An Unlikely Duchess (16 page)

“Yes,” Susanna said hastily, looking across at her brother. “May we, Bart?”

“Perhaps we ought,” he said, frowning. He turned to Lord Parleigh to make their acceptance.

But where was Jo? Had something dreadful happened to her? Oh, dear, where was Jo?

She met the serious and searching eyes of Sir Thomas Burgess and smiled as brightly as she was able.

“Splendid!” Lord Parleigh was saying heartily.

***

“What I should have done,” the Duke of Mitford said later that same night, plunging his hands into the pockets of his borrowed dressing gown, “was pretend to have had a dreadful cold so that I might have asked for a separate room. I am so deep in love with you, after all, that I certainly would not wish to pass the germs on to you.”

“But you would have had to sneeze and blow constantly and talk nasally and develop a very red nose and watery eyes,” she said. She did not move about their very single bedchamber a great deal, he noticed, because her nightgown was at least three inches longer than her person. “Besides, I have been married to you for only three days and I promised to love you in sickness and in health and I would want to nurse you if you had such a dreadful cold, would I not?”

“I am merely saying what I ought to have done,” he said, exasperated. He was gazing out of the window into blackness. Except that his eyes could not help but focus on the reflection of the little figure behind him in her voluminous nightgown. Her hair was quite tame, having been braided into a circlet all about her head by a maid after her bath. He far preferred it in its wild and natural state, but she did look neat and pretty, he had had to confess to himself all evening. Her eyes looked larger without all the wild hair, and her face rather like a pixie’s.

“It was very sly of you to arrange that I go shopping tomorrow while you go after Mr. Porterhouse,” she said now. He could see her standing in the middle of the room, close to the foot of the bed. “You know that I had every intention of coming with you.”

“And you know I had every intention of preventing you from doing so,” he said.

“But you are not my father or my brother.” Her head was thrown back in defiance.

“No,” he said, “but I am your husband for a few days, am I not?”

“How foolish,” she said. “Besides, how can I go shopping? I do not have even a farthing in my purse.”

“You will have the bills sent to me, of course,” he said.

“But I don’t need any new clothes,” she said, gathering the borrowed nightgown in folds about her thighs so that she might take one step closer to the bed. “And Papa has already given me an advance on my next pin money. And Sukey gave me hers this month because she said she did not need it. But of course I will have to repay it. It will take me a year or more to repay you, sir.”

“If you are to pretend to be my wife,” he said, “you will have to pretend all the way. I will pay your bills. It would be very strange if I did not.”

“It is all very well to talk of pretense,” she said. “But money is a very real thing. Perhaps you do not have a great deal of it, sir. Perhaps you will be a beggar by the time I have rescued my jewels and returned home.” She had seated herself on the side of the bed and looked unaccustomedly disconsolate.

“I will not be a beggar,” he said, turning from the window to look at her. “And you need new clothes. I cannot have people saying that I do not know how to dress my wife.”

“Oh, dear,” she said; “you are very kind. But even aside from the shopping, I really do not like the thought of your confronting Mr. Porterhouse alone. Perhaps you will be hurt, and I shall be sorry for it all my life. And what if he kills you?”

He smiled and stepped closer to her. “Then I will have died in a good cause,” he said, “and you may mourn for me and tell your grandchildren about the brave gentleman who gave his life to recover your jewels.”

“Oh,” she said, jumping to her feet and stumbling over the hem of her nightgown so that she lurched against his chest. “I really don’t want you to die. And I do beg your pardon.”

“Don’t you?” he said. “And do you?” She had not a stitch on beneath the nightgown. The garment looked perfectly decent, provided one merely looked at it. But when one was obliged to hold it and—more to the point—the little lady who was inside it, one’s thoughts and one’s bodily responses soon became woefully indecent.

The Duke of Mitford found himself smiling foolishly and for no reason at all except that he could not think of anything else to do or anything else to say unless it were to ask her to please remove herself from him or else to remove her himself with his hands, and either course of action seemed unmannerly, or would have seemed so if he had thought of either with any coherence.

“Don’t get hurt,” she said, her hands spreading themselves over his shoulders. “Not for me. And not for my jewels. They are only old jewels, after all. We will forget them. I will learn to live without them. Don’t let yourself get hurt.”

“I don’t intend to,” he said. His hands were at her waist, but his thumbs, for lack of anything else to be, were pushing up under her breasts. And his temperature, for lack of anything else to do, was soaring. And somehow he felt obliged to follow up the words by dipping his head and laying his lips against her throat. “I can look after myself, ma’am, I do assure you.” And one of his hands moved quite of its own volition behind her back and below her waist in order that he might arrange her more fully and more comfortably against his person.

“Promise?” she said. Her fingertips were light in his hair. They felt good. She was holding his head and gazing into his eyes, her own huge and troubled. “Promise you won’t get hurt. Promise you will forget about my jewels and Mr. Porterhouse.”

The Duke of Mitford forgot—yet again—that he was the Duke of Mitford. He forgot completely about his very proper upbringing, about the years of training and discipline that had developed in him a stern self-discipline and a strong sense of propriety and responsibility. He forgot that his dealings with the female gender had been confined to one affair with a widowed lady and that his dealings with young unmarried ladies were nonexistent.

He forgot that the very idea of being alone in a bedchamber with such a young lady would have been well nigh enough to have sent him into a fit of the vapors a mere week before. He forgot that a week before he would hardly have even been able to imagine a soft and warm and feminine body pressed to his own, with only a nightgown and his own nightshirt and dressing gown separating their bodies.

He forgot everything except a hitherto unsuspected male instinct to possess what was feminine and sweet-smelling and yielding. He lowered his head and opened his mouth over Josephine Middleton’s.

She tasted as good as she looked and smelled. He tasted her lightly with his lips, discovered that his thirst for her ran deeper than lips could satisfy, and reached into her mouth with his tongue.

She was warm and moist. She tasted of the sweet wine she had drunk with her dinner. And she felt warm and soft in his arms. And very small. He felt large and male and protective.

With every surge of blood that pulsed through his temples he was aware of the large and soft bed behind her.

And the heat of her, and the supple way she arched herself to him and made her mouth available to his invasion told him that she was equally aware. And available. And desirable. And she was, after all, his bride.

Was she? Good Lord!

Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending upon whether one were on the side of decorum or irresponsible romance, Mitford became suddenly aware that blood was not the only essential of life occupying his head. Somewhere, in a not very active part of his brain, for sure, but somewhere nonetheless, there were rationality and intelligence. And guilt and embarrassment and incredulity. And truth.

Oh, Lord, what on this good earth was he about now? Was it really—could it really be—he, the dull and very proper Duke of Mitford, who just happened to be alone in a bedchamber with a single young lady, every curve of her body fitting itself very nicely indeed against his body, her hands in his hair, her mouth opened beneath his? And both of them in their night clothes? Could it really be?

Yes, indeed, it could. And was.

What on earth was he to say to her when he had finally put between them the space that should be between them? His inability to answer his own question made him prolong the embrace.

“We really do not have to be doing this, you know,” he said eventually, “since the Hennessys are not in the room to be convinced of our undying love for each other. I am afraid that living this lie is just getting to be something of a habit.”

“Oh, yes,” she said, looking somewhat dazed and clasping her hands in front of her. “I do beg your pardon, sir. My mind got a little addled over the thought of your getting hurt on my behalf when it really is not necessary at all. And if I had not been such a green girl and believed that Mr. Porterhouse was a kind gentleman just because of his soft words and his serious and sincere looks, I would not have left home with him and given him the chance to steal the jewels. Though as for that, if I had stayed, I would have been forced to receive the Duke of Mitford’s addresses and to accept them too, no doubt, since I would have had no good reason to say no and would have disappointed Papa and Grandpapa if I had. Though as for that, I suppose I have disappointed them even more by disappearing off the face of the earth when I wrote that I was merely going to Aunt Winifred’s, haven’t I?”

Her color was high, her voice quite breathless.

The Duke of Mitford set his hands behind his back and rocked on his heels. “It is late,” he said, “and time we were in bed.” And then he wished fervently he could have recalled the words. “I shall sleep on the floor.”

“Oh,” she said, “but you do not need to do so. Really you do not. It is a very wide bed. And if someone must sleep on the floor, then I absolutely insist that it be me this time. It is the least I can do to thank you for all your kindness.”

The Duke of Mitford found his night on the floor somewhat more comfortable than he had done on the two previous occasions, partly because it was carpeted, he supposed, and partly, perhaps, because his body was becoming hardened to privation.

Besides, a bed of nails would have been preferable to the one in their bedchamber, occupied as it was by a small lady whose proximity could do disturbing and totally unfamiliar things to his sanity.

Chapter 10

The village dressmaker did not have racks and racks of delightful fashions to choose among. In fact, she did not have even a single rack of fashions. Or any fashions at all, for that matter. Josephine purchased a plain wool dress for day wear and an even plainer silk for evenings, though both dresses needed to be shortened considerably before she could wear either.

But the very plainness of the garments, for which Mrs. Hennessy apologized profusely, eased Josephine’s mind. She would have felt vastly more guilty over sending the bills for pretty clothes to Mr. Villiers.

The spending did not end there, of course. Mrs. Hennessy happily rummaged through undergarments and nightgowns, while Caroline fingered ribbons, and lace and fans. Josephine stared out of the window into the street.

He would be at Lord Parleigh’s by now. He would be confronting Mr. Porterhouse, taking him firmly by the lapels of his coat and demanding her jewels. And he would be using those powerful fists on Mr. Porterhouse’s face. Right now. At this very moment.

What if Mr. Porterhouse did not go down as easily as he had done at the inn? Mr. Villiers had had the advantage of surprise on that occasion, and she had helped a little bit by smashing the china bowl over the man’s head. Though, of course, Mr. Villiers would have managed perfectly well without her assistance.

But would he manage perfectly well now? What if Mr. Porterhouse had a chance to punch back? He might break Mr. Villiers’s nose. He might kill him. Right now at this very moment. Mr. Villiers might be stretched out dead in Lord Parleigh’s drawing room or on Lord Parleigh’s lawn. And all because of her jewels. Worse than that—all because of her stupidity in going off with Mr. Porterhouse when all she had had to do was have a private word with Papa.

Of course, he would partly deserve his fate. She was very vexed over the sly way he had maneuvered events so that he could go alone to Deerview Park to fight her battles and to recover her jewels. Very vexed indeed.

But for all that, he did not deserve to die. And she would feel very guilty for the rest of her life if he really were hurt in any way.

“This silk nightgown, do you think, dear?” Mrs. Hennessy asked her with a smile. “It is so very fine. Do you think dear Mr. Villiers would approve?”

Caroline flushed and concentrated her attention on the ribbons.

“Oh.” Josephine gulped. “Yes, but it is almost winter, ma’am. Perhaps I had better buy the flannel.”

“You are afraid of being cold at night, dear?” Mrs. Hennessy exchanged a knowing smile with the dressmaker.

No. No, she was not at all afraid of being cold. She had felt as if someone had lit a roaring blaze inside her the night before when she had got all silly about Mr. Villiers’s safety and almost thrown herself at him. She had quite forced him to kiss her. And then she had lost her head completely and behaved in a manner that would have Grandpapa lecturing her for a month without once pausing for breath if he ever found out.

She had never ever realized that gentlemen kissed ladies like that. Or that ladies kissed them back like that, either. Mr. Villiers must be very experienced to know about those things. But he would think her a dreadful hussy for having allowed him to do them to her. She had opened her mouth without any coaxing at all on his part.

Oh, dear. What on earth was she doing? Less than a week before, she had been at home with Papa and Grandpapa and Bart and the girls, waiting for the Duke of Mitford to come and pay her his addresses. And it was all his fault, horrid man. Why could he not be satisfied with all his women instead of wanting her as his bride? She hated him. She hated him now more than ever.