Page 13 of The Duchess in His Bed
“No one is going to learn of it,” he said impatiently. “Only you and I know you are not presently with child. Only you and I know you will rectify that within the next week or so. As long as your lover doesn’t realize your womb was empty when you came to him... and if he does suspect, it will be his word against ours. Who will give any credence to the ramblings of a commoner? You did go with a commoner, didn’t you?”
She nodded. Unfortunately, she’d chosen a very smart and clever one.
“I do hope it wasn’t too unpleasant for you. It may take more than once, you know.”
“I’m well aware.”
He suddenly appeared uncomfortable, the first time he’d seemed so since he’d cooked up this scheme. “Take strength from the fact that we’re doing this for the girls.”
The girls. Her three sisters. The twins, who were eighteen, and Alice, who was sixteen. She wanted them to have the choice she’d never had, wanted them to be able to marry for love.
She glanced down at her hands, surprised to find them knotted so tightly in her lap. “What if I’m barren?” The words were barely a whisper, but the fear had dogged her heels for some years now. Her husband had frequented her bed less often as their efforts failed to get her with child. The last few months, he’d not come to her at all.
“Mother wasn’t. She gave birth to seven children.”
Although two had died in infancy. They had come after Selena was born and before the twins, which was the reason so many years separated Selena from her sisters. “I’m not certain that a vibrant womb is handed down from one generation to the next.”
“The fault could have rested with him. It’s not as though his family tree is teeming with descendants, at least not on his father’s side. Which is the reason you are now in a position to lose everything—or ensure that you hold on to it.”
By passing another man’s child off as Lushing’s. The deception didn’t sit well with her, but their resources and recourses were so limited.
“Was the club as decadent as Torie claims?” She was taken aback by his abrupt change in topic and the way his eagerness to know the truth of the establishment and his hope of its titillating nature reverberated through his voice. Torie, his mistress, had told him of the place, having apparently visited while Winslow was away in the country.
He was the one who had suggested she go to the Elysium, but she hadn’t told him upon whom precisely she’d set her eye. “More so. As a matter of fact, once our position is secured, I’ll no doubt spend considerable time there.”
“My dear sister, we are attempting to deceive the Crown. Should the truth come out, they’ll have our heads. No. Once some blighter’s seed takes root, you can’t risk returning, can’t risk anyone figuring things out. You’ll retire to the country and live out your life a grieving widow, much as the Queen has done since the death of her dear Albert. Sleep well.”
As though she’d be able to sleep at all. He immediately strode from the room, before she had time to pick up her hairbrush and throw it at him with all her might.
Despair and anger threatened to swamp her. It had always been left to her to save the family. First with marriage, and now through sin.
Not in the mood to deal with anyone else, she didn’t send for her maid but simply saw to her own needs. She finished removing the pins, brushed out her hair, and braided it. With a great deal of effort, she managed to shed her clothing and slip into a soft flannel nightdress.
As she walked toward her bed, a profound sadness and loneliness struck her. She glanced over at the door that led into the duke’s bedchamber. With a shuddering sigh, she opened it and stepped over the threshold into the room where her husband had always slept when they were in London.
On tiptoes, she crept toward the bed as though there would be hell to pay if she were caught sneaking about in this room. On the nights when her husband had not come to her bed, she’d never had the courage to slip into his, to come to him. She felt rather guilty that she’d gone in search of another man earlier tonight. The action had been out of character for her, and yet Aiden Trewlove had certainly given no hint that he’d been put off by it. Perhaps she should have gone to Lushing as well.
It was odd to be here now, but also soothing as she caught a wisp of his faint fragrance, lingering even though they’d not been back to the city since they’d attended the regatta in Cowes last August. Climbing onto the bed, she curled onto her side and brought up her knees.
Running her tongue over her lips, she could still taste Aiden Trewlove, dark, oak, smoky, whisky. She’d had no idea a man could taste so flavorful.
Why had Lushing never opened his mouth to her? Why had he never made her feel as though he wanted to devour her?
His kisses had always been so polite, so respectful, so gentlemanly. On their wedding night, he’d even whispered, “I’m sorry,” in her ear before he worked his way into her. She’d always thought he was apologizing for the pain he knew their initial coupling would cause her. But now she was left to wonder if he’d harbored guilt because he’d known their passion would always be cool and reserved, their coming together a perfunctory thing, a duty, a task.
He’d commented often on her beauty. He’d never made her feel as though he didn’t like her, wasn’t fond of her. But neither had he ever gazed upon her with the hunger Aiden Trewlove had tonight.
Closing her eyes, she drifted off into slumber and did exactly as the club owner had predicted: she welcomed him into her dreams.
Within the attic of his club, surrounded by numerous lamps because the solitary window provided insufficient light in the wee hours before dawn, amidst the chaos of clutter that soothed his soul, Aiden studied the face he’d sketched onto the canvas. It wasn’t much of a face, really. Her jaw, her chin, and that luscious, luscious mouth that haunted him still. The flavor of it, the desperation of it, the way she’d explored his with equal abandon, as though it were all new, a mystery to be solved. Not his particular mouth but kissing in general. Surely her husband had not denied her that pleasure.
He’d lightly etched in her eyes, but the shape was wrong. He needed to see them without the mask because, unlike his other renderings, he yearned for this one to be a perfect reflection of her.
He always sketched out what he saw before painting the image in oils. Few knew he had this talent because he never signed his artwork, but always hidden away faintly, obscured by brighter colors, was the wordEttie. In honor of Ettie Trewlove, the woman who had taken him from his father’s arms and given him reason to believe he had value.
He was passionate about creating items of beauty, scandalous though they might be as he seldom covered his subjects in clothing, preferring instead the flow of lines that comprised the naked human form. But even those were often shadowed, faded, or blurred leaving much to the viewer’s imagination. He created illusions and allowed others to determine the reality. A woman waiting for her lover. A man haunted by unrequited love. Couples kissing, embracing, fornicating. One saw what one needed to see, what one felt inside. That was his talent, not so much the stroke of a brush, but bringing secrets out of the shadows, desire out of the darkness, allowing them to exist and flourish in the light.
The rap on the door would have angered him had it come five minutes earlier, before he’d put to canvas what his eyes had beheld and his fingers had caressed. If he cupped his hands just so until they threw shade over the lines, he could almost feel her face nestled within his palms and experience the softness of her skin, cared for no doubt with expensive creams or lotions, protected from the sun with an assortment of bonnets. A woman named Selena was one who should be spoiled.
