A Most Improper Duchess, page 8
I want more.
I want you.
Oui, oui, oui.
Somewhere between losing himself in her groans as much as his own, he heard her demand, ‘Louder, Arley. Shake down the walls.’
She tensed and her thighs clenching against him as she cried out, as if she had only aching moans left in her vocabulary. Arley fell into the essence of her, his climax rebounding through him, and as her trembling met his, he groaned, at first biting his lips as he always did, forcing restraint into every moment of his life, before he released it, and let himself be loud, like she wanted. He threw back his head and half howled her name, and in reply, she amplified, her shouts of harder, faster, louder melding with his own. Who cared if he was heard? Who would gossip about a liaison between a no name clerk and a ballerina? He was just a man, lost in the body of a beautiful woman.
She bent slightly, eased back against him, and he pushed deeper and spent as she trembled. She jerked with energy, her release the twin to his. He’d never felt so in sync with another. Never felt so connected, so raw. Fucking had always been primal, a physical necessity, the quenching of a base desire. As Vivianne arched, her body relaxing, he clasped her hips and pushed just a little deeper to hold the ecstasy a little longer. Everything about her felt different to anything he’d known before.
But beneath the pulsation of release, the ebb of desire, the satisfaction of seeing her posed before him in total surrender, the gift of her body stirred something else. A feeling that had been there from the first time he’d made her laugh, had grown as she’d shown him her city, and with it, herself.
There were a hundred ways to admit that he was lost, and maybe with his cock still buried in her was the crassest form of realisation, but surely…
Surely, there was no better way to…
Dare he say it…?
To fall in love?
Chapter ten
When Vivianne opened her eyes as the last blissful shudder ebbed from her body, the first thing to come into focus was her white knuckles still wrapped around the bed post. She’d lost control. Been so flooded with desire she’d demanded he fuck her.
And how he had. Every stroke of his cock had been heaven, every kiss, every lick, every touch focused on her, and her body, and she’d forgotten that just like a dance, fucking was a performance.
No one had ever kissed her between her thighs before, caressed her skin, savoured her lips, cared what she felt, and with the newness of the feeling, she’d lost herself. And mon dieu, he’d finished inside her.
She’d given him control.
Vivianne never lost control. Never allowed her own pleasure to dictate her actions with a man. It was too dangerous. They already had all the power, and to give them her desire was a pathway into jealousy, pathetic obsession, and eventually being discarded. No man kept a woman once she adored him. She clutched for her familiar anger or exasperation to level at him, or at herself, but with the lusciousness of her orgasm still trailing over her skin, like a hush of velvet, she could not rouse the emotion. She grasped for something else, to find a feeling to use as a shield, but all she found was the weakness of happiness. An empty ache blanketed as she spiralled into his spell, and a cold rush of fear chilled her.
Arley, still inside her, gave a satisfied sigh. He ran his palm down her back, and his light, feathering stroke sent a quiver along her spine. He brushed the hair from her neck and curved to kiss her nape. Thin tickles erupted, and she had to stifle a giggle. Chiding herself, she pushed it down.
‘I don’t think I’ve ever felt like that,’ he said. ‘Never enjoyed it so much. I—’
‘Don’t spoil it with words,’ Vivianne snapped as she twisted away. He fell back against the mattress and opened his arms in invitation, a stupid, satisfied smile on his beautiful face. She should slide off the bed and dress, race home to wash, but instead, she crawled along his length and collapsed against his side. He gathered her in his arms and she settled against his chest. The rhythm of his breathlessness matched hers with gasping synchroneity.
Arley stroked her hip, then pressed a kiss to her temple. Her racing heart stumbled.
Non, non, non. She would not. She could not let herself feel anything for this man. She had to choke down the feeling in her chest. Had to snuff it out before it starved her.
She’d woken with the thought to seduce him. He may not be as rich as a patron, or have influence, but he wore nice shirts, had steady employment and with the duke, probably had good connections. And he liked her, that was abundantly obvious. And when she had woken and watched him as he slept, she had confessed to herself that she was not ready to let him go. So she’d thought to show him the pleasure she could give. Make a new arrangement. Renegotiate their deal.
Perhaps she could salvage her plan.
Vivianne twisted in his arms and rested her chin on his chest. Everything about him felt so uncomplicated and easy. So gloriously simple.
‘Monsieur—’
‘Arley.’ He nudged her, a slight grin giving light to his sleepy, half-closed eyes. ‘Why so formal? Especially after that.’
She would not be drawn into that look. She drew little circles on his chest. ‘You are leaving soon, yes?’
‘Now that I have my list, maybe tomorrow.’
‘Do you think your business will bring you back to Paris? Perhaps often enough that you might need to keep a small apartment? Something simple for your convenience?’
‘Vivianne…’ His tone had that preparation for dismissal, and it hurt more than any other rejection she had received, even more than failing her auditions. But unlike those times when she bowed her head and walked off stage, this time, she would not allow herself to be set aside so easily.
‘At least think on it. Just a little? Because I am tired. Tired of Paris and the games she plays. I am almost too old for the ballet, and I will die before I go back to the grisettes. I know the promise of a courtesan means little, but I give you my word that I will keep your bed warm only for you.’
‘This journey was an exception. My work is in London. I will not need to come back here often at all.’
Vivianne squirmed, desperate to put some distance between herself and his body.
Arley gripped her and held her in place. ‘You did not let me finish.’ He took hold of her hand and brought it to his lips and pressed a kiss into her palm. ‘All my life I’ve been what I was told to be. With you, for the first time, I feel free. Like a person I do not know. I don’t want you in Paris, I want you to come home with me. But not as my mistress. I want you to be my wife.’
‘Marriage?’ The word made her dizzy. Not since she’d been a naive girl leaving her village had she felt like that was a path for her.
‘Would you like me on one knee?’ he asked, and before she could reply, he pushed himself up, slid over the side of the bed and crouched on the floor, both ridiculous and stunning in his nakedness. ‘Or on two knees, begging like the fool I am. Or perhaps I should lie prostrate, like the courtiers of old before their queen.’
‘Get off the floor.’ She couldn’t help but laugh as she pulled him back into the bed. He claimed her mouth, and she welcomed his stealing of her kisses. She splayed her hands over his back and felt him growing hard again against her thigh. ‘It’s been days. You cannot marry someone you’ve known so short a time.’
‘People marry after knowing each other less. My mother had one conversation with my father before they were promised.’
‘And were they happy?’
‘Completely miserable. But we will be different. We have some energy between us, a connection. Surely that is something worth building on.’
In less than a week, he had taken everything. He had her power. Her heart. And yet as he watched her, waiting for her answer, he looked as fragile as a taut length of thread against a blade.
‘You will tire of me. Men always do,’ she said.
‘And you may tire of me. And maybe we will be old and tired and cranky together. But at least we will have tried.’ His joviality faded. She ran a shaking finger over his lips, still disbelieving the words spilling from them. ‘I feel it,’ he whispered. ‘In your touch. In your kiss. In your body,’ he growled in her ear, and a warm shiver skated from where he kissed her to her toes. ‘This is right. Let me give you more than rent on an apartment. Take my name. Marry me.’
He asked her like she had a choice. Like her response mattered.
‘Oui,’ she said, at first uncertain, then as the awareness blossomed in her, she had to snuffle her surprise, her delight, until it burst out as laughter and joy. ‘I will. I will marry you, Arley West. I will be your wife.’
Chapter eleven
Arley pushed the slip of paper across the counter, along with a 5-franc coin.
‘For Mr Phineas Babbage, Number 1 Honeysuckle Street, London.’ He tapped the note. ‘Urgent.’
The man rolled his eyes, and muttered what might have been Anglais under his breath.
Likely everything sent by telegram was urgent.
Despite the man’s condescension, Arley grinned like a lovesick schoolboy. The most miraculous thing to happen in his life had been condensed to dots and dashes. He’d thought about messaging Cecil and asking him to arrange the first reading of the banns, but if a message was delivered to Number 10, who knew who else would see it. He didn’t want to be greeted at the train station by a hoard of reporters.
Arley stepped out of the telegraph office and into the place du Theatre-Francais. It writhed with early morning energy and anticipation. Carriages, omnibuses, people on horseback and those travelling on foot filled the wide boulevard of the Avenue de la Opera. In the distance, spring sunshine reflected off the roof of Palais Garnier.
He’d wanted to tell Vivianne who he was as soon as she’d agreed to marry him, but something had held him back. He’d spent his whole life as Arley the duke, and a morning as just Arley, stretched out in bed with the first blossom of love still unfurling in his chest, had been too rare and too beautiful to taint. And her slight hesitation as she asked for small luxuries, negotiating their future as she negotiated everything, had been so endearing, he couldn’t bring himself to break the intimacy.
All he had promised her was himself, his heart, and a future without hunger. She shone so vivacious and brilliant, he felt a grey shadow beside her. She’d been lied to so much, broken and manipulated. And he’d lied to her, too. He hadn’t meant it. Somehow, it had all snowballed.
But his truth would change her. It would give her the world. The moment he disclosed himself should be special, more than a casual conversation where he slipped in, oh, and I forgot to mention, I’m a duke.
His revelation should be magical. Memorable.
On the train, maybe? Too boring. On the steamer? At short notice, as Monsieur West and lacking connections and influence, he’d only been able to secure a second-class ticket. She’d think him insane if he took her to their berth and then announced himself.
When they arrived at Number 10. That would be the perfect moment. When she could see the street, the villa and their future for herself.
Why just tell her who he was when he could show her?
Chapter twelve
‘Paris never forgets, Vivianne.’
Nicole spoke her warning into the mirror, meeting Vivianne’s eyes in her duplication.
‘I don’t care what Paris does,’ Vivianne snapped back. ‘I am leaving.’
‘You think you will be happy in his little English world? You will not fit. He will grow bored. He will keep a mistress.’
Over the morning, between rolling, laughing, and kissing, Arley had described his home and his life, and to every request she made, he agreed. A new dress every birthday. A garden where she supposed she would learn how to grow vegetables for their kitchen, as her mother had done. Someone to help with the laundry. But over and over, his love.
In the light of the rehearsal room, Nicole spoke the deepest fears that Vivianne had buried. But her friend was young, and still had opportunity before her. Dukes sent her roses. She had the luxury of hesitation. Of waiting for a better offer. His promise carried more than a glint of happiness. It contained days of food, and comfort, and warmth.
‘What do you want of me? I will never be the prima ballerina. I will have successful auditions less and less. I am tired of being hungry, of groping dukes, of princes without courts and the shredded nobility who come here to pretend the old days remain. I am going to be a wife. Why can’t you be happy for me?’
‘Because this is not an opera, where a boy falls in love with a girl he just met. This is life. He will have some secret.’
‘I cannot go back to the grisettes. And if I am wrong, he will not be the first man to have lied. To have filled me with false promises then ran as they shattered. And if that happens, I will find a way. But maybe, I might be happy.’ Vivianne choked back tears, imploring her friend to understand. ‘Perhaps your duke will bring you to London one day, and I will see you again?’
They stood, eyes on one another in the mirror, as they had stood for so many years. With a turn, and a swish of muslin, Nicole spun and launched herself at Vivianne and wrapped her arms around her neck in a tight embrace.
‘Remember me? In your boring little cottage?’
‘I will never forget you,’ Vivianne said as she pulled her friend tighter. ‘Never.’
As Vivianne walked from the opera house, her heart thrummed as fast as an allegro. She carried a small bag of her few possessions. A spare dress. Her ballet slippers. Any jewellery she’d been given was long sold. Maybe Arley would buy her something special for their engagement.
Maybe he would be all the terrible things Nicole had said he might be.
She caught sight of him first, standing, awkward and alone outside Gare du Nord. He stared at his pocket watch while tugging at his coat sleeves, then scanned the crowd with a slight agitation.
What of her dreams?
What of dance?
What of Maman?
All of her life would rest with him.
Arley spotted her through the crowds, his expression shifting from concern to relief.
He had a garden. He hated parties. He liked simplicity.
She skipped across the street and took his arm, and he tucked her hand into the crook made by his elbow.
‘Miss Chevalier, may I escort you to England?’
She gave one last look at the Paris sky and the roofline she had seen pulled apart and rebuilt so much she barely recognised it from how it had been when she’d arrived.
‘Monsieur West, I would be so delighted if you would.’
Like the final note from a soprano, the train whistle rent the air. The rhythmic chug of the pistons formed a humming beat beneath Vivianne’s feet, and her toes tapped the carpeted floor of the train carriage. Across from her, leaning back against the plush red seat, Arley sat with a copy of Le Figaro half concealing his face. His glasses—just for reading, he had assured her—were perched on his nose, and the paper rustled as he turned the page.
Vivianne touched her fingers to the window. Paddocks, stone walls, stone cottages and people hewn just as rough stared up at them. The occasional dirt lane, a church on a hill, a graveyard, they all flashed in and out of view as the train sped through the countryside, hurtling them west, away from Paris and toward her future across the Channel. In all the years since she’d been gone, so little had changed. A cloud of black smoke from the train engine obscured the view, before clearing again.
Arley stretched his back then turned another page. She hadn’t thought he’d wear glasses. Nicole’s words teased at her again. Was this his only secret?
‘When were you born?’ she demanded.
He peered over the top of his paper. ‘Pardon?’
‘How old are you? How many years?’
He half smiled. ‘I am thirty-three.’
That made sense. Young enough to be agile, old enough to be bored with novelty. ‘And you work at a company for travel?’
‘Something like that.’
He watched her over the top of his paper, then slightly raised his brows in expectation. Vivianne swayed as the train slowed a little at a crossing.
‘Where is your duke?’ she asked.
‘You know, I’m not sure. I had completely forgotten him. You drove any other thought from my mind.’ He shook his paper out. ‘I’m sure he’ll find his way home. I haven’t known him long, but I fear he’ll be like a bad penny. Always turning up.’
Vivianne hunched back against the chair. She could read, but not well, so had little to distract herself from the gnawing doubt at her impetuousness. For not the first time in her life, she had placed her future in the hands of a handsome man.
The countryside of her childhood ripped by, and even though she knew the railway line was kilometres from the little stone cottage and barn she had grown up in, she couldn’t stop herself from looking for it on the horizon.
‘Tell me again about our house.’ She didn’t want to sound scared, but the unsettled fear that bubbled wouldn’t calm.
Arley lowered his paper, then laid it aside. He placed his glasses beside it on the seat, then swung himself across the little cabin to sit beside her. He pulled her against his side and interleaved her fingers with his. ‘In our garden, there is a tree in the yard that is so old, my grandfather used to climb it. I used to sit in it some days and watch the happenings of the street. And maybe our children will climb it too.’
Vivianne stiffened, her chest tightening. ‘Children?’
Arley squeezed her hand. ‘I had always hoped. I barely knew my father. But my mother remarried when I was older, and even though we did not always get along, we were something of a family… their happiness made me crave it for myself. I never truly thought it possible until I met you.’ A little of the colour left his face, and his smile wavered. ‘Is that something you want for yourself? To be a mother?’
