The Duchess

just faintly fragrant with the scent of lilac. There seemed to be pulses wherever he touched her. It roused his senses even further.

'Do it!' her voice suddenly pleaded urgently, squirming against him in a suggestive and provocative manner. 'Please!'

'Do what?' he teased her, almost cruelly. He was fairly certain of what it was she wanted.

'With your tongue. Please!' she cried to him.

'Where?' he taunted. Now he was positive of her need.

'There!' she almost screamed. She was going to kill him if he didn't put his tongue on her, and make her mindless.

'Here?' he questioned, his tongue probing her navel.

'I hate you!' she half sobbed.

'Or perhaps,' he paused, positioning his big frame properly. 'Here!' His tongue made contact with her little love button, and he heard her shriek softly. Slowly, slowly, he licked it, tasting the salt and the musk of her, watching as it grew swollen with her desire. Then the duke did something he had not done before. His palms lifted Allegra's bottom up, and he pushed his face against her hot sex, his tongue seeking, and then finding, her passage to push as deep as he could within, using it as he would his manhood.

It was then she screamed, feeling that digit thrusting inside her in an incredibly intimate and secret act. 'Ohh, God!' she sobbed. 'Ohh, I didn't know!' She dug her fingers into his shoulders. Her nails pressed deep. She clawed at him desperately. 'Make it happen!' she begged him. She was so close, and yet she could not reach her heaven. His tongue continued to tease and torture her until she thought she would explode with her longing.

His manhood was hard. It was raging to plunder her sweet depths. He couldn't continue until he had ravaged her completely. His head lifted from the hot and marshy depths. He covered her body with his, his rod thrusting into her. Her cry of utter pleasure almost cost him his own. He leaned forward and kissed her hard, his hips pressing against hers in a rhythmic cadence of ancient lust that she met eagerly. He groaned, his head awash with his passion for her. For his beautiful and desirable wife. For Allegra!

Her own senses were reeling with her longing and the hot sweet delight that he offered her. She soared. She flew higher, and higher until her cravings all seemed to come together, and burst in a fiery balloon of lustful triumphant joy. And then she was falling, falling, falling, down into a dark and warm abyss where the pleasure slowly, slowly drained away. Then all was nothingness.

When her senses finally began to return she discovered that he was sprawled across her, still panting. Their bodies were wet with their efforts. 'You… are… wonderful,' she managed to say to him, and she caressed his dark hair.

He pulled himself off of her, and rolled onto his back. 'You,' he told her sincerely, 'are incredible, my darling duchess.'

'I love you,' she replied, drawing the coverlet up over them.

'And I love you, Allegra,' he responded, reaching for her hand. 'Oh, my darling girl, how I love you!'

***

When the morning came they discovered that Madame Paul had already delivered the costumes that they would wear on their mission to rescue the Comtesse d'Aumont and her children. She had come herself, knocking on the door in the darkness of the predawn. Allegra opened the box, and was astounded by what she found. There were four ragged and grubby skirts, and an equal number of dirty tricolor sashes. Four patched white blouses, four pairs of wooden shoes, and four limp dingy mobcaps. In a second box were three grimy men's shirts, three pairs of baggy pantaloons, three short carmagnole peasant jackets, and three red felt Phrygian caps ornamented with the tricolor cockade. There were also wooden shoes for the gentlemen.

'It's wonderful,' Allegra said. 'Dressed up in this lot we will look just as we should.'

'Why are there four sets of women's costumes?' the duke asked his wife quietly.

'Because Honor is going with us,' Allegra said as quietly. 'She speaks excellent French, Quinton, and she has very good common sense in matters of which we may not be familiar.'

'How is it your maid speaks excellent French?' the duke demanded, curious.

'Because she sat with me in the schoolroom for years, my darling. One day when James Lucian and I were having difficulty conjugating a verb, Honor chimed right in with the correct conjugation, and in a rather good accent, according to our tutor. She had, it seems, been learning right along with my brother and me. She will be very helpful, Quinton. You will see.'

He laughed. It would, he knew, be useless to argue with Allegra. Worse, she was probably perfectly correct. And it was rather amusing to boot. His wife's country girl of a servant spoke, to quote Allegra, 'excellent French.' 'If you believe Honor can aid us, and if she is willing to risk the danger involved,' the duke told his wife, 'then I can have no objection, my darling duchess.'

Allegra threw her arms about her husband, and kissed him. 'Oh, thank you for not disagreeing with me, Quinton. I am so relieved that you trust my judgment in this matter.'

He smiled down into her wonderful violet-colored eyes, and then gave her a quick kiss. What choice did he actually have, he wondered silently to himself.

'We should not be seen in these clothes until we reach France,' Allegra said. 'I will have Honor stuff them into a little bag we are to bring aboard Marcus's yacht. They can be no worse for the wear for such treatment than they already are,' she concluded with a chuckle.

'What I want to know,' the duke said, 'is how she came into possession of such garments? It is most curious that she had them.'

'Perhaps,' Allegra said thoughtfully, 'they belonged to some of the emigres from France. Or, mayhap there are others who do what we are going to do to help out their family and friends. I have heard a rumor while we have been in London about some fellow who is known as the Scarlet Pimpernel. He is supposed to go into France to rescue innocents.'

'It is comforting to know that there are others as foolish as we are,' the duke replied dryly.

'It is our English sense of fair play,' Allegra said. 'One simply does not execute a king, although I seem to recall that we English did so once ourselves. But we did not conduct a reign of terror then against everyone who disagreed with us.'

'No,' the duke remarked, 'we just went to war against one another. Innocents were killed in that conflict as well.'

'But that was almost two hundred years ago, Quinton,' Allegra noted. 'These are modern times. People should not be so savage today.'

'But they are, and so we will go to France, and attempt to bring back the Bellinghams' niece and her little family,' Quinton Hunter said.

***