The Duchess War

“My great-aunts used to do this for each other,” she said. “When things did not go well.”

He brushed her hands away. “I don’t need comforting.”

He didn’t deserve it.

But before he could stand up and turn away, she grabbed hold of his hands. Her grip wasn’t firm, but it was sure.

“If family is a matter of choice,” she said softly, “I’ve chosen you.”

He let out a long breath.

“And I will,” she said, “again and again.”

He lifted his head. Her eyes were wide and gray and guileless, and she was saying words that he’d longed to hear for years. On a breath, he stood, reaching for her. His hands closed on her hips; a scant few moments later, his mouth captured hers. There was no thought, no calculation in that kiss. She was simply achingly present.

“Minnie,” he murmured against the heat of her lips, and then again, “Minnie.”

Tonight would be the fifth night of their marriage. He’d had her while she laughed. He’d taken her while she moaned for him. He’d never taken her feeling as he did now—dark and uncertain.

He didn’t ask this time, or whisper to her what he wanted to try. He didn’t ready her with kisses. He pushed her against the wall of the train car, and before she had a chance to struggle or cry out, captured her skirts in his fists, gathering up petticoats and crinoline. He had only to free his erection. One thrust—one push inside her, and he’d be as bad as his father, taking a woman because she was there and he wanted to feel her. One thrust, and he’d punish himself even more.

Her head was down, bowed before him. He towered over her. There was nobody around, no way she could call for help. He’d probably frightened her to death.

He let her skirts fall and stepped away. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m in a filthy, filthy mood. You’d best walk away while you still can.”

She looked up at him then. Her eyes were pale gray and absolutely lovely. But she didn’t twitch a muscle.

Shadows from a passing tree flickered over them, painting their faces in a shifting palette of light and darkness. His body shivered with need.

“I mean it, Minnie,” he said quietly. “Walk away. If you could see what I was thinking now, you’d be scared half to death. Do you know what I could do to you?”

“No.” Her voice was almost placid. “Tell me.”

“I shoved you against the wall.” He set his hands on either side of her head. “I might have had my way with you.”

“Had your way with me,” she mused, shaking her head. “Which way is your way, again?”

He narrowed his eyes. “You know what I mean.”

“I’m afraid I don’t have any idea.”

He took a step forward, trapping her against the wall. “Must I spell everything out?”

“Please.”

“I could plunge my c**k inside you.” His hips ground into hers. “No preamble. No nothing.”

Her eyes widened. The corner of her mouth tilted. “Oh, no,” she said. A dimple popped out on her cheek. “Not your cock. Anything but your cock.”

He found himself smiling in spite of everything. “God damn it, Minnie. Can’t you take my bad mood seriously?”

She ignored him. “And here I was, feeling so…so empty. Why, if you were to slide inside of me, it might give me the most curious feelings.” As she spoke, she undid his trousers. Her fingers played down the length of him, stroking his erection.

“But there’s no worry of that,” she said. “You’re so massive, I don’t think you would fit.” She gave the head of his penis a squeeze as he spoke, and he let out a gasping laugh.

“God, Minnie. I can’t see straight.”

“It’s a good thing you have hold of your urges,” she said, more quietly, “because I’m so wet now, and it would be dreadfully embarrassing if you were to—”

He lifted her against the wall, wrapped her legs around him, and slid inside her. She was wet, so wet, and hot. The pleasure of her body, clasped around him, was so intense that it almost hurt. The light rhythmic sway of the car rocked him into her.

He braced them against the wall, his muscles straining.

“That’s right, Robert.” Her arms came around him. “That’s right. Just like that.”

He moved inside her, sliding, straining, until sweat popped out on his brow. He let his lust get the better of him, let his instinct take over until there was nothing but her, her around him, her br**sts beneath his hands, her pulse pounding in time with his thrusts.

She came around him, tightening in waves of pulsating heat around his cock. And he pounded into her, hard at first, and then even harder, until his own climax came. In the moment when he spilled his seed, he imagined them connected by far more than the scrape of his teeth against her jaw, the tangle of their hands, the clamp of her legs still wrapped around him. It was more than just the physical act of burying himself in her body.

In that moment, for the first time in his life, Robert believed that there was someone for him. Someone who would be there for him through the hardest times. More than a lover, a friend, an ally. A wife—for better or worse, richer or poorer. In sickness and in health. In laughter and in tears.

He stood, breathing heavily, humbled by the gift he’d been given. He could only touch her cheek in awe.

“Minerva, mine,” he whispered.

He felt as if he were discovering her anew. As if, amidst all the turmoil of the day, he’d finally been granted his heart’s desire. And now that he had her, he didn’t want to let her go.

She set her head against his shoulder. “That’s better,” she said.

It was so new, this thing he felt between them. New and unfamiliar, and so welcome that he was almost afraid to acknowledge it, lest it disappear. And yet if he said nothing…

“Somewhere,” he said, “someone is saying that I made a dreadful mistake in marrying you.”

She pulled her head from his shoulder and looked up at him, her eyes wide.

“They’re wrong.” He put his arms around her. “All of them, wherever they are. You are the best choice I have ever made.”

There was a light in her gray eyes when she looked at him, one that made him feel a thousand feet tall. He could have conquered an entire army with her at his side. Whatever it was that had gone wrong would come out right.

It was almost too much to believe.