His Temporary Duchess (Dukes Ever After #5)

Chapter 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

E leanor stared at her plate, wondering what she had done wrong to make the Duke storm out of the room like that. He had looked angry, but she had done as he requested; she had not spoken until he had addressed her directly, and she had agreed to wear those old clothes.

Perhaps he preferred the style.

They were too old to have belonged to a former lover, and the idea that they might belong to his mother made her uncomfortable, but she had not allowed her discomfort to show.

And yet, he had been so displeased that he had left the room with no excuse.

She massaged her temples. Tomorrow, she would merely have to do better. There had to be some things the Duke liked. If she found them and used them to her advantage, she was certain he would warm to her.

What man did not want a wife, once he had gone through the trouble of marrying her, who went out of her way to please him?

She ate in silence, and when she had finished, went to the library to choose a book, and ascended the large stairwell in silence to find her bedchamber. Not once did it occur to her that they would, as husband and wife, engage in the usual social norms of retiring to the drawing room. After all, when she had been living with Margaret, she had been expected to retire after dinner. This hardly seemed so out of the ordinary.

And so, as she rang for Abigail to help her change, she merely reflected about the night ahead. Already, it had gotten late, and she looked at the small carriage clock on the mantelpiece, marveling at its beauty. The fire had slumped into embers, and she marveled at that, too. Even in winter, Margaret rarely allowed her a fire in her room; she considered it a waste of coal. But here, even though the worst of the year’s chill had passed, someone had lit a fire to keep her warm.

Yes, this life would not be so very bad, after all.

For some time, she occupied herself with her book by the fire, yawning occasionally, until she heard a creak from next door. Immediately, a shiver ran through her body. She did not know precisely what occurred on wedding nights, but she supposed this was the moment she would find out.

For better or worse.

Next door, the footsteps lingered, then stopped. Silence. Eleanor held her breath, listening, then slid from the chair. The carpet felt soft underneath her bare feet. She glanced at the large bed, now appearing positively intimidating in the dark, before her gaze fixed on the adjoining door between their two quarters.

She could hear nothing from the Duke’s room.

Curiosity won out.

As quietly as she could, she padded across to the door, then clasped the door handle. Earlier, it had been locked, and she still half expected it to be as she turned. But, to her surprise, the door swung open, and she stumbled into the Duke’s bedchamber.

At first glance, it appeared much the same as hers, if outfitted in a more masculine sense, the hangings around the bed a deep velvety green. He had lit a lamp that illuminated the wallpaper and, crucially, the Duke himself. Candlelight roved over the dips and lines of his bare chest, and for the longest moment, Eleanor felt unable to move. A shirt lay on the chair beside him, and his breeches were slung low on his hips.

Skin.

So much skin .

In the low lighting, his torso looked soft and inviting, but there were ridges of muscle there that she was utterly unfamiliar with. Two lines, on a slight diagonal, pointed down past the top of his breeches and below, and she wondered with a fierce, heady wanting, what lay underneath.

There was so much to a man’s body she had yet to discover.

Her gaze finally roved its way past his broad shoulders and the strong lines of his neck to his face. His hair hung down to his shoulders, no longer tied back, and his square jawline, paired with his high cheekbones and the slight scar through one brow, gave him a fearsome look. And the way he glowered at her, brows low over his piercing gray eyes, only added to the effect.

Yes, he was a handsome man, but the sight of his glare brought back her sense of propriety and place back to the fore.

She jumped back, colliding with the doorframe. “Y-your Grace,” she stuttered.

“And what, precisely, do you think you are doing in my bedchamber?” he demanded, stepping closer until she could have reached out and touched him—if she were not afraid that her fingertips against his skin might scorch them both.

“I—”

“Did I give you leave to be here?”

Her face burned, and she blinked past the embarrassment and shame. “No.”

“Then get out.” Something shifted in his eyes, like burning coals, and she thought she saw something there that twisted her stomach—something like hunger —but she backed away before she could refine too much upon it. Still mumbling excuses, she escaped through the door into her own rooms. The last thing she saw of the Duke before the door slammed shut behind her was the fierce anger on his face.

The lock clicked, and she released a long breath.

Well, she supposed that answered a number of her questions. Primarily, whether they would be consummating the marriage that day. And, more particularly, what a man looked like without his shirt.

She closed her eyes as she pictured him again. Gilded, draped all in gold and shadow, every crevice and dip accentuated. She had not known men could be so hard, so angled; when she looked at her own body in the mirror, she saw only softness and curves.

She wondered what it would have been like to touch him. To smooth her palm over the hard bulges of muscle. Would his skin feel rough or smooth? It struck her that a man of such a build would be velvet over iron.

The thought brought an unfamiliar hunger to her belly, and she pressed a hand there, trying to understand her reaction and what on earth it could possibly mean.

Sebastian lay in bed, glowering at the darkened, invisible ceiling above. Of all the stupid, nonsensical things for her to do, walking in on him when he was changing had to have been one of the worst. Her, with her hair unbound over her shoulders, the tips of her nipples visible through the thin silk of her nightgown, the material catching on the curve of her hip when she moved.

She had been a gift, deliciously packaged for him—one he had known beyond all doubt that he would enjoy.

And he, angry after dinner and the difficulty he was having in enacting his plans, had been of a mind to take her anyway. To push her against the wall and silence that infuriating mouth with his. To make her submit, to beg for him.

All things she would have granted him, he already knew. She had a passive spirit, if a passionate one. If he commanded, she would yield, and the thought made him near groan in the darkness.

What folly it was to want her when she was the last woman in the world whom he could have!

And how close he had been to touching her.

One day into this marriage, and he was already certain it would be the death of him.