Page 54 of When her Duke Returns
You’re safe.
I shall be gentle.
What’s mine is yours.
She felt as though there was an unspoken intimacy between them that had forever existed by design. She need only look deeply upon his face to hear the truth of his heart.
Mary kept her eyes open. She wanted to watch as he took her at last, after years of pining and grief. He bit his lower lip as he angled his member to enter her, his chest heaving in time with her own.
Finally,slowly, he pushed himself inside of her. The stars and moon fell apart before her. The pressure was unlike anything she could have imagined—the desire, pain, and relief more delicious than she had dreamed. It felt as though they were two parts of a piece, a question and its answer, as though he had always been missing from her, and never again would she be whole without him.
He kissed her clumsily now, and his length twitched inside her greedily. He began to thrust slowly within her channel, and Mary felt her body writhe against him.
She dug her nails into his shoulders and held him tight against her. Within moments, her pleasure was growing with each thrust. She could tell he had begun to unravel too, for his brow knitted in pleasure, and his breathing became erratic. He continued to take her against thatdamnedwall, faster, more desperately. She wanted to watch it all unfold and fought against her pleasure to keep her eyes open.
He shook his head, though Mary did not know why, and slowed his pace slightly. The Duke brought a hand from where it had rested on her thigh to her core. He ran a finger in small circles over her nub, careful not to break his pace… and Mary felt herself fall apart.
Her pleasure rose to crescendo immediately, and it urged him on to take her faster. She felt her entire body tense up as she reached a climax, her core tightening around him to keep him close. Her back arched as her head hit the stone lip of the pool, and she called out her release into the night in two long, drawn-out cries of triumph.
It seemed to push Alexander over the edge as he moaned a guttural sigh against her neck, his fingers clamping down along her upper thighs as he spilled his seed within her.
They stood there in the haze of the pool for a few moments more, Mary in total disbelief. Her body was overcome by a wave of relief, and she felt as if in a dream. Still, he remained inside her as his breathing came to slow.
“I love you,” Alexander said breathlessly into her neck, his face hidden in the wet tousle of her hair. “Mary, Iloveyou,” he repeated, and she felt hot tears begin to trail down her neck.
He had spoken, she realized. Yet, he had broken nothing at all.
ChapterTwenty-Two
“Ilove you,”Mary whispered under her breath. “I love you; I love you; I loveyou.” No matter how desperately she tried, she could not bring herself to say it in the way he had, and it made her heart ache. How she longed to hear the words again! She had dreamt their melody every night since their goodbye in an attempt to make sense of them or to lock them in untampered memory, wishing she had said them back.
If she had, perhaps everything might have been different.
She stood in front of the long-looking glass of her chambers at Dundurk Abbey, dressed in the gown she was to sport for her wedding but looking as though she was set for an interment. She ran her hands along the red tissue of the dress, a parade of white lace falling from her waist and trailing down to its hem in pleats. The gown had been fashioned to show her shoulders and clavicle, and a ruffle of pristine lace fell down over her arms as well.
It was unconventional for a bride of her station to be dressed in a color so dark, but it felt most fitting given the sobriety of her impending marriage and the stain on her purity.
Mary had not spoken to Antony at any length since they had left the Stantons, and she thought herself most fortunate he seemed busy with other things. The Simons had welcomed them as was their way with manner and indifference though they seemed heartily glad to have their son returned to them after his many years in London.
The village seamstress had traveled up for Mary’s final fitting, and she began setting pins along the trail of her skirts. “What was that you said, My Lady?”
Mary looked down at the woman, her peppered head of hair bobbing below. “Nothing,” Mary reassured the seamstress and began mouthing the words again as if, somehow, she could bring herself to forget them.
As she looked at herself within the looking glass, she could not help but feel like she had been reborn into womanhood. Her skin had more color, her hair seemed fuller and brighter, and her eyes were no longer a muddied show of browns but shifting hues of taupe, amber, grey and green. She understood at last why intimacy was a thing left for dreams, men, and marriage—men would never keep their women in line, should women come to taste the power held within.
“Say what you will about the Carlisle women,” her mother began from her perch on Mary’s bed, her dark hair trailing over her shoulder, “but we do make beautiful brides.”
Lady Jeane Simons was sitting close by, looking over a book of sermons in preparation for the ceremony. She was a tall woman, with red hair and easy countenance, quite unlike her son. “And healthy mothers with any luck!” she added with a forced smile.
Lady Carlisle laughed, but Mary was not amused. “In good time,” her mama said. “Everything in its time.”
“I had my James nine months to the day after marrying his father. Aye, it was his brother that took a while longer to bake,” she added with unusual humor. The room quieted at the mention of Antony’s late brother. It had been many years since his death as a boy, and it was a topic best left unattended. Mary’s mother paid no mind.
“You must miss him gravely,” she said. “It’s been a few years since Lord Carlisle passed, and I’m still not quite the same.”
“Aye, I don’t think we ever are,” Lady Simons replied. “Grief is odd, in that way.”
“Did you ever get to the bottom of what happened?” Mary asked matter-of-factly. She had been too young to remember Master James with any clarity, but there had been rumors abound about his untimely death at the abbey. They had found him drowned in a fountain in the middle of the gardens and had sent a stableboy to his death over it.
