Mistletoe Minx (Under the Mistletoe #2)
Chapter 1
Everyone who claimed that reformed rakes made the best husbands was a wretched, weasel-faced liar.
Frances Tansley, Duchess of Dashford, gritted her teeth and manfully refrained from scowling at her bedchamber looking glass as her maid, Nancy, expertly styled her blond curls into an elegant chignon for this evening’s outing.
Although the pre-Christmastide party was being hosted by her dearest friend the Marchioness of Kyle and promised to be amusing, she was not certain she could her hold her tongue if faced with yet another avalanche of fawning well-wishes and gushing envy over her six-month marriage to the Duke of Dashford.
Society all knew it was a love match, that the duke had fallen head over heels and proposed mere weeks after meeting her. They all knew she strolled about, forever languid and smug at the number of orgasms her legendary lover husband skillfully coaxed from her each night in his quest for an heir.
Society were all blasted wrong.
Dashford certainly didn’t love her. He’d proposed so quickly because he simply didn’t care who his bride was, as long as the young lady fulfilled the requirements of ancient lineage, fertility, and social graces befitting a duchess.
As for the orgasms…apparently there was a greater chance of a unicorn trotting past their townhouse in St. James’s Square than her husband making her come.
Dashford rarely attended her bedchamber more than once per week.
And when he did, it was the kind of brief, perfunctory coupling that most matrons spoke of as The Annoyance they must endure for the reward of jewels and gowns.
Indeed, the myth of the Reformed Rake Husband, a man madly in love with his wife who bedded her in the most headily erotic ways, was perhaps the cruelest.
“Your Grace? Is the chignon not to your liking?”
Frances smiled ruefully at Nancy, a plump, no-nonsense woman with silver-streaked dark hair whom she quite adored. “It is perfect, as usual. I’m just…”
“Not excited about hearing further chapters in the tale of Fortunate Frances?”
“I really believed the rumors about Dashford being in love with me, that is why I said yes,” Frances whispered, her shoulders slumping. “I fell head over heels. What a fool I was, thinking I would have a marriage like Mother and Father do. They adore each other and don’t care a whit who knows it.”
Nancy pursed her lips as she carefully slid in two pearl-studded combs to secure the chignon. “We all believed the rumors, madam. And the only fool is the man not seeing the diamond right under his nose.”
Frances sighed, not even bothering to chide the longtime companion who had accompanied her from her parents’ household.
Once upon a time, like a dutiful wife, she had defended Dashford’s unexpected coolness.
His distant courtesy, as though she were a fifth cousin twice removed.
But all the staff noticed, and treated her with the kind of gentle pity that made her want to howl in humiliation.
How could this be her life? HOW?
She was twenty-three years old. A duchess.
Wed to the most handsome man in England, a rake so deliciously devilish that his apparent love-match wedding had united every wellborn spinster with actresses, opera singers, courtesans, and merry widows to declare a day of mourning.
Not to mention the passel of confirmed bachelors devastated at the loss of their leader.
Now, her existence should be a giddy whirlwind of intimate suppers and thoughtful gifts, of interesting conversations and the kind of wicked bedsport that would leave her disheveled and sweaty and blissfully exhausted.
Yet here she was, unbearably lost and unsure what to do, with a husband who was attentive only in public and left her unfulfilled in the bedchamber.
Worst of all, her menses remained stubbornly regular.
There wasn’t even the prospect of a longed-for babe to bring her comfort, for any of this anguish to be worthwhile.
Frances glanced over at the ornate mantelpiece clock and sighed again. “I’d best be on my way. While the others in society are a plague, I’m desperate to talk to Lady Kyle and Lady Jarrow. It’s not nearly enough seeing them at meetings for the hospital fundraising committee.”
Nancy nodded. “I hope you have the best evening possible, Your Grace. Now, paste on a smile; Himself must think you’ve not a care in the world.”
Taking a deep breath, Frances squared her shoulders and glanced once more at the mirror.
In her snow-white ballgown with a silver sash, and matched pearls about her neck and dangling from her ears, she looked well enough.
The white made her blue eyes seem even brighter and set off her honey-gold hair rather nicely, the gown’s square bodice offered the pretense that her small breasts were just a little bigger, and her heeled silver slippers gave her petite form a much-needed inch of height when facing an adversary well over six feet tall. Then, she smiled. “Better?”
Her maid’s lips twitched. “Perhaps less teeth, madam. You are happy, not about to rampage through Mayfair with a cutlass.”
A genuine grin replaced her false smile. “You know I couldn’t do this without you, Nancy. Good evening.”
Yet even as Frances departed her bedchamber, her nerves were already fluttering.
And when she strolled down the wide, carpeted hallway and rounded the corner to see her husband waiting at the top of the stairs, that fluttering turned into a full swarm of bees in her stomach. Dalton Tansley, Duke of Dashford.
Why did he have to be so infuriatingly handsome?
It wasn’t just that he was a full head taller than most ton men.
Or possessed thick, chocolate-brown, longer-than-fashionable hair that invited fingers to run through it, and emerald-green eyes to drown in.
No, the heavens had been ridiculously generous and also given him a lazy half-smile that melted gowns at fifty paces, the kind of broad shoulders and strong thighs that others could only achieve with padding, and a warm, rich baritone voice that immediately quieted and commanded a room.
Even worse, a natural talent for everything he did: fencing, sparring with Mr. Jackson, riding a thoroughbred, dancing the waltz, enthralling the House of Lords with his speeches…
Damn him!
Dashford felt nothing for her, and yet her soul drew toward him, her foolish body still misbehaving in his presence.
God willing, very soon there would come a time when her nipples didn’t harden and chafe against her bodice, when she didn’t want to slide a hand between her legs to ease the strange pulsing ache there.
“Frances,” he said crisply, inclining his head and holding out his arm as she approached. “You look lovely.”
“Thank you, Dashford,” she replied, placing her gloved hand on his sleeve, proud of both her calm tone and suppression of the frisson of awareness that raced through her at the heat emanating from his arm.
Proud also that she didn’t beat her fists against his firm chest and wail:
Why don’t you want me?
* * *
He was a duke on the verge of losing his goddamned mind.
Dalton deliberately kept his eyes forward, concentrating fiercely on each step of the wide, sweeping staircase as he escorted Frances down to the entrance hall.
It didn’t help, though. Even through his linen shirt and black jacket and her silver satin glove, her hand provoked a jolt of arousal.
An infuriating reminder that within the past six months, entirely without permission, his wife had moved from her allocated position of Necessary Duty to the leading lady of all his fevered, filthy dreams.
Knowing he would be escorting Frances to the Kyle soiree tonight, Dalton had already made himself come.
Twice. A logical plan to cool in advance the raging lust that now consumed him whenever she was near.
But it seemed twice wasn’t sufficient; not when he was close enough to inhale the citrusy scent of her soap, feel the warmth of her touch, and see the way her gown’s square bodice tantalizingly displayed the upper swell of her small breasts.
They would be a perfect mouthful, he was sure of it.
And he would suck those pale pink nipples raw as he teased her swollen clitoris, until she sobbed and writhed against her silken restraints, pleading so prettily to be allowed an orgasm…
Much to his dismay, a strangled groan escaped his lips, loud enough to turn his wife’s head.
“Dashford?” said Frances, her brow furrowing and wide blue eyes shadowing with concern. “Are you unwell?”
Yes. And the only cure is—
The thought shriveled into nothingness as his gaze landed on the one thing guaranteed to kill any lust stone dead: the portrait of his aloof and formidably glacial late mother on the entrance hall wall.
The previous Duchess of Dashford had never concerned herself with words of affection or regret, even on her deathbed.
She’d merely handed him a shakily written list of three names—including Lady Frances Vernon—of young women she deemed acceptable to be her successor.
Then had come the rasping edict etched in his soul:
“You are thirty-five years old. It is unacceptable that you remain a bachelor. Rather than wasting your time on foolish modernizations and those disgraceful house parties, you must wed and sire an heir. Any of my three choices will do. But do not besmirch her with your depraved desires. A wife is not a mistress and should never be subjected to grotesque indignities, only brief and courteous inconvenience for the purpose of a son. A lady must be treated as such. Swear it.”
And ay, there’s the rub, as the Bard would say.