How to Forget a Duke Read online

  Then, without warning, he crushed his mouth to hers. His arms wrapped around her like manacles, stealing her breath. And he was shaking, the tremors wracking from him into her.

  There was no way for her to answer. He was a force stronger than the storm breaking over them, and so she clung to him, yielding to the unapologetic reprimand his mouth was giving hers. His hands raked over her back, gripping the layers of muslin and cambric until they were soaked and plastered to her. But she didn’t care. All that mattered was that she was in his arms.

  Then a roar of thunder shook the ground and lightning split the sky. They began to move, the power of his legs driving them across the hill with her dangling from him like a stringless marionette. She would need to breathe at some point, but she couldn’t bring herself to pull away just yet.

  After a minute or more, she became aware of the fact that the rain no longer doused her in drowning swells. She could hear the harsh, ceaseless rush close by, but only a few trickles fell on her face. Drawing back marginally, she swallowed down a few needed gulps of air and saw that they were beneath a thick canopy of pine boughs.

  Crispin slid his hand to her nape and tucked her against him as he bent down. “Watch your head, darling.”

  Too stunned by the endearment, it took her a moment to notice their altered surroundings. In the dim light, she saw rocks mortared in a low, shrinking dome around them.

  “We are in a grotto—a cave of sorts,” he said, answering her unasked question. He sank to his knees, holding her legs against his hip to move them deeper inside. “It was built centuries ago by the first inhabitants, to protect the natural spring. We’ll be safe enough here to wait out the storm.”

  A bed of lush, green moss covered most of the ground and climbed partway up the walls. Beside them lay a narrow trail of moon white rocks, glistening beneath a quiet trickle of water that had smoothed away a blade-thin channel over time. And as he lowered her gently, Jacinda wondered if she had fallen into a dream or off the cliff’s edge, because this was all too magical to be real.

  Cupping her face, he brushed the dripping locks of hair away from her forehead, his fingertips tracing down her cheek, over her lips. “Are you hurt?”

  Hurt? She could feel nothing but joy. “Did you call me darling?”

  His response was a featherlight kiss. He shrugged out of his coat and laid it down on the bed of moss behind her. Then his hands roamed along her neck, down her shoulders and arms, squeezing gently as if to verify that she still had tissue, sinew, and bones. Each touch elicited a series of warm tingles throughout her body, rousing her from one state of exhilaration to another.

  He continued without pause, prodding gently through the drenched garments plastered to her skin, against the outside of her ribs, her hips. Methodically, his hands skimmed down her legs, but stopped when he reached her feet and freed her of her sodden slippers as he rotated her ankles.

  She was breathless by the time he finished. “Are you satisfied that I am in perfect health?”

  “No.” His hard gaze fixed on hers before he took her face in his hands and pressed his lips to her forehead, her eyelids, nose, cheeks, and mouth. “I thought I’d lost you, Jacinda, and I”—his breath hitched, raspy and tight—“I couldn’t bear it.”

  Gazing up at his glower, she wondered if she was wrong about what emotion lay at the root of this expression. Perhaps it wasn’t anger at all, but something far more tender. Could it be that he cared for her?

  She lifted her arm to trace that vein with her fingertip. Then she set her hands over his waistcoat, over the pounding in the center of his chest. “Crispin, you are my entire world. I’ll always find my way to you.”

  The hardness over his brow relaxed, his features shifting, softening. Then a sudden smile broke free.

  Unreserved, he unleashed the full potency of his handsome face in a flash of straight white teeth, broad lips that canted slightly to one side, and a vertical row of shallow creases that promised to deepen over time. “You would, would you?”

  Awed, her heart thrummed, lungs tight. She couldn’t respond with anything more than a nod. Besides, there weren’t any words to describe the love she felt in this moment. All she could do was take his face in her hands, and press her lips to his.

  “You’re shivering.” He yanked his cravat free. Folding it by half, and half again, he patted the warm side over her forehead, drying her face, nose, cheek . . . And all the while, Jacinda’s gaze dipped to this new exposed part of him. Even when he’d wielded an axe, he hadn’t removed his cravat. And now it was here, before her, and in easy reach of her fingertips.

  She stroked the corded flesh, interrupted by the knobbed protrusion of his Adam’s apple. Then further down, she drifted to the crisp golden-brown hairs rising up from the opening of his shirt.

  Pausing in his ablutions, his gaze fixed on hers. He must have seen something in her expression because the fine points of his pupils expanded in a spread of scorching, inky black. Covering her hand, he slowly dragged it up his neck to his lips and closed his eyes as he kissed the center of her palm.

  This time a shiver rushed over him.

  Jacinda leaned toward him, seeking his warmth. She huddled closer, pressing her face into the nook between the length of his neck and the rise of his shoulder muscle, breathing in his wet cedar scent. Yet she could not get close enough to him.

  He seemed to know this and wrapped his arms tightly around her. His hands floated along her back, over the layers of damp fabric at first, then beneath, peeling them away. Every inch he touched heated her skin, his rough calluses causing delicious ripples of pleasure.

  Wanting more, she inched between his widespread knees, burrowing closer.

  “Let me warm you, darling,” he said, his voice raw and shaky.

  He tugged on her skirts, drawing them out from under her knees, high enough to reveal the ribbons of her stockings. Then gathering the dripping fabric, he pulled upward with such assuredness that she didn’t hesitate to lift her arms. She didn’t even know when he’d unfastened her buttons. But it mattered little, because in the next instant, she was clad only in her chemise, stays, and stockings.

  Every garment was transparent from rain. Shyly, she lifted her gaze and saw that he’d gone still, his arm still holding her dress and petticoat aloft as rivulets of water sluiced down his arm, saturating his sleeve. Yet the ardent hunger she saw as he stared at her emboldened her to rise up and straighten her shoulders. “I’m not warm yet.”

  Her dress fell, unheeded, in a soggy heap on the ground. Then his hands were on her, drawing her up against him, his mouth slanting down on hers. The kiss was ravenous and needy. She yielded her body eagerly, her back arching, her lips parting, welcoming the sinewy slide of his tongue.

  The storm came on harder. Flashes of lightning penetrated the sheets of water pouring outside the grotto. Every clap of thunder amplified the urgent demands of their hands and mouths. She felt a sharp tug, heard an unmistakable tearing sound, and her stays and chemise went slack. He peeled them down her flesh, the vellum-thin cotton dissolving beneath his hands. And then she was fully bared to him.

  His growled sound of approval made her brazen. So she gripped his shirtsleeves by the fistfuls, and drew out the tails from his trousers. Crispin released her long enough to rip at the opening of his waistcoat, sending black buttons soundlessly to the moss. Then in one motion, he whisked away his shirtsleeves.

  Dear heavens, he was magnificent! A broad wall of thick muscle, accentuated by a mat of springy brown hair tapered down the ridges of his abdomen.

  “So this is what you’ve been hiding beneath your coat all this time,” she said, hardly recognizing the throaty sound of her own voice. Reaching out, she splayed her fingertips over his chest, feeling a primitive desire to claim him and to explore every inch.

  He grinned and moved over her, nudging her back onto his coat. “And this is what you’ve been hiding beneath muslin, hmm?”

  “Yes,” she said o
n a gasp as his mouth rasped the underside of her chin. “Though mine is not nearly as impressive.”

  He began sipping away the droplets of water down the length of her throat, over the subtle rise of her breasts, murmuring hungry sounds of approval that vibrated against her, through her, pulsing low in her body. He paused over a berry-stained peak and met her gaze. “I beg to differ.”

  Then slowly, reverently, he rasped his lips over the distended tip, teasing until a helpless, strangled whimper escaped her. Part of her wanted to close her eyes and just feel everything, but she couldn’t look away.

  He grinned rakishly, then closed his mouth over her nipple. Gasping, she grasped him, her fingers sliding through his sleek, wet locks, her spine bent into an arch of supplication. She would do anything he asked in this moment. At least, as long as he promised not to stop.

  And yet he did stop, but only to move to her other breast. She forgave him on a breathy “Yes. There.”

  An insistent visceral pulse throbbed between her thighs in low, heady surges that matched the satiny flicks of his tongue. Reflexively, she pressed her knees together to appease the ache. As if sensing her discomfort, Crispin’s hand slid down the shallow rise of her stomach and skimmed over the thatch of dark auburn curls that cloaked her sex. Shamelessly, her hips rose to meet him and he cupped her, fully. The breadth of his hand urged her legs apart. Even trusting him completely, she still couldn’t keep from trembling when she opened for him, exposing her vulnerable core, and feeling him slip further down to graze one fingertip along the swollen seam.

  At that first touch, he issued a jagged growl. Leaving the wet tip of her breast to pucker in the cool air, he lifted his head to watch his ministrations. Brazenly inquisitive, she watched, too.

  Silver beams from the lightning outside caught the glistening dampness on his fingers as he parted her slick, sensitive folds. Unhurried, he explored her in unending, voluptuous strokes, the pulse in her body growing more insistent and heavy. But when he dipped a long adept finger inside her sheath, she could no longer watch. Her neck arched back, lips parting on a gasp, her hips tilted against him, seeking.

  Now his breath fractured. Her name spilled forth on broken syllables like a new language that took on a multitude of tender, erotic meanings. He shifted then. Hovering over her, he nudged his thigh between hers.

  Exhilarated with unspent pleasure, she watched him once more, her gaze roving over his body as he unfastened the fall of his trousers. The placard gave way to his thick, jutting column of flesh and her breath stalled in her throat. Rising up from a thatch of dark fur, the solid length of his shaft and rounded dusky head seemed to rear at her, feral and ravenous.

  Unaware of her stirrings of trepidation, Crispin bent down low, his focus on the dewy curls of her sex. Parting her thighs, he nuzzled her, breathing in deeply. “I’ve dreamed of tasting you and licking away every sweet, dewy drop. Then I would wake up, prowl past your chamber and into my study, to write your name down in my ledger.”

  The lower right-hand quadrant, the one she’d questioned him about. And now she knew why her name was there.

  His words, and the raw desire in his voice, sent a helpless, frantic quiver arcing through her. It centered there, where he parted her. She sucked in a breath, embarrassed to have him look so closely at her most intimate flesh.

  At the sound, he looked up, his eyes hooded and somewhat wicked. “Not curious enough yet? Very well. Later, then.”

  Grinning, he rolled his tongue over her in one long, lazy lick that made her forget whatever nonsense she’d been worried about a moment ago. Then he moved over her. Skimming his mouth along her stomach, he paused to suckle each breast until she clung to him, her hands clutching his shoulders.

  He continued his torment, pausing to nip at her earlobe. His hot breath and the brush of his lips against the sensitive flesh made her tremble. “I love it when you blush, even your ears color.”

  She wanted to say something in return, but she couldn’t think of anything at the moment. Couldn’t think at all. Her breasts tingled from the crisp hairs on his chest as the hard length of him settled with purpose at the cradle of her thighs. Edging forward, he only penetrated her flesh the barest degree, and yet she felt the sting of being stretched, the faint burn of forewarning.

  Kissing her again, hungry, coaxing, he slowly pushed that rearing flesh deeper into the slick, confining grip of her body. He looked down at her, his gaze fiercely tender, his breathing labored with restraint. Then he withdrew marginally and suddenly pitched forward, breaking into the shrinking channel.

  Jacinda cried out, gripping the shoulder muscles that flexed beneath her hands as hot tears slipped out from the corners of her eyes. It had been so beautiful and thrilling . . . until she was impaled. Her body tried to stretch to accommodate his flesh, but she didn’t think it was possible. Now she was beginning to wonder why she’d been so eager.

  Making no apologies, he brushed her lips in a tender caress. “There’ll be no more pain now, darling.”

  She didn’t believe him. Even his expression revealed the strain of agony. Yet because of those lines of tension etched over his brow and cording his neck, she forgave him, taking comfort in the lock of his embrace, but not in his certainty.

  However, he took his time to prove that there would only be pleasure from that point forward.

  As the storm rumbled past and all that was left was the quiet music of the rain hitting rocks and branches, he roused her in slow, unfolding kisses. The gentle cambering of his hips increased by degree into leisurely thrusts.

  Her breath began to quicken once more, and she was surprised to find herself anticipating each deep push and slow, thick withdrawal. Gradually, the tight cinch of her flesh welcomed his intrusion, the pleasurable friction, the unhurried rhythm. She held on, gripping his shoulders, his nape, his back, anywhere her hands could reach.

  His kisses deepened, the rock of his hips more intense, focused, bringing her throbbing pulse to life again. He drove inside her, insistent, unleashing a frantic sort of restlessness, her body clenching tight without giving way. The maddening sensation robbed her of speech and stole her breath. Desperate to assuage this terrible constriction, she wrapped her arms tighter around him, her legs winding around his hips. Still, there was no release, only this tireless, rigid throbbing.

  She broke from his kiss, her lips skimming along his cheek, tasting the salt of his sweat on the tip of her tongue. When he shifted, lurching out of rhythm, he set off a torrent of tingles cascading beneath her skin. And suddenly she fractured, her body pitching upward, quaking in unending pulses, the ecstasy wringing needy mewls from her throat.

  Crispin issued a choked grunt. Jolting back, he spent himself in long, scorching strokes against her inner thigh.

  Then he came down on her, his labored breath hot in her ear as he gathered her close and pulled her with him as he rolled to his side. Her legs tangled with his, her head resting against his shoulder.

  Curled naturally into his embrace, she caught her breath after a moment. “Very well, you no longer owe me an apology.”

  He kissed her temple, lingering as he skimmed a hand down her back and her arms, touching and caressing. “You may say that now, but you have not seen the state of your undergarments. I may well owe you another restitution. But later, when you are snug and warm in your bed. For now, as much as I would love to remain just as we are, I do not want you to catch a chill.”

  “If you keep me in your arms, I will not,” she said, nuzzling him and pressing kisses against his neck, licking more of his tantalizing sweat. Never before this moment, would she have imagined doing such a thing and enjoying it so thoroughly. She wanted to taste him everywhere and gained a new understanding about the bottom right-hand corner of Crispin’s ledger. Even so, the reason behind having her name there still made her blush.

  “But, darling, with the worst of the storm gone, the servants are likely searching for us.”

  Imagining how embarrass
ing it would be to have Mr. Fellows stumble upon them helped her make the decision. She did not want this moment to be part of Mr. Fellows’s History of Rydstrom Hall.

  Sitting up quicker than she ought to have done, she felt a twinge of soreness between her thighs, along with the thick dampness of his seed. But Crispin seemed to read her mind, and in a dreamlike daze, she watched him reach down with a handkerchief to wipe away the residue that melded with the pink-tinged traces of her virginity. He brushed his lips over her temple and cheek.

  Then she saw the evidence of her destroyed undergarments and reality intruded. There was no way to wipe away this evidence. “What am I going to tell Lucy? Surely, she will guess what happened while you and I were waiting out the storm.”

  “Tell her whatever you like.” He tilted her chin up to meet his gaze and kissed her. “We will be man and wife soon enough, and rumors will not matter.”

  “Man and wife? But, Crispin, there are so many—”

  He kissed her again, long and deep, causing sensual tremors to roll through her, clenching sweetly and leaving her breathless. “Later, darling. With your tendency to disagree with me, I would rather be in a better position to persuade you . . . for hours on end.”

  Chapter 29

  “And have you never known the pleasure and triumph of a lucky guess?—I pity you.—I thought you cleverer—for, depend upon it a lucky guess is never merely luck. There is always some talent in it.”

  Jane Austen, Emma

  When Crispin and Jacinda returned to the castle, Mr. Fellows greeted them with his usual bow, his expression impassive as if the pair of them weren’t drenched from head to toe, and the lord of the manor wasn’t missing all of his waistcoat buttons. Even so, Jacinda fought the urge to blush and burrow deeper into the coat Crispin had draped around her shoulders.

  “Your Grace, I am ever so grateful that you and Miss Bourne are safe. I’ve taken the liberty of ordering hot water from the kitchens.”

  “Very good,” Crispin said, keeping Jacinda at his side, her arm tucked within his. “Have a bathing tub assembled in Miss Bourne’s chamber, and send a tea tray as well. And Fellows . . . is the entire castle aware of Miss Bourne’s absence during the storm?”