A Kiss to Remember Page 22

  Her fingernails scored the satin counterpane as he began to stroke hard and deep, wild and tender, urging her toward a place where only he could take her. By the time she reached it, they were both half-mad with pleasure. As a pulsing tide of rapture swept over her, obliterating everything in its path, Sterling stiffened and threw back his head with a roar, spilling his nectar deep into the chalice of her womb.

  Sterling lay on his side with his head propped on one hand, watching his wife sleep and wondering how it was possible for a woman to look so innocent and yet so wanton at the same time. She sprawled on her stomach on top of the rumpled sheets, her cheek pressed to the pillow, her hands curled into loose fists on each side of her head. He had covered her with the counterpane to shield her from the chill, but the sleek satin had ridden down, baring the graceful curve of her back and the soft swell of one creamy buttock.

  He could hardly blame her for succumbing to exhaustion. She'd had little enough sleep in the past two nights. He'd seen to that.

  He shook his head, still marveling that she had been bold enough to seek him out. She might be a cunning little liar out of bed, but she was utterly devoid of artifice in it. And unlike so many of the more experienced women of his acquaintance, she made no secret of the fact that her passion was only for him.

  Whoever the hell he was.

  Sterling rolled off the bed and dragged on his trousers. He poured a generous splash of brandy into a glass, but not even its heat could completely sear the taste of her from his mouth.

  From the first moment he had set foot in this house over twenty-one years ago, Sterling Harlow had known exactly who he was and exactly what was expected of him. Until Laura Fairleigh had come along with a passel of lies and half-truths, shattering every illusion he'd ever held about himself. Now he felt even more of a stranger in his own skin than he had at Arden Manor as a man with no memory.

  When he had first learned of Laura's treachery, he had believed he could simply go back to being the man he had been before she had melted the icy wall of detachment around his heart. But that man would have never been fool enough to let her back into his arms. Or his bed.

  Nor would he have forced her to stay by his side simply because he couldn't bear to let her go. Perhaps Diana had been right. Perhaps it wasn't expediency that had prompted his proposal but some twisted desire for revenge. But that didn't explain the aching tenderness in his touch as he leaned over the bed to brush a stray lock of hair from Laura's cheek.

  Sterling wanted nothing more than to slide his hand beneath the counterpane and stroke her to purring delight once again. Instead, he gathered her into his arms, counterpane and all, and started for the door.

  "Mmmm," she murmured, looping her arms trustingly around his neck without even bothering to open her eyes. "Where are you taking me?"

  "To bed," he whispered, burying his lips in the lavender-scented softness of her hair.

  Since Laura could apparently find no argument with that, she simply snuggled deeper into his arms, resting her cheek against his chest.

  Laura awoke just as she had the previous morning—alone in her own bed without so much as a stitch of clothing.

  She sat up, clutching the sheet to her breasts and wondering if she was losing her mind. Scrambling to her knees, she poked her head through the bed hangings. Although a few sunbeams had braved the forbidding grandeur of the mullioned windows, the duchess's suite wasn't much cozier than it had been during the rainstorm.

  She sank back on her heels, doubting her own senses. Had her nocturnal encounter with her husband been one long, delectable dream? She closed her eyes and was immediately beset by an image of herself and Sterling kneeling in a nest of midnight blue satin in front of a gilded cheval glass. He had wrapped his arms around her from behind, urging her to watch the mirror, to see how very beautiful she was. He had gently cupped her breast while his other hand drifted down the creamy plane of her belly. Laura had watched his long, elegant fingers dip into her, mesmerized by the contrast between his questing strength and her yielding softness.

  She wasn't beautiful. They were beautiful together.

  Then, when he had tenderly kissed her throat and entered her from behind…

  Laura gasped, her eyes flying open. Her imagination had always been fruitful, but not that fruitful.

  She peeped beneath the sheet. Aside from the pronounced absence of her nightdress, there were other, far more subtle, signs of Sterling's possession—the delicious languor in her muscles, the rosy tenderness of her nipples, a faint whisker burn on the inside of her thigh.

  Laura sighed as other images drifted through her mind, each more provocative than the last. After last night, no one could accuse the duke of Devonbrooke of not being diligent in his duties. If she wasn't already carrying his heir, it certainly wasn't for lack of effort on his part. Or hers, she thought, feeling her cheeks heat as she recalled her own boldness.

  Perhaps she should be grateful she hadn't awakened in Sterling's arms. She might have stammered and blushed and blurted out all manner of unseemly confessions. This way, before she faced him, she would have a chance to clothe herself in the dignity befitting a duchess.

  Wrapping the sheet around her, Laura slipped from the bed. But her regal demeanor was spoiled when one of her feet became tangled in the bed hangings. She was hopping up and down on the other foot, trying to free herself, when a knock sounded on the door.

  Before she could dive back into the bed, the door swung open and a maidservant strode briskly into the room. "Good morning, Your Grace. Lady Diana sent me to inform you that your trunks have arrived from Arden Manor." She froze, spotting Laura. Laura had to give the woman credit. She didn't even bat an eye to find her new mistress standing on one foot, garbed in nothing but a rumpled bedsheet. "And not a moment too soon, I can see."

  After several conflicting sets of directions provided by well-meaning chambermaids, three wrong turns, and twenty minutes spent wandering through a warren of interconnecting rooms, Laura finally found the dining room. Her husband sat at the head of a table at least eighteen feet long, firmly entrenched behind a copy of the Morning Post. Diana sat near the middle of the table, sipping tea from a delicate Wedgwood cup. The only other place setting was laid at the foot of the table. Laura was seriously considering ignoring it and taking a seat closer to Sterling when an underfootman appeared out of nowhere to whisk out the chair for her.

  She sat, thanking him with a wan smile. While he moved to the sideboard to fill a plate for her, she gazed down the gleaming expanse of mahogany, feeling quite invisible.

  "Good morning," she said loudly, barely resisting the urge to cup her hands around her mouth and shout Halloo! as George doubtlessly would have done.

  Diana murmured something noncommittal.

  Sterling flipped to the next page of the paper without looking up. "Good morning, Laura. I trust you rested well."

  So that was the way it was to be, was it? Laura smiled sweetly. "Oh, very well. As a matter of fact, I can't remember the last time I had such a deeply satisfying sleep."

  Her plate slipped from the underfootman's gloved hand, landing in front of her on the table with a ringing crash. Diana choked on her tea, then dabbed at her lips with her napkin.

  While the servant beat a hasty retreat, Sterling slowly lowered the paper, giving Laura a look that should have melted the charming little rosettes of butter on her plate.

  Folding the newspaper into a neat square and tucking it beneath his arm, he rose to his feet. "I'm delighted that you found your accommodations to your liking. Now, if you ladies will be so kind as to excuse me…"

  "Are you off to Hyde Park to ride with Thane?" Diana asked, devoting all of her attention to spreading marmalade on a piece of toast.

  Sterling shook his head. "I plan to spend the day in the study reviewing our properties and accounts. I've shirked my responsibilities for far too long already." He patted Diana's shoulder. "Now that I'm back to stay, there'll be no need for you to
trouble yourself with those dull ledgers and boring columns of numbers any longer. Why don't you take Laura shopping for a proper trousseau?"

  Although she offered him her cheek for a dutiful peck, Diana didn't look any happier at being dismissed than Laura felt.

  Laura waited until he was almost to the door before asking, "Haven't you a kiss for your bride, darling?"

  He turned on his heel, his mouth taut. As he leaned down to kiss her cheek, she tilted her face so that his lips grazed the corner of her mouth instead.

  She heard his indrawn breath, saw his tawny lashes sweep down to veil his glittering eyes. But when he straightened, his demeanor was as formal as ever. "Good day, my lady."

  When he was gone, Diana set down her teacup. "He doesn't like to be toyed with, you know. You're playing a dangerous game."

  Laura dug into a slice of warm plum cake, surprised to discover that she was suddenly ravenous. "I'm well aware of that. But I'm hoping its rewards will far outweigh its risks."

  * * *

  Chapter 22

  « ^ »

  I hope you'll spoil her as I wish

  I could have spoiled you…

  The Devil of Devonbrooke had taken a bride. By early afternoon, when Diana and Laura began to make the rounds of the Oxford Street and Bond Street shops, all of London was abuzz with the news. It was difficult to say who was more heartbroken—the besotted belles or the ambitious mamas who had hoped to land one of the most wealthy and eligible bachelors of the haut ton for their little darlings.

  As Diana ushered Laura into an exclusive linen-draper's shop festooned with a dazzling array of silks and muslins and thronged with female shoppers waiting to place their own orders, the flurry of conversation died to a pronounced hush. Laura received several pointed looks, a few of them openly hostile.

  One of the mercers rushed over, tutting and clucking in dismay over the pale yellow muslin gown that had seemed perfectly serviceable when Laura had donned it that morning. Before Laura could explain that she didn't speak Italian, the tiny, dark-haired woman swept her away to a curtained alcove to be poked and measured and prodded with a ruthlessness Cookie would have admired.

  After several minutes spent enduring the indignity of having two strangers argue over the dubious merits of her bosom in fluent Italian, Laura was left to her own devices while the mercers went in search of a fresh paper of pins with which to torture her. She was standing on a low stool, shivering in her shift, when she became aware of two women conversing on the other side of the curtain. They, unfortunately, were speaking English.

  The first voice was soft, but ripe with venom. "Can you believe he married some penniless country chit with no dowry and no title? Rumor even has it that she's a…" Laura leaned closer to the curtain, straining to hear the woman's sibilant whisper.

  "No! You can't be serious! A rector's daughter?" The second woman's titter of laughter would have been no more disbelieving had Sterling wed a charwoman. "Is there any chance it could have been a love match?"

  The first woman sniffed. "None whatsoever. I heard they were caught in a compromising situation and he was forced to marry her against his will."

  Laura closed her eyes, the woman's words striking a raw nerve.

  "From what I hear, he's not the sort of man who can be forced to do anything he doesn't truly want to do."

  "That may be so in most circumstances, but when a man's honor is at stake, he will go to any lengths to defend it, even marry beneath him."

  "Perhaps the girl just requires a bit of polish."

  "He can polish all he wants, but he'll still end up with a lump of coal, not a diamond of the first water." The woman's voice deepened to a throaty purr. "She hasn't a hope of satisfying him. Have you forgotten that I know firsthand just how demanding he can be in bed? He'll tire of the silly little commoner soon enough… if he hasn't already. And when he does, I'll be there. She may have won his name, but she'll never win his heart."

  Laura was an outraged breath away from charging through the curtain and showing the treacherous vixen just how common she could be, when there was a sudden rustling of skirts in the next alcove.

  "Why, Lady Diana," crooned the woman who had been scheming to bed Laura's husband. "I didn't realize you frequented this shop. It's such a pleasure to finally meet you. Your cousin and I are very dear friends."

  "Indeed?" Laura didn't have to imagine the icy look Diana raked over the two women. The temperature in her own alcove dropped with such haste she half expected to see her breath. "He's never spoken of you. Although I do seem to recall a fond mention of your husband. And how is Lord Hewitt these days? In full vigor, I hope."

  The fawning tone disappeared from the woman's voice, leaving it as frosty as Diana's. "My Bertram has been spending a great deal of time at our country house."

  "I can't say that I blame him." When the second woman gasped, Diana smoothly added, "The summer heat, you know. Now, if you'll be so kind as to excuse me, I must continue in search of my cousin's new bride. He sent me to help her select a proper trousseau. The dear man is quite ashamed of himself for insisting they marry in such haste, but he couldn't bear to be apart from her for another day. He adores her, you know, and is determined that she will lack for nothing as long as he's around to spoil her."

  Unexpected tears of both gratitude and longing stung the back of Laura's eyelids. Once, in another lifetime, Diana's words might have been true.

  When Laura emerged from the alcove a short while later, she found her unlikely champion sitting stiffly in a straight-backed chair, perusing the latest fashion plates in La Belle Assemblee with a jaded eye.

  "I heard what you said to those women," Laura said softly. "I really should thank you."

  Diana snapped shut the periodical and rose, her pointed chin set at a defiant angle. "I didn't do it for you. I did it for me. Empty-headed beauties like Elizabeth Hewitt have been sneering down their noses at me for years just because I didn't have the misfortune to marry some gouty old sot who cares less for his wife than his prize spaniels."

  "If you're referring to Lord Hewitt, his spaniels are probably more loyal than his wife."

  Diana didn't exactly smile at her, but her eyes did betray a faint sparkle. "I suppose you're right. You can hardly fault the man for preferring bitches of the four-legged variety."

  The rest of the afternoon passed in a dizzying whirl for Laura. As she and Diana darted from milliner to perfumier to shoemaker along the broad flagstone pavement of Oxford Street, she couldn't help but think how much Lottie would have enjoyed such an expedition. Although Diana showed no interest in purchasing so much as a single trinket for herself, she insisted that Laura be outfitted with the finest of everything—an array of bonnets trimmed in fruit, feathers, and flowers; hand-painted fans; cut-glass scent bottles; cashmere shawls; kid gloves and silk stockings; ruffled parasols; perfumed soaps; pastel slippers and not one but two pairs of smart little nankeen half-boots; silver filigree combs and coronets; pearl-studded bandeaus; even a rather shocking pair of long drawers, which an enthusiastic silk mercer assured her were becoming all the rage in London salons. All of the goods were to be delivered to Devonbrooke Hall at the shopkeepers' earliest convenience.

  By the time they emerged from a charming little shop that sold nothing but lace, Laura's poor head was aching from trying to keep track of all their purchases. If her calculations were correct, they had spent more in one day than Arden Manor would earn in a year.

  As they strolled toward the waiting town coach, nursing bags of warm pistachios they'd bought from a vendor, a lamplighter melted out of the falling dusk to light the streetlamps. Their soft glow fell upon the shop windows, making the goods displayed within look even more tempting.

  As they passed a brightly decorated toy shop, Laura halted, a soft cry of delight escaping her.

  A china doll festooned in ruffles and lace sat in the window, her plump cheeks painted with a rosy blush. From her topknot of golden curls to her snub nose to her
miniature kid slippers, the doll was the very image of Lottie.

  Diana peered through the window. "What is it?"

  "I was just thinking how very much my little sister would fancy that doll," Laura replied, pressing her fingers to the glass without realizing it.

  Diana shrugged. "So purchase it for her."

  Laura tucked her hands back into her new swansdown muff. "I couldn't possibly presume upon the duke's generosity any more than I already have. He's been far too extravagant."

  Diana gave her an odd look. "Sterling hasn't a stingy bone in his body. He may begrudge you his forgiveness, but not his purse. If you can't have one, you might as well make do with the other."

  Diana touched her own fingers to the glass, her expression curiously wistful. "It was one of the few lessons my father taught me."

  When Laura marched out of the toy store nearly an hour later, her arms were laden with gifts for her brother and sister, including a skipping rope for Lottie and three shiny new decks of cards for George. She had refused to have her treasures delivered to the hall, not wanting to trust them to any hands but her own. Diana waited patiently while she ducked into a haberdashery to buy a pair of soft leather riding gloves to warm Dower's aching hands on cold winter nights. She'd already decided to send Cookie one of the bonnets trimmed with ostrich plumes that she had chosen for herself.

  As they approached the town coach, Diana came to a sudden halt, sending Laura crashing into her back. While one of the footmen leapt down from his perch to rescue their packages, Laura peeped over Diana's shoulder to find the marquess of Gillingham lounging against a lamppost, top hat in hand and shiny walking stick tucked beneath his arm.

  He straightened, sweeping them a graceful bow. "Your Grace, Lady Diana. I saw the coach when I was coming out of my tailor's and thought I'd linger to bid you a good evening."