Chapter 15

“Your mother,” the Duke mumbled angrily under his breath.

“She has a habit of getting under everyone’s skin. Don’t let her do that to you too.” Grace scurried to keep up with him as he marched purposefully toward the dance floor. As the music changed, they stepped onto the floor to join the other dancers.

Grace stumbled a little to which his eyes widened, but he caught her around the waist. The way he took hold of her, as if she was as light a feather, made her quite breathless.

Struggling to find her voice, she let the Duke lead her into the opening movements of the waltz.

“If you wish to eat cake, you eat it, Grace. You understand?” he said, his voice quite determined and resilient. “Remember that freedom I promised you? Well, it is yours now.”

Grace smiled. A strange warmth was spreading through her chest, not just because of his words but because he had come to dance with her at all. She’d feared he would ignore her for the whole wedding breakfast. His hand on her waist shifted a little, moving around to her back, so that she danced an inch closer to him than before.

This near, she could smell the cologne he liked to wear. That vanilla and pine scent bled into her, making her remember everything they had experienced in that carriage together.

“She…” Grace tried to speak in a level tone. “She is hardly happy. My friends and I took scissors to my wedding gown this morning to make it into something I wished to wear.”

“Good.” The gravelly tone made her insides quake with excitement. The Duke’s eyes traveled down to her rather obvious cleavage. “You’ve been hiding those curves of yours for too damn long, Grace.”

“Curves?” She giggled at the idea. “You mean the fact that I am fa —”

“You are not.” He cut in before she could even finish the word. His hand slid further across her back, pulling her so near now that she was breathless. He bent a little nearer to her, pressing his lips near her ear. “Hide those curves from me again, and there will be punishment for it.”

Punishment?

An excited shiver shot through her. For some reason, the way Philip spoke to her, she was certain that punishment would be a pleasurable thing indeed. Then he stood straight and increased the distance between them. Within the blink of an eye, he was back to the reserved and strict older figure he had always been.

Damn you for tormenting me so.

“You look incensed,” she whispered, marking a change in his stiff countenance she had not seen before. There was a twitch in his jaw.

He glanced away, toward where her mother stood at the side of the floor, clutching rather desperately to Tabitha’s hand.

“Does she always control you like this?” the Duke asked, somehow managing to escort her around the floor with ease despite the fact his eyes were glowering at her mother.

“Not anymore,” Grace replied with a delighted laugh. “From this day forward, I am free of her. That means no more ridiculous dresses with frilly necklines. No more oversized gowns.” She continued to laugh, feeling heady and dizzy with excitement. “It also means no insistent rampages from her that my embroidery is poor or that my piano skills are more like that of a stray cat’s than a young lady’s.”

“Is that what she says?” The Duke laughed.

Grace was startled by the sound as she jerked her gaze up from the center of his waistcoat to his eyes. The Duke had laughed with heat around her before, even scoffed in the past, but this sort of warm and companionable laugh? No, that was new.

“Well, my piano skills are just as bad,” he said with a smile. “So, I’ll hardly care if you want to throw out the piano from this house.” Then his eyes slid down to her lips as he turned them around again. “On second thoughts, don’t throw it away. Maybe neither of us will play the instrument, but there’s a certain fantasy I want to live out with it first.”

Other dancers crowded around them. They were so lost in the middle of the floor, hidden from view, that when his hand took hold of her hip and squeezed, Grace was confident that none but them knew it.

“What sort of fantasy?” she said defiantly, keeping her chin raised toward his own.

“You put it there last week when we danced around that piano in your house.” He bent down, whispering in her ear again. “I rather like the idea of reminding you who you belong to know as I bend you across it.” He brushed the edge of her ear with his lips.

She gasped, shocked at what he had done. Surely now, they would be seen, but just as before, as they moved around the room, he shifted to be distant. His hand was formally on the curve of her waist, and he stood straight.

“You’re torturing me,” she muttered, the confession falling fast from her lips.

“Torture, eh?” He chuckled. “Torture is having to wait all the way for tonight until I can have you.” Then his eyes darkened. “In fact, why wait?”

Her hand trembled within his own as the dance came to a close. Slowly, they parted from one another. He bowed as she curtsied, neither one of them breaking the connection of their gaze.

“Excuse yourself for the privy,” he ordered then marched away from the floor.

Shaking, uncertain whether to obey the command he had just given or not, she made her way back to the edge of the floor. Eleanor stood there, trying to return the slice of cake into her grasp though Althea intercepted her first. Quite expertly, Althea pretended it was just an accident that she had knocked the cake to the floor.

“Oh, how clumsy of me,” she gushed and placed a hand against her chest.

She’s never clumsy. She hates my clumsy ways.

With this thought clear in her mind, Grace glanced over her shoulder. The Duke hadn’t yet left the room.

She chewed her lip, trying to remember when he had admonished her for being clumsy, but she could not recall him doing so recently. In fact, he’d only caught her when she fell off the carriage bench.

“I need the privy,” Grace said hurriedly under her breath to Eleanor. “Excuse me.” With these words, she parted from the room.

Grace meandered down the corridor. She had been to this house so many times, she knew exactly where she was going. She hovered outside of the privy door, not knowing where to go or what to do now, when sudden footsteps sounded behind her.

The Duke had also escaped the ballroom. He was striding down the corridor toward her with such intention in every step that she actually took a small step back. He moved with purpose, shrugging off his tailcoat as he approached her.

“Your Grace,” she murmured.

“Philip. My name is Philip,” he hissed at her and grabbed hold of her hand. “This way.”

“You expect me to follow every order you make now, do you?” she asked, following behind him as he pulled her into his study.

She could not remember ever being in this room before. She tripped on the edge of the rug though he didn’t reprimand her for it. He took a tighter hold of her hand, preventing her from falling flat on her face.

“Not every order, no,” he said, his tone growing deeper by the second. “But some… definitely.”

“I have no intention of abiding by orders,” she replied, tearing her hand out of his grasp.

He kicked the door shut behind them then grabbed the nearest chair and jammed it under the door handle, preventing anyone else from being able to get in.

“You abided by this one,” he observed, moving back toward her and dropping his tailcoat into the nearest chair. “Just curious, were you?” He bent toward her. “Or were you ready to start begging me again as you did in that carriage?”

“You arrogant man,” she seethed.

Maybe this was a bad idea.

A thought crossed her mind. She could do as Tabitha suggested. She could deny giving him anything in the interest that they could one day annul the marriage, but the way his eyes were raking up and down her was making excitement coil in her stomach. That wetness he could so often cause pooled between her legs again.

Without thinking what she was doing, she slowly backed up. He stalked her, moving toward her like a predator.

“You intend to consummate in here?” she said in outrage, waving a hand toward the study around them. “I will not do that.”

“No?” He looked amused at the idea, sliding his hand across her waist when she could go no further and found herself trapped between him and the desk. “I rather like the idea of being in that chair with you straddling me, Grace.” His words sent a thrilling shiver up her spin. “But no. The first time I take you completely, I want you in that bed upstairs.”

“Then… why are we here?” Her gut knotted tight. There was something incredibly disappointing about the thought that he wasn’t going to take her now. She rubbed her thighs together, trying to get some release to the ache between her legs. He clearly caught sight of what she was doing.

He shifted one of his hands to the desk behind her, leaning toward her as his eyes watched the skirt of her gown. He placed his hand on her thigh, just as he had done that night in the carriage. It was a firm hold that slinked higher and higher up her leg, the fingers caressing her hip.

Grace placed both palms behind her on the desk. She told herself she would not touch him. She would not be desperate for his touch, weak as she had been that night in the carriage.

“No begging today?” he whispered, bending toward her, moving his lips to the curve of her neck. When he bit down on the curve, she gasped. Her heartrate had just increased tenfold, and that throbbing had started between her legs.

“No,” she said with more vigor than she felt.

“Shame. Maybe I’ll have to remind you of the taste of desire first.” Then he lifted his hand and crushed his lips against hers. The moment his tongue slid against her own, Grace wondered why she was trying to resist him at all. She kissed him back, fiercely, as he took hold of her hips and lifted her onto the edge of the desk.

She perched on the very edge as he took hold of both of her knees and parted them wide, settling his body between hers. His hips rubbed against her own as they kissed, his hardness so obvious that she moaned into the kiss.

He took hold of the lacy skirt and dragged it increasingly upward. Hooking his fingers around one of her stockings, he dragged it down her leg, exposing her whole thigh, then ran his palm up the bare skin inside her thigh.

“Grace,” he whispered, between their kisses. “Do you want to wait for tonight?” he asked, pure taunt in his voice.

“Don’t torture me,” she ordered him. He chuckled against the skin of her neck, moving further and further down her body. He tipped her back, urging her to lay down over the ordered papers on his desk.

She caught sight briefly of how everything had its place. The papers were stacked neatly, the inkwells lined up, but with her splayed across the top, that illusion of neatness was ruined.

“Do you want to wait?” he teased her again, one of his hands reaching high under her skirt to the very bottom of her stays. He was pulling on them now, showing her how much he’d like to rip them off her body. His other hand lifted higher still between her legs.

With nothing hiding her body, she knew if he looked down, he would see the most private part of her, the part that was now wet, needing him. His fingers brushed the very edge of her, his forefinger curling into her center.

Grace had to bite her lip not to cry out at the sudden touch. It was a brief pleasure, but pleasure, nonetheless. It was the promise of more.

“Your Grace,” she begged.

“No,” he ordered, his voice dark as he bent over her a little more. His finger retreated then moved forward again. “Say my name, Grace.”

He kissed her up her neck, down to the top curves of her breasts then returned to her lips. They kissed with passion, a fierceness that made her leg rise, trying its best to hook around his hip. He took control and held that leg down, keeping her body open to him.

“Philip,” she whispered as he pulled back from their kiss. “Please!” she said insistently, trying to raise her hips a little, to feel more of his touch.

“As you wish, my Duchess,” he whispered, a smile curving his handsome face.

Then his hand let go of her.

“No,” she whimpered, thinking he was pulling away from her entirely. He moved down her body, hooking one arm under her leg, then he pressed his lips to her wet center. “Oh!”

She didn’t bother staying quiet anymore as his tongue started to explore this most sensitive part of her. She flung her head back on his desk, reaching for anything she could get hold of. She knocked papers off the desk and rolled inkwell away with her frantic hands as she felt his tongue on every part of her.

He first found a sensitive spot, just above her opening. He worked it, repeatedly, until she was a shivering mess then he moved downward and plunged his tongue into her.

“Philip,” she moaned his name, raising herself on her elbows to look at what he was doing. She’d had no idea this was a thing that couples could do and certainly had no idea it would feel so pleasurable, but Philip knew. He hooked her leg higher, over his shoulder, so she was completely open to him on his desk.

She didn’t think her body could stand anymore pleasure. She moaned his name repeatedly. It was mixed with gasping sounds as she fell back on the desk again, her hands clamping to the wood above her head.

Then he changed their position a little. He returned his tongue to that sensitive area beneath her curls as his fingers teased her all the way up the inside of her leg. When those fingers shifted to her opening and slid inside of her, she lost control.

Grace clamped her eyes tightly shut as her back arched off the desk. Such a thrill shot through her body that it acted of its own accord, completely beyond her control.

She was writhing with it, her body clamping down on his fingers as he rode out her wave. She was still trembling, still moaning, panting as she opened her eyes to see he had raised his head up again.

He was watching her, drinking in the sight of her, that expression as dark and lustful as it had been briefly that night in the carriage. His fingers still worked that sensitive spot until the tremors had passed through her body completely then he pulled his hand from her.

“That is just a taste of what will happen tonight.”