Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
The door slammed behind Thaddeus as he stormed out of the room, leaving the signed deed on the table to dry. Celestine was staring at the door in shock, while Marigold’s lips were parted in awe.
“Gadz,” Marigold exclaimed as she fixed her spectacles. “I never thought uncle was a criminal, or well, criminal adjacent.”
While nursing another cup of tea, Isolde muttered, “I’m not surprised.”
“I wish I could study law,” Marigold sighed as she took a sliver of orange cake from a tiered tray. “I would switch needlework and sewing for… erm…. De Donis Conditionalibus.”
Cedirc’s lips flickered. “I have no doubt you would make an excellent barrister if only the schools were not so biased.”
“So what—” Isolde, who had been quiet all the while, waved her hands “—does this all mean? Is our house going to be yours or is it going to be ours, or half and half?”
“It means I hold your property in trust, not as owner,” Cedric explained. “In trust means that property is placed under the legal control of one person to benefit all of you.
“I will hold the legal title, but it is my task to manage or safeguard the property until your mother tells me what she wants the title to be returned to her or one of your children as specified in the trust.”
“And uncle cannot sell it or take it back?” Celestine asked.
“No,” Cedric assured her.
Finally, Ophelia spoke up, “Thank you, Your Grace. I have insufficient words to thank you for this. I thought I could handle this on my own, but Mr. Baur was blocking me at every turn.”
“You’ll not have to worry about him or work with him again,” Cedric rubbed his face, frowning at the pricks of his beard coming in. “I suspect he is engaging in illegal opportunities himself, so my steward will be managing your home as well.”
“The deed of trust he signed gives me the authority to collect rents, maintain the properties, and oversee tenants. Meanwhile, your uncle retains his title and dignity until he dies and the title passes. But for now, the responsibility of management rests with me.”
Ophelia’s shoulders sank. “I apologize for not attending your ball, Duke Holloway.”
“No offense taken,” he said, while fixing a cup of coffee.
“Your Grace,” Celestine asked hesitantly. “How is Lord Stromwell?”
Giving her a curious look, Cedric replied. “As far as I know, he’s well. Why do you ask?”
Ariadne too looked at her sister, but she did not say anything. Celestine blushed and dropped her eyes to the tarts on her plate. “He sent me flowers a couple of days ago, and I replied, but I haven’t heard from him since.”
“Silas is chronically polite,” Cedric told her with a note of reticence in his voice. “He is the sort to send flowers even if there is no underlying intention of courtship.
“I want to support you, Miss Celestine, but it behooves me to warn you not to hang your hat on him as so many ladies do. If it happens, I am sure it will be wonderful but… take caution.”
Ariadne reached over and squeezed her sister’s hand comfortingly. “It will be all right, even if it is not him.”
Celestine gave her sister a weak smile. Celestine held on for a few moments before pulling away to finish her tea.
His eyes landed on Marigold next and he wondered for a moment what was going through her head.
What did she want for her future? Whom did she want to be in her future? Did she even want to marry at all?
Maybe this is what Ariadne and I need to talk about next.
“Are we going to be served refreshments only or—” Isolde looked around, “—is there anything heavier?”
“You can request dinner,” Cedric said. “The menu, however, is not under my control.”
“I’ll risk it,” Isolde said while standing to go and find a waiter.
Later that afternoon, with the house kerfuffle behind them, Cedric returned from his washing room and headed to his study’s desk—only to slow his walk.
Stepping closer, he looked out into the empty green expanse he spotted Emily skipping about, holding a thin wooden rod with a bunch of feathers dangling from it.
To his surprise, Ariadne was there too. Dressed in a faded day gown, she was holding her own toy, and the two were gamboling about playing with the tiny drop of lint.
He could not move, not an inch, as he watched the two romp like children on the lawns. He watched as the cat leaped to hook its little paws in the feathers and only to tumble on its back, but leapt up to charge after Ariadne.
Something cracked in his chest.
Ariadne was the most headstrong, tenacious woman he’d ever met ... yet he had to admit that she was generally not underhanded about it, certainly not like his dead wife and her deviousness, her ability to slyly twist him into knots of guilt and anger.
Not once had he felt like he needed to be on guard or reconsider his actions while being with Ariadne.
A tender emotion surged up his chest when he saw Ariadne catch Emily and swing her around, his child’s laughter loud enough to travel to him on the second floor.
Resting a hand on the windowsill, he leaned in and smiled as Ariadne lifted her skirts and ran with Emily and the kitten loping behind them.
The feeling in his chest began to permeate through his breastbone, and he wondered if this warmth was what love felt like.
When he married Helena, the attraction had been fierce and heady, like being thrown headfirst into the tumultuous ocean and holding onto one slip of driftwood. He’d bobbed below the surface many times, craving for air and praying to find a foothold.
With Ariadne, he felt as if he were lying in a meadow, the sun soft on his face and peace all around him. There was no panic, no grief, no bracing himself for betrayal or insidious mind games.
The two could not be any further apart.
Ariadne and Emily were now sitting under the shade of a tree, and she pulled out a basket, while the kitten clambered on Ariadne’s lap. The two were munching on sandwiches, and in between bites, Emily was chattering away.
He strode to his desk and called for coffee while wondering when, during this social arrangement to save her face, he’d gone and fallen in love with her.
Seated in the soft dark, Cedric sipped his wine while waiting for Ariadne to enter his bedchamber from her nightly bath. He’d put Emily to bed a while ago and returned to study to put a few fine-tuning on the deed of trust before heading to his own bath.
Now, reclining in a chair before the fire, he kept his eyes fixed on the door, a low thrum of desire surging through his blood.
The door opened, and with the steam billowing behind her and the low golden scones light filtering through the wisps of the ephemera, she looked like a nymph rising from the water.
Her hair was piled up on top of her head, her skin a warm, flushed pink, and while her robe was untied, the firm, rounded tops of her breasts quivered over her blush-pink nightgown.
In his mind, he saw those firm globs bobbing rhythmically with each ferocious thrust he would give her. He felt his control slipping as he imagined the supple nymph under him, pleading for more pleasure as he took her apart little by little.
“Cedric,” she smiled. “Oh, good, what would you like for sup—”
He was up from his chair and in moments swept her up in his arms without saying a word. She just managed to fling her arms around his neck in surprise as he crossed the room and let her down on the bed. He kept her upright as his lips claimed hers.
His kiss roiled with hunger, and after a shocked moment, she kissed him back with equal ferocity. She did not hide her passion for him— and the freedom of knowing she was not repulsed by him was intoxicating.
He slid his hand around her neck to suckle on her earlobe, feeling her body start to shiver, and soft puffs of breath left her lips.
She pulled away and gazed up at him with large, luminous eyes. “Cedric… what is this?”
“It’s time,” his lips glided along her jaw and down her neck, his skillful hands peeling off her layers. “I want to make love to you tonight. I want to fully make you my wife.”
He heard her swift breath intake, but she did not push him away—instead, she tugged him closer for another kiss. When her silky nightgown floated to the floor, leaving her in nothing but stockings and garters, she seemed to shy away.
Feeling exposed, her hands clapped over herself, shielding her modesty. He caught her chin and held her to his gaze. “Don’t hide your loveliness. You never have to hide anything from me.”
Those words seemed to shift something inside her as she stopped shielding herself and began to tug at the lapels of his dressing gown.
“Neither do you,” she said.
Her fingers rested lightly against his—warm, rough, unmistakably present. As she stripped him of the cloth, he flexed his shoulders to let the garment slide to the ground.
He stood still as he let her lead from there; if her nerve left her and she wanted to run, he would let her.
But as he braced himself for rejection, he felt her hand lift to his face, and her fingertips flitter over the rough, puckered skin of his face, then slip down his neck and over his shoulder.
Cedric felt as if his feet were nailed to the floor as she began to trace over the uneven ridges of scarred skin on his arm and down his side. At any moment, he expected her to move. She did not.
“Ariadne.”
She looked up. His eyes were very dark in the firelight—dark and intent and fixed on her face with an expression that made his breath stall in his chest.
How she could touch those unsightly things and not recoil was a beautiful mystery to him, strengthening the bond that he had been trying so hard to sever.
My wife… This angel is my wife.
He gasped against her lips as he felt her hands wander over his old scars, unafraid and curious, like she was trying to map each one by memory instead of sight.
His breath left his chest at the soft touch, something he had not felt for nearly ten years. The soft pleasure punched through his heart with a force he had not expected.
His arm slipped around her waist, pulling her closer as their kiss deepened. The air around them shifted, thickening with unspoken desires until he could barely breathe with the power of his need for her.
“Have you felt your fill, little nymph?” he asked thickly.
“Little nymph?” she asked.
“A nereid just out of the water,” he turned her to rest his back on his chest while sliding his hands under her arms to cup her breasts and massaged them.
Her head fell onto his shoulder while one arm lifted to sink her fingers into his hair. “You feel so good.”
His lips coasted over her skin, seeing the soft, tender spots that made her moan and shiver. Her hips were unconsciously writhing against his increasingly thickening length. He bore the sweet ache of it until he could not hold it much more.
“I can’t wait any longer to have you,” he murmured in her ear. “Get on the bed for me.”
She turned but did not take a step to the bed; instead, she kissed his chest, traced her tongue over the flat disc of his nipples, and slowly sank to her knees while kissing along the way.
She moved like a water nymph he’d seen in her as she had exited the bathing room, her chestnut hair a cool silken wave over his skin as she sank naturally between his legs.
Then she set her mouth on him and bit back a growl as she began to pleasure him. Almost instantly, he felt swept off to sea; each tide pulled him deeper and deeper into an ocean of pleasure. Twining his hands in her hair, he simply rested his hand there, not guiding or controlling her at all.
A curse left his mouth.
She placed kisses along the throbbing length, determined to show him pleasure he’d never known before.
Yet as Cedric watched Ariadne on her knees before him, her lips skimming so sweetly along his rod, he felt pushed to the limits of his self-control; surely a man could not expire from sheer want.
“Enough,” he said roughly.
Pulling her to her feet, he lifted her onto the bed and gently lifted his big body over her. Taking her lips in a hard kiss, he murmured against her skin. “I want you so damned much. Do you know that?”
“Now I do,” she said while sliding her hands up his back.
Bracing himself on his arm, he started kissing and kissing and kissing her, her lips, her skin, her breast, her belly. Ariadne, however, was having none of his hovering above her.
She pulled him down, and he hissed as they met skin to skin; the closeness, the bliss felt like perfection. He kept on his mission to kiss every inch of her, and getting to his knees, he shifted her over onto her belly, smirking at her cry of shock
Kneeling in the cradle of her legs, he swept her hair off her back and dropped his lips onto her delicate shoulder, her skin as unblemished as alabaster.
His lips trailed down the back of her neck, taking his time, savoring the feel and scent of her as he made his way down the supple curve of her spine.
“You’re shivering, sweetheart,” he murmured.
“Of course, I am,” her words were breathy. “You’re kissing my backside.”
He chuckled against the dip of her back, right over the curve of her bottom. Beastly, he set his teeth against her rounded buttock. Her squeak of surprise melted into a moan as he sat on his haunches and rested his hand on her bottom.
With no intention, his hand came down on her plump flesh. The spank rang through the room, and Cedric dragged his hand away, an apology ready on his lips….
Then she moaned.