My American Duchess (24 page)

“This will sound foolish,” Merry said, raising her head. She was heavy-lidded, the unmistakable look of a woman who’d been pleasured. “I love the way you look. It’s manly.”

“American?” he suggested, mouth quirking up.

“Nationality has nothing to do with it,” she murmured. She had kissed her way down to proximity with his cock and was staring at it with fascination.

“Touch me,” he said, managing, barely, to keep a pleading note from his voice.

She wrapped her hand around him, causing an explosion of searing heat that made his back arch instinctively and his lips draw back in a hoarse snarl. Any lady he knew would have squealed and dropped him, frightened by his rough response.

Not Merry.

Instead, her hand tightened and slid. Trent’s mind went blank and he only dimly heard his own hungry groans.

He kept his eyes open, though, so he could see her watching as her small hand slid tightly up and down. She licked her lips, and that was it.

He lost all control.

He surged up and flipped her over so the hard length of his cock met her softness.

“I want—” He gasped, and tried to collect himself. He was never like this, never.

But Merry’s hands wound into his hair. She tugged his face to hers and licked his bottom lip. It was so tantalizing that he leaned down to nip her in reply.

“Jack,” she whispered, “I want you.”

He growled something, fighting to keep himself in check. Braced above her, he let his head hang, closing his
eyes so that he couldn’t see her. But it didn’t help because his other senses just flared more keenly, and his muscles quivered, dangerously close to thrusting into her.

“This part is going to hurt, Merry,” he managed. “Or so they say.”

She shocked him again by arching up and whispering against his mouth, “I
want
you, Jack.” And then she tilted her hips, rubbing against him.

With one last breath of sanity, he moved backward, pulled open her legs, and looked at her pretty folds. He lapped her like a cat, holding her down as she twisted against his hand, shrieking.

She was loud, his American wife. The thought came dimly because he concentrated on giving pleasure, learning which touches she loved until she burst into flames in his hands and came again.

Enough. He cut the fragile threads of his self-control.

He reared over his wife and slowly pushed the plump head of his cock inside her.

Merry’s fingers tightened on his shoulders, her eyes grew wide, and she whispered something he couldn’t hear.

She was so tight that he instantly broke out in a sweat. He’d never felt anything like it. He was thrusting into molten honey. He started shaking. How could this not be painful for her? Her eyes were closed and she looked puzzled, not in pain.

He took a deep, rasping breath. “Does it hurt?” he whispered.

Merry opened her eyes and shook her head. “No, but it’s very odd.”

“You feel so good,” he said in a voice that rumbled in his chest. “I wish I could stay like this forever. Never move.” He meant it, too. Though at the same moment, he thrust forward again.

Merry took a deep breath and wiggled under him, forcing another groan from his lips. Then she tilted her hips and curled her legs around his waist. The tight grip of her body relaxed and let him in.

Just like that, the blazing ache in his loins went to his head. Pleasure made him mindless, nothing more than a body, sweat beading on his chest in the effort not to plunge into her.

Yet he dimly recognized the sharp bite of her fingernails in his shoulders, her husky moan. He dragged his mouth down the clean line of her jaw, pulled back and waited a second, just enough so that her eyes drifted open again.

There was nothing more delicious in the world than the look in Merry’s eyes. Dazed, longing. “Jack,” she whispered.

Jack was the new him, the him that finally had someone of his own, someone to cherish and to protect and to make happy. Trent felt a strange sensation all over his body, a trembling intense kind of heat that licked his skin and made him feel raw with . . . something.

“All right?” he whispered.

“Mmmmm.”

He began to move, steady and slow. Words came out of his throat without conscious thought, rough, harsh words that grunted as he thrust. Merry couldn’t be feeling too much pain, because her eyes were half shut, sloe-eyes, pleasured eyes, and she was clinging to him with her arms and legs.

She was giving permission.

Finally Trent really did let go—or was it Jack who let go? He went a bit mad, his body surrounding Merry, hers surrounding him, warm, fragrant Merry who was his wife to have and to hold, to
know
, as the Bible said.

She started meeting his thrusts, awkwardly at first, forcing him even deeper inside with every stroke. He could feel a storm gathering in his loins. Her hands were curled around his forearms, so tightly he felt the prick of her nails again.

He clenched his teeth, not willing to let go of the delirious pleasure of it, thrusting short and deep, watching a fever spread over her damp, creamy skin. He suckled her breast, tasting salty sweet Merry-sweat, loving the way she twisted under him.

He was covered with sweat, chest heaving, hips pounding into the woman who clung to him, panting, kissing him with pillowy sensual lips.

Freezing when her body finally clenched around his cock, setting him free.

Trent let his head fall forward, and with a rasping groan, he emptied himself into her. Again, and again.

His, and his again.

His only, his first, his last.

Something had broken inside him. Or dissolved. Something hard and cold. He finished . . . but he hadn’t softened. Instead of withdrawing, he watched a drop of sweat run down Merry’s temple and disappear into her lavish hair.

“Was it painful?” he asked. “Should I withdraw?”

Merry’s eyes blinked, then opened, met his. Indigo blue. He catalogued that: gray when she was angry, the violet-blue of sea-water when the sun clouds over when she was satisfied.

No, not just satisfied: happy.

The look in her eyes went straight to the base of his spine and he nudged forward. He was still with her, in her.

“No,” she said, gleeful. “That is, it was uncomfortable for a minute, but then it was more than comfortable, if you
know what I mean.” She wiggled her hips, and he felt it in the soles of his feet. Another groan broke from his throat.

He pushed back toward her in a silent question, watched as she cocked her head to the side and smiled. Then she bent her knees and nudged back up at him, an invitation, a challenge.

“Are you certain you can take me again?” He thrust, a voluptuous slide that sent fire through his body. “We should wait, a day or two. A week.”

He didn’t mean it. He’d go mad not touching her for a week. But he was a gentleman; if she was sore, he wouldn’t go near her.

She matched his thrust, still awkwardly, but she did. “It stings, but it feels good at the same time. Especially when you do
that
.”

Heat spread through Trent’s limbs as if he’d taken a gulp of peppered brandy. “This?” He thrust, loving the way Merry’s mouth fell open as he struck home, eyes dazed, fingers curled into a fist before her hips rose a little and she pushed back.

The sound that came from her lips was so desirous, so sensual that Trent lost his head completely. Again.

He started all over, as if the last hour hadn’t happened, his balls as tight as if he hadn’t given her everything—in fact, he must not have, because already he could feel coal-heat at the back of his knees and his groin. She made another sound and bit his neck. Bit. His. Neck.

Trent felt his face contort and he lost himself, thrusting into her over and over, so fast and low that she gasped every time he slammed home, her head tossing, her hands looking pale against his skin, slipping over his body.

“You’re—” he said finally, growling the word.

She opened her eyes, pleasure-drenched. “Jack.”

She was clinging to him and then he realized with a jolt that tears were slipping down her cheeks.

He instantly stopped and whispered, “Tell me you’re not crying because you’re in pain.”

“It doesn’t hurt,” she whispered back. “It doesn’t hurt. I never imagined this.”

God, but she had the most beautiful eyes he’d ever seen: eyes he could look at every minute of his life.

“This isn’t what I expected,” she said with a gasp, because even though she was talking, he couldn’t stop himself from thrusting forward, slow and soft.

He dusted her lips with a kiss. “No?”

“No.”

A moment’s silence. She was getting the rhythm of the thing now, rising to meet him. He braced himself on one arm again, and thrust low, playing with her pink nipple, loving the peach color rising in her cheeks and the way her breath was coming short and choppy.

Then Merry suddenly said, “If you ever do this with a woman other than myself, I’ll have to kill you, Jack.”

“I will not,” he said, keeping it simple. No need to tell her that he felt raw and new inside, as if he’d never bedded a woman before. He couldn’t imagine ever having another woman in his bed. Not after this.

Her eyes searched his, and then she nodded. That warning heat at the base of his spine was turning to pure fire, so Trent hunkered down and threaded his shaking hands into Merry’s curls, pulling her face to his and ravishing her mouth.

He couldn’t have stopped if he tried. He concentrated on kissing her, hungry and wet. Their mouth melted together, each kiss fading into another, and all the time, he kept moving.

“
Jack!
”

Pleasure chased across Merry’s face, her eyes shut tight, her heart beating so fast that he could see her pulse beating in her throat. She threw back her head with a cry and he felt her body go rigid.

Down below, her velvety softness suddenly gripped him so tightly that he let out a grunt, and he was lost, falling forward, one last thrust . . . madness. Mind gone. His stones pulled tight, a shout burst from his mouth, and he gave her everything.

Everything he had.

It was as if he’d struck his head, and opened his eyes to find that he was blind. Blind to everything but his body’s shuddering ecstasy.

When he finally lifted his face from her hair, he discovered gratefully he was still braced on his elbows—at least he hadn’t collapsed onto her like a water buffalo.

Would Merry have noticed that his mind had cracked? That he had bellowed like a madman?

What they had done together bore no relation to the purposeful, genial intercourse he’d shared with mistresses. His mind shied away from the memories. The women were in the past.

He withdrew carefully and slipped to the side, pulling her head onto his arm, willing her to open her eyes and say . . . something. Tell him that she wasn’t disgusted by the sweat that had rolled off him onto her. By the way he’d grunted, and lost himself. By the way his breath still sawed in his chest.

She didn’t say a word, and when he looked down, he discovered she was cuddled against his shoulder, fast asleep. Not so overcome that she couldn’t find words . . .

Peacefully asleep, fingers spread across his chest. Her
hair was damp and as his heartbeat slowed, he heard the echo of her voice calling his name.

She woke as he gently washed her, but went straight back to sleep. And she didn’t stir when he decided that her bed was too narrow for both of them, gathered her up, and carried her to his chamber.

That night Trent lay awake for hours, looking at the delicate filigree of Merry’s hair, the strength of her jaw, the curve of her earlobe. The plump contour of her breast.

Around him, the world turned, but his internal world turned as well.

Everything shifted places.

He had cared for the dukedom because it was his duty. It was the birthright that he had won from his brother by rushing into the world. It was a prize—everyone told him it was a prize.

It had never felt like a prize. It felt that the thing that made his mother and his brother loathe him. Nothing was worth that.

Tracing swirls on his wife’s smooth shoulder, he discovered that Merry now stood at the center of his world, and the dukedom to one side.

When he finally drifted off to sleep, the world was in a new order.

M
erry woke the next morning feeling she’d forgotten something. She stretched, her mind hazy, body sore . . . body sore?

And she remembered. Jack. Trent. Husband. That . . . whatever that was called, what they did last night.

She turned her head . . .

Nothing but an expanse of linen sheet beside her. She was no longer in her own bed.

The ducal bedchamber was deeply masculine, with dark curtains tied to the four bedposts, heavy curtains at the windows, a crimson rug on the floor.

Then, with a thump of her heart, she saw, off to the side and one step up, an alcove, large enough to hold a desk and chair.

And Jack.

Merry sat up slowly, pulling the sheet to cover her
breasts. Her husband was seated in profile to her, intent on whatever he was writing, wearing nothing more than a pair of smalls. His shoulders shifted fluidly as he wrote, hardly stopping to dip his quill in ink.

Every once in a while he would pick up one of the sheets of foolscap, consult it, and return to his writing.

“Jack,” she said softly.

He didn’t turn. She’d never seen such concentration. He thrummed with life and determination.

When he didn’t answer, she shifted to the edge of the bed and slid off, bringing the sheet with her. He raised his head only when she stepped up into the alcove, trailing the sheet like an echo of her wedding train.

Stared at her.

“I’m your duchess,” Merry prompted, grinning at the confused look in his eyes. “Remember me?”

Trent surged from the chair and before she took another breath, she was off her feet and on her back on the bed.

“My goodness!” she squeaked.

“Have you any soreness?” he demanded.

“No,” she breathed. It wasn’t entirely true, but that didn’t matter, not when her blood was suddenly heated and she felt empty with longing.

He bent his head and kissed her fiercely. “Nothing matters that came before this,” he said a while later. “Do you hear me, Merry?”

“Yes,” she gasped, arching her throat so that he could kiss her again.

“I’m going to take you now.” His voice was dark and low but there was a question there.

“Please,” she begged. Her breasts ached for his touch.

As if he knew her thought, one hand cupped her right breast and the other pushed her thighs apart.

“You’re wet with my seed,” he murmured in her ear.
His fingers slid between her folds, sending jolts of feeling through her body.

“I should bathe,” Merry gasped, self-consciousness streaking through her.

“Later,” her husband said, a casual command. The broad head of his cock breached her, and she went rigid.

Part of her wanted to pull away, to run to the other room. The other side ordered her to wrap her legs around him.

A cry involuntarily burst from her as he thrust into tender territory.

His lips nuzzled her ear. “I love the way you respond to me,” he said.

Merry was responding, all right. Every inch of warmth in her body had fled and she was hanging on to him from pure instinct, her arms and legs tight. She had to tell him the truth. It hurt.

“Bloody hell,” he groaned. “You’re so hot and tight.”

She buried her face in his shoulder. She opened her mouth to tell him, but his hand was on her breast, and somehow that pleasure outweighed the pain. Trent moved to kiss her, and without thinking, her spine arched so that he slipped deeper inside her.

“That’s it,” he said, reaching down with one hand and pulling her leg higher around his hip.

He pushed forward and there was something about that angle that changed everything.

The harsh sting drained away. Her hands slid down his back, rounding his arse and hanging on. She felt surrounded by him, his scent, his growl, the strength of his arms and legs.

“You’re astonishing,” Trent murmured in her ear. He began thrusting faster and it hurt and didn’t. It burned and yet it was bliss. A shudder started somewhere deep in Merry’s body.

A sob broke from her throat, an undignified sound, but his big hand landed on her hip, caressing it, hauling her a little higher so that he created yet another kind of pressure . . .

Heat shot down her spine. But at the same time, it hurt. Her mind veered one way and then the other.

His fingers tightened on her hips, so much that they might leave bruises, and somehow that tiny pain assuaged the soreness, allowing pleasure to flood in.

Her body flushed suddenly, from her cheeks down to her toes, and she cried, “Jack!” startled, shocked by the joy of it.

Her husband’s chest heaved as a bellow ripped from his lips.

“Ow,” Merry whispered to herself a moment later, too softly to be heard. When he withdrew, tears sprang to her eyes. It stung like the devil.

“What’s the matter?” Trent whispered, his thumbs smoothing away the tears that had escaped down her cheeks.

“I’m a bit tender,” she confessed.

He frowned at her. “You should have told me.”

Merry felt that pink climbing her cheeks. “I didn’t want you to stop.” She wasn’t certain how to meet his eyes. Even thinking of the noises she had made turned her face hot.

Trent seemed not to notice. He wrapped her in his arms, nuzzling her neck. “I’ll ring for the bath to be filled, shall I?”

A moment later, she once again wrapped herself in the sheet and made her way stiffly toward her own room. Shortly thereafter Lucy appeared, and after her, footmen with buckets of steaming water.

An hour later, Merry felt much better. Lucy had discreetly poured salts into the bath water and she had soaked
for a long time, thinking over the night. She was no longer the same person she had been the day before; everything was different.

Her aunt had maintained that intimate marital acts were pleasurable, and she had been right.

But marriage wasn’t merely about bedding. Though the truth was that she’d like to walk back into the bedchamber and catch her husband in his bath, water sluicing off all those muscles . . .

Right there, sitting at her dressing table, she felt herself blush. Luckily Lucy didn’t notice. Of course, she wasn’t going to look for Trent in his bath, not that he would even be in his bath. Almost certainly, he was already working.

She would go downstairs and meet the household, and then she would begin to explore the gardens. Getting to know the grounds thoroughly would take days; in fact, the very idea of nineteen acres to work with made her smile.

Days? It would take years!

She stood with sudden resolution and informed Lucy that she wished to wear a pair of sturdy walking shoes under her yellow morning gown, not the silk slippers that Lucy had laid out.

Once dressed, she was on the verge of leaving her chamber when she heard the clicking of toenails and George scampered in from the corridor, promptly lost his grip on the floor, and slid into the wall with a thump.

She’d actually forgotten all about George last night. How could she? “Hello, sweetheart!” she cried, leaning down to pick him up. “Where’s Snowdrop?”

“In the duke’s study,” Lucy replied. “His Grace called for a footman to take her away, but she scratched at the door until she was allowed back in.”

“Oh no,” Merry said, chortling with laughter. “I’m
afraid that the duke doesn’t care for dogs, or at least, not for Snowdrop.”

Downstairs, Merry bade Oswald a good morning and allowed the butler to escort her into the breakfast room. It took a few minutes, but she managed to pry from him that he’d served the dukes of Trent in one position or another his entire life.

“My husband is extraordinarily fortunate to have you,” she said, finally. “And I am very grateful that you are here to ease my way into being a duchess.” She smiled at him.

Oswald bowed. “It will be my pleasure, Your Grace.” He hesitated. “Will you dine in the breakfast room daily, Your Grace? The former duchess took a light repast in bed in the morning.”

“I don’t care to eat in bed,” Merry said, looking at the eggs, sausages, toast, and blood pudding laid out on the sideboard. “If you’d be so kind, Oswald, I would like some eggs, a tomato, one of those sausages, and a piece of cheese.”

Then she seated herself, smiling her thanks when Oswald brought her a plate. “Mrs. Honeydukes is wondering if she might attend you after your meal,” the butler said.

“With a good housekeeper,” Aunt Bess had told Merry once, “one can survive even an act of God.” And then, at Merry’s inquiring look, “Oh, you know what I mean. Swarms of locusts. Rivers of blood . . . I can’t remember the rest.”

Oswald bowed and withdrew, leaving a young footman named Peter, who quickly overcame his reticence and began chattering about the local village, Aylesbury. He was describing the village baker—who wore a canary-yellow waistcoat and had ambitions to be an actor—when a scrape at the door interrupted him.

Peter abandoned his sentence mid-word and snapped against the wall as still as a statue. Mrs. Honeydukes entered the room silently. She was perhaps fifty, with an inherent severity wrought into the very bones of her face.

Merry came to her feet and walked around the table. “Good morning,” she said, offering her hand.

The housekeeper looked doubtful, but took Merry’s hand and shook it at the same moment that she bobbed a curtsy. “Good morning, Your Grace. I should like to offer the felicitations of the household.”

“Thank you,” Merry said. “I shall look forward to meeting everyone in the next few days, but in the meantime I would be grateful if you could extend my thanks. But for the moment, Mrs. Honeydukes, I presume you have many things to teach me about the house, and we shall spend a part of every day together. Won’t you please have a seat?”

“That would not be my place, Your Grace,” the housekeeper said, clearly shocked to her core.

Merry smiled and said, “Mrs. Honeydukes, do you know anything about me, besides the fact that I am the new Duchess of Trent?”

“No, I do not, madam.”

“The most pertinent fact is that I am American.”

As well as the mistress of the household.

A twenty-year-old duchess was still a duchess, Merry reminded herself.

Mrs. Honeydukes said, “I ascertained as much from your accent, madam.”

“As a nation, we are a plain-speaking people. And unaccustomed to the kind of formality that one finds in an aristocratic English household.”

Silence.

At length, the housekeeper said, “Ah.” She sat.

By a couple of hours later, Merry felt that she had a good
sense of the household. Mrs. Honeydukes used words sparingly, “as if they were silver coins,” Aunt Bess would say.

But she seemed to be doing an excellent job as housekeeper and as time went on, she would probably get used to sitting down in Merry’s presence while they discussed the day ahead.

The cook, Mrs. Morresey, had also been with the household her entire life. Merry was beginning to see that English aristocrats had responsibilities more or less unknown in Boston: in short, they employed people whose relatives had been serving the family for generations.

“I’m not knowing how to make American food, Your Grace,” Mrs. Morresey confessed. “I’m not even very good with French, if the truth be told.”

“As long as you can make strong tea and hot crumpets, I’ll be happy,” Merry said. “I discovered crumpets when I came to England a couple of months ago, and I could eat them morning, noon, and night.”

Mrs. Morresey beamed. “My crumpets are as light as the air itself.”

After that, they sat down over a cup of tea and talked about important things, like how quickly the spices lost their freshness, and where in London to procure the best tea. Four crumpets and two pots of tea later, she and Mrs. Morresey were fast friends.

Once Peter had been recruited to ensure that George received regular outings and Oswald informed that no puppies were allowed in the drawing room, Merry felt all was well.

Which meant that she was finally free to explore the gardens.