Page 94 of The Duke
“How?”
“On my stomach, with his hand over my face.” She placed her glass delicately on the floor. “Like this,” she said, turning onto her knees. She lowered herself until her chest was on the settee and her arse in the air. The sheet slid away from her body, slowly at first, then all at once. Nothing about the pose was artificial: the fulcrum of her breastbone against the seat took most of her body’s weight. The position spread her wide, making her slick, heavy vulva hang in the cool air, and exposed the knot above that could only deliberately be exposed. Her arm hung over the side of the settee, the hand lying in repose on the carpet, fingers curled inward.
The duke took a harsh, painful-sounding breath.
And then her body came over Celine’s, in all its heat and power, and her hand swallowed the side of Celine’s face. The hand on her was a caress, a mastery, a warning not to move, and nothing about that was artificial, either. She could feel the duke shaking with excitement.
She felt no less as the duke mounted her. It was a powerful intimacy that came from crossing lines that usually meantdangerorrevulsionorpainwith a person she trusted completely. It brought her and the duke together with no protection, so vulnerable to each other even the most accidental slight or defensiveness could do irreparable damage.
And yet in her sweet, utter submission was the knowledge that her lover would protect her from all harm and the acceptance that harm might still be done. Such was the heart that loved.
IT WAS FULLmorning outside when the edge had finally been taken off, and Kate was ready to concede that her body needed sleep. And later, she would have to make an appearance in Lords to see Lord Wroth’s Inheritance Bill defeated.
She wound her body around Celine, who was silently crying, and had been for some time. She thought she understood. What had happened between them this night was momentous—almost too much to take.
She kissed the tears from Celine’s cheek; Celine kissed her back with wrung-out, desperate fervour.
“Quiet now, love,” she murmured, her eyes closing heavily, “and sleep.”
In an hour the servants would come in, and she and Celine would drink a good cup of tea, and the ordinary world would steady them into something they could stand.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
When Kate woke, she was alone.
She didn’t feel alone. Celine’s presence lingered in bed with her. In the warm sheets, the ache in her body, the dark smell that seemed inked into her fingers and filled her with wonder at all they had done. She ran a hand down her torso and stretched.
It was the quiet before the storm. Once broken, news of her engagement would spread like wildfire. The king would require an accounting. Her social calendar would explode. Was this… happiness? She was looking forward to the day ahead. She was looking forward to every day.
Maybe Celine had thought they shouldn’t be discovered in bed together before the engagement was announced. It was more delicacy of feeling than Kate could muster. She was in a mood to proclaim it from the rooftop, naked.I am the luckiest woman alive! Celine Genet has said she will be my wife!
The door snicked open, and she flung the bedsheets back and was halfway there before it had completed its arc.
She thought of the confections Celine sometimes wore when she really wanted to dress up—sleeves ruched at the elbow with three rows of ribbons; voluminous skirts that made her look dainty, gorgeous; her black hair wound through with silk that was tied fussily in a bigger bow at the front, smaller at the back. A shiver of anticipation went through her. She would pick Celine up, skirts and all, against her naked body.
It wasn’t Celine who entered, but Celine’s lady’s maid.
“Forgive me, Your Grace,” the maid said, curtseying. Hercolour was high, her breathing quick and sharp. “We’ve looked everywhere. Just everywhere. Miss Genet seems to have… disappeared.”
“Disappeared?” Kate said, stunned, the word meaning nothing yet.
“No one saw her leave, Your Grace, but she ain’t nowhere to be found.” The maid’s voice broke with distress. “Not in the garden or the stables, not even in the street.”
The maid suddenly cringed away, and Kate felt ill when she realised her hand was raised as though she had been going to spend the violence of her feelings on a servant. The blood left her body in a rush, and ice filled it.
She didn’t waste time trying to find excuses or reasons that might explain Celine’s absence: She knew what had happened. The worst had happened. Somehow, Lord Wroth had found out what Celine meant to her. Celine had none of the defences Kate had of money, name, and title. Celine only had her sharp wit inside its vulnerable casing.
Kate thought of Markham turning up last night at the Demi Lux, where she had no right to be. She thought of Markham’s cute little observation about the sweetness of the night dissolving in the morning, and how Celine had reacted. Markham had done something to Celine.
She washed in the freezing water from the basin and pulled on whatever clothes were closest.
This morning, the Inheritance Bill was being read in Lords. She felt nothing about the bill—let them pass it—but an awful relief that she knew exactly where to find Lord Wroth, and lurking somewhere nearby, his bastard.
Shaw was in the entrance hall when she came down, with his hat on and papers under his arm. They must have been supposed to leave for Lords together, a plan made in a different universe. He startled at her appearance and said something. She let him come with her because it was quicker than putting him off.
The carriage drove through an unusual level of activity on thestreets of London. Clusters of pedestrians seemed to form, then break into sprinting, excited parts, then re-form; hundreds of voices spoke over one another. Drifts of white fluttered everywhere one looked, settling around doorsteps like snow kicked out of the street. Kate saw none of it.
The one thought she wouldn’t allow herself to contemplate sat dense and deathly cold within her mind. The Wroth bastard was capable of anything.
