by Cheryl Bolen
"My lord, please don't blame yourself. Know that your brother died doing exactly what he wanted."
"Somehow that doesn't lessen the pain." He drew in his breath. "I have to talk to this friend of yours. May I call on you tomorrow, Miss Allan?"
Better to keep him away from Emily's house until she better knew how Emily would react to his presence. "I will be riding in Hyde Park tomorrow morning. Perhaps you could meet me there, my lord."
"That would be most agreeable."
The waltz soon ended, and Dunsford began to lead Bonny from the dance floor, when the Duke of Radcliff approached them, nodding to Dunsford, who, assuming the duke was Bonny's next partner, promptly took his leave.
The duke must have just arrived, Bonny realized as she found herself searching his masculine face, which never smiled. What was there about him that invaded her thoughts all day and made her as nervous as a French noblewoman around a guillotine now? Certainly not his rank. She was enough of her mother's daughter not to be impressed by that, and to tell the truth, she had neither the background nor the desire to be a duchess.
Something in the duke's manner told her that she could trust him. That he could be counted on for wise counsel and unwavering support. But it was more than that, she thought, feeling a lump in her throat and a stirring deep within her as her eyes flitted over his sturdy body.
"Would you honor me by dancing the next dance with me, Miss Allan?" the duke asked.
"I should be happy to do so, your grace."
The country dance did not afford them the opportunity to talk but caused her considerable loss of composure every time their hands touched. And to make her even more uncomfortable, she felt Lady Landis's disapproving glare throughout the dance.
When the orchestra stopped playing, a winded Bonny determined to find Emily to see if her spirits had lifted. She located Emily fifteen feet away, in time to see her pale cousin swoon.
Emily, in her butter-colored dress, collapsed in a heap on the dance floor.
Bonny shrieked and ran toward her, but Radcliff and Lady Landis got to her first.
Paying more notice to the attentive duke than to her daughter, Lady Landis said, "Your grace, I don't know what's got into my silly daughter, but I'm sure this will bring her round." She held the vinaigrette under Emily's nose.
Bonny threw herself on the floor beside Emily, took Emily's slim hand and spoke in a quavering voice. "Em–Em, are you all right?"
Emily's lids slowly uncovered lively blue eyes that peered into Bonny's. "I saw Harold," Emily said in a hoarse whisper.
Her poor cousin was delusional, Bonny thought. Then she remembered Henry, Harold's brother. Could Emily have mistaken him for his dead brother?
"I daresay it's far too hot in here for someone as delicate as my Emily," said Lady Landis, smiling at the duke. "Perhaps, your grace, you could assist my daughter out to the balcony for a bit of fresh air."
"I think we should take her home, Aunt."
Emily sat up straight, eyeing her mother. "No! I'm perfectly all right."
Radcliff helped her to stand. "Your mother's right," he said in a gentle voice. "You need a bit of fresh air."
Lady Landis watched angrily as Bonny accompanied her daughter and the duke to the balcony. Bonny stayed with Emily while Radcliff went to get the ladies ratafia.
"I don't understand it, Bonny," said Emily, shivering from the cool night air. "I kissed Harold's cold lips before they buried him, yet I swear I just saw him. Do you think my broken heart has turned me mad?"
"Not at all. I suspect you saw Harold's brother, Henry, who is just a year older than Harold." Bonny placed gentle hands on her cousin's slender arms and began to rub warmth into them.
"How do you know this?"
"Because I danced with him."
"Then Henry must look just like Harold," Emily said sadly. "As painful as it would be to look upon the brother's face, I have a strong desire to do so." A flood of tears erupted.
When the French doors to the balcony opened, the two cousins looked up, expecting to see the duke with their ratafia, but instead they saw Alfred and the empty-handed duke, their faces grim, and Lady Landis on their heels.
"It is my mother," Bonny said shakily, despair in her eyes.
"A letter addressed to you and marked Urgent arrived just after you left," Alfred said kindly. "I took the liberty of opening it."
Bonny closed her eyes. "When did she die?"
"She hasn't!" Alfred said. "At least not yet. Doctor says she's near the end and calling for you."
"Then I must go to her," Bonny said simply, striding toward the door.
"Allow me to assist," Radcliff said. "I can have my coach at Cavendish Square within the hour to take you home."
"How very kind, your grace," Lady Landis said. "Were it not for you, my poor niece would have to wait for the stage tomorrow."
Bonny did not like accepting the duke's offer, but she knew there was no time to waste, and it looked as if her aunt would not do without her own chaise and four for the several days' journey to the North Country.
"I will accompany them to expedite matters," Radcliff said, his commanding gaze meeting Lady Landis's. "I hope you will allow your daughter to accompany Miss Allan on this sad journey."
"But of course." The woman's sparkling eyes betrayed her somber countenance.
Chapter Three
Before an hour had passed, portmanteaus had been packed, Emily's abigail, Martha, had been roused from her sleep to accompany them on the journey, and the Duke of Radcliff appeared at their door, his crested coach awaiting them. Bonny and Emily had changed to traveling clothes and wore over them hooded capes. The duke personally assisted the ladies into the carriage while Lady Landis, still dressed in her turquoise sarcenet ball gown, stood shivering beside him.
"I hope my daughter will be a good traveler, your grace," Lady Landis said. "She has such a delicate constitution."
"Have no fears, ma'am, for I will personally see to every comfort for the young ladies."
"You are so very kind, your grace." Lady Landis fluttered her eyelashes. "Do you not desire to bring your servants with you?" She looked to see if there were any more coaches.
"I shall be able to make out without my man." If Evans is still my man when I return.
The obstinate valet had been unable to disguise his anger at being left behind. "It is hoped your grace sees no one of consequence in the hinterlands," Evans had said haughtily.
"As it happens," the duke had told Evans, "someone of the most important consequence will be with me, but it is my hope that I will not be judged by the tie of my cravat."
Just as Bonny was taking her seat inside the carriage, she remembered she had told the Earl of Dunsford she would be riding in Hyde Park in the morning. The poor fellow could wander around for hours looking for her. There was only one thing she could do. She would have to send a note to him. She leapt from the carriage and met the duke's quizzing gaze.
"Your grace, there is something of the utmost importance that I must do. I will be back in just a moment."
She ran straight to her aunt's writing desk, grabbed a piece of vellum, dipped the pen in Lady Landis's gilded inkwell and scribbled a note to the earl telling him she had suddenly been called out of town. She sealed it with candle wax and wrote his name on the front. She got Styles to wake up the page, for she wanted the note sent round that very night.
While she waited for the page to get dressed, she went back to the coach, letter in hand, and leaned into the carriage. "Em, do you know the direction of the Earl of Dunsford's London home?"
Emily gave her cousin a searching look.
"I must cancel my morning meeting with the earl," Bonny said to a still-puzzled Emily.
"Their–I mean, his–home is on Half Moon Street."
When Bonny turned around, not only was the page waiting for her, but the duke gazed at the letter in her hand, his brows creased and the corners of his mouth sloping downward more than norma
l.
She quickly looked away from him and leaned down to the lad. "This letter must be delivered to the Earl of Dunsford on Half Moon Street tonight." She reached into her reticule to find a coin, but before she could, the duke placed two shillings in the boy's hand.
A huge smile illuminated the boy's face. "Much obliged, your highness," he said, then skipped off.
Bonny turned laughing eyes on the duke. "Your highness?"
He shrugged, his face still grave, then took her hand and assisted her into the carriage.
She thought perhaps he held her hand a second longer than necessary, and she gloried in it. Feeling intoxicated, as she did every time she was with this enigmatic man, Bonny took her seat inside, sliding over to make room for him, happy that Martha had chosen to ride next to Emily.
Before Radcliff got in, he accepted a letter from Bonny's distracted uncle, who leaned into the carriage and said, "Please deliver this to my sister."
Bonny could not remember ever seeing her uncle look happy, but tonight must be one of the blackest nights of his unhappy life, she thought, knowing how close her uncle had been to her mother when they were young.
"I beg you will not judge our family by Miss Allan's simple home, your grace," Lady Landis said to Radcliff. "My husband's–the earl's–sister, Barbara's mother, could have married better, but there you are." Lady Landis had no message for her sister-in-law, no farewell for Bonny, but once again ran on about how very obliged she was to his grace.
"I am happy to be of some service," Radcliff said stiffly. Then he climbed into the carriage. As the coachman closed the door, Radcliff sat next to Bonny, rendering her a simpering, blathering idiot again. She never felt quite herself when she was in his presence. She could think of nothing clever to say and felt totally inadequate.
Though Bonny had not yet been presented, she had for the past few years been the object of men's adoration. There had been the assemblies at Milford, followed by the routs in London. She had met many a noted Corinthian of exalted peerage, but no one had ever affected her as Radcliff did. With the others, she could act perfectly natural, even flirty. But with the duke, she only acted shy.
While it would have been perfectly natural for him to speak to Emily, who sat directly across from him, the duke spoke instead to Bonny. "Since your home is so blasted far away, my plan is to travel as far as we possibly can each day. I propose to travel all night tonight, switch horses, then keep going until the sun goes down tomorrow night. I regret that riding for that many hours will be quite uncomfortable."
"I daresay I am used to the long ride, having made it only just recently, but I fear my cousin may not hold up as well as I do," Bonny said, thankful that words had sprung to her suddenly insipid mind.
Emily's voice came to life. "Nonsense. You've been listening too much to my mother. As long as we can stretch our legs once in a while, I'll do remarkably well." She stifled a yawn.
This was followed by a long yawn from Bonny.
The duke pulled out his watch and held it toward the window, where light from passing street lamps allowed him to read. "It's past two."
Bonny thought back to see how many hours it was since she had risen the previous morning. They had not gone to bed until four, then got up at nine-thirty to sneak off to Kepple Street. No wonder she was so tired.
Radcliff turned to Bonny. "When I called today, your aunt said you and your cousin had left quite early."
"Yes, your grace," Bonny said, "and I fear we won't be good company for we are so very tired."
"We have the next few weeks for good company. For now, we must try to sleep." He patted his shoulder. "May I offer you a shoulder for your pretty head, Miss Allan?"
How she wished she could see his face, to read his expression, but the carriage was much too dark. She was in a dilemma to know how to respond. Should she shrug off his invitation? Or would that offend him? She decided to say nothing and gently laid her head on his shoulder.
But going to sleep was quite another thing. Her mind kept reeling with thoughts of this quiet man beside her. His shoulder–indeed his whole body–seemed so much larger now in this small carriage. She very much liked the solid feel of his man's body and the masculine smell of his Hungary water. She knew she had been correct about him earlier in the evening when she had been able to look into his warm green eyes and detect a softness that lay beyond the stern cut of his jaw. He was solid in body and in mind. A great support. And much more than that, but she could not allow herself to harbor such hopes.
It did not take long to get through London because few carriages and horse carts impeded their progress at this hour. Their only interruption was for the tollgates, which seemed to be all too frequent. Never had Bonny ridden in so fine a carriage, the ride as smooth as sitting in the drawing room. She could have served tea without spilling a drop.
Radcliff told himself he could not sleep because he was protector to these young maidens. But had they been in the comfort of his ancestral home, sleep still would have eluded him. Nothing in his heretofore predictable existence had been the same since he had set eyes on the ravishing Bonny Barbara Allan. He–Richard Moncrief, the fifth Duke of Radcliff–had for the past dozen or more years been content with the carefree life of a bachelor. The sporting. The bedding of beauties. Running with other like-minded blades who happily performed any number of foolish deeds at his behest.
Now, though, his hedonistic life seemed strangely empty. Memories of his parents and their devotion to each other and to him flooded his thoughts these past two days and left him bereft. Until Barbara, no other woman had ever evoked these emotions. What was there about her that made him forget her extraordinary beauty and long to hear the gentleness in her voice when she spoke of her mother or see the love in her eyes as she fretted over her frail cousin?
Never would he have believed he would willingly give up his comforts to undertake a weeks-long round-trip journey along rugged roads just to be near a girl fresh from the schoolroom. He had always loathed traveling, whether it be stifled in a crowded carriage or riding outside in the foul weather until his very bones throbbed in pain. Yet here he was in a traveling coach as content as a kitten basking in the sun.
He gathered Barbara against him, a gentle smile settling on his face. That he had determined the first night he met her that Bonny Barbara would be his bride seemed not at all foolish. His attraction to her lay not only in her beauty but also in her refreshing honesty, her humility, her exposure to the classics.
She possessed all he could ever want in a bride. And he wanted her more than he'd ever wanted anything in his privileged life.
This time, he feared, his good fortune would fail him.
Once they were out of London, the coach proceeded at a monotonous pace, which, along with the steady clopping of horse hooves, lulled Bonny to sleep.
The carriage was still quite dark when she woke to find the duke's arm hooked around her, pulling her rather into his barreled chest. And to her utter embarrassment, her right hand reposed on his muscled thigh. She listened to the steady thumping of his heart beneath her ear, and she could never remember knowing such utter contentment. She pretended to sleep still, enjoying the feel of being so close to him, but she slowly put her hand back in her own lap.
As daylight began to filter into the carriage, she sat up quite straight, not wanting Emily and Martha to see her in so familiar a position with the duke.
The duke politely removed his arm from around her and sat erect, also. She turned toward him. He looked very tired. "I'm very much afraid my own comfort has been at your expense," she whispered.
The corners of his stern mouth lifted ever so slightly to reveal a dimple in his tanned cheek. "Actually, Miss Allan, I don't know when I've ever been more comfortable."
As the days of the journey stretched onward, they fell into a regular pattern. The duke rode a horse most of the day, leaving the women to the coach. Each evening they would stop at an inn, where he arranged for them to eat in
a private dining parlor and where he would procure rooms for each of them.
The last night of their journey, they stopped at the Blue Cock Inn, where Radcliff informed the cousins there were not enough available rooms. Emily and Bonny would have to share.
While their things were being taken to the room, the duke escorted the ladies into the private dining parlor, where he had ordered ale and kidney pie. Though it had turned beastly cold outside, a fire nicely warmed the darkened room. The duke sat on one side of the table, which was but a short distance from the hearth; Emily and Bonny sat on the other side. Bonny welcomed the musty scent of a rich peat fire, the first she had smelled since she left Milford.
"I feel such a burden, your grace," Bonny said.
"You've had nothing to do but ride and ride day after day. How deadly dull it must be for you."
"It hasn't been dull. I've never been north before, and I'm enjoying new scenery. There's a gentle beauty about this country with these long stretches of lonely moors."
Gentle beauty. That was exactly how she felt about the moors. Most Londoners cursed them, but Bonny had always loved to wander by herself along the moors. Nothing gave her so great a feeling of inner peace as walking through the mist here in Northumbria, where the land gently sloped into shrouded skies. "I find it so myself, your grace," Bonny said with a funny little catch in her voice. For once, she did not avert her eyes from his but looked at him full force, drawn by his penetrating gaze, which made her feel he knew her every thought.
She wondered how long they would have looked into each other's eyes had not the innkeeper's wife chosen that moment to deliver their ale. The kindly woman, not used to having so grand a personage as a duke, could not do enough for them.
