Dangerous in Diamonds (32 page)
He must have seen enough to know it had not, or else he could wait no longer. He lifted one of her legs and hitched it over his hip, and entered even deeper. Then the fullness withdrew, and entered again. Carefully at first, then somewhat less so. She did not mind that. She still pulsed where they joined, still ached with a quiet need, and it felt good and right to have him in her.
H
e realized, as the stupor thinned and Daphne lay in his arms afterwards, that he had not used the condom tucked in the book on the table beside the bed.
e realized, as the stupor thinned and Daphne lay in his arms afterwards, that he had not used the condom tucked in the book on the table beside the bed.
Careless, that. Physicians insisted they were only to prevent disease, but any fool knew they served another purpose too. Both purposes should have been tended to tonight of all nights, for her sake and reassurance.
He considered his peculiar lapse and what it could mean, which led to considerations of what he did or did not owe this particular woman. He resisted the fullness of it but forced his mind down that path anyway. He had not gone far before he realized that, in a manner of speaking, precautions against pregnancy had been unnecessary.
The reasons why struck him as inescapable. So did the inevitable consequences. It was perhaps a tribute to just how contented he felt right now that those consequences did not seem nearly as dire as they should.
“When we get back to town, I will get a special license,” he said. “Our mutual friends can attend, and your Rarest Blooms if you want, but I would prefer to keep out all of the tedious relatives.”
She had been playfully twisting the hairs on his chest, but now she froze so totally she might have fainted dead away. She had not been so still since that first night in the greenhouse.
Finally she turned and looked at him oddly. It could be the lighting, but she appeared annoyed.
“I am being thoughtless, aren’t I? My apologies, Daphne. You can of course invite
your
tedious relatives if you want. Mine will not be allowed, is what I meant.”
your
tedious relatives if you want. Mine will not be allowed, is what I meant.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Our marriage. The wedding. That is what special licenses are for.”
She sat up and pulled the sheet around her. “You are mad. I have just been ravished by a madman.”
“Actually, officially, you have not been ravished yet. Trust me about this. I was far too polite this time for it to qualify as ravishing.”
“Will you please stay on the subject at hand? This marriage? It is bizarre for you to speak of it.” She peered at his face. “Are you asleep? Is this one of those waking dreams some people have in which they move and talk?”
“Why would you call this bizarre? It is so normal and ordinary that I astonish myself.”
“Normal is bizarre for you.”
“Daphne, unlike a certain hypocritical ass whom I regret to admit is a relative, I am a gentleman still. You in turn were an innocent. Hence—” He gestured at her, him, and the bed. “Marriage.”
She sighed deeply in that Hawkeswellian way. He would have to discourage that habit after the wedding.
“Castleford, your adherence to at least the bare basics of the gentleman’s code of chivalry is admirable. Truly. Except we both know I was not an innocent. Hence”—she gestured as he had, mimicking him—“madman.”
“You were not the ex-mistress or the widow of some other man, though, were you? As for the experience that stole your innocence, I am responsible for that too.”
“Dear heavens, you are really blaming yourself for that, aren’t you? You want to marry me as a form of penance. I won’t have it.”
“The hell you won’t. Look me in the eyes and tell me that you have never blamed me for what happened to you or that scullery maid and god knows how many others due to my silence about what I knew him to be.”
She looked him in the eyes, brazenly. She did not speak, however. Of course not. She wasn’t a fool. She knew better than to treat him like one too.
She dropped back on the pillow and turned on her side with her back to him. “I refuse your proposal,
not that you even bothered to make one
. There is no need to start planning the ritual accompanying your execution. We will not marry.”
not that you even bothered to make one
. There is no need to start planning the ritual accompanying your execution. We will not marry.”
Of course they would. He had no interest in having a row about it now, though. “Fine. If you are sure.”
She laughed. “Oh, I am sure, Your Grace.”
At another time he might be insulted by that laugh. Right now he only noted it in passing. His attention had been arrested by the lovely smoothness of her back and the elegant line the side of her body made as it dipped to her waist and curved up over her hip. He traced it with his hand, from her shoulder to her thigh then up again, watching his fingertips skim that line.
She looked over her shoulder at him, a little surprised.
“Don’t move. I will show you what to do.” He let that line entrance him awhile longer, until her body subtly flexed from the sensation.
He turned her slightly, away from him, and pressed her shoulders so her back angled away and her bottom rounded erotically. He caressed their soft swells. The small of her back angled in more, and her bottom rose a bit. Her hand clutched the pillow near her face.
“Can you tell when you are ready yet? Can you feel it?” he asked.
She nodded.
He slid his finger along her cleft. She inhaled sharply in a wonderful feminine sound of pleasure and anticipation. He moved his touch lower and deeper. She parted her thighs, encouraging him. Her eyes closed and her mouth formed a smile that parted her lips, and her face assumed an expression of pleasure and joy.
He curved his body along hers and entered her.
He did ravish her then. He pretended no restraint. He thrust into her hard, deeper, and allowed the violent power to own him. Like a velvet glove her body held him, caressed him, then tightened until every movement increased the pleasure and drove him to seek more and more.
The end came like a cataclysm, made all the more intense by the long wait to know it.
T
here was a third lesson that night. Having chased her so long, it appeared Castleford had no intention of denying himself now that she was caught.
here was a third lesson that night. Having chased her so long, it appeared Castleford had no intention of denying himself now that she was caught.
Compared to the others, it seemed almost mild. The most careful of all, it grew out of conversation and jokes. Yet there was no release before he took her, so this time all those sensations centered differently, around him. She found herself more vulnerable than ever before with him, but not in a physical way. Instead, the pleasure mixed with other emotions and never obliterated her awareness of the man controlling her and claiming her.
Sometime in the very early morning he fell asleep. Daphne listened to his breaths deepen but did not sleep herself. Instead, when she was sure he was unaware, she slowly and carefully slid out from under his embracing arm and away from his side.
He appeared very handsome sleeping there, his naked chest and shoulders hard and defined even in repose. With his eyes closed, his eyelashes appeared very long and thick. She suspected that he knew that. He probably knew everything that made him attractive to women like her, the ones who should know better than to be dazzled by his attention.
She guessed there was a string of broken hearts in his history. She admitted ruefully that there would probably be one more soon. Whatever care he had taken tonight would not spare her that. Perhaps he just assumed she would know to protect her heart, seeing as how she was not a fool.
Their odd conversation from earlier in the night came to her while she looked at him. Marriage would be hell if a woman gave a damn about this man. Not to mention that she really did not need such an outrageous complication. Castleford concluding he had obligations like that to her, due to his somewhat slanted way of looking at the world, would create havoc in both their worlds.
Aside from the chaos it would create with her own plans—the very notion alarmed her beyond the ability to do more than envision disaster after disaster—he was incorrigible, wasn’t he? He delighted in being so.
While she would end up a duchess if such an event transpired, her duke would still be
Castleford.
Not the Castleford of the last few days or even the one of Tuesdays. She would be married to the other one, whose behavior had been so disgraceful for so long that even scandal could not be bothered to rise around him.
Castleford.
Not the Castleford of the last few days or even the one of Tuesdays. She would be married to the other one, whose behavior had been so disgraceful for so long that even scandal could not be bothered to rise around him.
She touched his nose to make sure he slept very soundly. He did not stir at all. She eased out of bed and padded over to the wardrobe. She imagined walking into his apartment one morning after they were married and finding it full of naked whores waiting their turn with the notorious duke. He was even rumored to indulge sometimes in more than one at a time. Oh, yes, he was.
That would be a fine thing to see—her husband in that big bed, naked, foxed no doubt, with two other women. All the diamonds in the world would not make up for that insult. Or that heartache, if she cared a fig about him.
Stars twinkled as she passed the looking glass near the washbasin. She paused and looked at her reflection and the way the diamond necklace appeared against her pale skin and below her tumble of hair. It made her exotic, she thought. It caused her to look much more interesting than she actually was. The woman in the looking glass was a worldly and dangerous minx, not staid, formidable Mrs. Joyes of The Rarest Blooms.
She opened the door of the wardrobe. It squeaked enough that she grimaced and froze. She looked back at Castleford, to make sure it had not disturbed his sleep.
His frock coat hung on a peg. She fished in the pockets until she found what she sought. She pulled out those small, creased map pages.
Glancing to check on him again, she carried them over to the one lamp that still burned on the writing table. She smoothed each one in turn, then set aside the pages with Cumberworth and Failsworth.
Bending her head low so she could see and read clearly, she memorized the other two.
Chapter Twenty-one
“Y
ou will stay with me as my guest,” Castleford said. “Summerhays’s brother is returning. Their house will be very full. Nor do I fancy going through tiresome antics to be discreet. I will tell my stewards to find an old female relative of mine to bring in, if you insist on maintaining appearances.”
ou will stay with me as my guest,” Castleford said. “Summerhays’s brother is returning. Their house will be very full. Nor do I fancy going through tiresome antics to be discreet. I will tell my stewards to find an old female relative of mine to bring in, if you insist on maintaining appearances.”
“I agree to accompany you to your house now. We will talk about where I will stay after we have refreshed ourselves,” Daphne said.
This was no time to have this conversation. Castleford was too full of himself, for one thing. That probably had to do with his having sent her into ecstasy four times during hours of badness right here in this coach. He had only raised this idea of her living in his house at this moment because he assumed she was still too dazed to think straight.
It would not do, of course. Now that they were back in London, there would be more steps in the direction of afterwards. She found that increasingly difficult, even painful, to contemplate. She knew, however, that when it happened he would regret this bold indiscretion he now planned.
He did not respond to her lack of total agreement. His expression suggested that he just assumed he would have his way. That was how the world always accommodated him.
He had not bothered to send word that he was returning home today, so their arrival at the house created some surprise and confusion. While servants ran hither and fro, they glanced at their master with concern.
The butler took Castleford aside right there in the reception hall to have a private word. Initially Castleford listened with bored forbearance. Then a deep frown formed. Suddenly, in the next instant, he looked as if this were a Tuesday.
“D
amnation, I did not tell him to return, let alone with a guest.”
amnation, I did not tell him to return, let alone with a guest.”
“The situation has been most distressing, Your Grace. He has been giving orders as if—well, as if he were
you
.”
you
.”
“Where is that insubordinate cub?” He glanced at Daphne, twenty feet away. There would be hell to pay now. What was Edwards thinking, bringing Miss Johnson here? That was who this nameless woman would turn out to be, he assumed.
“He is in the corner chamber, sir. The solar.” The butler’s lips folded in on themselves, and he permitted himself a momentary expression of disapproval. “And, sir, he has a pistol with him.”
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