To Pleasure a Duke (The Husband Hunters Club 3)

Feeling her way, Eugenie discovered the ties to his shirt and began to undo them. His flesh was masculine and warm, and when she pressed her face to his chest she tasted salt and sweat and man.

Her hands moved lower, finding the hard rod in his breeches, and she set about freeing him. He groaned against her, pushing into her palm as she held him. And then he was kneeling, drawing up her skirts and petticoats, his fingers exploring her darned stockings and closing on her bare thighs.

“You are so beautiful,” he said, or perhaps the words were in her head. It was the sort of thing he always said in her dreams.

His mouth closed over her most intimate place, his tongue caressing her, and she arched upward, pleasure spiraling through her. Her body readied itself for climax, but then he was lying over her again, easing himself inside her, taking her.

As she moved to the rhythm of pleasure, her body gripped by the fever of need, she no longer felt as if they were duke and commoner. There was no gulf between them. They were Sinclair and Eugenie.

Just man and woman.

He could hardly breathe, the pleasure was so strong, so all-consuming. Sinclair held her as the world came back into focus and knew he didn’t want to let her go, no matter what he had said to her and to himself.

For the first time he thought of marriage without instantly dismissing it.

Would it be fair to her, to raise her up so high and bring her to the attention of the gossips and the subtle cruelties of his class? And what of him? Could he bear the laughter of his friends and the mockery of his peers? His mother had threatened to turn her back on him . . . never to speak to him again. Could he live with that?

Right now, as he lay with the sweat cooling on him from loving her, he felt as if he could put up with anything. But later, what of later? Would he still feel the same in a month, a year, ten years? And then there was the letter she had written. Was he prepared to forgive her for humiliating him like that? Could he trust her not to do so again?

She stirred, rubbing her cheek against his chest, her tongue warm and wet against his flesh.

“This has been a very strange day,” she said, her voice soft and fuzzy. She yawned. “Perhaps it has all been a dream. Perhaps I’ll wake up on that divan covered in pomegranate seeds.”

He laughed. She always had the ability to make him laugh when he’d thought it impossible. Or was it just that she made him happy?

He sat up and looked down at her. She was still a mess. He tucked her unruly curls back and smoothed a truant eyelash from her cheek. “If this really is a dream then I would like to wake up at home in my bed.”

She gave him a temptress smile. “Would I be there?”

“Oh yes,” he said. “Most definitely, minx.”

Her gaze tangled with his a moment more, enjoying the connection, and then she raised her arms and stretched. He looked about them. The rain had stopped for now, but it was decidedly gloomy and growing colder. Time to start moving out of this wretched wood, although where they would go after that he had no idea. Certainly not back to the tavern; it wasn’t safe there.

The problem of Annabelle and her beau jumped into his head, but he pushed it away. No use in worrying about them now. The thing was to find civilization and a warm room, and then he could begin to decide what to do.

He took Eugenie’s hand in his and tugged her to her feet. She leaned against him, her head on his shoulder, his arm about her waist. For a moment they stood together, as if neither of them wanted to be apart ever again.

Chapter 27

The road they’d followed through the woods no longer seemed as clearly defined, and several times Sinclair stopped and pondered their direction before continuing on. Eugenie was so tired that she let him make the decisions. She would have been just as happy to lie down and sleep the night away and start off again in the morning, but she supposed it was safer to leave these trees far behind them, in case Georgie and his brothers changed their minds about letting them go free.

Her heart ached still when she remembered Georgie’s perfidy, but she could understand why he’d done it—why he felt he had no choice but to obey his older brothers. How could he know that if he’d confided in her and Sinclair they would have done everything in their power to help him escape their clutches? The child was obviously used to shifting for himself and didn’t trust anyone else. Life was risky business if you were an orphaned child reliant upon a brother like Seth.

The sound of galloping horses came at the end of this thought and Eugenie, fearing the worst, grabbed Sinclair’s hand. “Who is it?” she whispered.

Sinclair, peering through the darkness, wrapped his arms tight about her and did not answer.

There was a light.

Someone was carrying a lantern, its pallid glow valiant against the permanent night of the woods. And then a voice cried out, a voice they both knew.

“Yer Grace? Is it you?”

“Robert? Here, we are over here!”

“Yer Grace, thank God I’ve found ye. Are you or the lady hurt?”

“No, Robert. Apart from our dignity,” Sinclair replied, relief making him light-headed.