Fascinated, she watched. Dare she touch it? Madame Aglionby had described the male member in detail, and Bridget had applied rather bawdy descriptions to this particular appendage, but nothing she had read or heard described could compare to the fully erect flesh-and-blood member, teasing her with its demanding tip.
She shuddered, as much from the stimulation of Bedford’s talented lips as from the realization that she would have to take that thick, living shaft inside of her in what could only be described as a brutal fashion. Perhaps even tonight. The member brushed her arm again but this time, she reached out her hand . . .
William’s eyes nearly closed at the ecstasy. Not only was he drawing on the sweetest, most intoxicating tit in all of creation, but a cool, gentle finger said up the side of the eager cock. For a moment he imagined he was in one of the best brothels in London, then he remembered he was in a steamer berth with—his eyes widened—his wife!
“Sweet God in heaven,” Bedford swore, pushing at her shoulder, to bring her upright. “We can’t do this.”
Perhaps it was the moonlight that gave her that soft, dewy glow. She glanced at him as if she had been similarly caught up in a dream, but then awareness intervened. She hastily stood. “Are you not well? Do you have need of—”
“My stomach is well,” he said, flattered that her immediate thought was of his well-being, yet still humiliated by what she had witnessed as his nurse. “What I meant was that we cannot continue along this course.” He glanced at his cockstand, still high and firm. “In a matter of moments, I’d have been grinding away at your”—he glanced up, thinking to modify his brothel language—“at Cupid’s arbor.”
“But isn’t that what husbands do to their wives?”
If her eagerness to engage in that very activity hadn’t already given away her experienced nature, then that very question would have clued her game. Damnation. He should have been the first! William took a breath, noting that his arousal was already fading. He glanced back at her, trying to learn to distrust those wide, innocent eyes.
“I shouldn’t have interrupted you in your change of attire. I’m sure that after the hours spent watching over me, you’re in need of rest. Be assured my needs won’t interrupt you again. Good night, Franny.”
He pulled the sheet and blanket to cover his shoulders, then turned on his side to face the wall, cursing himself. He should have at least kissed her good night, but in his current state that might have led to the very thing he was trying to avoid.
He’d been a fool to demand she bare herself to him. He’d been a fool to believe avoiding consummation with her would be a simple affair. He grimaced at the wall. Perhaps his father was right, he lacked the inner strength to be a duke.
She must have watched him for a few moments, as he could hear naught but her breathing. Then the soft rustle of fabric sliding over her luscious body whispered in the silent room. After a few minutes of quiet, he heard a brush pulling through her hair. He closed his eyes tight against the image. He would have performed that small chore for her. After all she had done for him, it would have been an easy task.
Even the thought of his fingers slipping through her rich strands of silk caused his cock to take notice. He cursed himself for his incontrollable lust. He was a duke, after all, and a duke needed to think with his brain and not his privates.
He waited a few more minutes until he heard her crawl into the opposite berth. The morning would be upon them soon. Let her rest for now. Tomorrow they would talk about what was proper and what was not, and perhaps he could broach the topic of her courtesan’s corset. Heaven help them both if Bertie were to catch her in that attire. Since the conclusion of his affair with that Langtry woman, the Prince of Wales was undoubtedly fishing for another married woman to call a paramour. By God, that would not be Franny.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow he’d make things right.
FRAN TOSSED FITFULLY IN THE SMALL, UNCOMFORTABLE berth. It was no wonder her parents had shunned these more public modes of transportation. However, she suspected it wasn’t the thinness of the mattress or the narrow width of the berth that kept her awake.
What had she done wrong? Why did he turn away?
In her journal, Bridget had detailed the acts she performed to bring her clients to a state of arousal. Fran had touched the proof that she had done the same, but somehow she’d failed to complete her mission. Once again, it came back to her. She hadn’t mastered the skills other wives employed to encourage their husbands to finish the task.
That woman, the one from dinner, entered her thoughts. She’d seen the way Madame Floozy, Lady Mandrake, had regarded her husband. More important, she’d noticed the way he responded. She suspected Bedford would not hesitate to bed that woman given an opportunity. That thought made her heart twist. It shouldn’t, she scolded herself. She and Bedford had been linked for financial and social considerations. It hadn’t been a love match. Had it? She glanced over at his back, listening to his soft snore.
Sometimes when he spoke her name a certain way, when he asked her opinion and cared about her stories, sometimes . . . she felt a yearning, a pleasure, a tingling that felt very much like what she imagined love would be. Theirs was not that easy, comfortable, and compatible relationship that she’d enjoyed with Randolph. But her relationship with Randolph never made her feel like she was soaring effortlessly above ground. Bedford had done that to her. Was that love?
She didn’t know.
Silly, to think about such things. She was married to Bedford now. What was done was done. If she were back home right now, she’d go out to her hives and work out a plan. The hum of the bees was always so soothing and their industry so predictable. It was easy to influence their direction with the proper plantings and . . .
That inspired a thought.
She’d found she’d been able to influence the taste of her bee’s honey by the incorporation of various plants near the hives. She and the gardener had spent many hours observing the bee’s preferences. They used that knowledge in the plantings to modify the flavor of the honey. Her bees were selective in the pollen they carried. Some plants they visited regularly, others they shunned.
What if people were like that? What if Bedford was like that?
By careful observation of his interaction with the various women on board, she might be able to tell the qualities to which he was most attracted. She smiled. Her courtesan’s journal had given her the techniques to entice the body, now she would learn how to entice his mind. Her observations would complete the puzzle. Between the two she should garner the qualities sufficient to seduce a duke.
THE NEXT MORNING, BEFORE WILLIAM TESTED HIS LEGS, he noticed the berth opposite was empty. Franny had obviously risen. He was surprised that she would brave the dining salon alone, but then—he glanced at the partial bottle of ginger wine in the bracket near his berth—his little Franny was full of surprises. The memory of her magic potion, served most ingeniously, brought a smile to his lips. Under different circumstances, a man might welcome feeling under the weather if dosed in such an imaginative fashion.
He stood, mentally bracing himself for the lurch of his stomach, but all seemed well on that front. He quickly dressed and shaved without Hodgins’s assistance as he was anxious to see Franny in the light of day. From her description, Hodgins was still fairly ill. If he was still asleep, William was loathe to wake him. If he still suffered from mal de mer, sleep would keep his stomach at bay.
He went to the dining salon, expecting he’d find Franny, but to no avail. It was most disconcerting to inquire as to the possible whereabouts of one’s own wife. Yet no one could assist him.
“Drink with me.”
William turned to find the gentleman from Ireland, the very one who sat across from William at the captain’s table, slumped in a chair nursing a partially filled bottle of whiskey.
“A toast to our surviving the voyage.” The man spilled as much liquor on the table as he managed to pour into the two glasses.
“Doyle, was it?” William scowled. “It’s a bit early.”
“Never too early. Whiskey has saved me from the bloody sickness. It’ll save you, too.”
William glanced at the other passengers, who just shook their heads. “Perhaps later, right now I need to find my wife.” He turned to leave.
“A toast to the Queen,” Doyle roared. “No respectable duke can resist a toast to the good Queen Victoria.”
He knew it wasn’t wise, as he hadn’t eaten in several days, but the others were watching and if he wasn’t mistaken, some of his fellow countrymen had a smirk on their faces. Doyle was calling his bluff. William turned around and picked up a glass.
“God save the Queen.” While his toast was echoed by Doyle and the tea drinkers across the salon, William poured the more than generous portion of fine Irish whiskey down his throat. It scorched his empty gullet before the fumes burned a path back up through his nostrils. In order to get about his business, he took several large gulps, emptying a glass that should have been consumed over a much longer period of time. He slammed the glass back on the table. “Now, let me find Franny.”
He wasn’t sure if it was the whiskey or returning mal de mer, but he could feel the disheartening shifting beneath him once again. He resisted the foreboding queasiness as a stern test of manhood. Instead he strode to the promenade deck; at least the fresh air would help him to escape the bilious smells belowdecks.
He saw her near the stern of the ship in deep conversation with someone he didn’t recognize and his pace quickened. No other woman he’d noted on the ship had Franny’s proud, straight carriage. He could pick her from a crowd, from a distance. A smile crept to his lips remembering that not so long ago he required someone else to identify her. When had that changed?
Did anyone else on the ship recognize the sensual vixen that hid beneath that dull gray dress with black trim and fringe? Playful curiosity buoyed his spirits. If he were to unfasten those black buttons on her bodice, would he find that strumpet’s corset? As he neared the couple, the ship lurched causing him to grasp the rail. He noted the stranger took hold of Franny’s elbow as if to steady her. She smiled at him in return.
Bile rose in William’s throat while something akin to jealousy burned in his stomach. Franny was his private angel of mercy, his wife, his duchess—he surged forward—no stranger had the right to touch. Franny should reward the stranger with a slap, not a smile.
“Your Grace,” she said as he neared. “Allow me to introduce Mr. Hairston. We’ve discovered we have some mutual acquaintances.”
William extended his hand if only to ensure this Hairston fellow released his wife. “Hairston,” he acknowledged.
“Your wife is well acquainted with my cousin, who works indirectly for your father-in-law,” Hairston explained. “He’s in Germany at the moment. I’m en route to meet with him.”
Now that he could scrutinize Hairston’s expression, he could see that the man posed no threat to his Franny. Yet there was something in his words that sounded a bit of a fuzzy warning in his head. No time to think about that now. The motion of the ship was taking a toll.
“Yes. Well, I hope he shall come to visit us once we’re settled in Deerfeld.” He glanced at his wife, at his beautiful, seductive, charming wife. “I imagine the Duchess would appreciate a familiar face from her homeland now and again.”
Her face fairly lit up. “Thank you, Your Grace. I would enjoy that.” She turned to Mr. Hairston. “And you must come as well. I think when one suffers a crossing such as this together, the fellow passengers become much like family.”
They laughed, though William hoped Franny was not issuing invitations to the entire passenger list. There were some faces on the manifest that he would prefer not to see in the abbey.
“I wonder if I might speak to you privately, my dear,” he managed, though his tongue was just not cooperating. “I believe it’s time for another dose of that ginger remedy?”
Her cheeks turned the most fascinating shade of pink, even if her eyes glanced at him suspiciously.
“Remedy? You must mean for seasickness,” Hairston said. “I’m told West Indian pickles mixed with potatoes settles the stomach. A Frenchman swears that oysters do the trick.”
Both suggestions were having the opposite effect on William’s innards. Fortunately, Hairston tipped his hat and took his leave, allowing Franny to escort him back to the stateroom.
“I should like to see how you would dose up pickles and potatoes,” he said with a distinctly lecherous glance to her bosom. “I’m afraid the oysters would slide right off.”
“Stop that, Your Grace.” She gave him a playful push on his arm. “Someone will hear.”
“I’m afraid what they will hear is the formality in your references to me,” he said in sudden solemnity. “May we dispense with the formal salu . . . salu . . . forms of address? You know certain details about me of which even my brother isn’t aware.”
She thought of the family crest burned into his shoulder and tried to hide her grimace. Her mother was proud of the Winthrop name and exploited it at every opportunity. She even married her daughter off to a stranger to secure a title in the bloodlines, but she would never brand another as the old duke had done.
“What should I call you, Your . . . er . . .”
“William should be fine.” He smiled. “Or Bedford. Or”—his smile took a more seductive turn—“my dear, my dearest, my most esteemed husband. My magnificent—”
“I’m sure I’ll determine something appropriate when the time is upon us.” From the scent of his breath, he’d already sampled a bit more than the ginger remedy. Although she didn’t approve of drunkenness, she rather liked this less rigid, less formal side of him.
“And I’ll continue to call you Franny.”