“So, tell me, heir to a title sir, why is a man of your years not yet married?” Alex set her king on an adjoining black square, contemplating the spot, before deciding the move was safe enough and releasing her hold on the piece.
“Same as you, I suspect.”
She couldn’t tear her eyes from his long, graceful fingers, wondering how they would feel against her skin. “Oh?” She caught herself and glanced up.
He was staring at her mouth.
Heat flooded her. She curled her bare toes into the carpet, dropping her eyes to the board. She feared it was too late. There was no way he could miss the flush roiling over her or the tremor of her fingers. She edged her hand up and tightly clutched the woolen shawl over the low décolleté of her green silk gown. The same one she’d worn at the masquerade the night before, less her corset and pannier. The dress dragged the floor, allowing her to go barefoot as no one could see her feet, Mrs. Darby had assured her. The woman had apologized profusely as there was nothing found in the house that would fit her. So, it appeared Mr. Millburn did not bring women to his home often. Alex had found that reassuring, somewhat.
“I hadn’t met the one, I suppose,” he said softly, startling her back to their conversation. “Too focused on avenging my father’s death.”
“You don’t believe your father is the one who… hurt Winsome’s first wife?”
“I know he didn’t. Winsome sent an innocent man be tried and executed,” he bit out.
“I refused to believe the duke executed him.” An intimacy hung over the chamber with their after-dinner brandies, the roaring fire, and the darkening skies out the windows.
“Not personally perhaps, but his accusations carry enormous weight.”
Alex stopped, unable to refute his statement. He was right. Her father was very powerful. What was the matter with her? She was never out of sorts. Never at a loss for words. Never at emotional crossroads. She needed to dislodge the discomfort reverberating through her. Another thought occurred to her. “If your father didn’t hurt the first duchess of Winsome, who do you believe did?”
Her tactic worked—almost too well. The atmosphere instantly morphed from carnal to menacing to suffocating, Alex almost regretted mentioning the possibility at all. She chanced a look at her host from the corner of her eye.
He’d moved back in his chair, and stared into the fire. “I have several theories.”
Curiosity rippled over her. Dare she ask? She dared. “What theories are those?” Questions regarding her own mother were as forbidden as the subject of Father’s first wife’s death had been. Everything she had learned of the tragedy came through those pretentious, giddy, highbrow girls from Alex’s miserable first months at Miss Greensley’s. The information had not been flattering—to her mother or her father, thus casting aspersions on Alex herself.
Mr. Millburn turned his head and looked at her, his gaze glittering fury. “I think it’s possible the new duchess wanted the position very badly.”
Alex snorted. She knew her stepmother well, and she couldn’t imagine the cares-too-much-what-others-think, petite woman would go so far as to murder someone. “Enough to kill the man’s wife? That is not a very likely scenario, sir. First of all”—she counted off on her fingers—“she’s a woman. Second, she’s quite small. Third, she’s much too practical.”
His unreadable gaze pierced her.
Oh, dear, she’d said too much.
He turned back to the fire with a harsh breath. “There’s such a thing as hiring out for dirty deeds one cannot or will not do themselves.”
“’Tis been almost thirty years, and there has never been a breath of scandal attached to the duchess. No. You must do better than that.” Her matter-of-fact tone seemed to have reached through to him.
“All right.” He leaned forward in his chair and rested his forearms on his thighs. “If not the current duchess, there’s always the mistress Winsome sent on her way after his first wife’s demise.”
Alex swallowed. “Mistress?”
“The duke had a mistress. Who is to say she didn’t believe the duke would marry her if his first wife was out of the way?”
Alex reached way back in her memory to the beautiful woman who’d raised her the first nine years of her life. She and her mother had not been well off. Her mother had trod the boards. But news traveled across the Channel as freely as the wind. Her mother hadn’t taken lovers to provide for Alex. There had only been one man Alex could recall, and his name escaped her.
Alex could still smell the theater, the paint the actors used on their faces, her mother’s voice when she practiced her daily arpeggios, her trills, the dramma giocoso parts that put her on the map of the stage that had led the Duke of Winsome right to their door. “Again, I must cry foul, sir. She was not of the duke’s class. She must have known he would never have married her. It’s not done now and was certainly not done twenty years ago.” She spoke softly but remained firm in her conviction. Her mother had not hated the first duchess. Olivia had known her place. Alex would stake her life on it.
Her own questions had opened a flurry of memories that clawed at her chest. Her mother’s and her own tearful screams as Alex had been ripped from her mother’s arms and carried away by the duke. Yes, her mother had known the duke’s power up against what little she had, and had bravely let go of Alex, pushing her toward the duke. Alex recalled the stark pain in her eyes as if it were yesterday. “Go, my darling. He is your father. He will take care of you.” Her mother’s eyes had turned to the duke, glittering with hatred, shimmering with tears, watching as the duke dragged Alex from their small rooms.
To his credit, the duke had endured Alex’s shrieking wrath as they went out of the house, into the carriage, onto the boat, and across the channel. All with his ducal stoic reserve.
For Alex’s part, she’d maintained her fight with her father another two and half years until her stepmother had finally intervened and insisted Alex be enrolled in Miss Greensley’s Comportment School for Young Girls of Quality.
All at once, Alex was asphyxiating. It was too hot, sitting this close to the fire. Her father’s famed reserve—a skill she had inherited down to the haughty carriage of his ducal head—abandoned her as panic set in. She jumped from her chair too quickly, knocking it askew, and—tripping over the excess length of her gown—flew forward, directly into Mr. Millburn’s steadying arms.
“Careful there,” Mr. Millburn said. His low, husky timbre was a silky caress that raised bumps over her skin. He had saved her from an undignified sprawl onto the floor, but his touch was comforting and unnerving. He smoothed his palm down her sleeved arm to her naked fingers intertwining hers with his own.
“Perhaps it-it was someone in love w-with the first duchess. Someone the duchess had abandoned in choosing the duke instead.”
“I don’t wish to talk of this any longer. There are more interesting topics, don’t you think?” His lips touched the side of her neck. She’d lost her shawl in her haste to move and now she was frozen into place. She shivered under the delicious onslaught of his feathered, gentle kisses.
She turned and stared out the windows, wishing this were her home; that he could love her; that he truly were her husband. This could be her life if she held him to their wager. She’d won in a fair match of joint terms. She did believe him a gentleman of his word, despite their unorthodox beginning.
Slowly he turned her to face him. “What are you thinking?” he asked her. He leaned forward and set his lips at the crook of her neck and shoulder. His touch was so light, she trembled and feared her knees would buckle beneath her own weight.
“That I wish I had a home of my own.” She couldn’t very well tell him she was the eldest of seven children. Or that she was Winsome’s by-blow. She shook off his fingers in a huff of disgust, turning again to look out the windows while something wild and uncharacteristic flittered through her. She wrapped her arms beneath her breasts. More than anything in the entire world she wanted to feel free and untethered. As if she could fly above the ocean, the trees, the world.
He leaned in again, his heat against her back, comforting. She felt his smile against her skin. “I suppose you know the exact location, too,” he said.
“No. 19 Thornton Square,” she said softly with a longing so intense, she ached.
Her answer startled a laugh from him. “Thornton Square. Lovely area. I lived there as a child myself,” he whispered. He licked her skin. “God, you taste delicious. Fresh, clean, so delectably sweet.”
She closed her eyes and reveled in his warmth. When had she ever been held in so loving an embrace? Never that she could recall, certainly not since she’d been ripped from her mother’s arms. That was a horribly long time to go without physical affection. Of course, she had been the one to instill that decree from the time she’d moved to London; had been the one to hold everyone in her family at bay.
She knew right then she could never hold Theo Millburn to their ridiculous wager.
Alex turned in his arms and moved her hands up the firm contours of his chest to his shoulders. She deserved this one night for herself. She had earned the right to learn the secrets long withheld from all young women until marriage.
It was unlikely Alex would ever marry, not at her age. Why should she not have something to carry with her always? She went up on her toes and set her lips against his.
This was for her. Something of her very own. This one moment in time.
Theo went still as a statue. The lips against his own were soft and… just resting there. Slowly, he slanted his mouth against hers and, with the tip of his tongue, teased her lips. Simple, light strokes.
She let out a sharp, surprised gasp and he touched her teeth with his tongue.
He made certain his hold was not so tight she couldn’t move away should she wish. And to his greatest relief, she did not. Nor did her mouth move beneath his. It was if she didn’t quite know what to do. It wasn’t possible. This sensuous, irresistible woman.
“Have you never been kissed, Giselle?”
His words embarrassed her. She couldn’t possibly realize how that endeared her to him. She started to back away.
“Don’t be frightened,” he whispered. “’Tis just a kiss. A way for a man and a woman to communicate their… their greatest regard for one another.”
She did step back then. Her sardonic expression, clearly visible with the firelight touching her lovely features, conveyed her annoyance. “Really, sir. I am not an imbecile.” Staunchly spoken in her flawless French. “Greatest regard? Have you, perchance, used that cock and bull on another as naïve as I?”
The word “cock” coming from those soft full lips inflamed the member in his breeches. “I have not.” Heat flooded his neck. He rubbed his palm over it. God, he wanted her. He snatched her hand and pulled her into him. “You shall drive me mad, I vow.” Once again, he slanted his mouth over hers, swallowing her shock. He used his tongue to teach her exactly how a man did communicate—if not his regard then his lust for a woman such as her.
She didn’t struggle away, nor did she cave to his ministrations, not at first. After a moment that seemed forever, her body melded to his. He swept her off her feet and laid her gently on the settee.
His lips worked her mouth, his fingers touched her jaw, the column of her neck, the plumpness of her breast. To his astonishment and delight, no corset barricaded his path. He slid his hand to her bent knee, and below, fighting his way through the voluminous material it took to reach her ankle. Her bared ankle.
He raised his head. “You’ve no shoes or stockings?”
“My shoes were ruined, I fear. ’Tis fitting, I believe. If there were no dress to fit me, shoes would be more difficult to come by, I should think,” she whispered.
He tugged at her bodice, exposing her breast and lowered his mouth to her nipple. He licked it to a beaded bud, then suckled.
Her hands gripped his hair, but she wasn’t yanking him away, she was pulling him closer.
He moved her skirts up, sliding his hand up the length of her leg to her thigh.
Her breaths grew heavy, as heavy as his own. “Are you all right?” He would die if she said no.
“Yes. Yes, quite.” Gone was the controlled reserve she’d brandished like a weapon against him since the moment they’d met. She was not unaffected by him.
He loved seeing her like this, the fire warming her skin—hearing her like this, her breathing, short, excited. He moved his hand to the inside of her thigh—and to the dampness there, touching her like this. “I want you.” He pushed her skirts up and parting her legs further, delved a finger in, and relished in her breathless gasps. He moved his head to her thigh and kissed the inside, swiping his tongue on her skin. “How is this?”
“F-fine,” she whispered.
He moved closer to the prize between her legs, pushing another finger in. “You’re so tight, yet so ready for me.” He pulled his fingers out and pushed again, groaning at the dewy sweetness of her.
“Yes.” It sounded almost like a squeal, but she was much too dignified.
In a clumsy attempt, he fumbled with the flap on his breeches to free himself. The scent of her desire inundated his senses, circumvented his brain, turned it to a bowl of mash. He drew his fingers out, replacing them with his mouth. He was overcome with a crazed need, delving his tongue in and out of her heat while she throbbed against him, until she pulsed against him with a shattering release.
Theo moved up her body and took her breast in his mouth, guided his cock between those long, graceful legs. He could feel their strength. The heated center of her called to him like the strongest opium. He would do anything to have her. Buy her No. 19 Thornton Place. Laud jewels that matched her eyes upon her person at every opportunity.
Marry her.
The pandemonium surging through Alex was all sensation. There was no room for realism, good judgment, or apprehension. His mouth left a blazing trail of hot moisture on her skin, and his departure left that trail cooling in the air this far from the fire. She wanted to scream at him for putting his mouth in such an ungodly place, for doing such ungodly things to her. Shimmering lights burst behind her closed eyes. She was still pulsing with shuddering breaths as he moved up her body and licked her nipples. First one, then the other, then back again.
His hips fit snugly between her legs, and she hugged him, never wanting the pressure of him against her to stop.
A shaft of hot velvet imprinted the skin at the inside of her thigh. The burning desire had ebbed, hastened, then heightened. She throbbed with an embarrassing longing that was more confusing than frightening. She had the strangest urge to wrap her fingers around him, but she was somewhat mortified at the intensity of the feelings tearing through her. His hand moved between them, and he poised himself at her heated center. She was so hot and wanting. She refused to let this moment pass, even knowing she would be forever marked. Her night was about to change forever, and she welcomed it with open arms and spread legs. She would not be left behind. She felt almost… grateful… to this unassuming hero. Yes. He was her hero of sorts. Rescuing her from a staid life of bland memories. She cradled him tightly between her legs.
“Dear God. Yes,” he breathed against her chest.
“Oh, please,” she whispered. Her body called for him. She wanted this. Wanted him. The blunt tip of him breached the most private part of her.
“Tell me, you’ve done this before.” His voice cracked like broken glass.
If she said no, would he stop? If he stopped, would she ever be presented an opportunity such as this again? A woman nearing thirty; a woman firmly on the shelf? No one had ever wanted her before. Not like this—burning for a man’s touch. His need, his lust.
No one would never make her feel this way, not a second time. “Yes,” she said.
He surged forward—the pain stole her breath.
His body stilled over hers. “Goddammit,” he hissed. “You lied to me.”
“I-I…” She what? She lay there, digging her fingers into his shoulders, too terrified to move from the pain. He throbbed inside of her, but the burning sensation was quickly fading, leaving her with an urge to move. With a mew, she wriggled beneath him.
“No… don’t move…” But he’d lost whatever battle waged within him. His hands gripped her hips, and he pumped his body, the friction morphing her into a ball of hot malleable wax.
“Yes. Saints in hea—”
“Don’t say it,” he huffed out. He moved his hand between them, felt him press his fingers to the top of her sex.
It was too much. His mouth went to the crook of her neck, and he bit down. The pressure within her exploded into a crystalized, shimmering, spectrum of sharp brilliance behind her eyes. He jerked out of her with a roar that nearly deafened her. She felt the flood of hot paste against her leg.
He slumped like a fallen tree atop her, panting in rapid intakes.
They lay like that for several moments before he moved his hands and placed them on either side of her. “You lied to me,” he accused in a harsh whisper.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I-I—” The words refused to surface. So, she fell back on familiar ground and shoved him off her, catching him by surprise. He rolled to the floor in a hard fall. “S-so what?” she demanded, appalled by the emotions reeling through her. “Surely, you won’t deny i-it’s what you’ve angled for since the minute we walked through that door last night.” She attempted to sit up, but the wet substance on her skin made it awkward. “What is this…” she threw her hand out.
“I thought you were a… a—”
She shot to sitting and used her dress to wipe herself off. “Don’t say it—” she bit out.
“—a lightskirt.”
Her hand shot out and landed in a slap that echoed across the room. The reaction was so uncharacteristic, she was momentarily stunned into a slab of marble, complete with speechlessness.
She stared at her hand as if it were a severed appendage with a brain of its own. Quite suddenly, her rage, morphed into something far more dire… a burning sensation of tears.
No one ever saw her cry, and they wouldn’t now. With as much dignity as she could muster, she hurried from the settee, located her fallen shawl, and left him sprawled on the floor without another glance in his direction.