The Inconvenient Duchess

gave her power to quicken the pace, and then he shuddered and she felt the rush of him against the building tension in her own body, and she stroked again until the tension broke and she lay spent on top of him.
    He was murmuring in her ear, again. Calling her his darling and his heart, speaking haltingly in French, which tickled her ears, but which she did not understand.
    ‘I’m sorry, your Grace’ she whispered, as she licked his throat, ‘but I have no idea what it is you are saying to me.’
    ‘I will teach you, then,’ he whispered back.
    ‘I am glad…’ she kissed him again ‘…for you are a most amazing teacher.’
    She reached out to touch him and felt him go hard in her hand.
    He smiled. ‘And I think it is time for another lesson.’

    His Grace’s valet returned to below stairs shortly after breakfast and sat at the table in shock. Never in all his years with the duke had he seen the like. He’d arrived at the usual time, to wake the duke and lay out his clothes for the day, only to find him wrapping a dressing gown around himself and shutting the bed’s hangings behind him.
    And he was smiling.
    Not the knowing smiles he’d seen in Paris or London, or the glares he was accustomed to, when his Grace was in residence at the manor. This was the look of a man drunk on pleasure.
    His Grace, the duke, raised a finger cautiously to his lips. ‘Shh.’
    When he went to the wardrobe to select the day’s clothes the duke waved him away. ‘That won’t be necessary, Thomas. I think I will be spending the day in my rooms.’
    ‘Are you ill, your Grace?’
    ‘Exhausted.’ His tone rose. ‘Too spent to consider leaving my rooms. Almost too tired to rise.’
    Thomas distinctly heard a feminine giggle from behind the hangings of the bed.
    ‘I expect my wife would also like to remain in bed. Send Polly away today, for I doubt she’ll be needed.’
    Thomas nodded dubiously. ‘And breakfast, your Grace?’
    ‘Leave the tray outside the door, Thomas. And bringenough for two, for I am most uncommonly hungry today. Lunch as well. Possibly even supper.’
    There was another giggle from the bed and his Grace the duke positively grinned.

Chapter Twenty-Four
    M iranda stared up into her husband’s face as he sat before the fire, sipping his port. Evenings were her favourite time of day, when the house was putting itself to bed and the day’s duties were done. She thought back to how worried she’d been, when the silences between them had seemed so oppressive.
    As time passed, and they’d found happiness, the silence had grown richer than words. He could sit for hours staring into the fire, but now he smiled instead of scowled, and closed his eyes, at peace with her and with himself. And she sat beside him, dozing with her head on his shoulder or in his lap, while he stroked her hair.
    She hated to break the silence tonight, but it was time, she thought, to ask the things she wanted to know. And it would be better now, when he was relaxed and happy, than waiting until he might be less receptive to her. ‘Marcus?’
    ‘Yes, my love.’
    ‘There is something I would ask of you.’
    ‘Anything, Miranda. Anything for you.’
    She sighed. ‘I am not so sure if you know what you are saying. Promise me you will not be angry.’
    He ruffled her curls. ‘You are wheedling, wife. Trying to be coy. It does not become you. Plain speaking between us, remember. What is it you want?’
    ‘I want you to tell me about St John.’
    His hand stilled on her hair and the room seemed to get colder around her.
    She pressed on. ‘Why does he hate you so? Is it just that he is jealous? Has it always been thus
    He was silent, and she felt his body grow tense. ‘Why do you ask about things that are in the past?’
    ‘Because I know how damaging secrets are, for the person who keeps them. I want to be a part of your life, Marcus.’
    ‘You already are, Miranda. Not just a part. You are my life.’
    ‘All the more reason for you to tell me about your past. I want to know all of you.’
    He sighed. ‘How much has he told you already? When you were alone with him, he talked, didn’t he?’
    ‘But he lied, Marcus. About so much. I don’t know if I heard two words of truth out of him in two weeks.’
    He stared into the fire as if puzzling out the answer. ‘His truth and mine are not the same, Miranda. And that is the problem.’
    ‘What is your truth, then?’
    ‘That our relationship was doomed from the start.