“How rude of me to stand gawping, Your Grace. If you have come to buy wine, I’m afraid I must disappoint. Our yield was short this year—we’ve only begun to tame the vines, you see—but perhaps you will enjoy a glass with His Majesty back in Town, since he has stolen more than half of my harvest. The two of you can toast to the theft of the last of my funds.”
His face fell into the lines of an ocean cliff. He bowed, just the wrong side of polite.
“My apologies, Lady Huntleigh, for the disruption. I had convinced myself, from the plentiful letters I found on my return from the Continent, that you might welcome my presence. I see now my solicitor’s fervor has extinguished any chance of that.” He turned to walk back to the house where his carriage or horse must be waiting. “At the king’s express command, by the by, not mine!”
“No! Wait, Your Gr—” Her voice cracked, “Wellbridge—Nick. Is it true?”
He turned back, hope flaring in his eyes like candles in a mineshaft. “I am not a liar, Lady Huntleigh, and I am not in the market for wine,” he said, in his best ducal tenor. “Did you have some other reason to detain me than your counterfeit undying love?”
“No. I mean, yes. I mean… it is not counterfeit. You’ve only taken me by surprise. I was taken aback by your…” She blushed, glancing at his tight nankeen riding breeches, “… your ardor, and hindered by what is left of my pride. Please stay, please. At least long enough to rest your horses. It is nearly time for tea and Cook has made raspberry tarts.” She held out her hand. “Unless I misremember, your favorite indulgence.”
He slowly reached his hand toward her, misgivings uppermost. He searched her face, and smiled wryly when he said, “Not my favorite, no.”
She swatted his arm. “You are shameless, Sir.”
“Nick,” he reminded her, pulling her close. “May we begin again?”
She sighed gladly, turning her face up to receive his kiss. “Yes. With all my heart, yes. Oh, Nick, I am so glad you’ve come. It has been far too long, and too many people at variance on our behalf.”
When he rained kisses down her throat, across the lobes of her ears, along the nape of her neck, her body became languid and slack, breath quickened, and pulse throbbed. As she fell more heavily into his arms, he whispered, “It’s been a year…”
“Last month,” she confirmed with a breathy moan.
“You are still in half-mourning,” he observed, while his hand travelled up the front of her bodice.
“I haven’t the coin to replace all my clothes, with stock to feed and no certain harvest.” The lines between his brows were only seconds from beginning an inquisition about her finances, so she grasped his arm. “I cannot seem to believe you are here.” The rancor of months was overcome in a few heartbeats by wonder at his return. “Where have you been all this time?”
He ceased his shower of physical affection to explain himself, doleful smile touching his eyes, which shone with both regret for the separation and joy at the reunion.
“I’ve been traveling—il conte and le marquis, of course—trying to escape you, trying to replicate whatever it is with you, but there was no escape, my love. There is no replacement. You were in my thoughts every minute.”
She reached her hand up to touch his face and he trapped it at his shoulder, leaving a kiss in her palm.
“Upon my return a sennight ago, I was aghast to hear Prinny and my solicitor had beggared you in my absence. I came right away to make my amends. Your funds will be returned to you forthwith.” He smiled ruefully, “It may interest you to know he stripped me of both my baronies.”
“Leaving you only six titles.” She rolled her eyes. “How that must wound.”
He laughed, “He should have taken everything and left me to rot in a rookery. But it is providential he did not, for your brother can now become Baron Ostelbrooke, and I can return your stolen inheritance. You may resume the privileged life of a wealthy countess, which was likely the king’s intention all along. Once we were both properly chastised for our effrontery.”
He pulled back slightly and looked into her eyes, brushing an escaped strand of hair from her forehead. “More important than the money or the king, though, I didn’t want to miss my chance.”
Her eyes dropped to his waist and she tugged at the lapels of his coat. “Your chance?”
“If I do not pay heed, you’ll soon be romanced away by a fortune hunter with an interest in shipping, or a fat village squire with too large an interest in wine.”
“Romanced,” she snorted. “No one is romancing me. You have starlings in the attic.”
He nuzzled her neck and whispered, “Good, then I am the first.’ With a nip at her collarbone, he added with a low rasp, “Again.”
She gasped just slightly at the memory of the last first he had begot. She chided, “You needn’t pretend to be romantic when I know you flirt by rote.”
“I will ever be romantic with you, sweeting. I want you to marry me, Bella, and properly. You’ve done your time mourning. No more. I will not stand for it. Off with the sackcloth. New dresses and village dances forthwith.”
“You are shameless,” she teased. “Trying to talk me out of my clothes first thing.”
He tweaked her nose. “Minx. I want the courting, the flowers and poetry, the waltzes and stolen kisses, the wedding breakfast and the banns and the church—all of the things neither of us has ever had. Starting today. Right now. Contracts be damned. Former husbands be damned. The king be damned. Especially the blasted king, who would destroy the whole of England to avenge a hapless word. It is the two of us now, sweeting, and I want no one in between.”
She rested her cheek against his waistcoat, lips twitching when she replied, “There is no room for anyone between. Nor will be unless you loosen your hold to let me breathe.”
“You may wish to become accustomed to not breathing, particularly if you have made a habit of leaving off your stays.” He squeezed her more tightly, then picked her up and swung her around in a circle. “I will wait as long as I must for your accord—though I hope you’ll agree it has been far too long already.”
As her giggles floated through the rows of vines, he kissed her again, then said, so seriously she found it funny, “I have no expectation of sharing your bed until you are properly my wife. I am happy to stay for tea and raspberry tarts, but will begin paying you formal addresses when I collect you for a picnic tomorrow at eleven in the morning. If you would care to join me.”
“Country hours, Lord Lay-Abed?”
“When in Rome, one speaks la lingua italiana. I have a room at the hostelry, but am told there is a shack available where I may refuge for the nonce, recently vacated by a fisherman lost at sea. I will lay claim if there is hope for my suit.”
“Live in Caddis Bligh’s shack? Are you mad?”
“Yes. Entirely.” Bella gasped when his tongue touched a spot on the back of her neck that sent shivers through her entire body. He repeated, “Are you free for elevenses, my love?”
Her voice felt loose and unfocused, as though she had no control of her words at all. “I can arrange to be free tomorrow, but I hope you will not be so cruel as to make me wait, when I have been craving your touch these many months. Have you not read my letters?”
He stumbled where he stood. “Your letters, Bella, oh, good God, your letters. But this is a country village.”
She laughed, “Do you suppose we have good names left to be ruined? Your trip to Cornwall is proof of my wanton hold on you, and rumors must already be flying back and forth to London by mail coach. If I am to be Countess Concubine, ravished by the Dangerous Duke, I would at least have the enjoyment of it. I am half-tempted to offer you houseroom.”
“That is precisely why—”
“Are you a rake or no?” she asked archly, her smile meant as a caress. “Am I flirting poorly? I have been thinking of witty and seductive things to say if ever you turned up, but only speaking them to my pier glass, I cannot know if they are enticin
g or only silly.”
“Of course you are—I am, no, not—I am trying to do the right thing.”
“If you take me to bed as soon as we are behind a locked door, I will arrange to have the banns called next Sunday, and you may court me as a gentleman should before we are wed three weeks hence. If you make me wait longer than an hour from now to enjoy what I have been imagining for so long, I will lead you a merry dance for months before I agree to a wedding night. Will you have me now or much later?”
His voice rasped, “Now, Bella. Heaven help me. Now.”
“So I thought.” She held out her hand. “Perhaps on the walk back to the house, you can tell me what sorts of licentious things I can expect in a marriage bed with the Murderous Marquis and Cutthroat Conte.”
“The verses are un… tell you what?”
She tucked her hand under his arm and steered him back down the row of vines toward the house. “During my travels, I attended Court in Paris, Venice, the Two Sicilies, and the Papal States, though I am sure I never crossed paths with the Conte di Pietranego or the Marquis de Taillebois. He is, I understand from correspondence and my recent visits to France, a deliciously dangersome romantic hero, never married, but inexplicably without a paramour against all efforts to the contrary.”
“You have been asking after me,” he noted, adding, “I have managed to ignore the on-dit.”
“Conflicting accounts of everything, of course. Do you wear a black armband under your jacket to mourn me, or is it a hair shirt? Have you kept my betrothal ring on a chain close to your heart, or did you throw it into the Seine, cursing my name? Will you appear, next Season, back in the marriage mart, or will you rusticate and ever be a bachelor from now on?”
“Please do not take gossip as truth, and I will afford you the same.”
She agreed to nothing, but continued her rambling description. “It is said not opera singer nor actress nor high-priced courtesan could tempt him. He even resisted the considerable allure of the married Marchesa di Maraccini, who has not been rejected in living memory, and the twin nieces of the Comte d’Auginierre, who offered up their identical maidenheads for his delectation, only to be sent away unmolested.”
“Is that what—? There were no maidenheads—no delectation! There was no delectation at all!”
“How prudish you have become, Nick,” she teased, “but I admit, I much prefer it to drunken and dissolute. I am most curious to know: Did you buy the Château de Fouret just to burn it to the ground, or did Malbourne’s ghost conjure up lightning on All Hallows Eve?”
“I was in Milan on All Hallows Eve,” he said, but then growled, “And granite will not burn.”
She faltered slightly at the first rumor to be confirmed, but rather than waste precious time with the man she loved, she grasped his arm again, pulling herself close, walking in step, and continuing to goad him.
“The only thing sure is the Dangerous Duke is untouchable, impervious to women of high rank and low morals, nursing a broken heart for the Cup-Shot Countess, who cannot show her face in London. Do you harbor a tendre for me, Sir?”
“A tendre? I’ve not—Are you cup-shot?”
“As a relative innocent in my younger years, I can only imagine what decadence I overlooked on the Continent, but one hears the most tantalizing stories of disreputable young nobles visiting the Royal Courts of Europe. The hedonistic lives of wealthy gentleman at leisure…”
She managed to sound fascinated, earnest, guileless, and alluring when she asked, “Have you become enamored of the debaucheries of the Gallic tribes? Will you require indecencies of your wife, Sir?”
“Indecencies—? Am I cup-shot?”
“Because I must confess, my lord duke, mon marquis, il mio conte…” Bella ran her hand down the side of his face, gently tugging the hair at his nape to pull him into a kiss, murmuring, “the decencies of England begin to rankle.”
Epilogue
1823: Dalrymple House, London, England
Ending the day in the library an hour after supper, Bella set up the board for a game of backgammon while Nick shuffled through a pile of cards on a silver tray on his desk. Darkness had fallen, so on his way to the card table, he turned up three of the Argand lamps that had been installed during their time abroad.
Waving a stiff card in her direction, he said, “We have an invitation from the Palace.”
“Of course we do,” Bella sniffed, popping a pair of dice into a cup. “We cannot possibly come to London without His Majesty making much of us.”
She pulled the blue woolen shawl closer to keep out the chill that seemed so much colder after two years in Italy. When he saw her shiver and rub her stocking feet together under the ladder-back chair, Nick made sure the curtains had been drawn tight and stirred the fire, certain his warm legs would soon be providing her toes more heat than he wished.
“Does he not care about the on-dit?” she asked.
“On the contrary, my love,” Nick said, dropping a kiss on the top of her head. “He hopes to see what kettles he can stir to boiling. It will please him best if we fan the flames.” Taking a seat across from her, he placed a few more notes and letters on the table next to the board. “As to whether he knows the on-dit…” Nick looked down again at the invitation with a raised brow. “‘His Majesty requests the company of the Dangerous Duke and Depraved Duchess of Wild, Wicked Wellbridge.’ We are summoned to Windsor Castle on Friday evening at ten o’clock for an informal repast among friends to mark our auspicious occasion and long-delayed return from the Continent.”
“Really!” Her lips drew up like a drawstring bag as she rolled a die against him and won the first turn. “He is the very limit. Is it not enough we—”
“We cannot deny him the amusement. We owe him much this day.” Nick laughed, but in a sudden shift of mood, all but chided, “Not least we still have friends in London, and will not be torn apart by a mob of long-nosed aristocrats.”
“Now only half a mob,” she said with more than a hint of pique, “and he is naught but making recompense for his trespasses against us. Or so he says.”
“Kings only trespass against other kings, my dear. Would it improve your mood were I to say,” he waved another card at her, “this was mixed in with my letters and informs you the Marchioness of Firthley will retrieve you for shopping tomorrow at the ungodly hour of nine in the morning?” She snatched it away, with a smile that finally reached her eyes, the first hint of excitement since their carriage had crossed Westminster Bridge. “How is it we’ve been in London a full day and you and Charlotte have not yet ordered new wardrobes?”
“Do not believe you will slither out of an argument by invoking new dresses.”
She rolled a three and five and closed her first point.
The two and one he rolled were indicative of the poor start he had just made. “You are only cross,” he teased, “because you wish to stay in your room until we leave for Wellstone, and no one will allow it.”
Her face was peevish, but her icy foot nudged his calf under the table, “I am cross because I wish to be docked in our Venetian lagoon, clothed in naught but your dressing gown, sipping grappa and choosing tomorrow’s destination by a game of Hazard, not fawning over Prinny in court dress, making a fool of myself in pursuit of unpleasant society.”
Nick dropped the dice cup in his lap at the thought of dressing gowns, and an accidental brush of the back of his hand against his rising cock was suddenly excruciating. When she allowed her foot to tease up his leg, he sucked in a breath, but icy toes did nothing to cool his heating ardor. He considered, briefly, whether he might cut short both discussion and backgammon in favor of a more satisfying game, but her narrowed eyes caught him out before he could suggest it. She was not angry enough to avoid his touch, but was not remotely finished arguing.
Rolling the dice, then drawing his hand along her ankle, he tucked her lovely toes in closer to his manhood, a calculated risk, given her upset. But in all the arguments since they were we
d, she had never yet delivered on promised violence against his person, only against his ears when he made the mistake of not listening. His hand warmed her foot, though it leached all the heat from his fingers, leaving him all but shivering.
His next roll knocked two of her pips to the bar and advanced Nick’s score by twenty points. Reaching across the table, he pulled a pin from her hair, setting the shawl off her shoulder, letting long strands fall across the dropped sleeve of her blue brocade evening gown. Her head arched as he pulled a pin from the other side. She turned suddenly as he drew back, grazing his wrist with her lips and the tip of her tongue.
Her roll not only put all of her pips back in play, it knocked two of his onto the bar. She snatched back her pins, but didn’t put them in her hair, only dropped them next to the board, tapping one on the table, using the back of her other hand to sweep disordered hair out of her eyes.
Deciding on a policy of appeasement, he purposely misused his next four and six to leave three pips vulnerable to her attack, then stayed his hand only a few inches up her leg and offered, “The Firthleys and Nockhams and Smythes are in the City en masse. A score of people to whom you can offer no objection.”
“Of course they are here to celebrate with us, and I look forward to seeing everyone. It’s only—”
“We are here but a sennight. Nary a ballroom nor banquet hall will we see.”
She sighed, “But for the king’s.”
“But for the king’s,” he agreed.
Her foot dropped from his inner thigh to the floor as she rolled double fours and sent all of his exposed tiles to the bar. He really should know better than to play backgammon. He should have suggested piquet.
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