Chapter 32

Amusement, surprise, and something else warred within his eyes. ‘Well,' he said, ‘I see you mean to be a bold sort of a duchess from the outset. I own I had not expected it, but I am not in the least displeased, Georgiana, I assure you. On the contrary!'

‘I think you know perfectly well that that is not what I mean,' she replied, flushing. ‘You look exhausted; I too am tired. It has been a hectic few days, with this latest shock on top of all the rest. We do not dine and make our celebration till later, and I think we should take the opportunity to rest now, and recover our composure.'

‘I must tell you,' he murmured, ‘that although you obviously think me a poor creature, I am not yet in the habit of taking to my bed in the middle of the day for such a reason.'

‘Maybe you should be. At your advanced age…'

She meant to shock him, to tease the set look from his face, and it seemed she had succeeded. He laughed, and took her loosely in his arms, resting his forehead on hers. ‘I can think of many responses to that pert remark, and none of them in the least conducive to – what was it you said? – recovering our composure. But with great age comes patience, or so I am told. I will willingly go to bed and rest, my dear, if you will come with me. I will ask no more of you just now than the comfort of your embrace.'

His words, and the warmth in his eyes, brought a lump to her throat, and she could do nothing but nod, and climb the stairs with him to his oak-panelled bedchamber. They could comfort each other, she thought. He seemed to need her, at least in this moment, as much as she needed him, and surely that must be a good sign?

It was not as though they had not lain on a bed together before. They had done all sorts of things under cover of darkness, after all. But somehow to go openly together to the suite of rooms they now would share, to take off her shoes and lie down with him on his big four-poster in broad daylight, felt different. Felt serious. Everyone in the house would likely know where they were, from Lady Blanche and Louisa to the servants, and would make understandable assumptions about what they were doing. They were very thoroughly married, and all the world knew it. There was nothing secret, nothing illicit in their union – quite the reverse. They were supposed to be making an heir. Duty demanded that they do so, and as soon as possible. But when she gave herself to him at last, she knew it would not be with any thought of duty.

She had a coronet of damp white roses and a precious Point de Malines lace veil on her head, and plainly it would be ridiculous as well as uncomfortable to lie down in such a thing; Gabriel explored with gentle fingers, found the pins that held the whole confection in place and pulled them loose, then carefully lifted it away and set it down upon a side table. ‘There,' he said. ‘Perhaps you will feel more like yourself without it.'

‘I don't know that I will. Maybe I never will. I am a duchess now, apparently.'

‘You are. My duchess. But you are still Georgie.' He saw the doubt and confusion on her face and said, ‘You're weary too. Come and lie down, and perhaps sleep a little. I think we both need it.'

The Duke shrugged off his corbeau coat and tugged ruthlessly on his cravat, then tossed both aside on a chair. ‘Let me unfasten your gown for you, or you will crease it horribly.' He was right, of course, and she stood as his patient fingers worked at the tiny silk-covered buttons that ran down her back. When he had finished, he stepped aside; he did not further help her to put off her gown, nor make any comment as she did so, and she was glad of it, conscious of an almost overpowering sense of shyness that, God knows, she had never felt in his presence before and had not looked to feel now.

Slipping off his shoes, he pulled the velvet coverlet and linen sheet back and lay down. Before she allowed herself to think about it too much, she crossed to the bed, and climbed onto it to lie rather stiffly at his side. He put his arm about her, and she settled her head on his chest. This was new. Under the silver-embroidered wedding waistcoat and the thin lawn shirt, she could feel his heart beating steadily. Somehow it, and the warmth of his body, calmed her. She sighed unconsciously, and snuggled closer. His hand came up, almost hesitantly, and stroked her disordered curls with great and unexpected gentleness. ‘You were right, Georgie,' he said softly. ‘I did not know it, but this is exactly what I need. Thank you! Now let us try to sleep if we can.'

Georgie had imagined she could not possibly relax into slumber; her mental state was agitated, confused, and the Duke's arms, holding her with no trace of amorous intent, unfamiliar. She had never been held in just this way before. There was nothing in the least lascivious in the way he embraced her, but his nearness, the masculine scent of him, the weight of his big hand on her head, were all subtly disturbing as well as comforting. It was an extraordinary combination.

But, exhausted as she was, she must have slept despite everything, for when she next became aware of her surroundings the light coming through the tall windows had changed, and so had her situation.

Gabriel had pulled up the bedlinens to cover them both. She was exceedingly warm. Hot. Her face was pillowed comfortably on his chest as it had been when she fell asleep, and his strong arms were still secure about her, but everything else had altered. At some point in the afternoon she had turned into his embrace, so that her leg now lay across him and her body was pressed to his; his thigh had inserted itself between hers, or she had wrapped herself around it, and it seemed to fit very snugly there. Their proximity did not feel quite so innocent any more. Did not feel innocent at all.

She raised her head a little and saw that he was awake, his glinting silver gaze regarding her from under his heavy lids. There was a world of meaning in his eyes. ‘Georgiana…' he said, his voice deep and caressing, and at the mere sound of it all the fine hairs on her skin stood on end.

She felt sure that her face was creased from sleep and unbecomingly flushed from the heat of the bed, and from their closeness. But her dishevelment did not seem to have given him a disgust of her. ‘Would you care to kiss me?' he said simply.

‘I should like to.' It was true. She knew all her confusion, all her unanswered, unanswerable questions still remained. She also knew, or feared, that physical intimacy between them would not resolve anything. But God, she wanted it. Wanted him. It would have to be enough.

Georgie wriggled into a more upright position, lying on his chest now with her breasts crushed against him, a delicious pressure. His hands came tight about her ribcage and pulled her a little higher, so that she was able to reach him, and take his face between her hands, and brush his lips with hers. She was only tentative for a moment; it seemed a long time, far too long, since they had tasted each other – they had not been properly alone since the night of the ball – and it felt so right that within seconds their mouths were locked together in mutual and growing hunger. She fastened her fingers in his hair and pressed every inch of her body close to his, and his hands slid down her stays and over her petticoats till they found her buttocks and cupped them through the flimsy layers that covered her. He pulled her tighter still against him, and she gripped his hard thigh between hers. She wanted, needed there to be no space between them, for his flesh to touch hers.

But they were still largely clothed – her long-sleeved embroidered lawn habit shirt and all her undergarments, his waistcoat, shirt and pantaloons. She put a finger to his lips and drew away from him reluctantly, so that she could sit up. She unbuttoned her shirt with impatient fingers, pulling it off and flinging it away so that her arms, shoulders and upper chest were bare. He followed her lead, shrugging out of his waistcoat, dragging his shirt over his head and letting it fall. She had not seen him shirtless before, despite all their intimacy; his torso was far more strongly muscled than his habitually languid demeanour would lead one to imagine. She had no time to admire him, though, for he lifted her without the least effort and set her astride his body, and her knees came up instinctively so that she could set them on the bed either side of him and steady herself. He was partially sitting now, so that they faced each other, breathless, panting. He seemed to understand what she needed; his clever hands pulled her white petticoats ruthlessly up so that her naked core could settle against the bare skin of his abdomen. In his haste, fragile muslin ripped. She did not care. She gasped at the intimate contact, and he smiled.

They stayed still for a moment, skin to skin. Through the thin fabric of his pantaloons she could feel him hot and hard beneath the back of her thigh. His left hand came down to clasp her buttock once again and tuck her more tightly into him, and she welcomed the pressure with a tiny moan. The tips of his fingers grazed her most sensitive skin, and now his right hand moved to cup her face. She turned into it and pressed her lips to his palm, and then her tongue came out and tasted it.

He said, his voice unsteadier than she had ever heard it, ‘I came to look for you, Georgiana. It seems important somehow that I tell you that now.'

Her hands were on his chest, tangling in the soft whorls of dark hair that grew there; she could not get enough of touching him. ‘How can that be? When, when did you do this?'

‘In London, after… we first met. I couldn't get you out of my head, and so I went to ton parties in search of you. I never go to such parties now. I am invited to some, but I don't like them much, and so I never go. I went looking for you wherever I thought you might be, but I did not find you. Of course, I had not the least idea who you were and could think of no way to find out.'

He laughed softly. ‘I could hardly go about asking people if they knew a beautiful girl with extraordinary blue eyes and short dark curls; I had not quite lost all self-control. Not quite. I even procured a voucher for Almack's – Sally Jersey has a soft spot for me still. You should have seen the tabbies stare. You were not there.'

‘I easily might have been. What would you have done if you had found me?' she whispered. His right hand had left her face now, and his fingers were tracing idle lines down her throat, and across her shoulders, and lower. His other hand was similarly occupied where her buttock met her thigh. It was increasingly difficult to form coherent thoughts. She was aware of heat kindling where her sex was pressed against his bare skin, and could not resist moving a little in response to it.

‘Solicited your hand for a waltz, perhaps. God knows I had no wish to dance with anyone else, and I did not. If I had walked up to you and claimed you and you alone as I wished to, that would have given the chaperons something to chatter over.'

‘I might have panicked and refused you.' She scarcely knew what she was saying. He had found the ties of her chemise and undone them, and was pulling the thin material down so that her breasts were exposed, offered up to him by the boning of her stays. Her nipples were engorged and aching for his touch; with an inarticulate murmur he bent his head and tantalised her with long, slow licks around them and across them. The contact was wonderful, but it was too brief. She arched her back in mute appeal and ran her hands up the corded muscles of his back, and his fingers tightened on her bottom in response, kneading the sensitive skin.

He spoke against her flesh, between tantalising kisses, and his feathered breath tormented her further. ‘You might well have publicly spurned me. What a scandal that would have caused among the haut ton. And even more if I had put you across my shoulder and carried you off out of the place so that I could ravish you immediately in my carriage, which was one of the fantasies I entertained at that time. One of the many fantasies…'

His right hand held her tightly under her breast, splayed possessively across her ribcage. She felt taut as a bowstring in his grasp, and acutely conscious of his strength, and his desire, and hers. And hers.

‘I simply could not get you out of my head,' he said raggedly, ‘your fearlessness, the sight of you there on that couch baring yourself to me, the taste of you, the fact that I might never see you again, and yet my tongue had explored you so intimately and brought you to…'

‘Oh, God, please, Gabriel!' she said wildly. His lips closed on her nipple and sucked it at last, gently and then harder, and she moaned aloud, and dug her nails into his flesh, and writhed against him.

He pulled away after a long moment, and the air was cold on her slick, sensitised skin, and then his tongue went out again to taste her. She could feel the short stubble on his cheeks against her breasts as he moved his attention from one erect nipple to the other, and she welcomed the friction. She was wet against him, and although the ridged muscles of his abdomen were hard and the contact delicious, she needed more.

‘I could not get you out of my head,' he said again, ‘and now I do not need to. Can I lose myself in you again, Georgie, and give you pleasure as I did once before, as I have been desperate to all these long weeks?'

She moaned assent, and he turned her on her back and moved away a moment, to drag off his pantaloons with impatient hands before returning to her. ‘Shall I undress you?' he said. ‘Would you be more comfortable?'

‘The only thing that would make me more comfortable,' she said, ‘is you setting about fulfilling your fantasies, and mine!'

‘Yours too? Do you say so?' He was smiling, teasing her, as he smoothed back her ruined petticoats with exaggerated care.

‘Do not pretend you did not know it!' And then his hungry mouth was on her, and she could no longer speak, nor did she wish to. He did not tantalise her any longer, did not kiss his slow way upwards to her core as he had once before. There was no need, and it was not what either of them wanted. There would be a time for slow exploration and sophisticated pleasures, but this was not it. She was in a high state of arousal before ever his eager tongue touched her most secret places, desperate for release. God, she had missed this, had dreamed of this too every night.

Within a few moments she was clutching the bedcovers and gasping as the waves of pleasure built and then broke over her, and he devoured her and prolonged the pleasure ruthlessly until she saw stars behind her closed eyelids.

This time there was no need for him to move away or let her go. He came to lie close beside her, took her limp hand and kissed it, and said, ‘Georgie…?'

She could only murmur yes, and welcome him into her arms as he came back to her. He was above her now, and she wrapped her legs around him and clung to him. He kissed her neck and her breasts, whispering endearments, teasing her sensitised skin, and then a moment of discomfort, but no more than that, and she knew that he was inside her.

‘Oh, God,' he gasped. ‘How I have longed for this. Let us be still a moment.'

They lay panting, their bodies slicked with sweat, and he touched her face with gentle, wondering fingers. She captured one between her teeth and bit it, then sucked on it, and he traced the moist, tender flesh inside her lower lip as she had done to him once before. She whimpered in response to all the sensations his touch, the pressure of his body on hers and in hers evoked in her, and he laughed shakily. ‘Very well,' he said, ‘very well, my eager Duchess.' Slowly at first he began to move in her, with her, and before long they found a rhythm together, growing harder and faster. His hands found hers and clasped them, and she arched her back against him and raised her hips to meet him as he thrust into her, her legs locked around him and her heels pressing into his buttocks. This was the forbidden action at last, the thing women talked of, if they talked of it at all, behind their hands, and her thoughts were fractured, almost submerged as she was in the physical moment and all the new sensations it brought, but some small, detached part of her brain was glad that she was experiencing it with him, and no one else. No regrets, in this moment. Whatever came of it.

He cried out her name as he spent himself in her, and she held him as he shuddered in release. Their hands were still tightly clasped. He lay with his full weight on her for a moment, but before she could become aware of any discomfort he rolled over, taking her with him so that she lay on top of him once more.

‘Georgie…' he said again after a moment. ‘I am afraid to speak and break the spell. I know that sometimes I am damnably clumsy where you are concerned, I have always been guilty of talking too much when I should keep silent, and I do not… But thank you.'

‘Thank you…?' she murmured distractedly, her head buried in his neck, drinking in the spicy scent of him.

‘Thank you for marrying me when I know you still have doubts. Thank you for all you risk in doing so. I promise you I am more than conscious of it.' She stiffened a little in his embrace; he felt it and said ruefully against her curls, ‘You see? I will always be talking when I should learn to be quiet and hold you.'

‘No… You have been avoiding me, have you not, these last few days? I thought you might come to my bed, but then I realised why you did not. It must have been because you did not wish to discuss my doubts any further. And I did not either, so I did not seek you out. And…' she said, with a little catch in her voice, ‘and… I don't want to talk about them now. Like this.' She shivered a little, and he pulled the covers up over them, not speaking until he had done so, wrapping his arms around her again.

‘God knows I will not force you to speak of something that brings you distress, now of all times. I suppose that's partly true, the reason I was avoiding you. I'm sorry, Georgie. The plain truth is that I was afraid, I think, that if we spoke again on the matter your obvious reluctance might compel me to behave as a true gentleman would and let you go. And I knew I would regret it for the rest of my life if I did so. I am aware that that's not very creditable and I am not excessively proud of myself for it. "Selfish" does not even come close to describing my actions.'

‘You have others than yourself to think of.'

‘That's kind of you, but it's not really true. I owed it to many, to marry and… all the rest of it. But you must know that I lost sight of that a good while since. For many days now I have been aware that I wanted you, I want you, for myself, not for the damn dukedom or the estate or any of that.'

‘Well, you have me.' So much still lay unspoken between them, and she felt she had exposed herself enough. But this much was true: he had her. As to whether she had him, could ever truly… But she must not do this to herself now.

‘I hope I never give you cause to regret it, my dear.'

‘So, do not!'

‘If it lies in my power…'

She sighed. ‘I was being childish; do not regard it. We both know that you cannot make those kinds of promises. Nobody can. But something has been tormenting me, Gabriel. When I speak of it to anyone, they tell me I am being foolish.'

‘I doubt that. You are no fool.'

She shook her head. ‘Never mind that. You do not have to pay me compliments; this is serious. I worry that I will not be able to give you the son that you need.'

‘If that were so – and there is no reason to make such an assumption – I do not see how we could ever know if the fault, though fault is not the correct word, were yours or mine. This sort of thing is out of our hands, is it not, and always must be? And the same would be true whomever I had married.'

‘You do not have natural children here and there, then?' She spoke with studied lightness – he might have a dozen, for all she knew, a man of his reputation, and if it were so she supposed she must accept it – but he answered her seriously.

‘I do not. I have always been careful, whatever people have said of me. No bastard children, no need for mercury cures. I should have told you both these things before, perhaps. I did tell your brother in our first awkward interview, once the bottle came out.'

‘I think you should have said. But everything has been so fraught and peculiar these last days… I am glad, on both counts.'

The conversation had strayed into uncomfortable territory, and she was glad when he said, in what she thought must be a deliberate attempt to row back into safer waters, ‘I cannot imagine what time it might be, but surely it must be not far off the dinner hour.'

‘I think I heard the clock striking six a little while ago,' she murmured without thinking, and then blushed when he laughed at her. He seemed to be genuinely amused rather than offended.

‘I will take good care to distract you better next time, madam! You put me on my mettle. But if you are right, we should get up and dress for dinner, should we not?'

She agreed and they parted, but he gave her a long, lingering kiss before he let her go. ‘Till later, Georgie,' he said, and the gleam in his silver eyes told her that he was back in the ironical mood that was so familiar to her.