Page 50 of How to Tempt a Duke

He murmured her name, though he’d intended to speak in protest. They should not be doing this—especially in a place they could be so easily seen. Yet even as he thought such things his hands did not cease their eager exploration.

She pulled her head away from him as his palms found the weight of her breasts. Her lashes swept downward, her face registering all the pleasure she felt. Confound it, he could not help himself. His thumb brushed the swell of her breast until a moan told him he’d found her nipple beneath the thickness of her stays.

She was so passionate, so receptive. Had he ever wanted anything the way he wanted Lady Eleanor Murray?

Yes, he had. The stone.

Everything he’d sacrificed already and would sacrifice in the future. The stone, his promise—it had to be everything. Before the dukedom, before Eleanor. She needed a husband—not to be pawed by him.

It was for exactly that reason that he drew away and straightened. “We cannot keep on with this,” he said.

Eleanor simply nodded. Her eyes sparkled with longing and her mouth remained reddened from the force of their kisses. She did not protest this time—perhaps because she understood that together they were far too dangerous.

Charles quickly adjusted his placket once his cloak had fallen back around him. He could only hope the raging swell of his manhood would soften quickly.

Eleanor took his offered arm, her hand trembling slightly when she set it atop his, and together they made their way to the waiting carriage.

The cool air cleared the fog of Charles’s passion. He would not allow himself to ruin Eleanor—especially when he knew he could not in good conscience marry her.

Once he had the rest of the journals from her, he would unearth the whereabouts of the Coeur de Feu and then leave to reclaim the stone, fulfilling his father’s promise. In the meantime he would have to keep his distance. For Eleanor’s sake.

Chapter Sixteen

Charles couldn’t take it anymore. Or rather he couldn’t take the lack of progress anymore. He’d applied hours to searching through the journals from their country estate to no avail.

Placing the key on the page, reading something indistinguishable. Then placing the key on another page and reading something indistinguishable. And yet again placing the key on the page and reading something indistinguishable.

In truth, it was as he’d expected. He’d gone through every book and piece of paper in the stack of boxes. What he needed was doubtless in the other journals Eleanor had.

He would need to see her again in an effort to secure more of them. After all, he had said yes to her request to wed her if there was no one else willing to. The journals were his due.

And yet the very idea of being in the same room with her left his mind whirling with a stream of memories he could not shake.

Their secluded tryst under his cloak blended with that last time at Lottie’s. When he’d kissed her. Actually much more than kissed. He had pulled down her bodice and drawn her nipple into his mouth. He almost groaned at the memory, for such a little bud it was—berry-pink compared to her alabaster skin, firm against his tongue. And the way she’d cried out and clung to him...

Regret twisted in his chest. He shouldn’t distract her from the marriage mart. Especially when the only vow he truly intended to fulfill was the one he’d given his father.

He stared down at the great mahogany desk he sat at—his father’s. Even the new chair Thomas had procured did not alleviate the sense of strangeness in the room, the sense that Charles did not belong there. Perhaps he never would adjust to this room being anything more than his father’s study.

Charles lifted his gaze to take in the richly appointed room with its blend of luxurious furnishings and cherished artifacts, all amid the piles of opened boxes from Somersville Manor.

His father had seemed invincible, too vibrant ever to die. And yet he was truly gone. After a lifetime of seeking his father’s approval, of wishing for the bond Charles had seen other fathers and sons share, it would never happen now.

Not that his childhood had been without privilege. Charles had been brought up with nothing but the best of everything, and his father had never asked anything of him.

Nothing until the stone. And in that one request Charles had failed.

He rose abruptly from the desk, unable to stand the crush of his father’s success around him, the scalding reminder of how Charles was so very imperfect.

“Thomas,” he said aloud. His valet appeared immediately. “Have my carriage readied. I’m curious to learn if I’ve been blackballed from White’s yet.”

As it turned out Charles had not been ousted in his absence, and was, in fact, welcomed eagerly into White’s as if they’d known he was coming. No doubt Thomas’s doing.

Upon entry he had a brandy in his hands and the hearty welcome of several members. Conversation centered on Napoleon’s impending exile and the hardheadedness of General Thouvenot, who seemed to have a dogged determination to keep the fortress of Bayonne in French control, despite Napoleon’s surrender.

The conversation fed an inner part of Charles he’d long forgotten he needed—a chance to come to a place like White’s and let his mind relax, away from all of life’s complexities. There was no mention of Lottie and her fall from grace, nor of unmet promises to dead fathers, nor even any reminders of a woman who set his soul aflame.

No, White’s was about men. Sports. Drink. Politics.