What a Duke Dares

Chapter Seven

Fontana dei Monte, Italian Alps, February 1828

It was snowing again. As this purgatorial week proceeded, Pen began to think that the world contained only snow and ice and wind. And flea-ridden inns. And rude servants.

And men who tried to push her around.

Or more accurately, one man who pushed her around. His overbearing Grace, the Duke of Sedgemoor.

Pen and Cam traveled as Lord and Lady Pembridge, using the Sedgemoor heir’s courtesy title. She supposed that now they left the mountains behind, the inns would become busier. She and Cam would need to be more discreet than ever in case they met someone who knew them.

Their coach bumped its way into the tiny hillside village where they would spend the night—or rather where the man who had assigned himself lord and master had decreed they’d stay. Idly Pen wondered when she’d finally break. Would this be the day when she pushed Cam headfirst into one of the towering snow drifts lining what was optimistically termed a road?

Cam sat beside her now, staring out the window as if the acres of white formed a glorious vista considerably more appealing than his companion. They’d had a long day. Not that they’d covered much ground. It was discouraging how much time they took to traverse every mile. Cam had been right, much as she hated admitting it. Crossing the Alps in February had been an asinine plan.

Over the last days, the temperature inside the carriage had been colder than outside. In public, Cam might treat Pen with deference that set her teeth on edge, but their infrequent private conversations had been stilted and tinged with hostility.

The coach shuddered to a stop, jerking Maria awake on the seat opposite. Pen had developed enormous envy for her maid’s ability to sleep through anything. Strangely Maria had immediately accepted the news that her mistress and the duke traveled as a married couple.

Desperate to stretch her cramped legs, more desperate to escape the oppressive atmosphere, Pen opened the door and jumped out before Paolo, their new coachman, could help her. Despite herself, she glanced back at Cam, expecting the usual disapproval.

But the expression in his watchful green eyes troubled her. In another man, she’d interpret the gleam as reluctant interest. But Cam treated her as a troublesome obligation, not a woman he wanted. Still, that level gaze made her shiver like someone brushed an icy hand across bare skin.

After weeks of rough travel, Cam was no longer a polished specimen of British manhood. His linen was grubby, his clothes crumpled, his boots cloudy with dirt. And he looked tired. He pretended that he rose above human weakness, but the man in the carriage looked exhausted to the bone. She’d always thought his impossible pursuit of perfection made for a lonely life. Right now, he looked heartbreakingly alone.

She resented Cam’s bossiness. She resented, much good it did, his inability to love her. Even so, he’d undergone considerable trouble for her and she’d rewarded him with a fit of the sullens. Her tone was friendlier than usual. “Cam, are you coming inside?”

Paolo disappeared to secure rooms. Cam regarded her with familiar coolness. “Of course.”

He sounded assured and dismissive. Much as he’d sounded all week. She bit back a sigh. Their easy communication had gone forever. She should be glad. The last thing she needed was a reminder of what a wonderful companion Cam could be. But good sense was difficult when one was stuck with a grumpy nobleman on an endless road to perdition.

“Well, do it soon. I’m freezing.”

Grim humor lit his face as he left the carriage and extended his arm. “As you command, my lady.”

Reluctantly she laid her hand upon his forearm, disturbingly aware of the muscles beneath her gloved palm. His physical reality was a perpetual torment. Over the years, he’d faded in her memory to an over-idealized cipher. Real Cam was more complex, more powerful, and more compelling than any fantasy.

Paolo chose that moment to return, his round, good-natured face troubled. “Milord, milady, there is a question.”

Surprised, Pen turned to the man she’d learned to respect for his ability to make the best of unpromising circumstances. However arrogant Cam had been to dismiss the craven Giuseppe without her permission, he’d unearthed a treasure in Paolo. “What is it?”

“A storm has hit the inn and only one room is fit for sleeping.”

“That’s unacceptable,” Cam said sharply while the nightmare ramifications of Paolo’s news invaded Pen’s mind.

Paolo flinched at Cam’s displeasure—and looked understandably puzzled. He’d never shown any curiosity when his employers requested separate rooms. He probably attributed it to English eccentricity. But surely at a pinch, a married couple could share a bed.

A freezing February night with deteriorating weather counted as a pinch.

“We shall travel on,” Cam said coldly.

The prospect of driving further prompted even imperturbable Paolo to protest. “Signore, the next village is ten miles away, over the mountain. There will be heavy snow tonight.”

“With fresh horses—” Cam began in his “I won’t shift even for stampeding elephants” tone.

“Cam, we can’t go on. It’s dangerous.”

“Your courage fails?” He turned a supercilious expression upon her and Pen suppressed a shiver unrelated to the rapidly dropping temperature. “You were all set to drive single-handed across every glacier between here and Paris.”

Oh, how she itched to shove him into the snow. Deciding that convincing Cam would take too long, she spoke to Paolo. “If there’s only one room, we’ll take it. Thank you for your care.”

Paolo went pink with pleasure. “Grazie, milady.”

“Shall we go inside, madam?” Cam continued in an undertone, “I thought you’d be the last person to welcome tonight’s arrangements.”

She snatched her hand from his arm and cast him a fulminating glare. “It’s stupid to struggle on in the dark through an ice storm.”

“It’s stupid to share a room.”

“Perhaps you can sleep in the taproom,” she said sweetly.

“Perhaps you can,” he sniped back.

Fortunately the innkeeper arrived to greet his distinguished guests, rescuing Pen from divulging her opinion on that suggestion.

After a surprisingly good dinner in the taproom, Cam climbed the oak staircase to the single habitable chamber. So far, this establishment proved an advance on the other places they’d stayed.

Apart from that one impossible circumstance.

That one impossible bedroom.

Despite his threat to make Pen sleep in the public room, crammed with stranded travelers—Paolo had been right about the snowstorm—Cam had always intended her to have the bedroom.

Which left him at a loss.

He’d checked if the damaged rooms were as damaged as reported. They were. He’d tried to sleep in the taproom, but it was unbearably crowded and his failure to join his wife in comfort and privacy upstairs stirred curiosity that, even in this obscure hamlet, he wanted to discourage. English travelers attracted enough attention anyway. An English husband refusing to sleep with his beautiful wife became a little too remarkable.

The irony was that he’d cut off his right arm for the right to sleep in Pen’s bed. Desperately, he summoned thoughts of Lady Marianne Seaton. While he was yet to propose, his marked attentions had signaled his intentions to the lady, her family, and society. Nobody would be surprised when Cam returned to London and requested the Marquess of Baildon’s permission to marry his daughter.

But during this journey, Marianne became increasingly difficult to remember as more than a shadow. The only face in Cam’s mind was Pen’s.

Damn it all to hell.

And damn his protective urge. His fellow travelers looked exhausted, but villains might lurk among them. So here he was ascending the stairs. Expecting a scolding for his good intentions. Pen wouldn’t want him sharing her room. Even if he wasn’t the first man to enjoy that privilege.

He’d spent far too long stewing over her lovers. Surely he was better off not knowing details. But not knowing allowed imagination free rein. He loathed where his imagination roamed.

Outside the closed door, he inhaled deeply and reminded himself that he was a gentleman. He’d hoped that the rigors of travel would stifle this inconvenient yen. He’d hoped that Pen’s unfeminine independence and sharp tongue would shift fascination to dislike. He’d hoped that his managing manner would keep her at a distance.

There at least he’d been successful.

The unwelcome truth was that a prickly Penelope was just as alluring as a polite Penelope. God help him if she moved from politeness to amiability. His goose would be well and truly cooked.

She might choose her lovers where she pleased, but she was still a girl from a good family. If the Duke of Sedgemoor bedded Lord Wilmott’s daughter, he’d pay with a wedding ring. Standing outside her room all hot and bothered, he almost thought that price might be worth it.

On a sudden fit of temper—confound her, she treated him like a beggar—he crashed the door open and barged into the candlelit room.

And stumbled to a standstill as if struck with an ax.

Rising from a small wooden tub like a goddess from a spring, Pen was all gleaming white skin. Naked as the day she was born.

His heart slammed hard and heavy. Lust pounded in his ears.

Her back was to him. Her thick dark hair gathered untidily, revealing her elegant neck. The straight, stubborn shoulders. The graceful spine. The subtle curve of her hips. And God help him, a perfect pear-shaped arse.

His hands curled at his sides, preparing to frame that luscious roundness. He’d never seen anything so beautiful as Penelope Thorne in the bath.

Until she turned.

Perhaps he’d made a sound, although the breath jammed in his throat. Perhaps cold air eddied through the open door.

“Maria, I—” Black eyes huge with horror, she stared at him.

For a second that extended into eternity, they regarded one another. He should leave. He had no right to absorb every glorious, forbidden detail and imprint it on his mind to remember forever. The wet skin shining like a pearl; the high breasts crowned with beaded raspberry nipples; the delicate triangle of dark hair guarding her sex. Cam had never suspected what bounty lurked beneath her dark, plain jackets and narrow skirts.

Outrage replaced her shock. With a dizzying mixture of relief and disappointment, he watched her fumble for the worn towel on the small table beside her.

“Close the door.” Her voice was low and shaking.

Without shifting his attention, he reached behind him to obey. Penelope’s violet soap scented the air. Until now, he hadn’t realized how her perfume had permeated his senses.

“With you on the other side,” she said sharply, hitching the towel.

He could have told her that she wasted her time covering herself. Transparent with dampness, the skimpy towel extended from breasts to thighs. She looked more sexually available in the strip of linen than standing naked.

Her throat moved as she swallowed. She eyed him as if expecting him to pounce.

“I’m sleeping here,” he said gruffly.

“Over my dead body,” she snarled, trembling hands gripping the towel.

Perhaps discretion was the better part of valor. “I’ll come back in ten minutes.”

“I don’t want to see you tonight.”

He shrugged. It felt unreal to argue as they’d argued so often on this journey, while she stood before him like every dream come to vibrant life. “If you’re asleep, you won’t see me.”

She grabbed for the soap dish and raised it in a threatening gesture. He just reached the corridor before pottery shattered behind the hurriedly closed door.

Damn her for a shrew.

A beautiful shrew.

A shrew whose eyes, for one blazing moment, had flared with desire.

Even as Pen lay in bed struggling to sleep, she was still blushing. Despite his threat, Cam hadn’t reappeared. She wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or piqued. And still those incendiary moments played over and over in her mind, making her stomach lurch with horror. And forbidden excitement.

For one stolen moment, she’d read desire in his eyes.

In that searing instant, she’d seen endless hunger beneath his cool manner. Then good old common sense had asserted itself. She was a naked woman. His reaction was a purely physical reflex.

On that sour reflection, she sat up and reached for her thick blue robe. It was a bitterly cold night. Even in this room with its fire and blankets, she shivered. Cam might want her, but she trusted his self-control. It was churlish to leave him freezing while she kept the bed.

She wrapped herself in a paisley shawl, as much for modesty as warmth. She hoped to encounter an obliging maid before she braved the taproom. Carefully she opened the door and checked the lamplit hallway.

Time reversed, leaving her giddy. It was like the morning when he’d caught her trying to escape.

“What’s wrong, Pen?”

She scowled at where he huddled against the opposite wall, using his greatcoat as an inadequate blanket. “Are you afraid I mean to run?”

“No.” With one hand, he rubbed his eyes.

Even in the dim light, she noted his weariness. Did endless craving play on his nerves? Or was that wishful thinking? “Then what are you doing here?”

One eyebrow tilted. “I’m not welcome inside.”

Guilt stabbed her. The corridor was considerably colder than the bedroom. “I thought you’d go downstairs where there’s a fire.”

“And about a thousand people, most of whom have fleas and only passing acquaintance with soap and water.” With a wince, he stretched against the wall, then stood without his usual lithe smoothness. Her guilt strengthened. He hadn’t said so, but she guessed that he stayed close to protect her.

“I don’t have fleas,” she said softly, hitching the shawl around her shoulders. Despite the velvet robe and the grandmotherly flannel nightdress, she felt naked when she looked into his eyes. She couldn’t help recalling his gaze on her body. Dear Lord, if this awkwardness persisted until they reached England, she’d go stark, staring mad.

“Not yet,” he said drily. “It’s miles to Genoa, with lavish accommodations every night.”

She’d have to speak plainly. Which was strange. With Cam, she rarely needed to spell things out. Squaring her shoulders, she told herself to forget that he’d seen her in the bath. “You can come in.”

To her surprise, he didn’t leap at her invitation. “I’m safer out here.”

She sighed and stood back, leaving him space to enter the firelit room. “I haven’t got another soap dish.”

His lips twitched, although the tension across his broad shoulders hinted that he too felt the swirling undercurrents. “Instead you’ve got armor.”

How she wished his eyes didn’t crinkle when he smiled. How she wished his face didn’t brighten to brilliance. How she wished her heart wasn’t so susceptible. “Armor?”

“The head to toe covering.” He didn’t approach. “What changed your mind about inviting me in? Earlier you looked ready to flay me.”

The heat in her cheeks could warm the inn. “I’d rather ignore that incident.”

The smile lines around his eyes deepened. “I can imagine.”

“So are you coming in? I’m getting cold.”

He folded his arms across his chest and leaned with elegant nonchalance against the wall. “In that get-up? No chance.”

She growled deep in her throat and started to shut him out. Let the rogue freeze.

“Wait,” he said softly. He caught the door.

For a blazing interval, they were close enough to touch. Looking deep into his eyes, she couldn’t mistake his desire. He wanted her, all right. A question sizzled in the air. A question that made her skin tighten with yearning.

Fleetingly she considered yielding to what they both wanted. Then she recalled her misery after leaving England, her futile attempts to forget him, the emptiness she carried with her constantly. If Cam used her body, she’d never escape this agonized longing.

Worse, if he besmirched his honor in his childhood playmate’s bed, he’d never forgive himself. Then she’d never forgive herself. He had enough burdens without despising himself as yet another Rothermere scoundrel.

What a damnable mess.

She nearly left him shivering, this time from cowardice rather than exasperation, until she told herself that she was better than that. Not entirely convinced that she was, she gestured him inside. This time he cooperated.

“You can sleep on the right,” she said irritably, slipping the shawl from her shoulders and dropping it over a chair. “I hope you don’t snore.”

He looked troubled. “You’d share the bed?”

She glowered. “Purely a humanitarian gesture. It’s as cold as charity.”

“Do you trust me that much?”

Oh, God save her. She’d always trusted him. She’d trusted him before she loved him. Nothing since had shaken either trust or love. Even his recent arrogance. Even tonight’s revelation that he wanted her. “I promise not to demand my wicked way. Would you rather sleep on the floor? I’m not giving up any of my blankets.”

Grimness thinned his mouth. “We need to talk.”

She stopped straightening a bed chaotic with her restlessness. “It’s the middle of the night.”

He stood as straight as a soldier on parade. “I must say this now.”

A bleak premonition knotting her belly, she sat on the bed. Nobody said “we need to talk” before good news. “How very ominous, Your Grace.”

His expression didn’t lighten at her mockery. “Listen to me, Pen.”

Fear made her rush into speech. “What happened tonight was an accident. Better to forget it.”

He shook his head and stepped forward. “I can’t forget it.” He paused. “And forgive me if I’m presumptuous, but I doubt you can either.”

“You’ve seen a naked woman before, Cam.”

“We’ve traveled in close confines—”

“And very annoying it’s been too,” she said quickly.

One commanding hand rose to silence her. “Something unexpected has happened. When I saw you again, I—”

Cam was never lost for words. With another man in other circumstances, she might believe he meant to declare his love. “Can’t this wait until morning?”

Or forever?

Stubbornness firmed his jaw. “No.” He stared hard at her, green eyes opaque. “Pen, God forgive me, but I never expected to want you.”

Like a seedling reaching for the sun, joy unfurled. Until native cynicism made her hesitate. “You don’t sound very happy about it.”

His lips flattened. “I’m not.”

Her laugh was acid. “So this isn’t the prelude to another proposal?”

He flinched. “You had good reason to refuse me.”

Yes, she did. She still did. “A lucky escape for you.”

“I wouldn’t be so ungallant.”

Her lips twisted and she stared into her lap, covered in thick white flannel. Strangely, this was the closest they’d ventured to a frank conversation in a week. “Never you, Your Grace.”

“Stop sniping. I’m struggling to do what’s best.”

She regarded him with dislike. “You always do.”

Her ironic tone nettled him. “Our circumstances are trying, but not impossible.”

“Glad to hear it.”

He plowed on. “I’ve always tried to be honorable.”

Of course he had, she thought wearily. Another snide remark rose, but his expression stifled it. “That’s good.”

“Pen, I have to keep my hands off you.”

Pain crunched her heart. “Because I’m an unsuitable bride?”

Waiting for agreement felt like the pause before someone punched a bruise.

He shook his head. “Because I’m courting another lady.” He stared over her head as if the crucifix on the wall provided enormous interest. “When I return to England, I’m marrying Lady Marianne Seaton, the daughter of the Marquess of Baildon.”