Page 27 of Bride of the Fae Duke

‘Maybe shedoesknow.’

He growled a laugh. ‘No evidence for that in the text, is there?’

‘Why else would she question her husband, if she knows he has a tendency to get violent when—Oh.’ Her eyes rolled back as he thrust upwards, meeting her in a glorious slide of hot flesh and cool scales and perfect, overwhelming friction. Her next argument came out in gasps and moans. ‘So perhaps she saw the heroes sneak in, realised this was her only chance to get the truth out, and—’

‘Merland would turn in his grave, Eleanor.’ He slammed into her again, as if to make her feel the playwright’s wrath – but if that was his intention, it only encouraged her to anger the man a little more. ‘None of this is evenhintedat in—’

‘Perhaps,’ she retorted breathlessly, ‘you should re-read the script a little more attentively, Your Grace.’

‘Watch your smart little mouth, you.’ With a groan, he came half up in the pillows, ink-blue hair cascading down his bulging shoulders. ‘And also, don’tYour Graceme while I’m sitting balls deep inside you, for bloody goodness’ sake.’

She laughed so hard at that she could no longer get her thighs to cooperate, sagging onto his member in a boneless heap of giggles.

‘That wasn’t ajoke,’ he protested, flipping her over as she shook with mirth beneath him. His strong hands spread her legs, rough fingers warm on her skin, and just like that he was inside her again, driving deep and then deeper. In between laughing and gasping, she thought she might suffocate. ‘There’s no need for you to use the title anyway, and even if there was …’

She wrapped her legs around his hips, arching into his thrusts. Her fingers tangled into his hair, brushing the sharp rim of hisfae ears, and he growled in a way that made him sound decidedly un-dukely.

‘So what should I call you, then?’ she managed, fighting for breath. His rhythm was quickening, pounding into her with a frenzy that made it hard to keep speaking full sentences. ‘Lord Locke? That’s hardly better than—’

With a roar, he spilled his seed inside her.

She gave up on eliciting any coherent answers from him for a minute as he pistoned in and out more and more slowly, gathering his breath. Then he rolled himself onto his side beside her and slipped his hand between her thighs, still without speaking as his rough fingers began stroking the little core of her pleasure.

‘Well?’ she tried, biting down a moan. Sweet divines, she was close to the edge already. ‘If titles are no longer allowed, then what—’

He dipped two fingers inside her, thumb on that sensitive bud.

She blew into oblivion, questions or no.

By the time she came back to her senses, he’d already hauled himself off the bed, closing up his breeches with those strangely elegant finger movements. Not meeting her eye, as usual … but she could haveswornthere was a hint of something tender on his face, something lighting up the deep grey of his eyes like a sunrise in spring.

He snatched the copy of Merland’s play off his nightstand as he passed. Then he turned around one last time at the door to his study, as if he’d already sensed she was about to yell her questions after him.

‘Just call me Othrys, will you?’ he said.

Then he vanished.

Chapter 10

Hervoicewasthefirst thing Othrys heard as he stepped through the front door and into his unrecognisable entry hall – two rooms away, chattering about dining hall decoration in that tone of earnest excitement, as if there was nothing more important in the world than the fate of a few antique vases and a table runner or two.

Matters of insignificance. He knew they were.

He found himself slowing down all the same.

‘… know that there’s noneedto keep them,’ she was saying around the corner, presumably to Hartnell. ‘But I don’t think we have anything else with Rosamund’s coat of arms on it, and I don’t want to erase her from the room if this is where she hosted her dinner parties …’

Othrys barely heard what she was saying. He only heardhowshe was saying it, knowing what expression must rest on her face as she spoke – that unflinching resolve, kindness with a core of steel, a look that somehow made it bloody hard to contradict her even though he was a duke and she had, until three weeksago, been a humble housemaid. Hartnell was already hurrying to agree on the other side of the wall.

A smile had crept onto his face, he realised.

He hastily erased it.

‘… thinking we should go with lighter curtains,’ Eleanor was continuing in the dining hall. ‘That should brighten up the room enormously, don’t you think? Although we should take care to choose a manageable fabric. Not damask – the stuff isimpossibleto clean if someone ends up spilling a glass of wine over it …’

Hartnell responded in an amused tone. Eleanor’s laughter cascaded through the house next, that radiant sound, spilling through the not-so-dreary corridors like the light of the summer sun outside.

‘Your Grace?’ a footman said, suddenly close.

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