The Duchess's Secret (HQR Historical)

by Elizabeth Beacon

  He heard movement next door and felt guiltily relieved Ros was restless as well. At least he would not wake her when he got up to feed the fire. Then he heard a muffled scream and was out of his stately bed before he had time to look around for a weapon or more than the silk wrap from a warmer life. On the alert for an intruder, he cracked open the door to hear a distressed little snuffle of protest before Rosalind gasped in the distance of this ridiculous room and had him almost running to her side. By the light of the candle left burning by the bed he saw that her eyes were closed, but her body was writhing under the bedclothes as if she was fighting them, or trying to run away in her sleep. She must be in the grip of a nightmare and did not look to be in mortal danger after all.

  His panicked heartbeat slowed a little as he stood by the bed and wondered about the best way to wake a dreaming person without scaring them half to death. ‘Rosalind, Ros,’ he said softly to try to wake her gently. ‘It’s only a dream, you can wake up now. I am here.’ As if that would help, he thought on a sigh, but she did stir and open her eyes before squeezing them tightly closed again as if she wasn’t sure he was real. She must still be half-asleep, since she reached out a hand to him as if to reassure herself he was really there. Fully awake, she would have locked her thoughts away from him and he was beginning to think that was the worst punishment he could be given for his sins.

  ‘Ash?’ she murmured sleepily. ‘All those nights I woke up and you were not here.’

  He wasn’t sure if it was good or bad that he was real tonight. ‘I am here now,’ he said as neutrally as he could and shivered. ‘I’ll see if I can get the fire going again,’ he said to divert himself from freezing half to death or diving into that wide bed with her and kissing them both warm and very thoroughly awake so they could make love and scare her dreams away with heat and passion and—No, that was quite enough of that.

  ‘You are more like to put it out,’ she said and that sounded much more like his unconventional Duchess.

  ‘At least I know you’re properly awake now you’re scolding me again.’

  ‘I am not a scold.’

  ‘Of course not, you are a quiet and obedient wife.’

  ‘Pah,’ she said gruffly.

  ‘Lucky I never wanted one of those, then.’

  ‘Yes; my mother was both and look where it got her.’

  ‘Married to an earl?’

  ‘Owned by one, body and soul.’

  ‘But I never wanted that sort of marriage,’ he protested.

  ‘Just as well; I could not endure it.’

  ‘I think you would endure anything for our daughter’s sake.’

  ‘Not that. Watching Mama feel inadequate because he could not sire children did me no good at all.’

  He met her shadowed eyes as steadily as he could. ‘Since Jenny is living proof I can father a child, I don’t think that will be a problem for us.’ When they finally got to share the same bed, of course, and he was not going to force that issue until she was as ready—even if he had been from the moment he set eyes on her again and was very definitely ready right now, so he had better turn away from her somehow or another or she would see that for herself in very short order.

  ‘And if you don’t stop looming over me like a quaking pudding you’ll freeze to death soon and we might never have any more children. Here, you can have this; I didn’t want it,’ she said brusquely, pushing the padded and embroidered bedcover at him as she jumped out of bed in her plain cotton nightgown to see to the fire and suddenly he didn’t feel cold at all.

  She probably didn’t know her nightgown was as transparent as fine gauze as she stood in front of even a dying fire and Ash wasn’t going to tell her. He obviously enjoyed torturing himself with wanting her as he saw the newly rich curves of her breasts and hips as well as that tiny waist and the long and lovely line of her legs outlined by a far duller fire than the one scorching him. Luckily he had the warmth and cover of her quilt and could watch her coax the fire back to life, then sit back on her heels to stare at her handiwork and he did his best to endure it like a man. He wondered what she was thinking and wanted her so much, but at least this boiling hot frustration was stopping his shivers.

  ‘What were you dreaming about?’ he asked huskily. Silence felt far more dangerous than words. Even this echoing old museum of a bedchamber suddenly felt almost intimate and made only for them.

  ‘A time when Jenny was ill and you were half a world away,’ she said tersely and without turning her head.

  ‘I wish I had been there then,’ he said, heart hammering at the idea his child was once so ill the memory of it still gave Ros nightmares. ‘When?’

  ‘She was three and had a fever that seemed to get worse and worse until I thought she was sure to die of it.’

  ‘I should have known.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because she is my daughter as well—did you think it wouldn’t matter to me if she died before I even knew she existed?’

  ‘You left me because of what your mother did, or rather what she did not do, when your sister was ill. Why wouldn’t you have blamed me if our child had died?’

  ‘You were there, though, weren’t you? You didn’t leave her for whoever was around at the time to raise and look after when she was sick.’

  ‘No, I slept in a chair by her bed and ate there when Joan forced me to. They were the worst days of my life, even worse than when you turned on me as if you hated me. I sat watching her delirious and so small and pale with your tale of your sister’s death haunting me as we tried everything we could to bring her fever down.’

  ‘I’m so sorry I left you alone to cope with all that fear and worry, Ros, and that I put such fear into your head with my sad little tale about Amanda’s death.’

  His heartfelt apology seemed to spark her temper into fierce life for some reason, since she jumped to her feet to glare at him and he wasn’t sure if he was glad or sorry here was the real Ros again under all that protective cover. ‘Oh, good, the Duke is sorry. Well, that makes everything all right then, doesn’t it? And what were you doing four years ago, Your Grace? Who was the lover you had put in my place that year? Did you ever spare a single thought for what I might be doing after you left me? No, you obviously did not, since it never occurred to you that you could have left your eighteen-year-old wife with a lot more than a broken heart.’

  ‘You are so beautiful I thought you could have any man who took your fancy,’ he confessed recklessly.

  ‘From the moment I married you to this very moment I have been faithful to my marriage vows. What about you, Asher Hartfield?’ There was a furious pause in her tirade and of course he couldn’t offer up the same amount of loyalty. ‘Well? Did you wrap up your fiercest desires in cotton wool and pack them away until you got home to your wife as well then, Husband?’ she demanded relentlessly.

  ‘No,’ he admitted.

  ‘Then there we are, you are a self-confessed adulterer and I once told a lie. What a monstrous pair we are.’

  ‘More than one, Mrs Meadows,’ he reminded her of her cover for the last eight years and felt like a worm for doing it even as those defensive, self-serving words came out of his mouth to counter her accusations with nothing much at all. ‘But however bad I am, we did agree to stay together for Jenny’s sake. I promise on my honour that I will be faithful to you from now on.’

  ‘How very noble of you,’ she said scornfully, then seemed to think a little harder about what their marriage had become. ‘Is that all we shall ever have now, Ash?’ she said bleakly, backing away from the full heat of the fire now the room was almost warm again.

  ‘No. Even when I didn’t know we had her it was more than that.’

  ‘Yes, it was hatred,’ she said flatly. ‘It could only have been that to make you go so far and stop away for so long, Ash,’ she added bleakly.

  ‘I could only t
hink of—No, that’s not right. The truth is I didn’t think at all after we parted because I knew I would be dangerous. I wanted to stay and wrench every last iota of passion out of you—prove it was me you had always wanted and not your lover. What we were before we were married defeated me every time we stopped on that wretched journey back to London, though. I could not put passion where I was so sure love had been before we were married. By the time we got back here I was wound so tight the only way to keep my hands off you was to take my grandfather’s offer of a new life away from my wild friends and leave you behind until I was sane again. Maybe I never truly was. I turned you into someone you never were on that long and lonely voyage out. I invented a harpy out of my bitter hurt and frustration and a fit of boyish temper. Because of my folly and immaturity I let you carry and bring up our child alone and that was unforgivable.’

  She drew breath to argue.

  ‘No, let me admit it, Rosalind, please?’

  ‘Why not? After our wedding night you refused to let me tell you a single word of love. I thought you set the stars in the sky back then. I loved you as truly as ever, almost as if it was impossible to stop doing it and you still left me, as if I was nothing—as if I didn’t matter.’

  She doesn’t sound as if she loves you now, though, does she, Ash? whispered a bleak voice in his head.

  ‘I would have cried,’ he admitted gruffly.

  ‘Do you really expect me to believe it took you eight years to be able to tell me you don’t love me without weeping, Ash?’

  ‘I don’t expect anything,’ he said, genuinely ashamed of the idiot who had walked in his shoes for so long.

  ‘Well. I do,’ she surprised him by saying forcefully and she really had changed from the shy girl he fell in love with that first night at Lady Somebody-Or-Other’s ball, hadn’t she? And from the tightly contained version of herself he had had to get used to over the last few days since they set out from Livesey and the life she had made for herself and her child there. ‘You have had as many lovers as you fancied taking for eight years,’ she raged on and he was fiercely glad his Ros was still there under the armour and the hurt he inflicted on her all those years ago, even if persuading her to let him back into her life would be even more of a challenge now she was truly awake again. ‘You gave me one mean little night of passionate lovemaking, then abandoned me, Asher Hartfield. You made me a woman on our wedding night, then left me to struggle with all those wants and needs alone as well as raise our child without you.’

  ‘You mean—?’ He let his voice trail away as he contemplated the incredible and hardly dared believe it. His sex leapt with hope and desperation, but he still thought he was man enough to take it back to his dismal bedchamber if she didn’t really mean that at all.

  ‘I have not had a man in my bed for eight years, you great fool. How do you think that feels for a healthy married woman of six and twenty?’

  ‘Very much like it feels for me right now, I should imagine. Would you like me to beg though, Rosalind? Because I will if that makes you feel better.’

  ‘Yes, I rather think I would,’ she said softly, wicked mischief in her eyes as she stood over him with her body outlined by the fire and her beautiful face fierce as a pagan goddess’s. She was a challenge he longed to meet, a fantasy he had been struggling with ever since he left England all those years ago and all the more so since he met her again.

  ‘Please will you take me to your bed, then, Duchess Rosalind? Let me adore every inch of you kiss by kiss and touch by touch,’ he whispered and although he had meant to be gallant and let her set the pace he was only a man and not a saint.

  ‘That’s not begging, it’s provocation.’

  ‘Is it working?’ he asked hopefully, teasingly, feeling as if the humour and warmth and happiness of them when they were young lovers with the world at their feet was waking up again after a long sleep.

  ‘It may do. Tell me more,’ she said throatily, eyes a hot blue and a witchy smile on her beautiful face that made him feel as if he was about to fall to pieces if he did not have her yes very soon.

  ‘Not right now,’ he said and dragged in a great breath to force himself to stay where he was and keep this as her choice and not his demand. ‘Say no to me now and mean it, Ros, because I will have to go outside and lie on a cold marble floor for the rest of the night to distract myself from yearning for you if you don’t want me here and now.’ He leant forward until his mouth was all but touching hers. He could nearly taste her on his hungry lips and this balance between heaven and hell felt like agony as she thought about it and him. ‘Yes or no, Rosalind?’ he murmured gruffly. Every inch of him screamed for yes but a small part said he must get out of here now if it was to be no.

  ‘Yes,’ Rosalind whispered. ‘Yes, I have wanted you so badly and for so long, of course I want you,’ she said and he felt his heart crack at the sound of it in her husky voice and let out a huge sigh of relief even as clever words deserted him and he couldn’t seem to tell her about it.

  Chapter Ten

  Rosalind slicked her tongue over suddenly dry lips and felt the echo of her own words as if she had shouted them out loud. Fool to let that haunted longing out when he didn’t need to know she had wanted him mercilessly after he had gone. He would not notice her slip, she reassured herself, and let a little bit of her be amused that the Duke and Duchess of Cherwell were about to do just what the clumsy symbolism in this over-decorated room demanded of them with all its cherubs and cornucopia and lover’s knots.

  ‘We look ridiculous,’ she whispered as she caught sight of them in one of those many mirrors. He was wrapped in her bedcover and she had her practical nightdress on and she was the one who was shivering now, but not from the cold.

  ‘I do, you couldn’t be if you tried,’ he argued with what looked almost looked like awe in his hotly smoky eyes.

  He tugged at the ribbon that held her heavy plait in place and wound his fingers through it until her wildly curling hair sprang free from restraint, as if she had been keeping it prisoner. He gazed at the heavy weight of it lying all down her back and even covering the cheeks of her backside as if he had never seen the like. It had been cropped the last time they met to frame her face with guinea-gold curls. Now he was staring at it as if he wasn’t quite sure where it had all come from and he seemed quite fascinated by all she had been hiding from him until now.

  ‘Joan keeps offering to cut it,’ she said self-consciously.

  ‘No, it’s lovely,’ he said huskily and lifted a heavy tress as if it was a wonder to him. ‘My task is to convince you to keep it as our private golden fleece,’ he argued. ‘No, not a task, a pleasure,’ he added and let the bedcover drop at last.

  His exotic bedgown did not give him much more cover than her thin cotton nightgown did her, so no wonder he was shivering when he dashed to rescue her from nightmares. At least his arms were finally around her and the heat coming off her was enough for two. Surely he could feel her heartbeat race as she felt the changes in him with her own body and marvelled at this new them as they finally embraced, this Rosalind and this Ash, and learned to live in the now?

  ‘Did you walk, run and row your way around India on whatever business you were too busy doing to come home until now?’ she asked as she leant a little back from him to test the steel of his muscular arms and knew he would never physically hurt her.

  ‘I had to do something to make myself stay there.’

  ‘Ah, don’t, Ash. Don’t make me the reason you went away and stopped there. Make it because you wanted to prove you could make your own money or be your own man, but please don’t make it because you hated me.’

  ‘Does it feel as if I hate you?’ he said seriously and it didn’t at all, but there was so much that was unsayable between them, so many places they could not walk it made her physically shake for the risks they would have to take if they ever got past just wanting each
other and tiptoed on to more dangerous ground.

  ‘It felt as if you did back then,’ she whispered huskily as caution reminded her not to get so wrapped up in wanting him she let out a syllable of love when none was permitted between a duke and his convenient Duchess.

  ‘Then I never wanted you desperately? Never fought not to take you for our mutual pleasure night after night all the way to Gretna? You think I didn’t want this until I was deaf, dumb and blind to the rest of the world, lost to everyone but you when we were on our way to be wed?’

  Not for long, her inner doubter whispered, but she pushed her into a corner and watched him mean it now.

  His kisses up on the heath and at Furze Cottage had been like sips of water after far too long in a desert, but at least his desperation seemed as huge as hers was now. He shook under her urgent hands and she soothed him with a motherly pat. He raised his head to cock one eyebrow at her, as if to remind her he was a fully grown and mature male and there was too much proof eager against her body for her not to know it all too well and glory in it as well now they had finally got past the stiff awkwardness of being man and wife again for everyone’s sake but their own, or at least that had been how it had felt until now. Now this felt like self-indulgence of the most luxurious kind to be lovers without boundaries and why ever not? Why not enjoy the duty of providing heirs for the Cherwell dukedom and worry about thornier problems like love and fidelity later?

  ‘I am not the unmarked sylph I was last time we did this,’ she warned him, cringing away from the thought he might be repulsed by the changes in her body after bearing a child.

  ‘I like your breasts and hips womanly like this, Ros. Your curves will feel all the more wondrous when we are naked now, not that they don’t feel delicious already.’