by Madeline Hunter, Caroline Linden, Megan Frampton, Myretta Robens
Her breasts firmed and ached under his caresses. Soft hair feathered her face when his head bowed. Soft kisses praised her body and lured her toward madness. His mouth moved to the tips and began a gentle assault with his lips and teeth that drove her passion higher until she reeled from the pleasure.
She became a madwoman, insane with need, her body alive and waiting and screaming with impatience for more. She clutched his shoulders and her mind begged him to forget his promise and be a scoundrel because she would die soon if left like this.
Did he hear her thoughts? Did she utter them aloud? He claimed her in a devouring, dominating kiss that spoke of a decision to finish this the way nature intended. She kissed back, urging, triumphant, arching her body into his. Her vulva pulsed with cravings she did not think possible to know.
Surely he would raise her skirt, or remove it. Certainly the unknown that beckoned in such a maddening and physical way would be revealed.
Instead he broke the kiss, abruptly. His hand ceased taunting her, and instead slid below her in a full caress. Eyes closed, breathing hard, he rested his forehead against hers.
She almost screamed at him. For an insane moment, she could not contain her profound frustration. As if he knew, he gave her the softest kiss of reassurance. “Not now,” he said, soothing her. “Not here.”
She had existed in an unearthly place where her consciousness filled with only the two of them, and physical pleasures and yearnings. As he found himself and her own madness receded, the real world came into view. A cabin on a yacht, with men below and above. Not now. Certainly not here.
He rolled onto his back, bringing her closer so that she lined his side and his arm still embraced her. She settled her face and fingertips against the exquisite brocade of his waistcoat, and did nothing to disturb the quiet peace that descended.
What they had done, what she had allowed, could not be ignored. Even now she remained half-undressed, a state that with each moment seemed more scandalous. It was one thing to be thus in the heat of passion, and another to remain so afterward. The way her nakedness remained on view, the way he held her with that possessive arm, implied he now had a right to this much of her at least.
She could not work up much concern about that. Not now. Not here.
The truth was that she felt protected, not used, flattered, not insulted. She savored the closeness, the warmth, the strength making her small and vulnerable. Fear could not stand against the intimacy that drenched her.
She embraced the emotions and held them close, and almost wept because, for the first time in years, she did not feel all alone.
Bright light suddenly poured in the small window. Rand stirred out of the drowsy relaxation he enjoyed. Tucked beside him, her face on his chest, Selina had not moved at all. She did not sleep either. He could see her lashes raised. He wondered what she looked at.
That window perhaps. The sun had lowered enough to shine right in. Dusk could be only an hour away. The sway of the yacht indicated slow movements. The captain was deliberately taking his time, so His Grace could dally to his heart’s content.
Even so, they would need to dock soon.
He kissed Selina’s crown, then disentangled himself. He rose from the bed, and reached for his coat. “I will let you—” He turned and looked at her lying there, her lovely breasts still naked and her garments in disarray. “Do you need help dressing?”
She sat up, giving him another view of her body. “I do for myself every day. It is why my garments were so easy to remove.”
He smiled and gave a little bow. “I will wait outside.”
She turned to stretch and reach for her stays. He watched long enough to admire the sinuous line her arm and side made while she moved, then he stepped outside and closed the door.
Once there, thoughts that had been drifting through his mind coalesced. Mere musings would no longer do.
He could not remember that he had ever had a woman like that, in bed and in abandon, passionately engaged and almost begging for more, and retreated. Yet he had today.
He was not entirely sure why. Perhaps because he suspected that if he had gone further, if he had taken her, Selina would avoid ever being in his presence again.
He was not a boy. He was over thirty years old, and he knew how these things went. He had had mistresses, and he had experienced affairs of the heart. The latter were with women either unattainable or inappropriate. The former were with women who had known men before him, and knew yet more after, and for the most part his fascination with them had been a matter of desire and nothing more.
Selina did not fit neatly in either category. Whatever had happened four years before, and despite her claim of marriage, he did not think there had been other men besides that. Certainly she did not live as if a series of protectors had called with expensive gifts in hand.
If she had eschewed that life, who was he to lure her to it now?
As for the other, she certainly was inappropriate. Even Selina Duval, daughter of a gentry family of no great fortune, would have been a poor match for a duke. Selina Fontaine, woman of uncertain history and dressmaker, definitely would be.
He shook his head, and laughed at himself. He wanted her. He had soundly cursed himself even as he took the noble path today. He had wanted to kiss every inch of her, and have her every way imaginable. He still did.
However, he also liked her company. She amused him with her quiet humor and impressed him with her poise. That came from within, which was rare. It derived from her own confidence in knowing herself, not from the approval of anyone else.
He supposed, now that he considered it, that had been another reason for his retreat. He had not wanted this day, and the enjoyment it had given him, to be seen by her as merely a prelude to seduction.
The door opened, and she emerged, tidy as ever. She carried her bonnet, which he had removed hours ago. She looked lovely in the shadows of the passageway. Luminous and, it seemed to him, happy enough.
He gave her a kiss, then offered his hand and led her up to the deck.
London surrounded them. The yacht had been moving in circles. The oars dipped the water. The sail was down. Behind them, the sun hung low and orange in the sky, preparing to set.
“It is late,” she said, leaning against the railing, watching the town. “I did not realize how pleasure could make time fly, or stop—or whatever happened.” She glanced his way with a naughty smile.
That smile heartened him to a ridiculous extent. He did not want her worrying or regretting or any of those things women were taught to feel after such an encounter.
He slid his arm around her and together they watched the yacht make its final turn. “We have been gone so long, I should have fed you supper, too.”
“I am not hungry. I do not think I will be either, for several hours. It has been a lovely day.”
“I am relieved you think so.”
She raised an eyebrow. “There is no telling what I will think tomorrow, of course.”
“The same thing, I hope.”
“I hope so, too. I am counting on it.”
The yacht slid into its place on the dock. The carriage waited, to take Selina home.
“Selina, I need to say that—”
She placed her fingertips on his lips. “Do not speak. Not now. Not here. Perhaps not ever.”
She gathered her skirt. He handed her over to the footman who waited to escort her to the carriage. At the bottom of the gangway, she turned and waved. After the carriage door closed, she put her face to the window, and blew a kiss in his direction.
Chapter Eight
Selina woke to a dreary morning full of fog and rain. She went to her door to retrieve the bucket of water the serving girl provided each day at dawn. Set inside it, the stem submerged, was one white rosebud.
She knew who had sent it. Or, perhaps, even delivered it himself. The gesture touched her.
It had to have come very recently, if it found the water ready. She ran to her
window, to see if a carriage just now rolled away.
She set the rose on her washstand while she used the water. A hothouse flower, to be sure, but lovely and fresh. The duke must have sent a servant to the flower market before daybreak to buy it. Perhaps he had arranged it all yesterday evening. She doubted he had risen himself to tend to such matters.
She did not try to swallow the delight that rose gave her. She had returned home yesterday in a sensual daze, floating in a world that refused to feel real. Upon retiring, she assumed the morning would bring different thoughts and reactions to her time on the yacht. Only, as soon as she opened her eyes, she knew that while a good night’s sleep had set her firmly in her world again, it had not brought regrets.
Dressed and ready, she walked to the shop. Already it was busy inside. Since she had no patrons calling today, she joined Alice and Sally, their two apprentice seamstresses, in the workroom upstairs, and helped with the dress on which they sewed.
An hour later Felicity opened the door and asked her to come out.
“This came for you.” Felicity handed over a letter from Lady Giles.
Selina opened it. “She requests that the fitting scheduled for tomorrow be done today, and at her apartment in Manard House.”
“She is a spoiled one. You have to decline, although I hate to annoy a patron of her caliber. However, we have too much to do today, and cannot spare you for the whole afternoon.”
“Perhaps if I write back and say I can only do this very late in the afternoon, she will be appeased and I will not desert you for hours. I can start over at four o’clock. I am sure that any social events she has planned tonight will not start until much later.”
“If you do not mind extending your day that long, that is a solution. I do not like to think of you leaving here and serving that child until night falls, however. You’ll make yourself sick if that becomes a habit.”
“I will gently explain to her that I cannot change plans at her whim, and that she really needs to visit us for future fittings.”
Felicity made an indelicate noise in her throat, and gave a look that said she doubted much success for that plan.
To make up for the few hours she would still be gone from the shop, Selina bent over her needles all day, and shortened the midday walk she usually took to refresh herself. At half past three she began collecting the dresses and materials she would need when she called on Lady Giles.
“I’ll take you, but we will have to go round a ways,” the hackney driver said when he learned she aimed for Mayfair. “There’s bad doings at the wast end of the Piccadilly. People collecting and shouting. It could get worse as the workday ends.”
Demonstrations had become part of life in London. Not only radicals and the reform-minded raised their voices and fists in public. Sometimes those opposed to change did as well. Usually none of this inconvenienced her, aside from creating an undercurrent of instability in her world.
“Round a ways” meant it took almost an hour to arrive at Manard House. This time a footman waited outside the garden portal. He waved her driver on, telling him to use the main door.
“Must be something wrong back here,” the driver called back to her. “Well, if they insist I bring a servant to the main door, I’ll do it.”
Lady Giles had alerted the household to this visit. Footmen waited to carry up the dresses and boxes. One of them escorted Selina, offering his arm on the stairs.
“His Grace made it very clear that I was to tell you to use any pillows you chose,” he said as he knocked on the door to Lady Giles’s apartment.
Barrowmore knew she was coming. That must explain the different welcome she received this time. It also explained the different reception she had from Edeline’s maid Françoise. The dour-faced woman immediately placed a circle of pillows on the floor.
Edeline did not look happy with the alterations in her dressmaker’s treatment. She said not a word about it, but throughout the three hours of fittings she did not smile or chat. She at times stared at Selina with lights of disdain in her eyes. Selina wondered if somehow Edeline had learned about the yacht.
“You can go.” Edeline’s curt dismissal came as soon as Françoise helped her out of the last dress.
Edeline retreated to another chamber. Selina packed her materials. Françoise packed as well. She pulled items out of drawers and wardrobes and placed them in a portmanteau. She laid a ball gown on the divan.
“Is the lady taking a journey?” Selina asked.
“She attends a ball tonight, but will stay with her friend afterward.” Françoise spoke while she examined the gown’s embellishments for loose threads or damage. She caught herself, and glared over at Selina. Her expression reflected her opinion of a dressmaker asking about things not of her concern.
Footmen waited outside. They took her boxes and the dresses and Selina began her long path home. She judged it to be well past eight o’clock. Her body ached from her day’s work. Even silk pillows did not keep her knees from rebelling. She would arrive home in the dark, to chambers well chilled. She did not think she would have time for a decent meal before going to bed.
As she and her footmen descended to the reception hall, a little buzz of conversation drifted up to them. She looked down to see the butler conferring with a groom. The butler spoke to another servant, then marched across the hall and disappeared.
When she reached the entry, that servant pulled one of her footmen aside and whispered something. The young man returned to her. “There seems to be some trouble in town. It is spilling west a bit. It will not affect Mayfair, but travel east of here may be difficult.”
“I am sure a hackney driver can find a way around.”
“I was told to ask you to wait here, while we decide what to do.” He set down his boxes. The other footman draped the covered dresses over a chair. Selina sat on a bench.
A door opened, and the butler emerged. The duke came with him.
“Mrs. Fontaine. It is unfortunate that you were asked to come today,” Barrowmore said. “The town is unsettled, and with evening the crowds are getting thicker and spreading. For your safety, it is best if you do not try to go home.”
“I appreciate Your Grace’s concern for me, but I am sure that I will be safe enough.”
“Safe enough is not satisfactory. Only very safe is. If you insist on trying this, I will have to take you in my coach. I cannot turn my responsibility for you over to a hackney driver more concerned with his equipage than with your life.”
She pictured his coach navigating streets teaming with unhappy people. She doubted they were in the mood to bow to a duke tonight.
Barrowmore stepped closer. Or else the servants moved back. He and she were essentially alone when he spoke again. “I must insist that you stay here, as our guest. The housekeeper will see to your comfort.”
Her dealings with this man had been a series of choices. She suspected she now faced the biggest one. She should insist they call for that hackney coach.
Seeing him brought back vivid memories of the day before, of soft hair on her face and warm kisses on her breast. Of a soul-drenching intimacy that now made this austere, proud man very familiar to her. Too familiar. She risked getting in too deeply.
“It would not be wise for me to remain here,” she said.
“Don’t you trust me?”
“No.”
“What a smart woman you are. I promise, however, that there is no nefarious plot afoot. I did not arrange for thousands of citizens to block the streets so I could keep you here.”
She had to laugh, but it entered her mind that if a duke did want to make such arrangements, he probably could. “You may not have plotted it, but the result is still dangerous.”
“Not so dangerous. After yesterday, you know that I can be a citadel of restraint when I choose.”
She felt her face warming, because she had not shown any restraint, and they both knew it. Who was she to act like he planned an assault on her pure virtue, whe
n all he had done was ensure she remained safe?
“I am grateful for the offer. I am sure the housekeeper will take good care of me.”
“I will leave you to her, then. Will you come down after she settles you, and join me for dinner?”
“Are you not taking Lady Giles to the ball?”
“Not this one, I am relieved to say. She will be with her unmarried friends tonight, and safe enough.”
She should plead exhaustion and ask that a dinner be sent up to her. Definitely. Absolutely.
“I will be honored to dine with you.”
The housekeeper appeared out of nowhere. The footmen picked up their burdens. They all went back up the steps. Selina looked back over her shoulder. Barrowmore stood there, gazing up at her, watching.
“Barrowmore.”
The feminine voice calling for his attention sounded young and petulant. He looked up from where he contemplated a low fire and weighed the wisdom of seducing Mrs. Fontaine tonight. Actually, he weighed nothing. He plotted how to do it.
“I would speak with you,” Edeline said.
He stood and faced her. She had dressed for the ball, and floated through the library toward him in a haze of luxury. Head back and nose high, she regarded him more imperiously than her age or circumstances warranted.
“Speak your mind,” he said.
“I do not care for the manner in which you are treating Mrs. Fontaine.”
“Perhaps you should be clear in your objections,” he said, carefully.
“Sending orders that she is to have use of my silk pillows, for example. I did not care for that at all.”
“I see.”
“Now I am told she is to stay here as a guest. That will not do.”
He was not in the mood to be scolded by this slip of a girl, especially about what he did in his own home. “Having her caught in a riot because of your demands on her would do even less.”
“It will be misunderstood if she stays here.”
“You should not worry about that. I am doing what any gentleman would do under the circumstances. No one will assume that—”
