Least Likely to Marry a Duke

by Louise Allen

  ‘I wish I understood what it is about me that repels you so.’

  She felt him move away, rather than heard him. His absence felt as though a void had opened up behind her when before there had been something solid, something that would support her.

  ‘It would be idiotic of me to pretend that I do not know that I am considered an excellent match on every worldly level.’ His voice came from her left now, perhaps six feet away. She did not turn. ‘Humour matters to you, I know, and we have shared a joke or two, you know I am not humourless. We have shared kisses, too, and, forgive me, but you have not seemed to find them unpleasant. If it is something that I can change, tell me, and, if I can, I will.’

  ‘You do not repel me.’ It must have been hard for a man with his pride to even ask that question. ‘The loss of my freedom to a man who would insist on my conformity does. I would feel a prisoner as much as if you had loaded me with chains. You do not understand why I do not want to marry you, but I understand very clearly why you do not want me as your duchess. You are wise to feel that way. It would be a disaster for both of us.’

  ‘You want love, is that it?’ Will sounded as though she was asking for something strange and slightly eccentric. ‘People of our station in life do not marry for love.’

  ‘Most often not,’ Verity agreed. ‘But, yes. I can live without marrying and most probably I will. But if I do, I want to marry a man who wants me. Me. Not a conformable, suitable wife. Not to fulfil an obligation, not because his honour demands it. I want a man who would make my pulse stammer and my head spin whether he was a duke or a drayman. I want a man who can look into my eyes and understand me without words being spoken. I want a man for whom the world would be well lost if he could live his life with me.’

  Her hand hurt. She looked down and found she had struck the balustrade with her clenched fist as she finally found words for her dreams and the courage to speak them.

  ‘You have hurt yourself.’ Will raised her hand and opened out the fingers. There was a smear of blood from a graze and he bent and touched it with his lips. ‘You have hurt your hand and you are dreaming impossible dreams. You will wake up and find that years have slipped by without this man you hope for. Years barren of kisses, of children.’

  ‘No. I—’

  Will raised his head from her hand and took her mouth. He did not hold her, except that their fingers were intertwined still, he did not do more than move his lips lightly over hers, although she could feel the tension running through him like the vibration in a violin string that has been plucked.

  There is this, a voice in her head said as she fought not to simply give in to the magic he was weaving. It was an illusion, this feeling of rightness in Will’s arms. But how long would it last, this flaring desire between them?

  And it is only because he is a skilled lover, the cynical, hurt voice in her head told her. It is not you, not that you are in some way special to him. He simply knows how to kiss and he knows that he must marry you.

  ‘Verity, listen to me.’ He set her back from him and she could see no heat, no battle with his desires, in those intense blue eyes. ‘Think of how your father will feel if your reputation is ruined—and it may be. What the effect could be on his health.’

  Will was perfectly correct. Papa would be distressed, but she was certain that if she told him how she felt then he would support her. His health would not suffer for it—she would be there to make sure it did not.

  The effects of that kiss were beginning to wear off and she could feel the resentment boiling up at the tactics of the man in front of her.

  First kiss the silly female until she is dizzy, then present the arguments logically—because she is only a poor, feeble creature unused to logic so it will overwhelm her and she cannot answer back.

  ‘When the scandal breaks your friends would be forbidden your company and be deprived of their safe haven as a result,’ Will continued inexorably. ‘I do not know why it is so important for them to gather together under your wing, but I can see that it matters a great deal to you.’

  The impact of that must have shown on her face because his eyes narrowed, became those of a hunter who has seen his prey weakening after a long chase.

  ‘I could only offer them room in the tower for a short while, I knew that and so do they. We hoped that with you in the district their parents would stop scheming to marry them off in the hope that one of them might catch your eye. If I married you, that shelter has gone in any case. You cannot tell me that you would tolerate your wife encouraging the neighbours’ daughters to do things of which their parents disapprove.’

  ‘Of course not. But why are you so convinced that marriage is something akin to a sacrifice? Anyone would think you were all like Andromeda, chained to a rock for a sea monster to devour, or early Christian maidens being forced to choose between marriage to a pagan Roman or the lions in the arena.’ His exasperation was beginning to show in his voice now, in the taut lines of his shoulders, the thinning of his mouth.

  ‘For some women it is like being thrown to the lions,’ Verity said. ‘For all of us, it is a gamble. Even beginning from a basis of mutual desire for the union, with a man I could love, it is a risk.’

  ‘Life is a risk,’ Will retorted.

  ‘I choose the risks I want to run. And you?’ she asked. ‘Are you not going to add the reasons it is important to you to insist on this marriage?’

  He shook his head, the proud, stubborn man. He was not going to use that weapon, or perhaps he gave her enough credit to understand his motives.

  If she was not very careful Will could be branded as a man who had compromised an innocent lady and failed to do the right thing. His honour might be compromised.

  I can rebel. I can be strong. Or will I merely be selfishly stubborn? Papa, my friends, Will...

  Verity turned abruptly, walked to the steps down to the lawn and the long flower border that glowed with colour against the stone of the terrace. She felt the impulse to run again, but that would be cowardly and, besides, she could not outrun either Will or this situation.

  Strong or stubborn? Determined or selfish?

  She reached out and picked a half-open rose from the border.

  I will, I won’t, I will...

  Petals showered down as she plucked at them.

  I won’t—An earwig crawled out of the centre of what was left of the bloom. Verity threw it from her with a violent twist of her wrist. Will was behind her, a few careful feet, leaving her space, leaving her room to think, waiting for her to realise that, twist or turn as she might, she was not going to escape.

  It was strangely difficult to find enough air in her lungs to speak. She turned and faced him, brushed the petals from her skirts to give herself time. When the words came, they were surprisingly steady. ‘I will not marry you, Your Grace. Not tomorrow. Not this week or next. Never.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘That is a very unwise decision,’ Will said. No, the Duke said. The man standing in front of her was not the one she had teased in the cottage in the thunderstorm, not the one whose eyes crinkled suddenly with unexpected amusement, not the one who kissed her in a woodland glade.

  Unwise? Is that all you can say? Can you find no emotion? But this was who he was, the man she was refusing.

  ‘If I marry you I will gain a great title, wealth, the preservation of my good name. And in the process I will lose myself,’ she said steadily, somehow matching his calm tone.

  Will closed the space between them, took her hand. ‘Miss Wingate, I beg you to think again, before it is too late.’

  Extraordinary, the way in which he makes it sound as though he actually wants to marry me. A duke’s manners are perfect under all circumstances, I suppose.

  How had he planned to force her into the mould of an ideal duchess? Verity shivered. This was a man who was taken from his father and sc
hooled into near perfection by an old man whose only ambition, it seemed, was to recreate himself in his grandson when his own son failed to meet his expectations.

  ‘You should be glad,’ she said bluntly. He knew that only too well, he must do, but she wanted to shake him out of his formality, needed some sign of real feeling. Some emotion. Some thwarted passion? That was just her own pride showing, she told herself. Will had kissed her three times. Now that he was making a final attempt to persuade her to be his wife he showed no sign of wanting to do so again.

  ‘I am sure you would make an admirable duchess, in your own style, once you had time to adjust.’ There was the faintest hint of a crease between his brows now. ‘There is no need to worry that you would somehow fail in any way, Verity. I will help you.’

  ‘I am not worried. I am telling you that I will not be pressed into a mould and baked into rigidity like a gingerbread figure for you, your title or for respectability.’

  ‘You would make a very crisp and spicy biscuit,’ he remarked, with the first trace of humour Verity had seen since she had walked, uninvited, into the study where all those men had been dictating her future. He tipped his head to one side, studying her face as though he could read her true feelings if only he looked hard enough. ‘Are you very upset by this?’

  Upset is such a nice, moderate word. It is so easy to settle an upset, to soothe the ruffled feathers, mop up the spilt milk.

  ‘I do not know how I feel about you,’ Verity confessed. She could like the man behind the Duke, perhaps. But the armour that he had grown around himself was more impenetrable than a crab’s shell. ‘I know I do not want to marry you, that it would be a disaster for both of us. But I do not want to see you hurt by this.’

  ‘Hurt.’ He said the word as though he was trying it for taste, a bite of a strange and exotic fruit. ‘I see. Then let us part as friends. I kissed you before, when I should not have done. And again just now when I suspect you were wary of my motives. But I would like to kiss you again now.’ He was very close now. ‘Do you wish me to?’

  ‘Will it make this any better?’ There was the somewhat humiliating awareness that, yes, it would make things better. That she wanted him in that way, if in no other. Could he tell—or would he think her simply immodest and eager for kisses, anyone’s kisses? If she had married him, then, when he took her to bed, he would surely have known that she was not the inexperienced virgin he had believed her to be. Better that this was all that was between them.

  ‘I would hope so. Kissing is generally considered to be a pleasurable activity.’ His hands were on her shoulders, turning her. ‘Of course, if you do not wish it, you have only to say. We could shake hands on our agreement to disagree. I would not want to presume that you would be anything but shy about such matters.’

  Is he laughing at me?

  ‘You know perfectly well that I have not been shy about it before,’ Verity said crossly, although she allowed Will to turn her fully to face him.

  He drew her closer in, so close that she had to tip up her face to look into his, so close that she could feel the press of his thighs through her skirts.

  Verity gave a soft murmur, leaning against him just a little, answering the unspoken message of his hands.

  Will’s eyes narrowed and she wondered if she had shocked him by responding like this, even now when she had so roundly rejected him. Did dukes and duchesses have passionate marriages? Perhaps one had to make an appointment with his secretary. Or one could write a note.

  Her Grace the Duchess of Aylsham proposes a meeting for spontaneous mutual excitement at six of the afternoon in the Orangery...

  Verity closed her eyes, because if the infuriating, baffling man did not stop calculating the precisely correct kiss to give the woman who had spurned him and actually get on with it, then she was going to kiss him herself. And then he really would be shocked.

  * * *

  He wished he understood Verity. Her eyes were closed, her cheeks had turned a very charming pink and she was shaking slightly. Nerves, of course. True, on those previous occasions when they had kissed she had responded without inhibition, but then it had been more in the nature of flirtation. This was, somehow, serious. This kiss was a like the signature on the bottom of a treaty. He was accepting her decision and he was undertaking—even if it had not been spoken of—to protect her reputation when the gossip mill got hold of the story of their night on the island and their scandalous failure to marry.

  Mentally he was already bracing himself for the unpleasantness—and it was going to be unpleasant, he knew that. He must shoulder all the blame for her loss of reputation and that was only just. If he had controlled his siblings better, had given them a stronger example—or had not fallen for their plot in the first place—then none of this would have happened.

  But now there is this kiss. He desired Verity Wingate. He had known that from the first, had admitted it to himself. And now he had her, not as he fantasised, warm and willing in his arms, but reluctantly, because she had faced a stark choice—marry him or deal with the ruinous consequences—and had chosen the wrong path. He could have made her want him if he had been careful and then she might have agreed. But it was too late now and it was not the action of a gentleman to try to seduce her into a agreement.

  Will bent his head and took the soft lips that were raised to him. He slid his hands from her shoulders to her waist and she lifted hers to clasp around his neck. Despite everything, he smiled and felt the answering movement, the warmth as her lips parted, and eased the tip of his tongue between them.

  He knew her taste now, was beginning to understand the soft sounds she made as he kissed her and to have confidence that he could read the way her body responded to him, curving into his, her fingers flexing in his hair, caressing the back of his neck. She was becoming aroused and so was he. The bedchamber was surely the one place where they would have found harmony.

  When he moved his hands to cup her buttocks Verity lifted, pressed closer against him and then stilled abruptly. His erection was pressed against her and, however innocent she was, he would wager that she was not ignorant. She knew what that was and she had been startled to have encountered an erection quite so blatantly. Will almost released his hold on her, but she rose on tiptoe, pressed herself tighter against him and then slid, very slowly, back down. Only then did she pull back and he released her, managing, somehow, not to groan aloud.

  Verity’s eyes were wide, the pupils dilated as she regarded him silently, lips slightly parted. Her nipples had peaked, all too visible through the fabric of her gown, and the sight made him growl, low in his throat. Will turned it into a cough. Growling with lust would be enough to send even the most aroused virgin fleeing down the terrace. Surely she had no idea what she had just done, the effect it had on him.

  He cleared his throat.

  Pull yourself together, man. She will think you are suffering from consumption if you carry on coughing.

  She moved away from him, the colour high on her cheekbones. ‘I will miss our kisses,’ she confessed. ‘That is doubtless a very shocking thing to say and only goes to show how right we are to part. I am sure duchesses do not talk about such things. I have a suspicion that duchesses do not have any human weaknesses or even bodily functions. Perhaps ducal babies are not born at all, but arrive, pink and perfect, in a satin-lined crib by some special arrangement with the College of Heralds.’

  She was joking, of course, to calm her nerves. Will had the nightmare vision of his duchess discussing the delivery of babies with Garter King of Arms at some dinner party. That particular Herald was in his fifties, but as ossified in his manner and thinking as a man forty years his senior. He would never suspect that she might be teasing him. The vision was succeeded by one of a procession of Heralds with a bassinet borne aloft before them to be deposited at his feet with a flourish of trumpets.

  ‘I believe duchesses a
re perfectly normal in all such particulars,’ he said repressively to cover the gasp of laughter that his ridiculous fantasy provoked. What was the matter with him? The College of Heralds was a venerable and scholarly pillar of the Establishment, not a cause for slightly risqué levity. Verity Wingate was infecting him with her disgraceful sense of humour, but no one made him laugh the way she did. Kisses, laughter, intelligence, those brown eyes...

  ‘Verity. We could try. Sleep on it—’

  He could see the answer in her eyes even before she spoke. ‘No.’ Heat flared, anger. ‘I trusted you not to try to seduce me into changing my mind, Will. I was a fool to think that we could be friends...kissing friends.’ She shook her head, clearly impatient with herself as much as him. He saw her straighten her shoulders, the effort it took to steady her voice and sound calm and businesslike. ‘I will do everything in my power to see that you are not blamed for this, Your Grace, and you have my blessing for whatever you need to say, but I do not want to see you again, or to hear from you.’

  The curtsy she gave him would have not disgraced a Court presentation. As Verity Wingate turned and walked away Will thought she had never looked more like a duchess. He looked down at his hands and the smear of blood on one of them. She had pounded her fist so hard on the wall as she spoke of her hopes and her fears that she had drawn blood. He should have known then that nothing was going to change her mind about him.

  * * *

  ‘Papa, I cannot marry him. He has done nothing wrong, I do not hate him—I only know that I cannot be his wife. I could not take my marriage vows and mean them.’

  Her father frowned, then began to mouth words, moving his hands slowly at the same time. As soon as they had reached the Old Palace, Verity had asked the Chaplain to leave them alone. She liked and trusted Mr Hoskins, but this was too personal. She made herself concentrate hard on understanding.