by Norma Darcy
“Oh be quiet, Nicky, do!”
“I’m just saying, is all. Come on, let’s go.”
They arrived back in the town just as the gentleman they were pursuing had reached his home. And Louisa arrived back at the hotel later that day, tired and frustrated and missing Malvern like a gaping hole in her side.
On the following morning she saw him. They hardly exchanged a word but she saw him. He was wearing a bottle green coat and biscuit coloured pantaloons and was riding a horse whose coat shone like molten copper in the sun. At his side was a beauty on a white horse, her groom behind them at a respectful distance. Miss Thomas. His head was turned towards his companion and he was laughing at something she was saying. Something about the way Miss Thomas tossed her head told Louisa that her rival was confident of reeling the Duke in.
Suddenly, she faltered. What if the Duke wanted to be reeled in? What if he liked the heiress? Was she about to make a fool of herself by throwing herself at him when he had already found her replacement?
Louisa’s feet then appeared to have welded themselves to the ground. She stood open mouthed, struck dumb. “I can’t do this,” she whispered.
“There he is!” cried Nicholas, oblivious to the turmoil raging in his young charge’s breast and raised the tip of his walking cane to point it at the Duke.
Louisa grabbed his arm and whirled them about so that their backs were presented to the oncoming riders. “Oh don’t point your cane at him. He’ll see us.”
“Well, if that don’t beat the Dutch! You want him to see us, you goose. Lord, I worry about your sanity sometimes. We came here specifically to see him and now that we’ve come all this way and finally tracked him down; you decide you don’t want to see him after all―”
“What if he doesn’t want to see me?” she whispered, her hand gripping like a claw at the sleeve of her companion’s coat.
“Of course he’ll want to see you.”
“But he―I mean look at them. Look at the way he is looking at her. He admires her! Oh it was a mistake coming here!”
“Lou, get a grip on yourself, will you?”
“Oh, he’s nearly upon us!” cried Louisa. “What shall I do? If we turn down this path we might escape his notice.”
“Too late, he’s seen us,” Nicholas replied cheerfully.
The Duke looked over at them and stiffened. He sat atop his horse, staring at Louisa, a strange and utterly perplexing expression on his face, his handsome lips hardening into an uncompromising line. She saw anger in his eyes and surprise too, but also something else, something unreadable which brought the heat of mortification to her cheeks. She remembered the last time she had seen him and all the horrible things she had said. She remembered the angry expression on his face as she accused him of being devoid of all feeling and passion. She remembered the hurt in his eyes that an old friend could say such cruel things to a man who had always been loyal to her through thick and thin. She bit her lip, wishing that the ground below the sleepy town of Lansdowne might develop a sink hole the size of Carlton House and swallow her up. She wished she had worn a bonnet with a larger brim so that it might shield her face from his view. She wished that he wouldn’t keep looking at her like that.
Louisa saw Miss Thomas break off her conversation when she realised that her companion was not listening to a word she had said, and then she too turned her eyes upon Louisa.
Malvern swept the tall curly brimmed hat from his head as he rode up to them. “Good day Lady Louisa… Nicholas. Allow me to present Miss Thomas to you. Miss Thomas, my friends Lady Louisa Munsford and Mr Nicholas Ashworth.”
“Enchanted,” said Miss Thomas with a faint sneer, which implied she was anything but. She held her riding crop at a strange angle, as if she were at any moment planning to wield it against her love rival.
“A pleasure to meet you, Miss Thomas,” replied Louisa in a small voice.
There was a brief but pained silence. The Duke looked uncomfortable, his habitual easy manners had deserted him and he appeared to be more interested in a gentleman acquaintance of his who was at that moment riding by than in the present company. Finally he brought his eyes back and addressed Nicholas.
“What brings you to Worcestershire so suddenly?” asked Malvern.
“You,” said Nicholas in his blunt way, which brought a blush to Louisa’s cheeks.
“Indeed?” said the Duke and raised one haughty brow. “Should I be flattered?”
Nicholas rolled his eyes in exasperation deciding that someone needed to take these two love birds in hand or nothing would be resolved to anyone’s satisfaction except possibly the sour faced Miss Thomas. “Louisa has something to say to you, your grace,” he blurted.
Louisa gasped. “Nicky!”
“Well you do, and if you two are just going to stand here and glare at each other all morning, then I’m off!”
She coloured hotly and looked away, unable to raise her eyes from a distant flower bed.
The Duke turned his eyes upon her for the first time. “You have something you wished to say to me, my lady?”
Louisa balked. “No, indeed sir, I do not wish to interrupt your ride―”
“Louisa, tell him!” said Nicholas, exasperated.
“Nicky, if you don’t be quiet I swear I’ll―”
“Tell me what?” asked the Duke quietly, still watching Lady Louisa.
She swallowed, her hands shook, and she felt hot and cold at the same time. Oh God, why did she come here? “I am sorry. I made a mistake coming here. It is clear to me now―”
Nicholas rolled his eyes. “What Louisa is trying to tell you is that she’s in love with you, and yes thank you, she would be honoured to accept your hand in marriage.”
Louisa gasped. “Nicky! How could you?”
“Well it’s true, isn’t it?” Nicholas reasoned, spreading his hands.
There was an uncomfortable silence during which time the Duke’s eyes had shifted to Louisa’s reddened countenance.
“How very affecting,” tittered Miss Thomas, her sneer quite pronounced. “Tell me Jasper, since when has it become acceptable in our society for young women to throw themselves at gentlemen in the street?”
The Duke struggled to form an answer.
“I did not throw myself―” insisted Louisa, acutely embarrassed.
Miss Thomas smiled like a snake. “Let us go, Malvern. This creature seems determined to ruin what has been a very pleasant morning―”
“Is it true?” demanded the Duke, cutting across his companion’s speech with uncharacteristic rudeness. He watched Louisa, his eyes steadily upon her face.
Three pairs of eyes stared at her. She blanched.
“I apologise for interrupting your ride,” Louisa said with difficulty, “I should not have come―good day.”
She bobbed a curtsey, turned about and ran.
Chapter 12
Louisa thought that she might well find a very high cliff somewhere and throw herself off it.
What had she expected? That he would forgive her? That all she had to do was go to him and he would reassert his wish to wed her without the bat of an eyelid? Did she think that she could cast herself onto his chest and he would hold her and forget all the hideously foolish things she had said to him in the orangery at Foxhill?
How childish she must have sounded to him! How utterly wanton too! He must have laughed himself silly. He, a man who had lived a great deal and if rumour had it, loved a little too, should take lessons in lovemaking from an innocent girl who knew no more about love than a kitten? It was laughable.
She hid herself in her room at the inn for the rest of the day, at turns tearful, determined never to speak to him again and the next moment planning how she would win him back.
It was during one of these spells of bright optimism, when she was writing to her sister in the private parlour that Nicky had hired for their personal use, that the door opened suddenly and the Duke of Malvern himself walked in.
T
o say that his arrival was unexpected would be an understatement.
He had not been announced and his sudden appearance before her threw her mind and her cognitive skills into considerable disarray. She dropped her pen and succeeded in rendering a good portion of her carefully written letter illegible with a growing splat of ink. She blotted it and stammered an apology, and realising that the letter was a hopeless cause, gave up finally and looked over at him, a sheepish half smile on her lips. But the smile died when she saw the expression on his face. There was no smile of returned greeting, no words appropriate of a long standing friendship such as theirs. He closed the door behind him and made the quite extraordinary step of locking it.
“Good morning your grace,” she said uncertainly, rising from her chair.
She stared at him, a little confused by his behaviour. He had not moved from his position by the door or made any move to greet her in the accustomed manner.
“Are you quite well?” she asked.
Finally he moved towards her, his eyes dark and intent with purpose. He was staring at her in a way she had never seen from him before and it gave her pause. She hesitated and tried to smile.
“Shall I ring for tea…?” she murmured, her voice faltering as he closed the distance between them.
And still he would not answer. She backed away uneasily as he advanced upon her across the room, his eyes holding hers captive all the while.
“Malvern?” she said, thinking that he might have bad news to impart. “Is everything alright?”
He pursued her still until her back bumped against the wall and she felt the flocking of the wall hangings beneath her fingertips. She had no-where left to run. She stared doggedly up into his face as he took the final step towards her. He braced one hand against the wall either side of her waist, trapping her with his body but without touching her.
“You doubt me as a man?” he demanded.
She was horrified. “No.”
He placed one finger under her chin and tilted her face up towards him. “You doubt my ability to make love to you?”
The colour flamed in her cheeks as her eyes met his. “No.”
“My interest then? You think I have no interest in pleasures of the flesh?”
She was mortified. “It was a silly argument, no more. I was angry and―”
“You think that because I am a gentleman and treat you with respect that I do not feel desire?”
She could do nothing but stare at him. She shook her head. His dark eyes bored into hers with anger and something else that made her heartbeat double its speed.
“You would prefer me to try and force my attentions upon you to show that I have the same desires as other men? Is that it?” he asked.
“No…no Malvern, I swear―”
“Because I have made no move to touch you, you think that I don’t wish to?”
She heard the bitterness in his voice and swallowed hard. “No.”
“You accuse me of treating you like a child…of thinking of you as a child and not a woman. You have grown up, have you not?” he said as his eyes travelled rather insolently down her body.
Her voice felt strangled and she opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out.
“Yes,” he agreed, eyeing her as a hawk eyes up its prey. “Curves in all the right places. And you think that because I have not tried to steal a kiss or more from you that I have not noticed that you have become a very desirable young woman?”
She hardly knew how to answer him. “Malvern, please―”
“Well let me tell you that you are wrong. You are wrong indeed,” he whispered and before she knew what he was about, lowered his head and locked his mouth firmly to hers.
If he had set out to shock her, he succeeded. If he set out to change the orbit of her world and knock it out of kilter, then he succeeded in that too. She was shocked, stunned and struck dumb by the change in him. This man who held himself on a tight leash, never allowing himself to show his feelings in public for fear of having them mocked or thought vulgar was letting her see another side to his nature; an exciting, masculine, masterful side. And now here was her safe, dull, staid Malvern, kissing her―and passionately kissing her at that!
Her lips tingled with static at the first touch of his mouth as if her whole body became alive with a primitive electricity and breathless anticipation. He deepened the kiss, his lips coaxing hers apart and they moved under his with an answering pressure. She closed her eyes as a trembling excitement fanned out through her body. When his tongue entered her mouth and touched hers, she thought she had never experienced anything so wetly shocking or so downright arousing, but she did not want him to stop. She could not let him stop. Her arms slid around his neck and pulled him nearer, her mouth opening eagerly to his gently probing tongue. His arms slid around her and brought her against him, his hand on her bottom, the deeply erotic kiss shocking her innocent mind to the core.
She had never thought to see such a change in him. She had never thought to see such anger or such passion. His behaviour, his demeanour, the look of want deep in his eyes staggered her. Was this her Malvern? Was this her dear kind friend who took her to museums―?
She should stop him now. She really should; his other hand was working the buttons at the back of her gown and soon he had the bodice of her gown open and was tugging the sleeves off each shoulder. His lips left her mouth and worked their way down her neck, over the hollows of her collar bone and down to the swell of her breast. She wasn’t sure how he managed it, as her eyes were closed at that moment, but her nipple was freed from the confines of her dress and he took it gently but firmly into his mouth, sucking and licking the hardening nub until she moaned with the pleasure of it and threw her head back against the wall. Something surging and exciting tingled between her legs and her fingers crept into his hair, holding onto his head as his tongue swirled with maddening slowness around the taut sensitised peak of her nipple. The world could have slid from its orbit and she would not have noticed, the building could have collapsed around her and all she cared about was his mouth hot and wet and wickedly arousing on her breast. His hand slid slowly under her skirts and petticoats, higher and higher, his fingers warm and dry. He hooked her garter with his thumb and slid it downwards, exposing the smooth skin of her thigh to his touch. His finger slipped between her legs, and she gasped and cried out as he explored the slippery wetness of her. And as his finger massaged her flesh and he licked and teased and sucked at the sensitised tip of her breast, she felt a white hot tingle of heat between her legs and she wanted to open herself as wide as could be to let him find all of her. Her breathing was ragged, her heart beating like a galloping horse and he flicked some tiny secret part of her with his thumb and she felt a surge of pleasure careen to that spot.
And then, he stopped.
Just when an exquisite tension was building inside her, when a yearning for release took hold of her and nothing else mattered but his touch, he stopped. Just when she began to feel as if she were on the edge of something wonderful, when she was desperate for him to bring her to the crescendo that she felt sure was there―maddeningly, he stopped.
He raised his head and released her and she almost slumped to the floor. She blinked, uncomprehending. Had she done something wrong…?
Her knees were trembling, her breasts begging for his touch, her body tingling with excitement and a desperate need for him to come back and finish what he had started. She stared up at him, her lips swollen and red from the imprint of his kiss, her naked breasts spilling out of her dress in the most wantonly disgraceful manner, her hair in wonderful disarray around her shoulders.
If Malvern was at all moved by this very erotic display, she would not have known it for way he looked at her with such calm indifference.
“As a matter of interest, how much further were you going to let me go?” he enquired, holding up her garter that he had removed as if it were a trophy, moving the soft fabric between his fingers and bringing it against
his lips.
She flushed with humiliation, gathering the disarray of her bodice over her exposed bosom. “I don’t understand,” she whispered.
“No,” he agreed. “You don’t. You mock me for treating you as a gentleman should, with honour and respect. You flaunt erotic paintings under my nose to taunt me into what exactly? Kissing you? Is that what that day was about? You touched the man in that damned sculpture as if you were touching a lover. You cannot know how my body has tortured me for weeks with thoughts that you might one day touch me in such a way.”
He took a step away as if he needed to put the distance between them for his own safety as well as hers.
She frowned, confused. “Are we stopping?”
“That, my lady, is up to you. You will choose if you wish us to continue,” he said, his eyes straying to the open bodice of her gown, betraying the thought uppermost in his mind. “Make no mistake; I am a man as any other with the same desires as any other. I want you in the most disgraceful, un-gentlemanlike ways that any man wants a woman. I want to do things to your body that would shock you exceedingly. But I will let you choose—while I yet have the power to walk away. Tell me now or forever be silent, which do you want? I can be a gentleman and leave this minute or I can be a scoundrel and seduce you.”
He tilted his head and his eyes slid to her mouth. Her lips were parted in breathless anticipation. He stared down at her for a long moment. “Well? Shall I unlock that door?” he prompted. “Which do you want, the gentleman or the scoundrel? Shall I take you on the rug as Nicholas Ashworth and others would? Is that what you want from me, Louisa? A quick tumble before the fireplace?”
Slowly, she shook her head, as if at last realising what had almost happened. Tears of humiliation stung her eyes. “No.”