“For insulting his love of horticulture?” she asked, telling herself she ought to remove her hands from Strathmore’s person. It was unseemly, the way she was touching him.
“No.” He traced her jaw with a lone, long finger, stopping at her chin, tipping it gently up. “For kissing his fiancée.”
Before she could say a word of protest, his sinful mouth was upon hers.
Oh.
Her imaginings could not compare. Nothing could have prepared her for the rush of sensation. Warm, full lips not just coaxing, but taking control. Dominating. Hot and soft and full, welcoming, inviting, delicious. She wanted more. So much more. And he gave it, opening, claiming. His tongue slid between her lips, his hands finding her waist.
How wondrous a realization his tongue in her mouth was. She had not known such a pleasure was possible, had not realized men and women could kiss in openly carnal fashion, had been entirely ignorant kissing could make her feel hot and dizzy and achy and desperate, make her do things she shouldn’t.
Things like sliding her hands up Strathmore’s chest to clutch his shoulders. Things like stepping into him, her body begging to be closer, so close they aligned from hip to breast. Things like running her tongue against his, tasting him, as he did her.
Whisky was a bitter revelation on her palate. It was afternoon, and he had been tippling. Not so much she had smelt it upon his person, and not so much he seemed inebriated, but enough.
Why? Could it be his troubles filled him with worry? Did he seek to escape? Take his mind off the allegations facing him?
In the next breath, she lost the ability to wonder. Lost the ability to even think, as those sinful, beautiful lips explored the sensitive skin of her throat. He kissed her there, in a place she had never imagined she would wish to be kissed, and she was helpless to do anything but allow her head to fall back and give him free rein.
Desire blossomed from her center, radiating outward, until even the tips of her fingers and toes tingled with it. Her lips burned from his kiss. The small sound of shocked pleasure—half gasp, half mewl—that echoed in the chamber was hers, but she scarcely recognized it.
He kissed his way to her ear, and a fresh, molten wave of need washed over her. His teeth grazed the lobe and—Lord help her!—but when he caught her flesh and gave a gentle nip, she moved nearer still.
And that was when she feltit, that which she had only felt once before, on a day when Charles had been feeling particularly amorous after returning from a trip to Asia in search of some rare orchid or other, and he had kissed her silly—though never with such open-mouthed, erotic abandon—and a rigid protrusion had prodded her.
Charles had instantly stepped away, flushing and apologizing profusely for overstepping his bounds. This particular protrusion, however, was larger. More aggressive. Unlike before, this time, she was tempted to touch it. To take him in her hand and…
Charles.
The cooling waters of guilt doused the heat swirling inside her. She pushed at Strathmore’s shoulders and stepped away, disengaging, just as the door opened and Great Aunt Hortense shuffled through in her arthritic gait.
She was dressed in her customary mourning attire, though Uncle Arnold had died when Violet was but a girl. Her skirts were full and belled, her hair parted severely beneath the cap she wore on her steel-gray head, two outmoded loops of hair covering her ears and framing her lined face like a pair of wings. Her white collar was the only source of brightness on her otherwise dour form, trimmed by a midnight black ribbon and her customary mourning brooch that contained a braid of Uncle Arnold’s hair.
She looked, as always, as if she had napped through the last forty years and was, consequently, unaware life had changed whilst she’d stood still.
“Aunt Hortense,” Violet greeted her nervously, rushing forward. Rushing away from the intense stare of the duke, whose kisses had left her transformed. There would now forever be the Violet before Strathmore’s lips touched hers and the Violet after. “I was just about to fetch you.”
Aunt Hortense, no fool even if she did choose to dress as though she were firmly entrenched in 1842, pinned Violet with an assessing stare. “Lady Violet, what can you have been thinking, entertaining a gentleman alone in the midst of the afternoon? I cannot think Lord Almsley would be impressed to learn his betrothed is making herself far too familiar with duplicitous dukes.”
“I beg your pardon, madam,” said the duke in question, offering an elegant bow. He embodied calm and charm. To look upon him now, one would never guess he had just been wooing her with such unbridled passion. “I believe you may be confused. I am the Duke of Strathmore, not the Duke of Duplicity.”
Violet pressed two fingers to her lips to suppress a startled bark of laughter threatening to erupt from her. Aunt Hortense, on the other hand, was not so easily amused. She drew herself up, a veritable dragon when in full dudgeon.
“I am precisely aware of who and what you are, Your Grace. I cannot fathom why Arden would allow you to darken these halls, but to our great misfortune, he has. The least you can do is relegate yourself to your chamber and cease importuning Lady Violet. Her reputation does not need to take on the stink of yours.”
And for some reason, though she knew she should not, and that the last thing she owed the handsome devil before her was loyalty, Violet felt compelled to defend him. “I must insist you apologize to His Grace, Aunt. He was not importuning me in the least. Rather, it was I who importuned him. You see, I begged him to see if he felt, as a gentleman, that the seed pouch I am crocheting for Lord Almsley would suffice.”
She deliberately avoided Strathmore’s gaze as she took Aunt Hortense to task. Partially because she feared what she would see there in his expression. Partially because she knew her face would flame if she looked directly upon him. He was her Gorgon, but instead of turning her to stone, he would transform her into a mottled shade of undeniable guilt.
“And what would a scandalous, treasonous blackguard know of seed pouches?” Aunt Hortense demanded.
“I cannot answer for the fellow you describe, madam,” the duke said with calm and ease, taking up Violet’s sad attempt at fashioning a seed pouch. She had yet to snip the string, which meant the item in question had a lone tail protruding from it to the ball of yarn—ironically the same line which had tripped him not long ago. “As for myself, I can only say I must try out the seed pouch to judge its efficacy.”
Violet bit her lip to stifle a laugh as she attempted to envision Strathmore testing the seed pouch. She already knew herself the misshapen little oddity would not function. It was merely an attempt on her behalf to appease Great Aunt Hortense and show Charles she cared for him.
For shedidcare for him, she reminded herself.
Of course she did. He was an exemplary fiancé and would make her a good husband. He was calm. Predictable. Intelligent. Kind.Safe.He adored her, doted over her. He was everything a lady could want in a husband.
