Page 17 of Tempting Harriet
“Yes,” he said. “So would I, Harriet.”
His kiss was instantly reassuring, for it fired her as it always did. She had been wondering all morning and all during the carriage ride if she desired him after all. She had wondered if she loved him after all. But his mouth, open onhers, his arms that drew her against the length of his body,his tongue, which explored first her lips, and then the fleshbehind, and then the cavity of her mouth and the sensitivesurfaces there, put her fears to rest, and for the first time allafternoon she felt heat in her body and desire.
It was not sinful, she told herself. It was not. Neither of them was married to anyone else. Neither of them was deceiving the other. Both of them were freely consenting towhat was happening. She would not believe it was sinful.Or sordid. There was nothing sordid about two matureadults taking some pleasure from each other if no one elsewas getting hurt. She closed her eyes so that she would notsee the room. She pushed the sudden mental image ofSusan from her mind. She would not feel sinful. This waswhat she had wanted for six years.
“Harriet.” He was murmuring into her ear and running one spread palm down her back to her waist, past the curveof her spine and lower and then back up again. “Relax.”
She had not realized that she was tense. But of course she was. As taut as a bow. She allowed herself to relax againsthim. “I am sorry, your grace,” she said.
And then his eyes were looking down into hers from a mere few inches away, silver, mocking, heavy with desire.“We had better dispense with that courtesy,” he said,“under the circumstances. I have tried to think of a moreunfortunate name than Archibald that my parents mighthave given me, and I have failed miserably, alas. Thereisno more unfortunate name. Most of my intimates call meArchie. If you cannot persuade yourself to do that, it willhave to be Tenby. But not‘your grace,’ Harriet. Not in thishouse, anyway.”
This house was to be a world apart, of course, and everything that happened in it. Outside this house they would maintain the formality of most of their previous dealings.She had known it would be so. It made sense. She wouldnot give in to that feeling of sin that was trying to intrude.
“Archie,” she said. It seemed more intimate than a kiss to call him by his given name. She had never ever thought ofhim by it alone. Always he had figured in her mind with histitles.
“Suddenly,” he said, smiling, “I like my name. Do you wish to wear a nightgown? There is a variety hanging in thedressing room through the door behind you. I will waitwhile you change into one if it will make you feel morecomfortable. I would prefer to unclothe you without thatlapse of time, of course. Ah, the blush. You make blushesuniquely attractive, Harriet.”
It was real suddenly, what was to happen. Godfrey had never unclothed her or seen her unclothed. He had alwaysmade love to her in darkness and beneath the bedclothes,raising her nightgown only as high as was necessary. Evenon her wedding night she had felt no great embarrassment.
“It will be as you wish,” she said, wanting the decency of a nightgown but not wanting to step inside that dressingroom to view the array of nightgowns his former mistresseshad worn.
“That,” he said, “is quite an invitation, Harriet.”
He kissed her again and she knew the moment was coming inexorably closer. She became aware that his hands were opening the buttons that held her dress closed at theback. The buttons extended below her waist. His mouthmoved downward, over her chin and along her neck to thepulse at the base of her throat. She tipped back her headand closed her eyes. His hands had drawn her dress off hershoulders and were moving it down her arms. Her chemise,she could feel without either lifting her head or opening hereyes, was coming with it. And then his mouth was at onenaked breast and closing, warm and wet and piercinglysweet, over the nipple.
“Ah,” she heard herself say. A stabbing ache had tautened both nipples and set up a throbbing in her womb. This was what physical desire was, she realized suddenly. Shehad never really felt it to this extent before.
“Come.” His mouth was against hers again, his eyes half closed. “We can pursue this more satisfactorily on the bed.”
It was only when he turned her, one arm firmly about her, to lead her to the bed and lay her down on it, that sheunderstood fully that she was naked. In broad daylight.With his eyes on her. He stood beside the bed, his heavy-lidded eyes roaming over her quite unapologetically as hebegan to unclothe himself.
“I have always wondered,” he said, “if the blush covered your whole body down to your toenails. It does. How verycharming.”
He pulled off his shirt and began on his pantaloons without any apparent selfconsciousness. But then why did he need to feel any? He looked even more magnificent withouthis shirt than he did fully clothed. He must work very hard,she thought, to keep those muscles so splendidly firm. Shelooked up into his eyes and saw his amusement at the factthat she was appraising his form as frankly as he was appreciating hers.
And then he was on the bed beside her, one powerful and naked arm pushing beneath her head, the other coming behind her waist to draw her against him. She inhaled slowlyand smelled warm masculinity. She thought she mightswoon.
“What do you like, Harriet?” he asked against her mouth. “What are your preferences? Let me pleasure you.”
Her eyes snapped open.
He laughed softly. “You are quite inexperienced, are you not?” he said.
“Yes.” She swallowed.
“But not virgin?”
“No.” It seemed that he did not know of Susan’s existence. She did not know why she had never mentioned her to him. She did not want him to know about her daughter.She wanted her two worlds kept strictly apart. She hadnever mentioned the Duke of Tenby to Susan.
“Ah,” he said. “Well, let me pleasure you even so, Harriet. That is why we are here, is it not?”
Yes, that was why they were there. There would be no romance, he had said the afternoon before in Kew. No love.She had chided herself then for the hurt she had felt. But itwas part of what she had decided upon. She had decided tobecome his mistress. There was no romance, no love inbeing a man’s mistress. Just this. Physical pleasure.
He pleasured her. She forgot embarrassment and her foolish craving for romance in pure physical sensation ashis hands and his mouth and his tongue, marvelouslyskilled, brought her pleasure. No, not pleasure. Pain. Painthat was pleasure. She put all comparisons from her mind.She had decided beforehand that she would under no circumstances make comparisons. But that part of her mindthat was beyond her control made them anyway. Althoughshe had been a wife for four years, although she had beenused as such regularly once a week during those years, although she was a mother, she came to understand that herbody had been unawakened until now. She came to understand that what had happened in her marriage bed had beenmore emotional than physical—for her, anyway. She hadenjoyed physical union with Godfrey because it hadbrought her as close to him in every way as she could beand she had loved him. Her body had never rejoiced inwhat he did to it, only her mind and her emotions.
And then the splendidly young and muscular body with which her own was awakening to the pleasures of the fleshlifted over her and came down on her. Her legs movedwide, the sensitive flesh of her inner thighs riding againstpowerful masculine ones. She longed, with a sudden renewal of her earlier panic, for love, for the older, thinner,more angular body of the man who had loved her with gentleness and reverence and had never excited her at all.
“Easy, Harriet.” The Duke of Tenby set his mouth lightly to hers and murmured into it. “You are as skittish as amaiden. Easy.”
