When a Duchess Says I Do - Grace Burrowes Page 0,51
is barely a day’s journey from Town.”
“In good weather, with good horses. Winter has begun, in case you’d forgotten.”
When Quinn slipped his arms around Jane’s waist and hugged her bare back to his chest, she was much too warm to notice mere winter.
“I’m a duchess and a Wentworth,” she said, wiggling into his embrace. “A spot of weather shall not deter me.”
“You’d leave the children?”
“Of course not.”
Quinn’s hold shifted. He had different sorts of kisses, silences, and smiles. He also had a vocabulary of embraces. The notion of traveling with the children had momentarily deterred him from a marital objective.
“I can’t bolt for the shires, Jane. I have committee meetings this week and a directors’ meeting at the bank.”
“I must make preparations as well, but we’ll not leave Duncan all on his own to endure whatever mischief Stephen is up to.”
“Agreed,” Quinn said, rising and extending a hand to Jane.
She stood, her dress falling halfway down her arms. “I know you love to hear the piano competently played, Quinn, but might we miss the first half of tonight’s gathering?”
He stepped close enough that Jane could start on his shirt buttons.
“You’re asking me to give up half an evening of cultural enrichment, mingling with good society, and furthering my political agendas merely so I can tarry with my duchess in the bedroom yonder?”
Quinn was still the best-smelling man Jane had ever met. She buried her nose against the join of his neck and shoulder. “I am asking you to make that great sacrifice yet again, Your Grace.”
“Then my answer is,”—he scooped Jane into his arms and grinned like a plundering buccaneer—“of course.”
* * *
In Matilda’s opinion, most French men knew how to be naughty and gentlemanly with the same woman. They treated their mistresses with exquisite politeness in public despite the intimate nature of the relationship. They could also conduct a discreet, passionate affair with a well-born woman and still spend an evening partnering her at whist without considering the hours wasted.
Matilda had brought some experience to her marriage. If the duke had noticed, he’d been too polite—or too interested in his next invention—to mention it.
Prior to her marriage, when in Paris—and in Lyon, Nice, and Marseilles—Matilda had done as the French women had done and enjoyed the company of those fellows who’d caught her interest. Only two had progressed past the point of flirtation, and those two had been sweet, considerate, and dear without capturing her heart.
Even those two, though, had offered overtures, leaving Matilda with the question of whether and how to respond. Duncan Wentworth gave her the entire field, invited her to take the white army, in other words, and decide everything.
Wrapped in his arms, she chose not to rush, but rather to savor what had to be a stolen moment.
She started by reveling in the pleasure of Duncan’s embrace. He was lean and muscular, and when his arms came around her, Matilda relaxed in a way she hadn’t relaxed for months. She was safe when he held her, sheltered from every peril except the very great danger of trusting him.
Before that injustice could poison all of her joy, she listened to his heartbeat, a slow, steady pulse beneath her cheek. Duncan wasn’t a randy boy, giving in to a whim. He was all adult male, making a choice he’d justified with no less than three reasons.
And he wasn’t ashamed to let Matilda know he desired her.
She anchored a hand at his nape and kissed him right on the mouth—no venerable, cautious Italian game, this. His lips were softer than she’d expected, and he tasted sweet and buttery, as if he’d pinched a few biscuits before their chess game.
When his hold on Matilda became more snug, she went a-plundering with lips and tongue. She felt the shock of that boldness go through him, a start perceivable only because she’d tightened her grip on him too.
“I’m sorry,” she said, disappointment crowding her pleasure. “On the Continent…”
He resumed the kiss, this time tasting her as if she were a delicacy made up of complex spices. His kiss was a thinking kiss, one that gathered impressions and measured reactions.
Heaven help her, he could make a chess game of a kiss.
The emotions that swamped Matilda then came too fast to ignore. Rejoicing, to have found this man whose intelligence and compassion had formed a pact of mutual invisibility. Duncan was good-hearted, he was much smarter than he let on, and he was aroused.
Answering desire rose in Matilda along with a flood of