Duke with a Duchess (Wicked Dukes Society #5)

Chapter 1

Sybil tipped the pitcher toward her sleeping husband’s head. A stream of cold, clear water poured forth, landing directly on the thick mahogany locks that were a great source of pride and vanity for him, splashing over his unfairly handsome face.

It wasn’t the confrontational moment she had initially envisioned when she had decided to attend the wicked house party he and his chums were presently holding at Wingfield Hall, but it was satisfying, nonetheless.

He sputtered and jolted awake, sitting up as water sluiced down, his bedclothes falling in his lap.

His chest was bare.

Sybil intentionally averted her gaze. Because whilst the Duke of Riverdale was a terrible, faithless husband, his body, like his face, was as perfectly proportioned as any marble from antiquity.

At least he was the only one currently occupying his bed, and given the indecent nature of the present gathering, she hadn’t been certain what to expect.

Otherwise, she might have broken the pitcher on his head instead of merely pouring water to wake him.

“What the devil?” he sputtered, shaking like a dog to dash the water from his eyes.

Sybil had imagined a reunion with her husband on many occasions. Never quite like this, however.

“Good morning, Riverdale,” she said coldly.

“Sybil?” He glared at her, his lip curling. “What are you doing here at Wingfield Hall? In my bloody bedroom, of all places? And why the hell did you pour water on me?”

She settled the pitcher in its basin. “Is that any way to greet your wife?”

“Is dumping a pitcher of water on my damned head any way to greet your husband?” he snarled.

Water was streaking down his throat and rolling south in droplets over his chest now. Sybil told herself not to look, and yet her foolish eyes had a will of their own.

“Perhaps you should tell me the proper means of greeting a husband one hasn’t seen in more than three months,” she suggested. “A husband who abandoned one in the country and refuses to reply to any correspondence.”

He gathered up the counterpane and began using it to dry himself, continuing to glower as he did so. “I have nothing to say to you, madam.”

His words, like his ire, shouldn’t matter. Shouldn’t have the power to wound her. And yet, they did. He had made his disregard for her feelings known, just as he had made his lack of concern for her more than clear when he had abandoned her on their wedding day.

“Indeed, but I have something to say to you.” She kept her eyes pinned to his, intentionally not glancing down at his damp chest.

Or his muscled arms, flexing as he moved.

Curse the man. She was looking again.

“How nice for you.” His voice was cold, just like his wintry blue eyes. “I don’t give a damn.”

She hadn’t expected a pleasant reunion. But his icy aloofness still somehow stung.

“Mayhap you should care,” she suggested.

All her meticulous arranging had come to this.

Admittedly, she hadn’t planned to fail so abysmally when she had managed to obtain an invitation to the secret house party he presided over every few months along with his fellow hosts of the Wicked Dukes Society.

Thank heavens for the aid of her dear friend Alice, Countess of Blackwell, who had secured one on her behalf through a friend who was a member of the secret society.

Sybil had intended to cause a public spectacle that would force his hand.

To take a lover at his own den of iniquity and humiliate him as he had her these last few months.

Instead, she’d found she hadn’t the stomach for betrayal.

She remained as much a virgin as she had been on the day they married.

“Too late for that.” He dropped the bedclothes and ran a hand through his hair, pushing it back from his high forehead. “Get out of my bedroom.”

She didn’t budge, her feet rooted to the Axminster. “Not until you hear what I’ve come to say.”

“I have neither the time nor the inclination to listen to a word you say,” he snapped. “Can you not see I’m busy?”

“Yes, I suppose you are eager to return to your carousing. No doubt you have some skirts to chase this morning. Do forgive me for keeping you from them.” Sybil couldn’t conceal the bitterness in her voice, though she had tried her utmost.

“Is that why you’ve come?” he asked, smirking. “Are you jealous, darling?”

Yes, but she would leap out the nearest window before admitting it to him.

She tipped her chin up, scoffing. “Hardly. I have no claim on you.”

He had also made that more than apparent. The Duke of Riverdale had no intention of being a faithful husband.

“You are correct in that, madam. You don’t. Now get out, if you please. I need to take a piss, and I’d rather do it without you listening.”

He was being coarse and vulgar, trying to shock her. It wasn’t going to work.

“No. Not until you hear what I’ve come to say.”

He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

Before she could protest or avert her gaze, he flipped back the bedclothes and rose, naked. Her eyes dropped of their own volition to his long, thick shaft standing proudly erect.

Heat flew over her. He stalked across the room, his buttocks flexing as he went.

“I want you to divorce me,” she blurted.

Everett could still see Sybil frozen in the vignette he hadn’t been meant to see, the one that had revealed to him—too late—who she truly was.

Sybil in her lovely wedding gown with the golden-haired footman. Taking him into her arms.

Her bloody lover.

All that time she had been smiling sweetly at Everett, presenting herself as the ideal woman, and she had been secretly dallying with a servant.

No doubt she had been devastated at the prospect of having to leave the man behind.

There had been tears on her cheeks, and Everett had overheard her telling the footman how much she would miss him and—in the greatest betrayal of all—that she loved him.

He’d been sick at the sight of their cozy farewell. Too shocked to confront the two of them. Instead, he had returned to the wedding breakfast and pretended as if he hadn’t just witnessed his wife of three hours in an intimate embrace with a servant.

A man she loved.

A man who wasn’t Everett.

A man who wasn’t even his equal.

The carriage ride to Riverdale Abbey had been one of the worst of his life. When they had arrived, he had done his duty in introducing her to his domestics.

And then he had left her, unable to bear the sight of her after her duplicity.

God, what a fool he had been, thinking she would make the perfect duchess. That he could ever trust a woman after Lydia. He ought to have learned his lesson well enough the first time.

For months, he had been seething over her betrayal, seeking to bury his fury in drink and distraction. The drink had been accomplished easily enough. The distraction, however, hadn’t. He simply had not possessed the desire necessary to lose himself in the soft, tender arms of a lover.

That was the irony of his present cockstand.

Apparently, his prick wasn’t broken as he had begun to fear for its lack of proper interest in the women of his acquaintance.

It only seemed to function in her presence.

Perhaps Sybil had cursed it. She had come like a wraith, had she not?

To his one place of peace, Wingfield Hall, where another wild house party like those he had enjoyed on so many past occasions with his friends was meant to have finally destroyed the restraints of conscience yet keeping him from taking a lover himself.

It hadn’t.

And now, she was here. In his room. In his domain. Standing on the other side of the privacy screen. Unless she had blessedly slipped out of the bedchamber to grant him peace.

“Madam, have you gone?” he demanded.

“No. I will wait whilst you attend to your needs, much like you’ve been doing for the entirety of our marriage.”

He didn’t miss the sharpness in her tone. The rebuke. He might have laughed if he weren’t in the midst of a miserable conundrum at the moment. The sheer daring of the woman, acting as if she were the one who had been wronged after what she’d done.

“Consider this your final warning to spare yourself embarrassment,” he called, willing his cock to wilt.

He couldn’t piss in this state, damn it. And he did have to. Or at least, he’d had to, before she’d brought that rebellious part of his anatomy back to life with her presence, her delectable breasts straining against that bodice, and her fucking scent.

Her perfume was intoxicating. Vanilla and tuberose. There had been a time when he had wanted to smell it lingering on his pillow. When he had wanted her in his bed for days without end, knowing too well that he still wouldn’t have his fill of her.

But that time had decidedly passed, he reminded himself sternly.

He wanted no part of her now. Her lovely countenance and tempting curves hid a treacherous heart.

The wretched irony of life. He had once almost been married to a cunning shrew who had desired him for his title and wealth, only to marry a similarly scheming bit of baggage who had wedded him for the same reason.

“I do assure you that I’m impervious to embarrassment,” she called. “Carry on however you must. I’m not leaving until I’ve said what I came here to say.”

Her voice was sultry. Husky and throaty yet sweet, like a ripe berry wrapped in smoke. Even when she was in a fit of pique, it slid over him like a caress.

“As you prefer, madam,” he said grimly before closing his eyes and willing himself to think of something suitably dreadful.

The scent of horse dung in summer.

The time he’d gone swimming in a lake and emerged with leeches stuck to a very unfortunate part of his person.

That did it. His stubborn cockstand subsided, and he aimed his stream into the ready chamber pot, not giving a damn if it was rude to do so in the presence of his wife. He wanted her out of this room, out of his reach, out of his life.