The Duchess Has a House-Party
Laurel Bennett
Copyright Laurel Bennett 2011
Published by Night Shift Publishing – Smashwords Edition
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The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
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The Duchess Has a House-Party
By Laurel Bennett
Charlotte Stansbury fretted over the folds of her gown, flattening and pressing it with the palm of her hand, over and over. If she stopped, she would most certainly have to speak to him. Him – that enigma of a man who sat so calmly beside her in the carriage, the Duke of Randallshire. The gentleman -- and she wondered if he could even claim to be a gentleman, despite his title – sat motionless beside her.
“I sincerely hope you enjoyed your afternoon,” he said casually.
As though she’d spent the afternoon knitting or enjoying a social circle. He knew perfectly well what she’d been doing, since he planned the assignation. Heat flooded Charlotte’s face. She’d planned for an afternoon tryst with a man known for his prowess in the bedchamber. And she hadn’t gotten that at all. She’d gotten something else. Something wholly unexpected.
“You don’t know how to thank me, do you?” he asked softly, reaching one gentle hand forward and touching her cheek lightly. “Or are you too embarrassed to make the attempt?”
Embarrassed. That was an odd choice of words. Oddly appropriate. “I don’t know how to respond,” Charlotte admitted.
He turned so that her body faced his in the carriage. “A simple thank you will suffice.”
His knees brushed her skirt, and she didn’t jump in fear of him. She didn’t fear him at all. How odd. “Trent,” she began.
“I like hearing my name on your lips,” he said, his head dipping dangerously closer to hers. Her heart began a mad thump within her chest. His soft, damp breath brushed her cheek.
“Do you plan to kiss me?” she whispered back, leaning toward him as though there was an invisible draw between them.
He was gone within an instant. She immediately felt the loss of him. But then the tip of his index finger started a slow slide across the exposed skin of her bodice. “Tell me how it felt to kiss Mary,” he prompted. A ghost of a grin played around his lips. “Stop worrying about how society would view your afternoon. Worry about how I view it, instead.” He took her hand and pressed it against his cock, which formed a taut tent beneath his trousers.
Charlotte didn’t pull her hand back. He didn’t pressure her to touch him. He just let her hand linger there. She tested the length of him with her fingertips, and a sharp hiss left his lips.
“All I can think about is what you did with Mary,” he said with a wide grin. “I’m dying to know more.”
“Why did you do it?” Charlotte asked. He’d arranged for her to have an afternoon with a lady, a seductress, a beautiful vision of a woman with a giving nature and a wicked tongue. “Mary says you find out what a lady needs and then you provide it.”
He looked slightly chagrined. “Mary talks too much.”
“I don’t understand it. My appointment was with you. Not with Mary.” She took a deep breath and then continued, though the very thought of the conversation hurt her heart beyond measure. “Do you not find me attractive? If you didn’t want to be with me, you could have just said so.”
“Does it feel as though I don’t find you attractive?” he drawled as he took her hand and forced her grip around his cock. He groaned aloud when she tested the girth of him, and laid his head back on the squabs, regarding her from beneath lowered lashes.
“Then why?” she asked again.
They’d flirted for weeks. She’d still been in her widow’s weeds, continuing her mourning for an appropriate amount of time, but the moment she’d replaced the grey with a dress of color, he’d asked her to dance at a formal ball. It had surprised her, to say the least. He was the Duke of Randallshire, for heaven’s sake. What on earth might he want with a widow of her age and standing?
“Why me?” she asked again.
His gaze searched her face. “You do not see what I see. And that is owed to your late husband, horrid man that he was. I am taking it upon myself to right his wrongs.”
Charlotte sat back against the leather seat. “He did you a wrong, didn’t he?”
“No, but in my research, I discovered that he did you a wrong.”
More than one, but that was her cross to bear. Not his. “Why?” she couldn’t help but ask. Why me? Why now? Why give me a gift of a day with Mary? She wanted to ask all these things and more.
He ignored her question. “Make me a happy man and tell me about your time with Mary,” he said. He lifted her hand from his cock, and laid it in her lap.