Wicked Surrender (Regency Sinners)(33)
A frown creased Dante’s brow. “I did not know that.” It seemed that Antonia Clairmont and her young daughter had been ostracized in both France and England, never quite fitting in with what either of those Societies demanded of them.
Bell gave him a dismissive glance as she continued to stir the eggs scrambling in the pan. “Considering your ridiculous accusation that I am a French spy, there are obviously many things you do not know about me.”
Dante accepted the rebuke without argument. “Will you tell me about your childhood in France while we eat breakfast?”
“If you will take out and slice the bread, yes.” There was a blush on her cheeks when she glanced across at him. “Will the marquis be joining us?”
He gave a shake of his head. “Devil has already left for London.” Poor devil, Dante commiserated inwardly, knowing his friend’s return to London, and Alys Newcomb, would not be a pleasant one. “The two of us will be traveling to Huntingdonshire later this morning so that I might begin the arrangements for the dowager’s funeral,” he added evenly.
Bella’s relief that she would not have to face Sebastian Trentham again after the sounds he could not have helped but overhear coming from her bedchamber the night before was now replaced with a frown. “Huntley Park holds no happy memories for me.” After her mother married Henry St. Just, they had all lived together in either London or Penscombe Manor in Cornwall.
Dante’s smile held no genuine humor. “For me either. But someone has to see that my aunt is suitably laid to rest. Personally, I cannot wait to see the old trout safely disposed of in the family crypt.”
“Dante!” Bella’s protest was somewhere between shock and humor.
He shrugged. “I cannot pretend, any more than you can, to feel an affection for her in death I never felt for her in life.”
“Perhaps she had her reasons for being the way that she was…” It cost Bella nothing to be charitable now that she did not have to face the formidable Agatha St. Just ever again.
“If so, I would be interested to know what they could have been.”
She sighed. “We will never know now.”
Sitting down at the kitchen table with Dante to eat a breakfast of scrambled eggs and buttered bread was strangely…intimate. Not in the way last night had been intimate. This was an intimacy of sharing, almost of friendship.
Even so, Bella was, as usual, aware of everything about Dante. The dampness of his hair from where he had washed earlier. His neatly trimmed beard. The way his dark gray superfine was perfectly tailored to the width of his shoulders. His stomach taut beneath his buttoned waistcoat. Pale gray pantaloons clung to the slenderness of his hips and powerful thighs.
Powerful thighs that had pounded fiercely against the backs of her own the night before as Dante took her to a plateau of unimagined pleasure.
Her cheeks warmed, her hot gaze lowering to stare at the tabletop as she recalled he had not even bothered to undress, but had merely unfastened the fold of his pantaloons and released his cock before thrusting inside her from behind. And she had taken it, taken him deep inside her, squirming on his cock like a bitch in heat.
A knot formed in her throat at the memory of their bestiality, forcing her to give up the pretense of lightheartedness she had deliberately adopted for Dante’s benefit.
She placed her knife and fork on the plate beside the remains of her breakfast before standing up, her appetite having completely deserted her. “I will need to go upstairs and repack my things if we are to leave later— Please do not touch me, Dante!” She flinched away as he would have reached out and grasped her arm. “I cannot bear to—to be touched this morning.” Every part of her still felt too sensitized, too—too raw. Almost as if the top layer of her skin had been seared from her body during their lovemaking, leaving her bared and vulnerable despite being fully clothed.
He scowled his displeasure. “To be touched at all or for me to touch you?”
“Both.” Her gaze shied away from meeting his.
His hand dropped back to his side. “Deveril was to have called at the inn in the village on his way back to London and speak with my driver. The carriage should be here shortly.”
She nodded abruptly. “I will be ready to leave when you are.”
Dante watched Bella leave the kitchen, her back stiffly erect, chin held high.
He had never admired her more.
Most ladies would have come down the stairs this morning, either sobbing in distress, or ripping him verbally to pieces for the way he had treated her the previous night.
Bella offered no reproach, made no accusations, but instead appeared every inch the lady he had stripped away from her the previous night.
He had never wanted her more.
And Bella, Bella could no longer bear for him to touch her.
Huntley Park had changed little since Bella had briefly lived here seven years ago, the parkland and tree-lined driveway still a vibrant green, with deer grazing lazily on the former.
The house itself, four stories high and built of mellowed red stone, stood tall and proud in the afternoon sunlight as Bella and Dante stepped down from the ducal carriage.
The journey here had mainly been carried out in silence, Dante staring broodingly out of the window as he sat opposite her, Bella lost in her own thoughts.
If any of the servants were surprised to see her with the duke, then, like the good servants they were, they did not show it by word or deed. Lincoln, the family butler, was politely attentive as he showed Bella up to a guest bedchamber and set about organizing her luggage being brought up to her. No comment was made regarding Bella’s lack of maid either. Instead, a young girl arrived at her rooms a short time after their arrival and offered her assistance in helping Bella to freshen her appearance and unpack her things.