Page 15 of A Deal with a Rake (Wicked Widows’ League #35)

“And Summerset…was he ever kind to you?” Tavish realized the answer to his question before he asked it. After meeting her, he had hoped every terrible thing he’d heard about the old duke was a lie. Tales created by the same society the old bastard had held in such high esteem.

“Never,” she finally said, her tone indifferent. “He took great joy in trying to shape me into a proper wife for the first six months of our marriage.”

He couldn’t take his eyes off her. This strong, beautiful, misunderstood woman. “What happened after six months.”

She gave him a dazzling smile. “I poisoned him.”

Tavish sat forward, thinking surely he had not heard her correctly. “What?” He stood as if that would correct his hearing.

“I poisoned him. A little arsenic in his evening port, after a cruel beating for smiling too widely at an earl.” Her face was shadowed, like she were still experiencing the horrors.

“As I nursed him back to health, I whispered, ‘ If you ever touch me again, next time I’ll make sure it kills you. ’ And he never did.

He was too afraid to even look at me after that,” she said the last part with pride.

Tavish laughed so hard he could barely breathe. “Fecking hell, Princess.” He ran a hand through his hair.

“I couldn’t take it anymore. Months of his cruelty, living in fear that he would touch me.” She shook her head as tears slid down her cheeks. “I thought mother was bad, but the old duke made her look like a nun.”

Tavish went and sat beside her. He didn’t stop to think as he pulled her into his arms. All he wanted to do was to dig Summerset up from the grave and kill him over and over again until the bastard felt the same pain as the strong woman in his arms.

“Stand up,” Tavish commanded as she sat staring up at him.

Florentia had just revealed the worst part of herself to a man she’d barely known a full day, and yet he did not react in the least.

Well, he had laughed loudly, but nothing else. No look of outrage, no judgement, he just gazed at her with those piercing blue eyes of his, and for the first time in her life, someone saw her. Who she really was, not who her mother had created, not the mask she had to wear in society.

“What are we doing?” she asked, enjoying the lightness between them.

Her confession about the horrors she’d faced with her late husband and ultimately how she was finally able to stop him was something she had not even shared with Charity.

It was pure desperation and madness on her part, but one that she would never regret.

After his bout of sickness, her husband had never laid another hand on her. Not physically, nor intimately as a man does his wife. The remainder of their marriage was lived separately, she in London and he in the country with his mistress.

She stood in front of Tavish, waiting for him to instruct her.

“I’m going to teach you how to fight properly so you don’t get hauled to Newgate for poisoning someone.”

Giving him her best scowl, she said, “I assure you I have no need to go to prison. My poisoning days are over.” She inhaled a deep breath before releasing it.

“Good, you’re too pretty for prison.” He tilted her chin up, his touch lighting a fire inside of her abdomen.

After she’d poisoned the old duke, Florentia had been so petrified that she’d actually killed him, a rich wealthy duke, that she didn’t leave his bedside. When it was finally clear that he wasn’t going to die, she saw it as her opportunity to end his cruelty toward her forever.

It worked.

Extremely well. So well in fact, that he completely abandoned her, finding himself a younger mistress. He informed Florentia that when his mistress became with child, Florentia would claim it as her own. She readily agreed, but it never came to pass.

“First, we’ll practice your stance.” Tavish turned and began pushing the furniture out of the way. The small table, sofa, and chairs were all moved aside to give them room to move freely.

Florentia gawked at his physical strength, trying not to reveal how much she actually craved the brute of a man. Not only was he deliciously sinful to look at, but he was also caring and kind. Underneath the bare-knuckle boxer was a real gentleman.

Not the type of gentleman that attended Eton and Oxford, no, he was made of sturdier stock than that. She had never known a man like Tavish O’Brien, but dear God, did she want to know him.

“I’ll give the whole Summerset fortune to know what you’re thinking about, Princess,” he said, leaning toward her.

She blinked several times, not knowing when he had actually come to stand in front of her. His scent was intoxicating—soap, clean and fresh, mixed with a naturally masculine scent that was all him.

Florentia wanted to bury her head in the crook of his neck and lick a path to his wicked mouth.

“I-I don’t know what you mean.” She feigned aloofness, returning to her debutante days.

She had been a shameless flirt. According to her mother, a lady must do whatever it took to secure a gentleman. Everything, except ruin oneself, of course.

“I think you know exactly what I mean, a chuisle .” He licked those decadent pink lips of his.

Bloody hell.

He spoke Gaelic to her. Florentia wasn’t sure if she’d survive hearing him speak Gaelic. He could’ve told her that her mother was a horse’s ass, and she’d still drop to her knees and worship him.

“Now get to the center of the ring, before I take you right here.”

Yes. Please, yes.

She wanted to call him a brute for saying such wicked things to her. But she couldn’t find her voice. Florentia had never been at a loss for words in her life, but this man in a single day had rendered her mute.

He chuckled as he stepped away from her, walking into the center of the furniture.

Blinking, Florentia saw that he had somehow rearranged all the furniture to form a ring. She laughed at him; she couldn’t help herself.

“What?” He held his hands out, looking like a young boy.

She saw it clear as day then, a young boy, with red hair and clear blue eyes.

Oh God! She’s gone mad.

“I can’t believe you actually made a ring,” she said, as cheerily as possible.

Florentia couldn’t believe she was allowing a man to render her utterly useless. She’d had two infatuations her entire life, and neither one of those gentlemen had ever rendered her into a simpering chit.

The Marquess of Heartford, who she had been forced into a courtship with through their mothers, at the time she couldn’t help but to hope that they would have blond-headed children together.

Then the Duke of St. Clara, who she was nearly betrothed to, with him, she’d imagined dark-haired boys, all tall and aristocratic looking.

Neither of those gentlemen, who didn’t care one fig about her, had ever rendered her speechless, let alone had her wanting to do things she’d never done with any man.

“Come here, Princess,” Tavish said, crooking a finger at her.

Damn him.

Damn him.

Her feet moved before the rest of her, and she stumbled to the center of the makeshift ring, doing exactly as he bid her.

He chuckled wickedly again, his hand taking her by the waist. Her body heated, her sex pulsating in desperate need for him.

She ached for this man, this bare-knuckle boxer that ate with his hands and said dirty words like it was breathing.

He’d also treated her with kindness, taking her shopping and spending an obscene amount on new dresses, even commissioning two new gowns.

Tavish also faithfully went to Hatchard’s with her and smiled as she pulled down novel after novel before she finally chose two new ones.

He turned her suddenly. Her back to his hard chest; his breath, tinted with whiskey, caressed her ear. “The Irish stand down.” He pivoted her body, his feet kicking at hers. “Spread them,” he commanded, his hold on her tight.

So tight that she could feel his hard cock pressing against her rump. He was almost too tall, but she could feel him, long and thick. She wanted to rise to her toes and press up against him, rolling her hips against him.

“This is the form of combat.” He wrapped both arms around her, taking her hands in his. “Ball them into fists,” he whispered, his lips grazing her cheek.

Her breathing increased to breathless pants, and she found herself pressing against his hips.

She released a whimper, like she’d never been touched by a man in her life. And perhaps she hadn’t, not really. All her lovers had been mediocre at best; her husband cruel and selfish.

“You hold your form, and if someone dares to take a menacing step toward you, you punch.” He controlled her, throwing her arm out to punch the invisible opponent. “Go for the vulnerable parts first, throat.”

He guided her arm out again, his lips grazing a wicked path down her cheek to her jawbone, where he bit softly, nibbling her sensitive flesh.

Florentia cracked into a thousand tiny pieces, her head falling back, as his hot mouth traveled to her neck.

“Oh bloody hell,” she cried out, as her hand went to his head, pulling at the long strands of his soft hair.

Rough, big hands started roaming her body, cupping one of her breasts in its wicked hold. “Feck, Princess! I want to bury my cock so deep in you you won’t know where I end, and you begin.”

“Yes!” she begged.

Begged.

“Take off your dress,” he commanded, sucking her earlobe into his hot waiting mouth.

Florentia took two steps forward, freeing herself from his hold. She couldn’t breathe or think with his body so close to hers.

She looked over her shoulder, eyes raking over his strong body. His cock strained against the flaps of his breeches. It looked thick and long.

Dear God.

When her eyes locked with his, she nearly exploded where she stood. The smile that spread against her lips was genuine and pure. Florentia had never felt so close to anyone ever in her life. But somehow this man had managed to melt away her twenty-two-year-old armor in a single day.

She was back in his arms in a single blink of her eyes. His fingers were in her hair, pulling her head back roughly.

“What do you want, Princess?” he asked, those blue eyes holding her hostage, never letting her go.

“You.” It was a plea, one out of pure need and desperation.

And she didn’t care what it meant or what the consequences were. The only thing that she was concerned about was having him inside her, right there in the gilded parlor.