Page 72 of The Duke
Behind that door, it sounded like the duke was in hell.
Like last time, Margot’s door opened into the hallway, interrupting Celine’s progress. Reluctantly, she stopped. But when she met the valet’s tired gaze, she saw the same understanding she herself had: She must go to the duke. The duke had not left her side through the darkest hours of her illness, and now it was her turn to be the hearth and flame, the reason to return. Margot nodded and closed her door.
Celine continued on.
When she reached the heavy mahogany door, she stopped and laid her hand on it, as though on the warm hide of a bear in a trap. She took a deep, steadying breath, snicked the latch, and entered.
Her first impression was of colour. Rich, saturated colour, most vibrant in the circle of her candle’s light. The walls were papered in deep blue, over which branches and leaves, birds and forest animals ran. The furniture was sparser than in her own rooms, and dark. She wanted to linger, to take in every detail and find out what these private spaces could tell her about the duke.
But the duke’s voice pulled at her from a room deeper within, and Celine followed. The next room she passed through was papered in yellow, and the next in green.
The green room was the duke’s dressing room, and there, the smell that pervaded was clearest. Sharp and crisp, with a warm, carnal depth. It was the duke’s smell, she realised, intensifying as she came closer to the inner sanctum.
She could make out the name, now.
“Eleanor!Eleanor!”
It wasn’t a name she knew. It was strange to hear it filled with such heartfelt, pleading emotion when it meant nothing to her, who listened.
“Eleanor!”
She came into the bedroom, which was very dark. Only a few coals still burned in the grate, casting almost no light. Her own candle seemed to make barely any difference, as though the room resisted illumination.
A four-poster bed stood in the centre of the room, its curtains open, and within its sheets was the bowed, straining body of the duke. Celine had expected to see some physical agitation, but it was a shock to see the duke—normally so icily contained, so totally in control—stretched as though on the devil’s rack. Tendons stood out on her pale neck, her hands convulsively clenched then flexed, and endlessly that name emerged from her throat:Eleanor, Eleanor.
Celine placed her candle on the floor, then approached the bed. She climbed up beside the duke and hesitated, not knowing where she might safely touch. Of a certainty over the nightshirt, avoiding sensitive skin. She touched the duke’s shoulder.
Her fingertips barely made contact, but that featherlight touch was enough. The duke snapped, as though her body had been at its outer limit of tension.
Before Celine could speak or cry out, the duke surged over her, the powerful body thrumming, blotting out the room so she could only see the duke’s eyes and bared teeth, which reflected the glow of fire and candle. Fighting every instinct, Celine went limp, her head pushed back, chin up, the duke’s hand wrapped hard around her throat.
She felt the plane of the duke’s stomach against hers through warm layers of linen. The muscled legs that had mastered Bold Titus trapped hers beneath them, and her pelvis was enclosed by the duke’s thighs.
“Eleanor,” the duke said in anguish, touching her forehead to Celine’s. “I can feel you, as though you weren’t dead, but living somewhere I cannot find you. Oh, how you torment me!” The hand around Celine’s throat tightened, as though the duke might try to squeeze the life out of the ghostly Eleanor.
Celine took a difficult breath through her nose, then formed the words, “It’s me, Kate. Just me.”
The effect was immediate. The hand at her throat gentled, and the duke lifted her head to look at Celine more clearly. The room returned around them even as the duke seemed to return to herself.
“Celine?”
“I’m here.”
“Oh, thank God.”
The tension went out of the duke all at once, and she collapsed onto the bed. “It wasn’t real,” the duke said in a voice that shook with the force of her relief. “None of it was real.”
Then the duke pulled Celine into her arms, wrapped her leg overCeline’s, and pressed her face into Celine’s neck. With small, rocking adjustments, she manoeuvred Celine closer until they were as bound together as two bodies could be. Heat drenched Celine. The air was perfumed with the smell that pervaded the duke’s rooms but in its most potent form, warmed by the duke’s own body.
The duke seemed to fall into something of a doze, her limbs gradually growing heavy. Celine lay awake within her embrace, feeling so much that she didn’t know how her heart was still beating. Heartache for the duke’s torment. A humming, purring pleasure at being surrounded, held, here where no one would intrude. Shock at how suddenly it had happened. A guilty recognition that she was stealing what the duke would never give her if the duke were in her right mind.
Slowly, she began to relax as well, her head settling into the warm muscle of the duke’s shoulder. A deep conviction that this was where she belonged came over her. She would find a way to permanently belong. She must. She released a long breath and closed her eyes.
In the next moment, however, the duke became tense again, her head lifting to regard Celine.
“Do you still have the letter?” the duke asked, her voice agitated. “Quickly, tell me.”
When Celine didn’t immediately answer, the duke became even more agitated, gripping Celine’s shoulders. Her eyes bored into Celine’s. “The letter for Bastien, do you still have it?”
