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Authors: Cheryl Bolen

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BOOK: A Duke Deceived
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Her face brightened. “Oh, Richard, I hope we shall have a house full of children.”
“I shall do my best to oblige you.” He drew her tightly into his embrace and buried his head in her breasts, reveling in the feel of her arms gathering around him, the brush of her lips on his hair, the sound of her racing heart beneath his ear.
Freeing his hand, he cupped her breasts, reverently stroking the soft muslin that covered them until her nipples went rigid. Then, his mouth closed over them. She gasped with pleasure. He kissed a trail up her neck until he took possession of her mouth. Her breath coming ever faster, she reached to stroke the swell in his breeches.
Without breaking the hungry kiss, he slowly got to his feet, pulling her with him, holding her so close it was as if there were no clothes between them.
When he pulled away, she moaned and met his gaze, her face like one delirious with fever.
“If we stay here another moment,” he said throatily, “I shall have your clothes off, and it will never do to have Mandley see the Duchess of Radcliff disrobed. Shall we go upstairs to finish what we’ve started?”
She answered him with a hungry nod.
If only he had the power over her heart that he seemed to have over her body, he thought.
Chapter Thirteen
 
 
B
onny’s chamber was more dark than light as she slipped from the bed. Her movements had not disturbed Radcliff, who lay on his side, his breathing heavy. She quickly dressed in a brown riding habit Emily had discarded, glad that her husband could not see her. Of course, he was too kind to ridicule her meager wardrobe, but she hated to bring him shame. Already she felt totally unprepared to be a duchess and feared the servants mocked her. If only she could have fallen in love with a plain mister or even a mere viscount!
When she finished dressing and went downstairs, shafts of hazy morning light angled through the tall casements. The drowsy footman rose from the low marble bench at the bottom of the stairway.
“Please have the groom bring around an easy stepper for me,” Bonny instructed.
He bowed. “Yes, your grace.”
The smell of baking bread wafted up from the basement as Bonny looked in on a sleeping Twigs, assuring herself of his well-being.
The lad Rusty brought her horse around. “Ye plannin’ to go off by yerself, yer grace?”
“Just for a ride around the park,” Bonny said, favoring the freckle-faced youth with a smile.
“I dunno if his grace would be ’appy about that.”
“You may be right, Rusty. That is why I do not intend to tell him.” She swung around to mount her horse.
He gave her a leg up and she rode off without looking back.
Not far inside Hyde Park, Bonny observed the waiting barouche bearing Dunsford’s crest and pulled her mount beside it. Dunsford instructed his groom to help the lady dismount and watch after her horse.
Before she got in the carriage, Bonny gave Dunsford the address on Kepple Street, which he conveyed to the driver. Then, Bonny looked around to satisfy herself that no one was watching.
“I am so very nervous,” Bonny told him as she settled back on the soft squabs. “Pray, how would I ever explain this to my husband?”
The lanky blond man across from Bonny shrugged and shook his head sympathetically. “I would not wish to jeopardize your marriage.”
Bonny only looked away distractedly.
When the barouche pulled up in front of the house on Kepple Street, Lord Dunsford got out first and looked up and down the street before he allowed Bonny to disembark. Then the two hurried up the steps of Number 17 Kepple Street.
As Mrs. Davies opened the door, a healthy baby wail greeted them. The round old woman with capped head shot Bonny a warm smile. “Lord love a duck, but the babe’s as spoiled as last week’s milk.” Mrs. Davies reached to hug Bonny. “She takes to squallin’ the minute I set her down.” She glanced at Dunsford. “Is this yer husband?”
Bonny kissed the old nurse’s kindly face. “No, this is Harriet’s uncle. Harriet was named for his brother, Harold.”
Mrs. Davies started walking toward the source of the wailing. “Here we comes, little Miss Harriet. Don’t ye be frettin’. Ye’ve got company.”
The minute Bonny saw Harriet’s little blond head poking up from the side of the cradle, she flew to the baby and picked her up. “Good morning, pretty little girl.”
The baby’s tears shut off as if a faucet handle had been turned. She met Bonny’s babbling with some good-natured babbling of her own, and soon Bonny had her giggling.
“Uncle Henry has come to see you, pretty girl. You must behave yourself and show him how very sweet you are.”
Bonny turned to him. “Would you like to hold her?”
He quickly shook his head. “Oh, not now. I might... I might break her or something.”
“Such a silly man,” Bonny said to the baby. “Let’s go sit on the divan and invite Uncle Henry to sit beside us.”
“Sometimes she’ll take to squallin’ if you go and sit down,” Mrs. Davies said. “That one likes to walk the floor, she does. Or rock. She don’t like to sit still.”
“It was the same with Harry!” Dunsford said, smiling.
Bonny and Dunsford sat beside each other, with Harriet in Bonny’s lap. “Mrs. Davies, we’ll watch if you have things you’d like to do.”
“That I do,” the old woman said, striding to the door. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”
Bonny set the baby on her lap, facing Dunsford. “Talk to her, Uncle Henry.”
“By God, she’s got Harry’s mouth!”
Bonny sat quietly and took pleasure in Dunsford’s happy discoveries while her hands absently stroked the baby’s soft blond hair.
“Look at that!” Dunsford exclaimed. “She smiled at me!” Then he began to talk to the baby, not quite in baby talk but in a voice very different from his own. Softer. Shriller. “Would you like your uncle to bring you a pretty doll?” He wrinkled his nose as he spoke. “When you’re a big girl, Uncle Henry will get you a pony.” Now he glanced at Bonny and spoke in a shaky voice. “She’s really beautiful. I’m glad she was born.”
“Her mother is, too.”
“From a good family, eh?”
Bonny nodded.
“Of course, she would be. Harry said she was all that was perfect.” His moist eyes returned to the babe. “And just look at Harriet. So beautiful!”
Harriet reached out a chubby hand to pull at Dunsford’s mustache. “Ouch!” he shrieked.
The baby giggled at his reaction and reached for his mustache again. At this, he put out his arms and took the baby from Bonny. “Don’t guess I can drop her if I’m sitting down.”
He played with her, kept her giggling. Eventually he got up enough courage to stand up with her. Dunsford seemed fascinated by everything about the baby and was genuinely disappointed when an hour was up and Mrs. Davies returned.
“So how did the little flirt like her uncle?” Mrs. Davies asked.
“She likes him very well,” Bonny said.
“I wasn’t sure how she’d take to a man. She’s never been around one that I know of.”
“I plan to remedy that,” he said, hugging the soft little body, a winsome look on his face.
It quite brought a tear to Bonny’s eyes and she hurried to wipe it away before he saw her. This was too happy a day for tears.
On the ride back to Hyde Park, Dunsford was far more animated than he had been earlier. “By Jove! That was fun. She’s quite the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. When can we come back?”
“When her mother—who comes often—is
not
going to be here. There is also my husband to consider. He doesn’t know about the babe, and I hate being deceitful.”
“To be sure,” he said thoughtfully.
 
Through the years, Radcliff and Twigs had shared many a raucous adventure, but seldom had they shared such a domestic scene as they did this morning. The two gentlemen silently took breakfast in the sickroom, sipping their coffee while reading their newspapers. Twigs perused the
Morning
Post while Radcliff tried to read the
Gazette,
attempting to get his mind off his wayward wife. Where had she gone so early this morning? Why wasn’t she back yet? His eyes scanned the news from the Peninsula. Did Wellington never make a false move? The man must be a bloody military genius.
Action in the Peninsula likewise held Twigs’s interest. “I say, Richard, those bloods in the army are having a devilishly good time. I’ve a mind to purchase colors as soon as I can stand on this blasted leg.”
Radcliff lifted his eyes from the newspaper. “Your life has always been the pursuit of adventure. How old are you now?”
Twigs put down his
Post.
“Same as you, and well you know it. Four and thirty.”
“We’re both too old to live life from one escapade to another. It’s time you were settling down.”
“You know I’m not in the petticoat line.”
“That’s not exactly accurate. Beginning with the fair Denise at Oxford, I believe you’ve had your share of encounters with women.”
“Not with women of quality. Wouldn’t know how to talk to a proper lady.”
“It’s time you learned.”
“Too old.”
“Nonsense.”
“Can’t talk of anything but horses and boxing. Women don’t want to hear such.”
“Some women will feign an interest in anything to catch a gentleman like yourself.”
Twigs shook his head. “Maybe for a handsome, titled bloke like you but not for a scrawny, tongue-tied man such as myself.”
“You do yourself a disservice. Any number of women are attracted to men who are tall and lean, like you.” Radcliff thought bitterly of Dunsford, who was tall and rather thin.
Twigs held out his cup while Radcliff poured more coffee and measured a heaping spoon of sugar into it. “That so?”
Radcliff returned the coffeepot to the silver tray. “To be sure. Brings me to mind of the Earl of Dunsford. He’s built very much like you. You know him?”
“Don’t I, though. Just before my...my unfortunate accident, I had the pleasure of winning a hefty sum from him at hazard. Fellow’s taken to drink and gaming in a big way of late. Mourning his brother.”
Say what they will, Radcliff knew it was his loss of Bonny, not his brother, that pushed the earl into the depths of the hells. He folded up his paper. “How about a game of backgammon?”
Twigs’s eyes brightened and he straightened, wincing.
“Leg bothering you?” Radcliff did not remove his gaze from his friend.
“No. Just need to be careful how I move.”
“Today we are going to force you to walk about a bit. Doctor insists.”
Frowning, the patient folded up his newspaper and placed it on the bedside table as his host readied the backgammon board. “Be back to my old self in no time.”
His optimism pleased his friend very much. “Guinea a game again?”
Twigs nodded. “And I know you will pay up—not like that Dunsford. Still owes me twenty quid.”
His friend’s remarks hit Radcliff like a blow to the chest. Dunsford needed money. Could it be Barbara had given money from her grandmother to him?
The door opened. “There you are!” Bonny said happily, flowing gracefully into the room. She had changed into a day dress from the riding habit. Her laughing eyes met Twigs’s. “How’s the patient today?”
Discoursing with women of quality did not come easily to Twigs, who shot a worried glance at Radcliff.
“I believe he is much improved. We shall force him to walk today.”
A deep frown wrinkled her ivory brow. “Won’t it hurt?”
“At first, but the doctor assures me he needs to begin using the leg.”
Bonny walked to the bed and laid a gentle hand on Twigs’s forehead. “Poor lamb.” Assured that he had no fever, she turned to her husband and saw him readying the backgammon board. “So you will amuse one another with backgammon?”
Radcliff did not lift his eyes from his task. “Yes. Tell me, my dear, where have you been this morning?”
“I woke very early and could not go back to sleep, so I decided to go riding in Hyde Park.”
“Alone?” Now her husband met her gaze.
“Yes.”
“I don’t like that at all. You should at least have had a groom with you.”
“Don’t be angry. Rusty said you wouldn’t be happy. He wanted to accompany me, but I particularly wanted to go alone. It would embarrass me exceedingly for anyone to see what an unskilled rider I am—especially you. I’m determined to learn not to embarrass you with my lack of skill.”
Radcliff’s voice, like his eyes, went soft. “You could never embarrass me, Barbara.”
She stepped toward him and leaned to place a kiss on his cheek. “Thank you.” Her lips softly brushed his weathered face. Then she swept from the room. “Do call me when you begin to force poor Twigs to walk. I want one of us on each side of him.”
After she left the room, Twigs said, “Capital wife you’ve got there, Richard.”
Radcliff still looked at the door where his wife had left. How he loved to fill his eyes with her beauty. And how his heart ached at the thought she might have given her money and her heart to Dunsford.
 
After dinner that night, Bonny and Radcliff played three-handed loo with Twigs. Bonny had been surprised at Twigs’s card-playing skill. Nothing in his personality suggested a glimmer of intelligence. He did not quite have the skill her husband had, but Twigs’s skill surpassed her own, and she had been considered an uncommonly good player of all manner of games.
Radcliff broke the seal on a bottle of Malmsey, the three of them enjoying the best Madeira money could buy. Town life wasn’t so bad after all, Bonny reflected, if it could stay as it was now. As at Hedley Hall, she enjoyed her little cocoon with her husband and had not objected to bringing Twigs, the dear fellow, into their circle.
Warmed by the blazing fire and the contentment of good friends, she felt quite happy, despite the pain low in her stomach.
BOOK: A Duke Deceived
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