Along Came a Duke (12 page)

He sat up, examined the evidence before him and gaped at her. “However did you do that?” He looked down at the table again, then back at her. “Tabby, if I didn't know better, I'd say you cheated.”

“What an ungentlemanly accusation,” she told him, holding out her hand. “My penny, if you will.”

He frowned and dug into the pocket of his waistcoat, his gaze never leaving the table, as if he were recounting every step in the process and trying to discern where he'd gone wrong.

When he was about to drop her winnings into her hand, he paused, holding the coin over her outstretched palm. “However did you know?”

Now it was her turn to preen. “The sugar left a trail,” she said, pointing at the bits of evidence leading straight to the winning cup.

He drew his coin back a bit. “Tabby, you dreadful minx. You did cheat.”

“I did not. I merely used my eyes,” she said, thrusting her hand out again. “If you please, sir, my winnings.”

“Hardly fair,” he grumbled as he dropped the penny in her hand.

It landed in her open palm, and the moment it touched her hand, she had the shocking sense that she'd gained more than a penny. Something whispered to her that this coin would bind them together.  . . .

Ridiculous notion, she told herself—and even more so, for when she looked down at it, she realized something else.

“'Tis nicked,” she remarked, holding it up for him to see.

“I'll give you another,” he said, reaching for it.

“No,” she told him, folding her fingers around the coin so it was safely nestled in the palm of her hand. “I rather like this one.”

“Because it is nicked?”

“Yes, for it reminds me of you.” Immediately she wished she could take her words back. For they hung there between them like a confession. Intimate and revealing.

Winding around both of them and twining them together—in ways they both knew were impossible.

Just like the way she fit into his arms. The way he'd held her and she'd thought of nowhere she'd rather have been. How this evening had changed her . . . and what she wanted.

What she'd never realized she wanted. And the horrible suspicion that he, this roguish, wretched man, was the only one who could open that world to her and leave her as this meal had, filled and yet ravenous for more.

More.
How that word tangled up her sensibilities.

Tucking the coin in her pocket, she rose quickly from the table.

Preston got to his feet as well.

“Yes, well, thank you, sir, for dinner,” she said.

“You are most welcome, Miss Timmons.”

Her heart constricted. She was Tabby no more.

Moving around the table, Tabitha made a soft whistle to call Mr. Muggins, and the dog, startled out of his nap, bolted upright and nearly upended her.

To her chagrin, Preston caught her.

Caught her and pulled her close.

Oh, goodness! How had this happened? She had been bent on leaving one moment. Fleeing, actually. And now she was caught.

She had been caught, hadn't she? With her fingers curled into his waistcoat and her legs trembling, she didn't seem to possess any desire for a hasty escape.

“I think you still owe me,” he whispered.

His demand teased her, but she didn't dare look at him. Become ensnared, entangled in that wicked, dangerous gaze of his.

“What say you, Tabby? Are we friends?”

Friendship? The look in his eyes called for something far more intimate.

Was he mad? Was she, for not wrenching herself free and running for the safety of her room above?

“'T'was a fair shake,” she told him, trying for bravado even as her heart pounded.

“You cheated.”

Tabitha's chin rose in defiance. “I used superior reasoning.”

“Superior?” He laughed and leaned down, for now he had her, her gaze trapped in his. “If you had been using ‘superior reasoning' you would have asked for the moon.”

“The moon?” she managed in a tight whisper.

“Or more, Tabby.” He gazed down at her, and suddenly it wasn't just that he held her, that he surrounded her. His arms wound around her, his hands warm against her gown, his body pressed to hers, he had her trapped and breathless.

“More?” she managed. More was dangerous. Ruinous.

And suddenly all too irresistible.

She had started the evening knowing nothing of men and now she had come all the way to this—to this passionate, dangerous madness. And that next step, to letting him steal her first kiss, was hardly as cavernous a leap as it might have seemed when she'd sat down for supper.

If this is madness . . .
some newfound part of her heart clamored . . .
then let me drown in his kiss
.

One kiss . . . whatever harm was there in that?

Preston pulled her closer, and it was as if time itself came grinding to a standstill—pressed as she was against his chest, her legs brushing against his hard thighs. It was all so very intimate, or at least so she thought until his lips touched hers.

Then everything upended and he was kissing her.

Tabitha hadn't known what to expect, but there he was, his lips covering hers, his hands pulling her close, one at the small of her back and the other between her shoulders.

He had her exactly where he wanted and he wound his web around her and drew her even closer.

Not that she would have moved for anything, not with these beguiling tendrils of desire opening up inside her. They unraveled like spring vines, reaching for every corner and winding around anything in their reach.

Most notably, her heart.

His kiss teased at her, nibbled at her lips, begging for her response, and while she might never have been kissed, she seemed to know what to do.

She opened up to him, letting his tongue sweep past her lips, tease hers, while his hands, which weren't just holding her, explored her, roaming over her back, her hips, tracing wild paths over her, opening a floodgate of passion in their wake.

Tabitha found herself drawn closer to him as his delicious, sensuous web of desire entwined around her. Her fingers splayed out over his chest, one of them moving upward to curl around his neck and pull him closer.

His lips moved from her mouth, teasing at the nape of her neck, the column of her throat, while his fingers worked at the pins in her hair, plucking them loose and tossing them about the room like freely wagered pennies.

When the last of them fell, her hair tumbled down, and something like a groan escaped his throat.

It was desire, rough and ready, full of need. Thick, hard, masculine need.

And her body came thrumming to life at the sound, anxious and ready to answer his heady call. Her breasts tightened, her nipples grew taut against her chemise. She wanted to be touched, teased, tempted, kissed.

Her hips rocked forward, brushing against him. Against something so unmistakable, so hard and long, that now it was her turn to gasp.

She found herself aching, quaking inside. Delirious to arch against it, his lips continuing to tease her with promises of what was to come.

What could be . . .

And it wasn't only his lips, teasing now at the nape of her neck, but his touch—bringing her body to a chorus of a thousand traitorous notes, leaving her with only one thought.

More. . .

This, she finally realized, was Preston's true occupation—this dizzying whirl of desires that he spun to life within her with his kiss, with his touch—shooing good sense into a corner and making it watch in mute dismay as its mistress let herself be tumbled.

He was sin. He was temptation. If he was the lord of anything, it was the Lord of Desire.

For certainly, Preston was no gentleman.

Oh, heavens, how she wanted him. Wanted him to continue his trade, to wreak his havoc upon her. To lay her down, to cover her with his hard, muscled body.

She longed for something she didn't even understand, had never known, but now she could almost see it, a distant lamp in the darkness, and he held the only match to kindle it.

'Twas ruinous. Madness.

“Preston, I—” she gasped, reaching for that flame . . .

Her words, her touch seemed to nudge him.

This time as their gazes met, Tabitha knew that she wasn't alone in this hunger, this dangerous madness.

Then in a heart-stopping moment, his features went from being filled with desire to revealing a shattering awakening.

The rake blinked. And then blinked again as he took in her disheveled state.

“Oh, good God!” he gasped, looking her up and down. “Demmit, Tabby, what mischief have you wrought on me?”

Her? But before she could straighten out his memory of the events—for he had kissed her—Preston set her aside.

More like shoved her out of his arms and stumbled back from her. Then he turned on one boot heel and fled, leaving her utterly alone.

Which, as she'd claimed before, was what she wanted.

At least it had been, she thought, as she pressed her fingers to kiss-swollen lips.

Once.

Chapter 6

London

Two weeks later

“T
onight, Tabitha! Tonight you shall meet him.” Daphne practically skipped through the busy traffic on Park Lane as they made their way to Hyde Park's infamous Rotten Row.

“Oh, heavens, Daphne, I can't even think about tonight!” Tabitha declared, shooting Mr. Muggins a quelling glance. The energetic terrier tugged and pulled on the lead, begging for a bit of freedom, the park nearly within reach. She leaned over and patted his head. “Not yet,” she told him.

If only she could do the same to her own life. Unhook the tethers her family had bound her with and run away. As far from London as she could get.

Not that any amount of distance will let you forget.

Him. Preston.

It had been a fortnight since her dinner with him. Since he'd kissed her.

That kiss. . .

She'd replayed it over and over in her imagination. His heated touch, his lips covering hers, the way her body had come to life as he'd cradled her in his arms and kissed her into a passionate delirium.

Had she imagined it all? Oh, and those wrenching words he'd uttered.

“
. . . what mischief have you wrought on me?”

On him? What about what he had done to her?

Her! Miss Tabitha Timmons. Respectable, innocent spinster from Kempton.

Innocent no more, she thought as she followed her friends into the park. Not when her thoughts were filled with the memory of his lips teasing hers, the steely grasp of his arms wound around her in those last final moments. Sheltering her. Keeping her close.

As if he'd never let her go.

But he had. Wretched cur. And left in his wake a passion, a flood of desires she never knew she possessed.

Now that she did know . . . heaven help her, they woke her up in the middle of the night, leaving her gasping for breath, her body taut with need, haunted with memories.

Preston!
Every nerve seemed to cry out.
Find me again
.

Worse yet . . . she'd spend the rest of the night tossing and turning, filled with a dangerous longing to seek him out, if only to beg him to unwind this dangerous mischief inside her, entwine it around them both yet again.

Tabitha pressed her lips together, her fingers digging into her pocket, where she kept that nicked penny of his. It stabbed into her finger, prodding her to believe.

Yes, it had been real. Preston had claimed her, kissed her and then set her aside.

Why, he'd looked positively shocked when he'd pulled back from her. Not just shocked, tormented. A wrenching, pained light in his eyes. Enough so to send him hying off like a March hare.

Good heavens, was she that dreadful at kissing? Tabitha let go of the penny and sighed. Such a thing didn't bode well for her prospects as a happy and contented bride if her groom was destined to run away from her with that haunted look on his face every night.

Perhaps there was something to the Curse of Kempton . . .

“Tabitha!” Daphne was saying. “Haven't you heard a word I was saying?”

Glancing over at her friend, she realized Daphne had been asking her something about their plans for the evening.

The ones that included finally meeting her betrothed, Mr. Reginald Barkworth.

“Leave her be,” Harriet told her. “If I was in Tabitha's shoes, I'd be a wreck as well.”

“Is it that obvious?” Tabitha glanced from one friend to the other.

Harriet nodded. “A few moments ago you looked positively ill.”

“Oh, good heavens, Harriet!” Daphne said, shooting the other girl a scathing glance. “Tabitha is radiant! And whyever wouldn't she be, when tonight she shall discover her heart's desire?”

With that, Daphne turned and continued down the path. After a few steps, Harriet and Tabitha hurried to catch up.

“I don't see why Mr. Barkworth has not called,” Harriet said for about the thousandth time. “It all seems odd to me.”

“He is heir to a title,” Daphne told them with an airy wave. “He is allowed a few eccentricities. Besides, Tabitha was not ready to receive him—what with her wardrobe in the state that it was.” She sighed at Tabitha's choice today of an old plain muslin.

“What?” Tabitha said, glancing down at her gown. “I don't want to ruin one of the new ones.”

“You are an heiress now,” Daphne reminded her. “You could have a new gown every day.”

Tabitha scoffed at such a notion. Not that she even knew what it meant to be an heiress, since her aunt, Lady Timmons, had also been equally stringent about not taking them, especially Tabitha, out into society.

A lady of your fortune is an enticing opportunity to the worst sort of company. This is for your own well-being and safety,
Lady Timmons had avowed. That, and, like Daphne, the lady had been shocked at the state of Tabitha's wardrobe, which she declared disgraceful and unfitting a lady of her future stature.

So for the last fortnight the house on Hertford Street had seen a steady stream of modistes, milliners, hosiers and glove makers, all assigned the task of turning Tabitha into a London lady.

“Mr. Barkworth will be a marquess one day, and as a gentleman, he will expect a well-turned-out wife,” Daphne noted.

“A title doesn't make a man a gentleman,” Harriet shot back. “Nor is it a promise of a happy marriage.”

Daphne scoffed at such dire predictions, but it was Tabitha who shocked both her friends.

“Marriage might not be so bad.”

Both ladies paused and turned to gape at her.

How could she explain it to them? That marriage might mean intimate suppers, lively discussions, a bit of teasing laughter.

Kissing. . .

Had her evening with Preston been a peek into what a marriage might mean?

“With the right man,” she amended.

“Perhaps,” Harriet conceded. “Yet however will you know until you meet him?”

Before Tabitha could reply—for she shared Harriet's concerns—Daphne rushed right in. “I think it is ever so much more romantic that you are his mysterious heiress bride. You shall meet tonight at Lady Knolles's, and it will be perfectly magical.”

Magic
. Tabitha knew what that felt like. But would she find that same magic with Mr. Reginald Barkworth?

“I can't see how being an heiress is a good thing if you must hide your good fortune and keep out of sight,” Harriet said with a sigh. They hadn't even been allowed a side trip to the Tower, much to her chagrin. “Though Chaunce agrees that your aunt's intentions are probably for the best. He says London is a wicked place, and I suspect he has good reason to know.”

Harriet's brother—Chauncey, or Chaunce as he was known in the Hathaway clan—had called on them several times. A solicitor by training, he now worked for the Home Office. Arriving in grand style, with his hat tipped in a rakish fashion, he had flirted with Tabitha's cousins until all three of them had been blushing.

Not an easy feat considering how worldly the Timmons cousins thought themselves.

“Yes, I agree with Harriet that having to hide away is rather disappointing,” Daphne declared with a wide yawn. She came to a stop in the gravel, the pebbles crunching beneath her boots. “It would be much more lovely to be out here with the rest of the
ton,
and not sneaking about at this ungodly time.” For a country girl, she had taken to Town hours like she'd been born and raised in London.

Not that she was fooling her friends, for when Daphne said “
ton
” she meant “gentlemen.”

“We are out at this ungodly time because my aunt is not yet up and therefore cannot protest that we will ruin all her plans by being seen in public,” Tabitha replied.

Lady Timmons could hardly complain about this—an early-morning stroll—for it was well before the fashionable set even considered arising, let alone making a public appearance in the park.

And no one in London knew them, since they had yet to make any sort of social debut.

In fact, they had the walkway to themselves, which suited Tabitha perfectly. She could let Mr. Muggins roam without the confines of a lead, and not worry about making some
faux pas
that would be reported back to her aunt.

“After tonight, there will be no more hiding you—or your fortune,” Daphne avowed. “Perhaps Mr. Reginald Barkworth has been using this time to procure a Special License so he can marry you forthwith and save you from being stolen away.”

Harriet was more direct. “If he turns out to be a regular Tulip, you might want to consider being kidnapped. By some privateer . . . or a duke!”

Daphne's gaze rolled upwards and she shook her head at such nonsense. “A duke would hardly need to kidnap his bride, Harriet. That, and Tabitha would lose her fortune if she didn't marry Mr. Reginald Barkworth. That's how it is, isn't it?” she asked.

“Yes,” Tabitha nodded. “Uncle Winston's will provides for me only if I marry Mr. Barkworth.”

Harriet thought about this for a bit and then paused. “Perhaps you will go mad on your wedding night, and then become a lovely, wealthy widow, just like Agnes did.”

“Really, Harriet, if you can't add anything helpful!” Daphne exclaimed. “Agnes was burned for killing her husband, and Tabitha would end up in Newgate or Bedlam if she were to . . . well, if things turned out unfortunately.”

“I hardly think I am going to go mad,” Tabitha told them both. Not the sort of madness that would have her staking her spouse, but there was that other state of madness . . .

“Don't tell me you believe in the Curse of Kempton?” Harriet asked Daphne.

Tabitha paused as well to hear the answer, but Mr. Muggins had other ideas. He pulled and tugged at the leash. After a glance around confirmed that there was no one about, she reached down and unhooked the lead. The giant terrier leapt forward and danced around the ladies in excited circles before loping down the path ahead of them.

“Certainly not!” Daphne said, straightening a bit. Then after a moment, she added, “Well, perhaps a little.”

They both looked at her, amazed by this confession. “Well, how can I not? I was born and raised in Kempton. Yet here we are in London, far enough away from home that . . . well, one begins to imagine . . .”

“You aren't considering—” Tabitha began.

“Heavens, no! I haven't your fortune to attract a man.”

“You do have your name,” Harriet pointed out. “You are a Dale, after all. That must count toward something.”

“Yes, indeed,” Tabitha agreed. If she had to tumble into the parson's trap . . . “Perhaps you might call on your Dale relations, use their connections—”

Daphne waved them off. “You must realize that for all my mother likes to toss our Dale name about Kempton, I suspect here in London it is as much a curse as being from Kempton. Did you see your aunt's face when you introduced me?”

“Yes, she did seem a bit taken aback,” Tabitha agreed. Then again, Lady Timmons was not the most generous of creatures, for she'd never before shown the least bit of interest in her niece—what with three daughters of her own for which to find husbands.

Tabitha's arrival with her two friends in tow had been met with resignation—for as Tabitha later heard her aunt espouse to Sir Mauris, “We must endeavor to endear the gel to us. Think of her connections once she is married, and that fortune! La, she'll be most sought after. Remind me again why we didn't take her in when Archibald died?”

And her cousins? They hadn't exactly rushed to greet Tabitha with open arms. More like surveyed this interloper and her country entourage like one might view enemy troops approaching a closely held and jealously guarded territory.

Especially when all the new gowns and packages began arriving, addressed to Miss Timmons.

Miss
Tabitha
Timmons.

Then again, it had been Eloisa, the youngest Timmons daughter, the one the family claimed held the best prospects, what with her wit and beauty, who had pointed the way to the park to them this morning and confided that the unfashionable hour might afford her “esteemed cousin and quaint friends” a chance at some “country air,” which certainly would be more “akin to their sensibilities.”

Then again, Tabitha might have misunderstood, for she swore she had also heard Eloisa muttering something about a nearby coaching station and her hopes that her cousin might stumble upon it.

“Do you think we will be in the suds when we return?” Daphne asked.

“I can't see why my aunt would protest taking Mr. Muggins for a walk,” she replied. “At least he isn't ravaging her house.”

“Or her sensibilities,” Harriet said with a giggle.

The rambunctious terrier had taken to following Lady Timmons around the house like a Bow Street runner, sneaking up behind her and then setting up a barking ruckus, one that the lady had declared just yesterday afternoon would be the end of her nerves. She'd been about to give Tabitha a terrible wigging over the matter when a cautionary cough from Cousin Euphemia had made her complaints about Tabitha's hound disappear into a forced smile on her lips.

“Do you think we might have time to venture toward Bond Street? I promise, just one milliner's shop and I will be set for life.” Daphne's gaze filled with a dreamy, far-off look.

Tabitha laughed. “Just one?”

“Well, perhaps that and a ribbon shop,” she added.

Harriet's gaze rolled upward. “And then a mercer's shop and then the modiste you read about in a newspaper advertisment, and then—”

“Oh, don't be ridiculous,” Daphne declared. “I would never consider a mantua maker from an advertisement. I am far too discerning.” This sent Tabitha and Harriet into a loud case of the whoops, until even Daphne had to laugh. “Forgive me if I just want to go shopping.”