The Wicked Duke Takes a Wife

Chapter Nineteen

Harriet had succeeded in eluding her persistent suitor by sending him off twice to fetch her champagne, which she covertly emptied into a potted fern. If she had her way, he’d be toasting himself in the dark and not even realize she wanted to escape him. He was a sweet boy and an utter bore. She would have to sneak back to Lady Powlis through one of the rooms off the garden. She stifled a yawn. She hoped her employer would sleep late tomorrow morning. Her feet hurt from dancing. She had taken but a few bites at supper, and she needed nourishment to keep up with the Boscastles. She fled down the torchlit terrace steps and onto a small path.

As she approached the statue of a beheaded Hermes that was her guidepost, she heard laughter and low whispers drifting from the garden depths. She paused, narrowing her eyes in concentration. Other than Edlyn, only three students from the academy had been invited to tonight’s affair, and they were all on their best behavior.

She drew behind the headless statue as the voices grew nearer. She knew instinctively that this was a conversation she should not interrupt.

Even if she would learn a few love secrets by listening, a love that could be revealed only in stolen moments was not what Harriet desired. Passion, yes. But only with a promise of forever. The gutter girl had her morals.

“I don’t care if he does see us together,” a woman said, and not quietly, either.

The gentleman escorting her replied, “But you will care if you lose your chance to become a duchess. There are few dukes for an ambitious lady to marry in England. Fewer yet are those in their prime.”

“I know.”

“Perhaps he is not worth the sacrifice,” her escort mused. “If he was capable of murdering his own brother, imagine what might happen to his wife.”

Harriet stared up at the moonless sky, wondering why the failings of human nature never ceased to surprise her. She should have developed a tougher hide by now. She didn’t move. She could have jumped out, grabbed Constance by her pretty curls, and shoved her, heels over arse, into the dirt where she belonged. But ladies did not engage in fisticuffs. It was common. Gentlewomen vented their spleen with veiled insults and whispered hurtful things behind one another’s backs. Harriet would have to learn the proper protocol for vanquishing a rival.

“He doesn’t have any brothers for you to marry, does he?” the man asked thoughtfully.

“None that will become duke, unless he dies.”

“Well, he looked damned healthy to me.”

“He is uncouth,” Constance said, her voice rising. “He has ignored me yet again tonight. And he stares at that little companion of his aunt’s with such obvious desire that I shall have her drowned like a cat in a well should I marry him.”

Harriet unfolded her arms. Protocol and fisticuffs be damned. This called for pistols at dawn. Of course, she could hardly run back to the duke with what she’d overheard. Lady Constance would deny everything and accuse Harriet of malicious mischief. His aunt was another matter.

The voices receded.

She edged around the statue and proceeded in silence through the garden to a service door where a bored-looking footman stood guard.

“Miss Harriet,” he said, perking up at the sight of her. “Protecting a lost lamb, are you? Guard yourself while you’re at it.”

Protecting a lost beast was more apt, she reflected. She slipped by the footman with a grateful smile and stole through a dark antechamber. She made a quick survey of the hallways and alcoves where an unseen guest might hide. It would be too ironic if she caught the duke in the midst of his own indiscretion. She must never tell him. It would make her look spiteful. She put her hand to her eyes. Yes, she must, but not in the middle of a party.

“Harriet,” a stern voice said from the end of the hall. “Is anything wrong-you aren’t crying, are you?”

The duke strode toward her, black and white, sin and wicked sweetness. She lowered her hand and stood watching him as if she, like the statue in the garden, had been turned to stone and lost her poor head besides.

“Were you just out on the terrace?” he demanded.

She nodded, looking up slowly into his eyes. How could anyone believe he had murdered his brother? Yes, that hard face of his would not lay any suspicions to rest, and he was a frustrating man to understand. But Harriet thought he liked it that way.

His dark gaze searched the shadows behind her. “You’ve been all this time by yourself?”

“Yes.”

“And the other gentleman?” he asked, his brow furrowing.

She hesitated. The other gentleman. “You mean the one I danced with?”

He regarded her in a long unsmiling silence. “Where is he?”

“I don’t know. Drinking champagne, I think. I’m not his keeper.”

“Alone?” he asked dubiously. “He left you alone while he went off to drink? Why?”

She swallowed. If he kept interrogating her and staring at her with his irresistible blue eyes, she’d be tempted to blurt out the truth. She would have to tell him exactly what she had overheard in the garden. And while she would dearly love to show Lady Constance in a bad light, she reminded herself that this wasn’t the proper time or place to test his temper.

“I don’t know why he left me,” she said again. “Maybe my dancing drove him to drink. Maybe he saw you staring at us like some big ogre. I hope you don’t take offense, but you do have a scowl that goes right through a body.”

“I thought I was being very subtle.”

She snorted. “You can’t be serious. My poor dance partner was shaking in his buckled shoes.”

He smiled, not making any effort at denial.

She waited a few moments, and when he said nothing more, she made a quick attempt to slip around him.

He caught her by the elbow, pulling her to his side. “Something happened to you.” He studied her closely, lifting her face in his hand.

She let him look. She’d learned a long time ago that a guileless stare could cover a guilty conscience. Not that she’d done anything wrong. But, dear heaven, you wouldn’t know it by how fast her heart was beating.

His eyes traveled from her face down the front of her silvery gown to the tips of her dancing pumps. “I was on the terrace a few minutes ago myself,” he said, walking her into the wall. “I didn’t notice you.”

“I didn’t see your grace, either. But then, perhaps you missed me as I left the garden. It’s easy to get lost in this place.”

He frowned. “I walked through the garden, too.”

She shouldn’t ask. “Did your grace find anything of interest there?”

He lifted his brow. “Not as interesting as what I have found in the hall.”

“The marquess collects many priceless works of art.”

“I have heard,” he murmured, “that some of the rooms in this house have been designed with seduction in mind.”

“So the rumors go.”

His thumb stroked from her ear to her chin. “The family has been invited to stay for a private supper after everyone else leaves.”

She disregarded the inner voice that warned her of impending pleasure. “Then you’re obliged to stay.”

“I won’t stay unless you stay with me,” he said stubbornly.

“How old are you, your grace?”

He sketched his thumb along the bumpy lace that bordered the tops of her breasts. “What difference does it make?”

She had to smile. “Not much to a person who’s accustomed to having everything go his way. Why did you come to London if all you wanted was to be alone?”

“I never said I wanted to be alone,” he said with a cool smile. “I only ask to be able to choose my company.”

“Some of us aren’t allowed even that.”

“Then you should never have let me touch you, Harriet. I cannot look at you now and not ache.”

“That’s life in London.”

His mouth hardened. “Don’t you know what happens to young women who wander off in the dark?”

Her laugh was bittersweet. “Better than you ever will.”

He swallowed hard. “I don’t want to imagine that part of your life.”

She laid her head back against the wall. A relentless hunger slowly pervaded her body. A craving he had awakened and only he could appease. “Aren’t you afraid to be alone with a man who might have murdered his brother?” he asked in a low, lilting voice.

“Are you making a confession, duke?”

His mouth curled in a smile. He took a step, and suddenly his free hand locked around her waist. A wave of faintness washed over her. Before she could draw another breath, he had trapped her between his hard body and the wall.

She felt the steel length of his phallus pressing through her thin dress and petticoat to her belly. Her woman’s place moistened at his unabashed sexuality. She had a notion what it meant. A prelude to a more intimate act. “I would very much like to be alone with you,” he whispered in her hair.

She wanted it to happen, here, now. The desire that flooded her veins silenced all her common sense. She wanted him more than air or dignity. His blue eyes flickered to her face. His nostrils flared. He knew.

He drew his hand up slowly between their bodies and unlaced the front of her gown before she could take another breath. A rush of bracing air stung her breasts as he caught a fistful of silk and tugged. His dark head lowered. She felt her will dissolve. His tongue teased back and forth at the tips of her breasts until she was shaking with the sharpest need she had ever known. If he didn’t stop, she would slide to the floor.

“Harriet,” he whispered, looking up into her face. “Harriet, please, I need you.”

She stared down into his eyes, falling into a darkness so endless she could barely hear his voice. “No,” she said, her voice clear and distinct. “Not this time. Have a temper if you like.”

He took a long breath. Still in a haze, she watched as he pulled her bodice back over her swollen breasts, relacing the ribbons with a look of burning regret. Then he lowered his head once again and branded her mouth with a kiss.

“If your door is ever left unlocked at night, I shall assume it is an invitation.”

She smoothed down her skirt. He backed away. They returned via separate doors to the ballroom. Her mind took forever to recover. In fact, it wasn’t until after the marquess’s private supper party began that she realized there was no lock upon her bedchamber door to discourage the duke’s advances.