Dauntless (The Shaws)

by Lynne Connolly

  Now he had her to himself he became aware of her less obvious charms. She smelled of something sweet and sharp—a flower, not as overpoweringly sweet as a violet, more like the light scent of the primroses she wore in her hat. Aware the flowers were silk, he could only come to the conclusion that it was her.

  Desire swept over him, sudden and unexpected. He had felt something similar last night, but their quarrel had put his initial response to her out of his mind. Now he recalled it.

  Turning hurriedly, he extended his gloved hand to help her into his carriage. He had brought the curricle. Light and two-wheeled, it was considered a sporting vehicle, rather fast, and with his pair of grays, would take some skill to drive. To do her justice, Lady Drusilla mounted the small step confidently and settled herself without checking for the position of the hand-holds.

  As he stepped back, he caught sight of something glittering on the gray pavement. Bending, he retrieved a small pair of gold-rimmed spectacles, the kind lawyers perched on their noses when they wanted to make a point or read particularly fine print.

  “Oh! May I have those, please?”

  Oliver placed them into her imperious outstretched hand. “They are yours?” Looking up into her face, he noted her anxious expression, her frown. He might have taken it as displeasure, were it not for the way her throat moved when she swallowed.

  “Yes, indeed. I only use them when my eyes become tired. I am perfectly fine usually.”

  That accounted for the occasional blank look he’d noticed last night. Was the way she had fixed her gaze on him a symptom, too? He would prefer if it were not. He’d rather she stared at him because she wanted to. That was the one part of last night he had enjoyed. She’d gazed at him as if he were a hero. Very few people looked at him like that. “What do you do to tire your eyes so much?”

  He had intended the remark as a light sally to give him time to walk around to the driver’s place, where his groom was holding the reins ready for him. However, the cloud that passed over her face was not due to the overcast day.

  As he leaped up to his place and gathered the reins, he had little time to look at her, but he puzzled over the conundrum on the way.

  The gilded iron gates lay fully open, and Oliver did not hesitate driving through.

  “I want to apologize again for last night, but this time less formally,” he said. “I am truly sorry for upsetting you in that way.” The groom behind them was too far away to hear what they said, so long as they kept their voices to a moderate conversational level.

  “Upsetting me?” Her light tone held laughter, but not the spontaneous expression of shortly before. This was undoubtedly her society voice. “I assure you, sir, I merely exchanged one partner for another. My cousin Julius proved a more than superior substitute.”

  A subtle insult Oliver could not but admire, even though she had aimed it at him. Now settled in the procession of the great and the good who made Rotten Row their own at this hour, he spared her a glance. “I am delighted to hear it. However, the journals were not so kind, but I am sure this public appearance will assuage their curiosity. We’ll put it about that I was taken suddenly ill last night. I care not how they traduce me. They may say I was drunk or that I have the manners of a yokel, so long as you are left unblemished.”

  “Did Julius speak to you?” Her question sounded genuine, although he was still finding his way around this enigma of a woman.

  “Not yet. I have that felicity later today.”

  “Ah. So he didn’t tell you to say that?”

  This time he fully turned his head to meet her gaze directly. “No, he did not.” Did she think he was so lily-livered as to respond to a threat, however carefully worded?

  She hunched a shoulder, inadvertently drawing his attention to her linen-covered bosom. “It sounds like something he’d have drawn up, that’s all.”

  Her skin glowed through the fine lawn, and he felt a jolt of something he should not be experiencing for a single lady—physical desire. He longed to draw that fabric aside, to touch the soft flesh underneath. “Maybe we think in the same way.”

  “Nobody can match Julius.”

  What was he, some kind of god? Oliver considered Lord Winterton a pleasant, though somewhat finicky, fellow. His lean figure and elaborate clothes belied a man of whipcord strength, as Oliver had witnessed recently in a fencing studio. He would not like Winterton as an adversary, although he had to admit, the encounter would be interesting. If he needed to, he’d take the Earl of Winterton in any contest he chose. He anticipated the encounter with some eagerness.

  “So you’re being a gentleman now?” She flicked out her fan, not plying it, but examining the flowers and portraits painted on the delicate surface. “Truly, sir, I do not know what to make of you.”

  “You mean after my churlish behavior of yesterday, I take it?” What did she want, blood? He would not abase himself.

  A woman he vaguely knew smiled at him from an elegant landau moving in the opposite direction. He nodded back and touched his hat with his whip. But her image faded from his mind as soon as she had passed.

  “You are an enigma, sir. I thought I knew most members of society tolerably well, but you do not spend a great deal of time in London. Our paths outside the city have not crossed.”

  His mouth tightened. “I prefer country pleasures. London is crowded and dirty.”

  “And invigorating.” She snapped her fan closed. “I enjoy the crowds and the excitement. There is not another city like it in all the world.”

  He sent her a smile. “True enough. So we had better show these crowds how friendly we are.”

  She smiled back.

  Oliver forgot where they were and what he was supposed to be doing. Her smile dazzled him, as if the sun had come out from the bank of clouds and decided to surprise everyone. In a flash of insight he recognized a fellow traveler, someone on the same road he was trudging along. Only Drusilla made it a joy instead of a duty. She saw the flowers where he only saw tangled weeds.

  He would fight for an outlook like that. But would he fight for her?

  Yes, he would. With a suddenness that was most unlike his usual decision-making process, he put himself on the side of the angels. “One ride in the park won’t convince our critics,” he said, before he could change his mind.

  “They will have forgotten us in a few days. Scandals happen all the time. Kitchen maids will be using the papers to light the fire with next week.” She dusted an imaginary speck off her gown, avoiding his gaze. So she was not unaffected by him. Triumph soared through him, as if he’d won a great victory.

  “We need to prove our cordiality, if nothing warmer. And I owe you at least one minuet.”

  “Pooh, you owe me nothing.” She made a delightful scoffing sound at the back of her throat. “You have paid your debt, sir.”

  “Your generosity does you credit, but I fear we cannot abandon one another so precipitately. In short, Lady Drusilla—”

  Of course the sparkiest gray had to choose that moment to stumble.

  The delicate carriage lurched, its wheels creaking ominously, and then something below them snapped, the sharp sound shocking him into taking action. This vehicle was high off the ground, the black wheels large and showy. Cursing, Oliver tightened his hold on the reins, but the horse that had stumbled was already on its knees, jolting the curricle off-balance.

  Gravity did the rest. Oliver cast any attempt at control aside. Grabbing her around the waist, he went forward as the carriage lurched sickeningly to one side, rolling as he pushed away from the vehicle. He had no choice but to go in the same direction as the carriage. However, he could at least ensure they fell clear of it.

  They hit the ground with a sickening thump. Oliver turned them midair so he was beneath her, his body taking the brunt of the crash, the impact knocking all the breath from him. She fell over him wit
h what should have been a delightful mess of silk and perfumed body. Oliver had no time to do anything but cushion her fall.

  Cries came from all around them, together with the sound of wheels and horses, the orderly procession disrupted by their catastrophe. Fortunately they must have had some notable whips following, as they did not find themselves under any carriages or hooves.

  After one sharp cry, Lady Drusilla fell silent, but the heaving of her breasts over his chest told her she was still alive.

  With a supreme effort of will, Oliver dragged breath back into his body and lay still, as people surrounded them, chattering and exclaiming. Curls tickled his mouth. “Are you awake?”

  “What?” came her delightfully acidic response. “You expected me to fall asleep midair?”

  Chapter 3

  The abrupt nature of the accident shocked Dru into making the kind of tart remark her mother would not have approved of. She was alive and relatively unhurt, although shocked and sprawled over the duke. As it was, she had become the center of attention again, and all because of this man.

  He’d fallen on his back and pulled her over him. Lord, how badly must he be hurt?

  Her second thought was for her modesty, but glory be, the light cane of her hooped petticoat had snapped on impact. Although she lay in a tangle of yards and yards of silk, her lower body remained covered. If the journalists were about, at least they couldn’t report that everyone had seen what Lady Drusilla Shaw had to offer a man.

  The duke was as tangled up as she, so rising to her feet and making a graceful exit was an impossibility. Not that she had any inclination to do so.

  “I suppose you know this means we have to meet again?” he asked, his voice breathless. Not surprisingly since she’d landed fully on top of him.

  The close contact as much as the fall undid her. She had not been this near to anyone for a long time, and the physical proximity drove any common sense she had left far away. Her first instinct, as always, was to throw up her shields. “I know nothing of the kind.”

  “Lady Drusilla, you are a complete and unexpected delight.”

  Then he kissed her. He kissed her! Not lingering, but he pressed his lips to hers in the briefest of caresses. Her senses swam, more than when she’d flown into the sweet air and felt him reach for her.

  “Sir!” She tried to sound indignant, but she couldn’t manage it. For two pins she’d continue to sprawl over him and claim a kiss of her own. More, she wanted more.

  He gasped, drawing more air into that large body. Shocking and instant, her attraction to him had increased threefold. But she could not let him know. He could not feel the same way. He had stolen the kiss out of sheer devilment. His senses weren’t overset. He hadn’t felt that instant arousal. Why would he?

  She should probably roll away from his chest, but his solid masculinity—and the way his body warmed hers through the layers of fabric—fascinated her. They were intimately twined together by her skirts, as if in bed and tangled in sheets.

  Where had that thought come from?

  People chattered around them, offers of help appearing from all directions. Dru pushed her hat back, feeling the broken straw. She must look more like a scarecrow than a lady of fashion.

  He stroked her, roaming his hands over her. Dru was too far gone to complain, although her mother would have her guts for allowing a man such intimacies. She liked it.

  “Can you get to your feet?” he asked softly, but while he said that, he still held her close.

  Disappointment washed through her when she understood why he was stroking her. He was checking for broken bones. She was letting her imagination run wild, as usual. “I believe so, although my skirts are somewhat in the way.”

  His responding chuckle struck her as deeply inappropriate, and a little off-key. “I will endeavor to remain completely still while you disentangle yourself. If you ask me for help, I will render it, but I think if we both move at the same time, we will merely make matters worse.”

  “Your grace!” That was the groom.

  “Tell me.” He sounded resigned.

  “One ’orse limping, but I don’t think he’s hurt bad. I’ve got t’other tethered close by. The curricle’s a wreck.”

  Trust a groom to care more about the animals than the passengers. Dru caught her response before it left her lips. Lifting her head she discovered she was nose to nose with the duke. Delight hit her before she could repress it, and her smile reflected it. “We will be the talk of the town,” she murmured, so only he could hear.

  “The talk of the country. They will say I did it deliberately, and I fear, had I known the delights in store, I might well have.”

  “Nonsense!” By dint of tugging hard and ignoring the rips as the delicate lace at her elbows gave way, Dru managed to lift her arms and prop them on his chest. He groaned as she levered herself up. Served him right, she thought with a vicious smile she immediately regretted. After all, he had tried his hardest to shield her fall. “You aren’t the best whipster I’ve ever driven with.”

  His eyebrows came together in a pained frown. “Had the others known what felicity they could have, they might also have done the same.” But that answer set something between them.

  Honestly, would nothing suppress the man? His hands came to rest on her back, gently, as if holding something precious. As they stilled, she realized he was shaking, a fine tremor racking his body.

  They exchanged a look of pure honesty. “You were worried.”

  “Of course I was.” His irritability did not hide the fear in his eyes. Even now, when they were obviously both little the worse for the tumble, he had concerns. About her? “In case you’ve forgotten, Lady Drusilla, your mother gave you into my care. Of course I am concerned.” He firmed his grip on her, and the fine trembling stopped. Only because he was holding her too tightly to let it show. “You should take care when you distract me from driving.”

  As if any of this was her fault! Dru bit back her acid response. He really was worried and trying to cover it up. His sharp response did not fool her for one moment.

  But she had too much humanity to deliver the jab he deserved as she scrambled up. A gentleman gave her his hand as she stood. After thanking him in a perfunctory way, she took no notice of the avid crowd that stood watching her disgrace. The brim of her broken hat fell over one eye, and she pushed it up as Mountsorrel sprang to his feet.

  He shook his coat into place. Apart from a few smears of mud, he looked fine. She was a wreck. His groom handed him his hat, and he propped it over his bare head. His wig must be lying in the mud.

  Dru preferred him without it, anyway. Under the fashionable wig he had short-cropped dark hair, so thick she wanted to test it with her fingers to discover its softness for herself.

  She was a complete mess. The people crowding around them did not have to tell her so. One side of her hooped skirt had completely collapsed, crushed and broken in the fall, but the other side annoyingly remained, giving her a lopsided appearance. Her bodice was twisted and filthy with mud, and the linen fichu that was supposed to cover her bosom modestly had been mostly pulled away. If she tucked it back in she would only draw more attention, so she left it be and concentrated on ridding herself of her ruined and useless hat. The parasol had disappeared, probably under the remains of the carriage, which lay on its side a short distance away. The back wheel rotated uselessly, and shards of wood lay on the grass.

  “A back wheel broke,” the groom said, pointing out the obvious.

  “I say, that was excellent control,” someone said.

  Her cousin Ivan stepped out of the melee of fashionable oglers. He whipped off his coat and slung it around Dru’s shoulders. She subsided gratefully into its warmth.

  “The whole business could have been much worse,” he added, holding out his hand to Mountsorrel, who took it in what looked like automatic response
.

  “If I had been paying more attention I could have done better. I felt the unevenness of the ride, but I assumed the skittish horses were responsible. The wheel must have been giving way since we entered the Park.” Mountsorrel took a decisive step toward her, taking her hands in his and turning them over. His were clean, because he’d stripped off his gloves, but she still wore hers, and they were covered in mud. “Are you sure you are unhurt?” He spoke to her as if she were the only person there. The only person who mattered.

  Her ears still rang with the sickening crash when the wheel had split, but she was not, she realized with surprise, seriously injured. “I daresay I have a few bruises, but I am perfectly well. How about you? I fell on top of you.”

  He tried not to wince when he shrugged, but she saw the slight hesitation and knew what it meant. He was more hurt than he wanted to admit. “I am, as you see, hale and hearty. But you? I will take you home, and you will have a physician to look over you.” He scanned her visually, a frown between his brows.

  Although shaken, she was far from badly affected. “I don’t need a physician,” she protested. “I don’t have any broken bones, and I am certain I have no other serious injuries. A hot bath will probably put me to rights better than having a strange man poking and prodding me.”

  Gray eyes opened wider, and she knew she didn’t imagine the heat that flashed across them. Too late she realized what she had said could have more than one meaning. Poking and prodding of a different kind shot into her mind and she turned away hastily. Only to see her cousin suppress a grin.

  “While I appreciate your help, cousin, I do not think I need trouble you any longer.”

  When she tried to remove his coat, Ivan held it in place. “On the contrary, your lady mother would string me up if I left you alone now. I will take you to her, if you will permit it. I have my carriage just down the way. I was taking Lady Branwell for a drive, but I am sure she will not mind shifting over a little in the circumstances.”