Duke of Lust (Sinful Dukes #3)

Chapter 25

CHAPTER 25

“ W itmore! Send immediately to bring Reverend Lewis here. I must arrange a wedding as soon as the license is in my hands…”

“Your Grace?"

“…Use the hired carriage outside – I don’t want that driver seen on the London road before sundown and he has been paid accordingly. Let Geraldson return, but keep the gates closed and set footmen to guard against intruders."

“Your Grace?!”

“…In the meantime, we are not to be disturbed, by anyone.”

“Why, yes…yes, Your Grace, but…yes, Your Grace,” stuttered the usually imperturbable butler in response to this volley of commands barked by Frederick while marching up the steps and into Heartwick Hall with Annabelle at his side in her slightly disordered wedding outfit, skin flushed and gold-red curls now tumbling about her shoulders after their embraces on the road.

This was certainly not a scene that Heartwick Hall’s staff had anticipated when the morose young duke and his stepmother had left for London that morning to attend a small society wedding.

“Do you understand?” Frederick added crisply, jogging Witmore from a temporary inertia just inside the front door.

The butler had paused only through confusion rather than disobedience, his steady mind struggling to make sense of what was happening. The Duke of Heartwick’s face and tone were firm, however, and not to be questioned today. Witmore and other staff quickly jumped to obey their orders and Frederick paid them no further attention, his focus returning entirely to Annabelle once the necessary wheels were set in motion.

“Come, my love,” he said and led her towards the staircase. “It is our time now.”

Annabelle held tightly to Frederick’s arm as they ascended the stairs. Her cheeks were burning and she did not let herself look at any of the servants she knew must be watching them walk so brazenly towards the duke’s suite. Despite her own desire and determination, she quavered a little inside at the thought of what they were about to do.

It might have been her supposed wedding day, but Annabelle had not woken up expecting that she would actually be deflowered today. Married to Oswald, she had, in fact, imagined that she might even remain a virgin forever, despite the fact he had made it clear that he would not object to her taking lovers.

Now, however, with Frederick beside her, his arm possessively about her waist and his breathing already audible to her, events were set on an entirely different course.

At the corridor leading to his suite, Frederick swept Annabelle up into his arms and kissed her long and lovingly as she squeaked with anticipation.

“My Annabelle,” he marveled again, as though he still could not believe she was there with him, carrying her into his bedroom and kicking the door closed. “Always my Annabelle.”

Setting her down, the duke locked his bedroom door and tossed his jacket aside while meeting her eye, his fingers already unfastening his waistcoat.

Annabelle reflected briefly that she loved gazing on Frederick particularly in this mood, fired up and full of distinctly male energy, the sensual spark in his gaze setting her ablaze in turn. Still, today would be different to the previous times she had observed him in this state. Today she would finally see the natural conclusion of their mutual attraction.

“Frederick,” Annabelle said a little unsteadily and held out her hands to him.

Understanding her need for closeness, Frederick came to her and held her against his torso, hands stroking her hair and her back under the silk dress, although also investigating its buttons and tapes as he did so. Annabelle put her hands on his chest beneath the hanging waistcoat and felt his heat and pulse through his shirt before she pulled it out from his waistband, seeking the bare skin beneath.

“Today we shall both be naked,” he whispered into her ear, “except for your stockings and the flowers in your hair. That is how I wish to take you.”

“Yes,” she said breathlessly and followed his lead in kicking off her shoes.

Frederick’s shirt and waistcoat soon followed his jacket and he lost no time in lowering Annabelle’s wedding dress to her waist, breathing hard at the sight and then the sensation of her breasts once more in his hands. Annabelle heard her own moaning as he fondled those pale globes, saying ‘yes’ again and again with the rhythmic, throbbing sensations he was arousing in her.

She ran her own fingers over his shoulders, his arms and his chest, fascinated and aroused by the muscles, the faint golden hairs and the hungry but purposeful way he touched her.

“This is our altar,” Frederick said with a distracted smile, gesturing to the bed, and these kisses are our vows.”

He kissed her again as he unfastened the rest of her dress and pushed it to the floor, Annabelle shrugging off her own underskirts to join it.

“Yes, yes, and yes,” she told him and reached for his waistband, her still inexperienced fingers welcoming his assistance a few moments later.

At last, they finally stood naked before one another and Annabelle’s mouth ran dry at the sight. Frederick was as cleanly sculpted as a classical statue, although the substantial shaft now rearing from golden hair between his thighs marked him distinctly as a real human man rather than a neutered museum piece.

Just as wondrous to her as the vision of Frederick’s body was his gaze on her own form with a matching intensity of fascination. At this moment, she finally and truthfully felt beautiful. If a man this handsome and desirable believed it so, how could Annabelle disagree?

Her womanhood throbbed fitfully as Frederick picked her up again in his strong arms and carried her over to the bed, pulling the covers down and laying her on the sheets.

“It may hurt a little the first time,” he warned Annabelle between kisses as he joined her. “But I will try to give you enough pleasure that I hope you will soon forget any temporary discomfort.”

“I know you will,” Annabelle gasped, her body already tingling and longing for more as his hands slowly stroked every limb and curve. “Oh God, Frederick. I want you, I want you…”

“Such beautiful breasts,” he said hoarsely as he suckled and squeezed them, Annabelle arching to his touch and finding he had already placed himself between her thighs.

Frederick stroked Annabelle’s legs wider apart as she writhed and moaned helplessly, but it was his lips, not his male organ that caressed the soft skin of her inner thighs a moment later.

“First this,” he murmured, his hands holding her silk-stockinged thighs in position as he pressed a kiss into the soft, wet red-gold fur of her womanhood.

Then Frederick’s tongue occupied itself in a non-verbal dance of teasing and slow-building stimulation that had Annabelle screaming his name by its ecstatic conclusion, her entire lower body seeming to contract rhythmically at her peak.

She tasted her own salt on his tongue as he came back up to kiss her, his manhood probing her wet slit at the same time and making her gasp wildly.

“Kiss me,” Frederick urged, lodging the head of his shaft within her, and Annabelle obeyed, kissing him desperately in response to this new and strange sensation.

He proceeded slowly, considerate of her tightness and inexperience despite the animal lust she could see and hear upon him. Still, his organ was large and Annabelle’s body untried in sexual congress. At the halfway point, she gasped and bit her lip as something gave and then Frederick was sliding all the way inside her, finally filling her to the hilt.

“My love,” he groaned, swirling his hips as he held himself deep in her slit. “My Annabelle.”

She clung to Frederick with little whimpering moans as she grew accustomed to his penetration. Meanwhile, he continued the barely-moving rocking motion he had begun and captured her mouth for his kisses in between her gasps.

Very gradually the thrusts of his shaft became longer and deeper, stimulating and exciting Annabelle just as much as the rhythmic pressure of his body rubbing at her Mount of Venus. She had no coherent words left and could only kiss Frederick and squeeze the hands entwined with her own in order to encourage him to continue, feeling that if he stopped she might die or go mad.

Fortunately, Frederick seemed to have full understanding of Annabelle’s needs as well as his own. It was only when her sounds grew frenzied and more helpless again, and her body clasped him with involuntary strength, that he finally let go and thrust into her without restraint. Dizzily, from her second peak of pleasure, Annabelle felt the throbbing of his shaft merging with that of her own intimate places.

“Now you are mine,” Frederick breathed, raising his head after some minutes had passed, his body still a pleasant weight on hers and his organ still within her although not as hard as it had been. “Your children will be mine. No one can gainsay us after this.”

“My husband,” Annabelle responded, caressing his face with a smile of pure happiness as Frederick nodded.

From being the saddest day of her life, Annabelle now marked this as the happiest. Frederick took her twice more in the next hour, slow and careful but thorough in his attentions, making her cry out repeatedly with pleasure despite the initial sting of her induction to full womanhood.

“I should dress,” Frederick said regretfully at last as they lay entwined, his eyes glancing at the clock on a shelf nearby. “If Reverend Lewis should arrive, I must be ready to receive him. You may stay here and rest if you wish, my Annabelle. We have worked you very hard this afternoon.”

She shook her head and sat up alongside him.

“We face the world together now,” she said with a certainty she also felt in her heart.

Even so, when Annabelle stood, the unfamiliar wetness of her thighs made her look around and survey the mess of the sheets with dismay. The evidence of their congress was unmistakable in the copious deposits of seed streaked slightly with the blood of her maidenhead. The flowers from her hair now lay scattered across the pillows, tumbled but fragrant

Every servant who did not already know that the Duke of Heartwick had taken Lady Annabelle Elkins to his bed certainly would as soon as these sheets reached the laundry.

“Do not worry about that,” Frederick assured her, his arms warm and strong about her body again. “Everything is as it should be. We should not need such evidence as our bed but it only strengthens our hand.”

With a deep breath, Annabelle nodded and they both began to dress. While putting on the same clothes they had arrived in, she now felt as though they had become slightly different people inside them. Without needing to be asked, Frederick helped to refasten her dress, and she managed to close the waistband of his trousers without assistance, making him smile and kiss her tenderly.

Hand in hand, they descended the stairs to find Witmore pacing the hallway with agitation.

“What is it, Witmore?” Frederick asked directly. “What has happened?”

“I am sorry, Your Grace. Her Grace brought him in. I could not prevent it.”

Annabelle and Frederick shared a wary glance but then nodded with shared determination.

“Is Lord Emberly in the drawing room, Witmore?” she asked with a calm that surprised herself.

“Yes, Your Ladyship. With Her Grace, Duchess Sarah.”