The Duchess and the Highwayman

by Beverley Oakley

  He shrugged. “I will look after you, I’ve told you. I’m sorry I offended you. Would you like another new dress? I shall send a message around to the village dressmaker—”

  “Stop! I’m not a lightskirt, a Cyprian, or whatever they’re called. You cheapen me to say such things, when the truth is that I would never have given myself to you had I not felt a strong desire to enjoy that which you enjoy. Even if my very life depended on it. I am not that sort of woman.”

  He seized her hands and brought her knuckles up to his lips. “You really had feelings that matched mine? I’d never have guessed! Well, that’s music to my ears, even if I’m not the first.”

  “Do you want me to slap you?” She shuddered, and to his astonishment, raised a pair of eyes that shone with tears. “No, you are not the first, but you are the first to whom I’ve given myself with little in the way of cajoling. There! Perhaps that massages your pride.”

  She glanced over her shoulder at the house as he took her hand, saying, “Come, Phoebe, walk with me.”

  “To the woods?”

  “To somewhere you and I can be alone. Nothing more.”

  “I have little choice since you’re already marching me there.”

  He squeezed her hand tighter. He liked her spirit. She was unlike any young woman he’d ever met.

  When they were deep amidst the spreading oaks, he suspected a more gentle mood had overtaken her. She was gazing at the spreading branches above their heads, her expression thoughtful. The pale sun that penetrated the dense canopy highlighted the softness of her features. She was beautiful.

  “Tell me about yourself, Phoebe,” he coaxed. She’d mentioned she came from a harsher part of the country. Her accents were so contrived it was impossible to place her. “We’ve not spent enough time getting to know who we truly are. I’ve thought long and hard about that this morning after I realized how unbecoming my conduct was toward you.”

  Her hand in his did not stiffen as she walked, but her tone remained distant. “I come from by the sea where the cliffs plunge into the waters, and smugglers ply a healthy trade. This is a gentler part of the world,” she remarked.

  “Yet it has not been so kind to you, has it?”

  She stopped and turned. “It has not.”

  “I will protect you, Phoebe,” he promised, drawing her into his arms and meaning what he said. “I’ve been many things I should not have been, but one thing I do promise you is my protection.”

  “You do?”

  He drew back to look at her, offended by the skepticism in her tone. “Have I not promised it from the moment I rescued you? And I have followed through. You will accompany me to London, as we agreed when we spoke of it. I thought you were excited at—”

  “The prospect of being your mistress?”

  “Better that than the maidservant in danger, surely?”

  She shrugged. “You think I’m giving up nothing to be your…paramour?”

  He considered this. “You’ve told me you have no family. You fear discovery. I thought you considered my proposition with no misgivings. Particularly since you gave me reason to think you cared for me.”

  He couldn’t make out the look she sent him and then realization struck. “You’ve been disappointed before, haven’t you? That’s why you don’t trust that my word is good?”

  She gave a small nod. “It’s true; I have been disappointed before, but I do trust your word.”

  “Who was this man who let you down, Phoebe? You’ve never said his name. This protector of yours…he promised to protect you and then didn’t?”

  “He promised a great many things.” She shook her head, then raised her arms and twined them around his neck, wordlessly resting her head against his chest.

  He stroked her hair, the comfort he felt suddenly making him realize how ill at ease he’d felt until now. Having her forgiveness meant more to him than he’d believed. “You can feel safe with me, Phoebe.”

  The ground beneath them was soft, and he drew her down beside him, sitting with his back against the trunk and one arm around her shoulders. Gently he kissed her brow. Her eyes were closed, but when she smiled, a great spreading happiness seemed to infect his veins. He turned a little, and she opened her eyes, her lips parting so that instinctively he drew closer and kissed her.

  Her mouth flowered beneath his, and he deepened the kiss, stroking her cheek with one hand while his other slipped beneath her bodice to cup her breast. He expected her to open her eyes in outrage and push his hand away, but instead, she yielded to him, her body shifting to accommodate him in the soft hollow of earth beneath them while her mouth grew hungrier.

  The lust he’d felt earlier raised its nagging head, and he checked himself once more, not wanting to proceed if there were any hesitation on her part, but she seemed under the same spell. She didn’t protest when he took the hem of her dress and slowly raised it, watching her carefully to gauge her reaction.

  Above them, the sky winked blue, glimpsed beneath the dense canopy of the forest.

  Hugh broke contact to shrug off his coat. He laid it down, drawing Phoebe up and onto her knees. “You don’t want to spoil your new dress,” he whispered. “Perhaps you’d better take it off.”

  Her eyes widened. “But then I’d be…”

  “All but naked,” he supplied. “That is, unless we remove your petticoats and chemise and corset.” Just saying it made him as hard as a rock. The idea was as intoxicating as it was novel. Imagine! He would see her naked. In the daylight. He’d never seen a woman in all her glory quite like that, but now he wanted Phoebe ‘just like that’ more than he’d wanted anything before.

  “I’ll help you.” He was already shimmying the garment up over her body by the time her smile popped out, her eyes shining at the wickedness of it all. That was good. He didn’t like to think she might not be an equally willing partner when it came to pushing the boundaries quite so far.

  “And what of you, my Lord?” she whispered with an impish look at his nether regions.

  “Oh, my pleasure will be seeing you revealed, layer by layer, like some tasty morsel. My ultimate pleasure can wait.”

  The undergarments she wore were not the fine linen of a lady. Somehow the utilitarian petticoat, gleaned from the miller’s wife’s trunk, rough and coarse, struck him with guilt.

  “I shall buy you the finery you deserve, Phoebe. Without the expense of a wife, you shall be clothed as you’d wish.”

  “And when you take a wife I’ll go naked?”

  He laughed. She was smiling, teasing him for she knew how it was. “I’ll always want you, Phoebe.”

  “Always?”

  “And how do you know that?” she asked. But when he pulled her final layer over her head—her chemise, having just unlaced her corset—he could not speak. She was exquisite. Her soft, pert breasts were revealed for the first time, unbound and in all their glory, their small pink buds an invitation for him to swoop and take into his mouth. But equally in evidence was the gentle undulation of her belly, which tapered into a pair of creamy thighs at whose juncture a thatch of dark hair hid a world of hidden delights.

  “Because I’ll never get enough of this, my darling,” he murmured at last, sliding down to take her right nipple into his mouth while his other hand contoured her belly before sliding between her legs.

  She was already wet but she gasped when he touched her, and he could hear the smile in her voice as she stroked his head. “Music to my ears, of course, Mr Redding, but that is what gentlemen say when they want a lady, is it not?” She shivered as he got to work pleasuring her, adding, “You’ve not had too much of a struggle to get me where you want me, so you needn’t say things you don’t mean.”

  “I should be hurt, Phoebe.” He chuckled as he sucked at her nipple, rolling it over his tongue, loving her small, involuntary gasps and jerks as he found just the place to tease her. “You seem to think I don’t mean what I say. It’s clear that you more than just like me. If you hadn’t
said it so plainly, I don’t need any more evidence than this.”

  He rose above her for a moment to meet her eye while he unbuttoned himself. “Tell me again. I want to hear you say that you want me as much as I want you.”

  “Only if you keep doing to me what you were doing before,” she groaned, relaxing back against the tree and closing her eyes.

  “There, see what you do to me.” Hugh kissed her mouth as she positioned his long body against her curves, guiding her hand to his member. He gasped again, then growled, “I’m ready to explode…but only when you’ve had your pleasure. I want you to want more, Phoebe. I want you!”

  It was pure delight. A wicked, sensual, carnal encounter spontaneously taken beneath the trees, and into which she entered with as much enthusiasm as he, despite the morning’s poor start.

  Carnal delights with Phoebe were greater than any pleasure he’d ever experienced.

  13

  Smoothing down the skirts of her dress, which Hugh had helped her into just a moment before, Phoebe watched Hugh ride into the distance. She was deeply unsettled. This was not supposed to happen. Not this fusing of the heart, as if he’d invaded her very being. He was a man, and men had only used her in the past to further their ends, while she’d been forced to compromise her heart and body to retain a tenuous security.

  What’s more, he’d belittled her this morning. Was it the start of something more insidious? Experience with men had taught her that any initial hope or pleasure would soon be snuffed out. That would inevitably happen with Mr Redding. They’d go to London, and soon he’d be squiring his sister to balls and assemblies where he’d meet the kind of woman he’d marry.

  She didn’t doubt that he believed her exquisite. Men were like that. They said what they needed to say to get what they wanted. As soon as Mr Redding felt the pressure to take a wife, Phoebe would be discarded.

  She closed her eyes and clenched her hands into fists as she strove for the strength she’d one day need to summon.

  Before that time, though, she’d need to shore up her position so that when Mr Redding left, she’d not be entirely destitute.

  Unfortunately, she was doing what she knew she should not. Her heart was not just warming to him, but regularly throughout the day her mind would thrill at the memory of the wild and wanton sensations he evoked in her.

  She knew it was time to leave this place, and hoped she’d feel safer living in some small cottage in London where no one would know her.

  She’d thought long and hard about Miss Redding’s revelation regarding Wentworth’s secret marriage, and had decided it was not something she intended to bring up with Mr Redding. They’d not spoken of Wentworth in days. In fact, Phoebe intended never speaking of him again. Ada Redding’s words had struck a chord. It would be better never to mention Wentworth’s name in the hope he would eventually fade from memory. Phoebe’s ideas of bringing him to justice could never be realized without sacrificing herself, now that it had been made so clear there was not a single person who would vouch for her if she were caught and faced trial.

  Raising her eyes to the blue she glimpsed beneath the canopy, she ran her hand down her belly and felt a shiver of apprehension.

  She could never be Lady Cavanaugh and continue to enjoy her freedom. She could never be a lady again.

  But she could be happy. At least for now, and that was better than nothing.

  If life had taught her anything, it was that its few moments of happiness were fleeting.

  She started to walk back to the house, deep in thought, her body still humming with the pleasurable sensations her new lover had unleashed in her while her mind ran over the probabilities.

  She would have to live as a lower-class woman with no reputation, when she was used to privilege. When Mr Redding tired of her or took a wife, she’d be discarded.

  That meant she had to make the most of what generosity he was prepared to extend her. She needed to ensure a measure of future security before she could give sway to her heart, which was proving as foolishly susceptible as it had when Wentworth had wooed her in such a calculating fashion.

  She was barely into the house when Ada’s loud whisper in the gloomy corridor took her by surprise.

  “Phoebe, come here! Quickly, before my brother sees us!”

  Startled, Phoebe was pulled into the storeroom, Miss Redding closing the door behind them.

  “I’ve had an idea,” she said, then, in more disappointed tones when Phoebe didn’t reply, “Our conversation this morning has given me a brainstorm. Listen to me, Phoebe. You want to see Mr Wentworth brought low on account of your mistress, just as I want the same thing. I’m determined to do it, but I can’t do it alone.”

  Phoebe could see where this was going and shook her head. “Despite what I said this morning, I’ve changed my mind. I can’t help you with regard to Wentworth, Miss Redding,” she said firmly. “Your brother is right. You must forget about Mr Wentworth. I’m very sorry about what he did to you—”

  “But, for the sake of my child—”

  “Your child would have no future branded as a bastard.”

  Miss Redding gasped, but Phoebe went on quickly. “Your brother was doing the only thing he could by the two of you: ensuring you both had a future. You must not think of Mr Wentworth or your child again. You are not yet twenty, and you have your life ahead of you. It’s full of possibilities as long as you can put the past behind you.”

  Phoebe’s hand strayed to her belly, and fear gripped her by the throat. Please, dear Lord, don’t let me be with child, she thought. I don’t think I could bear to lose a babe like poor Ada, and I do not have the wherewithal to see justice done by Wentworth.

  In the ribbon of light that sliced across the small utility room, Phoebe saw the pain in her eyes yet Miss Redding was not going to let it go.

  “You must help me find out who the woman is to whom Mr Wentworth is legally married. Don’t you see, if it were made public, he’d be forced to live with the common creature and at least that would be some consolation. Please, find out who she is and entice her to come forward. If he has treated her as badly as he has treated me and your mistress, then she’ll be only too pleased to inform the world of the kind of man he is. It’s not full justice he’d be served, but at least it’s something.”

  “A fine plan, Miss Redding, but how do you suppose I can learn the whereabouts of his wife? I’m—”

  “An ignorant servant, but Phoebe, my brother was speaking about you earlier, and he is full of admiration for your ability to mimic your betters. Why, he declared you could fool a duke! Therefore, if you can as easily deport yourself with the aristocracy as you can with the serving classes, then you can be a spy. Search out Wentworth’s contacts. I can help you! I know names, Phoebe, but I can’t do it. I’ve my reputation to think of, and I cannot go places alone as you can. I’d be recognized in some quarters—certainly as an unmarried woman in need of a chaperone.”

  “And so would I!” Phoebe shook her head. She was not entertaining any of it. Her mind was made up. There would be no fair trial for her if she fell into Wentworth’s clutches, and word from Mrs Withins was that he’d offered a handsome reward for anyone whose information led to Lady Cavanaugh’s arrest.

  Thank the good Lord Mr Redding would be taking her to London before the end of the week.

  “Wentworth and his staff wouldn’t recognize you either as a servant or a lady. You said it yourself! Why, you were only in your mistress’s employ for a month, and you say you met him but a couple of times.”

  Phoebe bit her lip. “I can’t do it. He would recognize me. I’m sure of it.”

  Ada looked fierce. “That’s not what you told my brother. You’re just saying it because you’re afraid.”

  “I am afraid, Ada. Mr Wentworth is a horrible man. I saw what he did to my mistress. No, I’m not going anywhere near him.”

  “I’m not suggesting you consort with him. Just that you quiz his circle: friends or his aide de co
mpte. I know where to find Collins. He served Mr Wentworth during the war and for five years after that. He was kind to me, and I think he feared Mr Wentworth, but he would do it for me—he’d tell me where to find Wentworth’s wife. And then I’d tell you, and you could seek her out.”

  When Miss Redding gripped Phoebe’s hand and begged her once more, Phoebe knew it really was time to leave. Agreeing to Miss Redding’s request that she move in more aristocratic circles would be like signing her death warrant.

  “Hugh, I’ve been ordering my thoughts since I came here.”

  Hugh glanced up from the writing desk in the parlor, surprised to see that his sister’s usual vacant look was replaced by an almost mutinous expression. Ada, before her tragedy, had been neither vacant nor fiery. Just a sweet, pliable girl with an occasional tendency to speak her mind to her brother.

  He blinked a couple of times, trying to reconcile for a moment just who this new young woman before him actually was.

  “Ordering your thoughts, have you?” he repeated.

  Ordering his thoughts was just what he’d been trying to do, but the book in front of him was still at the same page as it had been an hour before, and Hugh was as far advanced in deciding what to do as he had been when…

  When his life had been turned upside down. He blinked again. Good Lord, he couldn’t work himself out.

  “Hugh, are you listening to me?”

  He nodded.

  “When I first got here, I thought some mad impulse had taken possession of you to lease a house like this. Why, there’s nothing here for miles around.”

  He thought he wouldn’t push the point that Wentworth lived only one hour’s walk north. Not when Ada seemed more in possession of her faculties than she had in a very long time.

  No, he’d not bring up Wentworth ever again, for the more time passed, the more he realized that pursuing Wentworth was not going to achieve satisfaction for his sister.

  Right now, she looked exactly as any unspoiled young woman of his acquaintance might look, and he was certain she could get away with her sins and make a fine marriage were it not for Ada’s own insistence that she never intended looking at another man again.