The Duke's Disaster (R) by Grace Burrowes Read Free Book Online Page A

send him on his way lighter in the pocket. Increasingly, he had not been lighter in the heart when he’d left their powdered, perfumed, diaphanously draped company. They were assessing his worth as they cooed and sighed, seeing not him , but a ring, a bracelet, a parure, or perhaps even rooms on Curzon Street.
    Those women could smile at a man as if he were their every carnal dream personified, and yet be thinking as they panted and sighed of what to wear to tomorrow’s opera. The calculation of it was almost admirable… Almost.
    Araminthea Collins… Winters was having trouble keeping any thoughts in her head at all. She was shyly enthusiastic about kissing Noah, and her grip on his hair was fierce. She probably didn’t hear the sounds she was making, of desire and surprise, and she couldn’t be aware of how her unconfined breasts pressed against Noah’s chest.
    Breasts whose fullness surprised him—wonderfully.
    A figure suited to childbearing was also a figure suited to bed sport.
    “Are you laughing at me, sir?” Thea’s eyes were wary, but he didn’t let her pull away.
    “I’m smiling. Not that I have anything against laughter in bed. You, madam, are overdressed.”
    When Thea would have scampered off, Noah gathered her close.
    “We’ll blow out the candles, Thea,” he assured her, “but you’ll have to be my valet.” When she relaxed in his arms, he stepped back and held out one wrist for her to undo his sleeve button.
    “You didn’t bring in a dressing gown,” she said, staring at his hand as if it bore claws, “or a nightshirt.”
    “I won’t need them.” Noah kept his hand out and saw that Thea was inclined to argue, but she stifled her inclination with a huffy sigh and deftly unfastened his cuffs.
    One garment at a time, she relieved him of his clothes, folding each item tidily over a chair. When he told her to unbutton his shirt, she stayed right where she was, his cravat in her hands.
    “You are decidedly fond of imperatives, Your Grace,” she snapped. “You might consider asking me to tend to your buttons.”
    “I just did, and you are stalling.”
    “You ordered me,” she said, taking great care to fold the cravat before stepping closer and getting back to work. “You told me to remove your waistcoat, told me to untie your neckcloth, told me—”
    Noah grasped Thea’s hand and brought her wrist to his mouth.
    “Now I’m telling your wrist how lovely it feels to put my mouth on your flesh,” he murmured, bending over her wrist and tasting the pulse there. When he allowed her to have her hand back, she finished unbuttoning his shirt.
    “My thanks.” Noah offered the words as an olive branch. He hadn’t intended to aggravate his new duchess when she was already understandably nervous. He was, however, trying to find the present limit of her sensibilities, so he could push her right to that limit and a bit beyond. The next time they were intimate, he’d push beyond that, and beyond that, until she was as comfortable with their carnal dealings as he could make her.
    Handling a new wife was the same as acquiring a market, or the controlling shares in a business. One simply needed a plan, some resources, time, and determination.
    Noah and Thea were married, after all. Thea could turn to no other for her intimate diversions, not for quite some time. Fairness required that Noah teach her pleasure, and share it with her often.
    Assuming she’d allow him to.
    “Why don’t you get into bed?” he suggested—not ordered. “I’ll see to the candles.”
    Thea drew off her dressing gown and climbed into bed while Noah politely busied himself dousing the candles. He left one burning while he finished undressing. In the dim light, he took his time using the wash water, because he intended that Thea watch while he made use of it.
    Considerate of him, if he did say so himself, virginal sensibilities being the tedious impediments to passion that they were.
    Naked as God made him, his