Page 14 of The Earl’s Tempting Ward (Dukes Gone Dirty #2)

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P hilippa was hardly aware of how she got home, only that Benedict’s caring was unbearable.

When had he become such a gentle giant? This wasn’t how he was supposed to be.

But as he made their excuses—as he told his mother he’d send another carriage for her, and bid farewell to his friends—the truth was unavoidable.

He was too damned kind.

The moment she was in the carriage she shook off his firm but gentle helping hand and settled into her seat. It was a churlish gesture, and she knew it.

Benedict did not take the seat across from her. Instead, he forced his large body onto the bench beside her as the carriage jolted into motion, and before she could so much as protest, he dragged her into his lap. His hands were firm on her hips. Even through the thick fabric of her gown she could feel him holding her in place.

She forced herself to sit upright, ignoring the comfort his body was offering as the carriage rocked and jerked its way down the cobblestone street toward Benedict’s townhome.

Silence filled the small space as she waited for the questions to begin.

One cannot simply admit to murdering one’s parents without expecting a whole host of questions.

But Benedict stayed just as silent as she, though his gaze never left her profile. She could feel the heat of his stare as she kept her eyes trained on the darkness outside the carriage window.

Once home, the excruciating kindness continued as Benedict dispatched of the servants, telling them their services would not be needed that night.

Perhaps she ought to be embarrassed as he led her up the stairs to her bedroom. They must know who would be helping her to undress. Who would be in her room tonight.

But she couldn’t bring herself to be embarrassed. This hollow feeling inside of her persisted.

He did not stop at her door, instead guiding her by the arm to continue down the hallway, not stopping until they reached his bedroom door.

“You’ll stay here tonight,” he said, finally breaking the lengthy silence between them to issue this one command.

She nodded, some part of her already resigned to what was to come. But she didn’t fight it, not even when his touch made her want to scream as he slowly unfastened her gown, as he gently tugged the pins free from her hair.

He did not stop until she was sheathed in nothing but her chemise and stockings, her hair long and loose around her shoulders.

Cupping her face in his hands, he leaned down until his nose grazed hers. “So beautiful,” he murmured against her lips.

She opened for him, craving the taste of him even as the rest of her slumbered in a numb state that ought to be terrifying.

But it wasn’t. It was a relief. It was a temporary stay, and she meant to enjoy it. So she kissed him back slowly, letting his lips guide her as she learned what he liked. What she liked.

It was nothing like the messy, passionate, dirty affair back in the garden. This slow kiss, the way he’d so gently disrobed her…

This was what it would have been like if she truly were an innocent, and this her wedding night. She lost all sense of time as his lips moved with hers, teasing and claiming, nipping and caressing. Her mind was a blissful blank when he broke the kiss briefly to scoop her up into his arms, cradling her tight as he took her over to the bed.

He set her down so gently, as if she were made of glass and might shatter in his hands.

His tenderness was too much. Tears welled in her eyes as he sank down onto the mattress beside her. He saw the tears. Of course he did. When it came to her, she was certain there was nothing this man did not see.

But rather than pester her with questions or demand explanations, he kissed her tears away, making her breath hitch as his body came over hers, blocking out the rest of the room…the rest of the world.

With seemingly endless patience, he kissed her cheeks, her jaw, her neck, her eyelids. Such light kisses for a man so big and strong.

His scars were a reassurance whenever they brushed her skin. With her eyes shut, they were a calling card, a reminder. He’s been through pain too. He knew grief. He understood guilt.

Not the same though. This much she knew. He might have his share of regrets, but it was not the same.

But for now…for tonight…

It was enough.

And when he slid over her, his body a solid, grounding weight that made her sink into the mattress as a delicious heat curled through her veins…

That was more than enough. It was everything.

The world came down to his touch. Her mind was set free as sensations took over. It was all so very different from the night before. There were no secrets and no lies. There was no punishment and no deceit, no taunts and no commands.

There were gasps and moans as his rough, scarred chest moved over the tender skin of her breasts. The sound of her own labored breathing filled her ears as his mouth explored every inch of her, leisurely and with the utmost care.

She watched the shadows from the candlelight flicker on the ceiling above as he tasted her again like he had out in the garden earlier. But this time he was so very gentle that she thought she might scream.

In the end she did scream when he slid his fingers inside her as he sucked on that hard nub and made her shatter, leaving the harsh world far behind as a giddy, intoxicating joy flooded her body from head to toe.

Only then did he move up, covering her again with his body—a hot, weighty sensation that made her heart ache in her chest for no reason she could explain except that it made her feel safe in a way she hadn’t since…since she couldn’t remember when.

His body was so large that he swallowed her up as he loomed over her, and when he fitted himself between her thighs, that hard shaft nudging at her core, her eyes fluttered shut and her lips parted in ecstasy. The feel of it was so very right, so very comforting.

She felt cherished and protected, and when his hard length pushed inside of her, she clung to him, wanting him even closer still. Needing him inside of her and around her.

She wanted to be consumed by him because that was the only time she felt sane and whole and…loved.

A gasp slipped out at the thought, but Benedict swallowed the sound with a kiss that soothed her.

She pushed the thought aside and focused on this feeling instead, let herself drown in the sensation of him inside her, filling her up so completely it came just short of pain. Of him surrounding her so thoroughly that her every sense was filled with him, from his clean, masculine scent to the rough, hot touch of his skin.

His movements were slow and even as he thrust in and out. There was no rush, no urgency as they reveled in the feel of it. If anything, she suspected he was drawing it out, stopping when one of them came too close to climaxing until she thought she might scream with the need to find a release.

Finally, when they were both covered in sweat, when her hips arched jerky and frantic, only then did he finally give her what she craved. What she needed. He lifted her knees, his gaze locked on hers as he drove inside of her, finding that spot that made her gasp and stroking it over and over until she tossed her head back with a cry.

He groaned a short time after, his seed spurting inside of her as he tensed all over. And when he was done, he pulled out slowly and dragged her into his arms.

With her back to his chest, she could feel his scars as well as his heartbeat as he nuzzled the back of her neck, so gently she giggled. “That tickles,” she whispered.

She could feel his smile against her shoulder.

Philippa wasn’t certain how much time passed like that as she drifted between this blissful satiated state and a light sleep. It was heaven on earth.

Which meant she should have known it couldn’t last.

“You’ll have to tell me eventually, you know,” he said.

He didn’t sound angry. Not even impatient or frustrated. His hand stroked her hip when she tensed and soon he was stroking her like a kitten.

She had to resist the urge to purr as she pushed back against him, eager for more.

He stroked her until every muscle was loose and languid, and she found that delicious place again between heaven and sleep.

The candles had flickered out and she stared into the dark with heavy-lidded eyes. He was so quiet, it was only the soft, consistent movement of his hand on her skin that made it clear he had not drifted off.

And without any prompting, without a single question, she found herself talking, the sordid tale falling from her lips like it was someone else’s story. Like it was someone else’s life.

“I’ve never been a good girl,” she started.

His hand stilled, but after a heartbeat he resumed the soft, rhythmic caress. She focused on that, on the touch of his scarred hand against her skin as the words came out as if they’d been there all along just waiting to be freed.

“I don’t know why. It’s not like I didn’t try. I wanted to be good. I wanted to please my mother and to make my father proud. But no matter how hard I tried, I was always trouble.”

He didn’t speak but he shifted even closer until every inch of her was pressed against him, like he could take on her pain by sheer proximity.

“If I hadn’t been baptized, my father likely would have blamed my bad behavior on an evil spirit. As it was, he believed there to be something wrong with me.”

His grip tightened on her hip for a heartbeat and she heard his hard swallow.

She took a deep breath and let it out with a sigh, her mind already going backwards in time until it was all there, fresh in her mind. “My mother tried her best to teach me how to be a proper young lady so that one day I might fit into English society. That was always her dream for me, you know. Ever since she’d gone to that finishing school with your mother, she’d dreamt that I might marry into the ton .” She shook her head. She’d lost focus. “So my mother was not to blame for my bad behavior, and my father tried his best to beat it out of me?—”

She stopped when he went rigid behind her. But, like he knew she wouldn’t continue if he were to speak, he got control over himself and went back to the hypnotic caressing, though she could feel his heart pounding hard.

Once again, she changed tact. Her parents weren’t to blame. These were her sins she was confessing. “I’d always loved to ride. Being in the stables with the horses or riding bareback out in the woods behind our property, those were the only times I felt free.” She took a deep breath. “I fell in love with the stable boy.”

Now he didn’t just still, he stopped breathing and his every muscle turned to stone.

But he did not speak, and she forced herself to hurry on, unable to hide the bitterness in her tone. “At least, I thought it was love at the time. I thought he understood me. I thought he was my salvation. I would flee the stifling tension in my house and seek him out in the stables and…” She trailed off. “Anyway, I was wrong.”

Benedict’s hand wrapped around her waist and squeezed.

“He did not love me. He only wanted what he thought I would give freely because word had spread, of course, that I was a wicked, wicked girl. My father found these salacious, lewd books I’d stolen, you see…” She swallowed hard. It didn’t matter. “What I thought was love and romance was merely seduction. You see, I wasn’t quite as wanton back then. I was curious and smitten, and I let him touch me. But as you know, I’m a nasty tease. That was what he called me eventually. Just a wicked, nasty tease.”

Even she could hear the jaded, harsh note in her voice and she cleared her throat.

“So you see, I thought I was in love but I was a fool.” That was the long and short of it. “My father discovered that we’d been meeting in secret, and he was furious, of course.”

She tried to calm her racing heart, to even out her unsteady breathing as the memories of his rage surfaced, the way he’d smacked her and tossed her to the ground. Her mother hadn’t even tried to intervene as he’d raged about her evil nature and how it needed to be beaten out of her.

She hadn’t tried to protest either because…she’d known that perhaps he was right. “I realized then that there was no fixing me. There was no cure for my wickedness.”

His breathing was short and choppy in her ear. He sounded like he was trying for calm too.

“I ran away,” she said. “Or…or I tried to.”

She had to swallow twice to get the next part out. “I thought he would run with me. The stable boy, I mean. I hadn’t realized yet that there were no real feelings there, just a game on his part to get between my legs. I thought…I thought we were in it together, so to speak.”

Benedict’s hand was a reassuring weight, holding her still and letting her know she was here, now. Not back in the past.

“But when I showed up at the stables, weeping and talking of fleeing my family, he laughed at me and told me quite plainly what he’d been after and what he thought of me.”

A growl slipped out of Benedict, and she had the ridiculous urge to soothe him so she added, “It wasn’t really his fault. I was the fool for having such childish, romantic notions. I should have known better.”

He didn’t argue, but she could feel tension radiating from his too-still body behind her.

“I left without him, but he must have told my father where I was going. In hindsight, I realized that of course he would do whatever he could to regain some favor with my father. He’d need a reference, after all, to find another job and?—”

“Philippa, love,” Benedict interrupted her babbling. He kissed the back of her head and then her temple.

You’re here , his touch seemed to say. You’re safe.

She took a deep, shaky breath. “My parents followed in my wake. My father must have been furious, and no doubt my mother wished to come along to try and spare me the worst of his anger.” She stopped to swallow. “It was raining. The roads in our part were slick and dangerous even during the best weather. The bridge was flooded, a fact I knew but I made my horse keep going all the same.” Her breathing was growing too short and uneven. “I knew they were behind me. I knew my father wouldn’t stop chasing me just because of some water. Nothing could stop my father when he was in a temper.”

She stopped, her heart beating so loudly she could barely hear her own voice. “I led them straight into danger and…and then…and then…”

She couldn’t say it.

She had to say it.

“I led them straight to their death.”

The words rang in the air, echoing back to her. For the first time since that night, she wept. She sobbed, mourning at all that had been lost in an instant. Grieving for the wicked girl she’d been before, and the cruel woman she’d become.

“I tried to save them,” she said. “But I couldn’t. I killed them.” She repeated it in her sobs, so many times she must have sounded like a lunatic.

But Benedict kept holding her, tighter and tighter each time she said it. Like he could make it untrue by sheer force.

And then he was turning her over, kissing her tears away again, but this time with urgent, harsh kisses. And in between he was growling all the words she’d wanted to hear these past years.

It’s not your fault. You were not to blame. It was an accident.

Such sweet, kind, wonderful words. Such tempting thoughts. It all sounded so nice. Reasonable, even, when it came from a man so commanding as he.

He had a way of making everything sound so true and right. His word was law, and he would not let her take the blame.

Benedict was offering her redemption.

“I understand, love,” he whispered. “I know what it is to feel guilt. But it was an accident. You cannot blame yourself for something out of your control.”

She nodded against his chest as he stroked her hair until sleep threatened to draw her under.

She understood what he was saying, and even how he’d felt the same with his own tragedy.

But it wasn’t the same. He’d been negligent in bringing that woman into their home. But there was no way he could have foreseen what would happen. He’d been careless and unthinking, but that was not the same.

She’d known she was leading them into danger. She’d had that wild sensation coursing through her and she’d known that she was tempting fate.

It was her own life she’d thought she was risking as she rode her horse at a breakneck speed along sharp curves and over that flooded bridge. It was her own life she’d meant to threaten, but it was her parents who paid for her reckless, unthinking, selfish ways that night.

She put her hand over his as he curled his body around her, his arm a weight around her waist. Her heart ached with tenderness for this man who thought he could save her from the hell she’d created.

But he couldn’t.

Benedict deserved a second chance. A new beginning.

There was no redemption for her.