A Duke in Shining Armor

She wanted him, and she understood she’d waited years for him, without hope because she hadn’t dared to understand herself. She’d made herself what she ought to be, and it was like a dress that didn’t fit. No wonder her tiresome cousin mocked her.

Then he took the bud of her breast into his mouth and suckled and she forgot the past, her cousin, relatives, everything. She grasped his arms and held on, letting the sensations wash over her and through her, and she felt drunk, so beautifully drunk.

She’d learned to believe that no man would want her, truly want her, as she was.

He wanted her.

He teased and suckled the other breast, and worked his way down, drawing her nightdress down as he went and teasing her skin with his mouth and his too-adept hands. He licked her navel, making swirls with his tongue, and she let out a wild little cry.

He went lower still, and the nightdress slid down over her hips to the rug.

Then he put his mouth there, between her legs, and her body tightened. Spasms went through her, of heat and delight and a growing need.

“Oh,” she gasped. “Oh, my goodness. Oh, Ripley.”

He didn’t stop, and the feelings built to an intensity all but unbearable. She dragged her hands through his hair and her body pulsed and pulsed, out of her control, until a fierce sensation racked her, and she let go of him, and slumped.

He grasped her waist and lifted her up and onto the bed.

While she caught her breath and tried to find her mind, he threw off his dressing gown.

Then she was short of breath again. For a moment she simply lay there, gazing at him while her heart thumped and her breath came in gulps.

Then she slid up onto the pillows and drank in her fill. He was her husband. She could look. And the front view was as beautiful as the back view had been, that day he’d stood naked in the basin.

She hadn’t seen much of him in the fishing house. They’d kept most of their clothes on. Now . . .

His skin was bronze in the candlelight and perhaps from the sun of Italy, where he’d been so recently. The light glinting over the fine dusting of hair seemed to feather it with gold. Powerful shoulders and muscled arms and chest and belly—he was as beautiful and hard and solid as a Greek or Roman statue. With a difference. She’d seen classical statues, not all with fig leaves. She’d seen pictures in books. He was . . .

“Good heavens,” she said in a stricken voice she barely recognized as hers.

He looked down to where his manly organ swelled . . . rather dauntingly.

“This is what happens,” he said, “when a man is mad for his wife. But don’t worry. Hardly ever fatal, as I might have mentioned some days ago.”

She laughed. “Oh, Ripley, you say the most romantic things.”

“Wish I could,” he said. “In my case, best to let actions speak louder.”

He climbed onto the bed and knelt over her.

“But you like words,” he said. “I’ll give you some. You’re wonderful.”

She felt tears prick her eyes.

“You were wonderful drunk and running away,” he said. “You were wonderful, issuing commands. Telling me to help you over the wall and ordering me about and giving me the devil’s own time trying to manage you. I wish I had starting chasing after you years ago. So much fun I missed.”

“We’ll make up for it,” she said shakily. With a knuckle she rubbed her eye.

“No crying,” he said.

“I’m not,” she said. “I’m only . . . It’s very emotional. Conjugal relations.”

“When it’s done right, yes.”

“When it’s with the right one.” She managed a smile. “Or when it’s with the right wrong one.” She put up her arms. “Kiss me,” she said.

“As my lady commands.” He bent and let her arms curl round his shoulders, and he kissed her. This time it wasn’t so gentle. The tenderness was there, but fiercer and darker. It was like passing through a spring mist into a summer storm.

This time she touched him, too, exploring and learning the shape and feel of him the way he’d learned her. She ranged kisses over his shoulders and his arms, and moved her hands over as much of him as she could reach. And when she felt his sex pressed against her, she grasped his buttocks, and she heard his choked laugh as he stroked her in the place between her legs where he’d kissed her and done the lewdest, most delicious things, and where she ached for him now. Then at last, he pushed into her, and made a sound like a groan and a laugh combined.

This time her body gave way to him so easily. Then feeling was everything: the sense of joining and completion and the happiness of it. She was aware of heat and the scent of his skin and the mingled scent of their bodies but, above all, of the extraordinary feel of him inside her. She lifted her legs and wrapped them about him and he plunged deeper and she cried out: no words, merely sounds, of surprise and pleasure.

This time it went on for so much longer than it had done in that feverish time in the fishing house. This time they made love, unhurried, because of course they had all the time in the world. Lovemaking was all the dances with him she’d missed, but a great deal more: deeply intimate, skin to skin, hot and so joyous. She moved with him, following the rhythm he set—slow at first, then building and building, like a mad waltz, until she was spun away up into the heavens. Then she was a star, alight, and exploding with happiness. Then smaller explosions, and finally, she was drifting in the night sky, drifting downward, until she fell safely into his waiting arms.

Chapter 17

It wasn’t enough.

It was all Ripley had.

He held her tightly, because this might be the last night he ever held her.

He said, “Now, that was more like it.”

“I see,” said his duchess. “These conjugal relations are not quite perfect unless the lady faints.”

“Or screams. Preferably both.”

She turned slightly in his arms to look up at him. “No wonder I could find nothing in the books at Newland House. No wonder Mama became unintelligible.”

“Oh, there are books,” he said. “I have an extensive collection of licentious works. Some are quite antique, though nothing to compare to the 1450 Mazarin Bible with movable types.”

“The f

irst with movable types,” she corrected.

He laughed. “I am also the proud owner of a generous selection of naughty prints, including a fine set of obscene works by Thomas Rowlandson. Where would you file naughty books, by the way, in your system?”

“Natural philosophy,” she said. “Or in one of the categories of literature, depending.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “It seems you’re not entirely innocent in that regard. I should have realized.”

“Boccaccio,” she said. “Ovid. Chaucer. But when one knows nothing, these sorts of works don’t mean much. Now I shall study them with more knowledgeable eyes.”

“If you’d ever come upon The School of Venus, you would have understood better. From the time of King Charles II, I believe. It describes, in frank detail, the sorts of things couples get up to. With illustrations.”

Her eyes widened. He couldn’t be sure what color they were at present, in the flickering candlelight. “Does it, indeed? That sounds like what I was looking for, when I was searching for information in my uncle’s library. But I hardly knew where to look.”

“If he has such books, doubtless he keeps them hidden,” Ripley said. “As must your father.”

“I’m not sure Papa knows what’s in his library,” she said. “And since it’s coming to us, he’ll never find out. I hope you’ve thought of where to put them.”

In exchange for a generous financial arrangement, the collection of the Earl of Gonerby’s library was to be one of the items Olympia brought to the marriage. This was one of the conditions Ripley had added to the marriage settlements.

“You can put the books wherever you like,” Ripley said. “We can enlarge the library here or move them to the house in Lincolnshire. Or one of the other houses. You may choose to shift volumes wherever you like. There’s some worthless stuff, too, you’ll want to cull. Plenty for you to do, though I’m not sure I can offer as much in that way as Mends could.”

She pushed herself up onto one elbow. “I was not meaning to spend all of my time as your librarian, duke.”

“I’m relieved to hear it. Because I have fantasies.” He thought of all he’d missed in not having a wife. But no, it couldn’t have been the same with any wife. It had to be Olympia. And it had to be now. The wrong time, the wrong circumstances . . . Never mind. No mawkishness. He had now.