When the Duke Returns Read online

  “It’s all right,” she said.

  “I want you. Desperately.”

  “Oh.” He was making her feel embarrassed now.

  “I’m not good at talking.” When he moved it was so sudden that she didn’t even know what was happening until she felt the bedcover at her back, and he reared over her, gently pulling her bodice apart.

  It occurred to her that she was supposed to squeal with fright but instead she arched her back so that he could pull off her sleeves. The muscles in his shoulder bunched as he gently untied her chemise and pulled it over her head.

  “What should we do next?” she asked. He seemed to know. He lowered his long body on top of her, balanced on his elbows.

  Isidore gulped. “Aren’t you going to—”

  But he was kissing her, deep boneless kisses, the kind that made her wind her arms around his neck, and pull his body down onto hers.

  Her hands slid down his back and onto his bottom, curved over warm muscles, slipped between his legs. “You—” His voice was pained. He arched his back. “Oh God, Isidore, that feels so good.”

  She started laughing and his mouth came down on hers with desperation. And then he pressed against her. It was extremely odd. Like a door opening, Isidore thought. First there was only herself, and then somehow there was room enough for him as well.

  He made a rough sound, low in his throat and pressed deeper. Isidore waited for the pain that was supposed to come, but nothing happened.

  Well, that was good.

  He pulled back and then thrust forward again.

  It felt good. It did. Well, perhaps it didn’t feel that good. There was a little pulling feeling that she didn’t care for all that much. Isidore tried to push away that disloyal thought. He was supposed to do whatever, and she could just do what she wished. And what she wished was to touch him.

  Stroking his back felt like nothing she’d experienced before. It was all rippling muscle, ridges and curves that moved under her fingers as he—

  He did that thrusting thing.

  The truth was, she didn’t really care for it all that much.

  But he did. That was the wonderful thing about it—there wasn’t an ounce of composure about Simeon now, nothing of the controlled man. His face was alive with pleasure. She ran her hands over his cheekbones and he thrust forward so hard that she actually gasped and raised her knees.

  Which felt better, for some reason.

  He made another sound in his throat, as if he were dying, and that made her smile. “Isidore,” he said. “Are you—are you—”

  “Yes?” she said helpfully.

  “I can’t control myself much longer.” His voice sound dark and anguished.

  No wonder women love bedroom activities. “That’s just as it ought to be,” she cooed. Every time she moved, he gasped, so she arched her back again. It felt better that way for her as well. If she moved, he lost control. Which was exactly what she wanted, Isidore thought. He pulled back and gripped her hips so hard that it was going to leave bruises, pulled her up and toward him. He was definitely out of control.

  Simeon’s head was roaring, his body rejoicing in a rhythm that he felt as if he’d known for years. It was like a glorious race. It was pure physical joy. Isidore’s body was soft, warm, wet—

  He couldn’t wait much longer. And yet it was like seeing the finish line and not wanting to reach it. He didn’t want to come.

  He didn’t want—

  Pleasure was roaring in his legs, and Isidore was meeting him now, raising her hips in a way that made him want to bite her on the collarbone, act like a rampaging beast.

  His vision was almost black by the time he let himself go, wild and fierce. He thrust forward, dimly hearing the bed frame pound the cottage wall, dimly sensing Isidore’s little laugh, dimly—

  He was outside himself. The smell of Isidore and her curvy little body, her laugh, the sound of her voice, the way she touched him without fear and without shame, took him to another place.

  He threw his head back and roared like a man who was never quiet, like a lion claiming his mate.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  The Dower House

  March 3, 1784

  Simeon came back into his body very slowly. Valamksepa used to talk about a noncorporeal experience that fasting monks experienced. Simeon never thought it sounded like an appealing prospect, but he might have to rethink that naïve supposition.

  He was covered with sweat, panting as if he’d had a long run, and happier than he’d been in years. Isidore had her eyes closed, so he drank her in: the slightly exotic tilt of her eyes, her little nose, her creamy skin. She was exquisite. She was his. She was impulsive and infuriating and all too emotional, but she was his fate.

  There are exquisite aspects to surrendering to one’s fate.

  “Did it hurt, Isidore?” he asked, suddenly remembering that she too had been a virgin, and rolling off her body.

  She opened her eyes. “No, not at all. Did it hurt for you?”

  “No, but no one says that it ought to.”

  “It was not terribly uncomfortable,” she said, coming up on her elbows and peering down her body.

  He followed her eyes. She had the most curvy, creamy body that he could have imagined.

  “No blood,” she said relievedly, flopping back down again. “A few bruises on my hips. So what did you think?”

  Simeon had never been very good at explaining things. How could he explain a rush of pleasure so acute that it felt as if his skin were alive, as if he knew her body as well as his own, as if he was seeing the world in color after being blind?

  “I liked it,” Isidore continued.

  That was good. Simeon lay back because if he didn’t stop looking at her, he would leap on top of her again. His rod stirred at the thought.

  “It’s not something I would want to do every day,” she continued, “but from what I hear, people don’t do it all that often anyway.”

  Simeon turned his head.

  She was looking at him, rather shyly. “Do you mind that we consummated our marriage, Simeon?”

  It didn’t sound as if Isidore had fallen out of herself while making love to him. In fact, now he thought about it…

  Not that he knew much about women’s bodies. He’d always avoided salacious campfire talk. She didn’t experience great pleasure.

  That was entirely unacceptable.

  Likely she wouldn’t wish to try making love again for a time. That too was unacceptable. He made a plan and implemented it, all in one second.

  “We weren’t very good,” he said, propping himself up on an elbow, ignoring her question.

  She blinked. “We weren’t?”

  “No.”

  “I thought—”

  “We need to work on it. You shouldn’t like to be a failure, would you?”

  She didn’t respond as impulsively as he hoped. “I don’t think I was a failure,” she said. “Nor you either. What were you expecting?”

  “More,” he said, though he wasn’t actually sure there could be anything more than what he’d experienced. “It’s because we’re beginners,” he added hastily.

  “I suppose that could be true,” Isidore said. “What do you think we did wrong? How did it feel for you?”

  “Short,” he said, realizing that was true. “Surely it should take longer than a few minutes.”

  “I don’t know,” Isidore said. “You’re—you’re—” She waved her hand.

  “One of the things that’s odd is that we were so intimate,” Simeon said, realizing he really meant it. “We joined our bodies together, and yet I don’t truly understand your body.”

  “How could you understand it?”

  “Well,” he said, reaching out delicately, “how does it feel to have breasts?”

  She started laughing, a delicious low gust of laughter. “How does it feel? Simeon, do you think that you’re a normal man?”

  “It seems like a logical question to me.
I don’t have anything of that nature standing out from my chest. Are you aware of them all the time? Do you know they’re there?”

  “Do you know that your knees are there all the time?”

  “Only when I use them. But those don’t have any use. That is—”

  “Of course they have use,” she said, sitting up. “I just don’t have a baby to use them yet.”

  “Will you nurse your own children?”

  “My mother nursed me,” Isidore said. “Italian gentlewomen nurse their own children. My mother believed that babies are less likely to survive if they’re given to a wet nurse.”

  Simeon didn’t want to talk about babies. “I just thought,” he said slowly, “that women’s breasts felt good. For example…” He reached out his hand, realizing with a certain remote part of his brain that his fingers were trembling, and cupped the sweet heaviness of her breast. “What does that feel like?”

  “Fine,” she said. “My goodness, it’s strange to think that you can just touch me like that. No one touches me.”

  “But I’m your husband now. In truth and in law.” He let his thumb wander in a little caress.

  “I suppose.”

  “And how does this feel?” He rubbed his thumb over her nipple.

  “Oh—”

  He did it again. “Isidore?”

  She opened her mouth but no words emerged. “I have heard that women find this quite pleasant as well,” Simeon said, feeling more cheerful. He bent his head and put his lips to her breast.

  She cleared her throat. “Simeon, you’re not a child and—”

  His lips closed around her nipple. Children had nothing to do with the way desire coursed through his legs, through his heart.

  Her hand fell from his shoulder onto the bed, boneless. He started suckling her, and her head fell back. Harder, and a muffled little sound hung in the air. His body was rigid, throbbing. But he was in control.

  He pulled back. “See?” he said, talking around the tightness in his throat, the groan that wanted to come out. “We’re not there.”

  She opened her eyes. They were a little dazed, sweet, unfocused.

  “Where?” There was a tremor in her voice.

  Simeon forced himself to roll away, sit up casually. “We don’t know anything about each other’s bodies,” he said over his shoulder. If he looked at her any longer, he’d leap on top of her. “We’ll have to practice.”

  “Practice?” Isidore’s voice was husky and a little irritated. He loved it.

  “Tonight, perhaps.” He pulled on his shirt, still not looking. “If we feel like it.”

  There was a sudden motion and she was sitting up. But the next thing she said was a mile from the husky nymph he was imagining.

  “Simeon!” A shrew would be proud of that squeal. “What did you do?”

  He swung around. “What?”

  She was staring down at her legs. “You—you peed on me!” She swallowed. “In me!”

  “Any blood?” He bent over and peered interestedly.

  “That’s not blood.” She hastily wiped off her leg, and jumped off the bed. A second later she had her chemise over her head. He’d ripped it, so it fell open in the front, but she didn’t seem to notice.

  “It’s not pee. Didn’t anyone tell you about bedding?”

  “My aunt forgot to mention this charming detail.”

  “It’s just a little fluid, carrying my part of a baby.”

  She looked down at her legs, now decently covered.

  “I’ll show you tonight,” he said, pulling on his trousers.

  “Show me what?” she asked suspiciously.

  “How my body works.”

  In the back of his mind, he was thinking about the way she touched his body. Even now her eyes seemed to be drawn to his body, so he slowed his fingers, pulled his trousers up the curve of his arse slower than he needed to.

  “I can demonstrate without making love,” he said casually, meeting her eyes when she finally looked up again. “Since you didn’t find it entirely pleasurable.”

  “Neither did you,” she said defensively.

  “We’ll improve.”

  “Of course,” she said. “Good.”

  “Tonight,” he said, throwing his coat over his shoulder.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  The Dower House

  March 3, 1784

  Tonight? What did he mean by that? Isidore wasn’t at all sure that she wanted to repeat bedding so soon. She felt slightly tender. And she felt odd. Disappointed, which was stupid. Besides, Godfrey was returning from his stay at the vicar’s, which meant that there couldn’t be any marital intimacy. Godfrey would be sleeping in the sitting room of Dower House. She didn’t want anyone in Revels House until the Dead Watch were safely back in London.

  She wandered out for a walk. It was the kind of day that pretends spring has come, even though it hasn’t. The air smelled sweet, and the sun was shining. A blackthorn tree in the garden had already bloomed and was scattering seeds everywhere, like a child feeding birds in a dizzying circle.

  Simeon would be a quite good husband. He was thoughtful and caring. His rueful little smile made her feel meltingly affectionate. He was so lovable when he wasn’t in control, when he admitted that he wasn’t sure what to do next. This afternoon was a perfect example. And he had admitted himself that the whole matrimonial experience wasn’t quite all it could be. In fact, he was devastatingly attractive when he—

  She stopped. It would be easy to love a man who admitted his faults, who threw off his clothes when he realized that he’d embarrassed her. When Simeon was spontaneous, he was irresistible.

  Yet when she was spontaneous, it drove him to distraction. He shouted—and then he kissed. In short, he lost control.

  “Godfrey will be staying in the Dower House, of course,” she told Honeydew on her return. “I am convinced the air is unclean in the main house and he is a growing boy. Besides, we emptied his room of furniture,” she added. “He can sleep in the sitting room.”

  Honeydew didn’t react by so much as a twitch to the news that, apparently, the duke would be sleeping with his wife. Likely Simeon’s eyes would narrow a bit when he heard how she was rearranging his life, but the Middle Way would stop him from making too much of an outcry.

  Pah! That’s what her father would have said. Take the left way, or the right way. The upper way, the lower way…

  She couldn’t help grinning, thinking of his body. The lower way was likely something that no proper English gentleman would take. Yet even thinking about his body made her legs prickle and her breath feel short.

  When he arched over her, his eyes grew smoky and dark. They looked almost anguished.

  She started wondering again what he meant by showing her how his body worked. Worked? She knew how it worked. That part grew stiff.

  His body was long and lean, like a man who could run twenty miles to save his beloved. Like a man who fought off ruffians without even dirtying his hands.

  Yes, she would quite like to know how his body worked. The thought made her smile.

  It was precisely the smile that irritated Simeon during supper. Isidore kept looking at him in a certain way, and before he could stop it, his blood would flare through his body and he would start shaking. Just a little, but still—shaking.

  Shaking!

  The thought of the Middle Way came into his head and he actually pushed it away. It seemed irrelevant when he was with Isidore, with that bubbling joy in her eyes and the way her hair curled so sweetly, and the impudent little way she would glance at him…

  He liked to think that every time she smiled that way, she was thinking about him. Intimately.

  It wasn’t right to contemplate control. Not when Isidore was thinking about something else.

  Besides, it was taking all his control to keep a calm conversation going through dinner. Isidore wasn’t wearing anything like the provocative gown that she wore the last time the three of them dined together
. And he himself had put on breeches rather than his inappropriate trousers. The stockings didn’t seem to bother him so much this time, probably a sign that he was turning into a proper Englishman. But no proper Englishman would be ravished by lust, the way he was. The only thing he wanted was Isidore, warm and sweet under him.

  Honeydew poured lemonade for Godfrey. No wine, even though he threw Simeon an imploring glance.

  Simeon found himself grinding his teeth.

  Couldn’t Godfrey have been housed in the barn? Did Isidore have to be so kind to his little brother? He had—

  He had plans for this evening.

  He shifted in his seat. Surely this was just what Valamksepa talked about. Lust as a poison in the blood, a wild, insurgent storm carrying reason before it. He had no reason. He just wanted her.

  It wasn’t the Middle Way. God knows what kind of way it was. A bad way. He drank his wine and brooded about her breasts. The whole Middle Way concept ignored the fact that a man’s blood went on fire around his wife.

  And Isidore was his wife.

  Surely…

  No.

  At the end of supper he rose, ready to go somewhere. He seemed to have no bed, so he would presumably be housed in the barn with Honeydew.

  But then it became clear that Isidore had different ideas. The meal was over, and before he knew exactly what was happening, she was in front of him, like a little whirlwind of silk and the sweet smell of her skin, saying this, saying that. She put everyone in their place, ordered Honeydew around in the sweetest of ways, directed Godfrey into his bed and he, it seemed, was to accompany her on a stroll through the gardens.

  “It’s a lovely night,” she said, smiling up at him. “The moon is out.”

  She had long eyelashes that curled upward so delicately that they distracted him. “Hmmm,” he said, unable to formulate even a simple sentence.

  A moment later they were strolling down a path. It was actually quite warm in an early spring sort of way.

  “Where shall we go?” Isidore asked. Her voice was bubbling, like a child at a party.

  “For a walk?” he suggested. His mind felt like marmalade. All he wanted to do was drag her behind a tree and cup his hands around her bottom. How could he have made love to her and not spent an hour on each breast? It felt as if those lost moments were mocking him now.