Autumn Duchess: A Georgian Historical Romance (Roxton Series)

by Lucinda Brant

  Instantly, Antonia’s hands flung out left and right to grip the sides of the boat and she stared up at him, startled.

  “Well, if that’s your answer, then there is nothing for it. I’ll have to drown myself!” he announced, legs splayed to keep himself upright and the boat stable.

  “You are being ridiculous! Sit down!”

  He crossed his arms.

  “Only if you say yes, you’ll attend the theater with me.”

  “No!”

  “So you want me to drown myself?”

  “Of course not! Why would I want you to do such a thing? Sit down!”

  He kicked off his shoes.

  “You won’t go to the theater with me. Therefore I have no recourse but to drown myself.”

  “You are a lunatic!”

  “Lunatic or not, I will drown myself if you don’t agree to see Dick Sheridan’s play with me.”

  “I do not believe you and I will not be coerced in this shameful way! Sit down!”

  In one easy movement he pulled the white cotton shirt up over his wide shoulders and flung it in a corner of the boat. He scraped the tussle of thick brown hair out of his eyes to stare down into her upturned face.

  “Are you attending the opening night of Dick Sheridan’s new play with me or not?”

  Antonia did not know where to look with a half-naked Goliath standing over her like a bronzed replica of the Colossus of Rhodes. He was all wide chest, hard stomach and narrow hips, far too masculine for his own good. How dare he keep stripping off in front of her? She would not look at him. She stared out across the lake to the shoreline of reeds and then over her right shoulder, at the jetty, not so far off, but in her present predicament, so far away; anywhere but up at him. She not unreasonably expected a servant, at the very least one of her ladies-in-waiting to appear at her elbow. After all, she had spent most of her life with soft-footed silent servants within earshot if not in line of sight of her. She had no idea what a servant could do that she could not, as they had even less sway over his actions than did she. But of course there were no servants only water all around her and she was alone with this man who was standing up in a rowing boat without his shirt and expecting her to acquiesce to his request and the only thought uppermost in her mind at that moment was what he must look like completely naked. This so shocked and flustered her that she wished with all her being that she knew how to swim. She could then dive into the lake and swim away and be as far from him as possible.

  Anger masked desire.

  “You will not force my hand, M’sieur! No! I will not attend the theater with you! Now you will sit and row me back to shore. I am done with your company for today!”

  Jonathon stared down at her with mute obstinacy. Inside he was delighted with her animated intractability after the previous week of listless introspection. Since retuning from the mausoleum he had kept his distance, taking up residence in the pavilion where he wrote letters to Sarah-Jane, Tommy, his man of business in London, and to his dying ancient relative’s carers; and kicked his heels in the kitchen, sitting at the table chatting with Pierre and the other servants whom he had released from their banishment to the Gatehouse and who now looked to him for direction. He had also co-opted several of the outdoor servants to help him in a building project by the stand of old oaks, something he hoped would not only delight Antonia but her grandchildren when next they visited.

  Michelle was the only one to have contact with the Duchess, who remained in bed with a cold, nursing her wounds, and who, in Michelle’s opinion, should not be left alone with her thoughts for much longer or there was a very great chance of her falling back into that pit of despair she had inhabited when the old Duke had died three years ago.

  Hence Jonathon’s idea for nuncheon in the pavilion and a pleasant idle in a rowboat while the pavilion was being readied. The copy of Sheridan’s script for School for Scandal had been the lure he knew she could not resist. That she was surprised and seemed almost annoyed to find him still at her house when she had emerged from her rooms had bruised his feelings more than he cared to admit. It meant she had not given him a thought since their night together in the mausoleum; whereas he had spent every night since in restless sleep thinking of nothing and no one but her.

  And so having her undivided attention, regardless of her anger, and she a captive audience, was an opportunity not to be squandered, even if it meant he would have to sacrifice his newly laundered clothes to the lake gods.

  “So you are utterly determined you won’t go to the theater on my arm?” he repeated, staring down into her upturned face with a heavy frown. “No chance I can change your mind? That you might accompany me to the theater for the opening night of Dick Sheridan’s play all to seal the reputation of my playwright friend and partner. Well, Mme la duchesse?”

  “You are being unbelievably dramatic and I do not understand why you threaten to do such a ridiculous thing over a trifle of a circumstance!” she argued, glaring up at him before looking away. “It is absurd. It is silly. And you are being puerile for its own sake!”

  And insufferably arrogant and what I really want you to do is hold me as you did in the mausoleum so I can hear the strong regular beat of your heart, feel the hardness and strength in your chest and limbs, and smell the warm musky masculine scent of your bronzed skin so that I may have an unbroken night’s sleep, which I have not had in a sennight! It is your fault and I stayed in my rooms hoping you would go away but not really wanting you to go away at all but fearing what might happen if you remained with me here at my house.

  Of course she voiced none of these thoughts. Instead she stared up at Jonathon in mutinous fury, more angry with herself than with this half-naked handsome man for allowing him to get under her skin.

  “I will not be coerced in this way! Drown for all I care.”

  “Very well. Then it’s the bottom of the lake for me!”

  It happened within the blink of an eye.

  One moment he was standing before her; the next, she was the only occupant of the rowing boat. There was a single splash in the lake, the water rippling and radiating from the point of entry close to the starboard side, and out across the still water. The boat rocked. And then the water was still again. It was as if he had never been in the boat at all and Antonia had woken from a dream to find herself alone. But Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s play School for Scandal was on her lap and Jonathon’s shoes and shirt were discarded in the stern.

  She gathered up the pages of script, quickly put them aside and scrambled across the cushions to the edge of the boat to peer into the lake. The water was unbroken and unfathomable. Where had he gone? He could not simply disappear! He could not drown himself, he was too good a swimmer. Good swimmers did not drown... Unless... What if in his silliness he had hit his head on some part of the boat as he went over the side and had knocked himself out and was at that very minute taking water into his lungs in some icy depths below the boat? What if he was stuck under the hull? Foolish. Idiotic. Impossible man. She pulled her petticoats aside and clambered across to the bowside and peered into the water, hoping not to see a splayed out Jonathon, face down and drifting lifeless in the lake. Perhaps if she leaned over a bit further she might catch a glimpse of the underside and if he was caught there...

  A great whoosh of water sprang into the air like the jet of a fountain turned on full and water sprayed across and into the boat. Antonia fell back, her face and the front of her bodice and petticoats instantly soaked. Startled by the cold water, air was sucked down her throat in gasps and such was the force of the water jet that the little rowboat rocked violently. Her wrists buckled and unable to hold firm to the edge of the boat and with her eyes shut tight against further sprays she became disorientated, pitched forward and fell with a splat into the lake.

  Terrified, her arms and legs flailed about, splashing wildly and her petticoats twisted up and became heavy with water and she felt herself sinking into the murky depths. Desperate to keep her head
above water, she was unaware that the instant fountain that had suddenly sprung up out of the lake and just as quickly died, was in fact Jonathon. He had held his breath underwater for as long as he thought it necessary for her to believe for a sliver of a second that he may have carried out his threat and drowned. His ruse miscarried miserably when he realized Antonia had overbalanced into the water and, as a non-swimmer, was scrambling to stay afloat in the worse possible way—panic stricken and floundering.

  He tried to pacify her but she was not listening and when he went to her aid and tried to take her in his arms and calm her, she did not see him. She saw only a possible means of escape out of the water and she scrambled up his torso and tried to sit on his head; not unlike a cat having fallen into a vat of cream and terrified was less interested in the substance than in getting the hell out of there by any means possible, as long as the means was sturdy and would lead to dry land and a dry skin.

  When reasoning failed he caught her arms and pinioned her to him, all the while telling her in his deep measured tone to look at him; that she would not drown; that no harm would come to her if she stilled and just looked at him. He repeated his commands over again and on the fifth repeat, when his voice penetrated her subconscious and she quieted, he told her he would let go of her arms and she would not drown. Finally, she looked at him and for the brief moment their eyes met he knew that she was finally aware of him. With utter relief, she clung to him, heaving air into her lungs as her arms tightened about his shoulders and her legs anchored about his waist. He held her with one strong arm to her back while the other, with the help of his legs, sculled the water to keep them both afloat.

  In all the commotion they had drifted from the boat, and were half way between the reedy shoreline and the boat in one direction and about the same distance from the jetty where Antonia’s two whippets had suddenly appeared bounding along the wooden planks barking to make their presence known. The water was still too deep for Jonathon’s feet to feel the bottom of the lake and stand, despite his height, so he drifted with Antonia clinging to him, quiet in the water, not saying a word, wanting her to get her breath back and waiting for the fear to subside; knowing that if they floated a little while longer the feeling of weightlessness that came with being calm in water would stop the rapid beating of her heart and that in his arms she could not drown; she was safe.

  Finally, he felt soft earth and washed pebble under his toes and was able to stand. The depth of the water reached just above his navel. He bent his knees to lower his shoulders back into the water, which let Antonia sit on his lap, and with both arms around her they were now at eye level. She still clung to him tightly, fearing that if she let go, even for the smallest of moments, she would plunge into the depths of the lake and never be seen again.

  It was only when he pulled back slightly that she finally loosened her vice-like grip about his strong neck, realizing they were no longer drifting in the water; that he had stopped swimming and was now somehow anchored. She kept her fingers entwined at the nape of his neck, but knowing his arms held her safe she was able to breath easy and was no longer afraid. Not since their night together in the mausoleum when she had slept soundlessly in his arms had they been this physically close. Since then, they had gone out of their way to maintain a suitable and respectable distance and neither had spoken about that night or the events that had preceded it.

  But here, in the still cool water of the lake, they were so close that she could count each deep line that radiated from the corners of his soft brown eyes, and he, every long dark lash framing her slightly oblique green eyes. She regarded him anew, searching his face hoping to find a flaw, something, anything, in the ruggedly handsome features to give her a reason to look away, a reason to stop drawing nearer, to wanting to put her mouth to his.

  He smiled softly into her eyes, as if reading her thoughts, and she felt her face flush with heat despite the coldness of the water. And when he brushed the hair out of his eyes before gently removing a strand of her long hair plastered across her cheek, she did not draw away but smiled back.

  They stared at one another for what seemed an eternity of minutes but was in fact no time at all. He desperately wanted to kiss her, for her to kiss him. But he would not initiate that first kiss. He could not. She had to do that. He was paralyzed by the possibility of rejection; that after the trauma she had suffered at the hands of a monster-physician and the ever-present specter of her Monseigneur looming large over them both, any move on his part would somehow be misconstrued. He just hoped all his organs remained on their best behavior and was thankful he was dipped in cold water.

  She was obviously blissfully unaware, which was a good thing, but he was acutely conscious that her petticoats floated up around her breasts, leaving her naked from the waist down so that she straddled his lap in nothing but her white stockings that ended just above the knee. Her naked thighs were wide-open, ankles crossed at his lower back, so that she was pressed hard up against his groin. Had the lake not provided a blanket of respectability the world would have been presented with an erotically charged scene lifted straight from the Kama Sutra.

  He thought it best if he took his thoughts and desires off to lunch, and wondered what delectable dishes the venerable Pierre had contrived to not only excite his tastebuds but also to satisfy his hunger pains. Since he had got rid of Sir Titus and his oafish assistants, Jonathon had become the darling of the household. Chef was his particular champion and no dish, no request was too small for Pierre to fulfill. If M’sieur Strang he wanted for breakfast brioche and his strange hot milky tea infused with cloves, cinnamon, pepper and anise, which he called Chai tea, it was not for anyone to quibble or question about; he could have it. If M’sieur Strang he only wanted Pierre to serve him dishes containing vegetables and fish and no beef, that was what he Pierre would contrive for M’sieur. Jonathon hoped that for lunch garlic, ginger and pepper were involved, and that there was a rich soup and one of Pierre’s mouth-watering flaky pastries...

  And then it happened.

  She kissed him.

  It was feather-light and tentative and lasted but a moment because his mouth was slightly numb from cold and so he was clumsy in his response; not surprising given they were up to their necks in lake water and their lips were turning blue. But she had kissed him and he couldn’t have been happier had she jumped on top of him naked and ravaged him. She had kissed him. He was giddy. It was the most wonderful kiss he had experienced since his tenth birthday when he had clumsily kissed Digby Spencer’s sister Charlotte on the lips under his uncle’s library desk. He had been so proud of himself and walked as if on clouds for a week. This kiss like that was so longed for, so thought about and so anticipated that he was left momentarily stunned, as he had been as a ten-year-old, to have his wish fulfilled.

  There was no second hesitation to returning her kiss, and when he kissed her, when he brushed his mouth against hers he was just as gentle and diffident as she had been. But Antonia did not draw back as he had and she was not so reticent in her response. It was all the encouragement he needed to press his mouth to hers, to feel the cushion of her mouth, the full lips yield under the pressure of his and finally they gave themselves up to a deeply sensual and utterly pleasurable kiss that was everything hoped for and desired.

  So wrapped up in each other and the moment were they that their watery surroundings disappeared. Jonathon rose up out of the water and waded through the reeds toward the bank with Antonia pressed against him, arms about his neck, his large hands splayed across her bare bottom holding her firm against his groin, her stockinged legs wrapped around his torso, sopping wet petticoats bunched up over his arms and pouring water back into the lake; all of it on display to the world. And the world, such as it was in that quiet little corner of Hampshire, was watching.

  Somewhere in the deep recesses of his mind, his brain alerted him to the fact they were not alone; they were being observed, not by one person but several and dogs were somehow in
volved. But his vital organ, having survived the rigors of freezing water and was thawing out nicely, thank you very much, ordered his brain to go away. Was his brain mad? He had in his arms the most extraordinarily beautiful and bewitching woman he had ever encountered, they were enjoying a heated exploratory kiss, his hands were full of her lovely round derriere and she was pressed against him, warming him up, and his brain was saying stop, all because somewhere far off there were people and dogs about? Not on King George’s life was he going to give up this moment. People and dogs could go hang.

  The calls from the jetty and the barking of dogs were ignored.

  Jonathon’s vital organ urged him on, growing stronger and more confident as he approached the bank. Knowing she was naked and her legs wide open to receive him sent him beyond wisdom, and all that mattered was getting out of the water as quickly as possible so he could mount her on solid ground. He had spent too many nights unbearably rigid, throbbing without relief and now was his chance to finally fulfill his most secret desire and nothing and no one was going to stop him. Not if she wanted Nirvana as much as he did, which she did. The sweet responsiveness of her mouth under his, the way she was kissing him, how her tongue played with his, that she was pressed hard up against him, was indication enough that the moist warmth between her thighs was his for the taking if he could just get this last wretched breeches button undone and the drawstring to his drawers untied...

  The shouts grew louder, the barking more insistent.

  Antonia’s whippets had pranced around from the jetty and were pacing back and forth on the bank on the far side of a curtain of willow branches where their mistress had been brought to safe ground. The black whippet bounded into the willow branches, barking at Jonathon only to become tangled and slip off the bank into the water. It retreated with a yelp, tale between its legs, and shook cold water from its coat. Its white and tan companion was not as intrepid and remained on the jetty side of the willow branch curtain but had a louder and longer bark and was determined to get the attention of his mistress, or better still their mistress’s maid who had picked up her petticoats and was scurrying along the jetty; one of the men went to follow her but his companion remained at the end of the jetty and called him back.