by Eva Leigh
“Apologies.” His voice was a rasp. “Ah, hell,” he exhaled when she wrapped her hand around his cock and gave one slow, firm pump.
His fingers grazed down her belly to her mound, going lower until she moaned at the feel of him stroking between her lips. She couldn’t recall ever being so wet and ready. They panted into each other’s mouths with their caresses.
“There’s a way I want to have you.” He took her breath and gave it back to her. “Been dreaming of it for a year.”
“Show me.”
He slid out from beneath her then with fluid, muscular motion, rose up from the bed. His sure but careful hands positioned her so that she lay on the mattress, her hips at the edge and her feet on the floor.
With a firm, strong grip, he held her thighs as he stood between her legs. He released her long enough to grasp his cock and slide it along her folds, coating himself in her wetness. She moaned when he circled the head of his cock around her clit. Santo cielo, but she was already so close to her climax.
He notched himself at her opening. “Yes?”
“Yes.”
His hips thrust, and he slid into her. She was filled utterly, delightfully stretched. She felt him everywhere within her, from her quim to her fingers and toes.
It was too much. Fucking a man she had revealed herself to was too close, too intimate. A wave of panic sizzled coldly through her.
But it felt too good to stop. She was subjugated by her need for him, and in small, incremental degrees, the panic receded.
Words in his unknown language streamed from him in rough, low tones. His body twitched, sweat slicking his muscles. Yet instead of pumping, he held himself still. She moved, driving him deeper into her.
“Hold, love,” he growled. “Been aching for this moment for a long time. I mean to savor it.”
“Savor later.” Her voice was deeper than it had ever been, the voice of a sorceress caught in her own spell. “Fuck me now.”
He snarled and plunged into her. She watched the movements play across his torso and arms. His mouth was open, his eyes heavy lidded. He varied his thrusts, some shallow, some deep, playing her body expertly.
What little control she clung to slipped away as he moved, and frenzy overtook her. She clutched at the blanket beneath her while he fucked her with fierce, beautiful intensity. Her back arched into the sensation.
She gasped when his fingers found her clit. He caressed her as he thrust, the head of his cock stroking against the spot deep within her.
Release came in a sudden, crashing wave. Sounds of abandon erupted from her in a deluge of pleasure. She was swept up in sensation, and only returned to herself when she felt him arranging her on the bed.
Sleek and sinewy, he climbed atop her to lie between her legs and stretched her arms over her head. When he pinned her wrists together with one hand, holding her firmly down, her breath caught.
They were eye to eye. She looked deep into the gaze of the man who was inside her as his free hand glided along her collarbone.
She wrapped her legs around his waist, crossing her ankles so that she clasped him.
In a voice hoarse in the aftermath of her cries, she said, “We’re each other’s prisoners.” At least, for this night.
His gaze held hers as he sank into her, the intimacy striking her profoundly. A breath later, his hips drew back and then forward with his thrust. She closed her eyes as fiery pleasure shot into every part of her body.
He adjusted his position slightly, flattening his free hand on the mattress beside her head. Then he stroked into her, the base of his cock rubbing against her clit. Each thrust sent whirling sparks through her.
“Dio,” she moaned. “Forte—hard, like that.”
His pace increased. Levels of shining, hot pleasure built and built within her. She ran toward it, seeking orgasm, and yet she wanted their sex to go on and on until she forgot what it meant to exist in any other moment.
Another climax enfolded her, shredding her into tatters of herself. She cried out until her throat went raspy.
“Yes,” he rumbled. A moment later, he pulled free from her body, then stiffened and growled as he came. Still, he held her wrists.
Slowly, he lowered himself down to lie beside her and finally released his hold on her. Cool air traced along her lax, damp body, but she was too limp in the aftereffects of her release to move beneath the blanket.
“That was . . .” She didn’t have words to describe what had just happened. She didn’t want words, fearful that they would reveal too much.
Deliberately, she focused on the feel of her supple body, the texture of the coverlet against her flesh and sheen of sweat cooling her skin. The air around her was heavy, replete with the musky scent that two creatures created with their lust.
“It was, indeed.” His hand settled over the curve of her belly, and her heart contracted at how much comfort his touch gave her. “And it’s only the beginning.”
She turned her head to look at him.
“The beginning?” She winced at the mingled hope and fear in her voice.
His grin was wicked. “You couldn’t possibly think that one time would be enough.”
In her extensive experience, men got what they wanted and then promptly fled. She’d thought he would be no different.
“Glad to know I’m wrong,” she said, trying to keep her words light.
“Quite, quite wrong.” He leaned close and kissed her, long and thorough. He raised himself up on one elbow while his other hand stroked down her stomach, heading lower. “Let me show you just how delightfully incorrect you are.”
The first sooty light of dawn crept into her room, faintly illuminating him as he pulled on his clothing. From the bed, Lucia watched.
It was a wonder she had enough strength to remain conscious. Tom had been nearly inexhaustible, and creative, in his lovemaking. In a few hours, her muscles would be sore from strenuous use and stretching into new positions. But for now, she was as fluid as a melted candle, and her mind was equally liquid, too fluid in the afterglow to form cohesive thoughts.
Grazie a Dio. She didn’t want to think too much, or examine the effect he’d had on her.
When he finished dressing, he approached the bed.
“I’ve never had a night like last night.” His voice was tender, his gaze even more so. He smoothed a lock of hair off her face.
“For me, as well.” She couldn’t keep the sincerity out of her words. “It was remarkable.”
Even in the dimness of the room in early morning light, his eyes gleamed. “I swear to you, I’ll not forget you. Not for the length of my days.”
But she wanted to forget him. Forget that two people could create such pleasure together. Forget that watching him prepare to leave made her heart feel like lead and sit heavily in her chest.
It had been a spectacularly bad idea to learn truths about him. No longer was he merely a construct of her imagination or an object she could use to find her own pleasure. He was real and human and subject to the same desires and vulnerabilities as she.
“I hope you have a good life,” she said softly.
He cupped the back of her head and rested his forehead against hers. Her heart seized with the tenderness of the gesture. “I hope that you’re given whatever your heart desires.” He kissed her, gently, sweetly.
She swallowed around the mass in her throat. “Please.” Her words were barely audible, even to herself. “Go now.”
He straightened, then strode to the door.
Don’t look back.
He looked back.
With all of her will, she forced herself to remain in bed rather than leap up and run to him. Her body ached with the effort. Instead, she stared at the ceiling. She heard the door open and shut, and then his steps in the hallway.
She could mark his progress all the way through the house, until he reached the foyer. Guests from the club were staggering out the front door. He joined their ranks, and then he was gone.
> Forever.
Chapter 8
Tom tried to make his step brisk as he strode into the parlor, despite the fact that his whole body felt ready to sink to the bottom of the Thames.
In the early-morning hours, he’d returned from Bloomsbury to Mayfair and barely had time to hastily wash, change his clothes, and throw back several cups of coffee before meeting with his men of business and reviewing mountains of paperwork.
The idyll of last night—of finally making love to Lucia—was truly over. He reminded himself of this as he entered the parlor. He’d put that part of his life behind him. His role as the duke, and protecting his family’s reputation, superseded everything else.
“Ah, there you are, Tommy lad,” his mother, Deirdre, said from the sofa. The sunlight caught in the strands of silver interwoven amongst her black hair, made all the more dramatic by her widow’s black crêpe day gown. “Here we’d begun to believe you’d never join us.”
She offered her cheek, which Tom dutifully kissed.
“Tommy’s never missed taking tea with us.” Maeve poured out a third cup of tea. Her eyes glinted when she threw him a cheeky smile. Clearly, her meeting with Lord Stacey had revived her spirits. “No matter what time he gets home.”
He kissed his sister’s forehead. “Never tell me you were awake at that hour.”
After setting down a sheaf of documents, he lowered himself into a chair and prayed he wouldn’t fall asleep.
“Well, no,” Maeve said. “But my maid said she was on her way to the kitchen when she saw you creeping in, looking like you’d been wrestling with a bear all night.”
Tom only offered his sister a mild look. No point in telling a girl of nineteen that her older brother had, in fact, been wrestling with a very lovely, sensual bear.
“Hush, cailín,” Deirdre said as she plucked a small cake from the tray. “You’re not to know the ways of men.”
Maeve rolled her eyes. “If I’m to one day marry Hugh, of course I need to know the ways of men. I can’t pretend he exists only when we’re together, and then just disappears into a mist when we’re apart.”
“Oh, blast, you know our secret.” Tom drank his tea, but wished for more coffee.
When Maeve moved to throw a candied nut at Tom’s head, Deirdre said in a timeless mother’s voice, “Children.”
Maeve’s hand lowered.
There was no point in reminding his mother that he was far from a child. The sheaf of documents beside him proved it.
Deirdre’s gaze moved to the papers. “Oh, Tommy lad, don’t tell me you plan on working whilst we have tea.”
“No choice in the matter. God rest him, Father left me far more than this enchanting house.”
He picked up the top sheet, which seemed heavier than a simple piece of paper.
Marrying an Irishwoman had been one of Edward Powell’s sole acts of nonconformity—though Deirdre O’Connell had converted from Catholicism so they might wed. Other than his choice of bride, the sixth Duke of Northfield had been a man of unshakable belief that England’s stability rested on the nation’s traditional institutions.
Tom had thought that, when he finally inherited the title, he’d change all that. He’d quietly divested from the family holdings in the Caribbean and the American South, and all other investments that were entangled with the repulsive practice of slavery, but as yesterday’s conversation with Lord Stacey—and the article in the Times—he discovered that extricating himself from the Duke of Northfield’s political legacy here in England wasn’t as easily achieved. It was, in fact, dangerous to his sister’s happiness.
“What is that?” Maeve asked, nodding toward the paperwork.
“Notes on the Duke of Brookhurst’s bill.” Tom tried to focus on the words covering the page, but weariness—and dismay—made it difficult to read. He set it aside and made himself smile. “Care to join me for a game of pall-mall in the garden?”
“It’s November.” Maeve narrowed her eyes. “And you can’t distract me from the Duke of Brookhurst’s bill. He’s Hugh’s father, after all. I ought to be aware of my possible-future-father-in-law’s actions in Parliament.”
“I’m fit to curl up under the sofa and fall asleep,” Tom said. “We can talk about it later.”
Maeve looked disgruntled, but thankfully, she didn’t press the issue.
How to discuss it with her? Many of those vagabonds were veterans, and it turned Tom’s stomach to think that those men had given everything to their country but were given nothing in return.
Yet as Tom had discovered, voting against the bill meant alienating the Duke of Brookhurst and ending Maeve’s chance of marrying the duke’s son.
I can’t let anything come between Maeve and Lord Stacey. At least one of the two Powell offspring would marry for love—precisely why he had to do everything he could to ensure their marriage happened.
Including his decision to never again visit the Orchid Club, or see Lucia.
His chest throbbed, and he rubbed it absently. It was as though the seeds of Lucia’s true self had been planted in his heart and pushed out seeking roots, holding firmly to him.
He’d never know more about her, and that was for the best. What he’d learned of her—the courage she had to come to England from a faraway place, the expert way she managed the establishment, the pain she’d faced—made him ache with the need to know more, to understand her better. Which would never happen.
Despite his fatigue, restlessness pushed him to his feet, and he paced to the fireplace to watch the flames crackle.
“I’m glad one of my children recognizes the importance of marriage.” His mother rose from the sofa.
“Mam,” Tom said without turning around, “Father’s hardly in the grave. Must we discuss this now?”
“If you’re to fully embrace your responsibilities, yes. Tommy lad, look at me.”
She had iron in her voice, as she always did whenever she commanded her offspring to obey.
As she approached, he faced her with his hands clasped behind his back, and schooled his features to look attentive.
“The getting of a legitimate heir cannot be done as a bachelor,” she said. “A bride is a necessity, as is a son. You need both as the Duke of Northfield.” She put a hand on his shoulder. “At the least, consider beginning your hunt for a bride. It would make me happy to know you have someone to care for you into your dotage.”
He traded a look with Maeve. They both knew how expertly Mam troweled on guilt.
“I’ll consider it.”
“That’s all I want.”
A polite cough sounded from the doorway. He turned to see Norley, the butler, standing just inside the parlor.
“Yes?” Tom asked, grateful for the interruption.
“You have a visitor, Your Grace.”
“We’re not accepting visitors for weeks.” Surprising that Norley, who knew quite well the rules for mourning, would suggest a caller during this time. “Is it a business matter?”
“In a manner of speaking, Your Grace. Forgive my importunity, Your Grace, but may I discuss this with you in the corridor?”
Maeve answered Tom’s questioning look with a shrug. Baffled, Tom followed the butler from the room. He couldn’t fathom what visitor was so pressing that Norley would break from custom and permit entrance to anyone. The mystery urged Tom into motion.
Norley moved down the corridor, until they were some distance from the parlor.
“If it is business,” Tom said brusquely as he planted his hands on his hips, “have Mr. Ludlow take his particulars and make an appointment.”
His secretary could make the necessary arrangements with his schedule.
“Forgive my insistence, Your Grace,” the butler said, “but this visitor is quite important. And, might I add, your father always kept this appointment.”
Tom frowned. “My father?”
“Yes, Your Grace. Today is the allotted day that your father met this person. The twenty-first of each mo
nth.”
“This is the only time I’ve heard of it.”
During the final weeks of the old duke’s illness, Tom had been thoroughly briefed in all the responsibilities he would soon shoulder. The attorneys and men of business had been quite exhaustive as they enumerated his future duties, down to the semiannual meetings with his private tobacconist.
No one had mentioned an important visitor who arrived on the twenty-first of every month.
“Fine. Show him up.”
There was a brief pause before Norley spoke. “Your father always met this person in the larder.”
The larder?
“And,” the butler continued, “I strongly urge you to do the same. If I may be so bold, Your Grace.”
Curiosity jabbed at him, urging him to investigate this mysterious appointment that his father kept every month in the larder.
“Very well.”
“Do you need directions to the larder, Your Grace?”
“I should say not.” A corner of his mouth hitched up. “No crock of jam or loaf of bread was safe from my midnight raids.”
“Cook always baked extra bread just for you, Your Grace.”
“Did he?” Gratified, Tom lifted his brows. “Be sure to increase his wages.”
“Very good, Your Grace.” The butler bowed and backed away, but Tom was already in motion.
Servants bowed and scurried out of his way as he strode belowstairs, his feet quick from curiosity. The lower part of the house was less known to him—it had always caused a stir whenever he’d been down here during regular hours. But Northfield House was still his home, and he found the larder quickly.
Wary and slightly annoyed at the visitor’s intrusion, Tom used his knuckles to push the door to the larder open before stepping inside.
He started in astonishment when he found not a man, but a woman. She wore a crimson redingote and matching bonnet, and her slim back was turned to him.
In response to this unexpected surprise, his heart sped. Instinctively, Tom shut the door. If there was some kind of trouble, he needed to protect his family from it.
