The Duchess Hunt

by Jennifer Haymore

  Poor Esme had discovered her mother missing, and for some reason she blamed herself for the odd disappearance. Esme was terrified something dire had happened. So was everyone else, but Esme wasn’t able to push that fear aside like the rest of them had.

  And Simon.

  Sarah’s step faltered. She gazed up at the spray of stars that made silver pinpricks in the dark velvet of the sky.

  Simon.

  She couldn’t speak his name out loud anymore. That wouldn’t be proper. But she’d never stopped speaking it in her mind. Not since the day he’d encountered her in the blackberry bush long ago and had gifted her with it.

  It had been almost three years since she’d last seen him. He was more handsome than she remembered. It was like that every time – she convinced herself that he wasn’t as appealing as he truly was, only to be overwhelmed by his allure when next she saw him.

  When he’d walked into the parlor earlier this evening, her heart seemed to have stopped cold for a few seconds, and when it had started up again, it had beaten like a hundred horses galloping through her chest. Images of his lips and hands on her, hot and breathless, slammed through her head. She’d managed – only barely – to finish pouring the tea and hand him the cup and saucer without her hand shaking violently enough to splatter tea all over the carpet.

  His straight hair had grown an inch or two – but it was the same color it had been since he’d reached adulthood – light brown with golden streaks. His penetrating green eyes had always been serious, but now they looked a little darker than she recalled, the full irises as dark as the moss green ring that usually circled around the edges. Shallow lines were etched into the corners of his eyes – she didn’t remember those at all, but she liked them. They lent additional character to his face.

  The freckles scattered across his nose as a youth had vanished, leaving his face with a uniform golden hue. His patrician nose and high cheekbones topped a square jaw, the lines of his facial structure coming together in a way that no one would deny was handsome, punctuated by the slightest cleft that dented the center of his chin, difficult to see unless he smiled. Sarah hadn’t seen it since he’d arrived. She hoped he’d smile at least once before he left Ironwood Park.

  The way his strong thighs strained against the wool of his pantaloons tonight had drawn Sarah’s eye so often she kept having to remind herself to look away. The way the muscles in his shoulders and broad back flexed beneath the wool of his coats had stolen her breath.

  She remembered how those muscles had felt under her hands. How she wanted to touch them again, to explore every facet of his strong body.

  But the way he walked into the parlor and took control in that calm, self-possessed way of his – that was most appealing of all. He wasn’t overbearing or obnoxious or self-indulgent. He allowed everyone to speak, took everyone’s opinions and suggestions under review. Even hers.

  And as she’d struggled to focus on the problem at hand, Simon’s presence had constantly distracted her, constantly brought her back to that night. The memory of that kiss – the heat of it. Goodness, she still dreamed about it. Still woke craving his arms around her, his lips on hers.

  She’d resolved that she was no longer besotted with him. Now, tilting her head to the sky, she gave a self-deprecating puff of laughter up to the heavens. How silly she’d been. Three years had passed since she’d last seen him, but she was as besotted with the Duke of Trent as she’d ever been. More so, probably.

  She closed her eyes and let out a long, slow breath. Sarah was well aware of her place. Simon was aware of her place, too, and of the vast distance that separated him from her. Everything Simon did was well thought out and cautious – he was very cognizant of his family’s image and in a constant struggle to wipe it clean of the tarnish his parents had caused to mar it.

  Whenever he and Sarah were in the presence of others, Simon was careful never to cross those deep, thick lines that society had drawn between them.

  It wasn’t right for her to so desperately want someone so far out of her reach. It had never been right, but it was especially wrong now, when the duchess was missing. The duchess was Simon’s priority right now, and she should be Sarah’s, too.

  She began walking again, hesitating at the fork in the graveled walkway. The right fork would take her home to Papa and the cottage. The left fork led to a path that wandered along the bank of the stream. On impulse, she went left. She couldn’t sleep. Not yet. Her head was too busy, too muddled by the events of the past few days. She needed to clear her mind before sleeping, and it would be easier to do so outside in the crispness of the spring air.

  The moon splashed silver over the path, lighting her way. As Sarah walked, she considered the fact that robbers might have been at Ironwood Park – that perhaps very bad men were responsible for the duchess’s disappearance.

  Sarah couldn’t conjure any fear of a similar horror happening to her. This was Ironwood Park, her home, and if there were intruders near, she’d hear them. She’d feel them. And they wouldn’t be after the gardener’s daughter, anyhow.

  She walked along the stream for about half a mile, soothed by the gurgling and bubbling noises the water made as it rushed over stones.

  When she reached the familiar marble bench that had been placed at a bend in the bank wedged between two blackberry bushes, she hesitated again. Set on the bank a bit of a distance from the path, it glimmered pearly white in the moonlight, beckoning to her.

  She didn’t come out here as much as she used to. Sitting on that bench made Sarah dream things a practical girl like her had no business dreaming. But sometimes she came anyhow, just to remember.

  Tonight, she wanted to remember. So she sat, breathing slowly in and out, curling her toes in her shoes as she gazed out over the stream. Moonlight glistened over the ripples and eddies the water made as it slipped past her.

  She gripped the front edge of the bench and straightened her back, stretching this way then that, then rolling her neck in each direction, trying to rid herself of some of the stiffness that had built up since Esme had come rushing into the Stone Room, where Sarah had been supervising the annual deep cleaning of the marble, to tell her the news about the duchess.

  “Sarah?”

  She stilled, then stiffened. Then she looked over her shoulder.

  He was standing in the path, his body partially obscured by the dark fingers of branches. Moonlight dappled his coat and threw a gold accent over the masculine slope of his nose.

  Simon, her body whispered. Her chest tightened, all that pent-up love for him that she’d locked tight within her pressing to be set free.

  “Your Grace,” she said, keeping her voice mild.

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “Nor I.” She turned back toward the stream, scooting over to make room for him on the bench.

  They’d met at this very spot more than once over the years. Each of them had made it their personal place of peace and solitude, and that hadn’t changed when they’d begun to discover each other here from time to time.

  But the last time they’d met here, Simon had kissed her. It had been a long kiss, hot and drowning. His lips had ventured far from hers – over her jaw and neck and down to her breasts, which he’d kissed over her dress and pelisse. And he’d touched her, too. His hands had stroked her breasts, moved over her nipples, cupped her behind and pressed her body against his.

  He had returned to London the very next day, and she hadn’t seen him again until tonight.

  Now, his tall form cast a shadow over her as he settled beside her.

  She hadn’t expected him. He must be tired from his hard ride from London, and she’d assumed he’d go straight to bed. Even if he hadn’t been exhausted, she knew his association to this place must have changed three years ago. Hers certainly had. It was no longer a place of quiet tranquility, because their last encounter had charged it with something hot and needy and frantic. Something carnal.

  But here he was. H
e’d had the opportunity to turn away without her noticing his presence, but he’d chosen to stay. To sit beside her.

  They gazed out over the swirling silver-washed flow of water. Slowly, Sarah’s tension eased. There was no further need for her to roll her shoulders or twist her neck. The warmth emanating from Simon and the cedar-and-spice essence that she inhaled with every breath when she was beside him was enough.

  Eventually, she slid a glance in his direction. “I’m sorry you had to come home like this, Your Grace.”

  “I’m not sorry to be home. It is… good to be here. It’s been too long. The circumstances, though…” He sighed. “I don’t believe I’ll ever understand my mother. Why she didn’t warn one of us that something was amiss is beyond my comprehension.”

  “You can’t be certain she had aught to do with it,” Sarah reminded him gently.

  He blew out a breath from between tight lips. “True. Still, I have a feeling she did.”

  It was always like this out on the grounds when they were alone. They could talk freely without the constraints their respective positions placed upon them. And they always did. There was an ease out here in plain privacy that there would never be in the presence of others. Out here, those thick, deep lines that separated them seemed insubstantial and unimportant. Out here, ever since that very first day when he’d rescued her, they’d been friends.

  Until the last time, when they’d suddenly become something more.

  “After you and Esme left the parlor tonight, I had an idea,” Simon said.

  She turned to him and met his eyes, trying to ignore the heat that licked through her at his proximity. She remembered how they’d been sitting just like this, and then suddenly he’d groaned. “I can’t stop it anymore, Sarah,” he’d said. Then his arms went around her and his lips clashed with hers. She’d immediately fallen into the kiss, a slave to the sensations he aroused in her. Kissing Simon was right. As natural as breathing, but far,far more exciting. She’d known instinctively what to do. Her arms had slipped around him, and she’d kissed him back, touching him through his coat, exploring him as his lips and hands explored her, kissing her all over, licking her earlobe, suckling her breast through layers of material.

  Now, his serious gaze didn’t waver from her as he said, “If we don’t find my mother right away, I think it’d be best if Esme accompanied me when I return to London.”

  Snapped out of the memory of their kiss, Sarah sucked in a breath. If Esme left Ironwood Park with Simon, all of the siblings would be gone, all of them heading in different directions to broaden the search for the duchess.

  “Esme is nineteen years old,” Simon continued, a musing tone in his voice. “She’s a young woman, and she ought to be in the company of her peers and friends during the Season. She ought to be in London, not isolated out here in the country. I know my mother believed it would be best for her to remain at home this year, but I disagree. Keeping her locked away isn’t going to help her in the end.”

  Esme had been quite content to stay at Ironwood Park rather than go to London for the Season. She’d had her come-out last year, and though Sarah hadn’t been given details, by all accounts it had been disastrous. Esme had told Sarah that everything about the marriage mart made her insides curdle. “I find it barbaric,” she’d told Sarah, “that we are forced to lay ourselves out like slabs of meat at the market to be inspected and discarded if found lacking.”

  “But what if you aren’t found lacking?” Sarah had asked.

  “Even worse!” Esme had exclaimed. “Then it’s a competition between the hungriest gentlemen, and if the poor lady is unlucky, a feeding frenzy.”

  At social events held at Ironwood Park, Esme was quiet and desperately shy. When Sarah thought of Esme in London, something inside her tightened with sympathy, because she just couldn’t imagine Esme thriving amongst a bevy of beautiful and elegant ladies whinging about which jeweled necklace to wear for that night’s ball.

  “There is also the concern that Ironwood Park might not be entirely safe right now,” Simon added.

  “I’d be here with her. I’d keep her safe,” Sarah said. So would the other servants.

  The corner of his lips tilted upward as he studied her. “I believe you could protect her, Sarah, if I gave you that responsibility. Which is why I’d like you to come, too.”

  “To… London?”

  “Yes.”

  “I… I…” London. Sarah had never been to London. Even when she was a little girl, she’d wanted desperately to see the city someday.

  “I would like to employ you to be Esme’s companion.”

  “Her companion? But I can’t!” She said the last word over a heavy lump in her throat.

  He frowned. “Why not?”

  Heat tightened over her cheeks. “I am not of genteel birth.”

  He shrugged. “But you comport yourself as if you were. No one needs to know that you’re a gardener’s daughter. The moment you open your mouth, no one will question your upbringing.”

  “But I know I am not a lady,” she said. “And so do you. And Esme, too.”

  He met her eyes again, utterly serious. “I really don’t care.”

  She sat back, stunned. Simon always cared about matters of propriety.

  He continued, “You are the best choice to be a companion to Esme. You’re very good with her – I watched how you calmed her tonight. She adores you, and she’ll listen to you.” He rested his hands loosely over his knees. “London is a very busy place. For me, especially. I am rarely home. I couldn’t countenance leaving her without proper companionship.”

  Sarah swallowed hard and forced herself to say it, because as much as she wanted to go to London and be with Simon and Esme, it was the right thing to say. “You could easily find someone else, Your Grace.”

  Someone more qualified. He would only need to tell a few people that he was searching for a companion for Esme, and potential candidates would come running in droves hoping to fill the position of companion to the Duke of Trent’s sister.

  “I thought about it, but no.”

  “Why not?”

  He broke her gaze to look down at his hands. “You’re sensible. I trust you with Esme. More than I would trust any stranger.”

  The way he said the last word made the breath whoosh from her lungs. When she’d caught it again, she asked, “What if someone should find out I’m just a housemaid?”

  With a sigh, he said, “If the ton is that hungry for gossip, let them. In the end, it won’t make any difference to our lives. And the rumors will eventually fade. People in lesser positions than head housemaid have been raised to higher positions than lady’s companion.”

  “But you… you despise scandal,” she whispered.

  “True. But there are things more important than risking a small scandal, Sarah. My sister’s happiness and safety, for one.”

  “But Lady Esme? It might not be such a minor risk to her.” It was Esme’s reputation ultimately at stake, and unlike Sarah’s, Esme’s reputation mattered.

  Simon’s gaze searched her, probing. “Do you find my sister so weak?”

  “Esme is tenderhearted, yes, but this has little to do with a person’s weakness or strength, Your Grace. It is more about how the ton can sink its poison-tipped claws into a person and never let her go.”

  “Ah. I see you have listened to our stories of Town.” He leaned toward her slightly, his expression somber and serious. “I am willing to risk it in this case, again, because the threat is slim and vastly outweighed by the benefit of you being in London with Esme. I can lay it all out for my sister if you’d prefer, but if she has any sense at all, she’ll come to the same conclusion.”

  Sarah sighed. She knew Esme well enough to believe that she would indeed agree with this plan – to Esme, Sarah was as comfortable as a well-worn old blanket and preferable to a stranger any day – but whether her agreement would be based on sense, Sarah had her doubts.

  Still, she understood Si
mon’s logic. He was willing to risk a relatively minor scandal, in this case, for the ultimate good of his family.

  It warmed her that he thought her presence would be for the good of his family.

  “Very well,” she told him. “I’ll go.”

  He raised a brow. “But you don’t wish to?”

  She hesitated, then smiled. “I haven’t ventured beyond the village since I first stepped foot into Ironwood Park sixteen years ago. During those years, I have watched you and your siblings come and go again and again, and…” Her voice dwindled.

  “And…?”

  She squeezed the front edge of the bench, the marble cold and hard under her palms. “Well,” she admitted, “I’ve always wished I could go with you.”

  He smiled at that, showing that slight cleft in his chin. She’d pressed her lips there three years ago. She averted her gaze.

  “You should have told one of us sooner,” he said.

  She laughed softly. “Lord knows what people might have thought if I accompanied Lord Luke to the Continent or Lord Theo to Cambridge.”

  A shadow passed over his face. As he looked away, Sarah saw a muscle twitch in his jaw, and it struck her then exactly what people would have thought.

  “Oh,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean in that way.”

  He was silent for a moment before his gaze swung back to her. “I know you didn’t.”

  But the way he looked at her, his eyes narrowing, turning dark green and hungry and possessive, stole her breath.

  In three years, Simon’s skin hadn’t come in contact with hers. But it did now, warm and firm, his fingers heavy and blunt and so masculine as he cupped her face in his palm. His cedar scent wrapped around them both like a cocoon, and his heat radiated through her.

  She tried so hard not to close her eyes, to sink into his palm. But the pleasure of touching him was so overwhelming, she couldn’t help herself.