A Duchess to Remember (27 page)

If she weren’t a maiden, he would have been sorely tempted to give in to her blandishments, but she was, so he couldn’t coax her to straddle his lap and ride him to oblivion as he dearly wished to do.

Groaning with frustration and regret, he drew back from Cecily and captured her roguishly inquisitive hands in his.

“We must stop this.”

Her fingers returned the clasp of his hands, but those pretty red lips pouted. “Why?”

His words came out in a growl. “Because there isn’t the space or the privacy in here for me to do everything I want to do to you.”

She gave a delicious little shiver. He felt it down to the soles of his feet.

“That sounds decadent.”

The images running through his mind made decadence seem tame by comparison. “You have
no
idea.”

She blushed charmingly and he reminded himself once more that she was untried and virginal. God, it was going to be hell on a man to take it slowly when he did finally get her to a bed.

“So after all that, will you take me to Cambridge?” She hadn’t lost sight of her purpose, it seemed.

“I’ll take you to Cambridge,” he said on a resigned sigh. “But we are getting married first.”

Chapter Nineteen

“You cannot simply substitute a groom,” said Jane, with an amused gleam in her eye. “Won’t Norland’s name be on the special license?”

“You forget, dear Jane, the power of the Duke of Montford,” said Cecily.

“And the determination of Cecily’s groom,” added Rosamund with a chuckle. “The way Ashburn looked at you, Cecily, I thought he might devour you on the spot!”

Cecily blushed at her cousin’s choice of words. “He is impatient. I must confess, so am I.”

“And yet, mere hours ago, you were about to marry another man,” said Jane, a trifle dryly.

Rosamund tilted her head and tapped her chin as if in deep cogitation. “Who was it now? Who told me that
she
was the only one of us who would meekly do her duty and not make any fuss over her marriage?”

“Do you know, I can’t recall,” said Jane, her gray eyes guilelessly wide. “I own it does sound terribly
familiar.
…”

“Stop it, both of you!” Cecily laughed and scowled at once.

“But, dearest Cecily, you
must
allow us to say we told you so,” said Rosamund, holding up a hand. “Just once and then we will say no more.”

“Only once?” said Cecily. “I believe you’ve said it approximately twenty-six times since I told you the news.”

“She so hates to be wrong,” Rosamund said to Jane on a confidential note.

“She does, doesn’t she?” agreed Jane. “And the maddening thing is that she so often
is
right. Our Cecily is a clever little puss, but then love addles even the geniuses among us.”

“Only look at Norland,” said Rosamund.

“Or the besotted way Ashburn looks at you,” added Jane.

Cecily could not assault a pregnant woman, but she cheerfully picked up a cushion and threw it at Rosamund, missing her by a mile. “If I weren’t so disgustingly happy, I would point out to the two of you that we are
all
of us fools when it comes to love.”

“Well, I’d rather be a happy fool than a clever cynic any day,” said Rosamund.

“Do you know something, Rosamund?” said Cecily, clasping her mother’s pink pearls around her neck. “So would I.”

*   *   *

So it was without much further ado that Lady Cecily Westruther became the Duchess of Ashburn in a small, private ceremony.

Cecily had found time to dispatch a letter that might well reach Miss Tibbs before Norland did, explaining the happy circumstance of Cecily’s marriage and assuring Tibby she would never be forgiven if she did not accept Norland’s hand in marriage.

For only think, dear Tibby,
Cecily wrote,
if Norland should create such a scandal all for nothing. You owe it to him to accept, not least because you are one of the few women I know who could manage Norland’s mama. After all, if you could manage Westruthers, you can manage anyone!

Her own wedding was as brief as it could be. Ashburn lost no time in whisking Cecily home to Ashburn House once the register was signed.

“This has been the longest afternoon of my life,” he said, carrying her upstairs, to the collective astonishment of his servants.

Cecily laughed up at him, a little breathless at this high-handed way of conveying her to their destination. She felt a dizzying and surprisingly pleasurable sense of helplessness as they headed down the hall.

Rand kicked open the door to his bedchamber, strode to the bed and tossed her onto it. Her body sank into the mattress, her head cradled in soft pillows. She watched him close the door, marveling that she now possessed such a magnificent husband. He had upended her carefully laid plans and shaken them loose and she found that despite all her earlier resistance, she didn’t mind a bit. She was impatient for her life with Rand to begin, excited at the possibilities.

He moved toward the bed and stood there, looking down at her.

Cecily spread her hands, palm down over the slippery satin coverlet and smiled up at him.

What she saw in his face made her smile fade. Her heart gave a sharp pound and leaped into her throat. She wanted this, so very much. She knew she had nothing to fear, but apprehension roiled in her stomach.

“Are you going to ravish me now?” she asked. Her tone was teasing, but she felt anything but flippant inside.

“Oh, yes,” he said softly, his gaze traveling slowly over her, as if mapping the territory he was about to explore.

His gaze stripped her bare. Any response she might have made fizzled and died on her tongue. She bit her lip, almost sick with nerves. This was it. He would come to her now. No more running, no more excuses.

Golden heat flared in his eyes. Impatience seemed to pour from him as he proceeded to remove his clothes. His movements had lost their elegant fluidity; he yanked and tugged at his accouterments with no regard for the impeccable cut of his coat or the ruination of his linens.

It was still broad daylight outside. The days lengthened as summer drew nearer. Cecily’s family had been both scandalized and delighted when Ashburn had refused all offers of entertainment and refreshment in order to get his bride to himself.

Now, she enjoyed watching his masculine form clearly revealed as he shucked his clothing. His chest was broad and defined by hard muscle; his stomach flat, hips lean. Sunlight poured through the long windows to gild him, a stern angel glimmering with latent power.

Cecily lay back on the coverlet in a cloud of white silk, with her mother’s pink pearls around her neck. She tried very hard to quell the hard flutter of butterflies that insisted on throwing themselves about in her stomach.

His hands went to the buttons of his trousers and paused. Cecily swallowed hard. For some reason, the sight of his thumbs slipping between the waist band of his trousers and that smooth male skin below his navel made breathing rather difficult.

She wanted to look away but her gaze was riveted. She knew what would happen next. She wanted him, wanted this.

Yet, to be so inexperienced and untutored made her feel off-balance. She was wholly dependent on Rand’s instruction in the bedchamber. Oh, she’d picked up bits and pieces of theory over the years and of course Rosamund and Jane had made sure she was informed on the essentials. She knew what the mighty bulge in those elegant trousers portended. Yet, when it came down to it she felt as ignorant and unsure as any other well-bred virgin.

Rand tilted his head, perceptive as ever. “Are you afraid?” His voice was soft, his look one of tender amusement, laced with desire.

“Not precisely.” She was still eyeing the way his fingers had paused at the fall of his trousers.

What did she have to fear? Only the unknown, she supposed. She trusted Rand to be gentle, clever, understanding.

He undid one button. She blurted out the truth. “I am really rather terrified of getting it wrong. What if I disappoint you?”

He stopped undressing and instead, approached the side of the bed. “Impossible. You never need to worry about that.”

He stretched out a hand to stroke her with his fingertips. He began at her lips—just a touch of the pads of three fingers, like a parent hushing a child. The brush of his slightly roughened skin against her mouth sent hot chills through her. Her lips parted as a surge of need rose inside.

Then his fingers skimmed over her chin, down her throat, fingering the hard, lustrous pearls that doubled around her neck once like a choker, another time dipping down to her waist.

“The famous pink pearls,” he murmured. Raising the necklace to his lips, he kissed it and she felt that kiss as if the pearls were an intimate part of her.

Then his fingers resumed their leisurely trail. They wound a path between her breasts, close to where her heart thumped an erratic rhythm. Down over the blonde lace at her bodice, to her stomach, with a short pause to investigate the location of her navel beneath the layers of silk.

Tiny thrills scudded through her as he moved down, farther still. A panicky, urgent feeling swept over her as his clever fingers found that magical place between her legs and touched it through the pristine whiteness of her gown.

Pleasure jolted through her, sharp and immediate. As he touched her, she felt restless, aching with a need that seemed to build and expand. She wanted to move, to rip all the pins from her expertly coiffed hair, to kick off her kid slippers and rid herself of her gown, her underthings, every barrier between the pressure and the texture of his fingers and her body.

But she kept still because she sensed he wanted her that way. She’d closed her eyes at some stage, but curiosity got the better of her. She opened them, to see that Rand’s gaze focused on the actions of his fingers with that intensity that was peculiar to him.

Then he met her eyes and gave her what she needed, touching her, rubbing and pressing until the pressure was too much. She cried out, convulsing beneath his hands.

With a fierce look of satisfaction, Rand pulled her to the edge of the bed and kneeled down. Vaguely, she thought he was going to remove her shoes. Before she knew it, he’d bunched her skirts to her waist and his mouth was on her, hot between her legs and he was prolonging those blissful spasms with wicked caresses of his lips and tongue.

If she hadn’t been so mindless already she might have found the words to protest. Instead, she was helpless to stop him. And when a new series of quakes thrilled through her body she lost the will to deny him.

She closed her eyes again, touched a fluttering hand to the back of his head. “Rand, please…” she whispered.

He took her over the edge once more, and again, until she was as boneless as a rag-doll, drunk on sensual bliss. Yet, she was far from satisfied. A need for him deep inside her throbbed in her blood. She wanted him with a desperate, feverish longing.

His weight made the mattress dip beside her as he moved over the bed to kiss her. She wound her arms around his neck and kissed him with enthusiasm and joy.

Slowly, he undressed her, touching her body, skimming skilful fingertips over her skin. Her desire for him all but consumed her. She heard herself murmur incoherent pleas, her hands grasping for his shoulders.

But when she was naked he stood back, holding the long rope of pearls in his hands. He watched her as he threaded them through his fingers. She noticed his breathing was ragged at the edges. “Cherries and cream and chocolate,” he said hoarsely, reaching out to touch the dark red tip of her breast.

He gazed at her as he dribbled the strand of pearls over her skin, circled the coolness of them around her breasts, trailed them over the tight flesh of her nipples, then wound them in figure eight to frame her breasts.

He bent to suckle. First one breast, then the other, licking and laving with the flat of his tongue, flicking with the tip, sending arrows of pleasure zinging through her body to quiver in her loins.

She bucked with the force of it; the pearls fell away and now it was his hands circling her breasts, cupping them, squeezing lightly, stroking. Pearls trailed over her midriff, pooled in her navel, spilled over the soft mound of her belly. She felt the cool hardness of them slipping between her legs.

She arched again, gasping as the hard, smooth gems lightly brushed that tender knot of flesh Rand had tormented into exquisite sensitivity. A thousand nerve-endings seemed to spark to life once more.

She sucked in a breath, placed a hand over his. It took her a moment to gather the courage to ask. “Come inside me, Rand. Love me.”

He bent and kissed her deeply, their hands interlaced at her breast. “Oh, God, Cecily. What you do to me.”

Straightening, he dropped the pearls onto the bedside table, removed the rest of his clothes. Without giving her much time to do more than cast an incredulous look at the size and rigidity of his member, he climbed onto the bed and stretched out beside her.

Jane and Rosamund had educated her well and of course, she knew the theory of romantic coupling. They had warned her, with a few snorts and giggles that she might be shocked at first at the man’s size; that this one time, it would hurt. But could anything have prepared her for
him
?

He shifted his hip. She felt his extraordinary appendage against her thigh and blushed.

There was banked fire in his eyes, but understanding too. “Touch me, Cecily,” he said in a roughened, deep voice. “I’d like it very much if you did.”

Lowering her gaze, she put out a tentative hand and pressed her palm to his chest. He felt hard and warm, yet soft, too and the hair there was like a mass of fine wire. With her fingertips, she traced the contours of muscle and bone, marveling at all that hard male beauty. Her hand trailed over his shoulders and down one arm, then back to his chest.