The Duchess of Longleigh.
Nay—he did not like to think of her by that name. Did not like to recall the connection she had to the man who had sired him or the reason why Adrian was a guest here at Coddington Hall.
Tilly.
Shewas the problem. Or rather, the troubling feelings he was developing for her were. He wanted her. When he was in her presence, he felt a kinship with her, an easiness, a connection.
A bond.
The likes of which he had not felt since Amelia.
It was the truth, even if it felt like a betrayal to her, to the memory of what they had shared. A truth he had to acknowledge as he knocked on the door to Tilly’s chamber that evening. He felt as if he had known Tilly all his life, as if she were a part of him. Was it that she reminded him of Amelia in some ways?
He could not be sure. There was the golden hair, the ready laughter and smiles. She took to his teasing as easily as Amelia had, and he found himself teasing her just to hear the sound of her laughter.
“Come,” she called softly.
Their dinner had been steeped with the attraction arcing between them like live electrical wires. How would it be, he wondered as he opened the door and crossed the threshold, to be alone with her, in her territory? How would it feel to make love to her? There had been a time in his life, several years ago, when he had lost Amelia and then Arthur not long after, that the notion of ever experiencing pleasure again had been anathema.
But gradually, he had come to understand that his life had not ended with theirs. That he must live again. Try again. That was part of the reason he had accepted the duke’s despicable offer. The other part was the sheer necessity of the funds and a chance to begin anew in a place where he would not be tainted by his past.
Adrian was scarcely aware of the door closing at his back as his eyes lit on Tilly.
She stole his breath and made his heart thump.
She was beautiful, dressed in a silken white robe that made her look ethereal, angelic, and deliciously wicked all at once. Her bare toes and nicely turned ankles peeped from beneath the hem and her hair was unbound. It was longer than he had supposed, trailing down her back and over her breasts in a wild abundance of curls that stopped below her waist.
Hunger, so furious and unexpected it nearly brought him to his knees, took over.
He was not sure which of them moved first. All he did know was that one moment, they stood on opposite ends of the sumptuous chamber and in the next, they were colliding. Her arms went around his neck as she turned her face up for his kiss. He caught her waist and lifted her with ease. Kissing her and holding her in his arms, he walked them to the bed.
She cupped his face, and she kissed him back with a fervent need that echoed the one overtaking him. He loved the way those hands felt on him, the way she felt, soft feminine curves melded against his body. Making love to this woman would be no duty, no chore.
The scent of roses wrapped around him.
Her hair surrounded them in a silken cloud as their lips clung. He sucked on her lower lip, delighting in her moan. She was such a passionate creature. Deliciously responsive. He had no doubt that if he slid his touch beneath her dressing gown and parted her lush thighs, he would find her cunny already drenched and waiting for him.
Fuck, he had to know.
This act was not meant for enjoyment.
For Tilly, the resulting achievement of their affair would be satisfying Longleigh’s demands.
For him, it was to be the procurement of his financial liberation.
And yet, he had no doubt that she was not any more mired in the reality of their situation than he was. He gently set her back on her feet as her bed loomed like the allure of paradise behind her. Her mouth was the color of crushed berries, lips puffy from the frenzy of their kisses.
When he had tried to envision this moment before he had met her, he had imagined he would need to get inebriated first. Not so deep in his cups that he could not perform the task ahead of him, but so that he could drown the distaste, feign enough interest to muster a proper response. He had planned to turn down the lights, to make their coupling as hasty as possible. To spend into a handkerchief he would have secreted in his waistcoat pocket, to never disrobe beyond the opening of the placket of his trousers. In the darkness, she would have never known the difference, he had been sure.
But after the week they had spent together, the desire between them burning hotter and higher, like a flame slowly growing and spreading until it had become a veritable inferno, he knew nothing would be as he had planned. Nothingcouldbe. His strategies had been rendered irrelevant by the intensity of their mutual attraction.
He had not been meant to like her, to see in her the glimpse of what his life may have been, had Amelia lived. To find a fragile sense of peace and happiness. Seven days, one woman, and everything had changed.
He would still have to leave in three weeks. Their time remained finite. She was married. He was leaving England and all its bitterness and pain behind him. But he could seize the time they had. He could harness the passion, the pleasure, and he intended to do so.
Her emerald gaze was roving over him hungrily, glazed with desire.
“You are magnificent,” he said, unable to keep his appreciation to himself.
