Julianna’s needle paused. She sat back in her rocking chair, her eyes tired, but curious. “What do you mean?”
How to put this?
“I don’t think farmers in Kent are that different from farmers in Yorkshire, and as to that, I own farms in the East Riding. Won them from Northumberland, and God knows he has land to spare.”
She let her sewing fall to her lap. “You win farms in card games?”
Connor took the trousers from her and resumed stitching. He’d learned to stitch hems in the past week, make bread, sweep, scrub pots with sand and a tough rag, and more.
All manner of useful activities were within the grasp of an injured duke. He’d put the boys up on Hortensia one by one and passed along some rudimentary equitation, taught them how to groom her properly, and how to tie a simple neckcloth. They’d watched him shave, and joined him in a nightly hand of whist.
In another week he’d be gone, but while he was here, he’d make up for five years of neglect as best he could. Then too, all this activity had meant he’d slept well, when dreams of Julianna hadn’t plagued him.
“Northumberland has farms coming out his… his ears,” Con said. “He’s a good farmer too, unlike some dukes I could name. I’m not a bad farmer, for a duke, and I know that neighbors in a district cooperate. They schedule their shearing, haying, and harvesting together. They confer about who’s growing wheat and who’s growing barley, whether the year will be wet or dry, and when to trade their breeding rams, and so forth. Your neighbors all but ignore you, apparently.”
Julianna rose and brought the tallow candle closer to Con’s elbow. They were in her parlor, which five years ago had likely been a pretty room. Now, the carpet was worn, the space over the mantel vacant, and the curtains tattered about the hems.
“When John was alive, it was different,” she said, dropping back into her rocker. “You’re right about that, but at first I thought the neighbors were simply respecting the privacy owed a widow during mourning, and then I was too tired to think. You sew a fine seam, Mr. Amadour.”
Her smile had become Con’s reward for jobs well done. To glimpse that smile, he had read a dozen fairy tales, swung the children about by their wrists until he was dizzy, and groomed the mule until she’d fallen asleep.
“Are you ashamed to be seen with me, Julianna?”
The question had cost him, but needed to be dealt with. Con hadn’t left the farm in the past week. He’d healed for the most part, though sitting a horse was still out of the question, and he’d rested and pondered life in a way not possible for a duke. MacTavish had brought word of two other swells biding in the area—Lucere and Starlingham, of course—and Con hadn’t wanted to add to the talk.
“I am not ashamed of you,” Julianna said, “but a widow must be careful. Mr. Warren will not like to hear of me keeping company with a young single fellow under my own roof, regardless that he’s a distant relation of my late husband. I cannot afford to court Mr. Warren’s disfavor.”
Mr. Warren could not afford to court the disfavor of Julianna’s ducal relation, did he but know it.
“I have means, Julianna. I simply need time to redirect them. Once the Little Season ends in the autumn, my mother and sister leave Town, my brothers go off flirting to the house parties, and my friends often pay their vowels. I can put this farm to rights by harvest, if you’ll allow it.”
Her expression went from tired to bleak. “Thank you for those good intentions, Connor. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, but I hope it won’t come to that.”
She rose and kissed his cheek, a gentle, lingering kiss that bore more resignation than gratitude, and between one flicker of the candle and the next, Con hit the limit of his damned ducal gallantry.
He kissed her back, on the mouth. Set the sewing aside, cupped her chin, and informed the lady—lip to lip—that distant relation of a long-departed spouse or not, this was a kiss between a healthy, if arse-shot, man and a healthy, if exhausted, woman.
Julianna made a soft, yielding murmur, and Con rose to envelop her in his arms. In the past week, he’d sneaked the occasional arm around her shoulders or her waist, a half hug, a pat on the shoulder, and each time Julianna had reciprocated with a shy, bewildered smile.
Once, she’d let her head rest on his shoulder, and Con had nearly danced a jig, despite any repercussions to his wound. Twice, he’d felt a surreptitious pat to his bum that might have been his imagination or sheer accident.
“We shouldn’t—” Julianna muttered, twining her arms around Con’s neck. “I can’t—”
“You are the most independent, selfless, hardworking woman I’ve met. A damned duchess of the dales, and if you want to kiss me, you should be free to kiss me. God knows, I want your kisses.”
His compliment was genuine, and another testament to the degree to which Con’s family situation had drifted from its proper course. A duchess should be generous and kind, gracious and dignified, while Con had allowed his mother’s widowhood to lapse into—
He lost track of that thought as Julianna pressed closer. Hers was not the rounded, pampered form of a London beauty, but rather, a strong, fit, womanly shape that could match a man passion for passion.
And heaven defend him, the lady could kiss. She went a-plundering with her tongue, delicately at first, then more enthusiastically as Con returned her overtures and shaped her waist and hips with his hands.
He loved the feel of her beneath his palms. Loved all that vitality and strength, femininity and eagerness, responding to his touch. Kissing Julianna, he sorted out what had been distracting him for the past week.
At this humble farm, as Connor Amadour, he’d come alive. He’d felt what it was to work hard physically and see the immediate results. Not make investments by means of three intermediaries, but make bread and slice it still warm from the hearth.
He’d not trimmed expenses from the gardening budget for his town house, but trimmed the hair of a young fellow still in the grip of boyhood, and seen a bit of the young man emerge.
And he’d fallen in love.
Con shaped a luscious, full breast, and Julianna’s hands on his back went still.
Her forehead dropped to his shoulder. “Connor, I have missed—”
She’d missed her husband. Con kissed her—a quick buss—rather than hear that sentiment, understandable though it was. He wasn’t missing anything, for he was exploring completely new terrain.
“I have missed the passion,” she said. “The sense of being cast away and relieved of all thought, all cares, breath even. I’ve missed feeling desired, and I shouldn’t be telling you any of this.”
Who else could she tell? From what Con had seen, not even the other widows in the neighborhood, the pastor, or the families on the nearest farms took notice of her. If they’d known she counted a duke among her allies, they would never have dared to neglect her so.
“I’m coming to market with you tomorrow,” Con said. “Let them all wonder about your haughty relation, let them speculate that you have friends in high places of which they knew nothing. John St. Bellan had to have mentioned a duke on the family tree at some point.”
Her arms fell away, and she stepped back. “You cannot come to market with me, Connor. My neighbors will think the worst of us both. Any mention John might have made of you will be forgotten when I flaunt your wealth and good looks before the whole village. Puddlebury is a village at heart. We’re lucky to have a market day we’re so small, and nobody will believe such as you is simply my visiting relation after all these years.”
In other words, his past neglect would cost her his present consequence, even were he free to flaunt it. In the space of a morning, all her hard work and proper living, her charity to the children and hymn-singing in church would mean nothing as she fell from genteel widowed neighbor to rural disgrace.
Con took her in his arms again, but remained silent. For years he’d brushed aside the odd looks from servants and solicitors, the peculiar non sequ
iturs in correspondence or conversation that should have caused him to suspect his mother’s meddling.
For all he knew, his brothers were reading his correspondence, and Antigone was borrowing his new stallion in Con’s absence.
He’d not paid attention.
The Bible in the Mowne library included a family tree, and Con had never truly studied it to learn who Cousin Jules was.
Mama had gambling debts, and Con had never chided her for them. Hector was a soft touch for charities that Con suspected were little more than swindles.
Something about Julianna’s circumstances—and Mr. Maurice Warren’s role in them—wasn’t adding up. Con had learned his lesson, though. He was here, he was the Duke of Mowne, however disguised, and for the next week, he would pay very close attention.
Julianna sighed, then slipped from his grasp, and when she wrapped her shawl about her and withdrew, Con let her go and resumed his mending.
* * *
John would have understood what Julianna was about to do, maybe better than she understood it herself. He’d been kind and practical, both, and had told Julianna never to deny herself happiness for the sake of his memory.
Happiness was nowhere to be found these days, but pleasure… pleasure might be as close as the bedroom across the hall.
John had been a generous man too, though not as close to perfect as Julianna had once thought. John had disdained women’s work even through the long winter when the land was fallow and the housework unceasing, he’d dreamed too ambitiously most years, and he’d trusted Maurice Warren.
Not well done of John, that last part.
Julianna looked in on the children, changed into her nightclothes, got ready for bed, and brushed and rebraided her hair. Saying her prayers would have to wait for another time.
Julianna’s tap on Connor’s door met with a moment of silence, then the door opened, and there stood the Duke of Mowne, naked from the waist up, his chest and the hair at his temples damp.
“Are the children well?” He held a towel in one hand, his feet were bare, his features were etched with concern.
“The children are fast asleep. May I come in?”
His expression became unreadable, but he stepped back and held the door for her. His room was the best guest room on the premises, the only one still entirely furnished, and yet… it had become shabby.
“Are you well, Julianna?”
The grate held no fire, though the night was cool. Connor had brought up a single tallow candle from the parlor, and thus shadows flickered about him. The house was so profoundly quiet, Julianna could nearly hear her heart hammering against her ribs.
“Make love with me, please.” She wouldn’t beg, but she’d ask. Invite, something in between. “I’m a widow. I can bestow my favors where I wish, as long as I’m discreet.”
Connor pulled a shirt down over his head, the muscles of his arms, belly, and chest bunching and rippling, but he didn’t do up any of the buttons.
“You can’t be seen with me at the market, but you invite my intimate attentions now. What am I to make of this, Julianna?”
“You are to make nothing of it,” she said. “A week from now, you’ll go on about your ducal business, and I’ll have a farm to run. We’re adults free for the present of other encumbrances. I like you. You seem favorably disposed toward me.”
He folded the towel over the top of the privacy screen, seams matching precisely, no hurry at all.
“You want a dalliance of me?”
Julianna longed to give him her heart, but what a paltry offering that would be, mortgaged to a farm, four children, and very likely a future with Maurice Warren.
Though apparently, even dukes could be cash-poor.
“I want an hour with you,” she said. “A special hour.”
She’d asked to see his wound the previous day and confirmed it was healing well. He’d have a scar, but the bandage was more a safeguard now than a necessity. The sight of his exposed muscular flank, though, would remain emblazoned on Julianna’s memory for the rest of her days.
Connor took a step closer. “You would have one hour of pleasure with me, and then we rise in the morning, please pass the eggs, Harold get your elbows off the table?”
“The boys no longer need reminding, thanks to you.”
He grasped Julianna’s braid and tugged her closer. “One hour? If that’s the best St. Bellan could do with his lawfully wedded wife, I must reduce the esteem in which I hold him. A single hour, Julianna?”
Fifteen minutes, if she and John had been tired, but that wasn’t the point Connor was making.
“I’ll settle for an hour,” Julianna said.
“I won’t,” Connor murmured, closing the distance between them. “You are warned, madam, I will not settle for an hour, when you deserve so much more.”
For long minutes, he expounded on that point, kissing Julianna anywhere except her mouth and touching her only with his lips. She endured that pleasure as best as she could, vaguely aware Connor was issuing a challenge.
One hour from now, she would not be stealing out the door, ready for a night of dreamless slumber before getting up to make the bread in the morning. Perhaps she’d not leave in two hours, or even three.
She wouldn’t want to leave ever. Julianna slid her arms around Connor’s lean waist, hugging his warmth close. Connor was aroused, truly, unmistakably aroused. By her, in her threadbare robe, with her freckled hands, her tired eyes, and unremarkable figure.
“How I have longed…” he whispered, arms closing about her.
Julianna craved his embrace, craved the strength and caring in it, craved the fit of their bodies seamed together. She stood in the circle of Connor’s arms, kissing him, nuzzling at the male contours of his neck and shoulders. He’d used the lavender soap she’d made last summer, and his flesh was still cool from his ablutions.
“Into bed with us,” Connor said, patting Julianna’s bum. “Before I have you against the wall.”
Relief coursed through her. He was a duke. Of course he’d understand dalliance. Some helpful soul probably wrote treatises for ducal heirs about how to accommodate the intimate demands of widows without getting entangled in expectations.
Julianna turned back the bedcovers and started to climb between the sheets.
“Are you that modest?” Connor asked, undoing the buttons of his falls. “I’m not particularly modest. Hard to be when there’s always a valet about who lives to fuss one into clothing.”
“I usually wear my nightgown to bed because the sheets are cool.”
“The sheets will soon be quite warm,” Connor said, shoving his breeches down. His arousal arrowed up along his belly, a testament to desire and his lack of modesty, both.
Julianna turned away. One didn’t want to compare, but joyous, heavenly days and celestial nights. The term merry widow abruptly made more sense to her.
Connor came up behind her. Julianna could feel his heat along her back and his breath on her shoulder.
“Last chance to change your mind, Julianna. I do not share my favors lightly, nor do I hold you in casual esteem.”
He’d learned that people took advantage, in other words. “I esteem you greatly,” Julianna said as he slid his arms about her waist and pulled her back against him.
She did esteem him greatly, for taking the boys in hand, for complimenting her cooking, for setting an example—of helpfulness, good manners, good humor, and cooperation—that the boys were inspired to follow.
She esteemed him for doing what Maurice Warren could have done so easily and hadn’t—for simply being decent.
Connor kissed his way from the top of her shoulder to the shivery spot below her ear, gently pushing aside her nightclothes, setting a tone of leisurely seduction.
“I’ve never been… enticed before,” Julianna said. “I like it.”
“You are the impetuous sort?” Connor murmured, gently cupping a breast. “A little impetuosity can be marvelous.”
A little pressure was marvelous-er. A little gentle exploration of this touch and that caress, on both breasts at once, and Julianna’s nightclothes became an impediment to pleasure. Connor helped her out of them—his assistance was practiced without being presuming—and then Julianna was naked with a man for the first time in years.
Why, oh why, hadn’t she told him to blow out the candle first? Summer nights in Yorkshire took forever to grow truly dark, even when the hour was late.
“I’m not… I’m not young,” Julianna said. “I’m not what I once—”
Connor wore only the bandage about his waist and flank. “Thank God you’re not a silly, blushing girl, unsure of herself and incapable of knowing what she wants and deserves. This might have escaped your notice, but I’m not a boy myself.”
His smile was far too wicked to belong on any mere boy, and abruptly, everything inside Julianna came right. Tomorrow would be an awful day, mincing around the market with Maurice fawning at her side, while Julianna spent far too much coin for far too little merchandise. She’d come home frustrated, worried, and trying to put a good face on matters for the children and MacTavish, probably fooling none of them.
Tonight, she was desired, and her every wish was about to be indulged.
* * *
Lucere maintained that success with a new lover was all about tempo, about being able to read how aroused the lady was, and knowing when to get down to the business of pleasure, as it were. Starlingham maintained that being a good lover required lingering afterward, and that much would be forgiven a fellow who’d been too hasty or too dilatory, if he indulged the lady’s whims when the fireworks had concluded.
Especially her whims where fine jewelry or good seats at the opera were concerned.
Connor might have said—before—both of his friends had valid points. Now, he knew they were both wrong.
The essence of loving a woman well was simply that—loving her. Putting her first, listening for her responses, attending to her needs and wishes. Paying attention.
Julianna liked having her breasts touched, for example, a happy discovery because Con enjoyed touching them. He laid her on the bed, came down over her, and took a moment to admire how candlelight created shadows of the curves and hollows of her body.
Dukes In Disguise Page 7
