Chapter2
After the final guest departed at a quarter past four in the morning, Donovan escorted his mother to her guest quarters, then trudged toward his bedchamber with aching feet.
Not only had he failed to select a bride and thereby escape his impending forced holiday to Marrywell’s matchmaking festival, Donovan also hadn’t danced a single set—or even exchanged more than a few words with any of the marriageable young ladies present.
At six-and-thirty, what was a man supposed to say to a girl twenty years his junior?Good evening, I’m old enough to be your father, what a drizzly day we’re having, why yes that is a nice hair ribbon, how fortunate you must feel, shall I ring for tea?
Consign himself to three or fourdecadesof such scintillating conversation?Over Donovan’s dead body.
Debutantes were wholly out of the question.Not that the spinsters were much better stock.The duke had nothing against them, of course.He was the male version of a spinster.But he no more understood them than he did the debutantes.
Which left what… widows?Mother would be appalled if he passed over the season’s sparkliest debutantes.But of all the options, it was perhaps the best one.
A widow would not look at him with the starry-eyed innocence of a debutante, or with the jaded resentment of a long-overlooked spinster.A widow hadhadher chance at love.Knew what she was getting with a marriage.Had tasted subsequent independence and likely longed for more of it—making her amenable to a union of convenience, in which duke and duchess did each other the blessed courtesy of leaving one another the hell alone.
Donovan pushed open the door to his bedchamber.
Geoffrey was still awake.
Instead of Donovan being greeted by shadowy blackness, choice candles were lit throughout the private apartment, lending a soft glow to his tired eyes rather than harsh light reflected in a dozen mirrors.
“You waited up for me,” Donovan said unnecessarily.
Geoffrey smiled.“You pay my salary, remember?”
Donovan had no idea when Geoffrey managed to sleep, since he was always alert, attentive, and in impeccable attire any time Donovan glimpsed him.
He had spent their first years together begging in vain for Geoffrey to get some sleep whilst Donovan went about his duties, rather than wait up for an unknown amount of time, on the off chance the duke should return earlier than expected and require some sort of sartorial assistance.
Around the time the duke turned twenty-five—and his valet, twenty-eight—Donovan gave up on convincing the man to allow himself to take first priority once in a while, and instead gratefully accepted Geoffrey’s company.
“Long day of dancing?”the valet enquired, his chiseled features beautiful in the candlelight.
“Long night of standing immobile, my spine ramrod straight and my nose in the air, allowing only the occasional flicker of my eyes to convey my utter and infinite disapproval.”
Geoffrey clucked his tongue.“Ah, my surly Adonis.WhatshallI do with you?”
“Get me out of these clothes,” Donovan commanded.“They reek of three dozen matchmaking mamas’ undisguised despair.”
“At once, your grace.”
Another little jest.Whenever Geoffrey saidat once, it almost certainly meant he was about to take his sweet time performing whatever task he had just promised to do.
Donovan held perfectly still as his handsome valet approached and began the slow, painstaking process of disarming the duke’s cravat.Fold by fold.Crease by crease.Occasionally, Geoffrey’s knuckles grazed Donovan’s jawline ever so lightly.The tiniest kiss of flesh against flesh.Barely there, barely noticeable.
Perhaps the brief contact wouldn’t even happen at all, were it not for the bobbing of Donovan’s Adam’s apple and the visible leap of his pulse at the base of his newly exposed throat.Once the cravat was folded and set aside, it was time for Donovan’s tail coat.
Geoffrey’s long fingers could have made quick work of the buttons, but as usual, he took his time loosening each one, as though loath to place undue stress on a single strand of thread.Once the buttons were free, it was time to slide the ebony superfine from Donovan’s shoulders.
It was not the duke’s fault that the fashions of the day insisted a gentleman’s wardrobe be tailored so close to his precise measurements that it was impossible to shrug in or out of one’s coat without professional assistance.
The duke tried to hold still—truly, he did—but he might have accidentally flexed his arms ever so slightly when Geoffrey’s hands skated over the muscles.
In no time, the duke’s linen shirtsleeves billowed free.Geoffrey placed his palms on Donovan’s chest and forced the duke backwards into a tall chair.
All right,forcedmight be a bit of a stretch.It was more like a waltz, with the duke obediently following his valet’s lead.Donovan knew what was coming next.Had been dreaming of it during the entirety of his mother’s insufferable ball.
Geoffrey sank to his knees before Donovan and removed his dancing slippers one at a time, placing them to the side with his infernal careful precision.Then, and only then, did the valet lift his duke’s stockinged foot into the valley of Geoffrey’s closed thighs and begin to knead the tight muscles with his abnormally strong hands.
