And then Jonathon’s racing heart and the cool business part of his brain combined forces and his vital organ, despite pleading an excruciating need, was overruled.
This is not how I want to spend my first time with her, Heart lectured, appalled, sodden on a muddy bank engaged in a quick tawdry rut. She deserves the very best of care and every attention. She deserves cool silken sheets and feather pillows and a magnificent four-poster bed. I want to make love to her, slowly and deliberately. I want her to know how I feel.
And what I want the both of you to do is leave the thinking to me, Business Brain lectured Vital Organ and Heart. She’s a duchess for God’s sake and her son is a duke and he’ll have your ballocks for buckshot if he even suspects you tried to mount her. Not to mention what she’ll think of you after the event! You’ll never get a second chance and Heart, don’t think she’ll believe you when you tell her that you’ve fallen in love with her! Vital Organ will have ruined that for you. Now pull yourself together before it’s too late to resurrect your self-esteem, and hers too. And don’t forget about the house and—
Oh, do shut up about the bloody house, Business Brain! Heart and Vital Organ demanded wearily.
Jonathon lifted his head from kissing the base of Antonia’s throat and half-rose, removing his hand from between her thighs; face flushed and short of breath. The color deepened in his lean cheeks realizing just how close he had been to taking her there and then under the willow trees, and because she was looking at him uncomprehendingly and with confusion in her lovely green eyes. He quickly untangled the wet heavy layers of her bunched up petticoats and pulled them roughly over her bare thighs and covered her stockinged legs.
Antonia blinked up at him dazed and disorientated, breath ragged, not wanting him to stop kissing and caressing her; left utterly unsatisfied. She did not understand why he had suddenly and inexplicably pulled away, why he had stopped stroking her, when it was surely evident that she wanted him to make love to her as much as he seemed intent on having her there and then on the bank of the lake. She had finally lowered her defenses and kissed him, which was invitation enough of her desire, and his response was everything she had hoped for and more and then he had inexplicably rejected her...Why?
And then a hundred possible reasons presented themselves and she swallowed, embarrassed. Her green eyes lost their confusion and became wary. She scrambled to sit up, adjusting her bodice, which was outrageously askew, and made motions to wring out her sodden petticoats. She would not look at him and when she went to stand he helped her up but he would not let her go. She tried to turn her head away but he stopped her with a finger under her chin and gently touched his forehead to hers with a small smile of understanding and brown eyes full of apology.
“Sweetheart... It’s not that I don’t want to... I want to so very much. It’s—”
“Do not try and explain to me... It is unnecessary for you—”
He caught her face between his hands and halted her words with his mouth. It was a long leisurely kiss and when she yielded, when she leaned into him, a hand up around his neck, he placed her other hand between his legs, saying as he came up for air, “You understand nothing,” he murmured huskily. “I want you beyond reason. He wants you. I’ve told him to behave, but he has no manners where you are concerned and will not listen.”
Antonia stared up at him and her eyes went wide exploring the length and breadth of his rigidity straining against the confinement of fine linen, the drawstring of his undergarment holding him captive. She could not help herself and allowed her gaze to drop between his thighs before looking up into his brown eyes with a twinkle. “He has reason for his arrogance,” she replied softly, on tiptoe, kissing his lower lip and playfully tugging on the drawstring. “Il est magnifique... I want to unwrap my present now.”
“Mon Dieu, vous me torturez,” he responded thickly, brain drained of purpose and heart quickening, his vital organ more triumphant than ever and yet there was sufficient reason left, if only in his pinkie, for him to be able to stay her hand, adding in a dry voice, “We have company... Your maid... And others...”
Instantly, Antonia fell away. All the cold, the shivering and discomfort she should have felt at having accidentally tumbled into the lake and being soaked to the skin, dripping wet from the unraveled heavy knot of hair to stockinged toes, now invaded her being and she hugged her arms around her breasts. Her knees went weak and her hands shook, not only from cold but also at the shame of her reckless wantonness. Dear God, had she lost her senses, she a duchess, and at her age? She shuddered. What would Julian say to it? What would M’sieur le Duc... She mentally pulled herself up from spiraling into the past, gaze sweeping Jonathon’s bare wide back as he turned away to adjust his clothing. He was so ruggedly virile, warm and pulsing with life and such a good kisser and the wonderful way his tongue and his fingers knew instinctively where to... Stop.
She turned away in time to catch her maid also turn her back on her.
“Michelle! Why do you stand there as a statue when me I need a shawl at the very least!” she demanded, parting the curtain of willow branches, anger with herself making her sound uncharacteristically harsh. “Scipio! Cornelia! Talon!” she commanded when her two whippets poked their wet noses tentatively through the willow curtain then trotted at her heels demanding to be noticed.
Receiving a perfunctory pat, they were satisfied enough to break through the tangle of overhanging branches to trot up to their new-found friend Jonathon, who was standing on the edge of the bank looking out across the lake to the jetty.
“Yes, Mme la duchesse. At once, Mme la duchesse,” Michelle replied with a curtsey, eyes remaining fixed on her feet, cheeks apple red; signal she had seen more than she ought. “I will go immediately to fetch a—”
“No. No. I need a warm bath, so me I will come with you,” Antonia replied in an even tone. “The boat... It overturned.”
“Yes, Mme la duchesse,” Michelle replied obediently and dared to glance out across the lake to where the rowboat bobbed gently undisturbed. When she gave a start it was enough to make Antonia look over her shoulder towards the lake.
Jonathon had waded back into the water and was swimming towards the rowboat.
“Il est complètement fou and me I am an imbécile,” she muttered and hurried on ahead of her maid up to the house without looking back.
“Sir Titus?”
A soberly dressed gentleman in brown bobwig standing at the edge of the jetty stared down into the water where Jonathon, whom he had addressed, was standing in the rowboat and had thrown a rope up onto the wooden planks.
“Throw that over the bollard,” Jonathon commanded. “There’s a good fellow.”
The soberly dressed gentleman blinked down at Jonathon uncomprehendingly and so it was the older man standing two steps behind at his side, a dapper little gentleman with a silk scarlet waistcoat under his plain black frockcoat, a matching scarlet riband tying his silver hair at his nape, who, despite holding to his chest several small leather-bound and gold stamped books, scurried forward to do Jonathon’s bidding.
“Sir Titus?” the soberly dressed gentleman enunciated again in his most patient voice. “Sir Titus Foley?”
Jonathon held up a pile of paper and waved this at the gentleman. “Take this. Bend down! Bend down! I’m tall but not a giant, man!” When the gentleman did his bidding he added, “Take it in both hands. Can’t afford for it to fall into the drink. Dick would be sorely disappointed and she would never forgive me. Got it in both hands? Good. Now pass it to your bookish friend before you stand up.”
The soberly dressed gentleman did as requested and passed the manuscript to his bookish friend with the scarlet riband, who juggled the manuscript and the books until all were snugly held to his scarlet waistcoat with no fear of them falling into the lake or elsewhere. The soberly dressed gentleman then scrambled to his feet and brushed his breeches free of dirt. His bookish companion smirked at such fastidious efforts; he tho
ught him a pompous prig.
Jonathon climbed out of the rowboat and up onto the jetty with the practiced ease of a man used to physical exercise. He cast a wary eye on the two visitors, who were startled by his height and width, which was not evident while he was standing in the boat, and now craned their necks to look up at him as he slipped on his flat heeled shoes with plain silver buckles. He addressed the old gentleman hugging Sheridan’s School for Scandal to his chest.
“Mind if you hold on to that a bit longer? I’m too wet for paper and I’d hate to ruin such fine words.”
The soberly dressed prig coughed into his hand and said at his most polite, “Sir Titus, I am here at—”
“Who wants to know?”
“I beg your pardon, my lord?”
“Who are you?” Jonathon asked mildly as he turned on a heel, forcing the men to follow him. “Apologies. But I need to change out of these wet garments before I catch my death and Dick Sheridan is forced to write my eulogy.”
“Mr. Philip Audley and Mr. Gidley Ffolkes, and your most humble, Sir Titus. We are in the employ of His Grace of Roxton. I am the Duke’s secretary and Mr. Ffolkes is librarian here at Treat and keeper of the Roxton Bibliothèque.”
Jonathon glanced over his shoulder, saw the men had fallen behind and waited. Gidley Ffolkes’ bright blue eyes looked vaguely familiar, and he glanced at the books under his arm. “Are those for her Grace?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“She’ll be pleased to see you then, Ffolkes. And you, Audley?” Jonathon asked as he continued on up the rise of lawn towards the pavilion. “To what do we owe the pleasure of your company here on this unseasonably warm April day?”
“Your report, Sir Titus,” Philip Audley called out, several paces behind Jonathon, unable to match his stride.
“Report?”
“Your report to his Grace.”
Jonathon went up into the pavilion two steps at a time.
“Tell me more, Audley.”
“As part of the conditions under which you have been engaged by his Grace, my lord, you are to pen a report—”
“About what?”
Philip Audley breathed deeply and made fists of his hands hanging loosely at his sides. He wondered if the physician was as mad as his patients. Gidley Ffolkes grinned; he had taken an instant liking to Jonathon’s straight-talking approach. The Duke’s secretary coughed and cleared his throat.
“It is a delicate matter... One that I am not qualified to elaborate on.”
“You’re the Duke’s secretary, aren’t you?”
“Yes, my lord, but that hardly—”
“You read all his correspondence, draft replies, copy out in your fist documents on this and that and the other. Put the more important bits under his Grace’s fine nose and deal with the rest yourself... Isn’t that what any secretary worth his salt does for his master?”
“Well, yes, my lord, that is part of my duties for his Grace,” Philip Audley blustered, completely out of his depth, “but I fail to see what—”
“Then you know full-well what this delicate matter is all about, so why not just come out and say it?”
The secretary’s mouth worked but he was lost for words. He was used to blunt speech from his employer but that was from a nobleman, a Duke, but this loose-limbed Goliath was little more than a purveyor of simples and so he threw a glance at the librarian, expecting the little man to be as horrified as he was, only to discover him not so much holding the books to his chest as hugging them, lips disappeared as if to suppress laughter. Jonathon saw this too and indicated the low table where he noticed, for the first time, covered dishes, cutlery, crockery and a jug of ale and several tumblers. His stomach growled in acknowledgement of Pierre’s culinary munificence.
“Off load yourself, Ffolkes, and be good enough to pour each of us a tumbler of ale at the very least.”
He looked back at the Duke’s secretary. There was something about the man that oozed obsequious efficiency of the worse kind and for this he took him in instant dislike.
“Well?”
“As you are the Dowager Duchess’s physician, my lord, it hardly requires that I voice aloud the reason you have been employed by his Grace,” Philip Audley said haughtily, the dislike now mutual. “You know it. I know it.”
“Ah, now you become interesting, Audley,” Jonathon said with a deceptive smile as he picked up off the low wall a towel that was drying nicely in the sun. He had used it earlier that morning, just on dawn, to dry off after shaving and bathing in the lake down by the stand of old oaks. He wiped his face and towel-dried his hair and looked at the secretary with practiced neutrality. “You say I know it, but why should you know it? And what do you indeed know?”
“I beg your pardon, my lord, but you said yourself as his Grace’s secretary I have recourse to correspondence, documents and the like, so it is perfectly reasonable that I am well aware of the—um—er—deterioration in the Dowager Duchess’s—um—mind, which has led to this most lamentable state of affairs,” the secretary enunciated, waving away the tumbler of ale offered him by the librarian despite a throat parched from frustration. “I was the one who drew up the document which you signed and which requires that you—” He stopped abruptly, realizing his audience was not listening, when Jonathon threw the towel over the balustrade and twirled his index finger for them to turn their backs.
Jonathon quickly stripped out of his wet stockings, breeches and drawers and wiped himself dry then wrapped the towel about his hips and secured it before shrugging into his spare shirt, freshly laundered by the Duchess’s very obliging laundresses and brought to him, along with his second pair of breeches, drawers, linen stock and stockings, earlier that morning by Michelle. He would again have to inconvenience the Duchess’s household to launder his sparse collection of clothing until his requested wardrobe arrived from London.
“Ffolkes! What is your opinion? Has the Dowager Duchess of Roxton diminished mental capacity?”
The librarian snorted into his ale and gulped but bravely turned to meet Jonathon’s gaze and wiped his mouth. “No, no, my lord. She is naturally melancholy, but who can blame her?”
The secretary also turned back to face Jonathon and sighed loudly, throwing up a hand, all pretense of deference vanished.
“Come now, my lord! What’s this?” Philip Audley complained. “You are the physician. Ffolkes is merely the family’s librarian. What would he know?”
“Merely?” Jonathon pulled a face. “You’re not a bookish man, are you, Audley? Your loss. There is nothing merely about being in charge of the Roxton Bibliothèque. I’d hazard a guess the combined collection of tomes from the various noble residences would rival any university’s collection here or on the Continent. And as Mme la duchesse is a voracious reader and likes nothing better than to have her pretty little nose between the pages of a good text, my guess is that Ffolkes sees more of the Duchess than you, your noble employer, and certainly me put together! Ain’t that the truth, sir?”
“Yes, my lord,” the librarian agreed with a smile. “The library is Mme la duchesse’s favorite room in any of their houses.” Adding wistfully, “Mme la duchesse and M’sieur le Duc, may God rest his soul, spent many happy hours in the Treat library. She liked nothing better than to read in her favorite chair. It was the same at Hanover Square and of course, in Paris at the library there...” He teared up. “The loss of that house... The magnificent library... Such a great shock...”
“Yes, it must have been,” Jonathon sympathized, realizing the dapper little man was referring to his own deep regret as much as he was to the Duchess’s feelings. He offered the librarian a seat on the sofa by the low table and refilled the old man’s tumbler. He then sat himself in front of the array of dishes, long legs folded up around his ears as he tried to be comfortable before a table meant for the Roxton children. There was a note atop one of the covers, which he read, informing him to partake of nuncheon without the Duchess. “You’re welcome to
join me, gentlemen. I can wait no longer.” He passed the librarian a clean plate then removed the domed silver covers. When the secretary coughed, an annoying trait that made Jonathon want to throw a plate at his head, he looked up from spooning mushrooms smothered in garlic butter onto his plate. “Well? You heard Ffolkes’s opinion. The Duchess is sad not mad.” He winked at Gidley Ffolkes. “And who can blame her? Try Pierre’s fish stew pie, it’s excellent,” he recommended to the librarian who was bravely partaking of Jonathon’s offer to dine with him. When the secretary made a noise resembling a muffled scream, he again took his gaze from Pierre’s delectable dishes to say bluntly, “What more do you want, Audley?”
The secretary gaped at him. He was now convinced the physician was as deranged as the morbid females under his care. “Want?” he repeated in a thin voice, “I do not want anything, sir! The Duke demands his weekly report which I have come to collect on his behalf!”
Jonathon swallowed a mouthful of fish pie and took a nibble at the sliver of flaky pastry lid in his hand. “A weekly report?”
“Yes! Yes! A weekly report! The report you are required to produce as part of the conditions of your employment.”
“A little more pepper and a dash of lemon and the trout would be better for it. What do you think, Ffolkes?” and before the librarian could answer stretched out a hand for one of the asparagus tarts on offer, a glance up at the mule-faced secretary to say with practiced abstraction, “How many weeks did His Grace expect this employment to run for?”
The secretary bit down on his tongue and smiled thinly. He was on the point of demented rage. “If you recall, Sir Titus, you signed a contract for some four weeks of your services.”
Autumn Duchess: A Georgian Historical Romance (Roxton Series) Page 27