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brigdhTitle: All the Daughters of My Father's House
Author: Brigdh
Ratings/Warnings: R, for non-graphic m/f sex scene.
Summary: After their marriage, Kit and Jude find they need to bring Lady Rose back. Kit/Jude.
Notes: Written for Yuletide 2013, for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
somebraveapollo. I am very grateful to my beta, Cyphomandra, for working on such short notice!
Untamed by Anna Cowan is an AMAZING Regency romance featuring a cross-dressing duke and a tough, masculine country girl, and you should all read it.
3,103 words. Also available on AO3.
All the Daughters of My Father's House
They had been married less than a year when Kit entered her bedroom late one afternoon to find Jude there alone, holding her armoire door open and reaching inside to caress a muslin skirt. He turned at the sound of her entrance, but his face was already still and composed. “We should buy you some more dresses,” he said, as though this was the middle of a conversation rather than the beginning of one. “There’s a new color for next season– a sort of dull copper– that will turn every pale maiden fool enough to wear it to a sallow corpse, but you would be magnificent.”
“I don’t need any more dresses. I already have more than one person could possibly wear.”
Jude smiled, sharp. “That is what means to be a Duchess, Katherine.”
“I think you just enjoy buying things.” Kit looked hard at him, certain there was more going on behind those dark blue eyes than he admitted. “What are you really doing in here?”
He closed the armoire with perfect nonchalance and came to her in the doorway, turning her around and tucking her arm into his to lead her back into the hallway. “Just what I said. What else might a husband want with his wife’s wardrobe?”
***
Kit forgot about the incident for a time. Nothing similar occurred until she was preparing for a ball one night; she had chosen a perfectly feminine dress, one that left most of her arms bare and clung to her breasts. She had found that the constant wearing of breeches had rather taken away from their shocking quality. Best to surprise the gossips now and then. This ball would be of no particular importance for its music or food– Lord Dulken had terrible taste in such matters, and his new bride was too nervous to assert herself– but it would have several businessmen she’d been meaning to corner, as well as a newly minted Member of Parliament that Jude was in the middle of seducing. Metaphorically, of course.
Bessie was fixing Kit’s hair into something very close to elegant when Jude entered. The maid looked scandalized, as though the Duke of Darlington didn’t regularly commit far worse actions. He had finished dressing, and was wearing a dark jacket and breeches set off by a startlingly sapphire waistcoat. It was very subdued compared to what his Dandies wore, but still had just a little of the daring about it. He met Kit’s eyes in the mirror, then moved to the side to study her outfit. He nodded in approval and reached out to twine one strand of hair around his long, thin fingers. “Very nice, my dear. I’ve rarely seen you looking so... appropriate.”
Kit raised her eyebrows. In Jude’s overly cultured voice, it was hard to know if that was a compliment or an insult. Bessie frowned and folded her hands behind her back, uncertain of what to do now that Jude had taken over Kit’s hairstyling. He tucked the strand he held into the loose bun low on her neck and studied the effect in the mirror, then turned to her jewelry box, searching through it.
“I don’t need to look beautiful,” Kit said. “That’s why I have you.”
“Handsome, you mean. Women are beautiful.” Jude glanced at her in the mirror, his expression pleased despite the reproof.
“I meant exactly what I said. Beautiful.”
Jude’s skin looked even paler than usual in the dark jacket, but not unhealthily so; it was the pure white of fresh snow, though she knew it was much warmer to the touch. She held that knowledge within her– that she, and no one else, was allowed to touch Jude as much as she wanted– and felt greedy and content.
Jude straightened, having located a hairpin topped with several beads of dark amber set in bright gold. He slid it into her hair just above her left ear, then smiled, a soft, intimate expression. “There. I knew that’s what it needed. Sets off your eyes.”
She could see him pull himself out of that quiet mood and return to his public self, a trick that seemed not involve a single muscle movement and yet which was utterly unmistakable. He swept up the shawl that waited for Kit on a nearby chair-back and draped it around his own shoulders; it was a rich, earthy brown with deep red embroidery, colors more suited to Kit’s skin tone than his. Still, he delicately adjusted its fall and posed before the mirror, his lips pursed in a mockery of a coquette’s coy look. “Beautiful, hmm? You are so kind to say so.” He had pitched his voice very slightly higher than his natural speaking tone, and he swept his lashes down, two lines of deep black against his white skin. “I am most grateful.”
Bessie looked from one of them to the other, confusion evident in her face. Kit responded neither to her embarrassment nor Jude’s irony, but turned in her chair to examine him forthrightly. “You should wear silver. Not grey, or white, but real silver. No colors except for your hair and eyes. It would make you look like some unearthly creature, made out of air and winter, and too exquisite to be real.”
Jude took a deep breath. Kit was still new to speaking such thoughts aloud, and she was nervous at how he might respond. But he closed his mouth again without speaking. After a moment, he took off the shawl and folded it back upon the chair. He retreated to lean against the wall, crossing his legs at the ankles and putting his hands in his pockets. It was a very comfortable pose that revealed nothing at all, and when he met her eyes again finally, the hunger in them had been tucked away.
***
Jude leaned above her, one arm wrapped around her waist and pressing her close to him. He put his mouth to her shoulder, her neck, her earlobe, biting at each place. She rolled her hips up against him, and he shuddered like a fly-stung horse. “Do you love me?” he asked and kissed her, blocking any answer she might have made. His mouth was needy on hers, trying to take whatever she might give. This emptiness in him came and went; he might go for weeks without giving any indication of it and then suddenly crave all of her. “Tell me you love me, Katherine. I want to hear you say it.”
She had to escape him before she could speak, arching her head far back on the pillow. He shifted his kisses to her neck without pausing. “Yes, yes, of course I do,” she said, breathless and with some difficultly.
“You don’t. You can’t. Not me, not all of me, not each perverse part–”
She grabbed his hair and forced his head up to see him. His voice had been cold and distant, but his eyes were open, still present, still with her. She leaned up to kiss him in a fierce claim, hands fisted in his hair and holding him in place so that she could devour him. Their bodies plunged together in a quickening pace. She broke away to say, “Don’t you dare doubt me.”
Jude buried his face in the mess of her hair and came with a desperate sound.
***
Kit had never known Jude to be simple or direct; she loved the complicated depths of him, and how he could become someone entirely new and unexpected. She had thought at first that his facets were only a way to mock those around him for not seeing through his pretense, but now she began to suspect there was more to it.
Since waiting for Jude to explain himself seemed unlikely to produce results, at least not before Judgement Day, she decided to take control of the matter herself. She found him in the breakfast parlor, still lounging in dressing gown and closely-held coffee cup. “Do you have plans for the day?”
“I don’t know. I suppose so. Ask Grey. I can’t be expected to know anything at this hour.”
She ignored this. “Because I don’t. I have cleared my schedule entirely of meetings, and I expect to spend this free time with you.”
Jude’s attention was snared, and he looked up at her, measuring what he found there. “As my lady commands.”
She smiled, and took in how it made his eyes widen before he returned the expression, smug as a petted cat. He looked less pleased when she brought him into her room and showed him what she’d planned.
Kit had found Lady Rose’s dresses, packed away in a trunk but folded and wrapped as carefully as precious heirlooms. The one she shook out now from its paper was the first one she’d ever seen, a floral pattern in yellow and red silk. Jude froze at his first glimpse of it, recognizing what it was instantly. Anger and fear and even embarrassment followed one another across his face, but when he finally looked again at Kit, it was pain she saw most clearly in his eyes.
She reached out to him reflexively, seeking to soothe away the hurt. “Oh, Jude, no, not like that. I thought you might like to wear it again. You did seem to enjoy it.” She touched his shoulder and felt the muscle beneath rigid as metal.
He licked his lips. “Why would you want me to?”
“I want you to be happy.”
He stepped closer to the dress, spread out over the top of her bed. He stared at it covetously, then slowly reached out one finger to brush the wide skirts, the square neck, the sleeves that narrowed down to wrists which seemed almost as small as a doll’s. “Rose was happy, wasn’t she?” He smiled, and it made him look less perfect, less untouchable. “At least part of the time.”
“Let me help you into it,” Kit said. Jude only nodded in reply.
It hadn’t been so long that she had forgotten how to do this. Her own outfits had never come with such elaborate underclothes– multiple petticoats, hoops, a rigid tight-laced corset. The silk dress was only the outermost layer of an entire edifice. She’d chosen the black wig for him, the plainest of all the ones Jude had bought, but also the one closest in color and texture to his natural hair. Luckily it had been styled before being stored, as Kit would never have been able to arrange it in a way that managed to be both casual and intricate. Jude watched his transformation in the mirror with poorly masked delight, finally taking over from her to choose his own necklace and apply his own powder. He even held one of her ruby ear-drops against the side of his face to check the effect, though his own ears had never been pierced.
“You could get it done, you know,” Kit told him. “I doubt anyone would notice the holes when you had nothing in them.”
“How unnecessary. I am adorned enough without earrings. There are so many other places to wear jewelry, after all.” Jude had already taken on some of Rose’s mannerisms; a slightly languid grace marked his movements as he replaced the earrings in her box.
“Or you could wear them with your suits. I think your Dandies would like that. Small diamonds perhaps, just big enough to sparkle, or lapis, for your eyes. And everything else about you masculine and understated and unremarkable.” Kit stopped to admire the picture she’d created.
He stared at her. “You’ve become quite knowledgeable about gemstones,” he said after a long moment, voice not quite steady.
“It seems the sort of thing a Duchess should know.”
“Quite,” he murmured. He turned back to the mirror, taking in his own reflection like a starving man watching a busy kitchen. He touched his fingertips to his lips, which he’d darkened with rouge. They looked wider, plumper, than they did naturally, and Kit wondered how the cosmetic would taste if she were to kiss him now. He raised his fingers to his cheek, but didn’t touch the skin; he hovered just above, as close as he could come without marring the carefully applied powder. He sighed. She took his hand and stroked his palm, the skin there soft and vulnerable, not yet covered by a glove.
“Shall we go out?” she asked.
“In London? Don’t be idiotic. I can’t go out like this, here.”
“Why not?” Kit shrugged, a gesture far coarser than anything Lady Rose was capable of. “I’m not suggesting we call on your political opponents for tea. But London’s a large city; the largest. There are plenty of places we might go with no fear of being recognized. Besides,” she released his hand and stepped back, “you look altogether different.”
***
Kit finally persuaded him to come with her to the Pantheon Bazaar, a place more suited to the purses– and tastes– of maids and shop-girls, but where they were unlikely to encounter anyone who knew the Duke of Darlington. Jude had resisted at first, but she could tell by his weak protests that he very much wanted to go, and so she simply overrode his objections. By the time they arrived he had made himself entirely into Lady Rose, and thrilled to every aspect of the expedition. He bought ribbons dyed in bright colors that were sure to run, garish glass jewelry, and a pair of thick wool stockings that Kit had no idea what he could possibly want for. He charmed the shopkeepers and flirted with the clerks there to buy their sweethearts gifts and generally made a spectacle of himself, attracting attention that was somehow nearly all positive. By the time they returned to the house, his cheeks were flushed and his eyes sparkled.
He swept through the front door, skirts caught up in one hand so that he could nearly skip inside, dashing across the hall in a way that managed to be light and fluid rather than daft. He went straight to Kit’s room, looked at himself again in her mirror, and laughed, a musical sound of pure delight. When Kit followed him, carrying the packages of his purchases, he twirled around to face her and laughed again. He clasped his hands beneath his chin. “Oh, thank you! That was marvelous.” He was overdoing it, turning his real pleasure into a show, but nonetheless there was something content about him.
She ducked her head, putting away the packages carefully. “Sit. I’ll unlace you, if you like.”
“So soon?” He pouted, those red lips very prominent in his lovely face. “I hate to end this day already.”
“Keep the dress on, then. I certainly don’t mind it.”
Jude– Rose– stepped very close to her, near enough that he had to tilt his head to keep Kit’s gaze. “Do you not?”
“One can grow used to anything,” she said, copying the tone of bored irony he sometime used, but she felt her cheeks heat.
The corner of Jude’s mouth turned up in a very small smile, and he swept her a curtsey that spoke quietly but undoubtedly of nobility. Kit grabbed for his hand when he rose back up, unbalancing him; she unbuttoned the small pearl fasteners of his glove and kissed the inside of his wrist, where he would feel it on his pulse. Jude’s lips parted and she saw his sharp teeth. She stroked his fine collarbones, the pale column of his neck, the knob of the uppermost vertebra of his spine. She put her touch all over him, claiming this bright, polished creature for her own.
He clutched at her, his hands and arms wrapped around her, pulling at her with all of his strength. His corset was a stiff board against her chest, but the discomfort only made her pleasure sharper, more real. She pushed him against the nearest wall and he gasped and swore, voice neither Jude’s nor Rose’s but some wild animal’s. He hadn’t let go of her, and he tore at her clothes, trying to find his way to her skin. He was wearing far too much, and she would be ages undoing it all, so Kit simply hauled his skirts up to his waist. He wasn’t wearing stockings, and his legs were gloriously bare, the skin tender and smooth where she ran her hands across it. She scratched her fingernails up his inner thighs and he sobbed her name. “Kiss me,” he demanded. “Don’t stop kissing me.”
Kit yanked off the wig, scattering hairpins, and revealed his own hair. It must have hurt, but his expression was already so broken she could see no change in it. She did kiss him then, and felt him give himself up to her, his body curving into hers and his mouth open to her use. The rouge was like wax on her tongue, but the rest of his mouth was the same as ever, the familiar heat and movements of the one she loved so much. He was so vulnerable right now. She knew his secrets– not all of them, never that– but she knew this one secret which he had given to her. She intended to use it as best she could. She found the most fragile part of him and took it in hand, stroked him with quick sure movements until Jude shivered and came, still standing against a wall in a dress with poppies on it.
***
They hadn’t even made it to the bed. Jude curled up on the floor and put his head in her lap; she smoothed her fingers gently over the nape of his neck like she would with a small animal. His silk was going to be terribly wrinkled when they finally got up. She wondered if he would pout like Lady Rose or disdain it like Jude; either was a thing to look forward to. She supposed she must be dreadfully besotted to think so.
After some time, Jude stirred. “All that effort and you haven’t even gotten your own climax. I am a most terrible lover.”
“Oh, I suppose you’ll pay me back, sooner or later.”
He was relaxed against her, the lines of his body loose with the release of tension. It wouldn’t last, she knew, and it was all the more rare and precious for that. He was an incredible disaster of a person, and she loved every fracture and jag of him. He smiled up at her, mussed and hazy-eyed and imperfect, and Kit was entirely happy with her marriage.
***
Author: Brigdh
Ratings/Warnings: R, for non-graphic m/f sex scene.
Summary: After their marriage, Kit and Jude find they need to bring Lady Rose back. Kit/Jude.
Notes: Written for Yuletide 2013, for
somebraveapollo. I am very grateful to my beta, Cyphomandra, for working on such short notice!Untamed by Anna Cowan is an AMAZING Regency romance featuring a cross-dressing duke and a tough, masculine country girl, and you should all read it.
3,103 words. Also available on AO3.
All the Daughters of My Father's House
They had been married less than a year when Kit entered her bedroom late one afternoon to find Jude there alone, holding her armoire door open and reaching inside to caress a muslin skirt. He turned at the sound of her entrance, but his face was already still and composed. “We should buy you some more dresses,” he said, as though this was the middle of a conversation rather than the beginning of one. “There’s a new color for next season– a sort of dull copper– that will turn every pale maiden fool enough to wear it to a sallow corpse, but you would be magnificent.”
“I don’t need any more dresses. I already have more than one person could possibly wear.”
Jude smiled, sharp. “That is what means to be a Duchess, Katherine.”
“I think you just enjoy buying things.” Kit looked hard at him, certain there was more going on behind those dark blue eyes than he admitted. “What are you really doing in here?”
He closed the armoire with perfect nonchalance and came to her in the doorway, turning her around and tucking her arm into his to lead her back into the hallway. “Just what I said. What else might a husband want with his wife’s wardrobe?”
Kit forgot about the incident for a time. Nothing similar occurred until she was preparing for a ball one night; she had chosen a perfectly feminine dress, one that left most of her arms bare and clung to her breasts. She had found that the constant wearing of breeches had rather taken away from their shocking quality. Best to surprise the gossips now and then. This ball would be of no particular importance for its music or food– Lord Dulken had terrible taste in such matters, and his new bride was too nervous to assert herself– but it would have several businessmen she’d been meaning to corner, as well as a newly minted Member of Parliament that Jude was in the middle of seducing. Metaphorically, of course.
Bessie was fixing Kit’s hair into something very close to elegant when Jude entered. The maid looked scandalized, as though the Duke of Darlington didn’t regularly commit far worse actions. He had finished dressing, and was wearing a dark jacket and breeches set off by a startlingly sapphire waistcoat. It was very subdued compared to what his Dandies wore, but still had just a little of the daring about it. He met Kit’s eyes in the mirror, then moved to the side to study her outfit. He nodded in approval and reached out to twine one strand of hair around his long, thin fingers. “Very nice, my dear. I’ve rarely seen you looking so... appropriate.”
Kit raised her eyebrows. In Jude’s overly cultured voice, it was hard to know if that was a compliment or an insult. Bessie frowned and folded her hands behind her back, uncertain of what to do now that Jude had taken over Kit’s hairstyling. He tucked the strand he held into the loose bun low on her neck and studied the effect in the mirror, then turned to her jewelry box, searching through it.
“I don’t need to look beautiful,” Kit said. “That’s why I have you.”
“Handsome, you mean. Women are beautiful.” Jude glanced at her in the mirror, his expression pleased despite the reproof.
“I meant exactly what I said. Beautiful.”
Jude’s skin looked even paler than usual in the dark jacket, but not unhealthily so; it was the pure white of fresh snow, though she knew it was much warmer to the touch. She held that knowledge within her– that she, and no one else, was allowed to touch Jude as much as she wanted– and felt greedy and content.
Jude straightened, having located a hairpin topped with several beads of dark amber set in bright gold. He slid it into her hair just above her left ear, then smiled, a soft, intimate expression. “There. I knew that’s what it needed. Sets off your eyes.”
She could see him pull himself out of that quiet mood and return to his public self, a trick that seemed not involve a single muscle movement and yet which was utterly unmistakable. He swept up the shawl that waited for Kit on a nearby chair-back and draped it around his own shoulders; it was a rich, earthy brown with deep red embroidery, colors more suited to Kit’s skin tone than his. Still, he delicately adjusted its fall and posed before the mirror, his lips pursed in a mockery of a coquette’s coy look. “Beautiful, hmm? You are so kind to say so.” He had pitched his voice very slightly higher than his natural speaking tone, and he swept his lashes down, two lines of deep black against his white skin. “I am most grateful.”
Bessie looked from one of them to the other, confusion evident in her face. Kit responded neither to her embarrassment nor Jude’s irony, but turned in her chair to examine him forthrightly. “You should wear silver. Not grey, or white, but real silver. No colors except for your hair and eyes. It would make you look like some unearthly creature, made out of air and winter, and too exquisite to be real.”
Jude took a deep breath. Kit was still new to speaking such thoughts aloud, and she was nervous at how he might respond. But he closed his mouth again without speaking. After a moment, he took off the shawl and folded it back upon the chair. He retreated to lean against the wall, crossing his legs at the ankles and putting his hands in his pockets. It was a very comfortable pose that revealed nothing at all, and when he met her eyes again finally, the hunger in them had been tucked away.
Jude leaned above her, one arm wrapped around her waist and pressing her close to him. He put his mouth to her shoulder, her neck, her earlobe, biting at each place. She rolled her hips up against him, and he shuddered like a fly-stung horse. “Do you love me?” he asked and kissed her, blocking any answer she might have made. His mouth was needy on hers, trying to take whatever she might give. This emptiness in him came and went; he might go for weeks without giving any indication of it and then suddenly crave all of her. “Tell me you love me, Katherine. I want to hear you say it.”
She had to escape him before she could speak, arching her head far back on the pillow. He shifted his kisses to her neck without pausing. “Yes, yes, of course I do,” she said, breathless and with some difficultly.
“You don’t. You can’t. Not me, not all of me, not each perverse part–”
She grabbed his hair and forced his head up to see him. His voice had been cold and distant, but his eyes were open, still present, still with her. She leaned up to kiss him in a fierce claim, hands fisted in his hair and holding him in place so that she could devour him. Their bodies plunged together in a quickening pace. She broke away to say, “Don’t you dare doubt me.”
Jude buried his face in the mess of her hair and came with a desperate sound.
Kit had never known Jude to be simple or direct; she loved the complicated depths of him, and how he could become someone entirely new and unexpected. She had thought at first that his facets were only a way to mock those around him for not seeing through his pretense, but now she began to suspect there was more to it.
Since waiting for Jude to explain himself seemed unlikely to produce results, at least not before Judgement Day, she decided to take control of the matter herself. She found him in the breakfast parlor, still lounging in dressing gown and closely-held coffee cup. “Do you have plans for the day?”
“I don’t know. I suppose so. Ask Grey. I can’t be expected to know anything at this hour.”
She ignored this. “Because I don’t. I have cleared my schedule entirely of meetings, and I expect to spend this free time with you.”
Jude’s attention was snared, and he looked up at her, measuring what he found there. “As my lady commands.”
She smiled, and took in how it made his eyes widen before he returned the expression, smug as a petted cat. He looked less pleased when she brought him into her room and showed him what she’d planned.
Kit had found Lady Rose’s dresses, packed away in a trunk but folded and wrapped as carefully as precious heirlooms. The one she shook out now from its paper was the first one she’d ever seen, a floral pattern in yellow and red silk. Jude froze at his first glimpse of it, recognizing what it was instantly. Anger and fear and even embarrassment followed one another across his face, but when he finally looked again at Kit, it was pain she saw most clearly in his eyes.
She reached out to him reflexively, seeking to soothe away the hurt. “Oh, Jude, no, not like that. I thought you might like to wear it again. You did seem to enjoy it.” She touched his shoulder and felt the muscle beneath rigid as metal.
He licked his lips. “Why would you want me to?”
“I want you to be happy.”
He stepped closer to the dress, spread out over the top of her bed. He stared at it covetously, then slowly reached out one finger to brush the wide skirts, the square neck, the sleeves that narrowed down to wrists which seemed almost as small as a doll’s. “Rose was happy, wasn’t she?” He smiled, and it made him look less perfect, less untouchable. “At least part of the time.”
“Let me help you into it,” Kit said. Jude only nodded in reply.
It hadn’t been so long that she had forgotten how to do this. Her own outfits had never come with such elaborate underclothes– multiple petticoats, hoops, a rigid tight-laced corset. The silk dress was only the outermost layer of an entire edifice. She’d chosen the black wig for him, the plainest of all the ones Jude had bought, but also the one closest in color and texture to his natural hair. Luckily it had been styled before being stored, as Kit would never have been able to arrange it in a way that managed to be both casual and intricate. Jude watched his transformation in the mirror with poorly masked delight, finally taking over from her to choose his own necklace and apply his own powder. He even held one of her ruby ear-drops against the side of his face to check the effect, though his own ears had never been pierced.
“You could get it done, you know,” Kit told him. “I doubt anyone would notice the holes when you had nothing in them.”
“How unnecessary. I am adorned enough without earrings. There are so many other places to wear jewelry, after all.” Jude had already taken on some of Rose’s mannerisms; a slightly languid grace marked his movements as he replaced the earrings in her box.
“Or you could wear them with your suits. I think your Dandies would like that. Small diamonds perhaps, just big enough to sparkle, or lapis, for your eyes. And everything else about you masculine and understated and unremarkable.” Kit stopped to admire the picture she’d created.
He stared at her. “You’ve become quite knowledgeable about gemstones,” he said after a long moment, voice not quite steady.
“It seems the sort of thing a Duchess should know.”
“Quite,” he murmured. He turned back to the mirror, taking in his own reflection like a starving man watching a busy kitchen. He touched his fingertips to his lips, which he’d darkened with rouge. They looked wider, plumper, than they did naturally, and Kit wondered how the cosmetic would taste if she were to kiss him now. He raised his fingers to his cheek, but didn’t touch the skin; he hovered just above, as close as he could come without marring the carefully applied powder. He sighed. She took his hand and stroked his palm, the skin there soft and vulnerable, not yet covered by a glove.
“Shall we go out?” she asked.
“In London? Don’t be idiotic. I can’t go out like this, here.”
“Why not?” Kit shrugged, a gesture far coarser than anything Lady Rose was capable of. “I’m not suggesting we call on your political opponents for tea. But London’s a large city; the largest. There are plenty of places we might go with no fear of being recognized. Besides,” she released his hand and stepped back, “you look altogether different.”
Kit finally persuaded him to come with her to the Pantheon Bazaar, a place more suited to the purses– and tastes– of maids and shop-girls, but where they were unlikely to encounter anyone who knew the Duke of Darlington. Jude had resisted at first, but she could tell by his weak protests that he very much wanted to go, and so she simply overrode his objections. By the time they arrived he had made himself entirely into Lady Rose, and thrilled to every aspect of the expedition. He bought ribbons dyed in bright colors that were sure to run, garish glass jewelry, and a pair of thick wool stockings that Kit had no idea what he could possibly want for. He charmed the shopkeepers and flirted with the clerks there to buy their sweethearts gifts and generally made a spectacle of himself, attracting attention that was somehow nearly all positive. By the time they returned to the house, his cheeks were flushed and his eyes sparkled.
He swept through the front door, skirts caught up in one hand so that he could nearly skip inside, dashing across the hall in a way that managed to be light and fluid rather than daft. He went straight to Kit’s room, looked at himself again in her mirror, and laughed, a musical sound of pure delight. When Kit followed him, carrying the packages of his purchases, he twirled around to face her and laughed again. He clasped his hands beneath his chin. “Oh, thank you! That was marvelous.” He was overdoing it, turning his real pleasure into a show, but nonetheless there was something content about him.
She ducked her head, putting away the packages carefully. “Sit. I’ll unlace you, if you like.”
“So soon?” He pouted, those red lips very prominent in his lovely face. “I hate to end this day already.”
“Keep the dress on, then. I certainly don’t mind it.”
Jude– Rose– stepped very close to her, near enough that he had to tilt his head to keep Kit’s gaze. “Do you not?”
“One can grow used to anything,” she said, copying the tone of bored irony he sometime used, but she felt her cheeks heat.
The corner of Jude’s mouth turned up in a very small smile, and he swept her a curtsey that spoke quietly but undoubtedly of nobility. Kit grabbed for his hand when he rose back up, unbalancing him; she unbuttoned the small pearl fasteners of his glove and kissed the inside of his wrist, where he would feel it on his pulse. Jude’s lips parted and she saw his sharp teeth. She stroked his fine collarbones, the pale column of his neck, the knob of the uppermost vertebra of his spine. She put her touch all over him, claiming this bright, polished creature for her own.
He clutched at her, his hands and arms wrapped around her, pulling at her with all of his strength. His corset was a stiff board against her chest, but the discomfort only made her pleasure sharper, more real. She pushed him against the nearest wall and he gasped and swore, voice neither Jude’s nor Rose’s but some wild animal’s. He hadn’t let go of her, and he tore at her clothes, trying to find his way to her skin. He was wearing far too much, and she would be ages undoing it all, so Kit simply hauled his skirts up to his waist. He wasn’t wearing stockings, and his legs were gloriously bare, the skin tender and smooth where she ran her hands across it. She scratched her fingernails up his inner thighs and he sobbed her name. “Kiss me,” he demanded. “Don’t stop kissing me.”
Kit yanked off the wig, scattering hairpins, and revealed his own hair. It must have hurt, but his expression was already so broken she could see no change in it. She did kiss him then, and felt him give himself up to her, his body curving into hers and his mouth open to her use. The rouge was like wax on her tongue, but the rest of his mouth was the same as ever, the familiar heat and movements of the one she loved so much. He was so vulnerable right now. She knew his secrets– not all of them, never that– but she knew this one secret which he had given to her. She intended to use it as best she could. She found the most fragile part of him and took it in hand, stroked him with quick sure movements until Jude shivered and came, still standing against a wall in a dress with poppies on it.
They hadn’t even made it to the bed. Jude curled up on the floor and put his head in her lap; she smoothed her fingers gently over the nape of his neck like she would with a small animal. His silk was going to be terribly wrinkled when they finally got up. She wondered if he would pout like Lady Rose or disdain it like Jude; either was a thing to look forward to. She supposed she must be dreadfully besotted to think so.
After some time, Jude stirred. “All that effort and you haven’t even gotten your own climax. I am a most terrible lover.”
“Oh, I suppose you’ll pay me back, sooner or later.”
He was relaxed against her, the lines of his body loose with the release of tension. It wouldn’t last, she knew, and it was all the more rare and precious for that. He was an incredible disaster of a person, and she loved every fracture and jag of him. He smiled up at her, mussed and hazy-eyed and imperfect, and Kit was entirely happy with her marriage.
