Read The Dukes' Christmas Abductions for Free Online Page B

exactly?” She picked up a small shiny oblong
box and looked at him expectantly. “Then, once I’ve let Clo know where you’ve
got me, we can…” She blushed. His confusion must have shown on his face. Lord,
his wife did talk in riddles some times. Had she always been as bad?
    Yes.
    “Oh
hell, you hate it don’t you?” She sighed dramatically. “You want a simpering
milksop, not an in-your-face stroppy cow. If you show me where my dress is,
I’ll leave you to it.”
    He stopped
her rapid shuffle by the simple expedient of grabbing her by the elbow and
holding tight. “You, ma petite ,” Kit said evenly, “are talking in
riddles. Why would I suddenly take an aversion to my wife? The wife I married,
knowing full well how assertive she could be, as well as how submissive. The
wife I want and love with every fiber of my being. The wife whom I worship. The
wife who completes me and makes me whole.” He twitched her over his knee before
he hoped she had a chance to assimilate what he intended. “The wife who
infuriates me, fucks me senseless, and tells me how much she loves me as often
as I tell her I love her. All the time. The wife to whom this is a much longed
for caress.” He swatted each round globe of her arse several times and rejoiced
in her long drawn out “ohhh, yesss.”
    “The
wife whose ideas mesh with mine and loves the sweet sting of my hand on her
rear as much as I love giving it to her.” He rubbed the redness he had
inflicted. “More?”
      “Oh yes … oh shit, please, please make me…
Argh what the hell am I saying ?” She began to struggle. “Bloody hell on
wheels, let me up, now.” She bucked and as her elbow hit him squarely in the
bollocks he wheezed and let her flip off his lap to stand in front of him, arms
akimbo.
    “You’ve
addled my brains. What a load of tripe you’re spouting. I’m single. I’m Lady
Victoria Hopewell. I live in St John’s Wood, I’m twenty-five, and I write
Regency novels for a living.”
      “No.” He spoke slowly and kept a wary eye on
her hands and how close she was to anything throwable. If she got her dander up
and became roiled, he needed to know there was nothing valuable or heavy within
her reach. “You were Lady Victoria Hopewell but upon our marriage you became my
duchess.”
    “So
you say. When, pray, were we married?” Skeptical was an understatement.
Mistrust oozed out of her.
    “Almost
twelve months ago.” Kit kept his voice flat and unemotional. He daren’t show
how much this interchange affected him. “On Christmas Eve.”
      “Hmm.” She began to pace fast, striding from
one side of the room to the other. “Tell me more and fast.”
    Lord,
he’d soon be dizzy if he watched her for long. Dare he ask her to stop pacing
and calm down? One swift glance at her stormy countenance decided that. Not if
he valued his bollocks.
      “What do you want to know?” How on earth could
he convince his wife she was his wife? That they did live in Regency
times and as yet were not blessed with a child but he intended to remedy that
soon?
    “That
would be what year?” Victoria demanded. “When you say we tied the knot.”
    “1814.”
    “No
shit, Sherlock. It can’t have been.”
    “As
today is December 1815, so it follows that this time last year was December
1814.”
    “Oh
hell in a hand basket.” She sat down heavily and began to turn that strange
oblong box over and over in her hands. Once she did something to it, held it to
her ear and then dropped it onto the bed beside her with a grunt of disgust.
“Dead as a dodo. Figures. Look, are you sure?”
    Why
was she so insistent on him repeating the date to her? Surely she knew what day
it was? “When we worried about our world and what would become of it? I’m sure.
Even though Bonaparte was imprisoned, those in the know were concerned about
his plans and his growing army of supporters. With good reason it turned out.
Anyway, that apart, we chose the eve of Christ’s birth