Finally she responded to Castleford’s invitation. She was grateful for His Grace’s condescension and kind thoughtfulness, she explained to Mr. Austry. She would expect the duke’s coach at midday on Thursday next.
“T
hey are up to something. Our wives, that is,” Hawkeswell said. He sat on a chair in Castleford’s bedchamber, more into his cups than was normal these days.
All the friends visiting this afternoon had left true sobriety behind. The empty wine bottles formed a line on the writing table where the manuscript waited for its final chapter.
“Hawkeswell is known to raise suspicions without cause,” Summerhays said. “This time he is correct. Something is afoot.”
“We can only hope that we never learn what it is,” Albrighton said. “In the meantime, I am taking advantage of Celia’s efforts to distract me from noticing. I have only to mention all those letters going back and forth among them for her to drag me to bed.”
A loud crash all but obliterated his last words. Castleford looked in the direction of the sound. The two men working near the fireplace froze and glanced over cautiously.
Speaking of beds . . .
“You did say all of it, sir. We’ve no choice but to break this piece down to do it.”
“I am not complaining. Get on with it.”
The men continued their labor. Hawkeswell gazed over and poured more wine into his glass.
“I still do not know why you must do this,” he said.
“It is just a bed, Hawkeswell. I have bought a new one. Just as big. Much nicer and more fashionable in style too.”
“It is not just any bed, and you know it.”
No, it wasn’t. It was the bed Daphne did not want to get into.
“This is symbolic, I assume,” Albrighton said. “A rite of passage requires such rituals.”
“For a man who rarely speaks plainly, sometimes you manage to baldly say what is better left unsaid, Albrighton,” Castleford said.
“My apologies. I just assumed we all knew why—”
“Yes, damn it, we all know why,” Hawkeswell snapped.
“See?” Castleford said, pointing to Hawkeswell. “He sees more symbolism than exists, unfortunately. As do you, perhaps. Only Summerhays here comprehends that I merely dispose of one bed because I have bought a new one.”
“Actually, I am of like mind with the others,” Summerhays said. “It is why you have us here, is it not? To give you courage as you send part of your old life to the funeral pyre?”
“Hell, are you going to be boring too? You are all here because I thought it would be
fun
. Mistake, that, I can see now. Hawkeswell, stop being so tediously serious. Damn, you will probably start composing a poetic eulogy to those ropes and boards soon.”
“A splendid idea, actually. Allow me,” Summerhays said.
He stood and cleared his throat. “We gather here today to bid farewell to a special piece of furniture. Most beds remain nothing more than a collection of wood and hemp. They serve their purpose without complaint or praise. They know their place in the grand design, and it is a humble place. Some beds, however, most notably the one that we today send to its just rewards in the afterlife—”
“Hell, I assume that would be,” Albrighton quipped.
“Would you care to take over?” Summerhays asked.
“I could never match your eloquence. Pray, continue.”
“Some beds rise above the ordinary and make their marks on the history of man. Today we say good-bye to that rarity in the world, a
great
bed. A bed that saw more pleasure in a fortnight than most see in their entire existence. A bed that inspired fortitude and creativity previously unknown in sensual endeavors.” He raised his glass and his voice. “Gentlemen, let us give this noble bed the honor it is due.” He drank and threw the glass into the fireplace. The flames jumped high. The workers jumped back.
Albrighton’s glass followed.
Hawkeswell cast his own forward. “Damnation, I think I am going to weep.”
Castleford hesitated, appreciating rather suddenly the potential symbolism. He rather wished he had named the damned bed, so he could send it off properly.
He noticed the others watching him pause, Hawkeswell rather hopefully.
Summerhays smiled. “It is truly time, Your Grace. There is better to be had than you ever knew in it. Trust all of us that this is true.”
Laughing at that notion, but with more trust than he would ever admit, Castleford threw his glass forward.
D
aphne could not have asked to travel to London in more style. Castleford’s coach rolled up to The Rarest Blooms with two footmen standing behind all decked out in their livery. Once inside she noticed that a basket with some wine and fruit waited, and a lap blanket should she find the day too cool.
Upon arriving at the duke’s house, servants swarmed to serve her. The butler came out to open the coach’s door himself, as if she were a duchess.
Another figure showed. Castleford himself stepped out of the house to greet her. The honor took her aback and made her pause before walking forward to join him. She looked at him intently, at how his body communicated utter confidence and how his face displayed both indifference and intense interest in her arrival.
She looked long and carefully so she would always remember him there. She suspected she would be branding her mind a lot these next few days.
The butler handed her over to his master. Castleford drew her inside. “You should have come sooner,” he said, his tone very ducal and a little resentful.
“You did not invite me sooner.”
“I clearly told you that you were to come here. Hell, it has been two damned weeks.”
“I am here now, at least. We can have a row if you insist, but it will be a poor welcome.”
He drew her aside, to privacy. “We can have the row later.” He cupped her head with his hands and held her to a sweet kiss, one that made her heart shake. “I intend to make sure that by Monday, you do not want to leave.”
She barely managed to hide how that touched her. She would leave, whether she wanted to or not. By Monday she expected him to feel differently on the question too.
“I told the housekeeper that you would use that chamber you and she discovered near my apartment,” he said, taking her hand and leading her to the stairs.
“Was she scandalized?”
“I don’t know. Are there people who worry about scandalizing servants? How odd.”
They did not stop at the public rooms above but kept going. He brought her into his dressing room and immediately swung her around and began unfastening her dress.
“Two weeks,” he muttered. “It has been hell.”
She felt the dress gaping already. “Your Grace, I would prefer—”
“It was one thing when I had not had you yet, Daphne, but this was unacceptable torture. I do not want a row, just a right understanding. When I say you must come here to me, that means you are to do it.”
She slid out of his busy hands and grasped the sides of her dress behind her. “I understand your impatience, Castleford, but let us at least go to my chamber first.”
“Oh, that. Here, let me show you what I have done.” He took her other hand and sped her to the bedchamber door. He threw it open and gestured. “We do not have to use that other chamber now. I removed the one here, and put in a new one.”
She realized he spoke of the bed. She went over, trying not to stumble on her sagging dress’s hem.
Everything was new. Even the drapes. She examined the changes, too astonished to speak.
“In case you are wondering, it is still a virgin bed,” he said. “No woman has been in it.”
She bit her lower lip. She had never expected him to understand that she did not want to join the spirits of his whores on that other bed. That he had not only understood but done this for her, left her undone and in danger of losing her composure.
She braved a smile, but her heart filled with a beautiful ache.
She opened her reticule. “Thank you. I am moved that you were so thoughtful.” She poured the diamond necklace and earrings into her hand. “Help me to put these on, so that the first woman to use it is worthy of the honor.”
He fastened the necklace at her nape while she worked the earrings. Laden with the jewels, she stepped out of her dress and began dropping her chemise.
He sat on the bed and watched, his expression severe with his attention. Thoughts that she could not fathom caused golden lights to form in his eyes. Not only desire caused that intensity while she undressed under that gaze. He was not distracted either. Those unknown thoughts centered on her.
Naked except for her hose, she propped one foot beside his hip so she could deal with her garter. He took over, loosing the ribbon and sliding her hose down, looking at all of her while his action created a caress that made her tremble.
He made quick work of the other one, then pulled her close so she stood between his knees.
“Diamonds, and nothing else,” he said, tracing around her breasts with his fingertips. “They become you in so many ways. Not only your beauty. They show you as you are inside, I think. They illuminate your pride and your strength. Right now you are not a woman for a man to take lightly, that is certain. You appear capable of great danger, should you turn your mind to it.”
She said nothing. She dared not assume to what he might allude. With Castleford, it could be anything.
His tongue laved her nipple playfully, then luxuriously. Powerful trembles began inside her. He must have sensed them, because his hand slid between her thighs, and he gently caressed there in ways certain to madden her quickly.
“I decided, while you were gone that you did not want to marry because I am unreformed,” he said between kisses and nips. “But I also thought there was more to it. Seeing you now, I am sure there is.”
She closed her eyes, because the sensations streaked through her now in a series of deep, moving tremors of pleasure.
“You are not going to tell me why, are you?”
“No.” Perhaps she only answered in her mind. Her senses were being overwhelmed in a way that made it hard to know.
“So I am to have you as a mistress only, for now. I am inclined to accept the truth of that. It is in my interests to do so right now. Gentlemen are less careful in bed with mistresses than with wives, and mistresses are more willing to be wicked.”
She felt quite wicked. Desperately so. His hand teased at her, stroking slowly but deliberately avoiding the touches that would also give some relief. He dazed her so badly she had to hold his shoulder to keep her balance.
He stood and had her lie down. He undressed while he looked at her. “The sunlight makes those diamonds flame,” he said while he stripped off his shirt. “It is as if white fire pours out of you.”
The fire was all in her, burning recklessly. When he knelt on the bed and kissed her, she reached for him and caressed his phallus, so she might make him burn too.
The scorching kisses he pressed on her neck and chest said he did. Wildness claimed them both, and they grasped and bit and clutched as if passion would consume them.
He kissed down her body, not carefully, not even very gently. He kissed her and moved her as if he had a right to do whatever he chose. His whole body turned as he did it, until his mouth could reach between her thighs and start the pleasure that unhinged her.
Her eyes blurred as the power crashed through her. His position put his hips close to her. She used both her hands to give him pleasure while she lost herself.
He stopped suddenly. She looked down, impatient and confused. He had risen up on his arm. Wicked fires showed in his gaze.
“Do as I do, if you can be so bold, Daphne.”
He ensured she lost all sense then. Unbearable pleasure buried first shock, then fear, then hesitation. She kissed where she caressed him, then used her mouth as he did.
“H
awkeswell is in mourning. He thinks you are ruining me.” Castleford shared that tidbit while he tied one of her wrists to the bedpost.
She tested the binding. It was not especially tight. She could get free if she chose.
“For a man besotted by one woman, he has a peculiar need to know at least one other is not hobbled,” she said. “Perhaps he is not nostalgic so much for being bad but for his youth when he was bad.”
He kissed her nape. “How wise you are. I am sure that you are right. We are hardly ancient, however. I think maybe he just fears he will have no one to goad. He enjoys having rows with me.” He moved to the other side and went to work on her other wrist. “You understand this is only a game? I do not want you afraid.”
She nodded. He could tell that the point of the game had begun to reveal itself, however, and she still accommodated it. Tied like this, hand and foot, left her very vulnerable. Which aroused him in ways not without a dark edge.