The Spring Duke (A Duke for All Seasons)

by Jillian Eaton

  “I am sure she was very nice,” Athena countered, even though she was secretly glad as well. When Ambrose found a governess – if he found a governess – she would be out of a job, such as it were, and then she wouldn’t have any excuse to remain.

  The letter (which she’d found tucked between the cushions of a sofa) had gotten her through the door, but she wasn’t so naïve as to believe it would keep her here. Particularly since her and Ambrose’s kiss had been followed by a week of cold, icy silence. She might have thought she’d dreamt their midnight tryst if not for the way her lips tingled and her breasts ached whenever their paths crossed. Something which had been happening less and less frequently as of late.

  She suspected he was avoiding her on purpose, and her suspicions had all but been confirmed when she’d come upon him in the parlor last evening and he had bolted out of the room as if the hounds of hell were nipping at his heels.

  Vexing man. Adjusting her grip on the pencil, she returned to her drawing. Why couldn’t he admit there was something between them? More than something, if their passionate kiss was any indication. She supposed she should have been grateful he’d kept his distance – many men in his situation would have ruined her without a thought – but dammit, she didn’t want him to stay away from her. Having finally gotten a taste of genuine desire, she craved more.

  More kissing.

  More fondling.

  More whatever it was his tongue had done to her neck.

  A tremble coursed through her and she laid the pencil flat on her drawing pad, unable to focus on her potato bird nest any longer. She turned her attention to Victoria. The child had climbed up on the railing of the gazebo and was walking along it with her arms spread out and a line of concentration between her brows.

  “Very good,” she said approvingly. “You’re getting much better at that.”

  Reaching the end of the railing, Victoria carefully turned in a circle and beamed down at Athena. “Thank you. When do you think I’ll be ready to try the log?”

  On one of their daily excursions through Hyde Park they’d discovered a tree that had fallen across a wide stream. Victoria had been eager to cross it, but Athena had cautioned her to practice first.

  “Maybe tomorrow,” she said. “With the rain last night, it will be too–”

  “Victoria Charlotte Abigail, get down from there at once!” The duke’s navy blue coat billowed open as he stormed across the lawn like a rampaging bull. “Down,” he growled at his daughter, jabbing his finger at the ground. “Now.”

  “Yes, Father,” Victoria said meekly before she picked up her skirts and leapt from the railing in a graceful flutter of muslin.

  “Well done,” Athena remarked, earning herself the full weight of Ambrose’s dark glower.

  “Miss Dogwood,” he said between gritted teeth, “a word, if you would.”

  Much to her disappointment, he hadn’t called her by her given name since the night they’d kissed. Not surprising, given that he’d barely acknowledged her existence aside from a curt greeting whenever they happened to be in the same room. But he was certainly acknowledging her now.

  For the first time in seven days she had his complete and undivided attention. Unfortunately, he did not look very pleased. Then again, he never looked very pleased. The duke was a curmudgeon of the first order, but she’d gotten a glimpse of his softer side in her bedchamber. The side he hid from the world...and from himself.

  “Of course.” Tucking her drawing pad beneath her arm and her pencil behind her ear, she followed Ambrose around the side of the house to the back garden where a stone fountain trickled water into a round basin. Turning her back on the fountain and the naked cherub that sat atop it, she smiled politely at the duke. “Is there something you’d like to discuss, Your Grace?”

  He stared hard at her, as if she were a puzzle he couldn’t solve. A puzzle he didn’t know if he wanted to solve. Then he blinked, and raked his hand through his hair in such an obvious show of exasperation that Athena bit back a smile.

  “My daughter is a young lady,” he said. “Not a circus performer. As her governess you are supposed to be quelling her more adventurous traits, not encouraging them.”

  Athena rolled her eyes. “Victoria wasn’t in any danger.”

  “She could have fallen and broken her neck!”

  “From that measly height?” she scoffed. “The most she would have suffered was a skinned knee and a bruised ego. Why, when I was her age I was already climbing out of my bedroom window – which was on the third floor, mind you – and climbing down the wisteria.”

  Ambrose crossed his arms. “That does not improve my confidence, Miss Dogwood.”

  “Well it should. You needn’t worry so much about your daughter, Your Grace.” Without thinking, Athena reached out and placed her hand on his forearm. “She is a willful child, yes, but she is also sweet-natured, inquisitive, and in desperate need of a little more freedom.”

  A muscle pulsed on the side of the duke’s temple as he looked down to where Athena’s gloved fingers were wrapped around the deep blue fabric of his sleeve. He was quiet for several seconds, and when he finally lifted his head the bleak pain in his gaze made her heart ache. “I cannot have anything happen to her.”

  “You also cannot keep her locked in a gilded cage,” she said gently.

  “Why the bloody hell not?” he muttered, causing Athena to smile.

  “My parents did their best to lock me away, and look where I ended up. Halfway around the world on a duke’s doorstep. You wouldn’t want Victoria to follow in my footsteps, would you?”

  “Absolutely not.” He looked so horrified by the idea that Athena didn’t know whether to be amused or offended.

  “Oh I don’t know,” she said, glancing purposefully down at his mouth. It was a very fine mouth, the top lip perfectly in line with the bottom with nary a blemish to be found, and a delicate flush overcame her cheeks when she recalled what that mouth had done to her in the silky shadows of her bedchamber. What that mouth could still do to her if the duke dared kiss her again...or she kissed him. She lifted her gaze and coyly fluttered her lashes. “It hasn’t turned out too badly for me thus far.”

  “Miss Dogwood...” The raspy undertone in his voice had her pulse quickening in anticipation.

  “Yes?” she said breathlessly.

  Clenching his jaw, he turned his head away. When he looked back his countenance could have been carved from ice. Any vulnerability he’d been in danger of revealing was gone, replaced by a cold mask of indifference that made Athena want to stomp her foot in frustration.

  “What happened between us was a mistake,” he said, and it took all the self-control she possessed not to scoop up a handful of water from the fountain and splash it in his face. “One I deeply regret.”

  Yanking her hand away from his arm she fastened her fingers onto her hips, elbows protruding outwards. “Well I don’t,” she said with a rebellious toss of her head. “And if you were honest with yourself for once instead of hiding in your damn snow castle, you’d find you did not regret it either.”

  “What the devil is that supposed to mean?” he demanded.

  “It means you’re not as cold as you like to pretend. Victoria isn’t the only one being kept in a gilded cage. It’s clear you loved your wife–”

  “Be careful Miss Dogwood,” he warned.

  “–but her death should not prevent you from living.” Athena had been hesitant to broach the topic of the late Duchess of Blackburn whom, she had learned from a downstairs maid, had died in childbirth. But she couldn’t continue to blindly avoid the root cause of the duke’s apathy. Not if she wanted to give them a chance of ever moving forward. “With all due respect, Your Grace, you cannot mourn her forever.”

  His nostrils flared. “Have you ever lost a loved one?”

  “No,” she answered honestly. “But–”

  “Then you have no idea what you are talking about.”

  She pursed her li
ps at his acid tone. “Maybe not, but I know what I see with my own eyes, just as I know that your wife wouldn’t want you to close yourself off from everything and everyone.”

  “I believe I’ve had just about enough of this conversation.” He started to walk past her, but this time she wasn’t letting him storm away from his feelings as easily as that.

  “No. No.” Shoving her hand into his chest to stop his forward progression, she glared up at him with flashing eyes. “This time I walk away from you.” Spinning around in an indignant swirl of skirts, she proceeded to do precisely that.

  Stuffing his hands into the shallow pockets of his trousers, Ambrose scowled at Athena’s trim back side as she marched away from him with all the bearing of a young queen. With her crown of silvery blonde hair – for a woman who owned an inordinate amount of hats, she never seemed to be wearing one – and eyes that gleamed brighter than any jewel, she could have easily passed for royalty. Until she opened her mouth, that is.

  He couldn’t think of a single royal – past or present – with Athena’s audaciousness. She was the boldest, most presumptuous creature he’d ever encountered. If he knew what was good for him he would have chased her down and ordered her off his property at once. But that was the problem, wasn’t it? He’d stopped knowing what was good for him the moment she arrived.

  He used to think it was his uncomplicated, orderly life. One where the most difficult part of his day was choosing between lamb or salmon at dinner. One where he was in charge of absolutely everything. One where chaos and temptation simply did not exist. Then Athena had come flying in like a bloody whirlwind and all he’d known was chaos and temptation.

  Sweet, sweet temptation.

  Every night since their kiss he’d found himself standing outside her bedchamber like a love struck fool, his fist raised and ready to fall upon her door. But he didn’t knock. He never knocked. Instead he eventually turned and returned to his own room, where he laid awake staring up at the ceiling for an untold amount of time before sleep finally claimed him. And when he dreamed it wasn’t of Sophia, as it had been for so many long years, but of a bewitching fairy who had cast him under her spell and set his blood on fire with one single kiss.

  “What did you do to Miss Dogwood?”

  Stiffening, Ambrose turned to find himself confronted by his daughter, a tiny replica of the wife who he was trying desperately not to forget. Yet it seemed the harder he attempted to hold onto his memories the faster they slipped through his fingers, like sand being blown away by the wind.

  “What makes you think I did something?” he asked.

  “Because she ran away looking upset.”

  “She had an errand to attend to.” The simple white lie filled him with a flicker of guilt, but he could hardly tell Victoria the truth. Especially since he didn’t fully understand it himself. You see, darling, your governess and I had a moment of passion and since then I’ve been trying to ignore her very existence. Why? Well, I am not entirely sure...

  That was another lie. He knew why he’d been avoiding Athena. He just didn’t want to admit it to anyone, least of all himself.

  “You should be nicer to her.” Sitting on the edge of the fountain, Victoria began to idly kick her feet back and forth. Ambrose frowned.

  “I am nice to her.”

  “No.” His daughter shook her head. “You’re not. Whenever you’re in the same room together you are always glaring at her. Has she done something to anger you?”

  Shrugging out of his tailcoat and folding it over his arm, Ambrose sat beside his daughter. “Miss Dogwood has a very...strong personality.” That was one way to put it. “I only want to ensure that she is setting a good example for you to follow.”

  “She is. I like Miss Dogwood a great deal.”

  “You do?” Unable to keep the surprise from his tone, he looked closely at Victoria. “You’ve never liked one of your governesses before.”

  “I’ve never had a governess like Miss Dogwood before.”

  That was certainly true.

  “You do know Miss Dogwood is only here temporarily. She’s just filling in until a more permanent and proper governess can be found.”

  Victoria’s brows pinched together. “She is proper.”

  Ambrose barely contained his snort. “If she was a proper governess she would never let you outside without a bonnet or walk on the railing of the gazebo. Which are you never to do again, by the by,” he said sternly.

  “I wasn’t in any danger,” Victoria said, sounding so much like Athena that Ambrose rolled his eyes towards the heavens. God help him if even an ounce of Athena’s impertinence rubbed off on his daughter. There’d be no stopping her.

  Not for the first time he wondered why Tori couldn’t have inherited his wife’s soft, gentle demeanor. But their daughter had always been startlingly independent, even as a babe. Why, he remembered one afternoon when they’d been picnicking in the park. The nanny – he forgot her name – had spent the entire afternoon setting Victoria back onto the blanket and Victoria, adorably chubby with a perpetual string of drool trailing from her chin, had spent the entire afternoon trying to roll off it. Six months old and she’d already been determined to have her way. Now she was eleven, and he feared if he blinked she would somehow be eighteen.

  Bloody hell, where did the damn time go?

  And you’re missing it Sophia, he thought achingly. You’re missing all of it.

  Gruffly clearing his throat, he looked down at the ground where tiny sprouts of grass were pushing their way up through the soil. In a month, maybe less, everything would be green and blooming and full of life. In short order there would be more warm days than cool and too soon the air would turn swelteringly hot.

  He’d already instructed his staff to begin transitioning the household from London to Northampton where he and Victoria would spend the summer at Blackburn Keep, a sprawling country estate that had been in his family for generations. It was where he and Sophia had first met when she was a child of twelve and he a young lad of fourteen. Oddly, whenever he thought of their time together at Blackburn that was how he envisioned them: young, innocent, and carefree. Long before they were married. Long before Victoria was born. Long before Sophia was taken from him and he became – how had Athena put it? – closed off from everything and everyone.

  He supposed he had closed himself off after his wife’s death. But not on purpose. At least not at first. His grief had simply been too overwhelming to share with anyone else, so he hadn’t. Then as the weeks and the months and years passed, withholding his emotions became easier and easier until he grew accustomed to shielding himself from everything...and everyone.

  Even his own daughter.

  “Do you ever, ah, think of your mother?” Clasping his hands together between his knees, he glanced at Victoria out of the corner of his eye and saw he’d captured her full attention. Sophia was rarely a subject they discussed and never one he brought up himself.

  “Sometimes.” Her legs paused mid-swing. “Do you?”

  “Often,” he admitted. “I think of her often. She would be very proud of the young lady you’re becoming, my darling.”

  “Even though I’m nothing like her?”

  “Who told you that?” he asked, frowning.

  Victoria’s small shoulders lifted and fell in a shrug before her legs resumed kicking. “For some reason people think children can’t hear things even when they’re in the same room. It’s very peculiar.”

  “You look exactly like your mother.”

  “Yes, but looking like someone and being like them are two different things.”

  “That’s true,” he allowed. “Your mother was very agreeable. She never liked to argue.”

  “Never?” Victoria asked, her eyes widening.

  “Hardly ever,” Ambrose confirmed. “It simply wasn’t in her nature.”

  “I argue all the time.”

  The corners of his mouth twitched. “So I’ve noticed.”

 
; “I wish I could remember her.” The wistfulness in her voice pulled straight at his heart.

  “How could you?” he said, gently laying his hand atop of hers. “You were only a few hours old. But you have her portrait in your room. She’s always smiling down at you, Tori. Never forget that.”

  “You loved her very much.” It wasn’t a question, but an observation. One far too mature for the likes of a child, but then Victoria had always been wise beyond her years.

  “I did indeed.”

  “Do you think you could ever love anyone else as much as you loved Mother?”

  “I love you that much,” he said in a deft attempt to avoid the question. Unfortunately, while Victoria had not inherited Sophia’s gentle nature she had gotten his stubbornness and she wasn’t easily dissuaded.

  “What about Miss Dogwood? Do you think you could love her like you loved Mother?”

  It was a good thing Ambrose was already sitting down.

  “What – what makes you ask a question like that?” he coughed.

  “No reason,” his daughter said innocently. “I was just wondering. Well, could you?”

  “I could never love any woman like I loved your mother, Victoria. That would be impossible.”

  “Oh.” Her shoulders slumped, and she looked so crestfallen that he another prickling of guilt.

  “But,” he clarified, squeezing her hand, “I suppose, if the right person came along, I could love them in a different way. However, that person is not going to be Miss Dogwood.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because...” His mind blanked. “Because it just isn’t.”

  “I hate it when grownups use that as an answer,” Victoria grumbled.

  He tousled her hair. “And I hate it when little girls don’t wear their bonnets like they are supposed to. You wouldn’t want your face to turn red, would you? Go on inside, darling. It’s almost time for afternoon tea.”

  “Are you coming too?” she asked, springing to her feet.

  “In a moment.”

  “Father.” Stopping in the middle of the lawn, she glanced back at him over her shoulder.

  “Yes, Victoria?”