Chapter 17
Seventeen
Heir Apparent
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Ton,
It has come to the attention of this author that the Duke of N has met his maker, and although we are all saddened by his early demise, one cannot help but wonder if the bastard child of the late Lady S has not seized this opportunity to climb to the rank of duchess on her back. Will there be a child born of the Duke’s blood as his solicitors are saying, or will another bastard steal a seat at your table? Only time will tell.
—The Whispers of the Ton, London 28th of February 1811
Published upon the death of Edward Charles Hancock, 6th Duke of Nithesdale
S he was cheating.
They had retired to Lady Drake’s personal sitting room off her bedroom while the house party roared on, one floor below. Iseabail’s deception at cards was evident in the quiver of her hands and the hitch in her breath. Every now and again he would catch her eying him as if her guilt was at war within herself. If that wasn’t enough evidence, the sheen on her cheeks and brow was a definite sign of her nerves getting the best of her.
He leaned back and continued to watch her. When he’d first suspected she was cheating, he’d thought to call her out, but what would be the fun in that. Their wager would cost him a great deal of money, money he could spare and money he suspected she thought she needed despite the wealth behind her title. Iseabail bit her lip. Her tell before the double-cross.
“Duchess, you seem to be at odds with your cards.”
Her gaze shot up from her hand and her lip slipped free of her teeth. He couldn’t stop himself from being drawn to that mouth. Full and lush, the rosy tint of her lips had turned darker from the way she’d worked them moments ago.
“I’m trying to decide if I should leave you with a shred of your dignity or drag you through the mud for being the rake that you are.”
“I have found that ladies love to use rakes in the gardens.”
Her cheeks pinkened with his reference to their first and second encounters. He knew a woman’s body. Knew how they moved. How they communicated. And everything about the Duchess’s body language told him she wanted his touch. Unconsciously she leaned toward him. She brushed her foot against his as she concentrated on her cards. But what had driven him absolutely mad trying to control the lust coursing through his veins, was the way her nipples hardened when his forearm brushed the side of her perfect form as he’d escorted her into the room.
If Lady Drake and Mr. Forrester had not guarded her so intently, he would have taken advantage of the darkened alcove in the anteroom and stolen a kiss—and more. He wouldn’t have taken her against the wall, but he would have reminded her of the passion they shared. The undeniable chemistry their bodies held for one another.
Iseabail lashed out with a kick under the table.
“Umpf.” His brows drew together as he rubbed his shin. “I hardly think that was warranted, Duchess.”
“Your behavior is beyond the pale, and it’s your turn, Ross.” Her eyes sparkled with fire as she slipped back into using his titled name.
Fascinating.
He pulled the ace of diamonds from his hand and Lady Drake followed with the two and three cards. Mr. Forrester played the four, five, six, and he caught Iseabail biting her lower lip. She was anxious for the cards to be played, yet she made no move with her own. He slowly pulled the seven from his hand, watching as she worried her lip and reached for the ribbon around her waist. She was a terrible cardsharp—even Mr. Forrester’s eyes slipped over to catch her movement. Lady Drake made a move to reach for her drink and promptly rested her breasts on the table. Forrester couldn’t help but be drawn to the display.
Nash was more entertained observing Iseabail slyly pull a card from under the ribbon of her gown. No one would suspect a small scratch of the ribcage as a diabolical ploy to win one thousand pounds from him. Her left hand immediately joined her right. If it wasn’t for how quickly she laid down the eight and nine of diamonds, he would have thought she’d been making that particular move since she was a girl in the nursery back at Urquhart.
“Pope Joan,” she announced with a shaky breath, her hand replicating the tremor in her voice as she reached for the counters in the nine of diamonds slot. In this hand, Iseabail had used the nine of diamonds, known as the curse of Scotland, to her favor and his demise.
Nash picked up his glass and downed his brandy. It was bloody difficult to allow oneself to be cheated, even if it was a desirable lady doing the job. “How very lucky for you, Duchess.”
“Luck be with the ladies, tonight,” Mr. Forrester added, as he returned his attention back to his cards.
“Luck or fate.” He would lose and pay the Duchess her one thousand pounds, but he’d be damned if he didn’t collect a favor as well.
* * *
Iseabail pounded her pillow. She had retired to her room early. She’d taken the Duke’s promissory note and he’d bowed politely in defeat. He had been an ever-graceful loser, but the glint in his eye was pure devilry. He knew they’d cheated. Forrester knew they’d cheated, but since he was somewhat involved in the ruse, that was to be expected.
She punched her pillow once more.
Instinctively her hands went to her flat stomach as if to will her babe to be safe. She was being ridiculous. She didn’t even know if she was pregnant. Phoebe had confirmed that one time may not produce a child. Her friend had been married for four years with no conception. Yet it was Phoebe’s lack of information about her relations with her dead husband that left Iseabail uncomfortable.
Was it always that way between a man and woman? The sensations and utter bliss the act had brought were unimaginable—until they weren’t. Until they were all that she could think about.
She and Phoebe had discussed many things in the past several weeks. They’d studied the books Phoebe had obtained—how Phoebe had got ahold of such tawdry literature, Iseabail didn’t know. Even as a widow, Phoebe had appeared shocked and embarrassed by the carnality of the text. Her cheeks pinkened almost as much as Iseabail’s had, but the drawings and descriptions had been fascinating and titillating, if she was honest. She’d never dreamed there were so many ways for a man and woman to consummate a marriage. She just couldn’t believe the manner in which she had lost herself the previous night.
How could she feel so much for a man she despised?
A sound at her window interrupted her reverie. The crack of a vine followed by the grunt of a man made her jump out of bed. Someone was climbing the ivy on the side of the house. It was the dead of winter!
She looked around the room for something to use as a weapon to defend herself. She reached for her dressing gown and threw it on, the belt dragging loosely on the floor as she went to the wash basin and grabbed the heavy candlestick. She turned just as her window opened. Any hesitation escaped like the wind. Iseabail tiptoed across the rug, her body shaking as one long muscular leg was thrown over the sill. A dark head appeared, bent into the opening as he pulled his weight forward to work himself into her room. Iseabail swung, but the intruder was faster. The man twisted and grunted as the candle stick struck him.
“Ow! Dammit, Iseabail.”
“Ross? What are you doing?”
Iseabail dropped the candlestick and reached to help him into the room, his weight pushing her to the floor as he toppled like a tree in the forest on top of her. The vibration shook her washstand as they landed in a heap.
He didn’t move. Or breathe. Good lord, had she killed him? She didn’t think she’d hit him hard enough to end his life. Her only intent had been to rattle his brains.
Her breathing short and crisp, her voice cracked. “Are you alright?”
A moan escaped his lips as his body molded to hers.
“Please wake up,” she whispered near his ear.
He didn’t respond. She could see his back rise and fall with even breaths and thanked the stars above she wasn’t a murderess … not yet anyway. She could very much see herself cracking his skull in two … or kissing him.
She pulled on his shoulder to roll him over, but he didn’t budge. His substantial size and form solid and hard.
Hard. He was hard and growing harder.
“You scoundrel, you’re not even hurt.” Everything she’d been trying to avoid, came dangerously to life. She bucked her hips to throw his hard length away from her, the movement only made her want to draw him closer.
He lifted his head and their gazes. “You hurt my arm.”
“Your arm? You made me think I hit you in the head. You?—”
He covered her mouth with his hand. She conveyed every ounce of hatred she had for him through her eyes. He chuckled. “Sweetling, is that any way to greet your paramour?”
The length of him trapped her body, and she hated how good the hard muscles of his thighs felt inside her own, the soft material of his trousers caressing the sensitive flesh now exposed from their tussle. How in the devil had he managed that?
“Can I release your mouth without you bringing down the house?”
She grudgingly nodded, knowing full well she’d give him an earful. His fingers slowly lifted as if he were testing the boundaries of her word. She would not scream. She couldn’t. Her body was heating with the intimate nature of their position and it took every bit of her control to ignore the hard press of his cock.
The man was pure sin. Evil in every way, yet somehow her body wanted him, strained to be his.
When his fingers finally released their hold, she said, “What are you doing in my room?”
“You invited me.”
She nearly choked on the words. “I did no such thing!” She wriggled underneath him only to feel his arousal push against her center.
“Just as your body is now. You want me, here.” His voice was thick and masculine, just like his shaft between her legs, caressing her sex and making her want every inch he offered. “Whatever it is between us, you want this just as much as I do.”
She wanted to protest but his mouth descended to her ear, his tongue doing wild intoxicating things to her senses. The words she wanted to spew at him were lost in his kiss, in the decadent way his mouth moved over the pulse point at her throat. Her back arched underneath him, giving him the access he sought. He groaned.
“You drive me mad with desire,” he whispered, as he thrust his cock against the apex of her thighs.
He pushed her hands above her head and with one hand, held her, controlled her, owned her. God help her, she loved it. Her body came alive in his arms like never before.
He was right. There was an animal magnetism between them. One large hand held hers as his other began to explore her body just as his lips were devouring her senses—inch by inch.
“Please,” she begged.
“What do you want, Duchess?”
She wanted to say, her home, her life, everything he had stolen from her, but her body betrayed her mind and soul with its wanton needs. “You,” she panted on a moan as his lips found her breast through the much-too-thin material of her shift, while his forefinger and thumb rolled the taut, traitorous nub of her other breast. “Oh, God,” she breathed. The things this man did to her could only be described as evil ecstasy. She understood why it was sinful, yet she found herself wanting to sin for an eternity.
“You taste divine,” he murmured against her flesh, the wet heat of his mouth cooled with the puffs of his breath tantalizing her more than she could have imagined.
“More,” she whimpered, and he gave it to her. His mouth moved to her other breast as his hand enticingly grazed down her side, lighting her skin on fire with his touch. He stroked her outer thigh, teasing her, taunting her, making her widen her legs of her own accord to give him room to touch her—there.
He chuckled against her distended nipple, his tongue torturing her, making her want to pull out his hair. She struggled against his grip, but he held her wrists tight and it was even more intoxicating. “Even you can agree, once is never enough.”
It wasn’t. She wasn’t sure how she had thought one time would do the trick, but she prayed twice was enough to get this … this insatiable need out of her system. Her desire for him betrayed every devoir she had lived for.
“Stop talking and do what you—” Her breath hitched as his fingers finally found the spot of pure pleasure between her legs. Fire licked through her lower belly, spreading through her core, her limbs. The moan that escaped her lips was animalistic and wild.
“That’s it, Duchess. Feel what I do to you.”
She did. He ravished her in a way that wasn’t possible. It was wicked—and more erotic than ever before. This man would be her downfall, yet at that moment all that came to mind was, “Don’t stop.”
“Never,” he whispered, and then he was gone. His touch, his lips, his body. She was on the brink of falling apart only to come crashing down to earth to feel the hard floor against her back and the cool night air on her exposed flesh.
She blinked. Her senses confused and demanding she return to edge of rapture. Before she could understand what was happening, she was being lifted from the floor, a soft mattress was at her back, and her wrists were wrapped and bound tightly together with the sash of her dressing gown—the belt that had been meant for him. He spread her legs wide and her limbs were bound to the bed before she realized what was going on.
“What are you doing?” She yanked at her bindings.
“Something you will enjoy immensely.” The wicked grin on his lips slipped when he picked up her discarded candlestick and candle from the floor, set it on the nightstand and lit it. His gaze traveled the length of her exposed body and his nostrils flared, his eyes flashing with his desire.
“God, you’re beautiful.”
She flushed from her toes to her head, unable to say a word as the commanding male looked his fill. His cravat was missing, she caught sight of it wrapped around one of her ankles along with one of her stockings on the other. Nash removed his jacket and waistcoat to toss them in the direction of her dressing table while his eyes devoured her. The next moment he was reaching over his shoulder and pulling his shirt over his head in one quick move. Dear lord, but the man was muscular and hard. His stomach rippled with so many muscles, it reminded her of the waves on the loch, smooth skin covering so much deadly power he could drag her under with no effort at all. And the large straining bulge in his breeches was more intoxicating than a bottle of the best malt Scotch. “What … what are you doing?”
“What would you like me to do?”
Everything. Nothing. She didn’t know. Being under his control was frightening … yet she didn’t fear him. No, it was rather exhilarating. It roused her senses to another level, a level she wasn’t certain she could bear.
“I want …” What did she want? He quirked an eyebrow, waiting.
“I want to see your cock,” she said, with more candor and bravado than she felt. His lips curved at the corners and he took himself in hand through his trousers.
“You want to see what pleasures you so?”
“Yes,” she breathed, because up until this moment, she had not seen him the way she would have liked to. She wanted to understand him, control his body the way he seemed to rule over hers.
He took his manhood in hand and stroked it through his clothing. “Are you sure you can handle it?”
Could she? She had last night, but … she licked her lips nervously and saw heat flash in his eyes. Her sex had been wet with desire, but now she was dripping with need.
“Yes.” She wasn’t sure she could handle any of him. He was like nothing she could have imagined. She hated him—craved him, because in moments like this, she saw something else in him. Something tender and gentle, with an erotic heat that set her body on fire.
He unbuttoned the falls of his trousers and her mind went utterly blank. Lust took over. “Oh, my …”
Nash smirked. “Do you like what you see, Duchess?” He stepped out of his trousers and she was shocked to see he wasn’t wearing any smalls.
“You don’t have on any undergarments?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I find them dreadfully uncomfortable.” He stroked his cock up and down and she could have sworn it grew before her very eyes.
She gulped. “Did it just … grow? Will it get bigger?”
He chuckled. “Most ladies are quite pleased with my size, yet the virgin duchess is not.”
With that one statement, he put their encounter into perspective. This was a tryst, a dalliance that would be over before it started. So why did it hurt that there would be more women after her who saw him like this? “I’m not a virgin.”
“No, not anymore.”
She couldn’t tell if that was pride or shame in the deepening of his voice. She didn’t want to hear either. Pride would mean he conquered her. Shame would mean he had a bit of a conscience, yet the man who had thrown six young girls out of their home had not felt remorse.
She needed to control this encounter. She pulled on her bindings.
“You’re only making them tighter.” There was that smirk on his lips as his hand touched her foot and began to move along the inside of her leg, reminding her just how much she wanted him.
The books she and Phoebe had read, however, had described a woman’s power over a man even if she was tied up. She hitched her breath and brought his heated gaze from her sex to her face. She licked her lips once more and said, “I want to taste you.”
He froze, his cocked twitched involuntarily in the direction of her mouth. “Pardon?” He nearly choked on the word, confirming everything the book had said.
“I want to taste you.” She bit her bottom lip. His chest rose in a shuddering breath.
“Where?” he asked.
“Everywhere.” She looked directly at his cock and lifted her head. “I want to feel your cock on the back of my throat as you pump in and out of my lips.”
His disbelief was wiped away by the erotic image she spelled out for him, and before she knew it, he was straddling her body on the bed. His proud, rigid manhood with a drop of moisture leaking from the tip, just out of her reach.
“Are you certain? Like this, I will be taking all your freedom away. You will not be able to withdraw. I will control your very breath.” Was there a hint of desperation in his voice?
“Yes,” she whispered, and focused on the beautiful example of male nudity in front of her. She let her eyes travel down his strong jaw to the corded muscles of his shoulders and arms. His broad chest, sprinkled with dark curly hair, narrowed to the rippling waves of muscles of his abdomen that made a woman wonder what he possibly did to create such a magnificent sculpture. Even his lean hips were accentuated by muscles constructing the V-shaped frame leading to his captivating cock.
Goodness, but it was glorious. By the moonlight it had enticed her, but now it entranced her. Long and thick, with veining that should have been unattractive, yet made it vibrant with life and longevity, everything she yearned for. He brought the provocative pink tip to her lips and she flicked her tongue nervously over his seed, tasting him in a way she had never imagined she’d like, until the previous night when she’d developed an appetite for this—for him. She moaned with pleasure and leaned up to taste more of him. He was everything she desired, salty with pure masculine spice that made her senses tingle as she tentatively swirled her tongue around his head, tasting, and tormenting them both.
He grasped the headboard with one large hand as his other held the base of his cock and he groaned, his pleasure causing his shaft to twitch between her lips.
“How the hell does a virgin learn to do that?” he ground out between clenched teeth.
Her lips turned up in a pleased smile right before she took him deeper into the recesses of her mouth, flattening her tongue to flick the tip of it along the length of the veining. A deep rumble traveled through his chest, and she felt the muscles in his thighs tighten against her torso.
“Fuck.” He grunted, his hips moving of their own volition. She looked up and caught his gaze as he pushed in and out of her mouth at a slow pace. It was as if he couldn’t decide what was more captivating, watching his member wrapped by her lips, or gauging the heat in her eyes as he pushed deeper. What had started as a way to enthrall him, now enslaved her with pleasure.
His hand moved from the headboard to the back of her neck, supporting her and guiding her mouth up and down the length of him as his hips rocked with the motion. His jaw tightened as his tip hit the back of her throat and her muscles spasmed in an attempt not to gag.
“Relax,” he coaxed in a voice so full of gravel, she could have sworn someone else had had entered the room and whispered those words in her ear. She did as he instructed as he eased deeper into her mouth, into her throat. Her eyes burned with the effort and just when she thought she would lose control, he pulled back and allowed her to breathe before he was there again. His hard shaft taking control of her, dominating her body, her breath. Again and again, he pushed in and pulled out, his face a mask of savage ecstasy. There was something so intoxicating about the way his body reacted to the heat of her mouth surrounding him. Every inch of her sparked to life in a way that only he could ignite—until suddenly, he was gone, the flames of ecstasy doused to embers. Once again, right when she was on the brink of something completely intoxicating, he denied her the pleasure her body demanded.
“No …” she whimpered, because she needed release. Needed him, now.
She opened her eyes, not realizing they had closed, and she felt the tears rolling down her cheeks. He was still there, between her wide-spread legs with his pulsing manhood poised to possess her. The head of his cock caressed her folds, back and forth, driving her desire and her mind to madness as he touched the center of her pleasure.
“Tell me what you want,” he demanded.
In that moment her two worlds collided like never before. She wanted him … the Duke of Ross. The man who stole her childhood and her home. The man who hadn’t wanted to ruin her, yet took her tenderly into womanhood. The man she wanted to destroy brought her to her knees with want. However long it took, she wanted this man in her bed and his child in her belly. She wanted …
“You, Nash.” She panted. At any other time, the sound of desperation in her voice would have her running in the opposite direction. At that moment, she forged through every rule of propriety she’d ever learned, toward further ruination of her reputation and soul. “I want your cock inside me, Nash, educating me in the wicked ways of ecstasy.”
A grin stole across his lips. “With pleasure, Duchess. I have become a glutton when it comes to you.” He thrust inside her viciously, his previous caution unrestrained and thrown to Highland winds.
Iseabail gasped at the thick, deep intrusion. Her shock one of unadulterated bliss as the fires of satisfaction blazed through her body, from her toes to her fingertips to every inch in between. Her mind was lost to his touch.
His lips crashed down upon her own and his tongue plundered her mouth with feral abandon as his hips set a pace she’d never experienced before. His hands owned her flesh, commanding it to heightened awareness as he cupped her breasts and pinched her nipples, sending her over the edge. Her inner walls convulsing around him as she fell into the abyss of the fiery hell she should despise, yet coveted with everything she was.
It was true what the French said. In his bed of debauchery she suffered la petite mort , a little death—that was so much more. With Nash, because somehow her mind could no longer think of him as Ross, she had succumbed to the one deadly sin she hadn’t committed until now—gluttony—for whatever this was between them, she couldn’t give it up—not now. She was afraid she would never be able to escape the undeniable lure of intoxicating Nashford Xavier Harding, eighth Duke of Ross.