Chapter Sixteen
Ashley sat at the small escritoire in the morning room, reviewing the week’s household accounts with Mrs. Patterson, but her mind kept drifting to the previous night.
Heat crept up her neck as she remembered the black silk blindfold, the way darkness had heightened every sensation, how he set her on all fours, a collar around her neck tethering her to the bedhead.
How she’d felt him behind her, then the sting of the paddle on her buttocks, while he entered her from behind.
Her world turned to flashes of color behind her mask as the pleasure built, until she’d felt ready to shatter from nothing more than Raven’s touch.
“Your Grace?” Mrs. Patterson’s voice pulled her back to the present. “The butcher’s bill?”
“Oh. Yes.” Ashley forced herself to focus on the neat columns of figures before her. “This seems reasonable. Please approve payment.”
But even as she signed her name with deliberate care, her thoughts circled back to the bedchamber. To the moment Raven had wound her hair in his hand and the sting of the paddle on her naked buttocks, his voice low and commanding as he’d told her to trust him. To surrender completely.
And she had. God help her, she had.
The pleasure and pain had been a revelation.
She’d tensed when she first heard the whisper of it cutting through the air, anticipating pain.
But Raven’s touch had been measured, controlled—a sharp sting followed immediately by the soothing caress of his hand.
Building sensation upon sensation, until pleasure and pain blurred into something transcendent.
How could something society would call deviant feel so utterly right?
Ashley shifted in her chair; the slight heat remained from last night’s activities, hidden beneath layers of muslin and silk, invisible to the world. A secret she and Raven shared.
The thought made her smile despite herself.
“Your Grace?” Mrs. Patterson was looking at her with barely concealed curiosity. “You seem particularly cheerful this morning.”
“Do I?” Ashley straightened the household ledgers with exaggerated care. “I suppose I slept well.”
That was an understatement. She’d slept deeply and dreamlessly in Raven’s arms, her body pleasantly sore, her mind finally quiet after weeks of worry. When she’d woken this morning to find him already gone—called away to some early meeting with his man of business—she’d felt almost bereft.
Three months of separate bedrooms, of careful distance and formal politeness. And now, after just a few nights of intimacy, she found herself missing him when he wasn’t there.
Dangerous territory, that. She couldn’t afford to fall in love with her husband when their marriage was supposed to be nothing more than a convenient arrangement to avoid scandal. What did he want from this marriage besides children and a bed partner who liked his games?
But her traitorous heart didn’t seem to care about what was sensible.
“If that will be all, Your Grace?” Mrs. Patterson gathered her ledgers with practiced efficiency.
“Yes, thank you. Oh—one more thing.” Ashley pulled out the fabric samples she’d collected for Raven’s study. “I’ll need these chairs ordered this week. And the bookshelf for the far wall.”
Mrs. Patterson’s eyes lit with understanding. The entire household had noticed the shift in their master and mistress’s relationship. Ashley supposed it was impossible to hide such things from servants who changed the sheets and tidied the rooms.
“Of course, Your Grace. I’ll have Henderson see to it immediately.”
After the housekeeper departed, Ashley found herself alone with the morning sunlight and her increasingly inappropriate thoughts.
She tried to focus on other household matters—the menu for next week’s dinner party, the repairs needed in the east wing, the upcoming charity event she’d agreed to help organize.
But her mind kept circling back to the way Raven had looked at her last night. The reverence in his touch despite the intensity of what they were doing. The way he’d held her afterward, murmuring reassurances against her hair as the world slowly came back into focus.
“You’re perfect,” he’d whispered. “So brave. So beautiful. So perfectly mine.”
Mine.
The possessiveness in that single word should have alarmed her.
But instead, it had sent warmth flooding through her chest. After three years of being society’s cautionary tale, of belonging nowhere and to no one, the idea of being claimed—of being wanted—felt like a gift she’d never expected to receive.
Ashley caught herself smiling again and forced her expression into something more appropriate for a duchess reviewing household accounts. But inside, she felt lighter than she had in years.
Perhaps it was wrong to take such pleasure in what they did behind closed doors. Perhaps ladies weren’t supposed to enjoy being bound and blindfolded, weren’t supposed to arch into the kiss of a silk riding crop, or like the pain from the paddle, or beg their husbands for more.
But Ashley had stopped caring about what ladies were supposed to do three years ago, when society had judged her for a scandal that wasn’t hers. If she was already notorious, already beyond the pale of respectability in the ton’s eyes, why not embrace the freedom that came with being fallen?
Why not enjoy every moment of pleasure her husband offered?
The sound of footsteps in the hallway made her look up. Raven appeared in the doorway of the morning room, still dressed for business in a dark coat and pristine cravat, but with a softness in his expression she was learning to recognize.
“There you are,” he said, crossing to where she sat. “Henderson said you were reviewing household accounts.”
“All finished.” Ashley set aside her pen, acutely aware of how her body responded to his mere presence. “How was your meeting?”
“Tedious.” He leaned against the edge of the escritoire, close enough that she could smell his familiar scent—sandalwood and something spicy that was uniquely him. “I found myself distracted, thinking about other things.”
“Other things?” She looked up at him through her lashes, emboldened by the heat in his gaze.
“My wife, primarily. And whether she was as sore as I feared she might be after last night’s…activities.”
Color flooded Ashley’s cheeks. Even now, even after everything they’d done together, his frank acknowledgment of their intimacy made her feel like a blushing maiden.
“I’m perfectly fine,” she managed. “A bit tender, perhaps, but nothing that concerns me.”
“Good.” His hand came up to cup her cheek, his thumb stroking gently across her skin. “I never want to hurt you, Ashley. Not truly. If I ever go too far—”
“You won’t.” She turned her face into his palm, pressing a kiss there. “I trust you, Raven. Completely.”
Something shifted in his expression—vulnerability and wonder mixed together. “I don’t deserve that trust.”
“Yes, you do.”
They stayed like that for a moment, his hand warm against her face, her heart doing complicated things in her chest. Then Raven seemed to shake himself, straightening.
“I came to ask if you had plans this afternoon. I thought perhaps we could spend some time together. Talk. Get to know each other better outside of…” He gestured vaguely, and Ashley understood what he couldn’t quite say.
Outside of bed. Outside of the intense physicality of what they shared.
“I’d like that very much,” she said honestly. “I have no pressing engagements.”
“Excellent. Shall we take a walk in the garden? It’s a fine day, and I confess I’ve been cooped up in my study too much lately with this silly wager. I’ll be happy when it’s over and we have won.”
Ashley kept her thoughts to herself. She was torn between her husband and the Sisterhood. Should she tell him? No, it was important to the ladies, all ladies actually, that they won.
They made their way through the house and out into the garden, where late autumn flowers still bloomed in stubborn defiance of the approaching winter.
The air was crisp but pleasant, and Ashley found herself grateful for the excuse to be outside, away from servants and propriety and the weight of household responsibilities.
Raven offered his arm, and they strolled in companionable silence for several minutes before he spoke.
“Tell me about your childhood,” he said. “Before the scandal. Before everything changed. What were you like as a girl?”
The question surprised her. They’d shared their bodies, shared intimacies that would scandalize society, but they’d never really talked about their pasts beyond the bare necessities.
“I was…ordinary, I suppose,” Ashley said slowly, searching her memories. “Happy. My parents’ marriage was a happy one, which was unusual for their time. They set an example of what partnership could look like—genuine affection and respect between husband and wife.”
“You were fortunate in that.”
“I was. My father died when I was eighteen, and I think that’s when things started to shift.
Mother took his death hard and turned all her attention on Ivy and I.
” She paused, watching a butterfly flit among the remaining roses.
“She had dreams of me becoming the ton diamond and making a fine match for me. One of my deepest regrets was destroying her dream.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Raven said quietly.
“No?” Ashley laughed, but there was an edge of bitterness to it. “Yet my mother never disowned me or scolded me when I found myself ruined at nineteen. She knew me. Believed in me. And she did not press when I would not tell her how it had happened. I love her for that.”
“She was proud at our wedding.”
Ashley smiled. “You were a duke and though she wasn’t happy about the circumstances, I think she felt relief that I would be safe. She likes you.”
His arm tensed beneath her hand. “I’m sorry. For all of it. For being one of the people who judged you without knowing the truth.”