A Duke in the Night

by Kelly Bowen

  He needed to see her again. Needed to make sure she truly understood how much she mattered to him. Needed to make sure she understood how he really felt about her, especially after the way he had handled things so far. And he wasn’t willing to wait any longer.

  August reached the top of the stairs and headed left along a paneled hallway hung with portraits of people long dead, judging by their clothing and coiffures. Sconces were lit along the length, supplementing the light streaming in from the tall window directly ahead at the end of the hall. He stopped, listening hard.

  There. Somewhere up ahead he could hear the muffled sound of voices punctuated occasionally by a muted laugh. He moved forward silently, his fingers trailing along the smooth wood. The voices got louder, a musical composition of young girls chatting. He smiled slightly, imagining Anne in that room, finally being able to share her artistic talents with other young ladies. Whatever ridiculous ideas Anne had taken into her head about the Silver Swan, at least here she seemed to be making connections, building and strengthening friendships.

  Perhaps Haverhall was exactly what she needed.

  He stopped again in front of the heavy door that led to whatever room occupied the very northeast corner of Avondale. A small paper sign had been stuck to the door, Please Do Not Disturb written in a feminine hand. Clearly, based on the voices coming from beyond, he had found the studio. He heard the unmistakable voice of Clara, followed by another. Her sister, perhaps. Rose. The artist. There was another, deeper voice in the mix, and he thought it was that of Lady Theodosia. He frowned, wondering what she was doing in an art class. Not that it mattered. He knocked loudly and turned the handle, pushing the door open, then took four commanding steps into the room.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt, Miss Hayward, but I need a moment of your…” The words died on his lips as he was presented with a tableau that he couldn’t quite comprehend.

  At the front of the room, on a raised dais of some sort, was Lady Theodosia, reclining provocatively on a long settee. Wearing nothing other than what looked like a silk scarf, draped discreetly over one hip. A braided circlet of wildflowers was set about her head, her long, silver hair draped artfully over her shoulder, and a posy of crimson roses held loosely in her hand.

  Holy Mary Mother. He averted his eyes from the elderly Venus on the dais to find nine students, including his sister, standing in a loose circle behind their easels and canvases, looking at him with gaping surprise. Clara’s sister, Rose, was standing in the center of the room, a color-stained apron over her dress and a paintbrush in one hand that had frozen in midair. Her other hand was braced on her hip as she met his gaze with a look of utter disdain. From the far side of the room, Clara was stalking toward him.

  August closed his eyes for a long second, wanting the last minute of his life back.

  “Have you lost something again, dearie?” Lady Theodosia asked from the dais, and she sounded completely unconcerned that a duke had just walked in on her in a most horrifying dishabille. In fact, she sounded much the same as when she had caught him crouching behind a stone fence. Simply amused.

  “His ability to read, perhaps,” Rose suggested, and her disdain had not diminished. “The sign on the door read Please Do Not Disturb. Perhaps I should have drawn it in pictures.”

  August hastily backed up a step. “My apologies, my lady, I did not mean to interrupt,” he managed with as much authority as he could muster.

  “And yet here you are.” It was said cheerfully by Lady Theodosia. “Are you interested in modeling?”

  “Modeling?” August repeated dumbly.

  “I suspect you’d be quite a glorious eyeful.”

  August felt his jaw slacken. Holy hell. Was she suggesting—

  Clara had reached him, and she snaked her arm through his, not breaking stride even as she stepped around the spattered paint. “Excuse us,” she said in the perfectly composed voice that he would have expected her to use when confronted with a duke who had just walked in on a mostly naked elderly woman and a collection of young ladies painting her. “This will take but a moment. Please, carry on.” She steered August back and pulled the door firmly shut behind her.

  August went on the offensive, not even sure where to start but needing to reestablish control. “What the hell was…”—he waved his hand in the direction of the firmly closed door—“that?”

  “That’s funny, Your Grace, because I was going to ask you the very same thing.” She pulled her arm from his and stepped back, putting her hands on her hips, her cheeks flushed. “For once I think my sister may have the right of it. I must assume that you can no longer read.”

  August ignored that. “There is a naked woman sprawled out in some sort of Botticellian recreation of The Birth of Venus—”

  “Venus of Urbino.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Botticelli’s painting depicts a woman rising from the sea. We were recreating Titian’s Venus of Urbino composition. Less the individuals in the background. And with just a little more clothing.”

  “With a woman old enough to be my grandmother?” August demanded.

  Clara’s eyes suddenly went cool. “I didn’t realize there was an age at which one can no longer be considered beautiful. Or desirable.”

  August felt his mouth snap shut. “That’s not what I meant,” he said after a moment.

  “Then what did you mean?”

  “I meant that…that it is not…seemly.” God, he hated the way he sounded right now. Like an old, self-important ass. When he got his wits together, he would blame it on the shock.

  “Not seemly.” She crossed her arms over her chest and regarded him. “Which part?”

  “Which what?”

  “Which part isn’t seemly? The part where Lady Theodosia is comfortable and confident in her own skin? Or the part where we ask ten young women who have been and will continue to be judged on their looks to consider that beauty comes in many different forms?”

  August opened his mouth and closed it again.

  Clara sighed and leaned back against the wall, and August saw her studying an ancient portrait of a woman sitting ramrod straight, a small child on her lap. “Pretty is as pretty does,” she said quietly.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “What Rose says all the time. It’s why she does what she does.”

  “Which is what?” August was confused.

  Clara’s eyes slid to his and then away again. “Teach painting classes here in perhaps a somewhat unconventional manner.”

  “Unconventional? That might be the understatement of the century.”

  “Well, the century is still young.”

  “I don’t appreciate your flippancy.”

  Clara shook her head, her lips curling slightly. “Tell me, Your Grace, do you find me attractive?”

  August stared at her, uncertain he’d heard her right.

  “It’s not a trick question,” she prompted.

  Did he find her attractive? Bloody hell, he’d been in permanent state of arousal since he’d kissed her. All he could think of was how much he wanted to kiss her again. And then take her to his bed and have his way with her six ways to Sunday.

  “Yes.”

  “What is it about me that appeals to you the most?”

  “What the hell kind of question is that?”

  She’d turned her head and was watching him, that half smile pulling at her lips. “Very well, I’ll go first.” She studied him. “Your loyalty to your sister. Your willingness to defend someone who can’t defend themselves.”

  “What?” A peculiar feeling was rising up within him like curling smoke, spreading through his chest.

  “The things I find most attractive about you.” She returned her attention to the painting opposite her. “You are physically striking. And there is, of course, your title and all your wealth. Yet those are not who you are. Those three things are simply what you are.”

  August stared at her, the light streaming in from
the tall window beyond putting her profile in stark relief and catching the deep ruby in the curls brushing her shoulders. Her chin was tipped up slightly, exposing the graceful lines of her neck and the gentle slope of her breasts. He felt adrift here, as if he had lost sight of the shore and was in over his head. Had any woman ever really looked past his title and his wealth and his looks? Had he ever wanted them to?

  He took a step closer, suddenly needing to anchor himself. “Your confidence.” He took another step and found her hand with his. This, this was what he needed. She was what he needed. “Your unwillingness to apologize for who you are. Your convictions.”

  Clara closed her eyes.

  “Those are the things that leave me humbled.”

  Her eyes opened and flew to his.

  “That night I asked you to dance, you gave me a chance and an honor I did not deserve.” He caught her other hand in his and brought both to his lips, pressing a soft kiss on the backs of her knuckles. “I came here to ask you for the same chance again.”

  “Your Grace—”

  “I don’t want a temporary tryst.”

  She was watching with hooded eyes, and he could see the rapid rise and fall of her chest. “What do you want, then?”

  “I want you. Whatever you’re willing to give.”

  “What I want and what I can do are two very different things, Your Grace.”

  “August, dammit,” he whispered harshly. “When I’m with you, I am just August.”

  She shook her head almost imperceptibly. “I can’t risk—”

  “I don’t want excuses, Clara. I don’t want regrets either.” His fingers tightened on hers. “No regrets. No wondering what might have been. What happened between us had nothing to do with anything else. Not your ships, not my sister, nothing. Tell me you believe that.”

  He heard her breath hitch. “Yes.”

  “Good.” He turned her hands over and kissed the insides of her wrists. “Tell me you wanted what happened between us.”

  She made a soft noise in her throat. “Yes,” she whispered.

  “I am not going to accept less of you, Clara Hayward. I will have you, and you will have me. You will show me everything that you have ever learned about pleasure, and then I will show you more. I will be the man who kisses you until you can’t breathe and you can’t think.” He leaned closer to her, pressing her back against the wall, his mouth inches from hers.

  She looked up at him, the raw desire in her eyes unmistakable, and it sent lust ripping through him. He didn’t just want her. He needed her. Needed to have her mouth, so hot and wicked, on his. Needed to have her skin, bared and slick, pressed against his. Needed to stroke her, to sink himself deep within her. A vision of her as she had been last night, wrapped around him, her heels digging into his back, made his knees suddenly unsteady. He was so aroused it hurt.

  “Say yes, Clara. And keep in mind that I’m not accepting no.”

  The sliver of space between them was suddenly full of pressure, like the air just before a storm. Just before the elements unleashed everything that was wild and terrifying and thrilling.

  “Yes,” she whispered again.

  “Good girl.” They were both breathing hard. “Part of me wants to take you right here, right now, against this wall.” He brushed her lips with his, just the briefest of touches. “But the other part of me wants to have you somewhere where I can lock the door. Somewhere where I will take my time exploring you, where I will learn what makes you whimper and writhe with pleasure. Somewhere where no one will hear you when you scream my name. Because I like to understand what I possess.”

  He could see his own arousal mirrored in the liquid brown pools of her gaze. Her eyes dropped down to his mouth, and he leaned into her, letting her feel just how much he wanted her. Her lips parted. When she was looking at him like that, it was impossible to think beyond his scorching need to have her. But they were standing in a hallway, in plain view of anyone who opened the door.

  “I know how much your position means to you, Clara. And I will do nothing to jeopardize that with my actions.” Which wasn’t exactly true, if one considered that Haverhall would soon be nothing but a memory, her position along with it. The guilt washed through him again, and he shoved it aside.

  You should tell her that you own it, a small voice whispered.

  But to what end? To become the man who had taken everything from her? To have her accuse him of using her again? Nothing would change what had already been done. Haverhall would still be demolished and developed. It would be better to focus her attention on the future. She could start over. The school was more than just a building—in reality it could be run anywhere. A new property could be purchased eventually. In fact, he could help her find one if it came to that. It wouldn’t be Haverhall, of course, but Clara could continue to do what she loved.

  She’d be happier if she still had Haverhall, a small voice whispered. The legacy left to her by her parents.

  August ruthlessly smothered another wave of conscience that assaulted him. There was still no world that existed in which he would turn his back on profit for the sake of sentimentality, legacies be damned. August knew all about legacies. He had, after all, survived his.

  So for the moment he would take Clara Hayward’s words to heart and not live with regrets and excuses. He would not live with another decade of regret that he hadn’t made her his when he’d had the chance. “I will see you tonight,” he breathed.

  “Tonight?”

  “I’m taking you out to dinner again. When you’re done here.”

  She pushed a piece of hair back from her face. “Yes.”

  August took an unhealthy amount of pleasure from the slight wobble to her voice. “And for the record, I am sorry I intruded. I promise it will not happen again.”

  Clara suddenly smiled, a low laugh escaping under her breath. “It will be difficult to forget the look on your face anytime soon.”

  “I don’t think I was adequately prepared for the idea of my sister painting naked women.”

  “You would prefer her to paint naked men?”

  August glared at her. “That’s not funny. Nor is it appropriate.”

  The smile slid from her face. “What is appropriate for Anne? Flowers? Trees? So long as they have all their foliage on, of course?”

  August could feel his teeth grind. “Do not mock me.”

  “I’m not mocking you, I’m asking you a reasonable question about a young woman who has shown herself immensely capable in class. And at the Silver Swan.”

  “I’m glad you brought that up. Because I’m not convinced that’s appropriate either,” August growled.

  An elegant brow rose. “I’m sorry to hear that.” It was brittle. “For the life of me, I can’t fathom which part of her skill you find so…inappropriate.”

  “She deserves more.”

  “More than happiness?”

  “You’re twisting my words.”

  “And you’re making me wonder why you think Lady Anne should apologize for who she is.”

  August bit back a curse. This wasn’t how he wanted to end this conversation at all. “Seven,” he said abruptly. “Be ready at seven for dinner.”

  She didn’t respond, just gazed at him steadily with those dark eyes. He did not look away.

  “You told me not to stop asking you hard questions,” Clara finally said. “And I won’t.” She turned and took a half dozen steps down the hall before she stopped and looked back. “So whenever it is that you find answers to those questions, you may take me out to dinner and share them with me.”

  Chapter 14

  It had been four days since Clara had left the Duke of Holloway in the north hallway, seething. She had seen him only twice, glimpses of him about the property as she had carried on with her classes and he had carried on with whatever business kept him in Dover. He hadn’t even appeared today to check in with Anne when she and the students had a day free. Clara told herself that it was better this
way. That the distance was a good thing.

  I want more than a temporary tryst.

  Desire spiked and sent her insides fluttering. They had sounded decadent, those words that he had whispered in that hallway. Every wicked thing he had murmured in her ear had instantly infused her with a hot, achy restlessness that teetered on the edge of recklessness. Because she wanted the same thing. But no matter his words and pretty promises, whatever this was between them could only ever be temporary.

  And the longer he avoided her, the more temporary temporary became.

  She would never marry and sacrifice her hard-won independence to become a wife, and becoming his mistress was still out of the question. No matter how careful they might be, he was a duke and, as such, attracted far too much attention. Eyebrows would be raised in his direction at his odd choice, but such a relationship would destroy any possibility that she might ever teach again.

  “My brother is avoiding me.”

  Clara started, lost in her thoughts as she had been. She found Anne standing near the garden bench where she sat, peering out in the direction of the sea to where Clara could make out the shape of a horse and rider galloping along the ridge. August, she realized, recognizing the dark-haired man who rode effortlessly, as was obvious even from this distance.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Hayward, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “Not at all. Please join me.” Clara slid over on the bench, her eyes once again going to the figure racing the wind against the backdrop of the sky. “I would have thought the distance your brother has kept would please you,” she said, shoving a pang of longing back into the depths from which it had risen.

  Anne sighed and came to sit next to Clara. “It does, I suppose.” She was frowning, her fingers wrapped tightly around the edges of a sketchbook. “He’s probably certain that I am still furious with him after he walked in on our art class. Though if anyone deserved to be furious, it was Lady Theodosia.”

  “If Lady Theodosia stopped snickering long enough to be angry, I might agree with you,” Clara replied with a wry smile. “But to be fair, it might be more a matter of your brother avoiding me.”