A Duke in Shining Armor

He said, “Olympia,” his voice hoarse against her neck.

And she said, “Yes.” And “Yes.” And always, “Yes.”

Yes, she said.

The yes thundered in Ripley’s mind, as loud as the storm outside. Or maybe the single word was the storm.

He had, more or less, decided what he’d say to her.

But this wasn’t what he’d meant to do.

Not yet, that is.

But the way she’d looked at him when she’d undone the buttons.

The way she’d looked—all luscious curves and white underthings and naughty pink ribbons.

He was a man, and not a virtuous one.

And so, when he should have said, No, wait, and then added something sensible and correct . . . he didn’t.

Instead, he walked straight into trouble, the way he always did. He walked the few steps to Doing the Wrong Thing. Then she was in his arms, soft and willing and learning far too quickly how to make him delirious.

And now.

Yes, she said.

Yes, of course. What other choice was there?

He looked at her, lying on the cot in all her creamy softness and out-of-focus gaze and white and pink, and the only real thought in his mind was more instinct than thought, the feeling of the wolf when he’s spotted his mate: mine.

And after all, he was a duke. Through his veins ran centuries of power and lordly compulsion to possess.

Yes, she said, and he moved his hand up over her leg, dragging her petticoat up as he went. He slid his hand over her knee and over her garter and up to the smooth skin of her thigh and up farther still, to the opening of her drawers and the silken place between her legs.

This was the time to call a halt. In a dark, distant part of his mind he knew this. But she only gave a small, surprised gasp, and then it was Yes, still, as she squirmed against his hand. And yes, she was wet and ready.

And no, he didn’t think. Thinking wasn’t a habit with him, and second thoughts were what other people had.

He stroked her, and felt her convulse around his fingers. That was what he wanted. This was as it should be. Yet it was more than he’d expected or ever experienced.

Her pleasure pulsed through him, like a summer storm, dark with flashes of light. She was the dark and the light, the danger and the excitement, and the sweetness, too. She was all he could see or feel or think: she, in his arms, under his hands, passionate and open and trusting and wild. She let out a little shriek, and a giggle.

He laughed, too, but mostly from shock.

Feelings. So strong.

He took his hand away and moved slightly away to get his bearings, and she said, “No, not yet!” She touched him, not meaning, he assumed, to touch where she did, where he was aching and rigid for her. But she did touch him there, and even in the dim light he saw her eyes widen. But instead of pulling her hand away, she left it there, and looked up at him, with the same little smile she’d offered before. A dare of a smile.

“Yes,” she said.

He was lost, or maybe he’d been lost from the start, from the moment he’d seen her in a cloud of white and clocked stockings in the Newlands’ library. Or long before that. Years ago. So much wasted time.

In a moment his trouser buttons were undone, and in another he was poised between her legs, and almost in the same instant he was pushing into her. She gave a choked cry at the intrusion, and he paused, though he thought he’d die. But it was only a heartbeat or two or a thousand furious ones before he felt her ease about him.

Then, “Oh!” she said. “Good heav—oh, my goodness, how—no, don’t stop. Oh, Ripley! Oh, my goodness! I’m going to faint.”

She didn’t faint, and neither did he. He went slowly at first. Though it promised to kill him, he gave her time to grow accustomed and learn, but she learned so quickly and gave so easily of herself that he grew dizzy with the joy of her openhearted ardor.

He seemed to plunge deep, deep underwater, into a hidden place of happiness. He was the knowing one, the experienced one, but in all her innocence and eagerness to learn, she took him where he’d never been before. He looked at her and marveled, even while he thrust deep inside her, and felt her close about him, holding him inside her. It was only a moment before he was in charge again, supposedly in charge, and leading the lovers’ dance he thought he knew so well.

But with her, this wasn’t the dance he knew. It was altogether different. He had no words, no coherent thoughts, but the feeling was there, filling him, fulfilling him.

The new feeling was there, as he felt the last pleasure shake her and as her body pulsed about him. It was there as he was swept upward, to his own peak of pleasure. And it was there as he drifted down again, to the world, as their bodies began to quiet, and as his mind came back and he knew, first, that she was his. Second, that there was no going back. And third, he was in the worst trouble of his life.

Ripley became aware again of the storm whirling and crashing around the old fishing lodge, though not so violently as before.

He squeezed in beside Olympia on the narrow cot and drew her into his arms. He rested his chin on her head. Mingled with the scent of the dying fire and their lovemaking was her own scent, as fresh as this patch of woodland where he’d played in his boyhood. He thought how little the present moment resembled that young boy’s notions of knights in shining armor and damsels in distress and the dragons a knight faced on a damsel’s account. What he couldn’t have foreseen was that the dragon, in his case, was a friendship he’d believed—and had good reason to believe—more precious to him than anything else.

Ashmont, his friend.

Ripley had betrayed him.

Ripley was a disgrace and had been for years, but this had to be the worst thing he’d done in his life.

Yet it seemed to him the best thing he’d ever done.

He said, “You’ve done it now. Have to marry me.”

“Yes.”

“No bolting.”

“No.”

She tucked her head into the hollow of his shoulder. He could feel her breath on his skin. He didn’t want to move. He didn’t want this moment to end. He needed time for it to sink in and make sense.

They didn’t have time.

“We have to do it at once,” he said. “Not a minute to lose. We have to leave here and be on our way to London before Uncle Fred knows we’re gone. Matters are complicated enough without our having to deal with him.”

She drew away from him and sat up. Her hair, dark honey with golden glints where the firelight caught it, was falling down, into her eyes and over her shoulders. Her breasts spilled out of the top of her chemise. The corset sagged at her waist. He reached up and clasped one perfect breast.

“Well, maybe not this very minute,” he said gruffly.

He drew her down and kissed her breast and the hollow of her throat. He kissed her on the mouth, and she parted her lips to him instantly. The kiss deepened, the hot inner storm rolled through him, and he lost the will to fight it. In an instant his heart was racing again, and he was coiled about her, moving his hands over the smooth curves of her body.

A moment ago he’d been cooling. He’d started to become capable of thought. Now all he wanted was more of her. He kissed her throat and her neck and made trails of kisses over her breasts. He grasped her bottom and pulled her against him.

She giggled and said, thickly, “Maybe not this very minute.”

They hadn’t time for languid lovemaking, and this time he used no finesse. He cupped her most womanly part and stroked her. He did little more before she was moving against his hand, wet and willing. In another moment he was inside her again and her legs were wrapped around his hips and there was nothing in his mind but her and the way it felt to be joined with her and the shock of it: to feel so deeply, to feel so much happiness.

A soft pressure enclosed him, and he felt her muscles contract, drawing him in, holding him. The wonderful madness returned. The world went away an

d nothing remained but the way she felt and the way they felt together. It was new, still new, and a wonder to him.

He was inside her, trying to make it last, not wanting it to end.

Not yet. Not yet.

But it was like the maddest of races, fast, fast, too fast. The peak came too soon and there was no resisting or slowing it. It came to him in a burst of joy. And then he was tumbling, tumbling down into a quiet place.

This time it took longer for Ripley’s breathing to slow and his mind to uncloud.

He didn’t want it to uncloud. He didn’t want to think. He wanted to wallow in the thousand and one delights of Olympia.

He couldn’t wallow.

He needed to be calm, to think. To plan.

Ashmont. What to do about him. If anything could be done.

If not, it was going to be very bad.

“It’s a good thing I knew nothing about what this was like,” she said shakily. “I’d have been ruined in my first Season.”

And if Ripley had had any idea, all those years ago when he’d first met her, he would have ruined her in short order. So much wasted time. But no. If he’d ruined her years ago, he wouldn’t have realized what he’d found.