Page 87 of The Duke's Dream
William pulled his cock from her mouth. Panting, he caught her from the floor and lifted her onto his chest. She found his lips, kissing him with a passion that bordered on desperation.
If she was desperate, he was ravenous. He wanted more. More than her lips, more than three times per week, he wanted all. Her breath was ragged, and she clung to him, her body trembling. He pressed her against the wall, one arm securing her waist while the other slid under her thigh, hitching her leg around his hip. Her ballerina legs instinctively wrapped around his waist as he positioned himself, his chest brushing against her breasts. With a powerful thrust, he entered her, their bodies merging in one long, delicious movement.
Bliss. Ecstasy. Temporary relief.
She had no more red in her lips, but he devoured her mouth, wanting all her colors, all her taste.
"I hate—sharing you."
Their breaths turned louder than the orchestra's reel.
"You are the Silent Sovereign, and I'm the Sylph." She panted, her channel pulsing around him. "When the curtain calls, I will return backstage, and you will stay here."
She buried her face in his neck, and William groaned. What were they doing? She was in his arms, and she was not—it was like making love to a cloud, a cloud with faded red lips and humid eyes. His own eyes became moist.
He hadn't shed a tear in his life. Not when his mother deserted him, not when his siblings ran away, not when his father died.
William felt like a ship adrift in open water. No compass. No stars. No bearings.
Which was impossible. His feet were planted.
And then Helene came apart in his arms, shattering like moonlight on the sea. And he knew the truth.
He was lost. Utterly lost.
Thescentofbrewedcoffee mingled with the tang of the nearby market as William stepped into the Albion. He scanned the room, ignoring the clatter of cups and murmur of conversation, searching for the man who had disrupted Parliament and haunted Thornley's sleep.
How did one reason with a man like Farley?
William was used to negotiating with peers—men who respected hierarchy and restraint. But what common ground could he find with a radical who risked everything for impossible relationships?
The server gestured toward a corner table. William turned—and blinked.
No flamboyant curls or Byronic flair. Just a lean man in a sagging suit, his hair neatly combed back from a face that looked tired, too sharp for his youth.
Farley.
William's instinct was to command the conversation, to assert control—but he halted, Helene's voice echoing like a soft caution. Don't start with demands.
"May I have a word?"
"The Silent Sovereign, what honor." Farley pointed to a chair.
William declined Farley's cigar offer and pointed to the book he was reading. "Wordsworth? I would not expect a radical to read the Poet Laureate."
Farley blushed. "You caught me. I endorse Keats and Shelley's ideas, but poetry? Wordsworth's ability to capture the sublime haunts me."
"Then we have that in common," William said, surprised at the ease in his own voice. "During my summers in Albemarle Park, I had copies of Wordsworth, Goethe, and Coleridge hidden in all gazebos and summer houses."
His mind would fly, searching the blue skies for the sprite.
Farley leaned in, his eyes sharpening with interest. "So you were a dreamer once."
The words hit harder than they should have.
William looked away, fingers tapping lightly against the tabletop. He had been once. Not just dreaming of the sprite in the forest, but of change—of ideals. He remembered devouring Rousseau and Locke in secret, imagining a gentler world, one shaped by reason and progress rather than lineage and war.
Then came the French Revolution. The terror. The riots in London.
