Caroline and the Duke: A Regency Short Story (3 page)

Thus, despite the building pressure from family and popular opinion, he had put his duty off.

Yet he had to marry.

When Caroline’s husband had died, his nascent hope had been tempered by the passion with which she had celebrated her sudden freedom. He hadn’t again dared to imagine...

Until she came to him.

Sutbridge lifted the heavy iron knocker. Let it fall.

Thud.

He could hear a carriage pass by behind him. Feel the vibrations of its progress through the ground beneath his feet. The wait was appalling. It gave him far too much time to think, to doubt the wisdom of coming here. But he’d spent ten years wishing for something he couldn’t have.

And now he could.

She’d offered herself to him. Perhaps not in the manner he wished, but restless reflection had convinced him it was stupid to refuse. He’d always be wanting, wondering what might have been. Furthermore, he had no intention of giving up his cause completely. He had been a patient man this far. He could wait till she grew more comfortable with the idea of being his wife.

The door opened. An aged butler showed him in, and with an economy of language took his card. Led him into the entry hall. Left him there. When he returned, the butler begged Sutbridge in creaking tones to follow him.

He followed. He had been here and the Ballisters’ London home a dozen times or more over the years, at a dinner party or calling in the company of his sister. The last had been in the first month after Lord Ballister’s death, when he had seen Caroline’s pale face for a mere fifteen minutes in the crowded parlor. Now, the house was no longer draped in black crepe, but there was a stillness to it, as if its mistress had never bothered to reclaim it. The boisterous presence of two young boys was equally absent and a brief inquiry to the butler revealed that they were in the country with His Lordship’s uncle, the late Lord Ballister’s younger brother, and were expected to arrive for the holidays.

He kept moving. Up the stairs to the first floor, across the hall to what he suspected was the master suite.

Odd.

Did she greet all visitors this way, or was he the exception?

The butler opened the door but backed away, let Sutbridge enter without announcing him. All of this a breach of good training and manners, but once he saw Caroline inside what was clearly her dressing room, lounging on a divan and clad in a thin robe that clung to every lovely curve of her body, he didn’t worry about it anymore. When she turned to him with a challenging glint in her eyes, he understood exactly why he was there in her inner sanctum, the door to her bedroom ajar.

“You won’t bore me today with a proposal, will you?” she asked, lifting one languid arm and resting it behind her head.

He shut the door behind him, carefully, gathering his thoughts away from the delicious sensations pooling in his groin. This chamber was the antithesis of the house, clearly, in every way, the heart of Caro’s life. Books, fresh flowers and other baubles littered each flat surface.

“No,” he said impulsively. “I'll give you what you want.” He strode toward her, pleased to see her expression change as he neared. He sat down beside her on the divan, rested his hand on her outstretched legs and watched as the cloth fell away as if a mere touch was enough of a suggestion. He couldn’t take his eyes away from the bare skin of her leg resting beneath his still hand.

He’d held her numerous times in the realm of the ballroom, or when helping her dismount from a horse or step out of a carriage. He’d tasted her lips only a week ago in that garden, dragged her close against his body. But this moment was different.

This moment was his bare skin against her bare skin. Against an expanse of her silken flesh that he’d never seen before.

He looked up, found her watching him, heavy-lidded.

“Why is it wrong that I love you?” His words surprised him, unbidden as they were.

Her expression froze. Then she made a disgusted little moue with her mouth. Inwardly he cursed at his stupidity. He had determined to say nothing of his larger desires, to stick only to the pleasures of the bed, as she had demanded.

“You may love me, John, as you wish. If it pleases you to think that is what you feel. I believe you want to trap me, to own me as you would a new carriage. Do you love your carriages?”

“Preposterous!” Sutbridge exploded, fury filling him as he leaned forward, moved his hand to the arm of the divan, outstretched beside her. “You think I am not bitter too? For the wasted years, for having to watch the only lady I have ever loved bear another man his sons?”

“Liar!” she cried out, surging up against him, her own anger matching his own. There was so little space between them now. If he leaned forward an inch he could kiss her instead of participate in this vehement exchange. He could forget words, forget truth, honor. Forget the hopes of a happy future. “If you had loved me then, you would have done more than flirt with me.”

The fury fled and in its place was the most overwhelming need to protect her, to make her believe in his love.

“I was but twenty, Caro.” He pulled his arm back, reached to take both her hands in his. She started to shake him away but he held tight. “I thought I had time. But two months and you were lost to me.”

“Why else does a girl come to London but to marry?” she asked, and he knew it was true. Especially a girl like Caroline, whose parents needed her to make a successful match. “At eighteen a woman is ready for marriage, but a man of a similar age has no fear of old age ruining his chances.”

“I would have been ready.” He relaxed his hold on her, caressed her wrists with the pads of his thumbs, attempted to convince her of everything with that small touch.

“Then why haven’t you married these ten years?” she demanded.

Sutbridge bowed his head, looked down at her hands. He had said the reason already. Admitted it a hundred times, it seemed. But there was nothing weak in his declaration. Once more then.

“Because I only wanted you.”

She fell silent, retreating back against the arm of the divan, letting air rush into the space between them.

“Caro,” he continued, bringing his gaze back up to meet hers, gentling his tone. “Surely you care for me some small amount? Julia––”

“Julia should mind her own business,” Caro interrupted but she seemed tired, without that edge of bitterness that lined her words before.

“Yes, I did tell her that as well,” he admitted.

A small laugh escaped Caro and he found hope in that sound, in this moment of sharing amusement. But then the curve of her lips flattened.

“Truly, John, I do care for you, but how can I—?”

“Entrust yourself to me?” he finished when she broke off, looking heartbreakingly sad.

She nodded. “And even if I did. I am old.”

He laughed then, glancing down her body, which was far from any definition of old he had ever known. He felt light inside. Perhaps she hadn’t yet agreed, but she had just opened up space for the possibility.

“Compromise then?” he suggested, shifting his body forward until he lay on his side next to her, his head resting by hers on the gold-striped pillow. She turned her head, her lips again just inches from his. If she married him, this intimacy and quiet peace would fill his mornings.

“What sort of compromise?” she whispered, her eyes wide, her lips parted on an expectant breath. He needed to loosen his cravat so he could catch his own breath.

“As I said before, I shall give you what you want. And eventually,” he emphasized that word, “after you know I would do anything for you, am nothing like your late husband, you shall give me what I want.” He inched forward, intent on her lips, let the tension between build as he closed the space. “I’ll get you with child and then marry you.”

• • •

He was taunting her.

Even as he was about to kiss her, to seal this devilish deal, he tortured her. She laughed into the small space between them, denied the sickening pleasure his words gave her, the way they made her grow heavy and damp where her body parted. Maybe he would do that. Maybe that would be the result of a liaison with him. Was a momentary pleasure worth the risk? Was marriage worth the risk?

He caught her shoulder in his hand, to pull her closer to him, she imagined. She slipped her hand between them, caught him by his shirt, stopping him an instant before his lips closed over hers.

“A child does not necessitate marriage, John,” she managed to say. She closed the space, tasted the plump undercurve of his lip, the sweetness of his mouth. Then, her lips still touching his, she continued her own taunting whisper. “You know that as well as I. And I don’t fear scandal.”

He gripped her harder, forced her lips to part, to take his kiss then as if he would erase every word she had said.

She opened up to that, gave in to his desire that so fueled her own. Whatever happened now, the words had all been said.

She wanted him and he wanted her. That was paramount.

And she was nearly naked against him, the fine fabric of his clothing rubbing against her skin wherever the robe gaped. The touch excited her but it wasn’t the one she wanted.

She pushed his coat off his shoulders, trapping him for an instant until he cooperated and his arms pulled free, the sleeves of his white shirt billowing slightly with their new freedom.

“Sutbridge,” she whispered, stymied by the maze of his clothes that the haze of desire made non-navigable.

“I like when you call me John better.”

“John,” she said easily, liking it better too.

Her hands flew over his clothes, seeking entry points, brushing against the hardness of his erection, and settling finally for unfastening the falls of his trousers. Some other wanton woman spread her thighs and pulled his hips down into that valley.

“Slow,” he cautioned, catching himself on his outstretched arms, looming over her. The locks of dark hair at his brow fell forward between them and made him look far less controlled than she knew he was.

“No, not slow,” she demanded, thrusting her own hips up to meet his, luxuriating in the friction of his steely, naked length against her. How could he fight against that delicious frisson of awareness that shuddered through her body as they connected, heat to heat, hardness to wet, welcoming softness? She met his eyes with her own smoldering, intent gaze. “I’m no virgin, John. And I’ve waited for this for ten years.”

She pushed up, rubbed against him, glorying in the clenched agony of his expression as he tried to hold himself back. But why should he?

“Give in, John,” she urged, feeling wicked and powerful, like a siren even. “Today is on my terms.”

She watched his expression change, observed with rising desire the shudder that racked his body, and understood that he was submitting to her. He shifted his body over her.

The first thrust parted her, shocked her as neatly as if she had been a virgin, every sensation so sharp and so sweetly intense. Like love.

No wonder people were such fools.

• • •

In the aftermath of passion, Sutbridge knew he had lost her. For one brief moment, she had been his. Completely. In the next instant, her eyes had shuttered, the cynicism was back, and he knew the journey to her heart was as long and arduous as before their bodies had joined.

Perhaps longer, for the mystery of their union had been unraveled.

She lay beneath him, utterly silent, head turned to one side. Her body still fluttered around him although he thought she hadn’t found that ultimate pleasure she had craved. He should have gone slow, ignored her demands. Now he was terrified that if he slipped from her body, it would be for the last time. These few minutes of passion would be all that they ever shared.

He shifted his hips, too aware that he was clothed far more than was appropriate for such intimacy. And the narrow, short divan was no place for a man of his size.

She still lay there, her breath uneven, her heart pounding against his chest. He moved again, with more force this time though he was only half-aroused within her. Her lashes flickered against her cheek but she didn’t move, and he took that small motion, the lack of protest, as a sign.

He bent his head down again, kissed her silken neck, the touch of his lips a prayer to God that he could please her, woo her. With the flicker of his tongue across her skin he spoke his love. With every inch he traversed, he felt more confident in that declaration. His words she could ignore, but his touch––the slight arch of her back––was answer enough.

Her hips rose to meet his, her hands caressed his thighs through the thick cloth of his trousers. He was hard now, eager for her, but he kept himself in check.

This time would be slow.

• • •

As the tepid water sluiced down her face, streamed through her fingers and then clattered back into the wide porcelain bowl, Caroline was aware of every breath Sutbridge made.

John
.

She’d slept with him after all, their joining more intimate, more powerful than any she’d had with her husband. Now he waited with a smug, satisfied smile, as if he expected that in forcing her to do things his way, in eliciting her cries of ultimate pleasure, he had convinced her to marry him.

The very idea rankled.

She dried her face with a sheet, crumpled it and then placed it on the commode by the basin. Finally, with a deep, bracing breath, she turned.

He’d shed more of his clothes, lounged only in his well-tailored but now wrinkled trousers. Her gaze caught on his naked chest, and then flitted back up to his face.

“Come here,” he said softly, as if his mastery over her body would entice her to do anything he wished.

“I have an engagement this evening,” she said with a carefully careless smile. “You’re welcome to stay.” She waved her hand about the room. “Of course, there’s no telling what time I’ll return.” His expression darkened, and he swung his legs over the side of the divan. He was rising and his quick movement made her pulse race and her speech quicken. “Perhaps it’s best you go home and I’ll send for you.”

He stood before her, loomed over her with the unfair advantage of his height. She had to stop herself from breathing deep of his delicious scent, from reaching out to touch his hot skin.