Duchesses in Disguise

by Grace Burrowes

  Why did the grand old fairy tales never feature dukes as their heroes?

  Grey sat back and brushed his thumbs over Francesca’s cheeks. “Francesca, I’m sorry. If a man will break his vows to his God, his community, and his wife, he has no honor. I realize my views are quaint, laughable even, but I cannot abide a hypocrite.”

  Francesca turned so she could lean into Grey’s embrace. She’d rather be closeted in a dreary office with this quaint man than share the splendor of a ducal court with her late husband. She hadn’t realized she’d needed a man—a man whom she esteemed—to confirm her instincts, but Grey’s apology helped ease a grief that had started within two weeks of her wedding.

  “To appearances, Pietro was attentive, and that was the extent of the fidelity he believed was required. He found my histrionics juvenile and even touching, but really, what was the problem? He’d always be available to accommodate me when I had need of him. His mistresses in no way diminished his regard for me, or his willingness to tend to me in bed. I simply made no sense to him. I was a toy he could not figure out, though a pretty enough toy.”

  Grey stood, which put the length of him smack up against Francesca. He was quite tall up close, a good six inches taller than Pietro had been.

  And yet, to an eighteen-year-old bride, Pietro had been imposing indeed.

  “If that was your husband’s view of his marital obligations,” Grey said, “then he was nothing more than an orangutan with powers of speech, meaning no disrespect to the orangutan. I have argued this point with many a colleague. We cannot as a species claim the Almighty awarded us dominion over the earth and then act among ourselves with no more civility than stray dogs. Even in the most remote wilderness, predator and prey manage to share the water holes without descending into outright interspecies warfare.”

  Francesca kissed him. “And at that point in the discussion, somebody changes the subject, for your logic is irrefutable while their arguments rely on an interpretation of Scripture uniquely supportive of their vices.”

  “They change the subject or mutter about how poor Sir Greyville was in the tropics for too long. Kiss me again, please.”

  Francesca obliged Grey with a spree of kissing that banished the miseries of the past and reassured her that he desired her honestly and for herself.

  “Promise me something,” she said, stepping back. “Promise me you won’t accommodate me tonight.”

  Grey took out a prodigiously wrinkled handkerchief. “You will please explain yourself.”

  The handkerchief was for polishing his spectacles, which Grey held up to the light coming in the window. He might have been asking Francesca to explain her mama’s recipe for syllabub, and yet, Francesca knew she had his attention, despite the call of the jungle.

  “Don’t insinuate yourself beneath the covers without uttering a word,” Francesca said. “Don’t kiss me on the cheek, climb aboard, and start thumping at me until you collapse two minutes later as if you’re Pheidippides after running from Marathon to Athens. One wants some communication about the business, a certain mutuality of participation, not… not thumping.”

  She could never have said that to her husband, because after the first two weeks of marriage, she’d mostly wanted his thumping over with. From his mistresses, the duke had expected passion; from his duchess, duty was all he’d sought.

  The rotter.

  Grey stuffed his handkerchief back into his pocket, all willy-nilly. “Francesca, if I begin to thump, however you define the term, you tell me to stop, describe how you’d like us to proceed, and I’ll make appropriate adjustments. You are not the subordinate on this expedition, and I have no more of a map or compass than you do. That said, my bed is the larger, so I’d rather you insinuated yourself beneath my covers than the other way around.”

  “That makes sense.” And also allowed her to arrive and depart as she pleased. “Are we expected to join the others for dinner?”

  “I am forgiven my eccentricities when it comes to attending meals, in the interests of science, or perhaps because my dearest friends need only a little of my company to remind them why they allow me to disappear into the jungle for years at a time. It’s threatening rain again.”

  The office had become cooler as the afternoon had progressed. For a man acclimated to the tropics, the chill would be significant.

  Francesca wrapped her shawl about Grey’s shoulders and returned to the table, which was closer to the fire. “I’ll order us trays, and the others will have to manage without us.”

  Grey resumed his place at the desk, her cream wool shawl about his shoulders like an ermine cape. He made an eccentric picture, but as he read, he occasionally paused, sniffed at the wool, and smiled.

  Francesca got back to work—the ocelot was an interesting creature—but her view of the upcoming days and nights had changed. She wasn’t merely addressing lingering disappointment over her marriage, or taking advantage of an opportunity for some discreet pleasure.

  She was falling in love, and with a man who longed to disappear into the jungle once again.

  * * *

  Grey’s pride had not let him share with Francesca the full brunt of his dismay at Harford’s betrayal.

  Dismay being a euphemism for utter, roaring, wall-kicking, head-banging rage with generous helpings of profanity in at least three languages.

  Harford had not only charmed Grey’s theories about the vanilla orchid from him, he’d spent an entire bottle of wine listening to Grey debate which widowed countess, beer baron, or coal nabob would likely support an expedition to test that theory.

  And one of Grey’s carefully cultivated wealthy contacts had apparently decided to fund Harford’s expedition.

  “Damn and blast.” Sebastian had introduced Grey to most of those wealthy contacts, and this turn of events would disappoint the earl mightily.

  “Did you say something?” Francesca asked.

  “The time has got away from me,” Grey said, rising stiffly. Good God, his arse hurt. “One would think I had nothing to look forward to this evening, when in fact my anticipation knows no bounds.”

  So his acquaintance with Harford was a failed experiment in resisting the lure of professional charm. Francesca’s hand in marriage had been surrendered on the strength of some randy Italian’s charm, and that loss had been far greater.

  And yet, she had arrived to widowhood with dignity, humor, and self-respect intact.

  “I wanted to get through an entire year of your notes,” she replied—primly. “You’ve been in that chair for the past ten hours, more or less. I don’t know how you endure it.”

  Grey had taken a short break when the call of nature had become imperative, as best he recalled. “I’m the determined type, though my detractors call me stubborn. Shall you seek your bed now?”

  The clock had chimed eleven, and the house had acquired the quiet stillness of nighttime deep in the country.

  “I will seek your bed,” she said. “Do we go up together, or exercise some discretion?”

  “We go up together, and I bid you good night at your door, so you might enjoy some privacy as you prepare for your slumbers. You dismiss the maid and then come to me.”

  She peered at him over his glasses, which she’d purloined after they’d eaten supper. “You’ve thought about this.”

  “I’ve thought about little else.” And yet, Grey had been productive. Not only in the sense of having scrawled words onto pages, but also on a deeper level. Francesca’s occasional questions, her counterexamples, and pragmatic retorts were his guides in a jungle of words and theories, did she but know it. As the afternoon had worn on, Grey had grasped theoretical interrelationships, sequences of ideas, and narrative connections that would make his summary both lucid and interesting to average readers.

  “You’ve thought about little else?” she asked, taking her shawl from his shoulders. “Then what were you writing about the livelong day?”

  Without her shawl, the room was colder, thou
gh Grey could ignore cold. He’d liked having the scent of jasmine all around him and knowing he wore something of hers.

  Perhaps he truly had been in the tropics too long.

  “I was writing about adventures,” he said, plucking his glasses from her nose. “And now, instead of writing about adventures, I’d like to embark on one. With you.”

  She sailed out the door ahead of him, but he suspected he’d pleased her. Grey snatched up a candle from the mantel and followed her into the frigid dark of the corridor.

  “Where exactly will your next expedition take you?” she asked.

  “India, I hope.” Provided somebody put a small fortune at his disposal.

  “To do what?”

  He took her hand as they gained the stairs. “Set up a tea plantation, if I’m lucky. Before I went to South America, I had a chance to tour parts of China in the company of some Dutchmen. When I left China, I found that somebody had used my luggage to smuggle a quantity of tea seeds and slips out of the country.”

  “Another one of your high-minded men of science at work?”

  “Not bloody likely. The Chinese guard their tea more closely than we do the crown jewels, and with good reason. But for tea, in my opinion, we’d still be a nation of gin sots. Had the contraband been discovered before I left China, I’d be the late, disgraced Sir Greyville Trenton. I’m hopeful the plants can thrive in parts of India, but must undertake further experimentation.”

  “You’ve waited four years to make these experiments?”

  “For the past four years, while I’ve been bumbling about in the jungle, those plants have been carefully propagated by a trusted friend in the far western reaches of India. I hope that habitat closely approximates the growing conditions in China. Ceylon might do as well and is more accessible by sea. I simply have more investigation to do.”

  To talk with Francesca about his dreams was precious, just as watching her spin his notes from straw to gold was precious, just as seeing her bustling about with his glasses on her nose was precious.

  If this was a manifestation of the mating urge, Grey had never seen or heard the symptom described by any biologist. Poets had probably maundered on about such sentiments, but little poetry had found its way into Grey’s hands.

  “India is very, very far away,” Francesca said, pausing outside her door. “I’m glad, for the present, that our bedrooms are only across the corridor.”

  “So am I.”

  Grey was also glad that the windfall of tea had shown up in his baggage, though doubtless, somebody else had been very un-glad not to recover their stolen goods, and yet, Francesca was right. India was so very, very far away.

  “Take your time,” he said, bowing over her hand. “Take as long as you need, and join me if, and only if, you truly wish to do so.”

  She went up on her toes and kissed his cheek. “I won’t be long.”

  And then she was gone.

  * * *

  India was not darkest Peru, but it was still half a world away, and as Francesca took down her hair and tended to her ablutions, she hated India.

  For good measure, she hated China too, and ocelots, and those larger exotic cats with the name she wasn’t sure how to pronounce. She hated biology, and botany, and that Harford weasel—she hoped the Mexican jungles gave him a bad rash in an inconvenient location or two—and she hated desperately that coach wheels and axles could be repaired in a mere fortnight.

  “I have landed in a very muddy ditch, indeed,” she informed her bedroom. The maid had built up the fire, bid Francesca pleasant dreams, and quietly withdrawn.

  If the staff or any of the other residents of Rose Heath suspected that Francesca and Sir Greyville were embarking on a liaison, they’d given no indication, and yet, Francesca hesitated.

  She’d never done this sort of thing before—of all the pathetic clichés—though she’d also never encountered a man like Sir Greyville Trenton, and probably never would again. On that thought, she charged across the corridor and entered Grey’s room without knocking.

  “I’m nervous,” she said, remaining by the door.

  The room at first appeared empty, then Grey’s head appeared over the top of a privacy screen in the corner. Half his face was covered with lather, and he had a razor in his hand.

  “I am unsettled as well,” he said, scraping lather from one cheek. “This is not my typical excursion into uncharted territory. Do I shave, or will that make me too much the fussy Englishman? Italian males tend to be hirsute. Perhaps the lady likes a fellow sporting some evening plumage. Will my English pallor and relatively light hair coat be unappealing to her? Do I turn the covers down, or is that presumptuous? Cold sheets are damned unromantic, if you take my meaning. You will note I’ve turned down the quilts and built up the fire. Give me a moment, and I’ll pour you a glass of wine.”

  He could shave himself and prattle at the same time. Francesca had never seen her husband shaving—being shaven, rather. Dukes did not tend to their own whiskers.

  Francesca came around behind the privacy screen and treated herself to a view of a long, trim back, shoulders and arms wrapped with muscle, and damp hair curling at Grey’s nape. Even at twenty years old, Pietro would not have exuded this much fitness and vitality.

  Watching Grey complete his toilette, his movements unselfconscious even when half-naked, Francesca was abruptly angry all over again.

  Two weeks? All she was allotted with this considerate, handsome, brilliant, plain-spoken, hardworking man was two weeks?

  Then she’d damned well make them count.

  “Take as long as you need,” she said, going to the bed, “and join me if, and only if, you truly wish to do so.”

  She was unbelting her robe when Grey embraced her from behind. “Don’t be nervous, Francesca. Be honest, and for the next little while, be mine.”

  His words gave her a bad moment, because she hadn’t been entirely honest. To him, she was merely Francesca Pomponio, widow of some wealthy Italian. Would Grey, who was English to his bones despite his world travels, be upset to learn she was a dowager duchess, and not simply well-off, but disgracefully rich?

  Francesca decided to ponder that issue later, when Grey’s lips weren’t tracing the line of her shoulder and his arousal wasn’t increasingly evident at her back. She turned, wrapped her arms around him, and kissed him as if he were departing for India in the morning.

  And merciful angels, did he ever kiss her back.

  He could have plundered her mouth, but instead he investigated. His kisses were by turns stealthy, sweet, tender, and devious. He sipped, tasted, teased, and all the while, his hands wandered over Francesca’s nightclothes. He shaped her hips, then her waist, then cupped her derriere and urged her closer.

  “Bed,” she muttered against his mouth. “We embark on this adventure in a bed. Now.”

  “That’s honest. Also an excellent suggestion.” He stepped out of his trousers and tossed them in the direction of the privacy screen. “If you need assistance disrobing, I’m happy to oblige.”

  Happy , was he? His felicity was magnificent, and he was utterly unselfconscious about that too. More Englishmen should spend time exploring the jungle, if Sir Greyville Trenton was any example.

  “What is the scientific term for that particular variety of happiness?” Francesca asked, handing him her robe.

  He sent it sailing to the privacy screen as well.

  “The membrum virile, aroused,” he said. “Erect, rampant, engorged. Happy applies as well, while you are shy.”

  Duchesses were modest, at least in Italy, but Grey had not only seen all manner of women unclothed, he’d sketched them.

  In detail.

  “I need assistance.” And time. Francesca wanted years and eternities with Grey, and not two dreary little weeks in the Yorkshire Dales.

  He started at the top of her nightgown, untying bow after bow with deft, competent fingers. With each bow, Francesca felt her past and all its disappointments and frustr
ations falling away. She wasn’t a dewy, innocent bride and was glad, for once, that inexperience and ignorance no longer plagued her.

  Grey stepped back when all the bows had been undone and nakedness was a single gesture away.

  “Only if you want to, Francesca.”

  He meant that. He would take nothing from her as a matter of right or assumption—not her time, not her trust, not her body.

  She drew back the sides of the nightgown, let it fall from her shoulders, and handed it to him. “Tell me what you see.”

  He folded her nightgown and tucked it under the pillows, then walked a slow circle around her.

  “Female,” he said. “Age between twenty-five and thirty. Caucasian, blond hair, gray eyes, heritage likely Saxon, possibly by way of the Danes or the Norsemen. Height about five and a half feet. No obvious deformities or significant scars. In good weight, with good muscle tone. No evidence of parturition.”

  He was asking a question. They’d avoided the topic of children until now.

  “Two miscarriages,” Francesca said. “One somewhat bruised heart, though time has mended most of the damage.” Then she was back in his arms, skin to skin, the scent of cedar blending with his body heat.

  “Francesca, when I look at you, I see heaven. I see every good thing. Every human, wonderful, pleasurable joy, and I want to share them with you, right now.”

  He scooped her off her feet and laid her on the bed.

  * * *

  Someday, Grey wanted to ask Francesca about the miscarriages, about how she came to be widowed, about any family she still had in Italy. He wanted to know about growing up at an Italian court and if her heart would again be bruised when they parted.

  He wanted to know everything about her, and not as a scientist examines a specimen.

  “I promise not to thump,” he said, which caused Francesca to smile against his shoulder. He’d come down over her when he should have taken a moment to admire the picture she made naked on his bed. She was the mature female goddess, rounded in ways the typical Englishwoman was not—thanks be to Italy—and both sturdier and more feminine as a result.