Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
Elias drummed on the polished silver handle of his walking stick as he circled the main hall of the public Dulwich Picture Gallery, surveying everyone in his path.
The voices of the leisurely attendees echoed off the arched ceilings.
He scanned for May’s familiar silhouette but none of the strolling ladies had her grace nor purposeful stride.
Perhaps something had delayed her. He sank onto a studded leather seat across a serene landscape on display but the beauty of it escaped his notice.
This morning’s note lingered in his thoughts.
May said he’d know if she changed her mind, and now, she had.
With each passing day, his longing for her corded about his lungs, until Lady May was in every breath he drew. Elias would put an end to that. Hold her and not let go, not until he figured out a way to extract her from under his skin. And perhaps not even then.
That she chose to meet in this public setting felt like an attempt at courting.
Something he’d been woefully out of practice in.
But for her, he was willing to try. And once they were back home.
.. his mind raced on, conjuring more daring scenarios with each moment, until he almost missed the figure taking a seat next to him.
“I’ve been looking forward to meeting you, Your Grace.”
The young woman beside him was well-dressed, wrapped in an air of dignity. She leaned toward him with a familiarity that crossed the bounds of propriety.
“You are...?” Whoever she was, she was quite daring to seek him out without prior introduction.
“The one who can help you with your present concerns.” Her voice dropped into a purr.
“What concerns would a duke such as me have?” Elias did not feign his bored tone as he stood up.
The lady’s brow furrowed. “That is something I was hoping you would divulge, Your Grace.”
What in the world? He eyed her incredulously. There truly was no end to those who wanted to use him, nor was there a limit to their brazen ways.
“I must apologize. When I couldn’t make it last time—”
“Elias!”
Whatever the woman said next was rendered inconsequential.
And how could it be anything else, when he finally felt the thrill of his name leaving May’s lips?
He turned to find his beautiful accomplice running toward him.
Surprised onlookers cast their judgmental gazes at this outrageous display of familiarity, but Elias could do nothing but grin ear to ear.
No more of that “Your Grace” nonsense. She reached his side at once, her curls falling over her eyes, her chest rising in a frantic rhythm, her lips, the very ones that uttered his Christian name in public, slightly parted as she caught her breath.
With one word, she cut the distance between them to nothing. And all he wanted to do now was make his name spill from her mouth again and again.
She was too late.
His name rushed out of her on pure instinct, betraying the truth of her thoughts. When had she started thinking of him as Elias? She had not even noticed as bit by bit, the serious, bespectacled, sometimes menacing duke had turned into someone whose name she cherished. All too late.
The woman next to him regarded her coldly, but that was on the periphery, and all May could look at was the duke.
You’re an impostor, and he knows. Any moment now, his eyes would judge her with the same flinty hardness that he reserved for the likes of Lord Frenwick.
She would be marked as just another opportunist in his book.
Wasn’t it better this way? Cut it short, before either one of them could truly get hurt? But even now, her insides twisted at the idea. How could she lose him before she ever had him? What a fool she was! If May was going to be this distraught, she should have said yes to him that night.
“I know I am too late, but I must give you an explanation regardless.” May’s hands wrung the brim of her unworn bonnet.
“You do not have to make excuses for being late, my dearest.” He eased the poor straw bonnet out of her hand and smiled in his maddening way. “You should know by now that patience is one of my many virtues.”
Her blood pumped so viciously that she nearly missed his meaning. The woman next to him pursed her lips and stepped back with a sigh.
“Thank you for your time, Your Grace. I suppose it simply was not meant to be.”
The duke barely even acknowledged her with a nod, leaving May alone to follow her departure with her stunned gaze.
I was not late…? That woman looked just like the type to settle private affairs with particular talents.
She was everything May could never be—perfectly aloof, elegant, and very clearly born into wealth.
Yet, somehow, it was May who watched her leave.
“I was starting to think you wouldn’t come.”
May breathed out. So, he still did not know the truth of who she was.
May had to tell him, didn’t she? That’s what she’d come here for.
If she told Elias now, begged for his understanding, perhaps he might still let her earn her keep and get money for her mother’s necklace…
even if it put an end to this thing growing between them.
Because then, she wouldn’t need to find it in herself to say no to him over and over again.
“Is there somewhere quiet we can go? I must talk to you,” said May.
She watched him summon forth an attendant. One short, hushed exchange later, they were ushered into a service staircase, the top of which led to a locked door. Elias revealed a borrowed key, and then, they were alone, amid a room full of draped paintings, statues, and furniture.
“I was glad of your note.”
This was her chance to come clean. But there was one thing she hadn’t stopped to consider until she recognized the duke’s heavy-eyed look.
“Why have you answered the invitation?”
He stepped closer, fingers trailing across the fabric covering a nearby table.
“You know why. Because you have infected my every thought. You’ve rendered me senseless.
If I am no longer myself, then let me be yours instead.
Tell me you’ve come to set me free, May.
Tell me, and I will willingly succumb to your whims.”
May closed her eyes, but not looking at him hurt. “It will pass. You do not know who you want—”
He was merely a hairsbreadth away from her now. His finger hooked under her chin, tilting her gaze so that she was a butterfly pinned under the full heat of the sun. “Do not tell me I am alone in this madness. I know it isn’t true. What are you afraid of?”
She looked into his face: the upward tug of his lips, the keen gray eyes amplified through those lenses he wore, the maddening bob of his Adam’s apple.
The aroma of coffee and newspapers rolled off him, muddying her thoughts and undoing the last of her defenses.
Her fingers went to his shoulders, as if he was hers to hold on to.
“I cannot afford you,” she whispered. There. The true reason behind her resistance. It would take everything she was to be with him, and still, it would not be enough. Did he not understand?
He met her forehead with his own, his breath mingling with hers, erasing the borders of their selves… like watercolors bleeding into one another. “I will pay the price.”
Everything in her screamed agreement. She was a fool twice over, forgetting what she’d come here to do. All that was left in her was one last attempt. “Your Grace…”
“No….” He put his finger to her lips and shook his head. “Not Your Grace. Just...”
“Elias.” She took one last steadying breath before tumbling off the cliff of her resolve. “I want you, whatever the cost.”
“Then have me you shall.”
Her kiss engulfed him in burning ferocity.
He might have held half of London in the palm of his hand, but all he needed was here, in his arms. Elias wrapped May into his embrace as he answered her in turn, his tongue stroking hers until she uttered the lightest moan.
He hooked one hand around her rear and lifted her against him.
Her noise of surprise was destined to melt into another moan.
“You like this, don’t you?” He broke away for a breath and a smirk. He could not help teasing her; not when he had her in his grasp, wide-eyed and breathless. The vixen in question stretched her arms over his shoulders, locking her fingers over his nape only to pull him back into her lips.
With a growl building in his throat, Elias bit her lip.
His free hand stretched to drag the dusty cover off a nearby table.
That would do nicely. He carried her there, finding a good use for the stamina he usually hid from sight.
Their lips broke apart, and he let her slide down onto the polished wooden desk.
The sudden move made her breasts bounce.
The sight caused his cock to stretch taut against its confines. But would she be brave enough to seek its release?
“I am no innocent.” May’s hands abandoned his shoulders to hike up the skirts of her dress.
Fuck me.
She opened her legs to him. He did not wait a moment to press flush against her, his member pulsing with red-hot want.
“I’ve done this before.”
“But not with me.”
Elias moved his hips, his groin rubbing against the softness of her thighs. She bit her lip again, unable to conceal her panting. Did she not know it drove him to insanity?
“Are you that good?”
Oh, he would make her come undone at his hand.
Keeping hold of her gaze, Elias shrugged out of his topcoat, taking care to fold it neatly before entrusting it to May’s arms. As her fingers tightened about the fabric, he loosened his cravat, regarding her from above.
The press of her hips against him had grown stronger, unintentionally betraying her state.
She was nowhere near as in control as she wanted to seem, and he preferred it this way.