The Rusticated Duchess (31 page)

“I could spend hours tasting these succulent teats,” he growled once the gown fell open and her hands stroked the hot skin of his chest from shoulders to abdomen. The carnal words were low in his throat, belying his arousal. “But I want you to turn over and show me the sweetest little rump in England, Glory.” 

Heat rose in her cheeks and spread down her neck to the expanse of skin across her chest. “Wh-wh-what you d-did l-last time…” She hesitated.

Clare raised a brow, and waited for her to continue. He knew it was unkind, but the flush of her skin was too much to resist, and his hardened cock was less sympathetic to her plight than his brain.

“You—you’ll do that again, then?” she squawked, her hands flying up to cover her cheeks.

Relentlessly, Clare removed her hands, so he could exult in her shy discomfort.

“Oh, we’ll be doing that again,” Clare assured her huskily, knowing his eyes twinkled with passion as he imagined sliding the full length of his cock past the tight ring of her rectum. “And this time I might even get all the way in.”

Her eyes opened wider in shock. “I wasn’t properly prepared to make it easy for you, last time,” he explained patiently, still holding her gaze.

“And now you are?” she asked, disbelief in her voice. Gloria squirmed against him, pushing. “And how do you know so much about—”

Clare’s mind blanked and he stood abruptly, the memories flooding him. He tightened his jaw against the intrusion, and reached for her, easily turning her and pressing her down into the mattress.

He was no slave to lust, but to Clare’s mind, this was no time for long explanations or questions. It was dark, they were alone, and he wanted Gloria, soft and steeped in pleasure, beneath him. But Gloria still squirmed, so he knelt between her knees and pressed his hard, physically dominant body against her spine, trapping her.

“Later.” Sliding his hand into her hair and tugging gently on the golden strands, Clare turned her head and grunted the word against her ear.

Gloria moaned, and suddenly rocked beneath him, and Clare’s pulse raced as he grasped her reaction to that intimate restraint. Keeping one hand in her halo, he shifted and knelt beside her, reaching for the glass bottle he’d left beside the bed when he’d entered the suite earlier.

“Are you going to stay still?” he asked her, tugging her locks experimentally.

“Yes,” she whispered, rocking into the bedclothes in a fluid motion that had him imagining how she would feel beneath him.

Quickly, he removed his hand and unstopped the bottle, tipping it so that the rich golden oil ran out into his right palm. He sat the bottle aside and returned his left hand to Gloria’s hair, winding his fingers through the gold and trapping her head against the bedclothes. She stared at him, her eyes open and unfocused at the weight of his palm over her ear. With her mouth open, she breathed slowly and shallowly, as though every inhalation was precious. Perhaps it was.

Fisting his fingers into the oil over his palm, Clare coated his fingertips in the rich, thick fluid and positioned his hand directly over her bottom. His index finger probed first, slipping quickly past her anus and into the tight passage beyond while his middle finger transferred oil to the sensitive puckered skin that surrounded it. Golden drops fell onto her as he shifted, and added his middle finger alongside his first.

Nevertheless, he kept his left hand in her hair, tipping her head back slightly. In response, she stretched and rubbed herself against the linens beneath her.

A fierce surge of satisfaction ripped down his spine as he pressed his fingers deeper, then withdrew them and pushed inward again. Rewarded with an expressive gasp, he withdrew the digits and palmed his cock, coating it with the oil.

The rich scent of olive mixed with Gloria’s aroma wafted up to him. Clare paused and breathed in deeply, his eyes on the vision beneath him. He moved over her, his hand stretched out as he held her head in place. Her luscious skin beckoned and he experienced a disrupting few seconds where he wavered between the channel beckoning from between her buttocks and an equally vivid desire to rub his face obsessively against that sweet skin.

He moved a knee, opening her thighs slightly more, then used his hand to guide his cock to the dusky rose aperture before him. Focusing on the intense anticipation that gripped him, he pushed the head of his cock inside and uttered a low groan of appreciation when her body tilted and welcomed him.

A moan from her slipped past his single-minded determination and, though it had seemed impossible, he hardened even further.

The fundamental need to have her was overwhelming. He slid in farther, then pulled back a bit and deepened the stroke. Her body tipped and arched and stretched as she learnt to accommodate the additional length and breadth of his staff. Clare felt perspiration dot his forehead even in the cool room as he pressed ever deeper.

The last inch slid past that massaging, pulsating muscle. They both groaned at the same time, and Clare’s thighs actually shook as his scrotum brushed against the soft fuzz of her heated vulva. His right hand still slick with the oil, he palmed her hip and slid around to her curls. Gloria’s aroused fluids slipped between them, easing the slide of her skin against his and enriching the fragrant air that reached his nose.

Her bottom pressed up to his pubic bone, his hair scraping that pliant skin. Clare looked down between them, an animalistic urge to grunt and mercilessly fuck her rising in him. He resisted it, of course, reminding himself that the glorious body beneath him was his, that he could indulge in this heaven all the more often if he treated it as the treasure it was.

The very thought of her permanent availability was enough to send his body into the spasms he’d been trying to delay. His loins swelled for the last time and his seed spurted deep inside her gorgeous ass.

To his surprise, he cried out. “Glory!” The word was deep and tinged with satisfaction and possession, and it was followed by Gloria’s cry of surprise. Clare couldn’t remember his voice ever sounding quite like that, but as he said it, he managed to press his slippery fingers to her clit and she convulsed into climax as well.

He cleaned her up, of course, seriously regretting that he hadn’t been able to see her eyes as she had come. Now, though, they were glazed over with satiation and she lay on the bed as he used old rags to wipe away his seed and the oil. After, she flushed and slid from the bed, retreating behind the dressing room door.

Clare stayed. And waited.

When she returned, he drew her into the bed and tucked the blankets about them both. “Aren’t you going back to your room?” Gloria asked him, her head already lying on his shoulder.

Clare had thought he would, earlier. He’d fully intended to give Gloria the space and independence she seemed to want, especially after their earlier discussion about sleeping together at night. But now, sated and exhausted, he could only think of keeping her close.

“No,” he said finally. “No, I’m staying here.” He turned his head and kissed the top of her head. “Sleep now. But tomorrow, we need to have a long talk.”

He couldn’t tell if she’d heard those last words or not, however. Gloria was already asleep.

* * * *

Clare rose, as he often did, before dawn and returned to his rooms. Not bothering to bathe, he summoned a manservant and issued a string of directives as he dressed in his oldest clothes. The castle was just beginning to rise when he headed downstairs but Mrs Flannery was waiting for him in his study.

“Her man Colman will serve as her personal footman,” he said, once the first congratulations were extended. “Jenson will serve as the wee boy’s guard disguised as a permanent tutor, and will travel with the lad.” He explained Eynon’s parentage and guardianship, and Clare asked Mrs Flannery to consider how Mrs Sinclair could be integrated into the household as more than a nurse. Mr Pitcher, when he arrived, would be Gloria’s personal driver—Clare made a note to himself that she would need a phaeton at the Castle and in London, and that they needed to be sure there was an additional coach available as they wouldn’t be travelling in Clare’s usual curricle. Matthew, once the cottage had been closed and returned to the caretaker’s hands, would be offered the choice to stay with his mistress or return to Lennox’s employment. Astrid would remain as Gloria’s lady maid.

Mrs Flannery quickly outlined other additional servants that would be needed to staff the nursery, and Clare nodded, cautioning only that no new servants should be brought into the castle until the current situation with Winchester had been resolved.

He hesitated then, and requested that his housekeeper prepare a daily draught for his bride that Sarah had once consumed for many months after Arwyn’s birth.

Mrs Flannery understood. “My lord,” she said, her face tightening in concern and a hint of reluctance. “She is young and healthy. There is no reason she cannot bear—”

“Mrs Flannery,” he said implacably, “this is my wish. We do not know each other well and she will need time to adjust to life with me, and here in Norham. She deserves the opportunity to fully recover from the travesty of her marriage to March, from the birth of her son, from being hunted by her father for no reason other than to sell her to a monster of a man, from being pressured into marriage again for her own protection. She’s much to learn about Norham Castle and being the mistress of it, the neighbourhood, the people, my family. I’ll not put yet more complications in her life right now.”

Mrs Flannery shook her head. “His Grace will be asking and pestering you every day over your own nursery,” she reminded him.

Clare clenched his jaw and stared at her, unspeaking. He well knew Arwyn was the last of the line. All of Lauderdale’s tenants and servants and various connections and remaining family members would have preferred Clare to remarry years earlier and provide the Lauderdale with a large brood of sons. But he would not be moved by considerations of the title.

“Very well,” she sniffed.

“She will need to settle in, but I fully expect she will be an active mistress for the castle in time. Certainly she’ll have more to say about it than I have. At least she’ll know about jams and linen presses and herbs and such that you are forever asking me about.”

“Not likely, sir, what with her being a Londoner and raised in a nobleman’s family. And such a young thing, I hardly think she’s had time—”

“Mrs Flannery, she was raised to be a duchess and before her husband’s death, she was the mistress of Lennox House in Grosvenor Square. My father tells me she was well regarded for hosting both political and social events in the short period of their marriage.” Clare squared his jaw and met her eyes directly, daring her to contradict him, but Mrs Flannery wisely acquiesced and retreated. He might permit the elderly woman to speak to him impertinently in private—she had been one of his nursemaids and had done so from the cradle—but even a lax Clare could only permit so much, and he was well aware of how sensitive he would be on the subject of his new wife. It wouldn’t take long for word to travel through the Castle staff of his infatuation with her and his willingness to cede his authority over the household to her.

He was in the kitchens ten minutes later, chatting with Seton about what purchases to make in Berwick, when Arwyn joined him. They retrieved a basket, already prepared, from the kitchen maid and stopped in a cold house at the edge of the river’s tree-lined banks for supplies kept on hand for them there. When they finally tramped down through the trees to a flat expanse of grass that grew beside the River Tweed, the sun had crossed the horizon and sparkled on the river’s rolling spray.

Both father and son settled in on blankets with their long poles before either spoke of it.

“I’ll never forget your mother,” Clare said. “I loved her. Her death was the lowest point of my life, my most painful memory. In many ways, her illness and my failure to reach her in time was my greatest failure.”

Arwyn was silent for a long time. “If you had, you’d have contracted it too, you know, and have died. I’ve read about it, at school.” He stared at the leaves overhead as Clare watched him. “Maybe once upon a time, I blamed you for not riding a white steed to her rescue. But it’s not your fault.” Arwyn blinked a few times, hiding any reaction to the loss of a mother he’d never known, before adding, “You’ve been alone for a long time.” He cleared his throat a bit reluctantly and went on, “I know how my mates’ fathers disrespect their wives and keep girls openly or on the sly, tumbling the maids in their households or the girls on their farms. You didn’t even do that once Mother was gone and you didn’t have to be so circumspect. So don’t apologise to me for wanting a bit of companionship and happiness now.”

Clare suppressed the instinctive reaction to hug his son. “It’s always a bad idea to bring a woman who’s dependent on you to your bed,” he advised with difficulty. “A duke’s home—or any gentleman’s, titled or not—should be reserved for his spouse. If you must have a girl, keep her elsewhere. It will do you no favours in the end to have your servants or tenants aware of the intimate details of your private life, especially when you do finally bring home a bride and she knows none of it.”

Arwyn reflected and said soberly, “I hadn’t thought of it like that, but it’s true. Mr and Mrs Flannery would not be the devoted and trusted servants they are if they believed you were a profligate rake.”

“Discretion, diplomacy and restraint, Arwyn.” Clare smiled.

Arwyn nodded, grimacing, and returned to the original subject. “It will be good for you to have her and her son here. I’m no companion to you, being gone at school and still with Oxford ahead of me. Grandfather is aging, I can see it.”

“You will always be welcome in my life, son, whether I nurture more little ones through childhood or not,” Clare said, his mind on Gloria’s stance and Mrs Flannery’s disapproval. “And I expect you to make a nuisance of yourself even when you’re grown. All that is Lauderdale will be yours, and you must know how to run it, even if you choose to spend the bulk of your time in London inspecting the Incomparables.”