The walls around her heart were weak now, indeed. “I want to believe you. So much. But I know your nature is solitary. How can I be sure you won’t tire of me and toss me aside like a Carcel lamp?”
“I would never toss aside a Carcel lamp.”
She couldn’t help but laugh.
“But, Caro, such a comparison does not do you justice. You are far more precious than any work of human hands. I don’t trust easily, yet I trusted you with my future when we met on that terrace—and I have long wished that my future would include you. I hope that you, in turn, can trust that I am yours: heart and mind, body and soul.” Eyes never leaving hers, he brushed his lips over the back of her hand. A whisper of a kiss—a promise. More, more to come. More.
She tugged him to his feet, then wrapped her arms around him as though she could pull him into her heart. “You dear, dratted, wonderful man. I love you dearly. And I would be honored to marry you.”
He let out such a deep breath that for an instant he seemed boneless in her arms. “I am delighted to hear it. I wanted you to agree, very much.”
“I would have agreed weeks ago had you asked for my heart instead of my fortune. But if Stratton convinced you that I might care for you, why have you waited so long to come?”
His gaze sidled away. “I have found that it takes twenty-one days of conscious effort to form or break a new habit.”
“Am I a habit, then? I’m not sure whether that’s a compliment.”
“Not a habit, but a hope. After our last conversation, I realized I could never convince you to marry me unless I could save my dukedom without your money. I also realized that, even with a houseful of guests, I missed you. And even with twenty-one days of hard work and planning, you were always on my mind. As a promise unfulfilled or…”
“Or a hope,” she repeated. “Yes. I hoped too.”
“In those weeks, I could not get out of the habit of loving you. I didn’t even want to try. I cursed every day that it took me to travel south from Lancashire. Then, when I arrived in London, I blessed the scandal rags, for they showed me that Stratton and Miss Cartwright had neatly removed themselves from our concern. I hoped that if you knew I didn’t want anyone else—that I never had—”
Again, she laughed. “You should have begun your proposal with all this, instead of that business about me growing haggard and fat.”
With a deep sigh, he pressed a kiss against the side of her neck. “I told you I always say the wrong thing. Yet you agreed to marry me anyway. I suppose you really do love me.”
“Just as you are. Yes. I suppose I really do.” She tightened her arms around him.
And with that, he kissed her. A kiss of sweet hope, of passionate promise. His mouth firm on hers, hands laced around her waist.
More kissing followed, not just the neck, but the lips, every part of the face. Hands slid, stroked. Caroline’s limbs began to weaken from lust.
Joy welled up in her, pure and elemental. “I do.”
Against her cheek, she felt the flex of his throat, tight over a choked swallow. His skin was warm, his cheek just barely stubble-scratchy. “I hope you will marry me very soon, Caro. I cannot do without you: I told you I never decide anything lightly.”
“Very soon,” she agreed. “And you shall not do without me. Come to my bedchamber and we’ll practice for our wedding night.”
“A lady’s request,” Michael said, “should not be gainsaid.”
“How well you have learned the lessons of society—and in fewer than six events too. Shall we credit my talents or yours?”
“Both,” he said. “We could only accomplish so much together.”
***
“I know we have all night,” Caroline said as she pushed closed the door to her bedchamber. “But there’s no reason why we should not get started right away, is there?”
“You want me to cut your corset strings again?” Strong hands slid around her waist and tugged her into the solid wall of his body.
“Do whatever you want to.” She pressed herself more closely against the support of his chest, belly, the ridge of his cock. “As long as you do it to me.”
His hands roamed over her back, teasing open the buttons at the back of her bodice. When he worked free the last button, he caught her gaze. His jaw was set in tight control, but his eyes showed his true feelings. Warm in the low lamplight of her bedchamber—still an Argand lamp; how had she not remedied that?—they looked so intently at her that they seemed to strip her bare in every way. The pupils were dilated, as though he must drink in the sight of her more fully. His lashes were sooty shadows every time he blinked.
How she loved him, this stubborn, loyal, determined man.
“This might be an excellent time to mention,” he said conversationally, “that I’ve devised a new area of study recently.”
“Does it have anything to do with removing your clothes?”
He gave her a tiny, wicked smile. “With yours, actually. If you’ll permit?”
Hooking a fingertip under the loosened edge of her bodice, he worked it down her shoulders, arms, torso. The silk slid, heavy and slow, into a puddle of rich fabric.
Michael bent and coaxed Caroline’s feet free, then laid the green gown carefully over the back of a chair. “I should hate for it to be spoiled,” he said as he turned back to her. “It’s the only one I’ve ever seen that comes close to matching your eyes.”
She melted.
Liquid, she allowed him to free her from her corset and shift, crouch to tug her garters from her legs and roll down her stockings. His hands were roughened, but his touch was gentle. Under his touch, every cell in her body fired into heated life. But he avoided her center of pleasure, her belly, her breasts. As he unfolded to his full height again, tugging at his cravat, she felt positively molten.
“Show me what you’ve been studying,” she said. “Show me.” And with swift, determined tugs, she hurried him through his own disrobing.
Never had he smiled so much, this carefully coiled man. Never had he seemed so playful, so joyous, so wickedly delighted.
The undressing seemed to go much more quickly this time. Uncertainty had vanished; now they both knew what came next, what they wanted, what they felt. His hot tongue found the hollow behind her ear lobe, just as he kicked free from the last of his clothing. Caroline shivered and clutched for him, and they toppled onto her coverlet in a tangle of bare limbs.
Michael made up for the swiftness with which they undressed by stroking Caroline’s body slowly. “Not everything I study is confined to theory,” he murmured, running the point of his tongue between her breasts before settling next to her. Raised on one elbow, his left hand played over her. “Some of it can be translated quite well into practice. For example, if I’ve figured this correctly, you ought to enjoy this very much.”
His head bent, teeth grazing her earlobe, just as his hand slipped over her breast and tugged lightly at the nipple.
“Ummm.” She swallowed. “Do that again.”
“Are you certain? Or would you rather I try something new?” His mouth replaced his fingers around her nipple, pulling hot and wet, sending liquid heat to her core. Those wicked fingers slipped down again, finding where she grew slick, and one, then two slid within her, filling her—almost perfect but teasingly different.
“You see,” he said between licks and tugs at the nipple, “touching two points of pleasure at once more than doubles the sensation.” His fingers slipped in her wetness, painting ecstasy through her body.
“How did you learn this? This couldn’t… couldn’t be from a book.” Caroline’s voice was unsteady, smoky from the fire within her.
“No.” He rested his head flat on her chest, short hair teasing her sensitive skin. “It’s billiards: identify the right angle for hitting two targets.”
“Billiards?” She had to la
ugh. “That is absurd. You’re very pleased with yourself, aren’t you?”
“Not as pleased as you’re going to be.”
Caroline ran trembling hands over Michael’s back, pulling him atop her. He raised himself up on steady arms, caught her eye, and grinned again. “If one understands the capabilities of the equipment, one can calculate the preferred angle of thrust.” With a sleek movement of his hips, he slid into her. His eyes closed, and a shudder ran through his long body. “God, Caro.”
He swallowed heavily before wrenching his eyes open and adding, “And the correct amount of force.”
Caroline’s toes curled. “This is all most logical,” she said in a husky voice.
“Logic is simply a means to an end,” Michael said. “The purpose is to make you scream with pleasure.”
“My dear future husband, I am a great admirer of your theories.” She wrenched herself up to press hungry lips against his. Then she curled back onto the bed and tugged at his hips, sinking him deeper and deeper within her. “Everything’s better with you, Michael.”
“It will get better still.” He sank onto his forearms and cradled her in his embrace. “For we have a lifetime to practice.”
At last, he began to move, and he was right, the clever man. He found the spots that made her quiver; he teased them until she cried out, aching and full and needy. The angle, the thrust, the force… he filled her with pleasure until every barrier came down. Oh, she could never have imagined the sharp joy of this making love, melding the physical intimacy with emotional closeness just as deep. Never before had her heart and mind and body been so joined for one purpose.
“Together,” she gasped, and he unleashed himself within her.
That was the last word either of them spoke for some time.
Epilogue
Caroline Graves, the dowager Lady Stratton, was married to the Duke of Wyverne just as a bleak autumn gave way to a bitter winter. Those members of society who had remained in London agreed that it was a most unlikely pairing: such a sociable creature wedding that solitary, eccentric duke.
At least, that is what the polite world said at first.
The newly married pair remained in London through the end of the year, as His Grace met with seemingly everyone in the financial heart of the City. There was, it seemed, no topic under the sun that did not interest him, from coal to shipping to agriculture. A rumor even flitted that he was considering development of a new type of railroad track, perhaps one of wrought iron, smelted in the inexhaustible coal-fired furnaces of Lancashire.
This idea would have seemed quite mad indeed, but for two things: Her Grace, whose opinions were sacrosanct, seemed convinced of her husband’s good sense. And His Grace did behave fairly normally whenever the pair were out in public.
True, His Grace tended to hold his wife’s arm in a very determined grip. He was never seen to dance with any other lady. The pair never lingered long at a mad crush of a ball. But as they were always gracious, the polite world was at last forced to conclude that they were besotted with one another.
It was charming, of course, but hardly worth gossiping about.
When Their Graces departed London for Lancashire at the beginning of 1817, the impression of their marriage as a love match was confirmed. Dear Caro was known to adore City life, but the mad duke and the madly attractive duchess had made Persephone’s bargain: half the year spent up north and half in London. The new Duchess of Wyverne was, one heard, just as well loved in Lancashire as she was in the bosom of the polite world.
This was charming, of course. But hardly worth gossiping about.
In fact, news of the doings of Wyverne and his devoted bride garnered very little prurient interest from those in London, though the Marchioness of Applewood was seen several times to grow misty-eyed when someone mentioned the newlywed couple in passing.
By the time they returned to London for the season the following spring, the future duke—or perhaps a darling daughter—was expected. And His Grace had grown Her Grace a scrawny little red flower with which they both seemed delighted. Coquelicot, they called it.
They also professed themselves remarkably fond of billiards.
Author’s Note
The year 1816 is sometimes nicknamed “the year without a summer.” Across most of the Northern Hemisphere, temperatures were far colder than the average. In Lancashire, home to Michael’s fictional dukedom, July 1816 is the coldest July recorded in more than two hundred years of weather record-keeping.
Modern climatologists think this odd weather was caused at least in part by the massive 1815 eruption of an Indonesian volcano, Tambora. Over the months that its ash cloud spread through the atmosphere, sunlight was blocked from reaching and warming the earth. Across Western Europe—especially in France, still reeling from military losses—agricultural failures and food shortages were common.
Apart from its unusual chilliness in 1816, Lancashire was a wonderful home for a Regency gadget guy such as Michael. As he informs Miss Cartwright, Preston was the first city to benefit from gas lighting besides London. Pioneers in the textile trade also hailed from Lancashire, introducing innovations like the flying shuttle, the spinning frame, and the spinning jenny to England’s mills.
As for Michael’s supposed madness: he has social anxiety, not that he would admit it. (He is, after all, a dratted duke.) Anxiety can manifest as headaches and—in the case of Michael’s fateful London encounters with Caroline—panic attacks. His stern control is an attempt to manage this condition, as is his isolation—which can actually increase anxiety and certainly didn’t do his reputation any good. To talk him through his concerns, Caroline uses the not-yet-invented methods of cognitive behavioral therapy, which to a social creature such as herself seem merely like common sense.
One last note: near the end of the book, Caroline tells Stratton, “Publish and be damned.” She anticipates the Duke of Wellington, who, according to legend, made that response to a blackmail threat in 1824. Caroline has little else in common with the Iron Duke, but they share a confidence in their own reputations.
READ ON FOR A SNEAK PREVIEW OF
Secrets of a Scandalous Heiress
THERESA ROMAIN
From Sourcebooks Casablanca
One
March 1817
Most people hoped to spot familiar faces in a crowded ballroom. Augusta Meredith prayed to see only strangers.
For nearly a week, her prayers had been granted. In winter’s waning days, the ton kept its distance from Bath. The resort city’s fashionable years were in the past, and so it was to be avoided in favor of the rural delights of hunting or the sophisticated pleasures of London.
Not that Augusta had ever been part of the ton. But like a moth before an ever-closed window, she had fluttered around its fringes long enough that someone might recognize her.
Thus far, though, the crowds in Bath’s Upper Rooms presented her only with strangers. Merchants and cits and hangers-on. A lower social class; exactly the sort of person Augusta knew best. Exactly who she was. In Bath, she didn’t have to pretend to be someone else.
The ballroom yawned high and stretched long, a giant of a structure. Larger than any ballroom Augusta had seen in London, it was just as crowded, with slowly churning waves of people. But there was one great difference: here Augusta inhabited the center, not the edge.
“Mrs. Flowers, m’dear!”
The voice floated above the din in the high-ceilinged room, and Augusta turned toward it. “Mrs. Flowers!” The call came again; this time, the shouting man waved his arms too.
Augusta returned his wave with a graceful flicker of her fan, then flipped it open to hide her grin.
Well. Maybe she did pretend to be someone else, at that.
The shouting man was heavyset and young, probably less than her own twenty-five years. Every time he had spoken with Augusta, he h
ad been tipsy; since she’d forgotten his name, she had mentally dubbed him Hiccuper. He shouldered toward her, making slow progress through the crowd. The pale-walled, elaborately plastered ballroom stretched high and long, yet babbling voices and dancing figures filled it brim-full, bouncing from the barrel-vaulted ceiling, raining from the wrought-iron faced walkway across the room’s end.
Oh, Bath was a city of carefully calculated comforts, from the regimented hours for bathing and taking the mineral waters to the location of the nightly assemblies. Everything was orchestrated to bring strangers together in harmony. And through this sort of artificial harmony, Augusta would slip into the escape she craved.
Hiccuper had almost reached her; no doubt he intended to escort her into the winding figures of the dance. When the steps brought them together, he would leer at her breasts; when the dance was over, he might try to persuade her to accompany him home.
All part of what she planned when she wrote a false name in Bath’s social registry—the Pump Room’s guest book. By writing “Mrs. John Flowers” instead of “Miss Augusta Meredith,” she became a widow instead of an unmarried woman, shedding the social manacles of an heiress who drew her fortune from trade.
And she didn’t intend to carry out her plan with someone like Hiccuper. Augusta Meredith might not hope for better, but Mrs. Flowers could.
Hiccuper was still feet away, swept into a conversation with friends, when another voice spoke in her ear. “Mrs. Flowers, what good fortune to encounter you here in Bath. Do you know, you greatly resemble a young lady of my acquaintance.”
A male voice. A familiar male voice.
Damn, damn. Her luck had just run out.
Still hiding behind her fan, Augusta turned toward the voice. From its cursed tone of humor, she knew it to belong to Josiah Everett—and here he stood, plainly dressed, handsome, and full of wicked glee. The worst sort of person she could have encountered: one who knew her too well to be fooled by her lie, but not well enough to take part in it.
To Charm a Naughty Countess Page 28
