Duke Ever After (Dukes' Club Book 5) (22 page)

“How perfect,” she chimed. “You’ll never guess his name.”

“What is it?” asked Derek.

Her lips twitched with amusement. “Mr. Duke.”

“We are surrounded,” Charles lamented.

“Indeed,” supported Tony.

“Must be a bloody American with an impertinent name like that,” sighed the Duke of Hunt.

“Perhaps we should wait until we return to London and have a wedding at St. Paul’s. . . Since we aren’t going to kill you today, Aston,” suggested Duncan.

“No,” Derek said softly. “No more waiting.”

“No more waiting,” she agreed before she took his bruised face gently in her hands and sealed their love with a perfect kiss.

Epilogue

Venice

All her life, she’d longed for adventure, for companionship, and for love. Remarkably, she’d gotten all three at once and from the same man.

Now, she listened to deep baritones and pure tenors of gondoliers slipping in through her open, arched window as they rowed past in the canals.

Once, she’d known gray skies and cold air. Now, she felt sun-kissed and warm.

Oh, she couldn’t wait until they returned to Scotland in time for the babe to born.

But now?

She was happy to spend her first few months enceinte and with her husband in foreign lands where she felt surrounded by the magic of the ages. In all her life, she’d never seen anything like the winding, cobbled streets, canals, and bridges of Venice.

More importantly, she’d never known the kind of love given to her recently until Derek.

His fear had vanished and he seemed an almost entirely different man. Oh, he was still mischievous and loved large hats, but there was nothing forced about his cheer. There was no calculation to his smile.

Derek entered the massive bedroom, painted with gold and appointed with perfectly polished mirrors, with an easy smile on his sensual lips and a tray of blood orange juice, bread, butter and jam balanced on his hand.

They’d had a long, splendid night and worked up quite a hunger, after all.

As he set the tray down, she couldn’t resist beaming at him.

She couldn’t imagine such a bedroom in London. Most Londoners would have been terrified at the pure, sensual prospect of being faced with their reflections everywhere they turned. . . Seeing
everything
they were doing.

Frankly, she quite enjoyed it because Derek was exceptionally imaginative and watching him as he made love to her was the most exotic and provocative thing she’d ever experienced.

He came to her and circled his arms about her naked waist. “I adore that you’ve embraced nakedness.”

“Well, you will just take my clothes off if I put them on.”

“Your body is irresistible,” he pointed out, then he pulled her against him. “No regrets, my love?”

She caressed his cheek. “How could I have regrets?”

“I still fear it is too much, to ask you to accept—“

Tracing her forefinger to his lips, she shook her head. “You must never doubt. I love you. I love you as you are and I am so proud of you and all that you have overcome. You could have become cruel and angry with the world. Instead, you chose laughter as your medicine. And you’ve made me laugh and grow and given me a chance at a life I never would have known, even as a wealthy, unattached lady. What doors will close to me now?”

“If one does, I’ll know why,” he growled lightly before leaning forward and nibbling her neck.

The dukes and Charles had all agreed that they would happily keep the secret. After all, everyone had a few, they’d said.

The Duke of Hunt and Charles had been mirror images of fairly apoplectic panic as they mentioned that both their mother and father had a King James Bible-thick collection of things kept hidden from society.

And Derek’s secret was hurting no one. In fact, it was protecting his mother and even his father. His father didn’t deserve protection, in her opinion, but Derek had no desire to expose him to the world. . . And she couldn’t blame him.

He carried a small locket-sized portrait of his mother wherever he went and she felt certain that he still felt a bond with the lady even if they’d never held each other or whispered words of love.

In fact, she had a feeling that his mother had been watching over him all his life. How else could he have survived such a storm?

Suddenly she said, “If it’s a girl, I’d like to name her after your mother.”

Tears glistened in Derek’s eyes. “I would like that. Very much.”

He cleared his throat. “And if it is a boy?”

“I’d like to give him your name.”

Derek arched a brow. “Seems a dubious legacy.”

She tsked playfully. “The legacy is a love for life and adventure.”

“And that’s what you wish? A son who galavants all over the world undertaking questionable adventures?”

She gave him a knowing grin. “The one thing you have taught me, good sir, is that adventure is a way of looking at the world and what it presents. One could be just as adventurous in Vauxhall as in say, China, with the right outlook.”

Derek blinked. “Did I teach you that?”

“You did,” she confirmed adamantly. “Which is why, after our marvelous stay in our stunning palazzo, I will not mind returning to the land of
Rule, Britannia!
.”

“What if I mind?” he teased.

“Then we shall traverse the world on your ship, making our lives where we may. Because home is where you are.”

He cupped her chin and tilted her head back. As he leaned down to take her mouth in one of their soul-searing kisses, he whispered, “Because home is wherever we are, my darling. Where
we
are.”

The End

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L
ondon

It is an accepted fact that a young widow, even a decidedly proper one, should not—absolutely not—knock on an infamous bachelor’s door. For such shocking action might result in the permanent eviction of said young widow from the society of all but Yorkshire sheepherders. Even so, Kathryn Darrell had decided that an entire life already spent rusticating in the country was significant reason to cause the largest scandal the Season had ever seen and she was going to do it with more panache than any other lady who’d launched herself into sin. So, without allowing herself to think twice, she lifted her chin and rapped on the door of Number Six Belgrave Square.

Kate drew in a slow, calming breath. She had every right to feel uneasy. Spending months planning her own debauchery was one thing; executing it was quite another. She resisted the urge to glance back at her footman, Gregory, who waited with the coach. Instead, she kept her gaze firmly upon the dark blue door. The particularly brawny servant would only be a shout away if she needed.

While she intended to be bold, she was no fool. She’d more than enough experience with foolishness. And everything was running in perfect accordance to her plans. Plans she’d been forming for months. She’d set an appointment under the anonymous name of one Mr. Braithwait. Fortunately, nothing interfered with her scheduled drive to the appointment. Now, she was about to set sights on the handsome butler who would lead her up to his far more handsome master. She would finally step into a world distant from unkindness and castigation.

Footsteps echoed on the other side of the door. She stared at the beautifully carved double blue doors as if she could see who was on the other side.

A shattering crash echoed somewhere overhead, and just as she looked up to the first floor, the door swung open, exposing a tall rectangle of candle glow and the silhouette of a squat man.

Kate jerked her gaze back to the butler in the doorway and blinked. Handsome the man was not. Crusty. It was the only word that came to mind.

He peered at her silently. Tufts of his eyebrows jutted out over his myopic blue eyes. He blinked.

Kate waited, hoping to God he would say something. She doubted the words ‘I’ve come to bed your master’ would gain her admittance into the house, and suddenly she found that her lips were rather reluctant to carry out her plan. Kate mustered her most winning grin, the grin she used to coax rectors, stubborn sheep herders, and too tightly laced curmudgeons of both the male and female variety. “I’ve come to see His Grace.”

The butler coughed lightly, bringing his gloved hand to his lips. “No.”

Kate pulled back her chin before she could stick it too far forward, a terrible habit she’d never broken. “No, sir?”

“No, miss.”

“But—” Well, what a dratted nuisance! Couldn’t the fellow just let her in? What possible excuse could she give to gain admittance to the abode of her impending debauchment? “But I have an appointment!”

S
lowly, Cordelia opened her eyes and realized he was staring down at her. His gaze was half closed with desire. “I want you,” he whispered. “Without reservations. Once. Just once.”

And oh how she wanted him. Her husband. It was such a cruel twist of fate that the man she suddenly desired more than any other man she’d ever met before was the very man who she should hate above all others. He had abandoned her, after all. Yet, her body refused to hate him. She said nothing, but lifted her hand and traced the side of his face, wishing he wasn’t so handsome, wishing that he didn’t make her feel so utterly alive in his embrace.

He swept her up into his arms and carried her to the striped pink silk chaise and lowered her so that she sat facing him. Easing her down, he knelt directly before her on the soft rug. His fingers flicked at the hem of her skirt as he held her gaze, his eyes ablaze with dangerous passion.

“I have thought of nothing else since last night,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Nothing else but you.”

“I am not going to bed you and. . .” Her breath caught in her throat as she stared at him. His words were pure torture to her conflicted soul. It was imperative she remember it was her body he wanted and nothing else. And in fact, it was only his body she longed for. For she knew him not at all. “I do not believe such drivel, my lord.”

“Jack,” he said softly as if she hadn’t just made her position plain. “You must call me Jack. And it is not drivel. It’s the truth.”

Good God, his gaze was powerful, she wanted to tear her own away, but couldn’t. Not when his eyes seemed to speak more volumes about what he would do to her just awakened body than any words could ever do. In fact, his eyes seemed to have a direct connection to her soul and the wild heat spinning within her. “Truth though it may be, calling you by your given name seems. . . unwise.”

“But you must,” he tilted his head slightly, his dark hair brushing his forehead. “Because we
are
going to be intimate. Very, very intimate”

His hands traced over her slippers then he clasped her ankles, massaging his thumbs over her silk stockings. She gulped. “Are we?” she asked feeling most uncommonly stupefied.

In reply, he tugged her skirts up, sliding them over her knees, pressing them back to her hips, exposing her stockinged legs and her lace undergarments.

Shock and a most alarming anticipation held her frozen. She should move. She really should, and yet her damnable curiosity held her still. Yes. Curiosity should always be explored and she’d often wondered about the mating rituals of. . . She sucked in a shaking gasp as she realized that she was indeed going to see what he might do next.

D
uncan Hamish Fergus, the tenth Duke of Blackburn, loathed Sassenachs. Even more so, he loathed house parties thrown by said Sassenachs. He loathed everything about them. Whether it be the shrill giggling of the silly women, the arrogant chest-puffing of the gentlemen, or the way in which they shot every bird that flew through the air, he loathed them. And of all of them, he loathed his neighbor Lady Imogen Cavendish the most.

For some reason that Duncan couldn’t quite fathom, Scotland had become popular. Perhaps the lords and ladies of England had simply grown bored with shooting birds on their own land. Now, apparently sickened with ennui, every Englishman who could find a carriage to take him north had cast off their trews and donned a kilt. Knobby knees or no.

It was enough to make a Scots’ man weep.

All those bloody Englishmen apparently, given his frequent hearings and sightings of drunken, merry-making lords, had one destination. Lady Cavendish’s hunting lodge. Yesterday’s report of a particularly loathsome sighting had been the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back.

Duncan strode over the frost-covered heather, bent on confronting Lady Cavendish once and for all. He could have sent his man. Most would. But for once, he wanted to vent his full rage upon the ridiculous woman, who was as useful as a soft slipper upon a Highland ben.

He loved the Highlands in winter, silent except for the wild wind, bitter cold, and brushed with God’s own perfect snow. He should have been enjoying his solitude and management of his estates, not herding a Sassenach woman like a sheepdog worries an errant sheep. But he was. And he was going to give her a setdown that would have her running for London and all its sinful pleasures.

He gazed up at the crisp sky that was shockingly blue for the first week of December and the last week of the hunting season. It should have been full white, heavy with snow, or wicked gray full of slashing rain. But no. It had to be marvelously blue. Which of course meant that the idiocy of Lady Cavendish’s guests would only escalate above their already foolhardy state. Good weather meant excessive sport, and he’d be bloody damned if he was going to let another gun wander onto his estate without his permission.