“So much for caution,” he muttered.
“I’ll talk to Mrs. Staveley. My room is on the third floor. Perhaps she can pass this off as you going to your chambers and I was on the way to mine.”
“You’re on the third floor? This is the family wing.”
She ignored his consternation and swept through the doorway with a breezy, “Mrs. Staveley, how are you enjoying the roses I brought for you?”
The housekeeper clutched her skirts and curtseyed. “Your Grace. Ma’am.” She folded work-chafed hands against her bosom. “They are wonderful. Thank you.” The older woman’s hazel eyes twinkled beneath her mob-cap. “We’re all atwitter below stairs about the duke needing a butter churn. Simms and Cook think its inspiration for a folly. Two footmen say it’s for an entertainment on the south lawn. With the young lords home, there’s no telling what mischief they’ll make.”
The duke groaned.
Mrs. Staveley, more high-strung than the average housekeeper, fretted. “Oh, dear. I’ve spoken out of turn, Your Grace. Forgive me.”
“No trespass was done.” But he shifted uncomfortably.
They were on shaky ground. Her discreet flirting on the stairs was one thing; servants discussing the duke’s activities was another.
“Mrs. Staveley, Her Grace is counting on you to stop any gossip,” she said firmly.
“You’ve not to worry, ma’am.”
The housekeeper didn’t balk at her taking charge. When mourning the late duke and the heir, the dowager had often sent desperate notes: Please, help me with Richland Hall. Assisting with the house party was no different. Except she’d never ventured inside the ducal apartments. The duke’s sitting room wasn’t so improper. His bedchamber was. A veritable Pandora’s box. She checked the forbidden portal, which was safely shut, and mustered the authority of a queen.
“Make certain there are no further conversations about this below stairs.” She paused to add iron to her words. “Because no one else can know that I’m spending the afternoon with the duke.”
The housekeeper blinked fast. “Certainly, ma’am. I’ll have a word with the footmen and the charwomen.”
“And the visiting attendants?”
“They’re enjoying a picnic on the other side of the vegetable garden. They’ll not get a whiff of…” Mouth puckering, Mrs. Staveley eyed the waiting buckets and finished with a tactful, “Of whatever it is you’re going to do.”
“Very good. Now, if you’ll excuse us.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The housekeeper bobbed a skittish curtsey and raced for the door. She hesitated there, a work-raw hand hovering over the knob. Shutting it would’ve been the natural thing to do.
“Leave it open,” the duke intoned.
His formality pricked her playful spirit. “Don’t worry Mrs. Staveley. His Grace’s virtue is safe with me.”
The servant’s hand jerked back, and she fled the room. When the noise of her starched skirts faded, the duke fisted a hand on his hip.
“Was that necessary? Your quip poked the beast of impropriety.” He was adorably grumpy.
“A little fun now and then is good for the soul.”
His scowl indicated otherwise.
She stepped bravely closer to him. He needed a good…something to ease his tension. A terse line settled between his brows. Brass buttons on his waistcoat strained against their moorings. She buried her hands in her skirts to keep from smoothing the silk covering his chest.
“I’ll own that I deserve your frown,” she said quietly. “But you’ve had week of stiff propriety. One might think you’ll burst with it.”
His shoulders were tense within his green velvet coat. “Saucy humor. That’s part of today’s remedy?”
“It can be.” She searched his eyes and found new pain which owed nothing to his injured leg. “I know you don’t take pleasure in these entertainments. You tolerate them. It’s not bad that you prefer a sedate, country life. It’s who you are.”
The atmosphere shifted. A pleasant fissure broke the strain, and the corners of his eyes softened.
“How refreshing to be understood.”
“I understand a good many things about you.”
His gaze rested at the base of her neck, and slowly, slowly he took in her jaw, her lips like a starving man. “I shall count myself fortunate to have you as my neighbor.”
Neighbors, yes, but they were never alone. This unexpected escape to his sitting room was luxurious torment. Pure denial. They’d not kiss. She reveled in flirting with him—and His Grace needed a good flirting—but a dalliance would only further their suffering.
Their attraction was a dance of the unsaid.
And it would have to stay that way.
Her hand dropped to her midsection, nursing the hurt hidden under layers of cloth. She contemplated his perfect cravat, feeling dry as dust and all of her thirty-five years. “We have four hours before you must get ready for the ball.”
The duke eyed the clock on his mantle. “I suppose this is where I should concede that you’re right.”
Her “Yes” was grudging acknowledgment.
She dipped low and tested the kettle perched by the fire. The copper was hot. If a passerby touched her, they’d find her flesh over-warm and shush her off to bed. A prudent woman would take that advice and stay under the covers.
Dragging the butter churn before the fire, she faced a trying fact. She wouldn’t kiss His Grace, but she would touch him…and that would test the limits of their restraint.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” he asked.
“Nothing at the moment.”
He gave her room to work, an indication of his budding trust. “When do you plan to inform me of the details of this…”
“Healing treatment?” she supplied, pouring hot water in the churn. “In a moment.”
She upended buckets of tepid water into the churn, mentally cataloging the process her father had taught her years ago. The fire was a respectable blaze, heating her legs. Spring was lovely and full of sunshine, but winter’s bite lingered. His Grace would need the warmth, and she needed the oil of amber. She spun around, searching for the vial, finding a nicely lived in sitting room.
This is where he finds rest. It was a peek into the duke’s private life.
Windows shed light on a satinwood desk full of unrolled architecture plans. A beige brocade winged chair with its dented seat cushion waited for its usual occupant. Shelves of books, a few ferns but no flowers, and a wine-colored settee with comfy beige and white pillows added the final touch to cozy confines. It was all very un-ducal. She could lose herself in here.
“Mrs. Chatham,” he said sternly.
She continued searching the room, checking shelves, the mantle. “Keep your voice down, or this afternoon meeting of ours won’t stay secret for long.”
“What are you doing?”
“I am looking for my jar.” She spied the squat amber glass near papers on the duke’s desk. She sped toward it and plucked the treasured vial from the mess. “Here we are.”
He scrubbed a hand over his mouth. “Pray tell, what are your plans for me?”
She uncorked the jar with a pop. Oil of amber. The robust scent prickled the back of her nose. The aroma was full of the earth and not at all sophisticated. Like her. But the viscous oil would do a world of good for an inflexible duke.
“You have the patience of Job, Your Grace.” She leaned a hip on the corner of his desk. “I tend to lose myself in a project.”
Hand clasped behind his back, he was every inch a duke. “Since I am your project today, it’s only fitting for you to tell me what we’re about to do.”
She smiled. The explanation alone required the utmost delicacy. “You know the same thing happens when I put together my gardens. I don’t precisely plan as others do.”
He tipped his head a slight degree. “You’re evading me, Mrs. Chatham, but I can forgive you that because you’ve piqued my interest.”
He was
as hungry for details about her as she was of him.
“Are you telling me you don’t put your garden plans on paper first?” he asked.
“Never. They’re designed entirely on intuition and impulse.”
“I can’t fathom such a thing.”
“Gardens are meant for pleasure,” she said tenderly, because the duke could use some tenderness. “Sometimes one must let things happen.”
It was a brazen statement. Rife with suggestion. By his ravenous stare, he couldn’t quash the warmth unfolding between them any more than she could.
“I’ve glimpsed your garden from the road. It is a thing of beauty.”
Her knees were jelly. Arousal flooded her body. Somehow the compliment tinged with erotic undertones. He could have said I’ve glimpsed you naked.
“Thank you, Your Grace. It is a hodgepodge of chaos and order, which I find utterly satisfying. The truth is with a little care and attention, and the right doses of sun and water, my gardens flourish every season without fail.”
He locked on to her wayward hair which had come loose during luncheon. “They certainly do.”
A delicious connection formed, sweet as summer rain and twice as healing. She missed this, the bond of man and woman. Being with the duke fed a timeless yearning which defied explanation, and she had mere hours to enjoy him. She’d take pleasure in every minute.
“Will you trust me to take care of you?” she asked with all gentleness.
“A woman to take care of me.” He contemplated the butter churn, his mouth quirking. “We are compatriots in this…our game of patient and physic.”
She laughed lightly. “Is that what we are? Compatriots?”
His true smile returned. The first one she’d witnessed in days. “I can think of nothing better.”
Is this an offer of friendship?
What a dashing friend indeed. The ever-polite duke had a certain roguish appeal with his black eye patch and jagged scar trailing down the bottom of it. He was full of surprises. Best of all was his willingness to try something new—with her.
She advanced on him, hips swaying, skirts swishing. “I assure you, this is not a game.”
Amiable air drifted, and the same elemental threads that inhabited their stolen glances connected them. His eye was a silver-coin hue, brighter from sunlight washing the room. The pale color was uncanny. Piercing and hawkish for an otherwise proper gentleman. The pain was clearly gone, or he was distracted by the bee-like hum thriving beneath the surface of their conversation.
Her flesh prickled with awareness. There’d be no getting around this.
“I need to explain the remedy, Your Grace.”
“Yes?”
Cradling the jar with both hands, she could be a virtuous woman about to bestow a gift, which made what she said next wholly incongruent.
“First, you must remove your breeches.”
Chapter 3
“What?” he sputtered, the second time in a single day.
“You heard me. You must remove your breeches and allow me to administer the oil. Then, you will put your injured leg in the butter churn.”
He dragged a hand over his head. “Yes, I heard you the first time. About my breeches that is.” He paced the short distance between the hearth and the settee and back to the hearth again. “I expected a tincture. Something horrid that I would endure simply to have this afternoon alone with you.”
There. He’d voiced their vexing attraction, and they were none the worse.
“I’m glad to hear you say that.” She beamed as gorgeously as forbidden fruit would.
Sun bathed Mrs. Chatham in angelic light, a contradiction to the blatant sensuality thrumming between them. The dowager gave her blessing to this? He wouldn’t ask about that conversation.
“It’s for the good of your leg. You see my father was a physician. I assisted him from time to time, and one of his favorite remedies was to soak a sore limb in hot water with—” she raised the jar for visual proof “—oil of amber.”
They were in an awkward staring contest. Her smiling a tad salaciously with the jar in hand and he, gathering his wits. She must think his brains were in his ballocks.
For a moment, they were.
He’d been close to pinning Mrs. Chatham to the wall (twice!) and kissing her saucy mouth.
Thus, it took all his might to summon years of breeding to the fore. One wrong whisper and the family name would be counted scurrilous. If there was one thing he understood, it was decorum and what was at stake. His father was the epitome of goodness. No foul business dealings. No mistresses or babes born on the wrong side of the blanket. The pressure was immense, the responsibility considerable, but he would carry on the Richland banner.
He waved his hand irritably at the butter churn. “This appears to be a pediluvium. A rustic one at that. My leg pains me, madame, not my head.”
“I know, but I beg your tolerance.”
Soaking one’s foot was an accepted treatment for headaches, but what Mrs. Chatham suggested was unorthodox. And titillating. He’d had his fill of being poked and prodded, a thing he’d tolerated for months since the accident until he put down the ducal foot as it were, refusing any physicians to come near him.
“It sounds like medical heresy,” he groused.
“You’ve already taken an unusual approach with your leg.” She ambled closer, her voice soothing. “When the best doctors urged you to stay abed for a year and drown your pain in laudanum, you didn’t listen. Instead, once the bone healed, you exercised your leg.”
He swallowed peculiar dryness in his throat. She was appealing to his sense of reason, and it was working. So did the effect of her nearness. If he was honest, his current discomfit stemmed more from desiring his neighbor and suffering their mutual denial—made worse by her request that he remove his breeches.
Golden light limned Mrs. Chatham. Dust moats floated behind her, caught in the sun’s brilliance flooding the room. With her head tipped, those errant honey-blond tresses brushed her neck. She was luminescent. Well within his reach yet untouchable.
And how he ached to touch her.
“Today’s bout is probably because you’ve sat more than usual,” she went on, standing close enough for him to count her eyelashes. “You’re an energetic man. Give this a try, Your Grace. You won’t regret it.”
She was mellowing him. It was true. He’d done well with long walks, advancing to building not one but two follies on Richland grounds. Physical exertion had helped. The projects staved his boredom, healed his soul, and strengthened a body grown weak after the accident.
His heart thudded against his ribs while he breathed deeply of Mrs. Chatham’s perfume. She had a talent for enthralling him. For making him want. Badly.
Thus, he found himself slipping free of his coat. The murmur of cloth on cloth was seductive, especially with her watching.
“I will allow your medicinal treatment, short of removing my breeches.” Tossing his coat on the settee, he tried to regain control. Arms spread wide, he offered himself to her. “This ought to be sufficient.”
Her laugh sprinkled the air. “Your torso is not the body part in question.”
Lips clamped, he dammed a tide of sensual words that wanted to come out. Mrs. Chatham’s brows arched with challenge. He arched his too. They were in another draw. Frustrating, invigorating, and breathtaking all at once.
“Your Grace,” she chided. “It’s a simple thing, and it solves your problems.”
Was he being foolish? Total surrender was not a familiar skill. Negotiation was.
“What if I put my clothed leg in the butter churn?”
The widow’s mouth made a pretty moue. Her gaze dipped south, landing on his placket, dithering there a moment before sliding over to his thigh. “No. That wouldn’t work. The point is to have hot water against your unclothed skin. Then, I must rub oil onto the affected flesh.”
His gut clenched, and his ballocks twitched. Mrs. Chatham massaging me knee to h
ip?
Sweet Mother of God!
He’d spend himself. Right here, midday.
Flesh grew heavy against his placket. Parts of him were far from troubled with the makeshift-physic-turned-siren standing before him.
Steam curled up from the butter churn. Cheeks glowing with a pretty sheen, Mrs. Chatham could be an enchantress, dribbling oil from the jar, conjuring a spell. Her fingertips stirred the water and he was lost.
“You might be surprised to know this treatment is quite ancient. It comes from an antiquated book my father purchased.” She stopped her enigmatic stirring and flicked wet fingers. “He collects old books on the healing arts,” she said by way of explanation. “He kept poring over one tome in particular because it addressed wounds of muscle and sinew. He was relentless, writing fellow physics far and wide. The book was of eastern origin, and while he couldn’t read the text, he grasped the scribe’s illustration on this one remedy.”
“That must’ve been quite an illustration.”
Mrs. Chatham lured him. “Oh, it was. Finally, a friend in Venice helped him. He told my father the text referred to oil of amber. The patient must soak in it and—" she fixed a naughty glint on him “—have it rubbed onto the affected limb.”
“Your father administered this?” His placket and his voice were distinctly taut.
“Certainly not. He advised wives what to do, and they tended their husbands, of course.”
“Of course.”
Lambent sensuality danced between them. He was glad his waistcoat’s hem landed atop his thigh—all the better to hide nature’s response. A pulse ticked visibly at the base of Mrs. Chatham’s throat. He wanted to kiss the tiny throb. There was much to explore about his neighbor, her smooth jawline, her incredible mouth, and he had the afternoon to do it.
If he seized this chance.
A hint of laughter outside doused icy water on his ardor.
Dukes by the Dozen Page 27