Did he think she was a servant?
A laugh bubbled up. He wanted to see the lady of the manor, and that’s exactly who he’d get.
With a sigh, she followed after him. Turning the corner, she barreled right into him.
“Oh!” she cried as the floor seemed to move sideways underneath her feet.
He reached out and grasped her arms with strong fingers. She found herself hauled up against him so every inch of her body touched his own. Her breasts pressed tightly against his chest. Warmth washed over her suddenly and Blythe couldn’t seem to recall where she’d been headed. Her stomach dipped and danced as his hands tightened on her and the heat from his breath caressed her cheek.
“Blythe?”
His voice tickled her ears like a feather. She didn’t understand the feelings careening through her. The emotions leapfrogged over each other and left her off balance and uncertain. One of his hands relaxed its grasp and Blythe gasped, reached up and grasped his shoulders tightly, unable to let go just yet.
She almost jumped out of her skin as his hand gently cupped her chin. She squeezed her eyes so tightly she doubted she’d ever see clearly again.
“Blythe?” A miniscule edge of amusement tinged his voice.
Her heart skipped around as if dancing an Irish jig. Good Lord, even her earlobes tingled. How could this man affect her so just by holding her?
She shook her head as best she could since he held it firmly in his grasp. His breath tickled her face as he chuckled slightly.
“Go ahead and keep your eyes closed then, for they’d only close in a second, anyhow.”
Her eyes popped open with just enough time to watch his face descend toward hers and his eyelids flutter closed. Then his lips touched hers and all thought left her mind.
The gentle, yet insistent pressure of his lips against hers melted her anxiety into pure pleasure. As she opened her mouth to breath, his tongue slipped inside. An urgency she’d never felt before leapt and jumped and swirled inside. His tongue explored every inch of her mouth and playfully coaxed her own tongue to duel. She melted against him until it seemed only his grasp, his strength, held her up.
And then he took his lips away.
As she tried to swim through the swirling mush her brain had become, she looked up at him. “You keep kissing me.”
He chuckled and while still holding her close, straightened her until she stood on her own two feet. “Surprisingly, you are right. I cannot seem to stop myself, when you make it so enticing.”
She enticed him?
Wait. That wasn’t important. For God’s sake, he was Thomas’s cousin! She’d come up here for answers. Instead, she stood in the hallway, enveloped in this man’s arms—Thomas’s cousin, of all people—for the entire world to see. Anyone could have walked down the hallway; anyone could have seen them. And yet, here she stood, unable to catch her breath, unable to stop thinking about what came after the kissing.
“Come to my room later,” he whispered. “If you want to.”
The words worked like a splash of icy water. He had no idea who she was. She stomped her foot down hard and experienced a brief moment of satisfaction when he grunted in pain.
“What was that for?”
“You just said…said that I enjoyed your kisses!”
A wary confusion crossed his face. “You did.”
“I—”
She stopped. He was right. She didn’t understand how she could so easily respond to him or why nothing else seemed to matter the moment he touched her. She’d just barely met the man and already had kissed him. Twice!
“This is why I never dally with servants.”
She’d been right. He had no idea who she was. “I am not a servant.”
“And as I said, I’m not one to dally, but-”
“Did you ever listen? I am not a servant. Furthermore, I wouldn’t ‘dally’ with you if you were the last man on earth.”
Emotions flickered across his face that she couldn’t begin to guess at. “Who, pray tell, are you then?”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Lady Blythe Ashton. The widow of your dearly departed cousin.”
Chapter Seven
Michael’s mouth dropped, and he snapped it shut. This was the woman who had helped his cousin steal thousands of pounds?
This was the woman he’d come to charm?
He groaned. “Oh, hell.”
She stiffened. “I beg your pardon.”
“I—”
“You didn’t even know my name,” she murmured. The anger had fled her face, replaced by a slightly haunted look in her eyes. “I knew he’d kept our marriage a secret, but …” She looked up at him. “You have called me Blythe. You’ve said my given name. If you came to see your cousin’s widow, and that would be me, how did you mistake me for a servant?”
“I didn’t pay particular attention to your given name when I was apprised of your marriage.” Well, that sounded quite bad. Perhaps he shouldn’t have stated it quite so baldly.
“I see.”
Unfortunately, he gathered she did see—quite clearly, in fact. And that, he could ill afford. No matter how it galled him, the time had come.
He had to grovel.
He reached out for her hand and grasped it between both of his. Her slender fingers were warm, in direct contrast to the ice in her expression as she snapped her gaze to his. “Your grace, I am not—”
“Please forgive my behavior, Lady Ashton. Blythe.” He held her gaze.
She snatched her hand away from him. “We are not on a first name basis. It’s Lady Ashton, if you please.”
“I think we’re past that, don’t you, Blythe?”
“Hardly.”
“Call me Ravensdale.” He took a step closer to her, doing his best to distract her from his previous goal of getting her into bed. Though strangely enough, that goal hadn’t dissipated.
“We have not even been introduced.”
“Allow me, then. Michael Ashton, Duke of Ravensdale and a host of other titles I doubt you care about.” No one had called him anything but Ravensdale since he’d inherited the title anyway. “You may call me Ravensdale now that we are so well acquainted.”
She took a small step back and glanced down the hallway behind him. “I would ask that you have a care for my reputation, Your Grace.”
“Ravensdale.”
“Your Grace.” Her lips pursed. “It is unseemly to be here in the hallway with you, alone.”
He grinned. “I’m a duke. I can do whatever I please.”
She sighed with exasperation. “I, however, am not a duke. I have no intention of furthering our…intimacies of before, so you might as well just let me pass.”
“Your Grace, I kindly request that you take your hands off my sister,” Merewood said from behind him.
Blythe gasped and yanked herself out of his arms. Without another word, she hurried past him down the hallway.
Michael took a deep breath and turned to face Lord Merewood. From the murderous bent to his expression, Michael imagined Merewood was a minute shy of calling him out.
“I am not certain what you must be used to from the widows in London, Your Grace, but I assure you my sister is not one of them,” Merewood snapped. “She’s been hurt enough. Stay away from her, or you will answer to me.”
With his threat extolled, Merewood strode past him and left Michael in the hallway.
Well. He’d done a perfect job of making his goals that much more difficult to meet. Rather than charm his cousin’s wife, he’d attempted to seduce her, insulted her and threatened her reputation. And he’d put her brother on the defensive, to boot.
What a bloody productive day for him.
And he could ill afford to have them ask him to leave before he’d had a chance to find out more about Thomas’s whereabouts. One thing was for sure, Thomas’s wife certainly wasn’t mourning the loss of her husband, if her reaction to his kisses were any indication.
He may be doin
g miserably at gaining her trust, but she wanted him. And he knew people often told their secrets on the pillow. Could he seduce her? Would he go that far to acquire the knowledge he needed? He didn’t have to take her to bed, just get close to her. Convince her he was on her side, on Thomas’s side.
And no time like the present to start, before she had a chance to stew over their confrontation and decide never to speak to him again. He headed down the hallway toward the stairs. If he could just keep his bloody hands off her, he might manage a heartfelt apology.
“We need to get rid of them.”
Michael stopped on the first step as Blythe’s voice floated to him from a room just on the other side of the hall.
She must be in her room, he thought. Talking about him perhaps? He edged closer.
“There is no reason for them to be here, and it just makes things worse for me.”
Michael bit back a curse. He had to find a way to stop her from making them leave.
“Yes, milady,” came another female voice. Must be a servant. “Did you want the trunks cleared out as well?”
Michael frowned. Trunks?
“Yes, all of Thomas’s things. Get rid of them.”
Adrenaline rushed through him. She wasn’t talking about him, she was talking about something that would lead to Thomas. If he needed any sort of proof that she was involved, he had it now.
“Here, take these,” Blythe said.
Take what? Before he could imagine what she meant, the young maid hurried out of Blythe’s room with an armful of clothing. Seeing Michael not a foot away, she screeched in surprise and dropped the clothing.
“Sally, what is it?” Blythe asked as she appeared in the doorway. “Your Grace. Accosting the rest of the servants, I see.”
Sally gasped. “Oh no, my lady. His Grace was just standing there, and it scared me. I am sorry.” She bent down, scooped up the clothes and hurried down the hallway, dropping a piece of clothing here and there along her way.
Michael bent down and picked up the shirt that had fallen in front of him. A man’s shirt. Thomas’s maybe?
He held it out to her. “Yours?”
She stared at it, but didn’t take it from his hands. “No.” She didn’t offer another explanation, but walked over to pick up the other pieces Sally had dropped. “Is there something I can do for you, Your Grace?”
“I thought I told you to call me Ravensdale,” he said with a smile. He held out the shirt.
“And as I mentioned before, there is no need for such informality.” She snatched the shirt from his hand. “We certainly will not be engaged in…Well. In any case, Your Grace suits me just fine.”
He grinned. “I do? I wasn’t sure that our kisses made such an impression, but since you seem unable to forget about them….”
“I am quite able to forget about it,” she muttered. “What did you want?”
“I came to apologize.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Apologize, sir?”
“I fear we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot. I apologize for my ungentlemanly actions.” He smiled. “Though in my defense, I did believe you to be a servant.”
“Yes, I can see how that makes it better,” she replied dryly.
“In any case, my reason in coming here was to get to know you, as you are a part of our family now.”
She wrung the shirt in her hands. “Part of your family? No, sir, you are mistaken.”
“You married my cousin; that makes us family.”
“It merely makes us related by marriage at one time, Your Grace. Family is an entirely different aspect.”
“When you married Thomas, you married into my family. It’s my duty to make sure you are taken care of.”
She crossed her arms over the balled up shirt. “You came to Rosemead because you want to take care of me?”
“It’s my duty to provide—”
“I don’t need you to take care of me, Your Grace. Despite what everyone seems to think, I am not quite so pathetic.” She reached down and grabbed one last piece of clothing. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have things to attend to.”
Michael watched her scurry away. The lovely “widow” was most definitely hiding something. And he intended to stay right by her side every minute until he discovered what that was.
****
She really was ten different kinds of a fool.
What had she been thinking, letting Ravensdale—
Nooo, she admonished herself. His Grace. His ever-so-arrogant Duke of Ravensdale. But not simply Ravensdale. Then she’d start thinking of him as Michael and…well, she refused to even think of him on such intimate terms.
A little streak of yellow crossed the lawn. It paused at a tree and climbed up with an impressive speed. Two seconds later, the duke came into her vision and stopped at the bottom of the tree.
Heaven only knew what Adam would think had he seen her kiss him.
“Blythe?”
She whirled around. “Adam, you startled me.”
“I’m sorry.” He came into the room, closing the door behind him. Concern flickered in his eyes. “Would you care to explain what I saw a few moments ago?”
“Not particularly,” she muttered. Adam said nothing, so she went to sit in a chair by the window. “Adam, I don’t know what it was about. It was just a moment of foolishness.” Or utter stupidity. “It won’t happen again.”
Adam sat in a wing-back chair in front of her. “He’s a Duke, Blythe. He can do no wrong, because he has a title to stand behind him.”
“It’s not as if anyone saw us kiss, Adam.” She cringed when she realized what she’d said.
He tensed. “He kissed you?”
“Just once. Well, twice really, but—” She promptly shut her mouth. Adam’s face had turned quite red and she didn’t think she ought to aggravate it more.
“He’s been here not even a day, and he’s already taken advantage of you.” He stood immediately. “I don’t give a damn if he is a duke. I shall ask him to leave immediately.”
“Adam, you cannot shove the man out in the night. It’s almost dark, and he has a child with him. It would take an hour at least to pack their belongings, and it’s not fair to put them on the road at this hour. Not to mention, they’ve had a rather eventful day.”
“I’m not entirely certain why they arrived in the first place.”
“He said he wants to take care of me.”
Adam’s expression hardened.
That was the wrong thing to say. “I don’t believe he meant-that is, to say, he was only trying to—”
“I saw very well what he was trying to do, Blythe. Why are you defending him?”
Yes, why indeed?
“He’s taking advantage of you in your weakened condition.”
Blythe paused. “My weakened condition?”
Adam slowly shifted toward the door, as if judging his escape. “I only meant that you’ve suffered a terrible loss, and you are not thinking clearly.”
“I see,” she said, fury creeping up inside of her. “When did I become such a weak, inconsequential female in your eyes? You and I have always been of a like mind, Adam. After Father died, you turned to me for advice. You valued my opinion. How did we get from there to you thinking I am incapable of taking care of myself?”
He pointed toward the open door. “What I saw out there was not the greatest judgment, Blythe.”
“Perhaps not, but I’m not a child! I’m more than able to make my own mistakes.”
“And was that a mistake?”
Blythe sighed. “You know it was.” She glanced from the corner of her eye out the window again. Michael still stood underneath it, staring up into the leafy branches. Elisabeth obviously had not come down. Blythe smiled slightly, unaccountably pleased that he was having troubles of his own.
“I do value your opinion,” Adam said as he walked closer to her. “And I don’t believe you are incapable of taking care of yourself. But you shouldn’t have to. That’s what famil
y is for. That is what I am here for, and damnation, I should have been taking better care of you before. I should have protected you from Thomas in the first place. If I had realized what he was about, you would never have married him.”
Blythe felt strangely calm, as if finally realizing how little it all mattered. She knew that no matter what Adam had uncovered about Thomas, she would have married him. She had been in love, or at least what she thought was love.
“You are wrong,” she told Adam softly. “You aren’t responsible for the choice I made, and even had you been less than approving, I likely would have still chosen to marry him. I loved him, Adam. Or at least I loved how he made me feel. I should have seen through his lies, but I didn’t want to. I wanted to believe everything he told me.”
“I may not have protected you then.” Adam looked out the window. “But I am going to protect you now.”
Blythe sighed. It would seem Adam hadn’t heard a word she said, but perhaps that didn’t matter. She had. And she could admit to herself that she’d wanted to believe in Thomas so much she had ignored the signs that would have opened her eyes. She hadn’t wanted them opened. She had just wanted to feel that special, that important to someone. “What do you mean, you’re going to protect me now?”
Adam looked at her. “Come to London.”
Blythe shook her head slowly. “We’ve had this discussion. You need to respect my decision.”
Adam studied her, as if truly seeing her for the first time since his arrival. “You win. We’ll go to London without you, on one condition.”
“Anything.”
“You will join us halfway through the season for a few weeks. I’m not asking you to come permanently, just for a visit. Mama and the girls would never forgive me for this if I don’t secure a visit.”
“No attempts to marry me off?”
“I can vouch for myself, but you’re on your own with Mama.”
She laughed. “I’ll find a way around Mama.”
Adam took another look out the window. “But we aren’t leaving until he does. I don’t know why he’s here or what he hopes to gain, but I am going to find out. I won’t let anyone else from Thomas’s family hurt you.”
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