Page 44 of Private Arrangements
“Been capsizing boats lately?” she said, hoping her voice dripped enough tartness.
“Not for a while I haven't. But I did once. The first yacht I ever owned. I worked on the design for years, built her with my own hands, and she tipped over two leagues into her maiden voyage.” He eased the gown off her shoulders, disengaging her arms from the bodice, his touch as light as the first breeze of summer. “Serves me right for calling her theMarchioness.”
Her heart suddenly pounded. He named his first yacht afterher?“What possessed you to do something like that? Did you forget that you couldn't stand me?”
“I was told I should either name my boat after my wife or my mistress,” he said, as her dress crumpled into a heap of coppery satin and tulle. “I towed her in, rebuilt her from scratch, rechristened her theMistress,and she's been sailing fine ever since, one of the fastest racing yachts on the Atlantic.
“You see,” he whispered, loosening her corset laces and lifting the corset over her head. “You are trouble even from three thousand miles away.”
“Truly, is there no depth to which I won't sink?” she asked sarcastically, even as she gripped on to the desk.
Her petticoats slipped off to join the discarded gown. He easily deprived her of her chemise, his accidental touches scalding her skin. “I think I still have a photograph somewhere of me waving from theMarchioness,idiotically overjoyed, just before she sailed.”
“I'd have preferred seeing you in the frigid Atlantic. I should have liked to sail right by and not fish you out.”
He retorted by divesting her of her drawers and trapping her naked body—naked but for white satin evening gloves and white silk stockings—between his body and the edge of the desk.
His fingertips skimmed over her bare bottom and headed slowly yet inexorably for the junction of her thighs. She closed her eyes and bit her lip but refused to clamp her legs together despite her nervousness.
“Are you always this wet?” he whispered. “Or is it just for me?”
She wanted to say something biting, something that would puncture his masculine pride so completely that he'd never be able to gloat again. But it was all she could do to suppress the whimper in her throat as he slowly pushed inside her. His dressing gown caressed her back, cool and silken against the burning sensations of his entry. He withdrew, then rammed inside her with a vigor that forced a gasp from her larynx and lifted her to her toes.
He sank his teeth into her shoulder. Nothing painful, just a strong bite to punctuate the hot, smooth glide of his body into hers. She could not silence a small moan.
Despite her desperate attempt to recite the alphabet backward—she reached only as far as V before she could no longer think—her body drowned in sensations. She was full, so full, and deliciously pummeled. The pleasure gathered and swelled. She gripped the edge of the desk tighter, her mind unable to comprehend anything except the need to extract ever greater, sharper, thicker pleasure from their mating.
That pleasure erupted in a quivering, imploding climax. She was vaguely aware of his final thrust, of the spasm of his body, of his labored breath in her ear and the heavy thudding of his heart against her back, plainly discernible through the thin layer of silk that separated them.
His cheek nuzzled against her neck. His hands were on either side of hers. They stood, practically in an embrace, with him leaning into her, surrounding her.
“Oh, God, Gigi,” he murmured, the syllables barely audible. “Gigi.”
She froze, the spell of the moment shattered. He had uttered that exact phrase on their wedding night, over her, under her, beside her, in what she had believed to be exultant bliss.
She disengaged herself, turned around, and slammed her palms into his chest. Her abrupt ferocity did not budge him, but his eyes widened in surprise. He moved aside. Not caring that she looked like a woman who made her living gracing pornographic postcards, she bent down, gathered an armful of her garments, and pivoted on her heels.
“Wait.” He followed after her. She thought he meant to hand her an item of clothing she had forgotten. But instead he draped his dressing gown about her. “Don't catch a chill.”
She had felt angry, mortified, humiliated. She still did. But his solicitude unearthed pain of the kind she thought she had resolutely put behind her when she cleared out his bedchamber: the pain of what might have been.
“I won't thank you,” she said. She had only surliness left for defense.
“I've done nothing worthy of a thank-you,” he said. “Good night, Lady Tremaine. Until tomorrow night.”
Chapter Eighteen
25 May 1893
Mrs. Rowland greeted Langford, His Grace the Duke of Perrin, with a welcome that was noticeable for the absence of the effusive, sycophantic warmth she plucked out of thin air so easily. Not that one could find fault with her hospitality. But whereas she had once been eager—indeed, greedy—for any furtherance of their acquaintance, this evening she'd metamorphosed into a walking embodiment of correct politeness. Even the soft, pastel gowns she favored had been replaced by a relentless black, like the crepe of a widow in first mourning.
She received him in a parlor lit as brilliantly as the Versailles. So many candles blazed that he wondered if some parish church wasn't missing its altar. The windows facing the country lane were open, the dimity curtains only half drawn. Any passerby could clearly see the entire interior of the room.
Was she so eager to advertise her increasing familiarity with him? Possibly. But the path outside was lightly used during the day and barely trod at night. She might as well have painted herself a sign—The Duke of Perrin calls at this estimable residence—and then planted it face-down in her garden.
“Would you care for something to drink?” she asked. “Tea, pineapple water, or lemonade?”
He was fairly certain that no one had offered him lemonade since he turned thirteen. And it did not escape his attention that she gave him no choice of spirits.
