The Duchess War

His mouth closed over her nipple and she gave herself over to him. There was nothing but the heat of his tongue against her, the savagery of his hands on her hips. Her back met the hard wood of the table.

“God, Minnie,” he breathed. “What will I do without you?”

“Why would you ever have to know? I’m not going anywhere.”

He didn’t seem to hear her. He let go of her long enough to undo his trousers and then captured her wrists in his hands, holding them to her side. He didn’t look in her eyes, though.

“I’m here,” she said. “You don’t have to hold me down. I’m not going anywhere.”

He didn’t let go. Instead, he let out a growl and pushed inside her. Her body was slick to receive him. He’d not even bothered to remove his trousers all the way, and when he buried himself inside of her, she felt the fabric against her thighs. Somehow that fact—that he’d been so desperate for her that he’d not even disrobed, that he’d pushed her on a table—only heightened her desire all the more. The glorious slide of his body into hers seemed even more delicious, even more forbidden.

There wasn’t anything pristine and proper about his lovemaking. It was something far more feral, an elemental force that she’d never experienced before. His thrusts were hard and steady; his hair curled around his forehead, dripping sweat.

“God,” he groaned.

She clenched him tightly, and he growled once more. “I want you,” he said fiercely. “God, I want you. Why can’t I have you?”

“You can. You do.”

But he didn’t speak in response. Instead, he took her harder. He seemed almost in a frenzy. He growled one final time and then came. He let go of her wrists as he did—but only so he could take hold of her face and kiss her.

As his climax passed, his kiss faded from savage to sweet. He gently pulled away, took in a shuddering breath, and looked around, as if to verify that he had just had his way with her on top of the table.

Well-constructed, that table. It had scarcely even budged, no matter how he’d taken her.

He disengaged from her and slid off to stand on the floor. She sat up gingerly.

“Minnie,” he breathed.

“If you say one word other than ‘Lord, that was magnificent,’ I will bite you,” she said.

He let out a laugh. “God.” He fingered the side of her face. “You are magnificent.”

But there was still a shadow on his face, a curtain pulled over his expression. He stepped back from her and she could feel him withdraw.

And Minnie knew. She could see it in the tilt of his head, the way his eyes didn’t meet hers. There was something he wasn’t telling her.

She smiled wanly and tapped his wrist.

“I don’t want you to father all our children atop a wooden table, but this once…this wasn’t so bad.”

“I just…I just needed to know you were still mine.” His hand hovered near her shoulder and then dropped down to his side. “I don’t know what came over me.”

She reached out and took hold of his hand and entwined it with hers. “You know, it has always been one of my dearest wishes to drive a man to distraction. It was simply glorious to do it.” She touched her finger to his lips. “I know how difficult today must have been for you—how hard these last days must have been. You told me when we married that you wanted an ally, someone who always saw you rather than a duke.” She pulled him close. “And here I am.”

“Here you are,” he breathed. His voice was raspy. His hands closed on her hair. “Here you are.”

AT THREE IN THE MORNING, Robert’s dreaming mind took over. He saw himself on the stand and Minnie—a younger, more vulnerable version of herself—in the audience.

“She’s an unnatural child,” he heard himself say. “The spawn of the devil himself. She made me do it.”

She watched him, her eyes wide and hurt—and then she shattered in a fountain of gray glass. He reached for her, but the shards only cut his hands to ribbons.

He woke gulping air, reaching for her, with the realization fresh on his mind. Oh, God. He was going to do that to her—to betray her on the stand in front of everyone, just as her father had done.

She was curled on her side next to him. In her sleep, her hand rested on his hip; her head leaned against his shoulder. Even in her sleep, she trusted him.

He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t do this to her.

He dragged himself out of bed instead. By the light of a flickering candle, he wrote her a letter telling her everything—what he’d planned, why he’d wanted it.

I have to tell the truth about you, he finally wrote. I can’t see my way around that. But don’t come to the trial today. I’m sorry about what must be said—but don’t come to the trial.

I love you.

His hand hovered, wanting desperately to write one last sentence.

Please forgive me.

But he didn’t know how she could. He wasn’t even sure if he could make himself ask.

Before he left to meet Oliver’s lawyers, he roused her maid and put the letter in her hands.

“Here,” he said, gesturing to a chair just outside their bedroom. “Sit here. Make sure that whatever you do, she reads this letter as soon as she awakes, and not one instant later. It is urgent.”

The rest of the morning passed in a blur. He seemed to wait forever for the trial to start, but once it did, the prosecution’s evidence bled together into a meaningless stream of testimony and examination. Robert’s sense of unease grew.

All around them, reporters made industrious notes in shorthand. The defense started their case. This was the moment when Minnie would have appeared in the room, his mother in tow. But she didn’t arrive. Thank God.

Robert was finally called to the stand, and everything else seemed to disappear—the courtroom, the jurors, the reporters watching in avid interest. There was nobody but him and the barrister conducting the examination.

The questions were simple at first—his name, his title, his age, the last time he’d sat in Parliament. And then…

“Do you know who wrote the handbills that are at the heart of the prosecution’s case?” asked the barrister.

“Yes,” Robert answered. “I did.”

A surprised murmur rose up from the crowd.

“Did anyone assist you with them?”

“I had them distributed by a man who could not read, had them printed more than a hundred miles away. Nobody in the household I set up here in Leicester knew the first thing about them. I made sure of that.”