by Allegra Gray
Elizabeth sighed and closed the door to the nursery. She’d just turned the children over to their nurse for a midday meal and rest. The Grumsbys’ guests were gone on an afternoon outing. She could relax.
“I thought I’d never find you alone.”
Elizabeth gasped and turned. Her heart gave a little thud. There, on the stair landing, stood the man she’d just been trying to forget.
“Your Grace.”
“You can be quite evasive, Miss Medford.”
He sounded amused.
Elizabeth kept her gaze about six inches below his chin, unwilling to see the mocking expression she knew he wore. “I don’t know what you mean, Your Grace. My position here keeps me quite busy.”
“You haven’t been avoiding me?”
To answer she’d have to lie or reveal too much, so Elizabeth kept silent. She dared a quick glance upward. The look in his eyes told her he knew.
“Whatever happened to your promise?”
She lifted her chin. “I don’t believe I actually made that promise.”
“You disappoint me, Elizabeth.”
She disappointed herself as well, for the secret joy she took in his presence. Decorum, she thought once more, but the mental reminder was drowned out by the pounding of her heart, which had doubled in pace when he stepped near.
“Well,” he said with a slow smile, “it appears you have a temporary reprieve from your many duties. Perhaps you will humor me with a stroll in the garden?”
“I’ve just recently come in from the garden,” she replied, trying to keep from sounding peevish.
“I see. Well, perhaps you’d allow me to show you the library?”
“What are you doing here?” she asked instead.
“I might ask the same of you.”
The deep timbre of his voice sent a shiver down her spine. “You haven’t—” She swallowed and tried again. “You haven’t told anyone what I did?”
“No. Though I do believe I am owed some answers. I am—how shall I say?—concerned, with what I learned last night. To the library, then?”
She was caught. After all, she’d promised, sort of, not to avoid him. He knew her secrets. She needed to keep his good favor. In all the years she’d hoped Alex Bainbridge would seek her out, she’d never imagined it quite this way. The bright side, she told herself, was that she had been meaning to look at the library.
“I would be most pleased,” she acquiesced, trying not to think about what exact answers the lofty duke thought himself entitled to.
He gave her a satisfied grin and offered his arm, as though she were still Miss Medford, the baron’s daughter, and not Miss Medford, governess to the nobility.
Feeling it would be churlish not to accept the gesture, Elizabeth placed her hand in the crook of his arm and allowed him to escort her downstairs and to the library. She already knew its location, of course, and was quite capable of conveying herself there, but for just a moment she chose to forget the past several months, to forget the vaguely threatening note in the duke’s voice or the fact that he’d once rejected her utterly, and allow this fantasy to play itself out.
It was the middle of the day and there were servants about. Surely no harm could come of this.
“Ah, here we are,” Alex said as he led her into a large, well-appointed library. Bookshelves, each filled to capacity, lined three walls. On the fourth, large mullioned windows overlooked the lawns of the estate. The chairs and chaises scattered about the room were designed for comfort. It was the perfect place to lose oneself in a book, or even just in thought.
“’Tis a lovely room, Your Grace,” Elizabeth said. “Thank you for showing it to me.”
He shot her a knowing look. “You wouldn’t be anxious to be rid of me, would you, Miss Medford?”
“Of course not.” It was a lie, and he knew it as well as she. She pressed her lips together and took a deep breath. “You said you wanted answers. Well, here is your answer, Your Grace. That moment in the park was folly. A rash and unwise move on my part. I have never done anything else like it, nor do I intend to.
“As for the man who fancies himself my fiancé, I have never agreed to marry him—or anyone else, for that matter. I need this position, and I will work hard to keep it. Again, I thank you for showing me the library.”
He threw her a grin and swept a gallant arm toward the many shelves. “You’re welcome. But I’ve hardly begun. Here, now, what shall we examine first?”
She sighed. There would be no getting rid of him. Worse, there was a wicked part of her soul that rejoiced with each moment he stayed.
He bypassed a wall full of scientific texts, then stopped suddenly before a shelf of Byron. “Ah! I know. You have a fondness for poetry, if I recall.”
Elizabeth was no budding poet, but she had attended a poetry recital held by the duke’s spinster cousin a couple months ago. The whole event had been awful, from the lackluster refreshments to the crowlike voice in which the duke’s cousin delivered what, presumably, were poems.
No doubt Alex remembered because, in Elizabeth’s haste to leave when the wretched event was over, she had tripped over a sagging flounce at the hem of her gown and stumbled into him. And while she’d seen any number of ladies swoon gracefully into the duke’s arms, she had landed there out of pure clumsiness.
She gazed up at him now and caught the telltale twinkle in the duke’s eyes. She grinned helplessly. “I do love a good poem.”
“Well, I cannot claim to share my cousin’s…ahem,…skill in recitation, but I can show you my sister’s fine collection of poets.”
“No performance?” Elizabeth feigned disappointment as Alex directed her to the shelf packed with leather-bound volumes. “Likely it’s for the best. If I recall, I was so carried away by the last one I attended, I lost my bearings and nearly ran you over.” She kept her tone light as she turned to look at the poetry books.
“Of course, I quite forgot. Perhaps I should steady you, then, as you peruse these tomes, in order to prevent a reoccurrence.”
Elizabeth sucked in her breath as his hands settled gently on either side of her waist. The temptation to lean back into him, absorb his scent and strength, was nearly overwhelming. She bit her lip, hard, in hopes the pain would distract her.
“I shouldn’t allow this,” she whispered.
“If I recall,” he countered, “you were willing to offer much more.”
“That was before.” But she closed her eyes as his thumbs gently stroked her sides. “I just told you—”
“Shh. You are an unusual woman, Elizabeth,” he murmured, his head bent so she could feel the warmth of his breath behind her ear. “I confess you have quite captured my interest.”
They were slipping into dangerous territory. Elizabeth knew it and tried to change course. She reached out to finger a volume of poetry, though by which poet, she had no idea. “You toy with me, Your Grace.”
“Nay, never that.”
“I know well you find me less than tempting.” Elizabeth spoke with more conviction than she felt.
“You’re wrong. I think you a temptress of the most dangerous sort.”
His breath tickled her ear, awakening a longing for him to touch that same spot with his lips. She tried to focus instead on how crushed she’d felt when he’d rejected her that morning in the park.
She turned to face him. “Forgive my skepticism, Your Grace. It’s only that I find it hard to believe that when I was a respectable member of the ton, when I offered myself to you with no strings attached, you found me lacking. And now here I stand, a mere governess, and your interest is piqued?”
He shrugged. “I don’t like Society women.”
The blunt tone made Elizabeth study him closely. “You toy with me, Your Grace,” she repeated.
“I assure you, I do not. Society women are cold and calculating. They measure and analyze everything, down to the slightest comment or the color of a person’s gloves, in their quest to rise to the top.”
/>
Elizabeth tilted her head sideways. He had a point. Her own mother was one such woman.
“You, on the other hand, fascinate me, for you were willing to give all that up. And then, I’ve seen you with the children. You are so much more natural with them, and I’ve seen you show them real affection, even though they are not yours. Which Elizabeth is real? The brazen miss that concocted that outrageous, though sorely tempting, idea for her own ruination? Or”—he lightly touched her cheek—“the one who stands before me, a caregiver who puts others’ needs before her own?”
He drew her inexorably toward a nearby settee, until Elizabeth had no choice but to sit. He sat beside her and laid his hand lightly over hers.
Any reply Elizabeth had been forming fled her mind.
“See? You know I am right. Look, here we are, away from Society, having an actual conversation. How many conversations have you had at a ball that didn’t revolve around what someone was wearing, who danced with whom, and how to interpret that as currency in the marriage mart?”
Elizabeth laughed. That was exactly what most conversations at a ball were like.
“You have a lovely smile. Although,” he mused, fingering the plain gray fabric of her gown, then lightly touching the hair she’d scraped into a tight bun, “I did prefer your appearance as a young lady of the ton.”
Elizabeth did not have time to be offended at the implied insult, for he continued in that thoughtful tone. “Odd, isn’t it, how in Society women strive to appear soft and inviting, when underneath they are hard and brittle? Yet you, as a warm-hearted governess, are expected to appear utterly proper, even drab.”
“I’m sure that is appropriate for a governess,” she replied primly, though his lingering touch on her hair sent little flutters throughout her body.
This was wrong. But she was powerless to stop him.
“Perhaps.” His hand covered hers again. “But it makes me wonder…what would happen if I pulled those pins from your hair? Would I have a woman before me who was soft and warm both inside and out?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” she whispered, as his hand came up to test his theory.
Common sense dictated she retreat, quickly, to the safety of her quarters. But the future spanned endlessly before her, devoid of passion. Was it so wrong to claim just one moment’s pleasure for herself?
She made no move to stop him as he slowly pulled one pin, then another and another from her hair. Piece by piece it fell, until the whole mass of it lay tumbled about her shoulders.
“Yes, here is the beauty I recall. Like a waterfall, set magically aflame.”
His tone turned husky and sent a shiver of anticipation up Elizabeth’s spine.
“Cold?”
He stroked her arm gently, and the heat of his hand warmed her to the very blood.
She gave him a sideways smile. “I believe you may have a bit of poet’s blood in you after all, Your Grace, for that was surely the most fanciful compliment I’ve ever been paid.”
Her smile vanished, all teasing forgotten, as he bent his head to hers. His lips met hers briefly before he pulled back. The dark, smoldering gaze she met when she raised her eyes took her breath away, just before he hauled her against him and crushed his lips to hers.
His mouth moved against hers with barely restrained passion, molding, tasting, testing. Elizabeth was drowning in sensation. He held her fast, one hand buried in the hair at the nape of her neck as he tipped her back to deepen the kiss.
His tongue gently parted her lips, then probed, dipping in to taste, to stroke, until a sharp need began to pulse low in her belly. She reached out, her hands gripping his firm shoulders, seeking an anchor in the storm of sensation. Somehow she was no longer sitting, but lying against the settee, with the delicious thrill of Alex’s weight above her. She returned his kiss as best she knew how.
When his hand moved to stroke her, moving up her bodice until it cupped her breast, she moaned low in her throat. Alex continued the pleasurable torment, teasing her through the fabric until her nipple hardened into a tight bud.
Only when he dipped into her bodice, and she felt the shock of his caress on her bare flesh, did Elizabeth remember any sense of propriety.
She jerked back, twisting from him until she landed in an unceremonious heap on the floor beside the settee. She stared at him, trying to catch her breath. The awkwardness of her position hastened the return of her senses. Luckily she was too mortified by her lack of propriety to be embarrassed by her lack of grace.
What had she just done?
Alex stared back, his eyes full of dark heat. Slowly he straightened and stood, formally offering a hand to assist her.
Mechanically, she took it and allowed him to haul her to her feet. She straightened her clothing, then began searching for her hairpins, all the while not saying a word to the man she’d just passionately kissed.
Even as she berated herself for her behavior, she already missed his touch on her skin. What must he think of her? Oh, Lord, she was a fool. Much as she might wish for the freedom the duke enjoyed, she did not have it. Dallying with the Duke of Beaufort would surely get her fired from her governess’s position. She snatched up her scattered pins and hastily jammed them into her hair.
Alex, who’d remained silent until now, gently stilled her hands. “Here, now. There’s no need to stab yourself. It can’t have been that bad a kiss.”
Alex may have been used to such casual dalliance, but Elizabeth was not, and she did not know how to respond to the light teasing in his tone. How could he be so nonchalant? Had the kiss not affected him as it did her? Perhaps not. After all, he was far more experienced. To her horror, tears welled in her eyes.
She turned away to hide them, but not before the duke noticed. He cupped her chin to turn her head back, then stroked her cheekbone with his thumb. Elizabeth closed her eyes and held very still, wanting more than anything to go to him, to let him fold her in his strong arms and comfort her. It made no sense, for he was the cause of her discomfort, but her emotions were too jumbled to care.
Finally she managed to whisper, “I should go.”
To her combined relief and disappointment, he stepped back. “As you wish. There’s more to you than I would have guessed. I find you very intriguing, Miss Medford.”
Elizabeth, desperate to recover some normalcy, reverted to their formal roles and dropped him a curtsy.
He regarded her with amusement, evident in the slight quirk of his full lips and the crinkles at the corner of his eyes. He bowed.
“You may leave now, Elizabeth. But do not think for a moment I will not seek you out again.”
Chapter Five
Harold Wetherby stared at the letter on his desk and seethed.
“Bloody Medford,” he growled.
“Bad news?” Jim Cutter sprawled in a chair across the room, idly examining a newspaper.
It was rude to examine one’s correspondence with a guest present, but he and Cutter shared the same opinion of societal manners. Besides, Cutter was a friend—or at least the closest thing he had, which was to say they shared similar ambitions and tolerated one another’s presence. Both rented town houses in the not-quite-fashionable district, and both wanted—felt they deserved—better.
“I loaned Lord Medford a goodly sum, a few years back,” Harold answered. “Could scarcely afford it at the time, but I needed the man’s support, his connections.” He shrugged.
“Never paid you back?” Cutter guessed.
“No. Died last fall, suddenlike. Carriage accident in a storm.”
Cutter nodded sympathetically.
Harold glared at the letter again—a polite note from the solicitor handling the Medford estate. The money was gone. And, apparently, he had no chance of recovering his losses.
He slammed his fist on the desk.
“Damn it.” It didn’t matter that he could afford the loss now. The baron had used him. And while Harold himself wasn’t above using people, he didn’t like
having the tables turned.
Cutter wisely absorbed himself in the newspaper.
Harold ground his teeth. He had ambitions. As a child he’d hated being the “poor relation,” hated the way people dismissed him, or thought to invite him and his mother to an event only when someone “extra” was needed to even the numbers. As a youth he’d used his girth, and his fists, to gain respect, or at least fear, from the other boys. But he’d soon figured out he wanted more.
“What galls me,” he finally said, “is how someone like him is considered polite Society, while no matter how I study, how well I invest, how I advance myself, I’m still an outsider to the ton.”
Cutter raised his newspaper in a mock toast. “To the English aristocratic system.” He pitched the paper into the fireplace.
“Bet that daughter of Medford’s isn’t smirking now,” Harold said, finally latching onto a thought that cheered him. “She’s taunted me for years, with her careless acceptance of her place in Society. Thinks herself too good for me.”
Anger flooded him as he remembered their last encounter. Elizabeth had been flirting in Society, barely out of full mourning, and she’d done it to avoid him. Because to her, he was nothing.
Harold ground his teeth again. He had Cutter’s attention now.
“Threw my suit back in my face,” Harold confided. “As though she could afford it. She had the nerve to slap me. As though she had a better offer.” He snorted.
Cutter shrugged. “Haven’t seen any engagement announcements for her in The Times. Everyone in town knows she’s practically penniless.”
Elizabeth had failed.
She’d soon learn what it felt like to have to scrape and bow for every ounce of approval. She’d soon understand how it felt to have doors closed in your face simply because you weren’t wealthy enough—or, in his own case, because he hadn’t been born in line for a title.
Harold smiled—the thought of Elizabeth’s discomfort gave him pleasure.
Cutter stood. “I’d best be off,” he said. “I’ve an appointment with my tailor. I can see my way out. Sorry about your funds, Wetherby.”
