Page 61 of The Duke of a Thousand Desires

24

Several days passed without incident. Ravenna was secretly enchanted if inconvenienced by her husband’s devotion. He refused to understand that she was more worried for his well-being than her own.

Yet all worry aside, she was not about to forget the snippet of male conversation she’d overheard outside the drawing room between Simon and Rhys.

Had the virile duke kept a private room in an exclusive brothel? If he’d done so before their marriage, he had no need for one now. It pleased her to indulge him. He had sworn his fidelity. He would break her heart if he betrayed her.

Between their bouts in the nuptial bed, Simon had begun to reveal more to her of his innermost self. They shared little confidences, observations, preferences for their favorite foods and books, over breakfast, on the staircase, but mostly during the drowsy moments before sleep. The boundaries of their friendship had been crossed and reforged in the privacy of their bedchamber and routine of daily life.

Over a fortnight flew by. No one had attempted to murder either of them. Ravenna had not been forced to disguise herself as a young man and join the Royal Navy. Simon had managed to keep at his investigation with scant progress while taking solace in his wife’s company.

Aunt Glynnis finally moved from Grayson’s Park Lane mansion into her nephew Griffin’s Bedford Square townhouse. She celebrated Simon and Ravenna’s union with a supper that included endless glasses of sparkling wine and a meal of lamb cutlets and green haricot beans cooked by a French chef.

“I do believe the newlyweds are settling down,” she confided in Rhys as the dessert course of almond blancmange neared an end. The gentlemen had begun to excuse themselves for brandy and cigars. “Caverley,” she said affectionately to Simon. “Have you grown domesticated?”

Rhys shook his head at Simon in mock sympathy. “Aunt Glynnis, temper your tongue.”

Simon half-rose from his chair. His gaze flickered to Ravenna’s face. “I’m perhaps not the person you should ask. My wife can tell you whether I behave myself at home.”

“Does she behave herself?” Aunt Glynnis asked, her sweet voice slightly slurred.

Simon’s smile disconcerted Ravenna. She dropped her dessert spoon to the floor. “Oh, no. What a mess.”

“Permit me,” he said, chuckling at her.

She shook her head in chagrin. Simon ducked under the table for the spoon. An alert footman beat him to the task. For an awkward moment the three of them stared at one another in the shadowy darkness.

Simon could have tweaked the helpful fellow’s ear. He hadn’t been able to talk to Ravenna in hours. This was not the opportunity he sought.

“Pardon me,” the footman mumbled, pulling back, spoon in hand, at Simon’s scowl.

“I’m clumsy,” Ravenna whispered. “Simon, must you speak so frankly? Don’t you dare say anything about how I behave at home.”

“Misbehave.”

“Don’t.”

“Have I been tamed?” he mused. “I never thought I was that wicked to start, not in comparison to your brothers.”

Ravenna pretended he had not spoken as they straightened in their seats, smiling around the table at the other guests, who had broken into excited chatter –- apparently Aunt Glynnis had just announced that Her Grace would be giving her own parties for her select friends.

Simon excused himself from Ravenna with reluctance. He had no interest in brandy or cigars. He wanted his wife, bare-arsed, in his lap, her breasts pushed into his face and preferably not smothered in the king’s ransom of roped pearls he had bought her.

Domesticated? As if he’d been a zoo creature brought to heel. Was that how he appeared to others? Did he care?

No. Because an hour later he was kissing his wife with unbridled fervor on the floor of their firelit parlor. The fragrance of her, of burning wood, and the plum sherry they had shared, pleased his senses. She lay with her bodice unbuttoned to the waist on the carpet, one arm thrown out in abandon. Her muslin shift was tucked beneath her hips. He adjusted his weight, paused a heartbeat as her mouth slid from his, and sank, thick and ready, into her cleft. Her legs grasped his hips, exerting pressure to push him fully inside her.

“You’re still very tender,” he said, slowing his movements, hesitant to fully submerge his cock in her flesh.

She hooked her arm around his neck, running her fingertips down his nape. “Please go on,” she whispered, pliant and apparently eager to accept the length of him. “I am in agony without you.”

He lowered his head and kissed her long and slow, seducing her with measured sexuality. Her hand slid down his straining back. He felt her inner muscles pulse around his cock, squeezing lightly as if he weren’t in enough torment.

He drew back with a sharp breath, slipping his hand between her shoulders and the carpet. “I should carry you up to bed. The floor has to be uncomfortable. I’ll go wild if you do that to me again.”

“I can walk, Simon.”

“Perhaps not if we continue like this.”