Lily and the Duke (Regency Spinsters Alliance #1)

Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

Lily fell back a step in surprise at the turn this conversation had taken. “I— Yes, of course you are wrong!” she snapped incredulously.

“I am?” St. Albans sounded amused. “You are seriously telling me that six young, healthy, and beautiful ladies intend to remain celibate for the rest of your long lives? Possibly, as was suggested, by living together in old age, and no doubt kept company by a house full of cats and lapdogs whom you will shower your frustrated affections upon?”

Despite her sister’s scandalous elopement and their father’s lack of funds, Lily knew she had thought only of her unrequited love for St. Albans when she and her friends made their pact earlier. Knowing her love for him meant she could never allow another gentleman to so much as touch her intimately, she had not considered the omission of physical love relevant to that decision.

Or the lack of physical pleasure in her future, as the duke was now suggesting.

She exhaled slowly before speaking. “I am allergic to cats and have no liking for lapdogs. And is it not hypocritical of you to mock the state of celibacy you have been guilty of living for the past nineteen years since your wife died?” she accused, then instantly regretted it as those pale blue eyes turned flinty. “I apologize. I should not have made my observations so personal.”

His mouth twisted. “Oh, I assure you, this conversation has now become very personal,” he derided. “Quite where you attained your information regarding my private life, more specifically the physical side of that life, I have no idea. Wherever it was, your informant was incorrect.”

Lily swallowed at the implication behind that dismissal. “You have not remained celibate since Chloe was born and your wife died?”

“I have not,” he stated softly.

“Oh.”

Lily had no doubt that the initial emotion she now felt upon hearing this was disappointment. There had been something deeply romantic in imagining this handsome but aloof gentleman locking his heart away—as well as other parts of his anatomy—in the equivalent of an ivory tower, because of the deep love he still felt for his deceased wife.

That disappointment immediately turned to a deep sense of envy for any woman who had ever become the focus of the attentions of such an outwardly cold but viscerally attractive gentleman as the Duke of St. Albans. At the realization of how elated those women must feel when they were the recipient of his no doubt expert lovemaking.

She could not imagine this gentleman doing anything badly or halfheartedly.

“Indeed,” he now drawled. “But I have never taken a mistress in the true sense of the word.”

Lily blinked. “Then in what sense have you taken them?” She was uncertain as to how this conversation had come about, but had absolutely no idea how to end it. She was unsure if she really wished to do so…

He gave a hard smile. “In whatever sense I chose.”

Lily felt her cheeks warm at his implication. “Then surely that would make them your mistress?”

“Not if the intimacy never lasts for more than a single night.”

“Oh.” Lily drew in a controlling breath. “And have there been many such ladies since your wife died?”

The duke’s mouth twisted wryly. “They were not ladies. As for how many…” He shrugged. “A gentleman does not discuss such matters.”

“Not even with his own group of cronies?” she scorned.

“I do not have a group of cronies ,” he bit out. “What I do have, as do you, is a small circle of close friends whom I trust implicitly.”

“Including the Prince Regent?”

“Including Prinny.” He nodded. “But neither I nor any of them would ever be so ungentlemanly as to talk of our…physical liaisons, let alone openly discuss the lady whom we are bedding. Such behavior would be disrespectful to her in the extreme.”

Such consideration for the woman involved had not been Lily’s experience in regard to her two older brothers. Who, it seemed to her, took delight in trying to better each other in discussing how many conquests they had made this Season or that. The fact they were now both married men, each with a child in the nursery, did not seem to make the slightest difference to their behavior. Lily felt sure that, since her parents’ marriage was so obviously not a happy one, her father was equally as guilty of being unfaithful.

Yet another reason why Lily had no interest in marriage.

“To my knowledge, there has never been any gossip about you in that regard in Society,” she now confirmed.

St. Albans raised one eyebrow. “That would seem to imply you have you been paying particular attention to the subject on my behalf?”

“No! Of course I have not,” Lily blatantly lied once she had calmed herself enough to speak evenly.

She abhorred dishonesty, but felt it was necessary on this occasion. In order to maintain her pride, if nothing else.

“The reason for the silence amongst the gossips in Society is easily explained,” St. Albans bit out. “It is widely known, and accepted, that I will not tolerate having the details of my life, or that of my daughter, openly discussed for their amusement.”

Lily eyed him curiously. “But how can you stop that from happening when the gossips so much enjoy discussing everyone else’s business ad nauseum?”

It was one of the things Lily truly disliked about the gentlemen and ladies of Society. Partly because she could only imagine the things they said about her and her family behind their backs.

“Oh,” she murmured when St. Albans merely continued to stare at her, that haughty eyebrow once again raised.

No doubt because he would make a point of destroying anyone, verbally and socially, who dared to gossip about what he considered to be his very private life.

“Do you have a woman in your life now? Oh dear God…” Lily could literally feel the blood draining from her previous flushed and hot cheeks at the realization of what she had just asked. “I am sorry. So very sorry. Please forgive me. I should not have asked you such a personal question.”

“Then why did you?” he prompted softly.

She winced. “I suppose because I was curious as to the answer.”

St. Albans studied her from between narrowed lids. “I like your honesty, and we will return to the reason for that curiosity in a moment. First, I should like to know if you have already taken a lover.”

Lily gasped. “It would be scandalous for an unmarried lady to do so!”

“But you have told me you do not ever intend to marry, so my natural conclusion, as I mentioned earlier, must be that you intend to take a succession of lovers during your lifetime in place of a husband. Unless you are of the opinion that what one has never experienced, one cannot miss?”

Lily bristled at the mockery in his tone. “I am of the opinion , from what I have observed in my parents’ and older brothers’ marriages, that for the woman, there is as little pleasure in the marriage bed as there is out of it,” she bit out waspishly.

For obvious reasons, she had no idea of her sister’s opinion on the experience.

St. Albans’s nostrils flared. “Then your father and brothers must be inconsiderate lovers who care only for their own pleasure and have no interest in whether their wife experiences the same.” The disdain in his voice emphasized what he thought of such selfish behavior.

Lily snorted. “Next, you will be telling me that your own wife was not subject to that same lack of consideration and that Chloe was born as a result of a shared love and passion between her mother and father.”

She immediately regretted that tone when she saw the way St. Albans’s pale eyes had darkened to a deep and stormy blue.

“I apologize for my outspokenness,” she said quickly. “Again.” She winced.

She had not spoken more than a brief and polite greeting to St. Albans before this, and now she could not seem to stop an avalanche of unfiltered, and inappropriate comments, spilling from her lips.

“My own bluntness of nature is such that I believe I might learn to appreciate your outspokenness,” the duke admired.

Lily avoided meeting those piercing eyes. “Even so, I should not have made my remarks so personal.” Even if that was exactly how Lily would describe his comments regarding her proposed passionless future.

St. Albans stared at her for what was to Lily several long and anxious moments. She was aware that this man could eviscerate her with just a look or a single word in the Prince Regent’s ear.

“You agreed earlier that you have never been kissed.” St. Albans finally spoke again, but the flintiness had not completely dissipated from his gaze.

“I have not,” Lily confirmed again.

He nodded. “Then I do not see how you can possibly comment, with any degree of authority on something you admit you have no experience of. Especially if it was in the hands of a lover who is both experienced and puts your pleasure before his own.”

Lily had no idea where St. Albans was going with this conversation.

But his words made her feel as if she were balanced on the precipice of hot molten lava. To fall over that edge, although it was capable of killing her, could also surround and draw her into a depth of heat and pleasure such as she had never imagined possible.

From the way the pupils of Lily’s eyes were so dilated they almost obliterated the pale green irises, her cheeks were once again flushed and her breathing had grown shallow and ragged, Gabriel knew that she had become aroused merely from discussing, then imagining, such intimacy.

All were indications that, despite what she thought to the contrary, Lily would be very passionate with the right lover with whom she might explore that desire.

A knowledge that immediately caused Gabriel’s half-hard cock—it had been that way since the beginning of their conversation—to fully engorge inside his drawers.

A clear indication of how much he now wanted to make love to Lily Tremayne.

A realization that both concerned and exhilarated him.

It concerned him because Lily was so young and had admitted to being completely inexperienced.

But Gabriel’s strong and immediate physical response to this young lady told him that he nonetheless desired her. More than he had any woman for some time. Which was the reason for his exhilaration.

He had told Lily the truth when he said he’d had other lovers since Mariah.

He had remained celibate for fully a year after his wife died, out of love and respect for her.

But his youth and a need for physical release not by his own hand had then caused him to seek out ladies in the houses of the demimonde with whom he could be intimate without anything more being expected of him. Because those ladies were not a part of Society but were wholly mindful of the need for discretion in regard to their gentleman callers.

Those physical liaisons had satisfied Gabriel for several years, but eventually, they too had palled, and his visits had become less and less frequent. Returning to the use of his right hand could bring about the same release, without the need for politeness or conversation first.

Which was why Gabriel couldn’t remember the last time he had physically touched the softness of a woman’s skin, let alone made love to her.

But could he, in all conscience, think of touching Lily that way when she was a peer to his own daughter?

That was not quite accurate, he consoled himself, Lily being fully a year older than Chloe.

As if a year mattered.

Perhaps it didn’t when he knew this young lady had entered into an alliance, one which included his own daughter, to shun and refuse any gentleman she knew did not love her and whom she did not love either, if he should offer her marriage.

Gabriel and Mariah’s marriage had been such an arrangement, but they had been lucky enough to fall in love with each other after they were married. So that Chloe had indeed been born as the result of a “shared love and passion.”

Having known the opposite, Gabriel fully recognized the limitations offered in a loveless marriage.

But these six young ladies, one of them his own daughter, were making a decision, a wrong one, he believed, which could affect the rest of their lives.

And he, Gabriel realized self-derisively, was mentally trying to justify his attraction to the forthright Lily Tremayne.

“I believe I should like you to call me Gabriel,” he murmured.

Her eyes widened. “You would?”

Gabriel smiled slightly at her wariness. “I believe it would be inappropriate for you to continue calling me Your Grace once I have kissed you.”

Her eyes were huge in the pallor of her face. “You intend to kiss me?”

“I think if I did, it would help you to see how true physical pleasure is to be savored and enjoyed.” Good Lord, was he now trying to justify his desire to kiss Lily by using such pompous rhetoric?

It seemed that he was.

“Careful!” He stepped forward to take a firm grasp of Lily’s arm as she seemed to sway on her feet, before he then gave in to the temptation of pulling her fully into his arms.

Gabriel drew a sharp breath at the feel of her heat and softness resting against the hardness of his chest and abdomen. That indrawn breath brought with it the light but heady floral scent of Lily’s hair.

“What if I do not wish to be kissed?” Lily’s words were whispered into his chest.

“How can you possibly know that until you have first tried the experience?”

She raised her head to look at him searchingly. Whatever she saw in his face or read in his eyes caused her breathing to falter and the pupils of her eyes to once again dilate.

Which was when Gabriel took the opportunity to lower his head so that his mouth could take possession of hers.

A single taste of her luscious lips and Gabriel lost his battle to keep the kiss on the right side of his usual rigid control, even in the most intimate of circumstances.

Instead, he kissed Lily hungrily. Demanded her response as his lips devoured hers and his tongue thrust deeply into the warmth of her mouth.

She tasted delicious and responded with a heat that matched Gabriel’s own.

Quite how far he would have taken those hungry kisses, Gabriel had no idea, because minutes later, the sound of the bell ringing to announce a visitor infiltrated what was rapidly becoming an overwhelming tide of passion which he felt absolutely no desire to call a halt to.

It actually pained him to break the kiss before lifting his head to stare down into the face of the young woman whose understated beauty and fire were, he knew, the sole reason for the reawakening of his long-silent libido.

Lily looked slightly dazed as she stared back at him, her eyes now having a feverish glow, her cheeks flushed, and those already pouting lips slightly swollen from the overwhelming force of his passion.

Gabriel could taste her still as he swept his tongue across his own slightly moist bottom lip. “This conversation is not over,” he told her softly, aware of his butler’s increasingly audible steps as he approached the library down the flagstone hallway. “Lily?” he prompted when she made no reply.

She continued to look up at him with lust-drunk eyes, but, for the moment, seemed incapable of answering him.

“We will continue this another time,” he vowed even as he stepped a polite distance away from her.

Just in time, as his butler knocked briefly before entering. “His Grace, the Duke of Hellsmere, is here to see you, Your Grace,” Cramer announced.

Damn Hellsmere.

Damn anyone who would dare to keep Gabriel from pursuing the deep desire currently raging through his body for Lily.

An intensity of passion Gabriel had not allowed into his life since, at the age of sixteen and home from school for the summer, he had fallen in love with one of the dairy maids at St. Albans Park.

A healthy and ultimately harmless infatuation, most would say, considering his age.

But not so when Gabriel had spent his every waking moment following the girl around like a lovesick puppy, dreaming of her at night, and feeling resentful of anyone whom he thought was trying to steal her away from him.

The whole situation had come to a violent end after Gabriel had almost killed one of the grooms when, one afternoon, he had found the other boy and Gabriel’s dairy maid naked together in the loft over the stables.

Gabriel had beaten him almost to the point of death. It was only due to the head groom managing to pull him off the other boy, and the diligence of Gabriel’s father’s physician, that his life had been saved.

After that incident, Gabriel had learned to keep tight control of what he now recognized as the depth and strength of his passions.

Oh, he had loved Mariah. It was impossible not to do so when in the presence of her laughter and lightness. He had adored his daughter since the moment she was placed in his arms as a newborn.

But there nevertheless remained a wall Gabriel had deliberately erected about the more…intense of his emotions.

A wall, Gabriel now recognized after a single hungry kiss shared with Lily Tremayne, that had begun to crumble.