Worth of a Duke

by K. J. Jackson

“Possibly. But you cannot understand what she has lost, Rowe—it is grief so deep, so visceral, and it has not dulled in the slightest since her son died. And that dog has been her salvation.”

  Rowen looked away, staring at the embers of the fire.

  “You dive in like you did with me tonight, Rowe. Like you did that first day.” She gingerly eased her right arm up to hold the shirt, and her left hand went to his face, touching his cheek, pulling it so he would look at her. “The first day you met me, Rowe. I was drowning and you dove in and saved me. You did that, and you did not think. You just did. You did not judge whether or not I deserved it. It is the same that I do with the duchess.”

  Rowen could stand it no longer. He leaned forward, capturing her face, his thumbs landing on her cheekbones. It cut off her words, as intended.

  And now Rowen wanted more.

  She hadn’t jerked away from his touch, her hazel eyes holding his. Surprise in her eyes, curiosity, but not worry.

  He moved in on her, his lips meeting hers. Soft. No resistance to his mouth.

  Lust had urged him to do it, and now that he made contact, his chest tightened. He needed more. Much more.

  He deepened the kiss, tilting her head, slipping his tongue between her parted lips. She gave over to it willingly, and the softest moan came from her, vibrating through Rowen.

  Damn. He shouldn’t have touched her. Shouldn’t have tasted what his body now demanded to have. Demanded so insistently, it made him pull away.

  Cheeks flushed, her eyes opened to him. “That…what was that?”

  His hands did not drop from her face. “You. You are beyond…beyond compare.”

  “I did not realize.” Confusion set into her hazel eyes. “Is that bad?”

  “You care too much, Wynne. Too insanely much—you have no regard for your own safety when it comes to saving others. Me. The dog. It is something that is wholly unique unto you.”

  “How could I not want to help, Rowe? To help others find peace? For the duchess.” Her fingers went up to touch his jaw. “For you?”

  “And that is exactly why I kissed you, Wynne.”

  “So kiss me again.”

  He groaned. “I have never needed to be an honorable man, Wynne, and you are suddenly testing me like I never imagined I would be tested.”

  Reluctantly, his hands dropped from her face and he leaned away, but he could not stop his eyes from dropping down her body. Her bare arms. Naked legs folded under her. The line on her thighs where his shirt hung, hiding her skin from him.

  He swore to himself. What he wouldn’t give for a gust of wind to move that fabric. He looked away to the fire. “You have no clothes on, Wynne. And I do not possess enough willpower to stop this if I kiss you again.”

  She looked crestfallen. “So that is it? You will never?”

  Rowen smiled, pushing himself up to his feet. He needed to extract himself before he did something they would both regret.

  Hell—truth was, he would not regret it in the slightest. He would revel in it—in her—and feel no remorse.

  Rowen stood. “I never said never, Wynne. This is not the right place. Right time.”

  Her hazel eyes huge, she looked up at him. Even more beautiful than a moment ago, her lips still raw from his kiss, the shirt lowered ever so slightly. But still incredibly innocent. “When is the right time?”

  He chuckled. “When you have had a hot bath. When your shoulder has healed enough to move your arm properly. When you are not covered only by one thin shirt.”

  She nodded.

  “I do not think you should try to make the way back through the woods with bare feet,” Rowen said, changing the topic. “Will you be fine here while I get Phalos and come back for you? I believe the sun will be showing soon.”

  “Yes. But you need your shirt, and I…” Her eyes darted around the room. “I cannot move without…”

  “Without dropping the shirt?” Rowen could not hide a smirk.

  “Yes. And do not laugh. I am quite stuck down here.”

  Rowen bowed his head to her. “I will wait outside. Your dress is wrecked down the back, so use my jacket to wrap yourself against the chill.”

  She nodded, and Rowen stepped out into the early morning darkness.

  The coolness hit him, clearing his senses. But it did nothing for his desire.

  He sighed.

  Fate was laughing at him—that he knew.

  { Chapter 8 }

  Wynne stared at the white piece of vellum resting on the flat board sitting on her lap. Charcoal darkening her thumb and forefinger, her hand was motionless above the newly started sketch of Pepe.

  She had nearly completed the dog on the portrait, him proudly sitting in the dowager’s lap. But Wynne had now rethought his entire countenance in the painting. After last night, she wanted him, at the very least, impish.

  She couldn’t fault him for running off. He was a dog chasing a full moon and that was what dogs did. That he had gotten stuck in the moors wasn’t his fault.

  Since getting the quirk of Pepe’s head just right, Wynne had been motionless, losing time as the image of Rowen, half-naked in front of her, kept filling her mind. His chest. The hard lines of his muscles. No matter how valiantly she tried to shove the image to the back of her brain, he kept appearing.

  Half naked and kissing her.

  Half naked, kissing her, with his hands on her bare skin.

  And she had loved it. For how she should feel shame at the moment, she felt nothing but warmth. Nothing but right. Nothing but wanting it to continue.

  She had kissed more than one boy from the mountains—but that was what they were: boys. So clearly boys when compared to Rowen. And none of them had ever come close to creating the fire deep inside of her that Rowen did.

  How could she think of anything else?

  A knock on the door made her jump, the charcoal dropping from her fingers. It took her a second to remember that no one could see into her mind, and she cleared her throat.

  “Enter.”

  The door opened and Rowen stepped into the room. He wore a fresh white linen shirt, rolled up at the sleeves per usual, and buckskin breeches that disappeared into his tall boots. His eyes swept the room.

  “You are alone?”

  “Yes. The duchess was tired after waiting up all night for Pepe. And physically exhausted. She near drooped when she came in here.”

  “It serves her well.”

  Wynne’s eyes went to coffered ceiling. “It was not her fault, Rowe.”

  “I disagree.” He stopped in front of her, looking down, watching her face. “But I did not come in here to argue.”

  Her head cocked, curious. “No?”

  “No. Did the dowager procure new boots for you? A cloak?”

  “She did.”

  “Are you tired?”

  She should be—she hadn’t slept since they arrived back at the castle in the early morning light, but Wynne was nothing close to tired at the moment. Not since Rowen walked in the door. “No. Near-death apparently makes me want to be awake.”

  “Would you like fresh air? I have to walk down to the stables.”

  Wynne blinked, momentarily stupefied.

  The offer came random and was completely unexpected. But time with Rowen. This man that had just kissed her hours earlier. She wasn’t about to pass on the opportunity.

  She set the charcoal, vellum, and board onto the table next to her and stood up. “Yes. I am not producing much of anything right now.”

  He glanced at the sketch as she moved it and a smile crossed his face. “Good. It shows the bugger’s naughtiness.” He looked to her. “Boots and overcoat first. It is sunny, but still chilly out.”

  Within a few minutes, Wynne found an overcoat and boots in the wardrobe the dowager had cobbled together for her, and Rowen was ushering her through the maze of hallways to an old wooden door.

  She stepped into the sunshine, squinting until her eyes adjusted to the light. It had been
days of mostly grey since she had arrived, and the sun instantly warmed her cheeks.

  Slowing until Rowen fell in step beside her, Wynne took in this side of the castle. It had the same empty, downward slope that surrounded the outer walls, but she could see a break in the tree line with a graveled drive going into it. Wynne assumed the drive led to the stables.

  “How is your arm—your shoulder?” Rowen pointed to her right shoulder as they walked.

  “Sore. But it does not pain too much. How did you know what to do to fix it?”

  “Working around horses—breaking them in—I have had to wrangle more than a few shoulders back into place. But I will admit the first few times I did it were not nearly as successful as yours last night. Your shoulder slipped back into place fairly easily. It helped that you did not fight me.”

  “I did not know that I had a choice.” She looked up at his profile. “You manhandle me without much effort.”

  He chuckled, but did not argue her point as they reached the drive and his boots crunched onto the crushed gravel of the path.

  “I would like to paint you, Rowe. I truly would.”

  His eyes went to the ground without looking her way. “Why?”

  “I like to paint interesting things. And you, Rowen, are interesting.”

  His cheek, grizzled with dark stubble, rose in a soft smile as he looked down at her. “Again, I would never allow it. I know your methods.”

  She laughed. “True. It would unearth more of you than I would guess you are willing to let see the light of day.”

  His smile slid away. “I am trying hard to not let you see much of me, Wynne. Things you can never know of me.”

  His words, soft and earnest, made her breath catch in her throat. They walked in silence a few steps.

  But Wynne could not let it go that easily. Not if it could be her way into his mind.

  She looked up at him. “But that does not mean I should not do it. That is exactly what I want to see of you. To know the things you do not tell me. To know you.”

  The smile returned to his lips, his eyes on the path, no words in his mouth.

  She bit the inside of her lip. Rowen was stepping very carefully against being drawn into an argument. Suspicious.

  The trees parted in front of them, and Wynne sped up. An enormous clearing, as far as the eye could see, met them, with rolling pastures dotted with horses. Some were in groups, some alone, distant spots in the pastures. Right in front of Wynne stood three long stables lined up, with a two-story brick house off to her left, snugged to the woods.

  She looked up at Rowen. “This has been down here the whole time? This is where you disappear to? I thought you were spending all that time planning the destruction of the castle.”

  “I have more to do with my time than to aggravate the duchess, Wynne. This is the reason that I plan on keeping any of the castle in place—it needs to welcome visitors—horsemen.”

  Wynne stopped walking, taking in the scope of the area in front of her. “Are all of those stables filled? I know you said you dealt in horses. But there must be one hundred stalls here.”

  “One-hundred-and-sixty-eight, as of right now. And yes, most of them are full. I plan on building at least two more structures, probably bigger, on the estate.”

  “The dowager allows this?”

  Rowen’s head snapped to her, but his voice stayed even. “She does not have a say. The estate is mine to do with as I wish, Wynne.”

  Wynne nodded, regretting her blurt. Rowen was actually walking with her, talking with her, showing her something that clearly meant a tremendous amount to him, and she had brought up the duchess. The one thing that she knew, without fail, raised his ire.

  “Please, show me inside. Is Phalos in there? I expected you to come back with him this morning.”

  “He is. But he looked slightly slow so early in the morning, and I did not want him carrying your extra weight—as light as you are.”

  They walked down a slight slope to the first stable. The middle stable looked to be the oldest; the adjacent ones looked quite new.

  Stepping aside as a stable boy led a white speckled horse out from the main door, Rowen gave him a wave. Wynne’s eyes had to adjust as she moved from the sun into the dark stable, following Rowen to the fifth stall on the right.

  Rowen opened the waist-high stall door and went in, pulling an apple from his pocket as he patted Phalos’s neck.

  Wynne followed him into the stall, stopping in front of the dark horse. Her palm went onto the spot on his nose where his hair thinned, his hot breath coming from his nostril and warming her wrist. Rowen fed him the apple.

  “He is a beautiful horse, Rowe. Older, but I imagine in his prime he was a sight to behold. He has more of a wise, noble dignity now. How did you come about him?”

  “He was a war horse. He was not on the list, but he was more than worth saving.”

  “A war horse?” Wynne looked to him. “You were in a war? Which war?”

  Rowen’s attention went to her. “Even with your American accent, Wynne, I do forget sometimes that you do not know of England. The Napoleonic wars—with France. Six years ago.”

  “Did you participate in much fighting?”

  “I did.”

  His eyes did not leave hers, but she could tell his answer was not inviting deeper questions.

  Wynne rubbed Phalos’s nose, leaning in and rubbing her cheek on his smooth hair. “What did you mean, Phalos was not on the list?”

  “It was what I was charged to do during the wars. Save the most important horses, the ones with lineage, the ones that, were they to be lost, would be a disgrace to the world.”

  Rowen’s hand went under Phalos’s mane, scratching. “The innocents that are ensnared in the folly of man are a sin. Too many innocents—horses, women, children—were caught in those wars. But we managed to save a number of horses—horses that were worth risking all for.”

  “Are many of them here?”

  Rowen gave a half nod, moving back along Phalos, his hand trailing just below the horse’s spine. “Some. Some have since died of old age. The younger ones we have spread out to where they can be bred, and many were returned to the original owners—no matter their nationality—when we could. Our mission was solely to keep them safe.”

  He patted the horse’s side. “Phalos I kept, though. He was mine from the moment I saw his eyes on that battlefield. Standing his ground against the exploding gunpowder, the gunfire, the death around him. It was remarkable—he was remarkable.”

  Wynne stayed silent, afraid to move, watching Rowen out of the corner of her eye as she stroked the horse’s dark nose. Rowen was telling her something real, something of him, and she didn’t want it to end, didn’t want to risk the slightest movement to interrupt him.

  “We got him out of the battle, and he has not left my side since.” Rowen moved forward, his hand going up to rub the odd white ring around the horse’s left ear, admiration clear on his face. “But you are right about his age. I have tried to leave him to the fields to age in comfort, but he refuses it. He becomes overly jealous of any other horse I use. So much so that he torments them if he gets close. And he gets away with it. He has never not been in charge of his kind.”

  “Did he see you this morning?”

  “No.” A sheepish smile crossed Rowen’s face. “I snuck that steed from the far stable. And then I took a bath when we got back to rid myself of the other horse’s scent.”

  Wynne laughed. “Afraid of your own horse. I would not have thought it of you.”

  Rowen shrugged. “Anything to avoid his jealousy. Every other horse here knows he is in charge. He does not have to prove it, but that would not stop him from going after that poor horse. Phalos is just too proud to not want to be working.”

  Wynne looked up at Phalos’s black eyes, taking in the size of him. “I cannot imagine any horse wanting to be on his bad side.”

  “One would not think it to look at him—his size and sta
ture are intimidating—but he is especially good at putting nervous mares at ease,” Rowen said. “Gentle. He nuzzles them and they are jelly—will follow him anywhere. It was especially helpful when we had to move the horses silently in the cover of night.”

  Wynne looked from Phalos to Rowen. “You two seem to have that in common.”

  “Sneaking along in the cover of night?”

  “Putting women—at least me—at ease. It is one thing about you—I have never been nervous when I am with you. For all that I do not remember. For how you found me in the woods—in the moors. I have never been afraid when you are near me—even though I should have been, a thousand times over.”

  Rowen cleared his throat with a slight nod, stepping away from Phalos. “Come. I would like to show you the other stables.”

  She had meant it as a compliment, Rowen’s innate ability to calm her, to make her feel safe. But his abrupt change of subject threw Wynne, and she thought she misstepped her words with Rowen.

  In the next few steps through the stable, though, his light chatter as they moved past the other stalls reassured her. She may have made him uncomfortable, but it wasn’t so grievous that she got sent back to the castle.

  They stepped out into the daylight just as a man on a tall, spirited, white horse came to a rearing halt at the entrance of the stable.

  “Blast it.” Rowen yanked Wynne to the side of the entrance to avoid the flying hooves.

  Wynne watched as Rowen’s annoyance at almost getting trampled turned into an easy smile once the horse calmed and he could see the rider.

  “Seb, you arse. Learn how to ride a horse,” Rowen scolded good-naturedly.

  The man swung his leg over the mare, dropping down in front of Rowen and Wynne, the reins in his hand. He was tall, taller than Rowen, dark brown hair, solid build with a handsome face that looked like a pinch of the devil sat on the edges of his mouth.

  “It took all of my wiles during the past two days just to get this one here, for all her angst.” The man patted the mare’s sweaty neck, and she turned to nip at his arm. “Is Phalos in here? I want to get her next to him to see if she can be calmed.”

  Rowen nodded. “Yes, but hold for a moment.” Rowen turned to Wynne. “This man, I would like you to meet. Miss Theaton, may I introduce Lord Luhaunt. He is friend from years ago. Sebastian, this is Miss Theaton.”