Barely a Bride (Free Fellows League 1)

He stopped kissing her. He stopped everything.

She caressed him, using the motion he had taught her in the coach on their wedding day, but Griffin shook his head. “No.”

Alyssa widened her eyes in surprise at his answer.

“No.” He placed his hand over hers and stopped her motion.

“But, Griffin…”

He removed his hand from over hers, then stared down at her fingers. “No,” he told her. “Please…”

Suddenly, the words he had spoken the first night he’d awakened her with his feverish nightmares made perfect sense. Touch that portion of my anatomy again, madam, and I’ll kill you.

Alyssa gently released him, then looked up and into his blue eyes.

Griffin captured her face in his hands, plowed his fingers through her hair, and kissed her with a fierce passion, kissed her as if it had been much too long between kisses. And he kept on kissing her.

Alyssa kissed him back, and when she’d done kissing his mouth, she slid down his body and kissed him where she’d just held him.

He didn’t pull away, and Alyssa, emboldened by his response, took him into her mouth and made love to him in an entirely new way.

She lavished love and attention on him until he exploded in blissful satisfaction.

He shuddered in her arms, and Alyssa held him as his deep breathing told her he had finally found refuge in sleep.

Closing her eyes, Alyssa slept cradled on the chaise longue beside him.

Chapter Thirty-two

“Retreat is often the better part of valor.”

—Griffin, Duke of Avon, journal entry, 18 July 1811

He was gone when she awoke.

She slipped out of the conservatory and tiptoed up to the master suite to dress. She met Keswick as she was coming down the stairs.

“Where is His Grace?” She asked.

“He left,” Keswick answered.

“He left?”

The butler nodded. “He left instructions that you were not to be disturbed and ordered the coach brought around while I helped him dress. I am sorry, Your Grace, but His Grace has returned to London.”

She looked stricken by the news, and Keswick pulled a letter from his coat pocket and handed it to her, then stepped aside to give her the privacy in which to read it.

My Dear Alyssa,

I shall always be grateful for the time we have shared and for the solace you offered me in my time of need, but I must set you free so that you might choose a man worthy of you.

I promised myself, in Spain, that I would not force my affections on you or interfere in your life in any way. Nor would I expect that you would return my affections or grant me further license to get my heir upon you.

But I have broken that promise this day. As it seems that I have no strength of will where you are concerned, I am removing myself from temptation.

If you should find a month from today that you are with child, you may reach me at my town house in London. If that is not the case, you may rest assured that I will refrain from settling my affections on you in the future—unless you desire them.

Alyssa finished reading the letter, and then crumpled it in her fist. “Unless I desire them,” she murmured. “Of course I desire them. I thought I made that perfectly clear.” Alyssa stamped her foot in frustration. “That fool! That pigheaded, noble, idiotic fool!”