“Sir Oliver, please come into the drawing room and take refreshment,” said a tall, dark-haired lady whose stare, he swore, pierced his innards.
“Lady . . . ?” he asked, hinting for a first name.
She gave him a vague smile. “Sometimes.”
“Oh, yes. Of course.”
Arrogant woman. She hadn’t even properly brushed her hair for his visit, although neither had he. But then Oliver found the look of tousled artist appealed to most females, and God knew it wasn’t as if he lived on Park Lane and had a reliable valet to keep him in style.
She didn’t appear to be a typical daughter of the nobility. Neither of the two other sisters, Lilac and Rue, were dressed to receive guests, but with their natural beauty, what did clothes matter?
The unfriendly siren led him into a sunlit room and to a hard chair that sat beside a large golden lyre. It looked like something a giant might own; he wondered when the golden hen would appear so that he could snatch it and run. But on closer inspection the lyre’s strings were so worn that Oliver doubted it would play a chord.
“Is Ivy—Lady Ivy—at home?” he asked when he realized the women awaited an explanation for his appearance. “I do have the right day this time? I sent a box here last week and received a letter in return that she would be at home on Wednesday.”
The statuesque lady whom one of the sisters had referred to as Rosemary gave him a curt nod. “We sent the box to her place of employment, which we shouldn’t have done. She hasn’t been gone from home all that long. I’m not sure she’ll be ready to receive callers the minute she walks in the door.” She crossed her arms. “You are the poet Sir Oliver?”
He warmed. “You know my work?”
She sniffed in reply.
He glanced at Rue for support, only to find an impassive expression that indicated she wouldn’t take his side over her older sister’s. “But I owe her a personal apology, don’t you agree?” he said. “I’ve thought of nothing but her since that day in the street. I can’t write a decent verse. I’m rather hopeless. I have to see her.”
“This sounds like more than an apology,” Lilac said candidly. “Are you hoping to court her?”
He lowered his gaze. Odd. At a soirée in London his looks could melt stone, but these women appeared to be made of the stuff. He’d feel a damned fool if Lady Ivy refused him as a suitor.
Beggars couldn’t be choosers, and after the scandal her sire had created, she ought to be grateful that a man of Oliver’s renown would consider reintroducing her to society. True, it was half-world society, and his motives might be tainted, but if by his deep thinking he discovered in this house a fortune, then everyone would benefit.
He shuffled his feet, staring past the sisters, who were studying him as if prepared to torture him with one of the weapons on the wall.
Where in this house would he began to search for a treasure?
A half minute later Ivy stood before him, looking not as grateful as he would have hoped. He had rescued a family heirloom. Perhaps she did not remember him? He rose, bowed.
“Sir Oliver,” she said in a hoarse voice that sent a prickle down his spine. “How unexpected to see you at Fenwick.”
He straightened in surprise. Her condescending manner challenged him. It was a good thing she was fair on the eyes. He might enjoy this match. “Lady Ivy,” he said, flicking back his coattails. “I am enchanted to see you again.”
She turned and inhaled as if to breathe in—what? The odor of mildew rising from the floor? Did she think he would be dismissed that easily? He stood back in amusement. Her sisters divested her of her cloak, revealing a figure that took no deception to appreciate. A smattering of servants appeared in the passageway to rejoice at her return.
“Lady Ivy,” he said, clearing his throat. “If this is not a convenient time to call, I understand.”
She glanced back at him as if she had forgotten his presence. In a fortnight’s time, he swore, he would have her eating out of his hand.
* * *
Ivy had been dying for a private welcome and a chance to divulge all that had happened to her at Ellsworth Park. Now she had to entertain Sir Oliver—and was she supposed to repay him for the necklace? Yet, after an hour of small talk, when she broached the subject, he became incensed.
“That was atonement for the accident, and a chance to deepen our friendship.”
“So you do want to court her,” Lilac said gleefully from her chair in the corner.
“Honestly, Lilac,” Ivy said, choking on the bite of biscuit she had taken. “Must you always speak your mind?”
“It’s quite all right,” Sir Oliver said with a laugh. “I don’t have a family of my own. I was an orphan, you see. This is quite pleasant for me.”
“It’s pleasant for us, too,” Lilac said. “Some people think the four of us are dangerous, if you can believe it.”
Sir Oliver glanced at Ivy. “Dangerous to the heart, they must mean.”
“No, no,” Lilac said, shaking her head. “‘Dangerous’ in an unpleasant way.”
He smiled thinly. “I assure you, no one will insult you in my presence with impunity.”
“How unpoetic,” Rosemary murmured.
Lilac frowned at her. “Were you really an orphan?” she asked Oliver, returning her attention to him.
“Yes. But don’t waste your pity on me. How can I regret my life when it has brought me to this present place?”
At that point Rosemary excused herself to work and left the hall without looking at Oliver.
“Work?” he said into the silence that followed her departure. “Is she a seamstress?”
“She’s a writer,” Lilac said.
Sir Oliver’s remark reminded Ivy of her other “family.” What if the duke’s soon-to-be mistress had arrived during Ivy’s absence? She might gratify the duke, but her arrival would also pique the children’s curiosity. Ivy ought to be there to act as a moral barrier, so to speak. Of course Ivy didn’t care if His Grace diddled a spoon while she was gone. But she had promised to oversee Mary and Walker’s upbringing.
She frowned, trying not to picture what the duke might be doing while she drank tea with an attractive rascal who had just scooted his chair closer to hers. She flinched at the unsubtle scrape of wood against stone. Oliver’s eyes moved languidly over her face. He started to talk about London. She didn’t listen.
Surely the duke would wait until dark to bed that woman.
What a naive assumption.
He had kissed Ivy just after sunrise on his study floor.
“What time is it?” she asked in alarm, noticing the lengthening shadows on the carpet.
Sir Oliver consulted his pocket watch. “It’s not gone six yet.”
“Six o’clock? I have to return to Ellsworth before it’s dark.”
“Is the duke that strict?” Rue asked in sympathy.
No. He was that unstructured. “It’s the children, you realize,” she explained, handing Lilac her cup and rising for the cloak and gloves she’d removed what seemed only minutes ago.
Sir Oliver stood at her side. “What a shame. Do you think it would help if I put in a word? On your behalf—you know, explain to him that you had been in the company of a well-known person?”
“Don’t you dare,” Ivy said quickly. The last thing the duke would appreciate was knowing that she’d spent the afternoon with Oliver.
“And I was hoping for a tour of the house.”
“Come next May, Sir Oliver,” Rue said, her shadow falling between him and Ivy. “You can admire the gardens at their finest. You will be inspired.”
His strained smile intimated that he hoped for more than a horticultural tour for inspiration. “My traveling carriage will be quicker than that antique which brought you here, Ivy. Honestly, my dear, you’d have been faster gliding on a sleigh with
out snow.”
“That’s not the vehicle that almost ran me over?” Ivy could not resist teasing. “Oh, forgive me. I shouldn’t have mentioned it again.”
His smile transformed his face. For the first time Ivy saw past his superficial veneer to the charisma of the poet who sent the ladies of upper-crust London into raptures. Yet Ivy didn’t feel the least tug of attraction toward him. “But of course you should. Tease me all you like. It is the reason I am here.”
* * *
Ivy rushed through her good-byes to her sisters, even though she felt unsure about abandoning them to a man as ingratiating as Sir Oliver.
“I feel responsible for him,” she whispered to Rue as they embraced beside the straggly hollyhocks.
Rue smiled rather wickedly. “Don’t worry. Rosemary is keeping her eye on him.”
“What about Lilac?” Ivy asked under her breath.
Rue laughed. “She considers him useful for some odd reason.”
Ivy considered Oliver to be an annoyance. He’d wasted the precious hours she’d wanted to spend at Fenwick with his aimless flirtation. Yet on the bumpy ride back to Ellsworth, she managed to forget him entirely.
She promised herself she would make up the time she’d wanted to spend with her sisters on her next visit. Perhaps by then, she thought, as the carriage drew into Ellsworth and she hastened through the house, she would have collected a few more anecdotes about the duke to share with her siblings.
She walked into her bedchamber and peered at the clock on the mantelpiece. Half an hour late. The old carriage horses couldn’t travel these country roads as they had done years ago. The journey to London had taken its toll on the faithful bays. She stripped down to her shift. Well, at least the duke hadn’t caught her.
She bent over her washstand, splashing water over her face, and stared in the mirror. She froze, not at the cold, but at the reflection of a man sprawled across her tidily made bed. The duke might not have caught her.
But she had caught him, sleeping, in her bed.
She lifted the pitcher, counted to ten, and reconsidered. She set the jug down silently and picked up a towel, draping it over her bare shoulders.
She looked at him again in the mirror. He hadn’t moved.
She turned, water slipping down her breasts, and walked to his side. She wondered if he was dead drunk or flagrantly courting an invitation. Clearly the woman he awaited had not made her eagerly anticipated arrival, which meant that while Ivy was envisioning the duke engaged in unspeakable sins, he had been here . . . snoring softly on Ivy’s bed.
What was she to make of this?
Why on earth had she rushed back to the park, terrified of being late?
“Your Grace,” she said, nudging his big stockinged foot. “Are you in your cups?”
“Cups.” He opened his eyes, perusing her semiclad figure like a man who’d never tasted a drop of liquor in his life. He was alert, keen, a waking beast. “I couldn’t find you at the appointed time, so I came in here to check. I must have dozed off. The children exhausted me. Did something happen at Fenwick to keep you?” He glanced at the clock. “You’re late. We can’t allow that. A governess should be prompt.”
Her temper simmered. She hadn’t been able to enjoy a decent visit at home with her shoes off and now this—this—intimidating spectacle expected her to behave as if it were acceptable for him to await her return in her bed.
“Your Grace, I might not have moved about in high society as often as you. But we both know that a duke doesn’t nap in the governess’s bed. I am in the act of undressing.”
“Don’t let me stop you.” He sat up, crossing his legs in the middle of her bed. “I’ll cover my eyes.”
“You shall leave the room.”
“You could use the screen.”
“Excellent idea.”
He folded his arms behind his head, giving Ivy cause to appreciate the breadth of his shoulders beneath his crisp linen shirt. “Except that Mary knocked the screen over chasing Walker through the house and Carstairs removed it for repairs.”
“I thought something was missing.” She reached around in annoyance for her cloak. “I should also have realized that something was here that didn’t belong.”
“Sit down,” he said somberly.
“No.”
“Sit down on the bed. This is important.”
She wavered. Perhaps something had happened during her absence. Perhaps he had an excuse for his presence.
“Does it concern the children?”
He looked directly into her eyes. “Yes. Walker went into hysterics when he discovered you had gone.”
Doubting this, she perched on the edge of the bed nonetheless. “What happened?”
“I ran around being his horsey until I wanted to cry. Cook plied him with treacle all day until he felt sick and fell asleep. Mary is convinced you met the man with the pearls. I’m worn-out.”
“Oh, honestly,” Ivy said, putting her hand over her eyes.
Her heart was pounding. The intimacy between them had built into an inevitable confrontation. It was the end of a trying day; he had granted her no chance to rally her defenses. He looked too comfortable, too confident sitting in her small bed. He should not be here. This was a conversation that should take place between a husband and a wife.
Had no one ever taught the duke that he couldn’t behave exactly as he liked?
Why was she not more shocked to discover him lying in wait for her? Had she become completely detached from convention or so attached to him that nothing else mattered? In his presence Ivy felt as if she had taken leave of her senses.
“Did you meet him today?” he asked, after an interlude during which her anxiety escalated until she feared her heart would burst.
She felt him uncross his legs, his body leaning into hers. How foolish to pretend that if she couldn’t see him, he could not threaten her. His knuckles slid from her ear to her throat, an unsubtle declaration of intent to seduce that she responded to against her will.
“Ivy,” he said, his touch dipping boldly into the deep cleft of her breasts. “There was a male visitor today at Fenwick.”
She stole a glimpse at him through her fingers. A grave error. His eyes studied her with a wicked fascination that made her wonder what he saw in her that she didn’t. “How do you know?” she asked, lifting her hand to his wrist to thwart his next move.
“Carstairs drove by on an errand.”
“No one drives by Fenwick on an errand. You sent Carstairs after me.”
“I was worried that your coach would not survive the journey. How you traveled in that contraption to London is frightening to contemplate. I half expected Carstairs to come running home with word he’d found a pumpkin and liveried mice on the bridge to your house.”
His fingers continued to caress her—soon, she knew, she must object—as he recited what she judged to be a well-rehearsed although not implausible explanation. Sensual instincts and conflicting emotions warred inside her. He was a bewitching man. She knew that at any moment he would make a bolder play. This was no time to engage in a battle she could never win. Her body was defecting to his side, urging her to surrender.
Should she run from the room?
She sensed he wouldn’t stop her. Where could she hide wearing a shift and a cloak? She’d be the one who would look mad. Perhaps she could talk reason into him.
“How do you know that my visitor wasn’t a male relation?” she asked, reminding herself that one simply didn’t push a duke off a bed, no matter how dangerously desirable he made one feel.
His smile provoked her. “If you had any male relations, they would have claimed Fenwick the day your father died.” His thumb stroked the shape of her breast through her secondhand cotton shift. “He left you unprotected.”
“He didn’t expect to die.”
“No. I’m sorry for that. And I’m sorry that you’ve had no one to take care of you.”
The cotton abraded her nipple; an intense stab of pleasure pierced her belly. His lightest caress rendered her weak and wanting. She leaned her shoulder back against the bedpost, missed, and would have fallen to the floor had his other hand not lashed around her waist.
He gathered her into the core of his body. Her stomach fluttered in pleasure at the sensation of hard strength that embraced her. “Where is your lover?” she asked in one last bid to distract him. He was breathing unevenly, and she could hardly breathe at all. But it didn’t seem to matter as long as he held her in his arms.
He buried his face in her neck. “I wrote her a letter and asked her not to come.” His firm lips moved with maddening slowness to meet the hand caressing her breast. Her heart was beating too hard. His touch felt illicit and essential. “It’s better that way.”
She needed to escape. She needed his kisses. The anticipation of not knowing which she needed more, of wondering what would happen if she chose him, reduced her to nothing. Instinct made the decision for her. She brought her hands to his large shoulders and felt the deep sigh of satisfaction he exhaled against her skin. “Why did you ask her not to come? I thought you were desperate.”
“Oh, I am,” he admitted with a laugh. “But not for her.”
She wasn’t about to ask him to explain that remark, although it tantalized her. “That sounds rather cruel.”
“It was a kindness for both of us.”
“Won’t she be upset?”
“I’ll find a way to soothe her feelings. She’s fond of jewelry.”
She reminded herself that he had just dismissed the woman who was meant to be in his bed. That didn’t mean he could sleep in hers. But the words wouldn’t come. He had gained the advantage. She wondered what he expected in return. He hadn’t given much thought to deciding his mistress shouldn’t visit. Ivy surmised that the woman wouldn’t view his decision as kindness.
“You realize that I’m about to kiss you?” he asked, as if there were any chance she would refuse when she’d already lifted her face to his and gripped his shoulders in anticipation. “I take that as consent,” he said, his eyes dancing with promise.
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