by Julia Quinn
He didn’t just want to find out. He had to.
He brushed his lips gently against hers, shocked by the electric tingle that traveled through him at this barest of touches. He drew back slightly, just far enough for him to see her face. Her eyes were open very wide, their gray depths filled with wonder and longing. A question seemed to be forming on her lips, but he could see that she had no idea how to put it into words.
“Ah, Lord, Henry,” he murmured. “Who would have guessed?”
As his mouth descended once again, Henry gave in to her wildest desire and reached up to touch his hair. It was unbelievably soft, and she couldn’t bear to let go, even when his tongue darted out to trace the outline of her lips and every other muscle in her body went limp with longing. His lips moved sideways, traveling lightly along her jawline to her ear. Her hand still retained its hold on his hair.
“It’s so soft,” she said, wonder making her voice husky. “Almost as soft as Rufus.”
A deep chuckle rumbled in Dunford’s chest. “Oh, Henry,” he laughed. “That is certainly the first time I have been compared to a rabbit. Was I found wanting?”
Henry, suddenly shy, only shook her head.
“Rabbit got your tongue?” he teased.
She shook her head again. “No, you do.”
Dunford groaned and leaned down to capture her mouth again. He’d been holding back during the last two kisses, he realized, out of concern for her innocence. But now he found his restraint was gone, and he plunged his tongue into the warm recesses of her mouth, exploring her intimately. God, she was sweet, and he wanted her . . . he wanted every inch of her. He took a ragged breath and slid his hand under her jacket to cup her breast. It was far fuller than he’d expected, and so very womanly. It was sinful how thin the fabric of her shirt was. He could feel the heat of her, feel her heartbeat speeding up, feel her nipple puckering beneath his touch. He moaned again. He was lost.
Henry gasped at this new intimacy. No man had ever touched her there. She didn’t even touch her breasts unless she was bathing. It felt . . . good, but it also felt wrong, and panic began to rise within her. “No!” she cried out, wrenching away from him. “I can’t.”
Dunford groaned her name, his voice painfully hoarse.
Henry only shook her head as she scrambled to her feet, unable to say anything else. Words just couldn’t manage to get by this choking feeling in her throat. She couldn’t do this, she just couldn’t, even if part of her wanted so desperately for him to touch his lips to hers again. The kisses she could justify. They made her feel so warm and tingly and so very loved that she could just manage to convince herself they weren’t so very sinful, and she wasn’t a fallen woman, and he really did care for her . . .
She stole a peek at him. He had risen from the bed and was cursing violently under his breath. She didn’t understand why he wanted her. No man had ever wanted her before, and certainly no man had ever, even for an instant, come close to loving her. She looked at him again. His face was haggard. “Dunford?” Her voice was hesitant.
“It won’t happen again,” he said roughly.
Henry’s heart sank, and she realized suddenly that she did want it to happen again, only . . . only she wanted him to love her, and that, she supposed, was why she’d pulled away from him.
“It’s—it’s all right,” she said softly, wondering why on earth she was trying to comfort him.
“No, it isn’t,” he bit out, intending to say that she deserved better, but so filled with self-loathing he couldn’t bear the sound of his own voice.
Henry heard only his harshness, and she gulped convulsively. He didn’t want her, after all. Or at least he didn’t want to want her. She was a freak—a boyish, plain-speaking, unattractive freak. No wonder he was so horrified by his actions. If there had been another eligible woman anywhere near Stannage Park, he surely wouldn’t have paid Henry the least bit of mind. No, Henry thought, that wasn’t true. They still would have been friends, Dunford hadn’t been faking that. But he certainly never would have kissed her.
Henry wondered if she could possibly hold back her tears until they got back home.
Chapter 8
Supper that night was a silent affair. Henry wore her new yellow dress, and Dunford complimented her on it, but beyond that they seemed unable to converse.
As he finished the last few bites of his dessert, Dunford thought he’d like nothing better than to retire to his room with a bottle of whiskey, but after having to watch Henry’s stricken expression all through the meal, he realized that he was going to have to do something to mend this rift. Setting down his napkin, he cleared his throat and said, “I thought I might have a glass of port. Since there are no ladies here with whom you may retire, I would be honored if you would join me.”
Henry’s eyes flew to his face. Surely he wasn’t trying to tell her he thought of her as a man? “I’ve never had port before. I don’t know if we have any.”
Dunford stood. “You must. Every household does.”
Henry followed him with her eyes as he walked around the table to pull out her chair. He was so handsome, so very handsome, and for a moment she had actually thought he wanted her. Or at least he had acted as if he had. And now . . . Now she didn’t know what to think. She stood up and noticed he was looking at her expectantly. “I’ve never seen any here,” she said, deciding that he was merely waiting for a reply about the port.
“Didn’t Carlyle ever entertain?”
“Not very often, actually, although I fail to see what that has to do with port—or with gentlemen.”
He eyed her curiously. “After a dinner party it is customary for the ladies to retire to the drawing room while the gentlemen indulge in a bit of port.”
“Oh.”
“Surely you were not ignorant of the custom?”
Henry flushed, painfully aware of her lack of social polish. “I did not know. How ill-bred you must have thought me this past week—lingering over supper. I’ll leave you now.” She took a few steps toward the door, but Dunford caught her arm.
“Henry,” he said, “if I hadn’t been interested in your conversation, believe me, I would have made you aware of it. I mentioned the port because I thought we might enjoy a drink together, not because I wanted to rid myself of your company.”
“What do the ladies drink?”
“I beg your pardon?” He blinked, completely at a loss.
“When they retire to the drawing room,” Henry explained. “What do the ladies drink?”
He shrugged his shoulders helplessly. “I haven’t the faintest idea. I don’t think they drink anything.”
“That seems horribly unfair.”
He smiled to himself. She was beginning to sound more like the Henry for whom he had come to care so much. “You may disagree once you get your first taste of port.”
“If it is so very dreadful, why do you drink it?”
“It isn’t dreadful. It is merely an acquired taste.”
“Hmmm.” Henry seemed lost in thought for a moment. “I still think it is a horribly unfair practice, even if port tastes as bad as pig swill.”
“Henry!” Dunford was appalled at the tone of his voice. He sounded like his mother.
She shrugged. “Excuse my language, if you will. I’m afraid I’ve been trained to put on my good manners only for company, and you really don’t qualify as that any longer.”
The conversation had swung so far into the improbable that Dunford felt tears of mirth welling up in his eyes.
“But as for the port,” she continued, “it seems to me you gentlemen probably have a merry old time of it in the dining room with the ladies gone, talking about wine and women and all sorts of interesting things.”
“More interesting than wine or women?” he teased.
“I can think of a hundred things more interesting than wine or women . . .”
> He realized with surprise that he couldn’t think of anything more interesting than the woman standing before him.
“Politics, for example. I try to read about it in the Times, but I am not such a lackwit that I don’t realize quite a bit goes on that does not get reported in the paper.”
“Henry?”
She cocked her head.
“What has any of this to do with port?”
“Oh. Well, what I was endeavoring to explain is that you gentlemen have a grand time while the ladies have to sit in a stuffy, old drawing room, conversing about embroidery.”
“I have no idea what the ladies talk about when they retire,” he murmured with just the barest hint of a smile. “But somehow I doubt it is embroidery.”
She shot him a look that said she didn’t believe him in the slightest.
He sighed and held up his hands in mock surrender. “As you can see, I am trying to rectify this injustice by inviting you to join me in a glass of port this evening.” He looked around. “That is, if we can find some.”
“There is nothing here in the dining room,” Henry said. “Of that I am certain.”
“In the drawing room then. With the other spirits.”
“It’s worth a try.”
He let her lead the way to the drawing room, noting with satisfaction how well her new dress seemed to fit. Too well. He frowned. She really had quite a nice shape, and he didn’t like the idea of someone else discovering that fact.
They reached the drawing room, and Henry crouched down to look in a cabinet. “I don’t see any,” she said. “Although, never having seen a bottle of port, I really haven’t the faintest idea what I’m looking for.”
“Why don’t you let me have a peek?”
She stood and changed places with him, her breast accidentally brushing against his arm as she did so. Dunford suppressed a groan. This had to be some sort of cruel joke. Henry was the most unlikely temptress imaginable, yet here he was, hard and straining and wanting nothing more than to throw her over his shoulder again, this time to haul her up to his room.
Coughing slightly to mask his discomfort, he bent to look in the cabinet. No port. “Well, I suppose a glass of brandy will do just as well.”
“I hope you’re not disappointed.”
He threw her a sharp look. “I am not so enamored of my spirits that I am crushed at the loss of a glass of port.”
“Of course not,” she said quickly. “I never meant to imply you were. Although . . .”
“Although what?” he snapped. This constant state of arousal was shortening his temper.
“Well,” she said thoughtfully, “I should think that someone overly enamored of spirits would be just the sort who wouldn’t care which type of spirit he imbibed.”
He sighed.
Henry moved to a nearby sofa and sat, feeling much more like herself than she had at dinner. It was the silence that had been so difficult. Once he started talking to her, she found it was easy to respond. They were back on familiar territory now—laughing and teasing one another mercilessly—and she could practically feel her misplaced self-confidence flowing back through her veins.
He poured a glass of brandy and held it out to her. “Henry,” he said. He cleared his throat before continuing with, “About this afternoon . . .”
Her hand closed so tightly around the glass she was surprised it didn’t shatter. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. She swallowed, trying to moisten her throat. So much for feeling like herself again. Finally she managed to say, “Yes?”
He coughed again. “I should never have behaved as I did, I . . . ah . . . I behaved badly, and I apologize.”
“Think nothing of it,” she replied, trying very hard to sound carefree. “I won’t.”
He frowned. It certainly had been his intention to put the kiss behind him—he was eight different kinds of a cad for even thinking of taking advantage of her—but he was oddly disappointed that she intended to forget about it completely. “That is probably for the best.” He cleared his throat yet again. “I suppose.”
“I say, is something wrong with your throat? Simpy makes an excellent home remedy. I’m sure she could—”
“There is nothing wrong with my throat. I’m just a trifle . . .” He searched for a word. “. . . uncomfortable. That is all.”
“Oh.” She smiled weakly. It was so much easier to try to be helpful than to deal with the fact that he was so disappointed with their kiss. Or maybe he had been disappointed because she had broken it off. She frowned. Surely he didn’t think she was the sort of woman who would . . . She couldn’t even complete the thought. Glancing up at him nervously, she opened her mouth and her words came out in a violent tumble.
“I’m sure you’re right. It’s for the best, I suppose, to forget about everything, because the thing is, I wouldn’t want you to think that I . . . well, that I’m the kind of woman who—”
“I don’t think that of you,” he cut in, his voice oddly curt.
She heaved a great sigh of relief. “Oh, good. I don’t know really what came over me, I’m afraid.”
Dunford knew exactly what had come over her, and he knew it had been entirely his fault. “Henry, don’t worry—”
“But I do worry! You see, I don’t want this to spoil our friendship, and— We are friends, aren’t we?”
“Of course.” He looked affronted that she had even asked.
“I know I’m being forward, but I don’t want to lose you. I really like having you as my friend, and the truth is—” She let out a choked laugh. “The truth is, you’re just about the only friend I’ve got, besides Simpy, but that really isn’t the same thing, and—”
“Enough!” He couldn’t bear to hear her broken voice, to hear the loneliness in her every word. Henry had always thought she led a perfect existence here at Stannage Park—she had told him as much on numerous occasions. She didn’t even realize there was an entire world past the Cornwall border, a world of parties and dances and . . . friends.
He set his brandy snifter down on a table and crossed the room, driven simply by a need to comfort her. “Don’t talk like that,” he said, surprised by the sternness of his voice. He pulled her into a benign hug, resting his chin on the top of her head. “I’ll always be your friend, Henry. No matter what happens.”
“Truly?”
“Truly. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I don’t know.” She pulled away just far enough so she could see his face. “Lots of people seem to find reasons.”
“Hush up, minx. You’re a funny one, but you’re certainly more likable than unlikable.”
She grimaced. “What a lovely way of phrasing it.”
He laughed out loud as he let her go. “And that, my dear Henry, is exactly why I like you so damned much.”
Dunford was preparing for bed later that night when Yates rapped on his door. It was customary for servants to enter rooms without knocking, but Dunford had always found that practice to be singularly unappealing when the room in question was one’s bedroom, and he had instructed the Stannage Park servants accordingly.
At Dunford’s answer, Yates entered the room, carrying a rather large envelope. “This arrived from London today, my lord. I placed it on the desk in your study, but—”
“But I didn’t go into my study today,” Dunford finished for him. He took the envelope from Yates’s hand. “Thank you for bringing it up. I think it’s the former Lord Stannage’s will. I’ve been eager to read it.”
Yates nodded and left the room.
Too lazy to get up to find a letter opener, Dunford slipped his index finger under the envelope flap and pulled the sealing wax apart. Carlyle’s will, just as he had expected. He skimmed the document for Henry’s name; he could read the rest of it at length the next day. For now, his main concern was how Carlyle had provided for his ward.
He reached
the third page before the words “Miss Henrietta Barrett” jumped out at him. Then, to his utter surprise, he saw his own name.
Dunford’s jaw dropped. He was Henry’s guardian.
Henry was his ward.
That made him a—good God, he was one of those appalling men who took advantage of their wards. The gossip mill was rife with tales of lecherous old men who either seduced their wards or sold them off to the highest bidder. If he had felt shame over his behavior that afternoon, the emotion had now tripled. “Oh, my God,” he whispered. “Oh, my God.”
Why hadn’t she told him?
“Henry!” he bellowed.
Why hadn’t she told him?
He sprang to his feet and grabbed his robe. “Henry!”
Why hadn’t she told him?
By the time he made it into the hall, Henry was already there, her slender form wrapped in a faded green dressing gown. “Dunford,” she said anxiously. “What is wrong?”
“This!” He practically shoved the papers in her face. “This!”
“What? What is this? Dunford, I can’t tell what these papers are when you’ve got them plastered against my face.”
“It’s Carlyle’s will, Miss Barrett,” he bit out. “The one naming me your guardian.”
She blinked. “And?”
“That makes you my ward.”
Henry stared at him as if a portion of his brain had just flown out his ear. “Yes,” she said placatingly, “that’s usually how it works.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what?” Henry looked from side to side. “I say, Dunford, do we need to carry on this conversation in the middle of the hall?”
He spun on his heel and stalked into her room. She hurried after him, not at all sure that it was an advisable idea for the two of them to be alone in her bedroom. But the alternative was to have him rail at her in the hall, and that was decidedly unappealing.