Dark Duke Read online

  “Sit.” The kadin guided Asha to her knees, then down on the stool, spreading her nether lips, opening her cunt.

  Oh heavens. Another shudder at that word.

  Asha tried to wrench up when she realized where that hard phallus was meant to go, but the kadin was relentless. The marble cock brushed her cunt with a cold kiss.

  “No. Please, mistress. I will be good.”

  Dark chuckles echoed in the stony chamber, the kadin’s twined with those of the eunuchs standing guard.

  “A familiar promise. But it is far too late for that, my dear. Next time you will obey immediately.” She pushed Asha down on the phallus and it filled her. She cried out. “Silence, girl, or I will find something to silence you.”

  The eunuchs laughed again. She glared at them.

  “Look. She is still mutinous, mistress,” one of them said.

  Asha winced. Surely she would be punished for that too.

  “She will not be when this is finished.” The kadin took Asha’s hands and bound them behind her back, thrusting her breasts forward. She strapped her ankles to the sides of the bench, leaving Asha impaled and helpless. Why her body wept, she did not know, but she could feel the juice dampening the marble—

  Kaitlin moaned as a sharp thrill shot through her. The strokes between her legs became more frantic. Her little button throbbed, pulsed with every beat of her heart. Dew clung to her fingertips, lubricating her path. She plucked at her nipple through the fabric of her bodice and then, impatient, yanked it down so she could tug, skin to bare skin. Something rose within her.

  She imagined herself tied to that stool, with a thick phallus filling her. Bare. Exposed. Forced to—

  She came.

  Some great, gushing tempest washed down and took her, swirling her in the miasma, blanketing her in a fog of bliss. She shook, she wailed, she trembled.

  She planted her feet on the bed and arched up, sinking her fingers deep into her sheath, as Asha had been commanded to do. Oh why had Asha refused? It felt divine!

  And as the pleasure took her, and she plunged in and out of her dripping cunt, Kaitlin imagined it was Edward’s touch. Edward pinching her nipples. Edward filling her. Edward stroking that spot that made her heart leap and her toes curl.

  When she succumbed again, for the second time—for the fifth time that day—she cried his name.

  She probably shouldn’t have, but sometimes one couldn’t help such things.

  After she returned to herself, Kaitlin closed the book and tucked it into the little drawer of her bedstand.

  Edward wasn’t getting it back.

  She was keeping it.

  Chapter Five

  Edward looked for her all afternoon, with no success. He found the rest of them though, repeatedly. Violet in the kitchen chatting with Mrs. Murphy as she baked—the little ones, Hamish and Taylor, pilfering biscuits and gorging themselves beneath the table. Malcolm and Ned in the billiard room sneaking his whiskey and smoking his cheroots. Violet once more, with Aunt Hortense, rearranging furniture in the Blue Salon and babbling on about a Poseidon Motif or some such nonsense. The middle boy, Dennis, uprooting orchids in the conservatory. Hamish again—or was it Taylor?—eating worms in the garden. The one that really frightened him was Sean, the quiet one, a surly seven-year-old, whom he found in the dining room, hiding a saw behind his back with a guilty look on his face.

  But of Kaitlin, there was no sign.

  By dinnertime Edward was positively petulant. Where had she gone?

  He wanted, rather desperately, to talk to her about what had happened between them that morning. Even more desperately, he wanted to finish it.

  It stuck in his craw that she was hiding from him, because he didn’t know if she was just afraid of him—of the power of what they had experienced together—or if she was regretting it. Both prospects soured his mood.

  So, though it had become his custom to take his meals in his suite since the invasion, he decided to go down for dinner. He found everyone in the drawing room awaiting the gong. Everyone, that was, but Kaitlin. Hovering at the door, he scanned the assembly again and again, hoping he’d overlooked her auburn head in a sea of black, but she was not there.

  Damn. Damn and blast.

  He should escape now, before anyone spotted him—

  “Halloo! Moncrieff.” Aunt Hortense, girded as she always was in her breastplate of pearls, waved at him from the divan. Her upper arms wobbled with the vigorous motion. “Are you joining us for dinner?”

  He straightened his waistcoat and entered the room.

  “Oh, how lovely, Edward.” Violet smiled. “We’ve so missed you at the table. Boys?” She clapped her hands. “Boys! You must be on your best behavior. His Grace is joining us for dinner.”

  Naturally, they all ignored her. The twins, Hamish and Taylor, were engaged in a battle—using his finest chess men, bashing them together and making “cuhss” and “pkoo” noises. Malcolm plunked out sour notes on the piano. Sean jabbed viciously at the fire with a poker. Ned stood at the mantel with a large glass of amber liquid looking for all the world like the lord of the castle.

  Come to think on it, this probably was their best behavior.

  By the time the gong sounded, a headache had begun to ping at Edward’s temples. He was certain it wasn’t the din in the drawing room. It probably was the conversation Aunt Hortense had begun. About preparing for Violet’s season.

  Not that the prospect of a season for Violet gave him a megrim. He rather liked the idea. For he rather liked Violet and wanted the best for her. It was the assumption that Edward would be the one to escort her to the balls and soirees and musicales.

  He would rather be tortured on the rack in the Tower—if they did that anymore—than attend Almack’s in a fussy suit and stiff collar.

  So when the gong rang, he leapt to his feet. He hadn’t completely forgotten himself—although at the moment, he wished he could—and he offered his aunt an arm.

  “Thank you, m’boy,” she said, patting his hand. Then she launched into a plan for a ball for Violet’s coming out, for which he would pay, of course. The litany of his responsibilities went on as they made their way to the dining room, the boys and Violet following along behind, chattering raucously. While such hubbub had never been part of his life—a duke was staid, quiet, decorous—Edward found himself beset with little pings of envy. How fun it would have been to grow up with boisterous brothers. To have someone to share the mischief.

  Dukes didn’t get to have fun. He’d learned that from his father. The first Edward Wyeth had been an extraordinarily reserved and somewhat sad man. Edward always supposed it was because he’d mourned the loss of his wife. Although why he would pine so, considering how often they’d fought, Edward couldn’t fathom. He remembered his mother as a brittle, bitter woman married to a man she detested.

  She had died when he was a young lad.

  His father had raised him with the strictest expectations—he was to be a duke one day, after all—which was probably why, when Edward turned eighteen, he rebelled. He ran off and joined the army, a decided taboo for the only son and heir of a peer. It had taken his father three years to find him. It had taken that long because when Edward joined the army, and later worked for the Home Office, he had done so under a false identity.

  But his father finally found him.

  In France.

  In prison.

  France in those days was a particularly dangerous place. Especially if one was branded a spy.

  In retrospect, Edward was quite thankful his father had worked it out and rescued him. He hadn’t cared for captivity in the slightest. Although, to this day, he was still friends with the men who had shared his fetid cell, and always would be. He owed them a great debt.

  He nodded to Transom as they passed. His old friend shot a look at the following brood and rolled his eyes.

  Silence fell as they approached the table and Edward pulled out Aunt Hortense’s chair. She was still goin
g on about the ball—which would be done in sea-foam blue, to complement Violet’s alabaster complexion, don’t you know—but Edward wasn’t listening. So he was free to notice the eerie stillness. The younger boys gathered around the far end of the table, their eyes trained on their aunt as she shifted her bulk into her seat.

  He should have known.

  He should have suspected.

  They were far too silent.

  As Hortense sat, a loud crack shot through the room and her chair collapsed.

  Edward caught her just in time. But he could hardly hold her for long. Between the two of them, he and Transom managed to heft her to her feet. Glaring at the now howling imps, he called for another chair.

  The footmen swarmed in to set an un-shattered chair at the table and remove the Chippendale sticks from the floor—dear Lord, that chair had been in the family for years. Then they reformed their ranks and, like a battalion facing battle, served the soup.

  The incident had one positive benefit. Aunt Hortense stopped talking altogether as she recovered. At least for a while.

  The meal was half over, and Edward was sorely regretting his decision to emerge from hiding, when Kaitlin appeared in the doorway. She was breathless. Her dress was rumpled. Her bun was slightly askew.

  “Oh Kaitlin, darling,” Violet cooed. “Wherever have you been?”

  She took her seat down the table, between Hamish and Sean. “I’m sorry. I was…” She cleared her throat. Flicked a glance in Edward’s direction. “Reading.” She tucked her napkin into her lap. “I fell asleep.”

  “Must have been a boring book.” Malcolm passed her the sauce.

  She blinked behind those spectacles. “Um, yes. Of course.” Her gaze danced over to Edward again.

  Something simmering in those lovely orbs lit a fire in his belly. She’d been reading. He knew at once, exactly what.

  Oh. Excellent.

  His evening went from miserable to downright promising in a heartbeat.

  He spent the remainder of the meal surreptitiously studying her, listening in on her conversations and interpreting every gesture. Also dodging carrots, as Sean and Dennis were flinging them at each other using their spoons as catapults, continuing their ongoing battle.

  Aunt Hortense’s warbled admonitions fell on deaf ears.

  Though, by the end of dinner, deaf ears would have been a blessing.

  Still and all, when the company rose and made their way to the drawing room, he followed. Because Kaitlin went with them.

  At Violet’s urging, she sat at the piano and played accompaniment as his cousin sang several songs in a lovely soprano. Then they switched places and Kaitlin sang. Edward sat in the wingchair and watched, oddly enchanted. Her voice was a rich, sultry alto. When the two sang a duet, it was downright delightful.

  Edward was struck with the knowledge that he was attending an impromptu musicale—and rather enjoying it. Quite unexpected, that.

  The boys then coordinated a rollicking game of Bouts-Rimés and then, of course, Rhymes with Rose. He found himself howling at some of the verses they came up with. He suggested chess and, after a hunt for the missing men, they sat around the table and partook in a tournament, with the winner of each game playing the next challenger.

  Most games ended quickly. Hamish beating Taylor. Sean triumphing over Hamish, Dennis and Aunt Hortense. Malcolm squashing Sean and then Violet. Ned trouncing Malcolm.

  The game between Ned and Kaitlin took much longer. Edward could tell she had played before, and many times. In the end, she won. Which delighted him. Because he was the only remaining challenger.

  They took their positions, each sizing up the other. He knew more about her than she did of him, because he’d watched her play. He deliberately made a few foolish moves at the beginning, to throw her off her game. But she quickly caught on to his ploy.

  She was a clever girl, his Kaitlin. She soon had him in a corner.

  But he was a master at chess, and wiggled out of the hole.

  Their game went on and on, advance and retreat, loss and triumph, until only a few pieces remained on the board.

  The boys lost interest after a while and drifted off to explore other pursuits. Violet and Aunt Hortense became engaged in a meticulous discussion of the ball. That left Edward and Kaitlin alone together in the corner.

  He smiled at her as he moved his queen. “So, you were reading this afternoon.”

  She started. Her gaze flicked warily to his face. “Yes.”

  “Anything…interesting?”

  She tried to hide her smile with a pucker. It didn’t work. “Perhaps.” She moved her king out of danger.

  “Did it involve a harem girl, by chance?”

  She tipped her head to the side. “Do you intend to win the game by distracting me, Your Grace?”

  “I think you should call me Edward now, don’t you? After…this morning.”

  She colored, a lovely rose. “So you do intend to distract me.”

  He moved his lone pawn.”Does it?” He glanced at her, investing heat and promise in the look. “Distract you?”

  “Perhaps. A little.” She took his knight. “Quite sad, though, that you feel you have to cheat to beat me.”

  “Cheat?”

  “Hmm.” She studied the board as he took her bishop. “One would hope you could play without resorting to such base tactics.”

  “Oh, I will win.”

  “Will you?” He loved the way her lips curled. They were perfect lips, ripe for suckling. He’d love to have her suckling on him. His ardor stirred.

  “Do you fancy a wager?”

  At her words, her tone, her look, his cock shot straight up. “Most definitely. What shall we play for?”

  At the same time he said “A kiss,” she suggested, “Money.”

  He steeped his fingers and studied her. “What do you need money for?” Good God, whatever it was, he’d be delighted to provide it for her. A new dress? Ribbons? Furbelows? Done.

  But she didn’t answer him. She sat back and folded her hands in her lap. “Do you want to wager or not?”

  He did. “All right. A kiss if I win. Ten guineas if you win.” He was definitely winning.

  “Twenty.”

  He winced, but only in play. Twenty guineas was a fortune to a girl like her. To a duke, it was a fart. But it would be worth it. Because he was going to win. He could see it on the board. “Fine. Twenty guineas wagered against a kiss. Play on, Macduff.”

  She snorted a laugh and hunkered over the board, determination written on her face. It was adorable. She was rather fun to watch.

  He should have paid more attention to the game.

  Five minutes later, she had his king in check. Six minutes later, in mate.

  Hell. She’d won. He stared at the board. How had that happened?

  “I will accept a bank note,” she murmured, arranging the pieces in their velvet nest.

  He stayed her hand. “One more game. Double or nothing.”

  She smiled at him and shook her head. “I will have the twenty guineas, thank you.”

  “Fine. They are yours. But I would like another game.”

  “Would you?” She glanced about. With the exception of Malcolm, sitting across the room in the wingchair and staring into the fire, they were alone. “It’s getting late.”

  “One more game. Thirty guineas against a kiss.”

  She gasped.

  “No.” For that much, he should get more. “Thirty guineas against thirty kisses.”

  “Thirty kisses?” Her brow quirked. “Your Grace, your lips would be sore.”

  He leaned in and lowered his voice. “Who said anything about lips? That’s the part of the wager I forgot to mention. I get to choose where those thirty kisses fall.”

  She stared at him. Her lips worked. Ah, that they were working on him. “Your Grace, I cannot help making the connection to selling one’s soul for thirty pieces of silver.”

  He grinned. “Nonsense.” He began setting t
he pieces on the board. “Guineas aren’t silver.”

  Kaitlin stared at the board as Edward arranged the men. Fifty guineas. In one night. Lord. That was an opportunity she couldn’t dare to miss. It wasn’t by far enough to wipe out the debt weighing on her soul, but she would be fifty guineas closer to freedom. And if she lost—

  She shuddered at the thought of thirty kisses…then thrust the inconvenient lust aside. She wouldn’t lose. She wouldn’t. She’d played Edward. She knew his tactics. She could counter them at every turn.

  She would win.

  “Well?” The pieces were all in place. The board waited. As did her opponent. A confident look limned his handsome face. “What do you say, Kaitlin?” He said her name in a raspy whisper.

  “Yes.”

  His nostrils flared. “Yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wonderful.” He made his first move. “I shall enjoy my kisses.”

  She snorted and countered. “You will enjoy dreaming about them tonight in your cold bed.”

  He gaped at her and then barked a laugh.

  And then they both settled in, fiercely scrutinizing each and every move.

  An hour later, they had made little progress. It was clear, when both were playing to their full potential, they were evenly matched.

  She rather liked that.

  Few men had impressed her so.

  One of the many who had not, Malcolm, strolled over to the board with a pout on his face. “Are you two going to play all night?”

  “I certainly hope so.” At Edward’s wicked expression, Kaitlin burbled a laugh.

  “Oh. Take his queen. See there?” Malcolm waggled a finger at a blatant opening. Edward had been teasing her like that for a while.

  Kaitlin sighed. “If I do, he will have me in check in five moves.”

  “Four.” Edward batted his lashes innocently and nibbled on his knuckles.

  “I wanted to talk to you, Kaitlin.” Malcolm’s whine was an annoying drone.

  “After the game.”

  “But it’s taking so long.”

  “Fine.” She pushed away from the table and crossed her arms. “What did you want to say?”