Dukes Are Forever (London Steampunk: The Blue Blood Conspiracy #5)(7)

The words were like a knife to the chest. Mrs. Danner, the mysterious brunette she'd once caught a glimpse of, was evidently more to his tastes than his own wife.

What did you expect?

She stared furiously at her own hands. He had all the power in this relationship. Who was she to say he mustn't keep a mistress after the way they'd begun this blasted marriage?

She was Adele Cavill, the Duchess of Malloryn. That was who.

"Well, then you are going to be left wanting," she retorted, looking at him heatedly from beneath her lashes. The shock of his request was dissolving. Time to take matters into her hands. She'd learned enough over the years to know she wasn't going to simply lie back and surrender without a decent negotiation. There were things she wanted in life. "You want an heir? Then I want her gone."

A considering look. "I shall see her pensioned off."

"I also want an increase to my pin money," she added. Her mother's demands were growing shockingly vulgar of late, but paying the woman off was the only way to keep her younger sister, Hattie, safe.

"Shall I double it?"

"That's quite generous."

"Anything else?"

"Don't tempt me, Your Grace." Adele smiled through gritted teeth. "You may think me uncommonly mercenary for demanding such things, but you're not the one who is going to have to bear this."

"Bear this?" For the first time, he seemed intrigued. "You think me an ogre?"

Hardly that. He was stunningly, unfairly handsome. "I think I married a man who despises me and has no reason to be gentle with me. It's not the most pleasant of experiences, but I'm sure I will endure."

"Endure?"

"Don't worry. I'll lie back and think of England."

His lips twitched. "How considerate of you."

"Or perhaps I'll think of diamonds," she replied, toying with the pearls at her throat to keep her hands occupied. "Great big diamonds, offset with emeralds perhaps. To match my eyes."

"Is this part of the negotiation?"

"Maybe."

Malloryn rested his chin in his hand, his legs elegantly crossed at the shins as he considered her. Something heated the normally dark canvas of his eyes, and there was the faintest edge of a smile lingering about his lips. "Oh, I don't think you'll be thinking of England—or diamonds—Adele. Grant me some credit. I don't think you'll be able to think of anything else at all."

His voice was a purr, and the way he said her name as if caressing it with his tongue, made her swallow as she reassessed him.

It was possible she hadn't fully considered the idea of what an heir would entail. Indeed, the first thought that had sprung to mind had been a baby, looking much like young Master Alex in her head.

Now, she was beginning to think of the step she had missed in this equation. The actual begetting.

She knew enough to know what would happen. Every debutante worth her salt learned what flesh rights were. The ultimate aim of every debutante was to be taken as a thrall by an aristocratic blue blood, but though the exchange sold her blood rights to her lord, her flesh rights were her own, to give away if she chose, or not at all if she did not. It was rarely spoken of in polite company, but though debutantes might be innocent of body when they went to their new masters, of mind they were not.

There had been books detailing the physical effects of a consummation and what precisely a man appreciated.

There had been anatomically correct diagrams that made her eyebrows arch.

There had been gorgeously painted pictures that Adele had blushed to peruse, though the wicked little part of her had noted over one hundred different pictures, and therefore positions. Some of their names had made her tutor stammer and Adele had frankly stared, trying to work out precisely how, and what, and where....

And now all she could see was herself in those images. On her hands and knees, wearing not a stitch, with her husband taking up residence behind her with a turgid staff ready to plunge inside her.

Oh, God.

Her gaze came back into focus as she realized she was staring at her husband. Or more precisely, at the insolently lounged figure who would possibly lie atop her quite shortly. Her breath hitched. Malloryn made a harem pasha look rigid. There was always something vaguely relaxed about him, yet she caught hints of tension there now, in his thighs, in his hands, and about his soft mouth.

Their eyes met, and Adele found herself blushing for perhaps the first time in a decade. All of a sudden, her dress was too tight.

"Are you actually blushing?"

"No," she blurted, though her cheeks felt hot enough to cook an egg. "I'm just surprised. And... curious."

"Curious?"

"It's not as though I do not know what to expect. I attended all the lectures."

"You're untouched." He didn't look entirely pleased with this deduction.

Go to hell. She knew what the world thought of her. "You sound surprised, Your Grace."

"I was not the first man to be caught alone in a garden with you," he replied. "You were quite well known for it."

Not by choice. "Consider me an inexperienced expert of men's desires and what they want from me. I know the value of a woman's virginity. Without it, I'd never have been married. I went to great lengths to preserve my innocence."