“Your grace!” Sarah could barely form the words, her breathing was so erratic. The thought of entering James’s room was beyond scandalous. “Have you lost your mind?”
James laughed. “Not yet, but I confess, I am having a little trouble thinking clearly. The image of your hair against the white of my pillow is quite, um, elevating.”
It was early March, yet it could have been the hottest day in August, based on how Sarah felt. Now she understood what the Abingtons had meant by a “warm” conversation. She looked away. Up ahead she saw a cottage with a neat white fence around it.
“I think you will have to drag your mind away from experiments, your grace. We have company.”
James sighed. “So I see.”
Two boys, about eight years old, hung over the fence, waving enthusiastically.
“Hullo, yer grace! Can I hold Buttercup?”
“Naw, I’m older, Tim, plus ye got to hold her last time.”
“Did not!”
“Did too!”
“Buttercup?” Sarah asked.
James laughed. “Lizzie named her. I take it she—the horse, not Lizzie—is partial to buttercups.” James stopped the gig and helped Sarah down. “Gentlemen,” he said to the squabbling boys, “mind your manners, please.”
“Sorry, yer grace.”
“Pardon, yer grace.”
Sarah looked down at two identical, grubby, young boys.
“Sarah, may I present Thomas and Timothy Pearson?” James said. “Gentlemen, this is Miss Sarah Hamilton from Philadelphia.”
The boys’ eyes grew large. Sarah was grateful that Thomas had already lost his front tooth while Timothy had not, otherwise she would have given up all hope of telling them apart.
“Yer from America?” Timothy asked.
“Across the ocean?” Thomas breathed.
“Did ye live with Red Indians?”
“What kind of ship did ye sail on? Charlie Bent-worth’s cousin’s in the navy. He sailed with Nelson.”
“Who cares about stupid ships?” Timothy interrupted his brother. “Is it true Indians wear feathers and are very fierce?”
Sarah laughed. “I’m afraid I don’t know much about ships,” she said to Thomas. “The one I sailed on was big, but it rocked constantly and I was very sick.” She smiled at Thomas’s disappointed expression and turned to Timothy. “As to the Indians, the men wear feathers when they are dressed for war, I believe, and are very fierce fighters, but in general, I think they are not so very different from you or me.”
“Boys, I realize Miss Hamilton is much more interesting than Buttercup, but can one of you take charge of the reins nonetheless?”
Timothy, or maybe it was Thomas—Sarah couldn’t see their grins to be sure—took Buttercup. James and Sarah turned toward the cottage. Two little girls came running out, a smaller child following behind them. The girls skidded to a stop in front of James and dropped credible curtseys. Two pairs of large brown eyes turned to Sarah. The baby pushed between their skirts and held her pudgy arms in the air.
“Up!” she demanded.
James laughed and lifted her to sit in his arms.
“This is Ruth.” Ruth hid her face in his cravat.
“How old are you, Ruth?” Sarah asked.
Two fat fingers appeared.
“Two years old! What a big girl.”
“She’s just a baby.” Timothy poked Ruth’s chubby leg. Thomas had won charge of Buttercup for the moment.
Ruth pulled her face out of James’s neck cloth and kicked back at her brother. “Not baby!”
“And this is Miss Maggie and Miss Jane,” James said, introducing the other girls.
“Ruth!” A short, comfortably plump woman came out of the cottage, carrying a chubby little boy about eight months old. “Oh, hello, yer grace. I thought I heard the gig.”
“Hello, Becky. I’ve come to have a look at your roof. Is Tom still out in the fields?”
“Aye. He should be home soon fer lunch if ye want to speak to him. Would ye like to come in fer some tea while ye wait?”
The tiny cottage was cluttered, but clean. Sarah squeezed next to James at the worn kitchen table. Ruth sat on his lap. Her tiny fingers traced the patterns on his vest and twisted his buttons while he talked with her mother. He seemed so much at ease, this duke, sitting in a cottage, talking to his tenant’s wife. Not at all like the stiff English aristocrats Sarah had imagined. Ruth found his pocket watch and giggled. James’s larger hand came up to cover hers. She bounced on his lap and grabbed his hand with both of hers. He laughed and Sarah felt tears burn the corners of her eyes.
A short, stocky man came into the kitchen then with Maggie and Jane. His shirt was rolled up at the sleeves and his hair was wet from where he must have cleaned up at the pump outside.
Ruth twisted on James’s lap. “Pa!” She stretched her arms up to her father. James laughed.
“I’m always losing the pretty girls to you, Tom,” he said as he handed Ruth over to her father.
“Aye, well, it looks like ye’ve brought a pretty girl of yer own to visit, yer grace.” The man smiled at Sarah and then bent to kiss Becky.
Sarah was able to sit quietly and listen to Tom and James talk about their shared childhood and the scrapes they and Robbie and Charles had gotten into. When Tom finished his meal, he and James went out to have a look at the roof. Sarah helped Becky clean up and get the little ones settled. She was just giving Billy a last pat as he settled down for his nap when James walked in. He came to stand quietly beside her.
“Time to go,” he whispered. Sarah felt the warmth of his body next to hers. For a heartbeat she imagined that Billy was their child and that this was their cottage.
Some girls dreamed of weddings and babies, Sarah thought as she let James help her into the gig. Not she. She had never imagined having a family of her own. James slapped the reins and Buttercup ambled forward. She had never imagined having a husband of her own.
The earnest young men who’d joined her father’s causes had not appealed to her, nor, she admitted, had she appealed to them. They were too much like her father—single-minded, driven. They took little notice of Dr. Hamilton’s spinster daughter. The butcher’s boy was the only male who had ever noticed her. She’d been flattered by his attention—until he’d kissed her.
“Let’s get out and walk a bit.” James pulled the gig to a halt and looped Buttercup’s reins over a branch. The fat little horse immediately stuck his nose into a clump of buttercups, sneezed, and began nibbling the tall grass at the base of the tree.
“He doesn’t eat the buttercups?” Sarah asked, extending her hand to James.
“Oh, no. They would make him sick—buttercups are poisonous. I imagine he just likes the color.” James ignored her hand, gripping her around her waist instead and lifting her easily to the ground. He held her for a moment longer than necessary.
Sarah stared at his cravat, listening to Buttercup’s enthusiastic chomping. Somewhere high above her a bird called and another answered. A small animal rustled through the undergrowth.
Was James going to kiss her?
Did she want him to?
They were quite alone. A step or two, and they would be safe even from Buttercup’s prying eyes. Sarah suppressed a nervous giggle. She kept her head down and moistened her lips.
James could even begin his research for his silly treatise if he wanted to. Did she want him to?
Of course not! What had gotten into her? The degenerate British air must be corrupting her. That and a degenerate British duke. The image of that particular duke with all his lovely golden skin flashed into her mind and she choked.
“Are you all right?” James put her hand on his arm and turned with her to walk up a short hill.
“I’m fine.” She would be finer if she had a fan. She definitely would benefit from a cooling breeze. Thankfully her bonnet hid her reddened cheeks.
They reached a broad clearing that looked out over the surrounding co
untryside. James leaned back against a tree, putting his hand over hers where it rested on his arm and pulling her close to his side.
Sarah turned to survey the view. “Is all this your land?”
“Yes.”
She heard the pride in his voice.
“It’s been in your family for generations?”
“Since the Conqueror. For over seven hundred years a Runyon has been at Alvord.”
Sarah gazed out at the tidy fields, the fruit trees, the forests, the hills. What would it be like to be part of a family that traced its roots through so many centuries? How far back did the Hamiltons go? She didn’t know. Her father had never talked about his family’s history. It wasn’t the American way. Everything was new in America. Everyone was starting over. She was proud of that spirit, but she could understand why James would want a son to stand here after him.
“Who will inherit if you don’t marry?”
“Richard.”
She felt his body stiffen. She sighed. “That would be a crime, but I still think marriage to me is not the answer, your grace.”
“James, Sarah. Please don’t talk of marriage, yet call me ‘your grace.’”
Sarah heard the plea in his words and responded to it.
“James, I don’t have any of the skills you need in a wife. I don’t know the first thing about English society. I’ve grown up on republican tracts. I’ve only ever lived in a narrow little townhouse. I’m not beautiful or accomplished. Surely there is some English girl who is much more suited to be your wife.”
James tugged her to face him. “You are beautiful, Sarah, and I don’t want an English girl, at least none of the English girls I’ve yet encountered. They make me feel like a fox running before the hounds. Come to London and you will see. The girls and their mamas don’t want me, they want my title and pounds per annum.”
“I don’t believe that. A girl would have to be blind not to fall in love with you.”
James grinned. “Are you blind, then, Sarah? Or does that mean that you’ve fallen in love with me?”
Sarah flushed. “I hardly know you. And that is beside the point. You need a girl who knows how to go on in your society.”
James moved his hands to cup her face, tilting her chin up so he could look directly into her eyes. Somehow he had managed to lose his gloves. She felt the warmth of his palms cradling her jaw, the seductive pressure of his long fingers massaging the sensitive spot just below her ear—the spot his lips had found so disastrously at the Green Man. He was a magician, weaving his spell around her.
“You can learn, sweetheart. I don’t intend to spend much time in society. I told you, I really am a farmer at heart.” His thumbs smoothed her cheekbones. “Come to London, Sarah, and you’ll see how horrible it is. Save me from it, please. I don’t want a society girl. I don’t want a society marriage, a marriage like my parents had. I want a marriage like Tom and Becky’s. Don’t you?”
Sarah could not deny it. Suddenly she wanted nothing more than to have a husband and a baby and the love that was so evident in that little cottage.
“Yes, James,” she whispered. “Yes, I do.”
He bent his head.
He’s an English duke, Sarah thought, moistening her lips. A degenerate, womanizing British peer. A stranger.
His breath teased over her lips. If she tilted her head just the slightest bit, she could bring her lips to his. She was tempted. Tempted? She was starving for his touch. But that was too forward. No, it was beyond forward. It was wanton.
She started to pull back, but his hands held her steady. He closed the gap between them, gently tracing her lips with the tip of his tongue and then covering them softly with his.
He didn’t feel like a stranger. He felt like home.
That was when the bullet slammed into the tree trunk just above their heads.
Chapter 6
Richard Runyon stood deep in the shade under an oak tree behind the Green Man. “What do you mean, you missed, you bloody idiot?” He struggled to keep his voice low.
“I’m sorry, yer lordship. How was I to know he’d kiss the girl right then?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Were they standing close? Did he have his arms around her?”
The man shrugged and shuffled his feet in the dirt. Richard gritted his teeth. God, James would be dead three times over if he could find just one semi-competent accomplice.
“At least tell me what she looked like.”
“I’m not sure, yer lordship.” The idiot scratched his head. Lice, Richard thought. That would just complete the day if he acquired vermin from this brainless piece of horse dung. “She ’ad on a bonnet. Alvord didn’t take it off to kiss ’er.”
“Was she tall and thin?”
“Aye, long and skinny. Came up to Alvord’s shoulder.”
“Damn. Sounds like the Hamilton chit.” Richard slammed his hand against the tree trunk. The pain cleared his mind. “Did she struggle?”
“No, yer lordship, not that I could see. ’Course I shot at ’em right then, so mayhap she would of put up a fuss. I took off as soon as the bullet hit. Yer cousin moves like lightning, ye know.”
“Hmm.” Richard thought about the possibilities. It was too much to hope that the girl would find James repulsive. No female ever had. And she was staying with James at Alvord. Maybe he didn’t have as much time as he thought.
“Uh, yer lordship, about my coins…”
“What?” Richard swallowed the anger that surged through him again. He couldn’t shout and bring attention to himself. His fingers flexed. He’d dearly love to put his hands around this idiot’s throat. “Your coins? Be glad to leave with your life, you stupid…”
The man was gone. Richard swallowed again. If only Philip were here. Philip would calm him. But Philip wasn’t here; the anger was—wave after wave crashing in his head, his chest, his groin. He would explode soon. He needed release now.
He heard a rustle of cloth, the sound of shoes stepping through grass. That girl—Molly—that whore was coming toward the oak. She had called him a bastard. She and her friend had made him look foolish in front of James. He had hated them for that. He had wanted to hurt them, to break that one bitch’s wrist. He had backed down then; he would get his satisfaction now.
The girl came closer. Stupid. She was as stupid as all the others. He grabbed her. She started to scream, but his mouth came down hard on hers, cutting off the sound and grinding her lips into her teeth. She struggled, but he was much larger and stronger than she. He thrust her up against the oak’s trunk. God, this was better than when he’d taken her in her room. Much better. He was already hard. He managed to loosen his breeches, to raise her skirts. His anger and lust mixed together. He rammed into her, crushing her up against the tree as he pumped his hate into her helpless body.
She got her hands free as he pulled back. She went for his eyes, but his arms were longer than hers. He wrapped his fingers around her neck and squeezed. Her hands flew up, pulling on his hands, but she was not strong enough. Stupid sow, to think she could match his strength. He watched her eyes, the one still purple from where he had hit her before, fill with panic. Watched them bulge, her mouth opening in a silent scream. Watched her face collapse.
He smelled death.
He ejaculated again against her corpse, then let her body slide down the oak trunk to huddle on the ground.
He felt much calmer.
James gazed out the window of his study. Rain ran in sheets down the glass.
“So you think your cousin Richard shot at us?”
“At me. I’m certain he—or rather his accomplice—was aiming only at me.”
Sarah moved. He could see her now, reflected in the window. She was wearing one of her new gowns. He wished Mrs. Croft had made the neck lower. That frill of lace trimming the bodice was quite unnecessary. Her lovely throat and lovelier bosom should be displayed to better advantage. He smiled. He would have her—and Lizzie, too, of course—to a London modiste as so
on as they got to town. London fashions were definitely more appealing.
“How can you smile?”
He turned and took her hand. “I was admiring your gown. Did you know it makes your eyes blue?”
“My eyes are not blue.”
“They are tonight.” He bent his head to breathe in her light, sweet scent. “Another section for my treatise.”
Sarah pulled her hand free. “You are being absurd, your grace.”
“James.”
“Your grace.” She stepped back, putting the corner of his desk between them. “Didn’t you say your aunt and Lady Amanda were to chaperone my stay here? They are somewhat conspicuous in their absence.”
“Perhaps they have concluded that since the horse has bolted, there’s no need to lock the stable door.”
Sarah’s eyes shot blue sparks. “The horse has not bolted.”
“Well, no, but wouldn’t she like to?”
James closed the distance between them, lightly imprisoning Sarah’s wrists. She pulled back slightly, her cheeks flushed.
“She certainly would not!”
“No? Not even a little?”
“Not the tiniest bit.”
“Are you sure?” James pulled Sarah’s hands gently forward, drawing them behind his back and bringing her up against his body. “It can get terribly stuffy in a stable.” He dipped his head, feathering his lips along her hairline.
“Wouldn’t the horse like to poke her nose out the open door?” he whispered. “Feel the breeze? Smell the night air?”
Sarah’s eyes had drifted closed, so he detoured to brush his lips over her lids before he traveled across her cheekbone to the sensitive spot beneath her ear. She made a funny little noise in her throat, half mewl, half sigh, and tilted her head so his lips could find the place easily.
He buried his face in her hair.
“Sweetheart.” He dropped her wrists so he could put his hands to better use. Perhaps he could do something about that annoying frill around the neck of her bodice. It was most definitely in the way.
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