“You know if you weren’t so proud, I would have left him for you. You still could have me, Richmore.” She said it like she was a prize, and Winnie realized Esther thought herself to be one.
“I don’t want you, Esther. Your poisonous ways have no power over me. My only regret is that I ever allowed you to get close to me.” Richmore took Winnie by the hand, escorting her out of the retiring room.
Winnie was speechless. The entire ordeal felt like it had happened to someone else. Not her at all.
They were not seen as they exited the retiring room. She paused, looking up at him. “You don’t have to protect me. You don’t want the responsibility of me, remember?” He was trying to free himself of the burden of taking care of his cousin’s widow, or so Winnie had thought.
He shook his head. “I want you. Now that I have found you, I will have you in every form imaginable. It makes no sense, but I feel like I’ve known you for a lifetime.”
She couldn’t deny the truth. “I want you too,” she whispered before his lips pressed against hers.
CHAPTER8
Richard was kissing her. Kissing his despicable cousin’s widow, and dear God, did he love it. Dragging her to a corner of the room away from prying eyes, he did not want someone to interrupt them in an intimate position. Richard pressed her against the wall, his lips slanting over hers as his tongue discovered her depths. Her taste was familiar, and her body pressed against his felt as if it belonged there. It was exactly the same with Victoria. Through Richard’s experience with the opposite sex, he knew that one rarely connected with two people on the same level.
Richard tried to recall every detail from that night at Pleasure House, yet every time he saw his goddess, he saw Winnie. Beautiful, funny, smart Winnie. Who was also carrying his cousin’s child.
Winnie.
Victoria.
Realization dawned and suddenly everything was clear. Deepening the kiss, he pulled her to him, wanting to say something, to tell her he knew exactly who she was, but he needed to be sure of her intentions with him. Needed to know that he could trust her.
“I’m taking you home,” he whispered against her lips, not wanting to spend another moment out in society when he could be buried inside her again.
“People will talk,” she replied as he trailed kisses down her neck.
“Let them talk.” He didn’t care. All he cared about was getting his goddess in his bed again and worshiping her. “I am a duke, and together I know we could face anything.”
Society could go to the devil. He’d found her, and that was the most important thing in the world. Leading Winnie from their hiding place, they walked back into the ballroom, finding everyone listening to the quartet. Hand in hand, they walked along the outskirts of the ballroom ignoring everyone until they were finally free.
“Do I want to know where you’re rushing off to?” Aberdeen asked in the hallway outside of the ballroom.
“Lady Winifred is not feeling well. We must cut the evening short. Goodbye.” Richard rushed out, pulling Winnie past his friend. He had no time for explanations, and knowing Aberdeen he would want a long one.
“I expect a one-thousand-pound donation from you by tomorrow,” Aberdeen told him, a twinkle in his gaze.
“I’ll make it fifteen hundred,” Richard called out to his oldest and dearest friend.
“Richmore?” Aberdeen said his name just as he and Winnie were rounding the corner.
“Yes?” he stopped, looking at his friend expectantly.
“It is your turn to cause the scandal of the century,” Aberdeen said before wheeling around and walking toward the ballroom.
Richard couldn’t help but release a hearty laugh. He had said those same words to his friend one year earlier.
Now, he knew the truth about them. He was going to cause a scandal by marrying his cousin’s widow before the mourning period had ended. Richard had found her, his goddess, and there would be no waiting for propriety. The interlude with Esther in the retiring room had confirmed what he knew all along.
Winnie was his goddess.
He tried not to think about Esther and her bitter words. His brief relationship with her had taught him that everyone was not honest. She had used him for funds. Once Graham’s coffers were empty, he and Esther concocted a plan to extort funds from Richard.
Once inside the carriage, he pulled Winnie onto his lap, his mouth crashing onto hers in a searing kiss. Now that he knew exactly who she was, he wanted to prove it to himself over and over. Richard wanted every sound that she had ever made that fateful night two months ago. To remind him that he’d found her again, and nothing or no one would take her away.
His hands traveled every inch of her delectable body, his mouth kissing a path from her lips to her neck to the swell of her breast. He had dreamed about the round, firm globes being in his hands again, and now he could not stop himself from eagerly caressing them.
Lifting her, Richard enjoyed the feel of dominating her body again. He would move Winnie exactly where he wanted her, and she would respond to him. A willing participant begging him for more.
