The Duke's Holiday (13 page)

His hand touched an ankle, gripped the edge of her skirts.
She squeezed her eyes shut. This couldn’t be happening.

“Montford,” she warned, trying to recover her senses.
“Montford … Oh!”

His fingers skimmed past her stocking, which had fallen
down around her boot, then up her leg. She felt his fingers touch the hem of
her pantaloons gathered at her knee, and it just stopped there, hovering.

She dared to crack one eye open. Why had he stopped? What
was he doing?

His head was bent into his chest, his eyes were closed
tighter than hers. He seemed to be in some sort of physical pain, judging from
the anguished expression on his face.

Neither of them breathed for several seconds

Then his hand began to move, gliding past her knee, his
fingers trailing paths of exquisite fire up her thighs. His touch was slow,
languorous, caressing. Scorching. Her breath hitched in her throat. Good
heavens, she was on fire.

She must have made some sort of noise, for his eyes flew
open. He stared down at her with eyes that smoldered as much as his fingers.
Agony gripped his features, and something else that made her heart thud against
her breastbone, half in fear, half in triumph.

He desired her.

And God help her, she desired him.

Somehow, his other hand slipped down her body and up her
other leg. She felt two sets of fingers running up her thighs, drifting over
her hips, caressing and squeezing her flesh with a greedy impatience that left
her breathless.

His body lowered onto hers, the hard, heavy length of him
pinning her to the floor. His hands roamed up and down her legs, and a groan
escaped from the back of his throat, reverberating through her entire body.

She raised a hand to his face without realizing what she
was doing, felt the smooth-shaven flesh of his cheek, the tangle of hair
falling over his temple. It was as soft as silk. “Montford,” she whispered.

He rested his forehead against her own, his lips a mere
hair’s breath from her own. His breath was hot and frantic against her skin.
“Why are you not screaming?” he whispered. “Do you have no sense? Do you think
I’ll stop?”

She hadn’t considered such weighty questions. She hadn’t
considered anything at all since around the time his hand had touched her leg.

“You impudent little baggage. Shoving a book up your skirts
…” He made a strangled sound. “As if that would
deter
me! You have no idea what I want to do to you right now.”

He ground his hips into her own, and there was no mistaking
the hard ridge of his desire jutting into her tender flesh despite the layers
of fabric between them. She knew enough of the barnyard to know what
that
meant. But she had not known it
would feel so stunningly wonderful.

She moaned and shut her eyes.

He bit out a curse. The movement of his hands abruptly
stopped, and he sat back, leaving her feeling oddly bereft on several counts.
For one, her mutinous body had not wanted him to leave. For another, he now
held the book in his hands.

She didn’t know which made her angrier.

He clutched the book to his chest like she had done earlier
and sat back with a thud on his behind. He looked as if he had been through a
mill, cravat askew, hair flying every which way, jacket and breeches crumpled beyond
compare. His chest heaved and his face was flushed. His eyes surveyed her as he
would survey some rare species of poisoned flora. He swallowed several times
without speaking.

Then he seemed to come out of his trance. He looked down at
his book, looked up at her, looked down, then up again, and that smug grin she
was really coming to hate broke across his lips.

Astrid, who had been too stunned to do anything other than
lie there, her skirts lifted nearly to her knees, her head too dizzy to hold up
after his furtive caresses and hungry words, was knocked back to her senses
when she saw that gloating smile on his lips.

She bolted upright, humiliation and shame flooding her in
one giant wave. He had clearly tried to seduce her in order to win back the
book. And it had worked. So well she had forgotten about the book somewhere in
the middle of all the touching and panting.

What a prize idiot she was! To have believed he had wanted
her! To have let him touch her! Despite what anyone accused her of, she was not
some common tart, to be groped and pawed by this overbred oaf. Why, she hadn’t
even been kissed in her life.

He
hadn’t even
kissed her during the proceedings of the last quarter hour.

Not that she had wanted him to.

Oh, whom was she fooling? Of
course
she had wanted him to. Which was precisely the problem. She
had wanted him to kiss her since that business on the ladder. And she had
definitely wanted him to do more than kiss her when he had her pinned beneath
him. Which he had done. He had molested her. Thoroughly.

How dare he!

“How dare you!” she cried, launching herself at him.

She managed to get a handful of his hair in her fist and
yank it, and he managed to do the same to her hair, still holding on to the
book.

“Ouch, you beast!”

“You minx!”

“Ogler!”

“Strumpet!”

They were in the midst of a hair-pulling contest, when a
voice in the doorway caught their attention.

“Your Grace!”

They froze and turned towards the door. It was Montford’s
driver, the burly Liverpudlian, and behind him hovered a very pale-looking
Roddy. Both of their eyes were as wide as the doorway.

She and the Duke simultaneously jumped to their feet,
released each other’s hair, then moved as far away from each other as the room
allowed. Montford tugged on his jacket and smoothed back his disordered
coiffure, squaring his shoulders.

As if
that
would
recover his lost dignity.

He cleared his throat. “What is it, Newcomb?”

“Er … We can come back later if you’re … engaged,” the man
said, deadpan, but with mischief twinkling deep in his eyes.

“I was … just concluding my … business with Miss
Honeywell,” Montford answered, tucking the book into his lapel.

She snorted and tossed back her hair.

Newcomb’s eyes turned in her direction speculatively, then
back at his master. He shrugged, as he had the day before, as if the matter
were none of his concern.

“Miss Honeywell!” Roddy cried as she stalked towards the
door. “Are you…”

“Quite all right, thank you very much, Roddy,” she rushed
to say. “The Duke was so gracious as to pull a large…”

“Insect!” the Duke cut in, looking panicked by whatever it
was she had been about to say. “Out of her hair. There was an insect in her
hair. A poisonous one. With fangs.”

Roddy and Newcomb narrowed their eyes simultaneously but
said nothing to contradict the Duke’s utter nonsense.

“You heard him. A poisonous insect with … fangs. I believe
it is a new species. Too bad he coshed it with his boot.” She shot him a
seething glance.

He glared back. “Yes. Too bad.”

She twitched her skirts into place and started from the
room.

“Miss Honeywell,” the Duke called.

She looked over her shoulder.

He patted his jacket, where the book jutted haphazardly
from an inner pocket. “We’ll continue our discussion later.”

“Discussion? Is that what we are calling it? Very well,
until
later
. I look forward to it,”
she growled.

“Do you indeed, Miss Honeywell?”

The other occupants of the room swung their heads in unison
between the two of them, as if following a tennis ball lobbed across the court.

“I do. Indeed.”

“Indeed.”

“
Indeed
,” she
ground out, and stalked from the room before he could have the last word.

IN WHICH YET
ANOTHER CALAMITY STRIKES RYLESTONE HALL

“DEVIL
TAKE it, I shall refuse to go if you insist upon this indecency,” Sir Wesley
hissed, grabbing the saddle and jerking it off Astrid’s mare. He staggered
under the weight of it and handed it off to a stable boy, then ordered the sidesaddle
mounted in its place.

Astrid clutched her riding crop until her knuckles were
white and thought about swatting Wesley’s backside with it. “Don’t think you’re
going without me,” she ground out.

Wesley was incredulous. “Gads, Astrid, do you think I
want
to be alone with him? Sinister look
in his eye, that one. No, you’re coming with me. But I’ll be demmed if you ride
astride.”

“You’re terribly tiresome when you’re being an old stick,”
Astrid muttered.

Wesley looked mightily offended. “I’m being sensible. Not
only of your reputation, but your family’s. Montford already thinks very ill of
you, I reckon. No need to tear about the countryside astride as if you were…”

“Boadicea?”

Wesley nodded, scratched his scalp. “Yes, rather. Or was it
Lady Godiva?”

“Both used their mounts in a shocking manner. I rather
think I am in good company.”

“If you were a Hun,” Wesley retorted.

Astrid heaved an exaggerated sigh as Princess Buttercup was
fitted with the dreaded sidesaddle. “Fine. You win. But if I fall and break my
neck, it is on your head, Wesley Benwick,” she warned, poking him in the ribs
with her crop.

Wesley looked satisfied with her acquiescence and stepped
out of range of her whip to greet the Duke, who strode into the stables,
tugging on his riding gloves impatiently. His top boots gleamed in the sun, his
hat uncreased and spotless. He wore a habit of bottle green wool, cut to
emphasize every hard plane of his shoulders and arms, and a pair of dun colored
breeches that fit his long, powerful legs like a second skin. The only evidence
of his valet’s defection was a certain air of neglect about the folds of his
cravat. Astrid took satisfaction in this imperfection and could only wish the
rest of his rigidly regimented toilette suffered the same fate as it had the
two days previous.

The Duke stopped when he noticed her standing next to
Wesley, and a muscle worked in his jaw. A sign he found her company as
unwelcome as she did his. But he didn’t seem surprised to see her there, even
though he had not invited her to join him and Wesley on their tour of the
estate this morning. There was no chance Astrid was going to allow Wesley to go
unaccompanied on such an expedition, as she could imagine all sorts of blunders
her cousin would fall into if left alone with Montford.

It was clearly Montford’s intention to see that this
happened. Or at least to goad her past all measure. She knew
he
knew perfectly well that Wesley
hadn’t the first clue about the estate. When he had asked Wesley – or
“Anthony Honeywell” – to ride out with him to reconnoiter Rylestone, he’d
done so at breakfast in her presence, never taking his intense gaze off of her.
Wesley had spluttered, hedged, then finally assented to the trip because he
could do no less. Astrid had shoved her eggs about her plate and refused to
meet the Duke’s daring glance. It was the first time she’d seen him since the
Incident In The Library of the day before, and every time she so much as
glimpsed him out of the corner of her eye, she remembered his hands upon her
and the heat and smell and strength of him, and she wanted to die of
mortification.

Horrid man – he may have been a Duke, but he was no
gentleman despite his fine clothes.

She recognized his command to be shown the estate for what
it was: a gauntlet thrown down at her feet. Instead of exposing Wesley for a
fraud, the Duke seemed determined to play some sort of game with them all. She
was not going to let him win, even if she had no bloody clue what the game was
any more. He had the book now. He must see how she had cheated him, so there
was no need to drag things out with a tour. He was bent on torturing everyone.
Even, it seemed, himself, by remaining a further day at Rylestone. Whatever he
was planning to do to them, she wished he would just get on with it.

And some absurd part of her wished she could convince him
that her management of the estate had not been folly. She wished to make him
understand and – dare she hope – appreciate her methods. Rylestone
Green was prosperous, its people fat and satisfied, and it was because of her
reforms.

He would be a fool to interfere, in her humble opinion.

“Miss Honeywell. What a surprise to see you here,” the Duke
murmured, sounding not a whit surprised. “Riding into town?”

“Stuff,” she sniffed. “You know very well I am accompanying
you.”

He arched a brow. “Are you indeed?”

“Indeed.” She winced, recollecting similar words spoken
last afternoon.

The Duke scanned her from top to toe in an impertinent
manner, then dismissed her from notice as Mick presented him with his mount,
Cyril, Astrid’s roan gelding and the prize of the Honeywell’s stables. Astrid
had felt very peculiar about allowing the Duke to ride her baby, but she
couldn’t very well put him on Twinkle, the old piebald dray who pulled their
cart, even though she would have loved to do just that.

The Duke scanned the horse in much the same way he had
scanned her.
 
She gritted her teeth
as he stroked the roan’s nose with his long gloved fingers.

“Fine bit of horseflesh, what?” Wesley babbled nervously.

The Duke nodded noncommittally. “I expect he’ll do.”

“Name’s Cyril,” Wesley continued.

The Duke abruptly stepped away from the horse. “I beg your
pardon?”

“His name is Cyril.”

The Duke looked pained and muttered something under his
breath. Apparently, he did not approve.

Could nothing please this man?

“What’s wrong with Cyril?” she demanded, striding forward
and petting the roan’s head soothingly, as if to assuage his hurt feelings.

“I beg your pardon?” he repeated.

“It’s a fine name.”

He blinked at her several times. “You
like
the name, Mss Honeywell?” he asked as if he couldn’t quite
believe his ears.

“Of course I do. I named him myself.” She shot him a glare
over Cyril’s head. “I shouldn’t have told you that, for now you are sure to
loathe it.”

“No, I …” The Duke faltered and searched her face
earnestly. “I’ve never encountered someone who actually
liked
the name Cyril.”

“Well, I do. I happen to like it very much,” she said.

“
I’m
not terribly
fond of it,” Wesley chimed in. “One of them names like Nigel or Reginald that makes
you wonder what their parents were thinking.”

Astrid glared at her cousin’s attempt to defect to the
Duke’s side. The Duke, surprisingly, glared at Wesley as well.

“Piffle,” she declared. “Cyril’s the name of kings and
saints. In Greek, it’s the word for lord and master. It’s a good, strong name.
Like Cyril here. Doubtless you have thirty-seven stables full of
fine
horses, Your Grace, but that
doesn’t mean Cyril isn’t as good as any of them.”

She caught the Duke’s glance as she finished her lecture
and was completely knocked off balance by what she found. The tense, austere
planes of his face had softened, his mouth had gone slack, and his eyes glowed
bright with bemusement and something that looked very much like longing.

Her body responded to his expression, a wash of heat
spreading from her core into her extremities. She felt her face flame.

As if roused from a daydream, the Duke’s brow furrowed with
suspicion. “You’re not grousing me, are you?”

His words were as effective as a dousing of cold water. She
stiffened and scowled at him. “Grousing about what?”

“The name. Cyril.”

“Why ever would I?” She didn’t wait for a response. She
turned and stalked towards Princess Buttercup. “Are we going out, or are we to
stay here all day discussing word etymologies?”

She scrambled onto the mounting block and plopped down upon
her seat. Buttercup started forward nervously, and she nearly slid off the
opposite side, unused to the precarious slope of the saddle.

She heard a smothered laugh and turned to Wesley to give
him an earful. But Wesley was leading his black gelding into the stable yard.
She swung her attention towards the Duke and found that he was the one
responsible for the laugh.

He was actually
smirking
at her.

“Like to see
you
try to ride sidesaddle,” she muttered, prodding Buttercup forward.

The Duke mounted Cyril effortlessly and soon caught up to
her outside. “All ladies of quality ride sidesaddle as if born to it,” he said,
leaning towards her confidentially.

“You are doubtless insulting me, but I don’t care,” she
said, squirming on her seat.

“You don’t? Whyever not?” He sounded mildly curious and
entirely pompous, and just looking at him made her want to smack him across the
cheek with her whip.

“Because I take satisfaction in knowing I could outrace you
any day,” she asserted.

“What makes you so sure of that?” Now he sounded amused,
which made her even angrier.

“Call it intuition,” she bit out.

“I think it more a case of hubris. You couldn’t match me.”

“Is that what you think?”

“It is a fact, madam.”

She snorted. “A fact, is it? How interesting. So you would
say unequivocally that you could precede me from here to the brewery.”

He considered the stretch of lane before them. “Quarter
mile up the lane, good road, decent cattle, yes. I daresay I could.”

“Care to wager on it?”

His eyes swung from the lane to her face, startled by her
question. “I beg your pardon?”

She pointed her crop at his face. “You say that a lot, you
know. You heard what I said. Care to make a wager?”

Wesley, who had thus far remained silent, trailing behind
Astrid to attract as little notice as possible, spurred his mount to come
abreast of them. He looked nervously from one to the other. “Now Astrid,” he
began, sounding condescending and fearful at once, “surely you’re jesting…”

“I am not. I wager I can outrace His Grace.”

Wesley turned to the Duke pleadingly. “Your Grace, you
understand, of course, that she’s not serious.”

The Duke gifted Wesley with his driest look. “Ah, Mr. Honeywell,
but she is.”

“I am,” she seconded, reining in her horse and fixing a
challenging eye on the Duke.

Montford stopped Cyril and turned to her, forcing Wesley to
do the same. He studied her with an intensity that made her want to squirm.

Now that the challenge was issued, she wished she could
take it back. He had goaded her into it, and though she was confident of her
ability to beat him astride, she
was
on a damned sidesaddle. And the way he handled Cyril gave her pause. The
normally high-spirited gelding followed the Duke’s direction with uncommon
meekness. Montford was clearly a strong rider.

He must have seen some chink in her bravado, for his mouth
curled up into a half-smile. “What are your terms?” he asked.

Wesley guffawed loudly. “Your Grace! Astrid! You cannot be
serious.”

“Oh, I am,” Astrid ground out, her heart sinking in her
chest.

“So am I. Quite serious. Terms, madam.”

“We shall race from that stand of beech trees over there to
the brewery. Wes –
Anthony
shall ride down first and mark off the finish. He shall judge the winner.”

“I shall?”

“You shall. Go on,
brother
.
We’ll give you five minutes.”

Wesley looked from her to the Duke and back again with
growing incredulity. “Astrid. Be reasonable!”

She groaned. “I hate it when you use that tone with me.”

“I suggest you do as she says,” the Duke drawled. “She is
determined to be bested by me.”

“
Astrid
!”

Astrid reached forward and swatted her crop at Wesley. He
just managed to avoid being thwacked. After one last-ditch effort at changing
her mind, he took off down the lane, throwing anxious looks over his shoulder
as he went.

Astrid bit her bottom lip and watched her cousin go
reluctantly to his task.

She was an idiot. An impulsive, reckless idiot, who had
once more, in the space of ten minutes in his company, allowed the Duke to prod
her into some foolish endeavor. She had vowed to try and be more demure after
Alice’s set-down, but that had not lasted above a half-hour. She’d allowed a
peer of the realm reach up her skirts after all.

“Shall I give you a handicap, madam?” the Duke drawled when
they were alone.

She needed more than a handicap. She needed a miracle.
She’d be lucky to keep her seat for the duration of the race. But she snorted
derisively at his offer. She’d rather eat glass than let him see how tentative
she was. “
You’ll
need the handicap,
Montford,” she said with utmost pomposity.

Montford looked amused in that remote, patronizing way of
his that made her gnash her teeth. She’d rather he lost his temper, as he had
done yesterday. She wanted to bait him, not amuse him.

“We haven’t discussed the wager,” he continued, studying
the course, allowing Cyril to dance forward a little. “Perhaps we should make
it … interesting.”

She didn’t like the sound of that, but she seized upon the
idea as she might have done to the hull of a sinking ship. “Yes. How right you
are. When I win…”

“
When
you win?”
he snorted.

“
When
I win, you
return to London and leave me to manage Rylestone as I see fit.”

He shot her an exasperated look. “You are like a dog with a
bone, Miss Honeywell.”

“I shall take that as a compliment.”