Celeste Bradley - [Heiress Brides 01] (18 page)

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Authors: Desperately Seeking a Duke

BOOK: Celeste Bradley - [Heiress Brides 01]
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Her nightdress would be but the work of a moment. It would flutter away as well and she would be naked in his hands, bared to his every wicked wish. Oh, the things he wanted to do to this sweet, hot-blooded country girl …
The candlestick tipped over, rolled off the table, and fell to the stone floor with a harsh clang that resounded through the narrow larder.
They jerked away from each other instantly in the sudden darkness. Rafe scrambled backward until his back met
the shelves. He heard a crying gasp, a rustle of fabric, and a harsh thud as the door slammed shut behind the sound of racing feet.
“Phoebe?”
She was gone.
He brought his hands up to cover his face. He could smell her on him. “Oh, God.” The silence and darkness pressed down on him, driving him to his knees.
Curse or prayer, God wasn’t answering.
She undulated beneath him, her movements hungry and innocently erotic. His sweet, hot Phoebe, finally to be his in truth, forever his.
“Forever, my lord. I shall love you forever,” she gasped as her body shuddered beneath his. “My lord, wake up, my lord.”
Oh, damn.
Rafe opened his eyes to see his valet Sparrow standing next to the bed, gazing at him apologetically.
“You asked me to wake you early this morning, my lord.”
“Go away.” Rafe shut his eyes hard but Phoebe was gone.
“My lord, you had plans this morning. Don’t you remember?”
His plans had been to get out of the house as early as possible and avoid seeing Phoebe or Calder or any of the damned wedding party. After last night, that plan was more important than ever.
Not much longer.
Only twelve long, unbearable days.
Yet somehow after breakfast, he found himself among the company once again.
Phoebe was wearing blue again, this time a pale, nearly gray blue that saddened Rafe. She ought to wear the
brightest colors of sky and jewels, for only those could merit and inspire the color in her cheeks and eyes.
Fortescue looked harried as he carried a tea tray into the room, then absently left without pouring any. Rafe slid a glance toward Calder. “Is something wrong?”
Calder didn’t look up from his absorption with his newssheet. “The cook is sulking. Someone invaded the larder last night, made a perfect mess of everything.”
Tessa made sympathetic noises, but Rafe could only very carefully not look at Phoebe. He averted his gaze to see Tessa gazing thoughtfully at him, then at Phoebe.
Tessa smiled slightly, then pressed a hand to her brow. “Lord Marbrook, will you do me a great service and accompany Phoebe and Sophie to Lementeur today for their fittings? I feel a headache coming on.”
Lady Tessa didn’t look ill. In fact, her eyes sparkled and her color was high, but it wasn’t as though he could accuse her of falsifying a headache in order to get out of a shopping trip.
This time it was Phoebe who demurred. “Do not fret, Tessa. We will be perfectly all right with Nan and a footman, if Lord Brookhaven might spare us one?”
Calder looked up. “What? Oh, yes. Of course. I’d accompany you myself, but I’ve a mountain of reports to look over today. So sorry. Deepest regrets.”
Calder didn’t look terribly regretful. Rafe knew that his brother liked nothing better than burying himself in paperwork all day. It seemed to hold endless fascination for him.
Tessa smiled, but her eyes snapped in Phoebe’s direction. “But I shall need Nan all day, for I’ll not be able to rise from my bed at all. And to send two young ladies out with naught but a footman?” She switched her gaze to him and raised a brow.
Ah, his cue. Rafe bit back a sigh of resignation and bowed
his head. “I shall be delighted to accompany Miss Millbury and Miss Blake. I shall call for the carriage immediately.”
He stood and left, although he could have made the order from where he sat. Spending another afternoon with Phoebe was the last thing he wanted to do.
Yes, that explains why you put up such a struggle. You can’t stand the sight of her.
Phoebe watched Rafe leave.
Do not look at his bottom!
Oh, dear. Too late. Then he was gone and uncomfortable silence reigned once more.
Brookhaven sat with his gaze on the window, fingers twitching with impatience. Tessa began to dramatize her growing headache. Sophie had her nose in a book and Deirdre was watching Brookhaven’s fingers twitch, looking as if she were about to take a mallet to them. The ticking of the ormolu clock on the mantel filled the room for a few eternal minutes.
Phoebe stood abruptly, unable to bear it. “Well, I suppose I shall make ready for that fitting. Sophie, shall we go?”
Sophie looked up from her book, blinking behind her spectacles. “Fitting?”
Phoebe sighed. “At Lementeur, remember? Lord Marbrook went to get the carriage ready.”
Sophie gazed at her for a moment, her gaze sharp. Then the keen glint was gone and there was nothing but hazy disinterest there. “I’m sorry, Phoebe, but I really must decline. I’ve the headache, you see.”
Phoebe narrowed her eyes at her cousin.
Traitor.
She turned to Deirdre, who held up her hands. “I’ve callers coming any moment now. I promised to be at home today. You wouldn’t ask a lady to break her word, would you?”
Conspiracy.
Phoebe waited for Brookhaven to make an offer to accompany her himself, instead of sending her with his
brother, which wasn’t precisely scandalous, but hardly ordinary, either.
Brookhaven glanced at the clock and stood. “Have a nice time, my dear. I shall look forward to hearing all about it at dinner.” He turned and left with an absentminded bow to Tessa and the cousins.
Trapped
. She had to make the appearance at Lementeur if she expected her wedding dress to be done in time. There was no help for it. How very annoying.
Annoying? Is that why your heart is beating faster and your cheeks are turning pink?
She put a hand to her face as she turned to leave the room. Damn her betraying blush anyway. She ran up the stairs to fetch her wrap instead of sending a servant, just to legitimize her high color. She wouldn’t want him to think she was excited to go out alone with him!
The carriage was ready when she came down and Marbrook waited in the hall. If she didn’t acknowledge the danger of such thought, she might imagine they were a married couple, preparing for a delightful drive on a lovely spring day.
And then home for an intimate dinner in the sitting room of their bedchamber, where they, half-dressed—her in a clinging wrapper and him in an open shirt with his muscular chest gleaming in the golden candle-glow—would feed each other tidbits with their fingers and lick them clean—
“You ought not to run so,” Rafe said, his gaze averted as he helped her with her spencer. “Your cheeks are quite pink.”
“Ah … hmm.” Don’t think. Don’t imagine. Don’t breathe him in—
His fingers tangled with hers when she reached to pull the spencer closed. He jerked his hands back—and accidentally brushed his palms against her fantasy-aroused
nipples. Her gasp was part shock and part exquisite pleasure at the sweep of hard, heated palms on tingling, aching flesh.
“My a—apologies—I—Oh, hell!” Rafe turned away, pressing his palms together to eradicate the memory of those rigid, upturned points—or else to preserve it. Her sighing gasp echoed in his mind. Pleasure? Horror?
Or like him, a bit of both?
She stepped back and did up her spencer with every appearance of great concentration. Then she cleared her throat and raised her chin. “Yes, well … shall we go?”
Rafe took one look at her bosom, where even the wool of the spencer couldn’t hide the evidence of her … er, stimulation. Then he jerked his gaze to the top of the stairs. “Miss Blake?”
Please hurry, Miss Blake. Hasten down and rescue me!
“Sophie will not be accompanying us, my lord.” She seemed quite fascinated with the top button of her glove as she pulled them on and took her bonnet from the side table. “She has taken the headache as well.”
Lovely. Perfect.
Damn.
Perhaps he could plead the headache himself. He was certainly in legitimate pain—although his ache resided somewhere a bit lower.
It was only worse in the carriage. Once the bustle of seating themselves was over and the carriage was in motion, Rafe became intensely aware of their solitude. True, London teemed around them as they made their way to Bond Street yet that noisy populace seemed only like the burble of a stream in a silent wood. The tension that stretched between them hushed all the world, leaving only they two alone.
Rafe tried breaking it. “Are you pleased with your accommodations at Brook House, Miss Millbury?”
She glanced up, gratitude in her expression. “Oh, yes. My room is entirely comfortable. So big, and even the bed is large enough for two—” She went very still, her flush deepening yet more.
Yes, though not as fine as in the marchioness room, the bed in that room was very large and sumptuously hung. It had always reminded Rafe of a harem boudoir—or at least what he imagined one to be.
Phoebe, clad only in the brief clinging gauze of a sultan’s bride. Phoebe, bright eyes snapping over a seductively concealing veil. Phoebe, spread wantonly on that great, luxurious bed, naked and pink and wet for him
—
Rafe crossed his legs casually, setting his hat on his lap, and gazed unseeing at the city outside the window. He was going to go to hell and soon. Death by eternal erection.
Phoebe bit her lip. How could she have spoken of the bed, for pity’s sake!
Luckily Marbrook hadn’t seemed to notice anything. He seemed quite cool as he stared out the window—until she noticed the pulsing muscle in his jaw and how he kept shifting his position in his seat, as if something made him uncomfortable.
She herself was beginning to feel the effects of the jostling carriage. The rhythmic vibration of the wheels on the cobbles were doing great harm to her composure, coming as they were on top of her own stimulating thoughts.
Shocking thoughts. Wrong thoughts. She was very ashamed of herself.
She wondered how many times today she could manage to have Marbrook help her with her spencer …
I am betrothed. I am a respectable, moral, virtuous woman. I am betrothed …
It wasn’t helping. Not with Marbrook so close she could smell the soap he shaved with. Not with him seated across from her, where she had such an excellent view of
his handsome face and his broad chest and his large, well-shaped hands—
He’d kissed her last night. He’d gone breathless with desire for her.
The carriage rolled to a stop. Marbrook brightened. “Ah, yes. Here we are!”
He was out of the carriage in record time, obviously eager to be away from her.
Yet he handed her out with gentle courtesy and extended his arm to take her into Lementeur’s, where Cabot stood ready at the door.
Once inside, Cabot showed Marbrook to a comfortable manly chair and displayed a selection of cigars and decanters. “Whisky,” muttered Marbrook, and one glass of amber liquor was immediately bestowed upon him. Cabot made not the slightest indication that he thought it might be a bit early in the day for whisky … and to be truthful, Phoebe wouldn’t have been averse to a nice nervesteadying sip herself, but she wasn’t offered one.
Instead, she was urged “backstage” of the dais. Two pretty maids waited there with a vast selection of gowns that could not all be for her.
They were. “The master said to make all new,” one of the girls said. “Once you wear Lementeur, you won’t want to put your old gowns on ever again.”
Phoebe looked on in amazement as Brookhaven’s true wealth became apparent. She’d thought the blue gown she’d already been given was very fine, and it was, but now it appeared that it had been a simple gown for an intimate dinner party, not the grand garment she had supposed.
The first thing she was put into—that is, literally dressed like a doll—was a beautiful blue-green silk with a structured bodice that made her bosom rise and float like buoys on the sea. The waist was fitted rather tightly, however.
One of the maids raised her voice. “Corset!” she cried,
for all the world like an army officer calling an order. A corset in matching silk appeared and Phoebe found herself laced into it before she could remark on the idea of a corset matched to every gown.
It was quite comfortable for a corset, but by some miracle of engineering, it also gave her a slender grace she’d never possessed, not even as a child. Her waist was tiny and her hips—so very worrisome to Lementeur two days before—were rounded without being wide. Now the gown slipped over her and closed without protest.
“Mirror!”
Phoebe found herself thrust through the curtains to stand on the dais once more, surrounded on three sides by mirrors.
She caught sight of herself in one and went still, her lips parted. She looked … she looked like Deirdre, or Tessa, only she was entirely herself as well. She looked stylish and elegant and every inch the wealthy, refined lady.
Then she saw, reflected in the mirror she faced, Marbrook’s unguarded expression—his stunned, awed, hungry blue gaze that roved her body up and down.
Phoebe couldn’t resist. She bent to fiddle with her hem, dropping her neckline into the mirror. She watched his face become suffused and his jaw tighten.
Again, the crossed legs and the hat. Aha. Phoebe managed not to smile in catlike satisfaction as she straightened from her very naughty test.
“You are a goddess,” he breathed.

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