When You Wish Upon a Duke Read online

  “How could I stop you, Charlotte?” he asked, his voice strained.

  Deliberately she tucked the little heart in the front of her stomacher, glittering between her breasts. “If you wished to, you could.”

  “I could,” he agreed, leaving the rest unsaid. He could, but he wouldn’t. It was as if he’d given himself permission, and she fervently prayed he wouldn’t change his mind.

  With a little smile she slipped her hands inside his jacket and eased it away from his shoulders and arms. She was surprised by how heavy it was: her clothes were as insubstantial and light as air, but his were weighed down with embroidery and buttons.

  Buttons, and more buttons. While his coat had been open, his waistcoat wasn’t, and one by one by one she undid the long row of small cut-steel buttons, fifteen in all. She didn’t rush. She pushed each glittering button through its silk-stitched hole with care as her fingers made the slow progress down his chest and lower. She bent before him, and finally knelt before him, her skirts settling around her. From the way March tensed and shifted, struggling with his self-control, she suspected it all made for a teasing torment for him, which made her go more slowly still. She took extra time with the last buttons at the bottom of the waistcoat, and if her fingers brushed over his very evident cock inside his breeches, it was no more than artful accident.

  Finally she reached the last button and swept the waistcoat from his shoulders. Her gaze met his for a moment, his dark eyes so full of smolder that she flushed and swiftly looked away. She was very much playing with fire. There was no other nor better way to describe it, and wondering how long he’d let her continue only made her game more exciting.

  She stepped around him, as much to escape his gaze as to continue undressing him. She reached up and brushed his queue over his shoulder, and was surprised to see that the square buckle on the back of his stock was covered with rubies, too. Such a pretty, costly trinket, to be hidden by his collar, his hair, and his coat, and yet as she unfastened it and slowly drew the neck cloth free, she marveled at how many other such things she did not yet know about her husband. Even now she took a long minute to study him greedily, smoothing the white linen of his shirt over his broad shoulders and admiring the elegant fit of his breeches. It was a shame that gentlemen’s long coats hid their backsides so completely, for at least her husband’s was a handsome sight indeed, rounded and muscular from riding.

  Swiftly she returned to his shirt, unbuttoning the cuffs before she stepped back before him to undo the two last buttons at his neck. From habit he raised his throat to make it easier, and she couldn’t help but kiss him there, beneath his chin.

  He started, then grinned. “Giroux never does that.”

  “I should expect not,” she said, smiling at the notion of the staid valet ever taking such an outrageous liberty with his master. “But I could not resist, March. Indeed, I could not.”

  As if to prove it, she again kissed his chin, and his jaw, and then, inevitably, his lips as well. Yet while they kissed, she continued undressing him, pulling his billowing shirt free of his breeches and sliding her hands along his torso beneath it. His skin was warm and sleek, the play of his muscles beneath her hands fascinating. After that first night, he’d always taken care to come to her with his nightshirt, and whether it was unladylike or not, she’d missed … this.

  But now as they kissed, he was beginning to undress her, too, though with more urgency than finesse. Before long he’d managed to remove her gown, petticoat, and hoops, and he’d even unpinned her stomacher from her stays, only once stabbing himself on a pin.

  “Ouch,” he said, breaking away from kissing her to stick his finger in his mouth. “Damnation, but there’s a lot of sharp points to you.”

  She chuckled again. “Even roses have thorns.”

  “I’d rather think of a bramble bush,” he said, turning her around. “At least once you pass the thorns, there’s a sweet berry inside. What kind of devil’s knot does your maid tie in your stays?”

  “I don’t know what Polly does, because I never see it.” She turned her head to look back at him over her shoulder. “So you would rather think of me as a berry than a rose?”

  “Of course,” he said, fighting with the knotted lace. “A rose is good for admiring and nothing more, but a berry is not only beautiful, but sweet and juicy.”

  “ ‘Sweet and juicy’?” she repeated, for it seemed a nonsensical compliment. “How can I be as juicy as a berry?”

  “You’ll see,” he said, his voice so low and full of dark promise that she shivered. “There goes the knot.”

  There the knot went, and there went her stays, too, falling forward from her chest. She’d barely shrugged them free before he reached beneath her arms and into her shift to cup her breasts. She gasped with surprise and then with pleasure as he caressed her, tugging and teasing her nipples into stiff little peaks. Her breath quickened into little sighs of joy, and she closed her eyes and sagged back against him, covering his hands lightly with her own.

  “You’re beautiful, Charlotte,” he murmured, kissing the side of her throat. “So beautiful.”

  If all he did with her tonight was this, then she’d be happy, it felt that fine. But she was greedy and wanted more, and besides, she longed for their play to last the night. She slipped free of his embrace and darted out of his reach.

  “You’ve far too many clothes compared to me,” she said breathlessly. He’d left her with only her shift, the fine Holland so sheer that she might as well be naked, and her shoes, stockings, and garters. She bent to pull his ruby-covered heart from her discarded stays, and tucked it instead in the neck of her shift. The weight pulled it down perilously low across her breasts, exactly as she’d hoped. “It’s your turn now.”

  “Easily remedied,” he said, quickly pulling off his buckled shoes and reaching for the buttons on the fall of his breeches.

  “Let me,” she said, stopping his hand. She knelt, but instead of unbuttoning his fall, she began with the fastenings on the leg of his breeches, four small buttons and a buckle as well. When that was done, she untied his garter and pushed his stocking down along his well-muscled calf, then scurried over to the other leg to repeat the process.

  “Charlotte,” he said, his voice faintly strangled. “This is torture.”

  “I know,” she said, brushing her lips over the back of his now-bared knee. “But if I’m to be a proper valet—”

  “A proper valet would have been sacked by now,” he said, and abruptly hauled her back to her feet.

  “Then I’m glad I’m an improper one,” she said, grinning wickedly as she reached down at last to the buttons on his fall.

  “Improper, indeed,” he growled. “If that is what you wish, I’ll show you improper, and to the devil with what anyone else may think.”

  There was no refusing him, not the way he was kissing her now, and if he’d put an end to her charade as his valet, she couldn’t imagine a better way. She’d never seen his bedchamber, and she’d no time to admire it now. She’d only a fleeting impression of a great deal of marble and painted goddesses floating across the ceiling and an enormous bed with woodwork and hangings that were all black and gold. Then she found herself in the middle of that bed, sinking deep into the featherbed and staring up at a canopy of gold brocade. March was with her, too, his expression so dark and determined that she smiled with anticipation. This was what she wanted, what she’d had with him that one time and what she’d ached for ever since.

  “March,” she said, her voice trembling with love and eagerness, holding her arms out to embrace him. But he didn’t join her, not as she’d expected. Instead he knelt between her legs, gently easing them apart and feathering the lightest of kisses along the inside of her knees and her thighs. She liked having him tease her like this, his jaw rough and his mouth hot on her skin. She giggled, partly because it tickled, and partly from not knowing what he meant to do next. But she learned soon enough, when to her shock he began kissing her m
ost private place.

  “March!” Scandalized, she tried to pull away. He’d promised her impropriety, and she couldn’t imagine anything more improper than what he was doing to her now. “March, please!”

  “We will forget everything and everyone, Charlotte, exactly as you wished,” he said, his hands gripping her thighs to keep them open. “No one matters here but us.”

  Relentlessly he kissed her and licked her and teased her with his tongue, and after her first surprise had faded, she realized how delicious this—this devouring could be.

  She felt herself grow impossibly wet, swelling and filling with pleasure, and the more she writhed against him, the stronger and more delicious the feelings became, coiling and tightening her entire body. Shamelessly she arched against him, and clutched knots of the sheets at her sides. He’d complained of her torturing him, but nothing she’d done could compare to this. Still holding her legs apart with his arms, he gently used his thumbs to part her further and uncover the center of her pleasure. He licked her there, there, and the tension broke and joy rushed over her, waves and waves of it so bright and sweet that she cried out with it.

  She was still limp and gasping when he came up beside her. She wasn’t surprised that he’d taken off his breeches or that his desire for her was blatant; she wasn’t surprised by anything now.

  “I want this gone,” he said, shoving her shift up over her body. “I want to love you as you are, with nothing between us.”

  She pulled it over her head, and when it tangled on her arm, he pulled harder, tearing the fragile fabric and tossing it aside with an impatience that excited her all the more. His much-prized control was in the same tatters as her shift, and knowing she was the reason was a heady feeling. When he kissed her, urgently, she could taste herself on his lips, the musky sweetness of her own arousal. Quickly he settled over her, between her legs. She hadn’t time to recover from her first pleasure, or to steel herself for the rough intrusion that she’d learned to associate with him.

  But this time was different, so different she could scarcely believe it. When he entered her, there was no discomfort at all, but only a blissful friction that made her sigh with delight. With each powerful stroke, he filled her completely, wonderfully. She loved the feel of his skin against hers, the roughness of the hair of his chest against her breasts, loved the working of the muscles of his back as she held him and the deep, rasping groans as he plunged into her. Instinctively she curled her legs around his hips and moved with him, reveling in the tension that was building within her once again.

  Abruptly he rolled onto his back, bringing her with him so that she was sitting astride him.

  “There,” he said, his eyes hooded and his breathing ragged. “Ride me, my own brave lass.”

  With her hands braced against his chest, she moved tentatively, sliding up and then down with a shuddering sigh. He seemed to fill her more completely this way, and the sensations were more intense.

  “Take the lead,” he said, placing his hands around the narrowest part of her waist to guide her. “Race with it. Ride me hard, and find what pleases you best.”

  She nodded, and began moving in earnest. Naked though she was, she still wore her earrings, and the pearls swung back and forth against her neck. Quickly she found the rhythm that pleased her and him as well, or so she guessed by the way he bucked beneath her. Faster and faster she rode him, her heart thumping and her blood pounding and every scrap of her body intent on finishing the wild, glorious race with him. She was close, so close, and when he reached up to stroke her where she was most open to him, she climaxed again and brought him with her, his final cry of release a deeper match for her own.

  Afterward he pulled the coverlet up and held her close, her body curled against his and his arm protectively across her. She’d never felt closer to him, nor more in love, either. She listened to his breathing, slow and calm, and when she twisted around to face him, she saw that his eyes were closed and his lips parted. With his dark hair tangled around his face and his features relaxed and at peace, he had never looked more content, nor more handsome. She was almost afraid to break the spell, yet she couldn’t resist brushing her lips over his in the gentlest of kisses.

  “I love you, March,” she whispered, barely breathing the words as she drifted off to sleep. “Oh, how I love you!”

  Later he kissed her awake and made love to her again, their passion as fiery as before. He’d bid her to face away from him and hold on to one of the thick carved bedposts for support. She’d laughed at the foolish posture, until he entered her from behind and she discovered that the deliciousness of it far outweighed any mere foolishness. Exhausted, she laid atop him, their sweaty limbs tangled intimately together.

  “Why didn’t we do this before?” she asked drowsily. “Why, I wonder?”

  “That’s easy enough to answer,” he said, and for the first time that night she saw the old darkness flicker across his face, ready to close her out. “There’s reasons enough, aren’t there?”

  No, no, please, no, she thought desperately, now sharply awake. Don’t retreat from me again!

  “Forget them,” she said urgently. “Whatever reasons you might dream aren’t worth remembering. This is what matters, March, here between us. Please, oh, please recall what I said! Here we’re only lovers, March, and the only ones we need please are ourselves.”

  “We did do that, didn’t we?” he said. “I’ve never loved anyone as I love you, Charlotte. More than the world, and the moon in the heavens, too.”

  But there was weariness in his smile and melancholy in his kiss, and though he slept again, she lay awake long after that, her hand linked tightly into his as if that would be enough to keep him close and safe.

  At last she slept, and woke with the sun streaming in fine lines between the still-closed curtains. She blinked, not recognizing March’s bed, then rolled over to find him gone and only his impression on the pillows remaining.

  Of course. Of course. Though her heart plummeted, she knew she’d expected it to be so.

  “Good morning, Your Grace,” Polly said cautiously, holding her usual morning tray as if they were in Charlotte’s bedchamber instead of March’s. Behind her stood an uneasy footman, his eyes carefully averted.

  At once Charlotte jerked the sheets over her bare breasts and shoulders, clear to her chin. “Good morning, Polly. Good morning, Giroux. Is His Grace in the next room?”

  “No, Your Grace,” the footman said, as intensely uncomfortable as a man could be. Still concentrating on the carpet, he stepped forward to hand Charlotte a letter. “His Grace was unavoidably called away to Greenwood. He did not wish you to be disturbed, ma’am. He left this for you, ma’am.”

  To Greenwood. He’d run far this time, clear to the country, and her heart sank even lower. She might chase him from one room to the next in their house, but she wouldn’t follow as far as the country. She couldn’t, not with the distinct possibility that he might only run farther if she did.

  No. Yet she didn’t doubt that he loved her. Even her ever-sinking heart knew that, and the glorious lovemaking of last night had proved it. Nor did she doubt that he’d come back to her, for the Duke of Marchbourne would never risk the public scandal of abandoning his duchess entirely.

  But though the duke would return, it was the man she feared for. What demons drove him from her? What could make him feel such guilt over loving her, and being loved in return?

  She forced herself to smile. “How kind of His Grace to let me sleep,” she said, taking the letter to read later in private. “Of course I recall now that he was to leave for the country so early. La, sometimes I believe I’d forget my own name.”

  Polly smiled with relief. “Would you like me to fetch your dressing gown, ma’am?”

  “Thank you, yes,” Charlotte said. “Giroux, would you please locate the address of the painter Sir Lucas Rowell, and have a carriage for me at eleven to take me there?”

  As she moved her head, the pear
ls that March had given her swung against her neck, a silent reminder of her absent husband. She couldn’t begin to understand what devils possessed him, not yet, but she would. She would, and she would fight them, and she would win: for his sake, for hers, for theirs.

  And she’d already a plan to start.

  Charlotte sat on the same seat in the carriage, in the same place, as she did when traveling with March: facing forward, slightly to the right of center so he wouldn’t step on her skirts. Of course there was no danger of that while he was somewhere in Surrey instead of here with her in London, but sitting in the same place somehow made the carriage feel less empty and Charlotte less alone.

  She looked down at her muff, a beautiful concoction of silk satin, loops of French ribbon, and white swans-down, large enough to hide March’s letter tucked deep inside. The heavy paper lay against her hand, the raised wax seal so thick she could read it with her fingertips.

  She wasn’t sure why she’d brought it with her now, except perhaps as a talisman. It wasn’t really even a letter, but more of a note, and she already knew the hastily written words by heart:

  My dearest Charlotte,

  Forgive me if you can for what I have done & know that I love you above all others.

  Yr. husband forever,

  M.

  There’d been no mention of what he’d done that needed forgiving, why he’d left, or when he would return. Not that Charlotte had expected any. To her regret, it seemed that she and March had spent almost all of their married life together apologizing and forgiving, and she prayed that they’d soon learn simply to love and accept as ordinary people did.

  She felt very young and very alone in this, and wished desperately for her mother’s wise counsel, the only person in whom she might confide without feeling she was somehow betraying March. But was this only part of learning to trust each other, one more part of learning to love? Perhaps every new husband was unsure like this, a devoted and consummate lover one moment, only to withdraw and flee the next? At least March’s note had ended with a pledge for the future, and those few comforting words of love—know that I love you above all others—were the ones she kept repeating over and over to herself.