Chapter 25
“If I had only known that a mere conversation with a gentleman would make the Duke of Huntington forget self-control, then I should have flirted with one since the beginning,” Madeline teased, her voice sounding like a purr.
Kenneth did not laugh. The whole encounter at her family’s house was still in his mind. He could still feel the tremble in his muscles as he held himself so he would not strangle Mr. Sheffield.
“Do not even dare do such a thing again,” he growled, although his eyes were on her lips.
It felt good to have Madeline so close against his ribs with his arms around her. He caressed her arm as he continued, “Do not even jest about it. I mean it. If Sheffield does that again, I will not guarantee his safety. The same goes with every other man who tries to do the same.”
Madeline smiled, her eyes sparkling. She looked so properly ravished, with her messy hair and pinkened cheeks, that it drove him absolutely mad. He could not imagine leaving this room again.
He sighed. He knew he had to do so eventually.
“I realize you can be intensely jealous, Your Grace,” Madeline teased, her fingers playing with the dark curls by his nape. “It is fascinating to see a statue come alive.”
“Yes, you have nearly driven me to violence,” he murmured, as he lowered his lips to her throat.
She gasped and wriggled as if tickled. He was fascinated to find what his touches and kisses did to her.
She was so sensitive. So responsive. “But I do not find it fascinating to watch my wife smile at some dandy who thinks too highly of himself but does not deserve her.”
“All I wanted was to prove that you can display emotions. And you have shown me that you are capable of that, and of much, much more.” Madeline giggled as she kissed him.
This bed had become a sanctuary. It had been several nights since he first took her, and he had refused to leave it since. The ledgers and the correspondence could wait. Let them pile on his desk. The man who had never once let his work sit untended could not bring himself to care.
They had both eaten their meals together in their room, only separating to bathe, and even then, he was tempted to join her.
He could get accustomed to this life of tangled sheets and consuming hunger.
He should be frightened, but he clung to hope.
Hope that this was not the disaster he always imagined it could lead to.
Even Madeline looked happier—glowing—even though he had not told her he loved her.
Did he love her?
All he knew was that he enjoyed what they had. He firmly pinned her arms above her head. He shifted so he could look into her eyes, his breathing growing shallower as he felt the heat between them ignite once more.
“Why did you want to prove that I have emotions?” he asked, dropping his voice to the low, dangerous register he used with his enemies. But this time, it was tinged with something else. Seduction. “Why did you want it so badly, Madeline?”
Madeline smiled softly. She looked at him, her fingers curling around his bicep.
“I enjoy a challenge, Kenneth, but it was what Malcolm said that had me pushing you to show your emotions,” she admitted.
“He told me that you do not have any at all. He said there is no point in trying to get you to feel anything, since you have been emotionless ever since you were a boy. I wanted to prove him wrong.”
Kenneth felt a sharp, cold pang in his chest. He could not blame Malcolm for saying those things. He had built his walls so high nobody could reach him.
His life had become nothing more than achievements and work, involving ledgers he worked on until midnight. Sometimes, he would let women tend to his needs, but even they had not seen his passion. He had never even taken them to Huntington or his rooms.
“I do have emotions,” Kenneth clarified, moving upward so that he could whisper the words against her mouth. “You reminded me of them. I was terrified of something happening to you. I was afraid to let my family down. Then, I was heartbroken when I saw you cry. See? I have many emotions.”
“How do you hide them so well, then?” she asked, her eyes wide and curious. It looked like she was trying to read what was on his mind. “Perhaps you could teach me how you do it.”
“I cannot do that, because I want to see your smiles all the time. You do not have to follow in my footsteps. This was a habit simply borne out of necessity. My father was a very strict man. He always wanted me to control and hide my emotions. His interest was in success, and nothing more.”
For a moment, Madeline simply watched Kenneth. He felt grateful that he did not see pity there. There was just affection.
“Oh, are you planning to make me smile anytime soon?” she asked coquettishly, batting her eyelashes at him.
“It might make you smile,” he agreed, as he pulled himself up above her, bracketing her with his arms on either side. “Or... It might make you scream.”
Madeline welcomed his move, spreading her legs apart to accommodate him. He held the soft flesh of her waist and slid inside her wet heat.
“T-that is the way to do it,” she murmured, as he moved over her in a slow, deliberate rhythm.
They had made love so many times over the past few days and nights that doing it again felt like second nature. He lowered his mouth on hers, nudging her lips open until their tongues clashed. It had become his favorite way to converse with her. All this.
“You are so beautiful,” he rasped, as he pulled away from the kiss to trail lower down to her breasts.
She whimpered when his tongue touched her nipple and moaned when he sucked it hard.
His duchess was like a feast to him. Too beautiful.
Too sweet. Her fingers tangled in his hair, urging him to take more of her.
He only let go to move on to her other breast all the way, slowly moving them toward oblivion with his long and deep thrusts.
With her like this, all his jealousy flew away. He knew that she was his and he was hers. Then, he straightened himself, pulling her legs over his shoulder to thrust into her deeper and faster.
Kenneth kept his eyes locked onto Madeline’s, daring her to keep those pretty eyes there. She took his challenge and locked in even as her eyes glazed from pleasure.
Kenneth wanted to show her that she and Malcolm had been wrong about him.
He was a well of emotions, but he just had to keep them at bay.
While he did not have the flowery words of a romantic hero in one of her novels, he had other ways to confess his undoing.
His body continued to drive into hers, feeling the faint beginnings of her fluttering around him, squeezing him tight.
This? It was all her doing. When he could be sitting upright in front of his study table, he was pumping her deeper into the mattress.
Deeper into whatever it was they had. Madeline had conquered the Duke, and now she possessed the man.
“I... I cannot think clearly when you look at me like that,” Madeline gasped, even as she tugged him closer with her legs. “I... It is too—”
“There is nothing to think about at this moment,” he growled. “Just look at what you do to me. Tell me, can a statue do that to you?”
She looked at him with fierce devotion, one that broke the last of his defenses.
She reached to touch his cheek, and he rested it on her palm, so gentle compared to the almost violent movements of his hips, rolling over hers, as he let himself get lost in her.
He felt her body tighten around his cock, the familiar pull that led to her reaching her shattering crest. This time, she was no longer shy about screaming.
In response, he thrust a few more times until he felt his own climax tear through him.
Kenneth’s breathing was ragged, mingling with Madeline’s soft pants. It was a risk to reveal oneself through sex, but all he felt was satisfaction and peace afterward, with her.
Only with her.
He shifted onto his side and looked down at his disheveled wife, at the flush still high on her cheeks and the smile spreading slowly and lazily across her face. He found himself matching it before he knew he was doing it.
“You look like Napoleon,” he whispered.
“W-what?” she asked languidly. “I look like a cat?”
“You look like someone who gets what she wants.”
“Ha.” She stretched beneath the sheets, unrepentant. “Perhaps I have.”
He brushed a damp curl from her temple, letting his fingers linger. “I like looking at you, Madeline.” It was a small thing to admit, and yet the words felt enormous in his mouth, far easier than the ones still lodged somewhere beneath his ribs.
She caught his hand and held it against her cheek. For a moment, she simply watched him, and then her expression turned thoughtful, almost grave.
“You know,” she said softly. “You do so much for everyone’s happiness.
Malcolm’s. The children’s. Even mine. You carry the burden and responsibility for all of us.
But you never seem to ask what would make you happy.
” Her thumb stroked the back of his hand.
“You ought to, Kenneth. You deserve that as much as anyone.”
Her kindness reached a place in him that he kept guarded, and it pained him to be called a good man when there was a truth he had buried for two years.
She believed he deserved happiness, but he did not.
Malcolm believed Roberta had simply grown tired of him and left, as did the rest of the world, and Kenneth had allowed them all to go on believing it.
His brother was already a broken man. Malcolm spent his days at the bottom of a bottle, mourning a wife he thought had abandoned him, and somehow that grief had not yet destroyed him completely. Kenneth feared what would happen if he learned the truth.
What would it do to Malcolm to discover what had really happened?
Would it be the thing that finally broke him beyond repair?
The man was only now beginning to find his way back to his children, to himself.
Kenneth did not know if Malcolm could survive the weight of the truth on top of everything else.
And yet he could not keep holding Madeline, listening to her call him deserving, while his brother suffered for something Kenneth had hidden from him. He owed Malcolm the truth, however much it might wound him.
I must talk to Malcolm soon. I only hope the truth will not destroy him.