Glowing in Gold: The Brothers Duke: Book Five Read online

  ‘Come through, Jane.’

  ‘Give me a moment to look.’ Jane stepped closer to the mirror, reaching out a hand to gently stroke the glass. ‘Just a little while.’

  ‘Look all you like, dear. We’ll be back in the briefest of moments.’ Margaret shot a brief glance at Edward, but her murmur was almost lost in the sudden rustle of skirts and footsteps. ‘A few minutes unchaperoned can’t do any harm…’

  Soon they had vanished behind the curtain. Edward blinked, realising that he and Jane were entirely alone.

  A few minutes unchaperoned? Oh, the things he’d done with unchaperoned minutes in the past. But in the past he’d been sure of himself, confident—now, for some bloody reason, he was oddly tongue-tied.

  It was strange that Margaret, Charlotte and Anne had place their trust in him. Very strange indeed, considering that they knew his reputation. But then, they were used to underestimating Jane… they would need to prepare for that particular change. Anyone left alone in a room with her would consider themselves the luckiest man in Christendom.

  He felt like a boy again. A clumsy, tongue-tied boy in the presence of a goddess. Knowing that the goddess was witty, independent and more than capable of holding her own in conversation did nothing to improve his sudden awkwardness.

  What was worse, she was ignoring him. She was looking in the mirror at herself, her face still full of soft, marvelling light that made his heart beat faster when he looked at her. As if she’d discovered herself, her own singular beauty, at the same time that everyone else had discovered her.

  He cleared his throat. ‘You really do look splendid.’

  ‘I know. You already told me.’ Jane looked at herself in the mirror; Edward watched her, glancing at her rapt face with the guilty pleasure of a voyeur. ‘I believe you.’

  ‘I told you in front of other people, in a polite way. Such bland compliments can never be trusted.’

  ‘Oh yes? How dispiriting. What’s the more colourful compliment, then, if a simple repetition won’t suffice?’

  ‘I couldn’t possibly say it if there’s a chance of someone overhearing.’

  ‘I see.’ Jane stared at him, unblinking. She didn’t shrink away, or blush–such things wouldn’t have fit her anyway. Edward tried to meet her gaze, waiting for her to speak. ‘Then I am to imagine it?’

  ‘I doubt a lady of such gentle breeding as yourself could imagine the level of detail.’

  ‘I am also a widely-read lady, who considers her acquired knowledge far more important than her supposedly gentle breeding.’ For someone who had never flirted in her life, she was damn good at it. His body was responding to her in ways he’d never suspected it would as he listened to her speak. ‘I’m sure I could approximate a similarly lascivious compliment.’

  Lascivious. He’d pay money to hear her say that out loud again. ‘Then do so.’

  Jane waited a beat, her face divinely serious. Then, with a wry twist to her mouth, she held a hand to her brow. ‘Why, Mr. Duke! What a thing to say to a lady.’

  ‘I’ll say it again. I’ll say worse.’

  ‘Now, now. I don’t think I can imagine worse than I’ve just imagined.’

  ‘I’d never underestimate your brain, Miss Selkirk.’

  ‘Would you underestimate the rest of me?’

  However practised he was at the art of flirtatious conversation, she always found a way to jolt him out of his usual patter. ‘I—no.’

  ‘Good.’ Jane nodded. ‘Glad to hear it. You rakes—you tell the oddest mixture of truth and lies. It’s all to be found in the wordplay.’

  ‘Words can lie, yes. Rakes lie all the time–we’re rather good at it. But the body can’t lie, Miss Selkirk.’ Edward moved closer, pleased beyond measure when she didn’t move away. ‘The flesh always tells the truth, even when the spirit fails.’

  ‘The most open, sunny face can conceal a multitude of sins.’

  ‘Oh, I have no doubt of that. But I’m not talking about the face—I’m talking about the body.’ Another step forward. ‘There’s great honesty in the face, the hands—the rest of one…’

  ‘Oh, Lord. From which page of the rake’s pamphlet is this particular piece?’

  ‘Well, I—goodness.’ Edward blinked, affronted. ‘Don’t stop a gentleman when he’s in the middle of his sentence.’

  ‘You seem dreadfully uncomfortable.’

  ‘Of course I’m uncomfortable. I’ve never been a token rake before.’

  ‘I think all rakes are token rakes, aren’t they?’ Jane frowned. ‘I’ve certainly never imagined a rake as the main event.’

  The nerve of the woman! Edward drew himself up to his full height, quite forgetting his surroundings as he spoke. ‘Says a woman who’s never met a rake worthy of being the main event.’

  ‘It’s a logical fallacy! One’s husband is the principal focus, while the rake is an afterthought!’

  ‘Not if the rake gives a damn about his chosen vocation.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Jane rolled her eyes. Edward caught the hint of a smile hovering at the corners of her mouth, which only fed the unusual excitement rising in him. ‘Here speaks the spokesman for all rakes.’

  ‘I’ve certainly put in the hours.’

  ‘Quantity of hours is rarely as important as the quality of said hours.’ Jane half-turned, gently adjusting the sleeve of her gown in the mirror. Edward found himself obscurely captivated by the curve of her wrist, its proud arch as singular as the rest of the woman. ‘Or am I mistaken?’

  ‘You’re mistaken in thinking one has to choose between quantity and quality.’

  ‘I’ve never met a gentleman who becomes more interesting over time.’

  ‘Miss Selkirk.’ It was as if she were deliberately baiting him. Was that a glint of mischief in her eyes, or a trick of the light? ‘You need to meet better gentlemen.’

  ‘I know.’ Jane turned back to him. Edward held his breath for a swift, startling second; the effect of her in a good gown was still frighteningly potent. The shock of it only heightened the pleasure. ‘That’s why I’m doing this. That’s–that’s why you’re here.’

  That small note of hesitation in her voice had him hungering for more of it. ‘Are you telling me that I’m an interesting gentleman?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ Jane looked at him boldly, her gaze travelling from his head to his toes. ‘I didn’t think so at first. But–’

  ‘But what?’ His feet were moving of their own accord, taking him closer to her. Not close enough to start a scandal, but close enough to start thinking about one. ‘What’s changed?’

  Another silence. A deep, strange silence, like the one they’d experienced in the study. But they were so much closer now, and relatively far from prying eyes, and she was… well, she was…

  It wasn’t that she was more beautiful. More that the beauty she had always possessed was framed now, placed centre stage, every bit as important as her ready wit and direct manner. From the hem of her new gown to the soft coiffure of her hair, she was presented as a woman to be desired.

  And he desired her. Very much. What a strange thing to realise in the middle of a modiste’s workshop, the air full of the smell of warm cotton.

  ‘Miss Selkirk.’ He spoke very quietly indeed. ‘Are we about to have a very interesting conversation?’

  ‘Oh—stop it.’

  ‘Stop what?’

  ‘This. All of it. I simply don’t believe you.’

  ‘Don’t believe what?’

  ‘This.’ Jane waved an awkward hand in his direction, managing to express an enormous amount of faintly uncomfortable derision in a single gesture. ‘What you’re doing.’

  ‘What am I doing?’

  ‘Oh, stop it. The compliments you say, the compliments you don’t say.’ Given what a ready tongue the woman had, she was apparently finding it very difficult to talk. ‘The smouldering, the pauses, the–the rather obvious flirtation.’

  ‘Rather obvious?’

  ‘Very obvio
us, but I was attempting to be polite. I don’t do it very often—I’m not surprised it failed.’

  ‘I believe you’re trying to divert the conversation.’

  ‘Just—just admit it.’

  ‘Admit what?’

  ‘That Margaret put you up to it. If not Margaret, one of the other two.’ Jane sighed briskly, turning back to the mirror. ‘If you keep feigning desire, sir, then this is going to become intolerable.’

  Feigning?

  Good Lord. She thought he didn’t mean any of it. Or worse, that he’d been asked to do it—as if seduction could be a sickly act of charity rather than the full-blooded thing it should be. Edward took a deep breath, pity mingling with anger, as he tried to concentrate on the best route forward.

  This wasn’t the time to be the saintly gentleman who shook her by the shoulders and told her firmly that she was very pretty indeed. That should have been done by her father, or any other man who felt no baser feelings in her company. At the moment he was all base feeling, all lust–consumed with the idea that if he didn’t do something now, something drastic, she would be lost to him forever.

  What she needed was a practical lesson. An unmistakeable piece of evidence that the desire he felt was real, and more than capable of flowering further with the correct encouragement. At the thought of Jane encouraging him, urging him onward, another wave of lust swept over Edward with the force of an avalanche.

  Enough fear. Enough waiting. If she wanted a rake’s opinion, he’d damn well give her one.

  ‘Indulge me, Miss Selkirk.’ He watched her turn. She wanted to listen to him talk, then, even if she was suspicious. ‘Do I seem the type of man who can be persuaded to do something that he doesn’t wish to do?’

  ‘Well…’

  ‘Be honest.’

  ‘... No.’

  ‘The joy of a rake like me, Miss Selkirk, is that no one can command me. Not unless I choose to be commanded. And believe me–I wouldn’t let Margaret or Charlotte command me, however much they asked.’

  ‘And so you are… self-governed?’ The slightly clumsy note of hope in Jane’s voice only inflamed him further. ‘Hmm.’

  ‘Hmm indeed. And yes–I am self-governed from head to foot, in this particular moment. Or rather, I thought I was.’ Edward moved further and further towards her until he was standing in front of her, leaning closer as he spoke. The softness of the gown made a delicious addition to the natural softness of Jane’s voice. ‘As it turns out, there’s one other person in this workshop who can command me without so much as lifting a finger.’

  ‘And—and that would be—’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What an astonishing declaration.’

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘And what am I supposed to do about that?’

  ‘Take your power, Miss Selkirk. Command me.’

  Command me.

  It was like being in the same room as a tiger. Despite an analytical brain so formidable that rooms of gentlemen had denounced it, Jane found herself falling on the most hackneyed of metaphors to try and explain the sensation of being alone with Edward.

  She was in the close company of a creature designed, absolutely designed, to chase those worthy of being caught. What was worse, she’d never enjoyed anything quite so much.

  Was this was being seduced was like? Lord, it was–it was wonderful. To have the complete, focused attention of a being so thoroughly potent, so visibly seductive. To parry and thrust, flirting as well as she knew how, knowing already how encounters of this kind were meant to end… and now he was so close to her, so divinely close, and the skirts of her gown seemed to whisper at the pleasure that could surely come.

  A rake’s pleasure, of course. Nothing deeper than that. But she would have to know about all aspects of the union between ladies and gentlemen before she found a husband, after all. And who better to teach her than someone so thoroughly experienced, so clearly adapted to the task?

  And he was funny. So very funny. And handsome, especially this close. And… and if he kept looking at her with such a strange stare of powerful, lust-fuelled surprise, she was half in danger of forgetting that this all had to be a game to him.

  ‘I could forget.’ Damn it–she hadn’t meant to respond aloud to her own thoughts.

  ‘Forget what, Miss Selkirk?’

  ‘Oh–nothing. Nothing of importance.’

  ‘Are you losing your famed articulacy?’ Edward brought his hand upward; Jane bit her lip, a tremble running through her as he caressed her cheek with his palm. ‘I can’t think why.’

  ‘Are you always so smug when it comes to ruin?’

  ‘Only when I know that I’m going to enjoy it.’

  ‘You can’t possibly know that.’

  ‘You fight me, Miss Selkirk. All the evidence of my enjoyment is abundant, and yet you fight me.’ Slowly, wickedly, Edward pressed himself against her. ‘I told you that the body doesn’t lie.’

  Jane swallowed a gasp. If the firmness of his anatomy and her theoretical knowledge of the human male was anything to go by, his excitement was no falsehood. This was meant to feel sordid, shameful–but oh, it felt wonderful.

  ‘You see?’ Edward’s murmur was soft and dark in her ear, like the scent of wood-smoke. ‘Can you feel me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you know what it means because you’re intelligent. It means I don’t have to explain.’ Edward’s hand lingered against her cheekbone as a new note entered his voice. ‘I… I can’t tell you how good it feels not to have to explain.’

  ‘Come now.’ It was difficult to speak with her body in such rebellion; sparks were moving through her nerves, setting every part of her alight with a slow, sweet flame. ‘Don’t pretend you only hunt maidens.’

  ‘It’s one extreme or the other. It’s ladies who’ve never seen so much as an illustration of the act, and ladies who have seen enough of the act to disillusion them entirely. You are the perfect medium.’

  ‘Being described as a medium is never a glorious compliment.’

  ‘I also described you as perfect.’

  ‘And you can’t possibly mean that.’

  ‘Miss Selkirk, if you keep picking at everything I say I’m going to be forced to take you up against this wall, and do a remarkably thorough job of it.’ Edward’s fingers stroked lightly along her neck. ‘Do you understand?’

  ‘Goodness. What a terrible fate.’

  ‘And if I wasn’t so convinced of my own expertise in this area, I’d think you were leading me on.’

  ‘And if I was?’

  ‘Then… then I’d ask you where you wanted to start.’

  Anywhere. Everywhere. I want you to push me up against the nearest wall and show me absolutely everything I’ve missed.

  ‘Well, Miss Selkirk?’

  ‘A kiss.’ Jane paused, sure that she had said the wrong thing. But Edward’s face was still transfigured with desire—his body was still very much against hers, hard and unrelenting. ‘I believe that’s the traditional place to start.’

  Edward didn’t reply. Instead he looked at her, a long, appraising stare that had Jane waiting on tenterhooks. It was almost as if he didn’t believe her words, or… or something deeper. As if he couldn’t quite believe this was happening.

  Perhaps this was what all rakes did. They made every conquest feel special. It was like a magic trick–even when one knew how it was done, the effect was the same. From head to foot, she felt utterly, singularly divine…

  … and then he moved closer still, coaxing her into a long, deep, dizzying kiss, and divinity no longer seemed quite so appetising when compared to sin.

  He seemed to know that light, pretty kisses weren’t warranted. Or maybe he couldn’t control himself–either was more than acceptable. Jane realised that her eyes were firmly closed, her arms slowly but surely moving around Edward’s neck as she encouraged the kiss. Anything to keep the swift, savage rush of pleasure going–anything to keep the fire in her growing, burning, removin
g all traces of worry or discomfort.

  Slowly but surely, she was pressed against the white-plastered wall of the workshop. The cold plaster was a delicious, unexpected juxtaposition to the warmth of Edward’s body–to the heat of his mouth as he skilfully, relentlessly coaxed more and more pleasure from the depths of her core. At first all she could do was submit, feel, experience–but soon, after long, delicious moments of learning, Jane was almost sure that she could match him.

  Summoning up her courage, she tried mirroring one of his movements–a soft stroke of her tongue against his, light and timid. The growl that came from Edward’s throat as a result, the sudden tightening of his fingers as he moved his hand to her hair, fed the flames within her to a point of exquisite, near-painful pleasure. Stifling a gasp, Jane tried again; his tongue met hers again less gently this time as they explored one another, her body arching up to meet his as every last trace of shame died away.

  More. More, please. She couldn’t murmur the words, however much she wanted to—but with more kisses, she would find the courage. With more light touches of Edward’s hands against her hair, her neck, her waist, she could see herself asking him to do anything. Everything.

  When he pulled away, her first instinct was that she had done something wrong. How could it be anything else, given her lack of experience? A wave of embarrassment came over her, briefly blinding her to the moment–but no, it wasn’t that. Edward wasn’t looking at her with disgust, or even awkwardness.

  If anything, he looked shocked. Deeply, powerfully shocked. Jane stared back at him, a part of her wondering if she was bad enough at kissing to stop a rake in his tracks.

  No. Stop thinking. For once in your life, stop thinking.

  ‘… I’m sorry.’ Edward looked at her with a fraught, anxious expression, swallowing. ‘I don’t know what’s come over me.’

  ‘No need to apologise.’ Forming a complete sentence was difficult with breathless lungs and a pounding heart, but she managed. ‘Stopping is, well, it–it’s hardly something to apologise for, really.’

  ‘Not the stopping. The—the starting. It hasn’t been like this in a long, long time.’ Edward spoke quietly, almost to himself.

  ‘What do you mean?’