Page 21 of The Devil of Drury Lane

She didn’t need long.

Between his impassioned kisses and his fevered strokes, his rough murmurs about pleasuring himself while thinking of her, her mind and body caught fire. When he grazed her sex with his thumb, circling and pressing, the orgasm roared through her. Moaning with her, he captured her cries, drinking in her release.

When she slumped against him, he tucked her close, kissing her cheek, and trailing his nose into her hair. “I could die for want of these strands spread across my pillow every morning. God, the color fills my dreams. Liquid fire. I don’t know how I let you go before, how I didn’t know what I would feel for you. That you would mean everything to me.”

“I recognized enough for both of us,” she murmured against his starched linen shirt.

He shifted her to the side and dug in his waistcoat pocket. The velvet box he placed in her hand was small, aged, dear. “My grandmother left this to me, and I must say, it’s quite perfect for you, I think.”

The ring was radiantly lovely. The sapphire glowed in the carriage lamp’s light, sending facets dancing over her rumpled skirt and satin slippers. “Damien,” she breathed, a bout of apprehension hitting her. “Is this…are you…?”

He went to his knee in the carriage, his long frame wedged in the narrow aisle between the squabs. “My brothers and I talked to your father this morning. Mostly, it was Knox’s influence, I admit, that won him over. A duke with a tattered title is still a duke, I suppose. And his brother, well, the situation could be worse. His debt has been paid, but the agreement being, you’re to choose whom you wish to marry. This goes for your siblings as well. There will be no more bartering children’s futures against his weakness.”

Her heart ached over what he’d done for her, done for her family.

Damien tilted her head until her gaze met his. “I did this because I wanted to, Mercy. More than I’ve wanted anything in my life. We’ll not talk of it again if it shames you. My brothers and I are investing in the railway, and I’ll pay them back when I can. It’s simple maths. In the meantime, will you do me the honor of making me the happiest of men by agreeing to become a lowly professor’s wife? My cottage in Oxford is beautiful. I’m quite taken with it and you will be, too. It’s set on a hill and surrounded by a copse of oak trees.”

She blinked back the tears pricking her eyes. “You would have sold it for me?”

He pressed his brow to hers with a sigh. “I can’t imagine a future without you. No home will ever be complete unless you’re a part of it. I don’t care where we live, only that we’re together. There’s a room off the back that gets so much sunlight, you’ll weep when you see it. It would make a perfect studio for Drury Lane’s resident artist.”

“I’ve always wanted to be a professor’s wife,” Mercy whispered and climbed back into his lap. “We have so much to teach each other.”

Damien didn’t halt the carriage for another hour.

EPILOGUE

WHERE AN ARTIST FINDS ILLUMINATION

Mercy glanced out the window of the parlor they’d fashioned as her art studio, searching for Damien. It was near the time he returned from his daily ride through the parklands surrounding their cottage.

The drapes were parted to allow a late summer breeze access, the only sounds piercing the silence the call of a nest of sparrows. Damien routinely brought her flowers, and the buds were housed in vases sitting about the room. This week, the air was redolent with the scents of lilies, turpentine, and linseed oil.

Since their marriage the year before, she and Damien split time between Oxford and London. She’d come to love the rest of the Troublesome Trio so much that it seemed her life had always included them. Cort and Willie were expecting a baby in the fall, and she’d be an aunt for the first time. As for Knox…

Mercy sighed. The Duke of Herschel had his choice of flavors among the ton, yet he seemed enticed by no one. Except—

Mercy glanced at the bonnets sitting on a shelf above the easel. Five, at last count, when she didn’t wear hats often. It was part of her societal rebellion. There was a milliner Damien said Knox had taken a fancy to, a woman who gave him absolutely no encouragement—which was encouragement of an epic kind for a competitive man who also happened to be a duke.

Seconds later, when Damien entered the studio with a hatbox in his hands, she burst into laughter. And her heart kicked, as it did each time she saw him. He was dressed casually, sleeves rolled high on his forearms, no cravat, no coat, shirt open at the throat, revealing a patch of sun-kissed skin glistening with sweat. He smelled of exertion and horse and man, and she wondered how long he’d stare at her before she gave up and dragged him to the nearest sturdy surface.

They’d tested each one in the cottage with great success, apart from the bench in the stable. It hadn’t survived their erotic assault.

Damien paused in the doorway, his gaze sweeping from her paint-spattered half-boots to the kerchief holding her disobedient strands from her face. “You’re exquisite, and I’m the most blessed man on earth,” he murmured, perching his shoulder against the jamb and looking his fill. He liked to study her, then touch, then conquer. She’d gotten used to his patience and his skilled persuasion. His wicked suggestions and his extreme creativity.

There could be no other lover like him in England. Pleasure and tenderness abounded in their relationship, making her the luckiest of women.

The studious ones, she’d forever believe, were keepers.

He held up the hatbox. “This is getting silly. You don’t even care for bonnets. I’ve tried to tell him.”

“Why doesn’t he ask her to tea? Gunter’s is right around the corner.”

“Unlike the masses, she doesn’t seem to adore him.” Damien shrugged a broad shoulder and placed the box by the door. “If the duke deal isn’t enough, combined with a face that gets quite a few second glances, I can’t help him.”

“Perhaps it’s this flirtation business she doesn’t appreciate. This might be a woman he’d actually have to talk to.” Mercy placed her paintbrush in a tin cup and crossed to her husband. “Unlike most in society, I fear she has a brain. A challenge for a duke.”

“Hence, her rejection of him.” Damien curled his arm around her waist and buried his nose in her hair, drawing a deep, calming breath. “Blazes, you smell like heaven, minx. What am I going to do for three nights without you? Of course, I’m thrilled the steam engine business is booming. I’ll be in the clear on my debt to Knox and Cort this year. A little more than that, and we’ll purchase the larger cottage down the lane for what I hope is a growing family.”

“I would go with you to Portsmouth, but I have Drury Lane rehearsals to attend. Then a meeting with Flory to review designs for the next production. Did I tell you? He knows someone on the governing committee at the Royal Academy of Arts. Can you imagine one of my canvases hanging there for all of London to see?”

“I can, minx. You’re so talented, you take my breath. Every day, I wonder why it’s me you wanted.”

“Many, many reasons, my love.” She kissed the slice of bare skin at the V of his collar. “Shall we start with them, one by one, until we’re breathless and spent? Get a start on that family you were talking about.”

“That was yesterday. Don’t you recall rolling off the settee and spilling tea on a rug that didn’t need more abuse?”

Mercy smiled, her heart swelling with love. For her husband. For her life.

And for the girl who’d recognized a splendid man the moment she saw him.