Chapter 26
26
Modesty opened her eyes and rubbed her stiff shoulders. She was warm, though uncomfortable, sleeping in a chair. Someone had put a blanket over her. She didn’t remember falling asleep, and now morning light was seeping through the window.
Augustus!
She sat up, madly looking around the nursery. The cot was empty.
And there was no Constantine in sight, either.
Oh, please God, please do not let Augustus have passed away from fever while I slept!
She jumped to her feet, her skin prickly with terror. She ran out of the room, through the hallway, and straight to Constantine’s bedchamber.
She swung the door open and froze on the threshold.
In the vast, rich bedchamber, by one of the tall windows, Constantine was sprawled on the bed, asleep. Augustus was cradled safely in the crease between his chest and his arm.
Relief made her limbs go slack. Her heart swelled at seeing them this way.
Slowly, so that the floor didn’t creak under her feet, she moved across the room.
Last night, Constantine had taken care of Augustus like the babe was his own.
Like a true father to his child.
He was a good man. Whatever secrets he held, and however much he protected them, she loved him.
She leaned down and pressed the back of her hand against Augustus’s forehead. Clammy, but not scalding hot like last night.
Letting out a slow, steady sigh, she gently lifted the baby.
Constantine stirred, but didn’t wake up, thank heavens. He needed sleep.
She left the room with Augustus and put him into his cot in his nursery. Mrs. Walcott was back, looking much better after a few hours of rest.
With the baby taken care of, Modesty went down into the kitchen, surprising all of the servants, and asked the assistant cook to prepare tea for the duke. Bearing a tray laden with a teapot and cups, biscuits, and buttered toast, she returned to her husband. Her mind drifted to the christening as she ascended the stairs. Only three days away. Invitations had been sent, All Saints Church secured, and Papa was preparing for the event. But if Augustus would still be unwell, she’d cancel it in an instant.
As she placed the tray on the night table, Constantine stirred and opened his beautiful chestnut eyes. They were flecked with gold, she now knew, and were steady like the ground under her feet.
He was so handsome and looked so vulnerable with his face free from the social mask of a duke. His hair was tousled from the night before, and his cheeks were a little flushed. His chin and jaw bore stubble. She didn’t like the dark circles under his eyes, and she knew they weren’t just from the night of poor sleep. For days now, he had been more worried than ever.
Fear of gossip must be draining him, and she ached to support him, to bring him relief.
“Would you like some tea?” she asked, brushing a lock of dark hair from his forehead.
Instead of answering, he caught her hand, pulled her to his chest, and kissed her.
She sank into his embrace, his body hard and hot and beautifully familiar.
His arms wrapped around her as his mouth claimed hers. His tongue played with hers, and her body was already hot and pliable for him. Her nipples hardened, her intimate muscles tightened, and her blood heated.
“I would like some of you,” he murmured.
With that, he rolled, pinning her under the weight of his body, urging her thighs apart. She giggled as he looked her over, his hands gliding over her breasts, down her waist, and gripping her hip.
He kissed her, deeply and with intention. And she wrapped her legs around his hips, feeling his hard member long and hot against her sex. Instinctively, she moved her hips to rub herself against him, and he moaned into her mouth.
“Little minx.” He chuckled. “You seem so correct and proper during the day…but you’re fire in bed.”
She kissed him. “Because you are the spark that ignites me.”
He growled slightly and turned to kissing her neck. He pulled her nightgown over her head then cupped her breast and kissed her nipple, playing his tongue over it, circling it, biting it gently, so that fire shot through her blood. She arched her back, giving him more access.
He lavished the same attention on her other breast until her senses whirled, every inch of her alive to his touch.
She unfastened the breeches he’d pulled on at some point during the night, then pushed them down his hips with her feet. She hooked her legs around him, bringing him tighter against herself.
There were no more barriers between their sexes, and he looked deep into her eyes.
“Are you?—?”
“I want you,” she said and moved her hips to direct the head of his member into her opening.
He hissed in pleasure as she managed to position his tip against her, but he held back when she tried to take him in with a thrust.
“Slowly, darling,” he murmured as he lowered his head to hers.
He gave her the most tantalizing kiss, which made her inner muscles clench as she ached for him to fill her, desperate for release.
“I want to savor you,” he said.
Then very, very slowly, he pushed into her, and she let out a long breath. He looked into her eyes—worshipping her—and she couldn’t look away.
Her muscles clenched around him, sucking him deeper.
They were connected now as deeply as two people only could be—bodies, hearts, souls.
She loved him… Good Lord, she loved him! And he seemed to tell her the same, with every movement of his body.
Still looking deep into her eyes, he began moving in and out, spilling pleasure through her veins like liquid honey.
She couldn’t stop, couldn’t look away, couldn’t do anything but be held captive in his gaze, and feel him slowly move in and out of her, teasing her nerves and stroking all the right places. Slowly, he increased his pace, and her body betrayed her by reaching the edge of her pleasure before she wanted things to finish. He let out a curse as she cried out and her muscles convulsed around him.
“Hold on,” he murmured into her ear. “This is not the end.”
While she moaned and trembled against him, he restrained himself, but as her release subsided, he began moving again, faster and faster, pumping into her harder and murmuring sweet things into her ear.
How beautiful she was, how dear to him, how he craved every day to have her in his arms, how her smell drove him mad, and he wanted to inhale her forever…
He whispered other things she couldn’t remember or understand, as he masterfully brought her body to yet another peak, which she didn’t think possible. And she quivered again in sweet agony, harder and longer than before. Another wave flooded over her directly after the first one, and she couldn’t stop as she cried out his name.
Constantine…
That undid him, too, and he groaned, sounding pained and almost hurt, as he found his own release inside her.
They lay together like that, kissing softly, looking into each other’s eyes. He was stroking her hair, kissing her lightly on her nose and her cheeks and her eyelids.
Who knew that a man as prideful and rigid as he would be the gentlest and most generous lover?
When he stretched out by her side, she laid her head on his chest, and he wrapped his arm around her, holding her to him tightly.
“I am sorry I’ve been distracted,” he said. “I didn’t want to… It’s this matter… Very urgent…and it’s not getting better.”
“Why can’t you tell me?”
He swallowed hard. “I want to… I suppose I can tell you part of it. But I can’t tell you all of it, though you deserve to know.”
She raised her head and supported it with her hand, looking at him.
He furrowed his eyebrows, his Adam’s apple bobbing. His face looked so young and yet completely torn with worry and…regret…pain…
“Augustus is not my son. He’s the grandson of my deceased father.”
Modesty blinked. “Pardon?”
“Ophelia and I were never lovers. She was the illegitimate daughter of my father and a woman who had stayed with our family. My mother’s friend.”
Modesty sat up, her mind reeling. A feeling of devastation was opening in her chest like a chasm. “Why couldn’t you tell me that from the beginning?”
He drew in a deep breath. “I am sorry. There are very few people who are aware of my father’s illegitimate daughter. I couldn’t just tell this secret to a person I didn’t know. But now I know I can fully trust you.”
“Is that what the blackmail is about? When you accused me of blackmail, is this the secret that concerned you?”
A pained expression crossed his face. “Yes.”
“Oh…” Her thoughts were running, escaping, galloping. “Wait…but that means… When you refused Ophelia, pregnant and impoverished, you sent away your own sister…”
He sighed and closed his eyes, nodding. When he opened his eyes, he was searching her face.
“Why did you?” she asked.
He looked away. “Because I didn’t want a scandal.”
“So Augustus is your nephew… How is that a scandal?”
“My father’s reputation has always been impeccable. The Buccleigh line has always been pure and honorable. I can’t have anything otherwise.”
“But how is a scandal more important than someone’s well-being? Especially a mother carrying a child—two lives, Constantine!”
His face twisted with something that looked like shame. “It’s not that simple?—”
“Then explain it to me,” she demanded. “Because the man who just spent all night caring for Augustus can’t be the same man who abandoned his sister to the streets.”
He reached for her, but she moved farther away. “Modesty, please?—”
“No. There’s more you’re not telling me. I can see it in your eyes.”
“I offered her help,” he said, his voice strained. “But there were conditions?—”
“Conditions?” The word tasted bitter. “What conditions could possibly justify abandoning your own blood?”
He flinched at the word “blood,” something dark and painful flickering across his face. “You don’t understand?—”
“Then help me understand!” She was nearly shouting now, all her confusion and hurt pouring out. “Because I’ve seen how gentle you are with Augustus, how much you clearly care for him. Yet you let his mother die alone and desperate. The Constantine I know wouldn’t do that without a reason.”
His face went stark white at her words. For a moment, she thought he might finally tell her everything. But then he seemed to fold in on himself, that familiar mask of the duke sliding back into place.
He was silent, his gaze averted.
He wouldn’t tell her anything else.
The walls were up.
And she was not inside them.
She rose from the bed to put on her chemise. Then she would go and check on Augustus. The darkness at the edges of Constantine’s eyes felt like a weight on her soul. He may have told her some of his secrets…
But not all.