Chapter Nineteen
The fire had dwindled to cinders as the sun rose over Mayfair. It was Christmas morning, a day for joy, celebration, and love. Selwyn looked forward to spending this most blessed holiday with those who mattered most to him—his siblings and his future wife.
Aurelia lay nestled in his arms, looking warm, soft, and drowsy. Her coppery hair draped loosely and fragrantly across his pillow, and he burrowed his nose in her curls to savor every moment by her side.
Soon, they would be married and could enjoy such intimacies forever, but last night they had challenged all good sense and gone to bed together. It had been a daring decision for the Duke of Brantingham, yet Selwyn Charlton relished in the freedom he’d found in her.
He scooped her up and turned her toward him. Laughing, he covered her sleepy, slightly parted lips in kisses, and—after a moment—she began to kiss him back in earnest.
“Good morning,” he said softly. “Happy Christmas, my darling.”
She lifted a hand to stroke his cheek, fanning her fingers from his temple to his jawline. Stubbled whiskers roughened her progress, though she seemed to delight in this unguarded, unshaven glimpse at the man beneath the coronet.
“Happy Christmas, Selwyn,” she replied. “I trust you slept well.”
He grinned into her hand, and she stroked his upturned lips with her fingertips.
“I did, thank you,” he said, “and a good thing, too, as we have a busy day ahead of us.” He sought her hips beneath the bedcovers, smoothing his palms across her balmy, sweat-dampened skin.
He hooked one of her thighs over his, cupping her bottom. “But not yet…”
Thankfully, not yet, for he was feeling amorous this morning.
Selwyn claimed her mouth as he caressed her. She moaned and moved against him, pressing the tight buds of her nipples into his chest. In answer, he kissed, and licked, and nibbled a line from her throat to her breasts, worshiping those pretty, pink peaks.
“Oh, Selwyn…”
He loved to hear his name on her lips, especially when she gasped it in pleasure. Selwyn slipped his fingers between her slackened thighs, finding that place she liked, and massaging it with the pad of his thumb.
Aurelia curled into him, widening her knees and seeking his erection. She guided him to her entrance and edged the tip of him inside. He had loved her long and hard last night, and Selwyn feared that she was tender, but her desire for him far outweighed any pain she might’ve felt.
He was a fortunate man to be loved unashamedly by such a woman.
Sinking into her, he allowed Aurelia to set the pace, depth, and rhythm of their coupling.
They writhed together on the mattress, finding and giving pleasure.
Her fingernails clawed his scalp as she devoured his mouth with hers.
All the while, he kneaded and soothed, rubbed and fondled, denying himself satisfaction until he felt her spine arch and her core tighten.
She quivered around him, letting the tremors carry her to bliss.
He sailed within her for a moment longer before crying out—“My God, Aurelia!”
Selwyn quaked with the force of his climax and buried his face in the curve of her throat as he murmured and moaned, feeling insensible and altogether overwhelmed by their lovemaking.
By their love.
He marveled that she had accepted his proposal when she might’ve gone back to Cheltenham and lived a quiet, contented, fulfilling life far from the pressures and upturned noses of society.
He vowed to be worthy of her choice.
They lay together for a long while, whispering words of love to one another. Laughing, conversing, and talking about their dreams. Selwyn had found a true partner in Aurelia Goldsworthy. She was his friend, lover, and future duchess. The wife of his heart and, someday, the mother of his children.
A pounding on his bedchamber door interrupted their embrace. Someone knocked rapidly and firmly, and loudly enough to wake the whole of Brantingham House.
“Selly!” a voice called. “Selly, wake up!”
Aurelia clutched the bedclothes to her chest and began to spring from the mattress, but his hand on her elbow stayed her flight. “Stay where you are. Whatever it is, I’ll take care of it.” She gaped back at him with wide, frightened eyes. “Don’t worry. No one will see you in here.”
He tucked her back beneath the covers as he strode across the carpet and retrieved his dressing gown from its peg in his wardrobe.
He slipped it on and tied the sash securely around his waist. A quick glance in the mirror showed that he looked drowsy and perhaps slightly hungover, but not unpresentable.
He raked his hands over his head to tame his hair, and then hauled open the door to reveal Margie, Fannie, and Perry congregated in the corridor beyond. Their faces were taut with worry.
“Whatever is the matter?” he asked them, suddenly alarmed.
“It’s Miss Goldsworthy,” explained Margie, clad in her nightdress and wrapper, with two plaits of brown hair hanging down her shoulders. “We went to wake her, but she wasn’t in her room!”
Fannie edged forward. The curling papers in her hair wobbled as she spoke, “We cannot find her anywhere. We fear she has gone!”
Perry wore a nightshirt, a banyan, and the red Morocco slippers he’d received for Christmas. He towered above their sisters’ heads as he added his own voice to the crisis. “We’re worried about her,” said the lad. “We wanted her to stay. To hell with Lord Mathieson. Mama hated him anyway.”
Selwyn was touched that his siblings cared. He took heart that they were willing to fight for Aurelia, to challenge society on her behalf. Mama had left them a proud legacy, and they were willing to carry the torch.
Again, Fannie spoke. “You love her, Selly, I know you do! You wouldn’t let such a silly thing as her parentage come between you.”
Perry slung his arms over the girls’ shoulders, hugging them both. “Anyway, she would be a Charlton, and it wouldn’t matter where she came from. She’d be one of us.”
Selwyn’s throat felt tight, and he struggled for a moment to find the words without his voice breaking. “Do you mean that?”
His siblings all agreed that they loved Aurelia.
Margie said what everyone knew to be true, “It was as if she was meant to be here from the moment she arrived.”
Selwyn was overjoyed. He couldn’t imagine a better, more beloved Christmas gift than the trust, support, and acceptance of his family.
He was so glad to be a Charlton—not because they were an old and noble family, wealthy and powerful beyond anybody’s wildest dreams, but because they were just plain good people.
He grinned at them. “Get dressed and we shall have a family meeting over breakfast,” he said, careful to keep Aurelia’s location in his bed a secret. “Don’t worry, all will be well.”
After shooing the trio off, he pivoted to face her. He closed the door at his back and rested his shoulders against it. His heart was filled to bursting, and he feared he was closer to tears than ever before.
He had worried that the festive season would not be the same since Mama and Papa’s deaths, and in many ways, things would never be the same, yet life went on. One grew, and matured, and strived to accommodate what they couldn’t change. Love carried on.
Mama might not have hand-selected Aurelia Goldsworthy to succeed her as the Duchess of Brantingham, but she would be overjoyed at how the story had played out, for Cecile Hartley was home at last, thriving through the daughter she never knew.
This was the legacy their mothers had left them—one of love, above all things.
“Did you hear that?” he asked her.
She nodded tearfully. “Every wonderful word.”
Selwyn held his hand out to this clever, kind, and courageous young woman who had named herself as a child, and who had essentially promised herself to a duke. To him.
“Let’s put you back in your room, my love, where you can discreetly ring for your maid. Then we’ll break the good news to my family before they send Scotland Yard to find you.”
She laughed as she laced her fingers in his. Her hand, he noticed, was steady. Her eyes were clear and bright, and utterly unafraid. Aurelia was ready to walk the path she wanted and to begin the life she deserved.