Gayle Wilson - His Secret Duchess

Apparently, however, Mary Winters had no interest in his existence. Indeed, she seemed to be totally unaware that such an illustrious figure as Lieutenant Colonel Lord Nicholas Stanton had deigned to grace her father’s simple parish church that morning. And so, of course, motivated at first simply by boredom and his enforced inactivity, Nick set out to change that situation.

In the next few weeks, his father grew suspicious of Nick’s desire to attend service. The duke began to fear that the recently passed dangers of his wound or the disastrous influence of some Methodist evangelist might be responsible for his son’s unprecedented religious zeal.

It did not, however, take Vail long to realize that something more in keeping with Nick’s normal temperament had occurred. He had only to focus his lorgnette in the direction the straightforward gray gaze took each Sunday to find that the object of Nick’s devotion was not the promise of celestial paradise, but something more tangible, more earthly, and far more apt to cause trouble. He spoke sternly to his son and was surprised by the tenor of his answer.

“Trifle with her?” Nick repeated, incredulous at his father’s fear. “Good God, sir, look at her. Who would dare to trifle with Mary Winters?”

Recognizing the serenity of spirit and the cool intelligence in the girl’s blue eyes, attributes that Lord Stanton had already acknowledged, the duke was forced to agree.

“Mary,” Nick whispered finally, more plea than protest. But her lips lingered only a heart-shattering moment longer over the coarse hair that arrowed toward his achingly responsive body. He closed his eyes tightly at the sudden desertion of her mouth, knowing that her retreat was far wiser than his acquiescence had been.

Having spent three years on the battlefields of the Iberian Peninsula, he had come to find Mary today, well aware that he might never see her again, might never be allowed to make her his. Even now, he should be on his way to rejoin his regiment He had told her three hours, and under the untutored tenderness of her slender hands and the sweetness of her lips, those moments had slipped away, melting from his possession like snow in summer.

He lay, eyes still closed, listening to the sounds of approaching evening, the coo of the doves, the rising breeze disturbing the stillness of the leaves above his head, all the while desperately trying to will his body back to control.

“Nick,” Mary said softly, her voice coming from above him now. He opened his eyes, and then, despite the knowledge that there was only madness in the act, he found himself unable to close them again, unable to deny what she offered.

Mary had lowered the bodice of her gown and her chemise, holding the soft muslin protectively over her breasts with her fingers, the stains at their tips almost startling next to the pale delicacy of the fabric. Her eyes held his, her lips unsmiling, a tangle of dark curls over the bare ivory of her shoulders.

Then, as he watched, she lowered the garments, exposing for him the flawless perfection of her breasts. He lay unmoving, his breath stopped by wonder. Slowly, her eyes never leaving his, she raised the fingers of her right hand and placed them under one rose-tipped peak, her thumb stroking downward over the swell of smooth skin.

He was not aware of consciously directing the movement that brought his mouth to replace her trembling fingers. It was not planned or ordered by his brain. Something far more primitive was responsible for the placement of his lips over that small captive. Her breath shivered out against his hair, stirring in the golden softness, sobbing with the movement of his tongue, drawn slowly over and then around the nipple she had so trustingly given to his worship.

She hadn’t known that his mouth would feel like this, hot and moist and demanding, his teeth teasing the hardened bud his tongue created. Something was happening inside her body, moving, too, reaching toward him now, as her breast had sought out his caress. Unfamiliar and unknown, it responded to the incredible sensations of his mouth suckling the sensitive area no man’s eyes had ever seen before. No one but Nick. She was his, and it was right that he know before he left.

His tongue floated across the valley between her suddenly aching breasts, her heart fluttering underneath its heat and moisture, the trail it left branded on her skin by the very air. Her hands held his head, pulling it down against her chest, wanting his touch inside, where she ached. She made no protest when he turned her, laying her gently on his cloak, the coarseness of the wool against her bare back.

He leaned above her, propped on his elbow, the gray eyes studying the slender body before him. He touched the base of her throat, finding the small pulse. His long fingers were dark against her paleness, hard and callused against the soft translucence of her skin. They feathered lower, until, as hers had earlier, they stroked over the rose nipple that centered the milk-white globe.

Watching his eyes, she put her hands on his shoulders to urge him downward until the golden hair on his chest grazed over her too-sensitive flesh. Instinctively he moved above her, never allowing the hard muscles to contact her softness, choosing instead to torture them both, almost touching and then not, so close she could feel the heat of his skin beneath the softly tantalizing brush of hair.

It was not until her small hips arched upward into his, shockingly intimate, that he allowed his arms to close around her, locking her against the straining wall of his chest. She arched again, her body into his, demanding, this and more. Far more than she knew. Far more than he had ever intended. But not more than she wanted. And now, more than he could deny.

Her fingers, caught between their bodies, found, as he held her, the flap of his trousers, and frantic with need, she sought to free him from their restraint.

“Mary,” he said, his voice denying, but she didn’t listen.

He was leaving, and she, too, knew the dangers he’d face. Hers was a conscious decision, undeterred by all she had been taught, by all that she had truly believed until the reality of his danger intruded. Nick was hers, and her body demanded the fulfillment of that ownership, despite the denial of society’s mores, of her religion. This was hers and his. And might never be again.

She touched the unfamiliar contours of his body, desperate, urging him to finish what they had begun. What could no longer be denied.

“Mary,” he whispered again, his voice hoarse and agonized with need, with want, with pain.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes.”

Again, her small hands entreated. Country-bred, she had no sophistication and no longer any hesitancy. She could taste the salt on his skin as the strong brown column of his neck rested over her lips. And finally, after she had touched him a long time, his hands joined hers to help with what she sought, to guide and to direct.

The air was shocking against her uncovered body, cold and invasive, but she wanted it, as she wanted the invasion that followed. Painful and tearing. She gasped her shock into the shoulder that strained against her mouth and heard his voice again whisper her name.

He turned his cheek against her face, the slight roughness of his beard burning her skin, his movements frenzied and uncontrolled. His hips drove above her a long time, and from within her pain, from its dark center, something began to form, to open like the tight-furled bud of a rose releasing into the afternoon’s sun.

She wasn’t sure of the feeling at first, at the edge of pain, and then beyond discomfort. Into something else. Pulsing and growing at the heart of his body’s driving caress. Expanding like the silk of the balloons she had watched them fill that summer in the London pleasure gardens. Filling with heat that couldn’t be denied, that couldn’t be contained by the pull of the earth’s gravity, until all at once, whatever had been there floated upward, soaring as the balloons had, out of her control.

She heard her own voice, crying out as the center released, and then Nick’s mouth was over hers, capturing the echo of the cry that had shattered the twilight stillness around them. His own release followed quickly, hot and powerful, roaring into the receptacle of her body like a torrent, shattering in its intensity. His body convulsed under her caressing hands. Once. Twice. And then was still. As still now as the clearing where they lay, still entwined. One.

Finally he moved, raising his chest away from hers on hard brown arms that trembled. He looked down into her face, which was touched with this great mystery», softened and exposed by what had happened.

“Mary,” he said again, the afternoon’s litany, and thinking that, she smiled at him. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered.

Her smile widened, blue eyes moving over the strong lines of his face. Beloved. This is my beloved. She watched her fingers touch his cheek, feeling, as she had felt before, the dear roughness. Too intimate and too private. Only hers.

“Oh, dear God, Mary, what have I done?” Nick said, his tone choked with despair.

“Hush.” She comforted him, her voice that of a mother whispering from the darkness of the storm’s rage to her frightened child. “It’s all right,” she promised. Her thumb moved against his lashes, which were gold tipped and darker at the root. Beautiful eyes. She had never really seen them before. Their color now was the same slate as the afternoon’s sky in winter. “I love you,” she said, and watched his face change again. Realigning. Finding the direction he had lost, the sure course of honor she had stolen from him.

“Where is your father?” he asked, and for a moment she couldn’t remember. Or think why he would want to know.

“With the dean. On visitation.”

“Will he be home tonight?”

“Not until Tuesday,” she said, thinking suddenly about her dear, frail papa. Of his unfailing gentleness with those who fell short of the grace so generously given. And thinking, finally, of the reality of what they had done.

“Come on,” Nick said, rising in one smoothly athletic movement and then reaching down to pull her to her feet.

Standing, she was embarrassed for the first time by their undress. She watched, unmoving, as he rearranged his garments, the action a matter of seconds. When he turned to her, the long fingers dealing competently with the last button on his shirt, his hands stilled at what was in her face.

“I have to go,” he said, trying to imagine what she must be feeling. “If I don’t, then I’ll be a deserter. It won’t matter that I’m Vail’s son. My regiment is going into combat, Mary. I have to go. I’ve been recommissioned.”

“I know,” she whispered, wondering why he was explaining. She had always understood he had to leave. That was why…

“Mary?” he said.

She would never see him like this again, she knew suddenly, the surety of her premonition so strong it took her breath. And so she let her eyes glory in him as he stood before her, young and strong and so beautiful. So alive. His hair disordered by their lovemaking, by her fingers. His tanned skin clean, its taste sweet and warm, salt-kissed under her tongue.

She closed her eyes, imprinting his image on her brain. To last forever. Nick. For one instant of time, he had belonged only to her, and she would cherish that in the dark future that lay ahead.

“Mary?” he said again, his tone questioning.

Her eyes opened, and she forced herself to smile at him. He crossed the small distance that separated them. He gently guided her hands through the openings in her chemise and then through the sleeves of the bodice of her gown, his fingers dealing with the intricacies of feminine dress with an ease that argued long familiarity. She wondered how many other women…and knew that it didn’t matter. Whatever they had been before, they were no longer. There was only now.