She’d been sound asleep until he’d started on her buttons. At first she’d thought it was a servant, but then she’d smelled his cologne water and realized who it was. Resisting the urge to reveal she was awake, she’d waited to see just how far he would go. And she had asked him to help her, after all. He was just doing as she’d requested, just being polite.
Except that there was nothing polite about the brush of his hand along her spine, nothing polite about the long moment he’d spent apparently contemplating her back after he’d undone her laces.
And there was nothing polite about the way her heart was still racing. Devil take him for that.
Well, at least now she could get undressed. She briefly considered locking the door, but she doubted he would return anytime soon. Besides, if he hadn’t done anything when he had the chance, he wasn’t likely to do so later.
Swiftly, she changed into her nightdress, then slid back into bed, but it took her a while to return to sleep. She couldn’t reconcile the haughty duke who’d assumed she was Dom’s mistress and who owned seven estates with the man who’d carefully and almost tenderly unbuttoned her gown while she slept.
Who was Max? And why did she care so much, anyway? Once they found Tristan and settled this matter of the handkerchief, she and the duke would have no more dealings with each other.
Assuming that things turned out well. But if they didn’t . . .
No, she wouldn’t dwell on what Lofty Lyons could do to her family if it turned out that Tristan had been trying to deceive him. Tristan hadn’t. It was impossible. So there would be no repercussions. There mustn’t be.
That uneasy thought plagued her for a long while, until exhaustion took over and she fell into a restless sleep.
She didn’t know how long she’d been sleeping when she came awake abruptly, some sound having awakened her. She lay there with her heart in her throat, the covers up to her chin. Until she heard it again. Singing. Male singing.
What the devil?
Sliding from the bed, she went to crack the door open just as a chair fell over in the next room.
“Shh,” said a voice none too quietly, with a slight slur. “Shh, mustn’t wake her.”
Good Lord. It was the duke. And he was drunk. Now, that was something she hadn’t expected. She edged into the room just as he stumbled over the chair he’d knocked over.
“Stop moving!” he growled at the chair. “I demand that you . . . that you . . .” He paused, as if trying to find his place in the sentence. “I forget. But whatever it is, stop it.”
“I doubt that the chair will listen,” she said dryly as she walked forward. “Chairs have a tendency to be oblivious to commands, even those given by a duke.”
He whirled to face her and nearly fell over. “You’re awake.”
She hurried to support his swaying form. “Hard to sleep when there’s so much racket.”
Looping his arm about her shoulders, he said in a confiding tone, “I’m foxed.”
“I know.” If she hadn’t already been able to tell from his behavior, she would have noticed from the brandy lacing his breath.
She led him toward the settee. “Why you would get yourself into such a condition the night before you’re going to be tossed about on the Channel, I can’t fathom. But then men are never logical about drinking.”
As he dropped heavily onto the settee, she sat down beside him and started to untie his cravat.
He flashed her an almost boyish smile. “You took off your gown.”
Blushing deeply, she kept her attention on his cravat. “I don’t generally sleep in it.” And she’d rushed in here so fast, she hadn’t thought to throw on her wrapper over her night rail, either.
“Good thing.” His gaze scoured her, sultry and hot, making her painfully aware of just how thin her night rail was. “I like you best in your nightdress.”
Fighting to hide the warmth that his words provoked, she knelt in front of him to take off his boots, something she’d done a time or two with her brothers.
Except this was different. He was different. When Tristan or Dom got drunk, they turned into sullen and unmanageable beasts. But Max, who until now had worn his air of stiff reserve as a knight wore medieval armor, had turned into a rumpled, seductive devil.
“You’re so pretty,” he murmured as she struggled with his boots. He ran his hand over her curls, tangling his fingers in them. “Your hair is like . . . it’s like . . . I dunno. Something black and shiny.”
She smothered a smile. Apparently when the duke was jug-bitten, he became somewhat inarticulate. “Like beetles, perhaps?” she joked. “They’re black and shiny.”
“Right, beetles.” He blinked, then scowled. “Not beetles. Don’t be daft.” He’d filled both his hands with her hair and was smoothing it and caressing it. “Something prettier.”
The ineptness of the compliment was oddly endearing, which was ludicrous. How could she take seriously a single thing he said right now?
She tossed aside the boot she’d freed, then went to work on the other one. “Well, don’t expect me to provide you with a prettier compliment to give me. I’m too tired.”
“Me too. You should go to bed. Here, let me help you.” He bent forward to catch her beneath the arms as if to lift her from her kneeling position. Then he paused like that, and before she realized what was happening, he angled his palms in further to cup her breasts.
For a moment, she was too shocked to do anything but gape at him. But then he kneaded them and murmured, “These are pretty, too,” which galvanized her into action.
“Stop that!” She shoved his hands away. “We had an agreement!”
He nodded solemnly. “No kisses.” Then a gleam entered his eyes and he reached for her breasts again. “Didn’t say anything about this, though.”
Jumping to her feet, she snapped, “You can take care of your own dratted boots, Your Grace.”
She started to walk away, but before she could escape he dragged her down onto his lap. Even as she tried to wriggle free, he pressed his mouth to her ear and whispered, “Want to know a secret?”
“No,” she muttered as she tried to push herself off of him.
“I like you.”
That halted her. She turned her head to shoot him a skeptical glance. “Do you? Or is that just the brandy fogging your brain?”
“Nope,” he said, his eyes turning a molten green. “I mean it.”
She frowned at him. Just when she wanted to conk him on the head with his boot, Lofty Lyons had to come out with something like that.
Although right now he didn’t look a bit lofty. He looked like any man after a long day, with his golden-brown hair mussed, a day’s growth of whiskers dusting his chin, and his cravat hanging loosely about his neck. He looked appealingly ordinary for once.
There was something so intimate about being atop his lap in her night rail. It made her wonder for the first time what it might be like to sit on a husband’s knee, to have him holding her and looking at her the way Max was looking at her now . . . with interest and longing and far too much heat.
Lord help her.
His gaze drifted down her body. “I like you. I do.” Then he filled his hands with her breasts. “And I really like these.”
Thrusting him away, she jumped to her feet and rounded on him to give him a piece of her mind. But he was laughing now, as if possessed by some grand joke. As she narrowed her gaze on him, he hiccupped and keeled over on the settee.
She glared at him, waiting for him to start laughing again. When he not only kept quiet, but kept inordinately still, she started to worry. She nudged his knee with her foot. To her relief, he moved, but only to drag his knees up onto the settee, turn onto his side, and . . .
Snore.
Good Lord. He was well and truly passed out.
Men!
She headed for the bedroom, thoroughly disgusted, but then halted at the door. He’d made her comfortable when she was sleeping; she ought to do the s
ame for him, even if his sleep was brandy-induced.
Telling herself she was daft, she turned back to him. He lay completely inert, seemingly oblivious to his surroundings. Grumbling about fools in their cups, she marched over and finished pulling off his boots. He only mumbled and settled back into sleep. With a roll of her eyes, she found a cushion to slip under his head and managed to unbutton his waistcoat without awakening him.
That wasn’t going to help him much, however. His body was too big for the settee and stuck out over the edges—an elbow here, a stocking foot there. In the morning, he was going to be stiff in every joint after being crammed into that position all night.
Feeling an unreasonable pang of guilt, she covered him with his greatcoat. It wasn’t her fault that she’d offered him the bed and he hadn’t taken it. And it certainly wasn’t her fault that he’d gotten himself foxed enough to make a fool of himself, tripping over chairs and passing out and saying such ridiculous things as—
I like you.
She snorted. He probably hadn’t meant a word of it—he’d just been softening her up so he could grab her breasts.
Still . . .
“I like you, too, you ill-mannered oaf.” Then, annoyed with herself for even admitting as much, she added, “But if you ever grab my breasts like that again, I swear I will box your ears.”
Then, turning on her heel, she marched off to bed.
♦ ♦ ♦
THE NEXT MORNING, Maximilian stood at the rail of the steam packet, staring out at the choppy waters and fighting a blinding headache. Thank God he and Lisette had arrived in time to make the journey. He’d slept past the knock that was supposed to rouse them early.
Fortunately, she’d awakened an hour later, and between her panic and his determination not to miss the boat, they’d managed to get ready with astonishing haste. They’d thrown their things into bags, paid the bill, and rushed to the docks just in time to embark with the sixty-odd other passengers headed to Dieppe.
But it had been a very near thing, and he didn’t like near things. Nor did he like having to hurry onto a swaying, noisy contraption while his head still spun and his stomach still churned.
Though he supposed that was what he deserved for downing so much brandy in the space of a few hours. He wasn’t sure how much, because most of the evening was a blank. He wasn’t even sure how he’d gotten back to the room. Obviously he had gotten there somehow, because he’d awakened there after a night of odd dreams, but it bothered him that he didn’t remember how.
Lisette came up to stand beside him at the rail. Today she wore a bluish-colored traveling costume. The puffy sleeves, tight bodice, and broad flounced skirt accentuated her tiny waist and large bosom, although he only glimpsed them when the biting wind blew her wool cloak open. He much preferred her in her nightdress.
Wait, when had he seen her in her nightdress? He must be thinking of that morning at her brother’s home. But no, she’d been wearing a wrapper then.
“The captain says that the trip should take about nine hours,” she said cheerily.
Too cheerily for his aching head. “Wonderful,” he grumbled. “So I’ve got to listen to that ungodly racket all day.”
“What racket? Oh, you mean the steam engine.”
He could feel her eyes on him, assessing him. Then she glanced around to see if anyone was listening, but the other passengers had all headed for the dining cabin to have breakfast as soon as they came aboard, so he and she were fairly alone at the rail.
She clutched at the rail as the boat took a sudden dip. “Have you never made the crossing to France on a steam packet?”
“No,” he bit out. “I have a yacht for that.”
“Of course you do.”
Her sharp tone made him bristle. “I used to travel a great deal,” he said irritably, “so it only made sense to have my own vessel.”
“I’ll have to remember to advise Dom of that the next time he finds himself with a few extra thousand pounds to spend,” she said dryly. When he didn’t rise to her bait, she folded her arms on the rail beside him and shot him a curious glance. “Why did you travel so much? For pleasure? Or for business?”
He debated what to tell her, then opted for the truth. “In his last years, my father was . . . ill. So we traveled in search of a cure.” Which of course they never found. “Once he died, I had to see to his business concerns. My father had a great many foreign interests, so I spent a few years selling them off. I preferred to concentrate on my estates.”
“Does that mean you don’t travel anymore?”
“Only for pleasure, which unfortunately I have less time to do than I’d like.”
“So you enjoy traveling, seeing the world.”
He cast her a faint smile. “When I was young, I wanted to join the navy. I kept begging my father to buy me a commission as a midshipman.”
That way he could satisfy his urge to see the world while at the same time escaping the desperate grief of his parents over their missing son, the only one who mattered.
Bitterness crept into his voice. “He wouldn’t do it. And then I turned sixteen and Peter was found dead, and I became the heir. That was the end of any talk of my going into the navy.” He caught the pity on her face and forced himself to lighten his tone. “So now I content myself with watching the wind fill the sails of my yacht. As I wish I were doing this very moment.”
To his immense relief, she matched his light tone. “You do realize we wouldn’t get to Dieppe nearly as fast on a sailing yacht.”
“But the trip would be far more pleasant. I wouldn’t have that racket to add to the pounding in my head.” When she opened her mouth, he cut her off with, “And before you say it, yes, I know that I brought it on myself. Believe me, I am deeply regretting those last couple glasses of brandy.”
A mischievous gleam appeared in her eyes. “One would think you’d hold your liquor better, Your Grace. How much did you drink, anyway?”
God, this was embarrassing. He shifted his gaze back to the sea. “Too much. Especially for a man who rarely drinks spirits to excess.”
“Oh? And why is that?” she asked, genuine curiosity in her voice.
“Getting foxed has never been my preferred entertainment. I don’t like being out of control.”
But last night, he’d been determined to banish his lustful obsession with the lush Lisette. Instead, he’d had wild dreams of her all night. In one of them, she’d knelt at his feet in nothing but her nightdress, her hair tumbling down about her shoulders and her breasts fitting into his hands so well that he could still feel the warm fullness of them.
If you ever grab my breasts like that again, I swear I will box your ears.
The words, so much like something she would say, brought him up short. He had dreamed it, hadn’t he? He must have. Lisette would never have knelt at his feet. Or been so scantily clad in front of him. And surely even drunk he wouldn’t have been so foolish as to “grab” her breasts.
Would he?
The fact that she’d fallen oddly quiet gave him pause. “Lisette . . . did I . . . um . . . do anything last night that I should apologize for?”
“You mean, like grabbing my bosom?” she said as she pulled her cloak more tightly about her to protect against the spray.
A groan escaped him. “Oh, God, I didn’t dream it.”
“Afraid not.” She sounded oddly matter-of-fact for a woman he’d practically assaulted.
He slanted a wary glance at her. “I’m sorry, I have no memory of it. Well, not much of one. I thought I’d dreamed the few bits I do remember. Please accept my apologies for . . . whatever I might have done.”
She looked at him from beneath lashes that hid her eyes . . . and her thoughts. “Apology accepted.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t hit me over the head for it.” He cast her a wry smile. “Or perhaps you did, and that’s why I have this god-awful headache.”
“I did not,” she said firmly, “though I considered it.
Unfortunately, you passed out before I got the chance.”
“Ah.” He began to wonder if any of his “dream” was a dream. “I wasn’t conscious very long, then.”
She avoided his gaze. “Not very.”
“And the image I have of you kneeling at my feet—”
“I thought you didn’t remember,” she said peevishly.
“Some of it is coming back to me now,” he drawled. “Nice to know that I didn’t dream that particular bit.”
“I was taking off your boots,” she said, suddenly defensive. “I do the same for my brothers when they’re in their cups.”
“Wearing only your nightdress?” he murmured, keeping his gaze fixed on her face. He was enjoying her mortification. He didn’t like being the only one who’d behaved foolishly last night.
The wind tossed her fringe of loose curls about her blushing cheeks as she glanced at the few people emerging from the dining cabin to walk the deck. “I simply wasn’t expecting . . . I didn’t realize at first that you were . . .” She glared at him. “It’s not very gentlemanly of you to point that out.”
He gave a low laugh. “No, but then I seem to turn into a rogue around you.”
“I’ve noticed,” she said with a sniff. “Sometimes a rogue, and sometimes an insensitive, arrogant, presumptuous—”
“Enough,” he bit out. His wild French rose was showing her thorns again, which could mean only one thing. “I take it I behaved even worse last night than you’ve said. What else did I do? If you don’t give me a thorough recitation of my sins, I can’t make amends.”
“There’s no need for you to make amends,” she said pertly. “You did nothing of any consequence.”
When he would have questioned that assertion further, she drew her cloak more tightly about her and added, “Now that the crowd has thinned out, I believe I shall go see if there’s any food left for purchase in the dining cabin, since I didn’t have any breakfast at the inn—thanks to a certain gentleman’s neglecting to awaken when the knock came.”
With her head held high, she walked off so primly that he had to laugh. His faux wife was quite a piece of work—all the pride of a duchess without an ounce of blunt to support it.
The Duke's Men [1] What the Duke Desires Page 11
