My Inconvenient Duke (Difficult Dukes #3)

Chapter 23

Alice’s French maid and Blackwood’s valet had left London at the same time they did, in a separate carriage. They were to

make their way with all necessary dispatch, while master and mistress followed at a more leisurely pace.

The house in Brighton would be prepared for their arrival.

As always, Blackwood had planned for everything.

Except the Duchess of Blackwood. His wife.

He had a wife . Alice. And Alice was Alice.

She’d always been fierce, especially when anybody or anything she cared about was threatened. She was sharp-witted and strong-willed

and defiant. He knew all that.

Her lack of inhibition was not altogether a surprise. She’d never been prudish.

But the trust! After all this time and the way he’d lived his life for the last decade and more, she had ample reason to keep

her guard up. Yet when it came to physical intimacy, she hesitated not at all. She gave herself wholeheartedly and spoke frankly

about what she wanted.

There has not been enough kissing.

Even a man who’d avoided good girls from the time he discovered girls knew how they were expected to behave. The standards

appeared in reviews of books, operas, plays, and even circuses, as well as in gossip sections of the journals. Young ladies

were modest and circumspect. They maintained a quiet demeanor, a dignified reserve, etc., etc.

Boring, in other words. One of many forceful reasons to shun their company.

This sort of being might be Alice at Almack’s, but it was not Alice in his lap in a carriage.

Alice in his lap meant exerting every last iota of his willpower not to relieve her of her virginity en route. It meant reminding himself that he was not a callow youth of nineteen but an experienced

man of seven and twenty.

Most important, this was the only wedding day and night they would ever have. It had to be special. Alice deserved no less.

What he needed to do was thank Fortune for placing him in this uncomfortable position.

The capricious goddess had smiled on him. She’d somehow tricked him into doing the intelligent thing before he realized how

intelligent it was. Brilliant, actually. An act of pure genius.

He kept these considerations in mind and restricted himself to conversation. For sixty long miles.

They talked about the passing sights, unfamiliar to her. He had stories. She had comments and her own stories of Continental

travels, and she told him a great deal she hadn’t included in her letters to Ripley.

They reached Brighton before sunset, to find the staff awaiting their master and new mistress, and all in readiness.

There were ceremonies to be got through: introductions and preliminary tours of the gleaming white mansion on the Steine. It was the second most impressive residence in Brighton, the Royal Pavilion being the first.

All the while, Blackwood asked himself why he hadn’t chosen instead to spend the wedding night during the wedding afternoon,

at an inn on the road. Better yet, why hadn’t he bought a cottage requiring only a handful of servants?

But at last the rituals were done, and the newlyweds retired to their separate apartments to change out of their traveling

clothes.

The duke and his new duchess did not dine in state in the handsome dining parlor, but in Her Grace’s boudoir.

In fact, they dined very little, hardly touching the food he’d been so particular about ordering.

After staring at her plate for a time, Alice rose. He did, too.

“This is a sad waste of beautiful food,” she said. “But I am too—” She waved a hand. “I can’t. I’d better find something more

productive to do, like changing out of this...” She looked down at herself. “And into something less.”

“Wait, please.” He circled the small table and caught her in his arms and kissed her, long and deeply, until the blood was

hurrying through his veins and heading downward and he forgot who and what and where he was.

Then he collected the last threads of his self-control and released her. “I only wanted to make sure you don’t forget,” he

said.

She gazed at him, her eyes soft and dazed. “Forget what?”

She laughed, rather unsteadily, and went out.

An hour later

Entering Alice’s bedchamber was like entering a dream.

Amid billowing white bedclothes she sat, propped up with pillows. Though the night was mild, Blackwood had ordered a fire

lit. Sea air was all well and good, but it was damp and more chill than London air, if some degrees clearer.

Embers glowed in the fireplace. A pair of lamps on the mantel cast their soft light over the room. One lamp at the bedside

table shed its glow over her.

A lacy cap, as fine as gossamer, confined her hair. Lace edged her nightdress, framing a creamy expanse of neck and shoulder

and the soft curves of her bosom.

He found it hard to breathe.

She set aside the guidebook she’d been perusing and looked up at him.

“That is something a great deal less,” he managed to say.

Her green gaze swiftly took him in. “I might say the same of you.”

He wore a black silk dressing gown, embroidered and trimmed in gold and green. And slippers. And no more.

It was not the first time she’d seen him in a state of undress. The previous time, however, he had not been quite so undressed.

He’d worn a shirt under his dressing gown.

“I know you won’t faint,” he said. “But I might.”

Her skin, so much smooth skin. No vast pillows of fabric concealed her arms. Only the fine muslin veiled them, leaving their

outlines clearly visible. He could imagine the rest. Soon he wouldn’t have to imagine.

“You’re beautiful,” he said softly. “I do not at all regret my temporary loss of mind some weeks ago.”

“We’ll see about that.” She smoothed the bedclothes. “This may be rather tedious for you. I need instruction. In theory, I

understand the proceedings. In practice, my ignorance is complete.”

“I’m prepared to persevere,” he said.

He moved to the bed. He was tall enough not to need the step. He sat and took her hand, the one wearing the betrothal ring

and the wedding ring he’d had made to match, because she liked his grandmother’s ring as it was.

He kissed the back of her hand and the knuckles, one by one. He turned her hand over and kissed the wrist. In the room’s quiet

he could hear her breath quickening. His quickened as well.

He released her hand to unfasten his dressing gown. “You’ve seen naked men before.”

“Naked boys, a long time ago. And naked statues, but...” She stilled as he shifted out of the dressing gown. He could feel

her gaze as though it were her hands moving over him.

“Well, it isn’t quite the same,” she said. “Statues don’t breathe, and their muscles don’t move, and that... ” Her gaze had dropped. “The membrum virile is much larger in real life.”

His swelled with pride, not to mention anticipation. He was quietly going mad, yet he laughed a little. “Really, Alice.”

She took a deep breath. “This is going to be interesting.”

He moved to take her in his arms. “I should like it to be more than that for you. I should like it to be pleasurable. But

if we don’t quite manage that the first time, we can try again.”

“Stop talking,” she said. “Kindly kiss me, as much as you please. And the rest as well.”

He obeyed orders. He held her in his arms and kissed her.

This kiss was altogether different from those before. This was the wedding night kiss. This time the only barrier between

them was the fine muslin of her nightdress.

This time the bare palms of her hands curved over his naked shoulders, skin to skin. The pleasure of that simple touch and

the trust it conveyed swept through him in waves of feeling, nearly unbearable. Yet he wanted what he felt to go on forever.

He drank in the taste of her and the scent of her, and he might as well have taken opium. The world slipped away. There was

only this place, wherever it was, warm and inviting and impossible to escape, and no, he didn’t want to escape, ever again.

He deepened the kiss, and she quickly began to learn the way of it, playful at first, a sort of teasing, but soon becoming

something else, stronger and hotter.

She moved her hands over his chest and shoulders and arms, and his muscles tightened, but what he felt was more than physical.

Women had touched him before, and that was pleasurable and arousing. Alice’s caresses were another experience altogether,

shockingly powerful. His entire being responded. Everything in him marveled and stirred at the same time.

He dragged his hands over her shoulders and arms and over the swell of her breasts. Muslin whispered secrets under his fingers.

He wanted skin, more skin.

He broke the kiss and murmured, “Too much clothing.”

She shifted to help him get the nightdress off. No shyness. No hesitation.

And then there was Alice, naked.

He caught his breath. “Ye gods,” he said. “Ye gods, Alice.”

Lust was murdering his mind, yet he had to take a moment to simply look at her.

The lamplight turned her skin golden. He might as well be looking at an ancient goddess.

He drew the bedclothes back a little more.

So beautifully formed she was: the perfect swell of her breasts and the graceful curve of waist and hips and long legs.

His wife. This was his wife.

“With my body I thee worship,” he said softly.

Tears glittered in her eyes. “Giles.”

He brought his hand to her cheek and gently brushed away the tear. He stroked her neck and downward, touching her and discovering

her.

He ached, and every animal instinct wanted possession— now —but he couldn’t bear to hurry.

“We’ll never have another wedding night,” he said. “I want to make the most of it.”

She smiled the Egyptian goddess smile.

He kissed her neck and her shoulders. He slid his mouth lower, to draw paths of kisses over the tops of her breasts, then

lower. She squirmed and reached for him. “More,” she said.

“Yes.” He took the bud of her breast into his mouth and she made a little sound, like a moan.

He suckled the other breast, and she writhed under him.

He slid down and kissed her belly, then lower. She made little sounds of pleasure and excitement. She didn’t hold back, but let herself be pleasured. When her body arched upward, he slid his hand to where his mouth had been. He shifted himself upward again to kiss her cheek and below her ear and her mouth while he moved his hand between her legs.

“You’re a wonder,” he murmured. “There’s nobody like you.”

He stroked her and kissed her until her body shuddered and shuddered, and release came, with a surprised little cry.

She opened her eyes very wide. “Good heavens.”

“I hope so.” He brought her hand to his impatient cock pressing against her thigh.

“I’ve done what I could, but I’m afraid this will hurt,” he said, his voice rough.

“I’m not afraid of you,” she said. “Don’t stop now.”

Gently he drew her legs apart and pressed himself into her.

He felt her tense at the intrusion and the discomfort, and heard her breath catch. He paused, though the blood was racing

through his veins and he was sweating and his brain was going black.

“Don’t stop,” she said. “You’re not supposed to stop.”

In spite of himself, he let out a choked, short laugh. “Alice.”

“Do it,” she said. “More. I want you.”

Thinking was in another land, another universe. The sound of her voice. I want you. He pushed inside her, and she gasped, but she grasped his arms. “Don’t stop.”

He kissed her, on the mouth, on the nose, on the cheek. He kissed the top of her ear. He felt the tightness give way slightly.

He pushed in, and the feel of her body closing about him, holding him, was new, all new. He didn’t wonder at it, because he had no mind for that. He tried to fix on taking care, and that was growing impossible. He began to move inside her, as slowly as he could.

She grasped his arms. “Giles.”

“Yes.” He kissed her again and again. Her eyebrows, her forehead, her mouth again, deeply, and her body made way for him.

Her eyes opened very wide. “Oh, my goodness. Oh, Giles. Yes. ”

The last thread of control gave way, and all he knew was the woman whose body was joined with his, and the need to possess

her entirely. She began to find the rhythm of it, and they moved together, as though they’d always done so. It was the way

they used to dance once upon a time, so long ago. It was the way they played with words and the way it had always been with

them. Even when they were apart, even when they clashed, there was a bond.

Affinity.

These weren’t thoughts in words but a bone-deep knowing.

She trembled and cried out—but not in pain—and he felt a surge of triumph. His heart crashed against his chest again and again,

and the need built and built like a great wave surging ever higher, until there was nowhere left to go. His body shuddered,

and he let out a low, hoarse cry. Then came release and a dizzying descent.

“Alice,” he said, a breath of a word. “Ye gods, Alice.” He lay, spent, upon her for a moment, his cheek against her breast.

He felt her shiver. He shivered, too.

After a time, he gently eased from her and drew her into his arms. He kissed the top of her frivolous nightcap, then drew

it off and kissed the top of her head.

Later, when they’d lain, more than a little stunned, in each other’s arms, and their breathing had quieted to something like normal:

“Giles.”

“Yes. I’m here. Not going anywhere.”

“I believe we’ll do well enough.”

“I believe you are right.”

They did well enough again that night and the next morning.

They did well enough for a fortnight in Brighton. They did well enough as, over the following months, the Duke of Blackwood

took his bride on a grand tour of England, her own country, of which she knew not very much. They visited his estates and

smaller properties. They toured the Peak and the Lake District and the various fashionable watering holes. They sailed on

his yacht.

The honeymoon lasted for six months.

And they lived happily ever after.

Until.