“Perhaps,” he murmured. “A momentary death.”
She stared down at his glossy dark hair, the breadth of his shoulders holding her open and vulnerable, as vulnerable as she’d been during the birching, but now he was tormenting her with pleasure, not pain. Her hips moved, seeking more. “Courtland. Court. My love…” She was begging now.
He made a rough, wanton sound. His lips and tongue left her, replaced by a groping hand. One finger, then two slipped inside her, his large hands priming her as she pressed her “pearl” against his palm. His gaze raked over her, over her heaving breasts and her arms cinched above her.
“Did you really want me?” she asked. “That first day you saw me? You wanted me like this?”
“Dear girl,” he said through gritted teeth. “If I knew about you then what I know now, I would have laid siege to you there in the drawing room. Stripped you bare and taken you in front of everyone.”
Harmony laughed as he withdrew his fingers and pressed his lips to her neck. “That would have been terribly impolite.”
He growled. “You do not inspire politeness in me.”
She tensed as he drew her legs over his shoulders and positioned himself at her entrance. He looked down at her, her conqueror, her master in this. She wrapped her fingers in her hair to keep her hands where he’d told her to—otherwise she would have clutched him to draw him inside. She was still aroused from his earlier lovemaking, his miraculous mouth. Now, as his length pressed into her, she shuddered from the fullness and satisfaction of accommodating him. At her groan, he began to move, clasping her thighs and holding her firmly for his ever-deepening thrusts. She felt her powerlessness…and his power. A restless tightening built in her middle, and between her legs where he took her as hard and fast as he pleased.
Her wrists strained against their bonds, her whole body stretching and opening to encompass him. She was his captive, pleasured and now given to his use. She let go as he’d taught her to, let go of politeness and manners and ladylike behavior and snapped her hips against his. She heard a cry as if from a distance, her own cry of release buried in the side of his neck. His hands were on her wrists again, bearing them down, grasping them in a spasmodic grip as she lost herself to all else in the world.
Her husband collapsed atop her with a groan, his scent and the weight of his chest so familiar now. The tension in his body slowly dissipated. He let go of her wrists and she lay beneath him feeling exhausted and very, very safe. He kissed her, deeply, sweetly, then nuzzled her face with a sigh. “I suppose I should untie you. Give me your hands.”
He rolled away and she offered her wrists, watching as he unwrapped them as tenderly as they’d been wrapped. She studied his face at the same time, mesmerized by the combination of his stern “duke” expression and the softer emotion underneath. She hadn’t recognized the emotion before, had never expected it to be there. It was subtle, another mysterious layer to the man she’d married. When her hands were free she held his face between her palms, staring, feeling a connection to him that went beyond marriage and propriety and titles.
He gazed back at her, his lips curved in an ironic smile. “To think—you worried you would not bring me happiness.”
She smiled too, letting go of his stubble-roughened face to hug him close. “I’m glad if I do. You are deserving of it.”
“I hope you will always believe that.” He drew back and dropped a line of kisses down her neck. “There will be difficult times between us. Times you will wish me to the devil.”
She shook her head, but he remained pensive. With one last kiss, he released her and reached to retrieve his now-wrinkled neckcloth.
“I didn’t damage it, did I?” she asked.
“If you had, I would have forgiven you after such a delicious tryst. But it seems to have survived.” He stared down at it, worrying the trim in the palm of his hand.
“What’s the matter?” asked Harmony.
“Nothing,” he sighed after a moment. “The rest of them be damned.”
“Is this about…those…those drawings in the paper?”
He grimaced. “I did not mean for you to see them.”
“I’m sorry I cause you such embarrassment. I’m so sorry.”
He silenced her with a kiss, then leaned back and cupped her cheek. “I am not concerned. The ton will eventually move on to new scandals and gossip. Spring will bring a new season with plenty of fodder for idle tongues.”
“I am glad to be married now,” said Harmony. “I’m glad I won’t have to participate in all that society nonsense.”
One brow rose as he looked at her. “You’ll still have to participate, but yes, you won’t have to be courted any longer, or seek a match.” His face softened as he drew her back into his arms. “You’ve already made a stunning one.”
She giggled as he nibbled beneath her ear. “I won the hand of society’s most eligible bachelor, didn’t I?”
“The most eligible bachelor no one wanted. Yes. Aren’t you fortunate?”
He was jesting, but she could sense the hurt underneath. She thought of beautiful Lady Wembley, how she had jilted him and hurt his feelings. Harmony could tell he had wanted the lady very much, although she was sure he’d deny it if she asked. She stroked his neck and threaded her fingers through his hair.
“Yes, I am fortunate,” she whispered. “Because the most eligible bachelor was also the most wicked.”
He let out a soft breath, gripping his neckcloth in tense fingers. “I think I am not the only wicked one in this union. What shall I do with you?” He shook his head, as if to bring himself from a stupor. Harmony could see the dutiful duke emerge, pushing the lover aside as he sat up on the side of the bed. “Speaking of the season, there is a huge rout of a ball here every year in the spring. It is a great tradition of the ton, a bash to kick off the social whirl. My mother wishes to cancel it this year.”
“Because of me?” Harmony’s heart fell to some place near her feet. “Because she believes I’ll ruin it,” she realized.
He shook his head and waved a careless hand. “It won’t be cancelled, of course. I told her the ball would go on as planned, and that you would be an unprecedented success. A perfect hostess for the event.”
Sadness and embarrassment were replaced by sputters of alarm. “Unprecedented? A hostess? Me?”
“You are the duchess now. It will be your ball in name at least, not my mother’s. I told her you could very well handle it, and you shall.”
Harmony felt out of breath. Panicked. She flinched as her husband touched her brow.
“I will help you,” he said. “My mother and the household staff will help you. I know you will make me proud.”
He could not have used more intimidating words. She must not only succeed at a bare minimum, but she must make him proud. “I will not be able to do it.”
He waved the folded-up neckcloth at her. “Words like that will only find you tied to the bedpost again. You can do it, and you will. You must do it, for I’ve entered into a battle of wills with my mother over it. I should dearly love to show her up, and I think you would too.”
All the relaxed happiness of their intimate encounter bled away with talk of this ball. The cursed thing would be hanging over her head from now until April. She didn’t know what upset her more, her inevitable failure as a hostess or the dowager’s enduring disdain.
“I wish she did not despise me so,” Harmony said. “I can change my behavior if I try but I cannot change my origins, my ‘low’ birth. She will always keep me at arm’s length, won’t she?”
“Perhaps,” said Court. “It is impossible to know how time will change things. She is an old, bitter woman in some ways. Perhaps you are not meant to be close.”
“But she is your mother.” And until I win her over, I can’t make you proud. Perhaps he didn’t realize that but she did. Without the dowager on her side, any attempt to fix her notoriety was useless.
Her husband kissed her again, stroking he
r bottom cheeks in a tender, possessive way. “So, what did you think of your first birching? It was your first, was it not?”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because if you’d been routinely birched as a child, you wouldn’t be so incorrigible now.”
There, he was doing it again, joking and teasing her with the driest expression on his face. She swatted his chest. “Yes, it was my first, if you must know. And it hurt. I should not like to endure a more severe birching.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Then, my dearest Harmony, you must endeavor to be very, very good.”
Chapter Fourteen: Spectacular
She was impossible. Absolutely impossible.
The holidays came and went, and his Miss Chaos…now Duchess Chaos…showed little progress in the way of refinement. At her brother’s wedding to Lady Meredith, she made a cake of herself by…well…knocking over the wedding cake as she was staring up at the frescoes on Needham’s ceiling. At the Hawthorne family’s intimate Christmas dinner, Harmony managed to both spill wine on his cousin, the fastidious Lady Runnenbarth, and bring up Mongol hordes, this time before the entire group.