Or, at least, that was how he would see it. To Astrid’s mind and the minds of her forebears, however, no laws were being broken.
Again, the Duke was bound to see things in a different light, and Astrid did not want to spend the rest of her life in Newgate. Who would take care of her sisters, or the brewery, or the tenants?
She would not panic. Not now.
She wasn’t any closer to figuring out what to do with the Duke or the muddle between them, but she wasn’t about to let him have the upper hand. The only thing to do at the moment was stall, evade, and so flummox the Duke that he never had a chance to get his bearings long enough to discover the truth.
And lord knew the Duke could use some flummoxing. She had never seen such a stiff collar or rigid spine or tense jaw. She wondered how he did not shatter under the weight of such self-importance. He was wound even tighter than Roddy had been.
The most remote man to walk the earth.
She raised her eyes to his and considered Roddy’s assessment as she saw the Duke … no, actually saw him, for the first time. Not Montford. Not her loathed nemesis. Not a stuffed shirt in shiny boots. But him, the man beneath, the one who reminded her of a ten-year-old boy, the one who had stolen a look at her breasts this morning and eaten one of her biscuits last night with such an expression of surprised ecstasy Astrid had nearly dropped her tea in her lap. The man who kept peeking out at the world behind that dour, icy demeanor.
She realized Roddy was quite wrong. Montford was not the most remote man to walk the earth. He was the loneliest man … no, the saddest man she had ever met, and he was so coiled up in himself he didn’t even realize he was miserable.
Her heart swelled in her chest, and he was no longer a ten-year-old bully, but a child of four, alone on the side of a highway, tears streaking down a face covered in dirt and dried blood. She could picture him in her mind as clearly as if she had been there. She wanted to reach out to him, take him in her arms and soothe his hurt, take away his pain, kiss away his tears …
Damn Roddy for telling her such a heartrending tale. Damn him for making Montford … human to her.
But once Astrid’s heart swelled like that, there was no turning back. She would never let anyone know the truth – that beneath her prickly tongue and bluestocking tendencies she was a sentimental fool. She had always been a sap when it came to wounded animals, teary-eyed little boys, and lost causes. It never failed that she wanted to take broken creatures under her wing and fix them, even though most of her projects eventually found a way to, either literally or figuratively, bite the hand that fed them. But she never stopped trying.
Montford, to her mind, fit all three categories, especially the last one. If ever there was a lost cause, it was this perfect, odious man standing before her now.
What was she thinking? She would be a fool to try to rescue him from himself.
An utter fool.
But damned if she wasn’t going to try anyway.
His brow furrowed. “Why are you smiling like that, Miss Honeywell?”
“Am I? Well, I suppose it is because you think I am going to cooperate.”
“I take it you’re not.”
“No indeed, Lord Montford. For where would be the fun in that?”
He looked as if she had spoken a foreign language, not made a declaration of war, which, unbeknownst to him, she had.
She stuck out her tongue, turned, picked up her skirts, and ran all the way back to the Hall.
Chapter Six
IN WHICH MONTFORD IS CONFRONTED BY A PASTORAL UTOPIA
MONTFORD couldn’t quite believe what had happened moments ago. No one had ever done such a thing to him. It was outrageous. Inexplicable.
The bloody woman had stuck her tongue out at him.
If she thought he was going to chase after her, thereby losing what little dignity remained to him, she was quite mistaken. He would not run like some common swain in pursuit of that red-haired virago.
Although that was what his legs itched to do, quite regardless of his resolve.
Damn that woman to bloody hell, but she was a … a …
Handful.
A strumpet.
Worse. He suspected she was a bluestocking. The horror. He couldn’t think of anything more tiresome than a woman who pretended to be a man. As if he couldn’t see very well that she was female, what with all of that hair. And the dress (she had foregone the trousers today, thank God). And the breasts.
The very full, very round breasts he had had the misfortune to glimpse in more or less full glory this morning. Yes, the nightrail had covered at least half of those glorious mounds, but no, the night rail had not done its job properly, for the hallway had been cold, and the early morning light drifting through the windows had rendered the thin fabric a moot point at best. Those breasts were a … a…
Handful.
And he had found himself struggling with the memory of them the entire time he’d been attempting to converse with her just now. It had not helped when he had run into her and the very same appendages he was trying so hard not to think about had smashed up against his chest. Now he had not only the memory of how they looked, but also how they felt – soft, nubile – to plague him. Not to mention the scent of her rising up off her hair – hay, lavender, woman – and lingering in his nose long after the fact.
His body – a traitor to all Montfords past – had quickened with an unmistakable animal lust.
He wanted her, he realized with alarm. He wanted this woman, who was so wrong, so utterly flawed and incorrect, more than he’d ever wanted a woman before. For a split second, when they had been body to body, he’d imagined himself dragging her off the path, pinning her to the ground, and taking her right there in the shrubbery, like some animal. He had more than imagined it. He had considered it.
He had clearly gone insane.
Taking firm control of his wandering libido, Montford managed to restrain himself from running after Miss Honeywell. Instead, he walked in the direction of Rylestone Green in an effort to clear his head. Despite the mud and the general disorder of the natural world, the walk into the village was pleasant. The sky was as blue as Miss Honeywell’s right eye and mild for early October in Yorkshire. Had he been any less of a prude, he would have unbuttoned his jacket and loosened his cravat to accommodate the heat. But he was not. And he was not any less disturbed by the mud on his Hessians than he had been yesterday.
But he could not deny that the air was fresh and clean and faintly sweet-smelling, a far cry from London’s polluted atmosphere. It was amazing how good it felt to simply breathe in the pristine air. He could get used to rural life – if something was done to eliminate the … well, ruralness.
He passed by a field of grazing sheep, and two of them wandered into the road directly in front of him. Montford jumped back, catching his hat in his hands before it could pop off his head. “Good God,” he muttered.
He detoured around the intruders, careful to let no part of his clothing graze their puffy, dirty white wool. He nearly jumped out of his skin when one of them baaahed in the general direction of his privates.
At length, he reached the village. The sight of it filled Montford with the same uncomfortably warm feeling he’d had when he’d first seen the castle. It looked too perfect, the long, wide green that provided the village with half its name leading up to the steps of the old Norman chapel. The green was well tended and dominated by an ancient elm, under which frolicked a handful of young children playing hoops and chasing their pets. The main street was cobbled and bustling with local traffic, the shopfronts freshly painted and immaculately polished. The citizens of the village looked as prosperous and quaint as the village itself. A veritable pastoral idyll.
It was a far cry from the other shabby, rather frighteningly uncivilized towns he had encountered on his journey through Yorkshire. It was a far cry from what Montford expected to find, considering the returns on the estate.
And it would bloody well nev
er do.
Rylestone Green was supposed to be a ruin.
Which made someone a liar and a thief.
Without entering the village, he spun around and stalked back to the castle, more disgruntled than ever. From the moment he had received Mr. Lightfoot’s letter, he had felt the same way he did when he found a book shelved out of order in his library, or when Coombes lined up his boots with the outer edges facing inward. Except the feeling had been magnified a hundred times over as the days wore on and Stevenage remained silent, no doubt because of Miss Honeywell’s machinations. With the added stress of his upcoming nuptials and the bedamned restlessness that had lately plagued him, Montford had grown, in short, hysterical. It was the only explanation he had for undertaking a journey he would have never considered otherwise.
And now that he was here, now that he’d seen Rylestone’s prosperity, he was more certain than ever the Honeywells had been cheating him for years. He had no idea what to do to fix things. This was not a situation easily resolved by changing the order of his boots or reshelving a book in its proper location.
How, he wondered, did one reshelve a family?
Well, at least one thing was clear to him. Until he got a straight answer out of Miss Honeywell, he was not going to get anywhere. She held the key to this muddle. If only she were not so … so insufferable. Insolent. Flip. If only just the mere sight of her didn’t make him want to howl in outrage.
He’d have more luck capturing the moon and hauling it to earth than having a rational conversation with Miss Honeywell. But the angrier he got and the more hopeless it all seemed, the more he wanted to do just that – not necessarily have a rational conversation with the woman. That would never happen. But he did want to defeat her. Not very noble of him, but there it was.
By the time he returned to the castle, the only thing he knew for certain was that he was not going to allow Miss Honeywell to hoodwink him.
How to do that was another matter entirely.
As it seemed she was determined to avoid his company – no doubt in order to hatch some nefarious scheme against him – he supposed he was going to have to avoid her avoidance.
In other words, he was going to have to attach himself to her hip.
He shuddered in revulsion. Or at least he attempted revulsion. Otherwise he would have to acknowledge to himself that his shudder had another cause, which had also inspired a tightening of his loins and an image of bounteous breasts flashing behind his eyelids. He had never been impressed by women’s bosoms before. Bosoms were bovine. Bosoms were coarse, so very plebeian. Why could he not get Miss Honeywell’s out of his mind?
He shook his head and tried to breathe deeply as he entered the castle keep.
Follow her, he told himself. Plague her. But do not touch her again. And do not, for Christ’s sake, look below her neck.
It had been too long since he had given up his last mistress and asked for Araminta’s hand, and that must be the source of his problem with Miss Honeywell. He needed a woman.
His spirits fell as he realized how little a chance there was of that in the near future. He supposed that the next woman he bedded would be his wife.
An arctic breeze crept up his spine at the thought of Araminta, and he welcomed it, for as he watched Miss Honeywell descend from the stairwell in the front hall, he felt no return of his former unruly feelings regarding her bosom, even though it bounced with each little hopping step she took.
From the speed with which she moved, she was still obviously trying to evade him. But he stood at the bottom, effectively cutting off her escape route. She came to a halt a few steps above. She held a bonnet and a pair of gloves in her hand as if prepared to dash outside once more. Her face was pinkened with exertion and her eyes flashed with vexation.
Her ire pleased him. He was glad to know his company piqued her as much as it did him.
“Miss Honeywell. On your way out?”
She studied him with suspicion. “Yes, I was on my way out.”
“In that case, I should like a look at the books while you’re conducting your business.”
A flicker of exasperation crossed her features. “Of course, Your Grace. We have an excellent library.”
“The estate books, madame.”
He did not think he imagined the way she paled at his statement. Oh, the little strumpet definitely had something to hide.
“I do not think that will be necessary –” she said.
“Oh, but I do, Miss Honeywell.”
“There is nothing to interest you in that quarter –”
“Oh, I doubt that.”
She moved across the front hall and peered outside. Her expression changed from hunted to devious. He followed her glance. A curricle had pulled up the front drive.
“Besides which,” Miss Honeywell said, “I don’t think it’s any of your business.”
“How do you figure that?”
She threw him a look over her shoulder that was pure smug victory. “Because my brother has arrived.”
Chapter Seven
IN WHICH MISS HONEYWELL ATTEMPTS TO DIG A HOLE TO CHINA
Montford watched at a distance of a few paces as Miss Honeywell and her sister Alice greeted the new arrival. The young man was mop-haired and handsome in a pleasant, vapid sort of way, his eyes large and brown and earnest. He was clearly related to the Honeywells, as evidenced by his red hair, freckles and snub nose. Montford was quite sure, however, he was not their brother. Not only because his solicitors had made sure Alyosius was heirless years ago, but also because of the way the young man was currently staring at both Miss Honeywells, like a besotted mooncalf.
Montford snorted.
“Astrid!” cried the man, bounding towards Miss Honeywell, embracing her impulsively. “It’s been ever such a torture to …” He blushed when he noticed Alice standing off to the side, also furiously blushing. “Alice!” cried the moon-faced fool, jumping back from Miss Honeywell and trotting over to Alice. He looked ready to embrace her, thought better of it, and took her hand instead, kissing the top of it awkwardly.
Alice’s face turned from pink to crimson. So did the visitor’s. “Hello, Alice,” he mumbled.
Montford rolled his eyes. It seemed this gentleman was in love with both Honeywell sisters. The poor sod.
“Hello, Wes –” Alice began.
“W-Anthony. Hello, Anthony,” interrupted Miss Honeywell, moving quickly to separate the two. “We’re ever so glad you’re home.”
As Montford had expected, the gentleman’s face creased in confusion. He looked from Astrid, to Alice, then back to Astrid, blinked, then noticed Montford loitering a few paces away. Eyes lighting up in comprehension, he started forward, arm extended.“Very nice to meet you, er, Anthony—” the man began. Poor, poor sod. Astrid jerked on his arm in a panic, and he stumbled backwards. “Astrid, what in the blue blazes …” he hissed.
“Anthony, you silly pea-hen,” Astrid laughed. “You very well who you are.”
“Anthony” glanced at Alice, who just shrugged.
“You’ve arrived just in time, for look who has come to call. May I introduce His Grace, the Duke of Montford?” Astrid continued breezily.
“Anthony’s” jaw dropped to the ground. Or it would have if it had not been hinged to head. He drew himself up and gazed at Montford with eyes the size of dinner plates.
“Your Grace, may I present my brother, Mr. Anthony Honeywell.” Astrid elbowed Anthony in the ribs.
Anthony struggled for several moments to say something, but nothing came out. At last, he seemed to find some measure of self-control, for he finally managed to bow quite correctly and murmur, “Your Grace.”
“Mr. Honeywell,” Montford ground out.
“I am … shocked,” Anthony blubbered.
“Not so much as I,” Montford murmured dryly. “I was not expecting you.”
“Oh, well … erm, I came over straight away from mother’s – egad, Astrid!” Anthony cried, rubbing the spot w
here Miss Honeywell had just thwacked him with an elbow. “What are you about? And why do you keep calling me…”
“You must be starving after your long journey. And parched,” Astrid cut in smoothly, pulling the confused young man towards the castle entrance.
“Not really, I…”
“Let’s go inside, and you can tell us all about your trip.”
At that, “Anthony” brightened considerably, clearly on even ground once more. “Yes, my trip.” He turned to Montford with an anxious expression as he was pulled along. The poor fellow stood absolutely no chance.
Montford tipped his hat at the man and turned to Alice, who was staring wide-eyed at her sister’s back. She turned to Montford with a worried frown.
They both cleared their throats and looked towards the curricle.
“Hardly a practical vehicle for a long journey,” he drawled.
Alice squeaked out a response through her terror.
Montford sighed. “Don’t worry, Miss Alice. I’m sure your sister can explain everything to us in due course. But let’s give the two of them a minute.” He paused with what he thought was an appropriate measure of drama. “To get their stories straight.”
She stared at him in surprise. “You’re not going to … I mean, Wes … er, Anthony…”
“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of stopping your sister from digging herself a hole. Where would be the fun in that?” he said drily, repeating Astrid’s own words from earlier. He offered Alice his arm, and she took it hesitatingly.
And as they strode together inside, Montford realized that he had spoken the truth to Alice. He was, as demented as it seemed, starting to be immensely entertained by Miss Honeywell’s scheming. He was, in fact, having fun. More fun than he’d had in years.
And on the heels of that realization followed a healthy dose of apprehension.
The Duke's Holiday (The Regency Romp Trilogy) Page 9