Trusting the Rogue (2 page)

“No harm done. I understand. Yet, you still have not offered your name to me,” he said, and she felt heat rise to her cheeks. “Is it a secret?” he asked with mischief twinkling in his eyes.

She shook her head, but her son answered before she had the chance.

“Mama is the Duchess of Holsworthy and I am the Duke, since Papa died. Mama, friends can call us by our given names, can they not? So, Sir Andrew can call me Harold and you Mama?”

Scarlet heat burnt her cheeks once more, while Sir Andrew laughed.

“Well, indeed, I consider you a friend, Harold. You must call me Andrew if I am to address you as such,” he said, and looked to her. “However, I have no intention of calling your mother ‘Mama’. I will address her as ‘her Grace’ until she grants me leave to do otherwise.”

Hannah shuddered at the sexual undertone his voice carried. Oh, this man was a rake! A rogue of the worst order! So why was it that she could not remove her hand from his to slap his face? Chills and sensations foreign to her raced through her body and pooled in her sex, causing it to clench in anticipation.
What is wrong with me?
Even as she asked herself this, she felt her nipples bead and become painfully sensitive in the confinement of her corset. Each step she took rubbed the nubs against the fabric, teasing her in a way she could not understand.

“Harold, take Dusk for a turn about the grass there, while your mother and I wait under this tree,” Sir Andrew said.

 Her son nodded eagerly and rode towards the small clearing, while Sir Andrew led her to an old and shady oak.

As the morning sunlight filtered through the leaves above them, Hannah desperately tried to gauge what was happening to her, but nothing made a lick of sense. What was going on and why was her body reacting like this?
It is sinful!

“He is a charming lad.”

Hannah forced herself to focus on what was happening rather than on the peculiar reactions of her body at this moment in time.

“I think so, but then again, I am his mother and therefore rather biased,” she said. She watched Harold grin from ear to ear as the horse walked leisurely around the small green. “Thank you for bestowing him with your kindness. He has known little male interaction and no horsemanship in his short life.”

She regretted the words instantly once they’d left her mouth. Why was she telling this man anything? He was simply being kind. She had been daft to think he might have the smallest interest in her son—or her, for that matter—when her late husband had not.

“Hmm, a shame,” he said thoughtfully. “Does he not recall the late duke?”

“He does. He was almost four when the duke died, but his father never showed him much interest.” As he had never shown any interest in Hannah, other than to do his duty by bedding her for long enough to conceive his heir. It had been a painful reminder of her lacking status as a wife.

“Then it was his loss.”

Hannah glanced up to see him watching her, his caramel eyes again capturing her own. Her stomach tightened. She attempted to take a breath, but it somehow managed to become lodged in her throat. His hand, as it rested on hers over his arm, tightened slightly. His gaze smouldered, growing darker, and Hannah felt a new wave of heat flush her body.
Am I ill?

“Can I go faster?”

Her son’s called words broke apart the moment of insanity, and she snapped her head to her son and the horse. She almost screamed, “No!” but Sir Andrew called, “Another time, Harold,” before she could.

She looked back to him as he added, “One step at a time.”

* * * *

Hannah slammed the book closed and irritably tossed it down next to her on the settee. Like every other thing she had attempted to do to occupy her mind this day, nothing could distract her.

Regardless of the year since her late husband’s death, she was still a widow in mourning, thus her early excursion to the park when most of the
ton
would still be asleep in their beds. Everyone apart from Sir Andrew Harington.

Harold was still in rapture from their meeting with Sir Andrew. Hannah could not but agree with her young son—the man was truly captivating. Ever the gentleman, he had walked them home with Harold still perched high upon the grand black stallion, who had truly been docile until Harold had run inside and begged the cook for sweets to treat the horse. When he’d returned with his offering, Dusk had inhaled them, barely leaving her son’s hand intact—not that Harold had seemed to mind.

Sir Andrew had asked permission to call again and perhaps take Harold riding. Before she had been able to decline, her son had squealed with excitement. No mother would destroy the first signs of true happiness she had seen in her son in some time. That morning, he had almost been a child again.

She sighed in defeat as the sitting room door opened.

“Lady Anna, my Lady,” Morris, the butler, said with a bow.

Hannah stood and embraced her old friend as Anna waddled into the room.

“My, my, Anna, I swear you get bigger every day. How do you feel?”

Her dear friend sighed, settling beside Hannah on the settee, gently rubbing her rounded stomach. “Like I am with child,” she drawled.

Hannah chuckled. “Indeed. Just be thankful you have only a few weeks left, then you will be able to hold your newest love. There is truly nothing superior to holding your child for the first time.”

Anna regarded her with doubtful green eyes. “I prefer not to think about how this child will leave my body, if you do not mind.”

Hannah chuckled once more, knowing it was no small task that awaited her friend.

“Is Harold with his governess?” Anna asked.

“Yes. They are studying the colonies today, I believe. He is rather fascinated by it all.”

“Take care, or you will have a son who leaves you in search of the New World and all its adventures,” Anna said, rubbing her back. “I hope you don’t mind my arrival, but Dicky was driving me insane. He hovers like a maid.”

“Actually, I am thankful for it. You are offering me a form of distraction. Nothing else has worked for me today.”

“Oh? Distraction from what?” her friend asked, studying Hannah with interest.

Hannah sighed. “Do you know a Sir Andrew Harington?”

Anna’s lips twitched. “Indeed I do. Now I understand the cause of your distraction,” she said knowingly.

Hannah felt heat rush to her face.

“And how, pray tell, did you meet the esteemed Sir Andrew Harington?”

“Harold ran up to him in Hyde Park this morning. I had told him of Cole and he thought Sir Andrew’s steed looked alike.”

Anna nodded, no doubt remembering the horse from their childhood. “Dusk indeed looks like Cole, though he is far grander. I do believe Sir Andrew paid a pretty penny for his hide.”

Hannah did not doubt it, and noted how her friend knew Sir Andrew’s steed’s name. She must indeed know him quite well. That made her nervous. “He then allowed Harold to ride the stallion and escorted us home after.”

The corners of Anna’s lips lifted higher in amusement. “What are you leaving out, my dear?”

“Nothing,” she said, rather too quickly.

“Quite so,” Anna murmured, looking hardly convinced.

Hannah sighed. “He looked at me…unlike the late duke used to. I know he is a rake,” she felt compelled to add.

“Actually, he is not.”

Hannah met her friend’s eye. “Pardon?”

“He is not a rake. Well, not really.”

“What do you mean?”

Anna rested her head back against the settee and paused as Morris and a footman entered with the tea and sweet cakes. When they were alone again, Anna motioned to the tea with a wave of her hand. “Shall we sup before the tea goes cold, my dear?”

Hannah frowned at her friend’s teasing but did as she was told. “Do you know him through…your club?”

“Club? Please, Hannah, you know very well what it is called.”

“Fine. Is he a member of Goodrich Hall?”

Anna and her husband Dicky were the founders of a society of the elite that met once a month for fornication. The mere thought of it caused Hannah to blush. Anna had tried to encourage her to attend once her husband had passed, but Hannah could not bring herself to visit. She had never understood how anyone could see sex as something pleasurable. Pain and humiliation were not pleasurable, to her mind. Far from it.

“He is.”

Hannah’s spirits sank at her friend’s words. “Oh.”

“Hannah, he is not like that, nor is he a rake. He is a gentleman, albeit a gentleman with sexual tastes and desires. There is nothing wrong with that.”

“So you keep telling me.”

Anna sighed. “Hannah, I know of your past of pain, but Sir Andrew would not seek to hurt you.”

“It is not me for whom I hold concern.” Well, not entirely—but she would not admit that to her friend. “It is Harold. Sir Andrew promised to come by tomorrow and take him riding. Harold is so very excited and I worry for his little heart. He looks up at the man with such longing, and I will not see him disillusioned. After what he lived through with his father, he should not have to suffer it again.”

Anna sat forward and took Hannah’s hand in her own. “I know, and of course I agree. If he has shown an interest in Harold then trust it as it is given. He is one of Dicky’s closest friends and I know he thinks highly of his sister’s children. Perhaps he genuinely likes him? Harold is an easy boy to love, after all.”

His father had not thought so.

Anna squeezed her hand. “He is a good man and would make a good lover—maybe even a good husband, one day.”

Hannah removed her hand from her friend’s grasp and resumed pouring the tea. She was not looking for a husband. She had been subjected to that horrid life once, and would never do so again. Nothing could ever tempt her to re-enter such hell.
Nothing.

Chapter Two

“Oh, do sit down. You are acting dicked in the nob, you fool! Did you not say she has gone to visit a friend?”

Andrew’s best friend since Oxford slumped in his chair, before he picked up his glass of brandy from the desk. “Indeed, she has.”

“Then let it rest.” Andrew sighed. He had come here to seek information and his friend had paid him little attention. Instead, Dicky worried about his wife. He need not have bothered himself—the woman could hold her own.

“When you marry and
your
wife is days away from delivering
your
child, I will remind you of this conversation,” Dicky snarled.

Andrew rolled his eyes.
If that day ever comes.
Yet the thought of marriage flashed up a vision of the Duchess of Holsworthy in his mind. He barely knew her, but seeing the love she held for her child, well… It made him long for a family of his own. Let alone to bed her. That would certainly be no hardship. Andrew’s cock stirred in his breeches. He shifted in his seat.

“Why are you here, anyway?”

“Why, I appreciate the warm welcome,” Andrew drawled, unoffended, while he shifted again. “I had come to enquire of the Duke of Holsworthy. Do you know of him?”

Dicky—or Lord Richard, as he was known to the general
ton
—paused as he lifted his drink. For a moment he studied Andrew over the crystal. “The duke is dead.”

“Really? He seemed quite alive when I met him this morning,” Andrew stated, understanding what his friend meant, but he could not resist teasing Dicky at his inaccuracies.

“Are you not referring to the late Duke of Holsworthy’s son? Though I suppose he is now the duke in his own right,” he mused.

“Indeed. Harold is the boy’s name.”

Dicky frowned at Andrew for a moment before he took a sip of his brandy, then nursed the glass in thought. “Yes, I know of him. Is it him you truly enquire about, or the boy’s mother?”

Balls.
His friend knew him too well. “Both, in truth. I met them in Hyde Park and the lad took a fancy to Dusk. Apparently, he has never ridden before.”

“No, the late duke hated horseflesh,” Dicky said absently.

Andrew nodded. The duchess had implied as much, but it was how his friend’s voice carried a hint of loathing in it that intrigued him.

“You did not think kindly of the late duke?”

“I never much cared for him, no. My wife even less so.”

“Oh, and why is that?”

As if on cue, the library doors opened and Anna walked into the room—‘waddled’ would be a more apt description. If Andrew had been a betting man, he would have laid money down on her birthing twins in the coming days.

Dicky jumped up and fussed, plumping pillows and such, much to Andrew’s amusement and Anna’s annoyance, settling her down on couches in the centre of the room. Andrew rose and joined them there.

Anna eyed him oddly. “Your ears must be burning.”

“Pardon?” he asked, bewildered.

“I have been in discussions regarding you all morning. In fact, I am rather weary of it,” she said tiredly, and reclined lengthwise, placing her feet in her husband’s lap, where he removed her shoes and started to rub them. She groaned loudly.

“Ahh, I wondered if she would mention him,” Dicky said. “Andrew was just enquiring about Hannah and her son.”

Her name is Hannah?
Oddly, Andrew thought it suited her.
Sweet, yet regal.

“The Duchess of Holsworthy was the friend you were just visiting?”

Anna nodded and laid an arm over her eyes while the other rested over her swollen middle.

“And she asked about me?” Andrew hated how eager his voice sounded.

Anna peeked out at him from under her hand. “Indeed she did. She was concerned that you were trifling with her son’s affections. His father never showed him any attention and his sudden fascination with you is concerning for her.”

“He is a good lad,” Andrew said. “I would not seek to use the boy to get to his mother, if that is what concerns you.” And he wouldn’t. He generally liked the boy, but that did not mean he could not lust after the boy’s mother too, though, did it? He shifted on the settee, his breeches again growing tight at the thought of bedding the duchess.