Chapter 24

There was a small piece of satisfaction in watching Margot's expressive face move from its stilted mask of stiffness, to see the welling of tears in her eyes. Not that he wanted her to cry, but Langley was pleased his speech had registered with her.

Still, doubt was lingering within him. She was not moving any closer. He speculated that he had shocked her, then had a fleeting thought that she might be repulsed by his offer. In truth he had never made such a declaration to another woman before, nor wanted to. But he had assumed after such a speech his Amazon in question would at least reply.

"My love?" There was a lightly tentative note to his voice.

When he tried to pull back, with the plan of fetching some wine for her, Margot's hands tightened on his, keeping him close. They were a foot apart, both on their knees watching each other. Posed in front of the fireplace.

"Why didn't I tell you?" She fixed him with a sharp, perceptive look. "You think it is my job to explain love to you? To have it set out before you, so you would understand?" She balled up her fists and slammed them into his chest. There really wasn't any force behind it, and when she stared up at him, their eyes on a level, Langley finally felt a degree of relief flood through him. She wanted to be here, she wanted to be close to him—aye, she needed to tell him that he was an idiot, but then… "Get that smug look off your face, my lord."

Snaking his hand around her back, Langley pulled Margot close, crushing her flattened hands which had come to rest on his chest, keeping her tight to him. It was exhilarating to have her nearby. To no longer deny the feelings that flooded through him, to grin down at her, and to steal a kiss. This was the kiss he had wanted earlier. She was delicious, warm, and tantalising—everything he had been picturing and yet so much more besides. How had he managed to stay away for so many days? It beggared belief, his patience, but now they were reunited, his body craved the sweet release the two of them would find together.

There was artistry and comfort in her touch, and the languid ease with which he stroked her back spurred him on. It was such an erotic thrill, richer and sweeter than he would have ever previously expected, that when he rolled them both down onto the rug completely, Langley felt quite sure his heart might explode from happiness. He wanted to laugh, to feel the lightness wash through him. Yet this was all doing battle against his overwhelming need for Margot.

His hands were unsteady as they crept beneath her skirts, his prior statement to feeling far more like a virgin than she was, was achingly true.

"Wait," she said, and Langley forced himself to pause.

"What is wrong?"

"Don't you want to know if I love you too? Or did you just assume all women do?" Margot arched her brow at him, and Langley resisted the urge to kiss it.

"No, of course not… Do you? Love me, I mean?"

Margot blushed, suddenly shy, and then nodded. "I think I have for weeks, despite myself. And then entirely for you." If anything, the joyous happiness he had experienced earlier bubbled and burst through him, expanding in every direction within him. He'd known what it was to be wanted previously, but to be loved, this was something else.

She unnerved and excited him, challenging him physically and mentally, he realised as they struggled, kissed, and fumbled together, rendering all his previous experience mute and dull in comparison to the inferno Margot brought to light. When his seeking fingers found her wet curls, her mouth, which was curved against his, broke into a grin that matched his own, and then as he slipped two fingers inside her as she looked at him, it was to watch in delight as her neck arched back and she pleasured herself against him.

She gasped, a half moan. "Silvester." There was something in the way she managed to say his name, it seemed like it was a prayer. A needful call for release, for coupling, for connection. For love, that's what it was.

"There you are my Amazon, my love." He pushed the strand of her dark hair out of her face, and tucked it behind her ear.

Margot's body was half leant, half draped over him. They lay sprawled in front of the fireplace, the rug beneath him. Her own hands struggled to loosen the folds of his breeches, freeing him from the material confines. All semblance of restraint between the two of them was gone, and in its place simple, desperate, raw need.

He dragged Margot more firmly on top of him, coaxing her forward so she was astride him. For one moment she looked uncertain, as if she might change her mind. Leaning down between them, Langley stroked the peak of her sex, coating his fingers in her desire, angling her so he could slip more easily inside her sheath.

Sitting up on his elbow, he kissed her cheek and then her lips as Margot adjusted herself, easing herself down onto his cock. When he was held in her tight, all-compassing warmth, the sensation made him gasp aloud.

"Now you ride me," he said as her wide eyes met his. With one quick surge up within her, Margot laughed with pleasure and then she started to move. Her limbs were unsteady, but soon she found her rhythm, claiming him as she gained confidence to ride him with more skill.

When Langley's hands fumbled beneath her gown, catching and holding on to her bottom, getting her to grind down with the pressure of his fingers, the sensation was sharp, enticing, and released within him a full-bodied satisfaction in feeling and knowing her form so well. It was not merely physical. He realised that was the key—it transcended that element and instead encompassed all what they were to each other.

"I love you," he said as she rocked back and forth on top of him, desire and need awash between their bodies, catching and causing the other to be driven to even greater heights of want.

He was grateful when Margot let out a tremendous sigh, a catch within her voice as she nodded, all sense of logic gone as her body pulsed and spasmed around him. As she vibrated against him, calling and crying out her climax. The tightening around him, not to mention the look on her face, caused its own reaction in Langley, deep from within him a rush of heat, of feeling triggered, and seconds after she had finished, he found his own completion. His hands grasped her to him still, unable to let her go, fearful suddenly he would never know the same true sense of connection again. When he looked up and caught Margot watching his face with such warm grace that was so uniquely her, he felt a solace he had never known possible from fucking before. But he knew it now, and by God no one would ever take it from him again. No one would ever take Margot from him.

"When do you wish to marry?" he asked as he pulled her down onto the rug next to him, his hands busy smoothing and stroking her hair and then along her back. He was entirely unable to stop touching her.

Margot seemed to tolerate it well enough as she nestled into the crook of his arm. "I did think I would like my parents to be there. To meet you."

Somehow Langley had his doubts a vicar and his wife would find much to approve in him. Besides, that suggestion meant waiting weeks and weeks to get the banns called and then journey up to Berwick-upon-Tweed, or have the Keatings make the trip down south, which might even take longer. The vicar could even wish to perform the ceremony himself. No, his selfish heart argued, it needed to be sooner. Instead of voicing that, he said, "If you wish."

To this Margot grinned, as her hand trailed across his chest, her curiosity fighting away any shyness she might have originally shown. "I thought you were most eager. Pressing almost."

"I am." Langley put his hand behind his head, determined to enjoy the sense of contentment that lapped around the pair of them. She had agreed to wed him, and his heart rejoiced. He had feared more than anything she would refuse—that he had learnt finally to love, and it would be for nought. Margot would see his selfish heart and want nothing to do with him. But she hadn't. She loved him in spite of everything.

"But you will wait, despite your family's need?"

"Yes," Langley said. The plan of a speedy marriage to a suitable bride had been his mother"s, a way of saving her own good name, but the reality Langley realised as he looked at Margot. He was the one being saved. He wanted to marry his Amazon for her sake as well as his. "I don't give a damn about my family's reputation."

To this Margot swatted at his shoulder. "But that is why you came here in the first place."

"I would have come here regardless of what my mother said. I resent her for the tardiness she caused me in keeping me from here as I arranged for her to leave Town."

Margot's eyebrow rose sceptically. "I had no idea."

"No idea of what?"

"How deeply you feel." She leant over him again as she studied his face. "I was scared, weeks ago, that only I could feel this need for you."

"When did you realise?"

The firelight cast soft shadows around them, leaving the library in a snug contentment. It was odd to have made love here, and be basking in the afterglow, despite still being fully dressed.

"I think I was quite infatuated with you from the very first," Margot said. Her voice was teasing as she added, "What woman could not be when confronted with those thighs and that face?" She nestled closer and then added, "But you were kind, which I did not expect."

"For selfish reasons," Langley admitted as he enfolded her to his chest.

"You were?"

"I wanted to bed you."

"But I looked like a mad thing."

"It didn't matter."

"You are supposed to say I looked beautiful." There was a laughed note of outrage, and while Langley saw all her loveliness now, he could not resist teasing her some more.

"You looked like a wild, untameable harridan. Running through my perfectly pleasant orgy waving a poker. I must say it was certainly different from anything I'd ever seen before."

"Odd, perhaps?" A smirk was playing around Margot's mouth as she considered the image he conjured up.

"Indeed." Langley kissed Margot's nose, all these small pieces of affection he now could demonstrate in a manner he had never imagined possible for him previously, but now he found strangely appealing. "You were charming, nonetheless. I do remember that quite clearly. Or at least I was charmed." He loathed the idea that any of the randy buggers who had been in his salon might recall Miss Keating and hold out hope she would give any of them the slightest inkling of attention. If any of those bastards tried such a thing, Langley would take great delight in beating them senseless.

"Different from any of your other parties?" Margot asked.

"Yes," Langley said. He pondered how to tell her that there had been no other such events for weeks, nor did he wish there to be another. He was not remotely interested in such a thing, or any other woman. His entire being was simply attuned to her. Turning on his side, he gazed at her face, memorising the tilt of her eyelashes, the shape of her nose, the way her mouth curved as she watched him. "You must know I don't want, or rather I won't be holding any more of those parties?"

"Or attending any of your friends'… events? Surely as a notable rake of the ton, a man with such a libertine reputation as yours would have to make the occasional guest appearance at that kind of thing?"

"I find myself entirely uninterested in maintaining such a perception of my name. I watched my mother bleat on about everything Pip and I should sacrifice for her benefit, and I could not any longer. For years that attitude has hurt me, but I saw what it did to poor Pip, and I knew what would happen to me if I allowed myself to pursue the insubstantial over what was real." His hands encircled her face, keeping Margot pinned beneath him. "We will be real, true, loving, all the things I ran from for far too long. Why would I give a damn what anyone else thinks of me for that? Let them think what they will."

Freeing herself, Margot rolled over and then climbed atop him again, kissing his face before slowly leaning backwards. "Very well, I will marry you. As soon as we are able to." She laughed. "Despite the fact that you have no ring."

"I thought you would prefer to have your pick of the jeweller's wares. And," he added as they started to get to their feet, "I did not wish to spend more time away from you than I had to."

"What an excuse." Margot, now upright, straightened her mourning dress, although her hair was far messier than it had been when he'd entered, and he was rather pleased to see her face was flushed from their activities.

"So, we will wait for your parents and siblings to join us here in London for the wedding?" A small look of worry creased Margot's face. Suddenly she was beset with concern. Instinctively, Langley reached for her, taking her hands in his own. He liked playing the protector with her, he realised. Those emotions of his were strong and possessive. They beat through him as they never had before. "What is wrong, my love?" He hoped it was in his power to solve whatever crisis she saw before her.

"My sister, she went to Cornwall to collect my… That is, I thought it safer for her to be out of London. Given there was a murderer on the loose. She was supposed to locate the new duke… to find him, to tell him of Ashmore's death and his inherited title. I have been writing to the estate for weeks, and neither of them have replied. Mr. Holt says he cannot reach them either. You must think me a selfish creature to have dismissed such thoughts from my mind in favour of…"

"Between searching for your family's missing diamonds, keeping a dangerous secret of your own inheritance, a rogue murderer, and I suppose I should add battling against one of London's worst rakes, how in all this am I supposed to think you're in the wrong?" Langley took her hand, holding on tight, and then enfolded her in his arms. "I can see why you thought Elsie being away from Town was sensible. So, no, I do not think you selfish."

"Then what should I do?"

"What should we do," Langley replied. "If you are to be my wife, I will share any of these worries you have. And hopefully be able to solve them."

"Then what are we to do?"

"First," Langley said, "I need some food. Those half-eaten sandwiches will not suffice."

"That is not a practical solution for finding my sister."

"It is immensely practical."

"Then what?"

"Then I suggest we retire to your bedroom," Langley said, and laughed at the look of outrage on Margot's face. Teasing her would never cease to amuse him.

"In all seriousness, what shall we do?"

He liked that she used the term ‘we'—that was what they would be. A unit set about to solve, support, and aid, as well as love each other. "Tomorrow we will announce our engagement to your shocked staff, or least the ones who pretend to be shocked. I will secure us a marriage licence."

"Don't they take weeks?"

"I am sure I have some relative or similar who can speed up the process."

"And this hasty marriage will?—"

"Will allow us to travel down to Cornwall, and find wherever your wayward sister has gotten to. And her elusive duke."

"I doubt his grace would appreciate that moniker. Or being labelled as Elsie's."

"If the man is under forty and over twenty, I suspect that the poor noble will not have any other choice, not if Elsie is remotely like you."

Margot frowned as she dwelt on his words, before finally nodding her assent. A joyful spurt of energy caught hold of Langley, and he lifted her up in his arms and spun her round.

"Are you really that excited about getting some food?" Margot asked as she was finally lowered back to the ground, but to his relief did not step out of the shelter of his arms.

"No, I find myself far more pleased at all the other things you have agreed to," Langley said, leaning down and sealing her lips against his in an all-consuming kiss, delighted to finally be at one with his Amazon.

THE END

Readon for a sneak peek at the next book in the series, The Duke….