Devil in Duke's Clothing (Royal Pains Book 1) Read Online Free Page B

but a simple gold band would have done perfectly well for Maggie York, motherless ward.
    “I do not yet feel like a duchess.”
    “Give it time,” he said with a bone-melting smile. “We’ve only been wed a few hours yet.”
    Fearful of falling too deeply under his spell, she swept her gaze to the gilt-framed nude over the bed. Who was she? Someone he knew at court?
    “Did you look through the books you borrowed?”
    His question tightened her stomach and snapped her gaze back to his. Candlelight flickered in his eyes, but ‘twas too dark to read the thoughts dancing there.
    “I did.”
    “Pray, tell me,” he said, his tone more curious than angry, “why did you borrow those books in particular?”
    She hesitated whilst weighing the consequences of giving a truthful answer. Once she told him, there was no taking it back, but she’d much rather air her fears than allow them to fester all the more.
    “I know about you,” she said at last.
    “Know what?”
    “That you take your pleasure in less than conventional ways.”
    “I see.” He gulped his champagne, still holding her gaze. “And how do you feel about that knowledge?”
    “I could not really say.”
    “And the books?”
    “I wanted to understand.”
    “But you do not?”
    “No.”
    “Then you ought not to judge until you do.”
    “I’m trying very hard to keep an open mind.”
    He took another drink. “Your mind is far from open.”
    “You presume to know what is in my mind?”
    “I can read it on your face and in your eyes. You think me wicked and perverted.”
    “Are you not?”
    He shrugged one shimmering shoulder. “‘Tis a matter of opinion, methinks. And perspective.”
    “Do you ever have coitus in the normal way?”
    “By normal , I presume you mean conventional —as in myself on top thrusting away without the least regard for my partner.”
    She flinched at his unvarnished description of the Holy Act of Creation. “Yes, more or less.”
    “Is that what you truly desire, Maggie?” His tone and expression were part beseeching, part disdainful. “That I should come to you when my blood is up, lie atop you, wiggle my todger in your cunt until I achieve my release, and then stumble back to my own bedchamber to sleep alone. Because, from where I sit, that is what passes for so-called normal coitus betwixt married people of our station.”
    She looked away from his gaze, at once embarrassed and titillated by his frankness. “The pleasures of the flesh are sinful.”
    “According to whom?”
    “The sisters who raised me.”
    He laughed, took another gulp of champagne, and wiped his mouth on the ruffled cuff of his shirt. “How else would they be expected to justify their unnatural state of celibacy?”
    Her eyes met his as her heart caught fire. “I would hardly expect someone such as yourself to see the error of his ways.”
    “You mean someone with enough intelligence to formulate his own opinions about such matters?” He held her gaze with equal heat.
    “No.” She scowled at him. “I mean a libertine who feels no qualm over trampling the fences of propriety.”
    He emptied his cup, picked up the bottle, and filled it again. Lifting the rim to his mouth, he sipped the champagne before licking it off his lips. Gaze still on the cup, he said, “How did you come to know about my habits? Who told you? My brother or your maid?”
    She bit her lip and twisted the toothy taffeta of her petticoat betwixt her fingers. The high, soft sound comforted her the way rubbing the binding on her blankets had those nights the sisters sent her to bed with a sore backside and empty belly.
    “I found out entirely on my own.”
    “How?” He drained his drink, snatched up the bottle, and refilled the cup. “As your husband, I insist you tell me.”
    Defiance reared in her chest like a distressed pony, but she hobbled it, afraid of angering him. “I saw you. In the housekeeper’s room. With Sally Honeywell.”
    “You spied on me?” His