Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“In love with my husband?”
The words came out into the steam and hung there, and Diana sank a little lower into the copper bath and scowled at the ceiling.
It is absurd, she thought. Hen has read too many novels. She has always read too many novels; her mother said so when we were twelve.
Except that Hen had said it with such perfect confidence.
Not as a tease, that was the trouble. She had teased for a full hour before it, about the Duke’s shoulders and the Duke’s coat and what precisely Diana had meant by good at a great many things, and Diana had swatted every bit of it away.
And then she had said that one thing, quite quietly, with her chin on her hand, and it had not been a tease at all.
It had been the way one tells a person something they ought to have noticed for themselves.
Diana put her head back against the rim.
But how should I know? That is the whole difficulty. I have never been in love in my life. I have never been in the neighborhood of it. I would not recognize the thing if it walked up and handed me its card.
“How would I know,” she said aloud, “what it even feels like?”
“Feels like what?”
“To be in—”
Diana stopped.
Her whole body went underwater by about four inches before her mind had caught up with any of it.
He was in the doorway.
She had no notion how long he had been standing there.
She had no notion how much he had heard, and the not-knowing was very much worse than knowing would have been.
Her arms had already gone crossed over her chest, and her knees had come up, and she had made herself as small as a woman could be in three feet of water, and the whole of her was scarlet, and none of it was doing the smallest good.
He came in.
“Duchess.” He did not appear to be in any hurry about it. “We are married.”
“Yes.” Her voice came out somewhere near the ceiling. “Yes, forgive me, Your Grace. I only—” She swallowed. “It takes a while.”
“So I observe.”
He had stopped beside the bath. He was looking down into the water, and she watched him look, and there was nothing in his face at all except a kind of unhurried interest, which was somehow far worse than a smirk would have been.
The water was cloudy with oil. There were rose petals on it. There were a very great many rose petals on it, because she had asked for them. She asked the girls to send up the good scent as well. She sat in it for three-quarters of an hour going soft, warm and sweet as a pudding.
“I came to speak with you,” he said.
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“Are you preparing for something, wife?”
Diana turned so red that she could feel it in her ears.
She had told Mrs. Fletcher she wanted a bath and had not said why, and had asked for the rose water and had not said why, and had sat there in it thinking about his hands and telling herself she was merely being clean. In truth, she was hopeful for this night.
“No,” she said.
“Mm,” said the Duke of Rosewood.
He smiled. It was not a large smile. It did not need to be.
Then he turned his back to her and looked at the fire instead.
“You may cover yourself.”
She was out of that water so fast that half of it went on the floor.
Her robe was three steps away on the chair, and she had it round her and knotted.
Her hair was dripping down her back, and her feet were slipping on the boards.
She gathered up what remained of her dignity and made for the door when he picked her up.
Diana made a sound that was not a word.
He had turned round and stooped and got one arm behind her knees and one at her back and lifted her clean off the floor, and her arms had gone round his neck without consulting her, and she was soaking, and he did not appear to have noticed.
“Your Grace—” She was staring at his throat, which was as far up as she could look. “Your Grace, I am wet—”
“Yes,” said Valentine. “I shall see to it that you remain so.”
Diana’s mouth opened and nothing whatever came out of it.
He carried her the length of the passage, shouldered the door of the chamber open, and crossed the room, past the bed, which she had been watching approach with her heart going like a bird, and set her down on the long table beneath the window.
Then he straightened. And looked at her.
“We shall not be using the bed tonight, Duchess,” he said.
Diana shivered.
He seized her waist with both hands, the grip firm and possessive, drawing her flush against the hard length of his body.
Diana’s lashes fluttered shut as his mouth claimed hers in a kiss that enveloped her utterly, yet it was laced with that ducal restraint that only heightened her longing.
His arms wrapped about her, one hand splayed wide at the small of her back, pressing her nearer until there was no space left between them.
Her own hands rose instinctively to wind about his neck, fingers burying into the thick, dark hair at his nape.
She was still dripping from the bath, rivulets of scented water soaking into his shirt and waistcoat, but he seemed not to mind; if anything, the deep, appreciative rumble that vibrated from his chest told her he relished the evidence of her abandon.
His lips left hers to blaze a trail along the delicate line of her jaw and down the slender column of her throat.
Diana closed her eyes tighter, a soft, involuntary whimper escaping her as wave upon wave of sensation assailed her: the warm press of his mouth, the faint graze of teeth, the heated whisper of his breath against her damp skin.
Lust grew into an insistent ache that radiated outward, making her thighs tremble and press together in a futile bid for relief.
Merciful heavens, how can he reduce me to this?
she thought, half-dazed with wonder and desire.
She craved him with a ferocity that both thrilled and terrified her, this man who saw her so clearly, who commanded her surrender with nothing more than a look and a word.
Her body burned for more: for his hands everywhere, for the feel of him, for the promise of completion she sensed he alone could grant.
“Duchess, this is the fourth night,” he murmured against the racing pulse at her throat, his voice a dark velvet caress, “may I please you tonight?”
The question sent a fresh shiver racing down her spine. He ever demanded her words; she had learned that lesson well. “You may, Your Grace,” she whispered, the admission breathless and fervent.
He bit down with exquisite care upon the sensitive juncture where neck met shoulder, and pleasure bloomed sharp and sweet, bordering on pain.
Diana gasped, arching shamelessly into him.
With deft, unhurried movements, he loosened her robe and pushed the damp silk from her shoulders, letting it slip down to pool at her elbows.
The cool night air kissed her fevered skin, pebbling her nipples, but his hands were there instantly.
Large, warm, callused from riding, cupping her breasts.
They were heavy and aching, the peaks erect and begging. He bent his head and drew one into the heat of his mouth, sucking deeply, his tongue swirling and laving the sensitive bud with devastating skill.
“Your Grace!” The cry tore from her lips unbidden. Sensation clouded her mind like the sweetest opium, sending sparks of pure fire straight to her core. She clutched the edge of the long table behind her for support, her knuckles whitening as pleasure threatened to buckle her knees.
His mouth trailed lower still, hot and open-mouthed against the soft plane of her stomach, tasting the rose-scented water that clung to her.
Then he parted her legs with gentle but inexorable hands and pressed a kiss to the very heart of her.
The secret, swollen folds no one had ever beheld, let alone touched.
Shock jolted through her like lightning.
There? The thought was a wild, scandalized whirl.
Surely not, such a thing could not be proper, could not be—
But then his tongue went deeper, licking a slow, deliberate stripe along her slick nether lips, and all coherent protest fled. “Your Grace?” she managed, voice high with confusion and dawning wonder.
“Duchess,” he replied, the words a warm breath against her most intimate flesh, “you might want support.”
Before she could fully comprehend, he lifted her legs, draping them over his broad, powerful shoulders and easing her back along the polished table. She braced herself at once, one hand flat against the wood, the other tangling desperately in his hair, as his tongue plunged inside her.
“God in heaven!” The exclamation burst from her in a broken sob.
The shock of it, of his tongue delving so boldly into her tight, wet heat, was profound, intimate beyond anything she had ever imagined.
It felt wicked, forbidden… and impossibly, shatteringly good.
His lips and teeth joined the assault, sucking gently on the throbbing pearl at her center while his tongue stroked and curled within her, lapping at the evidence of her desire with shameless hunger.
The sensations built with terrifying swiftness, an intense, coiling pressure low in her belly that grew tighter, hotter, more insistent with every wicked flick and thrust. “I cannot take it, Your Grace—it is too much, it is too good—wait—stop—do not stop, I beg you!”
Her words dissolved into incoherent pleas as the pleasure mounted, wave after relentless wave.
It was intense to the point of torment, a deep, throbbing ecstasy that made her hips jerk helplessly against his mouth.
She grabbed fistfuls of his hair, pushing him closer in shameless abandon, her legs trembling over his shoulders.
His strong hands dug into the soft flesh of her bottom, holding her firmly in place as he feasted upon her like a man starved.
Diana fell back against the table, arching wildly, lost entirely to the storm he had unleashed.
Her free hand rose to her breasts, pinching and rolling the aching peaks, doubling the pleasure until she feared she might splinter apart.
She wrapped her legs tighter around him, heels digging into his back, eyes squeezed shut as the pinnacle hovered just out of reach. “Yes—yes, there—oh, please—”
Just as the wave crested, brilliant, shattering, her entire body taut and trembling on the exquisite edge, he pulled away.
The sudden absence was devastating. The glorious buildup collapsed in upon itself, leaving her body throbbing with unfulfilled need, every nerve alight and screaming for completion.
Diana’s hips jerked once more in futile protest as she dropped back against the table, gasping, trembling, bereft.
A soft, frustrated whimper escaped her lips before she could stifle it.
The drop was cruel in its abruptness, the ache between her thighs now a hollow, pulsing frustration that left her dizzy and desperate.
He straightened slowly, wiping his glistening mouth with the back of his hand. His eyes gleamed with dark satisfaction and something perilously close to amusement. “Why, Duchess,” he drawled, voice roughened by desire, “you are so very eager.”
She swallowed hard, cheeks flaming hotter than the fire in the grate, and fumbled to draw the edges of her robe over her exposed body with shaking fingers. He smiled, that small, knowing curve of his lips that promised both torment and eventual salvation.
“When I complete what I have promised you,” he said softly, “I shall come back for the rest. We shall continue our fourth night then.”
This is exquisite torture, she thought, her mind still reeling, her body alight with thwarted lust. Does fulfilling his every word mean so very much to him?
Or does he delight in seeing me thus, reduced to a quivering, wanton creature who craves only him?
The latter sent another helpless pulse of desire through her core.
“You might want to return to the bath and clean up again,” he added, almost conversationally, as though he had not just brought her to the brink of madness with his mouth.
“Yes,” she managed, her voice little more than a breathless thread. “Yes, Your Grace.”
She caught the brief, predatory grin that flickered across his face then, and her stomach fluttered with fresh longing.
Hastily she retied her robe, slid down from the table on legs that threatened to give way, and murmured, “Thank you, Your Grace,” before the words’ absurdity struck her full force.
Thank you? As if he had merely passed her a book or poured her tea, rather than nearly unraveling her soul upon a table beneath the window.
Mortified beyond measure, Diana fled the chamber without a backward glance, the echo of his low, knowing chuckle pursuing her down the passage like a lover’s caress.
Her heart hammered wildly as she hurried back toward the bathing room, every step a reminder of the aching emptiness he had left behind.
The Duke of Rosewood, it seemed, was a master of patience, and of driving his wife slowly, deliciously mad with want.