by Matilda Hart
“I didn’t mean to startle you, Juliana,” he said, his voice low. “I was just having a drink before bed.” He indicated the glass he held. “Was there something you needed?”
“I was going to take a few sheets of paper,” she replied. “I need to begin a letter to my parents.”
“I shall see to it that you have enough writing materials so that you will no longer have to creep about at midnight to get it from my study,” he teased her gently.
He smiled to let her see he was not offended by her invasion of his space. He was rewarded with a tentative smile.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she admitted, and then looked away guiltily.
And that was when Gray knew she had been thinking of him as well. It pleased him to know her rest had been disturbed by thoughts of him. He wondered if the tenor of her thoughts had been as lustful as his own, but he knew that that was not something the lovely Juliana would ever divulge. He found he couldn’t help himself, even though he knew it was not wise to spend any more time alone with her than was strictly necessary. Unless he were planning to court her, in which case, this moment was priceless.
Gray walked over to where she still stood in the doorway and reached for her free hand, pulling her in and closing the door behind her.
“What kept you awake?” he asked, not letting go of her hand. He needed her to confess to the attraction zinging between them.
She looked up at him, her lips slightly parted as though she needed extra oxygen, and though he could feel the faint trembling in her fingers, her voice was firm when she said,
“My thoughts could not seem to settle on a path to sleep. I tried to read, but it was no use. So I gave up and came downstairs. I did not hear you arrive.”
“Will you be awake enough to ride with me tomorrow?” he asked, holding her gaze when she finally looked at him.
She blushed, and he knew she had not expected the invitation. She was apparently unaware of how alluring she was, and he was happy that he had been the one to show her. The more time he spent in her company, the more time he wished to spend, and the better he wished to know her. He thought, as he raised her hand to his lips, that if he were to marry, it would be Juliana, or it would be no one. She was as strong as she was beautiful, and because he knew she had no interest in his wealth, it made her all the more appealing. She was interested in him as a man, not as a Duke. The thought sent a fresh charge zapping through his body, hardening his cock. He stepped away from her. The last thing he wanted, so soon after admitting his interest, was for her to know how much he lusted after her. He would woo her slowly, like the genteel lady that she was.
“If you wish me to ride with you, then I shall be happy to do so,” she said, avoiding using his name.
He understood her reluctance to do so. To use his pet name felt like an intimacy beyond the mere informality of family, especially between them, as they were not truly related to each other at all.
“It would please me if you would speak my name, as much as it would please me to have you accompany me on my morning rides,” he told her, lifting her face to his own with a finger beneath her chin.
Her skin was soft, like velvet, and cool to the touch. She shivered when he touched her, and still refused to look him in the eye, preferring to stare fixedly at some point of interest below them.
“I shall be happy to ride with you in the morning, Gray,” she replied dutifully, and stepped away from him, turning to go.
“Do you no longer wish to write to your mama?” he asked, letting his amusement sound in his voice. He found that he liked to tease her gently, because, as now, it got him exactly the response he wanted. She looked sharply at him, and then, seeing the mischievous light in his eyes, she chuckled.
“You must have been a terror as a small child,” she said, “teasing everyone who was gullible enough to fall for your pranks.”
“And I am sure you would have withstood them as ably as you are doing now,” he replied, smiling at her.
“I had cousins who were pranksters, and I managed to hold my own against them. They often made Deborah cry, but they never managed to draw a tear from me.” She smiled at the memory.
“Your strength in admirable,” he said, and suddenly, he wasn’t talking about her ability to see through a prank.
A woman of her poise and intelligence was a gold mine of potential for the right man, if she ever changed her mind about marrying. Such a man would have the wealth of her humor, her wit, her charm, and her innate beauty to grace his home, raise his children and host his guests. She would be the partner he needed, equal in temperament and intelligence. And he wanted with an inexplicable fierceness for that man to be him. Turning away, knowing it was much too soon in their acquaintance for such thoughts to even be permissible, he went to his desk and withdrew some writing paper and a quill.
“I will make sure that you are provided with as much paper as you will need while you are here,” he promised, walking back to hand them to her, this time not teasing.
“Thank you,” she replied, taking the supplies from him.
Their fingers touched, and she gasped. Gray felt the charge all the way up his arm, and he only managed to restrain himself and not kiss her parted lips by a sheer act of will.
“You’re welcome,” he said, and stepped away again, inhaling deeply, taking in her scent as he did so. He opened the door for her and stood by it.
“Well, good night, Gray,” she said, and walked away, her candle’s light leading the way back across the vestibule to the stairs.
He watched her until she was at the top of the stairs. And then she turned, as though she knew he was still at the door, looked directly at him, and smiled. Her lips moved, but he did not hear the words. And then she disappeared down the hall, and he walked back to his desk, picked up his drink, and swallowed it in one gulp.
The last time he had touched a woman in lust, he had spent a night of complete debauchery with her, and had learned of many new ways to please a woman. Not that he would ever need them, he had thought at the time, but it had been the price he had had to pay for losing a bet to his friend Jack. Margaret Anne, as she was called, was a courtesan, and she had not been shy about showing him every position, and engaging with him in every lustful activity to bring them both to more climaxes than he had ever had with any woman in his life.
She had been as innocent-looking as his Juliana -- he knew it was true, and did not bother to deny it, even to himself -- and he realized now that it had been that innocent aspect that had first attracted him to her. And then she had aroused his passions systematically, and kept him aroused for hours before letting him have his pleasure. And he did not complain, because he had learned how to torture her as well, and practiced his newfound skills on her many times before she had had to leave the following afternoon for her evening performance. She had enjoined him to complete discretion, promising never to reveal their night to anyone. No one other than Jack would ever know how completely he had sated his need for female flesh.
And now, he found himself once again in the throes of a passion which he would willingly stoke, if the reward was the regard of the woman who had just quit his study. He closed the door quietly behind him and made his way up the stairs to his own chambers, noting the light under the door that told him which room Juliana occupied. He resisted the urge to pause and listen, and took himself off to bed. He would see her again in a few short hours, and then he would begin to pursue her.
Chapter 8
When Juliana walked into the stableyard next morning, Gray was already there, feeding the horses on either side of him with lumps of sugar. He smiled as she approached, and she returned it. She had slept badly the night before, abandoning any attempt to write to her mother, in exchange for thinking about the unexpected encounter with Gray in his study at midnight.
“Good morning, Gray,” she said as she stopped before him. His smile was making her insides shake, and she gripped her gloved hands together to steady them.
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br /> “Good morning, Juliana,” he replied. “Did you sleep well?”
Although it was not by any means an odd question, Juliana felt as though there were some greater import in it than merely asking after her state of restedness. And knowing how she had tossed and turned, trying to find a comfortable spot, trying to quiet her mind, she wondered perhaps he had had an equally disturbed night, and whether that was the reason for the question. He would not know if she told another fib -- it seemed to be her new modus operandi around him, anyway -- she she refrained from sharing her restless night with him.
“Yes, thank you,” she replied, but could not meet his gaze.
He handed her Alpha’s reins and helped her onto the beast. After he had mounted his own steed and they had trotted off toward the rising sun, he said, above the noise of the horses’ hooves,
“I did not sleep well, either.”
He turned to look at her, smiling in amusement as she turned shocked eyes to his face, her mouth falling slightly open.
“I did not say I had slept badly,” she protested.
“Nor did you have to, my lady,” he returned. “You could not look me in the eye and utter the prevarication.” He paused, turning his horse in a new direction. “Which gives me reason to wonder what it is about your restless night that you wish to keep hidden from me.”
Juliana felt the color creeping into her cheeks and down onto her chest. She seemed to have lost the ability to hide anything from others...or perhaps it was just from Gray. She was at a loss for how to answer him, so she held her peace, and waited for him to speak again, or not, as he pleased.
“I could not sleep for thinking of you, Juliana,” he said into the silence growing between them. “And I freely admit to hoping your sleeplessness was for the same reason.”
He had stopped his horse as he spoke, and they sat side by side, turned in their saddles so they could speak eye to eye. He was clearly waiting for her response, and because she was still uncertain, a circumstance that left her feeling completely non-plussed, she made a joke, teasing him instead of answering his unspoken question.
“I can with all truthfulness say I was not sleepless because I was thinking about myself, Gray.”
She smiled and turned her horse, but he reached across, staying her hands on the reins.
“Evasion does not suit you, Juliana,” he informed her gravely. “I wish to know the reason for the tired eyes with which you greeted me today.”
She wanted to be irritated with him. She really did. And she should be. He was being so high-handed, so utterly male, and under other circumstances, she would have been infuriated. Now, though, all she could feel was desired, and the feeling took her breath away.
“I find myself in a situation that is unusual for me,” she began, trying to find a way to explain her feelings. “As you may have heard, I have not been very open to men in the past. I enjoy my freedom.”
“And how are you now bound, my jewel?”
He said the words, and she could see that he had shocked himself as much as he had her. He had made a name for her, a sign that he also felt the intimacy of their connection as powerfully as she did.
“I find myself unable to stay my thoughts…” She paused, knowing he would not let it go. He didn’t.
“Your thoughts about?” he wanted to know, prompting her to continue.
She swallowed and turned away to look at the golden hues of morning sunlight.
“About you,” she finally confessed.
She felt his hand on hers, squeezing gently, and then he said,
“Look at me, Juliana.”
She found she could not disobey the clear command in his tone, nor did she want to. She turned her eyes to his face again, and saw the desire she had felt stirring in her own heart shining from his eyes.
“I have remained a single man by choice, even when my mother has done her damndest to marry me off to some eager female. I have had no interest in any of them. And then I saw you in the stableyard two mornings ago, and my whole view has changed.”
He paused, and she prompted him in her turn.
“Changed how, exactly?”
She needed to know what he was thinking, and whether his thoughts matched her own. She had not completely lost her mind or her common sense, and if all he wanted was a fling, or a mistress, she would turn around and return to Coulby Hall, bid her sister farewell, and return to London where she would be safe until her heart mended itself.
“I find you to be the very epitome of everything a man could want in a woman,” he said, and the hope she had been holding in check burst free. “We do not yet know each other well enough for me to do any more than I am compelled by my feelings to do now.”
“And what is that?” she asked on a shaky breath.
“I would like to get to know you, to spend time in your company, when you are not with your sister. If you would be willing, I wish to court you as a proper suitor should, in hopes of winning your regard.”
He stopped speaking, and though Juliana could sense there was much he had not said, she knew it was her turn to speak.
“I would be willing, Gray,” she replied, smiling fully if briefly at him.
He took a deep breath, and removed his hand from hers.
“Perhaps it would be best, now that the circumstances have changed, if we returned to the house, and follow the rules of the game?” he said. “I would not wish to sully your reputation.”
Juliana felt her heart turn over at the evidence of his true regard for her. She had never before met a man who considered her feelings and her name above his own. Even the two who had proposed marriage to her had been most concerned about themselves.
“I am grateful for your consideration,” she said. “And in that spirit, perhaps we need to return to a more formal address in public,” she added.
“Indeed, Miss Lockhart, you are right,” he agreed, and they both laughed. Then he sobered and looked deeply into her eyes. “I will see you at breakfast, then.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
She turned her horse and followed him back the way they had come. She would miss these early morning rides, which they would have been able to continue had he not declared his intentions. Now that she was more than merely her sister’s companion at Coulby Hall, she could no longer be alone with him, but must always have a chaperone with her. How she would manage that without giving anything away before Gray was ready to do so would be her task. She was determined to keep their secret as long as she needed to. If this were to be the man she married, she would enter into that union free from gossip and scandal.
In the stableyard, he dismounted and waited until James had helped her off Alpha before turning to her and saying, as they walked away together,
“I am not, by nature, a patient man, and this enforced separation will grate heavily on me. But I will do my best to control my impatience, for your sake.”
“Thank you, Your Grace,” she answered, and watched him walk away.
As Rose helped her to dress, Juliana thought about how much had changed in two days, and marveled at the ways in which her life would be altered by her decision to visit Coulby Hall. She really needed to write to her mother, but she would wait to see how things progressed, especially as she knew the Dowager Duchess would not be happy with her son’s decision.How ironic that he should choose to pursue the very woman hhis mother least approved of. She walked down to breakfast determined to remain calm and pleasant, and to let Gray take the lead. He would know best how to handle his mother.
A commotion at the door brought her eyes to the front of the dwelling as she reached the last stair, and Hudson escorted a pretty young man to the dining room. That must be Lord Edgar Wingrove, she surmised, and arrived in time for breakfast, too.
She walked in to Gray’s question of his cousin: “When did you leave Hawley House to arrive here so early, Edgar?”
“I did not leave from home, cousin. I had to make an unexpected trip to London, and left f
rom there when my business was concluded. I stayed overnight in the village, as it was too late to rouse the household when I arrived.”
“It is good to see you again, Edgar,” Lady Eleanor said, gracing the young man with a real smile.
“As it is to see you, Aunt,” he replied, and then seemed to become aware that there were others in the room.
He turned and spied Deborah sitting demurely next to Juliana, and he smiled brightly and greeted them both.
“Good morning to you, ladies,” he said. “Pardon my manners. It is good to see you again, Lady Deborah,” he added, turning his winning smile on Deborah.
