“What about tomorrow?”

  His eyes narrowed. “Tomorrow we will discuss what is the best course of action for you and your little family.”

  It felt as if a thousand butterflies had taken flight and were trying to escape from her chest. “No matter what, I will not go back to living with my father-in-law.”

  “No, you damn well won’t!” Sterling rose agitatedly to his feet, breathing heavily through his nose, shirt billowing about his muscular frame as he paced over to the window. “I apologize,” he murmured evenly several seconds later, turning to face her. “Peggy told me what happened, and I— Please believe that I will not allow Whitlow to ever lay a hand on you again in anger.”

  She gave a shake of her head. “I do not believe he has ever needed the excuse of anger to hurt me.”

  Pale green eyes narrowed. “We will talk of this again tomorrow. For now, you and Christopher need to rest. But be assured, I will remain here for the rest of the night. No one and nothing shall harm you,” he promised grimly.

  Elizabeth believed him. The doctor’s second draft began to take effect, and she felt herself drifting off to sleep again, secure in the knowledge Sterling would protect her.

  Sterling woke to the awareness of the candle having sputtered out some time during the night and the early morning light of a new day shining in the long windows, the curtains having been left undrawn.

  He also realized that, sometime during the night, he must have removed himself from the discomfort of the chair because he was now lying in the bed behind Elizabeth. Not separate and apart from her above the bedcovers, but beneath them, lying on his side, with the long length of his body pressing against the warmth of her back, his arm draped about her waist. His shirt was unfastened at the throat, his pantaloons loosened at the waist for comfort.

  To his consternation, he also realized his hard and pulsing cock, covered only by the linen of his drawers and ever sensitive to Elizabeth’s proximity, was currently lodged between the cheeks of her arse.

  “There is no reason for you to move,” Elizabeth murmured as he was about to do just that, informing him that she was already awake and fully aware—she had to be!—of how and where Sterling’s cock was pressing against her.

  “Christopher…?”

  “Peggy collected him a half hour ago and took him to have his breakfast.”

  Dear God, not only was he in bed with Elizabeth, but her maid had entered the room while he did so. “She saw me here?”

  Elizabeth snorted. “You are not someone who is easy to overlook!”

  “I apologize—”

  “There is no need.” Elizabeth turned in his arms so that their faces were now only inches apart on the pillows as they lay side by side, the front of Elizabeth’s body pressing against Sterling’s. She looked directly into his eyes. “I have been lying here for that same half an hour waiting for you to wake up.” She lifted her hands to cup either side of his face. “You, my dear Sterling, have been keeping secrets.”

  He tensed. “I— What— No! It was always my intention to tell you—”

  “That you are a fraud?” Her smile negated there being any accusation in the question.

  Sterling eyed her warily. He had always intended to tell Elizabeth the reason for his coming to Cornwall. Not immediately, because one did not approach a complete stranger, as Elizabeth had been only days ago, and demand to know if her dead husband was capable of murder.

  Although Elizabeth did not seem to be angry or upset at the thought of that…

  Instead, she chuckled. “To the outside world, you are every inch the cold and haughty Duke of Bristol, but beneath that, you are something else entirely. I admit to having believed Society’s opinion of you until I came to know you better. Indeed, I thought you as cold as ice the first day we met, and incapable of passion. I pitied your future duchess having to share the bed of such a cold and aloof gentleman. But now I know that you are warm. Caring. Passionate. You are also protective and kind.” She looked at him in wonder.

  “I do not believe I am all, or possibly any, of those things,” he protested.

  “To me you are,” she insisted huskily, tilting her head so that her lips might brush lightly over Sterling’s.

  It felt as if the touch of Elizabeth’s lips was all Sterling had been waiting for as he gently pulled her bruised body against his own to return and deepen the kiss.

  A kiss, despite Sterling’s inner warnings to be gentle, that quickly became wild and passionate as their lips tasted, tongues stroked, and teeth gently bit.

  Sterling was so aroused from those kisses, it felt as if he might come in his drawers. “Will you allow me to make love to you, Elizabeth? I promise I will be careful not to hurt you,” he added quickly. “I just need— I want to caress and taste all of you.”

  She studied him for several seconds, her cheeks flushed, eyes fever-bright, before nodding.

  Sterling sat up to untie and then carefully assist her in removing her night rail. Once he had done so, his breath caught in his throat as, bruises aside, he could not help but stare at the beauty of the pale and silky luster of Elizabeth’s completely naked body.

  Her breasts were small and uptilting, tipped with pale rose nipples, her waist slender, hips curving slightly above slender thighs, her legs slim, her feet tiny.

  “You’re far too thin,” he realized. “Is Whitlow responsible for this?” he demanded angrily. “Does he actually starve you?” God knows Sterling had several times witnessed the other man’s comments cautioning Elizabeth not to eat too much when she barely ate enough to keep a bird alive.

  “Not quite.” Tears glistened in her eyes. “Am I too thin for you to find me desirable?”

  He gave a self-derisive laugh. “My darling Elizabeth, if I found you any more desirable than I already do, I should have already released inside my drawers!” As it was, that garment was damp from the release of pre-cum from his cockhead.

  She gave a husky laugh before requesting shyly, “Would you take off your shirt?”

  Sterling didn’t hesitate in pulling the garment over his head and discarding it onto the floor beside her night rail.

  Elizabeth’s fingertips caressed lightly across his shoulders and chest, lingering at each dip in the muscles of his abdomen. “You are very beautiful,” she complimented huskily before her gaze rose to meet his. “Will you remove your pantaloons and drawers too so that I might see all of you?”

  Sterling had never been in the least self-conscious of his body, and he wasn’t now, but his breathing became erratic as he stood beside the bed to allow his pantaloons and drawers to fall to the floor before stepping out of them.

  Elizabeth reached out a tentative hand to run a single fingertip along the length of his stiffly aroused and copiously leaking cock.

  “Do not overexert yourself,” Sterling cautioned when sitting up higher in the bed obviously caused her some discomfort.

  Her glance was shy. “Would you step closer, then, so that I might kiss and touch you?”

  The hot rush down the length of his cock, the liquid beading out of the slit at the top, told Sterling how much his body approved of that suggestion.

  “I have a better idea,” he explained as he moved around the bed to once again lie beside her. But this time, he lay with his head toward the bottom of the bed, his cock now easily reachable by Elizabeth’s hands and mouth as he gently rolled her so that she was lying on top of him.

  Placing the sweet and tempting nectar glistening between her parted thighs on a level with Sterling’s mouth and caressing hands.

  “Are you comfortable like this?” he prompted.

  “Very. You?”

  “I believe I might actually be in heaven,” he admitted before giving a groan of pleasure as he felt the rasp of Elizabeth’s tongue along the length of his cock.

  Elizabeth had only seen one other bare cock, and Sterling’s was both thicker and longer. The balls beneath also became taut and swollen when she cupped them in her hand as she parted her lips and took the fat cockhead into the heat of her mouth.

  The taste of the leaking fluid was exquisite, a mixture of earthy spices that Elizabeth eagerly sucked and licked into her mouth before swallowing.

  She gasped and lost her concentration at the first touch of the heat of Sterling’s lips against the lips of her cunny, followed by the moist rasp of his tongue against the swollen nubbin above.

  A caress he repeated over and over again until Elizabeth felt a tingling heat coursing through her body.

  A prickling sensation which quickly exploded in a burst of heat and pleasure so intense, Elizabeth could hear, see, and feel nothing but that pleasure for several long minutes.

  When she finally recovered enough to be able to think again, it was to the realization that Sterling’s cock was still hard and throbbing in front of her, the wide top slick with more of that viscous fluid.

  She parted her lips wide and took that thick cock into her mouth, sucking deeply as her tongue licked along the length and she began to bob her head up and down.

  “Elizabeth…!” Sterling’s groan was one of encouragement, his hands tightly gripped the cheeks of her bottom as he once again licked and sucked between her thighs.

  Elizabeth felt the tensing of his cock seconds before the first of his release spurted into her mouth. She quickly swallowed it down before the next pulse of hot release hit the back of her throat, and she swallowed that down too. Again and again, until the release came to an end.

  Afterward, the two of them lay on the bed together, completely satiated.

  So much so, Elizabeth had no sense of how much time had passed before a knock sounded on the bedchamber door.

  “Do you need my assistance to dress?” It was telling that Peggy called from the hallway rather than entering the bedchamber, as she would normally have done first thing in the morning.

  It took Elizabeth several long seconds to make sense of her maid’s words when her head was still so befuddled with lust and desire. “Perhaps in a little while,” she dismissed Peggy. Seconds later, she heard the other woman move away down the hallway.

  Her gaze remained fixed upon Sterling as he not only removed himself from her arms, but also the bed, before pulling on and straightening his clothing. He ran an agitated hand through the dark thickness of his hair.

  The latter was a futile attempt at tidying his appearance when the rest of him looked thoroughly debauched.

  His pale eyes were glittering and fevered.

  His cheeks were flushed the same color as his slightly slick and swollen lips.

  His still-unfastened shirt was slightly askew, baring one shoulder.

  The long length of his thick cock was back inside his pantaloons but was once again visibly aroused. Thomas had been young and virile, but Elizabeth didn’t think his libido had ever recovered quite as quickly as Sterling’s obviously had.

  “We can stay here awhile longer, if you wish it?” Elizabeth moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue as she thought of once again having all that salty-tasting fatness stuffed inside her mouth.

  He shook his head. “I should not have allowed this to happen the first time. Oh, not because I do not want you to the point of madness,” he assured when she looked uncertain. “But I should not have made love to you when you have been so recently injured and are so bruised.”

  “Even if I wanted you to?” she teased.

  “Even then,” he insisted softly. “I apologize—”

  “Please do not. Being in your arms, making love together, has been the most erotic experience of my life.”

  His eyes widened. “It has?”

  “Please understand, I am not being disloyal when I say that Thomas and I were very young when we fell in love and married. I was barely eighteen and he only twenty. Over time, we learned how to give each other pleasure and to receive it. But it was not… It was never…”

  “Do not distress yourself,” Sterling comforted. “I understand. I hope I was not too forward?” He frowned.

  “Goodness, no.” Elizabeth laughed huskily. “I should very much like to do it again,” she admitted shyly.

  “So would I,” he acknowledged. “But first, I should like for you to get well as quickly as possible so that you are able to travel back to London.”

  She smiled. “Will you be returning with me?”

  “I have several business matters here to take care of first.”

  “Oh, but—”

  “Elizabeth, much as I have enjoyed our time together, I do not at any time wish for you to feel pressured into…into giving yourself to me again.”

  “What do you mean?”

  His lips thinned. “I will help you to get away from the earl regardless.”

  “Regardless of what?”

  He sighed. “I am trying to say that, although I obviously enjoyed our intimacy just now, it is not necessary for you to feel you need to offer me sexual favors in exchange for my giving you and your son refuge here.”

  Elizabeth recoiled as if Sterling had struck her, those words hurting at least as much as Whitlow’s physical assault, if not more. Because they would remain with her for far longer than the bruises on her body.

  “How can you say such a thing to me so soon after…after?”

  “I am trying to be reasonable—”

  “While being completely insulting!” She eyed him frostily. “Perhaps you are the cold and haughty Duke of Bristol that Society claims you to be after all.”

  He stared at her for several long seconds before giving a stiff inclination of his head. “Perhaps I am.”

  Elizabeth turned away. “Then please do not let me keep you a moment longer from that other business you say is in need of your attention.”

  As dismissals went, it was far from a subtle one, Sterling admired with an ache in his chest. But it was wholly merited, he accepted heavily.

  The problem wasn’t with Elizabeth, but his having been beset with an urgent need to distance himself from her.

  Because Sterling had now realized that, like his two friends before him with the ladies close to the man they were investigating, he had fallen in love with the widow of his own quarry.

  He had never thought such a thing could ever happen to him.

  Believed that he was immune to the emotion.

  In a mere matter of days, Elizabeth had stripped him of that illusion.

  Sterling now knew he loved her with a fierceness of desire and protectiveness he had not previously imagined himself ever being capable of.

  A love he did not fool himself into believing was, or ever would be, reciprocated.

  Despite their lovemaking just now.

  Elizabeth had been in need of a refuge from the cruelties of her father-in-law, and Sterling was the only person close enough to give that to her. He truly believed that the two of them making love just now was as a result of their heightened emotions with the addition of gratitude on Elizabeth’s part.

  His words just now had been meant to alleviate any further obligation Elizabeth might feel toward him rather than any desire to insult her.

  It was probably for the best if Sterling didn’t try to right the impression Elizabeth now had of his being every inch the cold and haughty Duke of Bristol.

  Especially when he had yet to confess to Elizabeth that the answers she could give him about her deceased husband were his only reason for coming to Cornwall in the first place.

  No, far better to put the distance between them now rather than suffer the fires of hell later when Elizabeth decided she no longer wished to continue with their relationship.

  Which did not mean Sterling could not enjoy paying a visit to the Earl of Whitlow and taking out some of his frustration on the other man.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “Here again already, Bristol?” Whitlow greeted him mockingly several hours later as he strode jauntily into the sitting room at Whitlow Grange, where Sterling stood looking out of one of the long windows into the garden. “Couldn’t stay away from my daughter-in-law a moment longer, hm? Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you”—there was not a trace of apology in the evil bastard’s voice—“but Elizabeth is still indisposed.”

  Sterling drew in several controlling breaths before answering the other man. “On the contrary, Whitlow, I came here for the sole purpose of talking to you.” His fists were clenched at his sides in an effort to stop himself from turning this conversation into a physical one.

  He should perhaps not have paid Whitlow a visit quite so soon as this, but instead allowed his temper to have calmed before doing so. Unfortunately, his need to distance himself from Elizabeth, and as a consequence, Bristol Manor, had made that decision for him.

  “Really?” The older man looked surprised. “What can I do for you?”

  Sterling stared at the earl for several moments longer. Inwardly, he was still coming to terms with the fact that this man had been denying Elizabeth enough food for months. That two nights ago, he had allowed—as good as pushed—Elizabeth down a staircase after hitting her, and then left her lying at the bottom of the stairs while he went to bed to force himself on her young and pretty maid, as he had been doing for the past six months.

  Sterling had known such despicable men existed, of course, but he had hoped never to be in the same room and breathe the same air as one.

  His top lip curled back with distaste. “You can have one of the maids—preferably one you are not forcing your sexual attentions upon—pack up any items belonging to Elizabeth and her small entourage and have them brought over to Bristol Manor at the earliest opportunity.”

  Whitlow’s face had grown redder and redder with each word Sterling spoke, until it now resembled the color of a beetroot. “How dare you—”

  “How dare you stand there behaving as if nothing untoward has happened!” Sterling thundered accusingly.

  “Probably because it hasn’t.” Whitlow gave a grimace of contempt. “Cornwall has to be one of the most boring places on earth.”

  Sterling eyed him coldly. “It is a pity you feel that way when it is one of the few places on earth you will be able to hide once I have returned to London and ensured all in Society have been informed of your behavior.”