Under A Duke's Hand

by Annabel Joseph

  “Lucky chap. Will you be married soon?”

  “I don’t know. Yes. Perhaps. We have become ever so fond of one another. We’re so much in love that I call him Tommy instead of Thomas.” She was painfully aware that she must sound like an idiot.

  “And what does he call you?”

  Gwen blinked. It was a consuming task to make up all these lies. “I... I would rather not say.”

  “It must be something scandalous then. Precious, or darling, or honeycake.”

  Honeycake? This talk of marriage and suitors was growing uncomfortable. His charcoal pencil had gone still on the page.

  “Are you almost finished with your sketch?” she asked.

  “For the most part.” He leaned back and examined his work. “Why don’t you come have a look?”

  When she arrived in his vicinity, he pulled her right down on his lap. She knew she ought to protest, but he wasn’t being rude or rough. On the contrary, his arms encircled her very gently as he held the book before them. His cheek touched hers. He was so large, so warm.

  She tried to concentrate on his sketch, which was quite impressive for the short amount of time he’d taken to draw it. It was mainly her face and shoulders, and breasts. Oh, she didn’t know why she should feel this sketch was all about her breasts, except that her nipples had gone alarmingly taut now that he was near. Was this how Tilda felt when Drustan held her? When Drustan kissed her?

  “Do you like it?” Jack asked. His soft hair brushed against her cheek. “It’s only a quick study. I could draw you for hours and not capture all your bewitching charm.”

  Such flattery, and his gaze was so intense. He must be falling in love with her, to look at her that way. She wished Tilda had come with her, because Tilda would have known how to flirt and play along with this man.

  “Would you like to see some other things I’ve drawn?” he asked, as she gawked at him like a hooked fish.

  “Yes, that would be lovely.”

  He shifted her in his arms. Shifted her closer, she noted, as he flipped back through some of the pages. She did not know much about art, but she knew the drawings had some boldness that made them attractive to her. He’d sketched elegant horses and great city buildings, and a variety of persons, both ladies and gentlemen. In the middle of the book, he skipped past a few pages. Gwen thought she saw a flash of large, round breasts and naked legs, but she wasn’t sure.

  “I’m especially proud of this.” He showed her a sketch that covered two pages, a detailed rendering of a huge manor and courtyard, and a fountain with water spraying from the middle. It brought to mind King Arthur’s Lady of the Lake.

  “How beautiful,” she said. “I’ve never seen a real fountain. Not like that.”

  “Haven’t you? Many grand houses and parks in England have them.” His arm eased closer about her waist. “They’re pretty to look at, aren’t they? Like you.”

  She turned to him with a shy smile, and he chuckled.

  “You’re blushing pink as a rose, Rose. How modest you are, for a wild meadow nymph.”

  “Oh, I am not a nymph.”

  She looked back at his drawings, trying—and failing—to ignore the subtle caress of his thumb beneath her breast. The blush in her cheeks seemed to be spreading to other parts of her body. “I can’t believe how talented you are,” she blathered, to fill the silence. “You made a lovely likeness of me in such a short time. Really, you are a commendable artist.”

  “It’s easy to make art when one is inspired.” He shifted her on his lap, so she was turned more toward him, and then he tilted up her chin. “I suppose it is shocking to say, but I would like to kiss you.”

  Goodness, he meant it. As much as she had craved to be kissed, she knew it wouldn’t be proper to allow it. “You shouldn’t, sir.”

  “Why not?” Their lips were almost touching. His eyes were so blue. “Call me Jack, won’t you? We’re friends, you know, sitting here together in this pretty meadow on a sun-filled day. Why not have a little kiss? Especially when you’ve been flirting so shamelessly.”

  She opened her mouth to protest this accusation, and that was the moment he took advantage, brushing his lips across hers. She went very still, shocked by the whispery warmth of contact. He made a low sound of encouragement and cupped her face before she could pull away.

  Oh my. He was not just kissing her once, but many times. His lips tensed and molded to hers as his fingers wove into her hair. She’d dreamed of being kissed on countless occasions, but her dreams had never approached this heady reality. He grasped her face between his thumbs and flicked his tongue inside her mouth, at the corner and along her lip. After a moment of flailing, she tried to respond and kiss him back in the same sensual fashion. And she thought, take me away to your castle, dear sir. Thank you, flowers and trees. Thank you, heaven and earth, and Jack, for granting me this last adventure before my wedding to the duke.

  He moved her again on his lap, setting her off balance so she was obliged to open her hands upon his chest. How hard he felt, how very solid. Her palms slid up to his shoulders as he deepened their kiss. She ought not to grope this stranger, and she certainly shouldn’t allow him to kiss her this way, but she couldn’t find the power to stop him. Every aspect of him compelled her, from his wild artist’s hair to his manly chest, to the firm, muscled thighs that supported her. He opened a hand over her breast, and she didn’t even think of telling him no. His thumb brushed across her nipple through the coarse wool of her dress, a teasing pleasure that resonated all the way down to the private place between her legs.

  She should tell him not to do such a thing. She knew it was wicked, but it felt so good. He whispered something to her, some endearment, but all she could think was how excited and full her middle felt. She gave a needful little sigh, her lips trembling against his. His hand traveled down and molded around her bottom, caressing and squeezing as boldly as she’d squeezed his shoulders. She pushed back from him.

  “Please, sir,” she said. “You should not.”

  He was handsome, yes, and maybe falling in love with her, but the castle was a fantasy. Too soon, she would have to leave this meadow, and return home to prepare for her wedding to the Duke of Arlington.

  Jack released her, though he did not put her off his lap. His gaze burned hot as ever as he took her hand. “I apologize if I offended you. I forgot myself for a moment.”

  “So did I. It’s this meadow, I suppose, and the fact that you are...” She ducked her head, touching her lips. “That you are very handsome.”

  “Ah, Rose. There you go, flirting with me again. What a naughty girl you are, when you have a young man named Tommy in love with you. How unfaithful you’ve been.”

  She looked up sharply. “No, sir. Not unfaithful.” She stared over his shoulder, thinking how to keep up the fiction and still explain how she’d lost herself in his arms. “I... I know I said he was my fellow, but the truth is... Tommy and I are only...mostly...friends.”

  Jack gave a gentle tsk. “Then you lied to me about having a beau. If you were my lady, I believe I’d spank you for such behavior.”

  It was impossible to tell if he was joking, or serious, or bemused, or actually, truly disappointed in her. “You wouldn’t really?” she said. “You wouldn’t spank a grown woman?”

  “I have and I would. Some naughty misses require an occasional bottom-reddening to keep them in line. Nothing vicious, you understand. Just enough sting to make them feel remorseful for their misdeeds.”

  He moved his hand over her knee, the movement animating the muscles in his chest. A spanking? Rose, the village girl, felt her breath come faster with a squalid sort of excitement. Gwen, on the other hand, was scandalized. “I can hardly...believe...”

  “Don’t men spank their women in Wales, then?” he asked in surprise. “Have you never been spanked, Rose?”

  She shook her head quickly. “No, never. Not since I was a child.”

  He tightened his hands on her waist and press
ed a gentle kiss to the corner of her lips. “Do you wonder what it would feel like if I spanked you?”

  Yes. No. God save me. “I suppose... Well. I wonder if I ought to go check on my horse.”

  “Your horse is perfectly well.” He gazed at her in that authoritative manner that made her stomach flutter. “Shall I give your bottom a smack or two, since you’ve been naughty? Then you would know what it feels like, and head home to your Tommy duly punished, with an unburdened conscience.”

  Gwen couldn’t imagine why she didn’t run off at that point, except that his eyes and his lips held her with some invisible pull. She felt captured in a spell, so that when he lifted her and rearranged her across his lap, she didn’t protest or even struggle.

  “There we are,” he said, as if this were some normal interaction, as if he was merely posing her for art. “I’m sure you’re the type to take a spanking very bravely, with nary a complaint.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she said with an edge of panic.

  He turned up her skirts in the same casual fashion, leaving her shift down to cover her bottom. A small mercy for a foolish girl who had definitely let things go too far. “Please, sir, I’m sure this isn’t proper.”

  “You’re probably right,” he agreed, stroking his palm over her shift. She wondered how his touch would feel against her bare skin. No. You mustn’t wonder such things, Guinevere. You ought to break from him and run away home.

  He began to spank her before she could find the needed words to protest further. The impact startled her, and she squirmed beneath the powerful sting of his palm. How shocking, that he would handle her with such familiarity. How shocking, that the painful spanks made her feel rather...stimulated. She gasped when she realized this. What sort of woman was she, to become aroused at this treatment?

  What sort of man was he, to do this to her in the first place?

  He had said “a smack or two” but he spanked her six times, firm, resonating blows atop her linen shift. “Well,” she said as he raised his hand for yet another. “I believe I know what it feels like now.” Even if I don’t understand my reaction.

  When she tried to get up, he stopped her with a hand pressed to her back. “Do you feel punished enough?”

  She looked up and made a conflicted sound of entreaty. She dared not speak the truth to him, and admit that she had never felt so excited and agitated in her life.

  “If you don’t feel entirely expiated, perhaps a bare-bottomed spanking is in order after all.” He brushed up her shift, and she did nothing to impede him. “That is the most effective way to get a message across.”

  What message was she getting across to him? That she was a wanton village girl who enjoyed this sort of dalliance? From the start, she had realized this was an exercise in seduction, not discipline, and yet she had let him do as he willed. Now he was spanking her steadily, warming her bare, naked cheeks all over. She looked up at him over her shoulder, her emotions in a tangle of confusion. He finally left off and rested his palm beneath the curve of her bottom. “Do you feel punished now?” he asked again.

  “Oh, yes, sir. Please, no more.”

  He gave a soft chuckle, a raw, enticing sound. As he held her gaze, he slid his palm lower, and used his fingers to part the folds of her quim.

  And that went far past any dalliance she could allow.

  She jerked and reached back to stay his caresses. “Oh, no. You mustn’t. I’m a good girl, sir.”

  He stopped at once, as if he had never meant to do it in the first place. She counted herself fortunate, for she had played a dangerous game.

  “Now you’re a good girl,” he teased, helping her up. “Now that you’ve learned not to flirt with strange men in hidden meadows.”

  “Yes, sir.” Once she’d straightened her skirts, she bobbed a clumsy curtsy. She was sure her cheeks must be as red and hot as her spanked bottom. “I suppose I really ought to...to be getting back to the village.”

  “To see Tommy, I suppose.”

  “Yes, and to do my work. I’m not allowed much leisure time.”

  “None of us are, my dear. Life is a busy business. But I was happy to make your acquaintance this fine afternoon. I don’t suppose you’ll give me one last kiss?”

  She took a step back, and another. “I don’t think that would be wise. I must bid you goodbye.”

  She was afraid to look at him, afraid of her weakness, afraid of what he might see. But Gwen forced herself to meet his gaze anyway, because she knew with absolute certainty that she would never see him again. She was getting married in a couple of days to some duke she didn’t know, and that duke was going to take her away to England. Jack would have his sketch of her as a memory, if he even cared. It seemed to her now that he might not. It seemed to her now that he was a commonplace rogue, the type of rogue who might have kissed a thousand women, and pretended they needed spankings.

  Gwen felt embarrassed and terribly ashamed, but she forced herself to smile for Jack because he’d given her her first kiss, and done a commendable job of it. He’d made her feel soft and warm and...womanly. It had been good, and bad, and confusing, and really, very embarrassing and sad. All in all, a complicated memory to keep, and she didn’t even have a sketch to remember him by.

  She brushed a hand over her skirts to be sure they were modestly arranged, and then turned and hurried to mount her old horse. The last view of her precious meadow was hazy and unfocused because of her rising tears.

  You ought to cry, she chided herself. You behaved like an utter strumpet. But she was really crying because she felt silly and used, and because it was so hard to say goodbye.

  Chapter Two: First Impressions

  Aidan proceeded from the village inn to Lisburne Manor in full ducal splendor, ensconced in his best traveling coach. Not that he’d traveled here in that traveling coach. He’d come from Oxfordshire by horseback, and directed the coaches, baggage carts, and servants to trail behind for his new duchess to utilize afterward, on the journey home. He’d brought a newly hired French maid to attend her, and his favorite valet, of course. He employed four valets altogether, to manage his vast wardrobe and state uniforms, and coronets, and jewels, and all the other nonsense he had to drape himself in because he’d been born the first son of a duke.

  Now he would marry this Guinevere and make children on her, and his firstborn son would be a future duke, with an abundance of wealth and property and social connections and duty and headaches to look forward to. What was the point of any of it, except to uphold tradition? He’d been bred to tradition from the cradle. Honor, title, legacy. As soon as things settled down, Aidan would hire an artist to paint their portrait in rich and formal tones: The Eleventh Duke and Duchess of Arlington.

  Because as much as he resisted the idea of marriage, he had always looked forward to joining the parade of ancestors in the East Salon, had even practiced regal poses in a mirror, when he was not observed, of course. Taking a wife was a damned nuisance, but somewhere inside, he also craved the civilized dignity of a state marriage and family.

  To that end, he had kept himself respectable, waiting for the king to recommend the most appropriate and advantageous match. At social functions, he’d often pondered which high-born daughters might suit him best as a wife. The pool of candidates, in his mind, had been small and exclusive. He and Lady Aurelia might have made an excellent pair, if she had not been promised as an infant to his friend the Marquess of Townsend. Other prospects: Lady Caroline, who was well-bred and refined, and intelligent Lady Hester, upon whom he lavished attention whenever they crossed paths. Lady Frances and Lady Arabella were both dukes’ daughters, and either young lady would have made him a suitable bride.

  He sighed, gazing out the window as the dark, squat Lisburne homestead rose into view. His actual bride was not an English aristocrat, or even a titled lady. She was a plain old Miss, being daughter to a common-born baron who was also, unfortunately, Welsh. Aidan tried to think of positives. She would doubtless b
e heathenish, if not an outright hellion. Plenty of opportunity to discipline her, a pastime he very much enjoyed. Furthermore, he imagined she would be of hardy, peasant-like stock. She’d breed well, birth lots of strong children, and bring new vigor to the Arlington line. Best of all, she would be grateful to wed him, being naturally in awe of him as a much more distinguished person.

  And he must act like a distinguished person, now that he was marrying. No more dalliances with ebony-haired village girls in quiet meadows. When it came to carnal pleasures, he preferred a skilled courtesan, but there had been something so tempting about that young woman yesterday afternoon. He’d wanted her from the moment she’d drifted into the clearing and taken off her bonnet, and shaken her black hair down her back like some wild fairy queen.

  Rose, his fairy queen. He thought of her this morning while his valet shaved him and dressed him in a deep bronze coat with gold embroidery, and tied his cravat just so, until Aidan could barely move his neck. It might have been a noose, the perfect metaphor for marriage. He stuck a finger inside the linen knot but then lowered his hand without loosening it.

  Instead he drew on his gloves and checked to be sure his long, thick hair was tamed into its queue at the back of his neck. He often wore it down about his shoulders, his one foible of hedonism in his otherwise dutiful world.

  But not today. First impressions were everything, whether one was greeting a scion of English society, or a lowborn Welsh bride.

  * * * * *

  Gwen almost tripped on her way downstairs to gather with the rest of her family. That would have wreaked havoc on everyone’s agendas, having the pawn, er, bride break her neck in a fall. She stepped more carefully after that, and tried to pull her scattered thoughts together.

  She’d wanted one last adventure before the bonds of marriage closed in on her, and she had gotten one. Jack: artist, Viking, traveling Englishman. Flirt. Scoundrel. He had smiled at her and drawn her close, and awakened a new awareness within her, a yearning and need she recognized as desire.