The Duchess War (Brothers Sinister 1)

Then there were those moments they stole together. He’d had a few kisses to whet his appetite—if you could call it just a kiss when he’d pushed her against the wall and unbuttoned her gown half down her front. By the morning of his wedding, his appetite was sharp indeed.

In one sense, it was lucky that their ceremony was early. In reality, the extremely early hour had been chosen specifically so that they would be able to make the journey to Paris by the end of the day. If that early-morning mail train was not late into London, if the steamer made it across the Channel in good time…

But he couldn’t think of any of that as he looked in her eyes and spoke his vows. It wasn’t just physical desire that had him so on edge. When she promised to love him, to comfort him, he felt an electric thrill that ran down his whole body. And when he promised the same, it seemed to seal them together, to bridge the distance between them in a way that even the kiss that followed could not.

He knew that many of his compatriots avoided marriage at all costs. They saw matrimony as an annoyance, a wife as another person who would nag and prod. But when he repeated his vows, he heard “as long as we both shall live” and he hoped.

After the ceremony, they separated briefly. Minnie went with her great-aunts to gather up a few things; Robert oversaw the loading of baggage. It was only half an hour later that they met again at the train station. They had no chance to speak as they boarded. Robert shook his brother’s hand and then his cousin’s. Violet gave him an embrace, and his mother… She inclined her head to him. They waved from the window of the car until the station disappeared into the countryside.

“Whose idea was it,” Robert whispered in her ear, “to put a sixteen-hour journey between the ceremony and the consummation of the marriage?”

“Mine. I think.” She half-turned to him, and he caught a glimpse of her face. She didn’t look eager for what was to come; she looked unhappy. She glanced back out the window almost longingly, at the silhouettes of the town receding in the distance. All the buildings blurred together into gray stone and a forest of brick chimneys. Not so much to miss, that.

And then Robert recalled that she had two great-aunts who loved her, and that he was taking her away from them.

“Give me a moment,” she said. “I’ll be right as rain in a little while. I just thought—I really thought that Lydia would come to my wedding.”

It took him a moment to remember who Lydia must be—Miss Charingford, the friend who had always been at her side.

“I sent her a letter telling her everything, absolutely everything about me. I asked her to come. I thought she’d see me off at least,” she said. “But she didn’t even send a note.”

He’d been about to suggest that they spend the journey readying themselves for their hotel bed in Paris. But there was no place for cheerful lewdness here. Instead, he touched her hand gently, afraid to say anything that might worsen her mood.

But she hadn’t been lying when she said she’d need only a while to recover. By the time they reached London, she was smiling again. “You know,” she said, “the last time I was in Paris, I was eight. Back then, travel to the Continent took days.” She shook her head. “Days to get anywhere at all.”

“I didn’t go to the Continent until I reached my majority,” Robert said. “So I’ve only known the days when train and steamer took us everywhere.”

They reached London by ten thirty, Southampton just after noon, and stood on French soil by three that afternoon. True to Minnie’s word, all hint of her unhappiness had vanished. She watched everything with interest, smiled as if nothing was wrong…and, when they got into the final train car for the day, leaned her head against his shoulder in a display of idle affection that had him holding his breath and thinking of very cold icicles applied directly to his thigh.

Good thing that he hadn’t suggested they try more. Just the feeling of her hand entwined in his had him wondering if he was going to ravish his wife for the first time while hurtling down the tracks.

No. He was going to ravish her in a hotel room. On a bed. And it was going to be incredible.

It was going to be incredible, he repeated to himself when they arrived in Paris.

He repeated it again, with gritted teeth, when he found out that his mother had arranged a fitting for Minnie upon her arrival—an hour-long delay at nine in the bloody evening, before dinner, on the night of his marriage.

By the time they found themselves seated at an intimate meal together, Minnie in a heavily brocaded robe that covered her from neck to toe, it was eleven at night. He picked moodily at his food; she did the same. They dismissed the servants after the second course; Minnie claimed not to be hungry and set down her silverware.

She stood.

It was almost midnight. They’d been traveling most of the day; for most of the day, he’d been on edge thinking of what he would get to do tonight. And now, tonight was here.

“Minnie,” he said slowly. “After today’s tiring journey, I thought we might—”

She undid the tie of her robe and let it fall to the ground, and the remainder of his sentence vanished.

“You thought we might?” she inquired, smiling at him.

God, that voice. God, that body. She was wearing a gown of sheer white fabric, embroidered in white scrollwork that twined suggestively from her hips to her br**sts. Which were unbound. All too visible through the fabric. There was a bit of openwork by her legs; she took a step toward him, and the fabric swirled around her, giving him flashes of bare skin, long legs.

Had he actually been going to suggest that they put off their wedding night until they’d had some rest?

“I thought,” he said as his blood rushed south, “that I’d spend the remainder of the evening ravishing you.”

She smiled. “That’s what I thought you were going to say.”

“Look at you.” And he could, now. He stood up from the table and circled her. “Just look at you.”

The fabric molded to the peaks of her ni**les. Dreams and fevered imaginings paled before reality. A dream conjured up a perfect half-moon of a breast, but it missed the light smattering of freckles. He might imagine smooth, pale skin. This close, he could see that her skin was pebbled with cold. And it was a smattering of colors—a light overlay of pink, where her blood pounded beneath the skin, hints of tan and white. He could even make out a pale white line along one rib that could have been a scar.