The Dream of a Duchess

by Sande, Linda Rae

  “The garden?” Isabella responded in disbelief. “Not your stables, or the hunting grounds, or... or the house?”

  “You needn’t sound so incredulous,” he replied with a smirk. “I had the gardener do it several years before I married Jane. So it would be ready when she...” He allowed the sentence to trail off, just then remembering that Jane had never seen the garden. She had refused to make the trip to Huntinghurst, sure it would be too rustic for her tastes. Too far from a city.

  “’Tis a beautiful garden,” Isabella said, wondering at his sudden quiet. “And the blooms continued until the snow fell last winter,” she went on. “I hadn’t seen snow in years. The horses loved it, of course. They loved playing in it.”

  Octavius angled his head as he listened to her words, rather stunned at how beautiful she appeared in the dim light from the lantern. How she seemed to glow as she spoke of his horses. When her face suddenly took on a different expression, one of curiosity, he was jolted from his reverie.

  A soft knicker had his attention going to a horse that was making its way in their direction and doing so rather quickly. “Whatever are you doing out of the stables?” Isabella asked as she stood up and moved toward the yearling, the light from the lantern on the stone bench casting her long shadow so the horse was partly hidden from Octavius’ view.

  The duke watched in alarm, wondering how a horse could have escaped its stall—unless it hadn’t been put into its stall. Then he wondered if something might be wrong with Master George.

  The yearling knickered again, its head bobbing up and down as it approached. Isabella reached out and pressed her hand against the side of his neck. “Something’s wrong,” she said as she turned to find the duke directly behind her. “Perseus would never leave his stall at night unless something spooked him,” she claimed, not about to add that the yearling had learned how to lift the latch so he could take his leave whenever he pleased.

  Octavius was about to head for the stables, but remembered the lantern and went back for it. “Stay here,” he ordered, his quick steps and long strides taking him past her and the horse before she could put voice to a protest.

  Left in the near-dark—only a quarter-moon lit the western sky—Isabella kept her hand on the horse and moved to where the flags were evident. She watched as the duke disappeared into the front door of the stables, a chorus of knickers and neighs greeting him. The lantern’s light cast an eerie glow through the stable’s open door, occasionally disappearing for a moment before flaring to a golden yellow.

  “Did you manage the latch yourself? To get out of your stall?” she whispered to Perseus. Thoughts of the horse escaping on its own were replaced with one where his escape was assisted by someone. Fear had her imagining the worst—a horse thief intent on taking as many of the beasts as he could set free all at once.

  What if he had a pistol?

  Her eyes widened before she took a hasty breath, wanting desperately to cry out and warn the duke. Perhaps if she moved a bit closer to the stables...

  The noise from within the stables grew as the horses voiced their displeasure at whatever was going on. A moment later, she heard George’s voice join the fray before she saw him run past the stable door. A few shouts, a few more neighs and then... nothing.

  Taking a few more steps toward the stables, she was nearly beyond the east wing when Perseus made a sound of protest. “What is it?” she whispered softly, realizing Perseus sensed her fear.

  She turned her attention back to the stables, gasping when she realized the duke was silhouetted in the doorway. He carried the lantern in one hand as he made his way toward her, something dark cradled in his other arm.

  “What happened?” she asked as she rushed to meet him. “And what is that?”

  Looking a bit disheveled, Octavius allowed a sigh. “A dog, I think,” he replied. He attempted to hold the creature so Isabella could see it, but it burrowed into the his bent arm.

  “A puppy,” she said in awe. “But... but where’s the mother? Is it from one of your hunting dogs?”

  Octavius dipped his head. “No. There are no bitches in the kennels, and this one’s mother is dead. Seems she thought that Perseus’ stable would be a good place to leave this one, but I think she was kicked at some point.”

  “Oh, dear,” Isabella murmured as she reached out to take the puppy from the duke. “Do you suppose there are others?”

  “George is looking now, but I fear they may have been born somewhere else. Probably in the forest. She was no doubt in the process of moving them into the stables when one of the horses took exception to her presence.” He directed his comment to Perseus, thinking the yearling had been the one to do the kicking since it was his stall in which the puppy had been deposited.

  Isabella’s attention was on the black and white ball of fur she held, rather surprised to find the creature’s eyes wide open and its pink tongue peeking out. A quiet whine sounded followed by a yawn that displayed a row of sharp, white teeth. “Well, I suppose we need to find a nurse for this one.” But if none of the duke’s hunting dogs were female...

  “I rather doubt it’s going to make it through the night,” Octavius warned quietly.

  Her attention suddenly back on the duke, Isabella allowed a gasp. “Isn’t there something that can be done?”

  Grimacing, as if he knew she would persist with wanting to save the puppy, Octavius said, “I suppose he could be bottle fed—”

  “I can do that.”

  The duke regarded his ward for a moment, momentarily struck by how she looked cradling the puppy in her arm. Her silk dinner gown made her appear far more elegant than he had ever seen her. Far more mature. An image of what she might look like cradling a baby had an odd sensation gripping his chest. He had to blink when he realized she was staring at him. As if she might be thinking the same thing.

  Perhaps if she had to spend time seeing to the puppy, she wouldn’t spend as much time in the stables. “Let’s see if Mrs. Cooper can be of assistance,” he offered, referring to the cook.

  And with a command that he return to the stables, Perseus hurried off in that direction while Isabella and Octavius made their way back to the house.

  Chapter 21

  A Puppy Changes Everything

  Midnight

  When Octavius finally made his way to his apartments several hours later, he wondered if he had made a mistake with the puppy. He could have simply moved it outside and left it to die—he was sure there were more pups somewhere nearby left to the same fate—but there had been the thought that Isabella could do with a distraction. A companion.

  That he felt a bit of jealousy when he saw how she held the dog—in how she murmured quiet assurances and smoothed a finger over the top of its head—was simply a reminder of how Jane’s affections had been transferred from him to the unborn baby she carried. Although he had thrilled at knowing she might be carrying his heir, he remembered the sense of loss he felt when Jane no longer afforded him the same intimacies they had shared prior to her pregnancy. Then, when she died in the childbed, his loss was doubled.

  Octavius shook away the memory, determined not to dwell on that particular moment in his past.

  When he had left Isabella in the parlor, she was feeding the puppy. Hungrily sucking on the makeshift nipple the cook had managed to create to cover a bottle of goats milk, the little beast was staring at his new mother as if he were memorizing everything about her.

  If Isabella ever held him like that, he would do the same, Octavius considered.

  Although Peters seemed appalled at the idea of the puppy spending the night in the house, he saw to it a footman was dispatched to locate a wooden crate in which the dog could sleep while a housemaid saw to an old blanket.

  “He’ll likely cry and whine all night for his mum. Keep you awake, he will,” Thompson warned Isabella when she left the tattered quilt with her.

  “I expect he will,” she replied, just then wondering about the messes the dog would
no doubt leave until it was trained. “I don’t suppose there are such things as nappies for puppies?” Isabella queried.

  “None that I know of, my lady, but I think we can find some old rags to use in the bottom of the crate.” The maid paused for a moment. “Does he have a name?”

  Isabella furrowed her brows as she thought of the names that Constance had mentioned from The Tattler. “Nelson, I think,” she replied, remembering something about a naval commander with that name.

  “What will the poor thing do during the day, though? Whilst you’re out riding?”

  Isabella considered the question for a moment before allowing a grin. “I shall take Nelson with me. If he’s going to be my dog, then he will have to learn to be with horses all day. And they shall have to learn to be around him.”

  As Octavius stared at the canopy above his bed, his cockstand tenting the bed linens, he inwardly groaned when he remembered hearing Isabella’s edict from where he stood outside the parlor. Now he wondered why it bothered him. Isabella was his ward. Nothing more. Just because she tended to greet him with a kiss on the cheek didn’t mean there was anything between them. How could there be? She was his ward.

  Or was she really his châtelaine?

  The châtelaine of my stables, he thought just then.

  He gave a quelling glance down the top of the bed linens and quietly cursed. Just a ward, indeed. And now she was a ward with a pet named Nelson.

  Chapter 22

  Pillow Talk

  Late July 1814

  Clarinda sounded a mewl of disappointment when her husband finally pulled himself from her body and landed on the bed next to her, his own groan filling the otherwise quiet bedchamber. He snaked an arm behind her shoulders and pulled her over so she ended up nestled next to his side, the palm of one hand pressed atop his chest. He covered the small hand with one of his own.

  “May I stay?” he wondered after a few minutes. Although he usually spent most nights with Clarinda in her bed, he still felt it necessary to ask.

  “I’m not about to let you leave,” Clarinda countered in a whisper. “Especially if you still intend to be off to Sussex in the morning.” She almost asked if she might join him, but the thought of spending an entire day bouncing about in a coach held little appeal.

  Unless they spent the time bouncing about engaged in sexual congress.

  That might be rather exciting, she thought, trying to imagine a position that would ensure neither bumped their heads or left their bottoms exposed. When she thought of riding him astride, her knees on either side of him as he sat pressed into the squabs, her face lit up.

  Clarinda was about to ask if she could come along when David suddenly turned his head in her direction.

  “Would you make me go back to my own bed if I wasn’t leaving for Norwick Park in the morning?” He hadn’t visited his country estate in some time, but decided it was time he check on his own stables as well as his brother. Ever since the wedding, Daniel’s communications had been rather terse and only about business.

  Lifting her head from his shoulder, Clarinda regarded him in the dim light from the tiny flames that licked about inside the fireplace. “Of course not,” she replied. “Besides, you tossed all my hairpins onto the carpeting when you removed them this evening. If I let you leave this bed, you’ll wake the entire household with your curses when you step on them.”

  David blinked and regarded his wife for a moment, a grin finally splitting his face. “I love you,” he said in a whisper.

  Clarinda regarded him a moment, rather shocked to hear him say words she never expected to hear from him since their wedding. “You do?” she murmured as she moved to sit up in the bed, the bed linens falling from the front of her to reveal her breasts. Angling her body to look down at him, she bit her lower lip with an eyetooth.

  Unable to ignore her engorged nipples, still red from what he had done to them with his tongue and teeth only moments ago, David flicked a crooked finger over one of them. “I didn’t think it would be such a surprise for you to hear me say it,” he replied, sliding his other hand along her side until he heard her slight inhalation of breath as his thumb brushed the side of a breast.

  “I was sure you loved another,” Clarinda whispered, one of her hands attempting to cover his.

  His brows furrowing, David gave his head a quick shake. He raised himself up to sit against a pile of pillows as he pulled her so she sat astride and atop him. Having recovered from their earlier lovemaking, his erect manhood was left pressed against her belly. “A long time ago,” he finally admitted. “But she’s gone, and now... now there’s only you.”

  Clarinda angled her head, and several locks of her long, brunette hair fell to hide her breasts from his view. “And you don’t have a mistress.” The words didn’t come out as a question, but then, she had reports from a Bow Street Runner assuring her he did nothing more than attend sessions of Parliament and visit his men’s club when he wasn’t in her company.

  “No need to have one,” he said with a shrug, a crooked finger sliding through one of the locks of hair. “Not since before I finally married you. Something I realize now I should have done a long time ago.”

  Clarinda swallowed, and gasped again when the back of his finger brushed over her breast again. She lowered her torso to rest atop his, her head ending up in the small of one of his shoulders as she slid her hands along his sides and sighed. She sighed again when David pulled the bed linens up and over her back, reminded of how he had held her so close the day after her miscarriage.

  He had been in the study when she realized what was happening, her anguished cries turning to sobs so violent, David claimed he thought she would die. He had stayed with her in her bedchamber the rest of that day and that night, ordering Missy, her lady’s maid, to leave and arguing with the physician over her care. He finally collapsed in exhaustion the following morning, wrapping his body around hers in what she remembered as a cocoon of comfort and warmth.

  Clarinda supposed she should have known then that he loved her. But they hadn’t spoken the words. Not since before their wedding day.

  Just the one time in Kensington Gardens, the moment he had bestowed her with the sapphire ring. Clarinda sighed and closed her eyes, a wan smile lifting the edges of her lips.

  They lay like that for several minutes, David’s fingers trailing over the bumps of her spine and over her long thighs where they were tucked against his sides. “I have been meaning to tell you something,” he whispered. When she didn’t respond, he kissed the top of her head. “It’s about... it’s about your cousin, Isabella. She’s alive and safe, but she paid witness to her mother’s murder. I am going to Norwick Park tomorrow, but I am also going to Basingstoke. Again. Craythorne has managed to avoid seeing me when I’ve attempted to pay a call. He hasn’t been back to London since Arabella’s death. It’s past time he explain himself. Pay for what he did to Arabella,” he murmured.

  He waited a moment, rather surprised Clarinda didn’t respond. He kissed the top of her head again, frowning when she still didn’t say anything. When he finally angled his head and took note of her closed eyes and even breathing, he realized she had fallen asleep.

  Allowing another sigh of disappointment, David dropped his head into the pillows. Well, at least I tried, he thought, knowing the duke would still call him a coward if he mentioned the attempt to inform Clarinda of his relationship to Isabella.

  What would the Duke of Huntington call him if he learned David had seen to Craythorne’s demise?

  Chapter 23

  A Duke Prepares for a Trip

  August 1814

  Half-tempted to make the trip to Huntinghurst on horseback, Octavius, Duke of Huntington, realized he would have to ride at least part of the way in his traveling coach. He had letters to read and decisions to make. Although he thought he was better at thinking from the back of a horse, he couldn’t read whilst riding.

  He had tried. It hadn’t worked.

  Thes
e days, if he didn’t pay mind to Poseidon, the old horse simply stopped walking. Or else he cantered. Octavius was sure Poseidon cantered as a means to annoy him when he was lost in thought, the steps jostling him until he was nearly unseated and awoken from his stupor.

  “I have the small trunk packed. Shall I make the trip with you, Your Grace?” Watkins wondered from where he stood next to the cheval mirror. Given it was still dark, the valet had lit all the candle lamps in the room. He held a waistcoat on one arm, and a topcoat was draped over the other. He was prepared to offer the garments when his master was ready to finish dressing.

  “No need, Watkins. Spend a few days with your wife,” the duke said from where he regarded his image in the master suite’s cheval mirror. Damn! When did I grow so old? “One of the footmen at Huntinghurst is angling for a promotion. Claims he can sew, so I’ll give him a go,” Octavius murmured as he helped himself to the waistcoat.

  “Very good, sir,” the valet responded, his dispassionate voice hiding his surprise at learning he once again wouldn’t be expected to make the journey south. He moved to help the duke with buttoning the waistcoat, but the duke was already seeing to the fastenings.

  “I’m to remind you there is a standing invitation to visit His Royal Highness, the Prince Regent, in Brighton, should you make it there, Your Grace.”

  Octavius scowled, remembering he had been the one to speak of the invitation as a sort of afterthought to his last trip to Sussex. “I won’t make it that far south,” he vowed. He had no intention of going beyond Huntinghurst. He had a stable of horses to review and a certain young lady to visit. One he had been avoiding for several months, partly because he had no news to share, but mostly because being in her presence had him befuddled.