Under A Duke's Hand (6 page)

“It’s natural to feel nervous.” He wiped her
tears away, and brushed her hair back from her face. “But you
should know there’s nothing to fear. Just submit to me as a good
wife should, and everything shall proceed smoothly. Do you think
you can manage that?”

He looked at her expectantly. She knew the
proper answer, as much as she hated to say it. “Yes, Sir.”

She walked beside him as he led her to the
bed, only because she didn’t wish the humiliation of being dragged.
When they got there, he pressed her back upon the covers and
crawled over her, so she was trapped within the cage of his
body.

“Stop crying now,” he said, as if this was as
easy to accomplish as opening a door or drinking a cup of tea. “I
happen to remember you are a very responsive and sensual woman.
I’ll make you feel good if you’ll let me.”

“I’m not allowed to stop you, am I?” she
asked, swiping angrily at her cheeks.

“It would not be advisable, no.” One corner
of his mouth turned up in a smile. “At least your father isn’t
standing at the foot of the bed to witness this, along with your
brothers and all the neighbors hereabouts. That would have been
more difficult, wouldn’t it?”

She didn’t answer, only stared at him
peevishly, trying to hold onto her anger and distaste. If only he
wouldn’t gaze at her so intently, and bespell her with his Viking
handsomeness and pleasing physique. He’d freed his hair from its
queue, so it hung down and framed his face. The tousled mane
granted him a wild and predatory look.

“You’re trembling,” he said.

She didn’t respond to this observation. She
was ashamed to be so afraid. She couldn’t control her body’s
tremors now that he lay over her.

His fingers trailed up and down her arm, then
traced around her shoulder. “Do you know the reason marriages are
‘consummated,’ as they say, on the wedding night? And why royal
consummations are sometimes still witnessed to this day?”

She shook her head, even though he’d scolded
her for it earlier.

“Many centuries ago, warriors and invaders
used to vie for the most politically advantageous brides. You know,
the ones whose fathers had the most money and the most property,
and the best-situated lands. If the bride was beautiful too, well,
you can imagine how men clamored for her hand.”

As he said this, he stroked her breasts,
light touches that sent cascades of sensation to her belly and
legs. Warriors. Invaders.
Vikings
, she thought, with long
blond hair, and muscular arms.

“So when one of these men married a woman, he
bedded her at once, to ensure none of the other men would try to
steal her away, because a marriage wasn’t official until the
husband had been inside the bride. Back then, marriage was a matter
of staking a claim, of getting there first and planting your seed
in her belly.”

Gwen drew in a breath. How savage. How coarse
and appalling, and yet a frisson of arousal bloomed between her
legs. She prayed he didn’t notice.

“Picture it,” he said, his fingers circling
down to her waist. “A newly married Druid princess, and the head of
a neighboring clan approaching from the north. Her groom would have
one thought only: to possess her well and thoroughly, in front of
witnesses, before his rival arrived.” He chuckled, his lips so
close to hers. “You might almost be a Druid princess, with your
black hair, and those jade eyes. I daresay you would have enjoyed
being fought over by sweaty, growling men.”

“I wouldn’t,” she said.

But she was imagining the entire scenario in
her head, the intensity and intrigue, and her husband eager to
claim her even as witnesses looked on. It made her ashamed, the
excited pulse in her center. She jerked as he slid his shaft
against her dampening folds.

“They were so awfully uncivilized back then.”
He drew back and spread his fingers where his shaft had been,
touching her in unseen and unknown places. “Now we have betrothal
contracts, and wedding dinners, and rosemary upon the bed.”

Ohh.
She pressed her legs together. He
stroked her too intimately, and caused too much need and wetness
down there. Only a villain would force a woman against her will.
But the more he stroked her, the less resistance she felt. Desire
overran her despair.

“I don’t...” She couldn’t complete her
protest. It would have been a lie. She hated him still, but she
wanted him to keep arousing her, and teasing her sensitive nipples
with his tongue. Her body moved when she didn’t wish it to; her
hips strained against him as she sought more of his caresses. When
he kissed her, it felt like a lie. But when he touched her, her
body didn’t care about lies or truth, or love, or honor. He slipped
a finger inside her, easing it in and out.

“I got here first, didn’t I?” he said with
sultry satisfaction. “No marauders. No rival chieftains.”

“I’m afraid,” she blurted out.

But she wasn’t. Sometime in the last pair of
days she’d turned into a feckless liar. What she really felt was
craving and anticipation. She wanted him to maraud her, like that
rival from the north. Like a Viking laying waste to a captured
Druid princess.
I’m afraid
, said the Druid princess.

Liar. You lie.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said, and she could
tell by his tone that he knew her for a liar. He ran his hands up
her arms, raising them over her head and holding them against the
bed as if to brace her. His knees spread her thighs wide, and his
hips aligned with hers. His hard length pressed against her
opening. She was so hot, so wet there. He must feel how excited she
was, and know precisely what sort of wanton he had wed.

She bit her lip and turned away from his kiss
as he pushed inside her body. It hurt, a shocking, invading burn
which somehow heightened her arousal to an even loftier plane. She
fought against his advance, half in the moment, half in fantasy of
medieval claimings, and the tales he’d murmured in her ears.

“Yes,” he whispered. “That’s right.” He
wasn’t angry that she fought him. It seemed to please him. He
thrust forward again, chuckling softly when she refused to kiss
him. She was still too conflicted to do that, but her body welcomed
the breadth of his shaft driving deep between her legs. The
sensation was not to be believed. The Duke of Arlington had taken
up residence
inside her
, filling her body with his body over
and over, a continual ebb and flow she could not escape.

But she didn’t want to escape. His chest hair
scratched her nipples as he arched over her, and his breath
whispered across her cheek. He let one of her arms go, and reached
beneath her to grasp her bottom and angle her for his thrusts.

How she struggled then, kicking and arching,
pretending she hated this invasion when she only wanted more. She
needed
more, to assuage the growing pressure in her middle.
He held her down, whispering lurid suggestions she only half heard.
She was more concerned with reaching the peak that had started
building the moment he lay atop her.
I want. I need.

“I need...” she cried.

She couldn’t express what she needed, but he
stroked her cheek and said, “I know.” He buried his face in her
neck and grasped a fistful of her hair. It hurt when he pulled it,
but it excited her too.

This was so hot, so active. His strength no
longer frightened her. No, his strength made this all the more
spectacular. His power, his will, and her surrender to the way he
made her feel. Each time he pushed inside her, the visceral slide
triggered more waves of pleasure, until they built to a shivering
peak.

“It’s all right,” he said. “Let go,
Guinevere. Let it come.”

She had never in a thousand years imagined
their joining would feel like this. She wanted to let go, but what
would happen then?

How easy it was to become lost in another
person’s body. She had done it in the meadow, to an extent, but
this was so much more powerful, because he held her down and forced
himself inside her again and again. Her body clasped around him
where he filled her. Her need exploded amidst his raw words and the
stretching pressure, and the world fell away. Marriage, anger,
love, rebellion, fear, all of it fell away, replaced by spiraling
physical bliss.

Her sisters-in-law had told her nothing about
this. She wondered for a moment if this was not supposed to happen,
if this was some failure in her, but then she was too transported
to care. She gasped because she hadn’t the energy to scream, and
hooked her trembling legs around his. He was still buried within
her, pumping and jerking. He let out a deep groan which ended in a
shudder, and then he came to rest.

Gwen lay beneath him, staring at the ceiling
and hearing the occasional rumbling shout from downstairs. At last
the duke raised up on his elbows and gazed at her, his blue eyes
burning with a new intensity.

“That’s done then,” he said. “I’ve been
inside you. You’re officially mine.” His voice was light, as if he
jested still about marauders and consummation, but Gwen thought of
his earlier words, when his voice had been resolute and deep.
I
own your wealth, I own your property, I own the children you have
yet to bear...

If I ask you to join me in bed, you will put
aside whatever impedes you and join me in bed. Do you
understand?

Just like that, all her pleasure fled. She
couldn’t bear his weight upon her. “I can’t breathe,” she lied,
pushing at his chest.

He drew back and lay down beside her. When he
moved as if to stroke her cheek, she turned away and pulled up the
sheets, wishing to cover herself.

“I’m cold.” Lies. So many lies.

He moved again so she could hide herself
beneath the ivory linens. “Are you all right?” he asked after a
moment. “Is there anything you require?”

“No. Nothing. I’m very tired now.”

He made a soft sound that might have been
mockery. “I imagine you are.”

She pressed her fingers against her eyes.
After his sneering and haughty lectures, after all his hateful
behavior, he had had his way with her and she hadn’t said a word to
stop him, nor governed her own lewd impulses. He had taken her,
all
of her, and she’d reveled in his commanding possession.
It made her so ashamed.

“Are you all right?” he asked again, slipping
under the sheets beside her. The bed dipped, so she rolled closer
to him. His arms came around her before she could scoot away. “Are
you hungry or thirsty? Would you like some wine?”

“Perhaps a bath,” she said, although she felt
too wrung out to rise from the bed.

“No bath,” he said gently. “No washing it
away.”

It.
His seed and her own lascivious
spendings, and the humiliation that burned beneath her skin.

“You may have a bath in the morning,” he
said. “For now, you must sleep. We’ve a long journey tomorrow.”

That did it. Tears rose again, and no amount
of pressing on her eyelids would stop them. She held the sheets to
her face and lay very still so he wouldn’t notice. But the duke
noticed everything.

“Are you crying?” he asked. “England will not
be so bad.”

England? As if she worried about England,
with this fearsome man pressed against her back. He murmured
soothing words and she pretended not to hear as her tears
overflowed.
Liar. Wanton. Captive princess.

“Don’t cry,” he said in the dim light. “It
makes me want you again. And we shouldn’t, tonight.”

“No, not again.” She bawled the words, as if
he was threatening to whip her, or torture her. He gathered her to
his chest and settled her head against his shoulder.

“Sleep now,” he whispered. “It will get
easier in time.”

Next Gwen knew, it was bright morning, with
banging and raised voices at the door. Her father reeled in, along
with two of her brothers, the local constable, and the village
vicar.

“We’ve come to look at the sheets then, and
see that everything’s in order,” her father drawled. Gwen gasped as
he dragged the top coverlet aside, exposing her to the cool air.
She clutched her arms before her, thinking herself naked, but at
some point, someone had put back on her shift. She stared down at
the blood smeared on the linens. There wasn’t a lot, but enough to
mollify her father, who drunkenly saluted the duke and staggered
back toward the door.

As for the duke, he stood fully dressed by
the window. The day’s light glinted in his golden hair and
reflected off his tailored gray riding coat. His lips made a moue,
then relaxed into something that was not quite a smile. “It’s time
to leave for Oxfordshire, my darling. Rise and put yourself in
order, if you can manage it, and say your goodbyes.”

Chapter
Four: Finished

Aidan rode beside the coach until they
stopped to stage the horses at midday. He didn’t sit inside with
her because he assumed she would want privacy to grieve. She was
leaving an entire life behind with her removal to Arlington Hall.
She was losing a family, a home, a secret meadow, even a much-loved
horse that was too old and feeble to endure the trip. He was not
the only one who’d made sacrifices for this marriage, he reminded
himself. He doubted they would visit Wales very much.

But with patience and fortitude—a great deal
of fortitude—he knew he could make her happy in England. She’d be
impressed with the luxuries of Arlington Hall, his country manor,
not to be confused with Arlington House, his Berkeley Street
mansion in town.

His new duchess would socialize in kingly
circles, make the acquaintance of highly regarded persons, and be
invited to the
ton
’s most exclusive events. Aidan would
dress her like a princess, ordering gowns so ornate and
ostentatious that ladies would gossip behind their fans about the
expense. He’d buy her a new horse, the best that could be had, and
shower his bride with jewels until they overflowed from her
trunks.