A Duchess to Remember (17 page)

He didn’t think so. But then the story of that dinner service would melt the hardest female heart, would it not?

Cynically, he thought that must have been his intent in relating the tale. He did not ordinarily speak of his parents, and he’d never told anyone about the dinner service and its significance. Yes, Machiavellian instinct must have guided him to tell that tale, even if he had not thought of it at the time impulse struck.

He halted. The notion turned his stomach a little.

She had caught him up as he paused in thought. He heard her breathing a little more heavily than usual. He supposed it was from the exertion of climbing four flights of stairs.

Excitement tugged at Rand’s insides as he continued the ascent. The darkness, the need for secrecy, perhaps … He didn’t know what it was, but the atmosphere seemed to make the sound of her quiet pants supremely erotic. He imagined her breathing hard in his ear as he covered her body, made love to her, kissed those sweet, ripe lips, that soft, creamy neck.…

He stopped and looked back at Cecily.

By the lantern light, her eyes appeared larger than ever, rich pools of darkness, with a glossy sheen like freshly milled chocolate.

He held out his hand to her, a mute offer of assistance.

She spent what seemed to him a long time considering this gesture. Then she shook her head and motioned for him to continue.

Disappointed but far from surprised, he did.

When they reached the attic, Ashburn set down his lantern, closed the door behind them. Then he turned to her. Without a word, he reached for her and drew her into his arms.

*   *   *

This time, Cecily surrendered. All evening, she hadn’t been able to get that story Ashburn had told her about his parents out of her mind. After dinner, she’d allowed her maid to undress her and put her to bed. All the while she’d thought of him and of all that he had lost. All that he’d never had.

When Jonathon died, she’d felt that same pain. Not only grief at his passing, but a bone-deep sense that she was now irrevocably and completely alone. Everyone who truly belonged to her, everyone she loved was gone.

She wouldn’t wish that feeling on her worst enemy.

True, she’d been extraordinarily lucky to find a new family to love. Even if they weren’t hers the way her parents and brother had been, a special bond had formed between her and her Westruther cousins.

But Ashburn’s own cousin had just betrayed him with his former mistress. Worse, she’d sensed Freddy’s behavior had not greatly surprised the duke. Did he have such a low opinion of Freddy, then? Were his other relations any better? He seemed to live all alone in this vast palace of a house.

Here, now, in the quiet of the attics with one lantern to light the cavernous space, she felt as if they dwelled in another world, where ordinary things did not exist. A time out of time, where if a woman wanted a man, she could have him without shame or consequences.

So when he reached for her, it seemed churlish and small-minded to push him away.

Instead, she put her hands up to his lapels and gripped them so that she might draw him closer.

With a hoarse exclamation of her name, he slid his arms around her waist and swept her into his kiss.

Emotion broke over her like a great, dumping wave, knocking her senseless, dashing her against the rocks. His kiss was like the pull of the current, drawing her to deeper waters. She all but drowned in sensation as his mouth devoured hers.

She smoothed her hands up his lapels to his shoulders, then caressed his nape, pulled him closer still.

He gave a quiet gasp, such as a man dying of thirst might give when offered water. Then he accepted her invitation, licking into her mouth, probing deeply.

Unpracticed as she was, she soon become proficient in this art. Tonight, her fears and pride seemed to fall away. Only the raw essence of her remained, responding eagerly to him, seeking connection with that lonely soul inside the impossible magnificence of the man.

His arm tightened about her waist. She stood on tiptoe to reach him; her breasts pressed against his chest, her nipples tender and sensitive to every movement.

He still wore his evening clothes, while she was clad in a simple round gown she’d managed to put on by herself after her maid thought she was abed.

Ashburn slid a hand up her rib cage, and there was no corset to dull the feeling of his touch. When his hand closed over one breast, she gave a ragged gasp that turned into a moan. All at once, it seemed natural to want his hand on
her,
large male palm to soft female skin.

He continued to tease her through the fine, soft cambric. Gently touching, stroking, molding the shape of her breast, he caressed her until she could have pleaded with him to do something to ease the hunger, the tension that built inside her.

When he finally rubbed his thumb firmly over her nipple, she thought she might die from the exquisite relief. His mouth left hers. He kissed the side of her neck and she gasped and froze beneath his hands.

“Cecily,” he murmured, as if reminding her who she was.

She didn’t wish to remember. Perhaps she ought to speak some form of endearment or even encouragement, but even if she were so inclined, words were beyond her. She let him carry her along, willed him not to stop.

His hand slipped into her bodice and closed possessively over her breast. The warm, liquid feeling between her legs hardened to a hot throb as he stroked her nipple. The intimate pleasure of his caresses was so strong, she thought she might die of it.

He drew down her bodice, baring her to the night air. To her shock and surprise, he bent his head to kiss first her décolletage, then the soft mound of her breast.

And now she knew what he meant when he said he wished to feast upon her. His lips drifted over her breast until his mouth closed over her nipple with hot, wet suction, sending a spear of pleasure through her body. He laved and teased and sucked until she was out of her mind with ecstasy, until she shuddered and convulsed and threw her head back.

When the waves of delight ebbed, she realized dimly that he had ceased his attentions. Confused, dazed, vibrating with pleasure yet barely sated, she let her eyes drift open.

Cecily watched as Ashburn drew her gown up to cover her again. She was not so lost to bliss that she didn’t realize his hand shook as he did so.

Instead of letting her go, he took her in his arms again, stroking her back in a soothing motion until her shivers and quakes died away.

That rocked her as his more exciting physical attentions had not. A shudder that had little to do with passion racked her body. For one, fraught moment, she thought she might weep.

The prospect of breaking down in his presence and in such circumstances horrified her so much that she pulled away with more force than tact.

A fleeting glance at his face told her his jaw was set in hard lines. Was he angry with her? Well, better that than … She didn’t know what. What
did
he feel for her, after all, besides a sense of possessiveness and his obvious desire?

She could only pray he’d see his error and stop.

Determinedly slamming the lid on her own tangled emotions, she gestured toward the maze of boxes and trunks that filled this section of attic.

“Well, then. Perhaps we ought to get on with what we came for?”

Chapter Thirteen

For that piece of cowardice, Rand was tempted to leave Cecily to perform her search alone. But that would be churlish of him, wouldn’t it? Besides, he had not meant to kiss her when he’d accompanied her up here tonight. Such impetuous folly was likely to have stymied him, set him back to
point non plus
.

Who could have guessed she’d respond with such exquisite sensitivity, such fire? As if despite her reason and her loyalty to her betrothed, she couldn’t help but match Rand’s passion. She felt it, too, the power of this force between them. And that was little short of miraculous.

The rapid beat of his heart and the absence of blood in his brain told him his own judgment was far from cool and collected at this moment. Perhaps he ought to let the matter rest; hadn’t he won the first skirmish in this battle between them?

But dammit, he couldn’t allow her to carry on as if nothing had happened. She deserved to be punished a little for not having the courage to face him after that kiss.

“Your Grace?” she began, but he interrupted her.

“Call me Rand,” he said suavely. “At least in private.”

She stared at him. “I couldn’t use your name. Not even in private.”

“Why?”

Her lips quivered. “It’s too intimate, that’s why! I don’t wish to be intimate with you.”

He lifted his eyebrows, mocking her. “You let me do wicked, lascivious things to your body and yet you are too prim to call me by name?”

She flushed, glaring at him. “That was … an error in judgment. I am going to pretend it never happened and wish you will do the same.”

“But I can’t pretend that, Cecily,” he said softly. “Not with the taste of you still on my tongue.”

Ignoring her shocked gasp, he moved toward her. “In fact, you taste even better than I’d imagined.”

Her dark eyes blazed. “Stop it!”

He shrugged. “I will if you call me Rand.”

“Oh, confound it!
Rand,
then.” She gestured at the paraphernalia that occupied this section of the attic. “Rand, please tell me where I should start.”

He decided to accept this small victory. Best not to push her too far. “Well,
Cecily,
I’ve managed to narrow it down somewhat.”

He indicated a collection of ten large steamer trunks over by the dormer window. “Those contain the papers I took from your cousin’s house that day.”

“Minus the ones you gave to Jonathon’s college.”

“Yes. Minus those,” he said evenly.

Without another word, she marched forward and threw open the lid of the first trunk. A shower of dust billowed around her, but she didn’t pay any heed, just knelt before the container with a singular air of concentration and purpose.

He went to the next trunk and crouched before it. Clearly, Jonathon, Earl of Davenport, had treasured every piece of correspondence anyone had ever written to him. Or, more likely, he’d simply never bothered to throw anything away.

“Anything in particular you’re looking for?” he said.

“No, nothing in particular,” she said in an offhand tone that he didn’t find the least convincing.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her sifting through the papers rapidly, glancing at them but not reading any in depth. Which of course meant she knew precisely what she sought but she didn’t wish him to find it first.

“I’m afraid I cannot help you if I don’t know what I seek,” he said with spurious regret. He wanted her to take her time with this quest. The more time she spent up here, the more often he’d get her to himself.

Her busy hands stilled. He could see the cogs whir in that clever mind of hers.

She must know there was too much here for her to sort through in her short visit to his house, particularly considering how seldom she’d be at liberty to slip away. With his help, she’d cut that time in half.

She seemed to understand this, for she said, “Very well, then. Specifically, I am searching for letters I wrote to Jonathon as a young girl. They should be easy to find. You only have to look for the childish handwriting.”

She glanced at him and made a self-conscious little moue. “I have all of Jonathon’s letters to me and I should like to keep the full set. You will think it absurdly sentimental of me, I daresay.”

“Not at all,” he responded politely.

He didn’t believe her—or at least, not entirely. Why should she go to so much trouble and sacrifice over letters she wrote when she was a mere child? For it
was
a sacrifice for her to remain in the same house with him, much less the same room. Alone. At night. Immediately after he had done unspeakable things to her body.

He pondered that question as he worked beside her. Again, he was acutely conscious of her movements, the sound of her breathing, of her voice as she muttered distractedly to herself.

Cecily, on the other hand, appeared to forget his existence.

She did not strike him as someone who was overly sentimental about things like letters she’d written in childhood. Yet he’d observed how close her relationship was with her cousins. He’d seen ample evidence of her attachment to them at the ball. And he’d heard the emotion in her voice when she spoke of her brother.

She might guard her heart with the ferocity of a tigress, but where Lady Cecily Westruther loved, she loved deeply.

The notion made his insides thrash about with guilt. He ought not to conceal the truth from her. If—once—they married, he would find a way to tell her. He simply couldn’t risk telling her now.

Suddenly, she said, “You must have been through these already, I suppose.”

Startled, he looked at her.

“For the archive,” she explained, not meeting his eye.

“Oh. Yes, of course.” He’d forgotten he told her that lie. “It was reasonably clear which papers more properly belonged to Jonathon’s work, however. I did not pry into his personal affairs.”

He tried to think back nearly ten years, to when he’d sorted through these papers to isolate the domestic and business-related material from the scientific. Had he come across anything that might account for Cecily’s fervor now? He couldn’t remember if letters from a little girl had registered with him at all. He’d been so intent on the matter at hand.

“It was a Herculean task,” Ashburn said. “Your brother was not terribly orderly in his filing methods.”

“No,” she agreed with a reminiscent smile. “I recall the housekeeper complaining that if an idea came to him, he’d take out his pencil and scribble it down on the nearest available surface, whether it was a piece of foolscap or a napkin.”