School For Heiresses 2- Only a Duke Will Do (24 page)

Not that any of that compared to what he’d done to her, of course. And yet—

She had to admit that Simon’s present betrayal differed vastly from seven years ago. For one thing, he’d actually married her. Considering that he’d already compromised her and destroyed her reputation, there

’d been no need for him to carry it so far just to remove her from politics. And he had said he’d married her because he wanted her. That must be true, or he wouldn’t have lost his temper when she’d denied him her bed. He would have just trotted off to find a mistress. She swallowed. How did she know he hadn’t?

Oh, she should never have said what she did. Despite what he’d done, the thought of him sharing some other woman’s bed tortured her.

And that was only the least of what he could have done if he’d wanted. Another husband might have locked her up or beaten her—such things did happen, even in the finest homes. He could even have demanded his marital rights by force. Her puny warning to kill him wouldn’t have worried a real tyrant. But Simon wasn’t a real tyrant. Somewhere in that devious, scheming soul of his was a reasonable man

—she just knew it. A man she could care for. The problem was, how was she to get to that man? Simply give in? Forgive him for his unforgivable behavior?

She had to do something. He was her husband whether she liked it or not. Did she really want the sort of distant marriage her own parents had endured?

She stole another glance at him, her heart thundering to see the yearning in his face as he stared at her. When their gazes locked, Simon said hoarsely, “Raji, stop.” After the monkey complied, he added something in Hindi and Raji scurried over to her. She glanced down to find the dear creature holding his tiny hand out. Not sure what to do, she took it, then caught her breath when he kissed it. As the children squealed with delight, her gaze returned to Simon. His eyes held such brooding desire that her pulse began to thump madly.

“Your Grace!” called a voice from behind Simon and Lord Trusbut, and Simon turned toward it. A guard with an eye patch approached them, and Simon broke into a smile. “Captain Quinn!”

When he offered his hand, Captain Quinn pumped it hard. “I heard you were here, sir. Thought I’d come and thank you. Mr. Brown told me you were the person who recommended me for this position, despite my bad eye.”

Simon smiled. “Why shouldn’t I? Your one good eye is probably twice as sharp as any other man’s two.

”

“I gather it’s sharper than those of the fellow I replaced,” Captain Quinn said grimly. “Turns out the wretch made a practice of looking the other way while the prisoners regularly assaulted the women. Took money from the male convicts for it, of course. Must have been what got him sacked.”

“That wasn’t the only thing that got Mr. Treacle sacked, I assure you,” Simon said tersely. Louisa caught her breath. Brutus the Bully had been sacked? It must have been at Simon’s instigation or how would he have known to suggest a replacement?

What’s more, Captain Quinn clearly had a conscience. So while she’d been preparing for their wedding, Simon had been improving matters at the prison.

A slow warmth built in her belly. He must have done it for her. Heaven knew he’d have no other reason.

“How do you know the duke, Captain Quinn?” Lord Trusbut asked.

“His Grace and I were at the Battle of Kirkee together, sir. Never seen a man fight so hard or long without a lick of soldierly training. His Grace can wield a sword with deadly accuracy. But it wasn’t his sword that won the day—it was his rousing speech. Turned that battle ’round, it did.”

Simon looked more uncomfortable than she’d ever seen him. “Nonsense,” he said tightly, “it was you lads who turned it ’round with your hard fighting.”

“The sepoys would have fled if you hadn’t bucked them up and then joined them in the fight. The only other Governor-General to fight beside them was Wellington, and he was a soldier by training.” Captain Quinn broadened his gaze to include them all. “The duke was a hero, slashing and parrying like some mad—”

“Forgive me, you have not yet met my friends, have you, sir?” Simon interrupted, his voice decidedly strained.

As he introduced the Trusbuts, Louisa watched him speculatively. Why did talk of India always make him uncomfortable? The papers had lauded his performance at Kirkee. Was he simply too modest to acknowledge it?

Simon turned to Louisa. “And this, Captain Quinn, is my wife.”

“Your Grace,” Captain Quinn murmured as he bowed.

She had to resist the urge to laugh. She’d been Miss North for so long that being the Duchess of Foxmoor would take some getting used to. “I’m pleased to meet any friend of my husband’s, sir,” she said as she held out her hand.

Captain Quinn’s face lit up at this show of congeniality. “The pleasure is all mine, madam.” Seizing her hand, he pumped it as furiously as he’d done Simon’s. “I always said His Grace must have some extraordinary female awaiting him in England, given the way he kept to himself in India.”

As a blush stained her cheeks, Simon said in a husky voice, “Indeed, Captain, for what man could look at any other woman, with a lady like my wife filling his thoughts?”

Yesterday, the compliment would have grated. But today…

Today, she hoped desperately that he meant it.

When Captain Quinn returned to his duties, Louisa half expected her husband to give some excuse for whisking her off. Instead, he asked how he and Lord Trusbut could help. With her heart in her throat, Louisa told him he could entertain the younger children, since Lady Trusbut was eager to show her husband around the ward and explain what the ladies were trying to accomplish. Louisa settled the older ones down for a lesson in reading, while Simon whittled the little ones simple monkeys and birds with Raji settled atop his shoulder. From time to time, she glanced over to see him earnestly listening to some three-year-old’s chatter.

He made such a strange picture there in the prison, dressed in a fine bottle-green coat and buff trousers, with his immaculately tied cravat and his starched collar points wilting in the damp. Her husband, the duke, helping in Newgate. It was hard to fathom.

They departed two hours later. Regina agreed to carry the Trusbuts back to Westminster to retrieve their equipage. That left Louisa and Simon to climb into his carriage alone, since Raji was ensconced on the perch with the coachman.

An awkward silence ensued once they pulled away. Now was his chance to lecture her, yet he sat across from her, staring out the window, deep in thought. Should she ask what he meant to do with her? Not unless she wanted to remind him that she’d done what he’d forbidden. So she tried small talk instead. “Captain Quinn seems nice. A decided improvement over Mr. Treacle.”

“Yes.”

She twisted her hands together in her lap. “I suppose you were the one who had Brutus the Bully sacked.

”

“I did strongly encourage Mr. Brown in that direction.”

“Thank you,” she said softly.

His gaze swung to her, solemn, intense. “You’re welcome.”

“Captain Quinn will be a decided improvement.”

A faint smile touched his lips. “You said that already.”

She licked her own lips nervously. “He seems quite admiring of you. You’ll have to tell me what happened at Kirkee—it sounds like an exciting tale.”

His face grew shuttered and he shifted his gaze out the window once more, a frown creasing his brow. That was the wrong thing to say. She didn’t want him angry. She didn’t want to be at odds with him anymore. The Simon who’d entertained the children at the prison was a man she could live with—as long as he stopped being a tyrant about her activities. “Simon, I know you’re probably very angry at me for

—”

“Defying me?” His gaze shot back to her. “Going off to the prison behind my back? Taking Raji to a place he’s never been without me?”

Her heart sank at the edge in his voice. “Raji was fine, and you know it. Besides, you started this by conspiring with the king. Surely you see that was deplorable.” When his jaw tightened, she groaned. “But that wasn’t what I meant to say.”

“No, I am sure it was not,” he said bitterly. “You probably meant to point out yet again how horrible I have been to you by marrying you and sharing with you my name, my wealth, my connections—”

“I want cake,” she blurted out. When he blinked, she added in a soft voice, “That’s what I meant to say. I want cake. For both of us.”

Chapter Twenty

Dear Charlotte,

A man may look affectionately upon his wife, but that does not mean that when faced with important decisions, he will allow her to influence him. I would not place too much hope in a tender glance, my dear.

Your forthright cousin,

Michael

F or a second, Louisa wasn’t entirely certain Simon had taken her meaning. Then a look of such stark, wild hunger crossed his features that her breath caught in her throat. Before she could even think, he’d reached across the carriage and hauled her onto his lap.

“What are you doing?” she exclaimed, darting a glance at the window.

“Eating cake,” he murmured. Then his mouth seized hers.

She forgot about the crowded streets outside the carriage windows. She forgot about her anger and his machinations and her father. There was only Simon, plundering her mouth like a marauding conqueror, his hands sweeping possessively over her body, his breath wafting hot and heavy over her face. He paused to drag the curtains closed, but as he bent his mouth to hers again, she pressed a finger to his lips. When a scowl twisted his brow, she said hastily, “I want to make sure we’re in agreement. We both get cake. Which means you’ll let me participate in the London Ladies.”

His eyes glittered a searing blue. “You will share my bed? And stop telling the servants to feed me things I detest? And give me back my cigars?”

She gave a shaky laugh. “I didn’t think you’d noticed.”

“Of course I noticed. The same way I noticed the trays outside your room and your absence at dinner and the cold, empty space in my bed…” His choked words seduced her as effectively as the kisses he now scattered over her cheeks, her nose, her brow.

“The London Ladies,” she rasped while she still had the power to speak. “Will you let me—”

“Do you mean to defy me again?” he countered.

“I might.” She scowled at him. “If you make unfair pronouncements.”

“Wrong answer,” he growled.

She’d already opened her mouth to retort when she felt his hands unbuttoning the back of her gown. “

We can’t do this here, for heaven’s sake!”

“The devil we can’t.” He was disturbingly adept at undoing her clothing. “I’m not taking any chances with you this time, sweetheart. I mean to make you mine before you change your mind. I cannot go another night alone in my bed, thinking of you alone in yours.”

Though his words thrilled her, they weren’t the ones she wanted to hear. “But you haven’t yet agreed—”

“If you want to negotiate terms, give me some incentive.” After removing her gloves, he dragged her gown and chemise and stays down in one fell swoop to bare her breasts, then scoured her with his ravenous gaze, sending her blood into a frenzy.

As she warmed to his clear admiration, he bent his head to seize her breast in his mouth, sucking it so sensuously that she squirmed on his lap.

He devoured first one, then the other, while she buried her hands in his thick hair to hold him close. “

Now this, sweetheart,” he rasped, pausing briefly to tongue her nipple, “is what I call cake.”

Cake, yes. The dratted seducer had made her forget about the cake. “The London Ladies, Simon,” she whispered, though it got harder to speak when he was sliding his hands beneath her skirts. “Will you let me participate?”

“Do you promise never to defy me?” he shot back.

“It depends—”

“Wrong answer again.” He found the aching spot between her thighs and thumbed it so that she gasped.

“You are my wife. I will not have you going behind my back. Is that clear?”

“Yes, but—”

“Never again do I wish to have some lord accusing me of not holding to my word because my wife lied to him.”

She winced. She probably shouldn’t have told Lord Trusbut that her husband was meeting them at the prison. But how could she have known he would then run into Simon?

“Is that understood, Louisa?” He brushed his mouth against her ear as his forefinger delved suddenly, shockingly inside her.

She wriggled to get free, but that only made it worse when his finger swept along her cleft in a silky caress so erotic, she gasped. Then writhed against it in an attempt to feel more. Simon’s breath quickened as he laid her out across his lap to give him better access to her breasts.

“Understood, Louisa?” he repeated, tugging at her nipple with his teeth. “No going anywhere behind my back.”

When he punctuated the demand with a maddening caress down below, she whispered, “Yes…oh, good heavens, yes…”

Then, realizing what he’d made her say, she stiffened. He was trying to seduce her into agreeing with him. And it was working.

Very well, seduction was a game for couples, wasn’t it? As he teased her nipple with his devilish tongue, she untied his cravat and tossed it aside, then unbuttoned his waistcoat and shirt. He drew back only long enough to remove it all.

She blinked. Now that was a chest, very nicely swathed in muscle, the way a man’s chest should be. She looked her fill, since it was her first look at her husband’s naked body. Dark blond hair trickled from his throat to where it broadened to take in his whole chest, swirling about his male nipples, then narrowing to a thin line over a flat, taut stomach before disappearing beneath his trousers. Which were noticeably bulging.

And swelling even more beneath her gaze.

“Don’t just look, sweetheart,” he said hoarsely. “Touch me, too.”

With a blush she dragged her gaze back to his face. “Wh-what?”

“Put your sweet hands on me.” He practically ripped loose the buttons on his trousers and drawers. “

Anywhere. Everywhere. Here.”

He seized her hand and tried to force it inside his drawers, but remembering her purpose, she resisted. “