Page 42 of The Icy Duke Claims a Bride

“Come then, Catherine, let us dance…”

The Duke and Duchess of Redbridge caused a second wave of hushed silence and gasps of disbelief as they took their places on the dancefloor among the other couples.

Catherine determinedly ignored everyone around them, keeping her eyes fixed on Hugh’s scarred but handsome face and holding his gaze. He, too, seemed disinclined to look anywhere else, and the intensity of his deep blue eyes made her shiver.

If anything, the scars only added to his dark good looks. Without them, Catherine reflected that Hugh might have been too perfect, with his high forehead, sculpted cheekbones, and firm jawline. He could have been more like a Greek God than a human man.

Once the dance began, it was no longer possible to shut out the other couples around them. They had taken to the dancefloor for a quadrille, and they must bow and move with their neighbors, as the dance dictated. Catherine could see that she was not the only person taking an interest in Hugh’s form.

A few younger women looked scared the first time they had to approach the unmasked Duke of Redbridge, but not the second. Once the initial staring round was over, Catherine noticed mainly curiosity in the eyes of those around them.

Only one watcher disturbed her. From far across the room, a tall figure in silver caught Catherine’s eye as Hugh spun her around. The woman’s veiled face entirely hid her expression, but she continued watching them intently, her position unchanged each time Catherine turned in her direction.

At last, the Duke and Duchess of Redbridge bowed to one another as the music ended, and Hugh raised his wife’s gloved hand briefly to his lips.

“Two more dances, and then bed,” he said, his eyes searching Catherine’s, his words somewhere between a question and a statement.

Desire raced again through Catherine like a lightning bolt, along with the habitual nervousness that such intense emotion always provoked. Over Hugh’s shoulder, she could still see Lady Brightling at the edge of the ballroom, perhaps hovering on purpose.

“Yes,” Catherine muttered under her breath and then bowed to Hugh again as the orchestra struck the initial notes for the next dance. “Two more dances, and then bed…”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“Do you have any idea how much I want you?” Hugh said between kisses as their carriage rolled down the street.

In response, Catherine only clung to him and tentatively met the exploration of his tongue with her own. The blinds were already drawn, and despite the warm weather, she shivered as his hands worked to loosen and lower the neckline of her dress for the second time that evening.

“You do know of intimate relations between a man and a woman? I will explain it to you first if you do not.”

“I know in principle,” Catherine whispered. “But I still cannot imagine…”

“After tonight, you will not need to imagine,” Hugh assured her. “You will know how good it feels. God, I want you…”

On the road towards Redbridge Hall, Hugh felt half mad with pure animal lust. A renewed distaste for the behavior of civilized society gave strong appeal to the thought of surrendering entirely to this base but natural instinct.

The evening had indeed been an occasion of immense highs and dispiriting lows, of which excitement now seemed distilled into the strongest erotic compulsion.

The conversation with Alfred Lucas had given Hugh a heavy burden of knowledge with regard to Edwin’s business practices. Unless Alfred were a far more practiced liar than Hugh could imagine, Edwin had deceived his former business partner, used him as a dupe, and perhaps even forged his signature on a loan agreement. When a large gamble had failed, he had abandoned William Fitzroy to his fate.

A similar conversation with Viscount Mairforth had painted an equally unpleasant picture with regard to his cousin Mr. Stephens, another former business associate of Edwin. Long cast out of Society after the public ruin of his only daughter and exposure of his unpaid gambling debts, Mr. Stephens now scraped a living as a banking clerk in Dublin, his wife lost to drink and grief.

Who else but Edwin could have supplied so much material on the personal and professional lives of the Stephens family to the gossip sheets? Edwin, the man who led a group of Society matrons into the garden where Genevieve Stephens was meeting her lover. Edwin, the man who became the sole director of aformerly shared enterprise once Mr. Stephens fled the country in shame.

In addition, Lady Brightling had corroborated much of what his grandmother had told him in her packet of correspondence concerning the experience of women in Edwin’s business contacts’ families. Several were rumored to have been subjected to threats or outright blackmail in order to influence their husbands, fathers, or brothers. None, however, wished to be named or to sue.

Disgusted by what he had learned, Hugh had very deliberately turned his attention instead to his wife’s distracting beauty and the prospect of ravishing her still-unclaimed body.

“Like that, yes,” he whispered, encouraging her to kiss him again. “Your lips are so soft…”

He had already pulled her onto his lap and now raised her skirts a little to stroke her shapely claves. The small sounds Catherine made excited him further, as did the jolts of the carriage. Surely she must feel the effect she had on him by now. His member already felt hard as iron in his trousers.

“Oh, Hugh,” she cried out as his fingers stroked the garters holding up her stockings, pleading for more even as she trembled beneath his touch.

“Shall I stop?” he asked.

Catherine shook her head while barely uttering the word “no.”

Despite their previous false starts and frustrations, he sensed that tonight would be different. While Catherine was still nervous, this was overlaid with something else as they embraced now. She had accepted that she wanted him, and Hugh was sure that before the night was over, he would have the pleasure of hearing this desire spoken aloud—and of satisfying it.

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