Page 2 of To Defend a Damaged Duke
“Why do you always taste so divine, Tommy?”
Tommy rolled his hips, his prick hard for his lover once more.“Perhaps because I was made especially for you.”
The lordling leaned up onto an elbow.Solemnly, he studied Tommy.“I do believe you were.”A flush crept up his neck.They could stare at each other all day and never grow tired of the view.
“You were saying,” Tommy prompted, his need growing.“Something about doting on me until I spend again?”
His raven grinned, showing all his beautiful teeth.“Yes!And I shall make it my life’s work.”
Warm fingertips glided up Tommy’s thigh as the lordling came back to himself.“We shall grow old together, you and I.And I shall pass the years teasing you endlessly.Each morning, I shall touch you like this, everywhere but here.”The tip of his thumb tapped the head of Tommy’s swollen prick.“Until I have you begging for me.”Again, his black eyes lifted to gaze adoringly into Tommy’s.“As, hourly, you have me begging for you.”
Lain over Tommy like a thick blanket, the lordling’s body was supple and smooth.If God chose to take Tommy in that moment, he would thank Him kindly and consider it a life well lived.As they deepened the kiss, the lordling’s hips ground into Tommy’s.One day soon, Tommy decided, he’d suggest more; his empty hole craved it, a topic they had yet to broach.Sometimes, Tommy wondered if his lover even knew that was a thing men like them could do.He would explain it, then take the youth’s innocence as tenderly as if it were his own first time.
Soft lips melded as they lost themselves to love.The lordling rubbed himself against Tommy, his teases forgotten.His eyes shuttered closed, his bottom lip trapped between his teeth, the alabaster skin of his cheeks glistened with heat.He was close; they both were.Slipperiness built between their bodies, and with his one untethered hand, Tommy clasped the lordling’s tight buttock.
“I lov—” the raven began.
And never finished.
Cut off by a holler from below.Rattling Tommy’s soul like a musket blast.
“Raid,” Sidney screeched.“Everyone out!Raid!”
*
LOVE WAS MAGICAL.Until the moment it wasn’t.Tommy knew that now.It was a lesson he learned the hard way, alone, with his wrist trapped against an unforgiving headboard and his nakedness cooling in the draught of a doorway flung wide.A lesson paraded along a dim corridor, bundled into a runner’s carriage, ridden through mocking streets.Pilloried at dawn, spat on, and leered at by a hundred jeering faces.
Love.An illusion.A flimsy, sickening story made up in one’s mind.There one day and gone the next.Blown away by the blast of a musket or a puff of wind.As delicate, as ephemeral as spots on a playing card.An illusory pyre on which other people could happily burn their souls.Tommy would never find himself troubled by that crushing emotion again.
Heartbreak though?That was an entirely different story.
Chapter One
Park Lane, Winter, 1823
“IT’S HIGH TIMEyou married.”
Benedict Fitzsimmons, the fourteenth Duke of Ashington, regarded his ebullient youngest brother—by five years—over the edge ofThe Times.“Should this betrothal occur before I reach the end of this astute prediction for Saturday’s race at Epsom?Am I permitted to digest my poached kippers first?”
“Oh, all right.I suppose you may.”Francis grinned.“But eat up and eat well.I have a dreadful suspicion marriage to a lady of breeding will require courage and fortitude.”
“So do I,” Benedict agreed drily, adding his lack of both those attributes to his ever-expanding list of reasons never to marry.One of which he kept private, being more pertinent than the rest.He turned a page.“If you don’t mind, I’ll stick to my four-legged thoroughbreds.At the very least, they will never expect me to endure a week in the country with their parents.”
“It’s not me that wants you wed,” said Francis.“It’s Isabella.She has this crazy notion that if you marry, her father will look more favourably on allowing her to be betrothed to me.”
Benedict frowned.“I don’t follow.”
Lady Isabella Knightley and her swooping, dizzy mind were two handfuls of trouble by anyone’s standards.Frankly, if Benedict were her father, he’d have offloaded her onto the nearest suitable bachelor—such as Francis, the youngest brother of a wealthy duke—as soon as she came of age.Why her father, the Right Honourable Earl Ludham, insisted her older sisters were suitably wed first, holding off until an earl like himself or higher-ranking noble offered his hand, was unfathomable.Mind you, not the cleverest of chaps, Benedict found much unfathomable these days.
“Nor do I.”Francis sounded glum.“And I’m tired of all this waiting.”Though he was usually even-tempered, his mouth formed a petulant moue.“Perhaps we could elope?Not to beat about the bush, but old Lord Ludham seems to have forgotten that young men in love have certain…urges.”
“Eloping won’t endear you to him,” rebuked Benedict mildly.“Many uncertainties prevail in this life—as this newspaper insists on reminding me—but I can assure you that isn’t one of them.And the less I hear about your urges at the breakfast table, the better my digestion.”
Francis heaved an enormous sigh, flopping back in his seat.“Don’t you ever feel like this, Benedict?As if the…the world is conspiring against you?It’s not as if I don’t have money.I’m not a gambler, a drunkard, or a rake.And she’s the only woman I’ll ever love!Whom I’veeverloved.”
The last part came out as a wail of despair, and Benedict threw his brother a commiserative look.Love.Never mind the emotion behind it; even the pitiful word had no place at the duke’s breakfast table.Not love of the romantic sort with its hooks in his brother, anyhow.Loveforhis brother, yes, Benedict had oodles of that.For Isabella too.Almost rivalling the love lavished on his eighteen thoroughbreds.
“It’s quite clear he’s keeping you in reserve,” Benedict declared as if he knew the first thing about fatherhood, daughters, or, indeed, love.“Isabella might be your childhood sweetheart, but she’s a diamond of the first water, and Lord Ludham is determined to find the best possible match.Trust me, if Isabella showed the slightest inclination to be falling for undesirable competition, I’d wager he’d accept your offer at the drop of a hat.As things stand, he doesn’t need to.”
