The Duchess (21 page)

“Well, you won't hear no complaints from me on the matter,” Honor admitted. “Where are we going on the wedding trip?”

“We are staying here, but perhaps next spring we shall go to Italy,” Allegra told her servant. “Ohh, this water feels so good.”

“Italy?
Lord bless me, miss, I never expected that I would travel,” Honor said excitedly.

“The duke says we shall go to a city where the streets are made of water and everybody travels in boats,” Allegra continued.

“Go on, miss, you're funning me,” Honor said. “Streets made of water? There ain't no such thing!”

“The duke says there are,” Allegra replied.

“Since when did what His Grace said mean anything to you?” the saucy maid responded pertly. Then her eyes grew wide. “Ohh, miss! Are you falling in love with him?”

“Of course not,” Allegra denied. “What an odd thing for you to say, Honor. Why would I fall in love with him? And how does one fall in love in the first place? Is love a tangible thing? And if it is, where is it that I, or anyone else, could fall into it?” She laughed.

Honor had finished putting away her mistress's garments. Now she took up the large sea sponge and began to wash Allegra's back. “Sometimes, miss,” she said, “you say the funniest things. I don't understand half of them, but I love you anyway.” She rinsed the soap from the girl's long back. “There, if you've done the other parts, you can get out of your tub.” She helped Allegra up, wrapped her in a large warmed towel as her mistress stepped from the tub. When she had dried the girl off she slipped a soft white cotton night garment over her head. “There, miss,” she said, satisfied.

Allegra tied the blue ribbons at the neckline into a little bow. Seating herself at her dressing table she loosed her long dark hair, and began to brush it slowly while Honor struggled to fit a painted screen around the tub. Allegra didn't like the tub in her bed-chamber. It should really be in the dressing room. She would have it moved there tomorrow.

Her mind was awhirl. The duke was coming to her bedchamber tonight. Had she been too bold with him? It was too late now unless, of course, when he arrived she told him she had changed her mind. Changed her
mind about
what,
she asked herself. She simply wanted to know a little bit more about passion before she was committed to consummating her marriage to Quinton Hunter. Girls were supposed to be courted, but the duke had not courted her at all. An
arrangement
had been made. No wonder she knew so little.

As she had once told the duke, girls knew more than they let on about men. She had had an older brother. For a moment her eyes grew teary at the thought of James Lucian. No one could have had a better brother than he, Allegra told herself. His death had been so futile, so damned unnecessary, and she hated the French for it. They had wantonly murdered her beautiful sibling because he had refused to leave the girl he loved. He had died with her rather than be parted from her.
Love!
Faaagh! It was a ridiculous emotion that drove sensible people to madness. Her darling brother. Her mother, who had deserted her children and husband for love. And now her father was behaving like a cow-eyed fool over his new wife. If she hadn't loved her aunt mama it would have all been too unbearable, Allegra considered.

“Ready for bed, miss?” Honor came into her view.

“Are you?” Allegra teased. “I have noticed the looks that the duke's valet, Hawkins, has been giving you, Honor.”

Honor colored becomingly. “Ohh, miss!” was all she said.

“Do not allow him to take advantage of you, Honor,” her mistress warned. Then Allegra smiled. “Run along. I shall not need you until the morning. I am perfectly capable of getting into bed by myself.”

Honor hurried off through the dressing room to her own chamber, shutting the door behind her as she went. Allegra walked across the room to the windows and
looked out. The moon was quite full tonight, and silvered the landscape. She could see the dark shadows of the horses in the pasture beyond the lawns. She had known from the first moment that she laid eyes on Hunter's Lair that she was going to be happy here.

She did not turn, but her heart beat a bit faster as she heard the door that connected her bedchamber and the duke's click open. He walked across the floor to stand behind her. “You came,” she said softly.

“Am I still welcome, and are you still eager to learn more about what transpires between a man and a woman?” he asked her. His arm slipped about her slim waist, drawing her back against him.

“Yes,”
she whispered breathlessly, feeling him nuzzle her head.

“Good,” he replied. Then his fingers skillfully undid the blue ribbon that held the twin halves of her night garment together. His hand slid beneath the fabric to cup a small perfect breast in his palm. “Exquisite,” he said softly.

His breath was hot in her ear, and she felt suddenly weak, as if her legs would not continue to hold her up. “I never …,” she began, but she could not continue.

“I know,”
he said. Then his lips touched the skin where her neck and her shoulder met. The hand holding her breast tightened ever so slightly upon the tender flesh.

“Ohhh,”
she murmured. My God, this was heaven! She had never imagined that anything could be quite this exciting.

The hand released her, and he turned her about to face him, pushing her nightgown off her shoulders so that it fell first to her waist, and then to the floor below where it puddled about her feet. Allegra was momentarily stunned. She had not expected quite so bold a move.

He stepped back, and his eyes swept over her. Quinton Hunter was utterly bedazzled. She was absolute perfection. Her skin was flawless with not a mark upon its surface to mar it. She was tall for her sex, but her height was in her torso not her legs. Her bosom was in perfect proportion with the rest of her body. “My God!” were all the words he could muster.

Allegra was silent. She had absolutely no idea what she should say in such a situation as this. She had, after all, never stood stark naked before a man.

The duke swallowed hard, at last able to find his voice. “No one should be as beautiful as you are,” he told her. “And you have no idea, you wickedly audacious little virgin, of the power you will wield over me one day.” He shook his dark head in wonderment, then taking her hand led her to her bed. “Get in,” he ordered her.

She complied, and finding her own voice said softly, “I like it when you touch me, Quinton. Do it again.”

“No,” he said. “This was not a sage idea, Allegra. I had no idea how lovely you were without your clothing. So often a pretty face disappoints. You, my dear, do not. Indeed the whole surpasses the sum of your parts. I am a weak man, and if I remain, you will, I promise you, be well fucked by morning's light. Your virtue is the most precious gift you bring me, Allegra. We will accept it on our wedding night, and not a moment before. And afterward I shall teach you the delights and the joys of lust. Tempt me no further, my dear. Now, go to sleep. You have, to my embarrassment, discovered that like all mortal men, I have an appetite for sweet flesh. The tiny taste you have given me has revealed my fault.” He took her hand up, and kissed it. Then he left her alone in the moonlit darkness.

Safe within the precincts of his own bedchamber
Quinton Hunter groaned. His member was rock hard, and it ached, unsatisfied. He cursed softly under his breath. What the hell was the matter with him that he had considered such a sortie even if she had asked him? She was spoiled and impetuous.
And far too curious.
Curiosity wasn't a good trait for a duchess, especially for a Duchess of Sedgwick to have in abundance. And once he opened her to the delights of carnality, could he keep her satisfied, or would her curiosity lead her to take lovers like so many women of their class did once they had provided their husbands with heirs? He groaned again. He would kill any man who looked with interested jaded eyes, or disrespect, upon Allegra.
She was his! His, damnit!

And then Quinton Hunter knew in a burst of clarity that he had fallen victim to his family's curse.
He was in love.
In love with a willful and uninhibited wench who was going to wrap him about her finger even if she didn't know it yet. But know it she would if he showed her the slightest bit of weakness. She was rich and she was stunningly beautiful, but she didn't love him. It was unlikely she ever would. Allegra did not understand love. He knew instinctively that she was afraid of it. She could not know how he felt about her lest she flee him, and he could not bear it if he lost her. He laughed softly to himself. He was in love, but at least unlike his romantic antecedents he had fallen in love with an heiress. Even so, he seemed to have no predilection for gambling as of yet. He laughed again. Perhaps he did, for he was taking the greatest gamble of his life by marrying Allegra Morgan.

“
Y
ou should have asked the duchess to be your bridesmaid,” Squire Franklyn's wife scolded her daughter on her wedding day. “She is going to be your sister-in-law.”

“She isn't the duchess yet,” Melinda pertly answered her mother. “And besides, we have only met two or three times. It would have been most presumptuous of me, Mama, to solicit such a favor.”

“She might have asked you to serve her in such a capacity,” Mistress Franklyn replied.

“No, her cousin, Viscountess Pickford is to be her matron of honor,” Melinda said. Thank heavens George had come up to scratch, not that she had ever doubted he would. She could hardly wait to be in her own house tonight, to be quit of her mother. Melinda Franklyn was her parents' youngest child, and at almost nineteen had been in danger of being left on the shelf had not George Hunter's good fortune saved her. She didn't quite know how he had come into possession of his farm, but she really didn't care. They were to be wed this morning, and that was all she wanted to know. By noon she would be Lady Hunter.

The squire's wife had now hurried away to make certain her servants were not slacking off in the wedding
breakfast preparations. Tables had been set up outside the house, for the dining room was not large enough. Melinda, foolish girl, had wanted a small intimate family wedding, but Squire Franklyn and his wife would not hear of it. Their youngest girl was marrying very well, and they wanted everyone in the county to know about it. And with the duke and his betrothed to sit at the bridal table, no one had cried off. Squire Franklyn's wife smiled smugly. It would be a triumph, she was quite certain.

At the church George Hunter peeped from the sacristy, and gulped nervously. “They have invited the whole damned world,” he complained to his older brother.

The duke laughed. “You cannot blame them, George. You are, after all, a prize catch for pretty Melinda.”

“Laugh while you may, my brother, it will be your turn soon enough,” George Hunter threatened.

“Ahh, but as Allegra and I have decided not to be married in London, we shall have the wedding we want. The family, and our friends, Georgie, in the Great Hall of the house, and afterward …” He smiled.

“What has happened to you, Quinton?” his brother asked. “These past few days you have seemed different.”

“Nothing has happened,” the duke quickly replied.

“Quinton, we are brothers. Don't try to outfox me, sir,” George Hunter said. “I know you too well. What is it?”

“You are letting your imagination run away with you, youngling. It must be your nerves playing tricks on you as your doom approaches,” the duke teased.

“No,” George persisted, and then his face grew a look of surprise.
“My God! You're in love with Allegra!”

The duke hit his brother a blow that took the wind
from him. “If you dare to spout such nonsense, George, Melinda will be a widow before she is a bride. Do you understand me?” He glowered at his younger.

“Uuumph!” George Hunter doubled over briefly, but then he straightened up again. “What the hell is the matter with love?” he wanted to know. “Love is wonderful, Quint.”

“Allegra and I have made a sensible and practical marriage of convenience, George, as befits our station. Love has nothing to do with it. If you must know, the mere thought of love is repellent to Allegra, and to me as well, given the examples we have had of it.”

“All your friends are in love with their wives, and I absolutely adore Melinda,” George Hunter admitted.

“But I am not in love, nor is Allegra, and we are quite content with our situation as it is. Now, stop spouting nonsense. If it were not for Allegra's kindness, love would have gained you nothing. Your beefy father-in-law-to-be was not about to give you his youngest child just because you are Lord George Hunter and in love. He wisely saw his daughter provided with a husband, a home, and a modest income.”

“ 'Tis time, my lords,” the vicar of St. Cuthbert's said as he hurried into the little room. “If you will follow me, please.”

George Hunter had never before thought of Squire Franklyn as beefy, but as her father led Melinda down the aisle of the church, the young Lord Hunter hid a smile, concentrating instead upon his Melinda—a pleasingly plump young lady with chestnut brown curls, and dancing brown eyes. She smiled tremulously at him as he took her hand.