A Duke Never Yields

by Juliana Gray

  Abigail sat in awe, savoring the stroke of his hand, the warmth of his body, the astonishing intimacy of his words. He had probably never said as much to anyone before. Why her? She snuggled closer. “Is that why you’re here? To prove you can exist without your dukedom?”

  Wallingford’s body went still. Even his heartbeat seemed to suspend in his chest, for just an instant. “What a mad girl you are, Miss Harewood.”

  “You really must decide what to call me, Wallingford. Either it’s Abigail or it’s not.”

  “Abigail, then.” He kissed the crown of her head, where it rested beneath his chin. “Since you allow me the privilege.”

  She sat there quietly, listening to the slap of water, to the rustling of leaves. To the sound of Wallingford’s breath, stirring her hair.

  “If you were really a scoundrel, you’d ravish me now.”

  “Perhaps you’ve changed me altogether.”

  “No. I don’t believe people can be changed, not in the essentials. You are simply as you are; it’s only a matter of what you choose to do about it.”

  “Free will?”

  “Yes, I suppose. If you want to call it that.” She looked at her hand, which had nestled inside Wallingford’s blanket to lie once more atop the hard buttons of his waistcoat. What would he do if she unbuttoned them? “Look at you. There’s so much goodness in you, and you won’t show it to anyone, you hide it away in that tender heart of yours.”

  “Tender heart?” he said, as he might say tender boiled kitten.

  She patted it. “The tenderest I’ve ever known. Except tender hearts aren’t allowed in almighty dukes, are they?”

  “The practice is generally discouraged.”

  She was wrapped in warmth, wrapped in Wallingford. She had forgotten all about the curse, all about faithful love and faithless English lords; she simply existed in this state of perfect bliss, disconnected from everything else.

  The moon shone down on the two of them, curled together by the lakeshore, breathing each other in, joined in peace at last. Her mouth stretched into an enormous yawn. “Well, you needn’t hide it from me. I shall take the gentlest care of it.”

  “Will you, now?”

  “I promise.”

  Her head felt heavy. She let Wallingford’s chest take its full weight. Beneath the blankets, she drew up her knees to rest against his leg. His thick arm held her in place, as securely as . . . as a . . . as one of those . . . when one was . . .

  She opened her eyes, because she was moving along in a carriage, and yet unlike any carriage she had ever known. For one thing, it was comfortable; for another, it was warm and rather muscular and possessed a distinct heartbeat, which thudded like a bass drum into her ear.

  “Where are we going?” she murmured.

  “To your room.”

  “Oh! That sounds lovely.”

  He laughed softly. They were outdoors somewhere; she thought she could smell the peach blossoms again. “You’re going to your room, darling. To sleep.”

  At the word sleep, she must have dozed off again, because next he was laying her on a bed, drawing down her dress, loosening her stays.

  “Take them off,” she murmured. “Wretched things.”

  “I don’t dare.” But he did anyway, with shameful expertise, and her petticoat, too. He tucked her under the covers in her chemise and drawers.

  “Wallingford,” she whispered, just as he pulled away, “what’s changed? Why now?”

  His hand cupped her cheek: “I don’t know. I suppose . . . I suppose you wore me down, the lot of you, all against me. Especially you, Miss Abigail Harewood: You who never give up on anything.”

  “Never.” She covered his hand. “What do we do in the morning, then?”

  “God knows. Good night, Abigail.”

  “Good night, Wallingford.”

  He kissed her forehead and stole away into the blackness.

  TWELVE

  Midsummer’s Eve

  The Duke of Wallingford stretched one booted foot to nudge Abigail’s hip. “You’re falling asleep again,” he said.

  She started beautifully. Her chestnut hair, loosened from its pins, fell against her cheek. “No, I’m not. We were right . . . right . . .” She tucked her hair behind her ear and flipped over a page in the volume of Plutarch that lay in her lap.

  “Never mind.”

  “I’ve got it right here. Just a moment.” She picked up the bread lying on the blanket beside her and tore off an absent hunk.

  “Why the devil are you so sleepy this morning? Haven’t got yourself a lover, have you?”

  She tilted her head and looked at him sideways, through her upturned fairy eye. “And if I have?”

  “I’d punch his lights out, of course.” He took the loaf from her fingers and tore off a piece for himself. They were sitting in the shade, shielded from the sun, except for a single piece of morning sunlight, no larger than a sovereign, that landed on Abigail’s chestnut hair and turned it a bright golden red.

  She turned her head back to the book, and it was gone.

  “You’ve no right,” she said. “You hardly ever kiss me, and even then only when I’ve been very naughty indeed. It’s no wonder I’ve found another fellow. You’ve driven me into his arms.”

  Wallingford smiled indulgently at her. Nothing could pierce his good humor this morning. He had awoken even earlier than usual, opening his eyes to the golden sunrise with the settled conviction that he was going to ask Abigail Harewood to marry him.

  Perhaps even today.

  The idea had been hovering in the back of his mind for some time, of course, though he hadn’t acknowledged it, nor even put it into words. Since the early days of his manhood, when he had thought of marriage at all, he had put it under the heading of Duties, miscellaneous, and had some vague notion that he would find a suitable bride when he could put it off no longer, sire a few children, and carry on with the rest of his life more or less as before, albeit with a little more discretion. But falling in love, and asking that woman to marry him, to cleave only unto each other and all that rot? Such things were unspeakably bourgeois.

  And yet here he was, falling in love, fallen already, doomed from the moment she’d kissed him in the rain-soaked stable of the inn. To place Abigail Harewood under the heading of Duties, miscellaneous was a sacrilege. He couldn’t bear to think of carrying her back to Belgrave Square in a cloud of white tulle and proceeding to bed her once a week, according to ritual, while she carried on a life of charitable committees and afternoon calls, and he carried on a life of club dinners and afternoon mistresses. No, he wanted to keep her right here in this enchanted Italian castle, and make love to her in the sunshine and under the silver moon.

  Except that he hadn’t made love to her. He had scarcely even kissed her, and only then, as she said, when she had been particularly naughty and trapped—trapped!—him into it.

  He had not made love to her, because she was an innocent, and he was not.

  He had not made love to her, because he must first prove himself worthy of the privilege.

  He had not made love to her, because he was waiting to be sure. He was waiting to wake up in the morning, open his eyes to the golden sunrise, and know that marrying Abigail was the right course, the only course, and the rest of it—Belgrave Square and Duties, miscellaneous—would sort itself out.

  If she would have him.

  A little wobble of worry overturned his smooth-sailing bonhomie. Abigail, after all, did exhibit a certain cynicism about the institution of marriage, and aristocratic marriage in particular. He might reassure her all he liked about Belgrave Square and Duties, miscellaneous, but whereas other girls would leap at the chance to be Duchess of Wallingford (it did have rather a nice ring to it, he thought affectionately, gazing at Abigail’s creamy cheek), his mad little elf would probably much rather elope to a garret in Paris, suitably wretched and north facing, with some ghastly emaciated poet.

  “In any case,” she went on, tu
rning pointedly back to her Plutarch and flipping another page, “he’s a great deal more attentive than you are this morning.”

  By God, he would make her his duchess. And take her to live in a garret in Paris, if he had to, where they would keep their bohemian neighbors awake all night with the creaking of the bedsprings.

  “Rubbish,” he said. “I’m attentive to your every need. Picnics and Latin every day. Moonlit walks every night.”

  “Except when there’s no moon.”

  “And I deliver you honorably to your door before midnight, a gentleman to my fingertips.”

  “I didn’t take up with you for your gentlemanly fingertips. Quite the opposite.”

  God, she was perfect. Why hadn’t he made this decision before? So right, so elegant a solution.

  For one thing, well down on his list but a pleasant prospect indeed, marriage to Abigail checkmated his grandfather’s scheme rather neatly.

  Wallingford sprang forward, filled with glee, filled with certainty, and planted his hands on either side of Abigail’s hips.

  “What the devil, Wallingford,” she began, but he leaned into her mouth and kissed her confusion thoroughly away. In an instant, she had cupped his cheeks with her hands, and kissed him back so ardently that desire flamed up like a torch in his belly.

  She leaned back against the tree and he followed her, running his tongue along the seam of her lips until she opened them with a sigh and allowed him inside, allowed him to taste the curve of her mouth and the sweetness of her velvet tongue, while his hand crept up to caress her waist. Sometime in the heat of late May, Abigail had shed all but one of her petticoats, and her skin now burned so tantalizingly close he could feel every swell of her body through the barriers of her dress and stays and chemise.

  “Tell me,” she said, against his lips, “to what do I owe the pleasure of this wholly ungentlemanly conduct?” Her thumbs brushed against his cheek; her fingers caressed his hair.

  Wallingford left her mouth to kiss his way along her jaw to her ear. “I can’t leave the field entirely to my rival.”

  “Mmm. Yes, he’s very skilled. I should think you’ll need a great deal of practice.”

  “I am at your service.”

  She pulled back. Her eyes were wide in her delicate face. “Are you, Wallingford? Are you really?”

  “Up to a point.” He ran his finger around the curve of her ear.

  “Oh! Only more of your teasing, I suppose. This pointless self-denial, when even my untrained virgin sensibilities can tell you’re aching to have me.”

  He sat back. “For God’s sake, Abigail.”

  “Good heavens, Wallingford. Are you blushing? Do you think I’m unaware of your aroused physical state? I have studied the functions of male anatomy, you realize.”

  “Yes, I realize that.” He resisted the urge to glance down. He knew quite well that the male anatomy in question was straining desperately against the prison of his trousers, just as Abigail had observed.

  “Why, you are blushing! And how lovely it looks on you. It brings your face quite alive.”

  “I didn’t strike you as alive before?”

  A frustrated sigh. “Look, must we go on exchanging clever remarks? I’d much rather kiss.”

  He leaned forward to oblige her, but before he had quite reached her lips she gave a gasp of dismay and pushed him away. “Stop a moment. How long was I sleeping? What time is it?”

  Wallingford groaned and produced his watch. “Nine twenty-three.”

  “Oh, Lord. Already? I’m dreadfully sorry, my darling, but I really must go. I promised Morini I’d help with the midsummer masks. We’re quite behind, though I stayed up half the night working . . .” She was on her feet, picking up random picnic detritus and tossing it in the wicker basket in a series of dangerous crashes. The sun dappled her hair through the leaves.

  “Midsummer masks?” Wallingford repeated stupidly, transfixed by the sight of her bosom as it ducked and lifted before his eyes.

  “Yes, for the party tonight. You do have a mask, don’t you?”

  “Of course I have a mask.”

  She stopped and turned, a flask of water hanging from her hand. “You’ve forgotten entirely, haven’t you?”

  “Of course I haven’t forgotten. I . . . my mask is . . . it’s all ready. Quite . . . quite ready, and all that. With a”—he made a helpless motion with one finger—“a feather, you see, in one corner. Both corners, that is. Goose down, to be precise. I have a great fondness for the stuff.” He grinned up hopefully at her.

  She dropped the flask in the basket and clapped her hands. “Well played. You nearly had me, right up until goose down.” She picked up the basket. “Now will you help me with the blanket?”

  He took the basket from her and set it down in the grass, and then he picked up the blanket and folded it. In his present state of panting lust, it seemed a useful thing to do. Wallingford had learned, in the past few months, how to manage this constant simmer of passion, how to distract himself from sexual arousal with physical tasks, to discipline the cravings of his body. Not so different, really, from swimming to the middle of the lake and knowing there was nothing else to do but keep going, whatever his personal inclinations. He had learned simply to enjoy the flaring of desire, to take pleasure not in hasty consummation but in anticipation, in touches and glances, in Abigail herself.

  Abigail herself, meanwhile, was no help at all. She simply didn’t see the point. “I don’t see the point, Wallingford,” she said, picking her way through the trees by his side. They had walked around to the far side of the lake, as they did most days, where privacy was more certain. “We’re far from the proprieties of London, after all. I’m willing; you’re certainly willing. What the devil are we waiting for?”

  He smiled to himself. “You’ve never heard of the virtue of self-denial?”

  “What do you know of the virtue of self-denial? I’m sure you’ve never sampled it before.”

  “You sound cross, my dear.”

  “I am cross.” She stopped and turned to him. “You’ve gone to bed with dozens of women, Wallingford. Why not me?”

  How could he answer her? He hooked the basket handle over his elbow and touched her hair. “You know the answer to that.”

  Abigail slapped his hand away. “Yes, this tiresome and ridiculous prohibition against seducing virgins; or rather well-bred virgins, for I’m sure you gentlemen have no such scruples about the unprotected sort.”

  “That’s not true. I’ve never . . .” He frowned. “In any case, it has nothing to do with scruples. It has to do with . . .”

  She turned and resumed walking. “Convention? Doubts?”

  “God, no. With . . . with wanting to do things differently.” He said the last words in a mutter, almost to himself.

  “With what?”

  “With exactly the sort of sentimental rubbish you insist you despise. Tell me more about this midsummer whatever-it-is.” He shifted the basket back to his hand.

  “Oh, it’s going to be splendid! You really must come, Wallingford; I’m quite serious. Masks and dancing, and all the villagers out in the courtyard with us. Lilibet and Alexandra and I shall be dressed as serving girls . . .”

  “Serving girls?”

  “According to Morini, it’s traditional for the ladies of the castle to dress as maids on Midsummer’s Eve. Of course, one’s got to do the thing properly and . . .”

  She went on pattering about anchovy paste and the local philharmonic, but Wallingford’s brain had ceased functioning at the phrase serving girls and the image it conjured: Abigail in some low-necked frock, her breasts spilling over the bodice, perhaps even (oh, merciful God!) an apron around her swinging hips, as she offered him a tray of delectables. Words passed over his head, olives and stuffing and tuba, but his mental fingers were plucking at her mental bodice, and nothing made any sense until a sharp object bludgeoned his ribs and Abigail’s indignant voice intruded on his vision: “I say, Wallingford, a
re you attending me?”

  “Oh yes. Tubas. Awfully jolly. Shall perish of excitement.” How soon, he wondered, would the threatened tubas make their appearance? Was it possible to spirit Abigail away first, in costume of course, to serve him his olives privately, one by one?

  Would she be wearing her mask, too?

  He swallowed heavily.

  “Tubas, really. You’re not listening at all, Wallingford. I was discussing the significance of Midsummer’s Eve.”

  “Midsummer, of course. Longest day of the year. A cause for celebration, certainly.”

  “To the castle, Wallingford. It’s an enchanted night, the night of lovers, they say. And Morini and I have made such careful preparations. It won’t go awry this time, I’m certain.”

  Just as the phrase night of lovers began to have the same arresting effect on Wallingford’s brain as serving girls, something else snagged his attention.

  He cocked his head, gave it a little shake, and asked, “What did you say?”

  “Oh, the preparations. You can’t imagine . . .”

  “You said this time. As if there were some other time. That is to say, some other night.”

  “Did I? You know how I drop these silly remarks, Wallingford. They mean nothing at all.” Her pace picked up, leaving Wallingford slightly behind, and causing the hem of her single petticoat to swish into view around her churning ankles. Her graceful ankles, of which he occasionally caught glimpses . . .

  Stop.

  He shook his head again. “No. Your silly remarks mean the most of all, Abigail Harewood.” He lengthened his stride and caught up with her. “Out with it. What are you scheming?”

  “Nothing at all. The absurdity. Do you think Philip needs a mask? I’m not sure I shall have the time . . .”

  “Abigail,” he growled, catching her arm.

  She pivoted about his elbow with all the force of her forward momentum. He caught her just in time, rather neatly, so she was trapped between his two arms. He let the picnic basket drop to the ground. A blush was rising up in her cheeks, though it might have been the exertion.