“I will send it this very day,” he said. “We will not have a reply until tomorrow, but I am sure you will stay until then?”
“Yes,” I said, far too quickly. I was finding it harder and harder to hide my eagerness.
He rose from the desk and offered me his arm. Looking around to ensure that we were not being observed, I took his arm. He led me around the library, allowing me to look more closely at some of the more interesting tomes. There were the missing volumes of Homer’s Odyssey. Upon seeing my excitement at holding these volumes, he pushed them into my hands. “They are yours,” he said.
“You cannot mean it,” I whispered, staring down at the books.
“I do,” the Duke said. “It is worth it to just see a woman who gets excited about books. Most women would rather be out there, at the fayre, but I see you are made of different material. I expect that your design has been a hindrance to you for most of your life.”
“It has.”
“That is a great dishonor to Man,” the Duke said vehemently. “I would say you are the kind of woman whom a man needs to treasure, but that would unworthy; I do not think you are any kind at all. I think you are simply Sarah Archer, a beautiful anomaly.”
I had never been flattered so endlessly. The effect it had upon me was jarring. I felt my mouth falling open like a village idiot’s, and yet I was powerless to stop it. I was in awe of this man and his words. I placed the books on the shelf, lest I drop them, stood still for a few moments. Soon he put his hands on my shoulders, gripping them firmly, and turned me toward him.
“I wish to kiss you, Sarah,” he said.
Men are not as honorable as they would have us believe, and I had had this offer thrust before me many times before, with the full knowledge that it would be my downfall if the man was a rascal. For that reason, and the reason that I had never felt an overwhelming inclination to succumb, I had never kissed a man before.
“You wish…”
“To kiss you,” the Duke said firmly. “Will you allow me?”
I stood on the edge of a cliff, the wind whipping at me. One way there was ecstasy, the other was oblivion. What if I succumbed to this man and he was rascal? What if I was one duped woman in a line of duped women? I looked into his eyes, searching for any sign of duplicity, but all attempts to read him were lost in the solid ice-blue of the deep pools of his irises.
Then I tossed intellect aside, a rare thing for me, and consulted my heart. The consultation did not last long. I wanted this, I realized.
“I must not last long,” I said hurriedly, “lest somebody come in and find us.”
“Yes, my lady,” the Duke – Francis – said.
He touched my cheek with his hand, and then leaned forward and placed his lips upon mine. I had been afraid that I would not know what to do, but it felt as natural as walking. Our lips brushed as though they were old companions, and his tongue snaked into my mouth. This was most scandalous, and yet I opened my mouth in return and allowed our tongues to dance.
We kissed for longer than was agreed upon, and would have kissed for longer had not there been the clapping of shoes behind us. We both turned swiftly just in time to see Charlotte enter.
“Miss, I feared something had happened to you!” the poor girl exclaimed.
“The Duke was just showing me his books, Charlotte,” I said. “You did not have to worry.”
“Yes, Miss,” Charlotte said. “Would you like to come outside now?”
The Duke stepped forward. “We shall all go outside and join in on the fun.”
The girl’s face lit up like a fire at that. Then she clapped out of the room. The Duke turned and stared into my eyes. “One more,” he said.
I nodded.
Our lips, our tongues, even our teeth: all of it mashed together in a dance of unearthly pleasure.
It had been three nights from the date of the fayre. I lay awake around three in the morning thinking over the previous three days. Apart from a short stroll around the grounds on the second day, upon which event Charlotte was also present, the Duke and I had not spent any time together since the first day. This was mainly due to exterior events in London, which I will not bore the reader by delving into now. But late on the evening upon which I lay awake, waiting, the business in London had concluded and the Duke’s advisors had left the Castle.
And so our romance could resume.
For the sake of our closeness, the Duke had arranged for Charlotte to have her own room down the hallway. This was agreeable to me, because it made nights like tonight much easier. The Duke was to visit me tonight. We were to spend some time alone together. My nerves were aching with anticipation at this point, and I had already decided that if he didn’t arrive tonight I would return home. There is only so much a woman can take, exterior factors or not.