Chapter 8
Frederick was in his element. He was back at Hartleigh Park, his seat, and he had spent the ride of several days giving his bride heated stares across the carriage while the presence of her lady’s maid forced him to behave decorously.
At night in the inns along the King’s Highway, Frederick would take her — he was a man newly married and deeply obsessed with his wife, after all — but he did so in the most shallow and gentle way possible, earning soft cries from Marianne, but not the dripping, unleashed pleasure they’d shared in the drawing room.
He was teasing her. Or rather, priming her. Getting her cunt so wet and swollen that even his roughest ministrations would feel heavenly after all of that coy play.
When they arrived at the house after a long, meandering drive through the extensive park, they’d parted at the door to the duchess’s chamber.
Marianne had plumped lips from all the biting she’d been doing on the road, he had an aching cock from the same games, and they finally had privacy. But the moment wasn’t yet perfect for the claiming.
“I hope you’ll be down later to welcome our guests,” said Frederick, casting his wife a heated stare.
“Guests?” she asked, taken aback that what she thought might serve as a honeymoon would become a house party.
“Yes, I invited some friends down from London. I think you’ll like them.”
“Of course,” she said, turning away pensively to wash and dress for dinner.
***
“You’re telling me you pursued a musician from the Forest, married her, and haven’t told her you’re a Buck?”
Frederick slumped in the leather chair behind his desk. “Was a Buck.”
“That changes nothing,” continued Matthew Bohun, Earl of Peverel, known to his former secret society friends as Thorncock. “She needs to know the truth. She might have seen things!”
“Oh, she certainly saw things,” said Frederick, recalling the moment a tapestry revealed his entire body to the musicians, including his darling Marianne.
“Where’s Adam? And Edmund?” asked Anthony Paschal-Lamb, Viscount Corbet, who answered to Stagshade in the Bucks’ headquarters.
Frederick poured Matt a brandy from the decanters along the wall. “They’ve begged off — for good reason: their wives are enceinte.”
“Had I known,” said Thorncock, making as if to go.
“You too!” cried Frederick, slapping him on the back and handing him the glass as if it were a prize.
“Early days,” said Matthew, barely able to contain his delight. “We hadn’t expected it to happen so soon, but…”
“You old dog, I bet you didn’t stay off the poor girl,” said Anthony, knowing full well that Matt’s countess was a lusty lass with a taste for exhibitionism. “I’ve brought Letitia. No news along those lines for us yet, and I couldn’t bear the thought of being parted from her, even for a night.”
Frederick handed Anthony a glass of soda water.
“So here we are, a band of libertines brought low by love and babies,” said Frederick with a thoughtful sip. “Somehow, I don’t regret it.”
“You might find that you regret not telling your wife about your past, High Buckthorn,” said Anthony. “Don’t let fear of the truth impede your love.”
“When did you become a poet-philosopher, Stagshade?” asked Frederick, sinking into his chair grimly. His friend was right, but damn him!
“Is that what I sound like?” cried Anthony, slapping his leg. “Wait until I tell Letitia.”
Frederick heard the joy in his friend’s voice at the prospect of sharing with his wife. He wanted that. Not just the quotidian things and today’s feelings but sharing all he was and all he’d ever been. It was heady, if terrifying.
“I’ll summon Marianne now,” said Frederick. “And tell her everything. If you see her run from the house with ribbons in her hair, you know what to do.”
***
Marianne paused at the doorway of her husband’s study, now empty save for him.
He looked up, feeling quite hunted. “Come in.”
She glided in, flowers affixed to her gauzy dress and ribbons trailing from her hair and shoulders.
“You wore it,” he said.
Marianne glanced at the dress and hair ribbons he’d sent to her shortly after their arrival as a gift. A gift with a request: wear this tonight if you’d like to experience what we discussed.
And here she was, wearing that gown. Signaling that she truly wanted what he did from their marriage. It was his turn to offer something to her. Something that may be very unwelcome indeed.
“Perhaps you’d like a seat,” he said, gesturing to the chair before him.
“I think I’d rather stand.” She looked small and nervous. He’d done this to her. The deception needed to end now.
“Marianne, I must tell you something.”
Her eyes looked so full of fear that he came around the desk in case she swooned or felt otherwise unwell.
“I—”
“Before you say anything, there’s something I must tell you,” she said. She was near tears, plucking at a flower pinned to her waist. “I don’t know if this is why you summoned me here, but I should have told you already. The guilt has been killing me.”
What was she on about?
“Our household in London — during my Season — cost my guardians a good deal of money. They economized. They did it so ruthlessly that they stopped paying tradespeople and even the staff.”
Frederick couldn’t speak. He’d never looked askance at his wife for having collected wages, even if it meant playing music near libertines. Why, he was one of those libertines, and he knew quite well that her actions were entirely innocent! And even if they hadn’t been, damn mores, he wanted her.
“I took a position playing the harp. I didn’t realize when I accepted the role that it was for a secret society. That engaged in certain behaviors.”
She looked up at Frederick, now at her elbow, and her eyes were full of tears. “I only played the harp to pay those tradespeople and staff for their labor! But I saw things. Accidentally.”
Frederick’s breath caught. She was about to confess something when he was, in fact, the transgressor. He should have stopped her, apologized for his role, but the beautiful fear on her face had him transfixed. She was perfect like this. He’d never wanted her more.
“I saw…I saw a man,” she whispered. “He haunts my dreams. A nude man. Save a mask.”
“You feared him?” asked Frederick, finding his voice at last.
“I was scared. And something more. Only when we came to be married did I recognize the feeling completely.”
Frederick placed his hand on her forearm, meaning to comfort her, but mostly alarmed that she might flee.
“What I felt was desire.”
She was trembling, eyes wet, and clearly aroused. His cock felt like a steel beam in his trousers. He wanted nothing more than to plant himself in her rich soil, run his cheeks over her moss. Marianne was fertile land, and he meant to sow his seed all over her so their line would grow strong.
Frederick slowly reached a hand to his beloved wife’s face, more pleased than even on their wedding day. He stroked his thumb over the apple of her cheek, then brushed her lips until they parted slightly for him. Even her teeth were beautiful.
“My love—”
She gasped. Had he never told her? No matter, he had something important to share.
“My love,” he repeated, “it is I who must explain something to you. To apologize for my transgressions prior to our marriage. But never after.”
She looked at him in wonder, as if the idea of a duke apologizing to his beloved wife never entered her mind. Oh, the things she would learn.
“I was a libertine. Prior to our marriage,” he said.
“But you weren’t—”
“I was not merely a libertine. I was the libertine. The one you saw.”
Her lips parted on a gasp, and his thumb slid into her warm, wet mouth.
It was a distracting sight, the most carnal, erotic thing he’d seen, never mind the revels of before — this was his Marianne submitting to his domination as if by instinct.
Heaven help him keep his cock within his trousers when he wanted her so badly.
She studied him, saying nothing.
“Can you forgive me?” he asked. “For participating in debaucheries when I should have only thought of seeking you out? It’s just that I never imagined…never thought I’d feel…”
And then her lips wrapped around his thumb and sucked in answer to his confession. Did this mean she forgave him? Understood? He was awash in doubt and lust, hoping their nascent union would survive.
“I never thought I’d feel—” he said before Marianne pulled him by the neck and kissed him with all the innocent ardor he’d wished of her.
He eased back, trying to understand. She grabbed him again for another kiss. Promising, but his stomach churned at the lingering doubts.
“Does this mean—”
“You were the man I saw?” she asked at last. “The one who awakened feelings in me I didn’t know existed?”
“I certainly hope so,” breathed Frederick as Marianne kissed his neck.
“It’s just that guilt has tormented me. And other sensations. To learn that the person I saw was you!”
A sob escaped. Oh no, he’d made her cry!
“I should have told you sooner,” he said. “I heard your music and saw you at the Forest and had to have you. Had to make you my wife. My duchess. It sounded like madness even to me, and I thought my wishes would scare you if laid bare.”
“And yet I saw you quite bare — save your mask — well before we were introduced,” she said, her eyes gleaming.
“You’ll embarrass me, duchess,” he said, suddenly feeling abashed.
“You think you’re the only wanton in the family. Though I have no experience with men other than you, I had thoughts galore after our encounter.”
“Did you now?” he asked, liking the direction of this conversation.
“I touched myself. I thought of you, your body, and I imagined you dominating me. Using me like the women who visited that townhouse.”
Frederick could only hold her close, bend his knees to press his clothed cock into the hollow between her legs, and soak up the warmth pouring from it.
“Did it help?” he rasped.
“Not enough,” she replied, just as breathy.
Frederick was pulling at her skirts before he realized what he was doing, fumbling through the diaphanous fabric and finding the place between her thighs to slide his fingers.
That pelt of fur, so soft he wished to rub his face in it.
Her welcoming, splitting lips anointed with slick honey.
That grasping channel that sucked on his exploring finger.
She was perfect. Wet. And they had shared their secrets.
All that remained was to celebrate their full union, as Buck and wife.
“You feel ready, my wife,” he whispered, giving the softest of thrusts from just one finger. He wanted their coupling to be overwhelming and nearly too much. And he suspected his wife would want the same if she knew how pleasurable a little self-denial would feel.
“I want you,” she said. “I want this. To experience…”
“Getting fucked like my little vixen?”
Marianne nodded, a blush spreading down her neck becomingly. How lovely it would look when streaked with mud.
“Then you’d better run, my love. Because you’ve a big, bad stag coming to fuck your cunt.”
He slapped her on the arse and threw the door to his study open, letting in the chill night and offering a path that led straight into the estate’s park.