Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Confound it all,” Deborah murmured, looking down at all she had written. She reached for the hunk of bread that was brought up along with the rest of her dinner and tore a piece off with her teeth, mauling it over the same way she was mauling her thoughts.
There was so much she could not do now that she was married.
The risk was too high now to keep going to the auction in disguise.
As a married couple, she and Cedric would have no choice but to attend societal balls and assemblies.
All it would take would be for one of her disguises to slip, and she would be identified, and such a mistake would shove Cedric and Adeline into the forefront of gossip.
It had been different with her own family.
They were already pariahs. Cedric might be a confounding devil who would not care, but Adeline was innocent.
She crossed the word barmaid off the list, knowing she’d never get back to the auction that way again.
She then wrote maid, but quickly scratched it out as well.
Getting into Sylvester’s house to seek revenge was not going to be that easy.
With a sigh of frustration, Deborah dropped her pen and her bread and stood up; her body aching as she did so. She stretched, deciding she needed a break from her list of failed ideas. She walked to the open windows as she shook out the pins and needles from her limbs and massaged her neck.
She had been at it so long that she had not realized the sun had set, and in place of its yellow and orange hues, the twilight sky, with its purples and grays, seemed to sparkle with welcome as she looked at it. Despite her frustration, she smiled as she took in her new surroundings.
“Well, I may have had no choice but to accept this situation, but at least it is pretty,” she said aloud, her eyes roaming over the beautifully tended flower gardens in her view. It was quieter, too, she noted.
Once in a great while, back in London, she could hear the birdsong or insect chirps, but here, they were present and constant; a natural lullaby that she had silently longed for since her family had lost their house in the countryside.
“Shoo,” Deborah said aloud, waving a hand toward a buzzing thing that came toward her face.
She missed, and the wretched thing buzzed in a circle before it came flying right back at her face. With a gasp, she batted at it again, missing. She felt it land on her shoulder, and as she reached to smack it, the blasted thing crawled under her sleeves.
“Eugh!” She exclaimed, immediately tugging at the sleeve of the gown.
Frustration tunneled through her as the sleeve did not budge. Still feeling the thing crawling on her, she reached for the fasteners on the back of her gown and tried to reach it. She was only able to reach the bottom one, which only let her pull her sleeve down her shoulder.
Growing panicked, she went inside and rang the rope bell for a maid.
“Get out!” She demanded, working and tugging at the gown as she tried to find the blasted thing, “You hear me, get out!”
“You are not even curious as to what I came to say?”
Deborah whirled around as she heard Cedric’s voice, and she bit back a groan of embarrassment as she saw him leaning in the doorway, looking at her in a surprisingly approving fashion. Of course, he was there.
“With that little dance and show, your bid would have gone much higher, I would wager,” he mused, his eyes landing on her bare shoulders.
Deborah’s cheeks flushed with indignation, but as she opened her mouth to retort, the thing caught in her dress moved again, and she yelped instead.
“Do not just stand there gawking; help me!” She demanded, going in a circle as she once more tried to unfasten her dress.
“I would, but I am not sure what I am to be helping you with,” Cedric chuckled.
“The thing! There is a wretched thing stuck in my dress, and it is crawling on me!” She exclaimed.
A loud burst of laughter filled the air, but Cedric pushed himself away from the doorframe and came toward her.
“Alright, alright, hold still,” he told her, reaching for the ties on her dress.
Then the blasted thing moved again, and she squirmed. This time, her body did not just move in the air, but her backside brushed against the front of Cedric's trousers. A rumble escaped his chest, sending goosebumps over her flesh, and a moment later, his hands came pinning down on her hips.
“Be still,” he all but growled in her ear.
Deborah whimpered, fighting the urge to keep clawing at the dress until it came off in shreds.
Such thoughts vanished immediately, though, as she became acutely aware that her back was firmly flush against Cedric’s front.
She felt the warm, hard planes of his muscles beneath his white-collared shirt; felt another ridge, pulsing and far more protruding on her backside.
She drew in a trembling breath and willed herself to stay still.
With quick jerks, Cedric had the ties of her gown unfastened, and he helped her pull the sleeves of her gown down her arms. She freed them in a hurry, and as she did so, the fabric turned inside out, and out of her left sleeve came tumbling the infernal insect that had gotten caught.
It landed on the hardwood floor, and before Deborah could shriek again, Cedric’s foot came into view and smashed it under his black dress shoe.
She breathed a sigh of relief, happy that it was dead, and without thinking, let her body sag against Cedric’s. Something, she immediately realized as she felt his one arm wrap around her waist, was a terrible mistake.
Heat coursed through her veins, sending little sparks of pleasure through her core and nipples as Cedric slowly caressed a hand over her stomach. Her breath hitched as she heard him take a slow inhale near her ear; his lips tracing over its outer shell.
“You know I have been given many excuses to help a lady of her dress,” he rasped, bringing his other hand up to her neck.
Deborah’s lashes fluttered shut as his fingertips smoothed from under her ear, down the line of her neck, and down to her bare shoulder. Spasms of pleasure rocked her next as his lips followed by placing a warm, lingering kiss against the exposed flesh.
“I have never seen the blame be put on an insect, though.”
She could hear the sarcasm in his deep voice and knew he was taunting her. Deborah forced her eyes open, shooing away the delightful sensations tingling over her body, and stepped out of his grasp.
“It was not an excuse,” she said bitterly, turning to face him. She then gestured down to the deceased insect as proof.
“Perhaps not,” Cedric mused, closing the small space between them, “But that does not mean we should ignore the opportunity this little problem of yours has granted us.”
He reached toward her then, and Deborah’s body hummed with pleasure as his fingertips found their way around her throat. His dark eyes raked down her body, and when they met her green ones again, his satisfaction was evident.
“You truly are beautiful, you know,” he whispered, stroking his thumb slowly over the pulsing vein in her throat.
Deborah closed her eyes and swallowed, silently willing her body to stop trembling. It was just his thumb for heaven’s sakes!
Yet even though she tried to tell herself she knew it wasn’t true.
It was the timbre of his voice, the tantalizing scent of his masculinity, and the daunting way that even just the touch of his finger seemed to fill her body with longing- an urge she’d once swore to never feel for a man after what Sylvester had done to Hester.
“I am not as affected by your flattery as some of your other conquests,” she replied, far softer than she would have liked. She forced her eyes open again, willing herself not to give in to the pleasure now coursing through her entire body, “You cannot just melt my will with your words.”
Cedric’s lips twitched toward a smile as his gaze dropped to her mouth.
“No?” He mused.
Her heart hammering, Deborah shook her head.
“Well. It seems I might have to try something else then,” he huskily replied.
His hand tightened around her throat and pulled.
Deborah felt herself swaying toward him. Told her body to stop. Told her mind to stop. Yet even as she did, she closed her eyes and parted her lips.
She expected Cedric’s kiss to be possessive and brutal.
Something that would alarm her and provide proof she did not want him.
Instead, his lips were soft, tender. They brushed along hers, slowly coaxing them to follow suit, and with a whimper, she obeyed.
The tip of his warm tongue traced along her bottom lip before he drew it into his mouth, suckling her softly as his hand slipped from the front of her throat to the back of her neck, and he pulled her closer.
Yearning washed through her mind, rendering it blank as her body began to obediently follow his kiss and touch.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, wanting to chase those feelings, and parted her lips just a little more so she could take his bottom lip.
Before she could, his tongue slid into her mouth, and as he massaged it over hers, she gasped and felt her entire body begin to tremble.
“Sorry for the delay, Your Grace, I- oh my!”
The sudden sound of another person’s voice jolted Deborah from her reverie, and she shoved Cedric away before covering her mouth. She looked toward the voice and saw a maid standing there in apparent shock.
“A thousand apologies, Your Graces,” the maid immediately apologized as she dipped into a low curtsey, “I had thought you had rung your bell for assistance, but I was clearly mistaken. Please, forgive me, I will leave you be at once!”
“No,” Cedric said, sounding completely unfazed and unbothered despite what had just happened.
Deborah’s gaze snapped to him, and she found him smirking with obvious triumph.
“Her Grace will need your assistance getting ready for bed, I believe,” Cedric went on. “Just give us a moment, would you? Perhaps you could wait in her sitting room?”
The maid readily agreed and quickly closed the door behind her.
The moment they were alone, Deborah turned back to Cedric and shoved at his chest, and he had the nerve to chuckle as he took a step back.
“How dare you!” She exclaimed as she hurriedly gathered her sleeves up in her arms, “What did you do to me? I did not want that!”
“Oh, I think you did, Miss Hunt,” he taunted, “You just needed to let go of some of that fantastic control of yours.”
His grin was positively devious as he moved to walk past her, but paused just as their shoulders lined up.
“I think you quite enjoyed losing some of that control,” he whispered, making her shiver again. “I know I certainly did.”
Deborah opened her mouth, willing her mind to work, to tell him no, but she found she could not even breathe.
“Have a pleasant evening, Miss Hunt,” Cedric called over his shoulder as he headed toward the door, “And please, let me know if you need assistance with anything else. I think I might quite enjoy being your helping hand.”
Deborah continued to gape at him, even after he was gone. Then, as the maid entered once more, it was as if her lungs remembered how to breathe, and she pulled in a deep breath.
“Are you alright, Your Grace?” The maid asked as Deborah pulled in several more deep breaths.
With Cedric gone, her mind finally began to work again, and she quickly agreed.
“Just fine,” she replied, then pointed to the dead insect on the floor. “A fly of sorts became caught in my dress is all.”
The maid tsked her as she looked down at the dead thing and kicked it.
“Nasty creatures,” she sighed, chasing after it with a kerchief. “Wish we could be rid of them altogether.”
“Indeed,” Deborah murmured, but as the maid helped her get ready for bed, she was not sure if she had meant the insects or men.