Chapter 10 #2
He finished his food in several more bites and stood. “My compliments to your cook. I won’t need to eat for another day, at least.”
Audrey stilled and crossed her arms, as if warding off a chill. Looking slightly out of her depth, she gestured toward the boudoir. “You can rest in there tonight. A maid will be in at dawn to build up the fire, but she won’t enter the boudoir.”
“I can’t stay.”
Audrey sealed her lips. “You’re not leaving?” Before he could reply, she continued, “Where else will you go? It is freezing outside, and it’s dangerous, Hugh. They’re looking for you.”
“They’re not going to find me,” he said, a little amused by her fretting. She, however, was not amused in the least.
“Your overconfidence is arrogant.”
“Your lack of it in me is wounding,” he replied.
“There is no need to be heroic. Violet House is safe. You can hide here better than out there.” She swung an arm toward the window in which he’d entered. “Better yet, flee. Go to the Continent.”
His pride absorbed the hit, though he winced. “I am not hiding, nor will I flee. I need to find Eloisa’s killer and clear my name. I can’t do that if I’m huddling under blankets in your boudoir.”
“You’re being irrational,” she said, color creeping up her neck. But it wasn’t the spirit of anger beginning to grip her. He saw what it truly was in the beseeching glare of her eyes: fear.
Against his own counsel, he crossed the room to stand closer to her. “I know this city. I know how and where to hide. Trust me, Audrey.”
She closed her eyes, as if to control her own flaring temper and panic.
His hand lifted of its own volition, it seemed, for it was suddenly cupping her cheek.
The coarse pad of his thumb met no resistance as it brushed along her skin, warm and velvet soft.
Her lashes parted, and twin pools of blue appeared dusky in the changing firelight.
“If they find you, they’ll arrest you,” she whispered, voice tremulous. “You’ll hang.”
He gave up the struggle to keep his distance and palmed her other cheek, now far too close. “I won’t let that happen.”
“I won’t either,” she said. The panic and fear ebbed from her eyes, replaced with something just as dangerous—stubborn determination. Which for the Duchess of Fournier usually resulted in rash behavior, heedless of any potential peril.
“I am putting you in danger by just being here.” His fingertips ran lightly over her hair, down the glossy plait of her braid. “Asking you to visit Potridge and steal files is reckless.”
“No. Please, I won’t be coddled.” Audrey pressed her hands flat against his chest. Surely, she felt the mad charge of his heartbeat under her palms. “If I were the one wanted for murder, you wouldn’t shy away from a bit of danger to help me…would you?”
The answer to that was as palpable as his desire for her, which was quickly flooding his good sense. “I’d tear this city down before I let anything happen to you.”
The pleased grin bowing her lips had barely formed before Hugh captured her mouth with his.
Audrey’s hands curled into his waistcoat, pulling him closer rather than pushing him away.
After months of shoving aside every errant thought of her—of having one more finger of whisky so that his mind might not drift to her as he lay abed, waiting to fall asleep; of assuring himself repeatedly that there were other women out there in the world who would manage to hold a candle to the duchess—Hugh all but dissolved when she parted her lips and met his tongue with her own.
Sweet God in heaven. He’d missed her. Missed her voice, her smell, her presence, her taste.
He met no resistance as he clutched her against him, the soft yet firm impression of her body pulled flush against his. No words were needed to understand her craving; it was mutual. And here they were, in the shelter of her bedchamber, alone, a long night stretching out before them.
The knot in the sash closing her banyan slipped apart effortlessly under his fingers, and with a groan of pleasure, Hugh slid his hands over her hips and closed around the small of her back.
The warmth of her skin reached through the thin linen nightdress.
He couldn’t tear his lips from hers, and Audrey continued to send pangs of desire straight to his groin as she deepened the kiss.
Undoubtedly, she felt his arousal, but she didn’t retreat. She wasn’t afraid.
There was nothing to stop him from lifting the hem of her nightdress and freeing her of it.
Nothing to stop him from laying her upon the four-poster behind them and making love to her as he’d longed to, almost from the first time they’d met.
Her fiery tongue, her resolve to see through whatever task she set her mind to, no matter how thorny or dangerous or complicated, and that unnamable, enigmatic pull between them, had finally driven him to his knees.
“Stay,” she whispered as her lips parted from his, if only for a second.
He explored the lush curves of her backside and nearly tumbled headfirst into the black abyss of lust. One glaring truth kept him clinging to the edge of the cliff: She was a virgin.
Despite having been married for three years, she had never lain with a man.
And as soon as the duke cropped up in his addled brain, the tolling of reason swiftly followed.
“I can’t,” he gritted out. Before her lips could draw him back, he pressed them to her forehead. They each breathed heavily, arms still entwined.
The last time he’d seen her, in November, he’d explained why he could not be her lover.
Though they would sate each other’s desires, it wouldn’t be enough.
He wanted all of her, not just the part of her that would come unraveled in his arms in a bedroom somewhere.
And more importantly, if she were ever to get with child, the baby would legally belong to Fournier.
No, Hugh would never allow another man to raise his son or daughter.
Nothing had changed.
Except that now he was a fugitive from the law. Which made spending the night with Audrey even more unwise.
She slowly disentangled herself from his arms and with trembling hands, retied the sash of her robe. “Is there someone? A woman who you…”
“No.” He wanted to take her into his arms again but held himself in check. “Not for some time now.”
If that was any relief to her, he couldn’t read it on her suddenly restrained expression. Her cheeks were flushed, her lips swollen.
Hell, he needed to leave. The frozen air outside would do him good.
“Douse your lamp so that anyone watching the house won’t see me leave through the window, and lock it after,” he instructed, turning to gather his coat and hat.
She said nothing as she turned down the lamp.
The room turned to near pitch-black as he put on his coat and hat, and then opened the window.
There was no moonlight, no visibility at all as he climbed through and maneuvered himself onto the thick branch of the plane tree.
He heard Audrey slide the sash into place and engage the lock, but could not see her.
He was grateful for that, at least, as he continued down the tree, to the ground, and then darted away.