A Duke of Her Own

Page 72

“A girl named Sarah-Susan told me where to find you in the sty,” Tobias said. His tone was begrudging but accepting.
“We could give mine to Mary-Bertha,” Phyllinda said. “Because once when Mrs. Minchem said that Lucinda couldn’t have any breakfast or lunch, she kept some bread and gave it to us. Do you remember that, Lucinda?”
Her sister nodded, but Eleanor was having trouble speaking around the anger in her throat, so they just went up to the lawn in silence and found the girls in question.
Eleanor stood watching the excitement as the three little girls claimed their prizes, until she remembered that she had a duke locked in her room. Tobias seemed reconciled to losing; he was trying to train Oyster to walk on his hind legs, which was an anatomical impossibility, as anyone could have told him.
“I know why you locked your father up,” she asked him, “but why did you lock me in as well? And why in my bedchamber?”
He looked up with an odd twist to his mouth. “I don’t like Lisette.”
She nodded. “I see.”
“The old nanny told me that if a lady and gentleman are locked in a room together, they have to get married. Which doesn’t make sense,” he said frankly, “because if they want to be shaking the sheets, they don’t need sheets to be doing it, if you know what I mean.”
Clearly Tobias had seen more than he should have in his short life, but he didn’t seem particularly scandalized.
“So you thought…”
“I’d rather you than her,” he said. It wasn’t much of an endorsement, but it felt good. “How’d you get out, anyway?”
“The balcony door was unlocked and no one had the faintest idea we were together, so your plan came to naught. And I do think that people do better to choose their own spouses. Your father wants to marry Lisette.”
“And you want to marry that ratty duke?” His tone was indescribably scornful.
“Yes,” she said rather faintly. “He’s an old friend.” She looked up and saw Gideon determinedly making his way across the lawn toward her, followed by her mother. “I had better let your father out now. Take care of Oyster.”
She dashed into the house, pretending she didn’t hear her mother calling.
Leopold was asleep. He had stripped off his coat and was lying sprawled out on her bed. She tiptoed across the carpet and stood next to him. He would never be beautiful, like Gideon. He was blunt and complicated, and still grieving for his brother.
She was in love with him.
Horribly, truly in love. The kind of love that wouldn’t alter, ever, and wouldn’t admit impediments.
Lisette was an impediment.
Gideon was another.
And frankly, Leopold was the third obstacle, given his professed intention to marry Lisette. Her love may not alter, but it wasn’t going to succeed either.
She kicked off her slippers and then reached under her skirts to unhook her panniers and her petticoat. Unfortunately, she couldn’t unlace her gown without help, so once she’d taken off her stockings, and left a heap of petticoats on the floor, she pulled up her skirts and climbed onto the bed.
Well, to be exact, she climbed on top of Leopold.
He grunted and pulled her down to him, and in that moment she realized that he hadn’t been asleep, not all the time she stood watching him, and certainly not while she was undressing.
“Did you dream about me wearing nothing but a pinafore?” she asked. He was kissing her neck and seemed to be—from all signs—very happy to see her.
“No pinafore,” he said. His voice had already taken on the wildness that was so opposite to his immaculately polished appearance as a duke. Her entire heart, her body, welcomed it. His fingers were…everywhere.
“Eleanor?” he asked, pulling his shirt over his head.
She didn’t respond, just waited for him to throw off his breeches, grab a French letter, and then greedily took all of him.
“I didn’t get to kiss you,” he said, arching up with a look of fierce bliss that belied his complaint.
“Next time,” she said, gasping. “I have decided not to marry Gideon.”
His eyes were closed, but at that they opened. She put a hand over his mouth and rode him hard, but she couldn’t divert him. His eyes stayed on her face, even as his body rose to meet hers.
“I know you want to marry Lisette,” she told him, keeping her hand over his lips even though he was nipping her fingers. “And I honor your decision. I am not saying this because I want you to marry me.”
Though she did, she did.
He managed to pull away her hand and she froze. “Say a word and I’ll leave,” she said. He shoved upwards and she easily evaded him. “Right now. I’ll leave this room.”
“It’s your room!”
She took him with a wave of heat and pleasure, and lost track of her thoughts for a bit, but then remembered.
“I’m not trying to make you marry me,” she said, gasping a little because he had picked up the pace.
“Why not?”
That couldn’t be hurt in his eyes.
“Because you’re doing something honorable,” she said. “You feel that Lisette will make a better mother to your children. We’re not children, Leopold. We can speak the truth aloud to each other.”
“I just—”
“I know,” she said, leaning over to give him a kiss. It was almost too tender, though, and she had to sit up again fast, before she kissed him again. “It’s easier for me, because I don’t have children.” She gave him a lopsided grin. “I’ve decided to marry for love.”
This time he froze.
“I don’t love Gideon, so I won’t marry him. I used to love him, but somehow it all changed.”
A moment later she found herself flat on her back, and they weren’t making love any more.
“Leo,” she whispered.
He was braced over her, frowning down through a lock of hair that had fallen over his eyes. He was delicious…heartbreaking.
She nipped his lip. She’d be damned if he’d ever find out how she felt. She didn’t ever want yet another man to know that she loved him more than he loved her. Never again.
“You’re so calm about my marriage to Lisette,” he said, scowling. “I want to kill Astley, every time I see him. Hell, every time he even looks at you I feel like wringing his scraggy neck.”
“That’s because you’re a man,” she said, ignoring the little voice in her head that reminded her just how murderous she felt every time Lisette trilled out her excitement over becoming half of Leopold and Lisette, as she kept referring to them. “Do you suppose that you could make love to me now, Leopold?” She reached up and ran her fingers along his cheeks. And then she said it, because it had to be said. “We’ll be leaving first thing in the morning.”
He looked down at her, and then he pulled away.
“Leopold?” She looked down at herself. Her blue gown was rucked around her waist, and her bare legs were trembling.
But he got up and walked away from the bed, raking his fingers through his hair.
The words going through her head were not words that a lady was supposed to know, let alone think. She pulled her gown down over her knees and sat on the edge of the bed.