That particular bit of palace history, along with the story of the prior who was murdered by his own canons, had provided Devon and his brothers limitless opportunities for ghost stories and trickery. That was why they always had new nannies. They could never keep one for very long after she had been lured down to the foundations of the palace, where mice and cobwebs were readily available in the pitch-black caverns, along with the boys’ ghoulish howls.
But that was years ago. These days, Devon used the passageways for a different kind of midnight game altogether.
He reached the secret entrance to Rebecca’s room and paused with the candle in his hand, listening. His mother’s maid had been assigned double duty to assist Rebecca until she found a permanent maid of her own, so he was careful to make sure Alice was not about. He heard a drawer open and close, but no one spoke, so he carefully pushed open the door.
He entered the well-lit room from behind the floor-to-ceiling portrait of one his ancestors, and stood briefly beside the bed, watching his betrothed stand before the mirror on the vanity, running a brush through her thick, wavy hair. She stood with her back to him and wore a white dressing gown and was humming a melody he did not recognize.
As he watched her, he wondered why he had come. He had been working hard to keep his mind fixed on his duties and responsibilities and all the practical details involved in planning a hasty wedding. He had been relatively successful in that regard, at least until his mother had knocked on his door earlier in the day and given him that speech about happiness. As a result, he had discovered that looking at his mother was like looking in a mirror. He had tried to convince her to let go of her guilt and shame and allow herself a better future. She had said the same to him.
After she left, he’d had no choice but to contemplate his own advice with a bit more care and reflection.
He glanced to the right, saw the diary sitting on the bedside table, and wondered if Rebecca had been reading it just now, or if she intended to read it when she climbed into bed.
Just thinking about some of the words on the pages of the book gave him a stir, so rather than continuing to fight against his unwieldy passions, he blew out the candle he held, set it on the table and slowly strode forward toward his betrothed.
She spotted his movement in the mirror and sucked in a breath, startled by his unexpected appearance. Whirling around to face him, she whispered hotly, “Don’t do that to me! I thought you were a ghost.”
“No ghosts in this house, darling, only impatient fiancés who can’t help sneaking around to see the objects of their desire.”
She huffed. “Did you come through one of those secret passages again?”
“I did.”
He reached her and let his eyes wander down to her bare toes, then back up again.
Suddenly duty and responsibility had nothing to do with anything. He wanted her, and he wanted her now.
She narrowed her clever eyes at him and scolded him playfully. “I beg your pardon, my lord, but I thought that after our previous disregard for propriety, we were going to make this a respectable engagement and wait until our wedding night to properly celebrate our nuptials.”
“But that’s two days from now,” he replied.
“You cannot wait two days?” she said, incredulous.
“I don’t think so.”
She made a valiant effort to hide her smile, and walked past him toward the bed, stopping to turn around in front of the bedside table.
He raised an eyebrow and leaned to the side to see past her. She glanced over her shoulder.
“You want to read more of that diary, don’t you?” she asked, with a teasing tone.
“Don’t you?”
“I already know how it ends.”
He strode toward her. “I, on the other hand, do not, and the suspense is killing me.”
“I hardly think that is what’s killing you.”
How right she was.
He stopped a few inches away, and Rebecca laid both hands on his chest.
“You just want to hear the naughty bits,” she said.
“Aloud, if you don’t mind.” He grinned wolfishly, realizing he adored this woman more with every passing second, and he was a very lucky man to have found her before anyone else had.
Perhaps there was hope for happiness after all—at least at night, after the sun went down, when he could forget about real life for a while. Maybe she was meant to be his oasis.
“Where did we leave off last time?” he asked, wanting to get down to business.
“Jess had not yet taken Lydie’s virginity.”
“Ah, yes. Then perhaps we might skip ahead a few pages,” he suggested, taking her into his arms.
She grabbed on to his shoulders and he swept her up off her feet and laid her on the bed. Devon stood over her, tugging at his tie to loosen it before he picked up the diary and looked carefully at the brown leather casing on the front cover.
“Are you in the mood for a little reading?”
“I’m always in the mood for a good bedtime story.”
He handed the book to her, and she flipped through the pages, searching for a particular entry, while he sauntered around the foot of the bed, removing his dinner jacket and waistcoat and tossing them onto the upholstered bench.
Devon climbed onto the bed and lay down on his side facing Rebecca, his elbow on a pillow, his head resting on a hand, while he admired her lovely profile in the lamplight. Her skin was creamy white, her lips full and moist. When she began to read, her voice was smooth and intoxicating like wine...
“Dear Diary,
“Tonight, it happened, and it was perfect—the most incredible day of my life. It was a hot and humid evening without a single breath of wind, and after dinner, I could not contain my desires. My body was throbbing with wanton urges, so I ran out the door and headed to the forest.
“My breasts were heaving with excitement, and in the warm, moist twilight, my skin became sticky and wet. I had never felt such burning anticipation. When I reached the clearing, I saw him. My dearest love, Jess. He was sitting in a patch of purple wildflowers, but he rose to his feet when he heard my approach and ran to meet me. I dashed into his strong, capable arms and together we sank down to the grass, our hungry bodies entwined, squeezing and thrusting, both of us sighing with delight and dreaming of erotic pleasures.
“He was eager tonight, more than ever before, and I knew I could not continue to deny him what he wanted. Boldly, I reached down and unfastened his breeches. He kissed me hungrily while I pushed his breeches over his hips and kneaded his strong buttocks with my roving hands, pulling him firmly against my passionate womanhood.
“If I had any lingering doubts about what we were about to do, they vanished instantly when he paused and looked down at me, with the hazy pink sunset reflecting in his eyes like firelight.
“‘I love you, Lydie,’ he said to me, tenderly, and I knew I would spend the rest of my days loving him with my whole heart and soul, and that he would be my joy, my lover, my life, until I took my last breath in this world...”
“Stop,” Devon said, for he felt a sudden, unfamiliar yearning in his core, which was, quite frankly, astounding to him. For so long, he had been shunning the kind of all-consuming, romantic love that Lydie wrote about, believing it smothered common sense and resulted in eventual, inevitable ruin. He had always imagined he would marry for duty alone, and he would choose wisely with his head, which was what he had set out to do the night he met Rebecca at the ball. But somehow, their relationship had snowballed into something more, and hearing her read those passionate words in the diary opened something up inside of him.
Driven by impulses he had not succumbed to in a long time, he found himself reaching for the open diary and lifting it out of her hands.
Bewildered, she watched him roll to the side and place it
on the bedside table.
“You do not want to continue?” she asked.
He rolled toward her again and laid a hand on her belly. “I do, but I would prefer to do things our way tonight, not theirs.”
He could not explain it, but he wanted to feel something real.
“I’d like that, too,” she said, lying very still.
Devon continued to admire the beauty in her eyes, the charming shape of her nose, and the soft texture of her skin. He ran a hand down the side of her curvaceous body and turned his eyes toward her long legs stretched out on the bed, one ankle crossed over the other beneath the lacey hem of her linen nightgown.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said.
“I want to be beautiful for you, Devon. I want to give you everything and make you happy.”
He remembered her confession—that she had come here dreaming of him in a romantic way, and for the first time he found himself actually wanting to be the devoted lover she desired. Perhaps he could be that, if nothing else. It did not seem so impossible here on the bed with her, in the quiet privacy of this chamber where none of the palace madness could touch them.
And maybe this woman was meant to be his respite from the storm. His oasis. When everyone else expected him to solve their problems and save the palace and the dukedom, she only wanted to give him pleasure and love. She did not want anything from him, except love. It was a novel idea, to be sure—one he did not wish to shun, which again surprised him.
With careful tenderness, he lowered his mouth to hers.
He wanted her now. He wanted to feel the heat of her body, but not just to satisfy his own sexual cravings. There was something else at work here this evening, a desire for more than just pleasure—a desire he did not fully understand. Whether it was because of what his mother had said to him, or if it was simply Rebecca inching her way into his heart, he did not know. All he knew was that he wanted to let down his guard for once and not be the man everyone depended upon. He wanted to strip bare and place himself in Rebecca’s hands, to relax and simply let her love him.
Could he do that? Was it possible?
She sat up and pushed gently at his shoulder to roll him onto his back, then lifted his shirt and dropped wet kisses across his stomach and below his navel.
“I’m glad we found each other,” he whispered, enjoying the sensation of her long silky hair brushing across his skin.
“So am I,” she replied, looking down at him. “I know it seems too soon to say it, but I love you, Devon, and I cannot wait to be your wife. I will be the happiest woman in the world.”
She loved him. She had said it aloud, and he had not felt the need to retreat, nor had he dissolved into dust. A miracle. All of it.
“I hope those are your words,” he said with a smile and a touch of humor. “And not Lydie’s.”
She took his face in her hands. “They are words spoken from my own heart. I want only to be yours.”
“Then you shall be,” he told her, pulling her down for another kiss.
Gathering her gown in both fists, he inched it up past her waist until he could cup her warm, fleshy bottom in his hands. He groaned with need and thrust his hips upward. With eager hands, she unfastened his trousers and pulled them off him.
“Your shirt, too,” she said, lifting it over his head and tossing it aside as well.
She removed her nightgown and sat lightly upon him.
“You don’t want to play a little first?” he asked, his voice low with desire.
“No.”
He held her hips in his hands, supporting her movements as they began to make love. All he wanted in that moment was to watch her in the lamplight and enjoy her expressions and reactions, but soon he became absorbed in his own pleasure and closed his eyes.
Overcome with ecstasy, he drove into her deeply for quite some time until she sighed and shuddered with rapture. When she relaxed, he sat up and laid her on her back to bring the intimate union to completion.
Feeling lost beyond the reaches of his own mind, he kissed her and held her, loving her until he became so inflamed, he could hold back no longer. He gave in at last to the bliss that shattered his senses.
Weak and spent, he sank his weight upon Rebecca’s soft, warm body on the bed, and lay still for a time, breathing softly and easily in the night, wondering how it was possible that this woman could knock down all his defenses and make him forget everything that plagued him. He felt no heavy sense of obligation in her arms. There were no reminders that he must do his duty and solve everyone’s problems.
Rolling to the side, he lay beside her with his arm stretched across her hip. “I would like to stay a while,” he said. “Here in your bed. I want to sleep with you.”
“Nothing would please me more,” she replied.
For the first time in his life, he began to believe that genuine happiness might be possible for the future Duke of Pembroke after all.
And perhaps curses could be broken.
Outside in the driving rain, somewhere between the Cotswolds and the village of Pembroke, Lord Creighton held tight to the side of the coach as it bumped and swayed ominously at a fast clip down a hill. His driver had freshened the horses a short time before, after searching the village inns at Corsham, and Creighton had instructed the man to push the team to its limit. There was not a moment to lose if he was going to find Rebecca and bring her home. Rushton was waiting, and Rushton was not a patient man. He had said he would wait no longer than one week, and if Creighton did not deliver Rebecca by then, his own life and hers would be destroyed. He would have to endure the consequences of Rushton’s threats—which were not idle ones—and Rebecca’s future would never be the same.
The horses’ hooves thundered noisily down the road, and Creighton rubbed at the pain in his temples. At least he had higher hopes for the next stop. He knew his daughter, he knew of her fanciful daydreams, and he had a feeling he would have better luck there. Yes, better luck in the village of Pembroke.
Chapter 13
“I’ll wager you never imagined,” Blake said to Devon, who was donning his wedding attire shortly after breakfast, “that when you stepped off that steamship from America, you would be married within a week.”
Devon looked at his reflection in the mirror while his valet adjusted his sleeves, and felt as if he were looking at someone other than himself—a confident groom, heir to a dukedom, a calm man who had all the aspects of his life under control, for he was about to marry his future duchess and ensure the continuation of his ancestral line.
Inside, however, he was not so calm. He was far from it, for he was wrestling with the terrible fear that he had fallen completely and hopelessly in love with his bride and had already lost all sense of reality.
There had been moments over the past few days when he’d actually felt happy, and he could not fight the fear that his feet were going to slip and slide out from under him, and he would soon, without warning, begin the agonizing tumble down the hill.
Nevertheless, he spoke to his brother matter-of-factly, not wanting to reveal what he was feeling. “I always knew I would marry eventually.”
“And you are doing so now because you found a wonderful woman,” Blake put in, as if to remind Devon of the bright spot in all of this. His future wife. Rebecca.
Devon faced his perceptive brother. “Thank you. And I should inform you that as soon as we are declared husband and wife, I intend to speak to Father about changing his will back to the way it was. As far as he is concerned, I will have done my duty to this family and he will soon have his heir. There is no need for him to pressure you or Vincent or Garrett. All three of you should be free to choose the women you want, when the time is right.”
Blake eyed him carefully. “And you are absolutely certain that this is what you want? To be married today? For your sake, I hope it is.”
Devon recalled the unexpected tranquility of sleeping with Rebecca all night in her bed, not to mention the intense pleasures of their lovemaking. “I have never wanted a woman as much as I want her.” It was the truth.
Blake’s shoulders relaxed slightly as he nodded. “She is perfect, Devon. Not the slightest blemish on her character. Everyone thinks so. You chose well.”
“Strangely enough, despite all the insanity around this house lately, I believe I did. And I will forever be baffled by what seems to be a miracle at work here.” He turned to the mirror again and adjusted his tie.
“What miracle?”
“The fact that no other man has claimed her before now, and that I was the one lucky enough to come upon her and her father in the woods that night years ago.” He smiled cautiously at Blake. “I am hesitant to believe it, but perhaps there is not always a mud slick in one’s future. Perhaps just occasionally, the path is clear.”
For four long years, Rebecca had never dared to truly believe that she would one day stand inside the Pembroke Palace chapel with a bouquet of white roses in her hands, with Devon Sinclair beside her as her groom.
She had dreamed of it, of course, and in her dreams, she always imagined it would be the happiest day of her life—that she would look into his eyes and marvel at the peace and contentment she would feel inside her heart.
Peace, however, was nowhere near her present emotional state as she stood listening to the vicar’s sermon, for since the moment she’d opened her eyes that morning, the only thing she knew was fear. It all seemed impossible to believe, and she was certain the bubble was going to burst at any second—that her father was going to come crashing through the doors, waving his cane and demanding to know what the devil was happening here. Or worse, that Mr. Rushton might rise from one of the pews at the back of the chapel and object to this marriage because he was her rightful groom.
In My Wildest Fantasies (Love at Pembroke Palace Book 1) Page 14
