Dangerous in Diamonds - Madeline Hunter [112]
“Was she scandalized?”
“I don’t know. Are there people who worry about scandalizing servants? How odd.”
They did not stop at the public rooms above but kept going. He brought her into his dressing room and immediately swung her around and began unfastening her dress.
“Two weeks,” he muttered. “It has been hell.”
She felt the dress gaping already. “Your Grace, I would prefer—”
“It was one thing when I had not had you yet, Daphne, but this was unacceptable torture. I do not want a row, just a right understanding. When I say you must come here to me, that means you are to do it.”
She slid out of his busy hands and grasped the sides of her dress behind her. “I understand your impatience, Castleford, but let us at least go to my chamber first.”
“Oh, that. Here, let me show you what I have done.” He took her other hand and sped her to the bedchamber door. He threw it open and gestured. “We do not have to use that other chamber now. I removed the one here, and put in a new one.”
She realized he spoke of the bed. She went over, trying not to stumble on her sagging dress’s hem.
Everything was new. Even the drapes. She examined the changes, too astonished to speak.
“In case you are wondering, it is still a virgin bed,” he said. “No woman has been in it.”
She bit her lower lip. She had never expected him to understand that she did not want to join the spirits of his whores on that other bed. That he had not only understood but done this for her, left her undone and in danger of losing her composure.
She braved a smile, but her heart filled with a beautiful ache.
She opened her reticule. “Thank you. I am moved that you were so thoughtful.” She poured the diamond necklace and earrings into her hand. “Help me to put these on, so that the first woman to use it is worthy of the honor.”
He fastened the necklace at her nape while she worked the earrings. Laden with the jewels, she stepped out of her dress and began dropping her chemise.
He sat on the bed and watched, his expression severe with his attention. Thoughts that she could not fathom caused golden lights to form in his eyes. Not only desire caused that intensity while she undressed under that gaze. He was not distracted either. Those unknown thoughts centered on her.
Naked except for her hose, she propped one foot beside his hip so she could deal with her garter. He took over, loosing the ribbon and sliding her hose down, looking at all of her while his action created a caress that made her tremble.
He made quick work of the other one, then pulled her close so she stood between his knees.
“Diamonds, and nothing else,” he said, tracing around her breasts with his fingertips. “They become you in so many ways. Not only your beauty. They show you as you are inside, I think. They illuminate your pride and your strength. Right now you are not a woman for a man to take lightly, that is certain. You appear capable of great danger, should you turn your mind to it.”
She said nothing. She dared not assume to what he might allude. With Castleford, it could be anything.
His tongue laved her nipple playfully, then luxuriously. Powerful trembles began inside her. He must have sensed them, because his hand slid between her thighs, and he gently caressed there in ways certain to madden her quickly.
“I decided, while you were gone that you did not want to marry because I am unreformed,” he said between kisses and nips. “But I also thought there was more to it. Seeing you now, I am sure there is.”
She closed her eyes, because the sensations streaked through her now in a series of deep, moving tremors of pleasure.
“You are not going to tell me why, are you?”
“No.” Perhaps she only answered in her mind. Her senses were being overwhelmed in a way that made it hard to know.
“So I am to have you as a mistress only, for now. I am inclined to accept the truth of that. It is in my interests to do so right now. Gentlemen are less careful in bed with mistresses than with wives, and mistresses are more willing to be wicked.”
She felt quite wicked. Desperately so.