“Indeed it appears that you did. I’ll have to discipline him, I see. Or perhaps you have already done so, effectively enough. We shall see.”
He laughed, and placed his arm at her elbow. They walked to a group of friends and bid them good night. Alicia looked back to see Claven leaning against a stone column, glaring their way.
She shivered a little at his expression.
While they were waiting for the carriage to arrive, Thorn spoke again.
“We need to discuss this event.”
“I do not believe so. I am well equipped to handle any such situation. Though perhaps I now wonder why I went onto the terrace with him in the first place, when he has a less than distinguished reputation. Perhaps I wanted to see how he kissed. Some of my close friends have intimated that you kiss them, and make them wish for more. You never kiss me that way.”
She looked at Thorn with obvious admiration of his tawny skin and handsome smile. The carriage drew up before them, and they stepped inside, settling onto the rich upholstery. She wondered if he would respond to her words, or avoid the conversation. The carriage began to move, and as it did, he spoke.
“Be careful what you wish for, Alicia. You should not trifle with a man’s desires, for you are inexperienced in that regard. They can scorch you. Don’t be a foolish young lady.”
“May I remind you that you are not my guardian? You are more like a close relative to me, even though we aren’t related. Won’t you teach me how to kiss, so that I can know whether the gentleman is kissing me because he’s passionately in love with me — or with my dowry?”
“You’re asking a rogue to teach you intimacies that only a husband should know?”
He turned to her, engaged her eyes, and she saw a different look on his face. Alicia could find no words to describe how he made her feel. Her knees weakened, and her pulse raced. Something wonderful coursed down to her toes.
Grateful to be sitting, she looked him straight in the eye.
He grinned as if in thought, waiting for her response.
“You aren’t a rogue.” She raised her head, and with an obvious tenderness, lifted her hand to cup his face. “But if you are, you are my special rogue. Please kiss me.”
Her lips found his, and he stiffened, then gave a sigh, almost, she thought, of resignation, before responding to her actions. For a moment, her world stood still when he entered her open mouth and his tongue mated with hers.
Sweet heaven.
~*~
Continued in ‘The Duke’s Magnificent Bastard’,
Book 4 of the Dukes of Desire Series
Books by Sandra Masters
The Dukes of Desire Series
Once Upon a Duke
My Divinely Decadent Duke
Thorn, Son of a Duke
(A 15,000-word prequel to Book Four)
The Duke’s Magnificent Bastard*
One Night with a Duke*
The Blue-Eyed Black-Hearted Duke*
*Rebranded and re-edited with new covers. Releasing in mid 2020
Regency Christmas Books
The Duke’s Christmas Promise
The Merry Widow’s Snowbound Christmas (Coming for Christmas 2020)
The Masked Series
The Masked Marchioness (Coming Soon)
The Masked Wicked Duke (Coming Soon)
The Masked Marquess of Mischief (Coming Soon)
Contemporary Romances
Not the Last Dance (Coming Soon)
Somebody I Used to Love (Coming Soon)
For Love of Charlie (Coming Soon)
About the Author
From a humble beginning in Newark, New Jersey, a short stay at a convent in Morristown, N.J. at the age of fourteen, I retired from a fantastic career for a play broadcasting company in Carlsbad, California. I settled in the rural foothills of the Sierras of Yosemite National Park with my ever-supportive husband, Ron, and two dogs, Silky and Sophie.
I traded in the Board Rooms for the Ballrooms of the Regency Era and never looked back. At the age of fifteen, I wrote my first book. Since then I've always traveled with pen and notebook ready to capture a special word or phrase. It’s been the journey of ten thousand miles with a few steps left to go.
Decades later, it was a reward I gave to myself when I left the corporate world behind. Nothing I expected, but everything I desired. My business card lists my occupation as Living the Dream. So – why do I write romance? Because I believe that:
Love is the recipe for a long and healthy life
I enjoy hearing from my readers. Feel free to contact me. Check out my website and Facebook groups: Soiree with Sandra Masters; Sandra Masters; and ROS Romance on Steroids. All of these groups are interactive and you are welcome to join them.
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Here is your preview of
The Duke’s Magnificent Bastard
Book 4 of the Dukes of Desire Series
Sandra Masters
Chapter One
Portico of Beckam House, London, England 1820
Hidden in the shadows of the columned portico, he withdrew both his arms from around her, and his tongue from Alicia Montgomery’s mouth. She purred.
“Never allow a man to kiss you that way. He’ll think you promiscuous, ripe for seduction,” Thorn Wick said. She couldn’t resist the urges of her body to know more of him. This strange need, could it be desire? She craved his touch. Why did she feel so unsatisfied when he didn’t appear to crave her the same way? Alicia wrapped her arms around him. His warmth spread through her every pore, settling well below her stomach. She’d remember this kiss forever. Would he? Thorn added, “We men like to tempt women into seduction. A scoundrel like Claven doesn’t expect his appetite to be denied.”
The timbre of his voice flowed over her like a lover’s touch.
“I don’t want to spend the rest of my life wondering what if.”
“If you respond to another man’s kiss the way you do to mine, you may not like the consequences of such knowledge. After the advances Claven made on you, I forbid you to see that rogue again under any circumstances. Besides, it’s most inappropriate; he’ll tarnish your reputation. Are you prepared to share him with his mistress? That’s an invitation to unhappiness. In simple terms, he’s not suitable for you.”
Alicia held on to the leather side strap, then turned toward Thorn’s profile in the lantern light.
The sandalwood scent of his cologne further tantalised. She inhaled the fragrance of him, which penetrated her senses.
“It does bother me that you men do all sorts of things while we women must endure, without an opportunity to right an injustice.”
Her left hand rested on her knee. It took every ounce of restraint to refrain from sliding it across to his thigh. No man should look that good in skin-tight breeches.
Her sigh punctuated the air.
“You will learn to accept what you cannot change, Alicia. It’s a fact of life.” His teeth worried his lips. “I’m a bastard. I know first-hand about such matters.”
“Stop your constant assertions about your status. You have overcome much. The family supports you.”
“On most issues, it does.”
“I am not a family relation. I’ve not denied you. Instead you keep everything locked inside. Tell me. Give me an example.”
She turned away, hoping that he might speak, if she was not holding his gaze.
“There are some things best left locked. It’s best to defer discussion of those matters to another time in another place, but not now.”
“You always answer that way. I see the pain in your eyes. What’s happened that you can’t tell me? I am your good friend, and hopefu
lly a little more.” She turned back to him, placed her hand on his chin, and turned his face towards her. “Don’t you know how much I care?”
“Yes, I do,” he whispered. “Open your eyes to reality. Take off your glove.” He removed his own. Curiosity got the better of her, so she slipped off her glove. He reached for her white-skinned, delicate hand, and placed his swarthy one alongside it. “This is why. See our difference?”
Did she hear a tinge of regret in his voice? The sight of his dark hand made her want to hold it to her lips forever.
Her frustration overwhelmed her. Alicia’s hand lifted again, and her fingertips caressed his lips. She closed her eyes to imagine the two of them in an ardent embrace, his hands upon her body with the same longing that had wracked her since the day he’d arrived in England. What would it take to have him reveal his feelings for her? He spoke again, his voice deep, resonant. Her hand fell back into her lap.
“For three years, I’ve allowed you to get away with your infatuated caprices. No more. You’ll have to learn that I’m a man now, almost one and twenty. You are eighteen, and the belle of every Ball. I have the same needs and wants as any young man.” He paused, tilted her chin with his hand. “Do I want you?”
Alicia moved closer, anxious for his answer, yet afraid.
“Well?”
She waited with impatience, and slapped her glove against his lap.
“Yes, I do.”
She smiled.
“It took three years to obtain that admission.”
“I fear that I’m meant to admire you from afar. I care for you too much to cause you pain.”
The discomfort evident in his words caused her to move closer. This time she did place her hand on his thigh.
“That’s gibberish. You care for me. You want me. Yet I have to coax intimacy from you.”
He removed her hand.
“No, this is not acceptable. Enough,” he growled. “I am not made of granite. One of these days, you’ll push me too far. It’s bad enough to see the lust in other men’s eyes when they regard you. If you care for me, don’t force me to tarnish you — us — that way.”
She moved to the far end of the carriage seat.
“Have it your way. You always do.” Her breaths, the thump, thump, thump of her heart, deafened her ears. “What will I do without you? When do you leave?”
“It will be in three days’ time. I’ll take Tomas with me. We’ll need to keep our eyes open. The natives are crazed with rebellion and a quest for freedom. That’s always a danger in Barbados for the foreigners who own the sugar plantations and factories.” He paused, and then added, “I expect you to behave like a perfect lady in my absence.”
“Behave? Me?”
Sweet heaven, these three years had sped by. She’d have her nuisance of a debut soon.
“Yes. You know that you can. You’ll find yourself well occupied with gentleman callers, I’m sure. I promise to be back, if I possibly can, for your introduction to society, to be your first dance.”
She smiled with delight, and he leaned in to give her a tender kiss on her forehead. Could the man be made of Gibraltar rock? Alicia raised her head to put her mouth in perfect alignment with his lips, and a kiss meant in tenderness turned into an explosion of desire. When he entered her mouth with his wicked tongue, she answered with all the longing in her body.
He withdrew, inhaled a long breath, exhaled, and again cautioned her.
“Never let anyone do that to you, and don’t tempt me again, my dear. It cannot be between us.”
She sensed the regret in his tone and tugged gently at his arm.
“Why not, Thorn? We are so well suited for each other. Don’t we always enjoy our time together? Give me one good reason why, and I’ll stop dreaming of you.”
The back of his hand touched her cheek, and slid to the cleft in her throat.
“Another good admonition: don’t dream of any man at night. That will lead to inappropriate consequences.”
Thorn moved away, and her face became outlined in the semi-darkness of the carriage. She was the sweeping vista that justified his secret beliefs.
Yes, he wanted her to dream of him.
If she knew how much he craved to be in those dreams, he’d not be able to contain his desires — or hers.
His gaze went to the green tapestried walls of the luxurious carriage interior, then returned to her. She reminded him of some trapped innocent wild thing that waited for life to open her cage doors. When it did, he would regret her flight to where her heart wanted to go.
“Fly high,” he muttered, “so you can never be taken down if it’s away from me.”
In the depth of his soul, Alicia’s ultimate romanticism endeared her to him.
“Did you say something?”
He shook his head.
“Then give me one good reason?” she asked again.
“Because,” he fibbed, “you are an innocent virgin.”
“Liar.” She huffed; her breath flipped the ribbon of her cloak. “Nonetheless, you are a handsome man I want to know better. Your kiss wasn’t that of a brother. I want more. Please don’t deny me. If not you, I’ll be forced to sample other men. You get to choose, but please don’t wait too long.” The horses slowed, and the carriage stopped. Thorn looked out of the window to find that they’d arrived at their family home. “I tire of all of your cautions and admonitions. I choose you to educate me in the ways of a woman in a man’s bed. If you won’t, shall I give myself to someone else?”
Alicia’s sophisticated tone became an irritation. He firmed his voice.
“Don’t give yourself to any man until you are married. You would disappoint me if you did.”
He would kill to be lost in her warmth.
The footman opened the carriage door. Thorn stepped down and turned to assist Alicia. She accepted his hand, but imparted one last word.
“Coward.”
“I’m not a coward,” he answered in a soft tone. “I don’t believe in fairy tales.”
“I do, so posh on you. You’re in for an adventurous journey. If you can’t see what we mean to each other, it’s pitiful. I’ll not wait forever. Spinsterhood holds no appeal for me.”
She raised her head high. They climbed the steps to the family’s London townhouse, where Chester held the door. They entered the foyer and left their outerwear with the butler.
Thorn reached for her hand, took it. His lips lingered at the touch until he spoke.
“I’ll be gone near six months on this mission. Your persistence tells me that I’ve already been away much too long. Promise you won’t be rash until I can protect you.”
“Who will protect me from what I feel for you, dear Thorn?” She moved her head from side to side, fingered his watch fob, and said, “Would you have me make promises I don’t intend to keep?”
“Stop this. You have an obligation to the family.”
“True. You’re always quick to admonish. I will adhere to your request until you return for my debut… and not one day more. In fact, I don’t want to come out.”
She tilted her head and extended a glance that incited a longing which taunted him.
He shook his head at the uninhibited young woman. The young star-struck girl he’d met when he’d first arrived here from Barbados no longer existed. Lord knows, now he had a temptress on his hands. If he were not strong, he would succumb to her charms and hate himself for the rest of his life. She’d been a child of privilege while he had been the half-breed bastard who’d learned the hard way what rock-hauling malice the boys of the island could do. His scars were embedded irrevocably in his soul.
Firmly, Thorn brought himself back down to earth. He didn’t dare think about his dreams, which Alicia inhabited most nights. Now back in the present, he became aware of how her aristocratic manner added to her appeal. Her independent spirit. Her soft whispers. Her generous body. He could have his way with her — in his dreams. But he could never allow it in reality.
&
nbsp; He needed to veer away from the dangerous course she seemed destined to travel.
“I look forward to this trip and am anxious to get the training underway for these marvelous horses.”
Why did he lie to both of them?
Read the rest!
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Thorn, Son of a Duke: Regency Romance (The Dukes of Desire Book 3) Page 6
