Duke of Lust (Sinful Dukes #3)

Chapter 11

CHAPTER 11

“ H ow evasive you are tonight, Duke Frederick,” remarked Lady Gordney with a skillful flickering of her fan and raising of one eyebrow above her vivid green eyes. “You positively refuse to be pinned down one way or another. Have you belatedly rediscovered your Sunday school morals?”

Frederick laughed heartily at this jokingly delivered suggestion. He had intended only a brief renewal of acquaintance with his former paramour tonight, wanting them to remain on good terms more than to pick up the loose threads of their passionate liaison of last summer. It seemed, however, that picking up the threads was exactly what the flame-haired and sharp-minded beauty in front of him had set her mind upon.

“I have no objection to pinning down in principle, in either direction, my dear Delia,” he countered. “But it is vital that everyone concerned freely accepts the time and place of the pinning, is it not? If I am presently otherwise engaged, you must excuse me.”

“Naturally, your full and earnest cooperation is vital,” Lady Gordney sighed. “If only you would give me the chance to excite it, and perhaps even arouse your… fuller enthusiasm.”

“I have responsibilities this summer, family responsibilities. My energies and interest are engaged elsewhere for the time being."

“Ah, of course. Your sister’s child must be due any day – your heir as well as the Duke of Walden’s. You are fond of Duchess Penelope, I recall. She will be glad of your support, I am sure. But family responsibilities should not deprive you entirely of your own pleasures, surely.”

Frederick did not comment. It was not quite the responsibility he had meant but he would allow Delia to believe it, if she wished. The thought of discussing Annabelle with Lady Gordney was distasteful to him.

“You deserve a man who can give you undivided attention this season and can take your pick among many,” he offered without receiving any enthusiastic response.

“Sadly, the many do not interest me, Frederick, only the select few. I am a woman of taste. It seems that you are to abandon me to solitude.”

While her words were light, her disappointment did appear genuine. Still, so was his determination to guard and steer Annabelle to matrimony this season. He would not be able to do that effectively if distracted by the manifold charms of his former lover.

He remembered with distinct regret how his absorption in Delia’s body and her breathtaking bedroom skills had distracted him from noticing the threat that Lord Silverbrook posed to Penelope last year. He would not make such an error again when a young woman was relying on his protection.

“Duke Edwin has intimated that he would not allow you to pine,” Frederick informed his former lover with a suggestive smile. “Now there is a challenge beyond the ordinary for a woman of discernment and experience. Is that not a fruit you have imagined tasting?”

“You have discussed this with our host already? How indecent,” Lady Gordney commented, although she did not appear displeased by the idea.

The Duke of Blackwell was a handsome, well-travelled and well-read man as well as a bon viveur. Frederick had never heard any complaints from Duke Edwin’s bedroom companions, some of whom were acquaintances of many years. He assumed the man was likely to be a skilled lover and would probably suit Delia well in that regard.

“Perhaps I shall tell him of your unconscionable behavior, Duke Frederick, and see what he suggests by way of remedy,” Lady Gordney suggested now, with a serious tone but laughing eyes.

“Do,” Frederick urged her. “Curse me together and enjoy it. I would like to see you both happy.”

Both of their eyes now scanned the growing crowd, seeking the black-clad figure of Edwin Murden and finding that he was no longer in the ballroom.

“He’s gone, damn it,” muttered Frederick, assuming that their host had swept away Annabelle at his side and having wanted to keep her at least within sight tonight. “I must find him.”

Before he could rush off, Delia took his arm and pointed to the dance floor.

“She is over there, Frederick, if you’re looking for that sweet little creature you came in with tonight.”

Indeed Annabelle was there, on the dance floor and dancing a lively jig with Oswald Quince, their faces both suffused with carefree laughter and happy exertion.

Had they been dancing together the entire time that he had been caught up in conversation with Delia? The thought irked Frederick for some reason, as though they were at a regular dance, Annabelle were a minor and Lord Darrington should have asked for Frederick’s permission.

“If I may say, Frederick, she does not seem to be missing your company right now. In contrast, I miss it greatly. Must you really rush away so soon? We both know that there are certain regards in which such a proper young lady cannot provide you with the satisfaction of more worldly women.”

As she spoke, Lady Gordney’s hand snaked up his arm and rested over his heart in an intimate gesture that immediately recalled other times and other embraces between them. Frederick brushed it away and stepped back, not wanting her to touch him at all.

“I wish you well, Delia,” he said shortly, his eyes still on Annabelle and Oswald Quince as the current dance came to an end. “I…What the hell does she think she’s doing?”

As he watched, the pair on the dance floor seemed to be sharing some joke, Annabelle touching Lord Darrington’s arm and he patting her shoulder as they laughed together. Something in that simple and companionable gesture infuriated Frederick and he strode away from Lady Gordney now without hearing anything else she might have said.

Marching onto the dance floor, Frederick went straight to Annabelle’s side and placed himself between her and Lord Darrington.

“It’s Oswald Quince, Frederick,” said Annabelle quite innocently. “I did not imagine we would see him here. Did you?”

Frederick acknowledged the other man with a short bow but no further address and saw the confusion his coldness sparked on Annabelle’s face.

“We’re leaving, Annabelle,” he stated baldly. “Now.”

“But we’ve been here barely an hour,” she protested, astonished. “Why must we leave?”

“I was a fool to ever bring you here,” Frederick replied through gritted teeth. “What was I thinking?”

“It is probably best that you leave,” remarked Lord Darrington to Annabelle, calmly and without rancor, before shifting his eyes to Frederick. “Lady Annabelle was safe with me, Duke Frederick but I agree with you that she perhaps does not belong in this environment. I hope to see you both again soon in more salubrious circumstances.”

Darrington smiled an encouraging smile at Annabelle as Frederick led her away. The Duke of Heartwick half wanted to punch the man’s good-humored face and half to apologize to him for what he knew deep down to be unreasonable rudeness. Frederick could not justify his behavior but nor could he stay there and watch a moment more of the scene he had just witnessed.

While Annabelle left the Duke of Blackwell’s house without objection, her meekness vanished as soon as they entered the coach.

“Why did you do that, Frederick? You humiliated me in front of Oswald Quince. Everything was going so well.”

Annabelle’s words conveyed all of the disappointment, consternation and hurt that she felt, but some internal wound of Frederick’s own would not allow him to be mollified so easily yet.

“So well?” he repeated angrily, his mind’s eye still full of the images of Annabelle and Oswald Quince, dancing, laughing and conversing together so intimately. “What did you think you were playing at in there with him?”

“Him? Oswald Quince, you mean? You know what I’m doing. I’m trying to find a husband. Wasn’t I going about it exactly as you instructed?”

“You were meant to flirt with potential suitors, not let them manhandle you in public.”

“What are you talking about, Frederick? There was no manhandling of any kind from Lord Darrington. If you were watching me, you must have seen that.”

“I saw you touch Darrington’s arm. I saw him touch your shoulder.”

“That’s ridiculous, Frederick. Men and women touch more than that in even the most formal dance. Anyway, that’s how Oswald is with everyone when he talks, men as well as women. Have you not noticed?”

“Oswald already, is he?” Frederick threw back at her, the early use of Lord Darrington’s first name not escaping his notice.

“Why should you even care?” demanded Annabelle, her face flushing crossly. “I thought you were meant to be helping me.”

They argued this way all the way back to Heartwick Hall until Frederick was in half a mind to open the carriage door and jump out. Whatever he said, he could not win because he knew deep down that he had been wrong in some way. He also knew that he’d had no choice in his actions. Some deeper instinct would not let him act otherwise.

Even after the coach arrived at Heartwick Hall, their rowing continued. Annabelle even refused his arm to help her down from the coach, stumbling on the dark step of the coach in her new high-heeled evening shoes as she attempted to jump down by herself.

“Are you trying to do yourself an injury just to spite me?” Frederick demanded, catching her in his arms and righting her on her feet, much to her fury. “Damn it all, Annabelle!”

The sensation of her warm and rounded breasts pressing against him for a moment drove him mad, as though she had done it on purpose to goad his desire.

“Why should you care if I fall?” Annabelle flared again, breaking away from him. “That would stop me going out anywhere wouldn’t it? Would that suit you better?”

“Drive on round to the carriage house,” Frederick ordered the coachman tersely, not wanting any further witness to this undignified exchange that showed no sign of abating. “Of course it wouldn’t suit me, Annabelle. What a damned stupid thing to say.”

“Well, dragging me away from Oswald Quince on no grounds whatsoever and then making such ridiculous accusations was a damned stupid thing to do.”

Frederick did not think he had ever head Annabelle use a profanity before and it surprised him. In any other moment, he might have laughed at the incongruity of it but now it only nettled him.

As she retorted, Annabelle was trying to hurry ahead up the stone steps of the house but with her shoes and shorter legs, she could not manage to distance him. Frederick had caught up with her by the time she reached the front door. He crossly waved away the footman who had held it open for them, telling him that all the staff could now go to bed.

“I made a mistake, Annabelle,” Frederick told her as they walked through the hall, trying and likely failing to keep his voice down now that they were indoors. “I never should have taken you to the Duke of Blackwell’s gathering. You’re too innocent and it was all wrong.”

At the bottom of the stairs now, she stopped running away and regarded him with blazing eyes. Something in this remark was incendiary to her.

“Do you think I want to be innocent, Frederick? Do you think I’ve ever had the chance to be anything else? Maybe I wanted to experience something more tonight, even if it was only vicariously, by watching others. I thought you wanted that for me too.”

Along with her words, Frederick was struck by the full force of Annabelle’s bluebell eyes, her disordered hair, her flushed cheeks and the angry beauty her features composed as a whole, never mind the splendid breasts rising and falling in their green silk wrapping beneath.

Lacking suitable words to convey the feelings she had stirred up inside him this evening, Frederick did not want for actions. Before he knew it, Annabelle was in his arms in the muted candlelight and his lips had claimed hers once more. The sound from her throat was not one of protest and her hand tangled almost immediately in his hair.

Frederick kissed her again and again, reveling in her warm response and wanting never to stop. Had they only argued in lieu of kissing? If so, where would this end? Her curious but tentative lips and tongue were firing his desire far more strongly than the knowing kisses of any more experienced woman and her bosom moulded heavy and warm into his hand as he caressed its curve for the first time.

“We should go upstairs to your room,” he said at last, panting as he managed to draw back his face from Annabelle’s for a moment.

Annabelle seemed to be nodding, although fear and desire vied for supremacy on her face.

“I would never hurt you. I promise,” Frederick said. “But I think we both need more and I cannot show you all that I should here.”

Now Annabelle inclined her head more clearly and let him take her arm as they began to climb the stairs to an uncertain destination.

The entire night had been a bewildering whirlwind of emotions and sensations for Annabelle. First had come the shocking and fascinating scenes at the Duke of Blackwell’s house, then the scenes of unadulterated fun and friendly chatter with Oswald Quince, followed quickly her thunderous row with Frederick, likely the worst they had ever had.

Now, somehow, she was leaning on Frederick’s arm as they proceeded together towards her bedroom, her entire body aching for more of the kisses and gentle but downright improper handling she had received from him in the hallway.

“What are we doing?” she whispered both to Frederick and to herself as they crossed the landing.

“Whatever you wish,” he answered, lifting her hand to his mouth and kissing first her fingers and then her palm, his blue eyes seeking hers while his head was bent. “Up to a certain point. You may stop me at any time, Annabelle.”

In reality, she could not imagine that her own longing would allow her to stop Frederick doing anything. It felt too strong and too unfamiliar to rein in. Annabelle wanted things she could neither visualize nor describe. She knew only that the man beside her could provide them.

“Frederick,” Annabelle said, feeling as though she was tasting his name while she gazed on his handsome face.

As soon as she spoke his name, he kissed her again, pinning her passionately against one of the walls between two paintings and eliciting small sounds that she did not at first recognize as coming from her own throat.

“What if the servants see us?” she gasped breathlessly as he stepped back once more and drew her with him up the last short flight of stairs.

Frederick might have dismissed the staff for the night some minutes before he had kissed her but Annabelle knew that maids and footmen could easily be lurking quietly on unseen final tasks.

“In your bedroom, no one will see us,” he told her, sliding an arm about her waist as they finally reached the corridor leading to her room, Frederick carrying a small candelabra he had lifted from one of the small tables on the landing.

Inside the bedroom, Frederick locked the door and put down the candelabra on the nightstand before reaching out to caress Annabelle’s face as she stood tremulously before him. What would happen now? She felt she could scarcely breathe for the anticipation.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said once again and kissed her mouth softly “All you have to do tonight is enjoy me. I will do you no injury.”

While Annabelle did not fully understand the words, she did understand the sensations that thrilled through her as Frederick pulled her body against his and parted her lips with his tongue. In the candlelight, his hair had a golden halo and she thought again of him as a Greek god, this time visiting a mortal maiden for salacious purposes.

Slowly but efficiently, his hands stroked her bare shoulders, unfastened her hair and explored the lines of her body through its silken sheath. Meanwhile, his kisses held her rapt in his arms, falling first on her mouth, and then her throat before moving to the pale hills of her bosom, swelling above the neckline of her dress.

“Do you know how beautiful you are, Annabelle?” Frederick murmured, caressing the long, heavy sweep of curls now falling freely about her shoulders.

She shook her head in disbelief and turned away shyly but he only tipped up her chin and kissed her again until she was giddy and clinging to him.

“That is how beautiful you are,” Frederick said with a fiercer heat. “Believe in it. Your face is beautiful, your body is so very, very beautiful, Annabelle…”

Now his fingers were again stroking her shoulders, busying themselves at with buttons at her back, sliding about her waist and then coming up again to fully cup her breasts through the silk dress. Annabelle felt her nipples hardening against his palms and moaned aloud. She did so more loudly a moment later when Frederick eased down her loosened bodice and stays to take the pale, full globes into his hands.

When he covered her bared breasts with kisses, she could only whimper and pull him closer with her hands once again buried in his golden hair. That gesture seemed to incite him to further kisses, eventually returning to her mouth. One of Frederick’s hands came again to her back, now unfastening enough buttons that the entire sweep of her green silk gown fell to the floor at her feet.

At that moment, Annabelle found herself standing before Frederick in only a disarrayed petticoat, stays and stockings, breathing hard and making no effort whatsoever to discourage the hand laying claim to her breasts or the mouth drawing kiss after kiss from her own lips.

Daringly, Annabelle began to push Frederick’s jacket from his shoulders, and then, with his cooperation to unfasten his waistcoat.

“I want to see your body too,” she panted and he swiftly heeded her words, dropping his upper garments to the floor and lifting the linen shirt away over his head.

“Only this far,” he said, taking her hands away from the waistband of his trousers, his voice having now become something like a growl. “I must keep control of myself, Annabelle, for your sake.”

Trembling, Annabelle placed her hands on the bare golden-haired expanse of his chest and ran them across his shoulders, arms and stomach. How was it possible for a man to be this perfectly made? She pressed her own few impulsive kisses onto his torso, her head not even reaching his chin.

“God! You have no idea what you do to me,” Frederick groaned and then tumbled Annabelle onto her bed.

Her heart raced as she felt his weight on her body, their hands entwined and her mouth claimed once more by his. Was she to be deflowered tonight? She knew the basic facts about the sexual act but could not in any way relate them to the sensually overwhelming experience they were presently engaged in.

Something hard and eager at Frederick’s groin nudged and pressed at her thigh and hip through his trousers as they embraced but he held himself back to some extent and stopped Annabelle’s hands from wandering below his waist.

He did not, however, apply the same constraint to his exploration of Annabelle’s body. Frederick’s hands found the curve of her hip and the full length of her legs as they kissed, stroking her flesh through the fine fabric of her petticoats and stockings.

“…such gorgeous breasts…must kiss your belly…your thighs are so soft and warm…”

All the time, she could hear him murmuring his sensual appreciation of her body and its apparent beauty. The erotic litany drove her wild and even though she knew the moral transgression of Frederick’s hands sliding under her petticoats and raising them, there was no question at all of asking him to stop.

Even when he kissed his way down to her navel and raised the fine silk underskirt to her waist, she could only moan and gasp for more. Frederick even parted her thighs with his sure hands and gazed on her most intimate flesh with fierce eagerness.

“Annabelle, Annabelle, Annabelle…” he whispered, stroking the bare skin of her thighs where pale pink garters marked the end of her stockings. “So very beautiful…”

He stroked the red-gold hair on her mount of Venus and then pressed a first kiss to that throbbing mound. As with his first kisses to her mouth, Frederick’s lips began with a soft warm pressure that made Annabelle press herself to him for more. Only then did his tongue begin to flicker and make itself known to her sensitive folds.

As Frederick settled himself between Annabelle’s thighs and began to stroke, lap and stimulate her womanhood in earnest, she finally understood exactly what she had witnessed on that first day at Heartwick Hall. His knowing tonguing of the firm little bud at the top of her slit banished the question of why any woman would have allowed him to handle her in such a way.

Then even these thoughts were banished, lost to the sweeping waves of sensation that Frederick was deliberately provoking and building. A finger had intruded itself into her body, and then another, their pressure providing a counterpoint to the movements of his tongue. Eventually, overcome with need, uncertainty and impossible pleasure, Annabelle heard herself wail his name as she dissolved on a pinnacle of sensual experience.

“Frederick, oh Frederick,” she sobbed again as the waves continued, although fading now in intensity.

As they faded into a general warm glow, she felt his fingers withdrawn and his body rising to lay beside her. When Frederick kissed her again, she tasted the tang of her own salt on his lips.

“You’re even more beautiful when you’re in ecstasy, Annabelle,” he growled and she realized that while her own tension was now released, Frederick’s body still felt tightly wound and full of potential energy.

“What did you do to me, Frederick?” she asked with wonder. “I never imagined I could feel something like that.”

“You are still a maiden but I have taught you something of the nature of bedroom games,” he said gruffly, taking another rather hungry kiss from her lips and covering one of her breasts again with his hand.

“I know why all those other women chase you,” she sighed, closing her eyes and enjoying the warmth of his palm over her sensitive nipple.

“Don’t talk of them,” Frederick said, shaking his head sharply as if to banish presently unwanted memories. “Don’t talk of anything. Just kiss me.”

Annabelle obeyed, caressing his face as she pressed her lips to his and let their tongues dance delicately together. Still, he was holding his lower body slightly away from her and her stomach contracted at the thought of what could happen if he did not.

Part of her wanted to touch him there and uncover the organ he was hiding, even if that led to the loss of her maidenhead and her potential ruin.

“What happens now?” she asked timidly and Frederick inhaled and exhaled deeply, his face flushed and absorbed.

“We do that again, and then I let you sleep,” he stated, setting out a clear path for both of them.

“So, you don’t intend to…”

“No, Annabelle,” Frederick said firmly, cutting her off. “Do not go there. You are safe as long as you let me keep you so. Now, let us get rid of these.”

Kissing, stroking and squeezing, he stripped away the disordered petticoats and stays from Annabelle’s body and gazed on her nakedness with full and frank lust that made her tremble, especially when he spread her thighs again and applied his mouth a second time.

This time, when it was over, Frederick rose from the bed while Annabelle was still crying out with the last stabs of agonized pleasure deep inside her belly. She gazed on him in breathless silence as he dressed himself, his own breath audibly ragged.

After a few long breaths with his back turned to her, he returned to the bed and pulled back the covers before tucking her inside. Annabelle did not resist, feeling warm, cared for and utterly overwhelmed.

She thought he was going to give her a final kiss but he only looked at her with an expression of intense longing that managed to spark her own desire all over again. How many times was it possible to feel this in such quick succession?

“Annabelle.”

That was the only word of goodnight he uttered. After briefly caressing her face and running his thumb across her lips, Frederick unlocked the door and left.