An Undesirable Duke Page 15

  She could tease Roderick as much as she wanted as long as it was his bed she came to at night. Weirick loosened the neck of her nightgown, pulling it down until her glorious breasts were exposed to him. He took his time worshiping them with his lips and tongue, but his ultimate goal was a much more intimate kiss. He’d been thinking of her since the moment she left him this morning, the scent of her, the taste of her. The mere thought made him salivate. Moving lower, he teased her nightgown up her thighs, revealing pale shapely legs, his pulse increasing with every inch of creamy skin. At last, his treasure was revealed to him. He wasted no time, burying his mouth between her thighs, her back arching off the coverlet as she cried out in surprise.

  “Weirick,” she gasped. The sound fueled his raging desire as he feasted on her, using his tongue and fingers to drive her to heights she’d never experienced before. Her legs shook and her hands fisted in the counterpane. Weirick relentlessly tortured her until she screamed and shattered with his lips on her, feeling every wave of pleasure that crashed through her. His own body screamed for release, the urge to lunge over her and thrust inside her overwhelming. But he held back, his muscles painfully bunching in his back and thighs as he teased the last ripples of her release from her body with his tongue and turned her sated body over to her side and lay behind her. He bit back a hiss as he adjusted his staff against her lush bottom, sinking into the softness between her thighs but not inside her core where he was desperate to be. He could feel her heat and wetness and slid against her slick thighs in rapid thrusts.

  He needed every ounce of his self-control for this. One wrong move, and there could be a lifetime consequence. His arms came around her, one under her to hold her against him and cup her breast, and the other over her hips to keep her legs tightly together. His climax rushed at him like a runaway horse, and he groaned into her hair as he pumped his hips, spilling hot seed along the inside of her thighs. He closed his eyes, a profound exhaustion coming over him, but he knew he could not succumb. He forced himself to leave her side and put on a dressing robe. He returned to her with a towel and wiped her thighs. She’d sat up, and watched him in wary silence.

  He half expected hysterics as she slid from the bed and righted her nightgown, but instead she stepped close to him, bringing her hands to cradle the back of his head. She kissed him, eyes closed, mouth soft and hungry. But it wasn’t the kiss that startled Weirick, it was the way she held him, more specifically, the way she touched his scarred skin without hesitation. Without revulsion.

  He struggled to find words for the odd crack he felt inside himself. An uncomfortable shifting. When she pulled away, he couldn’t speak.

  “Good night, Weirick,” she said, and left him standing there, dumbfounded, and shaken.

  * * *

  The next night was the same. She spent the day on Roderick’s arm, laughing, smiling, and Weirick seethed silently. But after everyone retired for the evening she appeared in his room, and they came together without speaking, using their hands and their mouths to say what was too complicated to say.

  When Weirick woke Thursday morning, alone, his body hungry for Violet, he knew today would have to be different. So far, he’d held himself in check. There had been no blood spilled on these sheets, but he would not survive another day seeing Violet with Roderick, seeing Roderick caress Violet with his eyes. It didn’t matter how innocent their interactions. Every moment Violet spent with Roderick was like a hair thin slice into Weirick’s sanity. He’d had enough. His mind was screaming to take her, claim her, and damn the consequences.

  He prowled around his room, waiting for his tug on the bell cord to be answered. It was early yet, but the staff should have risen by now. A footman rapped on his door, and Weirick sent him on his way with a message for Violet in hand. Approximately thirty minutes later, Weirick was in the stables, Hugo and a friendly mare saddled and waiting. He watched the path to the castle, fighting the urge to chew his nails until he saw her come around the bend. She smiled at him, her lips still rosy from his kisses the night before, her deep blue riding habit hugging her curves so tightly he wanted to trace them with his hands.

  He spared no time getting her saddled and as far away from Selbourne Castle as he could. They rode until the morning mist had burned away, and most of the dew had dried. They had ridden inland, away from the sparse rolling hills of grass, to where thickets of trees turned to forests. Only then did he stop. He found a small pond shaded by trees and patches of grass for the horses to graze.

  He helped her dismount, her eyes shining with intrigue as he returned to his horse and untied the blanket he’d brought. He spread it out and invited her to sit with a wave.

  She did, her lush lips smiling at him as she patted the space beside her.

  “What is this about?” It may have been the first words spoken between them, but Weirick wasn’t sure. His mind was churning with thoughts, things he wanted to say, things he should say, and terrifying things he would never say.

  “I wanted to steal you away in daylight, and see what my brother does about it.”

  “Oh, so this is all to taunt Roderick?”

  “No, I’m also selfish and insatiable.” He leaned into her to nuzzle her neck, breathing deep the flowery earthy scent of her mixed with the horse and sea air.

  She giggled and tried to squirm away, but he caught her chin with one hand and held her still, turning her face to his to steal a kiss. She let him but then pulled away.

  “I will come to you tonight like before.”

  “Why wait? I want to see you in daylight. Why do we hide away at night while Roderick enjoys the sunshine on your hair and skin?”

  “You know why.” She lay back on the blanket, and Weirick pressed over her, torn between the fumbled words inside him clawing their way up his throat and the more pleasurable alternative of kissing instead of speaking.

  But the words came, and with them the burning need to voice them. He was torn in two by the force of them, his ardor shoved aside by pain and anger. “Why is it, Violet? Is it because Roderick is the flawless one and I’m the guilty pleasure?” He heard his own words through the sound of his blood pounding in his ears.

  Her lovely face hardened, the dreamy desire turning to anger. Her bottom lip quivered, and he imagined she was trying to decide which curses to scream at him.

  “Why would you say that?”

  “How can it not be true?”

  “That is your deficiency, not mine. You refuse to see what is plainly obvious to everyone else. You want to see the worst in me—in everyone, because it is what you see in yourself. You believed everything they wrote about you in the papers, and you want me to believe it. It’s why you push me away every time I get a little closer to you.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” He loomed over her, feeling the world tilt around them as her words crashed inside his head like waves on rocks.

  “You’re not a monster, Weirick, and neither am I. Your brother and mother want you to stay because they care for you. You’re the one who insists on pushing all of us away.”

  “Stop.”

  She held his face, even though he must look terrifying, glaring down at her as he was.

  “No. You stop. Stop resisting me. Stop fighting.”

  He pushed away, staggering to his feet and walking toward the shadowed woods where it was dark, and the cool air made breathing easier. She followed, which didn’t surprise him. She was a force of her own, his Violet. His Violet. He scrubbed his hands over his face, turning to her, ready to have it out. It was time, more than time. This all would end one way or another.

  “Are you ready to stop fighting?”

  “Fighting is the only thing I’m good at, Violet. Letting people close to me, trust, love—those things are foreign to me now, as alien as an ancient language. I don’t understand these things. I fear them. But hurting people, that I understand. I do it for money and I do it for fun. I’ve hurt everyone I’ve ever known in one way or ano
ther, including you. It’s time you see that. I’m a lost cause. I’m no good for anyone or anything.”

  “That isn’t true.” She reached for him and he caught her wrists. He couldn’t let her touch him, not when his knees were going to crumble at any moment, and his will to keep her away would go with it. He’d thought being burned alive was bad, and worse, his own father had told him to die, but telling the only woman who might wish to love him, to leave him, had to be a fatal blow. How could it not? How could he ever be the same again? She was his last tie to this world, to England, to everything he’d known about who he used to be.

  “Why would you wait for me for five years? You knew nothing about me.”

  She searched his face. “I’ve asked myself that question every day for five years. Why should I wait? At first, it was easy. I was only sixteen and hadn’t debuted yet. I could spend as much time as I wanted dreaming about you, and there was no expectation. I imagined our next meeting over and over, I dreamed of our first dance at my come-out ball. And when you never appeared, it was like you were a dream all along. I was crushed. Heather assured me you were too young still, not interested in these types of affairs, but in time you would appear. None of us knew what had happened, how could we? Then I saw your brother, and at first, I thought it was you. But he was different than you in so many ways. I was shattered, Weirick. I lived a half-life, pretending to be interested in the glittering world around me, but none of it held a candle to you.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “I didn’t expect you to, but I thought—I thought if we met again, you’d feel what I felt and we’d finally be together.”

  He swallowed, but his throat seized. He couldn’t breath as his eyes began to sting. “Violet,” he croaked. Guilt crashed through him, would he ever stop hurting? Or hurting others? This was precisely why he needed to leave. He was cursed. At some point, God deemed him unworthy of everything that made life worth living, love, beauty, faith, and now he was being tortured for something he’d done. He rapidly searched his mind. Benedict.

  He’d taken everything from Benedict. Why? Because he could, because at the time it had been amusing to watch his friend make desperate bets to win and lose every time. Weirick had watched him squander his inheritance. He could have stopped him; he could have given it all back to him with the turn of a single card. Weirick needed none of it; he had everything already. What kind of person did that to another?

  A person didn’t, but a monster did.

  Violet’s lips were moving, but he couldn’t hear her. His mind had finally focused, and he was turned inward, at last able to see what he hadn’t cared to see all along.

  He was broken long before Benedict threw the lamp. A heartless, over privileged whelp who deserved nothing of the gilded life that his father had spoon fed him. He was undeserving, then and now.

  “Weirick!” She grabbed his coat lapels, doing her best to shake him, but instead she only moved herself. He refocused on her, and he knew what he had to do. A clean break, before he ruined her as he’d ruined Benedict.

  “You’ve reached a whole new level of madness, Violet. I didn’t ask any of this of you. I made no promises.” His heart was tearing itself in two inside his chest. It was worse than the burns that scarred him, but he accepted the pain as his due. He deserved it.

  “You challenged me to a duel. That was a promise.” She gulped down a breath, tears spilling over her lashes.

  “What would you have me do?” He pulled her hands away from him and dropped them as if they burned him. “I won’t marry you. I want no part of England, and there is certainly no place for a wife in my new life.”

  “I demand satisfaction, Weirick. Make love to me.” She stepped close and draped her arms around his neck. “I’ll take whatever I can have of you.”

  His heart ceased beating. A strange hollowness filled him, cold and dark. “And then what? You’ll magically forget me?” His own voice sounded distant to him and strange, as if it wasn’t his, and he wasn’t there anymore.

  “Never, but at least I’ll have something—a memory—to hold on to when you’re gone. It will be more than I had for the last five years.”

  How could she ask this of him? How could he deny her? She was asking for one night only, something he’d been craving since he set eyes on her. One night would never be enough, but it would be something, wouldn’t it? A memory he could keep for himself, a bit of closure. She was his past, a life he could have had if only he’d been a better man, a better friend. In a way, they both needed this. This would be the end of that past, a final goodbye to what would have been.

  “Fine. One night.” The words were out before he could take them back.

  She nodded. “One night to know what I’ll be missing for a lifetime.”

  His gut twisted. She always did that, reminded him how for her, it would never end. Well, it had to. He would leave nothing of himself behind, not even his regrets, nothing to hurt anyone ever again.

  “Come to my room after the ball.” He shivered as he said the words, a cold sweat breaking out over the back of his neck. He was going to ruin her, and leave her behind. He wanted her, enough to barter his soul for it.

  But he had no soul to bargain with.

  It was all she was asking for, and he didn’t have the will to deny her.

  She nodded once. “We should get back.”

  He dragged his lips across hers, he had to steal a kiss. There were three days left of this party. Weirick would force Roderick to pick a bride at the end, and it would not be Violet. The wedding would follow immediately in Scotland, and then Weirick would leave and never see these misty shores again. He gazed into Violet’s eyes. He’d never stare into her dreamy eyes again, or see them cloud over with desire. He’d never hear her pant his name or break apart in his arms.

  He stepped back and her arms fell away from him. “We better hurry back. There’s a storm coming.”

  Chapter 19

  Violet wore her best dress, a silver overdress of silk net with a lavender underdress. The sleeves were narrow and elbow length, and the neckline higher than what was popular, which helped Violet feel secure while dancing. The sleeves and hem were embroidered in radiant violets of chenille thread. When she moved, the shifting fabrics made her shimmer like a diamond. For this evening, she wore her mother’s diamond drop earrings, and Janice glued paste diamonds to pins to put in her hair.

  Violet never said it, but somehow they all knew this evening was special. Tonight would change everything. It was like having a second chance, a come-out ball where this time she would have her dance with Weirick, and she suspected she would fall in love all over again. Would he feel the same?

  The thought frightened her. She was flying close to the sun, desperately praying her wings stayed together. But his words this morning were not reassuring. Something had changed in him, and it wasn’t a good something. In his features, she’d seen a bleakness come over him, and his eyes had gone dark and distant as though he hadn’t seen or heard her.

  She wasn’t sure which Weirick she would see tonight, if he showed up at all.

  The number of castle guests would quadruple for the ball, and Violet was keen to know if Weirick would want to put himself on display for the local families attending.

  As she and her mother made their way down the stairs for dinner, Violet’s knees shook like gelatin. Coming into the great hall, the glittering light of so many candelabras made her head swim, and her thin silk dress turned into a heavy blanket of scratchy wool. She took a deep breath, but her heart wouldn’t slow as they climbed the steps to the drawing room and were greeted by the other guests.

  Two familiar faces caught her eye, and Violet smiled in relief. “Bernie, Lord Chester.”

  “Violet, you look stunning, I’ve never seen a dress like that.” Bernie hugged her.

  “Thank you, you look as equally lovely. Green suits you.” Violet stepped back to admire Bernie’s dress.

  Bernie smiled uncomfortabl
y and smoothed the skirt of her dress. “It’s probably out of fashion and not quite suitable for a ball.”

  “Nonsense,” Violet assured her. “It’s simple and elegant, which makes it timeless.”

  Bernie blushed. “Thank you, you’re being too kind.”

  Violet wanted to give Bernie another tight hug. She was obviously uncomfortable and feeling out of vogue. Violet was about to say something more when Chester chucked Bernie under the chin.

  “Chin up, your smile alone puts most of these ladies to shame.”

  Violet bit her tongue while Bernie looked at Chester with a glare sharp enough to slice him at the knees.

  He blanched. “What did I say wrong?”

  “Nothing.” Bernie snapped at him. “Stop hovering like a governess and find someone else to bother.”

  He folded his arms. “I’ll have your first dance.”

  “Why?”

  “Your first dance or I don’t leave your side the entire evening.”

  Bernie’s hands curled to fists. “How am I supposed to find a husband with you hanging around my neck?”

  “First dance.”

  “Fine, but then take yourself off and find a wife so that I may have some peace.”

  Chester scowled at Bernie, nodded to Violet, and took himself off.

  Violet bit her tongue but then thought better of it. “Are you sure you two aren’t in love?”