Wedded to the Ruthless Duke: A Historical Regency Romance Novel

Chapter 12

Grace shared a look with Diana in the carriage as they pulled up outside Diana’s house. They had managed a few short sentences between them about the opera, but they had not spoken much. The air between them was somewhat tense because of the man sat opposite them in the carriage.

The Duke of Berkley had said nothing the entire trip.

“Good luck,” Diana whispered to Grace as they clutched hands, and Diana stepped down from the carriage.

They waited, watching as Diana stepped in through the door. Once she was safely inside, the Duke tapped on the wall of the carriage. It was the signal for the driver to move off again.

The carriage rocked along the cobbles, making the one lantern that swung from the ceiling sway back and forth. The apricot-tinged light sometimes fell on Philip’s face. Other times, it merely lit the formal suit.

They rounded another corner before Grace could not stand the silence anymore.

“What you said at the opera house,” she began, pausing when the Duke jerked his head around to look at her, “about me belonging to you.”

“Yes?” he encouraged her on, the slightest hint of a smirk on his face.

Her hands knotted together in her lap beneath the cover of her shawl.

“I will not belong to you. I am not your possession,” she said coolly. “I may have to marry you, but I will not be at your beck and call. Not your pet.”

He quirked an eyebrow at her, the movement illuminated by the orange shine from the burning lantern.

“You wish to belong to another man?”

“What? No.” She shifted, her hands fidgeting together in her lap. “I will be free. As you promised me I would be.”

“So, you plan on taking a lover as soon as you can, do you?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“It’s what you meant, isn’t it?” He suddenly moved off his bench.

Grace leaned away, flattening her back to the cushioned bench behind her as he leaned toward her. He planted his hands to the seat on either side of her, his thumbs buried in her skirt.

“You intend to belong to another man,” he said darkly. “Who?”

“What? There’s no one.” She lost her cool resolve and pushed hard into his chest, but he didn’t move back. “And I will not belong to you. I am not your plaything. Do you understand me, Your Grace?”

“You will belong to me in that bedchamber for the first few days. The first month, even. You agreed to that. It was one of our rules.”

“You never said anything about possession!” she complained loudly.

He looked away from her, reached toward the carriage window, then sharply pulled the curtain across.

“What are you doing?” she said in alarm.

“I’m going to remind you exactly why you will belong to me for that first month,” he said and reached toward her.

“Wait — Your Grace — hmm!”

His hand had curled around her neck and pulled her toward him. His lips claimed her own in such a heated kiss that she quite forgot what she had been saying. He parted her lips with ease, quite demandingly, as if he had done it many times before and not just the once.

It was like fire, the brush of his tongue, and all Grace wanted to do was be consumed by the heat. Her hands left her lap as she reached for him, her fingers hooking around the edge of his tailcoat as she fell into him because of the rocking of the carriage.

He parted a little, just enough to start kissing her down her neck.

“You… will not… talk… of other… men,” he hissed darkly between his kisses. He found a spot in the curve of her neck that drove her mad. He placed an openmouthed kiss to that spot, nibbling her in such a way that she gasped at the dual sensation of pleasure and hint of pain. She wanted more of it and pressed her neck into his lips.

His hand had slid down to her hip. He guided her off her own bench as the carriage rounded another corner. They ended up on his bench with Grace half fallen into his lap.

One of her knees moved beside his hip, straddling him, as he took a firmer hold of her hip and guided it forward. Her hips brushed his. The movement mimicked what they could be doing, prompting a moan to fall from her lips.

He hooked a finger around the high collar of her dress and pulled it to the side. His movements were so sharp that she actually heard the material tear.

“I…” she whispered, trying to hold her ground when she realized what a shameful display she was making of herself.

The formal man had slipped into the passionate one again, and as he had changed, so had she. She had become hungry for his touch.

“I am not yours,” she said determinedly. He placed another open-mouthed kiss to her collarbone, nipping her playfully, as if in reprimand for her words.

“You will be,” he whispered against her skin. “Very soon.”

Then he shifted his hands. One slid from her hip to the curve of her back, his fingers splaying and keeping her pressed against him. The other reached down to her thigh and gripped her between the cover of her dress. She gasped at the sensation of his hand being so close to exploring her.

His fingers inched higher. His fingertips caressed the area between her legs but still through her gown.

“Please,” the word shamefully escaped her. She was ready to beg down on her knees if he’d release this sudden ache. That space between her legs practically pulsed, needing something, needing his touch.

“Ah, you are begging for my touch now,” he whispered against her skin. The neck of her gown ripped a little bit more. The feeling of it made her gasp again. He was setting kisses down her chest, getting closer and closer to the top curve of her breasts. “So improper, my Duchess,” he murmured against her skin.

He didn’t seem to mind her being improper now. He seemed to want it.

His fingers brushed her center again through the gown, not quite giving her a proper touch but merely teasing her then abruptly, it was over. He jerked his head back, looking up at her on his lap.

“I’m afraid, we’ll have to wait.”

“W-what?” she managed to stammer.

His hands took hold of her hips. She yelped in surprise as he raised himself up with her still straddling him then pressed her back down onto her own bench. She fumbled to sit straight as he released her, retreating to his own bench.

Breathless, she stared at him. His suit was at last a little rumpled rather than the creaseless perfection it always was.

“Are you joking?” she muttered in amazement. “You can touch me like that then you speak of waiting?”

Something dark came over his eyes.

“Just a reminder of who you now belong to, Grace,” he said, his voice deep. “Believe me, the thought of giving you what you want tonight…” he paused, his eyes slipping down her.

Suddenly, she didn’t feel like the clumsy fool in the stupidly frilly dress under that gaze. She felt like a woman who was capable of raising a man’s desire.

“Hearing you shout my name as I enter you? Now, what I would give to feel that tonight.”

She trembled, a dark sort of desire erupting in her stomach.

This was the formal elder brother of Eleanor. A man of strict rigidity and propriety, yet he was talking about entering her.

She rubbed her thighs together beneath her gown, trying to satisfy her longing for him.

“But I’ll be proper. Until the wedding night.” His eyes returned to her face.

The carriage came to a sudden halt.

Grace was so unprepared for it that she nearly toppled off the bench again. As she was flung to the side, the Duke’s hand was there. He caught her palm, keeping her in the seat.

“Goodnight, Grace,” he whispered then retracted his hand.

Grace trembled, looking at the door of the carriage as it was opened by the footman. She picked up the shawl which he had discarded on the bench and wrapped it around her shoulders and neck, hiding the fact that the Duke had torn her gown so much. When she knew their actions were masked, she stepped down from the carriage.

She glanced back at him from the front stoop to her house, but she could not see him in the darkness of the carriage. The butler was still up and let her in. She slipped inside, insisting that she would like to keep her shawl with her tonight, even when the butler offered to take it for her.

“Lady Grace, your father is in his study,” the butler said as she reached for the staircase. “He was hoping to speak to you before you retire for the night.”

“Yes, of course. Thank you.” Grace forced a smile for the butler. Once the butler was gone, her smile dropped away. She breathed deeply, trying her best to steady herself and forget what the Duke had just done to her, how much he had tempted and toyed with her, only to thrust her away again.

As soon as she could breathe easily, she headed down the corridor toward her father’s study. “Father?” she whispered, knocking on the door and opening it a little.

John was seated in an armchair beside the fire. He looked weaker than when she had last seen him, nursing a cup of tea in his hand as he raised his gaze from the fire.

“Father, how are you?” She hastened into the room, tucking the shawl tightly around her neck, so she could sit on the footstool in front of him, and she reached toward him.

“I’m not too bad,” he assured her gently, managing a small smile.

“You need a new physician, Father,” she said, returning to an argument they’d had many times before. “I know my mother is keen for you to keep seeing this healer, but he is doing you no good. You need someone new to look at you.”

“I will consider it.” He rested his teacup in one hand and reached to take her palm with his other. “Now, let’s talk for a minute about something other than my sickness.”

Her gut knotted hard. Not talking about her father’s sickness felt wrong. It was only right to speak of it, especially when she knew how much Althea wished not to speak of it, to brush it under the carpet and pretend it was not happening at all.

I am not ready to lose you, Father.

“This betrothal.” His expression turned very sad. “If it is not what you want, tell me, dear Grace. Tell me and I will find another way out for you.”

“What?”

“I do not want to see you married to a man you cannot stand, Grace. Do not let me have that pain before I die.”

“Father, no speaking of death, I beg of you. We will not lose you so soon. Not if you go to another physician,” she pleaded with him.

“Very well, I shall do so, but in the meantime, answer my question.” He placed his teacup down beside her on the table, giving her his full fixed attention. “I wish to see you settled and happy. If the Duke of Berkley cannot make you so, then tell me now. I will find another resolution to this scandal.”

“There is no other resolution,” she said softly as comfortingly as she possibly could. “I’m quite sensible to that, Father.” She squeezed his hand tight. “And as for whether the Duke can make me happy or not, well, he has vowed to give me freedom.”

“Freedom?” her father repeated, his brows furrowing together in surprise.

“He has said that I can live the life I want, that I can change the house if I wish to. Personally, I’m already planning to take my horse with me. I intend to make the most of riding through the estate and exploring my own home. Now, does that not sound like a happy future?”

“It does.” Her father softened in his seat, looking infinitely more at ease. “I am glad he will give you your freedom. You deserve it, Grace. You deserve to be happy.”

“Thank you, Father. Do not worry about me. I shall make the most of things.”

“You always do.” He looked very sleepy indeed.

Grace reached for a blanket nearby and tucked it around his legs. He thanked her gently as she stood, wishing him a goodnight.

As she parted from the room, leaving her father to a much more comfortable sleep than before, she hesitated on the other side of the door, thinking through what she had said.

She was not as confident about her happiness as she had claimed to be to her father, but after that night in the carriage with the Duke of Berkley, there was something she could not deny. She had so badly wanted to be touched by him, to continue that kiss until she was completely lost in that fiery passion which she had only glimpsed twice now beneath his icy reserve.

“Damn you,” she muttered, thinking only of the Duke as she stormed up to her room. She hid in her chamber, shutting the door tight, then pulled off her shawl and turned to face the mirror. She gasped when she saw the state she was in.

The frilly high neckline of the gown was not the only thing marred though it now hung in tatters around her chest where he had pulled restlessly at it. There was also a pink mark at the base of her throat where he had marked her with his nibbling kisses.

She drew her fingers over it, stunned at the sensitivity of it.

“He marked me,” she muttered in outrage. “He marked me as his own.”

She could imagine now the way that he was smiling to himself as the carriage took him back to his own house. He would go to sleep now confident that his bride-to-be was his and no other man’s.

“Damn you, Duke of Berkley. I am not yours yet.”