Eloisa James - Desperate Duchesses - 6 (17 page)

"The space of a moon, my arse," Villiers said into her ear.

Eleanor started. She hadn't realized he'd moved close to her.

"Why don't they just sing what they mean:
I
tupped him for a month?"

She gave him a frown.

"You'll decide whether to marry
me
on the basis of
his
kiss?" His words were a low growl, and hung on the air.

"I put a ring on his finger and brought him to my house,"
Lisette sang, and Roland joined in: "7

clothed him in hyacinth and fed him honey-berries."

Eleanor let her head fall back and examined the hyacinth-colored sky. Villiers made a small movement next to her, and she felt a surge of power. She knew exactly what to do. She turned her head, just slightly. She didn't even smile at him; she just allowed the invitation to be in her eyes.

"Are you playing the siren with me?" he asked, his voice low, almost incredulous.

"Only for the space of the moon."

"You surprise me," he said, bending toward her. His lips tasted of anisette, like spice and like a man.

She opened her mouth, remembering instantly how delicious a kiss could be. How the touch of lips could change the whole feeling of her body. She leaned toward him and gave him everything he wanted.

And he took it.

She realized, in the first second after their kiss began, that Villiers would always take what he wanted. He crushed her mouth, cupping her face in his hands and pulling her toward him.

Dimly, she thought how different this first kiss was from the one she had shared with Gideon, years ago. They were young and unpracticed. Gideon fumbled; she giggled; he apologized. It soon became clear that she enjoyed kissing far more than he did.

Probably all young men were the same: eager, driven by lust. He longed to touch; she longed to kiss.

She remembered chasing him around the barn once, trying to catch and kiss him, until he suddenly turned around and snatched her up, his hands falling on her—

"What?" a dark voice said in her ear. "Yes?" she asked, startled. "I'm kissing you, damn it."

She looked up at him, confused. In the light falling through the windows behind them, Villiers's eyes looked black. Eyelashes shaded his cheekbone, putting it into high relief. "I was thinking of something else," she said honestly.

He stared at her for a second and then let out a howl of laughter that punctuated the singing she barely heard. "Between you and Tobias, I'm achieving a modicum of humility, for the first time in my life."

"That I doubt," she observed.

His eyes narrowed. "I suppose you were thinking of Astley."

She felt a little dazed, as if the liqueur had gone to her head, and she couldn't follow what he was talking about so she just shook her head. "I'm sorry if I punctured your vanity," she said honestly. "It was a nice kiss."

"Nice?"

He sounded incredulous. Apparently the Duke of Villiers was accustomed to women falling at his feet after one touch of his lips. "You taste like anise," she said, settling back into her position. "I'm very fond of licorice. Did you ever find the plants and chew them when you were little?"

"No."

She turned her head slightly, just enough so she could meet his eyes again. Of course he hadn't wandered about fields grazing on wild plants. He was likely swathed in velvet from his toes to his collarbone from age five. No, four.

"Of whom were you thinking?" he asked. "Was it Astley?" There was something dangerous in his tone.

She took another sip of anisette. It slid sweet and hot down her throat, adding to the heat in her insides that had jumped to life with his lips. And that was making her nervous. She had now kissed two men in her life, Gideon and Villiers. Both of them made her feel slightly delirious, wild with pleasure, wanting nothing more than to kiss again and again.

She had the uncomfortable feeling that she was a wagtail by nature. Her mother would not approve.

"In truth, it was the Duke of Astley," she admitted.

Villiers's expression didn't change. "He
is
pretty. A maiden's dream, in fact."

"He was my dream," she confessed. In the background, Lisette and Roland were quarreling over a musical notation of some sort or other. "After his father died, he started coming home with my brother during holidays."

"From Eton."

"Yes, exactly. I never really paid much attention to him, but then one day... well, there he was."

It was embarrassing the way that Villiers's lips made her want to lean over and—and nip him. Lick him.

"What then?" he inquired.

"Oh, it took us months to kiss," Eleanor said lightly. "Though I spent a great deal of time dreaming about it. It's quite common to fall in love at that age."

He nodded, rather unexpectedly. Eleanor couldn't imagine the Duke of Villiers in love with anyone.

"You?"
she asked.

"Why the surprise?"

"Oh, the dukeness of you," she said with a wave of her hand, wondering if she might have drunk a bit too much. Just to prove to herself that she hadn't, she finished her glass. "My dukeness," Villiers repeated.

"Swathed in velvet, from the moment you left the crib." She looked away because the very sight of his lips made her feel like squirming, as if her soft parts became softer at the sight of him.

"I was in love with a woman named Bess. She was a barmaid." Eleanor giggled. "Buxom and beautiful?"

"I actually don't remember whether she was buxom," Villiers said. "Certainly she wasn't as fortunate in that regard as you." His eyes didn't drop below her face. "I would remember that."

"My bodice is a bit small," Eleanor confessed. "This gown belongs to my sister. My preference is for less revealing clothing." He nodded.

"Did Bess return your affection?"

"How could she not?" he asked. There was something hard in his voice. "I was already a duke."

"That needn't have—"

He interrupted. "Believe me, the barmaid who turns down a duke should be cast in bronze."

"Nonsense," Eleanor said tartly. "You have a distorted idea of your own consequence." A thought occurred to her. "Is Bess the mother of one of your children?" The edge of his mouth quirked, sending a blaze of heat down Eleanor's legs. "My children really don't bother you, do they?"

She considered that. "Should they, on moral grounds? Religious? Ethical?" "Any of the above."

"I myself would prefer to have tidier domestic relations," she said. "But I don't see that it's any of my business if you don't agree with me."

"Well, you are marrying me," he pointed out. "Or so you said."

Eleanor reached out and took his glass of anisette. He had barely tasted it, after all. "Perhaps. An announcement before my mother is hardly a commitment. Either of us may decide that we would rather marry another."

"You would consider our betrothal a tentative one?"

She glanced deliberately at Roland. He looked like the embodiment of a medieval troubadour, dark and dreamy, singing of love. She listened for a moment. He was actually singing about a widow marrying her sixth husband, but the principle was the same. He
sang.
"I don't suppose you sing?"

she suggested.

"Never."

"I don't either," she sighed.

"Bess is not the mother of any of my children," Villiers said.

"All right," Eleanor said agreeably.

"She fell in love with a much prettier fellow."

She considered his face. He was not pretty, not by any stretch of the imagination. Everything about him was just slightly rough-hewn, aggressive, male. Too male. He made embarrassing ideas float through her head. As if the Duke of Villiers would suddenly swoop on her, push her down on the settee, and throw himself on top of her. "I thought a duke's precedence was all-important," she said hastily.

"The Duke of Beaumont stole her from me."

"Goodness," Eleanor said, smiling. "Lucky Bess! Chased by two dukes. Do tell me that you fought a romantic duel?"

"There's nothing romantic about duels," Villiers said. "But no. I had no claim over her, you see. I had completely lost my head. But a young man's adoration was no match for Beaumont's Adonis-like profile."

"I suppose Beaumont is handsome," she agreed. Not as handsome as Gideon, in her opinion, but good-looking enough. Still, he always looked so tired that it was hard to imagine him young.

"You are practically the first woman I've spoken to who doesn't rhapsodize over Beaumont's face,"

Villiers said.

She glanced at his nose and looked away again. She could hardly admit that Gideon had soured her interest in beautiful men. To the point to which she felt far more attracted to Villiers's sort of rough-hewn looks.

"And yet I suppose that Astley is even more beautiful than Beaumont, to your eyes?" Villiers asked, uncannily echoing her thoughts.

She nodded.

"More golden, more sleek, more attractive in everyway?" "Yes," Eleanor agreed. She took another drink of Villiers's anisette. "I'm sorry," he said, and the sharp edge dropped from his voice. He actually sounded sympathetic.

"It was years ago," she said.

"If you still think of him while kissing another man, then it hasn't been long enough."

She couldn't think how to refute that, but at that moment she looked up to see Lisette sling her lute at Roland's head. Roland threw himself sideways and at the same time managed to put up a hand and catch the lute.

"You wretched little—" he hollered.

Lisette opened her mouth to scream back, casta look toward Eleanor and Villiers, and ran into the library.

It all happened so quickly that she was gone by the time Villiers looked around.

"I apologize," Roland said, walking toward them. "When two musicians come together, we lose sense of time. Even worse, we sometimes lose our heads."

Eleanor felt her cheeks growing pink. She certainly had forgotten their presence during Villiers's kiss.

"Your music played so sweetly on the night air that we all lost track of time," Villiers said at her shoulder.

Roland glanced at him. "Shakespeare on music. I gather that's part of
If music be the food of love,
play on,
etcetera? Is that from
A Midsummer Night's Dream?"

"Actually no," Villiers said. "The beginning of
Twelfth Night."

"I hate those old plays," Roland said to Eleanor with a comical grin. "So stuffy and antiquated. You have no idea how hard it can be to make older people realize that fresh material can be so much better."

He didn't glance at Villiers, but she felt an irresistible urge to smile. Obviously he had seen them kiss.

"We old people generally go to bed with the chickens," Villiers said, without a trace of resentment in his voice.

"Ah well, I certainly didn't mean that comparison," Roland said, leaving in doubt exactly what comparison he had meant. "Lady Eleanor, may I call for you tomorrow? I would love to show you the countryside."

"Of course," Villiers said genially, taking on the demeanor of a kindly uncle. "You young people ought to trot about on horses while the rest of us are taking our morning constitutional."

"I would be happy to see you again, Sir Roland," Eleanor said, holding out her hand. He fell back into a flourishing bow, raising her hand to his lips and holding it there for a long moment.

"Tomorrow," he said, meeting her eyes. "Don't leave those lutes," Villiers said.

Roland's bow to the duke was extremely brief, barely more than the kind of bob Eleanor had seen irate footmen give to a butler.

Villiers leaned back on the settee as if there was no question about the fact that they would stay there, unchaperoned."l didn't see what happened to Lisette, did you?"

Eleanor thought of the jerky violence with which Lisette had swung the lute. "I believe she was irritated by something Roland said."

"I can certainly understand that. I would suggest that Sir Roland's manner could be considered afar more reliable guide to matrimony than might his kisses."

"What do you mean?" Suddenly the stars seemed much closer, now that there were only the two of them outside together. The night air was velvety and warm on her skin.

"If I were married to him, it would be about a week before I pushed one of his pompous, artistic poems down his throat," Villiers said with a perfect lack of expression, which made his comment hilarious.

Eleanor burst into laughter. "You hurt his feelings with that twaddle about Shakespeare. It could be that he'll be a great writer someday, you know."

Villiers leaned a little closer. "Dropping the tiresome poet from the conversation, I don't think I want my marriage decided by a kiss that includes the Duke of Astley as an unknowing partner."

"I thought of Gideon for only a moment." Her treacherous heart sped up a bit.

"Why don't you kiss me this time? Perhaps that will help to focus your attention on the man before you."

Of course she could kiss him. She was good at kissing, and those dalliances with Gideon weren't all that many years ago. So she leaned forward and kissed him with all the persuasive power that she'd polished with Gideon. Her lips slipped along his, begged him for entrance.

His lips didn't move.

She swallowed a little humiliation, leaned farther forward so he could see her bosom if he wished.

Gideon always closed his eyes when she kissed him, but Villiers kept his open. And to her dismay, he seemed to be looking at her with amusement rather than raw desire. "What?" she demanded.

"I don't think I like being kissed. That was as boring as my kiss, the one that drove you to start dreaming about Astley."

Gideon hadn't liked her kisses all that much either. "Very well," she said, moving back and feeling around for her wrap. "I really should go to—"

"I didn't say I didn't like kissing you," he interrupted.

"Yes, you—"

"I don't like
being
kissed." And with that rather cryptic statement he reached across and pulled her against his chest.

Eleanor's arms went instinctively around his neck. But she didn't have time to think before his hands laced into her hair and his mouth took hers. He didn't beg or seduce. He invaded. He took her mouth hard, with a kind of concentrated lust and fever, and she knew exactly why all those women had never said no to him.