Sam drained his measure of whisky. Eyeing the fireplace, he fought his urge to hurl the glass against the cold marble fronting it. Damn. He must call her bluff and send her away. For her own good.
Would he never know peace? Or happiness? The words were a familiar lament to him. What had he done that he didn’t deserve it? First, a little over a year ago, things with his wife Sarah had come to a head. And right on the very heels of what he’d gone through with her, Geoffrey’s sudden, suspicious death had occurred. And that had forced Sam to return here to shoulder the responsibilities of being a duke. He’d much preferred the freedom of being a fortune-seeking second son.
And now? Just when he’d come to grips with it all, and just as he was making peace with this new life, this new Sarah had arrived. A riveting and desirable woman of mystery. He thought of her now, recalling how she’d felt in his arms last night … warm, sweet, feminine. How she’d raged at him today like a tiger. And how her mouth had tasted this morning when he’d stolen that kiss … hot, inviting, questing.
A grin of purely male lust claimed Sam’s mouth. What would it be like, he wondered, to possess such a woman fully? Would she be like a summer storm that comes out of nowhere and threatens the day’s calm? A sudden squall that could swamp a ship at sea? A woman who could make him forget he was supposed to be a gentleman bound by rigid dictates of polite behavior? One who could, with but a sign from her, and in a rage of lust, sweep her off her feet and carry her up the stairs to his bed, only to—
The heavy double doors into the room opened behind him. Sam jumped to his feet, not an easy thing to do given his state of arousal. Self-consciously, he cleared his throat and tugged on his vest with his free hand. He straightened his formal swallow-tailed coat. Like a preening peacock, he irritably accused himself. Still, excitement filled his veins and rooted him to the spot. He gripped the glass in his hand so tightly that he expected it to shatter into shards.
In walked the huge and lumbering, very sober Scotty. He caught Sam’s eye and said, “The duchess.”
The very words weakened Sam’s knees. For one ironic second he didn’t know exactly who to picture. In quick succession, he saw his mother’s face … then his wife’s … then Miss Calhoun’s. He blinked, realizing that Scotty could only mean Miss Calhoun. “Very well. Show her in, Scotty.”
The butler stepped back, making way, and in swept Miss Calhoun. Just inside the room, she stopped suddenly and stared at him as if she’d never seen him before in her life. Sam’s breath caught in his throat. The distance between them in the long room seemed to disappear as if in a rush of attracted bodies. He felt as if she were only inches from him, and that he had merely to reach out to touch her. Yet she remained so very far away and out of his grasp.
Sam raked his gaze up and down her. In a word, she was stunning. Gone was his desire to question her, to be abrupt, or to confront her. He wanted only to hold her and make her his own … in every lofty and carnal way possible. Hang the consequences, moral or financial.
She said nothing. Was she giving him time to note details about her? Perhaps so. And so, greedily, Sam did. Her hair was artfully arranged atop her head in a mass of curls and ribbons. Several trailing auburn tresses fell across her bare alabaster-white shoulders. She wore no jewelry. She needed none. Sam sought her eyes and beheld there sparkling emeralds in their green depths. Her gown left her shoulders and a good amount of her breasts bared. Nipped in at the waist, the full crinoline-supported skirt floated around her like gossamer wings. He could see only the tips of her silver shoes.
He raked his gaze back up her length until he again looked into her eyes. Looking very anxious, she tipped her tongue out to moisten her pink lips. The gesture was not lost on Sam. Innocent. Provocative. It all but staggered him. As he held her gaze, he felt his body tighten with need. Sheer, physical need. But it was more, so much more. Deeper even than his need for food and water and air. He knew he was lost. He wanted to cry out with the truth that he wanted this woman above all others. And that he meant to have her at all costs. All costs. Even certain death.
Staring at her, Sam fought an urge to shout out his rancor to her. Why, in God’s name, had she come here? But he didn’t really want to know why because he feared he couldn’t bear the answer.
Chapter Eleven
Still standing across the room from him, Miss Calhoun remained innocent of Sam’s torture. Without moving or saying a word—indeed, he didn’t believe himself capable of either—he struggled for a control that still eluded him. He swallowed, felt the lump in his throat, but couldn’t make himself smile or greet her in any way. This was insane. Had he been turned to stone? Had he become a statue doomed to stare longingly and futilely at her for all of eternity?
Then a movement by the doors caught Sam’s eye. He saw Scotty showing uncustomary sensitivity by quietly closing the doors behind her and leaving Sam alone with his enigmatic guest. Moving somewhat mechanically, much like clockwork, Sam returned his gaze to Miss Calhoun.
For her part, as if suddenly prodded from behind to break their stalemate, she dropped into a deep curtsy, which exposed to Sam’s hungry eyes an enticing expanse of her ripe bosom. She arose and spoke her greeting softly. “Good evening, Your Grace.”
Sam did her the honor of bowing to her, even as he marveled that he could, given how stiff he felt … and he didn’t mean only in his legs. “Good evening. You are absolutely stunning in that gown, Miss Calhoun.”
“I have you to thank for it.” Her smile was uncertain, her voice shaky.
“Nonsense.” Dare he hope—never mind that he didn’t have the right to hope—that she was as affected by the sight of him in black formal wear as he was by her in this stunning emerald evening gown shot through with silver threads? “It was my pleasure to obtain it, and the others, for you since I have the honor of seeing you in them.”
Her smile slipped away from her, only to be lost in a wide-eyed look of uncertainty. “You’re very kind. But all ten of them, Your Grace? I don’t see how you could call it an honor. I tricked you into paying for them, and we both know it.” She looked very guilty and contrite … and totally endearing. “I forced their purchase on you.”
Somehow, her being uncertain—or at least appearing to be so—restored Sam’s equilibrium. He pointed at her and made a mock accusation. “You’re absolutely right. You did trick me into making these purchases. I shall bill you for their cost. Or better yet, I say we should take them back.”
Instantly stricken, she lowered her gaze to her skirt and smoothed her hand over the fabric. Her childlike gesture said she was in love with her new dress and would sooner die. She looked up, disappointment edging her rounded eyes. “If you like, we can take back the ones we brought home. They’re not all unboxed as yet, Your Grace.”
Sam called himself the worst kind of cad. His teasing her had gone awry. “No. You keep the gowns and all the essentials that came with them. Call them my gift to you, Miss Calhoun.”
Again she curtsied. “You’re very generous, Your Grace.”
“Sam. Please call me Sam. Blame the influence of my years in America. All these titles put distance between people and make conversation so stilted. I find I yearn for familiarity from at least one person.”
“Then I’m to be that person, I take it?”
“Yes. You’re American. Who better than you to understand?”
“Point taken. But only if you’ll call me Yancey.”
Sam frowned. “I beg your pardon?”
Her chin came up a proud notch. Sam wanted to kiss it … and her neck … her shoulder … her breast. He wanted to take her into his mouth and—“It’s the name I go by,” she said, breaking into his lurid thoughts of her naked and atop him, moaning with ecstasy. “I don’t like to go by Sarah.”
A jet of belated suspicion, never far from the forefront of his thoughts where she was concerned, shot through Sam. “But isn’t that your name?”
“Yes. But not one I favor.”
“I see. Then … Yancey it is. I shall think of it as a private endearment for when only the two of us are in a room.” He gestured to the settee beside him and said, “Please. We’ll wait here until called for dinner. It shouldn’t be long. And then you can tell me how you came by that most singular name.”
She set herself in motion, coming toward him. “It was my grandmother’s name before she married,” she remarked, her voice full of challenge. “I’ve just always preferred it. I never felt much like a Sarah.”
“Indeed, you don’t look much like one, either.” Smiling at her as she approached the intimately arranged brocaded suite of two chairs and a settee separated by wood-carved tables, Sam stepped up to offer her his hand for assistance in being seated. Only then did he realize that what he held out to her was his empty whisky glass. He met her gaze and saw her amused grin. Even though it was at his cost he realized that he was delighted with her response. “Perhaps I could offer you your own drink, Miss Calhoun?”
“Yancey, remember. And yes. I’ll have what you’re drinking.”
“Are you certain? I’m drinking whisky.”
She pursed her lips in a stubborn pout. “Then that’s what I’m having.”
A chuckle escaped him.
“You find that amusing?” She sat down rather delicately, further winning Sam’s admiration, given the expanse of crinolines and yards of fabric with which she had to contend.
“Yes. I am amused to at last find a whisky-drinking woman, that is. I must say that you continue to surprise me … Yancey. And you should be flattered because very little amuses me.”
“Then you share that trait with Scotty.”
A burst of laughter escaped Sam, but then he feigned horror. “Has he been dragging you along? He tends to think that’s the best method of moving around those people left in his charge.”
She nodded. “Dragging is a good word for it.”
Sam grimaced. “Well, it’s better than being hurled down the stairs like a lance. We’ve only just broken him of that behavior.”
“Only just?” She arched her delicate eyebrows. “Then I’m glad I didn’t arrive one day sooner. And I shudder to think how you broke him.”
“Perhaps broke isn’t the correct word. Still, it wasn’t pretty.” Then he bowed to her. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll serve our drinks.”
“That would be lovely.”
Sam stepped over to the striking gold-inlayed liquor cabinet and small bar that ruled a corner of the room and set about measuring out the liquor. This put him behind his guest, who sat demurely with her back to him and looked around the room. Sam realized two things: his hands had stilled in his task, and he was staring longingly at the sweet nape of her neck. Feathery tendrils of curling hair graced her upswept hairline. He wanted very much to grip her by her bare shoulders, bend over her, and place hot kisses against her warm, soft skin.
What would she do if he did? Certainly he’d seen the invitation in her expression earlier today when he’d kissed her. Dare he try it again? Then, he heard himself sounding like a schoolboy angling for his first kiss. Disgusted, a bit embarrassed even, Sam turned his hand and his mind to the purely physical task of pouring out the fine whisky he stocked. With a host’s smile on his face, he then rejoined his guest. As they awaited their call to dinner, he remained the perfect host by regaling her with his impressions of that afternoon’s events and the people she’d met in town.
He made her laugh with his rendering of Mrs. LaFlore, the excited shop mistress who had reaped the benefit of Yancey’s shopping spree. A nip tucked in at the waist and a bit more let out in the bust, Mrs. LaFlore had sung out as she’d fluttered joyously around the ill-at-ease “duchess.” She’d informed them that their timing was impeccable as she was just back from London with a new stock of fashionable samples to tempt the well-to-do ladies of the village. But she would be most delighted to sell them all to Her Grace the Duchess.
“No doubt she would have, too,” Sam now remarked to his “duchess.”
“She almost did,” Yancey said, grinning.
Sam shrugged as if his generosity were of no consequence. “It was my pleasure. And a well-deserved punishment for my abominable behavior this morning … Yancey.” He’d disliked the name at first, but somehow it seemed more fitting. It was unconventional … just like her. And wasn’t his wife’s name, either. “Again, I apologize for my barbaric behavior out in the garden.”
Her expression sobered and she looked down.
Sam rushed on, wanting to restore the cheery feeling they’d achieved. “At any rate, ten gowns and all the appropriate underpinnings seemed like a nice round number. I feel certain Mrs. LaFlore will set all her seamstresses to work, now that they have your measurements, and will have the remainder of the gowns delivered by tomorrow.”
Yancey favored him with a teasing smile. “And what about your nana’s new traveling costume? Do you suppose it will arrive tomorrow, as well? She was so very excited by your purchasing it for her.”
“Yes, she was. Though God alone knows when or to where she’ll be wearing it. Perhaps in London at some point, I suppose. Still—and forgive my language—there will be hell to pay if it doesn’t come tomorrow. She doesn’t wait well. That grand and impossibly ancient lady will have her way.”
“I have noticed that. But she couldn’t be a sweeter, more endearing little woman. May I admit to some curiosity about her and ask how she’s related to you?”
“Certainly. She’s my great-grandmother on my father’s side. Her actual name is quite intimidating. Margaret Mary-Alice Jane Thomas–St. Adair. And then Treyhorne, of course.”
“Good Lord. But wait—Mary, Alice, and Jane? Those are her cats’ names.”
“Yes. She doesn’t seem to be aware, though, that those names are also hers. At any rate, I hadn’t anticipated her insisting on new dresses for herself, her nurse, then Robin, and even the redoubtable Mrs. Edgars.”
To Sam’s delight, this beautiful woman who wished to be called Yancey laughed … a sweet, soft sound that in his younger days would have had Sam on a knee in front of her and asking her to marry him. But given who he was now, and who she may or may not be, he simply sipped at his drink and awaited her.
“I remain certain,” she said, “that it was not a usual event for someone in your position, Sam. Still, it was very good of you to stand back and allow their impassioned frenzy.”
Sam basked unashamedly in her praise. “Yes. Wasn’t it good of me?”
He then relived with her their lively party’s departure from the shop, dress boxes in hand, and their triumphant march over to the men’s tailor and haberdashery shop. There Sam had been informed by his nana that a new hat and suit of clothes was needed by Scotty as he was still a growing boy. The giant had stared dully at him to show his rampant appreciation.
Their spree had taken the entire afternoon. In between times and shops, Sam now told Yancey, he had spoken with several of the men regarding spring harvests and livestock prices. He’d even shared a pint with some of the local dignitaries at the pub while she and the rest of the women had been sorting through the various market stalls and making further purchases—all on his bill, of course.
At this point in their cheery discourse, and—as Sam remarked to himself—just as they were becoming comfortable with one another, Scotty opened the room’s doors and announced dinner. As he’d done at luncheon, Sam offered Yancey his arm … and escorted his lady into the dining room.
* * *
In the deep, dark recesses of the night, Yancey was startled awake from her fitful slumber by the drawn-out creaking of a door being furtively opened—into her bedroom. Lying still, tense with apprehension, she slowly raised her head from her pillow and cocked her head at a listening angle. While her mind worked feverishly with the possibilities, she trained her gaze in the direction of the noise.
The room was as dark as if she’d loosened the tiebacks on the canopy’s hangings and had immersed herself in their
draping cocoon of warmth. But she hadn’t, and even the dratted fireplace had gone cold. Not even repeated blinking could accustom her vision to the thick blackness of her bedroom. Indeed, it seemed to press right up against her eyes.
Since she couldn’t see, she would have to rely on her other senses. And they told her that the sound had come from the dressing room door, the one that connected her room to Sam’s. She knew that creaking sound. The door only made it when it was being pushed open, but not closed. So whoever this was, he was just now entering the room.
A frown of consternation found its way to Yancey’s face. Did Sam mean to accost her every night in her sleep? Would she be rudely awakened, only to find herself flat on her stomach with him atop her and their limbs tangled? A sensual image of them thus entwined flitted through Yancey’s mind, leaving her to shake her head at its insane workings, given the situation that now faced her.
But what if it’s not Sam? Someone could have slipped through his room without awakening him. Or maybe had done him harm—her heart sank—and was intent on doing the same to her. But who, in heaven’s name and in this household, would that be? Nana hadn’t the strength or the evil intent. Scotty hadn’t the intellect to be sneaking. Mrs. Convers, the nurse, was terrified of her shadow, as well as of Nana. And Mrs. Edgars, the imperious housekeeper, she … Well, Yancey admitted, that woman was a definite possibility. More than once Yancey had caught her glaring at her for some unknown reason.
The creaking sounded again. Yancey’s heart pounded against her ribs. Not with fright now, but with determination. She narrowed her eyes. Won’t he—or she—be surprised to find that the intended victim, namely her, had a gun in her hand? Ever so slowly, Yancey smoothed her hand up under her pillow until she gripped the cold steel of her weapon. She fixed it in her grip and then turned over onto her back, counting on the rustling sounds her bedding made to pass for those she’d make in a natural sleep.
Ready now, her hair brushed out of her face, she waited. But not for long. Suddenly a huge form took shape right next to her bed. She had time only to gasp before a big rough hand was clamped over her mouth and warm breath bathed her face. Though terrified, and with a muffled cry escaping her, Yancey nevertheless managed to jerk her gun up and stick it against the first solid part of her assailant she could. She cocked her weapon. The sound was unmistakable and deafeningly loud. So was the man’s startled curse.
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