Least Likely to Marry a Duke

by Louise Allen

  ‘What are you smiling about, my dear?’ he signed slowly. ‘Something has amused you?’

  ‘Nothing in particular, Papa.’ And that is a fib, on a Sunday, too. ‘Such a lovely day, isn’t it? Would you like to take luncheon in the garden?’

  ‘I think so, yes. I will have a short rest first.’

  ‘And I will take a walk.’ Essentially she wanted to get away from the Old Palace so she could laugh in private over the hunting of the Duke. At least she could acquit him of being rude to anyone. An aristocrat of high rank could turn and wither the pretensions of the local gentry with just a few well-chosen words, or even a look, and it was to his credit that he had not yielded to the temptation to hit back. And not by a flicker of an eyelash had he revealed that he had met her friends before or had identified poor Prue.

  * * *

  Really, the Duke of Aylsham might be a very pleasant gentleman if he was not so starched-up and conscious of his position, she concluded ten minutes later as she made her way out of the gardens and into the water meadows.

  He was certainly a very fine specimen of manhood to look at, which was not a thought she should be entertaining on a Sunday.

  You see, William Calthorpe, you are leading me astray. Fibs and warm thoughts on the Sabbath indeed!

  She would call him William in her head, she decided. Too much dwelling on his title would make him assume an importance in her mind he did not deserve. But it was a long time since she had felt the slightest flicker of interest when she looked at a man and the feeling was not, to her surprise, unpleasant.

  The ground under her feet gave a warning squelch, a reminder of last week’s rain, but the woodland walk would be dry underfoot and there was the hope that she might spot the peregrine falcon that she had strictly forbidden the keepers to shoot.

  Her favourite log was a good spot to sit and the sunlight would be on the clearing at this time of day. If she stayed quite still for a few moments she could see what came down to the pond to drink and Verity walked quietly into the glade to avoid frightening any wild creature.

  There. A movement behind the trees, a roe deer coming to the water. With her eyes on the animal Verity edged sideways towards her usual perch. She could just see the tree trunk out of the corner of her eye. Almost there, almost. Still watching the shy deer emerging from the fringe of bushes, she sat down, very, very slowly.

  ‘Hmff?’ The surface under her was not wood, it was fabric with a warm body inside it. The body sat up, precipitating her on to the turf. The deer fled back into the woods and Verity looked up into the furious face of His Grace the Duke of Aylsham. William. She almost said it out loud. He had been lying along the trunk and must, she supposed, have been asleep.

  ‘What the devil?’ He had himself under control in a breath, swung his feet down and stood up. ‘I apologise for my language, Miss Wingate. But what—’

  ‘What the devil was I doing?’ she enquired as she took his hand and allowed herself to be hauled up. It was not very ladylike. She should not care, but it was galling to keep meeting him when she was sprawled on the ground. ‘I did not see you. I had my eyes on a deer that was coming down to drink and I was edging towards the tree trunk to sit down.’ Verity brushed the dried leaves and moss off her skirt and wondered what had possessed her to go for a walk in her Sunday best.

  He was fuming, she guessed, although the only outward evidence was a slight flaring of his nostrils and the tightening of his lips. She added a mental rebuke to herself for allowing her gaze to linger on his finely sculpted nose and the sensual curve of his lower lip. It was a very bad mistake to equate good looks with a pleasant character and William Calthorpe appeared to combine outward perfection with a starchy, judgemental interior.

  ‘I trust I did not hurt you?’ She was not quite certain exactly where on that long body she had sat. She had already been the cause of an injury to his posterior. It hadn’t been his legs this time, he did not appear to be winded, so it was probably not his stomach, which left...

  I will not think about that. I will not look at the area concerned.

  He was not writhing in agony, which was the usual result of hitting a man where it hurt most, as one of her governesses had explained and she had later discovered for herself, so it could not have been too bad.

  ‘This is a most pleasant spot,’ he said with the air of a man determined to make polite conversation against great odds. ‘I was trying to work out whether it is my or your father’s land.’

  ‘Papa’s.’ She felt ridiculously flustered because she was beginning to suspect that the tension emanating from him was not anger, or embarrassment alone, but quite a different emotion altogether. One that she was experiencing, too, to judge by the fluttering in the pit of her stomach and the unsteadiness of her breath. ‘Yours begins on the far southern edge of the copse.’ She flapped a hand in the general direction.

  Why on earth did she have to keep encountering him in situations that put her at a disadvantage? Clutching a skull at the bottom of an excavation, hosting a female party including one naked model—and now sitting on him.

  ‘Oh.’ He looked around.

  Anything rather than risk making eye contact with her, Verity suspected. Or perhaps her dishevelled appearance offended him. Good.

  ‘A pity, I was planning to build a small summer house here.’

  ‘I doubt Papa would wish to sell.’ She realised that she was edging away, poised for flight before she did something obvious like licking her lips or twirling her hair or, for goodness’ sake, batting her eyelashes.

  ‘Look out!’

  She glanced round, then down at the edge of the pond crumbling under her heel. She flailed her arms wildly and was seized by the wrist, then tugged forward to land against William’s chest with a thud that knocked the air from her lungs.

  ‘Oh,’ she said inanely. ‘You seem to keep rescuing me.’

  Only this time he did not let her go. His arms were around her and she was clutching at his lapels and they were pressed together, her head tilted back, his down, so their breath mingled. How did that happen? She could see his individual eyelashes and the pale lines at the corners of his eyes where he had screwed them up against the light, or in laughter. His pupils were wide, dark and Verity found herself unable to tear her gaze from them.

  Fallen angel... I would like to fall with you... No, stop it. You know where that leads.

  ‘Miss Wingate.’ The Duke lowered his head further until their noses were almost touching. She felt his voice rumbling in his chest where they were pressed together. ‘Do you by any chance want to kiss me as much as I want to kiss you?’

  ‘I... Yes.’

  Oh... What had happened to the starched-up, perfectly proper man? What had happened to her, for that matter? And then she stopped wondering and simply kissed him back. His mouth was warm and firm and, when she pressed against him, he licked between her lips, startling a moan of pleasure from her.

  Verity came to herself to find they were sitting side by side on the log, her head on his shoulder, his arms around her. ‘Your Grace...’

  ‘I think after that you had better call me Will.’ His voice was curiously husky, as though he was experiencing some strong emotion, not simply the after-effects of a kiss.

  ‘Will?’

  ‘Yes, Verity?’

  A duke—this Duke—was asking her to call him by his first name. This Duke—Will—had just kissed her and she had kissed him back. So, what did that mean? That she was dreaming? That she had completely lost her grip on reality?

  ‘Will,’ Verity murmured. She liked his name on her lips. She liked sitting like this pressed against his big, hard body. Verity raised her hand and touched his cheek.

  As though her touch had shaken him back to reality Will shifted away, the sensual smile gone from his lips. ‘What am I thinking of?’ he said as he took his hands from her wa
ist and stood up. ‘That was appalling. I must apologise for...for what has just occurred.’

  Appalling? ‘Apologise? Why?’ Apparently she could form at least two words, if not a rational sentence.

  ‘Because, clearly, that was a mistake. A most serious error of judgement.’

  Chapter Five

  ‘An error of judgement?’ Verity demanded. ‘Us kissing each other—’

  ‘Me kissing you.’

  ‘Oh, never mind who kissed who... Whom. Oh, bother it! You are saying that kiss was a serious error of judgement? Why, exactly?’ All the warmth and delightfully fluttered feelings were becoming another kind of heat altogether. Anger. But of course, she should have known better. This sort of thing never ended well.

  ‘A gentleman does not go around kissing young ladies like you.’ Will had found his hat and gloves from beside the tree trunk and was putting them on, very precisely.

  ‘And what, exactly, is a woman like me?’

  One who goes romping through the woods on a Sunday without a chaperon, presumably. One who so far forgets herself that she kisses a man she does not like. At least last time I had the excuse of being in love with the man, even if I was idiotically deluded about him.

  ‘A young lady, like you. You were thrown off balance by almost falling into the pond. I took advantage of your alarm. And so I apologise, it was unconscionable.’

  ‘It was a perfectly pleasant kiss, that is what it was. All it was.’ Verity shot to her feet with rather more force than elegance. ‘No one took advantage of anyone. I am not some green girl who has no idea what a man is about, no idea what a kiss is—or how to say no. I wanted to kiss you, you wanted to kiss me. We kissed. It was an adequate kiss. There is no cause to be ungracious about it. Will.’

  ‘Adequate? Ungracious? Have you no sense of propriety, Miss Wingate?’

  ‘I was Verity a moment ago and I really think we have moved beyond questions of propriety.’

  ‘We had both taken leave of our senses a moment ago.’

  ‘I must certainly have done so.’ Her wretched hat had slid down and over one ear. She jerked it back. ‘I had assumed I could walk on my father’s land without being insulted.’

  ‘I have apologised for that kiss.’ Colour flared across Will’s cheekbones. ‘It was very wrong of me, but no insult was intended.’

  ‘And I have said there was no call to apologise for it. I refer to your inability to recognise that I am a thinking adult who can make her own decisions. Now that is an insult. Good day to you, Your Grace.’

  It felt good to walk away without looking back. Verity even managed it without tripping over any fallen branches or catching her skirts on the brambles. Insufferable man. He had asked, she had assented and kissed him back. So why did he then have to act as though she was a little ninny who did not know her own mind?

  Although to be honest, Verity thought as she arrived, panting slightly, at the edge of the coppice, she must have been out of her mind to have wanted to kiss the Duke.

  Will. I wanted to kiss Will. But why? Just because he is good-looking?

  How humiliating if that were the case. Was she deluding herself that there was more to the man than the face that he showed the world, that the glimpses of a lonely, confused child, of a man with a deeply buried sense of humour, were actually the real Will Calthorpe?

  She slowed down a little to cross the meadow, then climbed the steps set into the side of the ha-ha, at which point she discovered that she had no energy to go any further and sat down on the lawn—never mind about the grass stains—and stared out towards the distant line of burial mounds to carry on trying to fathom what had just happened.

  I do not like the Duke, but I think I might like Will.

  But why? And why did she still want to kiss him, even after that humiliating reaction? It had been a more than adequate kiss. It had been a very nice kiss, whatever she had thrown at him just now, but it had not been so spectacular that she had entirely lost her wits. It was surely not because of his rank. She could acquit herself of being as shallow as that. Besides, the sight of a duke was not enough to cause that sensual little shiver or the fluttering low in her belly—it was the man behind the title who caused that.

  A cock pheasant strutted down the slope of the lawn, saw her and struck a pose, lifting his tail and fluffing out his wing feathers.

  Another handsome male. Is that all it is? I have fallen for broad shoulders and thick blond hair and chiselled cheekbones. And that mouth, of course...

  Oh, that mouth—and what she sensed that the man could do with it if he ever let himself go without inhibition.

  Goodness, that would make her as bad as any heedless male—excited by looks and without any discrimination about the inner person. And the inner person in this case was starched-up, over-conscious of his rank and power and the last man on earth who would make a good husband for a woman who wanted independence and freedom.

  Husband? Verity sat up with a jerk and the pheasant flew away with a squawk of alarm. Have I taken leave of my senses completely? One kiss and I am thinking of marriage?

  It would be a life sentence of stultifying propriety chained to a man for whom being the perfect Duke appeared to be all important. He would want numerous perfectly proper offspring, too.

  Verity thought about children—her own children—now and again with a pleasant yearning ache and a vision of laughing, happy little figures. Certainly the dream had not included producing an heir and a spare to order and bringing up little girls to make perfect, dutiful marriages. Once she’d had daydreams of a charming rectory with roses around the door, children playing on the lawn and a handsome rector crafting an intelligent and humane sermon in the study while she was occupied with whatever the much-loved wives of handsome and intelligent rectors did to pass their day perfectly.

  Impatient with her own thoughts, she scrambled to her feet and walked back to the gardens.

  You were foolish and young then and you flatter yourself now, she thought, her sense of humour returning as she shook the dried grass stems out of her skirts. It takes two to make a marriage and whatever makes you believe, Verity Wingate, that he even thinks of you once you are out of his sight?

  An unexpected armful of woman was enough to make any man want to snatch a kiss, she knew that perfectly well. There was no importance to be attached to the sensual urges of the average male and it would be a mistake to imagine that a duke, however perfect, was immune to those same desires.

  * * *

  What had he been thinking, to kiss the Bishop’s outrageous daughter? Will strode through the woods, striking out with the sole desire to reach the edge and find some landmark to orientate by so he could remove himself from the area as quickly as possible. He had not been thinking at all, of course. He had been reacting to the arrival in his arms of a warm, soft, curvaceous armful of young woman who apparently, in that moment, wanted to kiss him as much as he wanted to kiss her.

  And very good it had been, too, whatever insultingly lukewarm adjectives she had used to describe it. Verity—Miss Wingate, he corrected himself—was obviously the chaste young lady one would expect, but she had been kissed before and she was more than willing to kiss in return. He ran his tongue over his lower lip. It still held the impression of hers, he could still taste her and the sweet, subtle scent of wisteria seemed to hang in the air around him, however fast he walked.

  But he should not be kissing young women he had no intention of courting. He should not be kissing any respectable young woman for almost a year, although it was beginning to dawn on him that twelve months of celibacy was not going to be easy. In fact, with the memory of Verity Wingate in his arms, his body was forcefully reminding him that it would be very difficult indeed. He had glimpsed the considerable charms of her friend in all their glory the other day and had hardly felt a flicker of interest, but Miss Wingate appeared to have an inconv
eniently inflammatory effect on him.

  Hell. Which meant that he was either going to have to grit his teeth and put up with it, on top of everything else he had to contend with, or he must spend some time in London setting up a mistress. When his father died and it had become clear that he was going to have to spend all his time, and energies, on the affairs of the dukedom, he had parted amicably enough from his last chère amie. It had taken considerable diplomacy, and some very nice diamonds, to achieve the amiable parting: no courtesan walks away from an affaire with a duke willingly.

  But now... He supposed he could return to Cynthia. But she had doubtless found another protector already and if she had not, then by showing interest he might be raising expectations of a longer-term relationship than he wanted. Once he was married that would be that, he was firmly resolved. It might well be that he would be making a marriage of convenience with the most suitable partner, but that did not mean he could, or would, ignore his vows.

  And there was the Hall ahead of him. Will lengthened his stride and stuffed all thoughts of mistresses, and amorous activity generally, into the locked mental cupboard where they belonged when he was in his own home surrounded by his young brothers and sisters.

  * * *

  It took him another twenty minutes to reach his front door, by which time he had recovered his composure, had mentally bullied his body into submission and discovered that he had neither the energy nor the will to dragoon his family into attending evensong.

  ‘Unless anyone wishes to accompany Miss Preston?’ he enquired over luncheon. The governess beamed approval at him and six pairs of eyes regarded him with varying degrees of horror, scorn and disbelief. ‘No? You amaze me. Miss Preston, the carriage is at your disposal. Benjamin, kindly pass me the cold chicken.’

  ‘When is Miss Wingate coming to visit us?’ Basil demanded, regrettably through a mouthful of bread and butter. Will glared, he swallowed. ‘And the Bishop. We like the Bishop. And Mr Hoskins. He told us all about the creepiest tombstone with skulls and bones on it in the churchyard. I bet he knows ghost stories. He might even get the Vicar to let us into the crypt.’ He shuddered at the delicious horror of it.