The Broken Duke Page 13

  Graham could hardly breathe at the thought, even though he knew James was right. Even though he only spoke the absolute truth.

  “Your Graces?” Both men turned as James’s butler entered the billiard room. As James nodded, the man continued, “The Duchess and Lady Adelaide have both decided to retire to bed early. Her Grace says to tell you to stay up as long as you’d like, Your Grace.”

  Graham sent a side glance at James. From the shift in his expression, Graham could see his friend wanted to join his wife. The certainty on Abernathe’s face made Graham’s chest tighten. He wished he knew what he desired so clearly.

  “Thank you,” James said. “You may also finish your duties and go to bed. I’ll make sure the doors are locked after Northfield leaves.”

  The butler nodded and left the two men alone. James smiled at him. “It seems we have a long night available to us if you’d like to talk.”

  Graham laughed despite himself. “No, I don’t require a governess tonight, though I appreciate the offer. I would like to say one thing before I tell you to go to your bed and let me show myself out.”

  James nodded. “Of course.”

  “The situation is untenable, and I know you’re right that I shouldn’t toy with a woman like Adelaide. Nor a woman like Lydia. Still, they have given me a gift.”

  “And what is that?”

  “I understand more what Simon…went through,” he admitted slowly. “Wanting what he felt he couldn’t have, loving what he knew he shouldn’t. I can see how his desperation could have led him to do something. How he could have been willing to trade anything not to lose Meg.”

  James’s jaw twitched a little. “If that is what you’ve gotten from your current predicament, then I cannot be sorry. I hope that means one day you can talk to Simon, forgive him even. Our world is not the same without you.”

  Graham stiffened. “I’m here.”

  James shook his head. “You’re not really. Not the way it used to be. Perhaps that’s too much to hope for, but I still do.”

  Graham nodded. In truth, as time passed, he had begun to wish for how things used to be too. It might not be fully possible with all they’d gone through. But he knew that avoiding the situation wasn’t going to change it. “I will speak to Simon when I’m ready, I promise you.”

  James slapped his arm again. “Can you show yourself out?”

  He smiled. “I can. I’m sure Grimble hasn’t gone to bed and I can convince him to lock up behind me. I’ll talk to you again soon.”

  James grinned and left the room, Graham trailing behind him. While his friend turned right toward the stairs, Graham maneuvered left, down the long and winding halls that led to the foyer. But as he turned in a bend, he slowed his gait. The library door was open a crack and there was a sliver of light peeking out from the space, leaving a beam in the hallway. He edged toward it, his heart rate increasing because he knew instinctively what he would find in that room.

  He also knew he should walk past it.

  But he didn’t.

  Adelaide’s bare foot tapped beneath her gown, and she looked up at the shelves of books without seeing any of them. God, how she was distracted. She hadn’t even had the focus enough to ring for Rebecca to help her undress. All she could think about was Graham, Graham, Graham.

  Graham, shame filling his face when Emma noticed the bruising on his knuckles.

  Graham watching Adelaide at supper, his expression hooded and unreadable, but oh-so-focused and confusing.

  Graham, broken the night after he’d attacked Sir Archibald. Broken as he whispered his dark and painful secrets to a woman who didn’t even exist.

  And Graham, who was just a few doors down the hall with James, talking about God knew what while she couldn’t stop thinking about him.

  “Hello, Adelaide.”

  She froze in her place facing the bookshelf and her heart began to pound so hard she feared it could be heard in the silent room. She’d thought she was safe here tonight. She’d thought Graham and James would likely spend many hours talking together.

  It seemed she was wrong. She pivoted slowly and found exactly what she expected: Graham standing at the entrance to the room. His blond hair was half out of its queue and strands of it fell around his face, making him look undone and a little dangerous.

  Because of course he was there when she was at her most vulnerable. Of course he was there, watching her, when her secrets were so close to the surface. When she knew she’d have to tell him, but just wasn’t ready yet.

  “Hello,” she squeaked out.

  He hesitated a moment, almost as if he were weighing his options, and then stepped fully into the library and gently shut the door behind himself.

  She stared at him. They were inappropriately alone now. She had never been alone with him like this as Adelaide. Brief moments on the terrace were nothing like this, where the room was so small and tight and no one knew they were here together.

  No one could interrupt.

  Despite the danger of this moment, despite her foolishness in wishing it would grow more dangerous still, her body reacted of its own accord to what he’d done. She started to tingle, making it very clear what she wanted from the man no more than three feet away from her.

  “I thought you’d gone to bed,” he said, and she was almost certain he gave the word bed just a tiny bit more weight.

  She worried her hands in front of herself. “I couldn’t sleep. Not that I tried that hard.”

  He moved a hand up to brush a lock of hair from his forehead and she tracked the motion, drawn once again to the bruises on his knuckles. She should have asked for ice. It would have helped the swelling. He frowned at how she looked at his injuries.

  “Ugly, aren’t they?” he said, holding his hands out so she could look more closely.

  She caught her breath. “I don’t think so.”

  “No?” he pressed, coming forward a step. He brought his body heat with him, his unwavering presence that seemed to take up all the space, all the air, everything she needed to survive.

  She should have stepped away, but instead she reached out. Her fingers nearly brushed the bruising, but he pulled back, ducking his head.

  “What you must think of me,” he said softly. “You and Emma.”

  She pursed her lips, frustrated that he knew so little of her real self that he would think she’d judge him for what he’d done. Pained that he judged himself even more harshly.

  “You did something brave, it seems to me,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “To protect your…your friend as you did.”

  He winced. “If you were there, you would have thought me an animal, Adelaide.”

  She fisted her hands at her sides. “Of course you weren’t an animal, Graham,” she insisted, her emotion bubbling over even though she didn’t want it to. “That man’s intentions were clear—he wouldn’t have stopped unless you stopped him. What would have happened then? I know exactly what would have happened. I would have been raped and—”

  She cut herself off and jerked her hands to her lips. What had she just said? In her fervor to soothe Graham, what in the world had she just said?

  Graham lifted his gaze to her and his brow wrinkled with confusion. “What did you say?”

  She backed up, and this time he didn’t hesitate to move forward. He tilted his head now, examining her. Really looking at her.

  “I didn’t say anything,” she said. “I-I was just repeating what you said about your friend.”

  “You said I would have. I, not she.” He moved closer again and she staggered, almost tripping off the edge of the rug as her backside hit the bookcase behind her. He pressed farther into her space, not quite touching her, but looming up nonetheless, his face too close to hers.

  His bright, impossibly blue gaze piercing. And seeing. Her breath grew ragged, the only broken sound in the quiet room around them. She wanted to turn and run, but there was nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide. Not anymore.

 
; “Graham,” she whispered. “Please don’t.”

  He reached for her and she braced for him to catch her arm. To yell and demand and reveal. Instead, he silently slid his fingers into the tight bun that was bound up at her nape. She went weak at the touch, the feather-light pressure of his hand against her scalp, gliding her pins loose to scatter on the floor below her, spreading her hair out and down across her shoulders.

  His nostrils flared.

  “Graham,” she repeated weakly, tears filling her eyes.

  He slid his hand around to her chin, forcing her to look up at him. Then he brushed his fingertips across her jaw, over her cheekbone, and caught her spectacles. Slowly, slowly he glided them down over her nose and away.

  And he stared at her. Without her armor, without her costume, without her barriers between them. And he saw her. Because there was nothing left to keep him from doing so.

  She stopped breathing entirely, mostly because she couldn’t remember how to do so when she was so exposed. This wasn’t how she’d wanted him to find out her secret. This moment when he was just staring at her, his expression one of coiled emotion.

  She braced for him to yell at her. To demand she explain herself. Or worse, to simply walk away in pure disgust.

  But instead he let out a long breath and whispered, “Thank God.”

  Then his mouth was on hers with a crushing desperation that was unlike any way he’d ever kissed her before.

  Chapter Fifteen

  If there had been any doubt left in Graham’s mind, and there hadn’t been, all of it fled the moment his lips touched hers. Adelaide and Lydia were the same person. And he’d never been so confused, so stupefied or so relieved in his entire life. The idea of losing one of the women had been physically painful to him.

  Now he knew he wouldn’t have to lose either. And he dove into the kiss, tasting Adelaide’s desire, feeling it in the way she arched against him with those tiny sounds of pleasure that always rocked him all the way down to his very core.

  Reason fled, questions fled, all that remained was this burning desire to have her, to claim her. Not as Lydia, but as Adelaide. As whatever woman she was when she allowed those two sides of her to combine.

  He pivoted, backing her toward the settee in the middle of the room. She never resisted as he lowered her onto the cushions, his mouth not leaving hers as he delved deeper and deeper into the ocean that was this woman. Body and soul. He wanted it all. He wanted it now.

  She reached up and started tugging at his cravat as his mouth moved away from her lips to her throat. She managed to loosen it and he sat up, shrugging out of his jacket and tearing open the buttons of his shirt until he could tug it over his head.

  She lifted her hands to his chest, tracing the lines of muscle there as her eyes went wide. He smiled at the expression, for she’d seen him like this a few times and yet she still seemed shocked every time. It gave a man a swelled head to have a woman look at him like that.

  Especially this woman.

  He pulled her to a seated position and glided his hand down her spine, flicking open her buttons one by one even as she lifted her mouth back to his with heated, desperate need. They tugged the dress and chemise down together, and he shoved her back on the settee as he latched his lips around one tight nipple. She arched beneath him, her hands coming into his hair as she shut her eyes with a shuddering sigh.

  He watched her face as he pleasured her—there was Lydia, there Adelaide. And he tamped down all his questions for the moment.

  “Please,” she murmured, her hips jolting up against his in time to the way he suckled her breast. “Please.”

  He nodded and got up, yanking off his boots and fighting with the buttons on his trousers as she shimmied her dress off her hips. She blushed as she slowly opened her legs and revealed herself to him. He stopped what he was doing and stared.

  In that moment, she was all Adelaide. And even though he’d had this body before, he’d never known it was her. Now that he did, it was all new again. She was new. And he wanted her with more power and passion than he’d ever desired Lydia.

  Which was saying a great deal.

  “My God, you are amazing,” he muttered as he dropped his trousers, kicked them away and slowly lowered himself over her. “Do you have any idea what you do to me?”

  She smiled as she reached between them and gently cupped his rock-hard cock. “I have a little idea.”

  He shook his head. “Not that. I acknowledge you do that, but I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about this.”

  He took her hand and lifted it away from his cock, sliding it between their bodies until her fingers rested against his chest, just over his heart. She swallowed hard and met his gaze as he positioned himself against her sex. As he drove forward, his heart rate ratcheted up and her eyes went wide.

  She held her hand there, his heart pounding against her palm as he took her with long, slow strokes. Her sex clung to him, squeezing as she lifted against him, her gaze going blurry with pleasure as he took her. He drove deep, circling his hips as she squeezed, and raw sensation rushed up his cock and spread through his entire body. He was alive, he was on fire, and there was nothing like it.

  Nothing like her.

  He cupped the back of her head, tilting her mouth for better access. He drove his tongue past her lips, tasting her unique flavor as her body began to shake beneath his. He gripped her hip, grinding harder over her, forcing her pleasure until she bucked beneath him, her pussy gripping him as waves of release rolled between them.

  She milked his cock, driving him toward home, toward her, toward that blinding moment of perfect pleasure that always existed between them. He thrust harder, shutting his eyes, sucking her tongue, feeling the intense sensation grow until his balls tightened. Biting back his roar, he withdrew, pumping his hand over his cock as he came between them, then flopped forward to cover her body with his as he rained gentle kisses down the slope of her neck and shoulders.

  She wrapped her arms around him, cradling his body against hers, her legs tucked around his waist, her soft sounds of pleasure still warm and incoherent against his neck.

  And in that moment everything in his world, his life, his riotous mind, was perfect.

  That was what she did for him. Adelaide. Lydia. Both. The same. And that thought drew him from the hazy pleasure.

  He lifted his head and stared down at her. She was looking straight back at him, not flinching, not hiding. Not anymore. Everything had been laid bare and her secrets would soon merge with the ones he’d confessed so recently.

  If she wanted to tell them, that was. Because she hadn’t forced him. And as much as he wanted to do so, he refused to force her.

  He stroked the back of his hand along her cheek, tracing the soft lines there as he whispered, “Tell me?”

  She stiffened just a fraction, and her gaze slid away from his. He mourned the connection that had been broken. He mourned that she felt she had to break it. That she couldn’t fully trust him. Hadn’t trusted him. Might not trust him still.

  “I-I owe you that,” she said with a nod of what could only be described as resigned surrender.

  He cupped her chin and lifted it, forcing her to look at him. Her blue eyes widened, pupils dilating as she met his stare. He shook his head slowly.

  “You owe me nothing,” he whispered. “I’m asking you for the truth, but if you want to protect your secrets I, of all people, would never force them from you.”

  His answer seemed to shock her, for she was silent for what felt like an eternity. Then she swallowed hard. “No, Graham. I was always going to tell you. And it’s time. It’s time for the truth.”

  Adelaide groaned as Graham gently lifted his weight from her. She prepared for him to get up and walk away, to dress, so there would be a barrier between them. But just as he had been from the moment he entered the room, he surprised her. He didn’t leave her, but merely shifted them both into a seated position. He tucked her against him, his
arms around her, and she rested her head against his bare chest with a shuddering sigh.

  She felt safe in his arms. An illusion, she knew, but one she chose to cling to in this moment of vulnerability and fear. He hadn’t abandoned her yet, and he already knew the worst of her lies.

  “What I told you about the first night we made love when you thought I was Lydia, it was true,” she began, surprised she could make coherent speech when she was shaking so hard. “Three years ago a gentleman began to show interest in me. No one of any real consequence, but he seemed to like me. And no one had ever liked me before. He seduced me. I shouldn’t have allowed him to…to take me, but I thought he cared. It seems he didn’t, for he disappeared soon after.”

  She felt Graham’s jaw tighten and looked up to see anger on his face. At her? But no, it didn’t seem to be. “Who?”

  “It doesn’t matter now. He ran off to the Americas, his father has said publicly. No one has seen or heard from him in years.” She sighed. “He would rather run than marry me, it seemed. At the time, it was devastating, for I knew I’d destroyed any small chance I had at a future. My aunt found out and was enraged, so it made my life at home even harder.”

  “It changed you,” he said softly.

  She nodded. “As all experience does, I suppose. I coiled further into myself. Into books. Into the wall. I didn’t want to be seen.”

  He looked down into her face and she saw his empathy and understanding slashed across his handsome face. In that moment, her sense of safety grew, despite having told him a fact that could easily change what he thought of her. Lydia’s fall was one thing to process. Lady Adelaide’s was quite another. Two different worlds, two different feelings on the same subject.

  And yet Graham didn’t seem fazed by the truth.

  “How did it lead you to Lydia?” he pressed gently.

  She drew a ragged breath. “I was not happy. As I said, my aunt didn’t react well when she discovered I’d been ruined. She would screech the most vile things at me. She would—” She broke off, thinking of Opal’s harsh slap during that terrible time. Of the way she’d choked Adelaide just that very day.