Page 17 of His Runaway Duchess (Regency Wedding Crashers #3)

CHAPTER 17

D aphne took a moment to orient herself. Edward’s room was very different from her own. It was, to her surprise, smaller, and much cozier. The fire crackled and snapped, and there were hardly more candles than there had been in her room when she left. The bed was made, piled with blankets and a long, soft-looking fur over the bottom. A single chair was angled towards the fire, and Edward had clearly been sitting in it before she arrived. A half-drunk glass of brandy sat on a low table beside the chair.

“What are you doing, Daphne?” Edward said, recovering. He was still standing in the doorway, blinking at her. “I was just about to go to sleep.”

“I, too, would like to go to sleep,” she answered grandly. “But I was waiting for you.”

She wanted to sit down, but there was only one armchair, and that clearly belonged to him. Sitting on the edge of the bed was a step too far, she thought.

He raised an eyebrow and closed the door with a slam .

“Oh? And why was that, dearest?”

She rolled her eyes. “It is our wedding night, Edward. We must… you know.”

“No,” he answered, not quite able to keep the amusement from his voice. “I don’t know. Do enlighten me, won’t you? What do you expect from me tonight? Here I thought I had been very clear about the sort of marriage we would have. You agreed to those terms. A verbal agreement is binding, you know.”

“Only if it can be proved.”

“You deny it, then?”

She sighed, setting down the candle on the table beside the brandy and pulling her robe a little tighter around herself.

“I am concerned, Edward, about legal issues.”

He stared at her for a long moment. The silence was absolute.

“Legal issues?” he echoed.

She pursed her lips. The conversation had gone very differently in her mind. Still, there was nothing to be done about that now.

“If our marriage is not… well, not consummated , might it not be invalid?”

Edward folded his arms across his broad chest, leaning back against the closed door.

“That sort of thing,” he said carefully, “is not easy to prove. We aren’t required to flap our used sheets about, showing them to all and sundry in the morning, you know. These are not medieval times, my dear.”

She flushed. “Well, even so. As I said, potential legal issues. It’s worth considering, is it not?”

He stared at her for a long moment. It infuriated her that she could not tell what he was thinking, but then it was likely that nobody could.

“You waited for me,” he said, “even after I told you that our marriage would be one of convenience and we would both retreat to our cold beds each night? I thought I was clear.”

She laced her fingers together, trying to appear as cool and composed as he was. She suspected it was not working.

“And I told you that I wanted companionship, that I did not want to live my life alone.”

Edward took a moment before he spoke. “Then we are at an impasse, My Lady,” he said, his voice soft.

For some reason, this made her angry.

Daphne stomped forward until she was only a few inches away from him, tilting her head back to look him in the eye, breathing fire.

“An impasse ? What is that supposed to mean? I know you desire me, Edward. I know it, and you know that I feel the same. What stops us from being together? I’m not asking you to be a real husband to me. I am not asking for a family, or a sweet, romantic relationship. I don’t expect us to grow old together, sitting by the fire in companionable silence. I am only asking for… well, for this.”

She fell silent after her little speech, a little horrified at her audacity.

Am I really asking a man to bed me? With such fervor? Good heavens. Mama would have an apoplexy if she knew.

Anna would never let me live it down.

Edward was still staring at her, his eyes narrowed.

“Yes,” he said, at last. “What woman would want romance, companionship, and a family? What a nonsensical idea.”

She flushed. “You were the one who told me how things would be.”

Abruptly, he pushed off the door, taking a step forward and closing the distance between them. He would have pressed against her if she hadn’t taken an involuntary step back.

“To be clear,” he drawled, “your only concerns here are legal ones, yes?”

She turned redder than ever, probably resembling a ripe beet at this point.

“Of course,” she managed.

He took another step forward, and she took another step back. She bumped against the newel of his bedpost, but he kept coming, looming over her. If only the wretched man were not so tall .

“So, you’d like our marriage to be official,” he continued, half speaking to himself. “And so we must bed each other for tonight, at least?”

She cleared her throat. “It’s not an unreasonable request.”

“No, but I suspect that you don’t mind making unreasonable requests, my dear Duchess.”

“Stop that.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Stop what?”

“Stop calling me things other than my name. Duchess, My Lady, dearest—all that nonsense. I don’t like pet names. The least you can do is use my name.”

He tilted his head. He was entirely too close now.

The bedpost was digging into the small of Daphne’s back, but if she breathed too deeply, her chest would brush his. It was terrifying and exciting all at once.

There was now a small furrow between Edward’s eyebrows, and she felt the wildest urge to reach up and press it with the pad of her thumb, smoothing it away.

When she felt his fingertips graze the side of her neck, entirely without warning, she jolted.

“Why did you have to come into my life, you wretched minx?” he ground out. “Everything was fine before. And now…” he trailed off.

Daphne swallowed thickly, unable to tear her gaze away from his. Never one to let things lie, she had to speak. Of course.

“And now what?” she prompted.

He grinned, a slow, tired grin that revealed sharp teeth. His fingers ghosted over the front of her throat—an odd but not entirely unpleasant sensation.

“Now, all I can think about is you,” he breathed. “What I want to say to you, what I want to do to you… It’s rather bothersome, I can assure you.”

She swallowed again, and this time he must have been able to trace the movement with his fingers. He lifted his hand, the pad of his thumb swiping across her chin, and then slowly, so slowly across her bottom lip.

Daphne was sure her eyes were as round as teacup saucers, and she was equally sure that she hadn’t breathed for at least a minute.

“Oh,” she managed. It felt woefully inadequate.

Between that heartbeat and the next, everything changed.

Edward swooped down, pressing his lips roughly to hers. Daphne felt the release of desire inside her, powerful enough to make her feel wobbly. She clutched his shoulders for support, and he slid his arms around her waist. His lips were dry, tasting of brandy and salt, and when Daphne caught his lower lip between her teeth—which he had done to her before, and which she had liked a surprising amount—he made a low sound deep in his chest. It made the desire pooling in her gut spike higher, and the pulsing between her legs seemed to intensify.

Abruptly, she found herself lifted off her feet and into his arms. Daphne had assumed, of course, that he was going to stand there, holding her tight, as he had when they were in the pond. And so when she was wrenched away from him and tossed bodily into the air, she let out a surprised, undignified squeak.

She landed on the bed, bouncing once or twice. The fur was smooth against her cheek and her bare legs. It occurred to her that her nightgown had come up around her knees, rather shockingly displaying her calves.

She barely had time to catch her breath before the mattress dipped and Edward crawled over her. He hovered above her, flushed and breathing heavily. Daphne’s hand rose of its own accord, skimming across the sharp line of his jaw.

“You have no idea what you do to me, wretched woman,” he breathed, his voice cracking.

“I thought I told you to call me Daphne,” she responded.

He growled and lunged down to kiss her.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, trying to pull him down towards her, trying to get him to put his weight on her. She wasn’t sure how she knew that it was something she wanted, but she did want it. It felt as though every fiber of her being was singing, wanting him.

Abruptly, he slid out of her grasp, pulling himself further down her body until his chin rested on the center of her sternum. He glanced up at her, his eyes dark with lust, and she reached down impulsively to touch his hair. It fell over his forehead, hiding his eyes, and she smoothed it back.

He opened his mouth as if to say something, but no words came out. Instead, he pressed a kiss to her stomach, through the fabric of the nightgown, and she felt the heat of his lips.

He sank lower, and when he threw her thighs around his shoulders, Daphne realized in a dizzying rush what he meant to do.

“Edward…” she managed, her voice thick, and he glanced up at her.

He pressed a kiss to the inside of her thigh, the prickle of stubble scratching the sensitive skin.

“You might have marched in here and demanded I do my husbandly duties,” he said, his voice as harsh as gravel, “but I won’t force you to do something you don’t wish to. If you want me to stop, Daphne, you only need to say the word.”

She swallowed, trying in vain to get some moisture into her mouth.

“I… I don’t want you to stop.”

He grinned, looking more beastly than she could have imagined.

“I’m glad to hear it.”

When he put his mouth on the junction between her legs, Daphne’s whole body jerked, awestruck. She could not have imagined a sensation like it, and it rippled through her whole being, forcing out all other thoughts. She arched her back without thinking about it, her hands coming down to clutch his broad shoulders and twine in his hair. She could feel his fingertips pressing into the meat of her thighs, little burning circles that she just knew she would feel for hours or perhaps days afterward.

When her climax rushed upon her, she tightened her fingers in his hair reflexively, and he growled deep in his chest. That was thrilling, too.

She was still floating somewhere up against the ceiling when Edward pulled back, wiping his chin with his sleeve and breathing heavily. She blinked up at him, watching him watch her. His breath was ragged, even more so now than before, and she could see the way his arousal strained painfully against the front of his breeches.

This was the moment, then. The moment when he’d lower himself again and push himself into her. Daphne would have been lying before if she claimed not to be nervous about this aspect of marriage—like any overly curious unwed lady, she’d heard horror stories about men and wedding nights—but now she found that the idea of it thrilled her more than she could have imagined.

But then, quite abruptly, Edward turned away, climbing off the bed and walking towards the fire.

“You can go now,” he said shortly.

“You can go now,” Edward said, making sure to keep his back turned.

His arousal was painful and had been for a while, but he reminded himself that he was a grown man and could control his base desires just as well as anybody.

There was a rustling behind him, and when he glanced over his shoulder, he could see that Daphne was sitting up on the bed, staring at him, bewildered.

He had to look away. She was so delightfully flushed, so ruffled and wanton and beautiful that if he’d stared at her for too long, he might have pounced on her again. Her nightgown, which he’d pushed up around her waist to bare acres of smooth white flesh, had come down again, hanging around her knees. Perhaps she’d pulled it down, suddenly self-conscious of her nakedness.

“You want me to leave?” she responded at last, her voice a little hoarse. “Why? I thought you were going to… Well, I don’t know how you’re meant to say it. Finish it all off, I suppose?”

You think I don’t dream of finishing with you, wretched girl? You think I won’t dream of it tonight? You think I won’t dream of you?

Aloud, he only said, “Yes, I think that’s for the best. I’ve done my husbandly duties, have I not? You seemed happy enough. Now I’d like to sleep. We’ve both had a long day. Your maid will come in to wake you in the morning. Her name is Joan, and she tends to panic easily. She’ll worry if you aren’t in bed and probably cry. You can’t sleep here, Daphne.”

He glanced over his shoulder again and saw that the soft look had vanished from her face, replaced by something harder. She scrambled to the edge of the bed, her legs dangling comically high above the floor.

“Very well,” she responded hotly. “I shan’t stay where I’m not welcome.”

She began hunting around on the floor for her slippers, which had been kicked off at some point. One slipper was under the bed, and she pulled it on, hobbling around in search of the other.

“You say that, and yet…” he murmured, smiling wryly to himself.

She located the other slipper and readjusted her robe around her shoulders. He’d expected her to leave immediately, but she came to stand beside him, glaring up at him until he finally glanced down at her.

“I want to revisit the terms of our marriage,” she said.

“No,” he responded shortly.

She clenched her jaw. “I want a proper marriage. I want you to touch me, talk to me, and spend time with me. I want us to share a bed sometimes. I want us to visit London together. I want a connection , Edward, and I’m sure that deep down, you feel the same.”

He averted his gaze. “Oh, you’re sure of it, aren’t you? I admire your confidence.”

She sighed, some of her anger fading away. “Think about it, won’t you? Good night, husband.”

Without waiting for a reply, she left the room, closing the door softly behind her.

Once she was gone, Edward allowed himself to sag forward, resting his forehead against the mantelpiece. The fire was dying down.

Edward, you’re a fool of the highest order.

Legal issues, indeed.