One Dance with a Duke (11 page)

But this kiss … now, this kiss was a
conversation
. Again and again, he pressed his lips to hers, then retreated, inviting her to reciprocate. And reciprocate she did, with unabashed pleasure.

“Yes,” he murmured, as she gingerly placed her hands on his shoulders. “Yes, that’s the way.”

Encouraged, she moved her hands higher, clutching his neck. His hands slid backward to fist in her hair, and she followed his example, at last twining her fingers in those dark, touchable curls. Oh why hadn’t she removed her own gloves? She would have given much at that moment to feel his hair sliding between the sensitive webs of her fingers. But she took heart in the little growl he gave when her gloved fingertips stroked his nape. Satin did have its advantages.

He paused to draw breath.

Oh, don’t stop. Don’t stop
.

She caressed his neck again, and he renewed the kiss with even greater vigor. Her body went soft to the
bones. His lips were insistent, demanding. But what he demanded was not her surrender, but her escalating response.

She hadn’t known kissing could be like this: not a conquest, but a trade. A steady bartering of caresses, licks, gentle nips. She’d never known the corner of her mouth to be so exquisitely sensitive, until he touched the spot with his tongue.

Oh, this was dangerous. Delicious, but dangerous.

He was not just teaching her, he was empowering her. And he was forcing her to reveal far more of herself than she ought. How could he fail to sense her desire for him, when she purred with it? When she drew his lower lip into her mouth to mirror the way he gently sucked her upper one? And oh—oh, Lord—once their tongues had done
this
, how could she convincingly use this same mouth to refuse him?

And then she finally stopped thinking and gave herself over to sensation. Blissful, all-consuming sensation. Her body sang, shivered, ached. She needed more. She needed to feel his hands on her body, somewhere below the neck. Everywhere below the neck.

Lacing her fingers behind his collar, she pitched forward. Her breasts met the welcome resistance of his hard chest. And he rewarded her by sliding his hands from her shoulders, to the small of her back, over the swell of her hips and all the way down to her bottom, which he cupped firmly in both hands. He pulled, bringing her hips flush against his. Pleasure, sharp and intense, burst through her.

He moaned.
“Amelia.”

Here was a gesture she couldn’t reciprocate. For she didn’t recall his Christian name, and to call him “Morland” seemed just wrong. She certainly couldn’t call him “Your Grace”—not with his hands on her backside.

Then his tongue was in her mouth again, and she couldn’t have called him anything at all.

After some time—it might have been minutes, or hours or eons, for all Amelia knew; this kiss had rendered her quite insensible to such frivolous things as the passage of time—he gently pulled away. Shamelessly she chased him, pulling his face down and pressing one last kiss to the corner of his lips.

He laughed—a breathless, husky, arousing laugh.

“So,” he said, “not a chore, I think.”

“No.”

He regarded her closely. One eyebrow quirked. “That wasn’t your answer, was it?”

“No,” she said hastily. “Or … I don’t know. My answer to what?”

“I’m confused.”

“So am I.”

She slid her hands from his neck and clutched them together in front of her. Oh, what a miscalculation this had been. She’d asked for the kiss. She’d hoped it might be enjoyable. She hadn’t expected it to alter her understanding of the world. How was she supposed to tell him,
No, no, a thousand times no. Take your insulting proposal and begone
, when every corpuscle in her body was screaming,
Yes, yes! Please, Your Grace, may I have some more?

“Perhaps we should begin again.” He covered her knotted fingers with his. “Lady Amelia, will you do me the honor, et cetera.”

“Did you just say ‘et cetera’ in a proposal of marriage?”

“No, I believe I said ‘et cetera’ in reprising my proposal of marriage. Have you arrived at an answer yet? I think you’re stalling again.”

“I’m not stalling.”

He drummed his fingers on the tops of hers, making it quite clear to them both that she was, indeed, stalling.

“We don’t get along at all,” she said desperately.

“That’s not true. We’ve been getting along quite well for several minutes now.”

Yes, they had. They had.

Knowing herself to be a very poor liar, Amelia opted for honesty. “I’m infatuated with you, I cannot deny it. Physically speaking, you’re a very attractive man. But I don’t like you, the vast majority of the time. So far as I can gather, you behave abominably in public and are only marginally better in private. I only find you remotely tolerable when you’re kissing me.”

He gave her a chastening look. “Even from that stinting description, we’d have a better foundation for marriage than many couples.”

“Yes, but it’s still nowhere near the marriage I’d dreamed of having.”

“Well.” The duke released her hands and stepped back. “It would seem you have a choice. Will it be the dreams? Or me?”

“No woman should have to make such a choice.”

But she knew that women did, all the time. Every moment of every day, somewhere a woman surrendered her blissful fantasies to the cruel reality of the world. Years ago, she’d managed to delay the inevitable, but now Amelia knew in her bones—her day, her moment had come. It was her turn to lay down those fantasies of romantic love and grab what she could: security, the opportunity to help her brothers, and something undeniably tempting—the chance to explore physical passion. As for love … well, there would be children. And Amelia would love those children as no mother had ever loved. No mother except her own, of course.

She knew what she ought to do; what she
would
do.

Still, she could not say the words.

“Don’t make the choice, then,” he said. “Come here.”

It was not a request, but a command. And she complied, gratefully. His confidence drew her forward, as though he pulled her to him with a string. She stopped, just inches from him, staring up into his handsome face.

“Kiss me.”

Another command. Another so easily obeyed, because it was exactly what she wanted to do. He bent his head, and she pressed a warm, unhurried kiss to his lips. She would know a lifetime of these kisses. She would know what it was, to see this formidable man unclothed and vulnerable, to feel the weight of his naked body stretched out over hers.

The kiss ended.

“Now,” he said, “say yes.”

She would be a duchess. She would be mistress of six houses. She would be married from St. George’s in Hanover Square, in front of all London, wearing a gown of the divinely embroidered and obscenely expensive ivory brocade she’d seen last week in Bond Street. She would serve white cake at the wedding breakfast, with three different fillings and rolled gum icing cut in the shape of blossoms—orchids, not roses. Because everyone had roses. She would have real orchids in her bouquet, and she would visit the hothouse this very week to order them.

Some of her dreams could still come true.

“Say yes, Amelia.”

“Yes,” she said. And because it came more easily than she’d expected, she said it again. “Yes.”

“Good girl.”

He gave her a smile—slight, yet devastating—and to that subtle quirk of his lips Amelia impulsively hitched all her hopes and dreams. For better or for worse.

“I’ll go speak with your brother.” He gathered his gloves from the desk.

“Please do give my name to your secretary,” she said, giving in to a flutter of bridal excitement. “We can begin compiling the guest list, making the arrangements.”

“That won’t be necessary,” he said. “We’ll be married here, in this room. Tomorrow.”

Not thirty hours later, Amelia sat in the Rose Parlor—actually, one of two rose parlors Beauvale House boasted, thanks to Winifred’s fondness for pink. With a fretful sigh, she squeezed Lily Chatwick’s hand and asked for what must have been the fifth time, “Are you certain you don’t mind?”

“I don’t mind,” Lily answered.

Amelia chewed her lip. “It just feels all wrong, to have you here.”

It all felt wrong, full stop. A wedding, before Lord Harcliffe was even in the ground? It was so tasteless, so arbitrary … and so sadly lacking in rolled icing and orchids. But evidently the Duke of Morland considered her whispered “yes” to be Amelia’s last word on the matter. Plans for these hasty nuptials had proceeded apace, whether she liked it or not. Yesterday afternoon had seen a flock of messengers descend on the Beauvale doorstep, delivering legal papers, the special license obtained from the archbishop, trunks emblazoned with the Morland crest in which to pack up her belongings. But before all these, a
modiste
had presented herself, flanked by two seamstresses and armed to the teeth with straight pins. Apparently the duke had been serious, when he spoke of pensioning off her blue moiré silk.

For the better part of the hour, the three women had flitted about her, measuring and clucking their tongues portentously, as if they were the three Fates of Grecian myth, sent to snip and stitch the precise shape of Amelia’s destiny.

Then early this morning, a footman had marched the long path to Amelia’s small bedchamber at the rear of the house, bearing a tower of boxes. The largest package held clouds of white petticoats and a mist-thin chemise; the smallest contained a coil of perfectly matched Baroque pearls. And one of the boxes in the middle had opened to reveal a tasteful, stylish gown of dove-gray satin. The color was understated and respectful—but quietly lovely. Amelia ran her fingers lightly over the skirt, twisting it in the sunlight to coax a lilac shimmer from the fabric.

“It’s a beautiful dress,” Lily said.

Amelia balled her hand in a fist, ashamed to have drawn attention to her own vanity. She ought to have refused to wear it and put on her plain black bombazine instead. But she had such a weakness for fine-milled fabric.

“You deserve it,” Lily said, as if she understood Amelia’s thoughts. “And you must not feel guilty on your wedding day. I’m grateful to be here, truly. What else should I be doing? Sitting weeping at home? I found ample time for that yesterday; tomorrow will bring a fresh supply of empty hours to fill. Today, I am glad for the distraction. And to be completely honest, I’m a bit relieved.”

“Relieved that you won’t have to marry him?” Amelia laughed dryly. “Yes, I understand. Better me than you.”

“I didn’t mean it that way. I’m certain His Grace will make you a fine husband.”

“Are you? I wish I could say the same.”

Lily’s gaze caught hers. “Amelia, you would not believe what he sent to the house yesterday.”

“Not seamstresses, I hope.”

“No, no. A bank draft.”

Amelia buried her face in her hands to disguise her unladylike response. “Not that blasted horse again.”

“It’s not so bad as you suspect. I was astonished to see the—”

Bang
.

The parlor door swung open with such force, the hinges rattled in the doorframe. Alarmed, Amelia shot to her feet. Lily followed suit, with considerably more grace.

The Duke of Morland filled the doorway. Tall. Dark. Handsome. Irate.

Not even the brown-black curls at his temple had the temerity to rebel this morning; they appeared to have been ruthlessly subdued with comb and pomade. His impeccable black topcoat and Hessians were matched by an equally dark expression. The duke looked angry, commanding, arrogant—and so intensely attractive it actually pained her to look him in the face. Truly, Amelia felt as though she’d swallowed all three of his nimble little seamstresses, and they were currently stitching the lining of her stomach into pleats.

From behind the duke’s imposing figure, Laurent made a chagrined expression. “Beg pardon. I tried to prevent him.”

“Good heavens, what is it?” In a defensive move, Amelia crossed her arms over her chest. Then she impulsively uncrossed them and clasped her trembling hands behind her back. He was just a man, she reminded herself. Just a mortal, imperfect man. She couldn’t let him cow her—not now, not ever.

“Lady Amelia,” he accused, “you are …” He raked
her with a glance, and beneath the pearly silk, a thousand pins pricked her skin. “You are late.”

“Late,” she echoed, disbelieving.

“Eight minutes late.” Striding into the room, he drew a timepiece from his waistcoat pocket. “The wedding was to begin at half-ten. It is now ten thirty”—he raised an eyebrow and paused dramatically—“nine. Nine minutes late.”

Struggling to remain calm, Amelia advanced to meet him in the center of the room. “Your Grace,” she muttered, “you have allowed me a betrothal of precisely twenty-seven hours. Twenty-seven hours, in which to reorder my life from that of an unmarried woman to that of a duchess. Now you would begrudge me nine minutes’ delay?”

He glowered at her. “Yes.”

Laurent crossed to her side and laid a hand on her shoulder, drawing her away. “Amelia,” he said quietly, “it’s not too late. You needn’t do this, you know.”