When the Duke Returns

  She murmured something that even she couldn’t hear and leaned into him so that his hand, his large callused hand, curled around her breast. His palm came hard against her nipple and made her shiver.

  “Does that feel good?” he asked. His voice had changed. It was deeper. Not tired or strained, the way it sounded when he was talking to Honeydew about the drains, or his mother about anything at all.

  She nodded. He did something else with his thumb and she flinched back.

  “Too much?”

  She pulled away. “It’s stupid, but I feel…” She looked down. “They feel as if they’re just too sensitive. It feels good, but then it hurts.”

  “But first it feels good?”

  She smiled at him, loving the way his eyes were dark with desire, carefully thinking at the same time, watching her, learning. “So this is the time to learn about my body,” she said almost chattily.

  He nodded.

  “I’ve never been with a man before you, but I’ve thought about it.”

  “Tell me what you thought about, sweetheart.”

  “I’d like to be kissed, not just here.” She put a finger to her lips, waited until his eyes followed her finger. “But here.” She touched her shoulder, her neck, the curve of her breast, the side of her waist, the inside of her thigh. “Everywhere,” she whispered.

  That was laughter in his eyes. It made her almost embarrassed—except that embarrassment made her feel obstinate.

  “I’d like to be kissed everywhere,” she repeated. Why not? It was beyond scandalous. But she was three-and-twenty, and she’d heard stories. The stories about what men did—sometimes, with some women.

  She’d always thought that those stories sounded like heaven.

  From the smile curling Simeon’s lips, he didn’t think it was a terrible proposition.

  “Gently,” she added.

  “Did you enjoy this afternoon?”

  Isidore blinked.

  “The truth,” he clarified.

  “Not very much.” He flinched. “But you knew that,” she said, puzzled. “You didn’t enjoy it either. Remember, you told me that—”

  “What in particular didn’t you like?” he asked. “We won’t do it again.”

  She cleared her throat. “I think I’d prefer kisses to some touches. Your hands are very strong.”

  He smiled slowly. “Kisses. Anything else you’d like to show me?” His eyes moved over her slowly, like a caress, and Isidore suddenly felt naked. Which she was. His finger slid down the pale skin of her stomach and paused, pulling out a little ringlet of hair. “What about here?”

  “A very delicate area,” Isidore managed. She felt as if she were getting a fever. His leg, clothed in fine woolen breeches, brushed against the naked skin of her leg; it was unbearably erotic. She reached out and wound her hands into his hair.

  “You don’t like my hair unpowdered,” Simeon said, as if he were promising something.

  But it was thick and silky under her fingers, strong as he was. It didn’t smell like violet powder, but like that indefinable smell of clean male. “I like it now,” she whispered.

  His mouth lowered to hers but hovered without touching her lips. That finger was still—

  “What are you doing?” she whispered. The fever was spiking, focusing between her legs in an embarrassing way.

  “Kissing,” he said calmly, looking straight at her.

  “That’s not—”

  “Think of it as pre-kissing.”

  Isidore couldn’t even think, not with that finger touching her so sweetly. It was completely unlike the way he gripped her the previous night…She anchored her fingers in his hair and pulled his mouth to hers. “Kiss me!”

  He kissed her deep and soft, and at the same time, his fingers just kept wandering, kissing in their own way, a kind of finger kisses that made her shiver and feel a singing heat down her legs. He pulled his mouth free and licked her lip; to her embarrassment, Isidore’s head fell back and a hoarse little sound came from her throat.

  “Does that feel good?” he whispered. He was kissing her jaw, and gave a little nip to her ear lobe, but frankly, Isidore wasn’t paying much attention. It was what he was doing with his hand that was making her hips rise into the air and little moans fly from her mouth. Dimly she was aware that he was kissing all the parts that she had indicated. Unfortunately, she didn’t care anymore.

  She only realized that he’d stopped kissing when his hand stopped moving.

  “Sweetheart?”

  She frowned at him. Simeon didn’t say that sort of endearment to her. Nor did he smile like that, a kind of wide, joyful smile like a child in a playground.

  “You’re gripping me very tightly,” he said, sparks of mischief in his eyes. “I might have bruises on my arms.” He moved his fingers again and she arched backward with a gasp.

  She showed her teeth in a warning. “Simeon…”

  “Enough pre-kisses,” he muttered. Before she knew what was happening, there was a warm wet tongue where one finger had been, and still his hand was there, filling her, making her shake all over until she finally dug her fingers into his arms and threw back her head and screamed.

  Thirty seconds later she remembered where she was. “Godfrey!”

  Simeon cocked an ear. “Still snoring,” he said cheerfully.

  She fell backwards.

  “No thanks to you,” Simeon added.

  “Oh…my,” Isidore said. Her body was slowly coming back to earth. The pleasure felt as if it were still trembling in her toes, singing in her fingertips.

  Simeon stood up and started taking off his clothes. He was as methodical as she would have expected. He neatly aligned his boots by the wall. He took off his neckcloth and hung it over a chair.

  If Isidore hadn’t been feeling a kind of outrageous, limp pleasure, she would almost have been annoyed. But then she kept looking at his front, and she couldn’t get annoyed. He wanted her, yet there was a part of Simeon that resisted chaos so strongly that he couldn’t rip off his clothes and fall on her like a ravening wolf.

  That didn’t mean he wasn’t strung as tightly as a drum. His eyes were glowing with a combination of controlled power and pure lust. Her body stopped being quite so limp and a prickling awareness overtook her.

  Naked now, Simeon bent over to place his carefully folded breeches on the old rocking chair. The line of his flank gleamed golden in the firelight.

  So what if he were an example of control and methodical thinking? He was gorgeous, and he was hers.

  She rolled over on her side and propped up her head with one hand, checking to make sure that her breasts were not flopping inelegantly. They looked quite delectable and round, thank goodness.

  He stopped and put a log on the fire.

  She bit back a smile. He was afraid. Making love didn’t suit Simeon’s wish to be in control. To be in charge. In fact, she would guess that the parts of it that she most enjoyed, he most disliked.

  What she wanted was to see that look on his face again, the one which surrendered to the moment, to the pleasure, to her.

  Simeon straightened from the fire, turned and started to sit down next to her, probably intending, gentlemanlike, to ask her what she would prefer. Or something like that.

  “My turn,” Isidore said, putting her hand over his mouth before he could speak. She was getting feverish again. She pulled him and pushed him until he was lying flat on the bed. Of course, he was too much of a gentleman to resist, though she could see he didn’t really like it. Simeon wanted to be in control. He felt too vulnerable, lying on his back.

  She smiled at him, a sweet, dangerous smile. He was just where she wanted him. Then she reached out to touch him. He was hard, like a marble statue, but burning hot. Smooth and erotic. Made to stroke. He didn’t move while she explored him, soothed him, coaxed him.

  He didn’t even make a sound until her hand closed around him again and she made an experimental move—

  And then he
uttered an odd strangled noise that made her head jerk back. But she knew, she knew that it wasn’t pain, and her fingers curled even tighter.

  Then she started all those pre-kisses he had perfected, using two hands instead of one. And she followed them directly with real kisses, dusting his golden skin with the press of her lips. When she reached his nipples, he surged up under her. She looked up to find his eyes wide, full of passion, with no thought of control or order. It was hard to smile and kiss at the same time, but the taste of his skin calmed her giddy pleasure, brought on another kind of wildness. She tasted him, bit him, sipping his skin and his smell. Of course he didn’t scream, the way she did. But his breath came quickly, forcefully, especially the lower she went on his body.

  And lower she went.

  He tasted like soap, and felt soft and hard at once. He said “No, Isidore,” seeming to wake up, so she put her lips around him.

  He fell back then, surrendered, gave in. She played with him, teased him, loved him, until he suddenly surged from beneath her and flipped her over.

  “Isidore,” he growled. There wasn’t a bit of control in his eyes, or his hands, or the way he was holding her hard, at the hips. She arched toward him, loving it. He lowered his head to her breast and she started to whimper, almost to scream, except he was—

  It felt different this time. She felt softer, welcoming, wetter. The largeness that had felt intrusive earlier felt delicious. She gasped and instinctively tightened around him.

  “Don’t ask me to stop,” he said, and the catch in his voice filled her with joy.

  “Don’t stop,” she cried. “Don’t…”

  He thrust forward, and again, again, again, until she started to give little screams every time. His eyes flared and he smothered her pants with the taste and the shape of his mouth. She thought he was going to stop, but he didn’t, he kept going, and going. Every stroke made the fire burn higher until she was breathing as hard as he was, moving with his body as if they were one.

  Finally she tore her mouth away from his and flew free, shuddering against him, crying out and as if Simeon had waited for her, he surged forward, desperate, violent, free…

  Then they sank together back onto the bed. It was different, it was all different. They were two bodies, and yet one body.

  He rolled them to their sides. She slid her arm around him, still trembling a little, and didn’t say a word.

  When a man like Simeon lost every vestige of restraint, it wasn’t ladylike to show exuberance.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  The Dower House

  March 4, 1784

  The next evening

  “You see, Princess Ayabdar is an extraordinary woman. She is the granddaughter both of the empress and of Ras Michael. And she married Powussen, the Governor of Begemder. I had the privilege of spending quite a good deal of time with her.”

  “Why did you do that?” Isidore asked suspiciously.

  “Because I was appointed a royal magician.”

  “What?”

  “I demonstrated that I could break through three shields with a mere tallow candle.”

  “How did you do that?

  “I loaded my gun with powder and a farthing candle and it went through three leather shields. And I had a magic weapon.”

  “Which was?”

  “My virginity.” He laughed at the look on her face.

  “And here I thought you were saving it just for me.”

  “Virginity is a very useful thing. The fact that I was a virgin, attested to by my men, and more seriously, by a court magician who read it in my palm, meant that I was allowed to converse with the princess.”

  Isidore snorted. “How many other virgins did she have speaking to her?”

  Simeon leaned over and nipped her lip. “I was the only one. There are few grown men who can claim the status.”

  “Who would know? I’ve never met anyone who announced it as freely as you do.”

  “I had my palm read on entering the Court, and the court magician shrieked it aloud for all to hear.”

  “Were you embarrassed?”

  He shrugged a little.

  Isidore nodded. “I would have been humiliated too, were I you. It was becoming embarrassing to be a virgin wife at twenty-three. You can’t imagine how many men thought that was a tragedy.”

  “Yes, I can.”

  “I was starting to think that I’d never make love.”

  “There were days when I thought I couldn’t bear it any longer,” he confessed. “Instead of a lion, some poor woman would find me leaping out at her from behind a bush.”

  Isidore started giggling. “But it turned you into a magician. Did you think about bedding this princess?”

  “You couldn’t not think about it,” he said, a little smile curling his lips. “She is so utterly brilliant: she can speak five or six languages, and quote Hindu poetry for hours.”

  Isidore decided she didn’t like the princess. “Hindu? But she’s Abyssinian.”

  “She has sent men to India to bring poetry back, which she translates, preserving it for the pleasure of her people and their culture.”

  “Admirable,” Isidore said. She forced herself to relax. The princess was back there in the sand somewhere, living in a hut. She could afford to be generous.

  “And her palace,” Simeon said dreamily. “You can hardly imagine, Isidore. It’s made entirely of pink marble, and it looks over the banks of a huge rain plain. Sometimes the plain fills with white flowers, thousands and thousands of them. If there’s rain, the plain forms a great blue mirror to the sky.”

  “That sounds lovely,” Isidore said, despite herself.

  “I’ve never met a woman more intelligent. We argued for hours. She managed to change my mind about several ideas.”

  Clearly, to Simeon, changing his mind was practically an unheard-of experience. Isidore sighed and changed the subject. “I am curved in all the places where you are straight,” she said, caressing the line of Simeon’s hip. Their arms brushed for a moment as he reached out to touch her as well.

  “I can’t stop touching you,” he said. “I can’t stop thinking of you. The idea of returning to Revels House is inconceivable.”

  Isidore laughed and rolled on her back. “Now that the odor is gone I feel much more inclined to consider the possibility. But meanwhile…”

  He accepted her invitation, of course.

  It was an hour later. The sheets were rumpled, and Isidore was sweaty in places she’d never considered before, like the backs of her knees. If she lay absolutely still, she could feel tiny quivers in the sweetest parts of her body. She felt like the air did after her aunt put down her violin, as if it were still singing, but in silence.

  “Do you suppose it’s like this for everyone?” she asked.

  “The poets sing of it,” Simeon said lazily. He was lying on his back, one hand over his head, the other on her hip. “There’s an ancient Sufi poet named Rumi…he spoke of desire as a sickness bringing joy.”

  “But this pleasure,” Isidore said. “If it always feels this pleasurable, why don’t people do it all the time?”

  Simeon stretched. “I think we waited so long that we were like volcanoes waiting to explode. I know that sometimes bedding can be very, very unpleasant,” Simeon said, turning over to face her. “We’re lucky, you and I. Sometimes people just don’t fit, as I understand it. There can be discomfort. Or one person might not find the other attractive.” His sleepy smile said that wasn’t a problem for him.

  It wasn’t a problem for Isidore either. Sometimes it felt as if her heart opened up when they made love. Love…

  “But do you think it feels like this if the people aren’t married?” she asked, unable to bring the word love to her lips. Did she love him?

  He laughed at that and she wrinkled her nose at him. “You are asking whether a wedding certificate increases pleasure?”

  “Stupid of me,” she said.

  Yet she felt somewhere deep
inside her that he was missing the point. Though she wasn’t sure what the point was.

  “We do need to talk seriously, Isidore,” he said.

  “Hmmm?”

  “We have to have a plan.”

  “A plan?”

  “A plan for our marriage. Neither of us is precisely what the other envisioned as a spouse. We’ll simply have to try to change. As much as we can. That way we won’t find ourselves at odds. So if I hadn’t been me, if you were able to pick any man in the ton, what kind of person would you like him to be?”

  She giggled. “Red-haired?”

  “Seriously.”

  “Must we be serious?” she moaned. “It’s far into the middle of the night. I’m tired.”

  “We can sleep late in the morning. No one will dare wake us. It’s important, Isidore.”

  She tried to pull herself together. “Seriously? What sort of man would I have chosen?”

  “I suppose the more proper question is how would he have differed from me?”

  She hesitated.

  “Isidore,” he said patiently. “I’m not a fool. I’m the man you’ve got and I just made you very happy. I’m not going to feel insulted if you wish I wore a cravat more frequently.”

  “Well, now that you mention it…”

  “But not a wig,” he said, alarmed. “I’m not sure I could tolerate a wig.”

  “How about a little powder for important occasions?”

  “Such as going to Court?”

  “More than going to Court. Balls in London. Places where your head would be the only unpowdered one in the crowd.”

  “Just not a wig. I cannot wear those little rolls of snails over my ears. But I can powder. What else, Isidore?”

  “Could you look a bit more respectable?” She grinned at him. “You are mine, which means that not all the ladies get to enjoy the image of you naked.”

  “I like that,” he said with a slow smile.

  “I’d rather they didn’t have quite such a chance to see your legs in those short trousers of yours.”

  He looked alarmed. “I can’t stop running, Isidore. It’s part of who I am.”

  “Perhaps in longer trousers?”

  He nodded. “What else?”