Something that felt perilously like jealousy stabbed him in the gut.
That was ridiculous. He’d just met the girl; she was determined never to marry; and to top it all off, she was distantly related to Isabelle Dorring, the authoress of all his woes.
“If the Earl of Penland is your uncle, why didn’t your parents send you to London for your come out?”
She sent him a look of disgust. “What? So I could be paraded about on the Marriage Mart like a prize pig at the fair?”
He laughed. Miss Hutting’s description was not so far off the mark. “Surely not a pig. A horse, perhaps. A thoroughbred.”
She snorted. “Not a thoroughbred. In any event, Mama would never suggest it. Papa and the earl don’t get on. Papa says the man’s a pompous old stick.”
“He is a bit.” The earl was much older than Marcus, but his son had been at school with him. “Viscount Edgedon is worse.”
Miss Hutting smiled at him with approval, which made him far too happy.
“Yes, indeed. When the earl and his family came down for Tory’s wedding, nothing in Loves Bridge was good enough for them. Penland’s daughter, my cousin Juliet, is the one who really vexes me, though. She’s Tory’s age and married to a viscount—”
“Uppleton.” Another fellow Marcus didn’t care for.
“Yes. Short, balding, and obnoxious. I rather pitied her being yoked to him for life, but, if you can believe it, she feels sorry for me. She told me at the wedding how terribly disheartening it must be to have a younger sister marry before me, and she kindly assured me that I wasn’t quite, quite on the shelf and shouldn’t despair yet because certainly someone would have me, though I should probably steel myself to settle for a farmer.”
She took a deep breath, visibly struggling to get her temper under control.
“You are not the only one to find the woman odious,” he said.
She managed a smile. “I am not surprised. Fortunately she and the rest of that family skipped Ruth’s wedding, though they are expected at Mary’s.” She stopped at the church door and sighed. “I can stomach Juliet’s annoying matrimonial talk for the brief time I have to endure her, but Mama is a different matter. I do wish she’d stop trying to marry me off.”
He did not understand why Miss Hutting was so against marriage. He had a valid reason—for him, marriage was a death sentence. But for most people it was a sensible, comfortable arrangement.
“I’m sure your mother just wishes to have you taken care of,” he said as he opened the church door for her.
She glared at him before entering the dark, cool space. “Yes, I’m sure she does.”
His brows rose. “You sound as if you doubt marriage would be to your benefit, Miss Hutting, but, at a minimum, it would get you out of the crowded vicarage and give you your own home.”
She snorted. “And at what price? I’d be saddled with a husband, a man I’d have to cook for and clean for and whose children I’d have to bear and rear and all with precious little help. I’d have no time for myself at all. No, thank you.”
She pointed to a board that was covered with handbills. “You can put the Spinster House notice there.”
“You don’t want children?” Blast, why had he said that? He forced a tack into the board rather harder than necessary.
He wanted children. He felt a painful longing whenever he happened upon a nurse with her charges. Stupid. Unless he was very lucky and had a daughter first, he’d never see his child let alone hear him laugh or watch him take his first steps.
He’d even briefly considered having bastards if he could find a woman willing to carry the Cursed Duke’s illegitimate offspring, but he’d rejected the thought almost immediately. Perhaps it was an odd offshoot of the curse, but the notion of saddling an innocent child with his blood and not his name and wealth felt deeply dishonorable.
“N-no.” Miss Hutting sounded a bit uncertain, but then her voice strengthened. “Children are a great deal of work, you know.”
“Actually, I don’t know, and I never shall.”
She frowned at him. “You really must not let that silly curse govern your life.”
Good God! “The bloody—pardon me. The blasted curse governs my life whether I wish it or not.”
If only the curse was such a simple thing that he could decide it didn’t exist and go about his life as he wished. He could marry, have a family, live an ordinary existence like every other man in England. But no. He couldn’t consider marriage without also considering his mortality.
Miss Hutting pressed her lips together as if she’d like to argue the matter. Fortunately she restrained herself. “Then you must take my word for it. Once a woman has children, she never again has a moment to herself. I’ve seen that with my mother.”
They stepped back out into the warm spring air, and he squinted in the sun. “Ten is rather a lot.”
Did she have any idea how those ten children had been conceived? She must. She lived in the country, with animals all around . . .
Though the coital act between animals was rather different than that between a man and a woman. At least the poets said so. There’d never been anything more than physical relief in his couplings.
A breeze caught a strand of her red-gold hair and fluttered it in her eyes. She batted it away.
“Yes, ten is a lot, but remember two of my sisters are married also. They only have two children apiece, yet all they can talk about is teething and crying and runny noses.” She started walking down the hill toward the road. “I want to do more with my life. I want to do something important.”
“Many people would say raising children is important, the most important thing one can do.” Zeus, what he would give to be able to do something as unimportant as raise a child. “Children are the future.”
Which he would never see. The blasted curse kept him tethered to the past. Once his son was in the womb, his own future would be counted in days, not years. How the hell could Miss Hutting dismiss raising children as if it was no more significant than sweeping the floor?
“Your future perhaps,” she was saying. “I quite understand that.”
“Do you really?” She had no idea.
At least she refrained from mentioning the “silly curse” again.
“Your name and title will continue after you’re gone,” she said, looking up at him. “But can you understand at all how fleeting a woman’s existence is? We give up our lives and possessions—even our names—to our husbands. Our bodies become little more than vessels for children, to continue our husbands’ lines.” Her voice hardened. “I want something else. Something more. Something that’s mine, with my name on it.” She paused on the edge of the road. “Where are we going next?”
“I’m going to the Spinster House.” There was no “we” about it. “Mr. Wilkinson gave me the key, so I’m having a look around after I post the notice on the door.”
Miss Hutting appeared deaf to his implied snub. “Oh, good. Miss Franklin didn’t invite people in to visit. I’m dying to see the place”—she grinned—“especially as I hope it will be my new home.”
How bold the girl was. He should depress her pretentions and send her on her way.
But she wasn’t encroaching, and this was the country. The rules of behavior were more relaxed here than in Town. She’d made it very clear she wasn’t pursuing him.
And he didn’t want to send her away.
He could control himself. He’d never forced his attentions on an unwilling woman. And if he somehow did forget his manners, he could rely on the feisty, independent Miss Hutting to remind him of them by whacking him in the head with whatever weapon came to hand.
He gave in, but whether it was to her wishes or his desires he refused to contemplate.
“Don’t you mind the thought of spending your life alone?” he asked as they crossed the road. The loneliness that had been gnawing at him these last months stirred in his chest.
She laughed as they turned up the w
alk to the Spinster House. “I love the thought of being alone, Your Grace. I dream of it, especially when Mary’s sharp elbow is poking me in the back at night. It would be heaven.”
No, it was hell. He’d tried to escape it by living in London, surrounded by people, but he’d discovered it was possible to feel most alone in a crowd.
He affixed a notice to the Spinster House door and then fished in his pocket for the key. “But what of love, Miss Hutting?”
“Love?”
“Yes. I thought all women dreamed of love.” He fitted the key into the lock and turned it.
“I love my parents and brothers and sisters.” She grinned again. “But I would love them even more if I lived here, across the road from them.”
Good God, how could she be so flippant? He shoved the door open more forcefully than necessary.
He shouldn’t say anything more. If he opened his mouth, he was going to step—leap—over the bounds of propriety. He moved aside so Miss Hutting could precede him.
Something in the independent tilt of her head, or the angle of her shoulders—or, yes, the sway of her hips—loosened his tongue.
“But what about the love of a husband, Miss Hutting? What about the touch of a husband’s hand, his lips, his—” Zeus! Need and desire had followed on the heels of annoyance and now beat insistently in his head and chest and groin.
He had to control himself. He forced a smile. “I hope you would not complain about a husband’s sharp elbows in bed at night.”
Bed.
Ah.
Perhaps that was not exactly what he should have said.
Cat had opened her mouth to answer, but some quality in the duke’s voice stopped her. It was deep and dark and warm and . . .
And now she was being silly. She turned to face him—and stopped again.
He’d closed the door, shutting out the bright spring sunlight. His wide shoulders almost spanned the small entryway.
Suddenly she was very, very aware of being alone with him.
His eyes, partly obscured in the dim light, watched her, something intense and . . . male in his gaze.
Something intense and female fluttered low in her belly. It was difficult to breathe. Her chest felt tight; her cheeks, warm. Her entire body flushed, not with embarrassment but with an odd sensation she’d never experienced before and wasn’t certain she wished to experience again. Not fear. True, if she’d wanted to leave, she’d have to have his cooperation, but she didn’t doubt he’d give it. She wasn’t in any danger—at least not from him.
“I . . .” She cleared her throat. “I am not going to have a husband, Your Grace. I don’t wish to be a slave to any man.”
The peculiar feeling in her stomach must be hunger. She would have a nice cup of tea and a lovely slice of seedcake when she got to Cupid’s Inn. Mrs. Tweedon, the innkeeper’s wife, was an excellent baker. “You know that. That’s why I’m here in the Spinster House,” she said more forcefully. “What are you thinking?”
“You don’t want to know what I’m thinking, Miss Hutting.” A hot, intense, hungry look gleamed in his eyes.
She stepped back and bumped into an occasional table, causing the candlestick on it to wobble. She lunged and caught it before it could topple off onto the floor.
“A woman gives herself to a man in marriage, true,” he said, his eyes hooded now, “but the bond goes both ways. A man gives himself to his wife as well.”
Oh! The fluttering in her belly intensified. She looked at his mouth. His lips were narrow and firm, not fat and slobbery like Mr. Barker’s. How would they feel against hers?
Idiot! A duke was not about to kiss a vicar’s daughter, no matter how hot and hungry his eyes.
And this vicar’s daughter wanted nothing to do with a duke, beyond having this one hand over the keys to the Spinster House. He must be the most overbearing of men—he was at the non-royal pinnacle of the peerage, after all. He would expect everyone to bow and scrape to him.
Well, she wasn’t going to be one of his toadies. It was just the odd intimacy of being in the house alone with him that was giving her these feelings. Sunlight would improve matters.
She moved into the sitting room and threw open the shutters.
The duke followed her. “Is your mother a slave to your father?”
She opened her mouth to say yes, but stopped. Mama’s life might not be the one Cat wanted, but no one would call her a slave. Quite the contrary. Mama had a rather strong personality. Papa more often than not was guided by her wishes.
“N-no.”
“And your sisters? Are they slaves to their husbands?”
“No.” Her poor brothers-in-law were a trifle henpecked.
His right brow flew up as if a new thought had just occurred to him. “So is it that you prefer women? Is that why you have no interest in marriage?”
“What?” He couldn’t mean . . . ?
No. She must have misunderstood him.
“That is, most of my friends are women.” She forced herself to smile. “Though I can’t guarantee Jane will feel very friendly toward me if—when—I take up residence here.”
The duke nodded. “That would explain things.”
Heavens, he did mean what she’d thought.
“Having female friends has nothing to do with my disinterest in marriage, Your Grace.” She stepped closer to him to poke him in the chest, but thought better of it at the last minute and curled her hand into a fist instead. “You are a typical male. You cannot comprehend that a sensible female could possibly give up the joy of yoking herself to one of your kind. We poor, weak, helpless creatures must long for a man’s guidance. We—”
She pressed her lips together and took a long, calming breath through her nose. There was no sense brangling with the duke. He wouldn’t change—men never did.
And she must not forget he played some role in finding the next Spinster House tenant. While it seemed unlikely he would do anything to influence the lottery’s outcome, there was no need to alienate him and risk limiting her chances.
She forced her lips into a smile. “Well, that’s neither here nor there, is it? Shall we look around the house?”
He was staring at her in a most unsettling manner.
“Such passion,” he murmured, brushing a finger lightly over her lips, “and such control. What would happen if you let that control slip its leash?”
She would have slapped his hand away, but it was already at his side. His touch had been so brief. Had she imagined it?
No. Her lips felt swollen and sensitive. Throbbing, tingling . . . as did another set of lips much lower on her anatomy.
Oh, God.
Chapter Seven
April 30, 1617—I will not listen to Rosaline and Maria. They say that all London gentlemen are alike, that they may flirt with country girls, but they marry London ladies. They are wrong, at least with regard to the Duke of Hart. I know it.
—from Isabelle Dorring’s diary
He wanted to kiss her.
The girl stood so close, he could feel the heat of her body and smell the clean scent of lemon—and something else. Something hot and musky and feminine. Her face was flushed; her bodice rose and fell with her quickened breath. She felt it, too, this attraction, though he could tell from the confusion and uncertainty in her eyes that she didn’t understand what it was she felt.
He’d like to show her. He’d like to put his hands on her shoulders and urge her up against him. Gently, carefully. No force. An invitation only. He knew that at the first sign of coercion, she’d bolt.
He wanted to taste her passion.
Her tongue peeked out to moisten her lips and need lanced through him, lodging in his most obvious organ.
He wanted to feel those lips under his....
Zeus! What the bloody hell was the matter with him? He did not make a habit of lusting after prickly spinsters.
It was the curse—and the damn house. It must be haunted. Ridiculous, but that was the only explan
ation he could come up with for his mad desires. Well, Isabelle Dorring would not win this battle.
He forced himself to step back, putting a foot of space between himself and the alluring Miss Hutting. He cleared his throat. “We should look around if we are going to. I have those notices to post, you know.”
“Y-yes. Of course.” Miss Hutting took a few steps back as well. “I do want to see the place. Did you know Miss Franklin wasn’t actually Miss Franklin?”
“Pardon?” The curse must be affecting Miss Hutting’s thinking as well.
“Miss Franklin’s real name is—or was—Miss Frost. Papa told Mama the whole tale when we were at Randolph’s office yesterday. I imagine it is all over the village now.”
She was talking rather quickly. Was she nervous here alone with him? He smiled—inwardly. If he let her see his amusement, she’d no doubt take it as male conceit and slap his face soundly.
He looked at the room instead. It had a beamed ceiling and pale yellow walls. He remembered the dark, intricately carved oak paneling around the hearth. As a child sitting through his uncle’s interview with a much younger Miss Franklin—he was certain she’d gone by that name then—he’d thought he’d seen faces in its deep whorls and grooves. The mirror over the mantel reflected the room’s worn red settee and armchair, which he also remembered from twenty years ago, as well as the ugly painting of a hunting dog with a dead bird dangling from its mouth. Apparently Miss Franklin had not had the interest or the funds to redecorate.
“Is there some scandal attached to the couple?” he asked. “It does seem odd that, at their rather advanced ages, they eloped in the middle of the night.”
“But they didn’t elope. Papa married them here in this very room! It turns out Miss Franklin—or, rather, Miss Frost—” Miss Hutting emitted a short, annoyed breath. “Oh, fiddle. She’s now the Duchess of Benton, actually. Anyway, it turns out she knew Mr. Wattles—who’s the Duke of Benton—when they were young.”
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