Duke Herheart Final (8 page)
Read Duke Herheart Final Online
Authors: Olivia Ritch
Catherine’s mare was the obvious choice for her but he was not enamored of having to explain just whose horse she had been. True enough she was now his horse and had become the one that inexperienced young ladies rode when visiting the estate, but she had been Catherine’s and a wedding gift to boot. Michael knew women well enough to know she would be offended later if he did not tell her now who the horse had originally belonged to but he weighed the threat and 43
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decided he did not want to break he pleasant mood. “Her name is Jasmine.”
“Beautiful. It fits her.” He watched as Kathryn ran her hand down the velvet head of the gentle horse. “My memory is that jasmine is a delicate, creeping vine with small white scented blooms. This horse seems delicate.”
“She is that,” Michael assented absently. He would not tell her that Jasmine had been named for his late wife’s favorite fragrance, not because it was delicate but because it was her favorite. He didn’t believe she had actually been thinking of the horse when she named it.
He much preferred this woman’s description of the mare. He had thought her delicate and a safe mount, which was indeed why he had bought her for his wife and any girls they might have. As he watched the tantalizing picture of Kathryn Ragland whispering to the mild animal, he was struck with the realization that his first wife had not ridden Jasmine even once. Jasmine had been waiting all these years to meet her mistress.
Her mistress? Bloody hell and damnation.
He made the mistake of stealing a glance at her as they departed the drive for the bridle path leading to the cottages. The picture she cut with leanly muscled legs encased in his breeches, her small booted feet clinging desperately to stirrups while the breeze tugged at straying strands of spun-gold hair stole his breath as surely as if he had run headlong into an immovable object.
Worse yet, as he watched her settle on Jasmine, he remembered Kathryn’s heavy-tongued words as she had talked about the rocking motion of his horse’s gait. Pressed up against her as he had been, the words had echoed the sensations his body had been feeling. Watching her again this afternoon, he was flooded with that new sense of anticipation, eroticism, and longing
“You said you might teach me a little about riding. I know when you’re just walking, sitting is okay, but what should I do when we start going faster?”
“Rise just off the seat with your thighs supporting your weight,” he said as he showed her the correct position.
“Okay, this is like riding a bicycle so that when you go over the bumps your skin isn’t slapped silly.”
“Exactly. Shall we try a faster speed?”
Michael eased Fury into a trot and Kathryn naturally assumed the position on Jasmine. The delicate horse stepped properly into Fury’s wake and as both horses responded to his pressure to increase their speed, they began eating up ground. He hadn’t told her he was going to make them gallop so that she would not have time to be afraid. She had 44
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made it clear she had not really ever ridden, but for an American female with no particular riding experience, she was taking to it rather naturally, her strong thighs showing remarkable stamina in holding the position.
While she was so much smaller than he was, her lithe form was perfectly suited to riding.
When it was clear Kathryn was straining and unable to hold herself off the saddle any longer, Michael slowed and turned. “I must compliment you on your lesson.”
Rather than answer him, Kathryn nodded, likely because she held a mouthful of ribbons since hair had come loose entirely from her delicately spun coiffure. With the mass getting more unruly, she had gathered it into her hands then began winding the ribbon about the length. With her hands working her hair thus, it was at that moment that the Viking warrior goddess came to life. Michael drank in Kathryn’s flushed cheeks, barely restrained mane, wildly sparkling eyes and the upturned corners of her mouth. The sun loved her, made the bronze skin and honey hair fairly glow. The woman was a stunning vision.
“That was amazing. I feel so good. Don’t get me wrong, it totally exhausted me and my quads are burning but oh my gosh, I now know why people love riding horses. The power, the freedom. Ahhh…”
It was almost as if she had been made to order just for him.
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Duke of Her Dreams – Olivia Ritch
The tenant visits were, in a word, instructive. Each and every female he encountered regarded Kathryn Ragland with awe and the deference he would expect to be afforded his presumptive Duchess. It had not occurred to him how specifically she would be viewed by literally everyone they encountered; he had merely been seeking the excuse to spend the afternoon with her.
“Have we just passed another apple orchard?”
Her question shook him from his reverie. “They’re not apples. We have pears, too.”
“I love pears. We had those pickled figs at lunch. What do you do with the pears?”
“Probably anything you can imagine. Stewed is my favorite.”
“That doesn’t sound quite as good as fresh off the tree,” she mused.
“Then you will have to try one when they ripen.”
She looked at him then glanced away. He realized she was probably going to say she wouldn’t be around that long, but had caught herself. He was sure she would be wrong.
He let the silence stretch. “Do you like cider?”
“I appreciate cider but I don’t much drink it. I don’t really drink any juices. I just prefer to avoid all the sugar calories.”
“Is that why you are so trim?” He couldn’t help himself.
“That and a fortunate combination of genes from remarkably well built people and a lot of exercise.”
They arrived at a small residence with well trimmed shrubbery growing against the high, small windows.
“Here we are.”
As he lifted her down, Michael heard her in-drawn breath and felt the shiver that ran down Kathryn’s spine. She was not unaffected by him.
He released her reluctantly and she stepped quickly to the side. They moved toward the first home side by side, not touching. At the blacksmith’s home, the third they had visited, the man’s young wife and his three children were in awe of his companion just as the others had been. Kathryn stepped up to the woman with her now familiar self-assurance. “Your daughter is gorgeous. She looks like my sister did when she was little. What is her name?”
“H-Her name is Te-ess,” the woman stammered and Michael 46
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realized she was searching for a title to call the exquisite lady in front of her. Kathryn with her striped golden tresses, surprisingly well fit gown, glowing eyes and genuine smile looked positively expensive and yet she compared this woman’s small lowborn girl with her
own sister
. Mrs.
Smith’s face was glowing with pride.
“Captain Stafford, I don’t believe I have seen a prettier little girl.”
She turned to him, beaming, and his soldier’s heart fluttered. He had not realized until these moments what message he had been sending to his tenants by presenting the lady. He might need to deal with the notions at some point but right now, with her conquests, she was making his life so much easier. This lady was charming his tenants and building exactly the kinds of relationships with their wives that would make their loyalty absolute. He reminded himself to thank her properly when they were on the way back.
In hindsight, he decided that it was not a mistake to allow the supposition to grow in strength. From what little he already knew of her, Kathryn Ragland would be a formidable partner to help him rebuild the strained relationships with the tenants and villagers that had festered due to his Father’s inattention.
“My sister’s name is Christine but we call her Christy,” Kathryn explained. “She has thick brown hair just like yours and pure green eyes.
You are a little beauty.” The small child could only stare wide eyed at the lady until she finally reached out and touched Kathryn’s shoulder. It was at that moment that he saw Kathryn recognize too what was happening. These were poor people, commoners, and laborers, and now she must realize they thought she was a noble. Did she also realize that they thought she was soon to be their Duchess? She seemed to take the moment at face value and then with ease pulled the child toward her into a motherly embrace.
Michael almost reached for her because he knew, just knew, the family would be petrified but he should not have worried about Kathryn for as he moved he could see the girl sink into the embrace.
Mrs. Smith’s in-drawn breath caught his attention. Her eyes were huge and filled with horror as her daughter embraced what Mrs. Smith surely thought was nobility. But Miss Kathryn Ragland, enigmatic beauty personified, was not finished. She hugged the child and he watched a tear run down her cheek as she squeezed little Tess.
“Thank you, Tess for that wonderful hug. I very much miss my sister. I think you just made me feel better.”
And little Tess twisted some of Kathryn’s hair about her hand and laid her head on Kathryn’s shoulder once again slipping her stained 47
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thumb into her mouth.
“Gold,” she lisped. The two of them embraced rocking slowly back and forth and his soldier’s heart melted a little more.
This was also the first time he had heard Kathryn mention a sister and really understood she was indeed far away from her family and her home. He had not believed the first word of her story at the inn or her insistence at luncheon that she was magically transported here but her genuine expression of loneliness while cuddling the child, well it had been telling.
* * * *
“I’ve not been the landlord. I mean, I was manor born but never inclined to visit the tenants. You…you positively charmed them. That is important and I am grateful.”
She regarded him, her eyes narrowing, and he realized that she had just decided that it was a very heavy admission from someone such as he. “Would you say that I earned my keep today?”
He wanted to say that it was so much more, but he was dealing with the proud, headstrong woman who had been walking to London without shoes and so he was inclined to let her believe she had done only a day’s turn. If he told her the truth – that she was helping him warm badly-strained relations with his people, she would think him to be exaggerating.
“You did. If I fed you an evening meal and provided some mild entertainment, we could call today even. Is that fair?”
“Fair,” she said. And suddenly he no longer wanted her in his debt; he wanted so much more.
They traveled the remainder of the trip in a comfortable silence. He had seen a woman today who knew how to talk to people, women especially, to smooth his way, and ease his burden. Talking with women, especially uneducated ones, was naturally a great deficiency of his. For the first time since he had assumed the mantle, he saw how a woman could be a partner rather than just a person to be attached to and yet he had only known this one for only part of one day.
The few relationships with women in his life were mostly poor. He had struggled to find a way to talk to his sad mother. He and his Aunt Agatha probably got on the best. There was his beloved sister Cassandra 48
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who he desperately wanted to reconnect with, but the abject failure had been his relationship with his unwanted wife. Not being able to talk to her and, in reality, only barely tolerating her had made for a difficult marriage. Thankfully, he had been away for most of it. She had mostly been miserable and he found that he was not sorry that they were no longer married.
He wondered how to reach Cassandra, whom he loved with all his heart, but she suffered and he could offer her no solace. He wanted so much for her to heal, to be made whole, to have a new husband and children if she wanted, but at least to have some kind of life. Michael realized it was time to make Kathryn known to his fragile sister.
He had had few sexual liaisons as well. Not being inclined to casually bed women, although he had had ample opportunity being an officer possessed of enough fortune and passable looks to attract any number of followers, he had preferred abstinence to promiscuity. His lack of partners would probably surprise most of his friends. He had bedded one woman on the Continent several times but stopped when it became clear to him that the perils of risking getting her with child outweighed any pleasure he had found.
And he had never paid for sex, not with money, jewels or even simply opera tickets. He had never had his first wife Catherine either for she was already with the child that his cousin would not acknowledge when they married and he had not wanted her. Truly, no one he had bedded had meant anything to him and that above all had been the reason his partners had been so few.
He had been comfortable being celibate because he knew absolutely that he had not contracted pox and left behind no by-blows. If he did marry again, it would be a lot easier without any of
that
baggage. Now that he had to think about choosing a bride, he knew he could never be interested in simpering London chits. He was more Puritanical at heart than he would admit publicly but his lack of interest had manifested itself in a strong desire to ultimately choose a Duchess who was not necessarily a gently bred virgin but also was not prone to dalliance. He would not tolerate his wife’s infidelity and he would make clear that they were to keep their vows, even if theirs was not a love match.
He had seen far too many marriages in which one of the partners suffered at the hands of the other just for trying to be faithful, or worse because the mistresses or lovers were flaunted in society so that they knew they were being cuckolded. Even when they were not all flaunted as his Father’s had not been, they still caused such pain. His Father was so arrogant to think that his mother and children had not known of or 49
