She breathed out a sigh and smiled with a sultry regret that sent his thoughts in a thousand directions, all of them dark and tempting. “It happened too fast,” she said. “And I lost my temper. I don’t have red hair for nothing.”
He shook his head. “Well, I think I’ve seen more of London this evening than I really wanted to.”
She slid down deeper into the squabs. “I’ve never had anyone rub my feet before,” she murmured, her voice languid, as if she was half asleep. “It felt nice. You have gentle hands.”
He swallowed. “I have to admit that my hands are fighting temptation right now.”
“Better than fighting a street gang, don’t you think?”
He grunted. “I can’t disagree with that.”
She sighed deeply as his fingers drifted beneath her bent knee. “You needn’t have worried, though,” she said.
“Oh?”
“I wouldn’t have let them hurt you.”
He raised his eyebrows. “I don’t think I would have enjoyed watching you take on a bunch of thugs to protect me.”
“Somebody has to keep wayward young men in line.”
“Forgive me if this sounds like an insult to your family, but I think those gentlemen are past the age of redemption.”
“It’s the only way they know to survive,” she said, frowning up at him.
His hand tightened reflexively around her knee. “You learned a different way to live.”
“Maybe,” she said wistfully. “Who knows how long it’ll last?”
“It had better last at least for the period for which my aunt has paid you. I wouldn’t put it past her to come blazing here in a phaeton with pistols drawn. And even then I’d be the one who would get the blame for it.”
She laughed. “I didn’t get the purse,” she said wistfully, then admitted, “No. That’s a lie. I did. But I gave it to a little baby. I have a nephew no one thought to tell me about.”
“Hang the purse.” And its owner, he might have said. How could he possibly think about another woman when Harriet was letting him touch her like this? She hadn’t made a single move to stop him. He hoped to God she wasn’t relying on his willpower. Just because he wasn’t a London rake didn’t mean he was a saint. But, Lord, he couldn’t help himself.
“She’s beautiful,” Harriet said out of the blue.
“Aunt Primrose?”
She bit her lower lip. “You know who I mean.”
“Oh, her,” he said absently, his hand stealing upward another inch. “I didn’t notice.” Her skin felt like raw silk. The texture of it sharpened his hunger.
“What did you notice?” she asked in curiosity.
“Her hat.”
Her eyes grew wide.
“That’s all?”
“Well, not exactly.”
“Then-”
“She had really sharp teeth.” “You’re awful,” she whispered, laughter in her voice.
“She probably thinks so, too,” he said with a grin.
“She might if she knew what you were doing right now,” Harriet said, studying his face.
The thunder of his heart reverberated through his body. He leaned down, slipping one hand around her shoulders, the other into the vulnerable hollow between her thighs. “She definitely would if she knew what I was thinking.”
His mouth grazed hers. He savored the sigh that escaped her. His fingers gently parted the folds of her sex and stroked. She stifled a cry against his cheek. He pitted every particle of his control against his instincts to keep himself from persuading her to give him more.
Harriet was, in fact, fighting a losing war against the sensations that coursed through her blood. Her breasts swelled inside her gown, as if all the little aches inside her body had joined to overpower her. The sight of Griffin standing alone in the alley, standing up to protect her, had pierced a chink in her defenses. She had let him carry her off without a word of protest. Indeed, now she wasn’t making a fuss at all. She had not dreamed that she could be disarmed by the duke’s knowing touch. She hadn’t guessed that a man’s gentleness could be his most potent weapon.
He seemed to understand, even if he was withholding his mercy. She moaned, her body begging, moving against his hand. She felt his fingers penetrate deeper to stretch her passage. She heard his breath, ragged in the silence, the roughness of it intensifying her own arousal. His face hovered above hers, one moment in shadow, the next revealed in the wavering carriage light behind the window.
He smiled with the allure of a fallen angel, so beautiful that her throat ached, and even when she closed her eyes, he was all she could see. “Harriet,” he whispered, kissing her again, leading her deeper and deeper into swirling darkness. And just when she knew it couldn’t get any darker, a storm broke inside her and enveloped her in black heat.
She lay for several moments afterward in wondrous contemplation. When at last he lifted himself from her prone form, she felt her heartbeat begin to slow. He stared at her in fierce silence, then kissed her softly on the mouth.
They sat apart for the duration of the drive. She did not ask him to explain how this would change her position in his life. She knew perfectly well that she had unleashed a force of nature, and now she would have to tame it or pay the price.
Chapter Seventeen
But I forget that I am moralizing in the most interesting part of my tale, and your looks remind me to proceed.
MARY SHELLEY
Frankenstein
It was another unspoken rule in the Boscastle family that one discussed an unpleasantness only in private. In public one pretended these events had not occurred. If a Boscastle stopped to deny every accusation hurled his way, he would likely never make it from his front door to the pavement.
When Harriet arose the following morning and hastened to help Lady Powlis plan the afternoon, her ladyship made no reference to the previous day’s disaster. She behaved in her usual grumpy manner, while two chambermaids tended the fire and hunted for the bonnet that Primrose insisted had been stolen, until Harriet reminded her she had sent it back to the milliner’s to be replumed.
The minute Lady Powlis dismissed the chambermaids, she jumped from her armchair, as spry as an elf, and closed the door. “I demand a full accounting, every detail.”
And so Harriet gave her an accounting, naturally leaving out the details of the carriage ride, which she herself had reviewed countless times. If her ladyship once again suspected certain omissions, the grim depiction of her visit to St. Giles seemed enough to occupy her mind.
“By the by, I am delighted to death that you dropped Lady Constipation’s bag in the cradle.”
“Lady-” Harriet shook her head. “Oh, madam, how looks deceive. And here I’ve always thought that a lady could never slip into low talk. How I admire you for breaking that rule with such aplomb.”
“I shall slip into something much lower if my nephew marries that piece of work.”
Harriet smiled. She knew a powerful ally when she found one. The duke had to be mad if he thought Primrose would drive her away. “Let me ring for some tea and cake. It’s hours before the breakfast party. I should not want all this distress to weaken your ladyship.”
“What comfort you are, dear.” Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial tone. “You didn’t tell me everything about yesterday, did you?”
“Madam, my life is an open book.”
“I shall dismiss you, Harriet, if I discover that you are fibbing.”
Harriet nodded demurely. “Yes, and so you should.”
But Harriet kept her thoughts to herself for the rest of the day. The duke escorted her, his aunt, and Edlyn to a breakfast party at the Mayfair mansion of a viscount whose title escaped Harriet’s notice. She had enough to worry about, what with keeping an eye on Miss Edlyn, not stealing looks at the duke, and placating Lady Powlis, who ate half a mutton pie and complained about her bunions and the bonnet that was taking forever to replume.
It was an enjoyable party, if o
nly because the duke spent most of his time with his handsome cousins and not with Lady Constance, who was said to be recovering from the insult inflicted upon her person by the cutpurse in the park. Harriet overheard several ladies at the party discussing the incident. One ventured to guess that Constance might not make another public appearance until the perpetrator was caught. Her friend whispered that Constance’s doctor had suggested the young lady spend the rest of the Season taking the waters. Harriet was afraid that Lady Constance was made of sterner stuff.
“Harriet.” Lady Powlis poked her gently with her cane. “Where has Edlyn gone now?”
Harriet glanced up. “She was watching the archery contest a minute ago.”
“Well, I cannot see her through the featherbrains dancing about the place. Be an angel and make sure that she has not been lured off by some handsome fortune hunter. And take a bite of this pie. I think the meat is off.”
“Do you wish me to taste it before or after I find Miss Edlyn, madam?”
“I wish you to stop answering me in that impertinent manner. And I forbid you to taste the pie. No point in both of us taking ill.”
Harriet set off through the park, leaving Lady Powlis at the trestle tables that had been arranged around a drooping fig tree. Miss Edlyn was not watching the archery contest. The duke, however, had removed his frock coat and was sauntering across the green to compete. Harriet would have given a month’s wages to watch. An ornamental bridge that crossed a pond was crowded with ladies who gathered to cheer him on. His black hair shone like a raven’s wing in the dappled light. He paused, looking around as if he was waiting for someone to join him.
It was then that Harriet spotted Edlyn hurrying up the steps of the ivy-draped rotunda. Harriet glanced back wistfully at the duke. He had raised his bow to take aim at the target. She turned for a fraction of a second to witness Edlyn emerge from the other side of the edifice, appearing considerably brighter than she had been in days. She appeared to be by herself. A lady in a bonnet was walking in the other direction.
And there wasn’t a rake in view, disregarding the duke, whose arrow had struck the target dead center, to the delight of his female audience. The cheers and claps of his devoted supporters echoed in the park, a chorus that Harriet could not escape. She would have applauded him herself, had a companion been allowed to express her enthusiasm in public.
All in all, however, discounting her ladyship’s in digestion, Harriet decided it had been a pleasant day. An uncommon one, indeed, without a single drop of rain to ruin the party.
The same could not be said of the following night’s entertainment.
“Grayson has promised that this will be an intimate affair,” Lady Powlis reassured the duke, when he complained that he would rather not go. “I don’t see why you’re being so unsociable, Griff. The marquess is family, after all. One does not travel to London to sit brooding in a library.”
“But we just attended one of his balls.”
“This is meant to be a quiet party,” she insisted. “I don’t imagine there will be a crush.”
Yet even Harriet knew that what the Marquess of Sedgecroft considered to be a private supper could include a hundred or so guests. Most of them would be titled or well connected at court, although the marquess was probably best known in the ton for allowing love affairs to take place during his soirées. The mansion provided many private chambers suitable for this purpose and, for family only, an Italian gallery where acts of amour could unfold without a chance of interruption. If Miss Edlyn or any of the academy’s graduating ladies were invited, it would fall to Harriet or Charlotte Boscastle to make certain some scoundrel did not compromise their good names. Although Harriet was no longer employed at the elite school, she had formed a surprising bond with those girls who struggled alongside her for acceptance.
Chapter Eighteen
I pursued a maiden and clasped a reed. Gods and men, we are all deluded thus!
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
Song of Pan
Griffin danced the first dance with his cousin Charlotte, whose gaze, he noted, moved about the ballroom as if she were a master spy intent on thwarting an act of sabotage that threatened the security of England. In a way he supposed that an impromptu tryst might indeed be interpreted as such. For example, a duke’s ward could be caught alone with a rogue. The rogue, finding three or four Boscastle men breathing down his neck, would have no choice but to offer marriage. The prospect of the sullied maiden making a stronger alliance would be dashed.
And it was in the course of coming to this conclusion that he realized it was not Edlyn’s virtue that appeared to be at risk.
It was Harriet’s.
His niece was sitting sullenly with Primrose and the elite circle of ladies who had been invited to the party. One or two respectable young lords stood flirting with… well, it was hard to identify their quarry at this distance. He hoped to heaven it was not his aunt.
But the dashing gentleman who was leading Harriet around the floor had an infatuated look if ever Griffin had seen one. To be frighteningly honest, it might be what Griffin looked like during the unguarded moments he had spent in her company.
“Do you think,” he asked Charlotte, “that it is proper for a companion to dance in front of girls who are meant to emulate her?”
Charlotte clearly perceived this to be an odd question by her startled look. “But I saw you dance with Harriet the other night.”
“That was different. I am not obligated to abide by any rules of etiquette. Am I?”
Charlotte lifted her brow. “I was led to believe that Primrose finds her to be the perfect companion.”
So did he.
“I shall tell you a secret,” he said. “Primrose is very possessive of that young woman.”
“Well, so was I,” Charlotte confessed. “And your aunt stole her away from me.”
His gaze cut straight again to Harriet. She was laughing, out of pace with the line of other dancers but determined in her unpretentious way to keep up. She drifted past him as the dance ended. Her face was upturned to her partner, until she noticed Griffin watching her. She gave him a distracted smile, which he did not return.
He shook his head.
“Griff?” Charlotte said softly.
He led her back to the circle of chairs where his aunt sat with the marchioness and several other close family friends. The flame-haired figure in silver silk was whirled back into another dance. By the same man.
His aunt glanced up at him. “If he asks her to dance one more time, it will be your duty to object.”
Lady Jane seemed to hesitate, then glanced up at Griffin, her green eyes sparkling. “It’s all right. If it makes you uncomfortable to spoil Miss Gardner’s romance, we shall have Grayson, or even Weed, solve the problem.”
“It doesn’t make me uncomfortable,” he said in a dismissive voice. “I simply don’t think that it’s my place to enforce-does she know the gentleman?”
Lady Jane shrugged, darting him a shrewd glance. “She might. He’s the son of one of Grayson’s bankers, and he’s always invited. Strange. I never paid attention until now, but he doesn’t dance with anyone else.” She drew a breath, her gaze moving past Griffin. “Well, speaking of romance, yours appears to have just arrived. Aren’t we fashionably late and looking none the worse for our horrid experience in the park?”
“My romance?” Griffin said bleakly.
His aunt made a rude noise in her throat.
He glanced around and saw Constance standing in a gown of sea-foam satin, male admirers flocking her at either side. His heart sank. Was he meant to do something? Had this been staged? He glanced down accusingly at his aunt.
“I didn’t know,” she whispered, shaking her head. “I hadn’t a clue that she was on the guest list.”
“What about that other list?” he asked in suspicion.
“The one Harriet was working on?”
He nodded tersely. “I hope you’re not going to tell me th
ere were others.”
“I never even saw that one,” Primrose said with an indignant sniff. “In fact, I never saw any evidence of that demoniacal drawing you went on about at all.”
“Well, I didn’t make it up.”
“I hope you aren’t trying to get my companion in trouble again, Griff. It shows a really unsavory side of your character that I never dreamt existed.”
Jane studied him with a cautious smile. “Forgive me if it’s too soon to inquire, but are the nuptials to be held here in Grayson’s private chapel?”
“It’s too soon,” Griffin and Primrose said at the same instant.
“Oh.” Jane pursed her lips, allowing a moment to pass. “Then you probably won’t want a tour of the chapel tonight, after everyone but family goes home.”
“Probably not,” Primrose answered before Griff even opened his mouth again.
He looked up reluctantly.
Constance sent him a beseeching smile, as if to say, Save me from these scoundrels. My beauty is so overwhelming that I cannot defend myself for another moment.
His aunt touched his wrist. “Do what is polite. Nothing more.”
He bent over her. “Primrose?”
“Yes, Griffin?”
“Stop telling me what to do every five minutes.”
She cast her gaze down in apology. “I am an old bother,” she said ruefully. “But it’s only because I care so deeply about you.”
“I know.” He straightened, motioning for a footman to take his empty glass.
“One more thing,” she said before he could escape.
He turned his head.
“Miss Gardner just went through the French doors with that attentive gentleman. Please fetch her for me.”
“I shall send one of the footmen.”
“You will not. If anybody is to catch Harriet in an indiscretion, it shall be one of us. I don’t want her forced into marrying a banker’s son and abandoning me.”
“The devil,” he said, and stared at the doors that stood invitingly open to the night. It was terrifying how at times he and his aunt thought alike. “You do understand that Lady Constance will take this as a deliberate slight on my part?”
The Wicked Duke Takes a Wife Page 11
