the household staff is quite shocking,” he whispered as if in disapproval. “Wellesley would be appalled if he knew.”
This teasing side of him was something she was beginning to understand. When she was uncomfortable or embarrassed, he would often tease or joke with her. It was an effective technique, she had to admit, for she could feel her apprehension fading.
“Well, don’t tell Wellesley,” she whispered back. “The poor boy’s probably exhausted. It’s after midnight.”
“Tattle to Wellesley? I wouldn’t dream of it. He’s got far too high an opinion of himself as it is. Still, we can’t just tiptoe past the boy and have the housemaids find him in the morning.” With that, he eased the door closed, then opened it again, making a great deal of noise in the process.
How to Lose a Duke in Ten Days Page 21
