Page 83 of Taken By the Duke of Stone

Everyone who was in attendance at the Duke of Wyld and his new Duchess's wedding testified that the two only had eyes for each other. Besotted was the word that flew about the room.

“I now pronounce you husband and wife,” the priest declared.

Everything that had led them to this moment had seemed like a fever dream to Lavinia, but the priest’s words finally sealed the fact that this was reality. She really was Victor’s wife now, his duchess.

“Regrets?” He leaned forward to whisper to her.

She shook her head with a face splitting smile, “None whatsoever.”

“I want to kiss you.”

She laughed. “You will get the tongues wagging and then we will be exiled from polite society.”

“And finally left alone? Well then, Your Grace, let us give them a show.”

And she laughed some more.

As soon as the door to the Duke's carriage shut behind them, they were on each other, hands grasping, mouths needing.

"I feel like I have not seen you in years," Victor grumbled, pressing hot kisses to her skin.

She wrapped her arms around his neck to keep from tumbling to the floor of the vehicle as it rode through uneven cobblestone streets. She was in her husband's lap and his arms and scent surrounded her.

Lavinia was tempted to order the driver to ride them straight to the Wyld country seat where they could disappear from the curious eyes of thetonand straight to their bed till whenever they saw fit to resurface.

"You are exquisite, Lavinia," he kissed her again, like he couldn't quite get enough of her and it was the same for her. She wondered if this urgency she had to be in her husband's arms would fade with time.

The cruelest thought suddenly occurred to her, and she immediately blurted it out.

"What about when you no longer love me?"

He stared at her wordlessly and then he chuckled, "I will never cease to love you. I do not know how I know this, so please do not ask me. What I do know is that you will forever be in my heart."

Victor took her hand and guided it to his chest and against his beating heart through layers of clothing. "You are inside of me like the blood that flows in my veins, Lavinia. Do you understand?"

When she stared at him, all she could see in her eyes was an honesty that rocked her to her core, and she nodded.

"I will love and cherish you forever." She cupped his jaw and then brushed her mouth over his. His fingers dug into the back of her hair and he began to pull her close.

A sharp rap on the door stilled them and then Lord Hartfield's voice following the knock on the door caused them to spring apart like debutantes about to cause a scandal. When they realized what they had done, they stared at each other silently and then burst into laughter.

Lavinia stared at him at that moment and she had never loved him more. He was so gorgeous and so perfect, and the very best part was that he was all hers.

She still recalled how she had stormed into his house the previous work, full of righteous indignation.

"Do you plan on setting up a mistress somewhere in the city?" she roared. "Because if that is your plan, you can go ahead and call the entire affair off because I will not sit back and watch you humiliate and hurt and break my heart in such a fashion."

The Duke had stared up at her from his large oak desk and then he had frowned, "What is going on with you?"

"Do you already have one then?"

"It will be impossible to have a mistress without having a wife, don't you agree, Lavinia?"

"Victor," she hissed furious on the outside but on the inside, she had been trembling with fright, terrified that he would agree to the horror she had heard her cousin and his friends discussing.

She had never thought of herself as a particularly possessive person but when it came to the Duke, she knew that she would go feral if she ever discovered that he was keeping a woman on the side.

He had smiled at her, "you are more than enough for me to handle Lavinia and not only that, I am far too taken with you to bother with anyone else, and also, no other woman could hold a candle to you, so there really is no use of me searching or bothering myself with the complications of keeping a second London home to house a mistress."

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