The Irish Duchess (16 page)

“I know you wouldn’t, but I’m perverse enough to wish you would because then I’d have the right to fight back. I bring nothing to this marriage. It makes me feel lowlier than any servant.”

“Lower than a carpet?” Michael asked with amusement from behind her.

“Be quiet, Michael.” Fiona didn’t even turn around. She knew her cousin sought to soften the tension. But she didn’t want it softened. She wanted it exploded. “Can you not see how wrong this is?”

“Michael has agreed to a very generous settlement. You do not come to me empty-handed, Fiona.” Neville scowled over her head at Michael. “I am not marrying you for your dowry, however. I think you know very well why I want you as my wife.”

“Is that enough?” she asked. “Can we base our entire lives on that? I’m Catholic, Neville. I’m Irish. I’m a farmer’s daughter. Do you not think your people will despise you for making a duchess of such as that?”

“The Duke of Norfolk is Catholic, and it hasn’t ruined him that I can see. You’re making mountains out of molehills, Fiona. If we disagree, it won’t be over your religion or your origins, I can promise you.”

No, it would be over the roofs of tenant cottages and superstitious old biddies and the time he spent in London when she would prefer staying at Anglesey. It would be over her wish to see her home again and her refusal to entertain in the manner he needed and any of a half million other subjects. She knew this, yet she had condemned herself to it from the first moment she’d allowed his kisses. Why?

Neville caught her chin and lifted her face so their eyes met. “Don’t, Fiona. Don’t build walls before we find ways to breach them. I’m nearing thirty years of age. Give me some credit for knowing the woman I want when I see her.”

Oh, Mary, Mother of Jesus, when he looked at her like that, said things in that intimate lover’s voice, chills ran up and down her spine—more correctly, the juices spilled to her lower parts and she wanted him so much that she couldn’t hear herself think.

“I’m trying, I really am,” she whispered. “But it’s not what I ever wanted, and the strangeness frightens me. We won’t even be married in the eyes of my church.”

“You’re too wise to believe religion separates us and too brave to be frightened long, Fiona.” He smiled and released her chin. “You’ll hit me over the head with a chair if I don’t behave, and I’m thinking it’s my tenants who should be afraid.”

She smiled weakly at his imitation of her accent. “Will my dowry buy the looms then?” she asked, returning to mundane matters until her knees could hold her without shaking.

“The looms and more, my dear. If you can wait until the session ends, I’ll take you home to see for yourself.”

That made matters less bleak. She curtsied and bestowed on him a mocking look. “I’ll be holdin’ you to that, my lord duke.”

As she flitted from the room, Neville reluctantly turned to meet the earl’s concerned gaze. Michael was the most intuitive man he’d ever known. Nothing got past him.

Michael sat slumped in a high-backed chair by the fire, studying Neville. “She’s not a simple child, Neville. She’s a strong-minded woman, although I’m not certain she fully recognizes that yet. I don’t think hiding things from her is the best way of handling the situation.”

Neville breathed a little easier. He didn’t want the earl changing his mind and sending Fiona away, especially not after what they’d done together. And he damned well didn’t want to tell her cousin what they’d done.

“I’m making ends meet now,” he said cautiously. “You know how hard I’ve worked to make the entailed properties profitable. I’ll let her use the dowry to fix those things she sees. That will keep her busy for a little while. I don’t see why she should have to know more than that.”

“And the year the harvest fails and your investments lose money? What will you tell her then when you have to turn off staff and let the cottages fall into complete disrepair?”

Michael knew Neville’s financial straits were difficult—he didn’t know the extent of the difficulty. He was sounding him out now, but Neville knew how to bluff. He’d been doing it the better part of his life.

“Every year I invest a little more and the profits are a little higher. I don’t gamble, I don’t drink, I don’t frivol money away. I don’t think Fiona will be nearly half so expensive to keep as most of the women of London. You don’t have to worry about her starving or going shoeless.”

Michael chuckled and relaxed. “No, but
you
will. Fiona hates shoes.”

***

Having spent a frustrating day perusing the estate books, scratching for places where he could cut expenses so he could apply the money elsewhere, Neville decided he deserved some reward for his diligence. Inquiries of the footmen gave him the direction, and smiling at the aptitude of Fiona’s choice, he hurried toward the conservatory.

Gladness swelled his heart, not to mention other parts of him, as he saw her slender back bent toward an easel while she colored in a sketch of one of the more delicate branches of miniature orchids in his collection. His scowl threatened to break his brow as a childish voice intruded upon his plans.

“Cousin Fiona, can I use that color there for my picture?”

He didn’t walk so softly as Michael, and Fiona must have heard him enter, yet she merely handed her watercolor box to the child instead of greeting him. Even disguised in rich velvet, the girl’s lame leg was evident from the way she sat in the chair.

“Do you think after we’re married we’ll be so hampered?” Neville growled with rare irascibility. Frustration would make a crotchety old man of him yet.

Fiona’s amused look of understanding didn’t help.

“That herd of heirs you require will hamper us greatly, Your Grace, but by then, perhaps it will not matter.”

Herd of heirs. Neville groaned at the grammar and the image of producing that herd. And then he groaned at the thought of a half dozen Fionas racing about his feet. “Perhaps we ought to rethink the whole idea, then.”

She looked startled, and Neville regretted speaking his thoughts aloud. He hadn’t meant them as more than a jest, but they didn’t have the kind of understanding yet. He offered a wry smile as he tried to explain.

“What if the Aberdare strain runs true? I will have a herd of heirs with red hair, whooping like wild Indians through the parlors, and a pride of princesses cutting them off at the pass with ropes slung across the hallways.”

Fiona’s smile broadened until it lit her face, and as he caught her imagination, she giggled. Beside her, little Mary looked at them both as if they’d lost their minds.

“A frightening thought, Your Grace,” she replied with all solemnity when she’d sufficiently recovered herself. “But even more frightening is the idea of a line of studious little potential dukes, scrubbed and gleaming and not a wrinkle out of place, standing back and watching the herd of heirs and pride of princesses.”

Neville narrowed his eyes, then turned to their miniature guardian. “I do believe there are cherry tarts for tea, Miss Mary. Why don’t you run on and see?”

Delighted at this treat, Mary grabbed her cane, dipped a clumsy curtsy, and limped for the door. Satisfied that they were without an audience for the first time in days, Neville moved toward the reward he’d promised himself.

Fiona jumped up at almost the same time as Mary. But he knew she didn’t retreat in fear of him. She was only worried about getting caught.

“I calculate we have exactly fifteen minutes before Mary reaches the parlor, Blanche realizes we’re alone, and sends someone after us. Want to see how far I can go in fifteen minutes?”

“Are you counting, Your Grace?” She’d backed up against a table and couldn’t retreat any farther.

“One thousand and one,” Neville whispered as he planted his hands securely on the table on either side of her. “One thousand and two.” He bent and captured her lips with his own, and all thought of numbers evaporated in steam.

She was so light he could lift her without trying, her waist so small that he could encompass it with his hands. Neville did both, setting Fiona on the table’s edge so he could find better purchase. He cupped both her breasts in his palms, and filled his mouth with her moan of pleasure. The sound vibrated deep inside him, awakening needs and desires long dormant. He’d never been a man of passion, but Fiona drove him to the brink of it and beyond.

“The red-haired heirs can wait,” he muttered against her lips. “It’s a red-haired wife I want right now. Let me come to you tonight, Fiona. Send the maid away.”

“I can’t. I can’t,” she moaned again when he nibbled her lip. “She’ll tell Blanche.”

She shuddered in his arms and slid her fingers beneath his cravat, searching for his bare flesh. Neville took a deep breath and settled his disappointment. She was right, of course. He would have to make do with these hasty caresses for a few days more. And then he would keep her in his bed until they both died of exhaustion.

To hell with Parliament and reform bills.

He dipped his fingers beneath the neckline of her bodice and stroked the sensitive tips of her breasts. Behind them the door opened and the butler gave a polite cough.

Neville pulled away, reassured by Fiona’s suppressed gasp that her desire remained as strong as his own.

Unable to turn lest whoever entered see the noticeable bulge in his trousers, Neville lifted Fiona from her perch and straightened her gown. “Two more nights, Fiona. Are you sure you’re ready?” he whispered so only she could hear him.

He chortled at the challenge in her eyes as she lifted them to meet his. Fiona had never resisted a challenge in her life, he’d wager.

“I’m ready, Your Grace. The question is, are you?”

And a very good question it was, he mused as she walked out.

Sixteen

“One more night, my love,” Neville whispered, catching Fiona by surprise as she hid in the darkened library.

He’d spent the entire day about estate business, never once seeking her out, but now that she had reason not to face him, he located her faster than any vulture with its prey.

Fiona tried shrugging him off, but the duke merely shifted his hands on her shoulders. Embarrassment stifled the desire his presence usually stirred. She had to tell him sometime. She wished she’d had a mother to tell her how one went about these things. But she’d grown up in a household of men and knew only their language, not a woman’s. “We can’t,” she whispered.

His fingers tightened, biting into her shoulders.

“Can’t what?” he asked.

“We can’t do it tomorrow.” Tomorrow was their wedding day, the day they’d waited for all week. Her Uncle William and Seamus had arrived just hours ago. She and Neville would speak their vows in the morning, and then the duke would think he had every right to take her up to his bed and do what they’d done before. And she couldn’t.

Neville’s silence terrified her more than angry words. He could be so cold, so remote, so obtuse sometimes.

“I see.” Releasing her, he leaned against the mahogany library table, every inch the noble duke. The lamp threw his sculpted cheekbones into relief. He didn’t look at her, but at the slightly worn carpet beneath his feet. “May I ask if this is a temporary aberration?”

Fiona held her breath and nodded. Realizing he probably couldn’t see her in the shadows, she spoke aloud. “Yes, only temporary,” she said so softly, it was scarcely better than a nod.

The shoulders beneath his tightly tailored coat relaxed. “You mean that we may consider our red-haired heir postponed for another month?”

She could hear the grin in his voice, damn him. She’d spent the entire day pacing and worrying about a wedding night, and he just grinned and accepted that she was a failure as a brood mare. “You have an exceedingly narrow point of view, Your Grace,” she answered coldly.

“Yes, well I have to, you realize. Otherwise I’d be running about like a chicken with its head cut off.” He leaned over and cupped her chin, brushing her cheek with a feather-light kiss. “But I can focus equally well on you when necessary. What should you like to do with our temporary reprieve? I suppose I should have asked you earlier if there was any place you would like to go for our wedding trip. Brighton and Bath are a trifle out of season, but if you’re interested...”

“I suppose it’s too far to Ireland?” Fiona asked, doing her best to hide the wistfulness in her voice.

He gave her a look of genuine regret. “The session is not yet over. I have two bills that I have not given up on. I might stay away a week or two, but no longer. We’ll go to Aberdare for Christmas, if you like.”

He’d offered her more understanding than Fiona had dared hope for. She knew the importance of his work, even though she didn’t believe government could ever accomplish anything except make the rich, richer. Still, she couldn’t fault him for trying. She offered the only olive branch she possessed. “I suppose we could stay here. You could go into London for your sessions. Perhaps that would hurry up the process and Christmas will come early.”

Neville appeared startled at the suggestion. But then he smiled, a genuine smile that had her heart pounding all over again, and she wished for the confidence to brush a fallen strand of hair from his brow. She wrapped her fingers around the edge of the library table instead.

“All right. Perhaps that’s best. It will give you time to adjust to the estate at your own pace, without the burden of my attentions for a while. But stand forewarned, I will return before the week is out. I’ve waited too long for a wife and a marriage bed to forget them now.”

She understood that completely. If he stayed here after the ceremony, unable to bed her, they would kill each other in frustration. She didn’t know what she would do in this place with Michael and Blanche gone, but she would have to find some way to occupy herself. She had made a commitment for the rest of her life.

“The orphans?” she murmured, drawing him away from ticklish subjects.

“I’ve already made arrangements. Your uncle will see to them when he returns.”

Fiona nodded. He’d done his part. She would do hers.

***

“We need to make some decision about purchasing that mine in Cornwall. Prices are down, but the men will go without work if we don’t find another seam soon,” Michael said, pacing the rug much as Fiona had earlier, Neville observed.