Chapter 26 A Love Like Absolution #2
“Then let me offer you some advice,” Eleanor said softly. “Lord Croft is a master manipulator who profits from other people’s pain and uncertainty. Before you accept anything he’s told you as truth, investigate thoroughly. Don’t let him poison what matters to you with convenient lies.”
Her words washed over him like a splash of cold water, jarring him awake from the spiral of doubt and self-recrimination. Eleanor was right—of course she was right. Croft had every reason to lie, to sow discord and confusion in his life.
But the seed of doubt had been planted, and until Damien could prove or disprove Croft’s claims, it would continue to grow, threatening everything he held dear.
“You’re right,” he said quietly. “I need to learn the truth before I allow his words to influence me.”
Eleanor’s hand found his in the darkness, her touch warm and reassuring. “Whatever the truth is, we’ll face it together. You don’t have to carry these burdens alone anymore.”
As their carriage drew to a halt before their home, Damien felt a surge of gratitude for the remarkable woman beside him. When she learned he had fathered a child with a former lover, would her support waver? He thought it likely.
The thought nearly paralyzed him as he handed Eleanor down from the carriage.
If Croft’s revelation proved true—if Laura’s child was indeed his—Eleanor would face a scandal that could destroy everything she’d built.
What respectable woman would continue supporting a charity run by a duchess whose husband had fathered a bastard child with a noblewoman only to abandon her?
What donors would maintain their funding when whispers began about the Westmore family’s moral failings?
And if Dominic truly had been working for Croft all along…
The thought made Damien’s stomach churn.
His brother’s apparent victimization had been the primary justification for the ton accepting and embracing the Westmore family.
If that proved to be an elaborate deception, if Dominic had willingly allied himself with London’s most notorious predator, the scandal would be compounded beyond repair.
Eleanor would be trapped in a marriage that threatened everything she held dear. Worse, she would have every right to despise him for bringing such ruin into her carefully ordered world.
“Damien?” Eleanor’s voice carried alarm as they entered their home. “You’ve gone pale again.”
He looked down at her upturned face—so beautiful, so trusting, so completely unaware of the sword hanging over their happiness—and felt his heart crack with the weight of potential loss.
“I’m fine,” he lied.
She regarded him quietly, her eyes questioning.
Damien felt desperation claw at his chest. If this was to be their last night before the truth destroyed everything between them, he needed to memorize every detail—the way candlelight caught the gold threads in her gown, the soft curve of her lips, the trusting warmth in her gaze.
“What is it?” she asked softly.
Instead of answering, Damien drew her into his arms with sudden urgency, his mouth finding hers in a kiss of desperation and devotion. Eleanor stiffened in surprise before melting against him, her hands clutching at his shoulders as she responded to the raw need in his embrace.
“I love you,” he said against her lips, the words torn from the deepest part of his soul. “Whatever happens, whatever you learn about me or my family, never doubt that I love you more than life itself.”
Eleanor pulled back slightly, studying his face with growing alarm. “Damien, you’re frightening me. What’s happened?”
“Nothing,” he said, then corrected himself. “Everything. I don’t know.” His hands framed her face with infinite tenderness. “But tonight, I need you. I need to hold you, to love you, to remember what it feels like to be worthy of someone as extraordinary as you.”
Something in his tone—perhaps the raw vulnerability, the barely contained desperation—seemed to reach her on a level beyond words. Eleanor’s expression softened, her fingers gently tracing the line of his jaw.
“Then take me upstairs,” she whispered. “And show me.”
The journey to their bedchamber felt like a sacred pilgrimage, each step weighted with unspoken emotion.
Damien’s hands trembled as he turned Eleanor to face him, his fingers working with deliberate slowness at the pearl buttons of her golden gown.
Unlike their usual heated encounters where passion stripped away barriers with urgent haste, tonight he savored each revelation of silk-covered skin.
The bodice fell away like liquid starlight, pooling at her feet to leave her standing in moonlight streaming through tall windows.
Damien’s breath caught audibly as his gaze traced the elegant line of her shoulders, the gentle swell of her breasts rising and falling with each quickened breath, the way silver light painted her skin like finest porcelain.
“You’re trembling,” Eleanor observed, her voice soft with wonder as her fingers began their own careful exploration of his formal attire.
She removed his cravat with the reverence of a priestess unwrapping a sacred offering, then pushed his tailcoat from his shoulders with movements that spoke of worship rather than mere desire.
“So are you,” he replied, his hands skimming the curve of her waist with feather-light touches that made her visibly shiver despite the warmth of the room.
When she stood before him in nothing but translucent silk chemise and stockings, Damien felt his knees threaten to buckle.
The delicate fabric clung to her curves like morning mist, revealing and concealing equally.
His hands mapped the territory of her body as though discovering it for the first time—the sensitive hollow at the base of her throat where her pulse fluttered like a trapped bird, the sweet curve where her neck met her shoulder, the path along her collarbone that made her breath hitch when traced with careful fingertips.
Eleanor’s own exploration was equally reverent, her palms spreading across the broad expanse of his chest once she’d freed him from his shirt.
The contrast of her cool fingers against his heated skin sent shivers cascading down his spine.
When she pressed her lips to the spot directly over his heart, the tenderness nearly shattered him.
“Eleanor,” he breathed, her name a plea on his lips as he lifted her gently, carrying her to their bed as if she were made of spun glass.
He laid her against the silk coverlet with infinite care, then simply stood looking down at her for a long moment. Candlelight from the mantel painted golden highlights across her hair, spread like silk across cream-colored pillows. Her eyes, heavy-lidded with desire, took his breath away.
“What are you thinking?” she whispered.
“That you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” he replied honestly. “That I want to spend hours memorizing every inch of you.”
“Then do,” she invited, her voice soft as velvet.
Damien joined her on the bed with movements deliberately controlled, his body settling alongside hers with exquisite care.
His mouth found the delicate shell of her ear, pressing the softest of kisses there before tracing a burning path along her jawline and down the column of her throat.
He could taste the faint saltiness of her skin, could feel the rapid flutter of her pulse beneath his mouth as Eleanor’s soft gasp sent heat pooling in his lower belly.
When his lips found the swell of her breast, Eleanor’s back bowed off the bed, her hands fisting in his hair with desperate need. But instead of giving her the firm pressure she sought, Damien continued his maddeningly gentle ministrations.
“Please,” she whispered, the word barely audible.
“Patience,” he murmured against her skin, though his own body throbbed with the effort of restraint. “Let me love you properly.”
Damien’s mouth found her breast with hunger, his tongue circling the sensitive peak.
The taste of her skin flooded his senses as Eleanor moaned beneath him.
Every instinct screamed at him to claim her with fierce passion but tonight demanded something different.
Tonight required the adoration of a man who might lose everything.
The way her breathing hitched when he found particularly sensitive spots, the soft gasps that escaped her parted lips—all of it fed the fire building in his chest, a conflagration of love and desperation that threatened to consume him entirely.
When Eleanor’s trembling hands found the fastenings of his remaining clothing, Damien nearly lost his composure.
Her fingers worked with deliberate care, but the way she touched him—as though he were something precious rather than the ruinous man he feared himself to be—sent tremors through his body.
Her palms mapped the contours of his chest, traced the ridges of muscle along his abdomen until Damien couldn’t suppress the low groan that escaped him. The sound seemed to embolden her, her exploration growing bolder as she discovered the places that made his breath catch.
“Eleanor,” he breathed, her name a prayer and a plea as her hand gripped his engorged member and began to stroke just the way he’d taught her. For a moment he forgot all his troubles, his mind blissfully empty save for the pleasure building in his cock.
“I love you,” she whispered against his skin, her voice drawing him back from the edge of oblivion. “Damien…” she breathed. “I want to help you forget your worries.”
He raised a brow while her hand moved over his shaft. Without warning, she swallowed his cock.
He cried out, throwing his head back, not recognizing his own voice. Blood rushed to his member as her soft tongue licked the head, her lips moving over it with maddening tenderness. Her forced himself to open his eyes and watch Eleanor’s rosy lips stretch over his girth.
Panting and gasping for air, he opened his mouth, but no words came out.
It was all he could do to lean back, close his eyes, and savor the sensation.
Her hand slid over his rod with exquisite precision while the heat and friction from her mouth thrust him quickly to his peak.
Damien’s long fingers gripped the back of her head to brace himself and thrust his rod deep into her throat.
In the periphery of his barely conscious mind, she surprised him by relaxing and melting into him, taking him farther into her throat.
“Eleanor,” he cried out as all his senses became heightened and couldn’t be contained any longer.
Too soon, he was swept away by the force of his orgasm, every single muscle contracting in his body as he braced himself against her delicate form.
His shaft pulsed in her mouth, pouring every last bit of pleasure down her throat which she swallowed with relish.
Just when he thought he was finished, she milked him more by gently sucking on his tip, eliciting a curse from him.
Once he was spent, he lay on the bed, taking Eleanor with him in his arms.
“Christ, Eleanor…” he said, shaking his head. He’d known his wife was competent but hadn’t dreamed her skills would extend to the bedchamber. “My duchess,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “My magnificent, maddening duchess.”
Eleanor’s laugh was soft and content. “My incorrigible, infuriating duke.”
Sometime during the night, they came together again.
Their joining was slow, deliberate, weighted with emotions too profound for words.
Damien’s eyes held hers as their bodies moved in ancient rhythm, the connection between them feeling less like physical joining and more like souls recognizing each other.
“I love you,” he whispered as the crescendo built with agonizing slowness, each movement deliberate and meaningful.
“I love you,” she replied. “Whatever fears are haunting you, whatever shadows are darkening your mood—they cannot touch this.”
The climax that claimed them both was devastating in its intensity precisely because it had been so carefully built, so thoroughly earned. Eleanor shattered in the space of heartbeats, while Damien buried his face against her throat, overwhelmed by the profound intimacy of their connection.
Afterward, they lay entwined in the candlelit aftermath, their skin damp with perspiration, their breathing gradually returning to normal. Eleanor traced lazy patterns across Damien’s chest while he combed his fingers through her disheveled hair with infinite tenderness.
“Whatever tomorrow brings,” she murmured against his skin, “remember this moment. Remember how completely you’re loved.”
Damien tightened his arms around her, pressing his lips to the crown of her head as he struggled against the emotions threatening to overwhelm him.
The taste of her still lingered on his lips, the scent of their lovemaking perfumed the air around them, and the weight of her trusting body against his felt like both benediction and torment.
“I’ll remember,” he promised. “Even if everything else falls apart, I’ll remember this.”
As Eleanor’s breathing deepened into sleep, Damien remained awake, holding her close and trying to memorize every sensation—the silk of her hair against his cheek, the gentle weight of her hand over his heart, her body relaxed against him.