The Duchess Deal

  The commanding way in which he gripped her arms only pitched her excitement higher. The pulses of her wrists thumped wildly beneath his palms, and her heartbeat was a clamor in her ears.

  "Don't forget it again," he said in a low, thrilling voice. "Or I'll be forced to tie you to the bed."

  At the suggestion, her intimate muscles fluttered. "Is that meant to be a threat? Because I . . . I don't seem to find the idea entirely objectionable."

  "You don't?"

  She licked her bottom lip. "Well, you're very good at this, apparently. And what with the dark . . . It's all very shadowy and sensual. Like one of those feverish dreams one has on a hot summer's night."

  "This is something you'd dream about. Being pawed by a hulking stranger in the dark."

  Emma squeaked out her tentative reply. "Maybe?"

  Unbearable moments passed in silence.

  "You are incredible."

  Whether he meant that as a compliment or censure, she didn't know. She didn't have a chance to ask. He released her wrists and moved between her legs, shoving her skirt and petticoat to her waist.

  Rubbing his fingers up and down her sex, he made a sound of approval. "Wet for me already."

  The heel of his hand pressed against her mound. Emma tried her best to remain still. It wasn't easy. But if he stopped now, she would expire of frustration. His fingers penetrated her, stroking deep. Oh, God. Perhaps she would expire not of frustration, but of bliss.

  Instead of shifting his weight to move atop her, he lowered himself onto one elbow. She felt his tongue again. Not on her nipple this time.

  There.

  She couldn't help it now. Her body convulsed with pleasure, arching and twisting beneath his mouth. He licked her over and over, spinning her into new landscapes of arousal with languid strokes of his tongue. All the while, he kept up rhythmic thrusts with his fingers, hitting a place deep inside her that made her clutch the bed linens in her fists.

  Emma didn't know how much more she could take. But even if she wished to beg him for mercy, what would she cry out? Duke? Ashbury? No. She refused. Intimate moments called for intimate address, and she feared his wrath if she tried "dear" or "darling" or "precious angel muffin" instead.

  No, there would be no begging for mercy. She surrendered to the pleasure, letting him nudge her closer and closer to the brink of madness with each flick of his tongue.

  She whispered, "Don't stop."

  Don't stop.

  As if she needed to tell him so.

  Ash would not have stopped for anything. Never mind a feral cat. The royal menagerie could crash down the chimney, and he would not have lifted his head from his task.

  She was so close. He could feel it. He could taste it. And as badly as she needed to come, he needed her to come even more.

  Bringing a woman to orgasm had always been a particular pleasure for him. With most women he'd known, even if no deep affection was involved, a climax required a bit more than a skilled tongue and fingers. It took closeness, trust. Intimacy. Feeling a woman come beneath his hand, his mouth, his body--well, it made him feel like king of the planet, of course--but it also made him feel connected. Human.

  Now he was a monster.

  Look, it even said so in the Prattler.

  Ash had expected--he'd feared, to put a finer point on it--that he'd never know a woman's intimate trust again. Not this way. What woman would allow this scarred, repulsive face between her thighs?

  Emma would, apparently. Whether that labeled her a lunatic or a fool, he would decide later. She was likely both. He'd convinced her to marry him, after all.

  Then she arched her hips and began to ride his tongue in a halting rhythm, chasing her own bliss. The unbearable sweetness made him moan. His already hard cock pulsed with impatience.

  Now. By the gods, let it be now.

  She gasped, her full body tensing as the pleasure took her. The wet heat of her sex squeezed his fingers. He savored each shudder, each soft, lovely sigh.

  When her body relaxed, he slid his hand free and stroked her silky essence over his cock. She parted her thighs, and he knelt between them, hooking her legs over his hips. Taking himself in hand, he placed the broad crown of his erection where it needed to be, tensed his thighs . . . and pushed.

  Then he was in her. And in her. And God, so exquisitely deep in her--and still he wanted more.

  He couldn't help but groan.

  He began to thrust in earnest, working himself further and further into that narrow tunnel of heat. He hoped she'd experienced the worst of her discomfort last night, because gentleness was beyond him now. He thrust with purpose, determined to get at the very heart of her and feel her body sheathing him whole. She made a bridge of her body, lifting her hips to connect his pelvis to hers.

  "That's it," he whispered between shaky breaths. "Just like that."

  He worked both hands beneath her bottom and lifted it, tilting her hips. Her body yielded to him a fraction more, and he sank home.

  Perfect. So perfect.

  Still on his knees, he held her by the hips and thrust faster. With the help of the dim firelight, he could just make out the taut globes of her breasts, rolling with his every stroke. God, how he wanted to see those breasts in full daylight. The nipples alone. He'd learn their color; trace their shape with his fingers, then his tongue. Nuzzle and feel the softness against his cheek.

  But as much as he wished to see them, Ash had to admit that picturing them . . . It was working, too. Really, really working. It threw him back to his youth, when he'd made do with nothing but a hand and his imagination. Except this wasn't his callused hand, and his imagination had never been anywhere near this good. This lover wasn't a fantasy, but real. She had shape and heat and scent.

  She had a name.

  "Emma."

  When he called to her, her body tightened deliciously around his cock.

  So he did it again.

  "Emma." The pleasure was keen, slicing through him like a knife. He gritted his teeth. "Emma."

  Words were beyond him after that. He squeezed her plump little bottom in both hands and took her hard and fast, relentless in his race to the peak.

  And then he came. He came hard, spending into her with fierce joy. His hips jerked with each wrenching spasm. The climax seemed to go on and on, approaching forever. And yet it wasn't nearly enough.

  He collapsed on the bed beside her, weakened and emptied. If he'd known taking a wife would be like this, he would have married ages ago.

  Of course, marrying ages ago would have meant taking a different wife. He wasn't certain wives like this one abounded.

  He turned his head to face her in the dark. "Where on earth did you come from?"

  She was silent for a long moment. "Hertfordshire."

  He laughed, without restraint or apology.

  "You really must give me something to call you," she said. "If we go on like this, I'm going to need a name to cry out, and I don't think you want it to be honeybee."

  "Just try it, blossom." He sat up in bed. "But if you insist on something else, just use Ash. It's what my friends call me." Or called me, when I still had friends.

  He reached for his trousers.

  "You don't mean to leave me," she said. "After that?"

  Her obvious satisfaction swelled his pride, but staying the night was out of the question. He was not going to allow her to wake up beside him in the full light of day, mere inches from his mangled face, let alone the wreckage that remained of his neck, chest, shoulder.

  Not now, not yet. Perhaps not ever.

  She'd think she'd woken from a nightmare. She'd shrink from him. Run from the room. Worse had happened before. Unless she was pregnant with his child, he could not take that risk. And once she was pregnant, they were done.

  The sooner that happened, the better.

  He left her room on wobbly legs, then sank against the door.

  Please be fertile, or you'll be the death of me.

  Chap
ter Twelve

  Walking through the streets that night was a novel experience.

  Forget stalking and prowling down the darkened alleyways. Tonight, Ash was all but skipping. Gamboling.

  He didn't encounter any enraging specimens of human refuse.

  He was no longer sexually frustrated to the point of irascibility.

  He felt almost . . . human again.

  He even strolled across an open square.

  "Say!" someone called. "You're the Monster of Mayfair!"

  And with that, Ash's lightened mood popped like a balloon. So much for feeling human.

  A gangly figure jogged across the green to him. Ash pushed back the brim of his hat, revealing his face, and scowled. That always worked on the children.

  For it was, in fact, a school-aged boy who'd approached him. One who'd clearly learned to curse this past Michaelmas term at school.

  "I'll be damned." The boy whistled low. "You truly are as fearsome and ugly as the papers said."

  "Oh, really. And do they say anything about this?" Ash brandished his walking stick. "Now go home. Your nursemaid will be missing you."

  He turned and kept walking. The lad followed.

  "I saw you over by Marylebone Mews," the boy called out. As if they were two old chums holding a conversation at the club. "You thrashed that gin-soused cur. The one who was beating his wife, remember?"

  Yes, of course Ash remembered. It was only two days past.

  "That was bloody brilliant." By now the youth was scampering alongside him. "Just capital. And I heard about the footpads in St. James's, too. All of London has."

  Ash released a long, slow breath. He refused to be baited. The more thoroughly you ignore him, the faster he'll go away, he told himself. Like a canker sore.

  "So where are we off to tonight?" the boy asked.

  We?

  Now that was too much.

  Ash halted in the center of the empty square. "Just what is it you want?"

  The boy scratched his ear and shrugged. "To see you thrash someone new. Give some fellow what's coming to him."

  "Well, then." Ash lifted his walking stick and gave the lad a shove with the blunt end, sending him arse-first into the shrubbery. "There you have it."

  Several days later, Emma stood before a terraced house faced with white stone and corniced windows, having made the journey across Bloom Square. As short a distance as it was, she seemed to have dropped her bravery somewhere along the way.

  She knew she must not indulge her nerves. She needed to start moving in society, and asking the duke to squire her about Town would be a waste of breath. If Davina wanted permission to visit her at Swanlea, Emma must form acquaintances with ladies of impeccable breeding and genteel accomplishment--not as their seamstress, but as their equal. Today was an important first step.

  She looked down at the invitation and read it again.

  To the new Duchess of Ashbury--

  Warmest welcome to Bloom Square! Every Thursday my friends come around for tea. We'd be most delighted if you would join us.

  Lady Penelope Campion

  P.S. I should warn you: We're different from other ladies.

  That last line gave Emma hope--and the courage to knock.

  "You came!" A young woman with fair hair and rosy cheeks pulled her into the entrance hall. She'd scarcely closed the door before kissing Emma on the cheek in greeting. "I'm Penny."

  "Penny?"

  "Oh, yes. I should have said. I'm properly called Penelope, but the name is rather a mouthful, don't you think?"

  Emma was amazed. This was Lady Penelope Campion? She opened her own door and greeted perfect strangers with kisses on the cheek? Apparently her note of invitation hadn't been an exaggeration: She truly wasn't like other ladies.

  Emma curtsied, probably more deeply than a duchess would--but the habit was ingrained in her. "Delighted to make your acquaintance."

  "Likewise. The others are dying to meet you."

  Lady Penelope took Emma by the wrist and drew her into a parlor. The room was a jumble of unquestionably fine furnishings that seemed to have seen better days.

  "This is Miss Teague," she said, swiveling Emma toward a ginger-haired young woman dusted with freckles . . . and a fine white powder that looked like flour. "Nicola lives on the southern side of the square."

  "The unfashionable side," Nicola said.

  "The exciting side," Lady Penny corrected. "The one with all the scandalous artists and mad scientists."

  "My father was one of the latter, Your Grace."

  "Don't listen to her. She's one of the latter, too."

  "Thank you, Penny," Nicola said. "I think."

  "And this is Miss Alexandra Mountbatten." Emma's hostess turned her to the third occupant of the salon.

  Miss Mountbatten was small of stature and dressed in unremarkable gray serge, but her appearance was made stunning by virtue of her hair--an upswept knot of true black, glossy as obsidian.

  "Alex sells the time," Lady Penelope stated.

  Emma could not have heard that correctly. "Sells the time?"

  "I earn my living setting clocks to Greenwich time," she explained, curtsying deeply. "It's an honor to make your acquaintance, Your Grace."

  "Do sit down," Penny urged.

  Emma obeyed, taking the offered seat--a carved chair that must have been rescued from some French chateau, if not the royal palace. The upholstery, however, had been worn to threads--even slashed in places, with tufts of batting peeking through.

  A bleating sound came from somewhere toward the rear of the house.

  "Oh, that's Marigold." Penny lifted the teapot. "Never mind her."

  "Marigold?"

  "The goat," Nicola explained.

  "She's sick in love with Angus, and she's most displeased about being quarantined. She has the sniffles, you see."

  "You have two goats, then?"

  "Oh, no. Angus is a Highland calf. I shouldn't encourage them, but they're herd creatures. They each need a companion. Do you take milk and sugar?"

  "Both, please," Emma said, a bit dazed.

  Nicola took pity on her. "Penny has a soft spot for wounded animals. She takes them in, ostensibly to heal them, and then never lets them go."

  "I do let them go," Penny objected. "Sometimes."

  "Once," Alexandra put in. "You let one go, once. But do let's try to hold a normal conversation, just for a few minutes. Otherwise we'll frighten Her Grace away."

  "Not at all," Emma assured her. "I'm happy to be here." The elegant, imposing ladies would wait for another day. "How did you know to invite me?"

  "Oh, it's a small square. Everyone knows everything. The cook tells the costermonger, who tells the maid down the street . . . so on and so forth." She handed Emma a cup of tea. "They're saying you were a seamstress until only last week."

  Oh, dear. Emma deflated. She supposed it was unrealistic to hope she could hide it.

  Penny clasped her hands together in her lap. "Tell us everything. How did you meet? Was your courtship terribly romantic?"

  "I don't know that one could call it romantic." In fact, one could call it just about anything else.

  "Well, for a duke to marry a seamstress is an extraordinary thing. It's like a fairy tale, isn't it? He must have fallen desperately in love with you."

  That wasn't the truth at all, of course. But how could Emma tell them that he'd married her chiefly because hers was the first convenient womb to appear in his library?

  She was saved from answering when a pincushion nestled in a nearby darning basket unfurled itself and toddled away. "Was that a hedgehog?"

  Penny's voice dropped to a whisper. "Yes, but the poor dear's terribly shy. On account of her traumatic youth, you see. Do have a biscuit. Nicola made them. They're heavenly."

  Emma reached for one and took a bite. She'd given up on trying to understand anything in this house. She was a barnacle on the hull of the HMS Penelope--she'd no idea of their destination, but she was along for
the ride.

  Goodness. The biscuit was heavenly. Buttery sweetness melted on her tongue.

  "Please don't think we're mining you for gossip," Miss Mountbatten--Alexandra, was it?--said. "Penny's only curious. We wouldn't tell anyone else."

  "We scarcely talk to anyone else," Nicola said. "We've a tight little club, the three of us."

  Penny smiled and reached for Emma's hand. "With room for a fourth, of course."

  "In that case . . ." Emma thoughtfully chewed her last bite of biscuit, washing it down with a swallow of tea. "May I be so bold as to ask for some advice?"

  In a unanimous, unspoken yes, Penny, Alexandra, and Nicola leaned forward in their chairs.

  "It's about . . ." She lost her nerve for honesty. "It's about my cat. I took him in from the streets, and he hasn't a proper name. Will you help me make a list of possibilities?"

  Ash. That's what his friends called him, he'd said. It felt like progress to be admitted to that inner circle, but Emma wasn't certain she liked that name, either. For man who'd survived severe burns, Ash sounded ironic at best. At worst, it felt cruel.

  Besides, she was having too much fun with the others.

  She needed to draw him out. Gain his respect. If luck was with her, a pregnancy would take root, but could it be assured in time to help Davina? Doubtful. She must convince him to change his mind, if it didn't.

  In the days since their first night together--their first successful night together, at any rate--he'd made every effort to assure her pleasure. A man who cared for her satisfaction in bed could be convinced to honor her wishes outside it, couldn't he? She had begun to care about him, however unwillingly.

  "If it's pet names you want, you've certainly come to the right place," Penny said.

  Nicola took a tiny pencil from the notebook hanging about her neck on a silver chain. "I'll keep a list."

  "It must be something affectionate," Emma said. "For the cat. He's rather untrusting and prickly, and I can't seem to draw him out."

  "Well, if it's a sweet little name you want, there are all the delightful words for new creatures," Penny said. "Puppy, kitten, piglet, foal, fawn, calf, polliwog . . ."

  Alexandra reached for her teacup. "Oh, dear. She'll go on forever now."

  "That's just the beginning," Penny went on. "There are the birds. Duckling, eaglet, gosling, cygnet, poult . . ."

  Nicola looked up from her scribbling. "Poult?"

  "A turkey hatchling, fresh from the egg."

  Emma laughed. "As tempting as calling him a turkey might be, I think it's polliwog, duckling, and piglet that are my favorites thus far."