by Cheryl Bolen
She possessed all he could ever want in a bride. And he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anything in his privileged life.
This time, he feared, his good fortune would fail him.
Once they were out of London, the coach proceeded at a monotonous pace, which, along with the steady clopping of horse hooves, lulled Bonny to sleep.
The carriage was still quite dark when she woke to find the duke’s arm hooked around her, pulling her rather into his barreled chest. And to her utter embarrassment, her right hand reposed on his muscled thigh. She listened to the steady thumping of his heart beneath her ear, and she could never remember knowing such utter contentment. She pretended to sleep still, enjoying the feel of being so close to him, but she slowly put her hand back in her own lap.
As daylight began to filter into the carriage, she sat up quite straight, not wanting Emily and Martha to see her in so familiar a position with the duke.
The duke politely removed his arm from around her and sat erect, also. She turned toward him. He looked very tired. “I’m very much afraid my own comfort has been at your expense,” she whispered.
The corners of his stern mouth lifted ever so slightly to reveal a dimple in his tanned cheek. “Actually, Miss Allan, I don’t know when I’ve ever been more comfortable.”
As the days of the journey stretched onward, they fell into a regular pattern. The duke rode a horse most of the day, leaving the women to the coach. Each evening they would stop at an inn, where he arranged for them to eat in a private dining parlor and where he would procure rooms for each of them.
The last night of their journey, they stopped at the Blue Cock Inn, where Radcliff informed the cousins there were not enough available rooms. Emily and Bonny would have to share.
While their things were being taken to the room, the duke escorted the ladies into the private dining parlor, where he had ordered ale and kidney pie. Though it had turned beastly cold outside, a fire nicely warmed the darkened room. The duke sat on one side of the table, which was but a short distance from the hearth; Emily and Bonny sat on the other side. Bonny welcomed the musty scent of a rich peat fire, the first she had smelled since she left Milford.
“I feel such a burden, your grace,” Bonny said. “You’ve had nothing to do but ride and ride for eleven long days. How deadly dull it must be for you.”
“It hasn’t been dull. I’ve never been north before, and I’m enjoying new scenery. There’s a gentle beauty about this country with these long stretches of lonely moors.”
Gentle beauty. That was exactly how she felt about the moors. Most Londoners cursed them, but Bonny had always loved to wander by herself along the moors. Nothing gave her so great a feeling of inner peace as walking through the mist here in Northumbria, where the land gently sloped into shrouded skies. “I find it so myself, your grace,” Bonny said with a funny little catch in her voice. For once, she did not avert her eyes from his but looked at him full force, drawn by his penetrating gaze, which made her feel he knew her every thought.
She wondered how long they would have looked into each other’s eyes had not the innkeeper’s wife chosen that moment to deliver their ale. The kindly woman, not used to having so grand a personage as a duke, could not do enough for them.
During these evening meals, Emily and Bonny had learned more about the duke. That his seat was in Kent, that he appreciated beautiful things from horses to snuffboxes, that he preferred the country to the city.
And Radcliff had learned more about them.
“I must confess I enjoy going where I’ve never been before,” the duke said, glancing at Emily this night. “Is that what took you to Spain, Lady Emily?”
“That and the fact I’d be with my aunt Camille. I was much closer to her than I am to my own mother. Maybe because she never had children of her own. She spoiled me greatly.”
“Her husband served with the Peer?”
Emily nodded agreeably. “Yes. Uncle Trevor’s a colonel.”
“I suppose not having children made it much easier for your aunt to follow the drum,” Radcliff said. “Did you enjoy it, Lady Emily?”
Emily’s eyes sparkled. “It was the greatest experience of my life.” She lowered her lashes as well as her voice. “It was also the most sorrowful.”
Bonny met the duke’s awkward gaze. “Emily’s aunt Camille took a fever and died not two months ago. In a French farmhouse. I regret to say my aunt Lucille, Emily’s mother, wanted to put off the mourning until Emily was presented. You see, few people know yet of her sister’s death.”
He nodded. “And if Emily was not presented this season, you, too, would have had to wait another whole year.”
“Exactly,” Bonny said, her lips firm. “For they were to present us together, and because of my mother’s situation, waiting another year would not have been acceptable. So you see, I am a burden to everyone.”
“No you’re not!” Emily protested.
“Your cousin’s quite right, Miss Allan. It is obvious you two are quite fond of each other, and I would guess that Lady Emily most certainly prefers being with you than with anyone else.”
Emily nodded at this.
Then the duke turned his eyes on Bonny. “And as for myself, I find it an honor to be able to spend so many days in your agreeable company. I daresay, there are a score of men who would happily join me in paying court to your beauty.” The duke stabbed his fork into his pie to avoid making eye contact with Bonny.
Feeling flushed, Bonny poked her own fork into the steaming pie and took a bite. It bothered her that he always brought up her beauty, especially now that she knew of his love of beautiful things. Was she to be treated like just another object? Something to be admired, then put on a shelf? As attracted as she was to him, she knew such a relationship would not satisfy her. She wanted a man of passion and feeling.
“It is still very kind of you, your grace,” Emily said in her wispy little voice, “to oblige my cousin so. You are very gallant.”
Bonny looked up into his face, the soft candlelight on it, and felt a tightening in her chest. His eyes met hers. “You are indeed gallant,” she said softly.
In their room later, the ladies lamented the lack of a fireplace, kept on a good deal of their clothing under their nightgowns and climbed beneath the several counterpanes the innkeeper’s wife had piled on the double bed.
“I will be so glad to be at your house tomorrow,” Emily said through shivering teeth. “To be warm through and through. It’s so bitterly cold up here.”
“I very much fear you will take a cold in your weakened state, Em.”
“Quit worrying about my health so much.”
“Oh, very well, I’ll worry about Mama. I do hope she is still alive.” Bonny’s tone was as forlorn as the wind howling outside their window, and her insides churned with sickening grief.
“I do, too,” Emily said. “I think she needs to meet Radcliff.”
“Why, pray tell, do you think she needs to meet Radcliff?”
“Think how happy she would be to think him your future husband!”
“He’s no such thing! The duke is merely a kind man. He has no interest in me. He could have any lady he wants. It’s not likely he would choose one with no dowry, or someone as unsatisfactorily prepared to be a duchess as I.”
“He’s one of the richest men in all of England. He doesn’t need to marry money. And it’s my opinion he means to marry you.”
“That’s absurd. It’s obvious by his refusal to call me by my first name that he wants to maintain a detachment.”
“He doesn’t have to say it, you goose. He shows it. In every moment of the day, in every action, and when he looks at you, he positively drips with adoration.”
“Pooh!” Adoring looks, indeed. Coolly appraising gaze, more likely. Nothing in the man even hinted at passion, Bonny thought, turning her back to her cousin. She pulled the blankets to her chin, thinking she should have worn gloves to bed, worrying Emily would catch he
r death of cold, worrying about her mother.
But most of her thoughts centered on Emily’s words. If only they rang true. For despite the disparity in rank between Radcliff and herself, and against her own reasoning, she had indeed fallen in love with him.
The duke lay awake, tormented with thoughts of Bonny. Every night since he had left London he’d lain awake thinking of her. Of how badly he wanted her. In his mind’s eye he would see her lovely face with those incredible eyes rimmed in long black lashes, see the silkiness of her fair skin and the luster in her thick black hair. He could almost taste her perfect little mouth on his. And he would imagine how glorious it would be to feel her soft body beneath his.
He had been unable to ride inside the coach since that first night, giving up the relative warmth to ride along the lonely country roads, the wind and cold making him shiver through every limb. All in an attempt to purge Barbara from his thoughts. Being so close to her and not being able to take her in his arms and thoroughly love her, to have her take him inside her, had driven him half-mad. He could not trust himself when he was with her. He would know nothing but misery until he could make her his own.
But each night, the same memory came back to him. The memory of Barbara sending a farewell message to the Earl of Dunsford. He grew to hate his old school chum with a fierceness that scared him. But above all, he grieved that Barbara had lost her heart to Dunsford before that night he had first seen her across that dance floor and fallen hopelessly in love with her.
Chapter Four
Radcliff watched with worry as Bonny ran into her mother’s house, and his step quickened to catch up with her. He remembered his own mother’s death and wanted to be with Bonny if grim tidings awaited.
The poor girl had been too anxious to wait for the housekeeper to answer the door. Holding her skirts in front of her and taking the stairs two at a time, Bonny had hurried to the second floor and come to a sudden stop in front of a butter yellow bedroom. Radcliff eyed her solemn face as she stood at the doorway looking into the unoccupied room.
By this time a middle-aged woman whom he judged to be the housekeeper came panting from the stairway, put her hands on her stout hips and addressed Bonny. “Aye, ’tis Miss Bonny.”
Radcliff knew when he saw a pleasant look on the woman’s face that Bonny’s mother must still be alive.
“If ye be lookin’ fer your mama, ye be lookin’ in the wrong place. She couldn’t be a-takin’ them stairs with her poor lungs, so we moved her bed into your papa’s library.”
“Then she’s—” Relief flashed across Bonny’s face.
“She’s still alive, but don’t be gettin’ yer hopes up. Dr. ’oward says she can’t last much longer. I believe she be ‘angin’ on to see ye one last time.”
Bonny’s long black lashes lowered and she swallowed hard, then hastened back down the stairs, taking a piece of Radcliff’s heart with her. If possible, she was even more beautiful when she suffered, he thought.
Emily, who had not made the trip upstairs, stood on the first floor looking up at Bonny with a questioning gaze. “Is she—?”
“She’s in the library.” Bonny hurried past her cousin.
Emily, the housekeeper and the duke followed Bonny to the library. Though it was much smaller than his library at Hedley Hall, Radcliff thought the Allan family library fit its name far better. The Hedley Hall library housed no less than two couches, two fireplaces, a goodly sized gaming table and attractively bound classics of literature that showed little sign of use. But this was indeed a book room. The many shelves were crammed with well-worn volumes, and still more towers of books filled every tabletop and nook the small room could yield.
In one corner of the room reposed a daybed next to a window where red velvet draperies had been pulled back. And from that bed came the sound of Mrs. Allan’s hacking cough.
“Mama!” Bonny exclaimed as she ran to take her mother’s hand.
The elder woman’s face brightened when she looked up at her daughter, but she withdrew her hand.
Bonny turned to Emily, who was at her side. “Mama won’t let me touch her, you know. She thinks I will get the consumption, too.”
“As well you could,” Emily reproached her.
Bonny frowned. “I am far too healthy, but I don’t think you ought to be here in your weakened state.”
“But, I—”
“Please.” Bonny gave her cousin an imploring gaze.
Emily nodded and moved to leave the room. “Though you know I don’t care if I live or not.”
Wondering why so lovely a young woman would want to die, Radcliff silently moved behind Bonny, hoping she would not ask him to leave as she had Emily. He felt a need to be here with her.
Mrs. Allan tried to speak, but talking was difficult.
“Yer mama was mad at Dr. ‘oward,” the housekeeper said, “fer sendin’ fer ye. She sent another post tellin’ ye not to come. ’Course, I told ’er ye would be on yer way. I knows our Bonny.”
“Yes, Mrs. Melville, you do,” Bonny said.
“I’ll be off now to prepare the tea and see to the fires,” Mrs. Melville said.
Bonny turned back to the sickbed. “Mama, don’t be mad at me for coming,” she said softly.
“When have I ever been mad at you, love?” Mrs. Allan whispered.
Bonny reached into her reticule. “I have a letter for you from Uncle David. Shall I read it to you?”
Mrs. Allan’s gray head nodded.
Bonny unfolded the letter and began reading.
Dearest Cynthia,
It pains me exceedingly to know how ill you are and to be powerless to aid in your recovery. But I am not powerless to ease some of your worry. Please know that for as long as she needs it, Bonny Barbara will have a home with me and will be treated as I treat my own dear Emily. With the money our mother left her, you should not need to worry about her future. While my wife has done little to endear herself to either you or to Bonny Barbara throughout the years, please know that I will not tolerate anything less than the most cordial treatment of your daughter from my wife henceforth.
Your most affectionate brother, David
“Such a sweet little brother—” Mrs. Allan began to cough.
Her face pained, Bonny moved closer to her mother.
Radcliff wanted to pull her away from the menacing cough, to protect her from the disabling disease, but he forced himself to hold back.
Finally, Mrs. Allan stopped coughing and spoke again. “But he would have you for love of me.” The older woman stopped and took a deep, rasping breath before continuing. “I want to know that when I’m gone, there is someone who loves you as your father and I have loved you.” She gasped for more breath, holding up her hand, a sign that she was not finished talking. “Someone you will love as I loved your father.” The woman’s eyes filled with tears.
The old woman put to words what Radcliff felt in his heart toward Bonny. Drawn to Mrs. Allan by the deep affection they shared for her daughter, he stepped forward, sucking in his breath and trembling, fearing he would make an utter fool of himself but knowing what he must do to allay the woman’s worries, to free himself of this obsession over Bonny.
“I will love your daughter, Mrs. Allan, if you will do me the honor of allowing her to become my wife.”
Bonny spun round, alarm in her eyes as she faced him.
Cursed, but he had not done that very well, he chided himself. Such a shock it must have been out of the blue to lovely Barbara, who was already in such a distraught state. He should have spoken to her first, which he would have done had his declaration been planned. Whatever had possessed him to rattle off so to the sweet old woman?
But just as Barbara had been unprepared for his offer, he had been unprepared for the glare of rejection he saw on her face. Did she love Dunsford so? He knew he was taking unfair advantage of her sorrowful circumstances to usurp the Earl of Dunsford. And he knew if given the chance to do so again, he would. Never had he wanted
anything as much as he wanted Bonny Barbara Allan, and he would do anything to win her. He vowed to earn her love if she would but give him the chance. He held his breath as he watched her face, trying to gauge her reaction. Was it anger or was it shock?
He smiled and spoke with a calmness he was far from feeling. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your mother, my love?”
Bonny stood frozen with her back to her mother, her face impassive.
Hoping that Bonny would not betray him, he looked into her mother’s blue-green eyes, eyes that forty years before must have looked like Bonny’s. “I fear you have done too good a job instilling proper manners in her, ma’am, for she still feels awkward addressing me by my first name.” He stepped closer to the bed and bowed. “I am Richard Moncrief, the fifth Duke of Radcliff, your most obedient servant.”
The old woman looked from him to Bonny and back to him. “I have never tried to speak for my daughter,” she managed to say before another outburst of coughing. When the coughing stopped, she added, “Ask Bonny. Not me.”
Radcliff’s eyes searched Bonny’s inscrutable ones. “I beg to speak to you privately after you have visited with your mother.” He left the room.
When the door closed and no one remained with Mrs. Allan except Bonny, the older woman said in a feeble voice, “Surprised you, didn’t he?”
Bonny nodded.
“Gentlemen don’t make so far a journey out of kindness. Did you not guess why he came?”
Still stunned by the duke’s proposal, Bonny shook her head. She could not believe that was why he had come all the way to the North Country. It couldn’t be for her. He couldn’t possibly love her as he had told her mother. She would know it if he did. There would have been some kind of intimacy, even if it were just calling her by her first name. But there had been nothing.