Desperate Duchesses (30 page)

“Buttercup,” he said in a husky whisper. “It’s your turn to move.”

“In a moment.”

He busied himself by kissing her ear, and Roberta flattened her hand against his chest. He was warm, hot, in fact. And smooth chested.

“Wil you grow hair as you age?” she asked, running her hand over his chest again. It was intoxicating. He had a nipple, which she wouldn’t have expected. His was flat, not like hers. She ran her fingers over it again. And again.

His voice sounded a little strained. “I don’t think so. Why? Do you hanker after chest hair?”

She giggled. “No. The only male chest I’ve ever seen belonged to a groom, and he had white hair al over his front.”

“I’m sure Vil iers wil have al the white hair you want,” he said. And then: “I’m sorry, Roberta. That was entirely uncal ed for.

”

She squeaked. “What are you doing?”

“Making up for my rudeness,” he said, his voice entirely serious. “It’s the least I can do.”

Roberta thought about that, but none too steadily because his fingers were sliding up her leg, and farther. It was as if she could feel her skin as he felt it, curved, smooth, rounding under his fingers. His breath was coming faster and his fingers—

She cleared her throat.

“Yes?” His fingers slid forward again.

It felt so good—too good. She jumped to her feet. “My turn to draw a piece!” She sat down hurriedly, avoiding his eyes.

He uncoiled himself, leaning forward, al taut male muscle. She snatched a piece and then stared down at it.

His hand plucked the piece from her fingers. “Another double four,” he said. His eyes smiled at her, and suddenly that melting feeling Roberta felt from the touch of his fingers was there, even without being touched. She blinked at him.

“You’re going to have to make a spinner,” he said. Quietly. As if it were an ordinary invitation.

Roberta looked him over. In the candlelight, Damon was al golden skin and shifting muscles. Her father always said there was only one reason to act impetuously: if she real y wanted something. Roberta had heaped scorn on her father’s maxim, given that fol owing his whims was so frequently antithetical to the mores of polite society.

But now she saw the wisdom of it al .

What she wanted was to lose her inconvenient virginity to Damon. Then she would marry Vil iers and embark on a life of reckless sophistication. But at the moment…

“I can see that you are likely shy,” she said.

“I am?”

“It’s difficult to expose yourself for the first time.”

“The first…”

She was standing up, and his voice trailed into silence. First she pul ed off her stockings. They dropped to the ground, frail and silken, with a gleam like trapped sunshine. Damon’s eyes fol owed them with some fascination, she thought.

She waited until he met her eye again, and then slowly, slowly, she began unlacing the front of her gown.

He didn’t move. In fact, he looked as frozen as a man might be who was trying to lure a fawn into eating from his hand.

But Roberta didn’t feel like a fawn. She felt like a powerful woman doing exactly as she wished. Her bodice gaped open as she bent to pick up her glass.

He turned slightly red. Roberta took a drink and surreptitiously checked his breeches…yes. He was interested. Very, if that look in his eye were any indication. She bent to put her glass down again, thought about kissing him, and decided that she might as wel get rid of her gown first. So she gave an easy rol of her shoulders.

It fel to the ground, al embroidered silk and gold lace. “It was heavy,” she told him. He didn’t look as if he would disagree; his eyes were eating her up.

“Those stays are heavy as wel ,” he said.

“They lace in the back.” She turned around and waited.

He must have leaped to his feet, because she heard a bang, as if he knocked against the table, and then his long, clever fingers were at her back. She held the stays against her and turned around before she let them fal to the floor. The bodice of her chemise was extremely low, the better to accommodate the neckline of her gown. In fact, it barely covered her nipples at al .

And it was made of fine lawn edged in lace.

“Your next move would surely be a spinner,” Damon said. His voice was smoky, almost sleepy. He pul ed his breeches down and put them away.

Roberta was afraid to look. Her heart was thudding against her ribs, dancing a rhythm that she hardly knew and yet recognized with an age-old wisdom. That same wisdom was in her smile as she put her arms around his neck and then, stil without looking, brought her body against his.

He made a muffled sound, like a groan, and his lips were in her hair and his hands were against her back.

“Buttercup,” he whispered, “there’s no going back from this. You do realize that, don’t you?”

“Yes,” she said. She’d discovered his ear and was doing exactly what he’d done to hers earlier: kissing it and then, daringly, touching him with her tongue.

“No,” he said, and put her away.

Roberta grinned at him. He was having male scruples, no doubt. She’d watched her father wrestle with those for years, and in her opinion, the wrestling always ended up in the same way: her father did exactly what he wanted to. Her job was to make sure that Damon wanted to do exactly what
she
wanted.

So she lifted her arms and started pul ing pins from her hair. It had been coiled and curled and pinned al over. She pul ed pin after pin, and he said nothing. Final y her hair tumbled beyond her shoulders. She bent over and gave it a good shake to get rid of the powder.

Damon stared at Roberta’s sweet little bottom as she bent over and had the feeling of a man drowning—with nary a soul to throw him a life buoy. Kissing Roberta was one thing…but her virginity? He’d never done such a thing.

He could only do it if he were intending to marry her.

But she didn’t want to hear that yet. She was giggling, and the sound went to his heart and his blood sang with joy.

She was his, whether she wished to acknowledge it or not.

Roberta straightened up and turned around. Dark red curls tumbled al over her bare arms, but it was those crazy arching eyebrows and dark plump lips that caught his heart. No one could say that she looked innocent. Hel , after growing up with Selina, she probably knew more about bedding than he did.

Except…he remembered the stunned look on her face when they walked in on that couple tupping in the sitting room.

She was an enchanting mixture of innocence and sophistication.

“I shouldn’t do this,” he said, knowing the truth of it. “It’s not right, Roberta.”

“What’s not right?”

“Bedding you. I can’t do this. I can’t take your virginity when you’re not married, and you’re in love with someone else, even engaged to him.”

Her eyes turned a shade darker blue and Damon instinctual y felt that was a bad sign.

“Why?” she demanded. “Do you think that you’re taking advantage of me?”

“You don’t understand the ways of the
ton
. Hel , your father was crazy to let you come to Jemma’s house. She’s no fit person to take care of a young woman. She’s
married
, Roberta. Married. And playing chess with—” Too late he remembered that Jemma was playing chess with Roberta’s fiancé.

She had her hands on her hips. “Jemma, whom I adore, by the way, and am not in the
least
jealous of, is playing chess with Vil iers. To whom I am engaged to marry. Vil iers told me that my chastity was unattractive, and that he didn’t give a damn who I had slept with, as long as I don’t give him a cuckoo to raise. Damon, do you know how to prevent conception?”

“Yes,” he said, “but—”

“Good. Because so do I, but my understanding is that male participation makes it much more effective.”

His mouth fel open. “You know?”

“Selina lived with us from the time I was fourteen to the time I was sixteen. I loved her. She gave me a great deal of advice, sister to sister.”

He snapped his mouth shut. “You had sisterly conversations with Selina Trimmer.” He wrenched his mind away from the
Tête-à-Tête
report of Selina’s latest party, in which it was reported that she had fil ed her bathtub with vintage champagne and invited several guests to watch her bathe. It was also reported that two of them joined her in the tub.

“Do you need some education?” Roberta demanded, hands on her hips.

“What did you learn?” He shook his head. “Forget I asked that. The point is, Roberta, not how much you learned from Selina, but how much I would take away from you by making love to you.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” she said. “You’re practical y a family member, after al .”

“Yes! Your cousin.”

“I shal find someone else,” she said. “In case it isn’t clear to you, Damon, I shal not be carrying my inconvenient virginity to bed with Vil iers. After al , I’m in love. I wouldn’t bore my husband with such a task, and if you don’t feel like taking it on, there’s no point in crying over it. I shal simply find another man who is more eager.”

Damon almost laughed at that. He’d never felt so damned eager to do anything in his life. In fact—

She
was laughing at him. Stil a little angry, but laughing. Christ, she was magnificent. Her chemise was of fine lawn, and it barely skimmed her leg, stopping just above her rounded kneecap.

“You go to another man only when I’m dead.”

She clearly didn’t realize that he’d just declared himself. “I realize that you are used to women tripping over themselves, trying to woo you into marriage,” she said, eyes sparkling. “But don’t you understand that I’m not like them? I don’t want your ring, or your money, or your title.”

“Because you have Vil iers.” Saying his name aloud steadied Damon.

She nodded. “You need to understand that. I’m a terribly hard-headed woman, and I always have been. You can ask my father. I knew the moment that I saw Vil iers that I wanted to marry him.”

“Why?” He had to ask. “And don’t say because you’re in love. I’m not a big believer in love at first sight, and I’m not entirely sure that you are either.”

“It doesn’t matter how you put it,” she said. “I look at Vil iers and I know exactly what sort of marriage we wil have, and it’s exactly the sort I want to be involved in. He is control ed.”

“Control ed?” Damon was stunned. “You’re marrying Vil iers because he’s
controlled
?”

“He wil never embarrass me. He wil never launch into gushing flights of emotion. He wil never write a poem to my toe, or any other part of my body. He wil never weep.”

“Wel , you’re right about that,” Damon said. “It could be your funeral, and Vil iers would just stand there with that snarling little smile of his.”

She walked over to him and put a hand on his arm. She didn’t even seem to feel the slightest bit of embarrassment at being in her chemise, nor at the fact that he was next thing to naked. She truly wasn’t a normal virgin. Whatever that was.

“Vil iers is right for me. And I am lucky that he recognized the same in me. We wil be an excel ent match and I think we’l live together happily for years.”

Damon’s teeth were so tightly clenched he thought he might break his jaw. “Fine,” he managed. “Married bliss. I see it.

You and Vil iers wil get old together except—hold on a moment!—he’s already old, so I guess you’l be a happy widow.”

Her eyes turned a dark navy again, and every bit of native caution he had in his body warned him that was an even worse sign.

He was right.

“You’re an ass. I have no idea why you are being such an ass, but I’ve learned over the years that men are impossible to understand, and so I shan’t try to fathom you. There’s something I want from you, Damon.”

His mouth went dry. “There is?” Every inch of his body knew exactly what she wanted, and those same inches were straining to satisfy her.

With one swift gesture, she pul ed her chemise right over her head and tossed it to the side. Then she looked at him, and for just one moment, there was a flash of uncertainty in those beautiful eyes of hers.

That was enough. Every ethical sense that Damon had in his entire body melted like sugar in hot water.

“You’re sure, Buttercup?” He had her in his hands when he said it, his palms sliding over her round derrière.

“I choose you for my first experience with men,” Roberta said, sounding far too logical for the moment.

He almost said something about her first man being her last, but he caught it back. She didn’t want to hear it yet. She was hanging onto the dream of a control ed marriage.

Obviously, it was up to him to teach her the bliss of losing control.

He shut the thought off and dragged her against his chest. Little Miss Inexperienced Know-It-Al was about to find out what it was like to actual y sleep with a man, as opposed to talk about it.

H
e had spread out the huge silk skirts of her gown and put her on it, but she wouldn’t stay there. She was supposed to lie back and let him gently introduce her to the fruits of pleasure while she trembled and shrieked,
“No, no!”
In fact, experienced matrons had done that on occasion, because he was the kind of man who thought that every inch of a woman tasted good.

But Roberta?

She did squeal, and even squeak, but he hadn’t heard a single “No, no.” Sometimes he couldn’t understand exactly what she was saying, but it sounded an awful lot like “Yes!”

So he let a bit more guilt slip away from him, and turned back to nuzzling her breast. What she liked best was when he sucked her nipples into his mouth. He kept doing that, and then pul ing back and shaping her breasts in his hands, and even giving her little bites, and nibbles, until she was al calmed down—of course, he wasn’t; he’d never been harder in his life—and then he would suckle her again and her back would rise just like that, and she would start gasping and crying. He didn’t even want to think about what would happen when he made his way down her body.

He was sliding his fingers there now, slowly because so often ladies didn’t want to be touched, or rather, they had no idea what they wanted.