Page 30 of His Arranged Duchess (Regency Wedding Crashers #5)

F rances trotted after Lucien, following him through the cool, quiet hallways around the ballroom. Nobody seemed to have noticed their disappearance.

That’s good. I really hope Lady Quince is not upset. We did make a scene.

She had begun to breathe a little easier, her chest loosening. She wasn’t sure when it had first tightened up, but doubtless it had begun when Nicholas first bumped into her.

Will he really make trouble for me? That dreadful poem… it’s following me around.

She put these thoughts out of her head. Lucien stopped abruptly at a narrow doorway, pushing it open. He gestured for her to step in first.

“It’s a private reading room,” he explained, ducking his head to get through the low doorway. “They were once storage rooms, I believe. The Abbey has rooms just like them, and many people convert them into little rooms for reading and writing when a library is too full and noisy.

Frances glanced around the space. The room was small and square, with no windows, but a candelabra burned in an alcove set in the wall.

A few modest bookshelves lined the walls, a small armchair set beneath.

A small desk was placed against the opposite wall, ideal for writing private letters.

The candelabra filled the room with dancing, yellow light, a stark contrast to the bright wax candles lighting up the ballroom.

Already, Frances could breathe a little better.

“Perhaps you ought to sit down,” Lucien murmured, gesturing to the armchair. She shook her head, pacing across the small space.

“I don’t want to sit.”

“Shall I call for refreshments?”

“No, thank you.”

Lucien narrowed his eyes. He reached behind him, and Frances noticed for the first time that there was a large brass key sticking out of the keyhole. He turned it with a click , then folded his arms and leaned back against the door.

“You are too anxious, Frances.”

“Well, I can hardly help it,” she shot back.

“I would disagree. One’s feelings are not set in stone, after all. You should work not to think of this man. In fact, I forbid you from thinking of Lord Easton at all.”

Frances threw him a glare. “Well, then, you are not to think of pink elephants.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Now, when I said that, tell me truthfully—what did you think about? Was it not a pink elephant?”

Lucien snorted. “You, my girl, are too clever for your own good.”

“I am not your girl , Your Grace .”

He narrowed his eyes. “You are still mine. You are , and if you continue thinking of Lord Easton, you will be punished.”

She stopped her pacing at that, turning to face him.

“ Punished ?”

He took a step towards her. “I think you know exactly what I mean, my dear.”

Frances’s eyes widened. She found that she could not look away as he approached. Her heart hammered, and her chest tightened again, although it was in an entirely different way from what she had experienced before.

“I… I can’t,” she whispered. “What else should I think of?”

He stood in front of her, cupping her cheeks in his broad, warm palms.

“Me,” Lucien said simply.

Then he kissed her. Not on the lips, but gently on the forehead, as he had before. Frances closed her eyes and tilted up her face, expecting a kiss on her lips to come next.

To her surprise, he next kissed each of her temples, and then the tip of her nose, of all places! Following that, he kissed her cheeks, one by one, then pressed his lips to the side of her neck.

It felt divine, warm and gentle and not quite enough .

Frances wanted more. She wanted his lips on hers.

She wanted to feel the quick, thrilling dart of his tongue flicking beyond her lips.

She wanted him to scrape his teeth along the side of her neck—there’d been a scene in The Highwayman like that—and to touch her everywhere, everywhere at once.

And yet Lucien continued with his careful, careful ministrations, soft lips pressing at her throat now. She wondered if he could feel her blood thrumming beneath the skin. Was it warmer than the rest of her throat? Could he sense the vibration?

I feel as though I’m going mad, she thought dizzily, winding her arms around his shoulders and pulling him closer. Her breasts, confined by the tight bodice, pressed against his chest, and the sensation was something strange and alluring all at once.

Touch me, she thought, but Lucien only continued his kisses, now moving his head to nip at her earlobe with exaggerated care. Frances wanted to growl in frustration.

“You must tell me, my dear,” Lucien whispered, lips grazing the shell of her ear. “Tell me what you want.”

It was entirely too much. Frances clapped both of her hands on either side of Lucien’s face, moving his head so that he looked her directly in the eye. He looked startled, to say the least.

“I want you,” she breathed. His eyes widened. “I want you , I want you to touch me. I want you to kiss me. Properly .”

There was a splintered second of silence, not nearly long enough for Frances to worry if she had been too forward, and then he lunged forward, fitting his lips to hers.

It was a rougher kiss than last time, knocking the inside of her lips against her teeth, but Frances did not care.

In fact, it made the insistent desire, the wanting inside her swell.

She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, pulling him tight against her, trying to move her lips and jaw in the same way that he did.

Perhaps kissing is something that takes practice. And he, at least, has had a good deal of practice .

She slid her hand up the nape of his neck, tangling her fingers in his hair. Quite experimentally, Frances gave a very gentle tug. Lucien gave a low growl in his throat, the sound sending goosebumps over her skin.

Does he like it or not? I should like to find out.

And then, without warning, the room was spinning, and Frances found herself hauled up from the ground, clamped tight in Lucien’s arms. Before she could worry about falling, she found herself deposited on the desk, head bumping against the wall behind it.

“Ouch,” she remarked, and Lucien grinned wolfishly, reaching up to cup the back of her head with his hand.

“Have a care, my pretty one. Things might get a little rough.”

Her blood seemed to spark inside her veins.

“What does that mean?”

He chuckled. “You’ll find out quite soon, I think.”

He kissed her again, almost ravenously, as though he were a starving man and she was a succulent roast dinner.

A roast chicken, Frances thought hazily, tilting her head to allow him to kiss beneath her ear. With gravy.

The food metaphor did not really fit their situation, but Frances found that her thoughts were unravelling like a poorly-knit pair of mittens.

There. That metaphor works a little better.

He dipped his head, kissing the space between her collarbones.

For the first time, Frances realized that his hands were spanning her sides, his fingertips pushing at the underside of her breasts.

The idea of being touched there was one that Frances had not often considered, but now she could think of nothing beyond his warm palms and her bare skin.

His hands slid upwards, one moving around to span across her back, the other cupping the curve of one of her breasts. Glancing up and meeting her eye, Lucien pressed a kiss to the small amount of decolletage peeking above the neckline.

She felt as though the breath had been stolen from her lungs.

“I’d love nothing more than to unlace this gown and see you in all your glory,” he whispered, breath gusting warm across her skin, “but we’d never get you laced up again.”

Frances bit her lower lip, suddenly wracked with amusement at the thought of her and Lucien hopping around the little room, both of them half-naked and struggling to get dressed without the help of their servants.

He leaned up to kiss her again, and the familiar rush of desire washed away any amusement.

This time, the kiss lasted only a moment, then Lucien broke away.

“Lean back,” he whispered, voice rasping and hoarse. She obeyed, supporting herself on her elbows. Her legs dangled off the end of the desk, her knees apart, and Lucien stood between them. He placed a hand on each of her knees, gently lifting her layers of skirts and petticoats.

Frances shivered when her knees and calves were bared to the air. It felt odd, being so exposed in that way. Lucien's eyes remained on hers, dark and hungry and missing nothing. If she expressed discomfort, Frances knew, somehow, that he would stop.

He kept going, rucking up her endless layers of clothing around her hips until her legs were bared. Goosebumps broke out over her skin.

Lucien curled one hand around the back of her knee, lifting a little. He ran a fingertip over a small, thin scratch on the inside of her thigh.

“You must have done this when you fell through the staircase at the East Tower,” he remarked reflectively. “You were lucky not to be more hurt.”

“Yes, I was,” Frances breathed. Are we really going to discuss this now?

Lucien leaned forward to kiss her, putting some of his weight against her. It was not crushing, and there was something pleasant about it. His hand moved up to the join of her legs once again, as she had expected, moving in that torturously slow, delightful manner.

He broke off the kiss soon after, and his hand stopped moving. Frances opened her eyes, faintly confused.

“Lucien? What…oh!”

She broke off when he leaned down and pressed a kiss to the inside of her thigh.

The skin was sensitive and soft there, perhaps even softer than the skin at her throat, and sensations rushed through her quite unrestrained.

There was a scratch of stubble from his cheek, a pleasant counterpoint to the softness of his lips.

Glancing up, Lucien met her gaze only once, and then he put his tongue slowly and deliberately against the core of her.

Frances gasped aloud, remembering only at the last minute to press a hand against her mouth lest they be overheard.