Duchess in Love (20 page)

To kiss her there…He raised his head. Instantly she clutched his arm and said, hoarsely, “Cam! You must stop—”

“Hush,” he said. “Hush.” His lips roved over her breast, shaped her, created that breast into something far more beautiful than mere marble.

She was panting, her eyes blurred, a smoky green. He let his hand take on a rhythmical cadence he knew as well as he knew his name.

“Oh, Cam,” she panted. Her body moved up against his fingers.

He longed to roll over on her, to do the thing as it ought to be done. My wife, he thought dimly. She's
mine
. Take her, pounded his loins. Take her, urged his heart. It was only a growling voice in his head or wherever conscience was lo
cated that said: She doesn't want you. She wants the petulant marquess.

He pushed the voice away and slung a leg over her slight form. She was innocent, he could tell that. Unknowing and yet…knowing. She bucked against his leg, arched up against his urging fingers. Sobbed into his shoulder, clutched him, begged, “Please, Cam…please….
please
.”

It would be forcing her to marry you,
growled the voice in his head. It was a voice distilled from hatred of his father, hatred of his own forced marriage. It chilled him just slightly, gave him control enough to shift away from tempting proximity.

He dipped his mouth and kissed her, ravished her sweetness while his fingers took a practiced turn that she had no power to resist. He kissed her once, kissed her twice. His fingers urged her on, a cadence beating through his loins and only barely held in check.

Then he rubbed a thumb over her nipple and…like that, as easily as that, his sometime wife, his own Gina, arched up against him in a great shaking surge.

She was a shrieker, all right.

She shook like a new-fallen leaf against his hand. He gritted his teeth together against the urge to enter, to feel the last clench of her body, to replace emptiness with himself, warm, throbbing—

He pulled away.

Gina opened her eyes but she didn't really feel like waking up, so she let them drift shut again. Her whole body was glowing, pleasure heavy in her legs.

But Cam was muttering. “I must go, Gina. This is not a good idea.” His voice was thick. She opened her eyes again. He ran a hand through his hair. It looked as if it had been raked in four or five different directions.

Of course it wasn't a good idea. She was engaged to
someone else, and he was Cam, her childhood friend. She tried to pull herself together but she was caught by a wave of limp satisfaction.

“I won't visit your room again,” Cam was saying. “So there'll be no repeat of this…this incident. I—”

“Don't apologize,” she murmured.

He looked surprised. “I hadn't thought of it. Ought I to?”

At that, Gina smiled. “Men have apologized after a single kiss. Whereas you—”

He grinned. “Ah, but we're married.”

“For the moment.”

“The moment is all that's necessary. And we didn't do much more than kiss anyway.”

Much more than kiss? Her legs were throbbing, and her breath was still racing, and he called that
kissing
?

He started to stuff his shirt back into his trousers. “I'd better get out of here,” he remarked. “Be damned awkward for our annulment if someone caught me in your room.”

Gina was definitely coming back to herself now. She pulled her robe closed. It took a moment for the truth to sink in: she was still annullable, to his mind. Staying married wasn't in his consideration.

A moment later he looked just as neat as he had when entering her chamber. She felt a spurt of pure rage. How could he look so untouched?

“But I should thank you,” she said, reaching out and catching his arm as he started for the door. “You were very reassuring.”

He instantly took on a cocky, smug air.

“I'm so pleased that I was able to explore this problem with you rather than with Sebastian,” she cooed. “Now I shall go to his bed with a newfound sense of confidence.”

He stilled and looked at her for a moment. Then he bowed. “I am, of course, glad to be of use,” he said. And left.

Gina spent the rest of the night thinking of far more clever exit lines. By the time dawn crept through the windows, she knew exactly what she should have said, if she had any brains at all.

Actually there were two options.

Option number one would have been delivered with scalding effectiveness:
I am particularly grateful to know that I will go to my beloved Sebastian's bed with an enthuasiasm to match his.

Option number one sounded as if Sebastian lusted for her. Never mind the truth of that.

Then there was option number two. It varied throughout the night, and was punctuated by the riveting memories. It ran something like this:
I'd like you to come back to bed now.

Sometimes she added
please
.

And sometimes she let her ruined gown fall off her body as she said it.

G
ina woke very late, with a calm sense of returning to herself. Gone was the flushed, exultant woman of the previous evening. Which was just as well, she told herself, because it was important to keep these experiences in their place. It had been deliciously enjoyable. She should thank her husband for it. Really. Because now she didn't have to feel nervous about her wedding night—her real wedding night, with Sebastian. She had experience, finally. Some experience.

In the morning's crueler light she looked unkempt rather than seductive in her ruined nightdress. She bundled it away and pulled on a chemise. Still…A secret, luxurious smile curved her lips. It wasn't the memory of her pleasure that pleased.

It was the memory of Cam's wild eyes and the way the breath pounded in his chest. It had done miracles to dispel her secret fear that her fiancé didn't respond to her because she was too old. Too stiff, too duchesslike, too thin. Cam didn't seem to think she was too thin. True, he still wanted an annulment. But that was due to his basic nature, she decided. He would always avoid the kinds of responsibility that go with having a wife. The important point was that he
had wanted her last night, and now she knew how to make Sebastian want her too.

Annie popped into the room. “There's plans for the afternoon,” she said, sometime later, her fingers briskly weaving Gina's hair into a long braid. “The ladies are invited to practice archery on the west lawn. The Chaplins are going to give a fencing exhibition at three o'clock. Oh! And Lady Troubridge asked whether you would like to join her. She is going to visit the village in the pony cart, because there's a new baby.”

“I'd love to go see the baby,” Gina said. But the mass of papers, still untidily stacked on the footstool, caught her eye. “I have too much work to do.”

“You work too hard, you do,” Annie said. “All this work isn't good for a soul.”

“Ah, but those letters must be answered.”

“Would you like to wear the morning dress with half sleeves today, madam?” Annie knew a losing argument when she started one.

When Gina slipped into the drawing room, she barely had time to greet Sebastian before Lady Troubridge clapped her hands and they all filed into luncheon. Soup was already served by the time Cam strolled in. His hair looked almost composed. But there was a streak of white chalk on his shoulder. She looked away. It was nothing to her that Cam headed toward Esme like a bee toward a rose.

“Sebastian!” she said, inspired. “I must find a quiet corner in the library and write some letters for a few hours. But will you join me in the latter half of the afternoon?”

He bowed his head. “I would be most honored.” He escorted her back to her chamber and was just bowing goodbye when Gina pushed open the door and gasped.

The room was a mess. There were clothes all over the floor and books heaped higgledy-piggledy, wherever she
looked. The doors to her wardrobe swung open, and the drawer to her dressing table hung from one corner, the bright ribbons that Annie used in her hair spilling to the ground.

A look of acute annoyance crossed Sebastian's face. “It would seem that someone has robbed your chamber. Was your jewelry accessible?”

“No. Lady Troubridge insisted that all jewelry be kept in her safe. Annie has been taking it back every night.”

“A wise precaution,” he observed. “I doubt they got much then.” He strode through the room, the breeze of his passing making piles of soft chiffon on the ground stir and billow, and looked down at her dressing table with disgust. “They rifled your table, hoping you'd left something. Bold devils coming during the day. They might easily have been caught by a maid.” He picked up a tipped glass and set it back on the dressing table with a small rap. Water dripped slowly over the side of the table onto a pile of frills and ribbons.

Gina moved slowly into the room. Her mirror had been taken down and was leaning against the wall. Her bed was stripped, the covers thrown on the floor. “I've never been robbed before,” she said, with just the smallest shake in her voice.

“You have not been robbed now,” Sebastian replied. “Since there was nothing to steal, you've merely been inconvenienced. You're not feeling hysterical, are you?” She shook her head. “Your maid will straighten your room. I wonder if they tossed more than one room? There's no particular reason they should target yours, after all.” He turned. “I had better leave. I wouldn't like to be seen in your chamber.”

“I hardly think that anyone would believe that you ripped the covers off the bed in a moment of passion, Sebastian.”

His eyes narrowed.

“It was a jest!” she protested. Then she aimlessly bent
down and picked up two corsets. “This is rather unpleasant. Have you been robbed before?”

“Several times. In fact, robbery during house parties has become endemic. My room was searched only last year at Foakes Manor, and a pair of cufflinks was taken.”

“Did they turn out your undergarments…everything?”

Sebastian looked at the delicate twist of cotton and ribbon in her hand and quickly looked away again. “They were looking for your jewels. It's quite common to hide precious objects among one's intimate clothing. I shall inform Lady Troubridge of this incident. She will likely wish to question the servants.” And he disappeared.

Gina looked around. Bicksfiddle's stack of paper had been tossed this way and that. She picked up a silk stocking from the ground but couldn't see its mate. Finally she sat down on the naked mattress to wait for Annie, looking at the ground rather than looking around the room at her crumpled belongings. No matter what Sebastian said about inconvenience, it felt a great deal worse to her.

“Hell and damnation!”

He was standing in the doorway looking huge and male and utterly outraged. She sniffed. Tears welled up in her eyes. “I've been inconvenienced.”

Cam took one quick look at her, swore again, and strode over. Then he picked her up in one swift, economical movement, sat down, and plopped her onto his lap.

Too surprised to protest, Gina leaned her head against his chest and listened to him swear a blue streak.

Finally he wound down. “Did they take anything?”

She shook her head, but elevated the little pile of corsets she held. “Look!”

“Despicable bastards,” he snarled.

Her chin started to wobble. “I don't think I ever want to wear them again.”

“Bastards!” he growled. “I should shoot them just for that.”

Gina let a few tears soak into his black coat.

He stroked her up and down her arm in a comforting kind of way and handed her a large white handkerchief.

Lady Troubridge herself rushed in the door. “Oh dear, oh dear!” she shrieked. “I simply loathe thieves, loathe them! Are you quite all right, my dear?”

Gina knew that she should leap from her husband's knee. But his arms were large and tight around her, and she didn't move.

“Her Grace is, of course, distressed,” Cam said. He stood up. “I shall escort her to the library while the room is put to rights.”

“An excellent idea,” Lady Troubridge said, with a speculative gleam in her eyes.

He walked from the room without another word. Out in the corridor she began to struggle. “Put me down, Cam. I don't wish to fall!”

“You won't fall.”

“I am too large to be carried all the way downstairs. You must put me down—I mean, please, put me down.”

“I shall not. I enjoy carrying you.” And he gave her a little squeeze.

“Cam!”

“Mmm,” he said. “There's something to be said for carrying women about. It gives one such good access.” He looked at her with an amused twinkle and his hands—

“Cam!” She almost jumped out of her skin.

“That's better. You don't look quite so much like a scared rabbit.”

“I don't!”

“Red eyes and all,” he nodded. He kept walking.

“Please may I walk downstairs?” Gina pleaded. “This is embarrassing.”

“Who's embarrassed?” He inched his right hand forward and let out his breath in a big whoosh. They had reached the landing when he said, “you may be right,” and set her down. Gina looked up at him. It wasn't that she
wanted
to be carried, of course.

“I might become embarrassed,” he said, looking her straight in the eye.

But Gina saw a suggestive glint in his eye and looked down. It was a split-second glance, but enough. “Dear me,” she said. “That's quite a problem.”

He took a quick look around. They were at the turn of the landing, and there was no one in sight. He put his arms around her, running his hands down her back and the delicious curve of her bottom. “It was an act of charity,” he said soulfully. “I had to take your mind off your loss.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What loss?”

“How soon you forgot! Remember those corsets? I was just anticipating how you were going to look with nothing under your gown but your own sweet skin.”

“Why—”

He took the words from her mouth with his lips. “Why, without a corset, you will be—” but he lost track of what he was saying because her lips were warm on his, and his hands had jerked her against his embarrassing body.

And then he did exactly what he spent the entire night planning: he put a hand on her breast, and even through three or four layers of cloth, she arched her back into his hand and opened her lips—he barely caught her squeal.

“I thought I imagined that,” he said with satisfaction, looking down at his wife. She was looking at him, lips open and eyes dazed. “But I didn't.” His hand tightened and he caught her cry in a kiss again.

“You will never be able to make love outdoors,” he whispered into her ear. He was getting a little worried that some
one would come up the stairs, so he pushed her back and tugged at her dress. “There! You look just the same.”

“What are you talking about?”

But before he could answer, she answered herself. “Heathen! I'll have you know that Englishmen don't ever do—
that
!”

He laughed. “I'm willing to believe that some of them never do that, or did you mean that they never do it outdoors?”

Gina turned to look at him as she descended the stairs. He was struck with an irresistible urge to dishevel her hair. She was such a duchess, with her proud gait and calm way of talking.

“If I were married to you—” he said.

“You
are,
” she put in.

“You know what I mean. Someday when I am truly married and living at Girton, I will take my wife out to the bluebell wood. Being the heathen that I am.”

They had reached the hallway. Cam self-consciously adjusted his jacket. He needed to stop this conversation or risk social humiliation. He glanced over at Gina and made a quick decision to go for a walk outdoors. She had her brows knit, and she looked as if she were musing over a particularly difficult problem.

“Don't you remember the bluebell wood?” he said into her ear.

“Of course I remember the wood!” she snapped. “You left me there in the middle of the night. How could I forget?”

“I'd forgotten that,” Cam chuckled. “Stephen and I ran away, didn't we?”

“You told me there were ghouls in the woods first,” Gina said indignantly.

“You were too good at fishing. We had to bring you to a
sense of your place in the world. Besides, we rescued you after five minutes, didn't we?”

“Humph,” Gina said and pushed open the drawing room door. She was met by a level of talk that rose like a storm of bees. Clearly the party had been informed of the indignity suffered by the duchess. Cam bowed and backed away. The all-male companionship of the stables sounded comforting at the moment.

Something about his wife was driving him insane. He gave a bark of rueful laughter. He'd been without a woman for too long, that was it. And since she was the only woman in the world he couldn't sleep with, given that the act would terminate their annulment proceedings, naturally he was being driven to distraction by temptation.

That explained it all.

He strode out to the stables. In the middle of the night it had occurred to him forcefully that the key point of an annulment was virginity.

There were many, many pauses on the way from virginity to the lack thereof. If his wife wanted to experiment with him before she hopped into bed with her stuffy marquess, who was he to complain?

He wandered to the stable door musing over a few questions he had for Lady Troubridge.

For example, was there a bluebell wood tucked away on the estate?