The Ugly Duchess (9 page)

He rubbed harder and her eyes popped open. She grabbed his hand and pushed it further down. “Too much,” she said, her breath coming in a pant. “That almost hurts.”

“Here?” he breathed. He let his thumb delve lazily, slowly, into her luscious tightness. She was so small it seemed impossible that his tool had been inside her the night before.

A cry broke from her throat. He breached her passage, just barely, again and again, until she arched against him wildly, trembling, crying, her hands gripping his arms so tightly he would have bruises. It was the most fascinating moment of his life: he felt the moment she spasmed around his thumb. It was maddeningly erotic—and he knew instantly that Bella had never felt anything of the sort, at least not with him.

It dawned on him that if Daisy did that when he was inside, it wouldn’t be about how fast he could ride himself to completion, it would be about her pleasure. He would be able to feel all those ripples inside her.

But that was a dim accompaniment to the dizzying thought that now, now he . . . He braced himself over her again and rather awkwardly rubbed himself up and down. She was slick and hot, and the very feel of her made him pant. But he had to keep control. He desperately wanted to feel
that
for himself, inside.

Her eyes opened again. “That feels good,” she said, the echo of pleasure like a drug in her voice.

Watching her eyes as he slid down and in . . . it was fifty times more exciting than it had been the previous night. Then, he’d been wracked with guilt, too guilty to enjoy himself, too guilty to be there.

Now his heart was pounding so loudly that he couldn’t hear, and his entire existence was concentrated between his legs, on the riptide of lust flooding him. Daisy was tight and incredibly small, but he slid home as if she
were
home.

He’d never felt anything so good. He wasn’t all the way, or perhaps he was. He didn’t know. Every movement of her hips was a voluptuous invitation. “I think I should start moving,” he whispered. “I mean, I don’t think I can stop myself.”

Giggles burst from her lips. “I wouldn’t know, James. We have to rely on your superior knowledge.”

“I’m starting to think that I don’t have much,” he admitted, bending his head so that he could brush her mouth with his over and over.

“Well, but I don’t know anything,” Daisy told him, “though there is one thing I can tell you . . .”

“What?” he whispered.

“I want
this,
” she said, arching against him so that he slid the last inch into her cherry-dark sweetness. “More of
this
, James. You feel so good. You fill me up, and it doesn’t hurt the way it did last night.”

Her words snapped the reins that had held him back. He thrust forward, and then again, and again, long, ferocious drives that made her cry out. James couldn’t think at all, his mind awash with the need to go harder and faster. He had his hands braced on either side of her, his head hanging so that her breath was against his, so he didn’t miss one sobbing cry.

With Bella, he had never tried to control himself. He had thrust furiously, because that’s what they both wanted. But with Daisy, he wanted her to break like that, to shake all over. He wanted to know what it would feel like to be inside her at that moment, more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life.

It didn’t happen, and it didn’t happen . . . she twisted beneath him, sobbing in an effort to get there. James could feel his body tightening, knew he couldn’t wait much longer.

He braced himself a bit awkwardly on his left arm and slid his hand between their bodies, touching her in the place she liked.

“No!” she cried, sharp and fierce. “That hurts!” She grabbed his arm. “Do it like this. Push here. Oh, like that!”

Joy rushed over his body like some sort of windstorm, faster than lust, faster than desire. It gave him back a measure of control, and he thrust slowly, watching her face, her tightly shut eyes, pressed and rolled his thumb, just a little. She flinched, but then she moaned. She was shuddering all over; surely she was close.

“I’m going to kiss you there,” he said, the words coming with a gasp as he thrust into her again. “I’m going to lick all that peach juice. I want it, Daisy. And I’m going to . . .”

But at that moment her grip on his arms tightened even more and her cheeks turned a beautiful shade of pink. She threw back her head and cried aloud.

It was as astonishing as he could have imagined. She began to throb around him and he froze, astonished by the way
her
pleasure spread to him and then moved in waves of fire through his body, until his brain shut down completely and his craving body took over.

She began gasping again. He could feel her breath against his neck, but he couldn’t even pay attention, because all of a sudden she started tightening again, throbbing down there, and he was gone in a white blaze of fire.

He wasn’t James anymore, nor an earl, nor a future duke. And she wasn’t Daisy, nor Theo, nor a future duchess of any kind.

They were two bodies knit together as tightly as puzzle pieces.

Till death do us part,
James thought gratefully.
Till death do us part.

Eleven

D
awn came, and with it a conviction on Theo’s part: she would never walk again. In fact, a brief experiment convinced her it might be best not to move her legs at all.

After the second time they had made love, she had been so tender and swollen that James had poured cool water into the basin on her dressing table and gently sponged her, which felt so good that she started to giggle.

At some point they had supper, but then James made good on his promise to kiss her down there, and before she knew it, she was begging him and begging him, pulling at him with all her strength.

When he gave in, her whole body sang.

So the sun was up and still they were lying about, unable to get over the wonderful strangeness of having another body in the bed. A plaything. A playmate.

“I love your knees,” James said, planting a kiss on one round kneecap. “They’re so elegantly spare.”

“Don’t you dare touch me above the knee,” Theo ordered. “I’m crippled.”

“Surely not.”

“Yes, I am. You owe me something.”

“Anything.” He lay on his stomach, running his fingers delicately over her ankles. “These are the most exquisite ankles I’ve ever seen. Like those racehorses who look too delicate to jump a stile, let alone gallop.”

“I would like you to sing to me,” Theo said, watching as pink light came in the window and played on his skin. It was whisky colored to the waist, and then turned stark white where it curved into a muscular buttock.

James groaned and dropped his head into the covers. “You know I hate singing.”

His voice was muffled, but she made out his words. His mother had loved to listen to him sing, but after her death he stopped singing entirely, except while at church.

Theo felt like testing her power, stretching her wings. “Will you do it, for me?”

He rolled over. “Wouldn’t you like something else, something that only I can give you? Anyone can sing.” His blue eyes had a lustful gleam that she was learning to recognize.

“Absolutely not.”

“I hardly know anything but hymns anymore.”

She tugged at him. “Come, sit with me.” She was leaning against the bedstead. “Sing me that song your mother loved so much, the old one from Queen Elizabeth’s time.” She held her breath. Would he do it? It wasn’t a fair trial, not when they’d been married scarcely more than one day.

“ ‘Song to Celia,’ ” James said, his face expressionless. But then he looked at her and smiled, and came around to the head of the bed and crowded her in such a way that she found herself leaning against him instead of the bedstead.

And he wrapped his arms around her, took a deep breath, and sang, “Drink to me only with thine eyes, and I will pledge with mine.”

Theo’s heart almost stopped at the liquid beauty that filled the room. His voice was an extension of him, a perfect voice emanating from a perfect body.

He paused. “Sing with me.”

She was no great shakes at music, but, like any gentlewoman, she was trained. Their voices entwined and his made hers all the better: “Or leave a kiss but in the cup, and I’ll not look for wine.”

As they sang, the light strengthened, sunbeams gaining amber edges, creeping up the coverlet.

When the song ended, Theo was so happy that she couldn’t say a word. James dropped a kiss on her ear. “If you ever tell anyone that I sang to you, I’ll tell your mother you went to the Devonshire ball without your chemise.”

Not for the first time, Theo thought that his mother had done her son a disservice by ordering him into the drawing room to sing every night. After all those performances, he could not enjoy his own gift. “I promise,” she said, leaning her head back so that she could catch his kiss. “Will you sing to me every morning?”

His smile was in his eyes, not on his mouth. “Only after nights like this one,” he whispered.

He returned to his room then, leaving emptiness in her bed. Maybe, she thought fuzzily, I will be able to persuade him to sleep with me one night. Whatever they had done together—and she blushed just to recall some of it—there had been no sleeping. At least, not until now he’d gone to his own bed; euphoria notwithstanding, Theo wanted nothing more than to sleep for hours.

At some point Amélie peeped in the door. “Hot water, my lady?” she whispered.

Theo nodded. “What time is it?” she asked, coming up on one elbow. Even that made her wince.

“Eleven in the morning,” the lady’s maid said. “His lordship said not to wake you for breakfast.”

“Thank you,” Theo said, absently watching the sun on the pale carpet. That lovely variegated cloth being woven in India looked like that. Perhaps the Ryburn Weavers could make a silk that would shift from buttercup to cream. Though she thought dimly that silk was made from worms that lived on pods? Something like that. And she’d never heard of a silk pod tree in England.

A short time later Amélie announced that her bath was ready. If no one had been looking, Theo would have hobbled on her way to the bath, but she didn’t want Amélie to guess how she was feeling, so she straightened her back and pretended everything was normal.

But after a half hour soak in hot water, she felt considerably better, and she sat at the window to dry her hair, ignoring Amélie’s alarmed protestations regarding chills. She had always loved the gardens behind this house, but that emotion felt more profound now that she knew they belonged to James, rather than to his father.

To the two of them, James had said, over and over. The gardens were hers as well.

She would change that formal garden, she decided, combing through her wet hair. It was large enough for a little maze, perhaps, with an airy folly in the center.

With some sort of bed or sofa in it, she thought, her cheeks warming. On a warm summer night she and James could walk the maze. That thought led directly to the rather scandalous idea that someday she’d like to kiss him
there,
the way he had her.

“His Grace sent a message to say that he is returning sooner than he planned,” Amélie said, laying out a morning gown.

“I suppose I’ll see the duke at luncheon,” Theo said unenthusiastically. “Not that one,” she added, seeing what Amélie put out. “I wish the garments I ordered yesterday were already finished.”

“At least three weeks, Madame said,” Amélie reminded her.

Theo sighed. “I suppose the yellow one will have to do, though I don’t like the contrast with my hair.”

Amélie nodded. “A shade darker would be better.”

That was one of the many things Theo loved about her maid: Amélie was as enthusiastic about fabric and color as she was.

But her mind drifted back to James. She never would have thought that she could feel so alive. That is, she’d known she was alive, of course, but last night, when their eyes met, she was more alive than she’d ever been.

Who cared if she was the “ugly duchess,” as long as James looked at her as if she were beautiful beyond words?

She found herself humming that old song as Amélie buttoned her morning gown. And she couldn’t stop smiling at the mirror as her maid wound all her heavy hair in an elaborate arrangement. Before her betrothal, she had thought that she’d crop all her hair off in one of those daring new cuts, but not now. Not now that she knew how much James loved it. In the middle of the night he had lit candles around the bed, and then played with her hair. No. She would never cut her hair.

She looked up and met her maid’s eyes in the mirror.

“I am just so glad to see you happy, my lady,” Amélie said, her French accent lending charm to her sincerity. “We all are. Those
bâtards
who named you so . . . they should be beaten. But his lordship made it all better. As a husband should.”

Amélie’s smile was purely wicked collusion.

“He did,” Theo said, smiling in return. “He did. The nickname still stings, I have to admit. But being married means that only one person’s opinion matters, doesn’t it?”

“I have never been married,” Amélie said. “But I do think so. Most men are
imbéciles
, but his lordship, he has always known you were beautiful. He watched you during meals, that is what Mr. Cramble said. And he could not take his eyes off your bosom.”

“That’s what
he
told me! I cannot believe I never noticed it when Cramble did.”

“You are young in the ways of men and women,” her maid said wisely.

Theo threw her a mock glare. “And are you pretending that you’re old, Amélie? Because we both know you turned eighteen a week after I turned seventeen.”

“
Je suis française,
” Amélie said with smug exactitude. “Here is the scarf you wanted, my lady.”

“Watch this!” Theo picked up the pair of miniature scissors that Amélie used to trim her fingernails and briskly cut the scarf in two.

Amélie gave a shriek. “Indian silk!”

Theo shook out the half square of heavy silk. “It will make all the difference to this insipid gown.” With one sharp wrench she pulled out the lace fichu tucked into her bodice and replaced it with the scarf. It flashed raspberry red against the almond-colored muslin of her gown.

She turned to the mirror again. “I like it,” Amélie said. She reached out and deftly rearranged the silk. “I will pin it here and here, my lady.”

“It draws attention to my bosom,” Theo said, wondering if James would notice.

“That should hold,” Amélie said, stepping back a moment later. “I can sew it in later.”

“I don’t think I’ll leave the house today,” Theo said. It was one thing to tell herself that James’s opinion was all that mattered. It was another to walk down Bond Street with all those etchings staring her in the face.

“Let the excitement fade,” Amélie said, nodding. “By next week, there will be some other poor soul under attack.”

“Perhaps I’ll see if my husband would like to go to Staffordshire, to Ryburn House.” Suddenly she was quite sure that James would go wherever she went. She could feel a pink flush rising in her cheeks, but she kept her voice steady. “In fact, if you could pack my clothing, Amélie, I believe we will pay a visit to the country, perhaps for as long as a month.”

“You are leaving London for the rest of the season?”

“Do you think I am being a coward?”

“Never!” Amélie said. “But there might be even more talk if you retire to the country, my lady. Because they will think you are afraid, you see.”

“We can return for the Elston ball,” Theo decided, thinking aloud. “By then my new wardrobe will have been delivered; Cramble can send it to the country and we’ll have the final fittings there.”

She stood up and took a last look at the mirror. The dress was still altogether too virginal, but the jarring touch of raspberry helped turn it to something with a claim to style.

Her heart beat a little rhythm at the idea of seeing James again. Though by now he was likely out of the house, on a horse, or boxing at Gentleman Jackson’s. He had a ferocious amount of energy and couldn’t be kept indoors or he started to look tormented, like a caged tiger.

She’d have to keep that in mind, she thought idly, her fingers trailing down the polished banister as she descended the stairs. Her husband needed regular exercise. Rather like having a dog.

Though James was far from a
pet.
There was something wild and undomesticated about him, something that was unlike any other aristocrat she’d met. The most she could hope for was to lure him to her.

It wasn’t quite time for luncheon. If James was home, he was probably in the study. A thrill of feminine power went through her. Perhaps he had decided to stay home, at least until he saw her. Perhaps they could go riding in Hyde Park. Now that they were married, she really should become a better rider.

But not until she could wear a charming riding habit of her own design, with braided trim, epaulets, and military flare.