The Accidental Duchess Read online

  BASIC INSTINCTS

  “I can assure you that I am fully able to master any baser impulses,” Cambourne said drily, and I knew a moment of flaring disappointment. “Can you say the same?”

  I felt the blush before he could see it. “Of course,” I said stiffly. “And gently bred females do not have baser impulses.” “Oh really?” he said lightly, and I nodded.

  He took a step closer. Just one step, but he suddenly seemed to fill my vision. His eyes glittered and he looked almost angry. My back was against the wall and the floor seemed to tilt under me. I let my fingertips brush against the rough silk fabric covering the wall to remind myself that I was in the familiar safety of my parents’ entry hall.

  He reached out and traced his finger down my jaw, letting it slide down to my neck. Heat flashed through me, catching me by surprise, and I sucked in my breath. I held it, waiting to see what he would do next. But he dropped his hand. Those glittering eyes held mine.

  “If I weren’t determined to act the gentleman, Gwen,” he said, his voice low, “I could have you quivering with desire in ten seconds….”

  The sale of this book without its cover is unauthorized. If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that it was reported to the publisher as “unsold and destroyed.” Neither the author nor the publisher has received payment for the sale of this “stripped book.”

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  An Original Publication of POCKET BOOKS

  POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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  Copyright © 2004 by Jessica Benson

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

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  ISBN: 0-7434-6386-2

  eISBN-13: 978-1-4391-8782-1

  First Pocket Books printing January 2004

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  Front cover illustration by Tsukushi

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  To Vanessa, who made it possible on a daily basis

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to thank my amazing agent Laura Langlie, without whom everything I’ve ever written would be gathering dust on a shelf somewhere, and who routinely goes above and beyond the call of duty; and, equally, my editor, Amy Pierpont, without whose wisdom and guidance it would all be gathering dust on a shelf at 300,000 words with no plot.

  In addition, my deepest thanks to Eloisa James, Frances Lynch (who would like all letters about historical inaccuracies sent directly to her), Megan Frampton, and my husbandwho did lots of weekend duty.

  1

  In which I accidentally marry and am very nearly seduced by the wrong man

  I married the wrong man.

  And by this I do not mean, as people so often do, any of the more cryptic things that you might imagine: That I awoke one morning to the realization that my husband and I had grown apart. That I discovered something about my spouse that caused me to doubt that we were well-suited. Nor, even, that I had met by chance an old love in Bond Street. And as I shopped for reticules and he carried an armload of packages for his wife, our eyes met and it was as though the intervening years in which we had both found others had never been.

  What I do mean is that yesterday I stood up in St. George’s, Hanover Square, and before some three hundred witnesses promised to love, honor, and obey the wrong man.

  Put that way, even I must confess that it contrives to make me sound rather, well, like a fool. A complete and utter idiot. It is not as simple a case as it appears at first glance, however, and I would beg that you bear with me while I explain. I will also say that simply marrying him was not the worst of it, that before the day was done, things had got much, much worse, indeed.

  I’d been at the time in the suite bespoke by my new husband at the Clarendon Hotel. We had made our arrival a short time previous, and in a rush of high spirits had laughingly discarded bonnets, hats, and gloves, and I with a great deal of relief, my new slippers, which I had been duly assured looked stunning, but pinched rather horribly. We were awaiting the light supper that Milburn had ordered. The table in front of the fire in the sitting room sparkled with crystal and white linen. We were awkwardly silent at the moment, the reprieve offered by the nervous giddiness of our arrival having faded.

  Milburn had drawn back the heavy silk draperies. He stood now in his shirtsleeves, looking out into the falling darkness, his face reflected in the window. And, he was of a sudden looking alarmingly pensive. I stood some distance behind him. The carpet felt almost wickedly plush through my stockings, and as I wiggled my newly liberated toes, I debated whether to speak, or approach him, or simply leave him to his thoughts. As I looked at his reflection, it hit me suddenly, and with particular force, that I had married an uncommonly beautiful man. And with that thought came the considerably less welcome one that, in truth, I barely knew him.

  Just as I was deciding to leave him to his thoughts, he looked up and caught sight in the glass, of me, standing irresolute behind him. He turned and smiled at me then, and held out his hand, saying simply, “Gwen.”

  I went to him, almost without thought, and he took my hand. “Forgive me,” he said, “for abandoning you for my thoughts. It was ill-done of me.”

  “Yes. Now that you are leg-shackled you shall never again have license to be alone in your thoughts.” I was attempting to lighten the moment. But oddly, as I stood beside him and looked out at the street, I felt I could sense something of his mood of a moment ago. Darkness was falling over the busy streets. It was that time of early evening when the sky is dark blue and the lamps are being lit, both inside and out, which can bring on that curious melancholy of a dying day. Behind us, the fire crackled, pleasantly emphasizing the contrast between the peacefulness of our luxurious rooms with the bustle of Mayfair outside.

  The atmosphere of intimacy in the room made me very much aware that I had never been so alone with him before, even when I had been alone with him. And the feel of his hand on mine—ungloved—was sparking the oddest sensations. It was the first time in my adult life that my hand had touched a man’s without at least one pair of gloves between us, and I was entranced by the way his felt. It was firm and warm and pleasantly rough against my palm and around my fingers. He moved his thumb, slightly, and something flickered inside me. Not unlike the way the wick of a candle sputters momentarily before it lights fully.

  “Odd, is it not?” Milburn said at last, still looking out the window.

  It seemed we were of one mind on that, at least. “Prodigiously,” I replied, distracted from contemplation of his hand. My gaze sliding to him, I watched a dimple appear in his left cheek.

  He turned toward me then, and smiled, but still with a somber, reflective air. “But not bad, I would hope?”

  “No,” I said, also quite seriously. “Only strange. After all this time to be … here …” I trailed off with a little lift of my shoulders.

  He put his hands on my shoulders then, very lightly, but still I could feel the warmth of his skin through the fabric of my
gown, and said, “I know. S’truth, Gwendolyn. I never thought to be standing here with you. On our wedding day.”

  Which I took to be a reference to war and its vagaries. And I was struck yet again by how different he was now as a man than the boy I remembered. By how much more gravity he possessed. Before I could summon a suitable reply, though, he took me by surprise, lowering his head to mine, and very slowly brushing his thumb over my lower lip. And then, without leaving me a moment to examine the startling effects of that action, he kissed me. Actually, he didn’t so much kiss me as brush his closed lips across my mouth before lifting his head from mine. I looked up at him.

  “Gwen,” he said, a slow smile beginning.

  My toes seemed to curl deeper into the carpet and my stays, to tighten. I nodded awkwardly, uncertain what he was expecting of me.

  He was still smiling, looking somewhat rueful as he repeated my name. “Gwen.” His voice sounded rough, not smooth and mellow as it had, and something almost like fear, and yet pleasurably not quite like fear, shot through me. His gaze was locked on my face. “You are so beautiful,” he said.

  Now, I had heard that from many gentlemen in my life. My friend Cecy and I even had a joke between us that the phrase was actually a botched translation from ancient Greek, meaning, “I do believe I am in love with your dowry. I have heard it’s enormous.” But Milburn, as of this morning, already had possession of my dowry, and had no need to flatter me.

  While I have never precisely shuddered at my own appearance, it is hardly remarkable. My hair is dark, and so straight and slippery that I had long ago given up trying to get it to agree to conform to the current fashion of ringlets. My eyes are dark, too, and sort of almond-shaped. My nose is straight and neither too large nor too small, and my mouth is generous, but nothing out of the ordinary way. My teeth are rather fine—I have always considered them one of my better attributes—straight and white, my neck is graceful enough to show to advantage in the current fashions. And I have that typically English fairness that shows to advantage when I am in high spirits and good health.

  But never before had a husband told me I was beautiful. And suddenly, I wanted, in an unaccountably desperate fashion, to believe that he meant his words. “I am?” I said.

  He smiled. “Yes,” he said, leaning closer. He brushed his lips over my cheekbone. And then he pulled me to him and kissed me. Really kissed me this time, with an unhurried thoroughness. My body, of its own volition, seemed to sway toward him. And, as though in response, he took my lower lip and teased it lightly between his teeth for the barest instant. The flicker jolted into a flame. And then, he stopped.

  “I go too fast,” he said. “And surely the food must be here at any moment.”

  He was waiting—for a reply?—an encouraging smile on his face. But my knees were shaky, my stomach felt odd, and my mind was decidedly sluggish. I looked at him again, and his brow was slightly raised. He had said something, I knew. But what, exactly? Food! He had said the food must be here at any moment. “I should think,” I managed to say, sounding credibly clearheaded.

  “A pity,” he said. But I must still have been looking blank, because he added, as he took my hand, “About the imminent arrival. Of the food.”

  “Er, yes,” I managed. “I suppose.” I tried not to look down at our hands joined together.

  “Of course,” he said, stepping closer again, taking my other hand, and lacing his fingers through mine, “we could send the supper away. Tell them to bring it back later.”

  I swallowed. This was my chance. I could say no, that I was hungry, and I would have the reprieve I should want. “Yes,” I said, without any cooperation from my mind. “We could.”

  “But then”—he leaned closer still, his voice pitched low—“perhaps we should simply seize the moment.” He pulled me nearer and, despite my nerves, I felt not one iota of desire to push him away.

  Words seemed to have deserted me entirely, as did any part of me that didn’t want this. I nodded, unable to tear my gaze from his hypnotic eyes.

  He took me in his arms then, and I was startled by the sensation of a man’s body actually against my own; it certainly surpassed an ungloved hand, which I had thought pretty marvelous just a few moments ago. He was firm and warm through the linen of his shirt. Heat seemed to radiate from his body. And his pulse, to my surprise, matched my own. Without thinking, I put my hand between us,1 resting it over his heart. “It’s beating so fast,” I said, after a moment.

  He laughed. “I’m nervous as hell, Gwen,” he said, flatly.

  “You?” I declined to take him to task for his language, instead looking up and watching with fascination as the dimple reappeared. “You are nervous?”

  “You have no idea,” he said, pulling me closer to his body. And this time, as his lips met mine, there was no hesitation there. We had tacitly agreed, and now there was something heated and dangerous openly flaming between us. But he didn’t hurry, instead lingering, prolonging the moment. His lips traveled down my jaw, his motions surprisingly deliberate for a man with shaking hands. “It’s my first wedding night, too,” he said, his mouth finally against mine, the movement of his lips increasing the pleasurable sensation.

  His breath was warm against my skin. My body, already against his, was straining to get closer. Still unhurried, he traced the top of my upper lip with the tip of his tongue, which should have been entirely shocking. I was shocked. And more than anything, I wanted him to do it again. But his lips had wandered to my earlobe, and his teeth nipped at it. Oh, I thought, as the flaming sensation took up residence in my midriff.

  And then he stopped, and I almost cried out with disappointment. I desperately wanted him to continue those wondrous kisses. And, well, the nibbling, I suppose. But I was unresisting, as he turned me again to face the window.

  It was darker now, and our reflections were more clearly pronounced. He stood behind me and our gazes met in the window glass. Still watching our reflection, he began, slowly, pulling the pins from my hair. Which, being my hair, was already doing its best to slip out of them of its own volition. Milburn had touched my hair before, but that was seven-and-ten years ago, and at the time he and his equally odious brother were attempting to plant a garden snail in it. Certainly I had not guessed that having his hands on me would someday be the most consuming sensation I had ever experienced. As he continued, carefully holding the pins in one hand, I was seized by the simultaneous, and conflicting, desires both to lie down and drowse, and to turn and press myself back up against the warmth of him, even closer than before. Which I found most confusing.

  My hair was completely unpinned now. It fell heavily to my shoulders as I had, in a disastrously misguided move, cut it short two years ago and only now was it growing long again.

  “It used to be longer, as I recall,” he said, as he placed the pins on the windowsill next to us. “And, as I also recall, frequently had mud or some even less salubrious substance in it.”

  “I cut it,” I told him, striving to find some corner of my mind that had not given in entirely to the languorous feeling that was stealing over my body, and could still converse. I should have been terrified by what was about to happen. I knew that. Instead it seemed that I was possessed of a hitherto unsuspected wanton streak, because I quite simply, shockingly, just wanted more. I only wished that I wasn’t too shy to touch him as I ached to. “Two years back,” I managed to say. “Because it was … ah, the fashion.”

  “I see,” he said gravely. He pushed his hands into my hair and, starting with his fingers at the base of my scalp, lifted it onto the top of my head. He let go, slowly, and it felt as if I could feel each and every strand of hair fall. I wanted to moan aloud. And I was starting to become obsessed by the desire to touch him in return, to feel his body up against mine. He moved my hair so it hung over one shoulder, his fingers brushing the top of my spine as he did so. I shivered.

  “But it’s not seen mud intimately in many a year,” I felt compelled to r
emind him. “And you, sir, are most unkind to recall it.”

  “I like it just this length,” he said, as he bent so his lips were at the base of my neck. “Just exactly as it is. Unfashionable. With or without the mud.” His breath was warm, feather-light, on the back of my neck.

  My eyes were closed now. “Thank you,” I managed, on a sigh.

  “My pleasure.” His lips moved over the place where my neck met my collarbone.

  I was beginning to worry in some corner of my mind, that far from being an appropriately blushing maiden, stricken by bride nerves, I was going to prove a shockingly willing wife. Possibly, even scandalously so.

  His hand strayed to my top button, at the nape of my neck. With the barest movement of his fingers, the little pearl fastening slipped free. My breath caught. He was undressing me!

  I should speak. Object. This was not at all the way it should be done! Not here, like this, standing in the sitting room. Surely the supper would be here soon! But no words came. And when he ran his finger lightly up and down the half inch of skin that his action had bared, I had to forcibly restrain myself from purring like a cat. I was holding my breath, halfway between fearing and anticipating the release of the next button.

  “Are you afraid, Gwen?” he murmured, his lips warm against my skin.

  Since my eagerness to find out what would come next was positively unseemly, afraid somehow didn’t seem quite the right word. My gaze met his in the window once again, and I found I could not dissemble. “Not half so afraid as I should be,” I said.

  He laughed aloud. “Good,” he said. “A terrified bride would doubtless be the undoing of me.” His lips again brushed the back of my neck, making my knees soft, as his hand came to rest on my waist. He held it there for a moment, and as I watched, he moved it slowly and deliberately upward until he was just barely touching my breast. I felt the contact with a jolt through the silk of my gown. I could see his hand, reflected in the window, big and sure over the fabric, and knowing that if I were to look down I could see the same thing in reality made my breath come faster.