Chapter 23
Twenty-Three
She was sitting, back straight, and facing the far wall well after the dinner plates had been cleared. She was still in her walking gown, her gloves discarded on the table setting beside her. A half-empty teacup rested in front of her, forgotten.
She did not make a sound, but let her shoulders tremble slightly as her fingers twisted the edge of her handkerchief.
Heath’s voice rang out, startling her. “Blanche?”
She twisted to face him, and though she tried to smile, her eyes betrayed her. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
He crossed the room slowly, uncertain. “You’ve been crying.”
She gave a soft, humorless laugh. “Only a little. It’s nothing.”
He sat beside her, close enough to feel the warmth of her, but not yet making an effort to touch her. “It is not nothing if it troubles you.”
She hesitated, then looked down at her hands. “I saw a man in the square today, just for a moment. He had my father’s gait. The same way of holding his hat. It was foolish, I know. But it struck me.”
Heath looked like he was trying to swallow a stone, and reached for her hand, threading his fingers through hers. “You miss him.”
“Every day,” she whispered. “Even when I hate him, I miss him.”
He brushed his thumb over her knuckles. “You are not alone in that ache.”
She looked up at him then, her eyes shining. “I know.”
The silence between them stretched, thick with things unsaid. Her gaze dropped to his mouth, and he felt the shift in the air—like the moment before a storm, when the wind stills and the world holds its breath.
He touched her cheek, gently. “Blanche…”
She leaned into his palm, her lips parting. “Yes?”
He slid his fingers beneath her chin, tilting her face up until she met his gaze fully. “Tell me to stop.”
She didn’t. Her pulse was thundering in her veins, and in this moment, she wanted this more than anything else.
He kissed her then. His lips stealing the soul from her very body. Unrelenting, crashing into hers as she fisted the front of his shirt, needing more.
“I’ll not beg you,” she said, breaking away.
Heath, undeterred, pressed kisses along her jaw, to her throat, and over the erratic beat of her heart.
“No. Let me take care of you,” he murmured against her skin. “Right here. Now.”
She didn’t answer, but her breath caught when he reached for her waist, lifting her with slow, purposeful hands. She gasped softly as he set her on the table—where just hours ago she had enjoyed a quiet, civil dinner without him. Now, the room buzzed with something wilder.
He eased her skirts up, exposing her inch by inch to the candlelight, to his hungry gaze.
She shivered, but not from cold. He looked up at her, and for a moment, he looked as if she was the only thing tethering him to the ground.
Then he dropped to his knees.
He kissed the inside of her knee, then the soft, sensitive skin of her thigh. One hand braced her leg over his shoulder, the other curled around her hip, holding her steady.
She whimpered when he finally reached her throbbing core, and then again when his mouth claimed her with a slow, deliberate stroke.
He groaned like the taste of her was something he’d never forget.
Heath worked her with his tongue and lips and the kind of devotion usually reserved for prayers. He didn’t rush. He didn’t tease. He worshiped—utterly, unrelentingly—until she was breathless, writhing against his mouth, clutching the back of his head with shaking fingers.
“Heath—” she gasped, her voice high and strangled.
His mouth vibrated in response, pressing deeper, and when she shattered, she did so in silence—her lips parted, eyes wide, body trembling around him.
He stayed there until the tremors eased, until her hands loosened, until her breath came slow and shallow.
Only then did he rise, his mouth glistening, and his gaze locked with hers.
He looked like sin in candlelight, and she just wanted him to thrust into her without remorse. Without a second thought. Without begging. Just with untampered need.
He leaned over her and brushed a kiss against her lips, this one soft and nearly chaste. “You are mine, Blanche. Say it.”
But she only arched a brow, the barest trace of a smirk ghosting her lips. “You are insufferable.”
He grinned. “And you’re still trembling.”
She slid from the table slowly, her knees a little unsteady. “I’ll recover.”
He caught her wrist gently, and even though she was immediately cross with him, she was thankful for his calculated assistance.
“Are you stable enough to walk?” he asked slyly.
Her glare met his before it turned into a smile. “Stable enough to dance.”
The guests started to arrive at the first sign of night—first in measured steps along the garden paths, then in clusters beneath the lanterns that glowed against the bluing sky.
Laughter and the delicate clink of glasses threaded through the hedges like a melody that had not yet reached its crescendo.
Blanche stood near the floral archway flanking the central lawn, her gloved fingers brushing idly along the embroidered hem of her gown. The fabric felt heavier than usual tonight—perhaps from the expectation stitched into it.
“You’ve truly outdone yourself, my darling,” Lady Gooldwer declared, adjusting the folds of her own gown as if she’d been personally responsible for the guest list. “Even the Ashbrookes arrived early, and that simply never happens. They’re always late enough to signal disdain.”
“I think they were curious,” Blanche said, allowing a smile. “New duchesses don’t bloom every Season.”
Fanny leaned in on tiptoe to whisper conspiratorially. “Or perhaps they’ve heard of your incredible taste in musicians. Mama nearly trampled a footman to rearrange the harpsichord.”
Lady Gooldwer gave her youngest daughter a narrowed glance.
“If the harpsichord was injured, it had it coming,” Fanny muttered, feigning innocence as she plucked a canape from a passing tray.
Blanche laughed, the sound unguarded. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed this—being surrounded by family, by movement, by color and life and voices rising in the air like warm drafts beneath her ribs.
And yet, she hadn’t seen Heath since dusk settled over the gravel path outside the corridor. Not since he’d said those quiet words—“You’ve made this place yours”—with a look in his eyes that had lingered long after he disappeared into the west wing.
I wonder… would he ask me to dance tonight?
The thought startled her, but there it was. Clear and unruly.
“I’ll return shortly,” she said suddenly, offering her mother and sister a polite smile. “There’s something I ought to check with the footmen.”
Her mother waved a hand. “Don’t dally too long, dear. I need someone to prevent Fanny from attempting to climb the pergola.”
“I only said it looked climbable,” Fanny said with faux solemnity. “I didn’t swear an oath.”
Blanche turned down the garden path before her smile could turn into a laugh. Her slippers whispered against the stone as she walked beneath trellises hung with wisteria and light. The air smelled of roses and summer wine.
She scanned the crowd, and then she saw him.
Near the east veranda, Heath stood facing Lady Sophia.
Sophia tilted her head just so, her fingers brushing the edge of Heath’s sleeve in a gesture too familiar to be accidental. Her voice was low—flirtatious. She laughed lightly, her fan fluttering in her hand like a bird on display.
Heath did not laugh. His expression was inscrutable, his posture perfectly civil and perfectly still, but Blanche did not miss that he did not step away.
She stopped walking. Neither of them had seen her.
She stood half-shielded by the edge of a rose-covered archway, the music drifting around her like some distant waltz she could no longer hear clearly. She didn’t move. Not forward, not away. Just stood, watching, and something inside her twisted.
So, this is what it feels like, not to know where one stands at all…
Lady Sophia let her fingers drift lightly along Heath’s sleeve, a gesture practiced and polished, designed to suggest intimacy where none had been earned.
“I must say, Your Grace,” she murmured, her voice dripping with honeyed amusement. “I’ve rarely seen you so brooding. Is it the pressure of married life, or simply the weather?”
Heath did not flinch. He was marble in the half-light—cool, smooth, and utterly unmoved.
“My mood,” he said, his eyes fixed on hers with glacial precision, “is not a matter for polite speculation.”
Sophia’s smile faltered, but only for a breath. She tilted her head, her lashes fluttering like a trapped bird. “Then it must be marriage. A pity, really. So many fine men waste themselves on duty.” She leaned in, her voice a velvet whisper. “Some of us recall how charming you used to be.”
From the shadows, Blanche watched. Her stomach tightened, a slow coil of heat and unease. She had told herself she was not the jealous sort. She had told herself many things.
And yet her fingers curled into the fabric at her waist.
Heath’s reply came slowly. Deliberate. Icy.
“I am still capable of charm, Lady Sophia,” he said, his voice low and sharp as a blade unsheathed.
Then he stepped back, just enough to make the distance noticeable. His gaze did not soften.
“I simply no longer squander it on women who mistake arrogance for allure.”
Lady Sophia blinked. Her lips parted, but no clever retort came.
Heath turned from her without another word, his steps purposeful as he crossed the terrace toward the shadows—toward Blanche.
Sophia’s smile faltered. Briefly. As if someone had turned out a light behind her eyes.
“Well,” she said, too brightly. “I suppose even dukes require hobbies.”
Then she turned on her heel and disappeared into the throng with a fan snap and the rustle of silk.
Heath stood still for a breath. Then another, and then he turned.
Their eyes met.
Blanche took a small, instinctive step back from the trellis, heat prickling at the nape of her neck. “I wasn’t spying,” she said quickly.
Heath blinked once, then let the corner of his mouth tilt—just barely. “You weren’t especially discreet.”