A Duke Never Yields (34 page)

At her cry of joy, Wallingford’s body went rigid above her. She heard him groan her name from deep in his chest, and she clutched him to her, absorbing the shudder of his body, until she could actually feel the rising pulse of his own flesh meeting the ebbing pulse of hers.

He sank slowly down, damp with sweat, and this time she welcomed his weight, welcomed the mindless crush of his bones and sinews. His breath rushed hard and fast against her ear: Wallingford’s breath, the precious air from his lungs. She buried her fingers in his hair. “Arthur,” she whispered. Her brain was hazy, floating like a cloud. She kissed his wet temple.

“What’s that?” he whispered, not moving.

“
Arthur
.” She kissed him again. “I like it.”

*   *   *

A
rthur.

He had never particularly liked his given name, but he loved the sound of it from Abigail’s lips, intimate and loving. Her body felt delicious beneath him, full and delicate all at once, but he remembered the last time and shifted himself.

“No.” She clenched her legs around him. “Stay.”

So he remained atop her, inside her, taking weight on his forearms to spare her. He drew the lemony scent of her hair into his nose and stroked a nearby curl with his fingertips.

She whispered, “You’re still . . .”

“Yes.”

“Is that . . .”

He chuckled and lifted himself up. “Because I love you, and because I’m a devil in full rut who’s kept himself chaste for a longer stretch of time than he ever imagined possible.”

“Except the boathouse.”

“That, my dear”—he kissed her—“was hardly enough to take the edge off.”

Abigail said nothing. He kissed her again, her lips and her soft cheeks, the tender nook behind her ear. “Was that satisfactory? Have I redeemed myself?”

“You know you have.”

Wallingford tried to quell himself, but it was no use: Her full breasts brushed against his chest, and her skin smelled so exquisitely like Abigail, and her wet sheath surrounded him like heaven itself. His erection swelled hungrily inside her.

Brute
, he told himself.

He slid himself out and fell into the sheets at her side.

She turned with an air of surprise. “Why did you stop?”

He kissed her nose. “Because I daresay you’ve been ravished enough for one night, haven’t you?”

Abigail searched his face with her wide and knowing eyes, as if his thoughts were imprinted across his head and she could read them. Her hair tumbled about her flushed skin, curling around the generous curve of her breast. One nipple poked through the chestnut silk, hard and rosy brown. Abigail’s hair, Abigail’s breast. He thought he might crack apart.

“Do you know, I don’t believe I have.” She reached down to encompass his prick in her hand, to caress the tightened sac beneath. “You see, we both have so much to learn.”

He rolled onto his back, taking her with him.

Her eyes widened. “Like
this
?”

“Like this.”

Abigail rose above him and took his rigid cock inside her with a groaning sigh, took him so deep his balls nestled against her arse, so deep he knocked against her womb at every thrust. He inhaled her womanly musk, the voluptuous scent of her, the commingling of his essence with hers, and his blood fizzed in his veins.

She rode him with eager joy, with her breasts hovering before his eyes and his hands balanced on her hips, with her head thrown back in delirious pleasure. She reached her climax first in a throaty cry, and he followed directly after, spending into her with the explosive strength of a first release.

This time she collapsed atop him, and the brand-new sensation of her weight, the idyllic curves and softness of her, her sweet champagne-scented breath drifting across his face filled his hungry soul to overflowing, made him pray to God in grateful thanks.

NINETEEN

A
bigail felt his arm first, lying across her belly and curling around her waist. A brilliant shaft of sunlight pressed against her eyelids, but she didn’t open them. She didn’t want to move a single hair.

In the first place, she couldn’t. Every muscle ached, even the ones she hadn’t known she possessed. She had lost count of the number of times she and Wallingford had come together in the night: four or five perhaps, tender and compulsive, both of them unable to fathom the freedom of it; and in the spaces between he had brought her to climax repeatedly with his mouth and his hands, in every possible attitude, as if he wanted to learn just how much pleasure she could bear.

A great deal, it had turned out.

The light against her eyes became too much, and she opened them and turned her head to the man in bed next to her. He lay sprawled on his stomach like a little boy, his hair dark and tousled against the white sheets, his lips parted. How relaxed he looked, how happy. The sunlight gilded the curves and planes of his muscled back with watered gold.

Her lover, the Duke of Wallingford.

She had no illusions. Yes, he loved her, or thought he did; she meant more to him than any woman had before. Yes, she had his heart, at least. But eventually he would stray; eventually some other woman would snare his passion, even for a moment, even if he still loved her devotedly. He might resist at first, but one day his strength would fail him. It was inevitable. The habit of promiscuous mating was stamped in his bones and blood. She had known this from the beginning, had told herself repeatedly that her interest in Wallingford was largely carnal, tinged with affection. An infatuation, at the very most. She had deliberately protected herself from any deeper emotion.

But there was no use pretending anymore. She loved him, his magnificence and his hidden tenderness and his human failings. She loved him with every filament of her body and heart. She would have him on any terms, even marriage, if he absolutely insisted. She would wring every joy and every pleasure she could from him, until he strayed. And it would hurt when he did, because she loved him so; but if that was the price, then she must pay it.

She had always wanted a grand passion, and now she had it. She ought to be thrilled. How often did one have the chance of a grand passion, in this modern age of steam engines and electric lamps?

Wallingford’s eyes cracked open and blinked, sleepily. “Abigail.”

“Good morning.”

He lifted his head and rose up on his elbow. “Darling, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she whispered.

“You’re weeping.”

“Only happy.” She wiped at her eyes.

“Mmm.” He gathered her up and kissed her. “Not nearly so happy as I am. I feel like a new man. A redeemed man.”

“Yes, you’ve redeemed yourself thoroughly. All is forgiven.”

He laughed. “I don’t mean that, exactly, though I’m deeply relieved I didn’t send you away screaming this time.”

“I did a great deal of screaming. So did you.” She nestled herself against his chest. The sunlight warmed the back of her head; Wallingford warmed her front. All she wanted was a little coffee, and the world would be perfect.

Simply perfect
, she told herself.

Wallingford stroked her arm. “Abigail, I realize you despise the very mention of the word
marriage . . .”

“Oh, don’t.”

“And I won’t mention it again, for now. But I want to make my intentions clear, Abigail. I want you to be my wife. I consider us already bound in honor, after last night.” He picked up her left hand and kissed it. “Just so you know.”

“I know.”

“I won’t push you, Abigail. But that’s how it is. And I won’t give up, not ever. If I have to marry you on my deathbed, God help me, I will.”

She said nothing.

“You don’t believe me, do you?”

“You’re talking such rot, Wallingford. Marriage and deathbeds,
really
. Must you take everything so seriously?”

Wallingford sighed. “Abigail, you have my faithful love, I swear it. I promised Morini . . .”

Morini
.

She jumped up as if electrocuted, in an agonized flash of protesting muscles. “You
what
?”

“Back at the castle. I promised her that if she told me where to find you, I’d make you happy . . .”

Her body shook. “You
saw
her? You saw Morini?”

“No.” He propped himself on his elbows. “She’s a ghost, isn’t she? But I felt her there. I stood there talking into the walls like a madman, because I couldn’t think of anything else. Are you all right, darling? You’re trembling.” He took her shoulder and drew her back into the pillows. “My God! You’re like a leaf in a breeze. Did you think I didn’t know?”

“I thought you didn’t believe in them. I thought . . .” She shook her head, trying to make sense of his words. “Did she speak to you? Did you hear her?”

“She sent me a note, through the maid.”

“And that’s all. You didn’t see her, you didn’t hear her.”

“No. I can’t, can I? Any more than you can see Giacomo. Are you all right?”

“Yes, I’m fine.” She forced her fists to unclench. “Of course you can’t see her. There’s no reason you should. Nothing’s changed, after all. Do you still have this note? May I see it?”

“If you like.” He kissed the top of her head, swung out of bed, and groaned. “Good God. You’ve done me in.”

“Whilst you’re up,” she said, in a small voice, “would you mind having coffee sent in?”

“Of course.”

He strode naked out of the room with his pantherlike grace. Abigail lay back in the pillows and pulled the sheet over her body. The faint trace of bergamot drifted into her senses; she wrapped her arm around Wallingford’s pillow and buried her nose in the warm, clean linen. From the other room came the sound of the telephone crank, of Wallingford’s rich voice issuing orders.

He had admitted his love for Abigail. He had told Morini of it, and the curse hadn’t lifted. He still couldn’t see her, couldn’t hear her.

What did that mean? That he didn’t really love her? Or that his love wasn’t of the faithful, eternal sort necessary to appease the wrath of Signore Monteverdi?

Unless there was no curse at all. Unless they were simply the playthings of Morini and Giacomo, of idle ghosts with nothing else to do except to meddle in the lives of gullible English houseguests.

“Here we are.” Wallingford appeared in the doorway, lit by the golden streak of morning sunshine through the crack in the curtains. He set his knee on the bed and handed her a sheet of folded paper. “The coffee will be up directly.”

“Thank you.” She sat up against the pillows. Wallingford reclined next to her and kissed the ends of her hair, kissed her neck, toyed with her breasts.
Her lover
, she thought in wonder. Her body warmed beneath his touch. She unfolded the paper and tried to bring the crooked words into focus.

Signore Duca

You ask where is to find the signorina. She travel to Rome with her sister, for to see the ottomobil of Signore Burke. You must find her and tell her . . .

Wallingford bent his head to suckle her breasts, and her breath whooshed from her chest. The ink blurred before her. “Stop that,” she said. “I’m trying to read.”

“Can’t stop.”

She lifted the paper high above his dark silk head.

. . . tell her of your love, and you must promise always to be her faithful love. You must then give her a message from Signorina Morini. You must . . .

“Oh! Do stop. I can’t . . . oh!”

Wallingford’s finger slipped between her legs. “Don’t mind me. Only refreshing my memory. How wet you are, love. Do you always wake up like this?”

“Wallingford . . .” She groaned. Her head fell back. “This is important.”

“Vital.” His tongue trailed across to her other breast, while his fingers kept moving in the same clever little circles that had sent her out of her mind last night. “Carry on reading, darling. Have you got to the part about my faithful love yet?”

Her hand crumpled the side of the paper. She forced her eyes to open again.

. . . You must tell her that the Signorina Monteverdi live now in the Convento di San Giusto in the city of Siena. She has the instruction for the Signorina Abigail, before the . . .

“
What?
” Abigail shot up.

“What the devil are you doing? Lie down.” Wallingford nudged her.

“No! We must leave at once! Oh! Where are my clothes?” She tried to scramble away from him, but his hands grasped her shoulders.

“We’re not going anywhere. Good God. What’s the hurry?”

“It’s
important
, Wallingford!” She tugged at his hands.

“I’m making love to you, for God’s sake. What could be more important than that?” His voice was imperiously Wallingford, who did not take kindly to being thwarted, even in bed.

“
This!
” She shook the paper at him. “We must go to Siena at once!”

“
Siena?
Why the devil Siena?” He snatched the paper.

“Because
Signorina Monteverdi
is there! She’s really
there
! At the convent!”

“Who the devil’s she?”

“Didn’t you even
read
this?”

He looked at the writing. “Of course I did. I was to find you in Rome, and . . . oh, that’s right. Monteverdi . . . Siena . . .”

Abigail gave his shoulder a push. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier that Morini had a message for me?”

“Because it rather slipped my mind, with everything else going on, races and weddings and seducing you. Besides, as the note quite clearly states, I was first to declare my undying love to one Signorina Abigail.” He brandished the paper triumphantly.

“But you said all that last
night
! We could be halfway to Siena by now!” she said desperately.

Wallingford dropped his hand and stared at her. “Are you mad?”

“I am quite, quite sane.” She swung her legs over the edge of the bed. “I must go to my room and pack, and while I’m there you must call for your cab to take us directly to the station . . .”