“You told him to get out of your way?” Luke couldn’t believe it.
Or perhaps he could.
“Essentially,” she said. “There was no way I’d let the duchess leave the room without her looking out those massive windows. But then…”
“Then what?” Luke asked.
Her lips thinned. “He told me his uncle Everett drowned in the pond behind the copse. It would’ve traumatized Her Grace to be reminded when she looked out the windows.”
Luke’s father.
It was like a punch to the stomach to hear how he’d died.
Janice’s face flushed. “I felt so foolish then. Here I’d been trying to help.”
“No,” said Luke, trying to focus back on her. “You shouldn’t feel that way. You were thinking about the dowager’s comfort.”
Luke had to admire Janice’s courage. She was truly a woman of action. And principle. But he didn’t have to tell her any such thing. “So you plan to inform Halsey that she needs to be moved to the newer wing?”
“Yes. But I need to work up to that.”
Luke felt a twinge of regret that he pushed aside. She had no idea yet that she’d have no time. She’d want to pack her bags and leave when she learned what he had to tell her about the duke’s perfidy. Luke was working up to that himself.
“Tell me about your day,” she said. “And yesterday, for that matter.”
Part of him was incredulous that anyone would care enough to ask how his day went. It had never happened in his life. The nuns had been generous in their love, but they’d been run off their feet. They hadn’t had time to ask a boy about his day.
“Sir Milo,” he said, “the duke’s visitor who arrived yesterday morning and who demanded I go back with him to Bramblewood, has drunk himself into such a stupor that I left him without permission. I’m not going back, either. If he complains to the duke, I’ll simply tell His Grace that Sir Milo sent me home. He won’t recall either way.”
Lady Janice clamped a hand over her mouth, but Luke could hear her giggle. When she subsided, she took her hand off her mouth. “Sorry.” She grinned. “We’ve both had a difficult time of it.”
“Yes, we have. It’s been quite frustrating.”
“You want to be here—so you can find out about your mother.”
And kiss Janice. Didn’t she know that reason compelled him more than anything to come back? “That’s true,” he said. “But it’s more complicated than that.”
“Is it?”
He shrugged. “There are people relying on me.”
“Who?”
He shook his head. “It doesn’t involve you.”
“But I want to know.” Her chin jutted out at a stubborn angle.
“Why?”
She stared at him a moment. “I don’t know. I simply do.”
There was a long silence. They watched Esmeralda cleaning her brood. Her tongue never quit going from one pup to the next.
Lady Janice chuckled. He said nothing.
“Who’s going to take all these puppies?” Her chin was in her hand now.
It was his turn to say he didn’t know.
“You’ll have to help me find people to adopt them,” she said.
“They have to stay with their mother about eight weeks.” She’d be gone long before that, he was sorry to realize.
“Oh.” Her brow furrowed. “At least I can extract promises from people.”
She wouldn’t be able to do that, either. It was a shame. But he couldn’t dwell on that. He had a job to do.
Esmeralda settled in for the night with her pups a moment later, and Luke and Janice were back to a sort of diffused sadness that hung between them both.
“What about you?” he asked the braided temptress beside him. “Is there something beyond the dowager’s suffering that has brought you low?”
She shrugged.
“Hey.” He pulled lightly on her arm, forcing her to stand up straight and look at him.
And then he did what came naturally. He took her around the waist—she in that blasted winter coat—bent low, and kissed her.
The kiss didn’t take away any of the strain. But like a brilliant sunset at the end of a hard working day, it made him suddenly glad, despite everything else that was wrong.
And much was.
Sister Brigid was running out of time. Every week someone stopped helping the orphanage—a vendor here, a farmer there. The local priest made all sorts of excuses to Luke about why the orphanage was constantly short of food, supplies, and families looking to adopt a child.
Luke recognized fear when he saw it.
Soon no one would dare to help Sister Brigid. And he knew it was all Grayson’s doing.
Luke sensed Janice was as glad as he was, that she needed this sensual respite. He cradled her head and kissed her handily, the way a laborer or a soldier or a boxer—he’d been all three—would kiss his woman.
She wasn’t his and never could be. But for a few minutes, he could pretend that she was.
She moaned against his mouth, and he kissed her as he undid the top of her coat. And then she pulled away—a bit wildly—and unbuttoned the rest while she watched him silently, her lips pressed in that serious way he knew meant she was holding something back.
When she took his hand, he understood what she was asking. He picked up the lantern and allowed her to lead him this time to the tack room. There wasn’t much there but the bench. And the floor.
But it was warm, and both of them could shed their coats, which they did.
He sat cross-legged on their coats and drew her down on his lap. They kissed for a long, cozy minute, her body curved into his, the weight of her hip and thigh a heady pressure on his erection. Again she took the lead when she bracketed his face between her hands and kissed him deeply, then dropped one hand to stroke his hard length through his pants.
He pulled back. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“Why do I need to? All I know is that I want to touch this. Badly.”
“It’s dangerous territory,” he said, feeling more dangerous by the second.
“I’m aware of that. I want you to be dangerous with me, Mr. Callahan.”
“Luke.”
“Luke,” she said softly. “Will you call me Janice?”
“No,” he said. “You’re ‘my lady.’ And that’s that.”
She chuckled. “Surely not when we’re like this.” She looked down at her night rail. And then she traced a finger down his throat to his open shirt.
“Always you shall be ‘my lady.’” He spoke sternly.
But his body would have nothing to do with restraint. His body craved completion—total union with her. And no words, no thoughts, would stand in its way.
Before he knew it, she was beneath him, her arms spread out on either side of her head, his hands clenched around her fists. He was kissing her openmouthed, her legs were spread wide, and he pressed his pelvis into hers with all the abandon of a rutting buck. She wrapped her legs around his hips and clung to him, her breasts in her night rail pressed sweetly against his shirt.
It was too much.
Yet it wasn’t enough.
He pulled back and looked down at her open mouth, prettily pink, like a rosebud. She was breathing hard—and he saw in her eyes that she felt the same way: frustrated.
Yet who could stop?
He kissed her again. She laid a hand on his crotch and probed the tautly stretched fabric. He rolled over and pulled her with him to lie side by side. They were desperate. Both of them.
“It’s not enough,” she whispered. Her eyes were huge, her pupils dilated.
He ran a hand over her forehead. “We can’t do all a man and woman are meant to do together.”
“I know that leads to children,” she said. “But does it have to? I hear snippets from married women when they don’t think I’m listening. And once—once I saw a picture. It was in a shop, in a book I suppose I wasn’t meant to see.”
> “Hm-m-m.”
“You’re not very helpful.”
“I’m trying my best not to be.” He allowed himself a small grin.
“What I want to know is…”
“What?”
“What exactly are the ladies at Halsey House doing here? Please be honest with me. You spoke of strumpets when my carriage came up the drive. These houseguests clearly can’t be that. But are they something else? Lady Rose mentioned going north to find other men. And Miss Branson—well, I don’t know what she’s doing here. She paid to come. Please be honest with me.”
“Very well.” He brushed her hair out of her eyes. “The two sisters are here in the hopes that they’ll become someone’s mistress. Perhaps Lord Yarrow or Lord Rowntree will take a fancy to one of them and set her up in her own house. I somehow doubt they believe they can capture the duke’s interest.”
“Oh, no,” Janice murmured. “That makes me so sad.”
Luke was silent a moment. “Women do what they have to do. Perhaps Ladies Rose and Opal believe it’s their only option.”
“I know they do.” Her eyes registered concern. “I heard them. They wanted to get married.…”
Luke shrugged. “Life doesn’t always turn out the way we plan it to.”
“What about Miss Branson then?”
“It could be that she’s paying the men for their, um, services.”
“No!”
“It’s not unheard of. If a man has gambling debts and a rich heiress offers him a way out, who’s he to say no?”
Janice gasped. “She said the duke had gambling debts.”
“He’s rich enough to pay them all off. He has multiple properties. But he’s probably flattered. And she might be into some unusual practices that he rather enjoys, too.”
Lady Janice’s face fell. “I-I’m appalled thinking of the duke getting involved in that sort of thing.”
“Most men aren’t saints.”
“But if he were married…”
“Even then, you must know that many gentlemen in your rarefied stratum of society think nothing of being unfaithful. Marriage among the members of the ton is much more a business contract than anything else.”
“Not between my parents.”
“Then I’d say they’re the exception to the rule.”
“I can’t believe it of Marcia and Duncan, either. Or Gregory and Pippa.”
“You’re a good sister. And perhaps you’re right.”
“I know I am. They married for love.”
Luke wouldn’t disabuse her of that notion.
She put her palm on his face. “Show me something else that men and women do that won’t lead to babies.”
“I did show you. Don’t you remember?”
Even in the low light, he could see her blush. “Of course. I can’t forget.”
“I can’t, either.”
They looked at each other a long moment. She reached over and kissed him softly. And then she moved her mouth beneath his chin and kissed him there at the soft junction between his jaw and his throat.
“You’re not going to stop until you get your way, are you?”
She laughed. “No.”
“Very well,” he said. “Just know that what we do here is nothing more than a lesson in the sensual arts.”
“It has to be that,” she said. “You’re a groom. And I’m a lady.”
“Exactly.”
When he lowered her night rail and saw her breasts in the lantern light, he had to suck in a breath. She was stunning—two globes of milky white skin topped with rosy nipples.
“Someone should paint you,” he said.
She smiled and peeled off his shirt. “Ah,” she whispered, and rubbed her breasts against his skin. “Mm-m-m,” she said next, and reached for his breeches.
He helped her open them but let her slide them down his hips. She gave several tugs and made noises that somehow reminded him of the puppies—frustrated sounds that warmed him, made him grin.
“Oh,” she said when he stood in his naked glory.
He said nothing, but he enjoyed her staring.
She looked up at him, her eyes wide. “I’m rather scared now,” she whispered. “Not to hurt your feelings, but”—she swallowed—“it’s very imposing.”
He chuckled. “There’s nothing to fear. I promise you.”
“Really?”
“Yes.” He pulled her close against him and reveled in the silken feel of her. “You’re safe with me. Tonight your lesson only goes so far as a look.”
She snuggled closer.
“We’re not done with you, though,” he said.
“No.” Her entire body was taut with anxiety.
He put his hands on her waist. “I promise,” he said, “you’re going to be beautiful naked. You already are.”
She bit her lip. “I-I do like my body. That is, when I bathe, I think it’s rather pretty when I hold up my leg and soap it. And I even like the curve of my breast.”
“And your belly,” he said, and ran his hand over it. “It’s perfect. All of you is.”
Her eyes grew luminous. “You think so?”
“I’m sure of it.”
She took his hands at her waist and pushed them downward. He took over then, removing her drawers slowly, crouching down and kissing her, inch by inch of exposed flesh, as the delicate fabric came off.
When her drawers were at her feet, he got her to step out of them. But before he stood, he nuzzled her feminine curls, spread her legs, and kissed the sweet pearl of flesh between her thighs.
“Oh-h-h,” she said, leaning on his shoulder. “That’s exquisite.” She moaned her pleasure as softly as she could. “Is this what they’re doing at Halsey House?”
He thrust his tongue inside her once, for good measure, then pulled back to look up at her.
The shock on her face made him laugh out loud. “It could be.”
“If—if they are, I don’t know why they’d ever leave their bedchambers.”
He wrapped one of her legs around his shoulder and held on to her derriere, and he licked and stroked and thrust his tongue in her most intimate place until she writhed against him and cried out, over and over, softly.
She collapsed onto the coats, and he held her there, shocked that he never wanted to let her go.
Chapter Nineteen
Lady Janice’s face was flush with pleasure. “I understand now why Miss Branson would pay for that. Although … it can’t be good with anyone else but you, Luke. I can’t think of a single other man with whom I’d want to be this private.”
She was such an innocent.
“Thank you for the compliment.” He kissed the back of her hand. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
She became very quiet and still. “What is it? There’s something I have to tell you, too.”
“I thought so,” he said. “You go first.”
“Very well. She looked suddenly shy. “The duke asked me to marry him.”
Luke’s entire body tensed. “You’re jesting.”
She shook her head.
“Not that you’re not worthy of him.” Luke raked a hand through his hair. “You’re much too good for him, actually.”
She sighed. “I admit that when he’s acting the duke he can be quite intimidating. I get this fleeting feeling that something is terribly wrong. But I think I’m imagining that. The truth is, he’s been very courteous. And I have to say, even when I challenged him about his grandmother, he came round.”
“So do you want to marry him?” Luke had to know.
She bit her lip. “A lingering part of me does. Long ago, I was sure that dukes and duchesses don’t have any worries. But that’s foolish, of course. Here my father’s a marquess and my mother a marchioness—and they certainly have their share of problems. Becoming Duchess of Halsey would mean that—well, only a day ago I thought it would mean that I’d be happy.” She sighed. “But I don’t think so anymore.”
“So did you
say yes?”
“Not yet.”
“Has he kissed you?”
“No.”
“Do you want him to?”
“No.”
Something primitive inside Luke was very satisfied with that answer.
She brushed her hand over his hair. “Every time I think of marrying him, your face comes to my mind. It’s an awful feeling. How—how would you feel if I married him?”
As if my world would fall apart.
“You can’t worry about me.” He held her hand.
“I want to know.” She squeezed his hand back.
He looked away. “I told you, and you’ve told me. I’m fit only to lift you into the saddle and put up your horse after a ride.”
He looked back at her and saw how stricken her gaze was. But he’d had to say it. To remind her. And although he was at fault for walking willingly with her into intimacy, there was a line to draw, reality to face: whether he was a groom or heir to a dukedom, he’d never be worthy of her.
And while they were speaking harsh truths, it was time to say what he must about Halsey. “I don’t want to delve into details.” Their hands were still joined. “But I have some bad news about the duke that will be difficult to hear.”
“Tell me.” Her palm was smooth and cold, but he could feel a tinge of sweat slicking its surface.
“I heard him make a hundred-pound wager with the other men—Sir Milo included—that he’d be able to bed you outside the confines of marriage.”
She blinked. “They bet on me? That he’d be able to … to seduce me?”
Luke hated seeing her eyes so anguished. He lifted her onto his lap again, her back to him, making it easy for him to wrap his hands around her waist and rest his chin on her shoulder. Her cheek was soft as down against his. “I wanted to tell you before I left with Sir Milo. But I couldn’t get a message to you. I had to hope that you’d keep your wits about you.”
She grabbed his hands and held them tight. “If he thinks I’m of so little worth that he’d wager on me with his equally despicable friends, he can’t possibly mean to marry me.”
“I think you’re wrong there.” Luke gave her belly a little squeeze. “Halsey believes he’s invincible. He’s a duke, after all. He could make a tavern wench his duchess, and no one would say a word.”
Say Yes to the Duke Page 18
