Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
With a smile of thanks, Duke of Westall took the laden breakfast tray from the maid in the corridor and brought it into his bedroom, smiling towards the figure half-reclined on his bed.
There was his beautiful duchess among the piled pillows and bolsters, her shimmering light brown hair around her shoulders and a sheet pulled up to her throat.
Frances’ cheeks were pink both from their recent erotic exercises and an endearing self-consciousness at the Westall Park staff knowing that she was finally spending her nights in her husband’s bed.
This was the third morning on which Ambrose had ordered breakfast for two to be brought to his room but Frances was still to shy to allow any maid to enter and lay it out.
Still, it was little trouble for him to don a dressing gown and bring in the tray himself, rather enjoying Frances’ blushes at even the knocking on the door.
“I hope you are hungry,” he said with a grin, carrying the tray to the bed. “It seems that the kitchen believe us three people this morning rather than two.”
“I am very hungry,” she confirmed. “You make me very hungry. Did we also miss dinner last night…?”
“Oh, yes,” the duke remembered with a small laugh, before returning to the corridor to collect a second tray left outside the door, this one bearing coffee and cups.
“We were otherwise occupied at eight o’clock, although I did find us some pie in the larder later.
I hope Mrs. Betsworth will be understanding. ”
Propping herself up against the pillows, Frances had to let the sheet fall in order to settle the legs of the food tray, revealing yet again those pale and perfect breasts that were so sensitive to Ambrose’s touch.
“You make me hungry too,” he commented, putting the smaller coffee tray on a bedside table and taking a careful seat beside Frances. “Very hungry indeed. I feel I have been starving and can never have enough of you.”
Frances regarded him with contented yet eager eyes, their grey-blue depths filled with all the sensual knowledge acquired over the last three days.
“Nor I of you,” she admitted softly. “I want you more every time, Ambrose.”
The duke kissed his wife’s bare shoulder and then took up a piece of toast, deciding that he could eat and appreciate Frances’ naked bosom at the same time.
As he settled himself, Ambrose’s other hand encountered a slither of silk halfway under one of the pillows and he pulled out a sheer nightgown with delicate lace edging, unceremoniously discarded last night and now crumpled in a ball.
“I didn’t manage to wear that one for even five minutes,” Frances accused with good humor, as he held up the garment. “You were like a wild man when you saw me wearing it.”
“I could not help myself,” Ambrose admitted, grinning again as he tossed the silken slip towards a chair. “I make no excuses. It is the sheerest of the three I bought for you, and it hid nothing of your charms, only enhanced them beyond my bearing.”
Frances closed her eyes and made a sound of appreciation, presumably recalling the same scene of frantic ravishment on his bed last night.
“I think I shall have to buy more nightgowns,” she told him when she opened her eyes again, teasing but slightly shy. “I like you in the mood they seem to incite.”
“I am sorry now to have bought you only three. With my blessing, you may spend your entire dress allowance on French nightgowns if you wish,” Ambrose replied, nuzzling Frances’ shoulder as his imagination ran riot. “The finest silk stockings too, embroidered satin stays, the sheerest petticoats…”
Frances in a state of semi-undress really did drive him wild, in a way he had never experienced with Charlotte, and never to such elevated levels of lust with his various paramours in widowerhood.
Ambrose recalled the wonder and uncertainty on his wife’s face as she picked up the first of the nightgowns he had gifted her, only a few hours after her first introduction to sexual congress in the library. He supposed that she had never worn such a creation before.
Frances had donned the garment in his dressing room and then emerged into the candlelit bedroom, looking like a vision from an erotic dream.
He had immediately been unable to keep his hands and lips from her person, spurred on by her passionate responses.
Ambrose only knew that his wife wanted him and that he must satisfy her longing.
Despite having already taken Frances four times earlier that evening, his lovely duchess was soon on his bed on hands and knees with that wisp of a silken garment around her waist and Ambrose’s shaft working her with urgent rhythm as she cried out her joy.
On the second night, Frances had put on the second nightgown, its bodice so slight that the merest caress of Ambrose’s hands spilled her breasts from its hold.
He had brought her above him then, teaching her to ride him, first slowly and then at the urging of her own driving pleasure, the rounded globes of her bosom bouncing and quivering irresistibly before his face.
The third nightgown, as Frances had reminded him, had barely adorned her for five minutes last night before Ambrose removed it entirely and thrust himself into her soft core, his hands and mouth soothing and stimulating her sensitive places as he drove them both to a frenzy of animal enjoyment.
They had been wrapped up in enjoying one another’s bodies for most of three days now, managing only with effort to maintain a normal routine with Winnie, and abandoning entirely all other usual activities.
Letters had gone unanswered, senior servants had received no instruction on household matters, and regular mealtimes had been forgotten.
Even Dowager Lady Levene calling to take Winnie out had only been noticed after the fact, since she did not seek out either of them.
Perhaps she took some hint from the servants that the Duke and Duchess of Westall were not to be disturbed, or perhaps she had her own reasons, but there was no interruption to their erotic embraces.
Still, Ambrose knew that they could not remain in this bubble forever. Frances seemed to follow his train of thought.
“I must write back to Beatrice,” she sighed, sipping her coffee and drawing up her knees a little. “It has been two days since her note arrived, although I am sure she will have many other friends to occupy her time in London. I have not replied to Lydia either.”
“You should go to town and meet Beatrice,” Ambrose commented. “An older sister is likely better than general friends, for a girl just coming out.”
His words were at odds with his actions, his lips simultaneously at Frances’ neck and one hand gently cupping her breast again, regardless of the tray on the bed. Frances laughed and arched into him as much as she could without tipping the tray.
“You say that but you don’t want me to go,” she told him with certainty.
“True,” Ambrose agreed. “But you still should. Otherwise Beatrice will feel neglected and I will never answer all my outstanding correspondence. My agents will eventually come to find me and I shall look like a fool. Or perhaps only like a husband with a highly desirable new wife.”
Frances pressed her soft pink lips on his and regarded Ambrose with an expression that both scalded and melted him.
“You have made my whole world look different,” she told him seriously. “I don’t think I have ever been so happy as this week. I did not believe I could be.”
Ambrose’s heart felt aglow at this praise, while his body tingled anew with faint fresh desire.
After restraining himself for a few more minutes, he put the tray aside and set about making his wife happy yet again, his body wrapped around her back, his rod deeply embedded and his fingers playing gently in her wet fur.
When they had temporarily sated their appetites for both food and sensual pleasure, Frances finally rose from the bed and stretched at the window before Ambrose’s admiring eyes. Stooping, she picked up a small piece of paper from the floor.
“Madame Rousset,” she read aloud, casting an amused glance back towards the bed. “‘Parisian night and daywear à la mode.’ Is this your French mistress or the dressmaker that I must thank for my nightgowns?”
“You have caught me out,” Ambrose laughed, sharing the absurdity of the joke. “But now that I am discovered, I shall tell all my mistresses, both French and English, that my wife will not share me. I am yours alone, Frances.”
“I am very glad to hear that…”
The smile on her face flickered for a moment as she turned over the paper and looked at what was written on the back, presumably only the details of the gowns.
Madame Rousset would surely not have written the prices on the packing slip, would she?
Oh well, it was no great indiscretion. The smile returned to Frances’ face a moment later.
“I shall dress and go to London to see Beatrice,” she pronounced. “I can’t hide here forever, can I? However much I might wish to. That should also give you time to deal with your correspondence.”
“It would be for the best,” Ambrose agreed with mock gravity.
“It appears that you have a husband with very little self-control around you, Duchess Frances. While you are here, it is a sorry state of affairs. I can only turn my mind to new ways in which to seduce you back to my bed, or over my desk, or on the ground in the woods…”
“I look forward to hearing more of your imaginings when I return tonight,” Frances answered with an arched eyebrow as she opened the communicating door to her own rooms.
In the carriage on the way to London, Frances still felt strong, buoyed with life, and beyond the reach of the fears that had assailed her since the Fordham House ball.
Ambrose would have done his best to quash the scandal sheet story, but even if it was still on anyone’s lips in town, Frances could imagine now laughing it off. There was no truth left in it at all, and nothing to fear.