The Perfect Duchess

by Jen YatesNZ

  Sally patted her hand.

  ‘You’ll manage it. You have a talent for soothing troubled waters.’

  Sheri grimaced.

  ‘These waters look to be more in the nature of rough seas! There’s something going on between the two of them and this could be the storm that sinks the ship!’

  ‘Are you and the Duke courting, Sher? He’s paying you very particular attention. Lord Abingdon complained to Lady Myers about the Duke hinting him off—quite forcefully—when he came to claim his usual place on your dance card.’

  Annoyed at her sudden tendency to blush, Sheri covered her cheeks with her hands. But this was Sally. They’d been friends since school days.

  ‘He’s asked me to think about marriage—but—’

  ‘Jassie?’

  Sheri sighed.

  ‘I want—quite badly—to say yes. But he freely admits his heart still belongs to Jassie—always will! I don’t know if I could bear it. She’s my best friend and Windermere is Dom’s. It’s not as if we could avoid visiting and—socializing!’

  ‘You love him—otherwise you wouldn’t mind so much.’

  She needed to talk to someone. Sally was as true a friend as Jassie.

  ‘I’ve always loved him. As hopelessly as he loves Jassie. Ironic, isn’t it? He’s only ever had eyes for Jass. I’ve watched—and ached—for years. Then, I had no right to feel—slighted, jealous, rejected or whatever it is I feel. But if we married—’

  ‘Harewood didn’t love me when we married, was besotted with that actress from Drury Lane, demanding I accept he’d continue to maintain her after our marriage. It was no secret. Nor was it any secret I’d take him any way I could have him! I told him I was marrying him for Wentworth Place. I dreamt of living there when we used to visit as a child. But you know—once I gave him his heir and nearly died doing so, he was beside himself, determined to do anything necessary to ensure there’d be no more pregnancies because he didn’t want to lose me.—Sometimes, men just need a wake-up call!’

  ‘Harewood loves you now? What happened to the actress?’

  ‘He paid her off, soon after our marriage. I’m just saying, Sher, love can happen after marriage. Especially if you already love him. You will be in his bed, not Jassie. Now we’d better get back before the Duke or your Mama sends out a search party.’

  Sheri timed her entry back into the ballroom with the end of the dance and quietly made her way back into the circle about Augusta.

  ‘Sheri, my love! Is everything all right? I lost sight of you on the dance floor—and well, Lady Jersey has just been telling me all about the Regent’s plans for Princess Charlotte’s wedding to Prince Leopold. One thing that man knows how to do is spend money! And then there’s the possibility Princess Caroline will want to be present at her daughter’s wedding. Well, any natural mother would want that, wouldn’t they? And that would cause another political incident!’

  For once Sheri found herself grateful for Lady Jersey’s tendency to rattle on.

  Dom wasn’t so easily diverted.

  ‘Where’s my cousin? Why didn’t he escort you back to me?’

  ‘I don’t know where your cousin is. I left him on the floor.’ She didn’t think she needed to qualify that by telling him when she’d left Bax. ‘And I came back to Mama. You—don’t own me yet.’

  Hopefully that controversial statement would take his mind off his cousin.

  He didn’t seem to hear the waspish comment; heard nothing in fact after she’d admitted abandoning her partner on the floor.

  ‘I’ll kill him yet. What did he say that you dismissed him before he could escort you back here?’

  ‘That’s between Lord Baxendene and myself. He was in his cups, I believe, just as you warned me.’

  ‘If he insulted you—’

  ‘Dom,’ she said sharply, ‘leave it!—Are we dancing this next dance or going to stand here arguing and giving everyone something else to titter about?’

  He drew a few steadying breaths, the scar pulsing at the jaw-line as he struggled to bring his Beresford temper under control. That was something she knew instinctively about Dominic. While control of his environment was important to him, control of himself was even more so.

  ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘We’ll dance—’

  Somehow she also knew the discussion wasn’t finished.

  …

  By midnight she’d had enough. Conversations broken off mid-sentence as she and Dom promenaded between dances. Sharp-eyed matrons on the sidelines whispering behind their hands. Besides, she hadn’t slept well the night before and her head was beginning to ache abominably.

  Part of her wanted to stay and savor every moment in Dom’s arms, the focus of his attentions. The craven part of her still wanted to flee, as far as possible from the terrible temptation of him. The inner battle was making her ill.

  ‘Would you mind terribly if we left now?’ she asked Dom as he led her back to Augusta after their third waltz. Being so close, bodies almost touching, his breath occasionally warm against her forehead, had brought her to the point of sensory overload. If he were to ask her again to marry him, she was terribly afraid she no longer had the strength to refuse him.

  ‘Thank goodness!’ Augusta sighed, settling back against the comfortable squabs in the carriage. ‘If I’d had to listen to one more spiteful on-dit from Rosemary Blackwood I might’ve been unforgivably rude. Lord, my head aches! These affairs seem so tedious these days!’

  She closed her eyes, resting her head back against the seat. Sheri had a suspicion her devious Mama was making sure she couldn’t see when Dom stripped off her glove and his, then held her hand against his hard muscular thigh all the way back to Grosvenor Square.

  ‘I’d like to come in and talk to Sheri, if I may Aunt Gussy,’ he said in his best autocratic ducal tones, as they pulled up outside Parmenter House.

  ‘Well, certainly you may,’ she responded, ‘but don’t expect me to sit about and chaperone! I need one of Mercy’s tisanes and my bed.’

  They were no sooner in the house than Augusta bid them goodnight and floated up the stairs to her rooms.

  For a woman who never suffered from headaches her ploy was obvious and Sheri was about to comment as much when Dom said, ‘In here,’ and led the way into the library as if it were his own home.

  Lomas hovered in the hall looking uncertain.

  ‘That’ll be all thank you, Lomas. The Duke won’t be staying long and I’ll lock up after him.’

  ‘If you’re sure, my Lady?’

  ‘Very sure, Lomas. Good night.’

  ‘I won’t be staying long?’ Dom growled as he closed the door behind them.

  Eying the closed door, Sheri wondered if he was anticipating an argument—or meant to seduce her. She didn’t dare tell him what had transpired between her and Bax. It was enough for them to duel over. But they were cousins! And usually the best of friends.

  But if Dom intended seduction how would she resist him?

  Desperately she sought the icy facade that had served her so well for so long.

  ‘Why won’t I be staying long? Your mother has trusted you to my care. We’ve things to discuss!’

  ‘To what purpose?’ she asked, keeping her tone deliberately aloof.

  Chapter 5

  She was freezing up on him again and he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to kiss or shake her! Didn’t she understand what Bax was about?

  A week ago he’d have told Bax to direct his nefarious intentions elsewhere because Sherida Dearing was a lady, not some barque of frailty he could dally with. Tonight he wanted to take his cousin apart with his bare hands and he didn’t even know what had transpired between him and Sheri.

  Having decided to make her his duchess seemed to have unhinged his mind. She would listen to him and he’d not allow her to freeze him out.

  ‘Do you no longer have a care for the reputation you’ve guarded so well all these years?’

  Pulling her hand from his, she c
rossed the room to stand behind the armchair on the far side of the fireplace. The sudden chill in the air was enough to ice over the Thames. Good, because he was just in the mood to effect a thaw and she might not like how he went about it, if she thought to argue.

  Her remaining glove flew down onto the chair, somewhat like a gauntlet, closely followed by her cloak. Then she was once again exposed in a gown revealing more of her back than her front, a portrait in dichotomy. What the gown didn’t expose was somehow more alluring than all the plump breasts parading in their low cut gowns through the Hurstwick’s ballroom.

  But her beautiful brown eyes blazed like twin fires on a moonless night. There was nothing icy about her now. Incandescent would be a more apt description.

  ‘Say what you have to say, Your Grace—’

  By the time she’d rasped out the formal moniker, his glove had landed on the chair and he was upon her, without even realizing he’d moved.

  ‘Don’t start ‘Your Gracing’ me,’ he growled, gripping her shoulders and taking an inordinate satisfaction from the feel of her bare skin beneath his fingers.

  Satin and ivory to his touch, he craved more; the sweetness of her throat, the tenderness beneath her chin. Sliding his fingers to the back of her neck, he pressed his thumbs under her jaw, lifting her face for his kiss. Fire still raged in her eyes, though more of a smoldering volcano.

  His lips closed on hers, her mouth opened, inviting him in and her naked fingers clutched the back of his neck as hungrily as his held her. He never thought to refuse the invitation. His body recognized a pliant, pleading woman when he held her in his arms and his blood was heating rapidly and flowing in predictable directions. He was fucking her mouth with his tongue—and she was fucking him back. Hell yes!

  He slid one arm down her spine, holding her steady as he pressed forward, arching her back, increasing his access to the tender skin of her throat.

  Gardenias. Awareness fell away and they stood in a secret garden redolent with the scent of the exotic blooms so perfectly epitomizing her. Only his strength held her up and if he chose to lay her down she’d go willingly. Nuzzling the edge of her bodice, he sought the swell of a breast, the valley between, beneath the silken edge of her gown; the nipple beading with the desire practically steaming off her body.

  Her breasts would be perfect for although her gowns never revealed a hint of cleavage, they molded to a bountiful plumpness he could almost taste. His hand followed his mouth, cupping a breast, savoring the resilience through the silk, hungering for the weight.

  His fingers hooked into the lace edging of the bodice and began to tug.

  Suddenly his arms were empty and she stood a yard away from him, chest heaving and hands tugging the bodice back into place.

  Her eyes were frantic.

  A stranger inhabited his skin. Sheri wasn’t a member of the Matrix Club, or a married lady seeking diversion from a boring or disinterested husband. Though not in the first flush of youth, twenty-three was not all that old. She might not be as naive as a young lady in her first season, but he was pretty certain she was still a virgin.

  While he was experienced, even a little world-weary at thirty-seven. He couldn’t stop looking at her eyes, wide and filled with such a mixture of emotions he could define none; he the Master, the servicer of virgins. He hoped he was looking at desire, hunger for what his kiss had promised and shock at the overwhelming power of it. He didn’t want to believe it was fear looking back at him.

  A portrait in dichotomy. The words came to mind again and he realized how apt they were, on several levels. Dark brows and eyes the warm brown of aged sherry were an unusual contrast to hair like silk and moonbeams, just as the icy demeanor she cultivated was at peculiar odds to the incandescence blazing from those eyes the second before he kissed her. Tall, curvaceous, her body was made to be pleasured, yet she dressed to conceal any hint of the sensuality he now knew simmered beneath those chaste gowns.

  ‘I’ll not apologize for that, Sher,’ he rasped out at last, realizing his own chest was heaving as if he’d been running. He wasn’t some callow sixteen-year-old roused to the point of no return! ‘In fact, I thank you! You have a unique ability to make me forget—anything but wanting you! And that is a good thing. Startling—we’ve known each other all our lives after all—but good.’

  She seemed unable to speak or move. Just stood with a hand at the bodice of her gown and a strange expression, almost of horror in her eyes. Was she in shock? Probably!

  He closed the space between them, gently pressing her into the armchair.

  Her hand was trembling—or was that his? He’d never lost control with a woman, not since Veronica. Every sexual encounter was controlled by him, orchestrated, choreographed with exact timing of advancement, pressure, passion, to provide the peak of sensation for her while giving him total satisfaction—without losing control.

  This was Bax’s fault, threatening to sully all that was pure Sherida. Why had she walked away from his cousin tonight? There could only be one answer for he knew what Bax aimed to win. He had to protect her from his damned cousin and the only way was for her to grant him the right. He still held her hand, small and soft in his much larger one. It looked almost fragile, but he knew that wasn’t so, superb horsewoman that she was.

  Sinking to his knee, he enclosed her hand in both of his, holding firmly against her brief convulsive attempt to withdraw. Her eyes were wary now; her lips, plump and rosy from his kisses were slightly parted, tempting—

  ‘I’ll not share you with my damned cousin! Everything’s a game to him and I look forward to the day he discovers otherwise.’ He needed to get a grip, calm down. ‘I cannot leave you vulnerable to him. Give me the right to send him to the devil!—Sheri, will you do me the honor of accepting my hand in marriage?’

  What were her eyes revealing to him? For the life of him he could only see desperation, fear, uncertainty.

  ‘I vow to do all in my power to make you happy.’

  Hell! He was pleading now. Would she damned well say something?

  ‘What’s going on between you and Bax?’

  Anything but that!

  ‘Nothing,’ he said, too quickly.

  Sheri wouldn’t be gulled by false assurances. But the uncertainty had vanished from her eyes. Tilting her head to one side, she lifted perfectly curved, dark brows at him. He’d never seen her skeptical, teasing—intimate. He wanted to kiss her again. Damn. He needed to come up with a more plausible answer or she’d be showing him the door and kisses were the least of what he could expect from her thereafter. Astonishingly, the thought of never kissing that quivering mouth again was peculiarly—bereaving.

  ‘It’s gents’ business. Nothing for you to worry about. Only say you’ll marry me and I can hint him away.’

  Quite forcefully!

  ‘I know I’m considered to be almost at my last prayers, but I’m not so desperate I’ll tolerate being made to look a fool for the sake of retaining your regard, Dom. And if—we were to become husband and wife I’d expect we’d not shut one another out. We’d—talk about things—together.’

  She stumbled to a finish, her eyes wide and pleading. She was right. He had to give more of himself, more of an explanation, something to satisfy her, but not the truth. Heaven forbid she discovered he’d actually entered into a bet with Bax.

  ‘Dammit, Sher, Bax and I have rivalled one another all our lives. It’s a habit with him. Whatever I focus on, he does too. It’s a game to him. All of life is a game to him. Whatever he offers you, it won’t be marriage!’

  ‘I know that!’

  Realizing he’d been holding his breath, he let it out on a sigh of relief.

  ‘Then?’

  ‘I think—I need—to think about it—about us.—And I’d hope you’d have a little more trust in my discernment!’

  Jassie was the only other he’d asked for marriage since inheriting the title, and she hadn’t had to think about it! He knew she’d have said yes but f
or Windermere. Any other woman would fall at his feet! For his title, wealth, build and looks. He wasn’t conceited. It just was.

  He was breathing hard—with disbelief!

  ‘That works both ways. I need to know what Bax said to upset you on the dance floor.’

  Color flooded her face, war flared in her eyes.

  ‘Not if you plan to rush off and call him out.’

  ‘That bad? Then I will—’

  ‘Why do men think violence sorts everything?’

  He grinned lazily at her.

  ‘We’re simple creatures really—and very physical.’

  She huffed in exasperation, eyes dark with impatience.

  ‘I promise not to call him out.’

  Still her gaze questioned, seeking assurance perhaps.

  ‘He asked for—a night with me—in return for the use of Zeus.’

  Red spots danced behind his eyes and it was a struggle to stay on his knees. With that odd little tilt of her head she observed his battle then raised those brows at him again.

  ‘Now you have to keep your promise.’

  ‘I do, but I didn’t promise not to rearrange his pretty face!’

  ‘Enough,’ she snapped, all trace of levity gone.

  ‘Not nearly enough!’ he retorted, gripping her hands. ‘My knee is protesting, but I’ll stay here at your feet until you consent to our marriage. I promise to you all I have, all I am.’

  Still she tormented him with her hesitation.

  ‘Just say yes, Sher. We can work on the rest together.’

  Her eyes roamed his face. What was she searching for? He had no more to offer.

  ‘I spend much of my time at Springwoods—and I’m used to managing Springwoods. It’s not something I intend to give up.’

  Original. Independent. Unique. Never boring, because in some ways she was as deeply imbued with the need to control as he was. Cede some, retain some. A trade-off then. He smiled.

  ‘I’ll not interfere at Springwoods. I’d also deed to you my Somerset property, Brenton Grange. You shall manage them as you will.’