The Accidental Duchess Read online

He let out a long, frustrated breath. And then he added, “Yes. Unfortunately.” I could see that I was straining the edge of his patience, but I wanted him angry.

  I took a deep breath and decided to take a risk. “I think you said it because you are yourself with me.” I looked at him, daring him to tell me otherwise. “You’re Harry rather than the Earl of Cambourne, future duke.”

  He took another step nearer.

  “You forget your honor and all those cold rules of comportment and duty then.”

  His unfailing polish seemed to have deserted him. His hair was disheveled, and he looked truly, genuinely angry.

  “And your land and your sheep and your tenants and your vicars,” I added. “You can admit that you need something from someone.”

  “Oh, I’ve found that plenty of other places,” he said, his gaze traveling up over what was so clearly on offer.

  “It’s more,” I said, “and you know it. You play the cello,” I said. “Even though there’s nothing in it for you except pleasure. No duty, no tangible reward.” There was a blaze of something in his eyes, and I would have looked down, so suddenly nervous was I, but he put a hand under my chin, denying me that possibility.

  “Very well, Gwen. We’ll talk about your faults, too. You, you are always after the easy way. And that, if you are honest, is why you were so reluctant from the first to acknowledge—really acknowledge, rather than just allow it to be there—what hangs between us, and that it will always be there. Two, five, twenty years from now, all I’ll have to do is look at you over Christmas dinner. We’ll be wed to other people, surrounded by our children, and it will still be there, burning, and we both know it.”

  I tried to look away, but he wouldn’t allow it. “You don’t love Milburn and he has never loved you. He’s always seen you as the girl he was told to marry; as you were when you were two, or six, or ten. But still, you have been intent on clinging to the safety of that marriage, because I frighten you, Gwen. I see you as you are.”

  “And how am I?” I whispered.

  “A lot more like your mother than you’d like to believe, for one thing,” he said, and I gasped.

  “How can you say that?” I asked. “That’s a terrible thing.”

  “But it’s not,” he said, quietly. “It’s only a terrible thing because your father is not an equal. It could be a wonderful thing if he was. And I’m an equal, Gwen. Sometimes I think I see things in you that you don’t even see in yourself.”

  “But do you like those things?” I asked him.

  He smiled, slowly. “Often I do, sometimes I don’t, but no more do you always like what you see in me, and it will always be that way with us: a push and pull of wills. Are you game for that challenge?”

  My gaze never left his as I jerked my head in what I suppose must have passed for a nod. My heart was beating so hard that I could barely breathe.

  “Come to bed, Gwen,” he said, suddenly, pulling me toward him hard enough that I was powerless to resist.

  I looked at him, at the narrowed eyes, and the intensity in his expression. “What are you doing?”

  He pulled me hard against him. “Preparing to worship you with my body. Even though I know there’s not a prayer you’ll ever obey,” he whispered, sliding his lips across my cheek. His lips grazed my earlobe. He licked my top lip.

  I leaned into him and moaned as the heat unfurled over me.

  “When I am near you, Gwen, I feel that I am standing in your light,” he said, against my ear. “Always. Even when you are taking the easy way out.”

  There was nothing civilized about the way we came together. There was no gentleness between us. It was as if we were ravenous for each other. He pulled me against him, hard, so I could feel that he was fully aroused. I moved, as deliberately provocative as I knew how to be, and the sound he made in his throat was unrecognizable. His lips devoured me, and his hands were everywhere. Sliding up my night rail, stroking me with his fingertips, cupping my breasts, my bottom. He was whispering roughly in my ear about the things he was going to do to me. And how much I was going to like them. Each touch, each whisper, each sigh seemed to intensify the heaviness that had completely taken over my body.

  This wasn’t him seducing me as it had been that night in the library. This was us, both of us, desperate for each other.

  I was tearing at his clothing, yanking his shirt out of his breeches, not caring if I tore the fine linen. Not caring that I should be a shrinking virgin. My shaking hands finally made contact with his skin, sliding up under the shirt, skating over the hard, smooth planes of his chest. He gasped. I lowered them, and brought them down over the flatness of his abdomen, and he swore under his breath. His palms came up, to slide over my nipples, and I bit his shoulder, actually bit him. To my surprise he laughed, and tripped backward over something on the floor, pulling me with him as we fell onto the bed so that I landed over him.

  “I didn’t break the skin, did I?” I asked, suddenly anxious, as we went down.

  “I don’t know. I don’t care,” he said, sliding his hands up the backs of my thighs to my bottom and pressing me to him. I groaned. A most unladylike sound, I am ashamed to say.

  He rolled us over, so that he was on top, and lay over me, his thigh between my legs. I could feel him, hard and pressing against just the right places. I would have rocked against him, but his hand came between us and skimmed over just the place that made me gasp. “That,” I said, greedily. “Do that again.”

  I was moaning now, with absolutely no shame. I reached up to cup his face and pull it down toward mine and he did the thing with his hand again and I rocked my hips up against it. Then I licked my way across his lips. He shuddered, and started to pull away. “No.” I grabbed at him, desperate for him not to go.

  “Gwen,” he said, smiling down, looking infinitely less tired than he had earlier. “To do this properly, I really have to undress.”

  “I’ll undress you,” I gasped. “Just don’t go.”

  He looked like he wanted to laugh. “You are easily the most demanding virgin I’ve ever known,” he said, but came back against me all the same.

  I wrapped my arms around his neck, fitting myself to the length of him. He rocked his hips rhythmically against me. I was straining to get closer still and with every movement, a little mewing noise seemed to come out of my throat. “I’m sorry,” I half whispered, half panted.

  “About what?” he almost groaned, in my ear.

  “I can’t seem to stop making noise.”

  And then he did laugh. “If you’d let me get my clothes off,” he whispered into my ear, his voice rough, “I’ll make you scream.” He rocked against me again and, God help me, I believed him. And even though he sounded awfully arrogant, I declined to take him to task.

  I reluctantly let him go. “Hurry,” I whispered.

  He slanted a laughing look down at me as he stood. “I’m hardly inclined to dawdle,” he said, reaching up to pull his shirt over his head, and then unfastening his breeches. He bent, then, and removed his smallclothes. I stared at his body. It had never before occurred to me that unclothed the male body would be a thing of beauty. But he looked like some kind of pagan, golden god with the mellow light from the fire playing over the planes of smooth skin and muscle.

  I am deeply shamed to have to admit that I did not avert my eyes in maidenly confusion. Nor even close them. Instead, I leaned forward over the edge of the bed and ran my fingers along the part of him that should indeed have been eliciting the most maidenly blushes from me.

  “Jesus.” His breath hissed out from between his teeth as he lowered himself to me again. And then he tore my new night rail off me. Tore it!

  But, in truth, I didn’t care. Because his naked body was sliding over mine, hard and firm and warm and satiny, and his lips were against my ear. He settled his weight between my thighs. “I’ll worship you later,” he whispered. “Right now I just have to have you.”

  I moaned by way of answer.

&nb
sp; “Open your eyes,” he whispered.

  I did, and found myself looking into his eyes, from very close. His lids looked heavy and his eyes were black.

  “I want to see you,” he said, bracing himself on his arms. “I’ve imagined this moment a thousand times, and in each of them, I’ve wanted to see your face.”

  I wanted to see him too.

  And he bent his head to me, brushing his lips once over mine, before saying, “This might be painful—”

  “Harry—” I grabbed his face in my palms, and pressed a kiss to his lips “—I don’t care, just do it.” I lifted my hips to him, urging him on. I truly was wild for him.

  And then—just then—someone knocked on the door.

  24

  In which I learn something I would rather have not

  Cambourne froze over me. “In the name of everything that is holy,” he whispered, hoarsely, “this cannot be happening again.”

  “Perhaps whoever it is will go away,” I whispered back.

  “We can hope,” he said, low, although I think he was not all that optimistic, because he did not continue with what he had been about to do. Instead he moved back slightly, and ran his thumb over that place again, the one that induced the mewing sounds. He must have seen my lips part, because he brought his other hand up over my mouth. “Ssshhh,” he said, laughing, and then replaced his hand with his lips. “Because this is the only certain way of keeping you quiet,” he said against my mouth.

  “The door …” I managed.

  “It’s locked,” he whispered, as I writhed against him. “I learned a lesson I won’t soon forget in the library.”

  “You in there, Cambourne?” called Milburn’s voice from the other side.

  “Oh,” I breathed out. “It’s him. Again. We should—God! What are you doing to me? Oh!”

  “Not what I’d like to be,” he replied tersely as the knock came again.

  “Cambourne?”

  “He’s right out there,” I summoned the presence of mind to articulate.

  “I don’t care if Wellington’s regiment is out there,” he said. “I’m not answering. He’ll go away.”

  “Are you in there?” Milburn called. “I think you must be and I ain’t going away!”

  Cambourne’s silky hair brushed against my face. “Damn and blast,” he said.

  I was getting very close to something, and was finding it increasingly difficult to speak, to control my voice. “Is that how you sweet talk all your women?” I managed to gasp.

  “Ssshh. No. Only you, darling,” he said, with a smile.

  “Harry,” I gasped. “Oh God!” Even though he had touched me like this once before, I still had the feeling that were I not so entirely lost to reason, I should have been shocked and horrified instead of urging him on.

  “Cambourne!” Milburn again, and this time more insistent. “Giddings told us you had retired for the night. Well, or more precisely that I, Milburn, was in there, retired for the night—”

  Cambourne was working some kind of dark magic on me. My drugged mind heard Milburn, registered that he was still outside the door, but I didn’t care; like Cambourne, wouldn’t have, had it been Wellington’s regiment.

  “—But, naturally, he meant you, as me, was in there. So I know I am. You are! Answer me, man! Open the door, Cambourne! P’raps I’ll try coming through the dressing room!”

  Then Cambourne really did swear, long and hard, under his breath before he raised his voice. “Bertie?” he called, doing a credible imitation, I thought, of someone being awakened from a deep sleep. “Is that you, Bert?” he asked, drowsily.

  “Cambourne?” called Bertie. “Cambourne! Is that you?”

  “Who the hell does he think it is? Boney?” Cambourne muttered before calling, “Yes, it is I. What is it? Quiet, you’ll wake the household.”

  “What are you doing in there?” Bertie howled.

  “Sleeping. Or rather, I was,” Cambourne replied, as I traced a finger down his chest. He shuddered and caught his breath, and then my hand, to still it.

  “Can I come in?” Milburn called.

  “Ah—” In some far-off corner of my mind, I was vaguely aware of Cambourne glancing at me, writhing beneath him. “Not sure that’s the best idea,” he murmured, before raising his voice again. “I’ll come down to the drawing room.”

  “Oh.” Milburn sounded as though he was thinking about this. “I s’pose the drawing room is all right,” he called, having apparently reached a decision. “But why can’t I come in, anyway?” he wanted to know. “Dashed inconvenient, this shouting through the door!”

  “Well, we can’t have that,” Cambourne murmured. “I’m not clothed,” he called.

  “Nothing I ain’t seen before,” Bertie shouted back. “Hey!” he shouted as though a new idea was occurring to him as he spoke. “You ain’t got a female in there, have you? A high flyer or something?” Bertie called.

  “In your bedroom, brother? I shouldn’t dream of it,” Cambourne replied. “Just go belowstairs and I will be down in a moment.”

  We heard him retreat. Despite my best efforts to keep myself still, I was writhing and panting against Cambourne now.

  He kissed me, long and deep. “Let it happen, Gwen,” he said against my lips. “I’m not going to be able to make love to you, but at least give me the pleasure of giving you pleasure.” He moved his hand, with certainty, and lowered his head to my breast, to catch the very tip between his teeth.

  And what could I do but oblige?

  Fortunately, his lips were still over mine, swallowing the scream that he had, as promised, managed to elicit as I tumbled over into an abyss. An abyss so heavenly that I was not entirely certain I wanted to climb out of, it occurred to me, as he gathered me close against him. “I have to go,” he said, eventually, into my hair.

  “Oh Harry,” I breathed, when I had regained my ability to form words. Which did not, I assure you, sound quite so trite at the moment as it no doubt does in the retelling.

  As he smoothed the sweaty hair back from my face I heard the thump of heavy footsteps approaching and I rubbed my cheek over the silkiness of his shoulder, then the roughness of his chin.

  “What now?” Cambourne sighed.

  “What the deuce is taking you so long, brother?” Milburn yelled.

  “I am … dressing,” Cambourne replied, still holding me tight against him.

  “No need to take an age about it, y’know. It’s Mathilde. She’s in a terrible taking. Said you was supposed to meet her, vastly important, etcetera. The woman’s furious and she’s waiting belowstairs, tapping her foot.”

  The blood that ran through my veins was like ice. “That explains why you were so conveniently at home this evening: you had an assignation planned for later. In my house?”

  “Don’t look at me like that. This is not what you are thinking. We did not have an assignation planned in your house.”

  “I don’t give a damn whose house it was for. I give a damn that it was.” I jumped off the bed, vaguely aware that my legs were shaking beneath me. He handed me my wrapper and then, oh-so-politely turned his back. “You have finished servicing me, so now you may go on to your next appointment,” I said, coldly.

  And then a new, horrible thought struck me. “Mathilde,” I whispered, so shocked I was simply standing and staring at him as he again turned to face me. “She knows that you are you. That you’ve switched places.”

  “Yes.” He finished pulling his shirt over his head and then looked directly at me. “She does. She has since the very beginning.”

  And that, somehow, was the worst betrayal of all.

  “Exactly how close are you?” I asked.

  “Honestly, Gwen?” he said, looking up at me. “We have been very close in the past.”

  “But what about now? Have you been carrying on your affaire under my nose?” I debated asking him if he knew that she and Bertie had become … intimate, but did not.

  He shook his head, as he
sat down to pull his boots on.

  “I don’t understand you,” I whispered, wrapping my arms around myself for warmth. “Or myself, either, come to think of it. I want to give myself to you completely, and yet, I hate you.”

  “Sounds suspiciously like love,” he said, drily.

  “Why are you leaving, Cambourne?” I asked, no longer feeling I possessed the energy to be anything but blunt.

  “I have no choice, Gwen,” he said, as he began to close his shirt. “You think I do everything for honor? Well, the fact is that I have been dishonorable enough that I may have ruined everything these last few months.”

  “You have been dishonorable?” I asked. “In what way?”

  He laughed, although without amusement, it seemed to me, and turned away to put a cravat around his neck. “I suppose I ought begin with the fact that I put myself into a corner where I had no choice but to give away titles that don’t belong to me,” he said.

  I stared at him.

  “I hold them for the next duke. If I am who I should be—who I have always strived to be—they will thrive and go forward to the next generation. I have always treated this as a trust. But it’s not mine and I don’t have the right to bestow it on anyone else.”

  “But you had no choice,” I whispered. “Surely?”

  “Oh, you’re right,” he said. “But I made sure of that by what I had already done.”

  I frowned, as his fingers began slipping the cravat into a knot. “What had you done?” I held my breath, while I waited for an answer.

  He turned away from the mirror, so our gazes met. “I was weak,” he said so softly that I could barely hear him.

  “How?” I asked.

  “I married you,” he said, simply, and my heart dropped. “Your father’s coming to me offered me a way to play for time for Milburn, by pretending to be him. But while your parents are telling you the truth—that I knew before I did it that they had changed those names, that it would be a legal marriage—they don’t know the whole of it. They think they were manipulating me, but the truth is that I let them, because I wanted you and I took you.”