Page 5 of His Abandoned Duchess

“I assure you, Amelia. The feeling was mutual. I hardly expected you to be using this room.”

Though, now that he thought about it, it could very well have been what Winslow was attempting to inform him about.

“Which again is a foolish notion as you do not live here, and I have no true reason not to.” Amelia bucked her hips, trying to dislodge the Duke, which only made part of him come alive in a most unfortunate manner. “Now, would you please remove yourself from Amelia so that we might both get our rest for the remainder of the evening?”

As his eyes adapted more to the lack of illumination, the pink of Amelia’s cheeks was the first item to come into focus. Herwiggling and terse conversation with him pulled on threads within Richard that led to dark places he’d been accustomed to keeping hidden away.

A rumbling seated itself in his pelvis, and deep within him, an uproar of burgeoning flame stoked from long-dormant embers.

Has she always been this…lovely?

Not in any manner of speaking or acting as such, but in just the simple lines of her face, the gentle swells of her chest that pressed into the fabric of her chemise as she breathed. While it was understandable considering the situation, Amelia’s address was so direct and nearly tactless.

Manners had obviously not been invited to this particular conversation, but it was even more off putting that Richard couldn’t keep himself from enjoying that attitude of Amelia’s, even if still heartily irritated.

Wide, doe eyes looked up at him, their color like a cup of the strongest tea. Faint shadows in her cheeks suggested dimples, and Amelia’s unruly curls were scattered across the pillow beneath her head, reflecting that black tea hue with a hint of Darjeeling’s deep red undertones.

At once—or perhaps in actuality, the culmination of these past few minutes—all Richard could think of was pressing his lips to Amelia’s. His mind conjured up ideas of their softness, her taste, as if bewitched by the sheer proximity of his wife.

“Richard?”

Amelia’s voice was a sliver in the dark, only the tiniest of sounds that scarcely broke the air. Still, they made the silence that followed stand in stark contrast, and it weighed down on Richard’s shoulders like an omnipresent apparition.

His stare was still pinned to Amelia’s lips, and the Duke had to clear his throat to finally pull himself out of whatever magic had grasped him so tightly.

Are you mad? What is wrong with you?

Setting his face in a grim expression, Richard pulled himself from Amelia. He took up a seat far enough away from her that she might remove herself while he remained in the bed.

“Despite the circumstances of the past five years, this remains my bedroom. I agree that we both require our rest for tomorrow’s fulfillment, so I must suggest that you find your way to your own bed chambers.”

“Ugh!” She scowled at him. “After everything, you still believe that I am the one who should leave? All my things are herein. A new room would undoubtedly suityoubetter.”

Richard cocked his head, the corner of his mouth tilting up in a smirk that he could not keep contained.

“If you so wish for the bed, you must allow yourself to be comfortable sharing it, for I will not be leaving.”

His wife balked, her words not wholly forming as she sputtered out half-formed strings of consonants and vowels. As she recoiled, Richard stretched himself out long on the bed, placing his hands beneath his head as his eyes eased closed with a deep exhale.

“Winslow is up stoking a fire. I am sure that should you require assistance ambulating to your proper room he would be more than capable of assisting you.”

The rustling of the bed covers, along with several inaudible words hurried out beneath Amelia’s breath, played as the backdrop. He could hear her walk toward the bedroom door in a huff, pausing somewhere likely just before it to cast out another retort before she exited.

“We will have much to discuss in the morning, Your Grace. I would be most interested to hear what additional comforts you seek to disrupt with your presence. As well as how soon we can foresee your departure.”

Richard said nothing, only listening to the sound of his door closing firmly as Amelia left him alone and in peace at last. Still, as he positioned himself more comfortably in his bed, a lingering scent that could only be attributed to Amelia’s presence crowded in around him.

His mind drifted back to the feeling of her beneath him, and Richard knew that sleep this night would not come without quite a bit of effort—if at all.

Chapter Three

Morning light crested over the distant horizon far too early the following day, and Amelia groaned as she tried in vain to shield herself from the sun by stuffing her head beneath a pillow.

Sleep had been a fitful and ineffectual experience that evening, and where once she had thought that too much of the blue ruin was the cause behind the foulest of mornings, she now stood corrected.

Interrupted rest by a soggy, infuriating duke was far worse than gin.

Flopping over onto her back, Amelia tossed the extra pillow to the side of the bed—the bed that was stiffer than it ought to be and smelled wrong. While the room was still only cast in dim light, she opened her eyes, appraising the new space and harshly criticizing it against that of her usual room.

---