Page 30 of To Defend a Damaged Duke (Regency Rossingley #2)
A thrill ran through Tommy’s veins. “As long as that eagle-eyed woman isn’t following me, yes. My head feels like a bouncing ball.”
“You have my sympathies,” the duke commiserated. “Beatrice has that effect on most men. It’s a deliberate ploy to ensure she maintains her spinsterhood.”
“She’s…ah…at no risk of having that purloined by me.”
Tommy looked up to where Benedict casually leaned against an old stone wall, dappled in clouded moonlight and hidden from anyone glancing out from the terrace. A half-empty glass of claret hung from one of his hands, the other tucked in his pocket. Tommy suddenly found himself grinning.
“You know,” Benedict observed, casting his gaze around. “This spot was created for a lover’s tryst.”
Breathing in the cold night air, Tommy took up a position next to him, then rested his head back against the cool stone. “Yes, it is perfect for a romantic rendezvous.”
“I am famous for contriving them.” Benedict laughed. “In my own head, at least. There, I have dreamed up thousands. In reality, this is the first.”
Tommy twisted to look up at him. His handsomeness stole the words from Tommy’s mouth. He couldn’t understand why every woman in the place didn’t find themselves similarly mute. Or maybe they did, but the duke was oblivious. “You were loitering here in hope?”
With a swallow of wine, Benedict shook his head before passing the glass to Tommy.
“Truthfully? No, though I could be persuaded.” He took a deep inhale of the cool night air.
“I came out here to escape. I’ve gallivanted around that damned ballroom so many times with so many different partners, I’ve made myself seasick.
He wiped his fingers across his brow. “Not to mention I’m baptised in my own sweat. ”
With a chuckle, Tommy handed back the glass. “You are becoming less romantic by the minute, Your Grace.”
“I’ll happily drown in a bath of everyone’s sweat if all this dancing and coquetry prevents Lyndon tarnishing our family name, allowing Francis to marry Isabella.” Benedict let out a long sigh. “Though it’s damned hard work.”
“Be cheered that it appears to be having some impression. In the receiving room, I overheard one matron discussing you and Mrs de Villiers in a suitably scandalised voice. To which her companion remarked—disapprovingly—that you had also been paying close attention to Lady Wardholme. Which was courageous of you.”
“The woman is terrifying. She has an extra, hidden set of hands especially reserved for the polka.” Benedict’s own warm fingers slipped between Tommy’s. “My courage should be rewarded, should it not?” His voice was barely above a whisper. “Perhaps a reward of the romantic tryst variety?”
The duke’s lips were soft, cool, and moist. He tasted of claret and smelled of fresh rainfall. As his strong arms looped around Tommy, Tommy hungrily sank into the kiss.
“You called me by my name,” whispered the duke around his mouth. “Benedict. You said it once. Like a sigh. As you spilled into my hand. I shall never forget the sound of it.”
Anything more than this single hurried kiss was fraught with danger. Even that was foolhardy.
“And I fear I shall do both again if you kiss me like that,” Tommy answered, “and insist on laying your hands there.”
With a final lick of his tongue into Benedict’s sweet mouth, Tommy groaned and pulled away.
He halted the path of the duke’s hand, trailing down his belly, by bringing it up to his lips.
“We must go,” he urged. “Your absence will soon be noted, seeing as you are cutting such a swathe through the ballroom.”
“You are right. But this snatched moment is not enough.” Benedict squeezed his hand, bringing it to his lips. “You…we have much time to make up.” He hesitated, his eyes twin bright spots in the dark. “If that is something you want too? After…after everything?”
“Yes,” Tommy breathed. “Yes.”
Benedict smiled his slow, wary smile, the one that melted Tommy’s bones. The one Tommy had believed lost to him forever, set in amber for all time, perfectly stored. The smile of the youth—of Tommy’s lost lordling, innocent and shy and so damned sweet, perfuming the very air Tommy breathed.
Tommy returned it with his own exceptionally ordinary one. “I find I can deny you nothing, Benedict .”
“Aah,” Benedict kissed each knuckle. “I like how that sounds on your tongue.”
The doors to the terrace were flung wide. As chatter drifted across the garden, the duke peered over Tommy’s shoulder.
“Listen,” he said urgently. “I have a small hunting lodge, only a two-hour ride southwest from here. Ordinarily, one doesn’t visit until the Glorious Twelfth, but it is not unheard of for me to drop by after a long hack.
To be hacking with a gentleman friend would not be so peculiar.
We could ride out there tomorrow if you…
I could send a groom on ahead with a message to set fires, to ready the house, to do ah…
whatever is entailed before my arrival. My household comes from the village each day—they do not stay overnight.
We…we would be quite alone. Or if tomorrow doesn’t suit, then perhaps a weeks’ hence. Or even a month, two months. A year!”
After that hurried, long speech, the duke sucked in a deep breath. “Say yes?” he pleaded.
A shiver swept through Tommy at the picture Benedict painted of dark wood-panelled rooms, a log fire, cosy nooks, a private bedchamber.
Of the duke’s long, solid body laid out under him, on top of him, wrapped around him with no one but Tommy within miles to hear that gut-wrenching tiny noise he made in the back of his throat just before he—
“I have business engagements tomorrow which can’t be postponed,” Tommy said, and when the duke’s face fell, quickly added, “But the day after, then, yes.”