Once and Future Duchess Read online

  “I have an heir,” he interrupted. “Everyone seems to forget.”

  She waved her hand. “I’m sorry to say what no one else would dare to voice—­all in the spirit of frankness, of course. Frontine Fitzroy is a sweet young man, but he shows no early signs of becoming a great duke of the realm. I’d make sure your stewards are the best in the land. Oh, Frontine won’t ruin the duchy, but it won’t prosper, and he’s as dull as a fourteenth-century looking glass.” She stopped, appalled by her own lack of gentility. When he did not comment, she continued. “In his fifteen years Frontine has not shown a lick of wit, refuses to exchange his pony for a horse, cannot be counted on to converse on any subject with brilliance, cries at every opportunity, cannot add the figures in ledgers, and cannot be trusted to shoot anything unless it’s his own foot, and—­” She ran out of steam and halted.

  The barest hint of a smile appeared on his face. “And?”

  “And he has not a single tooth going in the same direction and his hair is already thinning. No lady in her right mind would have him, no matter how great the fortune,” she said flatly.

  A darkness filled his eyes, and his glance fell on the bottle still on the nearby table. “Oh, they’ll have him,” he gritted out. “You have only to remember the Duchess of Sussex to know that. And also the . . .” His voice died as he turned away and strode to the table to grasp the neck of the dark green bottle.

  She rushed to stop him and placed her hand over his. “And? And who were you going to say? My mother?”

  His eyes glittered as he stared at her. “I refuse to answer. I would not insult you. And your father was one of the most intellectually superior gentlemen I’ve ever known. ”

  She didn’t know whether to shout at him or thank him. No one ever mentioned her mother—­or what she had done—­in front of her. There were times Isabelle wondered if her mother had ever even existed or was some phantom in her imagination. Every trace of her beautiful, wistful, mysterious mother had been removed from her father’s estates within twenty-­four hours of her running off with another gentleman. Her father had concocted the story to be disseminated outside of the estate and Isabelle held her tongue. Her draconian governess, Miss Hackett, would have been proud her efforts had not gone wasted. But servants used gossip and household secrets as currency with other servants in neighboring estates, and the circle of gossip had welled outward like the ripples caused by a stone thrown onto a pond.

  Everyone knew. Yet everyone held their tongue around her. But she could always see it in a person’s eyes when they first were introduced to her.

  She finally released his hand, holding the bottle. She watched him pour a shot of Armagnac. Instead of drinking it, he offered it to her.

  She tossed it back like a seasoned Corinthian. It was like drinking fire. She would not cough or show a hint of discomfort, but her voice dropped by three notes. “Thank you for at least reminding me that she once existed.”

  “You might look like her, but you are your father’s daughter through and through.” He poured another shot and downed it.

  “Well, I would say the reverse about you after I saw your parents’ portraits in Derbyshire. You look like your mother, and according to your sisters, you used to share her interests until your father died and you assumed the title,” she said quietly.

  He stilled, and his eyes became remote. “Thank God for my mother. She knew her duty. She was the most amazing mother in the world. She ensured a glorious childhood. And all the while she knew my father’s heart was not hers. But she never said a word.”

  “And so you became like her—­and like him. All duty. All a facade. Hiding every true feeling. All sadness behind a proper mask. All everything, even true joy, probably. I feel ill for what your father endured. At least she had her passion for her work, and her children to love. Why did you give up your interest, which matched your mother’s?”

  “Do you want another?” he replied coolly, nodding to the bottle.

  She grabbed the bottle and threw it in the corner. Splinters of glass and liquid burst, but neither reacted. “Listen to me, James,” she said, trying to shake him, but it was like trying to shake a tree.

  “He didn’t trust me,” he said. “What is love if not trust?”

  “He loved you. Look, I might not have known him, but he loved you,” she choked out. “He told your sisters that you would be the best Duke of Candover that En­gland would ever know.” She felt ill. She knew how it felt to be the rejected child.

  She finally took his stiff body in her arms. “Look, I know how it feels. I was not the boy my father wanted—­merely a girl child. Impossible. Useless. Even my mother had no use for me—­did not take me with her. But I refuse to give up trust. Or give up on love.”

  His head finally fell on her shoulder, and slowly, ever so slowly, his arms came around her loosely. After long moments he whispered into her ear, “I’m glad you were born a girl.”

  She swallowed against the emotion that threatened to engulf her.

  “And you are the most courageous lady I know,” he continued. “And you never back down from a challenge.” His arms tightened and he pulled her deep, as close to his heart as she had once dreamed.

  Then he lowered his lips to her forehead, which felt like a benediction to everything good. His lips fell to her cheek, easing the tension there, and crossed to her ticklish nose, her eyelids, and came to rest on her lips, which craved his.

  Her uneven breath fanned the hollow of his cheek as she tried to stop the trembling of her body, without success.

  His mouth took possession of hers and she gave over to the wild thrill of the moment, which seemed precariously balanced on the precipice of everything fantastic. He coaxed beyond her lips and teased her tongue to engage with his own. And she felt like she was falling, falling. The taste of Armagnac and the poignant remembered scent of shaving soap and his cologne dangerously dabbled with all her other senses, and she grabbed his sleeves with a fierceness born in her breast.

  The feeling of his lips trailing down her neck to the sensitive skin below was nearly her undoing. She couldn’t breathe.

  He raised his head for a moment to gaze at her; his eyes were stark against his bronzed face and filled with palatable need. His eyes would not leave her face as he passed his hand over her breast once and then delved beyond the edges of her pale yellow silk gown. She squeezed her eyes shut so she would not make a sound.

  He traced a light circle on the tip, increasing the pressure until he paused and gently squeezed her tip drawn up tightly. The sensations were so shockingly exquisite the back of her throat closed and she gasped.

  “No more.” He kissed her temple and nuzzled her ear. “No more, Isabelle.”

  He withdrew his hand, but she covered that large bronzed hand with her own, halting his motion.

  “I will not forgive you if you stop,” she whispered, determined to see this through. “I swear to God I won’t.”

  “You don’t know what—­”

  “And don’t you dare say something so condescending to me. Look at me, damn you.”

  When he fully engaged his eyes with hers, she tugged his head toward her. “I want you,” she whispered fiercely.

  Gathering her in his arms in one motion, his glance swept the dusty chamber, searching. In the shadows lurked a discarded billiard table of the last decade, piled high with old fabric. He laid her upon the soft mound.

  He kissed her with utter abandon while his hands worked at the hidden bow beyond the lace of her bodice.

  And then his lips replaced his hands and unerringly found the tip of her breast. His tongue swept in circles and he teased her flesh by blowing the wetness until she writhed. Using the edge of his teeth, he tormented her while his hand caressed her other breast with great care.

  A deep, heavy place within her contracted and long waves of pleasure echoed.

  He groaned and the reverberation sent sparks of longing throughout her.

  He broke awa
y. “This is insanity, Isabelle.” He stared at her, his pupils nearly overtaking his irises. “For the love of God don’t ask me to—­”

  “Go on,” she interrupted.

  “No,” he whispered harshly.

  “I am asking. Again. One day I hope it will be the reverse. I am so tired of always grasping, James. It’s your turn. Please.”

  He groaned in frustration, and she grasped his head between her fingers, entranced by the sleekness of his hair, which grew coarse as she traced the path below his temples toward the coarseness of his shaven face. She had never known such intense pleasure combined with a wild happiness such as this. She loved him, and would ease the ache she sensed deep in his soul.

  Without knowing, she dropped her hands to grip his broad shoulders, which were as hard and unyielding as stone. Her neck gave in to the tension and her head dropped back. She loved the feeling of his skin against her own but wanted to feel more of it. The heat of his body warmed hers. And the softness of her yielded to the strength and hard angles of him. She went still when she became aware of a thickness jutting from him, straining between the layers of stiff fabric that separated them. Heat seared her senses and she wanted to be free of every last article of clothing.

  She knew, understood, the promise of paradise when she imagined what it would feel like to eliminate all the barriers between them.

  And suddenly one of the two candles in the room guttered and the room was plunged into near total darkness.

  “Enough,” he rasped, lifting his head from her body. “It’s a sign.”

  She could not stop trembling. “It’s a sign, all right. And it’s saying not to stop or . . . or I might have to kill you.” A dark hint of wit laced the intensity of her words.

  And for the first time that night she spied amusement in the darkness of his eyes.

  “I think I must take my chances,” he said, his eyes suggesting he wanted just the opposite. “It’s a gentleman’s code, Isabelle.”

  “I don’t want your damned duty. Or your gentleman’s rules of gentility, damn you,” she whispered roughly. “I want you. I want to see you. Know you.”

  He began to shake his head until—­

  Isabelle Tremont, the Duchess of March, did the outrageous. Something no proper and innocent duchess would ever do. She eased her hand between them; dared to trespass the gap in the flap of his breeches and touched the part of him that strained against her.

  Oh, it was not at all what she had expected—­such an intimidating, unyielding strength that pulsed against her entire hand, which could not fully grasp him. But he seemed stunned and incapable of speech. And this power she finally wielded encouraged her to want to give him the same pleasure he had shown her.

  He went as still as an ancient oak as her fingers traveled over his length right down to the root. Her fingers stroked the drawn up pouch below as her other hand continued to explore his iron-­like arousal. When she reached the bulbed end, his body surged toward her, telling her what he wanted. And the wild passion she finally saw coloring his dark eyes spoke of a need so long denied, so passionately desired, that she knew . . .

  James was hers. And she was his.

  James could not have stopped to save his life. Or hers.

  She had not stopped until she pushed him to the brink, dislodged his facade and forced him to unload the burden of his soul. And she had done it through trust—­the very thing his father had withheld from him at the moment it most counted. It was the element everyone needed to feel genuine and accepted.

  And she had not backed away from his ugly revelations. She merely challenged his every thought. And she would not let him down.

  Ever.

  She would trust him to protect her, to love her, to provide for her every need, even now when he had no right, indeed it was just the opposite.

  And there was no falseness between them. She didn’t need him. She was perhaps the only woman in Christendom who was his equal on every measure. And she had chosen him—­not for his position, not for his wealth. She had chosen him because she liked him.

  No . . . His mind, the person beyond the strictness he wore like a suit of armor, resisted for a blind moment. She loved him.

  He nearly cried out at the knowledge of it.

  He had found the only person in the world who had the strength to offer him comfort. A person who would accept the weight of his burdens without complaint, stand up to him and shove aside his mask, truly want to know who he was, allow him to be himself—­flaws and all. And above all else offer strength and loyalty against the storm, and love him in truth that could not be feigned.

  All these thoughts ravaged his mind when time stilled and she stroked him as he lay paralyzed with desire.

  She gazed at him with such raw passion it nearly took his breath away. She showed not an inch of restraint. Until finally one of her arms curled about his shoulders and drew him down to her to meet her lips.

  Blindly, he grasped the side of her gown and pulled the entire skirting above her waist. He could not wait another moment. But she would have none of it. In a quick motion she drew the yellow silk gown above her head and he yanked it off, popping the buttons on the caps of sleeves.

  While he frantically worked the complicated stays, and the busk, chemise, and soft undergarments that hid her from him, she pushed at his lapels, tugged on his neck cloth and proved that she cared even less about the buttons that would be forever lost as she yanked his shirt from his torso.

  He lay down beside her, turning her face-­to-­face, the mystery of her eyes beckoning him.

  When she reached for his flap again he brushed her hands away. “No, it’s my turn,” he growled.

  He pushed her back as he rocked toward her, and relished the sight before him as he prowled her body with his free hand.

  Her skin was luminescent in the low light as he studied every small hill and valley of the perfection of her femininity. She was every inch a woman.

  A woman unlike any other. And she wanted him.

  He growled like a predator when his hand caressed her thigh before he instinctively sought her mound of soft curls. They were softer than in his dreams.

  He heard her breath catch, and he controlled his desire to take her. His arousal felt like a twelve stone length of iron as it pulsed against the tent of his breeches.

  His gut clenched with need as he grasped her knee and urged her to open herself to him. Her leg trembled for a moment and then stilled. A harsh sound of shock escaped her lips when he finally slid downward to trace the folds of her essence. She was so soft, so very wet, like hot velvet in the rain.

  She violently trembled and tried not to writhe as he glided his fingers along her crest again and again before he inched beyond the merest edges of her. She was so responsive to his slightest touch; her uneven breath and the tension on her brow beyond her eyes closed so tightly.

  He imagined what it would feel like to be inside of her. To join his body to hers in a perfect union. He just knew with every inch of his being that it would be perfect. Her depths would be his balm, and his hardness and strength would be something she could grab onto.

  She had no one to lean on in her life. The reality hit him as never before.

  And here he was taking from her when he needed to give. It was his duty—­his reason for being born. To oversee, to protect, to give.

  Well, he could at least give her more knowledge—­more pleasure for her alone. He massaged the sensitive peak of her folds without ceasing.

  He slid his long index finger down her dark valley and paused at the well of her. And then he entered her gently; her muscles clenching against the invasion.

  God, she was so soft, so wet, and yet so tight. His mind screamed against the reality of it while his heart refused to be denied.

  He worked her untried passage rhythmically and slowly inside of her, until her hips began to move against his hand, straining to meet him.

  His other hand stoked the engorged peak of her sex, a
nd she struggled to reach a plateau she did not know existed. But he had to make sure she reached it.

  She had to understand, and he could teach her.

  Her eyes opened as her breath came in ragged notes.

  “Close your eyes, my love,” he said softly. “And grab onto me. Don’t let go. And I promise you I won’t stop.”

  He lowered his body down her slim form and fully spread her knees open. A rush of near primal wanting pounded through the blood in his veins as he glanced at her beautiful sex. He settled himself between her thighs and wordlessly met her trusting, passion-­filled eyes before he allowed himself to taste her, satisfy the most primal need to know every part of her and tend to her every need.

  She was everything he had known she would be, genuine and true, unshocked by his actions, trusting him and opening herself to him. He spent long minutes stroking her with his tongue and teasing every fold. He knew how to draw it out slowly, make the tension build to excruciating levels that were a pleasure unto themselves.

  He listened to her ragged breaths, and finally nudged her hands to her knees as he urged them farther apart. And farther still.

  “Mmmm,” he murmured as he returned his attention to the glistening, swollen crest. “Hold your breath, my darling, when you can’t stand it anymore,” he whispered, “and then let it come to you and hold onto it for as long as you can. Trust me to take care of you.”

  The only sign she gave that she had heard him was when she lifted her head and stared at him, a haze of desire coloring her face.

  In one long, smooth movement he dragged his finger down her crest and entered her to tease the place inside of her that was most sensitive. At the same moment he tugged her peak into his mouth and refused to stop until he had learned what brought her to the pinnacle.

  He plunged and retreated, stroked and licked, and then he heard it, that catch in her breath. The rustle of the fabric on the table as she curled her body forward and became still, as every muscle in her slim body focused on what he was doing with his fingers and his mouth.