A Duke Never Yields (27 page)

Her eyes cracked open. He pressed a featherlight kiss on each lid. He was full of love for her, full of tenderness for what she’d just given him.

He would tell her, by God. Women liked that.

“Abigail, my love, never in my life have I imagined such joy. You . . .”

Her hands moved at last, landing on his shoulders. “Would you mind,” she said, very quietly, “getting off me, please? You’re rather heavy.”

“I’m sorry.”

She pushed with her hands, and reluctantly he slid himself out of her warmth and rolled to the side. He unwound his hands from her hair to reach for her, to gather her next to him. “Darling,” he began again, but she was already sitting up, looking dazed. “Darling, lie down with me. It’s too soon for that; we have all night. You . . .”

She pushed his arm away and turned to him. “Too soon? Too
soon
?”

A warning bell began to jingle in the fog of Wallingford’s enraptured brain. He struggled to sit up. “What’s the matter, darling? Was I too rough? I’m sorry, I tried to be gentle, but I didn’t realize how . . .”

“Gentle? You were a
battering ram
!”

“Well,” he said modestly, “I wouldn’t go quite that far.”

“That was not a
compliment
! You were a
brute
! I felt no pleasure at all! I should have been in
transports
! You should have . . . this was supposed to be
lovely
!”

“No pleasure?” He stared at her in astonishment. Her loosened chemise was falling from one shoulder, exposing her breast; her hair tumbled about her flushed face. She looked the picture of a well-loved woman. “No pleasure at all?”

“None!”

“You must have felt
something
, surely!”

“I felt a battering ram!” She rose to her feet, stopped, and looked down. “And look at me! I’m a mess!”

“Oh, damn. So you are. My poor love. Here, I have a handkerchief. Let me.” He scrabbled for his waistcoat on the floor.

She snatched the handkerchief from his fingers and turned her back toward him. “I chose you
specifically
for your experience!
Specifically
because I thought you knew how to give a woman pleasure!”

“I
do
give women pleasure!” He stood up behind her.

She tossed the handkerchief on the floor and picked up her stays. “And how do you know this?”

Without thinking, he helped her fasten the corset, the way he had refastened corsets in so many similar moments. “I’ve never had any complaints, have I?”

“Of course you haven’t had any complaints! You’re the Duke of almighty Wallingford! Who would dare complain about your performance in bed?”

“
You
, obviously!”

“You’ve no idea how to bring a woman to crisis, do you? I suppose you just heave away and assume your partner is enjoying herself.”

“I do not!”

Did he?

Her stays were fastened. She pulled away and found her dress. “I’ll wager you don’t even know where to touch a woman, to give her pleasure.”

“I most certainly do!”

Abigail turned around to face him. Her eyes blazed in the candlelight. “Where, then?”

“Why . . . well, the breasts, of course, and . . . and . . . between the legs . . .” He was stammering like a schoolboy, flushed to the crown of his head. He made a vague illustrative motion with his fingers.

“
Where
between the legs?”

“Well, obviously. Where the . . . where the male organ . . . that is . . . the female passage . . .” He tried to think of the polite term.

“Wrong!” she said.

“Wrong?”

“Wrong, wrong, wrong! You really don’t know, do you? You have no idea! Well, I’ll give you a hint, my dear duke, my supposed expert in the arts of love. The seat of a woman’s pleasure is not her
vagina
.” She threw out the term without a hint of embarrassment and tossed her dress over her head.

“Good God, Abigail!” he cried. The candles flickered in shock. He became conscious that he was utterly naked, and she was not. He folded his arms across his chest. “Where, then?” he mumbled.

“I’m not going to tell you. It’s no business of
mine
to tell you.”

“What the devil does that mean?”

She fumbled with the hooks at the back of her neck. “It means, Your Grace, you may rest assured I shall not seek a repeat performance. You are quite free to seek your pleasure elsewhere.”

“I don’t
want
to seek my pleasure elsewhere!” he roared, uncrossing his arms.

“Then I’m afraid you shall simply have to do without.” She picked up her mask from the floor and tied it around her head in swift jerks.

“Do
what
?” he roared, even more loudly, but Abigail was already storming across the floor, flinging open the door, dashing out into the darkness.

“Abigail!” The old timbers rattled at the boom of his voice. “Come back here!”

The moonlight poured silent and unchecked through the open door.

Wallingford stood stunned. He glanced down at the disordered blankets and cushions, the flickering candles, Abigail’s discarded apron. His own clothes, scattered and crumpled.

The handkerchief on the floor, stained with her blood and his seed.

I’m afraid you shall simply have to do without.

With a loud oath, he put out the candles, gathered up his clothes, and ran out the door.

FIFTEEN

I
n her younger years, Abigail had often dreamed of storming away from the arms of some darkly handsome lover and into the moonlight.

The reality was rather less romantic. The feathers tickled Abigail’s nose abominably, her shoes scrabbled against damp pebbles of the lakeshore, and her dress was coming undone in the back. She felt neither fleet nor graceful nor passionate, and to make a sorry situation worse, her nose was running, too.

“Damn it, Abigail!”

Wallingford’s roar floated in the air behind her. Wallingford, that beast, that rutting boar. He hadn’t even fully undressed her, had he? Simply pushed up her chemise and shoved away, no preliminaries, no caresses, no loving exploration of her anatomy. Two thrusts, two heaves of his massive body, and he was groaning out his release, while her torn flesh still burned with pain, and her body still arched for more.

More. Just . . .
more
. More of that sweet melting sensation, as he had unfastened her dress and held her breasts in his warm hands. More of that thrill, as he’d swept her up and placed her on the blankets, and his hungry gaze had enveloped her, and his rigid organ had searched out her tender flesh. More of those mighty thrusts, of the way even in the shock of pain she had felt an impossible pressure that made her hips tilt and her body strain to meet him.

“Abigail! Stop right now, by God!”

No!
Not
more. What was she thinking? Never, ever again. No more romantic illusions, no more dreams of transcendent sexual union, no more Wallingford heaving atop her with sinews flexing and face desperate. The dream lay shattered, the scales had fallen from her eyes, the . . . the . . .

The muscles between her legs ached like the devil.

The lakeshore gave way to the grass and the olive trees, the gradual slope upward to the castle. Abigail slowed her steps and picked her way through, trying to discern the path in the shadows. Somewhere ahead lay Mr. Burke’s workshop, her customary landmark; she looked for its dark shape amid the trees. Wallingford’s voice still echoed behind her, a little fainter. Perhaps he’d lost her in the darkness.

There it was! A great dark mass, moonlight glinting from the stones. The path should lie just to the left.

She plunged forward and stopped.

A light shone from inside, a flickering light. Which was not odd in itself; Mr. Burke often kept late hours, tinkering about on his machine, Alexandra at his side.

But tonight the workshop should be dark. Tonight Mr. Burke should be deep in Alexandra’s arms, his body coursing with Morini’s lemony drink, vowing eternal and faithful love to break the ancient curse.

And what was that smell? Odd and chemical. Rather like . . .

Gas.

Abigail took a step closer, and as her foot touched the ground she felt a percussive jolt shudder through the air. An instant later, a bright flash filled her vision, and she went flying to the ground.

*   *   *

F
or a moment, she lay stunned. She was not hurt, except for the ache between her legs and the buzz in her ears, but she could not quite seem to move.

“Abigail!” Wallingford’s voice rang frantic in her ears. His hands took her shoulders, turned her over. “Abigail!”

“I’m all right!” she gasped. “I’m all right! The workshop! Quickly!”

He looked up. “Bloody hell!”

They scrambled up together. Flames shot out from one of the windows; the stones around it were already black with soot, and glass covered the grass outside.

“Your shoes!” Abigail said. “Put on your shoes!”

She didn’t stop to make sure he had. She ran forward to the pump, the blessed pump, which sat to the side of the building with bucket in place. Mr. Burke had always been particular, with all his chemicals and batteries about. She grabbed the handle and pumped with all her might, and when the bucket was full Wallingford appeared at her side, trousers and shoes fastened, and snatched it from her.

“Find another bucket!” he shouted over his shoulder, and he ran forward and tossed the contents into the flames.

Buckets. Buckets. Near the back door, perhaps? She ran around and saw two of them sitting next to the double carriage doors. She snatched them and ran back around to the pump, where Wallingford was already heaving, his shoulders bunching with effort, gleaming wet in the moonlight.

“I’ll pump! You throw!” she screamed.

He took the bucket and ran, and she put the next one down and began to pump, and a new pair of hands grasped the handle just as the water hit the rim.

Alexandra’s hands.

“What the devil . . .” she began, but Alexandra was already off with the bucket, and Abigail started another. She looked up and saw Mr. Burke was there, too, breaking down the wooden door with a massive thrust of his shoulder. Another bucketful, taken by Alexandra, handed off to Wallingford, and Burke came bursting through the door with a stack of blankets. He dumped them at her feet and ran back inside, together with Wallingford.

“Oh, you clever brute!” She took one of the blankets and began pumping, wetting it thoroughly, and then she lost track of the sequence of it all: buckets and blankets, the men and Alexandra running back and forth, Alexandra taking over when her arm tired of pumping.

She took a wet blanket and ran to the workshop. Everything was wetness and soot and heat. Wallingford handed her an empty bucket and snatched the blanket from her. “You’re not going in!” he shouted at her. His face was gleaming and blackened, like a chimney sweep, and his voice was raspy with smoke.

“Oh, God! Are you all right?”

“I’m fine! Get more water!” He turned away and ran into the workshop. Through the window she saw him standing next to Burke, side by side, beating away the flames, and something rose in her throat and choked her.

She ran back to the pump, snatched a full bucket from Alexandra, staggered back with it. The flames were nearly gone, but the smoke still snaked through the window and from the roof. A pair of hands took the bucket from her and handed her an empty one.

Back and forth, again and again, until the urgency seeped at last from the air. The fire was out; the workshop still stood, its stones black with soot, reeking of smoke. A bucket lay on its side near the doorway. She picked it up, and another. The third sat next to the pump. She stacked them neatly, one inside the other, and straightened.

The window was shattered. Through the open frame, Alexandra and Mr. Burke stood in the darkness, hardly visible, speaking quietly. Burke’s head hung downward, its ginger color obscured by darkness and damp and soot. As Abigail watched, transfixed, Alexandra’s white arms slipped around Burke’s lean waist, and his hand rose to cover hers.

She loves him
, Abigail thought in wonder. Amid the debris and the grime, the water puddling in the grass about her feet, she felt a curious tranquility steal over her.

And without warning, her belly heaved, and she turned and vomited thoroughly into the grass.

*   *   *

E
arly one fine crisp October morning, many years ago, Wallingford had been making his way to the Eton playing fields for a bout of honor, when he had encountered none other than the ginger-haired bastard son of the Duke of Olympia in the footpath. The familiar bile had risen in his throat. “Move aside, you whoreson bastard,” he’d said—as one did—and young Burke had demanded immediate satisfaction for libel, and Wallingford had told him straight-out that it wasn’t libel, and that as Burke’s mother accepted money and gifts in exchange for acts of carnal gratification, and as the Duke of Olympia had not in fact been married to her at the time of Burke’s birth, Wallingford had only been speaking the truth.

Burke’s right fist had shot out with reflexive speed to connect with Wallingford’s eye, and before Wallingford could so much as stagger backward into the grass, Burke had followed up with a punishing left to the lip. Blackened and bleeding, Wallingford had shaken hands, called him a good sport, and brought him home to Belgrave Square at Michaelmas to meet his bemused father.

Since then, they had stood by each other through thick heads and thin company, not giving a particular damn for the opinion of society. When Wallingford had once found himself fleeced at Oxford by a publican running a racing book, Burke had come to his rescue and slipped a fierce chemical purgative in the house ale.

When Burke’s workshop caught fire in the middle of the night, risking everything he’d labored over his entire adult life, Wallingford picked up a bucket and ran into the flames.

By the grace of God, the workshop was built of stone and they’d caught the fire quickly. Wallingford had helped Burke roll the automobile through the carriage doors and out of harm’s way, and both Lady Morley and Abigail had pumped water and carried buckets like heroines.