The Duke's Holiday

by Maggie Fenton

  And there was no way on God’s green earth she was going to have Aunt Emily for a mother in law. She’d rather …

  She’d rather have a Season in London than that.

  So there was something worse than the Duke’s proposition, after all.

  “Wesley, I’m not marrying you.”

  “Nonsense,” he said, taking the glass from her hands and setting it on a table. Then he caught her off guard by putting his hands on her waist and pulling her near.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “I’m going to kiss you,” he said as if speaking to a child. “Then we’ll see about your answer.”

  “I was unaware you had proposed.”

  Wesley scowled. “Come on, Astrid. You’ll see I’m right in a moment.”

  “I am not going to … oh, stuff!” she managed just before his lips clamped onto hers.

  His lips were warm, soft and wet. She could taste the sweetness of his port and pudding on them. The sensation of his lips covering hers was not unpleasant, but neither was it particularly remarkable. Astrid had read a lot of poetry. She knew what physical raptures kisses were said to be capable of producing, but she felt none of that. Either every poet since Homer had been guilty of gross misrepresentation, or Wesley was simply not capable of provoking such a response in her.

  And after a while, the kiss became a shade uncomfortable, as if she were kissing her brother or Aunt Anabel. Or a fish.

  She pushed against his chest, ending the kiss.

  He ceased without a fight and stared down at her, as if puzzled by something. He did not look as if he had enjoyed the kiss either and was at a loss to explain why.

  She could explain why very easily.

  They were not suited.

  “That didn’t work,” Wesley said, dumbfounded.

  She rolled her eyes and started to give him a dissertation as to why, when a voice interrupted them across the room.

  “I thought kissing one’s brother was illegal.”

  Astrid’s heart skidded to a halt. Wesley blushed to the roots of his hair. They jumped away from each other and faced their intruder.

  Astrid cleared her throat and met a pair of livid silver eyes.

  He was angry?

  How very interesting.

  She regained her composure and smiled sourly at him. “Montford.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  IN WHICH THE DUKE’S HOLIDAY STEAMS UP

  MONTFORD HAD had many successes that evening. He had put a self-satisfied, mean-spirited baroness in her place; he had managed not to swoon when the impossibly red syllabub was placed in front of him, reminding him of a clot of congealed blood; he had blasphemed not once but twice against the Christian God – once, he thought smugly, at the dinner table!; and he rendered Miss Honeywell speechless.

  The latter was by far the sweetest.

  But his one failure was costly. He had failed to conquer his inexplicable lust for Miss Honeywell. Indeed, when he had first seen her in the drawing room this evening, scrubbed up, trussed, and pinned into the first attractive article of clothing he had seen her wear, her hair piled into a half-way fashionable coiffure, her graceful neck adorned with a simple strand of pearls, he had lost his head.

  He had not meant to kiss her hand. But he had thought he’d burst for sure if he didn’t touch her.

  And afterwards, to save face, he’d had to kiss Alice’s hand too. He would have done the same to the Lady Emily and Daughter, if he could have stomached it.

  Miss Honeywell was not pretty. Next to Alice, she didn’t stand a chance. No woman did. But even next to Alice, she was hard to ignore. The hair was unsightly. The eyes were monstrous. The freckles outrageous. She was too plump. And she exuded from every cell of her being a restless, ungovernable spirit that seemed to him physically palpable, pulsing in the air surrounding her. Did no one else feel it? Did no one else understand what a horrible power she wielded?

  Lady Emily, perhaps, did, and she did her best to break Miss Honeywell’s spirit with every word she spoke. Montford could hardly blame Lady Emily for committing the unpardonable sin of openly criticizing her relative at the dinner table. Miss Honeywell had the effect of turning one inside out.

  Montford himself burned to defeat her.

  All through dinner he’d wanted to reach across the table with his knife and saw off the three little corkscrews of fiery hair that had escaped their pins. He wanted to yank the uneven puff of fichu out from her bodice, whose asymmetry made his palms sweat. He wanted to gouge out one of her eyes with his soupspoon and replace it with one that matched. But the problem was he didn’t know which one to keep: the one the color of ripe autumn wheat, or the one the color of the heavens.

  And when she’d flung syllabub on him, he’d gone as hard as a rock.

  It was not to be borne.

  Even two uncustomary after-dinner snifters of port had not calmed him down one iota.

  He was glad he was leaving on the morrow.

  Yet he had to face Miss Honeywell at least once more before he could retreat to his room and hide until dawn. And he was determined to be the victor in their last confrontation. He would inform her of his plans for her and her family, and she would be made to see that she had no choice but to comply.

  He had the upper hand.

  Or at least he thought he did, until he entered the drawing room and observed Miss Honeywell locked in a passionate kiss with her cousin/brother. His vision clouded, his head thrummed, and his heart gave out for several astonished moments.

  He struggled to regain his composure, but three days of torture and two glasses of port took their toll.

  He was out of his mind with blind rage.

  He’d thrash Sir Wesley. He’d thrash her.

  He’d … he’d…

  He’d pull himself together if it killed him. “I thought kissing one’s brother was illegal.”

  The two guilty parties jumped apart and faced him with alarm.

  Sir Wesley looked as if he might cry.

  Miss Honeywell was red-faced and defiant.

  “Your Grace! I know what this might seem …” Sir Wesley blurted.

  “Please, don’t let me interrupt such a lovely family moment.”

  “You already have,” Miss Honeywell retorted. Another corkscrew sprang from its pins, making his pulse jump.

  “Your Grace, you misunderstand. I am not …”

  He held up a hand to stop Sir Wesley. “You are not her brother. Yes. I know, Sir Wesley. What kind of imbecile do you take me for?”

  “Shall I answer that?” Miss Honeywell muttered.

  He gave her a deadly smile.

  She glared at him and clenched her fists. “Wesley, I think you had better leave. His Excellency and I have much to discuss.”

  Wesley glanced uneasily between them and decided to cut his losses. He fled the room.

  Montford waited for her to break first. His diligence was rewarded, for at length she turned from him and stalked to a table, where she retrieved a glass of sherry and drank its contents in one gulp. “Well?” she bit out as she refilled her glass.

  “Shall you explain yourself?”

  Her eyes cast daggers at him over her glass. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Let me make myself clearer. Do you make it a habit of kissing every man who crosses your path?”

  Her color heightened. “Don’t be absurd.”

  “I should warn you now that such fast behavior shall not be tolerated in London.”

  She laughed. “If that is the case, perhaps I should stay here.”

  “No. It is quite decided. You are going to London with your sisters.”

  She set her glass aside and closed her eyes. Several clicks of silence ensued. He was uneasy what lay on the other side. He felt the air was electrically charged, and the next words out of her mouth would incinerate both of them.

  He was almost disappointed when she merely sighed with resignation. “Tell me what you have deci
ded.”

  It was the voice of defeat. He should have felt victorious. All he felt was deflated.

  And he hated her for making him feel at all. “You have cheated me,” he began.

  “If that is how you must see it,” she muttered.

  “You have cheated me,” he began anew, telling himself to stay calm, “and you have committed fraud. But rather than profiting from it, you have invested it back into the estate in some misguided effort to restructure the social order.”

  She snorted.

  “I could throw you in gaol for what you’ve done,” he continued.

  “Then do so. Get it over with.”

  “Miss Honeywell, I am not a bloody monster.”

  “Are you not?”

  He ignored her and clutched his hands behind his back so he wouldn’t be tempted to strangle her. “When I determined to travel here, I admit I was ready to hang the lot of you. And you have made it very, very hard not to make me want to follow through with it. Never in my life have I been treated so infamously. However, I am not unreasonable. I can understand why you have done what you have done, and the situation is not at all unsalvageable. Clearly, I cannot make you give up Rylestone Hall –”

  She glanced up at him, clearly taken aback. Her eyes were wide with shock and something that looked like hope.

  He looked away. “Of course it is your family’s home, and it has been so for centuries, no matter what the contract says.”

  “Your Grace!” she breathed, the relief in her voice unmistakable.

  “However,” he said quickly. “By law it is mine. By extension, all who live under it are mine as well.”

  Her relief vanished abruptly. Fury replaced it. “I am not your property!”

  “You are four unmarried women in a very precarious position. Clearly, things cannot continue as they are. You cannot continue to run this estate, for one. Mr. McConnell shall assume full responsibility from now on. And he shall take his orders from me.”

  “Has my management been so terrible? Tell me!”

  “No, it has not,” he answered honestly. “But it is unlawful. And unseemly. You are an unmarried female with no legal right to administer my lands.”

  “Perhaps not. But I am better at what I do than ten men.”

  “I will not argue with you on this point. You can’t win.”

  She groaned and ran her hands through her hair in frustration, pulling half of it from its pins. “How unfair it is that simply because I wasn’t born a man everything can be taken!”

  She stared at him in abject misery, and he felt a pinprick of guilt. “Not everything. Upon your contracting a decent marriage, Rylestone Hall and a good portion of its acreage shall be settled upon you, as well as an income. For your sisters, I shall provide dowries for each of them as well.”

  “You mean, our husbands shall be rewarded for taking us off your hands. Rylestone Hall won’t belong to me. It will belong to my husband.”

  “I cannot change English law.”

  “You bloody well can! You’re Montford! You’re more powerful than the Prince Regent.” She turned away from him, her shoulders visibly shaking. “And I suppose I have no choice in the matter. You have damning evidence against me that you’re more than willing to blackmail me with.”

  She was entirely correct. It was precisely what he was doing. But once again, she had sucked all of his enjoyment out of his victory over her. “I think I am being more than generous, under the circumstances. Most females would die for a Season.”

  “I am not most females. I have no wish to be auctioned off like a damned brood mare!”

  “I think it a bit more civilized than that,” he said, wincing at the lie. She was quite right. The social whirl in London was little better than an auction block for families to trade their daughters and sisters to the highest bidder. He himself had just bought one of them for his duchess.

  She turned back to him, her rage as palpable as the fire burning in the hearth next to him. “You think you have concocted a fine plan, don’t you? Throwing a bit of your blunt around, packing us off to the marriage mart, and riddng yourself of a most unsavory complication to your perfect little life. But did you ever consider that it won’t work? You expect me to land a fribble of a husband? Me? Your Grace, look at me!”

  She spread her arms wide, causing her gown to stretch tight across her breasts. He forced himself not to squirm and to keep his eyes trained on her face. He could not breathe from the weight of his lust.

  “I am six and twenty years old. I am not pretty by any stretch of the imagination. I cannot hold my tongue, and you yourself think I am a common strumpet. I do not think how you can expect me to find a husband.”

  “I’m sure you can browbeat someone into it,” he said before he could stop himself. “And you come with a castle.”

  She burst into hysterical laughter. “A crooked castle. Yes, that does sweeten the pot. I’m sure many men would marry a castle – and take me in the bargain.”

  They stared hard at each other.

  “I’m to be grateful for your condescension, I suppose,” she said after a moment, her head cocked to one side, studying him intently.

  He shrugged. “I do not care for pretense. You are free to loathe me.”

  A shadow of a smile flitted over her lips. “How very generous you are.” She paused. “However, I have no need to go to London shopping for a husband. I have had three offers for my hand already. I shall simply marry one of them and have done with it.”

  Something inside of him withered. It was one thing to imagine Miss Honeywell in the far distant future in a far distant city barreling her way through society gentlemen, quite another to be faced with an immediate prospect. He did not like this at all, and it must have shown on his face, because she turned away from him with a satisfied smile and began to shuffle around the contents of one of the tables he had rearranged earlier, placing everything at sixes and sevens.

  “You have had three offers?” he demanded.

  “It is unlikely, isn’t it?” she said softly, moving a small dish to the edge of the table.

  His pulse thundered in his veins. No, it wasn’t unlikely, he realized. For all of Alice’s beauty, half the village was in love with her unsightly sister.

  “Mr Lightfoot has asked twice…”

  “Mr Lightfoot!” he bellowed.

  “And Wesley has asked, oh, three times. So, including the vicar’s proposal, I suppose that technically makes six times I have been asked to leg shackle myself to a fool.” She sighed. “Since I doubt I shall find any better in London, I suppose I shall make do with what I have. Though Mr. Lightfoot is out of the question, as I think he’s a blackguard as well as a fool. No, it shall be either the vicar or my cousin.”

  She tapped her bottom lip, as if considering her options.

  He stepped towards her, quite against all of his reason. “The vicar or Sir Wesley. You can’t be serious.” He had a sudden, queasy feeling in his stomach. “Was that what happened earlier? Did that idiot propose to you?”

  “Of course. Why else do you think he was kissing me?”

  His breath hitched as he came close enough to smell her – sharp, vibrant lavender, the whisper of something else beneath the perfume, earthy and female and distinctly her own. She faced him squarely, set her chin at a defiant angle. Her mismatched eyes were full of rage and contempt, but her expression was serenely mocking, as if she knew precisely how she affected him. Did she know? Did she know how she plagued him? She was so hideously wrong, yet he burned to possess her.

  “Did you accept?” His voice sounded like gravel.

  She curled her lips into a smile that was almost feral. “He was trying to convince me to when you interrupted.”

  “Would he have succeeded, I wonder? Are his kisses enough to overcome your aversion to his mother?”

  Her smile dimmed. Her eyes shifted away from his ever so slightly.

  “They were not, then,” he murmured, reading her expression,
triumphant in the knowledge that popinjay had not moved her.

  “As I said, we were interrupted.” She paused, and her eyes snapped back to his. “And it was a kiss. Singular. And as it was my first, I have no basis for comparison. But I am sure it was quite satisfactory.”

  He felt as if he had run a mile. He could not draw a decent breath. She had stunned him. “Your first kiss,” he repeated in a strange voice.

  She held his gaze. “You do not believe me. But I expected that, of course. I know what you think of me.”

  She must have seen something in his face that she did not like, for she made to move away from him. But he could not let her go. His hands were on her shoulders instantly, then around her forearms, and he was pulling her towards him. She resisted, of course, raising her hands to his chest as if to shove away from him, but he wrapped his arms around her, crushing her in his embrace. She was warm and soft in all of the right places.

  He was intoxicated, maddened, by the touch of her. He spread his hands over the small of her back, feeling the ridges of her spine beneath the satin gown, the swell of her backside. He wanted to move his hands lower and cup that delicious softness, but he refrained. She was trembling, and her eyes had become uncertain, her expression as skittish as a wild animal who’d been cornered. He remembered that look from when he had touched her in the library so inappropriately, and now he knew what it was.

  She was innocent.

  “I believe you,” he murmured. And he did. He’d thought her a strumpet, but she wasn’t.

  Desire electrified every molecule of his body. He wanted her even more than before, and he was ashamed and confused because of it. He was not a despoiler of virgins. He did not lust after innocents.

  Except that he did. He wanted to consume her.

  And he felt a primitive rage that Sir Wesley had touched her first. It was one kiss, but it was her first, and it had been lost to him forever.

  Mine, an inner voice shouted inside of him. Mine, mine, mine!

  “What are you doing?” she asked in a shaky voice, pushing against his chest.

  He took in a deep breath and expelled it slowly. “Providing a basis for comparison.”