Chapter 14
Somehow, Daria managed to turn the silver key with steady fingers, step outside, and close the door behind her.
When Daria awakened in the afternoon, she’d learned that, at some point, Gregory had carried her into their new home together and left her to rest.
Some two or so hours after she’d arisen, bathed, meandered about her new—very masculine—chambers, and been presented with an evening meal, she realized she’d been mistaken.
Gregory hadn’t left Daria to rest—he’d left her.
Now, she knew why.
Closing her eyes, Daria rested against the panel and laid her palms sideways upon the tight knot in her stomach. It didn’t help.
But for the single cryptic tick-tock-tick-tock of the hall clock, silence filled the corridor and rang in her ears.
Even upon the discovery of how her husband had been occupying himself on their wedding night, Daria had fallen into his arms. She was no different than all the ladies about Society. Women she’d pitied for wilting over and around the Duke of Argyll.
Her heart thumped a dull, sickly beat against her sternum.
This is what you get for seeking your husband who hadn’t wanted to be found. The elaborate swirls and accents carved into the oak bit hard against her back, punishing her for her foolishness.
Why would Gregory have come to Daria? From the outset, he’d spoken freely to her and about her.
She didn’t possess a beauty worthy for a man such as him.
Her husband possessed the power, title, and heavenly good looks.
He need just crook a finger or flash a wink to have a whole bevy of worldly Cyprians to choose from.
That weight continued to press on her chest until the muscles became unbearable.
And you know it has nothing to do with his title.
Gregory could have but a single bent sixpence to his name and have anyone he desired.
His charm alone could have compensated for a lack of title or fortune, and he’d have ended up in the same place—king of a gaming hell, with beauties vying for a spot in his bed.
“Goddamn it!”
Daria’s entire body jolted with the unexpectedness and violence of that profanity. The heavy solid oak door shook damningly at her back, betraying her presence.
She recoiled.
Silence descended on the other side of Gregory’s office door.
Daria ran.
Faster than she ever had during her family’s games of Touch.
Even faster than when she’d glimpsed her father crumple in death and bolted so fast her living family present hadn’t spied her.
The guards stationed throughout gave no reaction to their master’s volatile displeasure, nor to Daria’s frenzied flight past. As she sped towards the floor-to-ceiling gilded mirror, the reflective glass displayed her white skirts whipping about her, giving her the look of a ghost she’d one day become. She may as well be invisible.
But she wasn’t.
The crimson carpet muffled her wild footfalls, but there was no hiding.
Her husband would have ears as golden as the rest of his fallen-angel beauty. Just as he’d know someone had been listening. And it wouldn’t be a difficult riddle for a man with his wit to gather it’d been Daria. Something he’d confirm with the men with his sentries.
Harsh breaths tore painfully from Daria’s lungs.
At last, she found shelter in her rooms.
Panting and gasping for breath, she collapsed against another door panel.
Then she recalled the trouble that’d landed her in moments ago.
Restless, her entire body shaking, Daria made one last flight—this time for the grand four-poster with its sapphire and gold curtains drawn wide.
She launched herself face-first upon the feather-tick mattress, bouncing up and down lightly several times before her body settled.
Daria lay there for a minute, teeming with emotion, too many to identify or explain. They swarmed her. Until it was too much.
Daria screamed into her bedding, the heavy, silk damask coverlet drowning out her misery. She counted to one hundred.
Finally, relieved of some of the explosive energy, she turned her head to get a proper breath.
Misery, thy name is Daria.
Alone now, with no running left to be done—save back to her family—and clarity restored, her exchange with Gregory replayed in her mind, as vivid as the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet—remembered only because of her twin’s love of it.
Gregory, half-naked, stinking of spirits, his damp shirt hastily donned and some woman’s fingermarks upon his neck.
Pain stabbed at Daria’s breast, and she hated that she hurt over Gregory.
Fighting tears, she bit her recurrently bruised cuticle.
The low rumble of his smooth baritone filled her mind.
“…Hush now…”
The sound of his voice had steadied her then and had the same effect now.
What was it about his presence that soothed her soul?
“…Where is your rosewater, love…?”
Daria’s body trembled. He’d called her “love.” He’d known her favorite scent, and that she’d not worn it.
“…You place it here…”
Her eyes slid shut. She reflexively touched that place behind her ear that he’d kissed.
“…And here…”
She brushed her fingers over her neck; he had worshipped this part of her like a praying man.
Daria’s core throbbed, her body betraying her. Biting her lower lip, she rocked her hips into the mattress in a futile search for surcease.
But then, this was his power—a magnetism she had naively believed herself immune to.
That reminder brought her squarely back to earth. Daria collapsed into the mattress.
She’d always thought the ill-fated Romeo and Juliet ill-conceived. Love at first sight, and a willingness to surrender one’s life from but a short acquaintance. She stilled.
Assuredly, she did not love him—she could not. As for Gregory? Someday, after she passed, he’d fall in love.
But until then, they were married and seeing him in a state of dishabille, knowing after he’d shown Daria a magic she’d never believed possible, he’d then gone and spent their wedding day with a woman of great beauty, didn’t sting. It ripped her all the way open.
His kiss, the feel of his hands wrapped about her, gripping her buttocks, guiding her against him, and leading her to a blissful surrender had been…magic.
For her.
Daria flipped onto her back and flung her forearm across her forehead. Tears filled her throat.
After he’d made love to another, he’d attempted to seduce Daria—and almost did. That slight brush of his lips along her neck, the way he’d teased the sensitive skin where her neck met her jaw, had set off a fire as wild and hungry as when he’d pressed her against his manhood.
She’d shown herself to be that weak with her devastatingly powerful rake of a husband.
Why should she care? She’d known very well in wedding the notorious Duke of Argyll—as he’d pointed out numerous times in their very limited acquaintance—that he was a bounder. A rake who’d never be loyal.
But in his arms that afternoon, he’d awakened her body from a long-unrecognized sleep.
To Daria, what occurred between them in the carriage hadn’t only been magic; it felt special.
To Gregory, the infamous Duke of Argyll, well, tonight proved how much—rather, how little—he’d been affected.
Adrift inside, Daria sank her sharp tooth into the corner of her index finger. The metallic, salty tinge of blood filled her mouth.
Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop.
This was too much. They’d been married but fourteen hours and she was falling apart? If she didn’t stop this spiral, it’d be her own heart breaking that would kill her.
“I wondered where you’d flown off to, little raven.”
Her heartbeat and breath fell out of step.
Daria sat up.
Gregory lounged in the doorway. Words failed. Say something. She didn’t want to be one of those breathless ninnies whose words failed from a rake’s smile. It was all her husband’s fault.
His blue eyes glimmered with the arrogance of a man who knew precisely the effect he was having.
“Hullo,” she said softly.
“A hello now, when you previously left without so much as a goodbye.” He winked; that quick up and down glide of his lashes blunted some of his disapproval.
Daria damped her lips. “I did say, ‘If you’ll excuse me.’”
Gregory pondered that a moment. “Were you coming back?”
Daria shook her head; her plait flopped sillily in the air.
“You had other more important matters to attend?” A smile ghosted his lips.
Her heart stuttered. “Y-Yes.” How she hated the affect he had on her.
Her husband’s eyebrows, a darker shade of blond than the now wet, chin-length blonde strands, dipped in.
He set Daria on her feet, and she mourned the loss of his warmth.
Oh, drat. She’d once had a governess who pinched her every time Daria spoke the first thing that popped into her head. This time, Daria discreetly pinched the side of her leg, punishing herself.
His shoulders relaxed. “I confess,” he purred, and she hated that her heart raced over his rogue’s tones. “You’ve handed my pride quite the beating, Daria.”
His pride had taken a bruising this night? His. “How so?”
The right corner of his mouth ticked up.
That life-sustaining organ picked up its pace. “You rushed off to spend our wedding night alone.”
Their wedding night.
Shaking inside, needing to compose herself so as to save her pride, Daria wandered to the fireplace. Like a water loosed from a millrace, it all came rushing back, and the great torrent threatened to suck her under.
Daria gripped the mantel, hard and cold against her palms, steadying.
From the time of her flight to now, he’d righted his appearance.
Had freshly shaved. The strong scent of brandy lingered no more.
The wet shine upon Gregory’s tidied hair leant those luxuriant strands an illusion of dark brown.
He’d changed his wrinkled, stench-ridden garments for a silk blue robe that matched his chambers.
The material was not a garish crimson or kingly gold nor predictable black. Nor, for that matter, just any shade of blue, but the color he favored above others—Sardinian blue.
That intimate detail transformed him from guarded, manufactured rake into a, living, breathing man.
A man who could break her heart.
The column of Daria’s throat moved.
The soft sough of Gregory’s breath brushed her neck.
Daria’s shoulder came reflexively up. A breathy giggle escaped her and became a full, noisy laugh. She angled her head sideways to protect that sensitive spot.
Gregory’s low, rich chuckle filled the space between them. “Ah, my bewitching bride is ticklish.” He dropped a quick, regretful kiss upon her nape, pulling another giggle. “I will store that important detail away for a later time, little raven.”
Little Raven.
Emotion filled Daria’s chest.
Gregory, with capable fingers, loosened the satin fastenings of her wrapper.
Effortlessly graceful and solicitous, he drew the material open.
Slowly, he edged the white fabric back. Not as a man who anticipated rejection and exposed her body gingerly to not startle her off.
No. her confident husband, a skillful lover, didn’t doubt her inevitable surrender.
What a humbling moment to discover she wasn’t different than all the women who’d fallen under his spell.
As he guided them around to face the mirror, she stared at the sight they made.
Him tall, golden, sleek, muscular strength.
And she, delicate, dark of hair, fair of skin.
They were not matches in beauty. He, with the face, body, and build of Apollo.
But against her back, she felt the ridge of his manhood, long, hard as steel.
A rush of warm wetness collected at her womanhood.
He wanted her.
Maybe this could be enough.
Isn’t that what she’d told not only herself, but Gregory?
Gregory touched his lips against her shoulder blade.
Daria squirmed and twisted, trying to alleviate sharp ache between her thighs.
“You are so responsive, Daria,” he praised, his voice thick with want. Want for her.
Her husband, with a sorcerer’s power, trailed a path of kisses along her shoulders.
With every touch of his lips, his skilled fingers worked Daria’s shift down.
The material sagged to her hips the same moment her husband sank to his knees behind her.
Taking her by the hips, Gregory darted his tongue along the length of her spine.
He alternated licking and kissing a trail as he went.
The tip of his tongue struck the middle part of her spine, free of her shift, until she stood bare before him.
“Look at yourself, Daria,” he commanded raggedly.
He guided her chin, bringing Daria’s dazed eyes to the eight-foot-tall silver mirror positioned adjacent them.
And she looked, as he’d commanded.
She saw what he did, and felt how easily he made her body come alive.
In the mirror, she saw them. The sight of her, a sheen of sweat covering her body, her body flushed red with a shameful amount of want, the crazed eyes of the stranger she’d become to herself.
And in herself, she saw Gregory with another. Some woman who wouldn’t bother him with emotions outside of the carnal.
She clamped her eyes tight.
“My little raven is shy,” he murmured.
Oh, Gregory. How can you be a master of desire, but not sense what is inside me?
Because he’s a rake…
“Open your eyes, love,” he coaxed with a word and a husky baritone.
Moaning, Daria bit her lip hard.
“Look at yourself. Look at your exquisite body fully alive, as it is meant to be.” His silky baritone bespelled, compelled her to see what he saw.
His long, sun-bronzed hands spread across the flat of her belly. A juxtaposition of strength and fragility.
Daria watched wide-eyed as Gregory glided his fingers in an intoxicating dance over her ribcage. He climbed them higher. Her body did not care about pride or pain. It held in taut anticipation.
Gregory palmed breasts, lightly squeezing, and she moaned. “These were made for my hands, Daria.
His voice was no longer smooth and in control. And the truth, that this strong, confident, breathtakingly beautiful man wanted her sent her hips arching.
Gregory slipped his hand between her legs and palmed Daria’s throbbing center.
Her breath caught and her gaze held.
“You are so wet for me, little raven.” He crooned like it was the prettiest praise for some accomplishment he held all credit of. “I want you, Daria. I want to seat myself inside your warmth.”
He desired her.
And yet…
His yearning did not center on Daria. Now, it did. But earlier, it hadn’t. And tomorrow, the next tomorrow, and every day thereafter he’d be in the arms of a woman who matched him in beauty and in charm.
And he is going to break your heart when he does, Daria Kearsley.
Somehow, she found the will-power to stop. “Do you refer to all your lovers as ‘little raven’?”