How to Tempt a Duke

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

THE MANSION in Grosvenor Square, like so many residences in London and all over Great Britain and Ireland, was now a house of mourning.

When the bell had rung for the evening meal, no one appeared in the drawing room, and Charlotte had at last ordered that trays be made up and delivered to the chambers of the duke and his sisters.

She ate her own meal alone in the morning room, or at least pretended to do so, while Mrs. Buttram had attempted to make conversation, only to be met with little response. The woman had possessed the sense to quickly finish her meal and depart.

That left Charlotte to hug a pillow to her chest and stare blindly out through the large oriel window as dusk fell and the skies turned dark and became sprinkled with bright stars, a sight unusual over London.

Which star belonged to Fitz? she wondered.

The hallway clock was striking nine when she slowly hauled herself upstairs, feeling older than the world. Her maid, her own eyes red from weeping, immediately suggested a soothing bath, and Charlotte nodded silently, hoping she might then be able to sleep, and not dream.

Two hours later, she knew the bath hadn’t helped. Not wishing to bother her maid, Charlotte threw back the covers, slid into her slippers and dressing gown, and headed downstairs to beg some warmed milk in the kitchens.

She got as far as the door to Rafe’s bedchamber, and stopped.

He was in there, grieving.

She was out here, grieving.

And that was wrong.

Before she could change her mind, she lifted her closed hand and lightly knocked on the door.

There was no answer. She could walk away. She could knock again.

She could stop being so blockheaded and stupid and think of someone other than herself, something other than her own stupid fears.

He needed her. He’d said so.

She needed him, even if she didn’t understand exactly what it was she needed from him, wanted to give him in return.

Charlotte depressed the latch and stepped into the dim bedchamber. The only light in the large room came from the moonlight throwing long shadows through the tall windows and the fire burning in the grate. But that was enough for her to see Rafe sprawled in one of the wingback chairs flanking the fireplace, his long legs thrust out in front of him.

“Rafe?” she ventured softly. “May I sit with you awhile? Please?”

His face in profile, he lifted his right arm slightly, the hand holding a snifter of brandy, and then let it fall again.

She decided that meant he didn’t mind.

Instead of taking her seat on the other wing chair, she padded straight to his and went down beside him, laying her cheek on his knee.

For a long time the room was quiet, the two of them watching the dancing flames in the grate. After a bit, Rafe put his hand on her head and began stroking her hair. She closed her eyes and bit back a sob.

“Why?” Rafe asked her at last. “Why Fitz? Why such a good man?”

“I don’t know, Rafe,” Charlotte whispered, putting her hands on his knee and looking up into his face. His features seemed so sharp, etched with his grief.

“I understand war. God knows I’ve seen enough of it. There’s never any reason, at least never a good one. I do understand that. Just not Fitz, you know? He was always…invincible.”

“He was a good man,” Charlotte said earnestly. “He loved you.”

Rafe smiled sadly. “We were brothers in arms, and so much more. I only hope he knew I loved him.”

Charlotte blinked back fresh tears. “I’m sure he did, Rafe. Just as I know I love you.”

He smiled down at her. “Thank you, Charlie.”

“No, Rafe. Don’t thank me. Forgive me. I’ve…I’ve allowed stupid fears…and possibly pride to keep me from what you want from me. From what I want for both of us. Rafe, you are so much more important to me than my fears. It’s you I should be holding on to, not what happened in the past.”

“Charlie…”

“No, please. Please let me say this, Rafe. I’ve allowed myself to be afraid of ghosts, which only kept them alive. I thought I had time, that we both had time…but Fitz and Lydia probably thought they had time, too. If…if I lost you…if I’d never come to you, if I’d never known what it was like to love you, really love you, completely and utterly…”

He put the snifter down on the table and took her hands, drawing her to her feet with him. “Do you know what you’re saying, sweetheart?”

Her eyes searched his in the dimness. “Yes, I…No, no I don’t know. I only know what I feel, Rafe. I feel the need to be with you. I want to hold you, comfort you, and I long for you to comfort me in turn. I’m not a child, Rafe. I’m a woman, and I want to be like other women. Loved…and loving in return. I want us to be able to reach out to each other, and find what we need. Tonight more than ever before. I think we need each other tonight.”

He laid his hands on her shoulders. “If we’re happy, to be happy together. If we’re sad, to be sad together. To always know the other is there for us. The best of friends…and so much more.”

She pressed her palms against his chest, feeling his heartbeat through the soft lawn of his shirt. She loved this man. Dear God, how she loved this man, had always loved this man. “You’ve wanted to help me heal, Rafe, and you have. Now let me help you….”

He scooped her up into his arms and carried her to his bed. He laid her down gently against the sheets, and followed after her, taking her into his arms and softly pressing his mouth against hers.

Tears stung her eyes as she melted into his embrace, a feeling of homecoming all but overwhelming her.

There was no fear, because she wasn’t thinking about herself, not when Rafe was so much more important. Not when he needed her. In caring for him, in her desire to help him, her own feelings counted for nothing.

She wrapped her arms around him and returned his kiss, unwilling to lie passive in his arms or, worse, shrink from him.

She ran her spread hands over his back, felt his body shudder as she opened her mouth to him and he was able to plunge his tongue inside, a move that made her aware of a sudden, pleasurable tightening between her legs.

“Charlie…” he breathed into her mouth. “I need you so much….”

He began trailing kisses down the side of her throat, onto the modest expanse of skin above her dressing gown. She felt the slight tug as he slipped open the ties holding the dressing gown closed, eased the material off her shoulders.

Now he kissed her along the scoop neck of her thin lawn night rail, even as he slowly tugged the material down, exposing her left breast, inch by tantalizing inch. His mouth was warm against her revealed flesh, and she sighed and lifted herself slightly from the mattress as at last he closed around her nipple, his tongue rasping across its very tip.

Charlotte’s breathing became ragged, shallow. As if she’d somehow forgotten how to do it without giving the exercise conscious thought.

Not knowing what to do, she did nothing other than hold on to him and revel in what Rafe was doing to her, what he was bringing to life inside her. She wouldn’t stop him, would never stop him.

His teeth. His tongue. The light pulling, suckling, that turned the tightness between her thighs into a delicious burning that at the same time felt like an opening, a flowering, a blossoming of her body that would serve as some sort of welcome to this man who was so precious to her.

When he left her, Charlotte’s eyes flew open in concern, but she needn’t have worried.

She lay there, tremulously smiling up at him as he unbuttoned his shirt even as his hot gaze never left her face. In the near dark, he unbuttoned his breeches and let them fall open around his hips, his hands hesitating, as if he was asking her permission.

Charlotte looked down, saw the nesting of dark hair above the opening of his breeches.

“I’m not afraid, Rafe.”

But, moments later, she most definitely was amazed.

When he reached for her night rail and began tugging it upward, she raised her hips, helping him.

He hesitated, the night rail exposing her up to her knees, both of them knowing he was about to remove the last barrier that lay between them. Nearly the last…

“Are you sure you’re not afraid?”

“No…no.”

“I love you so much….”

“I know.” She reached out to touch his bare chest, the muscles that rippled convulsively as she drew her fingertips along his rib cage. “You’re beautiful….”

His smile broke her heart at the same time as it sent it soaring.

Then her night rail was gone and Rafe was covering her with his upper body, his flesh hard against her softness.

He took her mouth again, coaxingly, daring her to take the initiative, mirror his actions with her own, and when he sighed, she felt a ripple of triumph that she was certain was part of the joy of being a female. He was hers, and her pleasure was his pleasure.

How could she have ever thought fear, or ugliness, had anything to do with what she and Rafe were about to share?

When he slid his hand between their bodies, when she felt his fingers insinuate themselves lower, lower, until he was touching her so intimately, it was impossible not to smile, sigh her delight at his touch.

“Open for me, sweetheart,” he whispered as he continued to kiss her ear, her hair, her mouth, as his fingers stroked her, sliding along her, spreading her, destroying any inhibitions with each new rush of sensation that had her spreading her thighs wider so that he might keep touching her, learning her, teaching her.

And then the feeling changed as he seemed to understand that he’d found what he had been seeking and her entire body stiffened, signaling without words that he’d located her very center.

“Rafe…?”

“I know, sweetheart. I know. Let it happen, just let it happen….”

His fingers moved faster, faster, never leaving her, and she held her breath, unable to believe the sensations building inside her, the magic he was bringing to her…the heaven…the sweet, hot, pulsing heaven….

“Rafe!”

Even as she was trying to take in what had just happened to her, he levered himself completely on top of her, coming to rest between her spread thighs.

His movement was swift, the pain fleeting, and then he was inside her and she was reaching up to him, her fingernails digging into the flesh of his back, her body straining against his, welcoming him, trying to give him what he had given her.

They were two halves making one wondrous, fated whole, and as he shuddered and emptied his seed into her the very last shadow left Charlotte Seavers’s heart. There was no room in that heart for anything or anybody except Rafael Daughtry.

Her friend.

Her lover.

Her life.

As he lay spent on top of her, she held him, cradled him, showering kisses over him, their tears mingling, the salty taste of them in both their mouths.

And as they fell asleep in each other’s arms, the last thing Charlotte saw before she closed her eyes were all the stars twinkling in the midnight sky above the rooftops just outside the window. Perhaps it was fanciful, wishful thinking, but one of them seemed to be particularly bright.

SHE CAME TO HIM EACH night, her arrival met with the only smiles she saw from him that long, sad week. As the weather turned too warm for them to sit in front of a fire, they often stood at an open window, looking out over the silent Square as the evening breeze washed over them, or she sat on his lap, cuddling into him as he told her stories about the years he and Fitz had been together.

Sad stories, almost hilariously funny stories of adventures they’d shared…healing stories.

Eventually, they would make love. Inevitably. Because the so-intimate union seemed to be a part of that healing, for both of them. Their coming together could almost be taken as a sign that they were both still alive, that the world did go on, and that they would move on with it.

Lydia kept to her rooms, Nicole refusing to leave her side, even sleeping beside her in her sister’s bed, as if they were children once again.

The lists of names, which had faded to a trickle, began to grow longer again, just as Rafe had said they would, and church bells never seemed to stop ringing across London. Mrs. Buttram learned of the death of a beloved nephew and asked permission to travel to Kent to be with her sister. She departed a subdued woman, and only after giving genuine hugs to everyone.

The Duke of Malvern returned to Grosvenor Square twice, to closet himself with Rafe in his study, and to inquire about Lydia. He’d wondered if she might wish to speak with him, so that he could tell her more about Fitz’s last weeks in Brussels, but Lydia declined each time. To her, Rafe thought, Tanner Blake was her own personal Angel of Death, the man who had taken her Captain Fitzgerald from her.

Charlotte had assured Rafe that Lydia needed time, reminded him that she was still so painfully young. She suggested they return to Ashurst Hall where, yes, Lydia would face more ghosts. But, at the same time, perhaps she could then begin to heal.

As he had begun to heal, thanks to Charlotte.

How had he existed all these years, without love in his life, without his beloved Charlie in his life?

“Let me do that,” he told her softly as she sat on a low velvet bench, brushing her hair at the dressing table that had most probably belonged to his late aunt, and several duchesses of Ashurst before her. “After all, I think I’m the one who tangled it for you.”

“Why, sir, I think you are at that.” She smiled at him in the mirror and held up the pair of silver-backed brushes she’d been using. She looked so delicate, almost fragile, wearing his maroon silk banyan and nothing else, the sash wrapped twice around her waist, the overlong sleeves falling back to expose her arms to the elbow.

He bent and kissed the back of her hand and then took one of the brushes and began smoothing it over her warm brown hair, his hand following the direction of the brush, his palm and fingertips tingling at the gentle intimacy.

“That’s nice, that’s very nice.”

She put down the other brush and sighed in contentment. She’d gone from a skittish girl who flinched from his touch to an aware, sensual woman who gloried in it. He was so proud of her, and so very grateful.

“Why do you females twist and torture and confine your hair, and fill it with pins, do you wonder?”

“To impress the gentlemen, I suppose,” Charlotte answered, her gaze still meeting his in the mirror. “Putting up one’s hair is the sign that a woman is grown up. Just as a spinster covers her hair with those horrid caps, to signal that she’s on the shelf. I already have three of them, but haven’t been able to bring myself to wear them. Ouch!”

“Sorry,” Rafe said, leaning past her to lay the brush on the dressing table. “It must be the thought of covering your hair that distracted me. You look so beautiful when it’s down. I love to touch it.”

To prove his point, he placed his hands at her temples and slowly drew his fingers through her hair, and then, as she closed her eyes and tipped her head, allowed its sleek length to fall over her right shoulder as he bent to kiss her nape. “Just as I love touching you.”

“Rafe…”

He put his hands on her slim shoulders, gently kneading her muscles until she relaxed her head back against his lower belly. The action pulled the silk of his banyan tighter over her breasts, enticing his hands to wander.

He slid them down over the silk, lightly cupping her breasts, his thumbs finding her nipples, which had grown taut at his touch.

“That…that’s nice,” Charlotte purred.

He watched her in the mirror as her eyes opened, the pupils gone dark and almost indolent as she allowed him to do what he wished.

He hooked his thumbs inside the edges of the banyan and spread them, exposing her breasts, then took each nipple between thumb and forefinger and rolled them, tugged them lightly, felt them grow hard.

He watched, mesmerized, as Charlotte’s chest rose and fell, her breathing becoming ragged, and then locked his gaze with hers in the mirror.

“Rafe, I…”

“Shh,” he cautioned. “Don’t say anything, Charlie. Just feel.”

Her breath escaped on a sigh and her eyelids fluttered closed, then shot open once more as he knelt behind her so that he could put his cheek next to hers. Still cupping her left breast, he used his free hand to tug open the sash, so that the dark silk slid away from her body.