No Other Duke Will Do (Windham Brides)

by Grace Burrowes

“We have legends enough already,” Haverford said, leading Elizabeth down a gravel walk. “Come with me.” He’d appeared at her side as the party had left the park to return to the castle, then tarried with her behind the larger group in the formal garden.

  “Where are we going, Your Grace?”

  “To retrieve your damned kite.”

  He was in a temper over something, though he’d flown the St. Andrew’s cross for Miss Trelawny with cordial competence. Elizabeth had ignored them as best she could with Mr. Sherbourne affixed to her elbow.

  “It’s only a kite, Haverford, and I’m sure you have better things to do—”

  He opened a gate in the garden wall. “The view I’d like to show you is even better than the view from the oak, as grand as the view from the hill.”

  The wall ran into the castle itself three yards to the right. The duke opened a low door in the arch of the gateway between the garden and the park, and Elizabeth spied a passage.

  “You want me to follow you into there?” she said.

  “We’ll leave the door open at the bottom, and soon find ourselves in a servants’ stair. This wing of the castle has no ghosts, I assure you.”

  He held out his hand. The other guests were strolling toward the house, probably intent on resting before changing for dinner. Miss Trelawny was draped about Mr. Sherbourne’s arm like seaweed wrapped about a floating spar.

  Elizabeth took Haverford’s hand and bent low to follow him into the passage.

  “The castle is full of hidden rooms, extra staircases, and even tunnels,” he said. “We managed to dance our way through the Civil Wars, the Protectorate, the Restoration, the Jacobites, all of it, in part because the castle was designed with escape routes and hiding places. Our plan was to be hard to find and hard to follow in our own sanctuary. The old dower house has a few of the same features.”

  They reached a spiral staircase, dimly lit from above. Elizabeth dropped the duke’s hand. “Will Lady Glenys set up housekeeping in the dower house anytime soon?”

  “I certainly hope not. I think I’ve mentioned that Sherbourne owns it. I hear he’s turned his home into a temple to modern conveniences. Watch your step.”

  The boards of the landing creaked beneath Elizabeth’s feet. Unlike the other stairwell she’d traversed with Haverford, this one was neglected, and smelled of old stone and damp. The next segment of steps was straight, though, with proper landings, and went up for three floors.

  “Sherbourne watches Lady Glenys,” Elizabeth said. “He was distracted the whole time he kept me company, stealing glances at her and Sir Nigel.”

  Even Aunt Arabella had participated in the kite flying, though Mr. Andover had got her kite—a shamrock—aloft for her.

  “Sherbourne will probably offer for Glenys, for which presumption, I’d like to toss him into an oubliette, though ours was filled in when we drained the moat.”

  The duke unlatched another low door, one made of a single board carved with an arching top. The door was likely centuries old, suggesting they were in the most ancient part of the castle.

  Sunlight, painfully brilliant, assailed Elizabeth. Haverford took her hand again, though they were surrounded by the castle’s highest defenses. Crenellation was expensive, and could only have been undertaken with the permission of the sovereign, for it made a castle easier to defend and harder to besiege.

  This entire section of roof was lined with crenellations, stone walkways running beneath them about three feet above Elizabeth’s head. The stonework was so old and worn that wild roses had taken root in crevices and crannies, the blossoms small and profuse. Two ancient cannon sat at diagonal corners of the whole, the nearest one serving as a perch for a seagull.

  “They nest up here in spring,” Haverford said, “and there’s the kite.”

  The red dragon on a silk field of white and green was wedged beside the other cannon. Haverford trotted up stone steps gone uneven with age, and tossed the kite down to Elizabeth.

  “May I come up?” she asked.

  “Be careful. This is one of many parts of the castle needing attention.”

  She set the kite by the old door, tucked up her skirts, and ascended the steps. The feel was wrong, the height of the risers and width of the steps conforming to the dictates of earlier centuries, and no handrail protected the unwary from overbalancing.

  “Gracious angels, the view…”

  Wales in all her green and gold glory lay at their feet. The sea shimmered blue off to the south, and dark patches of forest alternated with land in cultivation and pastures. The river wound like a skein of silver toward the sea, and the breeze bore the scents of grass and goodness.

  “What does it feel like, to own this?” she asked.

  Haverford stood at her back, as solid as the castle’s stonework.

  “I personally own very little other than a lot of old books,” he said. “The dukedom is entrusted to me, and I steward those resources for those who come after me. I should spend more time up here.”

  Elizabeth turned, struck by an odd note in his voice—sadness, perhaps. “I feel the same way about literature. Books are entrusted to us, to be shared with those in need of the learning and the comfort, so future generations won’t have to discover all over again the wisdom we’ve already accumulated.”

  The breeze whipped at Haverford’s dark hair. “Or the wisdom we’ve lost, because somebody shelved the Bard among the biographies?”

  Elizabeth kissed him, for they likely had more privacy here than anywhere else on the estate. “I found the Bard. He’s safe for now.”

  Haverford shifted her, so a massive expanse of stone was at her back, and the duke was wrapped around the rest of her. The stone was warmed by the sun, but the breeze was brisk, and his embrace protected her from its bite.

  “I could kiss you all day,” he murmured. “I could make love with you all day.” He pressed nearer, and Elizabeth felt the arousal a mere few kisses had inspired.

  “So why don’t you?”

  Haverford ceased his kisses and stared down at her.

  The seagull left its perch on the cannon, and desolation swamped Elizabeth. “Forget I said that.” She tried to slip from his embrace, but he drew her closer, which was just as well, for then he couldn’t see her face. “I have no notion how to conduct a liaison,” she went on, “and if you’re having second thoughts, or interested in pursuing other directions, you need not be delicate about it.”

  Haverford’s embrace was secure, and yet, Elizabeth sensed he was holding on to her as much as holding her.

  “One gift I can offer you is my time,” he said. “For the next two weeks, I would like to show you a glimpse of what it is to be courted, rather than merely dallied with. I would like to be your swain, not the polite host or bachelor duke. Of coin I have little, but my time is mine to spend. May I give you that boon?”

  “I don’t understand the question.” Elizabeth understood that Julian was dear to her, and embroiled in a situation generations in the making, and yet, he hesitated to share intimacies with her. “Your version of respect, if that’s what this is, feels like rejection.”

  Their bodies fit together so wonderfully. That didn’t feel like rejection at all.

  “We have a short span of days,” he said. “Not enough time, not nearly enough, and then you’ll get into your coach, wave farewell, and be about your life. When you leave here…”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t settle, Elizabeth. Don’t compromise, don’t accept less than your due. Keep to your plans and dreams, and let nothing wrest them from you.”

  He kissed her then, still trying to make some obscure point. Elizabeth would have devoured him whole, while Haverford was intent on enjoying her like a rare delicacy—niece of duke with a sauce of intellect, desire, and determination, garnished with a subtle loneliness and a sprinkling of insecurity.

  Gradually, she quieted and became absorbed in his caresses. She and Haverford had some time, time enough to kiss,
to touch, to share a lovely view. She had time to learn the contour of his shoulders and the musculature of his back, to absorb the rhythm of his breathing and the feel of his heartbeat beneath her cheek.

  Gently, slowly, he laid her back on the flat expanse of warm stone between two crenellations. The sky was brilliant blue above her, the ground many feet below, the castle solidly beneath her.

  As hard as the stone was, her skirts were that soft, whispering up over her knees as Haverford rearranged her clothing.

  What an odd place to make love, both beautiful and lonely. Appropriate, considering their circumstances.

  Haverford tossed his jacket to the stones and knelt between her knees. He lifted her skirts higher, petticoats and all, so she was bared to the bright afternoon sunshine. No other man had seen her thus—none had bothered to look, and she wouldn’t have allowed it in any case.

  “Your hair is lighter here,” he said, ruffling her curls. “More fiery.”

  What followed had no precedent in Elizabeth’s experience. Haverford touched her—intimately, expertly. Not a few fumbling strokes to locate an objective, but caresses that turned desire into an affliction.

  “When will you—?”

  “I wish I could peel this dress right off you.”

  So did Elizabeth, to the extent her wishes were still coherent. Haverford knew things about her body she didn’t, about how to build desire so it retained only a tenuous connection to pleasure. Elizabeth shifted into his touch, even knowing he watched her.

  His caresses became demanding, and she demanded right back, with her hips, with her grip on his wrist.

  When the pleasure came, she cried out in surprise, for the sensations were new and overwhelming. She was left panting and dizzy, the sky a great blue bowl above her, her heart beating wildly, and her insides a wonderful muddle.

  “I hadn’t known,” she said. The duke rested his cheek on her belly, his arms around her. “Haverford, I hadn’t known.”

  He shifted, and Elizabeth’s skirts dropped over her knees. She resented the fabric between them, but had no energy to move. She wanted to remain where she was, in a never-ending moment of wonder, as the seasons changed and the castle endured.

  Haverford scooped her up and carried her to a stone bench near the cannon. “I need to hold you.”

  “I need to be held.” Forever and ever and ever.

  Elizabeth’s joy faded with that thought, despite the delights she’d shared with Haverford. He and she didn’t have forever, they had only days. A handful of days, and then they’d part.

  “Don’t be sad, Elizabeth.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “It’s like that sometimes, afterward.”

  So much she didn’t know, so much she’d never learn from books. The realization was sobering and a relief. Books were precious, but they weren’t everything.

  For another span of silent minutes, Elizabeth remained in the arms of her lover—Haverford was her lover, already—and contemplated nothing much at all. Sensations preoccupied her—the heat between her legs that felt as if it could easily blossom into an echo of the pleasure she’d just experienced, the blonde lace of Haverford’s cravat soft against her chin.

  Somewhere on the castle’s battlements, a pennant snapped in the wind.

  “Sleep if you like,” Haverford said.

  “I’m too amazed to sleep.” He kissed her for that, then Elizabeth shifted to sit beside him. “I will never be the same, you know.”

  His smile put her in mind of Griffin—mischievous and beautiful. “Neither will I.”

  They held hands until Elizabeth rose and retrieved Haverford’s coat. She shook it out, though it didn’t look much the worse for its ordeal, and passed it to him.

  They made their way back to the ancient door, and Haverford escorted Elizabeth through a warren of back stairs and passages, so she emerged not far from her own tower rooms. He remained within the castle walls, and was gone from sight before Elizabeth could remind him that they’d left the kite up on the parapets, a ghost legend waiting for the right breeze on the right moonlit night.

  * * *

  “I love you, Biddy Bowen.” The words were as great a pleasure to say now as they had been when Griffin had first offered them to her.

  “You must stop saying that,” Biddy replied in Welsh, though she sounded happy.

  They moved down the row of boxes, the hens watching them with bright little eyes. Griffin slid the egg out from beneath old Princess, a grand lady with soft red feathers, and passed the egg to Biddy.

  “Why should I stop saying it? It’s the truth. A gentleman tells the truth.”

  “You should not say it, because people could get the wrong idea.”

  “Chickens are not people.” Julian said things like that. “They are chickens,” Griffin added, because that also sounded like something Julian would say. Julian made grand pronouncements out of things anybody could notice, and he always sounded impressive when he did.

  Griffin found two more eggs. The hens hardly ever tried to peck him anymore. When he’d first learned how to find the eggs, they’d made him work for each one.

  “If Abner overheard you,” Biddy said, “he’d have to tell His Grace.”

  “I love Abner too, but not the same way.” Miss Elizabeth had helped Griffin figure that out. She’d explained that in English, one word often had more than one task, just as Griffin had many chores to do around the farm. “I don’t want to kiss Abner.”

  Biddy smacked him a good one in the belly. “Don’t you start with the kissing again, Griffin St. David.”

  Griffin wanted to kiss Biddy very much. Telling her he loved her had only made that longing worse.

  “I know all about kissing,” he said. “I could show you.”

  “No, you could not. Kissing can lead to babies, and His Grace would see me on a ship for the colonies if I let that happen.”

  They finished collecting eggs, and Griffin went back down the row, giving each hen a pat to say thank you. Eggs were wonderful food, especially when Biddy made cake with them.

  “Babies do not come from kissing, Biddy.” This Griffin knew from experience, and also from Julian’s lectures.

  “I know very well where babies come from, and we shouldn’t be talking about this.” She set the basket of eggs down by the pump, and Griffin worked the handle, as he had every day they’d collected eggs.

  “Why shouldn’t we talk about babies?” he asked over the squeak and thump of the pump. “I like babies. Charity is my baby, though she’s already five. Don’t you want babies, Biddy? They’re ever so dear.”

  Biddy sat on the plank bench where she always sat when they washed the eggs. “Of course I want babies, and of course babies are dear, but His Grace has it in his head that one daughter is enough for you, and even if I wanted to…Damn, I’ve cracked this egg.”

  Biddy never used bad language.

  “Henry loves to eat the cracked eggs,” Griffin said, taking the egg from her and sitting beside her. “Are you angry, Biddy?” With Biddy, he didn’t have to pretend to understand, he could simply ask.

  She studied the cracked egg in Griffin’s hand. The insides of the egg weren’t broken, only the shell, so there was no mess.

  “Yes, Griffin, I am angry, but not at you.”

  He set the cracked egg in the grass and washed two eggs in the bucket beneath the pump, though they weren’t very dirty. Washing eggs was a waste of time, because the dirt didn’t get inside the eggs, where the food part was, but Biddy said eggs had to be washed, and Griffin liked to help her.

  “Are you angry at Julian?”

  She handed him another egg, a brown one, still warm from being tucked beneath Princess in the straw. “I believe I am, Griffin. He doesn’t see you.”

  “He came to call a few days ago. He sees quite well.”

  “It’s like the cracked egg. To me, the cracked egg is proof that I handled my basket carelessly. King Henry sees that egg as the best snack, the
loveliest part of his doggy day. Haverford only looks for the cracks in the eggs, he doesn’t see that they’ll make Henry happy and fill up his belly.”

  This was complicated and important. “I’m not an egg, Biddy.” Maybe she meant Griffin’s shell had cracks? Or maybe…

  Maybe she meant Julian was the cracked egg? The idea filled Griffin with equal parts protectiveness toward his brother and hope.

  “You’re not an egg, but you’re not a fool either, Griffin, or a small boy, or less than any other man who’s willing to work hard, try his best, and keep his word. His Grace should be proud of you, for I certainly am.”

  “Thank you, Biddy.” Griffin wasn’t sure exactly what Biddy was saying, but she was complimenting him. He knew that much from her tone.

  She passed him a white egg. “Most of running this farm is about hard work and paying attention. You do that better than many who were born farming. His Grace loves you, but he’s so busy being a duke, sometimes he forgets to be your brother. That egg is clean enough.”

  “Julian is always my brother. I love Julian.”

  “When he came chasing after you the last time you fell asleep on the hillside, were you angry with him?”

  For two more eggs, Griffin considered the question. “I was disappointed in him. I never get lost, and he thinks he must always find me. He’s sometimes not as bright as I wish he were, but he’s always my brother.”

  Biddy had a lovely, lovely smile. “Exactly. Sometimes, His Grace isn’t as bright as we wish he were. You never disappoint me, Griffin. You are always your good, dear, trustworthy self.”

  “So you’ll let me kiss you?”

  Biddy sorted through the basket for another egg, though they were all the same, and would all be washed before she took them into the kitchen. She wanted time to think, maybe. Biddy had gone only to the dame school, though she always seemed to understand what was important and she was quick with sums.

  “I want to let you kiss me, Griffin, but you’ll tell everybody, and then I’ll be sent away. I couldn’t bear that.”

  “Why would you be sent away for kissing? Julian kisses Miss Elizabeth, and nobody sends him away.” Griffin liked Miss Elizabeth, and hoped Julian found a way to keep her at Haverford. Julian was lonely, and Miss Elizabeth was nice.