Duke Darcy's Castle

by Syrie James

  She felt on edge because her attraction to him refused to wane. And it wasn’t just the dreams.

  The day before, while taking measurements of the master bedroom for the proposed bathroom addition, Kathryn hadn’t been able to resist looking about the chamber. Although she’d seen the room before, she hadn’t had a chance to study it, to get a measure of the man.

  He kept his room neat as a pin and had few personal items. Just a brush and comb. A shaving set. A bottle of cologne. Despite herself, she’d opened the stopper on the bottle and had breathed in. Aaah. Yes. The same heady, woodsy scent that she’d come to associate with him. On his bedside table she’d spied a copy of Ivanhoe that looked well-read. His choice of book had delighted her; it was one of her favorites.

  While measuring the master closet, her attention had been drawn to the clothing inside. Several black suits looked brand-new, probably hastily assembled as mourning clothes for his brother. At the back of the closet, she’d spied three Royal Navy uniforms. Kathryn had run her fingers over the heavy, dark blue fabric. The fanciest was a gorgeous, full dress tailcoat with gold buttons and gold epaulettes on the shoulders. On the shelf above was a tricornered cock hat with a feather and insignia.

  Her pulse had quickened as she’d imagined the duke attired in such regalia. He would, she had no doubt, make a regal and imposing figure. As soon as the thought crossed her mind, Kathryn had shut the closet door, annoyed and embarrassed.

  Now, as she finished her sketch, pocketed it, and continued down the cliff path, Kathryn was equally annoyed with herself. What had she been doing, looking through the Duke of Darcy’s closet? What if he had walked in at that moment and found her snooping?

  Just then, to her surprise, she spotted the man himself rounding a bend below. Apparently, he’d had the same idea to take an early-morning walk. As he was approaching from the opposite direction, he must have headed down the road on the other side of the castle and circled around.

  Kathryn ground to a halt. The duke had almost reached the base of the cliff path by now, but he didn’t seem to have noticed her. He was casually dressed in trousers and a loose white shirt. He strode with purpose toward the pebbly beach, then stopped a few yards from the shore.

  Kathryn considered what to do. She had managed, quite successfully, to avoid him the day before. She had no wish to encounter him now. On the other hand, if she were to turn and flee up the path, he would surely see her and think her rude.

  She didn’t want to be rude.

  She blew out a conflicted sigh. Should she walk on down? What if he suggested taking a stroll on the beach together? Surely she could manage a few moments in his company without falling prey to her baser desires. Couldn’t she? Kathryn was about to call out to him, to alert him to her presence, when the duke did something that made her freeze.

  He began taking off his clothes.

  In one swift motion, he lifted his shirt over his head and tossed it onto the beach. Then he kicked off his shoes and divested himself of both his trousers and his smalls. He stood there, fully naked, inhaling a long, deep breath as he stretched his arms above his head and stared out to sea.

  Kathryn’s heart began beating like a drum.

  She knew she shouldn’t be standing here, staring at him like this. But if she were to call out to him now, it would be so awkward. If she crept back up the hill, he might see her, which would surely embarrass him.

  So she shrank back into the shadow of the rocky cliffs and kept watching.

  Dear Lord, what a beautiful male specimen. He stood with his back to her. The early-morning sun played over the muscles of his broad back and shoulders. His buttocks looked firm and round. His long, lean legs were muscled as well, and even from this distance she could see that they were lightly dusted with dark hair.

  The duke thrust his arms overhead, stretching, then turned so that he was half-facing the cliff. He wasn’t looking in her direction, thank goodness.

  But she couldn’t take her eyes off of him. Her gaze fixed on the beauty of his torso. The dark curls spreading across his upper chest. His tight abdomen. The male . . . appendage . . . which hung down between his legs.

  Oh my. In her entire life, Kathryn had only seen one man naked: Pierre. He had been almost as slender as a girl, and his male appendage had not been all that impressive.

  Kathryn had, however, spent many pleasant hours studying the classical statues of naked men in Rome, Florence, and Athens. She thought the nude man’s form, as idealized by such statuary, to be exquisitely beautiful. Her favorite was Michelangelo’s David.

  Kathryn swallowed hard. Lord Darcy’s genitalia was much larger than the David’s.

  A warmth ignited inside her belly, sparking upward toward the tips of her breasts, and downward to her feminine core.

  Close your eyes. You shouldn’t be seeing this. But she couldn’t look away.

  As she watched, the duke bent to touch his toes, then straightened and curved his arms overhead to each side, bending this way and that. It was clearly an exercise routine.

  She wondered if he used to do something similar while in the Navy. And whether this was something he did every morning, even now. Glancing up behind her, she noted that only the top most edge of the castle’s eastern tower, one of the uninhabited parts of St. Gabriel’s Mount, was visible from this location. Which explained why he was exercising here, in a spot he presumed was private and out of view.

  Even so, why did he do it naked?

  The answer became readily apparent. Turning seaward, he made his way across the pebbly beach to the water’s edge. Without hesitation, he walked straight into the ocean until it reached waist height, then plunged headfirst into the waves. A moment later he came up spouting, throwing his head back, and whipping water from his face and hair. With strong, deliberate strokes, he began swimming out to sea.

  It was no wonder, Kathryn thought, that his body was so gorgeously muscled, if he regularly indulged in morning swims like this.

  This was her exit cue. He was swimming away from the beach. If she made a fast getaway up the path, he wouldn’t ever know she’d been here.

  Lance plowed through the waves, relishing the feel of the cold water that enveloped his body and enjoying the salty taste of it in his mouth.

  It was the first chance he’d had to swim since he’d come home. As a boy, he’d often taken a morning dip. As a trainee in the Navy, a cold plunge in the sea had been part of the required morning routine. He had continued the practice in ports of call across the Mediterranean. The water there had generally been a lot warmer than it was here. But the Gulf Stream that wrapped around Cornwall made for a more temperate climate than anywhere else in England. Something he’d always been grateful for.

  The exercise refreshed and invigorated him. As he swam toward the horizon, his mind drifted to the dream he’d had the night before. The one that had prompted this need to dive into frigid water.

  Lance didn’t always remember his dreams, but this one had been too vivid to forget. He’d been on board the Defiant, on the officer recreation deck, engaged with the men in a lively game of deck hockey.

  As they’d raced to and fro, slapping at the puck with their sticks, one of the officers had slammed directly into him. Lance had fallen back onto the deck, the breath knocked out of him as the fellow landed on top of him.

  But when the officer’s cap flew off, it revealed a head of billowing, golden hair. The man on top of him was no man at all. It was Miss Atherton.

  The luscious curves of her body had molded against him. She’d gazed down with eyes as blue as topaz. Her lips had hovered above his like a ripe peach that he’d ached to taste.

  In the dream, Lance had slid one hand along her backside. Through the coarse fabric of the naval uniform she wore, he’d reveled in the feel of her tiny frame. Her slender back. Her firm derrière.

  He had wanted that uniform to disappear. Wanted to rip every shred of clothing from her body and make love to her then and there. Who
cared if the entire crew was watching?

  He’d reached up to draw her mouth to his. Just as their lips were about to touch, he had awakened, his cock as stiff as a ramrod.

  Even now, despite the temperature of the water in which he swam, recalling the dream made him go hard again. He dove under a wave, swimming like there was no tomorrow, anything to get his mind off the dream. And the woman.

  It was going to be a long three weeks.

  Flipping over onto his back, Lance rested a moment as he gazed back at the island. He noticed a distant female figure hastening up the path toward the castle. Intrigued, he tread water, trying to figure out who it was. It couldn’t be his grandmother. She wasn’t able to make that climb anymore. The servants would be at work already, and she was too nicely dressed to be a local.

  That’s when he caught a glimmer of the sun on golden hair, and he recognized her. It was Miss Atherton.

  She was heading up the cliff, not down. And she was moving quickly, which was hard to do on that steep path—with her head down, almost as if she were running away from someone or something.

  A sudden blush heated his face. Could it be that she had seen him a few minutes ago, exercising on the beach? He shrugged it off with a low chuckle as he continued to tread water.

  The notion of her coming upon him, unexpectedly, in the nude, was a little embarrassing. But it was also somehow . . . titillating.

  He knew what a passionate heart beat beneath those buttoned-up suits she wore. Granted, she’d had a few too many drinks in her the other night. But they had served to liberate the woman inside.

  So what if she had seen his naked body? He had nothing to be ashamed of. He was toned, in excellent shape. Perhaps, seeing him naked would make her dream about him.

  Perhaps an erotic dream or two would help loosen up some of those laces of propriety that bound her so tight.

  Which, Lance thought as he turned and continued to swim, was something delightful to contemplate.

  Chapter Eight

  After breakfast, Lance made his way down to the village.

  His first stop was the fishermen’s dock. Only a few boats were in the harbor, most of the men still out at sea going about their daily catch. Lance inhaled the beloved scents of hemp, rope, old wood, and tar as he studied the steps by the landing. They did seem to require some work. He would see to it that the matter was taken care of.

  At the schoolhouse, Lance met with the roofer Megowan had engaged. The man said the situation was grave. A new roof was in order. He agreed to give Lance a bid for the work.

  Lance devoted the next hour to visiting his tenants. He’d known these people, in a distant sense, since he was a boy. Over the past two decades, whenever he’d come back on leave to visit his brother, the villagers had been friendly. But Lance had never made a point of actually calling on anyone; that had been Hayward’s job.

  Now, it was Lance’s duty. It was a bit awkward at first. But the more calls he made, the easier it became. Everyone seemed happy to see him. They expressed sorrow for the passing of the former duke, and delight that Lance had taken up residency.

  A few people made requests which were easy to accommodate. An elderly woman needed more coal. A young couple begged his permission to hold their wedding in the St. Gabriel’s Mount chapel. He said yes, giving them a wedding date a month before his loan was due, when he could be certain that—no matter what the future brought—he’d still be in possession of the castle.

  As Lance feared, however, other problems were brought to his attention that wouldn’t be so simple to take care of. The schoolhouse wasn’t the only roof that leaked. In many houses, mildew was starting to take over the walls. Every cottage needed their chimney swept, and several needed new chimneys.

  Lance added these issues to his growing list of financial woes. Where was the money going to come from? As he plodded down the lane that served as the main street of the village, Lance felt as though he carried the weight of Olympus on his shoulders, a stress that had centered in his gut. He fleetingly questioned his decision to let Miss Atherton draw up renovation plans for St. Gabriel’s Mount. That project was doomed, anyway, and the timing couldn’t be worse.

  He had made a commitment to her, however. By God he wasn’t going to back away from it now.

  As he passed the bakery, Lance noticed a sign in the window advertising the upcoming Children’s Fête. Similar signs had been posted in windows of other shops and houses and several villagers had brought up the subject, which had slipped his mind.

  “How d’ ye do, Yer Grace?” called out the craggy-faced baker from his doorway.

  “Nice to see you, Mr. Finch.” Lance offered the man his hand. “I hope all is well with you?”

  “Very well, thank ye.” Finch returned the handshake with a firm, leathery grip. “My three young’uns, they be countin’ the days ’til that fête. Right good of ye to do this fer the children, Yer Grace, what with it bein’ the former duke’s notion and all.”

  “Of course,” Lance replied. “It is important to keep the children happy.”

  As he climbed the cobblestone road back up to the castle, Lance made a mental note to speak to his grandmother about the matter—the sooner, the better.

  The clock had just struck seven. Kathryn was on her way upstairs to her room when she ran into the duke on the halfway landing, on his way down.

  “Miss Atherton.” He paused, his face lighting up. “There you are.”

  “Good evening, Your Grace.” All day long, Kathryn’s mind had drifted treacherously to what she’d seen that morning. The duke naked on the beach. She felt guilty that she’d witnessed him in such a private moment. At the same time, the white-hot memory made her feel a bit weak in the knees.

  Kathryn had known she couldn’t avoid the duke forever. She’d tried to prepare herself for the moment when she would run into him again, and had convinced herself that she’d be fine. She would simply ignore this absurd crush and operate in the professional capacity that was expected of her.

  But ignoring this crush wasn’t going to be so easy. Despite herself, seeing him in the flesh again made her heart thump at a more frantic pace. He was dressed for dinner in elegant attire that accentuated his masculine form. Why did he have to be so incredibly good-looking?

  The appreciative gleam in his eyes as he took her in told her that he found her equally attractive.

  “I received your note the other day.” His voice was as deep and luscious as clotted cream. “I admit, I was aggrieved about what it communicated.”

  “Sorry. I just . . . have a lot of work to do. It’s best if I keep my nose to the grindstone, so to speak.”

  “I appreciate your dedication. But no one can or should work every minute. Have you taken any breaks at all?”

  “Of course.”

  “What kind of breaks?”

  Kathryn didn’t want to mention her walk down to the beach that morning. Hopefully he hadn’t noticed her. “I have paused as needed to eat and sleep.”

  “The rest of the time you have been working?”

  “Yes, and I’ve made excellent progress.”

  He didn’t appear to be appeased. “You cannot continue to work at this pace, Miss Atherton. I will not allow it.”

  “You will not allow it?” She was miffed by his imperious tone. “I assure you, Lord Darcy, I am accustomed to working long hours.”

  “Not on my watch. You will take the time to eat proper meals. I will not have you make yourself ill on my account.”

  “I am not making myself ill,” Kathryn insisted. “I—”

  “Sherry will be served as usual in the drawing room at seven-thirty,” he interjected. “I have invited a guest to dinner: my solicitor, Henry Megowan. I’d like you to meet him. My grandmother is also dining downstairs this evening. I insist that you join us.”

  I insist? Kathryn bristled. “I hate to disappoint your solicitor and the dowager duchess, but I am not—”

  “That is a command, not
a request, Miss Atherton.”

  “This is not a ship in the Royal Navy, Your Grace,” Kathryn fired back, “and I am not under your command.”

  He at first seemed taken aback by her censure. But after reconsidering, he blew out a breath, and replied: “True enough. Forgive me, Miss Atherton. As I said, old habits die hard. Might I be permitted to revise my prior statement?”

  She looked him in the eye. “You may.”

  “Naturally, you are free to choose your own schedule. But you are living in my house and working for me at present. If you prefer to take breakfast and lunch on your own, be my guest. I would very much appreciate it, however, if you would join me at dinner tonight. And every evening going forward.”

  Kathryn bit her lip, her annoyance fading. He was trying so hard to be fair and accommodating, which must be difficult for a duke and former naval captain. She considered her options. On the one hand, she did have an enormous amount of work ahead of her and she was eager to get going. To preserve her sanity, she still thought it best to stay away from this very appealing gentleman.

  On the other hand, she had been working nonstop for two days. She was tired. It seemed important to Lord Darcy that they dine together. She wanted to keep this job, and didn’t want to risk offending him.

  She would just have to find a way to get through a few weeks of dinners with him without her knees turning to jelly.

  “Aye-aye, Captain.” Kathryn touched her brow in a formal salute. “I’ll see you at seven-thirty.”

  Kathryn hadn’t realized how hungry she was until the first course arrived, and she found herself devouring a bowl of delicious lobster bisque soup.

  As always, the table was set with elegant formality and everyone was dressed to the nines. Being that this was a professional visit, Kathryn hadn’t brought any evening gowns, but she wore her most elegant suit, a dark blue fitted silk enhanced with many tucks and embellishments. She declined the wine, just as she had declined the predinner sherry. On no account could she risk a repeat of what had happened three nights before.