She laughed again and he laughed, too, as he released her breasts. He unbuttoned the flap of his breeches. His cock sprang out, and that made her laugh, too.
“He wants me,” she said.
“How can you tell?” he said.
This time her laugh was deep in her throat as she reached for him. Her hand closed over him and traveled the length of his swollen rod. He gasped and pulled her hand away. “Not now,” he said. “I don’t need any help, thank you.”
She found this hilarious. “Oh, Lucien,” she said between giggles.
Lucien. Again. And again the sound of his own name, in that lilting, shadowy voice, reached deep, as deep as the secret places of his heart, places he’d hidden even from himself.
He stroked up her leg, and she stretched under his touch like a cat. He had meant to take all night, but her sensuous movement was another death blow to careful plans. Every motion of her body frayed the threads of his self-control.
He knelt between her legs and brought both hands to her knees. She moved, bringing herself closer to him, and planted her feet alongside his hips. He stroked her and she squirmed in pleasure, and he felt the pleasure—the damp heat of her, against his fingers—and then there was no thought of finesse or thought of any kind at all.
He plunged into her and watched her head rise from the bed, and fall back, and “Oh, Lucien,” she gasped.
“Duchess,” he said hoarsely on a thrust.
“Duke,” she answered and pushed against him.
“Your Grace.”
“Your Grace.”
On and on, silly words murmured amid laughter and cries of pleasure and kisses; and all the while they were joined in the simple, mad way of lovers, moving as desire and heat drove them.
And when they reached the peak and there was nowhere else to go, she flung her arms about him and held him tightly. He gave way then, and release came in a rush of happiness. He let himself sink onto her soft, warm body and into the scent of her, like summer, and the scent of their lovemaking, and it felt like heaven to him.
When at last they lay together, spent, he moved off her and settled onto his side. He drew her up against him and held her there, her back curved against the front of his body.
She was safe. Secure. And above all, she was his as, he now knew beyond any doubt, she’d always been meant to be.
Fourteen
Friday, 1 May
“I should like the table moved nearer to the window,” Zoe said, with a longing glance at that bright corner of the room. “The garden is beautiful, and the garden block makes a pretty backdrop. London is so green. I shall never grow tired of looking at the greenery. It’s a wonderful scene to watch while one breakfasts.”
“I don’t care where the table is and I don’t care which table it is,” said Marchmont as he came away from the sideboard. “All I want isatable—any horizontal surface will do—on which to set my plate and a chair on which to plant my carcass.”
He set down his plate and sat in his chair. He made a sweeping gesture, encompassing the breakfast room. “Arrange the house as you like. You’re mistress here.”
“As I like?” she said. “Anything?”
He nodded. “You’re welcome to trouble about furniture arrangements if it amuses you. I only ask that you keep me out of it.” He sliced into his beefsteak. “If Osgood becomes hysterical because you move his papers from one side of the desk to the other or Harrison drops into an apoplectic fit because you turn the China Room into a sitting room or Hoare faints because you change the curtains of my dressing room, I donotwish to hear about it.”
The speech surprised her not in the least. “I’ll deal with it,” she said. “I’ve dealt with eunuchs.”
“So you have.”
“They can be exceedingly temperamental.”
“I daresay.” He regarded her for a time. “Zoe, this is your house. Do as you wish with it. The place has done well enough for me, but I suppose it wants a woman’s touch. So my aunts declare—and that includes the not-mad ones. They say it lacks warmth or some such.” He resumed eating.
He was doing it again: He was being sweet.
But then he’d reason to be amiable, she reminded herself.
