The Duke (30 page)
Authors: Gaelen Foley
“Robert—”
“Just enjoy,” he whispered. “I know I will.”
With a soft moan, she closed her eyes and yielded to his sensuous gift, twining her fingers through his silky black hair.
Soon her feet were braced against the edge of the opposite seat, her gown was hitched up around her hips, and she held onto the coach’s looped leather hand straps for dear life while Robert took her with his fingers and consumed her with his tongue. She lifted her hips, moving with him, all her inhibitions melting in the steamy heat of the summer night. His rhythm quickened, matching her need, soaring her to new altitudes of wicked bliss.
He stopped, his hands shaking as he reached for his falls, his clean-shaved chin glistening in the moonlit dark. “I have to have you. Now.”
Immediately a frisson of panic slid through her veins.
Not that.
She wasn’t ready. She planted her hand on his chest, holding him back. She winced to deny him but prayed he wouldn’t be angry. “Darling, n-not in the coach. Not for our first time together, please?”
He dropped his head back and let out a groan of agonized frustration.
“Oh, my sweet man,” she whispered, enfolding him between her legs as she ran her hand down his body and cupped the swollen, steely hardness that strained against his snug silk breeches. “May I, Your Grace?” she asked with a coy glance at his face. At his low, lusty growl of desire, she shoved him back into his seat and took charge.
By the time the town coach rolled to a halt in front of Knight House, Robert and she climbed out, trying to reclaim a shred of dignity.
The smell of sex poured out of the coach when the footman opened the door. They had pleasured each other wildly and Robert’s climax had been explosive.
Heating with a scarlet blush and holding back nervous laughter, Bel could not bear to look at the grooms and servants as they walked to the house. She had no doubt that every groom and even the horses knew what they had been doing during the drive home.
Carrying her shoes in one hand, her reticule in the other, somehow she walked inside with her chin high, her stare fixed straight ahead, knowing full well she was in a state of complete dishevelment, a rip in the middle of her already-low neckline and a high blush in her cheeks. Her whole body felt wonderful, however, and she couldn’t wait to go straight to sleep.
Robert was somewhat worse off. Cravat undone, shirt hanging open halfway down his chest, he looked tousled and sated, a little savage and quite raw. He was silent as he walked beside her up the curving staircase. The marble steps felt cool under her stockinged feet.
At the top of the stairs, they stopped and looked at each other uncertainly.
Bel smiled at him and he returned it with a rueful chuckle, running his hand through his mussed hair. He dropped his gaze and for a moment there was a silence fraught with hunger and hesitation.
“Never been to a Cyprians’ Ball before,” he said.
“Neither have I.”
Another awkward pause.
He slid her a questioning look. “I had a good time.”
Her smile widened. “That was the idea.” She took a step toward him and went up onto her tiptoes, placing a delicate kiss on his cheek. “Good night, Robert.”
As she drew back he searched her eyes with a smoldering gaze. “When, Belinda?” he whispered.
Her caress smoothed the black satin lapel of his tailcoat. “Soon.” Suddenly unnerved, she forced a casual smile and turned away, slinging her scarf over her shoulder, striding toward her suite as though she hadn’t a care in the world.
“Good night, Miss Hamilton,” he echoed and stood there, hands in pockets, with the lamplight sculpting his faint wry smile as he watched her walk away.
The earl of Coldfell sat in Hawkscliffe’s drawing room with the other Tory leaders, drinking port. The night of Miss Hamilton’s long-awaited dinner party had come at last. Coldfell wore a taut smile on his lined face, but inwardly, he was a most disgruntled puppet master. His marionettes were not at all dancing to his tune, but soon, they would. Oh, they would.
Tonight he had come merely to observe the situation between Robert and his doxy. He could not believe he had so miscalculated Hawkscliffe’s nature. The fiery young duke should have killed Dolph by now, but here was Hawkscliffe, cozily ensconced with his blond beauty, brazenly indifferent to the shock he had given Society and the scandal surrounding his name out there in the world.
As for his promise to punish Dolph, he seemed to have forgotten the matter entirely. Coldfell could only conclude that the fault lay with this blond enchantress, this
belle dame sans merci,
who had lured the knight off his vowed quest to avenge Lucy. Hawkscliffe was obviously in her thrall.
As a man who had always had a weakness for beauty himself, Coldfell could not begrudge the fair Bel Hamilton her living. What he did not approve of was the way she had clearly taken charge of Knight House, the servants, and even the duke himself to a degree. She carried herself like his duchess, not his whore, and Coldfell liked it not at all, determined as he was to see his daughter installed as the ninth duchess of Hawkscliffe.
Robert and Juliet would suit very well.
Coldfell knew he had his faults, but if he had one virtue, it was that he was a most protective and doting papa. Before leaving this world he intended to see his only child well married to a considerate husband who would take care of her. Who else but Hawkscliffe could he entrust with his sweet, flawed, fragile daughter? Who else would have the gallantry to wed the cloistered innocent, fully understanding that she was
not
feebleminded, merely that yellow fever had robbed Juliet in childhood of her hearing?
Unlike the worldly courtesan sharing the duke’s bed, Juliet was an utter innocent in the ways of the world. It wasn’t as though she could have a normal Season. Fate had robbed her of the grand debut that was every highborn miss’s right. She couldn’t dance; she couldn’t hear music. Conversation with people she didn’t know was nearly impossible for Juliet, though she could read lips easily enough with her father and her nurse. She was as shy as a little doe, and as lovely.
With his knight’s chivalry Hawkscliffe would not be able to refuse, especially when he saw Juliet’s blue, wonder-filled eyes and chocolate curls. Coldfell was counting on it. Their firstborn son—his future grandson—would inherit the earldom, then he could go to his grave knowing his daughter and his holdings were in good hands.
Let Hawkscliffe keep his harlot, he thought. It would minimize Juliet’s wifely duties.
Just then the double doors that adjoined the drawing and dining rooms opened, and the stately, white-gloved butler appeared, bowing.
“Dinner is served,” he announced in a dignified monotone.
“Wellington, care to do the honors?” Hawkscliffe offered, presenting his mistress to the Iron Duke with an elegant gesture.
Tall, stoic, and sternly erect of carriage, the great stone-faced general very nearly cracked a smile as he nodded and offered her his arm. “Miss Hamilton, I would be honored.”
She accepted his escort gracefully.
Why, the courtesan was as thorough a conqueror as the general, he thought cynically, watching them go into the dining room.
She was, he admitted, a rapturous beauty. No male, however advanced in years, could have been immune to her charms. Her serene, secretive smile had them all quite fascinated. Eldon especially seemed to dote on her. The Lord Chancellor had sat right next to her on the sofa and probably would have tried coaxing her onto his bony lap if Hawkscliffe hadn’t been there—and perhaps she would have accepted, for a price.
La Belle
Hamilton had a sense of style and smooth graceful bearing. Her heavenly body was wrapped in a clinging muslin gown of palest pearl pink. If flame-haired Lucy, with her passion and lust for life had been fire, Bel Hamilton was ice, Coldfell thought, gleaming and multi-faceted, throwing light like a perfect diamond, but he could well imagine that she melted for Hawkscliffe.
Bringing up the rear, the darkly handsome young duke gave the others a smile of reserved, cordial warmth and held out his hand toward the dining room. “Gentlemen, after you.”
Coldfell gave his host an amiable nod as he hobbled past him on his cane and went in to take his place at the table. He noted with an inward snort that the table was excellently laid. The courtesan was a skilled hostess. Every detail had been attended to. Beeswax candles reflected the high polish on every inch of carved mahogany and gleamed in the rococo silverware and the great tiered epergne in the table’s center. Little delicate finger bowls of orange-flower water awaited them on the impeccable white linen tablecloth, and the bewigged, liveried footmen stood at the ready in every corner of the room.
As Hawkscliffe took his seat at the head of the table, he glanced down toward the foot at his mistress, a private little smile tugging at his mouth. Coldfell saw them exchange a look of solid mutual understanding. They worked so smoothly in tandem it was like watching a seamless, graceful dance.
Coldfell glanced furtively from one to the other.
Admittedly, anyone could see that this woman was good for Hawkscliffe. He looked far more relaxed and easygoing than Coldfell had ever seen him in the past; his brown eyes were not so tormented. His mistress knew how to handle him, too, smoothly breaking in with a charming remark back there in the drawing room when Sidmouth had begun to get the duke hot under the collar.
Miss Hamilton, in turn, had been visibly nervous early on when the guests had begun arriving, but Coldfell had seen how Robert’s quiet support calmed her with little more than a gentle touch to her elbow—a touch that bespoke a world of affection and trust. Full understanding hit him hard as he witnessed their wordless, barely perceptible exchange of a glance.
They are in love.
The glow in Robert’s dark eyes and the blush in Belinda’s pink cheeks betrayed them. And the magic that emanated from them was having a contagious effect on the Tory magnates, Coldfell thought, pursing his mouth. Their whole party was in such merry spirits, it was as though Miss Hamilton had slipped some intoxicating powder into the sparkling wine.
As the elaborate first course was carried into the dining room—magnificent platters of goose and broiled trout, venison and succulent veal with countless side dishes like red stewed cabbage and Jerusalem artichokes—Coldfell lowered his gaze. He spread his snowy napkin over his lap and dipped his fingers in the scented water.
Very well, he thought tersely. Drastic measures might need to be taken.
Everything seemed to be moving along smoothly, but Bel was too nervous to eat more than a few bites of the roast turkey in the second course or to do more than pick at the lobster
a la braise
in the third. In the drawing room her mission had been to cultivate the Tory magnates for Robert, but now that they had moved into the dining room, she was more interested in her writers. One had to have poets at one’s table, after all. Only Whigs talked politics at dinner.
She tried to get Walter Scott to give a hint of what he was working on, but all he deigned to talk about was not his delicious tales of chivalry, but Abbotsford, the grand mock-medieval house he was perpetually building in the Borders. On and on he rambled about the practical matters of building a manor house: timbers, additions, foundations, and turrets, reminding her for all the world of a great Scottish bagpipe, so full was he of gusty hot air, though amiable.
Smiling politely, Bel made a mental note to remember henceforth that novelists were long-winded creatures, then turned hopefully to Robert Southey. Surely the mild-mannered poet laureate would have something inspiring to say, but he turned out to be the soul of conservatism, a reformed romantic, and when the wine flowed, all he wanted to talk about was not the Muse, but that perverted hack pagan, Byron, whom he despised beyond all things.
Bel met her protector’s gaze down the table and both fought not to laugh at the jealous writer’s spleen. So much for poetry. Robert delicately asked Mr. Southey about his excellent
Life of Nelson
and a discussion ensued that even the taciturn Wellington joined, proposing a toast. They drank to Nelson.
“Lord Castlereagh,” Bel spoke up, engaging the elegant and handsome Irish-born foreign secretary, “Hawkscliffe tells me you’ve entered a motion in Parliament that a monument be raised to Lord Nelson?”
“Who is more deserving than our fallen admiral?” Castlereagh replied, with a softening of the haunted melancholy she had noticed in his eyes. He was known as an unhappy man, too brilliant for his own good. “I only wish Nelson were here to see how his old friend Wellesley finally finished off Boney for him—oh, forgive me,
Your Grace,”
he teased the general, newly made duke of Wellington scarcely a month ago.
She smiled at Wellington’s gruff chuckle as the others said, “Here, here.”
“What style of monument is being considered?” she asked.
“Our architects have proposed a great column with Nelson’s likeness at the top.”