How to Dazzle a Duke

by Claudia Dain

  What sort of seduction was it when the woman wondered what was wrong with the man, with her, and with the moment?

  “Touch me,” she commanded as his mouth lifted from hers, working at his cravat with her hands. She wanted the thing off him; she wanted everything off him, to see his naked body, to feel his heat. How white was his skin? Did he have hidden freckles? Was there blond hair on his chest? Did it curl or was it as straight as his hair? “Can’t you touch me?”

  “What do you think I’m doing,” he snarled, grabbing her to him even tighter, her bosoms flattened against his coat. She pulled his cravat off with a growl, tugging it across his neck, holding it in her hands, fighting the urge to strangle him with it.

  “Not enough,” she snapped. “It’s not enough!”

  And with that, she grabbed his lapels and yanked his mouth down to hers again, eating him alive. His mouth was hot and wet and furious. She was equally so, everywhere. Hot. Wet. Furious. This man, this mild, wild man, did things to her, made her think things and feel things that she hadn’t thought she was capable of. That she hadn’t wanted to do or feel until meeting him. Tasting him. Touching him.

  “It will never be enough,” he said, grinding his hips into hers. “Don’t you know that yet?”

  “Ridiculous,” she said. “It would be enough if you did it right.” She punctuated her quite valid critique with bites to his neck, his throat, pushing past the tie of his shirt to open it up, to taste the skin of his chest. She had at least one answer; his chest was nearly hairless, just a light sprinkling of pale golden hair.

  “And you know how to do it right?” he said, pressing his thumbs against her nipples and flicking them. She groaned and almost fell to her knees. “Just what did you do with that groom? And where is he now? I think I must kill him.”

  “Shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up,” she said, her head thrown back, her eyes closed tightly against the sharp pleasure of his hands at her breasts, his thumbs rubbing hard circles on her nipples, his mouth at her throat, lower, moving lower, excruciatingly and slowly lower.

  “Did your groom do this?” he whispered, and then he took her nipple into his mouth and bit down, his hand strumming hard at her other nipple.

  She cried out and, her knees being all of water, would have fallen at his feet if he had not been holding her so tightly around the waist.

  “I truly will kill him if he did this to you, Pen,” Iveston said, his breath warm against her skin.

  “You don’t even know where he is,” she said, for truly, someone had to point the truth out to him as he seemed ever to lose the important bits. And, she did suspect it would drive him to distraction.

  She was right. It did.

  “You love to torment me,” he said, moving his mouth to her other bosom. She tried to appear nonchalant about it. She was not at all confident of her performance. “You have an appetite for torment. Shall we test that as well?”

  “Oh, no, not at all necessary,” she began, and then his hands pushed her bosoms together and he laved them both, nipping and licking and utterly, utterly tormenting her.

  She didn’t know how she kept her feet. She was trembling all over and her legs were shaking like branches in a winter wind.

  “Not necessary? Very well, then,” he said, and abruptly stood away from her. Whereupon, she promptly fell to the hard floor, her bodice a complete disaster around her waist.

  “You truly are the most peculiar man I’ve yet to meet,” she said.

  “And you’ve met so many men,” he countered, not even offering her a hand, but standing well back from her with his arms crossed over his chest. There was something suspicious about that. Something quite important. For all that Iveston was an imbecile and exceedingly peculiar, he had never been impolite.

  “Enough to have an opinion on the matter,” she said, pulling up her bodice and retying it before making any effort to stand. When she did stand, his cravat still twisted in her hands, she said, “I do think that this would have gone better in the dark, don’t you? I can’t but think that all this light can’t have helped you in your efforts.”

  “You think I need help?”

  “Well,” she said with a negligent shrug, “you do seem to have petered out rather quickly, and I was under the impression, my past experience with the groom notwithstanding, that men were able to keep at it a bit longer than you have done. Are you feeling quite the thing, Lord Iveston? Maybe you’d do better after a lie down?”

  Iveston stared at her, nodding, with the smallest and most unfriendly smile upon his face. He walked over to her, the roses no hindrance, their blooms full and fragrant, seeming almost to bow as he passed.

  Nonsense. He walked through the rose shrubs. There was no more to it than that.

  When he reached her, he took the cravat from her hands and said, “Better in the dark? Let’s try that, shall we?” And without waiting for a word of permission from her, he took his cravat, that long length of smooth linen, and, standing behind her, tied it around her eyes.

  She was instantly, and provocatively, in the dark.

  She stood as still as stone, and waited. All her senses, save sight, were quivering in heightened expectation. She could hear his breathing, slow and steady, the frantic thudding of her heart, the faint sounds coming from the kitchen below their feet.

  He did not move. She could feel that, feel his nearness and his restraint. It came to her like the humming of harp strings, a thrum of tension that he wouldn’t unleash. Not yet. Perhaps not ever. No, surely not that. She wouldn’t allow that.

  “Is it better in the dark, Pen?” he asked, his voice soft against her ear.

  She shivered at the sound of his voice, and suppressed it. “Talking? Is talking better in the dark? I shouldn’t say so, Lord Iveston. Not at all. Not a bit of difference.”

  She heard the quick intake of his breath, a laugh suppressed.

  “Not talking,” he said. “Right then, we’ll make a list and you shall keep the memory of it. Not talking. But then, what of this?”

  His hands rested on her shoulders, moved down caressingly, firmly, purposefully to her bosoms, cupping them through the muslin, fingering her nipples. The sensation pulsed through her like an arrow shot and she gasped into the darkness that surrounded her and only her. She was alone in the dark. Iveston watching her in the soft light of late afternoon, the sounds of the street coming softly through the windowpanes, the sound of a door closing somewhere in the house, footsteps distantly … and Iveston’s hands. His scent surrounded her in the dark. He smelled of cologne, the faint scent of cloves undercutting a musky odor. Or was that the roses?

  He undid her bodice ties, an unhurried motion, and pulled the muslin down, exposing her fully to the suddenly chill air of the conservatory. She felt wicked, was certain she looked the worst sort of jade, and she didn’t care. No, worse. She liked it.

  He ran his hands over her bare breasts, a fingertip inspection, trailing down and around, a man at his leisure exploring a woman designed for his pleasure. He toyed with her, avoiding her nipples while she arched into his evasive touch, flicking her lightly now and again. She moaned and bit her lip, her hands clenched in her skirts, submitting to his touch and the blatant willfulness of his choices over her body.

  “Better?” he whispered, his voice magically felt against her bosom, his tongue flicking a nipple almost negligently.

  “Marginally,” she said softly, lying with the skill of a diplomat.

  “Can you measure the difference? I do know how you treasure precision in all things.”

  And so saying, he kissed each nipple tenderly before suckling deeply, taking her fully into his hands and nipping her. She flinched and groaned. He braced his hands on the sides of her ribs and held her upright.

  “What say you, Pen? Are you a woman who requires darkness or will you burn in sunlight with just as hot a fire?”

  “I think, Lord Iveston,” she said, “that it must depend upon who is wielding the torch.”


  “And who wields the torch that lights you up?”

  She could not see him. But she knew. She knew he was staring at her with all the heat of a hundred suns lighting his eyes to blue fire.

  She took off her blindfold and held it in one hand, its ends tumbling onto the floor, and stared at him. He was on his knees looking up at her, at her naked breasts, at her naked eyes.

  “Lord Iveston,” she said softly, dropping to her knees in front of him. “Lord Iveston,” she repeated in a whisper.

  He took her in his arms and lifted her dress back up over her back to cover her, kissing the top of her head, her cheeks, her mouth.

  “I’m in love with you, aren’t I?” she asked, looking deeply into his eyes.

  “Yes, Pen,” he murmured, kissing her mouth, sealing the thought.

  “How long have I loved you, Iveston?”

  “From the first kiss, Penelope, which is just as long as I’ve loved you.”

  “I shouldn’t have thought that possible,” she said, wrapping her arms around him and burying her face against his chest. “Of course, you will marry me, won’t you? I’m quite completely ruined.”

  “I would have married you anyway, Pen, with or without ruination.”

  “Would you? I have my doubts about that, Iveston, but I shan’t blacken the moment with discussing it.”

  “I would appreciate that, Pen, I truly would.”

  They held each other for many more minutes, the light going quite lavender grey, the roses all around them slowly losing their color in the fading light.

  “Iveston?”

  “Yes?”

  “Now that I’m completely ruined, have you given any thought to finishing the job?”

  Iveston pulled back from her, studied her face, stood, offered her his hand, and then when they were both standing and their clothing in good repair, turned his back on her.

  “No. I have not.”

  If that wasn’t just like a man.

  “I can’t see what’s to be lost now. There’s no need to get sentimental about it, is there?”

  “Sentimental?” Iveston said, turning to face her again, his features flatly aghast.

  “Certainly sentimental. I have needs, Iveston. I should think that, as my future husband, you should be the one to meet them. In point of fact, I should think you’d want to.”

  “I shall meet all your needs, and happily. Once I am indeed your husband.”

  He looked a proper prig, truth be told. She wouldn’t have thought it possible that the same man who’d tied his cravat around her eyes and stripped her half bare would turn prudish now that they’d come to an agreement. A man as changeable as that was not to be fully trusted, that was plain. He might, if the occasion presented itself, seek a way out. After all, he hadn’t loved her even two days ago, had he? He might be the sort who fell in and out of love like a monkey on a chain.

  Certainly she couldn’t let him escape now, now that she had discovered she loved him. She knew herself very well and knew she was not one to fall into love often or easily. No, it was Iveston for her. Now she had to make certain that it was Penelope for Iveston.

  There was only one thing to do. She had to ruin him fully. He would thank her later, she was certain.

  “Now, Iveston,” she said, walking up to him. She must have had some look in her eye for he backed away from her. She wasn’t too worried. The windows were behind him. Where could he go? “Why so skittish? I only want to kiss you.”

  “Penelope,” he said, trying to sound stern, no doubt. Poor Iveston.

  “Yes?”

  “We should go find your father.”

  “We will.”

  She was stalking him through the roses, poor Iveston backing away from her, tipping over a pot or two, the roses tumbling together, falling in a quiet sprawl. The conservatory, her conservatory, the room that was supposed to win her a husband, was in shambles and getting worse by the moment. All to a good cause, though, wasn’t it?

  “He could have reservations, be reluctant to give you to me,” Iveston said. She could see his eyes, his beautiful blue eyes, sparkling in the light coming from the glass doors to the hall. He looked both alarmed and charmed. As well he should.

  “He won’t,” she said. “Who could possibly be reluctant about you? You’re Hyde’s heir.”

  “You were reluctant.”

  “I’m not now,” she said, laughing.

  “You thought me peculiar. Don’t deny it.”

  “I certainly did. When you act peculiar, you should not be surprised when you are found peculiar. Rather how you are behaving now, Iveston. Am I to be required to tear the coat from off your very lovely body?”

  Iveston stopped. Of course, his back was to the window, the light all but gone now, the lights in the houses across the street illuminating the windows in flickering golden rectangles. He had nowhere to go. Nowhere but into her arms.

  “You couldn’t. What would you say to your father?”

  “I would say,” she said, standing up against him, her hands wrapped around his back, her mouth kissing his neck, “that you were blind with love for me, ruined me completely, and that your coat was torn as I struggled to resist you.”

  “An interesting telling of events. Quite imaginative,” he said, kissing her face, running his hands down her back.

  “Well, he is my father. I can hardly tell him the truth.”

  “And the truth is?”

  “That I quite thoroughly ravaged you, Iveston. Haven’t you guessed?”

  And with the words, she ripped his coat very nearly off his body. The rose thorns did help some, but she had done the best work of it, let there be no doubt about that.

  LORD Prestwick and Lady Dalby sat staring at each other in the red drawing room, listening to the sounds of tumbling pots coming from the conservatory on the other side of the wall. Lord Prestwick looked uncomfortable. Sophia did not.

  “I think that certainly enough time has passed for Lord Iveston to make his presence known to me,” Prestwick said, pulling at his waistcoat.

  “Darling Lord Prestwick, you simply must trust your daughter on this. I have no doubt at all that she is managing Lord Iveston quite beautifully and will do most of your work for you. She does have that way about her, which you’ve certainly noticed. I know I have.”

  “You’re certain that he’ll offer for her,” Prestwick said.

  “Completely,” she answered. “What’s more, so is Miss Prestwick. If she were in any doubt as to her eventual success she would seek help. As she has not, I know things are well in hand.” And by things, she meant men, but there was no good reason to inform Prestwick of that. He was Penelope’s father, after all, and fathers did require a great deal of protection from knowing what their daughters did when hunting upon the marriage mart.

  “And if he doesn’t?” Prestwick asked, fussing with his sleeve, until the sound of a pot breaking and shattering upon the floor of the conservatory echoed through the house. Then he turned a bit white, then flushed, then stood up to walk about the room.

  “Then you shall insist upon it,” she said, “and he will agree as Lord Iveston is a most honorable man.”

  “Honorable?” Prestwick said, staring at the wall that separated the red drawing room from the conservatory. Sophia was completely certain he was not staring at the very nice landscape painting hanging there. “You can say that? Now?”

  Sophia smiled and said as gently as she could, “Darling, do you know your daughter at all? I am quite certain she is managing Lord Iveston beautifully and indeed, will achieve everything she wants from him. What’s more, she will manage it so that Iveston wants to give her everything she wants from him. What more is there to it than that?”

  What more, indeed?

  Twenty-Five

  Four weeks later

  THE wedding was an intimate affair, but the wedding breakfast, held at Hyde House, was a complete crush. One could hardly blame Lord Prestwick for wanting to rejoice extremel
y publicly in his daughter’s profoundly good match to Hyde’s heir, and as to that, the Duke and Duchess of Hyde, who had seen three of their five sons married in a single Season, were glowing in satisfaction.

  Of course, George and Josiah Blakesley, the two remaining sons without wife, were planning to leave the country on the first available ship.

  As if running ever did any good.

  Sophia surveyed the red drawing room of Hyde House with a very contented gaze. As all of Society and certainly all of the Blakesley family saw this as a very important marriage, Lord Henry and Lady Louisa had returned from wherever they had been to attend, and poor Lord Cranleigh and Lady Amelia had never even got to leave on their wedding trip, Lord Iveston’s marriage to Miss Prestwick having been announced before they could make their departure. As Hyde House was quite large and possessed of very many bedrooms, Sophia did not think either couple was suffering, although as to that, neither couple was in the habit of confining themselves to bedrooms. Miss Prestwick was clearly of the same mold. One did begin to wonder if it was a family trait, which did cause her to look at the Duke and Duchess of Hyde with new eyes. What a charming family.

  Penelope, their newest member, made her way through the throng very purposefully until she stood directly in front of her.

  “Lady Dalby, I wanted to thank you. You were an invaluable help to me, which I’m certain you must know.”

  Sophia smiled. Charming girl, she did so thoroughly enjoy Penelope. The girl was a complete original. “Darling, you did it all yourself. Certainly you must know that.”

  “I know nothing of the sort, Lady Dalby,” she answered stoutly. “In fact, I know you must have done a considerable amount on my behalf for the simple reason that I made no forward progress at all until sitting myself down in your white salon and begging for your help.”

  “Were you begging? I had no idea,” Sophia answered, swallowing a laugh.