She wanted him. She dreamed of him. She had been willing last night. Tonight, she’d made no effort to resist his kiss. She had responded to it. He sat on the bed. It was not much to go on with. But it was more than he’d had this morning. The seemingly impenetrable defence she’d raised against him was much weaker than it looked.
As he glanced towards the window, a flash of lightning split the sky, making the drops of rain on the window glitter in the darkness. Suddenly, the boredom of a country house in foul weather seemed less like a punishment and more like an opportunity. If the rain held for a just few more days, the future might be much brighter than he’d been expecting.
Chapter Seven
‘And then she showed me her jewel case. Her rubies are magnificent! Since I did not bother to bring mine, she thought I might borrow them to wear with my gold gown tonight.’
Abby sighed and closed the book in her lap, unable to concentrate over the torrent of words rushing from her mother. ‘I am glad you find Lady Beverly to be such wonderful company. Did she happen to mention if any of her jewels were a gift from Danforth?’
Her mother gave a gasp of disapproval and looked around the morning room to see if anyone had overheard her comment. Fortunately, it was too early for most of the guests to be about and they were able to talk in private. ‘We did not discuss anything of the kind.’ Her mother was whispering, even though they were alone. ‘If you have any feelings for me at all, you will not say such a thing again.’
For a change, her mother was probably right. For as long as Abby could remember, the ladies of the ton had mocked her mother for her birth and gauche sense of fashion. But it appeared that the Marchioness was treating her mother warmly, without scorn and with no ulterior motive. They had few enough friends. It was a mistake to refuse a kindness, even when it came from someone she did not wish to like.
‘I am sorry,’ she admitted. ‘It was a petty, horrible thing to say and I will not repeat it.’ But she could not seem to stop thinking it.
‘Since you are no longer engaged to the Duke, you must learn to make peace with his habits,’ her mother reminded her. ‘It is no business of yours who he keeps company with.’
That was perfectly true, as well. It should not matter to her who the man bedded. Or kissed, for that matter. Except that he had kissed her and she had lain awake half the night thinking of it. What would have happened if he had not noticed the ring? Would he have kept kissing her? How would it have ended? The scenarios she’d imagined had left her whole body tingling and eager to see him again.
And then, when she had left her room to come down for breakfast, she had seen Lady Beverly hurrying down the hall towards the top of the stairs. But she had been wearing the same gown she had worn on the previous evening. The lady had noticed her as well and had the audacity to wink and hold a finger to her lips to indicate silence. Abby turned her head away, not wanting to see where the lady had come from, or where it was she was going to. But it was clear that she had not spent the night in her own bed.
If Lady Beverly had been with Danforth, it was proof that it had taken him no time at all to forget the kiss he had shared with Abby. She ought to take a page from his book and forget it as well. She simply wished he was not so shamefully obvious about the fact that it had meant nothing to him.
‘Abigail!’
She started and looked at her mother, who was staring at her impatiently. ‘You are wool-gathering again. I asked you if you have any of the crimson silk in your sewing basket.’ She held up the embroidery she had been working on. ‘I need a bit of something to finish these flowers.’
‘It is in my room, Mama,’ she replied, getting up. ‘I will bring it.’
As she passed the open door of the breakfast room, she saw Lenore heaping eggs on to her plate and commenting to the Countess, ‘I am absolutely ravenous this morning.’
‘Due to your rapacious appetite, I am sure,’ said Mr Naismith from the other end of the table.
A normal person would have taken offence at such a remark, since the man’s tone implied that he was not speaking of normal hunger. But it appeared that the Duke’s mistress was impossible to insult. In response, she laughed out loud. It was all the more annoying that there was nothing ribald about the sound. Her laugh was as pretty as the rest of her.
Abby hurried on, up the stairs and to her room, trying not to think about the activities that might have caused the Marchioness to be so hungry. It was obviously something more than a single kiss. For her part, even the simple breakfast she’d taken had sat on the plate uneaten, as her mind replayed her visit to Danforth’s bedroom.
As she picked up the sewing basket, she vowed that, starting from this moment on, she would not let the man affect her so. She would deliver the silk to her mother, then go back to the breakfast room for another cup of tea. If Lenore was still present, she would converse with her as if she’d seen nothing unusual in her activities this morning. And if the Duke was there...
She rather hoped he wasn’t. But if he was, she’d give him the same polite uninterest he usually gave to her. Perhaps, today, the rain would end. They might be on their way again tomorrow and she would never see him again.
She was headed back towards the stairs when she heard a quiet sob from the hall to her left and an emphatic shushing in response.
Abby paused before the corner, hoping that, if she allowed them a moment, the person or persons in distress might return to their room before they were discovered.
Instead, the initial sob was followed by feminine weeping and a familiar male voice ordering her, ‘For pity’s sake, be quiet if you don’t want to attract the attention of the whole house.’
This was followed by a loud sniff and a shuddering, ‘Yes, Your Grace.’
Abby froze in her tracks, just a few feet shy of the corner.
On the night before her wedding, she had received a graphic description of what she could expect from the Duke once they were in the bedchamber. Her mother had assured her that, no matter what might occur, Danforth would be sensible of her inexperience and treat her with care. But her mother had been wrong. It seemed he was the sort of man to bother a woman in a common hallway.
Even when her opinion of him had been at its lowest, she had not imagined that. Even worse, the woman being accosted could not be Lady Beverly, who was already downstairs. Abby doubted that woman had ever shed a tear in her life. Even if she had, it would be the stuff of Minerva novels, a droplet of crystal and not the eye-reddening, dripping and sniffing variety that mere mortals wept.
It was not precisely a surprise to think that he would be false to his mistress and his fiancée at the same time. She had but to consider her own father to know that some men were inherently faithless and there was little to be done about it. Since she had just decided not to trouble herself over the behaviour of the Duke and his mistress, the sensible thing to do was to turn and walk quickly back to her room. She could wait there for a few minutes until the hall was empty. She shook her head in disgust and turned to go, until his next words stopped her.
‘Be a good girl and be quiet. If you let me finish without making another peep, I will give you half a crown and we will never speak of this again.’
He was bothering a maid. She was aware that men sometimes took advantage of women in their employ. But no true gentlemen would do such a thing. It was even worse that it should be a servant of a supposed friend and he would attempt something here where anyone might see, bribing his victim to silence while he took his pleasure.
The whole situation turned her empty stomach. She had been a fool to feel the least bit charitable towards him, sighing into her pillow about his kiss. He was a villain. There could be no more polite silence between them. Since it was clear that there was no one else to rescue this poor girl, she would do it herself and mince no words when telling Danforth what she thought of him.
She charg
ed around the corner to surprise the pair of them, with a, ‘Now see, here...’, only to stumble over the back of the Duke who was on all fours in the middle of the floor. She landed, half on him, half over him, palms on the rug and slippers kicking in the air.
‘And now I shall have to start over.’ He shot a glance over his shoulder and gave her a baleful look before tipping her off on to the floor. Then, he looked back to the rug and muttered, ‘Mind where you step when you get up. If you are not careful, you will crush some of them.’
‘Crush what?’ she said, scrambling to her feet, too curious to rebuke him.
‘Lady Sanderson’s pearls.’ Abby turned to look for the speaker and saw a maid in the doorway next to them, her cheeks red and her face still wet with tears. ‘My lady broke the string and I was going to see if Lady Elmstead’s maid might have some silk. But His Grace was walking down the hallway...’
‘Bumped right into her,’ he muttered without looking up. ‘Beads everywhere. We are still one short.’ He glanced up at Abby, clearly annoyed. ‘Or were, until a moment ago.’ Then he plucked a pearl out of the rug and stuffed it into the handkerchief bundled in his left hand.
‘Let me help.’ Abby dropped to her knees, taking care that nothing was trapped beneath her skirts as she did so. It took only a moment for her to find a handful of loose pearls and point out the final one stuck in a crack in the baseboard, a place too tiny for her fingers to reach.
Without asking permission, the Duke pulled a pin from her hair and stabbed at the last pearl until it rolled free, then opened the bundle, added it and poked gingerly at the pile, counting under his breath. Then he twisted the linen again and offered it to the maid. ‘Here you are. All thirty, safe and sound.’ She took the pearls and was about to run off when he held a finger in the air to indicate she wait. Then he fished in his pocket and pulled out the coin he had promised, tossing it to her. ‘In the future, watch where you are going.’
‘Yes, Your Grace.’
When the maid had departed, he rolled to sit with his back against the wall and gave Abby a searching look. ‘Thank you for your help, Miss Prescott.’
‘Sometimes, a fresh set of eyes are needed,’ she said with a shrug, getting to her feet and smoothing her skirt. ‘It was kind of you to come to the girl’s aid.’
‘It was my fault,’ he said, with a shrug. ‘If I had not been distracted with my own thoughts, I would have been able to avoid running into her and would not have caused such a problem.’
He was looking at her as though she was somehow at fault as well. It made her...not precisely uncomfortable. But as she stared back into his very green eyes, it felt as if no time had passed since he’d put her out of his room on the previous evening. She wet her lips and tried to keep her mind on the conversation they were having. ‘A broken necklace is hardly a problem.’
‘Not to you, perhaps. But if the girl had found twenty-nine pearls instead of thirty, Lady Sanderson would have noticed. She broke the necklace by toying with the thing obsessively and likely knows the number of the beads better than the names of her own children.’
Abby nodded. She had been seated next to the woman at dinner and had been annoyed by the continual tick-ticking of the strand twisting and untwisting right next to her ear.
He continued. ‘She is also the sort who believes the worst in people, especially those in her employ. She will count them once they have been repaired, assuming that her maid would have taken the opportunity to pocket one.’
‘She’d have sacked the girl for the loss,’ Abby said, surprised not to have realised the fact herself.
‘When I bumped into her and she lost the loose beads, she burst into tears. It was clear that the poor thing was terrified. Unjustly so, for I have seen the care she takes with her employer’s toilette.’
Abby nodded. While all the ladies at the party were exceptionally well turned out, Lady Sanderson was never less than perfect, from dawn to midnight.
‘I did what I could to help,’ the Duke said absently.
‘Not everyone would have,’ she said, still slightly amazed. She had thought him distant because he did not speak and so exalted that he was unaware of the people around him. But it was clear that he watched constantly and was concerned for everyone, even those that she had assumed would be far beneath his notice.
‘I am not just anyone, Miss Prescott.’ To bely his words, the corner of his mouth twitched up into a self-deprecating smile.
‘Of course not, Your Grace,’ she replied, not totally sure if she was allowed to share in the joke.
‘So formal? I would think, after last night, you would be entitled to call me Benedict.’
‘Benedict,’ she repeated and felt her plan to remain cool to him slipping away like smoke.
‘Last night,’ he repeated, savouring the memory for a moment. Then his smile changed to something much more pensive. ‘I did not take the time to properly apologise for what happened.’
He was sorry.
She let out the breath she had been holding, not sure if she was relieved or disappointed. ‘That is not necessary. It was a simple misunderstanding.’
‘On the contrary. It was very forward of me to take a kiss without asking your leave,’ he said.
‘Do not think about it,’ she said, unable to tear her gaze away from his lips. She could remember the feel of them, remember the taste. Suddenly, she was hungry for more.
There was something shy in his manner, as if he had honestly believed she would have refused him if he asked again. But though she reminded herself that nothing had happened to change her opinion about their unsuitability, it would be much harder to say no if he offered another kiss.
He shifted until he was on his knees and held out his hand to her and she took it, ready to help him from the floor. But she did not feel the tug that indicated he was about to rise. Instead, he remained there, kneeling at her feet, his hand in hers. ‘I do not want to forget our kiss. In fact, I have been able to think of little else.’
His hand was warm in hers and, before she could stop herself, she gave it a squeeze of encouragement.
He made no attempt to respond. ‘Making assumptions about your desires has led me into no end of trouble, thus far. I thought it might be possible to undo the damage I did during our engagement. But I would hate to think that I have already spoiled my chances with precipitous action.’
They had far more to discuss than his tendency to act without speaking. But she would never be able to make him understand her difficulties if she did not give him a chance to know her better. Would that knowledge include more kissing? He had declared it unforgettable. She had not known how much she had wanted to hear the words until he had spoken them. But he had also apologised.
He was staring at her as if some sort of answer was required, but she was still not sure what she was supposed to say. If there was a chance to rewrite the history between them and come to an honest understanding, then she most certainly wanted to try.
She nodded.
But before she could do more, there was an excited gasp from the stairs behind them. Her mother was hurrying up the last few steps towards them, Mrs Eames and Mrs Crompton just a step behind. ‘Oh, my dear, I had no idea things were progressing so quickly.’
Abby felt the sharp tug on her arm that she had expected earlier, as the Duke pulled himself to his feet, turning to greet the ladies with a look of horror on his face.
In response, her mother waved her hands in refusal, and curtsied. ‘Please, do not let us interrupt, Your Grace.’ She giggled. ‘Or should I say, my son?’
Chapter Eight
‘Please, Mother, just stop talking.’
‘But what else could he have meant by such behaviour?’ her mother asked, loud enough to be heard by the guests in the sitting room. ‘Danforth was kneeling at your feet and holding your hand.’
Mrs Ea
mes and Mrs Crompton nodded in agreement. Heads appeared in doorways up and down the main hall, then disappeared again, once they had ascertained who was speaking.
‘It was not at all as it appeared,’ Abby replied, in a voice loud enough to carry through to the main floor.
‘Well, what was it, then?’ her mother asked.
There was a feeling of tension in the air, as if the whole house held its breath, awaiting her answer.
The logical thing to do would be to tell the truth. But since Danforth had gone out of his way to conceal it for the sake of the maid, she did not think he would want her to announce it to everyone within earshot. She had to think of something better.
But why should it be her responsibility at all? He could have helped explain away the mess he had helped to cause. Instead, it had taken him only an instant to regain his composure. Then he had smiled at the ladies staring at them, wished them a good morning and strolled to his room as if nothing had happened, abandoning her to make this explanation on her own.
Her mother’s interrogation was enough to set her teeth on edge. But the fact that there was an audience hiding in the rooms all around them was unbearable. She had to say something, anything at all, that would make it possible to escape. ‘He was inebriated,’ she blurted, offering a silent prayer for forgiveness of this enormous lie.
‘In the middle of the day?’ her mother said, surprised.
‘I suspect so,’ Abby allowed, hoping her doubt would give the Duke some chance to come up with a better story, later. ‘When I came back from getting the silk, I found him sitting on the floor in the hallway. I was trying to get him on his feet when you arrived.’
‘Men are sometimes more free with their words when they are in their cups,’ her mother replied. ‘Did he say anything to you?’
‘Nothing of importance,’ Abby said, casting a worried glance towards the sitting room.
‘Because he was looking at you most fondly, just now,’ her mother said. ‘And Miss Sommersby has told everyone that he was holding your hand last night in the card room.’
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