Page 69 of Wedded to the Ruthless Duke

No matter how jealous I was.

She smiled and reached up, kissing him lightly on the lips.

“You’re forgiven.”

He turned it into a firmer kiss. There was such warmth between them that he had little desire to end this moment. He swept an arm under her waist and rolled the two of them together. His length left her, but their bodies stayed flush, so she fell onto his chest, her legs straddling him.

“I have a suggestion,” he said, tucking her head under his chin as they kept their arms around one another. She peppered sweet kisses to his collarbone. It made his gut tingle again, wanting more of such kisses. “Tomorrow, we could go for a ride. I could show you the estate.”

She stopped kissing him. In one swift movement, she sat up on him, completely straddling his hips now.

In all her naked glory, she was visible to him now, her honey hair wild about her shoulders, her breasts and curves glistening in the sweat of what they had shared. Any second, he thought his length might be hardened for her again.

“A ride?” she said in clear disbelief. “You wish to go riding with me?” She pointed between the two of them.

“Is that so surprising?”

“Of course, it is!” she said hastily.

“You like riding? You’ve already liked the outdoors.”

“I know that.” Grace shook her head, clearly exasperated by him. He grew distracted, though, his fingers tracing the curve of her hips. She placed her hands over him, stopping his movements. “Keep doing that, and I’m simply going to want to do it again.”

“Now, there’s a temptation.” His length was indeed hardening once again, an incredible thing after he had only just spent himself inside of her. Yet he knew they should not. They had already had sex twice in a short space of time. So quickly after her first time, this second incident would surely leave her sore.

“Why do you want to come riding with me, Philip?” she asked, her fingers moving from his to traveling up his arms. She moved them all the way to his biceps, leaning over him. It made her hair hang down on one side, cocooning them as her breasts hovered temptingly above him. “What happened to your rule of barely wanting to spend time together? Of not even having a conversation in the carriage because you did not want to become entangled with me?”

“Some rules are harder to keep than others.” He raised one of his hands from her hips, tangling it in her hair, then drew her head closer toward him. “Maybe for this month, and just this one month…” He reminded himself of this, for no matter what was going on between him and Grace, he intended to keep distance eventually, to keep her safe from him.

“This one month?” she urged him on. She bent down, her lips hovering over his, teasingly close to kissing him again.

“We can get a little messy with the rules.”

CHAPTER23

“Your Grace.” The butler placed the silver tray down on the table and escaped the room fast.

Philip had barely looked up from his breakfast in time to see the butler make his quick exit. It was an unusual thing.

For a second, Philip just looked around the dining room, wondering what could have possibly spooked his butler into making the quick exit. He could have put it down to the butler wanting to give him and his wife some privacy as they were newlywed, but Grace hadn’t yet risen.

Philip had to fight a smile just at the thought of Grace. After what they had shared on his hearth rug, neither one of them had been in a hurry to go to bed. They had retired to their separate bedchambers with Philip very acutely aware of just how close Grace’s chamber now was to his.

He hadn’t yet seen her that morning though he was still planning to hold to his promise of that ride and picnic today.

It’s the very least I can do, isn’t it? After how I behaved last night.

He sipped his coffee and turned his attention to the silver tray that the butler had brought in, presuming something on this tray was the source of the butler’s consternation. There were a couple of letters addressed to Philip, the addresses all written in formal hand. He identified them all with ease as correspondence with his business associates.

However, at the bottom of the pile, there was a long thin white sheet of paper, folded up neatly into three sections. The black ink across the surface told Philip at once what it was. Too small to be a newspaper and too large to be a pamphlet, it had to be a scandal sheet.

He snapped it up, in danger of dislodging all of the letters as his eyes darted down the scandal sheet.

He found the problem straight away. Printed in black and white was Grace’s name.

‘The new Duchess of Berkley is already making an exhibition of herself, it seems. Though naturally, she has never been one whose name has been out of these sheets for long. The only blessing her mother can take comfort in is the fact that she at least didn’t trip up and fall on her face last night at the ball.

Entering on the arm of her new husband, the Duke of Berkley, a poor man who must have felt heavily rushed into this marriage, the Duchess wore an audacious gown indeed. As so many ladies were keen to point out last night, she did not opt for the fashionable pastel colors but something infinitely bolder that made many men turn away in shame.’

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