Page 59 of The Duke Says I Do
She didn’t understand the look that he directed at her. But then, she didn’t understand most of what had happened since he’d so unceremoniously broken away.
With growing surprise, she realized that he felt awkward, too. That made her feel less inadequate. She was terrifiedthat his strange reaction was rooted in dissatisfaction. Just because she’d entered the gates of heaven didn’t mean that he’d experienced a similar epiphany.
Her shaking hand tugged up her shift. In the heat of passion, she’d reveled in his pleasure in her body. But lying here while her lover turned away, she couldn’t help but feel a bit cheap.
Too little, too late, she couldn’t avoid acknowledging.
“Can you bear to kiss me, do you think?” he asked in a diffident voice.
That sounded more promising. “Do you want me to?”
The dark gold brows lowered in displeasure. She was – almost – sure he was displeased with himself and not with her. His words confirmed that suspicion. “I’m sorry, my darling. I’m acting like a blasted idiot. You were such a wonder in my arms, I nearly stayed too long.”
Calling her a wonder mollified hurt feelings. The “my darling” was even better. He’d never used the endearment before. He didn’t have to tell her that he wasn’t given to insincere pronouncements. While calling her his darling didn’t mean that he loved her, it indicated an affection that she’d started to doubt.
Even better, he sounded like himself now. Like the kind man she knew.
“I was worried that I’d done something wrong,” she admitted in a shaky voice. Crazy to feel like weeping, after the most sublime experience of her life.
But she discovered that giving her body to a man pierced her deepest emotions and left her vulnerable in ways she’d never been vulnerable before.
Through hazy vision, Portia saw his face scrunch into a grimace of self-disgust. His grip on her arm changed to a caress. “You did everything right. You did so much right, you damn near broke my heart. Mere mortals aren’t made to dwell in paradise.”
Her megrims receded, as she understood that Alaric had undergone a similar emotional experience. She blinked away the last of her silly tears and blindly turned toward him. Strong arms enclosed her. His lips met hers, and she yielded to the magic of his kiss. When he lifted his head, she was nestled into his side and her hand rested above his pounding heart.
“I’ve never made love in a stable before,” he said, his voice still choked.
“Me either,” she said, then sneezed violently.
Chapter 15
Granville held Portia’s hand and drew her up the stairs to the lodge’s door. It was full night now. While the sky remained cloudy, the rain had stopped. He inserted the massive iron key that he’d retrieved from its hiding place in the stables into the old-fashioned lock.
As he pushed the heavy, wooden door open, Portia remained quiet. She’d been quiet since that blazing encounter in the stables. He wished to heaven that he knew what she was thinking. She said that she was fine, but he wasn’t so sure. Not being sure drove him to distraction.
She carried a lamp in her free hand. Her other hand curled around his. She didn’t seem averse to touching him, and their kisses had been as ardent and sweet as ever. But he’d always appreciated the ease between them, especially as most people were too aware of his rank to treat him like a fellow human.
Now she wasn’t easy. Not at all. She seemed willing to stay and touch him, but beyond that, he had no idea what went on in her head.
The lamp revealed a dark entry with a corridor leading off it. The house was small and simple, at least in ducal terms. A narrow foyer across the front, with a modest drawing room and dining room off the corridor. Kitchens and storerooms in the basement. A pair of bedroom suites on the next floor. Smaller rooms for visitors above that. Servants’ quarters in the attics beneath the roof, with its pretty terrace and views over surrounding woods and hills.
Plenty of room to entertain a mistress, if the mistress was in a mood for entertainment. “Shall we go down to the kitchens and see what the Johnsons have left us for dinner?” He hated hisfalse heartiness, but her quietness made him edgier than a cat in a dogs’ home.
“Do you know the way?” she asked, as if he’d said that he was about to paint himself purple.
“I usually cater for myself when I’m here. It’s one of the few places I don’t need to keep up the Duke of Granville’s dignity.”
She shook her head, more in puzzlement than denial, he thought. “I really did have you wrong.”
He wanted to ask whether she understood him better now, but to his shame, he was afraid of her answer. Damn it, he’d imagined that becoming her lover would bolster their closeness, but she’d never felt more like a stranger.
She hadn’t felt like a stranger when he was deep inside her, relishing the joy that she took in his possession. Then he’d been convinced that he united with the other half of his soul.
The physical pleasure had surpassed anything in his experience, but it was the emotional union that had astonished him. Tupping Portia Frain turned out to be a gift of the spirit as well as the flesh. He couldn’t wait to do it all again.
Once he’d fathomed what troubled her. The thought of her unhappy tied his gut into tangles. The thought that she could be unhappy because of something he’d done or said made him feel like he’d eaten bad fish.
He released her hand to let her precede him inside. “So dinner?”
