Private Passions

by Felicia Greene

  ‘Believe it.’ She couldn’t do anything but beg. She didn’t want slow exploration; she wanted to be claimed. Owned. ‘Believe it, my love. Make me your own.’

  Harding’s hands tightened as they moved to her hips. With a soft, low moan that inflamed Matilda more than anything ever had, he began to sink inside her. Slowly, mercilessly, his mouth tight on her neck as he moved deeper and deeper, he sank to the very hilt; Matilda, gripping his shoulders, sighed in ecstatic relief at the pleasure that washed over her.

  Her career had all been training for this; this glorious moment of union. No pain, no shyness, no confusion; she could welcome him, hug him tight, move immediately into the joyous, animal rhythm that she knew would bring both Harding and herself to the peak. She didn’t have to judge anymore, or calculate, or wish she was somewhere else; she was here in the moment, with the man she loved deep inside her, their bliss growing as they moved together.

  ‘Make me say it.’ She murmured it breathlessly into his ear; how good it felt, asking for what she needed, knowing that her needs would be honoured. ‘Make me say that I am yours.’

  ‘Who do you belong to?’ Harding’s rough, harsh growl sent a fierce quiver through her core.

  ‘You.’ Matilda whimpered with pleasure as Harding’s hand slid around her neck; how did he know exactly how to hold her? His thrusts grew deeper; he was claiming her, pinning her to this place, this moment, and she had never been happier to be helpless. ‘Only you.’

  ‘Say it again.’ Harding held her tighter; one arm tight around her waist, keeping her pressed against him as he sank deeper and deeper. ‘Say it.’

  ‘I belong to you.’ Matilda kissed his neck, grazing her teeth against his skin; Harding’s broken sigh of pleasure made her do it again, harder this time, wanting to mark him as fiercely as he was marking her. ‘You, and you alone.’ A particularly deep, slow thrust had her shaking at the beauty of it. ‘I am yours.’

  ‘Mine.’ She could hear the confidence in Harding’s voice now; he knew it, he could feel it as strongly as she did. Matilda bit her lip as a shock of sensation raced through her; was she really to reach her peak so soon, before they had even begun. ‘You are mine.’

  ‘Yes.’ Matilda leaned her head against the door, laughing softly as the pleasure overcame her. ‘I… oh, Christopher, yes.’

  Harding had never been all that enamoured of his bedroom. He had always considered it as a place to stumble into and sleep, or a place to briefly convalesce in when ill. In truth, he had often preferred to sleep in the library if he had been reading late into the night—it had felt warmer, somehow, and more welcoming.

  That was before Matilda. That was before she had begged to be taken here; to his bedroom, the place that had only ever seemed like four walls and a bed before he had carried her across the threshold. Before he had laid her down on his own blankets, finally free from the bonds of duty and restraint that had chained him for God-knows how long, and loved her in the way he had always wanted.

  Now, his bedroom was a paradise. An earthly one, it had to be admitted; Harding doubted that even the most forward-thinking God would allow quite so much congress to take place in a celestial Heaven. It was as if all of his desire, ignored and belittled and overlooked for untold years, had finally broken through all of the walls he had so painstakingly built… and despite his concern that his attentions were wearying her, or boring her, Matilda seemed exactly as unchained as he did.

  Not an hour had passed in which they had not made love; quickly, slowly, gently, hard enough to leave each other’s flesh marked. Jonquil, the new maid, who Harding had privately decided would receive an enormous rise in wages as soon as they emerged, appeared to have taken up the running of the house in his absence; food had appeared outside the door at regular intervals, and curious maids had either been kept in the kitchen or given entire days off. The house would no doubt be in the most atrocious disrepair when they finally emerged from the bedroom… but then, maybe they would never emerge.

  It wasn’t just desire. It was all the desire he had pushed away, kept confined; all of the want he had ever felt, finally unleashed on the woman who deserved it most. The woman who could match him, teach him, confound him, and have him fall in love with her ten times a day without flinching.

  Moving closer to Matilda, wrapping the blankets more securely around them both, he stroked her hair with a wondering, reverent touch. Matilda’s answering smile, her sleepy giggle as she threw an arm over his chest, made Harding feel as if his years of misery were as insubstantial as thistledown on the wind.

  ‘Not to imply that I wish to leave this bedroom—believe me, I do not.’ Matilda laughed as her head sank into the pillows. ‘But will we ever be leaving this bedroom? It has been two days.’

  ‘I have considered the idea, and found it wanting.’ Harding spoke thoughtfully, but couldn’t resist smiling a little. ‘Whenever I decide that leaving the bedroom would be the best course of action, you do something so utterly charming that I am forced to keep you in this bed.’

  ‘Utterly charming?’ Matilda smiled. ‘What utterly charming things am I doing?’

  ‘Speaking. Breathing. Existing—you do that very charmingly.’ Harding leant down, kissing her; he felt Matilda sigh against his lips, a sweet, languid sound that managed to inflame him all over again. ‘And so, our movements are constrained. Now is a good example.’

  ‘Oh,yes?’ Matilda reached downward; Harding bit his lip, a soft growl escaping his throat as her soft hand lovingly stroked along his rigid cock. ‘My goodness. What utterly charming thing did I do?’

  ‘You sighed against my mouth when I kissed you. A completely merciless trick.’ Harding kissed her again, a low moan on his lips as Matilda cupped her hips to him, moving his cock to her entrance. It had happened so many times over the previous two days, in so many different ways, that it should have felt like something commonplace… but no, she was hot and wet and ready for him, beautifully, inexplicably ready, and it was exactly as glorious as the very first time had been.

  ‘I love you too much to be merciless.’ Matilda’s lips were soft against his, her voice trembling with sentiment as she coaxed him to enter her. ‘Believe me.’ She looked at him with a hint of loving mockery. ‘Would you say that we have at last begun to know one another?’

  ‘Only just.’ Harding moved deeper, Matilda’s sigh of delight rippling through his bones. ‘And there is much still to discover.’

  THE END

  The Duke and His Destiny

  The Harding Estate, a gracious arrangement of stone and spring flowers nestled into the heart of the English countryside, normally enjoyed very peaceful mornings. When a cry of frustration echoed through the kitchen, sending sparrows flying off the roof to far-away perches, Brenda Hartwell burst through the door with an expression of deep concern.

  ‘My goodness!’ She looked at Poppy Grancourt. ‘Is something the matter?’

  ‘No, dear. Forgive the outburst—I believe my husband is teaching me to be angrier. How unpleasant.’ Poppy’s smile proved it was not the case. ‘I have simply forgotten to ask Cook for fresh herbs today. We were going to eat the most delightful salad—I asked Matilda to let me take charge of the kitchens, and she most kindly agreed. Now we have nothing but plain leaves, and I fear I have ruined everything.’

  ‘Do not worry, Poppy.’ Brenda adjusted her bonnet, trying to tuck a stray lock of hair into its proper place before giving up with a sigh. ‘I shall collect the herbs.’

  ‘Brenda, you shall not.’ Poppy looked at her, faintly scandalised. ‘You shall get so terribly brown.’

  ‘I imagine so—but then, I am no longer interested in being fashionable. And I shall take a shawl.’ Brenda shrugged. ‘Or perhaps I shall not. I am no longer susceptible to whims concerning modesty.’

  ‘Do not tell me.’ Poppy smiled. ‘Is this a part of becoming a better person?’

  ‘The nail is hit upon the head, Poppy.’ Brenda smiled. ‘The herbs await me.’


  With a smile on her face and a song in her heart, she ran out of the door and onto the lawns. The kitchen garden, its walls glimmering in the distance, seemed to beckon her—still, there would be better herbs growing near the lake. Wilder ones.

  And to think. As Brenda began walking, her inner voice whispered. None of this would be yours, dear, none of it, if you hadn’t had a nervous crisis in front of Matilda Weatherbrooke.

  It was difficult for Brenda to think of her previous behaviour. Behaviour that had culminated the previous year in a rash visit to Matilda Weatherbrooke’s house, clutching the newly-minted duchess by the shoulders, and informing both her and her friends that they were nothing more than undeserving guttersnipes who had stolen dukes from under the noses of true ladies like her. That was how the tirade had begun, at any rate—but it had ended, somewhat mysteriously, with Brenda weeping in Matilda’s arms. Weeping, sniffing at intervals, and asking the assembled women most piteously why no gentleman wanted to marry her.

  To her deep surprise, they had told her. Told her in no uncertain terms, and with a firmness that bordered on outright unpleasantness, that she was a scheming, cunning, false-faced creature with no loyalty to her sex and still less to those she deemed unworthy. And Brenda, finally reaching a moment of clarity, realised that they were completely right.

  She was a vile person. She had been horrible to Isabella Thurgood, spread terrible rumours about Ellen Maldon, patronised Poppy Grancourt furiously—and the less said about her feelings for Matilda Weatherbrooke, the better. On the overstuffed chaise-longue in the Maldon townhouse, Brenda had realised that she was a thoroughly nasty woman… and she had resolved, with every last ounce of her strength, that she would do something about it.

  She would become a better person. And she would stop thinking of men, all men, every man, in order to do it.

  Her parents would have raised strenuous objections had they been alive. Alas, they were not. Brenda took her considerable funds, her sharp mind, and her desire to win at all costs, and had applied all of them to the task of becoming a woman worthy of friendship.

  It had worked. It had worked spectacularly.

  It was almost embarrassing how much nicer being a better person was. The energy that she had previously expended through sniping, conniving, betraying and calculating could now be spent on more joyous pursuits; cultivating friendships, maintaining them, and spending her considerable funds on whichever charitable concern most tugged at her heartstrings that particular day. And, of course, shocking the ton with yet another declaration that defied respectable opinion.

  Brenda had known full well that she was being scandalous. It wasn’t done to tell impressionable young ladies during their first Season that they should concentrate on making friends among themselves, rather than attempting to attract some callous gentleman that would only ruin their summers. It certainly wasn’t done to encourage them to wear looser, freer garments, so they could move more effectively.

  Being brave, being ready to be lonely, had brought her unimaginable rewards. Apologising for the terrible way in which she had behaved before her epiphany had brought her even more; friendship, community. A kind of family, even. A family that had invited her to stay at the Harding estate for a spring retreat; the Bales, the Maldons, the Grancourts, the Hardings… it was wonderful to be invited to stay among the people that had formerly left her half-mad with jealousy; the beautiful Isabella Bale, for instance, or the kind and gentle Poppy Grancourt. Ellen Maldon, too, who was still a little cool with her but warming by degrees. Their husbands were pleasant too, once Brenda had removed them from the gilded book entitled Dukes in her head; Bale, Maldon, Grancourt, Harding—Harding, who had so politely extended the invitation to his country seat.

  And Selby. James Selby. The distinctly unattached James Selby, rumoured to be a former spy, with an inscrutable gaze that seemed to prove every rumour true.

  Brenda sighed, shaking her head as she walked along the tree-line, the edge of the lake shining in the corner of her eye. She hadn’t thought about James Selby that much—had deliberately avoided thinking about him, in fact, because thinking about tall, handsome, smirking dukes with interesting conversational skills and mysterious pasts was something she had spent entirely too much time doing as a younger woman. It would be a waste of time, when everything around her was so utterly glorious.

  The Harding Estate was glorious. The company of her friends was glorious. Her future seemed glorious, for the first time in her life—full of solitude, yes, loneliness, perhaps, but independent in a way that young married women could only dream of. All because she had given up the silly idea, the truly ridiculous assumption, that destiny would hand her the perfect husband as if he were a dish of sweets.

  ‘Well, really. I was foolish beyond measure.’ She murmured happily to herself as she gently placed herb after herb into her basket, the spring sunshine warm on her face. Soon the tree-line was at an end; the lake lay before her, shining, splendid. ‘Believing that the universe would simply deliver me the man I am to marry, wreathed in flowers, bearing… bearing gifts…’

  She stopped, mouth open, staring at the lake. Staring, to be exact, at who was in the lake.

  James Selby. Shirtless. Covered in flowers—water-lilies. Holding, if Brenda’s eyesight was correct, a puppy.

  A small, drenched puppy. A spaniel, clutched to his bare chest.

  Brenda swayed. She half-wondered, in the swooning shock of the moment, if she would drop her basket.

  Wreathed in flowers. Bearing gifts. The thought tugged at her insistently. How… fascinating.

  James Selby, standing wetly in the lake with a wriggling puppy in his fist, was unsure exactly how to behave. At most, he had expected a passing gardener or gentleman out on his morning walk—being shirtless was hardly an issue when meeting another man. Meeting a lady under such unusual circumstances, on the other hand, called for an aplomb that was difficult to muster while holding a damp animal.

  Not just any lady, either. He hadn’t been expecting to meet Brenda Hartwell upon his arrival at Harding’s country estate—and given her recent condemnation of society at large, Selby had been rather nervous that she would be full of insults. He knew that she was now much cleverer than she had been before, and much wittier; that meant that she had to be more cutting, too. He had deliberately avoided her after introductions had been made, and told himself rather firmly to not think any more about her.

  Looking at Brenda now as she stood on the edge of the lake, he wondered if he had made a mistake in doing so. He knew, at least vaguely, that Miss Hartwell had begun to choose clothes for her own pleasure rather than whatever the fashion plates dictated. Given her openly stated lack of interest in what gentlemen thought of her new mode of dress, Selby had tried not to look at her with anything more than the lightest and most casual glance. Now, however, with her standing before him, he found himself making rapid and instinctive judgements about Brenda Hartwell in a way he never had before.

  She was attractive. Very attractive. Not beautiful; beautiful was a standard set by the ton, by the newest novel or perfumer’s advertisement, and Selby had never given it much thought. Women could be attractive in any number of ways—it depended on an energy, a charisma, a kind of appetite for life. Brenda, from what Selby could see in the afternoon light, appeared to be bursting with all three.

  How had he never seen her before with wild hair, muddied clothes and a basket of flowers? She was quite the most arresting sight he had discovered in some time. Selby, struggling with the yapping puppy while staring at Brenda, wondered why he had never truly noticed her before.

  ‘Your Grace.’ Brenda’s startled half-curtsey had more grace to it than any number of the mannered expressions Selby endured from ladies at balls. ‘Do you require assistance?’

  ‘I believe I required assistance a little while ago, when I saw this creature attempting to drown itself.’ Selby held up the struggling puppy with what he hoped was a dashing smile, curs
ing himself for having removed his shirt. Such a meeting was embarrassing enough without one of the parties being in a state of undress; he could see Brenda was embarrassed, and felt obscurely irritated with himself for causing such a state. ‘Now, alas, the time for assistance has passed.’

  ‘I see.’ Brenda turned to look at the distant house, then back to Selby with wide, fraught eyes. ‘But—but I can hardly leave you. That would not feel right at all.’

  ‘Quite.’ Selby didn’t know why he was agreeing; she could certainly be of no practical help to him. Perhaps he simply wished to look at her a little more, and think about how much time he had wasted not looking at her. ‘I can probably think of a way for you to assist me.’ The puppy sank its needle-like teeth into his forearm; Selby repressed a yelp, glaring at the wet creature with abundant venom. ‘Perhaps I could throw you this demon.’

  ‘Oh, no? How can you even jest about the poor creature!’ Two high spots appeared in Brenda’s cheeks; Selby held the puppy to his chest, feeling chastened and oddly excited in equal measure. ‘You are to swim here and hand him to me. I shall put him in my basket.’

  ‘Why are you to keep him? I swam out here to retrieve the little devil. All you did was wander by.’ Selby looked at the puppy, who looked back at him with large, soulful eyes. ‘I do not think you deserve him.’

  ‘What I deserve is of no import. What the dog deserves is to be in the company of someone who does not make cruel jokes at his expense.’ Brenda set her basket down on the grass, folding her arms; Selby watched the rise and fall of her breasts, feeling more acutely shirtless than ever. ‘Come now. Stop paddling around.’

  For a lady who had spent at least five Seasons being as pliant and agreeable as possible, Brenda had developed rather a bossy side. Selby couldn’t help but find her newly strident tone as attractive as everything else about her. Looking down at the puppy again, who looked back at him with the patient expression of an old friend, Selby realised that he was going to follow Brenda’s orders.