I Married the Duke (11 page)

She stumbled back and thrust out her hand. “Stop! Keep your distance.”

He grasped her hand and pulled her to within inches of his bare chest. “If you wished distance you might have gone already.” He gripped her fingers with little effort, and his skin was warm. How he could be so warm when he was nearly naked, she could not fathom. He had shaved off his piratical whiskers the night before, but now his jaw was again shadowed.

Arabella tugged at her hand and he released it.

“I . . .” With her feet sunk deep in the sand and the sunlight dancing across his cheek, she felt wretchedly out of control. She knew she mustn’t look away from his face, but his attention dipped to her mouth, and yearning curled through her.

“Why don’t you just kiss me?” she blurted. He was so beautiful—from his wide shoulders and muscular chest to the drawers slung low on his hip bones. A man’s body. A beautiful man’s body, and he stood before her threatening her without even touching her. The truth was awful—that she wanted him to demand a kiss so she would not be at fault for being kissed by him. “I know you want to,” she said.

“I have not kissed you because, despite what you believe of me, I am a gentleman and you have not invited me to.” His voice was low. “Invite me now.”

Yes
. “No.”

His breaths seemed to come hard, his attention entirely upon her mouth. He bent his head and unkempt locks bronzed by the sun fell over his brow. He whispered across her lips, “Just a kiss.”

She mustn’t
.

So close yet not touching her, he inhaled deeply.

“Mm. Roses and lavender. Come now, duchess,” he murmured. “Don’t make me beg.”

“No.” She ached for his mouth on hers. “No.”

Slowly his hands curled into fists at his sides. He stepped back from her, his emerald gaze hot and not entirely focused.

He walked away. Around and past her and toward the inn.

He walked away
.

She stared at the footprints he left in the sand. Nearby a man’s coat lay on the beach, and beyond that a waistcoat and trousers, and farther off, a shirt. He was walking away, and the wound-up coil of anticipation inside her screamed in frustration.

She swung around and her throat made a little sound of misery. Men never walked away from her. She walked away from them. More often she ran. She did not know this was an option. She had never met a man who respected her wish to not be touched.

“You have forgotten your clothing,” she called across the wind.

“Keep it,” he threw over his shoulder without breaking stride.

“That is ridiculous. What need have I of a man’s shirt and coat?”

“Give it away. Sell it. Do with it what you will. I have more. Plenty more.”

“You have already given me more money than you should have.” She dug into her pocket for the coins. “You must—”

He halted and pivoted toward her. His brow was remarkably dark with the slash of black kerchief across it. Arabella backed up a step.

“I am not ridiculous.” He came toward her again. “Or absurd. Or even unreasonably arrogant, given all.” His strides were long and certain. “I am merely a man who wants to kiss a woman who wants to be kissed—
by me
, mind you—yet claims she does not.” He halted before her, tall and nearly naked.

“I—” Everything inside her was tangled. The wind whipped at her cloak, and her lips were cold, and after this day she would never see him again. “I—I do want to be kissed by y—”

He covered her mouth with his.

She had been kissed before. She had been pawed and groped and grabbed and forced. She’d had wine-soaked tongues thrust into her mouth and cold hands shoved beneath her gown.

This was entirely different.

He held her with only the pressure of his mouth upon hers, firmly, intentionally, as though he wished to feel her in this manner only. His kiss was warm, like he was the sunlight himself. She stood perfectly still, his sunlight spreading inside her, twining around her stillness and catching at her belly and her breaths.

Gently, he cupped his hand around her shoulder and captured her lips more securely beneath his. She did not move. In moments he would demand more. He kissed her again, closer it seemed, holding her bound so that she was waiting for more, waiting for the demand so she could throw him off. He slipped his hand to her neck. Fingertips gently upon her throat, he tilted her face up and made her meet his mouth fully for one endless moment of sweet, hot connection.

He released her lips.

She gasped and blinked, and a little sigh of astonishment escaped her.

He scanned her face. His chest rose roughly.

“Again?” he said.

“Again,” she whispered.

His hand cupped the back of her neck and he brought their mouths together. Confidently, completely, he guided her, making her meet his lips for one caress, and a next, then another and another. Now she did not wait for the opportunity to throw him off. Now she let herself be kissed and hoped he would not cease before she had enough of him, enough of his touch, heat, and the aching he was making inside her. She wanted him to kiss her until she forgot what it was to not feel pleasure in a kiss. He was tender and thorough and she imagined he would know every feeling and desire of hers now. He would know that she was frightened and wanting and that for the first time in years she did not feel alone.

Foolishness
. Men cared nothing about feelings and loneliness, only lust and satisfaction.

He coaxed her lips apart and she allowed that too, knowing he wanted from her only what any man did: her body, her acquiescence. But she did not wish to resist him. He asked no more of her than she was willing to give, eager to give. He had often looked at her with hunger, and now she was hungry for him.

She pressed onto her toes in the sand, seeking him deeper. Scooping his hand around her head, he bent to her and she opened, letting him use her as he wished, letting him command her. She wanted more—more of the growing ache inside her that sought him with a sort of desperation.

He caressed her tongue with his.

She dropped the pastries.

He did it again and she was wild inside. Her hands jerked beneath her cloak. He sucked on her lower lip and a soft whimper escaped her. He caught the sound with his mouth and stroked her tongue again and she heard sounds from her own throat she did not recognize, sounds of astonishment and need and misery. She mustn’t want this but she ached for more. She wanted to be closer to him. Her arms were pressed to her sides, trying to hold in the need.

His hands came around her face and he took her mouth completely, and she gave it to him, allowing him entrance, allowing him to know her. Their breaths came fast. Her breasts brushed his chest. Heat burst inside her. He groaned.

“Duchess.”
It was a sound of frustration and restraint. His hands swept down her back. Upon her moan, he pulled her against him.

He tasted like salt and wind and heat, and he was hard everywhere, his thighs and chest powerful and his arms holding her to him strong. She wanted to touch him. He was hot skin and strength and beauty, and she was penniless and bedraggled yet felt like the most beautiful woman on earth—beautiful and innocent for the first time in years.

The back of her throat tightened and heat prickled behind her eyes. It was a fantasy. She was inventing fantasies.

She wanted to push him away. But he was
real
and she could not seem to detach herself from him.

His fingers slipped into her hair, dislodging the linen wrap, and for the second time he stripped her of it. But he found only a tightly wound braid beneath, the kind she had learned to make from Eleanor long ago. She had bound it purposefully today.

The braid stopped him. His hands fell and he released her abruptly. But he was breathing roughly and frowning. Wind whipped a lock of her hair over her eyes. She dragged it aside with a shaking hand, and the sunlight danced in the strands as they stared at each other.

“I will escort you to Saint-Reveé-des-Beaux tomorrow.” He did not sound pleased to have kissed her, or even frustrated. He sounded angry.

She shook her head. “I don’t need your help.”

He scowled but his gaze was upon her lips. “Yet you will have it.”

“I don’t want your help. I— Please don’t offer it.”

His chest rose on a harsh inhale. For a moment he looked as though he might speak.

He turned and strode toward the inn.

Arabella ran her fingertips over her damp lips and felt him there. “That was not just a kiss,” she said. Panic sped through her. “That was not just a kiss,” she shouted.

He did not pause, but flipped his hand in the air impatiently. “Terminology, Miss Caulfield. Terminology.”

Chapter 8

The Dinner

A
rabella did not hide. The festival filled the streets of Saint-Nazaire with music, and delicious aromas wafted to her open window where she stared down at the stable in which she had been scandalously immodest the night before and at the beach upon which she had been even more immodest.

Tucking the coins he would not accept back into her pocket, she donned her cloak and left the inn. Vendors were everywhere, calling their wares—melons, cherries, pâtés, cheeses, nuts, olives. The warm air smelled of flowers and roasted meat and garlic as she had only ever smelled in London houses that boasted French chefs, more intriguing and considerably better than anything she had come across in weeks, except one confusing ship captain who smelled of the sea and yet of whom she could not seem to get enough.

The festival was far more than a regular market, rather like the Gypsy fairs she and her sisters used to wander about during the summers when they were girls. A man dressed in purple and yellow did tricks with cards and a hat, a trio of acrobats tumbled about the street, and another man swallowed an entire sword as delighted bystanders watched. People of all sorts looked on: peasants by their dress, prosperous looking shopkeepers, and a handful of gentry. There were fiddle players and pipers and a drum played by a lanky boy in blue trousers and coat with buttons polished for the occasion.

“That one no doubt drummed Napoleon’s troops on to battle.” The Earl of Bedwyr’s smooth voice turned her around.

“Good day, my lord.” She curtsied.

He smiled slightly. At a booth nearby, Captain Masinter flirted with a shop mistress whose cheeks were turning brilliantly red.

Arabella scanned the crowd.

“He isn’t here,” the earl said, twirling his gold watch fob. It glittered in the sunshine like the gold stripes on his waistcoat and the waves of his hair. “He is on his ship doing God knows what to prepare for putting it in the hands of his lieutenant. But he does not care for these sorts of gatherings anyway.” He gestured to the festive crowd around them. “Not anymore, at least.” He lifted a gloved hand and laid his forefinger upon his handsomely formed cheek so that it pointed to his right eye. “A man of action does not like to be surprised.”

She should turn the subject. She should not encourage her curiosity.

“You and he are well acquainted, it seems,” she said instead. “The scar is not old. Did he suffer the injury during the war?”

The earl’s brow lifted. “Why don’t you ask him yourself, my dear?”

Because she was afraid to know more of him. She was afraid that the more she knew of him the more she would want him to kiss her.

She remained silent.

“Ah,” the earl murmured. “She is as unforthcoming with him as he is with her, it seems. Interesting.” He took her hand and placed it upon his forearm. “He lost the eye in a quarrel six months ago, Miss Caulfield.” He began to move along with the crowd, drawing her with him. “Dreadful spat. Sword point. Nasty business, duels, of course.”

“A duel? But dueling is illegal.”

He patted her hand. “Only if one is caught, my dear.”

“Over what was the duel fought?”

“A gentleman cannot say.”

Her stomach soured. “A woman.”

“A girl, rather. Not precisely as you imagine it,” he said quietly, “though naturally I do not presume to suggest you know anything about such sordid matters. Or not sordid, actually, as the case was in the end.”

“Lord Bedwyr, you are speaking in riddles. To confuse me, I guess.”

“It is a sticky business, Miss Caulfield,” he said, “admitting to having cut out one’s friend’s eye, you know. You cannot expect me to be entirely rational about it.”

She withdrew her hand. “You blinded him? Over a girl?”

“He accused me of a rather nasty vice,” he said without evasion now. “While I freely admit to being an aficionado of any number of sins, that is decidedly not one of them.” He drew her arm through his again. “He had some reason to leap to that particular conclusion, though, so I forgave him in the end.”

“After wounding him.”

“That does tend to happen when one fights with swords. But it is well behind us now.” He smiled. “I suggest you put it behind you as well, forgive the poor fellow for his wrong-mindedness and me for my pride that allowed him to goad me. Let us instead enjoy this charming festival.”

“The procession from the church to the dock begins at noon.” Captain Masinter approached behind them, a paper cone of spiced nuts in one hand, a glass of ale in the other. “Apparently they carry Saint Louis through the streets on a palette for a bit before they send him out to sea on a boat. Off to the crusades anew, poor old chap. Splendid stuff, I say.” He offered her a nut.

“Never too highbrow for amusements intended for the masses, are you, Anthony?” The earl grinned at her.

Between a pasty seller’s booth and a cluster of people watching a marionette show peeked the window of a dress shop.

“My lord. Captain. I must visit a shop just here.” She nodded good-bye and moved away.

“I should be glad to accompany you,” the earl said, and gestured for her to precede him. “I count myself something of an expert in fashion.”

Captain Masinter grinned. “I’ll wait out here.” He jerked his chin toward the marionette stage. “Take in a show and all that.” A buxom woman brushed by his sleeve and he turned and followed her without another glance at the marionettes.

The shop was filled with silks, cottons, velvets, and wools, all in beautiful colors. The shopkeeper rustled in, a petite woman in a sublimely fashionable ensemble of pale violet muslin. A flicker of her lashes at the earl’s elegant clothes and another at Arabella’s plain gown and travel-worn cloak, and her swift eyes went perfectly neutral.

“Monsieur, how may I assist you?” she said in English colored with a soft French accent.

“It is rather the lady who is in need of assistance, of course. I am only here on her sufferance.” He wandered past a case of laces to a chair and ensconced himself in it elegantly.

Arabella’s eyes went first to a bolt of luxurious velvet the color of winter, then to a mannequin garbed in a glorious gown of blue silk. It was layered with overskirts of gossamer tulle embroidered with sequins of silver, black, and gold that almost seemed like butterfly wings, light and sparkling, as though the lady who wore it might take flight if she wished.

The modiste’s red lips curved upward. She looked to Lord Bedwyr.

Arabella’s cheeks heated. But of course this woman assumed the worst of her. She was not the first.
Only a harlot would bequeath such hair to her daughter and then abandon her children as your mother did
. Only a harlot. A woman who took money from a man for giving him pleasure.

The coins burned in Arabella’s pocket.

“I shan’t be purchasing a gown today, after all,” she said to the modiste, and left the shop.

S
HE ALLOWED
C
APTAIN
Masinter and Lord Bedwyr to escort her to the procession. The crowd sang a solemn hymn along the route, and the ritual reminded her of a coronation. She supposed that was intended.

After the gilded and painted life-sized statue of Saint Louis had ceremonially embarked for the Holy Land on a boat nearly too small for its own sail and the single sailor manning it, she excused herself from her companions and returned to the inn.

As dusk fell she brushed out her hair, bound it in a knot, and smoothed out the creases in her old gown while her stomach complained at its emptiness. A modest dinner awaited her at a little tavern she had discovered near the church. Most of the celebrations had moved down toward the water, and she made her way in the direction of the church through the increasingly empty streets of the town. She would have dinner, sleep, then take a short journey to the chateau. Then she would meet her destiny.

She drew her hood up and tugged her cloak more firmly about her and turned the corner into the alley before the tavern.

Four men blocked the narrow passageway in the gathering shadows. Three stood together in a cluster, another against the wall nearby.

She paused.

But already it was too late.

“La voilà,”
one of the men exclaimed.

There she is?
She had never seen them before.

“Où est votre homme, ma petite dame?”
he said as he came toward her, looking behind her. “Where is your man?” he repeated with a thick tongue.

One of the others followed him.
“Eh, signorina?”

Italian?

She backed away. They laughed roughly and spoke to each other so she did not understand. The man in front gestured, beckoning her to him.

“Va be.
Noi vi abbiamo ora. Allora, ucciderlo.”
He put his hand over his crotch and tugged.

She pivoted and ran. The street before her was deserted, the sounds of the festival distant. Footsteps smacked the street behind her. A hand jerked on her cloak. She yanked free. Her skirts twisted about her legs and her foot caught on a boot scraper. She pitched forward. Their laughter came close.

She stumbled toward a spot of light—a doorway—people, she prayed.

They grabbed her cloak, then her arm, and swung her around.

“No! Release me!”

The man laughed. His teeth were black, his cheeks sunken. The eyes of the next man tilted left and right.
Drunk
.

She fought, twisting to free herself, but the drunken man grabbed her other arm. A third man appeared behind.

They pushed her back against the wall, slamming her shoulders into the stone. One of them reached for her skirt.

She screamed.

L
UC STRAIGHTENED HIS
neck cloth.

Miles held forth his coat. “Your grace, I have not yet—”

“Your grace?” Luc peered at his valet’s reflection in the mirror.

“As you did not see fit to inform me of your uncle’s demise, Lord Bedwyr did,” Miles said with a sniff.

“I see.” Luc straightened his cuffs. “I am not yet a duke, as you well know.”

“You will be.”

“You’re a grim fellow, Miles.”

“The child could be a girl. As I was saying, I have packed a traveling case with clothing suitable for the chateau, and have arranged for a mount to be delivered here for you this evening so that it will be available for your departure with Miss Caulfield. The carriage is ordered for seven o’clock.”

“Fine.” He would drive her there and see her safely settled with his staff and Reiner. If she allowed it.

He should not have touched her. The little governess had been kissed before, but he wasn’t so certain that had gone well for her. She’d stood like a marble statue in his arms. Yet her kiss was like living fire. He was quite certain she would not welcome his escort to Saint-Reveé-des-Beaux, but he did not intend to give her any say in the matter.

After that he would depart for London, find a bride, and become so busy getting heirs upon whatever young lady of the ton he chose that he would forget entirely about the beautiful little governess who—if character had any say in the matter—should have by all rights been born a duchess.

And pigs would fly come Eastertide.

She was not forgettable.

“After you have settled my bill, Miles, you may enjoy a day’s holiday here in town,” he said. “I won’t be more than a day at the chateau.”

Miles’s back stiffened. “I would not dream of abandoning you to a footman, your grace. There will be ladies present.”

“I’m sure Reiner won’t mind me borrowing the services of his personal man for such a short visit.”

“Absolutely not. I shall accompany you to the chateau and return with you to the
Victory
when you so desire.”

“Of all the people I know, Miles, you are the only one who treats me with such impertinence.”

“I am sure I don’t know what you mean, your grace. Miss Caulfield does too, after all.”

Luc went down to the parlor, then to the inn’s dining room, where he found no trace of Cam, Tony, or Gavin, or of the governess.

Gripon minced toward him. “
Bonsoir
, Captain. Will you take dinner now?”

“Where have my traveling companions gone, Gripon?”

“The doctor, Captain Masinter, and my lord dined early, then went to take in the show by the docks. Mademoiselle departed not a quarter hour ago.”

“She departed alone? To the festival?”

“Oui,
monsieur
.”

“And you did not counsel her to await an escort?”

Gripon folded his hands before him. “She was in great haste, Captain. And the festival, it brings all of the families and farmers into the streets. She will be well—”

But Luc was already out the door. A horse was tied before the inn. He snatched the lead, swung into the saddle and pulled it around.

He cantered toward the bottom of town where the festival crowds had moved for the evening’s entertainments, the horse’s hooves clattering on the cobbled streets and then the docks as he searched.

He did not find her in the streets or the brasserie. He followed the procession route backward. She would not have strayed from the populated parts of town. She was far too wary of men to do anything so—

A scream echoed against the stone walls of the alley ahead.

He charged forward.

They had her against the wall, hidden behind a stack of crates, two at her arms, holding her still, covering her mouth, another grabbing her legs, pulling them apart. Another one waited in the shadows of the alley beyond.

Luc drew his sword and sliced the blade through her attacker’s shoulder before any of them even looked up at the horse bearing down upon them. The man screamed and staggered back. One of the men at her sides bolted, running into the dark of the alley where the other had already disappeared. A fourth man came at Luc from behind.

“Captain!” she cried.

The wooden crate hit him broadside against head and shoulder. Everything turned black. He barely had the sense to release his feet from the stirrups and leap free of his horse. He rolled to the ground, dodging hooves, and shoved himself to his knees. The street tilted beneath him and he choked in breaths, his hand searching blindly for the sword he’d thrown in the fall.