The Confessions of a Duchess (35 page)

He raised his head a little. “How do you feel now?”

A groan was wrenched from Laura’s throat as she felt the skillfull flick of his tongue over her most secret places.

“I want…”

“This?” He slid his tongue into her heated cleft.

A small cry escaped her and she arched upward again in mute appeal. Slowly, knowingly, he prolonged the pleasure, drawing out every caress, every touch whilst Laura’s hips jerked helplessly as she sought release. He was ruthless, utterly controlled. Laura was aware of nothing but the shimmering need pulsing within her.

She became faintly conscious of the moment when he left her side to strip off the rest of his clothes and then he was beside her on the bed, his body hot and hard, and it jolted her out of her sensual dream for a moment. Her palms came up against his chest. She could feel the strong thrust of his arousal against her thigh and felt something akin to shock.

“Take me.”

They were his words, not hers, an order rather than an appeal. Her eyes opened wide even as she felt him move and settle between her thighs where her body still throbbed with the demand for satisfaction. He shifted her slightly so that she was perfectly positioned to accommodate him and she felt the tip of his erection touch her a second before he thrust hard into her tight, quivering body.

His mouth took hers again in a kiss of primitive possession even as he drove into her body with sure, strong strokes, allowing her no respite, his demand on her absolute.

“Open your eyes.”

There was no tenderness in him, only a total need that she be his and his alone and that she recognize the fact. She opened dazed eyes and saw the taut command in his face, the intense, concentrated glitter in his eyes. Her body burned and ached for surcease as he forced her closer and closer to the edge. She knew he was not going to succumb to his own climax until he had ensured that she had surrendered to him. She felt herself slipping into ecstasy, driven deep into pleasure by the insistent thrust of his body in hers. But then, at the very last moment, she felt herself withdrawing from him so that although her body convulsed with absolute rapture her mind was left cold and untouched and she felt strangely empty.

Her eyes locked with Dexter’s. He had paused, watching her. He smoothed the damp hair back from her face and his fingers rested for a moment against her cheek in something close to a caress. But there was no affection in his eyes.

“Do not hold back from me, Laura,” he said.

Her body still thrummed with the force of her climax. He was still inside her, strong and hard, filling her. She knew that he had not gained his release; what he had done had been all about showing her pleasure and proving that her denials were empty. Her body would respond to him without love and out of no more than a desire for physical pleasure.

It had done. He had proved it. But that had not been enough for him. Now he wanted her mind, as well. He wanted her complete submission.

Now he moved again gently, barely at all, but the friction was enough to send further ripples of sensation through Laura’s still-sensitive body. When he withdrew from her she could not help a small whimper of disappointment. He turned her over and canted her bottom in the air and the shock skittered through Laura again as she felt him spread her legs and enter her. The dark pleasure filled her. Exposed, vulnerable to his gaze and to his touch, she nevertheless felt impossibly aroused.

The rhythm built again. This time he penetrated her deeply and withdrew slowly, over and over, Laura’s breasts moving languorously with each thrust, her nipples rubbed to unbearable stimulation with the friction of the bedclothes. Dexter slid his hands to cup her breasts before bracing her hip with one hand and slipping the other lower to stroke and caress the tender core of her. The intense, deliberate pressure of his invasion of her body sent the blood pounding through her veins once more as the molten pleasure flowed through her, twisting tighter and tighter within her. Slowly, inexorably it built and then suddenly she could not resist it any longer. It smashed through her and she cried out again and again in exquisite bliss, feeling Dexter finally succumb to his own climax. The sensations fused in her mind in a shower of blinding lights as she let go of everything and allowed the pleasure to sweep through her and take her away.

She rolled over and lay back on the pillows, sated and abandoned, dimly aware of Dexter beside her and the slick heat of his skin and the harshness of his breathing.

She turned her head slightly and a big fat teardrop rolled down her cheek to land with a plop on the pillow beside her, surprising her.

“Laura?” Dexter’s voice was very quiet. “Why are you crying?” Until that moment Laura had not realized that she was. Then her feelings caught up with her body, piercing the languid pleasure that had enclosed her in the aftermath of lovemaking. Her body felt full and heavy and satisfied and her mind felt terrifyingly lonely with a raw, screaming darkness that threatened to swallow her whole.

“I’m crying because that felt wonderful, Dexter,” she said, “and really it ought not to have done, not when it had nothing of love in it.”

Dexter was frowning now. He lay back on the bed, magnificently naked, making no attempt to cover himself. He looked glorious. She wanted to touch him.
No. She wanted to
hold him and feel close to him and revel in their intimacy.

She wanted to curl up in his arms and sleep, and wake to find him there, holding her against his heart. Whereas he had made it quite clear what he wanted, and that did not involve any element of tenderness. The hopelessness of her desires swamped her.

She rolled off the bed and grabbed her clothes from the haphazard pile on the floor.

She was not going to stay here and let him see her cry, or worse, lie beside him and feel lost and alienated and alone.

“You have proved your point,” she said quietly. “You can make love to me and not care for me at all and you can give me pleasure, too, but it means nothing. Do you understand that, Dexter? It is empty and worthless. That is your marriage.” She went through the connecting door into her own bedchamber and locked the door behind her. The room looked warm in the candlelight, familiar and reassuring. Almost it was as though nothing had changed. But it had. Everything had changed. Laura scrubbed away another wayward tear from her face, slipped on her nightgown—it was cold because Molly had not warmed it before the fire, evidently thinking she would have no use for it that night—got into her bed and curled up tight against the cold. But the cold was inside her. And it did not go away.

DEXTER WAS FISHING. It was a glorious late-autumn afternoon on the River Tune with the wood smoke hanging on the air and the late sun glittering on the water. He should have been enjoying the peace and the quiet flow of the river. He was not. He should have been happy. He was not.

He cast his line with an unnecessarily vicious flourish. He had everything that he wanted now, neat, ordered and under control. He had his daughter, he had the money, or at least he would have when the lawyer, Mr. Churchward, had finished arranging the marriage settlements. He had written to his mother to tell her of his marriage. He would be able to buy Charley a commission now and pay Roland’s university fees and meet all the other debts and obligations that had weighed so heavily on him in the past. He had his work in London, which he was going to return to just as soon as he had made a breakthrough in the Crosby case. He had also written to Lord Liverpool to tell him he was wed and that he now hoped to progress the murder inquiry, assuming that Miles was ever prepared to work with him again.

He had Laura as his wife.

Uncomfortable emotions stirred in him. Conscience, guilt…He was not accustomed to feeling guilty about anything. He had always tried to do the right thing in his life and that had brought with it a belief in his own integrity. Even now, when he was feeling remorse for the way in which he was treating Laura, he told himself that he had forced her into marriage for Hattie’s sake and that in time they would learn to live more comfortably with one another. She was his wife and so she fitted into the pattern of his ordered life now.

He shifted uneasily as his conscience prickled again. They had been married for a week, but he was spending no time with Laura and deliberately so. He was punishing her.

He still felt so bitter and betrayed that she had kept Hattie a secret from him. He could not seem to help himself. They lived as strangers to one another except that each night he went to her bed and each night they made love with heated, passionate fervor. But that was also a part of his ordered life now. He could keep his physical urges under control by exercising them in the marriage bed. Everything was disciplined and rational and under control.

Except that it was not. A piece was missing from his life and for all his logic and intellect he could not work out what it was. Dexter closed his eyes for a second. When he opened them again the sun on the water almost dazzled him. He knew that he was dissatisfied with his marriage in some way. He, who now had everything arranged exactly as he wanted it, still felt irrationally unhappy. It was inexplicable.

He thought of Laura. He had thought that he could be angry with her and yet could make love to her and remain detached from everything but the perfect physical and sensual pleasure that he always found with her. Yet it seemed to be becoming increasingly difficult to find the satisfaction he craved. It was not that she ever refused him. She responded to his every desire with a passion and wildness that fired his blood. He could not deny that their encounters were exhausting, spectacular and physically fulfilling, but at the same time they left him in some complicated way unsatisfied. His grip tightened on the fishing line so hard that he almost snapped it in two. It felt as though as his physical intimacy with Laura increased, so she slipped away from him in some way, as though she were even less than a stranger to him. The woman he wanted to possess body and soul was eluding him and turning into a phantom. He could not control the feeling and it infuriated him.

With a sigh, he gathered up his line and started to walk along the riverbank back to The Old Palace. As he came out into the water meadows he saw Hattie running toward him through the grass, her nursemaid and a woman in a lavender-blue gown walking behind.

For a moment he thought it was Laura and despite everything his heart lifted. The he realized it was Alice Lister and felt a ridiculous disappointment. Alice waved to him, said a farewell to Rachel and Hattie, and walked away toward the Spring House.

Dexter put down his rod and line and picked Hattie up into his arms as she wrapped her plump arms about his neck and shrieked with excitement. Her body felt solid and warm against his and Dexter was swept with such a powerful feeling of love and protectiveness that he felt shaken to the core. With Hattie it was always this easy. She gave her love so generously.

“I am collecting pebbles for Mama,” Hattie said importantly. “They are a present.” She wriggled away from him and ran across to the stream, picking up little rounded stones and holding them out to Rachel, who put them in her apron pocket.

Dexter walked slowly back toward The Old Palace, threw his fishing tackle into a corner of one of the out-buildings and went inside to wash. When he came downstairs, Hattie was in the hall, arranging her pebbles in a pattern on the carpet. She was wearing the intent, concentrated look he recognized as one of his own qualities. She looked up at him with bright hazel eyes, Laura’s eyes.

“Papa,” she said slowly, as though trying the word out. Then she smiled and Dexter felt the love he had for her swamp him like a tide.

The drawing room door opened and Laura came out. Dexter thought she looked tired.

Evidently she had been writing, for there were ink stains on her fingers. She was looking at them with a certain amount of exasperation and trying to wipe them off on her skirts. There were faint, dark smudges beneath her eyes. She looked up and saw him and he saw the expression change in her eyes to something wary and unhappy. He felt a kick of intolerable guilt inside. He had to do something to put matters right between them but he did not know what. Suddenly he felt as uncertain as he had done in his youth when he had loved Laura and lost her the first time. The instinct to retreat to the safety of his ordered world was incredibly strong, but he knew with absolute certainty that he would find no solace there.

He had to do something different. He did not know what. The thought terrified him. He who had faced danger and even death in the course of his work was running scared of his own feelings.

“Dexter—” Laura began when she saw him.

He caught her hand in his and she looked at him, a startled expression in her eyes at the gentle gesture.

“Will you spend the day with me tomorrow?” He asked. He felt as though he was fumbling his way toward something he did not quite understand and had only blind instinct to guide him. “Just the two of us together?” he said. “I would like that.” Laura looked puzzled and a little fearful, and he suddenly felt a complete scoundrel for driving her so far from him. “I am not sure,” she murmured, avoiding his eyes, her gaze on Hattie.

“Please,” Dexter said. He tightened his fingers until she looked up at him. “Please,” he repeated softly. “Laura, I must talk to you. There are things to discuss.”

“I agree that we need to talk,” Laura said, but she still sounded hesitant.

“Then spend the day with me,” Dexter urged. “We could go riding, perhaps.” She smiled a little warily. “That might be…nice.”

“I will try to make it so,” Dexter said. He saw Hattie watching them and for the first time there seemed to be a shadow in her eyes as she looked at them, as though she had felt the tension between them though she was too young to understand it.

Laura’s lashes fluttered down, their shadow spiky and dark against her cheek. Dexter felt a sudden rush of longing, so powerful it took his breath.

“I know we have to make the attempt,” she said, “for Hattie’s sake.”