One Dance with a Duke (Stud Club #1)(40)

Not anymore, evidently.

Now, thanks to the esteemed membership of the Stud Club, they were a woman and an alleged murderer. This morning ought to have found him a well-satisfied bridegroom, and instead he was frustrated in every way. All because Julian Bellamy had an irrational hatred of aristocrats, Rhys St. Maur had been a hot-tempered youth, and Leo Chatwick had had the poor sense to go walking in Whitechapel alone at night. Now Amelia feared him.

And then—of all the addled feminine notions—to remedy the problem, she’d suggested they sit up all night and chat. She wished to submit him to her own version of the Spanish Inquisition, examine his sins, his failings, his family history and moral principles.

Good God. He couldn’t imagine a worse strategy for earning her trust. How, precisely, would that interview go?

Very well, Amelia. I’ll answer your questions. Yes, I spent a wild youth in Lower Canada, disappearing into the wilderness for weeks at a time with people you’d consider heathen savages, causing my excellent father no end of grief. Yes, during my first year in England, I nearly pummeled Rhys St. Maur to death at Eton. Yes, I ruined your brother’s fortunes in pursuit of a horse, for reasons you will find inexplicable and unforgivable. There, now. Can’t you see I’m not a villain?

Oh, that would go over splendidly.

And if she thought he would ever discuss his true reasons for abducting her from that ballroom … well, she would wait in vain. If there was one indisputable advantage to being a duke, it was never having to explain himself to anyone.

That didn’t mean they couldn’t know one another. Ever since their waltz, he’d been seized by an intense desire to know everything about Amelia Claire d’Orsay. Hell, he’d married her in part to assuage it. He just didn’t see why words must be involved. He wanted to learn his new wife from the inside out, starting with the sweet cleft of her womanhood and working his way to her delicate fingers, which he’d discovered last night to be capped with neat round calluses from needlework.

If they were to become acquainted, Spencer could think of no more logical beginning than to know one another in the biblical sense, as God and Nature intended.

Fortunately, Spencer had considerable experience winning over wary creatures, undoing the damage wrought by other men. It had been nearly two decades since he’d broken his first mustang to halter in Canada, and at his stud farm he’d gentled countless horses since—most notably Juno, the mare carrying him now. The trick of it was knowing when to walk away. He’d give a fearful horse a few minutes’ tenderness—stroke her behind the ears, murmur encouragement, give her a reassuring pat on the withers. Nothing too bold. Just enough attention to keep her wanting more. The moment the horse began to relax and enjoy his touch, Spencer would walk away. The next time he entered the enclosure, the once-frightened horse would approach him, eager and unafraid. The technique never failed.

Of course, he’d never plied it on a woman before. He’d never needed to. He knew some men took perverse excitement in conquering a reluctant lover, but he wasn’t one of them. He liked his bed partners to be just that—partners. Willing, engaged, aware of themselves. He’d wanted Amelia because she not only possessed the virtue and lineage he required in a wife, she met his ideals for a lover. When he kissed her, she responded with an instinctive, inventive passion that made his bones weak.

Until those damned accusations planted doubt in her mind, and she’d trembled. Not with pleasure, but with fear. Oh, he could have persuaded her into consummation if he’d wished. But she would have despised him for it this morning, and he wouldn’t have liked himself much, either.

He would coax her out again. It might take a few days—time he really didn’t want to bide—but he was a man of self-discipline. With cards, horses, negotiation … He knew how to be patient when the situation required it, and how to elicit the desired response. Before a week was out, his wife would come willingly, eagerly to his bed.

The key was all in knowing when to walk away.

Amelia surveyed the rooms Spencer had procured. If indeed these accommodations truly counted as “rooms.” The inn’s best suite consisted of a small bedchamber and an even smaller antechamber. The antechamber was furnished with a table and two chairs, plus a sleeping cot, likely intended for servants. Yet both her and Spencer’s trunks had been carried up to the suite, so she assumed he meant to join her.

What he meant to do then, she was afraid to imagine.

One of the inn’s serving girls had brought up a dinner tray. After a day of rough coach travel, the mere smell of stewed beef had Amelia’s stomach roiling. She managed to choke down a bit of bread and tea. Her next thought was to undress quickly and slip into bed before the duke even returned. Surely he wouldn’t disturb her if she was already asleep. Just to be safe, she’d barricade the connecting door with her trunks.

Before she could act on the plan, however, the door opened with a rude creak. In came the duke. He had to fold nearly double to avoid hitting his head on the doorjamb, and with the addition of his imposing presence, the “rooms” shrank further.

A curt nod was his only greeting. And, as he’d caught her with a mouthful of tea, her reply was an audible gulp.

Lord, he was so handsome. She didn’t understand it, but somehow she forgot, when they were apart, what a fine-looking man he was. And every time she reencountered him, the simple fact of his masculine beauty startled her again with fresh, sudden force.