Wild Passions of a Mischievous Duchess

by Violet Hamers

  I must do better. I will do better.

  “I’m sure I can manage. They will just have to make do without me.” He smiled as he said it, attempting to put his anxieties aside and focus on the excitement of becoming a godfather.

  Gerard came up with an excuse to leave the room, inventing some letters that he needed to write. In the hallway, headed back to his rooms, he remembered that he had already all but said goodbye to the others. Embarrassment quickened his steps as he returned to the relative peace and privacy of his own chamber.

  He sank into a chair near a window that overlooked the drive. From his room he could watch the comings and goings of Stonehill.

  There was a part of him that was relieved that he had been talked out of his flight from London. He thought of Miss Peaton. Her alarming eyes and quiet honesty.

  Suddenly, an image formed, unbidden, in his mind. The thought of Miss Peaton's weight if he pulled her onto his knee crystalized in his imagination. She would not giggle, that one. No, her gaze would search his resolutely, even as her cheeks flushed. She might smile gently. Chagrined.

  He imagined pulling the pins from her hair. He wondered how far those locks fell down her back when they were unbound. The sensory details of the fantasy knocked him off balance. He could imagine her scent, the touch her fingers on his neck.

  As soon as the thought formed, he tried to cast it aside. It was intrusive, clutching its hooks into him. His heart thudded even as he forbade it to do so.

  Don't be ridiculous.

  He scolded himself as a rush of tingling heat went to his groin. He pushed his hands through his hair.

  This is an effect of being alone in the country for too long. That is all.

  Like being dazzled by even a semi-sunny day after being shut up in a black room, he convinced himself that he was merely over-sensitized to the presence of a woman. There was nothing altogether unique about Miss Peaton. She just happened to be there.

  He would likely have the same reaction to Lady Margaret. In fact, meeting Lady Margaret would be a much worse test of his strength of will. For she was no plain governess. She was a fashionable lady, whose hair would be glossy and bouncy, whose smile would be effusive, and whose clothing would be carefully wrought to highlight her figure.

  Withstanding the charms of Miss Peaton would be nothing but a warmup for the main event of enduring the attention of higher-class ladies.

  He shifted his weight in his seat, adjusting his trousers. Even as he thought of it, he knew he was lying to himself. There was something uniquely fascinating about Miss Peaton. He distracted himself from his burgeoning arousal by trying to lay a finger on what it was, exactly.

  Is she beautiful?

  He hadn't thought so at first. The planes of her face had seemed too angular on first glance. Too severe for so young a face. But as he had looked at her more, he had found those same supposed defects changing into advantages. Her face was not severe at all, but entrancingly serious. Somber and mysterious.

  Is she charming?

  He didn't imagine that the word was often used in connection with her. She was as shy and deferential as any household servant. She was not witty in the fashion of society ladies. She told no jokes. She did not flirt. But her straightforwardness was charming in its own way.

  She seemed like a woman who would answer anything honestly, and the way to unlock her mystery was merely to stumble upon the right questions.

  He stood up suddenly, pacing across the room. Sitting there mooning over her was a waste of time and energy. He needed to find some other use of his time. Clearly, sitting alone with his thoughts was not the way forward in this situation.

  Entering the hallway again, he nearly toppled over as he bumped into Jonathan, who had been just about to knock on his door.

  “Gerard, what was that?” the Duke of Stonehill asked.

  “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.” Gerard straightened his waistcoat defensively.

  “Come and walk with me outside.”

  Gerard raised his brows, feeling like he was being summoned to the headmaster’s office. He followed the other Duke out into the damp air. Clouds were growing heavy in the sky, but the rain, when it chose to fall, came down in a fine mist. Gerard inhaled the thick air, trying to calm his nerves, which felt increasingly like a futile endeavor in this manor.

  “There’s no business in the country, is there?” Jonathan asked.

  “Of course there is,” Gerard said, not quite lying. There was business, it just didn't actually require him to be there physically.

  “You’re angry. You have been since the name of Lady Margaret came up.”

  Gerard considered how honest he could be with his brother-in-law. It might benefit him to have a friend, someone who understood his fears.

  “I’m not ready to meet other ladies yet,” he said simply.

  “It’s been seven years. If it’s too soon now, it will be too soon forever.” Jonathan’s voice was as plain and resolute as his own, and Gerard could hear the truth in his words.

  Gerard reached out on the path to pluck a tiny flower from a low hanging tree branch. He crushed it between his fingers mindlessly and dropped it to the ground.

  “Do you believe in an afterlife, Jonathan?”

  Jonathan exhaled slowly. “I’m a Christian, if that’s what you mean.”

  “I never felt like she was truly gone. I can still sense her around me. Not always, not anymore. But occasionally.” There was no need to say her name aloud, and he hoped that Jonathan would not either. Her name was too jarring, too solid. To put a name to the ghostly presence in his mind felt wrong, somehow.

  “Your fiancée is with God in Heaven. You think that she is spending her time in Paradise feeling betrayed by you for continuing to live your life? You think that, on the day of your death, she will greet you at the gates of Heaven and be pleased that you spent your entire life miserable because of her?” Jonathan’s answer sounded ready-made, as if he had been thinking about it long before this walk in the garden.

  “I can’t forget her. Is it fair to marry another woman, knowing that I am still in love with my first fiancée?”

  Jonathan shrugged. “Your sister was not my first love. Forgive me for admitting it, but it’s not unusual. Even Bridget has told me stories of young love, where she had been infatuated with young gentlemen before she ever met me. Any lady who would demand her husband to have never felt love for another person in his life before her would be too foolish and silly for you anyway.”

  Gerard let the answer hang between them, listening to the crunch of their boots along the gravel path.

  “And you think this Lady Margaret would agree?” he asked finally, when the silence had grown too long.

  Jonathan shrugged. “I can't say. Perhaps Lady Margaret is not a match for you. Perhaps she will annoy you. Perhaps she won’t like how you’ve changed. But she is not the only lady in the town who thinks of you. I only mean to present you with the opportunity.”

  Gerard's opinion was unmoved. After Christine, any other woman felt life leftovers. It would be better to live and die alone than to settle for someone who’s differences from his beloved would only ever remind him of what he had lost.

  Happily, there was no need to answer his brother-in-law, because shortly thereafter, the rain which had been threatening began in earnest and they hurried back to the manor.

  Chapter Ten

  Days passed and the Duke didn’t leave.

  The following day after his strange goodbye in the playroom, he appeared once again during her lessons with Lord Limingrose. He had stood hesitantly in the doorway, watching them silently for a few minutes before coming in. She’d noticed the Duke there right away, of course. His presence gave off an energy that she could sense even before seeing him or hearing him. The atmosphere seemed to vibrate around him. There was an air of restraint around him, an air of vigor that was barely restrained by his fine clothing and practiced manners.

  If he h
ad not been born a Duke, she could see him as a farmer, his sleeves pushed up over his strong forearms as he worked the land. Perhaps if he had some such outlet for all of his energy, he would not have that withdrawn, anxious look to his eyes.

  When he came into the study, Elizabeth stood and curtseyed to him. She longed to ask him about his goodbye the other day, and what had happened to convince him to stay in Stonehill longer after all. But it was not her place to ask such things. She hoped, silently, that Lord Limingrose would have the same questions.

  Her hope was not disappointed when, after greeting the child warmly, Lord Limingrose said, “I thought you were leaving?”

  “So did I, Thomas. Happily, things changed, and it looks like I will be here for two months, after all. Are you disappointed?” the Duke teased, winking at the boy.

  “Hooray!” Lord Limingrose cried, jumping onto his chair. Elizabeth reached out to pull him down off of the furniture, but she was beaten to it by the Duke, who caught the child around the middle.

  As Lord Limingrose regaled the Duke with his many, varied plans about how he wanted to spend those two months, Elizabeth sank back into her chair. It was difficult for her to account for the relief that had flooded her at the Duke’s words.

  What difference does it make to me if my employers are hosting him for two days or two months?

  She put it down to the fact that her student had been in such good spirits since making nice with his uncle. That the Duke took such interest in Lord Limingrose’s education was unusual, perhaps, but it was pleasant to have him there. He encouraged the boy and, in his eagerness to impress his uncle, Lord Limingrose’s performance had improved noticeably.

  “Well, we can’t do that today,” the Duke was saying, as Elizabeth’s attention was brought back to the present. “Today I must sit with your mother and father as we entertain Lord Brooks and Lady Margaret. Do you know them?”

  Lord Limingrose frowned. “Sort of. They don’t like children around, so I have to eat in my room when they come.”

  “Oh, I see,” the Duke said, turning his gaze on her. Elizabeth felt a shock run down her spine when his eyes locked with hers. A foolish, childish reaction to the handsome gentleman’s attention, but she couldn’t help it. “You have good company, at least.”

  He didn’t say so outright, but Elizabeth got the impression by his tone of voice and expression that he was not looking forward to dining with Lord Brooks and Lady Margaret.

  When he left, Elizabeth let go of a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. The gentleman was magnetic. She felt like a foolish girl for being so affected by him, but the truth of it could not be denied, no matter how hard she tried. She put him out of her mind as well as she could, throwing herself into her lessons with Lord Limingrose.

  * * *

  That night, Elizabeth tossed in her bed. Her mind was a tumult of Latin verb conjugations and the Duke of Hadminster’s eyelashes. She could not seem to get comfortable. Her thoughts would not quiet down. She itched to get up and walk, but felt that admitting defeat against wakefulness would only make her more tired when morning came.

  Finally, when the moon in her window passed over the trees, she could deny it no longer.

  There will be no sleep for me tonight.

  She kicked off her blankets with an irritated huff. Insomnia was nothing new for her, it was something she’d struggled with off and on since adolescence. But that didn’t make it any less bothersome. Frustration crawled under her skin as she pulled a dressing gown over her nightgown and slid her feet into slippers. Fumbling in the dark, she lit the lone candle that sat on her writing table.

  A walk through the manor to the library to fetch a book to read might settle down her restless legs. She had no particular book in mind. Mostly the library was just an excuse for her to pace back and forth across the length of the manor.

  Stonehill, resplendent with luxury and beauty in the daytime, always managed to give her a creeping sense of fear at night. Despite all the people who lived here, the place was so large that at night it was deathly silent and still. She might have been the only person in the world for how lonesome the stately old place felt after midnight.

  She crept along the corridor, her candle creating a puddle of light that enclosed her but did little to illuminate the way. She could feel the coldness of the marble floor seeping through her slippers, and a trickle of fear made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. The darkness pressed around her and she hurried, her footfalls padded and quiet, to the sanctuary of the library.

  The library was cold and dark as a tomb when she finally reached it. She tried to calm herself as she approached the bookshelves. A woman of her age and experience should no longer be afraid of the dark. She distracted herself by reading over the spines of the books. She looked for something light and easy to read.

  Something that will soothe me enough to fall asleep…

  Her eyes alighted on the title of a novel that clearly had belonged to the Duchess. It was a romance which had, at the time of its publication, created a small stir in London for its racy love scene. The Duchess had been flagrant in reading it, seeming to dare anyone to shame her for her choice.

  And there it was, sitting proudly on display for anyone to pick up and peruse.

  Elizabeth slid it out of its place on the shelf and opened to the first page. Well, if she wanted light and easy reading, something to both soothe and distract, a romance had to be the best choice. She could have it back in its spot before anyone noticed it was missing.

  The sound of the library door creaking behind her almost made her drop the book to the ground. She gasped, fear coursing through her as her head spun around.

  There, standing in the doorway, was the figure of a man. A primordial fear gripped her until her eyes adjusted and she realized that she knew that imposing figure. She knew it well, in fact, despite their short acquaintance.

  “Your Grace,” she breathed, forgetting to curtsey. Instead she stood there, still as a statue, her heart still pounding from the surprise.

  “Miss Peaton,” he said. His voice was low, almost a whisper. Her heart skipped a beat at the sound of it. He looked nearly as shocked to see her as she was to see him. His hand was still on the door handle and he had stopped mid-stride.

  He was still wearing what she had seen him wearing that morning, only now he was in his shirtsleeves, and his cravat was gone. The neckline of his shirt hung open, revealing the hollow of his throat and the top of his collarbone.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, taking a step forward to bring him into the room fully. He sounded more confused than scolding, but still she shrank away slightly. She hesitated, the words getting caught in her throat.

  He stepped closer to her, his dark eyes regarding her curiously. His pupils were wide in the darkened room, making his gaze appear even more intense than usual.

  “Working on lessons for Lord Limingrose?” he asked, his voice dipping even quieter now that the light from his candle merged with the light from hers. He bent down slightly to read the spine of the book she was holding. Remembering what it was, she clutched it to her chest, but it was too late.

  He chuckled, a sleepy grin spreading over his lips. “Oh.”

  Elizabeth felt her cheeks grow hot as a flush of embarrassment rushed over her. She had been so focused on the shape of his neck and his relative state of undress that she had forgotten that she, as well, was in her nightclothes. The thin fabric of her nightgown and the dressing gown that hung limply on her shoulders, felt suddenly extremely inadequate. “I…I couldn’t sleep.”

  “What is it that’s keeping you awake, Miss Peaton?” It was only the darkness of the room and the lateness of the hour that compelled him to speak in such a deep, low tone, she told herself. Nothing more. His gaze was so intent on her because it was so dark that he struggled to see her clearly. The heat between them was in her imagination.

  “Nothing, Your Grace. I often struggle to sleep,” she whispered, end
eavoring to keep her voice cool and unruffled.

  His gaze dropped from her eyes and he seemed to linger on her exposed collarbone and the long loose braid pulled over her shoulder.

  “We share that in common,” he said. “I had hoped, as you had, to find a book to keep me company until either the sun came up or my body surrendered to exhaustion.”

  “I won’t keep you, Your Grace,” she stammered, lowering her eyes and dropping to a curtsey before sidling past him.

  “Wait,” he said, suddenly reaching out and catching her by the wrist. The touch of his hand startled her and she stared down at where his fingers wrapped so easily around her wrist’s circumference. He stared down for a moment, too, as if surprised by his own action.

  “I think I will keep you, Miss Peaton,” he said, his eyes traveling back up to meet hers. “Won’t you please stay with me for bit? I won’t trouble you for long.”