by Olivia Ritch
Duke of Her Dreams – Olivia Ritch
him. They had been out for what she estimated to be twenty minutes or so and it was as good a time as any to suggest they turn back. It would be about a four mile run at this rate.
She hesitated and he asked, “Is something amiss?”
“No, I think…it’s time we turned around.”
More than grateful to be heading back to the house and hopeful that they had not been followed, he stepped out in front of her and led the way back to the house. He sensed the danger as they crested a small rise that gave onto wide views of the park. There was an arriving carriage.
Visitors. And Michael and Kathryn dressed in breeches, sweaty and breathing heavy. This was very bad.
Hoping to have secured her agreement for staying with him permanently before greeting any guests, Michael was aware what would happen if the two of them were discovered as they were, not betrothed. A betrothal would allow for a lot more flexibility in their movements and for now, his presence with her like this would compromise her reputation. He had no choice but to tell her their problem. “Kathryn, please slow down for a moment.”
“What’s wrong, you look worried.”
“Visitors. They really should not find us like this. I mean alone together and dressed scandalously.”
“All right, okay, so what do we do?”
“Servant’s entrance I think. I can towel off and greet them and you can slip upstairs and call for your maid.”
“Lead the way, Captain.” There was a tone in her voice he did not recognize and he regarded her face for any sign of that elusive niggling doubt that said something was amiss.
They parted just outside of the kitchen and she made her way toward her room. Michael regarded her retreating back and could not help but sense something was wrong. There had been no dazzling smile, not so much as a word. But she had done exactly as he had asked and disappeared without alerting their guests to her presence. What had he said or done to cause her hesitation?
* * * *
The click of the door was louder that she had meant it to be and she hoped it did not draw any attention. She wasn’t brooding. She wasn’t. It didn’t hurt that he wanted to keep her secret from visitors. Maybe, actually it did hurt a little. If she really thought about it, it made her feel cheap and dirty to be thought of as a sex partner, playmate, even friend, but not one he would publicly acknowledge. That was it…dirty. She had never let anyone make her feel dirty and as nice as he had been, he made 109
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no secret of his wish to keep her from polite society.
It was as good a time as any to begin contemplating her next move, actions she had let fall to the back burner because she had been enjoying her visit with the Stafford family. Tonight would be as good as any to have dinner in her room so she could plan in quiet.
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Chapter Twelve
Dispensing with the Stogwells had been even more difficult than ridding himself of the matron Pembroke days earlier because the Stogwells were actually decent and pleasant. He just couldn’t focus on what they were saying while he was distracted with Kathryn’s withdrawal at the end of their run. He wanted to talk to her to dispel the unpleasant tightness that had settled in his chest. She had looked…hurt.
Surely not over their conversation about his deceased wife. Something he had said or done had caused it and he needed to fix it. “Vicar, I know my aunt would like to learn more about the Flower Committee. I will encourage her to seek you out to discuss it.”
“Wonderful, Your Grace. Your presence here is so…so…
stabilizing. The village has needed leadership. I trust that we will see a renewed spirit what with the festival and…”
“I intend to take my place of leadership.” Michael declared to dispel any notions the Vicar may be harboring.
“With that, we will leave you Your Grace,” Stogwell demurred.
Michael turned to find his frighteningly efficient butler at his service. “Hallthrope. There you are. Will you order…”
“The Vicar’s carriage is waiting My Lord.”
He waited for the unmistakable crunch of gravel before asking of Hallthorpe. “Miss Ragland?”
“She has ordered a bath and dinner to be served in her room, My Lord.”
Damn.
Michael hoped that Hallthorpe might have an idea what was troubling Kathryn. “Did she give any reason for not coming down to dinner? I don’t think she’s ever skipped a family meal before?”
“No.” Michael recognized the unmistakable flicker of indecision in his man’s expression.
“You’re hesitating. You’ve realized something just now. Out with it man.”
“It occurs to me that you have had several visitors and she has not been introduced to any of them, Hallthorpe offered.
“Why would that…” but his words trailed off as he realized exactly what she must be thinking. He had sent her in the servant’s entrance no less and she had accepted that gracefully, without her usual warmth but 111
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nonetheless she had allowed him to treat her like his private playmate to be hurried off into the shadows when proper company arrives. “You think she thinks I am keeping her secret don’t you?”
“There is that, yes.”
“Damn!”
“As you say, My Lord.”
Michael paced his study until late in the night, the recognition that he had hurt her, albeit unintentionally, settling in his gut to pull and ache.
He wanted to secure her hand so she would know, absolutely that he was not ashamed of her, indeed that she would be his Duchess, his partner.
He had just been giving her time, nothing more. Michael was in fact exceedingly proud that Kathryn would be his wife and could not wait to tell her so. Morning could not some soon enough for him.
* * * *
Kathryn had spent a fretful night alone in her room, having been determined to not do or say something she would regret after Michael’s apparent embarrassment over her presence in his home. “Miss Ragland, there you are.” “Well, you did arrange this appointment. So formal.”
“What I wish to discuss with you is rather serious. Please sit down.”
Almost reflexively, her brow shot up and she realized in just a few short days—had it been ten?—that she had taken on one of the household’s most artfully executed expressions. “Oh?” She arranged herself in the chair before the fire fully expecting him to take the chair across from her. Instead, he sat on the edge of the desk and dangled a booted foot over the side toward her.
“Yes. I am a rather direct and practical man so I shall ask you without further delay. I would like to make you my wife. Will you accept me?”
Marriage? Kathryn had not at all expected this meeting to begin with a proposal of marriage. She thought she had made it clear to Michael that their affair was informal and that she could not abandon her plans to get home. She also thought pointedly back to his rejection of her the day before. How had he come to a marriage proposal when he could not introduce her to the Vicar? She wondered momentarily if it had been the presence of the Vicar that had made him determine he needed to make her respectable.
She allowed the silence to stretch because frankly, she just couldn’t answer him. When she remained quiet, he continued.
“You would be the mistress of this house. All the decisions regarding the household would be yours.” He waved his arm to indicate 112
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her surroundings as if she didn’t know what he meant. “You could determine to live here, in London, or on one of my other estates.” He paused and when she continued regarding him stoically, he went on. “I will need an heir. It will be expected of our station. Additional children would be appropriate as well. You would be the Duchess of Asterleigh.”
After collecting her though
ts Kathryn felt she could speak. She took a very deep breath. “It sounds like you’ve given this request a lot of thought and I do appreciate that, however…I can’t commit to marry you now.”
“What exactly does that mean,” Michael asked with that thinly veiled menace she had heard in his voice before.
“You know I am committed to getting home.”
“You can go home any time we can arrange it,” Michael waved off her concern.
“You don’t even believe me about my home.” She was becoming frustrated. “You can’t make a promise to take me somewhere you do not believe exists.”
“Kathryn, I know very well you have a home.” He glared at her. “I just don’t believe how you got here.”
“And that is as good a reason as any that we do not need to marry each other.”
This time he allowed the silence to stretch and she saw the muscle in his jaw twitch. She could tell he was trying very hard not to reach his hand up to rub his forehead. He thought he was making her the offer of a life time but being married to someone who was going to let her live anywhere and who did not love her, did not even believe her, probably was worried about introducing her to his neighbors was not Kathryn’s idea of a proposal.
Oh, she knew well enough that it was the way of nineteenth century autocrats to order women to marriage but she was just not one to be cowed.
“My Lord?”
“Michael.”
“Michael, I want from marriage a partnership.”
Yes.
“Someone who wants to spend time with me more than anyone else on this earth.”
Yes.
“Laughing, joke telling, making love until noon…”
Yes. Yes and Yes.
“Someone who wants to have babies with me so much he thinks of 113
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baby names in his dreams.
Yes.
“And someone who will never have a mistress, not only won’t have one in the future but never had one. That it is only me and with a commitment to make our marriage be something to be proud of.
Simply… someone who loves me.”
Yes.
Oh, hell. Did he love her? The thought had come unbidden in Michael’s head. But had she just said she didn’t love him, didn’t feel any of those things? Hadn’t she? Michael could not recall in all of her scathing diatribe if she had rejected his heart.
“And for me, I want to be school-girl crush, heart-racing, weepy-eyed in lust kind of in love.” She paused and he did not interrupt her. “I want it, that magical relationship that makes you whole. You are not offering me that.”
She did not move. She was finally quiet and it was his turn but what was he supposed to say after she so artfully threw his precisely worded proposal of marriage back in his face? Was he supposed to declare undying love for her, infatuation of her grace and charms, throw himself at her feet? As she watched him outwardly calm, Michael realized that was indeed what she expected. She should not hold her breath. “Kathryn, what you are asking is not a conventional marriage. I am making you a very lucrative offer.”
“My Lord, you’ve only known me a few days so I am trying hard not to be offended but really, do you think I’m someone who would want to choose to live anywhere but with my husband? Do you see me as someone who would prefer London to the country or social events to horseback riding lessons or London balls to visits with the tenants? Do you see me as the type of person who wants to think of having children as the duty to provide an heir? And can you see me as a Duchess? I still prefer pants and men’s drawers to big hair and bodices. And, can you possibly see me being someone to accept anything but full and complete fidelity?”
She paused for breath. He did not even twitch.
“I cannot accept your proposal.”
At least she had the decency to look down but she didn’t seem to be embarrassed. No, she really seemed to be well, content. “Will you excuse me now, My Lord? Umm…Your grace? ”
“Yes.”
She turned slowly and he thought for one moment he saw regret in her eyes but she shuttered her gaze from him so fast that the fleeting 114
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emotion was gone. He heard her taking the stairs two at a time.
Dropping into his chair behind the desk, Michael turned to stare out into the blackness of the garden. For just a moment, he saw Kathryn and his sister laughing and giggling conspiratorially and his heart locked, his breathing sped up and he broke in two the quill he had heedlessly grasped. Closing his eyes, Michael let the nausea roiling in his gut flood him and he wept silently.
* * * *
Kathryn locked her door dropping back against it. Her heart was racing, underarms sweating. Oh, great, she knew would stink again. She must also be about to start her period because the tension and anger in the aftermath of that absurd experience downstairs were building to unbearable levels and yet, if she examined everything he really said, he had not done anything so bad. For him it was a great offer. Duchess for crying out loud, live anywhere, host parties, be rich beyond words but for what? To have a separate life from a husband? To be subjected to the possibilities of sharing spouses, mistresses, lovers, orgies. Kathryn’s parents had had that and it had sucked.
It wasn’t like she was in love with him. He had been a great host, perfectly polite, mannerly and sometimes he had even been fun. He had been generous and chivalrous and sexy, but all of those things came with the package he offered her. He enjoy sex with her and get her pregnant but he didn’t say he would help her through labor or even get her ice cream in the night. He didn’t say he would be with her in the birthing room. He probably wouldn’t but maybe that wouldn’t be his fault.
Michael would probably care for the child but he didn’t say he was looking forward to taking it fishing or teaching it to ride. His father hadn’t done those things for him. This man really didn’t seem like the type to cheat but he also didn’t seem like he’d be doting or even affectionate. Everything Michael offered was surface, no feeling, no emotion. Kathryn needed the emotion. She would have the heart of her husband.
Now that she had rejected his marriage offer, especially since it had badly blindsided her, Kathryn had to face the unpleasant reality of what to do with herself. Not accepting Michael’s hospitality was a start. She had to look forward. But before she moved on, she had to look back at what now had become so clear. She had thought he was being hospitable, treating her so wonderfully out of the goodness of his heart and because he genuinely enjoyed her company. When all the time it had somehow been part of a plan for him to get a wife and not a mutual relationship that they had been pursuing after all. He had brought her here to marry 115
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her. That was cold reality and it made her feel slutty and cheap and…like she had been used. And it was just then that Kathryn realized he had never once offered to help her get home and had never believed her or even been willing to discuss her claims. She wasn’t feeling a deep down hurt at these revelations about his motives, not even that he had deceived her in any sort of horrible way, just that he had used her rather more than she would have liked. With that she had made her decision.
* * * *
“My Lord, will that be all?” “Yes, Minton, thank you. I will be riding early in the morning.”
“Of course.” As his valet slipped out the door noiselessly, Michael scanned his room for a place to sit and ponder the question of Miss Kathryn Ragland …a partnership, laughter, joke telling…horseback lessons in men’s breeches…making love until noon… dreams of baby names… I want to be heart-racing, weepy in lust. In a flash of realization, Michael knew what he wanted. He wanted her to be in that heart racing lust with him.
Sleep did not come.
Dawn was welcome.
All would be better today. It had to be.
The ride helped some. Not much.
The cool morning pre-d
awn air gave way to the stickiness of daybreak. Fury was not yet winded but Michael was restless and frustrated, thoughts colliding in his brain. But after an hour of pounding, blistering riding, his thoughts had still not cleared. Did he love her? He could not conceive of her with another man. That was sure, set in stone.
She would never belong to anyone else. She was his.
Could she come to love him? And did he even want to be in a love relationship with her? And demmit, when the hell had she ever thought he would be unfaithful? Had she so little faith in him?
Cassandra. Of course, Kathryn had the example of what happens to trusting women from faithless husbands and blind-eyed society, right here in his home. Surely, Kathryn could not equate him to that lousy, good-for-nothing reprobate Penthoven? But as he said it to himself he knew, Kathryn would never be able to contemplate a marriage without a declaration because she knew it could be just such as Cassandra’s.
Heartless, hurtful and dangerous. He understood, he thought.
Michael rode neck or nothing back to the house to break his fast and speak with Kathryn over the meal when he met Hallthorpe in the hall.
“Miss Ragland has not come down, My Lord.” Is it that obvious?
“Yes, My Lord.”
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“I didn’t even say that out loud.”
“No, My Lord.”
“Demmit to hell!”
Michael had long since finished his food and forced down a second cup of coffee in an obvious attempt to delay leaving the dining room so that he would have a legitimate reason for being there when she arrived.
At half nine when Kathryn still had not joined him, he rose just as the door was swinging wide. “My Lord, Miss Ragland’s room…”
“What? Spit it out.”
“She seems to be gone, My Lord.”