Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Summoned by the Duke of Westall…
Slowly and somewhat reluctantly, Frances changed direction and made her way across the large hallway, towards the library that sat at the front of the house.
It was hard to make out from such a short message what the duke’s mood or intention might be and she had no idea whether to expect anger, concern, or even some sort of amorous approach…
No, it would not be the latter, Frances told herself. Not in the library. If the duke had chosen his private sitting room, or bedroom, that might have been his agenda, but the library opened onto the hallway, where servants passed frequently, and its windows overlooked the front gardens.
It was even possible that his summons had nothing to do with Frances personally at all. Perhaps he only wished to consult her on something to do with Winifred, or Westall Park staff, or to arrange tea with his grandmother, or…
The possibilities were endless. Well, there was only one way to settle the matter. Taking a deep breath, Frances pushed open the library door and walked inside with as much confidence as she could muster.
“I wasn’t sure that you would come,” Ambrose Clarke said with a smile, turning around where he stood at the window and walking towards her. “You have been avoiding me since you came to Westall Park, I believe.”
It was a statement, not a question. Was there a slight tone of reproach in his voice despite his good-humored expression?
Or maybe only disappointment? Frances supposed that either might be considered reasonable, and perhaps inevitable, given their situation.
Either way, she could not deny what he said.
“I thought it was best,” Frances returned, taking the seat he indicated beside the fireplace, as he sat down opposite.
The Duke of Westall shook his head. His hair was damp, reminding her again of those first moments when she saw him half undressed at his washstand. He was fully dressed now, of course, in a finely cut dark suit, but Frances automatically visualized the lines of the masculine torso beneath.
“We cannot avoid one another while bringing up a child together,” he told her, his voice kind but pointed. “That would not work at all. Eventually Winnie would notice and it would confuse her.”
Frances bit her lip and looked out of the window.
This was true too. She knew she could not spend the coming years rushing away from Winnie each time the girl’s father appeared and smiled at her.
Yet how could she bear to stand still beside him when her blood rushed so madly in her veins at his presence?
“I would also like to get to know you better, and for you to know me,” the duke added. “If we are to live together, we must know one another.”
Know? What exactly did he mean by that?
“I told you before we married that I cannot share your bed,” Frances stated directly, taking refuge in bare facts so as to avoid uncomfortable feelings.
Ambrose nodded, leaning forward in his chair but making no attempt to touch her.
“And I promised you never to do anything you did not want, a promise I shall always keep.”
“Then, why must we have this conversation?” Frances followed up nervously. “What can there be to say?”
“Frances, between complete avoidance and sharing a bed, there is a very wide country,” the duke pointed out. “There is friendship there as well as passion, and love for some, I suppose. Have you never wished to visit such lands at all, or even to look upon them?”
Ah, why must he be so reasonable and understanding?
Frances might have railed against a petulant or dishonorable man, or run away again from someone who made any attempt at physical compulsion.
Ambrose, however, only looked upon her with those deep blue eyes and spoke words that made her tingle and ache, and then quake with fear at the power of her own longing.
“I am frightened,” Frances confessed after a too-long silence, although she had not intended to tell him anything quite so personal. “Being…close to someone…frightens me. Can you understand that?”
The puzzlement on his face told her that he did not.
“What is it that frightens you?” Ambrose questioned her lightly. “You do not think that I would hurt you, do you? I assure you that I am not a brute.”
Frances hung her head, not wishing him to believe this explanation when it was so far from the truth of either of them.
“I am afraid of what I feel, Ambrose, not of what you are,” she replied, her voice emerging as barely a whisper. “You have done nothing wrong. It is only that I…”
She had said so little and yet it was far more than she had ever admitted to anyone else. The Duke of Westall did not frown or laugh at her. He only nodded and continued to regard her thoughtfully.
“I cannot imagine that what you feel is anything so very dreadful,” said the duke. “Do you enjoy my company, or do you find me physically repulsive?”
Frances laughed at this, a little bitterly. Having begun her confession, she supposed she might as well explain it as best she could.
“I enjoy your company. I always have. Do you know, that when you pulled me onto the dance floor that night, it was the first time a man touched me and I didn’t shudder?”
The duke’s handsome smile broadened with this admission.
“I take compliments where I can get them. I can only thank you for your understanding of my impetuous behavior that night and suggest that some of your previous dance partners were not gentlemen.”
“Indeed,” Frances agreed, thinking of the Earl of Mulford, her most persistent follower and certainly no gentleman.
“It seems to me that if you enjoy my conversation and my partnership on the dance floor, that you might enjoy my company in other ways, if you allowed yourself.”
If this was a proposition, it was so mildly and kindly spoken that it did not feel like one.
That deep blue gaze was only interested and inquisitive as her own eyes dared to meet it but Frances’ roiling emotions disturbed her so much that Ambrose might as well have seized her up from the chair and kissed her.
“I cannot share your bed,” she reiterated, her voice catching in her throat and the neckline of her dress feeling tight and constricting.
“Do not think of that now,” he responded without judgement or urgency. “Why not think instead of holding my hand? That is a simpler act to countenance, is it not? There is no danger in it, surely.”
The Duke of Westall held out a hand towards her as he spoke, his smile encouraging her to take it. After a few seconds, Frances laid her trembling fingers in his broad warm palm and looked warily across at him, her heart thumping in her chest.
The duke squeezed her hand very gently and then stroked her fingers lightly with his other hand.
“Your hands are as graceful as the rest of you, Frances,” he told her, then turning her palm over, stroked that too.
Little tongues of fire licked at her belly from only these slight touches and her breath came faster.
“Does that feel good?” the duke asked her and then raised the back of her hand briefly to his lips and kissed it when she nodded.
“It frightens me how good it feels.”
“There is nothing to fear here, nothing to fear from me,” Ambrose said again, his tone low and soothing. “When a man and woman touch like this, even just hands, it should feel pleasurable to both parties. If it did not, I would stop. You too may stop whenever you wish.”
Somehow, both of her hands were now in his and he was kissing and caressing each of them lightly and unhurriedly as he spoke. Frances closed her eyes and sighed. She did not want him to stop but feared the reactions of her own body and mind to his touch.
A door was opening in Frances’ imagination, and for the first time, she saw the lands of intimacy that the Duke of Westall had described.
The pleasure of his lips on her skin was burning away all rational thought.
What if she lost control of herself, as other people did?
Should she draw back her hands and end this encounter now before it was too late. .?
But they were in the library, with its garden windows and doorway to the hall. Surely nothing much more than this could happen between them? Not in here…
“And this?” Ambrose asked, his caresses moving only a very little higher, to Frances’ wrists and lower arms. “Does this feel good too?”
“Yes,” Frances breathed, sensing herself moving gradually into ever deeper water. “Oh!”
Leaning forward a little further in his chair, the duke now ran his hands the full length of her bare arms and then bent his head to kiss the sensitive skin inside Frances’ elbow. Good God, how that small touch of his lips echoed through her body…
“What if someone should come in?” blurted Frances, the exposed location of the library having subtly shifted from a defense to a threat in the last few minutes.
“We are married, Frances, and in our own home,” the duke reminded her, lifting his head and pausing the movement of his hands although he did not remove them. “No one but you may object to such innocent embrace as this. Do you?”
“I do not,” she conceded and then gave another little gasp as Ambrose gently stroked her face. “It is only, what if, what if…”
“There is nothing to fear,” he repeated himself. “If you wish me to continue, I will continue. If you wish me to stop, I will stop. Is the worst thing that could happen that that you might enjoy my touch?”
Frances closed her eyes again and nodded, all too conscious of that warm hand now cupping her jaw. She felt the duke’s breath on her face before the featherlight touch of his lips brushing hers for a fraction of a second.
“Ah!” she moaned. “I don’t know. I’m afraid of what might happen if I do enjoy it. I’m afraid of…”
“Losing control?” he suggested very softly. “I promise you that is no bad thing either, although it might seem so when you have never experienced it.”