The Duke's Bedeviled Bride (Royal Pains Book 2) (25 page)

Innocence lost. Paradise found.

Maggie York, a convent-raised foundling, knows the Duke of Dunwoody’s sexual tastes are a shade or two darker than most, but marries him anyway—partly because she has no other prospects and partly because, try as she might, she can’t seem to stop fantasizing about her dashing rake of a guardian. Two years ago, something she saw him do lured her from the garden of innocence into the orchard of fleshly desires–and she’s been hungry for more ever since.

Robert Armstrong, the duke, is a Roman Catholic whose extreme devotions as a boy colored his passions as a man. He’s also a slave to the times in which he lives–and to his king. Everything he is, everything he holds dear, depends upon staying in Charles II’s good graces. Unfortunately, Maggie isn’t who the king wanted Robert to marry. Now, to make amends, the duke must either whore his wife or be reduced to a penniless and unprotected commoner at a time when those of his faith are feared and hated throughout Great Britain.

Whose interests will the duke choose to protect?
 

Chapter One

Maggie dashed at the tears spilling down her cheeks and peered with self-disgust into the looking glass on her elegant new dressing table. She might now be Margaret Armstrong, Duchess of Dunwoody, but beneath the tight satin bodice, voluminous skirts, and mass of tight curls, she trembled like the motherless child she’d always been.

At any moment, the duke would burst in to demand his due. As his bride, she could not refuse him. Their marriage vows demanded her obedience and made her his chattel—property to treat or dispose of in any manner he might choose. If she denied his lusts, he could toss her out on her ear with as little qualm as his late father had taken her in.

Desperation bloomed in her chest, making breathing difficult. Where would she go? What would she do? Starve on the streets, more than likely. She had no money, no relations, no one to look out for her welfare—not since dear Hugh set off for his Grand Tour of the continent.

Nay, was
driven
off, more like.

If only they’d been able to marry. But alas, their fledgling courtship was no doubt the reason he’d been sent away. She harbored mixed feelings about her favorite’s hasty departure. On the one hand, Hugh was kind to her and oft remarked on the fineness of her pale blue eyes, golden hair, and trim figure. On the other, his compliments were as passionless as his addresses.

“Be wary of my brother,” Hugh warned before setting off “I’ve seen the way he looks at you and his unseemly predilections would shock one so innocent.”

The Armstrong brothers were the proverbial angel and devil on her shoulders. As much as she wanted to listen to the angel’s good council, she found the devil’s enticements much more alluring.

She did not believe Hugh about His Grace’s regard. Yes, the duke looked her way now and again, but only to find fault in her manners or appearance. Mostly, he was cold, critical, and extremely parsimonious with his compliments and smiles.

He’d not called her his wee Rosebud in an age, much to her dismay.

But, as he generously supported her, she could hardly let him sense her discontent. Disguising it required speaking only when spoken to, forcing herself to smile through her wounded feelings, and avoiding the man like the Black Death. As providence would have it, he was rarely at home and, when he was, she gave her guardian a wide berth.

Except at meals, of course, but even then, they sat at opposite ends of a long table and exchanged only occasional glances and essential pleasantries.

Then, last week, without hint or warning, he’d up and dismissed Mistress Honeywell. Maggie could not fault him for sacking the maid, who was lazy and of loose morals. She also was a rival for the duke’s attentions, which, as his bride, Maggie could not abide. Yes, she lived in mortal terror of his passions, but, oddly enough, she craved them just as violently.

How two such contradictory emotions could coexist within one bosom Maggie could not comprehend. And yet, they did—in hers. Truth be known, the wicked part of her coveted the duke even as the pious part condemned his licentiousness. Ever since that day in the housekeeper’s rooms, she’d fantasized about him swiving her the way he’d swived Mistress Honeywell—though without the belting.

Between stolen glances at dinner, she imagined him bending her over the table. In the evening parlor where they quietly read to themselves, she longed for him to make a move. In her lonely bed at night, she brought herself to raptures dreaming of him atop her, thrusting like a demon.

‘Twas not love that gave rise to such sensations. That could not be so. Love came from God and these cravings definitely had unholy origins. Every night before retiring, she fell on her knees and prayed for the strength to resist the devil’s pull on her soul.

Woe is me! Why do I find so wicked a man so irresistibly beguiling?

The duke’s proposal of marriage had shocked her senseless. It also thrilled and terrified her. As much as she wanted him, she also knew her covetousness where he was concerned would bring about her moral downfall.
 

After accepting him, she wrote to Hugh in Paris, half hoping her angel might rescue her from the devil’s clutches. “Tell me what you know about your brother’s perversions,” she’d written.

His elder brother, Hugh reported in reply, was a scandalous libertine whose days at the king’s court in London had been squandered on drunkenness and whoring. Even now, at Balloch Castle, Robert maintained a secret chamber where he carried out his debaucheries.

“Whatever you do, Maggie, do not marry my brother.”

She did not see where she had a choice. She was Persephone in the clutches of Hades and she had no Demeter to negotiate for her release.

Left to shift for herself, she searched in secret day after day for the duke’s hidden den of iniquity. Unable to find any trace, she scoured the library for corroborating evidence. Surely, if His Grace had dark fetishes he’d have books delineating them.

She found several erotic novels, most in French, and a handful of books illustrating postures of sexual intercourse. All of these she smuggled back to her bedchamber for further study. They proved at once shocking and instructional. They also described more perversions than her virgin mind could have ever conceived.

* * * *

Precisely how innocent was his new bride? Robert stood at the door betwixt their bedchambers, fingers poised on the knob. That her maidenhead remained intact, he was almost certain. Before his father brought her to Balloch Castle, she’d lived at a convent. The only one with opportunity, besides himself, had been Hugh—and Maggie, if Robert’s suspicions were correct, was not his younger brother’s type. Besides which, Hugh, honorable to a fault, would never dream of defiling one of the servants, let alone an innocent under the protection of the duchy.

So, Maggie must be a virgin. Robert would place a sizeable wager on the fact. ‘Twas the state of her mind, given what the maids discovered earlier today whilst moving her belongings to the bedchamber adjoining his.

He’d noticed the books had gone missing, of course, but never suspected Maggie might be the thief.

Releasing the knob, he dragged a hand down his face. Since the day he found her weeping in the woods with a sprained ankle, his feelings had put down roots despite his best efforts to cut them out. She was but four and ten at the time. Marriageable under the law, but still too much of a bud to suit his tastes. His passions required a mature rose. Besides, he still had more wildflowers to pluck before settling down.

The fight to overcome his desire for her had been constant, demanding, exhausting. He kept his distance, withheld kindnesses, stopped calling her Rosebud. Then, Hugh began to court her. That, Robert could not allow. She deserved a passionate marriage with a husband who could appreciate all she had to offer. If she rejected him, then let it be someone else—someone to whom she could give herself with abandon—but not Hugh.

Maggie was too special to be placed upon a shelf like a fragile doll, never to be enjoyed.

He pictured her inside, still in her white satin wedding gown and his mother’s pearls, trembling with a mixture of nerves and anticipation. He’d told her new abigail not to attend her this evening. He wanted the pleasure of unwrapping his bride like a present.

In marrying Maggie, he had fulfilled his father’s deathbed request.
 

Keep Maggie on as your ward, my son. Look after her. Marry her if she’ll have you. She is better than you know.

He’d also fulfilled his heart’s desire.
 

Robert turned the knob.

The time to make the marriage official was at hand. He’d denied himself for too long already. Now to discover if the bride his heart had chosen was equal to his other desires.

* * * *

The click of the latch snapped Maggie back to the dressing table. So, the devil had come for her soul at last. Time to lie in the bed she’d made for herself—quite literally.

She took a breath, licked her lips, and checked her reflection. Her make-up was a mess, but her eyes were no longer swollen and tearful. In the candlelight, the fact she’d been crying might well escape his notice. She pinched her cheeks, straightened her back, and rose from the chair.

Swallowing to dislodge the lump in her throat, she raised her gaze to her dashing yet dangerous bridegroom.

He’d shed his sword and plumed velvet cap, but otherwise still wore his wedding costume: a belted plaid, the tail of which fell nearly to his ankles; a slit doublet so heavily embroidered in silver and gold it might have been armor; knee-high hose in a garish checkered pattern; and leather slippers. His dark hair fell in curls over his wide shoulders to the middle of his back.

He looked resplendent. He also looked like Beelzebub come to claim her soul. In one hand, he gripped a sweating flacon of champagne, still corked.

The smile he gave her almost banished her apprehension.

Almost.

His confident posture sagged ever-so-slightly when he saw her expression. “You do not look happy to see me, my wee Rosebud.”

The endearment further eroded her distress. She swallowed hard and smiled at her handsome husband. He looked so harmless, so noble, so respectable.

But then, as the sisters of St. Teresa’s so persistently drummed into her brain, even Satan could come disguised as an angel of light.

Would he tie her hands? Belt her bottom? Slap her breasts? Bite her nipples? Invite his mistresses into their marital bed? Would he share his bed with them in the adjoining room?

The possibility cut like a knife. She clenched her teeth against the sharp stab of pain and then chided herself for being thus affected. If she had any sense, she’d encourage him to take mistresses, not grieve over it, as ‘twould likely spare her the brunt of his debauchery.

She shifted her gaze to the painting over the bed. It depicted a nude woman—a French courtesan, probably—on a settee with her bottom in the air and her legs parted. Would he arrange his bride like that doxy so he could take her like a dog? Would he bugger her up the bum? Did he bed men as well as women? Given the things she’d heard, and read, she would not put it past him.

“Is the party winding down?” She turned back to him with a pasted-on smile.
 

His gaze skittered over her, raising gooseflesh in its wake. “Nay, ‘tis still going strong.”

Her brow flinched. “So late?”

From his sporran—a great hairy thing sporting a bone closure and multiple tassels—he drew a watch on a chain and opened the decorative enameled cover. As he checked the time, he said, “The night is young, Rosebud. ‘Tis only half eleven.”

Her heart became a honeypot. Why did he undo her so? She swallowed to fortify her courage. “When will the guests start to away?”

“Not until we’ve done the deed, I’m afraid. Or when the wine has run out. Whichever occurs first.” He lifted the flacon he’d brought. “I procured this for us. Thought it might take the edge off your maidenly jitters.”

The comment startled her. Was her unease so obvious? Even if it were, she could not believe he’d picked up on her distress. He’d been so busy with the wedding plans, she’d wondered if the party meant more to him than the marriage. Not that she believed for one moment their vows mattered a jot to him.