Page 4 of The Duke's Price
Her irritation had him adjusting his assumptions about her experience. “You have never shared a kiss? No randy fathers or adult sons? No sweethearts on your days off?”
She frowned again. His guess that she was thinking about what to tell him was confirmed when she said. “I suppose, if we are to be intimate, you ought to know. I have never shareda lover’s kiss. I have had lust’s kisses forced on me, but have managed to avoid anything more than rude slobbering and even ruder fumbling.”
Her disgust dripped from the words. Perry was suddenly very pleased he had demanded she take the lead in this first encounter. She would soften to him all the sooner if he behaved differently to those who had offended her.
What fools those slobberers and fumblers were! He had never forced an unwilling woman, though he had seduced more than a few into willingness. As he would Miss Henwood. As he had intended for the lady he had tried to abduct just before he left England. Lady Charlotte had turned down his honourable proposal, and he had accepted his dismissal. Then he had seen her early one morning leaving the home of that notable rake the Marquess of Aldridge, looking noticeably debauched.
He had waited, expecting an announcement, and when none came, he had had her kidnapped, to accompany him on his exile. As his duchess, for she was a well-born lady, the granddaughter and niece of a ducal house.
He had misread the situation, for Aldridge had rescued her. Perry had fled the country more rapidly than he had intended. In a foreign port some time later, he heard that the pair had married after all. Ah, well. Ancient history, and Perry had never liked dwelling on his mistakes. Especially with such a delectable lady before him.
“Well, then,” he said. “In this, let me be the teacher, Miss Henwood. You had the right idea touching your lips to mine. Do so again, but let your lips linger. When you are comfortable, open your mouth, and I shall open mine. You can explore my lips and even my mouth with your tongue, if you wish, but if that is too much for a first lesson, then go only to the second step. Touch me with your hands, if you wish. For this first time, I shall keep my hands behind my back.”
He put them there and, for good measure, clasped them together so they would not stray.
Once again, he waited while Miss Henwood considered the matter. Some vestige of conscience stirred. He should tell her he fully intended to help her whether or not she paid his price. After all, he did not make a practice of seducing virgins, though he occasionally allowed a venturesome virgin to seduce him. In part, it was a matter of good sportsmanship—in the perennial war that was relationships between men and women, innocents came unarmed to the battle, and picking them off was not the act of a gentleman. Mostly though, it was that they were too much work, and too much potential drama.
He opened his mouth to tell her a kiss was not necessary, just as she leaned closer and put her lips on his. She was not much shorter than him, so he did not have to bend far. Her lips were soft, plump, and tasted of port, which both surprised and delighted.
As instructed, she lingered. After several moments, she placed her hands on his chest and opened her mouth. It took every amount of discipline Perry could muster not to take over the kiss, but he was rewarded when her tongue slipped between his teeth and touched his own.
At first, she proved her claim of innocence, but he showed her what to do and she copied him with increasing enthusiasm and skill.
Perry had been intimate with the greatest whores in the British Isles, Europe, and the Near East—with both those courtesans who made their living by pleasuring men and those ladies whose rutting was purely about their own pleasure.
He was torn between running away as fast as he could and gathering her closer. He held himself still, all except his own mouth, which was busy giving her all the satisfaction within the reach of his considerable experience.
When his control began slipping from his grasp, he brought the kiss to an end, slowly closing his mouth and dropping kisses along her lip before standing straighter to take his mouth out of her reach.
“You are a very adept pupil, Miss Henwood,” he said. “Thank you. I look forward to further lessons.” Any thought of a different, more honourable course had been burnt to ashes in that inflammatory kiss.
“Once we are safely in France,” she dictated. Her voice trembled. She was not as calm as she tried to appear.
And thank goodness for that. His knees felt weak, and if she had been unaffected by the kiss, he might have leapt off the battlements and ended it all. Well, no, he wouldn’t. Not that. But he would have been very disappointed.
There was no question that this demure governess had vanquished his boredom and given him something delightful to think about. For the first time in many years, the future, particularly once they were out from under Carlos’s hand, looked bright.
2
Oh my. Oh my. That kiss!
Ruth had decided long ago she must be cold by nature. After Anne married the Earl of Chirbury, she had accompanied the lady and her sister Kitty through one long Season in London, bending to Anne’s insistence that they were sisters in everything but blood, and she should have the same opportunities as Kitty. Ruth had never met a man who stirred her enough to tempt her to try kissing or even holding hands.
Not that she would ever have done more than that outside of marriage, for she was a virtuous woman, whose most precious possessions were the prayer book her father had given her at her confirmation and the bible that had been her mother’s.
After she had insisted on leaving the Chirbury household to go back to teaching, she had had opportunities, but not temptations. She had not enjoyed the embraces of those who thought a governess was theirs for the taking. They never tried twice. Not only had Ruth been taught exactly where to hit a man to dissuade him, the powerful Redepenning clan counted her as one of their own.
The only matron who had decided to believe Ruth was the aggressor in a grapple with the woman’s husband was disabused of the notion by the visit of a duchess, two countesses, and two viscountesses. At the same time, the assailant had to deal with the ladies’ husbands.
Ruth resigned from the position and was given a glowing reference, and somehow word got around that, when Miss Henwood said ‘no’, a wise man listened.
‘No’ had not been the word on Ruth’s mind when she was kissing the wicked duke. ‘More’ might have encompassed her feelings better, though—and she could be honest, if only with herself—no word at all had crossed her mind.
She was definitely not cold where the Duke of Richport was concerned.
Which led to the inescapable conclusion that the duke’s price was going to be high, indeed. Not her virginity. Ruth was thirty-five, and was unlikely to ever need the commodity, so she was not concerned about that.
She did expect to suffer for committing a sin—she had long observed the more casual morals of theton, but underneath it all, she was still a vicar’s daughter. She had thought she would be able to console herself that her participation was unwilling, but that kiss had disabused her of the notion. He had the power to make her body, at least, follow where he led, and her promise to let him have his way with her meant she had handed over her only defence—a refusal to participate at all.
