Page 26 of 1797 Club 2nd Epilogue Collection (The 1797 Club #11)

I n the fifteen years that the Robert Smithton, Duke of Roseford had been married to his wife, Katherine, he had never lost his fascination with her hair.

Up to reveal her slender neck, down around her shoulders in unruly waves, wrapped around his cock as she sucked him or twirled around his finger like silk, he loved to touch it or watch it move in the breeze.

But his favorite thing about her hair was when it was fanned across his chest as they sprawled on a bed, their arms and legs tangled just as they were right in that very moment.

Robert tightened his arms around her and kissed the crown of her head, breathing in a sniff of that vanilla scent of her and settled into the vast contentment of this moment.

His life had not always been content: a troubled childhood, a rakish youth and beyond, it had scarred him.

But she… she had healed those scars. Healed his heart.

She was the light to his darkness, the warmth to his chill. She was everything.

“What time is it?” she murmured against his chest, her fingers clenching lightly against the skin and putting his body on edge. She did that effortlessly.

“Too early,” he murmured. “Go back to sleep. We’ll rise soon enough to go to our next destination.”

She let out a little sigh and lifted her head to look at him. Her dark brown eyes were softened with sleep, but they still held his evenly. “Why are you awake?”

He smiled. “Perhaps you woke me with all your questions.”

She shook her head a little and the tiniest smirk tilted one side of her full lips. “Liar. I know better.”

“How?” he asked and began to comb through that magnificent hair, letting it tangle through his fingers and drop against her bare chest.

She shivered a little at the touch, but answered despite his best efforts to distract her. “I know your body in sleep and the tension is different. Plus, your voice isn’t all smoky and husky.”

“Smoky and husky,” he said with a laugh. “Hmmm. I gave up smoking five years ago. At your request, I might add.”

“And yet,” she said and traced her fingers up his chest, across his collarbone. “It is what it is.”

He tilted her chin up and kissed her. She made a little moan against him and shifted to straddle him. She rocked against his hips, the warm, humid heat of her sex teasing the rapidly hardening length of his cock.

“So why were you awake?” she insisted as she pressed her hands against his shoulders and ground against him without taking him inside of her. He could have taken the lead. He could have cupped her backside and shifted her and been pressing through her with hardly any effort.

But the game was fun. And he had nothing to hide. Not anymore.

“I was thinking about this trip,” he said and wasn’t lying.

“I was laying with my magnificent wife in my arms, her gorgeous hair spread across my body, a fire dying in the grate in this very expensive room above an equally expensive tavern, and I was thinking that this has been the very best summer of my long and illustrious life.”

Her expression softened a little and she stopped rocking and teasing.

When she bent her head and caught his lips, it was gentler now, a reflection of love, as well as desire.

“I feel the same. Every stop along our route these last few months has been magical. To stroll the streets of Paris, to drink wine in the vineyards near Lyon and now Italy? I’ve never seen so many pleasures as we have on our way through Florence and Rome and all the villages and cities on our route.

I’ve filled five diaries, at least and I don’t think I’ve said enough. ”

“Perhaps because your husband interrupts you ceaselessly,” Robert murmured and shifted her at last, spearing her body with his as she shuttered in pleasure around him.

“I like your interruptions,” she said, rocking against him.

It was a soft, easy, lazy pleasure that built up as they moved together.

He sucked one nipple gently, then not so gently as she buried her hands in his thick hair and rolled her hips like the seas they had crossed and danced along over the past months on tour.

How he had loved introducing her to the world.

It had been his greatest pleasure during their long years of marriage.

Well, perhaps not greatest. It was hard to say greatest as Katherine dropped her head back and let out a wobbling moan, her hips moving faster against his, her body gripping him in orgasm.

He pulled her in for a hard, heavy kiss and lifted faster against her, increasing the intensity of her release and building the pleasure of his own.

When he came, he groaned into her mouth and they collapsed back into their original position, with her sprawled across his chest, their panting breaths matching in the quiet of the chamber.

“Are you going to tell me where we’ll be tomorrow?” she asked when their heartbeats had slowed and the pleasure faded a little .

He laughed. “Did you seduce me in order to discover my secrets?”

She scraped her teeth gently across his nipple and looked up at him with all the wicked intent he had come to expect and adore in her. “If I wished to, I could drain all your secrets just as I drained your cock.”

“Language, Your Grace,” he laughed. “My innocent ears are shocked. But while I agree you could very much steal my secrets, I think you know I like surprising you and you wouldn’t want to take that pleasure.”

“No, I wouldn’t,” she admitted and settled her head back down. “I suppose I can wait. If the next few days are anything like the rest of this tour, I know it will be magical.”

“Hmmm,” he murmured and went back to combing through her locks gently until he felt her soften against him, her breath slowing back into sleep. He couldn’t wait until they arrived at their next destination. He couldn’t wait to see her face when she realized where he’d brought her.

A fter a beautiful breakfast and a slow morning where Robert continually interrupted Katherine from readying herself, at last their party got back on the road.

They had left their home in May, handing over all decision making to Robert’s beloved younger cousin, August, who would one day inherit her husband’s title and the lands and responsibilities that came with it.

Sometimes Katherine caught people looking at Robert, shaking their heads a little, whispering. She knew they said he’d lost something when he married her and she never produced an heir for him.

Only they knew the truth: they hadn’t ever tried.

They watched her cycle carefully together and avoided pregnancy because she didn’t feel the pull to motherhood, nor he to fatherhood.

They’d focused instead on their marriage and their lands and tenants, they’d turned their love on their vast collection of friends, showering the children of those friends with gifts and smiling at each other when they could depart the chaos and…

how did Robert put it? Fuck in the carriage on the way home.

It had been a wonderful life without one iota of regret for their choices.

She expected it to continue to be a wonderful life.

Robert would allow for nothing less. This extravagant trip was to celebrate their fifteenth year of marriage, but he made gestures both grand and gentle on a regular basis that left her in no doubt that she was worshipped and adored by the most remarkable, fascinating, wicked man she’d ever known.

“You are lost in thought,” Robert said as he looked up from the book he’d been thumbing through since they departed the inn an hour before.

“I’m only trying to determine where we’re going,” she said and gave a playful pout. “Because my demon of a husband refuses to tell me.”

“Terrible thing, that one,” Robert agreed with false solemnity. “What if I go behind his back and give you a hint?”

“Oh yes!” Katherine clapped her hands together. “I would love a hint. Then I can torment you endlessly with guesses until I wear you down and you confess all to me.”

“That sounds positively medieval, my dear,” he said. “Where we are going no longer exists.”

Her brow wrinkled. “No longer exists. Well, that is a fine hint. How can we go someplace that doesn’t exist?

” She pondered the idea for a moment and paired it with the other facts she knew.

Robert hadn’t kept any other destination in their trip a secret.

He’d shared all his plans with such endearing excitement.

So the fact that he kept this one from her likely meant it was special.

Someplace she’d wanted to go, that they’d talked about for a long time. In Italy.

“The only places that don’t exist anymore are places that were destroyed,” she said softly and watched his face for any reaction.

He gave none because he was incorrigible.

“There are many former cities and towns here that were destroyed in long ago disasters or wars and have been rediscovered and excavated over the last few decades. Places like Herculaneum and…”

She trailed off and stared at him. Robert’s lips were twitching and his dark eyes were dancing. “And?” he encouraged.

“Pompeii,” she whispered for she couldn’t say too loud the name of that hallowed place that had captured her imagination the first time she read about the lost city when she was a girl. “Are you…are you taking me to Pompeii?”

“Why don’t you look outside and see?” he said and pulled the curtain back on their carriage. She leaned forward, the view blocked by a curve in the road, and then she saw it: Vesuvius. The storied mountain she had read about and poured over sketches of over the years.

Now it rose in the distance, marred by the deep crater that had been left when the volcanic eruption had ripped the peak apart in 79 A.D. and destroyed the prosperous city at its feet. A full body shiver worked through her and she realized she wasn’t breathing.

“Oh, Robert,” she whispered.

“Are you crying?” he asked, leaning forward to look at the rising mountain with her, his strong arm wrapping around her.

She leaned into him. “It’s silly, I know. But I’ve always dreamt of this.”

“And it is my fondest duty to make all your dreams come true,” he said.

He was teasing, and yet he wasn’t. His tone was soft and gentle and full of the love that had developed out of lies all those years ago, then blossomed into the joy of her life.

She looked up into the dark eyes she adored more than any other and reached up to trace his cheek.

“ You are my dream come true.”

His expression softened further and he leaned down to kiss her just as the carriage slowed.

When he pulled away, his eyes were dancing again and he was practically bouncing as the footman opened the carriage door and he leapt out to help her down himself.

They had arrived at a small inn with bright stone walls lined with ivy.

As she settled her feet on the ground, a small, thin man exited the building, his hand extended as he spoke in quick, excited Italian.

Robert smiled at her and then extended his hand in return.

She expected him to wave for their servant who was more fluent in Italian and had been their translator throughout the trip, but instead he began to speak the language, himself.

She stared. Fifteen years of marriage and he was still surprising her.

When they’d spoken a few moments, Robert took her hand. “Signore Rossi has prepared his finest rooms for us, my dear. And he says the ruin of the village is but a few moments walk from here. We could go this afternoon if you’d like. Or we can rest and go tomorrow.”

“I couldn’t rest knowing Pompeii is mere steps away,” she said, gripping his hand with both of hers and smiling up at him.

“I thought you’d say that. Let’s go up and we can change into boots. Signore Rossi says the streets that have been uncovered are very uneven. Then we can make our way.”

She nodded and followed him into the hotel, her heart racing with the idea that this man who was her dream come true could so easily make all her other dreams come true without even trying.