Page 19 of His Abandoned Duchess

Her giggles, poorly restrained through her fingers, filled the room, and Richard turned a brighter and brighter shade of red. Finally, when he could clearly no longer take it, her husband yanked the offending fabric from his body and tossed the garment to the floor, stomping on it for good measure.

Rushing her, Richard stopped mere inches from her face, and Amelia recoiled, her laughter silencing abruptly.

“You will not continue to make a mockery of me, Amelia.”

She sobered some, clearing her throat as he respectfully ducked her head. “I apologize, Your Grace. It appears that Ihavegone too far. It was a terrible act to ruin such a lovely shirt. I assure you I will be to the shop first thing to replace it.”

“You most certainly will!” The veins along Richard’s temples and down his neck pulsed fervently, and Amelia found her gaze dropping to the bare skin of his chest. “I had apologized for this afternoon’s events, and still you thought it wise to test my generosity with a…prank?!”

Amelia shook herself, trying to refocus on Richard’s words because she’d utterly lost them. She yanked her eyes back up to his face, at a loss for where they were in the conversation.

“Are you even listening to me?” Richard glared, his skin gleaming gently in the firelight of Amelia’s room. “What on earth could be worthy of your attention if not your husband?”

He regarded her, and Amelia was lost to the flames growing behind her cheeks. She could not find her voice, and yet again, her traitorous eyes flicked down to Richard’s bare chest—a wanton need swimming through her blood.

Why must he be so very pleasing to look at? An ugly husband would have suited me better.

Unfortunately, the Duke finally registered what had distracted her so much, and he glanced down at himself before returning his crystal blue gaze to Amelia’s face. Slowly, almost an imperceptible change were it not for the abrupt turn-around of Richard’s mood, a sly smirk touched his cheek.

Butterflies flounced in her belly, foxed up and dancing at a wilder drum than she’d ever thrown. Amelia couldn’t continue to meet Richard’s eyes, so she turned her attention to the floor and the stained shirt lying at his feet. The air in the room shifted, no less tense but imbued with that lingering bewitchment that so took her whenever she was alone with Richard like this.

Creak.

The sound of the floor adjusting rattled her, forcing Amelia to jump instinctively, and when she looked up, Richard hovered over her, his velvety-looking skin achingly close to her.

“My, my. Did you perhaps have different motives for destroying my clothing, Amelia?” The air was too thick, Richard’s voice too low and strained with something she dared not name. “If you had wanted to look on me without the protection of my attire…”

The words hung there, a palpable presence in the space between them, and Amelia was all too aware of her pounding heart in her ears and chest. Was the fitting of her dress suddenly inches tighter? Had some invisible specter haunted her by yanking on the ties of her stays?

“You need only have asked instead of taking to ruining one of my best shirts.”

“I…”

But forms words seemed all too impossible a task, Amelia’s entire body humming as it called out for something that just couldn’t possibly be right. She did not wish for her husband to see her like this. She didn’t wish for him to undress or to smooth the sculpted form of his body against hers, swept away by a passion she’d only read about.

No, of course not. That would be…

And still, Amelia hadn’t spoken. She shook herself, attempting to direct the conversation in a different direction even if she wasn’t wholly sure why.

“I had no such ends in mind, Your Grace. I wouldn’t dream of refuting that first and foremost stipulation of our arrangement.”

Richard’s eyes were shadowed as he looked down at her through his lashes, the lidded gaze undoubtedly reflected in her own expression. Amelia forced herself to swallow as her husband angled closer, the tips of his fingers brushing up along the side of her arm.

This felt nothing like the encounter with Mr. Stanley, and she cursed her brain for even comparing the two. But Amelia had been so terrified, and now…now she felt alive and aching in a way that she had never dreamed of being this close to acting on.

Desire was not new to her, but the idea that a lifetime of absence and only her own company to satisfy her was potentially coming to an end—thanks to her husband, of all people—was certainly too good to be true.

“Of course.” Richard’s stare moved down her face, finding her lips once more as they had in the study. “Such a move would, dare I say, alter the entire fabric of our relationship. Still…”

Richard regarded her, stepping closer so that his hand cupped around the back of Amelia’s elbow as the other went to her waist. A tiny gasp escaped her, and Amelia’s head spun so much that she feared she would topple over. The heat of the room was farmore than what could be attributed to the fire, and it was all too similar to imbibing too much of the drink.

However, it was much clearer than that; a crystalline quizzing glass held up to a rosy-hued scene from deep within her fantasies.

“What if I so dared?” Richard’s words were a slight whisper, and she strained to hear them, to confirm that they were genuine and spoken in earnest.

And then his lips crashed against hers.

Amelia gasped against him, her eyes flaring wide. Her husband’s command over her body was finite, his grip as steady as iron. She could not stop herself from melting beneath the intensity of his claim, and Amelia’s lips then gently parted, Richard’s tongue sweeping against hers.

---