Page 11 of A Tale of Two Dukes

‘You speak of my brother, I presume?’ At least she could depend on him to take her meaning, not beat about the bush and utter any sort of platitudes. That had never been his way.

She took a few restless steps away from him.

‘Edward warned me against him when he was dying, as you did too, long ago. I haven’t seen Mr Armstrong for many years – now that he is no longer the heir to Winterflood, he has no excuse to pay a visit.

My only guests are my own family. I don’t know if it’s reasonable to fear him; I only know that Edward did, and it was not like him.

I thought you might have a better idea of his state of mind, as his closest relative.

I know you used to talk to him, at least occasionally. ’

He grimaced and shook his head. ‘I’m not on visiting terms with him either these days.

I have heard that he is drinking heavily and talking wildly – keeping low company, and if I call it low, believe me, my dear, it really is of the lowest. I can’t imagine my sudden elevation to the peerage has improved his temper one jot.

Is he dangerous to your boys? I don’t know.

I’d tell you if I did. I do know that dogs cringe from him, and horses, and he can’t keep servants.

Being his younger half-brother was not an enjoyable experience until I grew big enough to fight back.

It is fortunate for them and you that he is not your sons’ guardian, I know that much.

Marchett might be an old windbag, but at least he’s not a villain.

’ He said these unreassuring words levelly, then added, ‘Had you heard that Tarquin was recently married? I pity the poor woman.’

‘So do I. Might it make things worse, with him, if I accepted your offer?’ She said this quietly, half to herself.

‘Well, he has done nothing so far, and he’s had years; it’s all just supposition. But you are asking me if I believe him to be a potential child killer.’

‘I suppose I am. It sounds ridiculously Gothic when said aloud.’

He shrugged and said lightly, ‘Perhaps tales of wicked uncles and villainous plots to trick people out of their fortunes thrill us partly because we know it does happen, or at least, has happened in the murky past. It’s not impossible.

Viola, I do not know. I have promised to look after the boys to the very best of my ability.

You can be confident I will. I can set guards about them that no one will ever see – not even them.

I can talk to my brother, if you wish. Threaten him.

But if you are crediting me with supernatural powers of protection… ’

‘Of course I am not,’ she said shortly. ‘I’m not a complete fool.

But they are at school now, against my wishes.

I can see that you remember Lord Marchett well enough.

He would not heed my desire to keep them at home, and patronised me in a manner I found close to unendurable.

But he also conceded that if I were married and my husband supported me in this plan – this foolish female plan, he all but said – he must reconsider it. ’

Ventris smiled rather wolfishly, and his eyes swept over her, his gaze that familiar slow caress across her body.

‘He must assume, of course, that any man who was lucky enough to wed you would have no desire at all to have two great boys about the house when you should be focusing all your attentions on him . Therefore there is little chance of you receiving such support from any new husband, he must imagine.’

‘That was the implication; I could not miss it, though I’m sure he didn’t mean it to be even slightly flattering, since he dislikes me so. But it’s not true of you, is it?’

‘No. No, my dear, it isn’t. So it is a little unfair of you to accuse me of regarding you in an agricultural light, like some prize cow, when your main reason for considering my offer – perhaps your only one – is to keep Ned and Robin safe from my brother.

It seems we have both of us been reduced to a rather primitive level of existence.

We might as well live in a cave and go about dressed in skins – not that Ventris is much better than a cave at present.

But I am sure I shall not care, if you are with me.

I think you’d look rather well in furs and nothing else, like some savage goddess I should worship on my knees. ’

His voice was silky and dangerous, and her body flushed with heat, right to the core of her.

Some savage goddess , indeed, and on his knees .

There was a picture to torment her of a lonely night.

She had a sudden thought that if she accepted him and told him so now, he might consider that there was no time like the present, and reach out and touch her…

more than that. If she told him she wanted a child for herself, she’d almost be inviting his immediate and intimate attentions.

Why wait? The words trembled on her tongue, but she did not utter them, though her whole body was suddenly hot with overwhelming and unwelcome desire.

‘We have been tolerably plain in our discussion,’ he said when she still did not answer him and the silence grew uncomfortably tense between them, with so many things still unspoken on each side.

‘Painfully so, at moments, and yet for a wonder we have not quite fallen to abusing each other. Can it be true that we have a bargain?’

‘I think so,’ she said reluctantly, then realised that for her own pride, she should not allow herself to be swept away so easily. ‘But I will need certain assurances from you, as to your state of health.’

He did blink then, surprised at last. ‘Oh,’ he said slowly. ‘My terrible reputation for indiscriminate amours. Well, this is frank indeed, madam. You realise, of course, that I can give you the assurances you require, but they will only be words, in the very nature of things.’

‘I know that. Nevertheless, I ask for them.’ She saw the distaste on his face and said hotly, ‘You are unfair, sir, to be so squeamish about it. I cannot afford to be so nice. I would risk my life attempting to have a child for you – every woman of childbearing age does, every time she lies down with a man. Men may treat it as a thing of no consequence, but a woman if she is wise does not. I am prepared to take that risk, but I would prefer not to put my life at hazard in any other manner, nor that of any innocent child I may have. I don’t think there’s anything unreasonable about that, so I will not apologise, even if my unladylike frankness does offend you. ’

‘You misunderstand the reason for my reaction,’ he said, his face expressionless and unreadable now.

‘I am never offended by honesty. It was self-disgust, perhaps, that such an assumption might be made about my mode of life. And yet I cannot say that it is entirely unfair in you, given what you must believe you know of me. I do not underestimate the risks you take, my dear, nor the size of the debt I shall owe you even for trying, so let us be plain: I do not have the pox, and I have never had it. I have been far more careful than you or anybody else would care to give me credit for. And recently, I have not… I promise you, that at least you need not fear. And Viola, if we marry, I will be faithful. I swear I will, and it is not just empty words, though I know you have little reason to believe me.’

‘Very well.’ She was proud of the steadiness of her voice. ‘I will take you, then, Ventris.’

‘Shall we perhaps celebrate our betrothal, or seal our agreement, if you prefer to look at it like that?’ That silky, seductive tone in his voice again. He had moved yet closer to her. Why had she said take, of all words she could have chosen?

She looked up at him – she only had to raise her head a little.

‘You are very brave,’ he said, and reached out one well-shaped hand, his fingers lightly caressing her cheek and tracing the full shape of her lips. ‘But I knew that already.’ His touch sent shivers through her, and she had to fight not to close her eyes against the perilous sweetness of it.

It had been so long since she had had any real physical contact save for the boys’ precious and increasingly rare embraces.

At almost eleven, they were already beginning to consider themselves too grown-up for childish cuddles, which cracked her heart.

And she did not even want to think how long it had been since anyone had touched her like this, though she could, if she wished, have tallied it up to the year, the month and the day, even the hour. He was going to kiss her, she knew.

All at once, she could not bear it. ‘No,’ she said, and turned her face away from his hand.

‘You said you would respect any stipulation that I cared to make, and I have made none. Well, here is one. We will be married as soon as it can be arranged, I will live wherever you please as long as the boys are with me, but you shall not kiss me.’

His hand fell to his side. ‘I did say that, didn’t I? How rash of me. But madam, if you find me so repulsive, how are we to go on?’

‘You know it’s not that. It would bring back memories I do not care to have revived, that is all.’

‘Let us be clear, then – apart from that, you place no other restrictions on my… conjugal behaviour?’

Damn him. ‘No.’ She looked him full in the face again, and she knew that if there was longing in her eyes despite everything, he would be able to see it.

‘So I may not kiss your delectable lips, but with your consent, I may throw you down on that sofa there and take you now? For example?’

Trust him to put it into words, when she had only thought it. Her voice was almost level, but not quite. ‘If you wish.’

‘If I wish… Viola, you know I have always wanted you. Whatever else has changed, that has not.’ They were chest to chest now, their bodies almost touching, then touching at last, and their breathing was coming faster. Whatever this was, they both felt it.

The tips of her suddenly aching breasts brushed his coat, and she could feel him pressing hard and insistent against the softness of her belly.

Heat was pooling there, and lower. ‘Well, then, my lord. My fecundity, as you so kindly pointed out, is so prodigious that I could be with child before we were even wed. Today. Now, before you quit this room. Think of the trouble it would save.’

He let out a crack of laughter. ‘I’m not convinced that I want to save that kind of trouble.

If we marry and we time it correctly, for which I depend on you, I will have at the very least a few weeks in your bed before we could be confident of the desired outcome.

Whatever else I may doubt in our immediate future, I do not doubt that there would be a great deal of mutual pleasure in that.

More – and I cannot believe I am saying this when the immediate prospect is so damn tempting – than fucking you hard and fast on a sofa and then leaving you. ’

‘Leaving me, at least, is something you have practice at.’ This was something she had been determined not to say, but it had slipped out.

He reached out again and captured a tear from her lashes, and then, unforgivably, raised it to his lips and tasted it with the tip of his tongue. She had tried so hard not to cry, and he must draw attention to it.

‘I know,’ he murmured. ‘My dear, I do. But it will be the last time I do so, our circumstances being so changed. Soon, you are to be my wife. Mine. And still we have not found a way to seal our bargain. You say we cannot kiss, but a cool handshake will hardly do, I fear.’

Desire was so bound up with anger and regret in her, and with the weight of so many long years of loneliness, loneliness that stretched far back before Edward’s death, that she could not answer him.

She wished he had put her over the sofa as he’d said, where she could not see his face nor he hers.

She wished he’d pulled up her skirts and freed himself and taken her.

Fucked her, hard and fast. It would have stopped her, at least for as long as it lasted, from thinking . From remembering.

Their eyes locked.

He put his hands upon her waist, where her stays ended.

She knew he could feel that; through the material of the gown and petticoats that covered her, his thumb traced the line where the stiffened fabric of her corset met her soft, warm flesh, with only one layer beneath it: her fine lawn shift, covering her belly. Her thighs. Her core.

His touch was irresistible, despite everything. ‘You want to seal our bargain, Richard? Do it, then. Make me forget for a little while. Use your clever fingers and give me a downpayment on all that pleasure you so rashly promised me.’

They were moving before she’d finished speaking.

He backed her against the wall, his strong body pressing her to it, and dragged up her skirts with one efficient movement.

She parted her thighs eagerly and his hand slipped between them, covering her, cupping her sex.

His hand was warm; her body was hotter. She pressed herself against him, urging him on, and his fingers slipped between her lips.

He did not taunt her by telling her how wet she was, how swollen her bud, how ready for him despite all her reservations.

But when he felt it all, he swore and sank to his knees, his hands hard on her thighs.

And as she leaned back against the wall of her private sanctuary and closed her eyes, he began devouring her.

He was not slow or subtle; he ate her with a barely controlled fierceness that had her hoping, while she was still capable of coherent thought, that when he had done with this, he would not be able to prevent himself from unbuttoning himself and taking her, here against this wall, on the sofa or on the floor, she didn’t care which, and spending inside her, even though he’d said he wouldn’t.

That would feel like some sort of victory, to break the iron control it seemed he had over himself, and she did not.

She came with shocking suddenness, biting the pad of her thumb to suppress her moans, but he did not stop, mercilessly prolonging her pleasure, and only when she began to fear that her legs would no longer support her did she put her hand on his forehead and push him away, not trusting herself to speak.

She felt light-headed, sated, and ashamed of herself.

She couldn’t know what he was feeling. Triumphant, perhaps – she did not look for confirmation of it in his face.

He’d got what he’d wanted, her submission, and he knew she was vulnerable to him still.

But then, he’d known that already – or he’d never have written to her.

And then he rose to his feet, kissed her hand and left without a word.