Page 62 of A Duke Too Far (The Way to a Lord's Heart 4)

Rothhaven settled beside her. She hadn’t shared a bed with a man previously. With him, she liked the companionability. He helped her get the sleeves of the dressing gown sorted out and passed her a glass of water.

“What does it say about me, Althea, that Ienjoyedbeing exhausted to the point of witlessness? I grasped this morning what it means to have a mind truly numbed by fatigue. The peace of it was seductive, like strong spirits but without the bodily reproach for over-indulging.”

The water revived her, though she stopped at half a glass and passed it back to Rothhaven. He took a sip and set the drink aside. He was so casual about intimacies that drew her the way blooming honeysuckle called her to the out-of-doors on a beautiful day.

Sharing a dressing gown that yet held Rothhaven’s body heat and the scent of his shaving soap.

Sharing a glass of water.

Sharing a bed.

“What does it say about me,” she asked, “that I’m supposed to be at Rothhaven Hall to lighten the burdens in the sickroom, but all I can think about right now is spending more time with you in this bed? And I do not refer to another nap.”

Rothhaven’s smile was wry and a little sad. He took her hand and kissed her knuckles. “It means we are both human, for I’d delight in disporting with you as well. Naughty of me, but with you, only honesty will do.”

“So why don’t we disport?” Althea knew why: because she cared for this man and respected him, and what might have been a casual, giggling romp for a girl raised in the slums would be a different undertaking altogether with him.

Different and wonderful, but so very ill-advised.

He brushed his thumb slowly back and forth over her fingers. “I can offer you nothing, Althea. Not tomorrow, not marriage, not a discreet liaison. You deserve devotion and propriety, a public union with all the trappings, a courtship for the ages—all the dignities and graces I cannot provide—and you well know that is your due, my lady.”

She was coming to hope that was her due. “Robbie will never recover?”

“Apparently not, and the fits aren’t the worst of his problems. You saw how he was at the mere mention of an ice bath. He still keeps the drapes closed in his sitting room because even the sight of the moors unnerves him on his bad days. He won’t eat many foods because he was forced to subsist on them for years. Others he shuns because he thinks they aggravate his condition. He’s in no fit state to take on the world and probably never will be.”

Once upon a time, Althea had thought her life wouldneverchange. She’d been doomed to suffer Jack Wentworth’s violence and evil, to suffer poverty and desperation. Quinn’s determination, shrewdness, and good luck had proved thatnevercould turn intosomeday.

She was determined that society’s decision to never accept her also turn into a someday.

But thisneverbesieging the Rothmere family was beyond her control.

“I understand that you must heed your duty to your brother, Nathaniel, and I will not beg for what you cannot promise, but I can offer you myself, here and now. Will you refuse that too in the name of duty, or will you share with me a comparable gift?”

He dropped her hand. “I am no gift, Althea.”

“You are wrong.” Rothhaven had instructed her brilliantly on how to improve her standing in society—a task nobody else had been able to do. He’d paid her the very great compliment of seeking her aid when Robbie had fallen ill. He’d laughed with her over a few hands of cards, and he was in this bed with her now, inspiring feelings so precious and rare Althea had no names for them.

He scrubbed a hand over his face and slanted a look at her. “Shall we argue over my various attributes, or shall I kiss you?”

“Neither.” She won free of the covers, straddled his lap, and planted a smacker on his mouth. “We’ll start with me kissing you, and then you may comment on what our destination should be, assuming your powers of speech have not deserted you.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and snuggled close enough to learn that despite his gentlemanly misgivings, Rothhaven was already impressively aroused.

He untied the bow of her chemise and planted a slow, sweet kiss on her shoulder. “So be it. Here and now, so be it.”

Althea barely gave him time to get the words out before she pulled his shirt over his head and recommenced kissing him.

Nathaniel’s first impression of Althea’s lovemaking was that she had the wisdom to demand a leisurely exploration when he would have galloped past the preliminaries.

He wasn’t ashamed of himself for calling on the widows in York, but something about that whole business had annoyed him, even as it had eased his appetites. The result was an exchange of frustrations. Erotic satisfaction on the one hand, but on the other, an acknowledgment that sexual gratification alone wasn’t all he craved.

Althea, with no expectation of a costly gift or anything beyond the moment, offered him so much more of what he sought. Her hands slid around his neck while she gently pressed his forehead to her throat. This close, she smelled of roses and the lavender sheets. She was wonderfully warm, and her slow, sweet touch unraveled a tension Nathaniel had carried for years.

“I coulddevouryou,” she whispered, biting his ear gently. “Gobble you up over and over.”

She kissed him, sparing him the effort of replying with words. Her kisses were tender, a promenade of mouth upon mouth that invited a mutual tasting.

“I could kiss you endlessly,” she murmured, stroking her fingers through his hair. “But I want you out of these damned breeches.”

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