His fingers tightened against his thighs and he wished she would leave, shutting the door behind temptation because if she stayed much longer he did not trust himself enough not to reach out and remove any choice.
‘Goodnight.’ Her voice was strained and low and a few seconds later she was gone.
Lucinda sat on her bed, trying to catch her breath, her heart pounding in her chest.
She wanted him. She did. She wanted him to show her what it was that had boiled between them when he had kissed her. Her fingers traced down the line of her bodice, cupping one breast through the layers of fabric, feeling the same things that he had. The thought had her standing because she had never been a woman who was overtly sensual, the men in London society leaving her with no true desire other than a residual and slight interest in what happened between the sexes. Nothing more.
Until now.
Different. Alive. Aching everywhere. For him. The skin around her nipples tightened as she imagined his mouth upon them, the place between her legs throbbing in anticipation. The jade Emerald had bequeathed her lay between her breasts. For happiness, her sister-in-law had promised. She wondered what this emotion she felt now was. Certainly there was an excitement that was foreign and wonderful.
Could one be married in lust and not in love?
Would that be enough?
Or might the agreements between them eventually ignite the sort of marriage her brothers had, the for-ever-and-ever sort that lasted through thick and thin?
Her husband did not seem to think so and yet he had kissed her in a way that made no sense of the distance he offered. His heart had raced as fast as hers, she had felt it where their skin had touched, the heat in his eyes belying the aloofness he brokered.
When he had stood behind her at the window, offering an explanation why he took money from her brother, she could almost imagine him standing there as a loving husband who cared for her feelings and who wanted her to understand that it was not insult but truth he sought.
She wiped away the tears in her eyes with the back of her hand, a quick angry movement because such a maudlin wallowing was useless.
She had been lonely for years, lost in her own company amidst a family who all had partners. The shared glances, the careful smiles, the way a hand was given in complicit understanding. These were the things she had never discovered, never desired until now.
The moonlight drew mottled, patterned trails across her skin, paleness overlaid by shadow. The artist in her enjoyed the line and the beauty of the design, but the woman only saw the desolation of solitude.
How would she be able to go through with this bargain of conceiving an heir if every part of her wanted so much more than he would give?
Chapter Thirteen
Lucinda spent the morning on her own. There had been no sign of her husband at all, no movements from his room. She knew this because she had been listening most carefully, getting up to place her head against the door at any sign of noise.
Mrs Berwick bustled in just before twelve.
‘The master was asking after you, your Grace.’
‘The Duke is up already?’
‘Indeed. Riding across the top valley would be my guess, on that black horse of his that goes like the wind.’
Lucinda crossed to the wardrobe to find her bonnet and coat. Within a moment she was on the front portico, Mrs Berwick pointing out the formal gardens and the small pathway to the Ellesmere stables.
Finally she was alone, the wind on her face and the sun appearing from time to time between ominous banks of high, dark cloud.
A dog joined her on her walk a little way into the tumbled-down garden, his coat mangy and his head hanging. She could not even make a guess as to its pedigree, for the animal had the head of a Labrador, the body of a much thinner hound and the hairiest and longest of legs. Usually she was frightened of dogs, as she had been bitten badly once at Falder and had not been much in their company since, but this animal with its trusting brown eyes, its odd shape and a tail that curled twice before tucking under its back legs was so comical it was comforting. All day she had been alone, so when the animal’s wet muzzle came into the curl of her fingers she laughed.
‘Who are you?’ Her voice brought it to a stop.
‘His name is Dog.’ Taylen Ellesmere was suddenly behind her, his riding clothes splattered with mud and no sign on his face at all to indicate he had any memory of last night. Perhaps he had felt nothing. Perhaps for him the kiss had been like one of the many others he had bequeathed to countless beautiful women across his lifetime.
‘Is he yours?’ Lucinda hoped that the rush of heat on her cheeks did not show.
‘My carriage almost ran him over on the London riverfront and so I had him brought up here.’
‘When?’
‘The first day I arrived back in England, a month and a half ago now. It seemed a sign,’ he added, an unexpected lopsided smile having a strange effect on the area around her heart.
‘A sign of what?’
‘A sign indicating that I was meant to stay. An anchor, if you like.’
‘Mrs Berwick told me you had concentrated your efforts on bringing the farm cottages up to a habitable standard.’
‘The estate needs work, though there are some who do not like what I am trying to accomplish.’
‘Change always polarises people. Asher says that often.’
He smiled, and nodded. ‘In a year I could have Alderworth profitable again …’ He stopped, a sense of wariness in the words. ‘But you probably have no interest in such things?’
His query trembled into the space between them.
‘On the contrary. If this is to be my home, I could help you.’
‘Our home.’
And just like that she was back again into breathlessness, enchantment shimmering in the air between them.
‘Do you have your riding clothes?’
‘Of course.’
‘Then come with me and I will show you Alderworth from the hills.’
‘Now?’
Nodding, he called the dog back to his side, its mangy spine rising into his hand where he patted it.
‘Give me ten minutes,’ she answered before breaking into a brisk walk.
Taylen stood and watched her leave, desire seeping into a cold dread.
Hugo Shields seemed to reach out from the grave and deny him any thoughts of hope, years after he had died with a bullet through his heart. His uncle had gone into his afterlife muttering the threats he’d made such an art form of whilst living, insults softening into pleas and then whimpers as the life blood had run from him. Tay had allowed him no forgiveness, simply watching with distaste and relief as he took his last and final breath. The Italian nobleman, who had shot Hugo as a card cheat, had taken ship back to the Continent that very night and a youthful Taylen had never spoken of the incident to anyone.
Secrets and lies. It was who he was, what he had become, and no amount of longing could change it. It was why the nightmares never left him, but spun into the release of sleep like a spider gathering corpses. He could not hide the darkness inside him from Lucinda and if he tried to …
He shook his head. He would have to be honest, for he owed her at least that.
The dog’s whining made him tense.
With her riding habit in place Lucinda rejoined Taylen at the front of the stables.
The large black horse she had seen at a distance from the window of her room was twice as impressive close up. She stayed a good ten feet away from him as she looked over the lines of his body.
‘He is beautiful. What do you call him?’
‘Hades. My father brought his grandsire out from France after winning a lucrative hand of faro.’
Taylen Ellesmere never seemed cowed by scandal; rather he threw any caution in the face of the wind and challenged comment. Attack was better than any defence. He used the maxim like an expert.
‘Your family is unusual.’
‘There isn’t much of it left.’
‘The very opposite of mine, then. Sometimes I used to think there were too many Wellinghams, but now …’
She trailed off, but he finished the sentence for her. ‘Now when you see the alternative it makes you realise how lucky you are?’
‘I think that is true. They are not so bad, you know, my brothers. It is only that they are trying to protect me.’
‘From further ruin?’ He smiled unexpectedly, the green in his eyes paler today than she had ever seen it. The Dissolute Duke who watched over his estate out of a duty he could have refused, but didn’t.
Sometimes her husband was so very like her brothers. Confusion made her ramble.
‘It is good to be away from town and Alderworth is a beautiful place despite the disrepair or perhaps because of it, I think, although I can imagine my mother’s displeasure at the state of your garden.’
‘I would be more than happy if you wish to oversee any repair, Lucinda.’
She laughed. ‘Gardening being such a quiet and docile hobby …’
‘At least it might stop you from galloping ventre à terre.’
She knew he would kiss her before he leaned over. She could see it in the way his face softened, humour changing to some other thing less discernible. As the wind lifted her riding skirt and blew the falling leaves into eddies around their feet, she simply closed her eyes and felt his warmth against hers and his solidness, his fingers on the skin of her arm, stroking down to catch her to him, no questions left. Just them with a beautiful horse standing behind, the yellow sandstone of the stables pitted with age and the peace of the early afternoon settling in.