To Trust a Rogue (The Heart of a Duke #8)(96)

She swallowed at his husky, mellifluous baritone. It ran over her like a warm summer sun. And there was nothing terrifying in that tone. This was Marcus, whose kiss she’d craved and even now…whose kiss made her heartbeat wildly erratic. She closed her eyes. But then, it was never Marcus she’d feared.

He settled his hands on her shoulders and her eyes flew wide. She stiffened and braced for that kiss, praying for the wildly erratic beat and not the long ago memories that once haunted her. He touched his lips to the corner of her temple. The caress was so gentle, so soothing, that the tension drained out of her.

Eleanor leaned against his back. “I am scared,” she conceded, taking the strength provided in his arms. And for the fear, there was something freeing in actually giving those words truth. It was her fear and it would always linger at the back of her mind, but she was no longer that scared, silent woman who’d been claimed by the darkness of that night.

“I know, love.” He placed another kiss against her temple and then tucked an errant blonde curl behind her ear.

“I-I know it is s-silly,” she whispered, as he trailed kisses down her cheek, worshiping her with his questing mouth, and settling his lips at the place where her pulse pounded madly from her need of him and her fear of what that would entail. “I-I am not a virgin,” she prattled. She hadn’t been a virgin for eight years. “I-I birthed a daughter.” And yet her teeth chattered with a virgin-like fear of their inevitable coupling.

Marcus swung her into his arms and pulled her against the protective shelter of his chest. “It is not silly.” His chest rumbled and she turned her cheek against the soft fabric of his lawn shirt. She inhaled deep of the purely masculine sandalwood that clung to him, finding a calming peace in the familiar scent that was his and no other’s. It was a smell that did not belong to her terror and the nightmare of her past, but entirely to Marcus, and she breathed in the pureness of it, letting it fill her lungs, and blot out remnants of another.

Marcus captured her chin between his thumb and forefinger and tipped it up. “You are as innocent now as you were eight years ago, Eleanor, and I would be the man to show you how beautiful lovemaking can be.”

She caught the inside of her cheek, aching to cling to that offer he made, and tearing from the room in terror for what that might entail.

“Trust me.” And the simplicity of his gentle urging drove back the fear.

As though he carried nothing more than a sack of Cook’s flour, he made his way from the room and through the quiet, now darkened, corridors. The candle’s glow flickered from the satin wallpaper and she swallowed. “Marcus, someone will see.”

“The servants have been dismissed for the night.”

Her heart thudded with panicked dread as he mounted the stairs. “But—”

“My mother and sister have departed for the country.” He dropped his chin atop the crown of her head. They reached the top of the landing and his smooth, even breaths gave no indication of the burden in his arms. “It is only we two tonight, Eleanor.”

She closed her eyes and counted her deliberately drawn breaths. That truth should calm her and yet… He stopped outside a closed door. Her palms dampened as she forced her eyes open. The door stared threateningly back at her. It was just a door. A wood panel, really. She shook. Yet, it was what stood on the other side of that panel that sent fear dancing in her belly. Eleanor shook her head. “I am bound to disappoint you, Marcus,” she said on a rush. “You have been with so many women and they were experienced,” and not afraid, “and brought you pleasure and I hate it, and—”

Marcus touched his fingertips to his lips, gently silencing her terrified ramblings. “This night belongs to you, Eleanor Gray.”

Eleanor Gray.

Her heart skipped a beat. After years of taking a fictitious name and assuming it as her own, Marcus had conferred an honorable name, given in love.

He brushed his thumb over her lips now turned up in a smile. “That is better, love,” he said. Reaching past her, he pressed the handle and stepped inside.

Eleanor’s breath hitched as he closed the door behind them. The inviting fire glowing within the hearth cast a soft light upon the room. A pink rose-petal path stretched out the length of the room, leading to a wide, four-poster bed sprinkled with those gentle blooms. “Oh, Marcus,” she whispered, palming his cheek.

Wordlessly, he carried her across the room and then, as though he handled a gift of the Queen’s china, he lowered her upon the downy soft mattress. She pushed up on her elbows as he shrugged out of his jacket and tossed the elegant black garment. It sailed to the floor in a silent heap. She wetted her lips, her heart pounding in a frantic beat.

Except, this moment was not born of fear of the past or what was to come, but rather a breathless anticipation for what was now before her. Marcus lay beside her, propping himself on his elbow and slowly touched his lips to hers.

Eleanor’s lids fluttered closed and she turned herself over to the slow growing warmth spiraling in her belly and spreading out. Then, as fleeting as a butterfly’s caress, he broke that tender contact. He moved to the edge of the bed and knelt at her feet. “What…?”

Her heart caught as he delicately drew off first one slipper and then the next. He set them down beside each other at the side of the bed and then drew her foot to his mouth. Bowing his head over it, he placed a kiss upon the top and worked those gentle caresses up to the point where her ankle met her leg. He worshiped the deliciously sensitive skin at the inner portion of her foot until a breathy little moan escaped her.