by Grace Burrowes, Shana Galen, Miranda Neville, Carolyn Jewel
Ellen had not even begun to know this man. She’d misjudged him for years, hidden from him, in fact.
Hardcastle cradled her jaw against his palm, the warmth of his hand startling, for this was an informal house party and he wasn’t wearing gloves.
“Don’t scream.”
His mouth settled over hers, the way calm settled in her heart when a solution arrived to a thorny problem, bringing with it rightness, relief, and a sense of revelation.
Yes, this. Exactly and emphatically, this. Hardcastle’s kiss was rivetingly sweet, not a presumption, but an invitation, a fragrance that beckoned Ellen into a garden of blooming pleasures. His arm encircling her shoulders, his warmth and nearness, his hand cradling her cheek, his tongue—
Exotic orchids joined the sensual bouquet that was the duke’s kiss. Heat from no apparent source glowed inside Ellen, light filled her mind where thoughts should be. The texture of his hair pleasured her fingers, and the taste of him—lavender and sweetness, from the last round of tea cakes—made her hungry in her soul.
Hardcastle could tease with kisses, drat him. Could nuzzle Ellen’s ear and send all her questions and protestations begging. She tried to tease back, by nibbling on the soft flesh of his lower lip, by stroking a hand over his chest, inside the warmth of his evening coat.
That effort was hopeless. The more she touched him, the more muddled she became.
When the duke desisted, Ellen’s heart was banging against her ribs as if a dozen unruly schoolgirls were leaping about inside her. When she would have traced her finger over his lips, he gently pushed her head to his shoulder.
“Your kisses want practice, my dear.”
Indignation should have had Ellen drawing back, but a note in His Grace’s voice stopped her. He was pleased that she had no idea how to kiss a man. He approved of her lack of experience, the wretch. As if she were the last tea cake on the tray, saved just for him.
“Yours is my first kiss, Hardcastle, and you provided me no warning.” She ought not to have admitted that. He’d be impossible now, not merely an impossible man, but an impossible duke.
“You can’t read up on how to kiss a fellow, Ellen. Not even in Latin. The business wants practice, and I’m sure you’ll be a quick study.” He kissed her again, a light smack on the lips. “Gets easier with practice, you see?”
He was entirely too smug about this venture, while Ellen had yet to locate her wits. She instead maneuvered artillery in place that ought to at least puncture Hardcastle’s self-satisfaction.
“Are you trifling with the help, Your Grace?”
“The help isn’t exactly leaping off the bench and calling for the gendarmes, is she?” he asked, his tone cooling.
“And ruin what’s left of my reputation?”
The question sobered him. Ellen could feel Hardcastle’s attitude change even before he withdrew his arm.
“Nobody is out here,” he said, “and a simple kiss between adults does not a reputation ruin. You’re not a giggling twit.”
“I am an earl’s granddaughter with a questionable past. Why did you kiss me, Hardcastle?”
He pushed off the bench and lounged on the balustrade a few feet away. Over his shoulder, the gardens were limned in moonlight, a fairy world suited to Christopher’s owls. Behind Ellen, inside the parlor, the bashing about of poor “Charlie” came to a merciful final cadence.
“The demented women at this house party are out to capture themselves a duke,” Hardcastle muttered. “You are my sole defense against their schemes, particularly now that His Grace of Wyndover has left the field, pleading the equivalent of a bachelor’s megrim. It may be necessary for me to pay you marked attention, and I can’t have you rebuffing my overtures.”
Hardcastle’s logic was a kick in the belly to Ellen’s fancies. “So that was a rehearsal kiss? A theater production for the leering masses we’re likely to face at tomorrow’s picnic?”
His expression shuttered, and he became not Ellen’s duke, not Hardcastle who’d steal a kiss to her hair, but a statue of a man, a fixture of the moonlit, fantastical garden.
“That kiss was not entirely a fiction, madam. Not on my part. If you’re offended by my honest regard, I apologize. I presumed, and it needn’t happen again.”
Laughter spilled from the parlor. The hordes would soon descend, all smiles and sly glances. Ellen abruptly wanted to cry, but because she was not in her governess attire, she had no handkerchief tucked into her sleeve.
Hardcastle pushed off the wall and strode toward the house, pausing only long enough to gently squeeze Ellen’s shoulder before he left her alone in the moonlight.
Chapter Three
‡
“If you importune Miss MacHugh like that again, I shall call you out, Hardcastle, and I will shoot to wound your pride, at least.”
The evening was mild, and no fire had been lit in the library’s hearth, so Sedgemere’s threat cracked across the darkness like a pistol shot.
“If you call me out, I’ll choose swords,” Hardcastle replied, turning two glasses on the sideboard right side up. “You’re no kind of swordsman, while my skill is indisputable. May I offer you some of your own brandy?”
“That decanter’s full of whiskey,” Sedgemere said, rising from a wing chair near the windows. “Anne has connections in the north who obligingly keep me supplied. The brandy’s on the desk.”
Hardcastle poured himself a brandy, for his nerves wanted soothing, not more passion. He passed Sedgemere a serving as well and touched his glass to his host’s.
“To victory in battle,” he said, reciting one of their toasts from boyhood. They’d both had ducal expectations foisted upon them too soon and at too great a cost, and that toast had covered a host of challenges.
“To honor in victory,” Sedgemere replied, ambling over to the window. “What could you have been thinking, Hardcastle? Ellen MacHugh is your nephew’s governess, and you were on her like a bear at a honey tree.”
“I rather was.” And she’d returned the compliment. “Miss MacHugh has agreed to be the object of my apparent affection for the duration of this gathering, and I shall be hers. A certain familiarity between us lends credibility to that fiction.”
“Any more credibility, Hardcastle, and the woman would be having your child. I opened the French doors to my library thinking to gain some fresh air without joining the throng in the parlor, and I find a pair of minks on my terrace.”
Two minks, two eager, thoroughly enthralled minks. Hardcastle took comfort from that.
“I became more enthusiastic than I intended, Sedgemere. I planned delicate forays, tactful overtures, not… not the complete surrender of my dignity.” Or the complete surrender of Ellen’s, for that matter.
When it came to kissing, she was a deuced fast learner, though, dignity be damned.
Sedgemere settled on the arm of the chair, moonlight glinting off the glass in his hand. “People think I married Anne for her money. Her papa is filthy rich, of course, and the settlements were indecently generous.”
“People are idiots,” Hardcastle shot back. “You could no more be bought by a banker than you could by the Empress of Austria.” Though not for lack of trying in the latter case.
“You are an idiot too, Hardcastle, if you think by indirection to test the waters with Miss MacHugh. Go down on damned bended knee and give her the pretty words. At the very least, stop accosting her within earshot of half the gossips in London. Or leave her alone. Those are your options.”
Thank God the library was without illumination. “She’s leaving me in two weeks, Elias. Has given notice, and was most insistent on rejoining her family. Leaves a fellow rather…”
“At a loss,” Sedgemere said gently. “Anne led me quite a dance. You’d think it’s the duke who longs to be pursued for himself, rather than for his consequence. Anne stands to become wealthier than most dukes can dream of being, and I finally understood what she needed besides my passionate kisses and handsome escort
.”
The brandy helped. Sedgemere’s company helped more. “You’re uglier than a donkey’s back end on a muddy day. Anne felt sorry for you, I’m sure.”
Sedgemere saluted with his glass. “You’re the one who set me straight, Hardcastle.”
“I was half drunk, and exhausted by your violent pouting. You, a duke, sulking about like a college boy avoiding his creditors. I was on the point of proposing to Anne myself, rather than put up with more of your wallowing.”
“Were you really?” Abruptly, the temperature in the library had dropped twenty-odd degrees, though at least Sedgemere had stopped handing out maudlin advice to the lovelorn.
“No, but Grandmama would have liked Anne, and Christopher adores her. What am I to do about Ellen MacHugh?”
Sedgemere, with the aplomb of a true friend, only guffawed rather than going off into whoops.
“You must charm her. The dictionary is on the table behind you, if the word is foreign to your experience. Convince her you want her in truth, despite her wild hair and advancing age, despite her humble origins.”
“Her hair is perfect, and she’s not a scheming twit. She’s the granddaughter of an earl.”
Another guffaw, followed by a snort, but Sedgemere should be allowed his diversions. He hadn’t kissed Ellen MacHugh on the moonlit terrace, hadn’t felt the fire and eagerness in her, hadn’t endured the wonder provoked by her sheer female lusciousness and starchy retorts.
“Charm,” Sedgemere said. “C-h-a-r-m. If you reach chicken, you’ve gone too far.”
“If I reach chaste, I’ve gone too far. Maybe I should compromise her.”
“I wouldn’t advise it,” Sedgemere said, swirling his brandy. “She’ll be forever haunted by the thought that you had to marry her, that you married far beneath yourself. Society will never let her forget that your proposal was forced too.”
“Blast you and your good sense.” If Hardcastle compromised Ellen, he’d be haunted by the thought that she had married him out of necessity as well, not because she wanted to. “I’m taking this decanter upstairs with me.”
“Better the decanter than the governess. Wedge a chair under your door when you’re in your bedroom alone.”
“Right. House party rules.” Did Ellen know the house party rules? “Thank you, Sedgemere, and good night.”
Hardcastle had reached the door, feeling silly for pilfering the brandy, when Sedgemere’s voice drifted across the room.
“Compromise her, and I will thrash you, Hardcastle. Hard enough to hurt.”
Sedgemere might not emerge victorious, but he’d give a good account of himself, which notion comforted on Ellen’s behalf.
“I’d let you land a few blows for old time’s sake, because you do so love it when Anne kisses your hurts better.”
Hardcastle pulled the library door closed behind him amid more mirth from His damned perishing Grace, though what did it say about Hardcastle’s ducal consequence that he envied his friend a lady to kiss his hurts better?
*
Letters to Emily always took a long time to write, and Ellen knew better than to attempt them when tired. Her mind would not settle, though, so she got out of bed and labored for half a page.
Hardcastle had kissed her, and his boldness hadn’t been merely insurance against an awkward moment, when the fiction of interest in each other must be supported with a display of affection.
“I cannot fathom His Grace’s motivation,” she muttered, dipping her pen again and waiting, waiting for the excess ink to form a droplet, then fall back into the inkpot. “He is a surpassingly intelligent man, and more than capable of expressing himself clearly.”
But Hardcastle was reserved too, possibly even shy.
Ellen was watching another droplet gather on the sharp end of the quill when a soft knock sounded at her door. By the standards of a social gathering, the hour wasn’t that late. She set the pen aside, rose, and opened her door two inches.
“Your Grace?”
“No, it’s Greenover, come to make violent love to you before his over-imbibing renders him entirely insensate. Let me in, madam, if you please.”
The duke was, for the first time in Ellen’s experience, less than perfectly turned out. His cravat had gone missing, his jacket with it, and the top button of his waistcoat was undone. His cuffs were turned back, and his rebellious hair had defeated decorum entirely.
He looked tired, disgruntled, and altogether delectable.
“Come in, Your Grace, though I’m hardly decent.”
“You’re covered from your pretty neck to your equally pretty toes, though the appearance of your toes must remain a matter of conjecture on my part, as I have never made their acquaintance.”
Though only half dressed, Hardcastle still sounded every inch the duke. Ellen would miss even his voice, miss the clipped, ironic energy, the euphony of Oxford learning, and the confidence of bred-in-the-bone leadership.
“If you stare at my mouth like that much longer, madam, I will be forced to return the compliment, and then we’ll get nothing discussed.”
She’d kissed that arrogant mouth of his, been ensnared in its tender promises and bold overtures.
“You’ve interrupted my correspondence, sir, and the hour is late. What might I do for you?”
He locked the door, a sensible precaution, one Ellen should have seen to. “I was reminded by Sedgemere that you might not have attended many house parties. There are rules.”
The first of those rules ought to be: Never allow a duke you’ve kissed into your bedroom late at night. Candlelight shot fire through the duke’s tousled hair, and his shirt—the finest lawn—revealed the musculature of his arms in intriguing detail.
“You need not trouble yourself, Your Grace. The duchess reviewed the rules with me: Don’t over-imbibe, don’t steal anybody’s beau, sit out half the waltzes.”
He prowled over to the escritoire and capped the bottle of ink, then swept up the parings from Ellen’s last efforts with the penknife and upended them into a dust bin near the hearth.
“You will not sit out waltzes if I’m on hand to dance them with you. You may also dance with Sedgemere, or with Oxthorpe, if he’s joined the gathering with his duchess. I’m not referring to those rules, I’m referring to the rules of self-preservation.”
Ellen knew all about self-preservation. She was leaving Hardcastle’s employ partly in pursuit of that very aim.
His Grace had stopped prowling and tidying and was peering at Ellen’s unfinished letter.
“A gentleman does not read another’s correspondence, Your Grace.” Her observation was intended to carry the whip-crack of an offended governess, not the plea of a besotted spinster.
“When you print your sentiments this large,” he said, studying the half sheet of writing, “one can’t help but read them from halfway across the shire. Who’s Emily?”
“My twin sister. I showed you her miniature.”
Hardcastle moved a branch of candles, the better to snoop into Ellen’s private sentiments. “Her eyesight must be wanting, and she hasn’t your gift for scholarship.” He peered at the letter more closely, and Ellen’s lungs refused to breathe. “I am sad to leave my duke,” he quoted. “He is, in his way, very dear.”
“Right now, you are not dear at all, sir. I will scream if you do not quit my room this instant.” And then Ellen would cry, because the last treasure a woman ought to be able to keep for herself was her privacy, and Hardcastle had just trodden that right into the carpet.
“Am I dear?” he asked, setting the letter down. “From you, that is quite flattering. You will be pleased to know—”
He fell silent as voices sounded in the corridor. When the footsteps faded, Ellen marched to the window and yanked the curtains closed lest the fool man silhouette himself in her window for half the guests to see.
“I will be pleased to know what, Your Grace? That you have no respect for my dignity? That you are amused by my efforts to maintain a connect
ion with my only sibling? That you—”
Strong hands settled on Ellen’s waist and turned her to face her guest. “You will be pleased to know, madam, that in your way, you are dear to me as well.”
Ellen wanted badly to touch Hardcastle’s cheek, also to throw him out of her room, for the conversation was doomed.
“In my way, Your Grace?”
“You brook no foolishness, you don’t fraternize with the footmen, you cannot be intimidated, though you are never rude, and you are unfailingly kind to my nephew. You have a sense of humor, which one sees in plain sight as rarely as a falling star in a summer sky. You are pretty, damn you, and hide your beauty more assiduously than your smiles. You kiss exceedingly well for a beginner. In your way, Ellen MacHugh, you are dear.”
He growled his sweet sentiments begrudgingly. His hands remained at Ellen’s waist, and she covered them with her own, not to dissuade him, but to hoard his touch.
“You are ill-tempered much of the time because you are tired,” she retorted. “You take your responsibilities seriously, and you are almost afraid to love Christopher, lest he be taken from you too. You are very brave, Your Grace, and protective of all for whom you’re responsible. For a duke, your kisses are surprisingly beguiling.”
His hands slid around her to the small of her back. Ellen’s fingers rested on his muscular biceps. “How many dukes have you kissed, Miss MacHugh?”
“Only the one, and him not nearly enough to speak knowledgeably.”
So Ellen kissed him some more.
*
Somewhere between knocking on Ellen’s door and realizing that he’d never before seen her hair down, Hardcastle lost track of which rules he was intent on lecturing her about. Something about wedging a chair under his chin lest he gawp the night away. Her braid was a thick skein of auburn secured with a bright green bow she would never have worn when governessing in Kent.
Keep your door locked at all times, he wanted to tell her as her lips grazed his. Admit no one, he thought, as her tongue took a delicate taste of him. Never drop your guard for an instant, his brain shouted, while his hands cupped the lady’s derriere and brought her flush against him.
