Charming the Duke (25 page)

“And you have talked to him?” Matilda asked

Thornsby nodded. “After the Dowager came to us with her suspicions, Athena, Andrew and I set off to see what we could find out. The Dowager, too. We all agreed that the Countess was planning to do something today at this party. I suspect you thought so as well.”

“Yes,” Matilda replied. “I thought she may do something dreadful perhaps regardless of what I did or didn’t do.”

“So she made up horrible stories about me to keep you two apart?” Alexandra asked.

“That’s exactly what she did,” Thornsby said. “I am terrible sorry you’ve been embroiled in this mess.”

“It wasn’t your doing,” Alexandra said finally as she stood and wiped her face with her hankie. “I’d like to go home now, Matilda. Wouldn’t you?”

Matilda looked across the garden when she heard a shout. “Alexandra! Alexandra! I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” William Berfine said as he approached.

Alexandra’s lip trembled. “I was just leaving.”

Berfine joined the group and made his greeting to Matilda and Thornsby and then focused all of his attention on Alexandra. “I’ve told Mother. I told her I didn’t care what she said or thought or if I’m the Earl someday or not. I let her know I’ll be asking you to be my bride if you’ll still have me.”

“But all those things the Countess said about me,” Alexandra said and began to cry again. “I can’t bear to think you believe them.”

“Ahh, darling,” Berfine said and took Alexandra’s hands in his. “I don’t believe one word of it, and it’s me you should be angry with. Saying what I did to you at the Lending Library. I haven’t slept since.”

“Let us continue our walk, Miss Sheldon,” Thornsby said. “Unless your sister would like us to escort her back to her parents.”

“No, no,” Alexandra said. “William will take me back to Mother, Matilda. Go on with your walk if you wish.”

Matilda looked up at Thornsby and took his arm. She could not think of one thing to say and desperately needed some time alone to contemplate all that had happened. She knew she was in Thornsby’s debt, but . . . oh, she needed to escape.

“Would you like for me to call for my carriage so that you may go directly home to Maplewood? I will ride home with Athena and Andrew,” Thornsby said.

“Yes,” Matilda said in hurry. “Yes. I need to be away from this.”

Thornsby walked her to the front drive and instructed a stable man to bring his carriage around. “I will find you parents immediately and tell them you have gone ahead. My coachman and outriders will keep you quite safe.”

“I don’t know how to thank you,” she said minutes later.

“There is no need to thank me,” he said as his coach carrying the ducal seal came to halt in front of them. A footman hurried to open the door and set down the step.

Matilda laid her hand in his as he assisted her in. She stared at him through the open window. He stood unblinking and still, staring back, as if there was something momentous in what had just occurred, rather than the mundane task of climbing into a conveyance. He nodded then, and the coach leapt forward. Matilda leaned her head back against the soft leather of the seat and smiled. Thornsby was
charming
.

Forty-five days later

T
hornsby snaked his tongue around Matilda’s ear and whispered. “I have waited all day for this. I cannot wait much longer.”

“I’ve been wishing they all left since the clock chimed six. Now it is nearly midnight!” Matilda leaned back against him as they stood in her dressing room. She moaned and drew a deep breath as his hand slowly came up her side from her waist. His thumb brushed the underside of her breast. He backed away from her and called into her boudoir.

“That will be all, Nelly,” he said and kicked the door shut with his foot.

“Where is Crumsby?”

“Gave him the night off,” he said and pulled her hips tight against him.

Matilda tilted her head as he drew his lips up the length of her neck in small, hot kisses, and unbuttoned her jacket. He drew the coat from her arms, dropped it, and ran both hands up the front of her silk blouse till her breasts lay in his palms. Thornsby rubbed the tightened nipples with his finger. Matilda groaned and turned to him.

“I believe, Your Grace, that I will play valet since you have been so remiss as to dismiss Crumsby.” Matilda said and licked her lips. His eyes were heavy lidded, and he watched her mouth as she spoke. She pulled his shirt over his head, unbuttoned his pants and ran a finger down his erection. His breath caught, and he closed his eyes.

Matilda walked him back to a chaise behind him and pushed him down onto the red velvet fabric. She pulled the tapes on her petticoats, and Thornsby watched as she stepped out of her cream silk and lace. Matilda pulled her blouse and chemise over her head, and Thornsby’s hips bucked.

“Come here,” he said. “Leave the stockings on.”

Matilda straddled him and feathered her sex over his in slow undulations. Thornsby was breathing heavy and trailing his fingers down the sides of her breasts. He growled from low in his chest, grabbed her hips and slid into her with one strong, smooth motion. They groaned in unison, and she set a lazy rhythm, up and down, up and down. Thornsby roared up from the chaise, clutched the back of her head and brought her lips to his in an open-mouthed kiss mimicking her tempo.

“I was thinking about you naked, riding me like this, while the solicitor droned on this afternoon,” Thornsby said into her mouth.

“Mmmm,” she said. “I was thinking about this while Mother explained that passage from Shakespeare.”

“Enough,” he growled and held her hips tight while he pounded out his release and hers.

She fell, sated, on to his chest, weak-limbed and drowsy. “Carry me to bed, won’t you, Thornsby? I don’t believe I can walk.”

“At your service, Duchess.”

* * *

Matilda slowly opened her eyes, stretched, and rolled over to find Thornsby staring at her. “Good morning,” she said and smiled.

“Good morning to you,” he said as he smoothed her hair away from her face. “What are your plans today?”

“It will be a very busy day today, with getting ready for three more orphans. And helping mother with the preparations for Juliet’s wedding. I’m taking Alice with me today to the orphanage and then onto Maplewood. Jonah will be looking for you, I imagine.”

“Thought I may take him out to the stables and see how he feels about ponies. I’m hoping to get him to stop trailing Alice constantly. What do you think?”

“Isn’t he too young to be learning to ride?” Matilda said as she slipped her arms into a silk dressing gown and stood.

“He won’t be learning to ride yet. But I thought I might let him get used to the stable smells and its occupants.” Thornsby crawled across the bed and grabbed the belt on Matilda’s robe. “Can’t it all wait, though? I think you should come back to bed for a year or so.”

“Thornsby!” Matilda said with a laugh. “It’s mid-morning already, and Ethel will be here any minute to pick up Alice and me. I think I hear the children in the hallway, anyway. They’ve been up for hours I’m sure.”

Thornsby stood up and Matilda admired him, blushing, when her eyes dipped below his waist. “You’re a naughty man, Thornsby. Do you ever think of anything else?”

He walked to her slowly, letting her gaze at him, at length. Finally, he reached her, grasped her upper arms, pulled her silk-clad body up tight against his naked one and kissed her open-mouthed. “Sometimes I think of other things. But not often, anymore, Duchess.”

“Are they up, Nelly?” Matilda and Thornsby heard Alice say from the other side of the door. “Mrs. Smithly said they had best show themselves soon, as the Dowager Countess will arrive at any moment.”

“Hurry and put on your robe, Thornsby,” Matilda said and hustled him to his dressing room door.

Thornsby eyed the door before pulling her close for another kiss. Matilda stumbled away as he left her, covering her lips with her hand. “Oh, my,” she said. She pulled her sash tight and opened the door to where Nelly and the children waited for her.

* * *

“But the bows should be pink,” Juliet said to her mother.

“Pink is a lovely color,” Alexandra said.

Francis smiled. “It is. We shall order thirty yards of pink satin sash and twenty yards of the pearl color.”

“Perhaps twenty of the pearl and thirty of the pink,” Juliet said and tilted her head as she eyed the fabric in her hand.

“The pink or the pearl,” Alexandra said. “It sounds like the title of one of the stories in our weekly magazine we used to read, Juliet!”

Juliet began to cry. “I shall so miss our mornings together, Alexandra. I desperately miss Matilda now. What will it be like when I don’t have any of my dear family with me? I shall die of loneliness!”

Frances squeezed Juliet’s hand as tears rolled down her cheeks. “You will not be lonely. You will be getting to know your husband and be very busy learning to be mistress of his home. But I will miss you very much all the same.”

Alexandra sniffled and held Juliet’s other hand. “I hadn’t thought about not living here when I marry William.”

Ethel scowled and shook her head. “Dear Lord! Did you think you were going to continue on living here, and your husband would stop by on occasion to dance attendance on you, girl?”

“Why is everyone crying?” Alice asked and looked up at Matilda.

“I am not crying, and Ethel is not crying. You are not crying,” Matilda said to Alice, seated next to her. The two of them had been tasked with tying tiny straw flowers together to be used for decoration. “My finger is bleeding from pulling so hard on the string.”

“Don’t you miss us desperately, Matilda?” Alexandra asked. “I would have wanted to ride home to Maplewood with us last night. How else could we discuss the evening and what everyone wore and said? But you were not with us in the carriage.”

Matilda could not but think of anything but Thornsby stretched out in all his manly glory on the chaise in the dressing room. She could feel a hot line of flame at the base of her neck. It crept upwards, tingling her cheeks and nose. Juliet and Alexandra were waiting for her comments. Her mother stared down at her stitching.

Ethel barked a laugh. “I suspect Matilda was quite busy with other matters.”

“What other matters?” Juliet asked.

“Perhaps the staff needed direction after a dinner party,” Frances said. “Now girls . . .”

“I doubt that, Frances,” Ethel said. “When I visited Thornsby, the staff looked as if many of them served the late Duke and Duchess.”

“I hope I can remember to do all the things that mother does to keep the household running smoothly. I wouldn’t want William to be upset,” Alexandra said. “Has it been difficult, Matilda? Running a household that large?”

“I wouldn’t know, truthfully. Mrs. Plumsbly and Withrow need little direction other than my preferences for entrees and desserts and such,” Matilda said.

“It’s clear you are very happy in your marriage, dear,” Frances said. “I am so very glad for you. Now, back to these ribbons and . . .”

“She is happy, Mum,” Alice piped up. “She was sad for a while before she married the Duke. But she laughs all the time now. I heard her laughing this morning when I asked Nelly if she was awake.” Alice leaned against Matilda and laid her head on her shoulder.

“What was comic in your boudoir? Something your dresser said?” Juliet asked.

“She weren’t in her room. She was in the Duke’s room,” Alice said.

“Oh,” Juliet said. “How strange.”

“Why would you be in the Duke’s room, Matilda?” Alexandra asked. “I do not like to see anyone when I first wake up. I like to take my time and have my chocolate before I begin my day.”

“Yes,” Juliet said. “Why would you be in the Duke’s room so early in the morning?”

“Well,” Matilda said and blew out a breath.

“I’m sure it was . . .” Frances began.

“Coupling,” Ethel said. “They were coupling.”

“What is that?” Alice asked.

“Yes, Grandmamma, what is that?” Alexandra repeated.

“It is time you had a serious conversation with your other two daughters, Frances,” Ethel said.

“Oh,” Juliet said and her eyes opened wide. Her cheeks were pink-tinged. “That is what it is called.”

“What is ‘it’?” demanded Alexandra.

Juliet tilted her head. “How long have you been married, Matilda?”

“Forty-six days,” she replied and straightened the skirt of her new green silk dress. She turned the massive Thornsby ring on her finger.

“And you are looking remarkably smart, Matilda,” Ethel said. “Carries herself with confidence, and looks as lovely as I have ever seen her.”

Frances nodded and smiled at Matilda. “I’ve said the same to her father. Matilda looks happy and beautiful, not that she wasn’t always beautiful, but she wasn’t always happy, I know. However, I still can’t decide on the pink or the . . .”

“And you continue to, well, ‘it’,” Juliet said. “Even after the wedding night?”

“Alice, would you please ask one of the maids for more cakes? You may visit the kitchens if you like,” Matilda said. Alice hurried off and Matilda reached for more twine and glanced at her sister. “Yes.”

“Really?” Juliet said with some disbelief. “So ‘it’isn’t the chore that some say?”

Matilda leaned back in her chair and stared away over her shoulder to the sun glinting in on the polished floors. She remembered their private wedding dinner, her French silk sleeping gown and robe, the candlelight, and when she first saw him, when he came into her rooms after dinner, looking dangerous and predatory. When he kissed her, her worries turned to hunger for him, and with new-found knowledge came a confidence that she was desirable, not for what she looked like, but for everything she was. He loved her and wanted her and sought her out. And she him.

Matilda turned back to the women. Juliet and Alexandra were still, and waiting attentively, for whatever she would say. Her mother humming a tune, hands in her lap, with a smile on her face, and a faraway look. And Ethel, staring at her. She brushed a stray hair back from her face.