Duke of Lust (Sinful Dukes #3)

Extended Epilogue

Eight Years Later

“Elias, I said no!” shouted Annabelle from the shore of the small lake where the family had been picnicking on a hot August afternoon in the Lake District.

Waving and smiling an infectiously sweet, golden smile, her seven-year-old son continued to swim out towards the island in the middle of the lake. If she scolded him later, he would doubtless claim that he thought his mother had been merely shouting her encouragement.

Susan, the family’s nursemaid, would likely believe the boy, but Elias’s mother knew better. He was far too handsome and charming a child for his own good, and already women were easily falling for him, from Susan and the cook at Heartwick Hall to his two doting grandmothers, Sarah and Dorothy.

Annabelle sighed. It was certainly time that Elias went to school or at least had a male tutor who would not be so easily beguiled. Frederick had promised her that he would investigate the matter, but she wondered if it had been laid aside for the duration of their holiday.

“Frederick!” she called to her husband, who was busy a small distance away, helping their five-year-old daughter, Felicity, climb a tree. “Elias is trying to swim across the lake again, even though I have told him it is not safe without you.”

Peeling Felicity off the tree branch, Frederick jogged quickly to the lakeside and deposited the unhappy child on the sand.

As Annabelle watched, he took off his shirt and trousers before diving into the lake in his drawers and catching up with his errant son in only a few strokes, heading him off from further progress towards deeper and more dangerous waters.

“Father swims very well,” said Felicity proudly. “He swims better than anyone.”

“Yes, he does swim well,” her mother agreed distractedly, swallowing unobtrusively. “Very, very well.”

Annabelle had, in fact, been gazing longingly at Frederick’s physique as much as admiring his strokes. Even after eight years of marriage, the sight of his almost naked body could make her mouth run dry and her breath catch in her throat.

His excellent qualities as an attentive husband and caring father had only strengthened her desire for him over the years. While he had once channeled his considerable energy and limitless desire into the pursuit of many different women, it was now only directed towards his wife, and Annabelle had thrived on it.

“Come into the water,” Frederick shouted, beckoning to Felicity. “I shall give you both a swimming lesson.”

At a nod of assent from Annabelle, the little girl eagerly began discarding her clothes on the sand.

“Shoes too!” Annabelle reminded her with a laugh.

Not fond of swimming herself, she stood there contentedly, watching the other three members of her family playing together in the shallows, their laughter drifting back to her and making her smile.

The sunlight glinted on their hair as she watched them, from Frederick’s pure gold to Felicity’s red-gold and Elias’s unruly curls somewhere in between the two.

When she noticed the children beginning to lag, Annabelle readied the towels on the shore and glanced back at the path towards the house they had rented for their August holiday. A small wagon was trundling in the direction of the lake, hopefully bearing Susan so she could take both children back to bed, leaving Annabelle and Frederick to their own devices for a while.

“Did you see me swim, Mother?” Elias asked excitedly. “I swam farther than ever before.”

“Yes, I was very impressed, but you must not swim so far without your father, Elias.”

“I forgot,” the boy claimed guiltily.

“Do not forget again,” said Frederick sternly, but also dropped a kiss on his son’s head. “We shall have another swimming lesson tomorrow, Elias, as long as you are good and do as your mother and Susan tell you.”

Elias grinned and nodded, full of good intentions as he snuggled onto his mother’s lap, wrapped in the same large towel as his yawning little sister.

“I swam too, Mother,” said Felicity sleepily.

“I saw both of you,” Annabelle assured her, kissing both children and holding them close. “I am very proud of you.”

Felicity was almost fully asleep on Annabelle’s knee by the time Susan arrived on the shore, while Elias had dried and dressed himself in imitation of his father and now stood hand in hand with Frederick at the water’s edge.

“Well, look at you, young man, just as handsome as your father,” grey-haired Susan cooed at the boy, much to his delight. He enjoyed compliments in general and especially those that compared him to Frederick. “I dare say you will sleep well tonight after so much fun.”

A few minutes later, after having dressed Felicity and dispatched both children back to the house with their nursemaid, Annabelle and Frederick stood alone by the lake in the setting sun.

“We really must do something about Elias,” Annabelle sighed as they watched the cart trundling away. “He is getting far too pleased with himself. I would not want him to grow up thinking that the whole world should fall at his feet just because he is handsome.”

“Elias is a sweet child,” Frederick observed thoughtfully. “But his sweetness hides a sometimes-devious nature. Rather like his mother.”

“Frederick!” Annabelle protested but found herself caught up in his arms and kissed at length until all her protests died down.

“How I have wanted to do that all afternoon,” Frederick told her as he finally set her down on her feet again. “Amongst other things… Now, before we return to the subject of Elias, let me inform you that I have written to three tutors and invited them to visit Heartwick Hall in September so that we might choose one.”

“Thank you,” she said. “That puts my mind at rest.”

“Good, I cannot have my wife’s mind wandering when I wish to turn it solely to our mutual pleasure, can I?”

Annabelle returned the rather suggestive smile he was now giving her, inwardly acknowledging that her thoughts had already turned in that direction several times that afternoon, especially after watching his partially naked body in the water.

“Do you know, Frederick,” she began and then sighed as he came behind her and dropped a kiss on her neck as his hands rubbed her shoulders. “Oh, that feels good… But do you know that there are some women who take no pleasure in the bedroom and are actually relieved to have husbands who seek conjugal relations only on anniversaries and holidays?”

“There is also pleasure to be found out of the bedroom,” Frederick told her, running his hands through her heavy red-gold hair and releasing it from its loose pins. “By the shore of a lake, for example. If I illustrate this for you, perhaps you can tell these unfortunate ladies you speak of so that they can incite their husbands to provide more satisfactory performances.”

Annabelle giggled and sighed at his words and light caresses.

“How I pity them,” she said, shivering pleasurably under his touch. “The men and women both.”

His hands had found the strings of her neckline and unfastened it, easily freeing her breasts from the loose stays beneath the pale muslin.

“I always want you, Annabelle,” Frederick whispered as he cupped her breasts and kissed her neck. “Every day, in every possible way.”

She nodded, one of her hands reaching back to caress his face.

Frederick’s hunger always seemed as insatiable as her own, and their physical union was a conversation as intimate as any conducted with words.

“Are we safe today?” he asked as his hand pulled up her skirt on one side and caressed her bare thigh, careful in their lovemaking to avoid getting Annabelle with child unintentionally.

“Probably,” she told him, trying to remember exactly when she had last bled. “It has been three weeks, I think, but I have lost track. Would it be a bad thing to make another child now?”

“Not if that is what you want, Annabelle,” he said, gently nipping her throat. “Whenever you are ready for another child, I shall do my duty.”

“Your duty?” Annabelle laughed and then gasped as his fingers on her thigh slid upwards and through her slit, finding her swollen and slick with desire.

“Duty and pleasure may run together,” Frederick said, his breathing growing more labored as he explored her body. “You, for example, are a very dutiful wife…”

“Indeed?” she managed to say, then moaned as she found herself kneeling on the ground, her skirts bunched up around her hips and Frederick’s thick manhood sliding into her hot cavern.

“And also far more capable of giving and receiving pleasure than anyone I have ever met…” Frederick groaned as he completed his sentence with a thrust that buried him to the hilt and coaxed an answering cry from Annabelle.

She panted wildly as he thrust into her, slowly at first and then with mounting speed and force as she responded to the rhythm of his manhood and the counterpoint of his hands. They peaked at almost the same moment, their bodies in full conjunction, and then rolled onto their sides, panting, with Frederick still wrapped around her.

“If we do make another child, they would be a playmate for Penelope and Maxwell’s youngest,” said Annabelle dreamily, making no attempt to disengage. “Just as Elias is for the twins, and Felicity for little Edward.”

Frederick kissed the back of her shoulder affectionately. “Yes, my sister and her husband have quite the brood with their four little ones, do they not? I do not believe they are done yet either, from the way they talk. Then, there is Stephen and his wife. Neither seemed to like children at all, and now look at them…”

“I would not want quite so many children myself,” Annabelle mused. “I like having you to myself sometimes. Maybe one more, though. I know Jacob would like to be a godfather, with Oswald being godfather to Elias and Meredith godmother to Felicity. Three is a good number, is it not?”

“Three is perfect, but then so is two. So was one, when Elias was born. So were you to me.”

Frederick punctuated his words with soft kisses on her hair and neck. Annabelle did roll over, but only to embrace him, happy tears in her eyes.

“There are still days when I wake up beside you and cannot believe that you are my husband and that we have made two beautiful children together.”

“Then I must remind you even more regularly exactly how those things were accomplished, my Annabelle.” Frederick laughed and kissed her again under the light of the setting sun.

The End