She had to concede that the world hadn’t come to an end now that he knew her secrets. “Neither is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. Far from it, Your Grace.”
“Dane,” he said. “And I know.”
She blew out a sigh. “I’m glad you corrected me. I was afraid you wouldn’t, and that would definitely be a sign that you’re displeased with me and perhaps you’d rather not...” She let her voice trail off.
“Rather not what? Marry you? Then you do wish to marry me?”
She did, but oh, how she wished that he would ask her. He didn’t have to get down on bended knee. Just ask. He didn’t even have to include the extra flourishes, such as do me the honor, or make me the happiest of men. Cecily would be perfectly content with a basic, bronze proposal. Will you marry me? Will you be my wife?
Alas, dukes didn’t have to ask for what they wanted. They never had to ask at all. And like all other men, they never had to ask women for anything. They merely stated how things were, and how they would be. The woman had no choice.
Why couldn’t he read her mind at this moment?
He went on, “Since it seems we are to marry, perhaps you wouldn’t mind joining me in my barouche for the next leg of our journey? Even though nothing happened last night, maybe something will happen this afternoon.”
Now, Cecily thought, would be a good time to slide under the table and stay there forever.
Chapter Thirteen
Half an hour later, they stood in the muddy inn yard, ready to resume their journey. Cecily was still hesitant about traveling with Dane, mumbling something futile about “propriety.”
Dane thought she looked just as grayish-green as Mr. Eastman had over Sunday dinner at Bradbury Park. Either she was still recovering from her overindulgence of the night before, or she was truly apprehensive about this.
“Devils know nothing of propriety,” he told her. “The Frampton carriage will be right behind us. They’ll surely discern if anything untoward happens in my barouche—for example, if it’s rocking and swaying a bit more than usual.”
Her hand promptly went to her middle. “Oh, please do not say that, Your Grace.”
He slowly stepped over to her, closing the gap between them till they were as close as they would be in the barouche. “It will be very crowded in the Frampton carriage, and I’m sure you do not wish to journey with a middle-aged couple who I can assure you will behave the very way busybodies with sordid minds would expect the two of us to behave in my own conveyance—if that makes any sense to you—or do my words make your head spin?”
She looked about to shake her head, then abruptly stopped, as if even that was the same as rocking, swaying, and spinning. “Surely they would do nothing untoward in front of me?”
“All the more reason I agree with Bradbury that you should ride with him,” Lord Frampton put in. “There’s little I enjoy more than rocking and swaying in an enclosed carriage with my beloved. Makes my head spin to think of it!”
Cecily abruptly turned and lurched toward Dane’s carriage. He swiftly strode after her and helped her inside, silently grateful that she’d acceded to his wishes. “Let us go,” he said, and he helped Cecily into the front-facing seat. Dane took the seat opposite, and after the door was closed, he banged on the window behind the coachman’s box.
As the barouche rolled out of the inn yard, Cecily barely perched on her seat, still clutching her middle as she kept her gaze downcast. “I thought I felt well enough to try some of that lamb stew, but now it seems to have disagreed with me. Suppose I become ill again? I should not wish to ruin the inside of your carriage.”
He reached under the seat. “Being a duke, I own a barouche that is not only exceedingly well sprung, so that you should feel a minimum of bumps, but it also comes with many extra amenities, to include a receptacle should you suddenly feel ill regardless of the springs.” He pulled out a chamber pot and placed it to one side on the floor. “The next leg of our journey is to go as far as Ashdown Park in Northamptonshire and impose on the earl for tonight’s lodgings. I do believe that is your father’s ancestral home.”
She managed a single nod. “Yes, but I’ve never been there. I know the current earl is my father’s nephew, and I’ve heard that he and his countess are very pleasant people, both close to my age.” She pressed another hand to her middle and took a deep breath.
“We don’t have to talk right now if you don’t wish to,” he said. “I know you’re still trying to recover from the effects of all that brandy last night, while I did not exactly get a good night’s sleep, as it was spent on a sofa in the library.”
“Why did you not find another bed?”
“If I had, I would have put you in it and returned to my own,” he replied. “As it was, I thought it best to sleep on a different floor, for what good that did either of us.”
“Then you had no wish to be trapped into a compromising position with me?”
“Of course not. And I know you didn’t, either.”
She lurched forward, as if she meant to attack him with either her hands or even the contents of her stomach. “Then why—”
“Do sit back and try to relax as I am doing. Then you might not feel so queasy.”
Cecily slowly eased back on the seat, as if she thought it might be upholstered with metal spikes. “I shouldn’t even try to ask, since you must already know what the question is.”
“You mean as to why did I not deny any of it?”
“You’re a duke. You could have. It’s your word against mine. Or in this case, the word of the dowager Lady Tyndall, since she was the one making the accusations. I was too busy wishing for death, and even so, I would not have accused you in any case. For you’re right—I have no wish to be trapped in such a situation with you or any man.”
“Or any man, you say? ’Tis a relief to know it’s not just me.” It now occurred to him that someone fanciful enough to pen fairy tales and gothic romances seemed likely to want marriage for love.
And while Dane had never considered himself fanciful—certainly not fanciful enough to write stories—he found himself wishing for the same thing. “Then you don’t believe I did any of the things I don’t deny?”
“Well, I certainly did not get into that bed by myself. If I could have, I would have found my way back to my own bed. I didn’t even know how to find yours.”
He chuckled. “I didn’t know how to find your bed, either. The manservant did not know where you were supposed to sleep, and a maid who might have known was not up and about to say. So I took you to my bedchamber, since it was the only one I knew how to find. And that is all I did.”
“Then you—you didn’t actually remove my clothes?”
“I dared not.”
“Yet when you stood accused of doing so, you didn’t deny it.”
“As I said initially, I saw no point. You have only my word. But if you want to believe, as Cordelia does, that I removed all of your clothing save for your shift, then I can hardly say otherwise—even if I am a duke.”
“But—”
“I did not remove one single article of your clothing, Cecily.” His tone and expression were very solemn. “Now, are you going to take my word for it, because it is the word of a duke, or are you going to agree with everyone else that I will say whatever I want because I am a duke?”
She blinked. She shook her head a bit. And then she blinked some more.
He smiled. “Quite the conundrum, wouldn’t you say?”
Still looking thoroughly bewildered, she said, “I could have sworn that some time during the night, I woke up in pitch darkness. I assumed I was in my own bed. Then I realized I was still fully dressed. So I undressed myself and went back to sleep. But when I woke up again, a manservant was opening shutters in the room and wishing Your Grace a good morning. Then the dowager countess appeared out of nowhere and made all those assumptions, and only then did I wonder if I must have imagined undressing myself in the dark.” She settled her qu
izzical gaze on him, her brow still creased. “I never had any sense that you were ever there, not on either occasion when I awakened. Once you placed me in that bed, you were never there again until you appeared in the doorway this morning to observe that you were too late or something.”
With a deep sigh, he said, “I decided I might as well accept my fate, Cecily. And you should accept yours as well.”
“Then you don’t really want to marry me.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. Now is the time to clarify what I mumbled in the gallery yesterday. I didn’t say ‘mama.’ I said ‘marry me.’
She furrowed her brow. “Mmm...mama...marry me,” she muttered, and then she widened her eyes. “That was what you said to me? ‘Marry me’? With two r’s? As in ‘wed me’? As in ‘be my wife’?”
He nodded the whole while. “Yes. As in ‘be my wife’ and not my mama.”
“But that was before the dowager countess found me in your bed this morning!”
He kept smiling. “Yes, it was.”
“Yet at the same time, you already knew I was the book’s author! Why would you want to marry me, knowing—knowing that? Knowing all the things about me that you do now?”
“Better to know them now than after the wedding. Pray, what is so appalling about trying to protect you from what you call the slings and arrows of your outrageous misfortunes?”
“My outrageous misfortunes,” she said, “are—are—”
For a writer, she always seemed to be at a remarkable loss for words, at least when she was speaking. Though maybe that would explain her penchant for writing, he thought.
“Permit me to finish the sentence for you. Your outrageous misfortunes are my fault, Cecily. Therefore, I mean to take responsibility for them by marrying you.”
“What sort of reason is that for marrying me?”
“You sound almost like my sister-in-law Evie when I proposed marriage to her. All she did was ask, ‘Why?’ Did you have a better reason for marrying Vicar Eastman? I mean, aside from Uncle Willard’s belief that you could do no better? Let me tell you how you lost Eastman’s affections, if ever you had them to begin with. He had dinner with me last Sunday, after you didn’t appear at church, I suppose because of your bad ankle. He thought you sprained it because you were running away from home to avoid marrying him, and by taking a shortcut across the meadow to the posting house in the village, that’s how you ended up in the ha-ha. He now believes you to be a hoyden and ergo unfit to be the wife of a clergyman. Frankly, I agree.”
She bristled on the opposite seat. “That I’m a hoyden?”
“That, and you’re unfit to be the wife of a clergyman, but I do mean that in a good way. You have far too much spirit to be a vicar’s wife, Cecily. He’d crush you, the way all the others have crushed you for so many years. Marry him, and you’ll only be creeping out from beneath one boulder to crawl under another.”
“That much I already knew. Yet you don’t think I’m unfit to be the wife of a duke?”
“Good God, no. And you might agree if only you could meet some of the other duchesses out there. I promise you’ll fit in quite nicely. Consider the Duchess of Halstead, Cordelia’s niece by marriage. Her duke found her scrubbing pots in a wayside inn because her abigail decamped with all of her coin, leaving her unable to pay her bill. The Duchess of Lanchester? She was originally engaged to the duke’s cousin, who left her standing at the altar. The Duchess of Fairborough? She thought she was marrying her coachman, unaware he was really the duke she was trying to avoid. And don’t even get me started on the Duchess of Colfax.”
“I do know about all of them, and I daresay you’ve made your point,” Cecily replied. “Very well, what about my writing? Will I have to give it up?”
“Certainly not. You may continue writing stories, if you enjoy doing so. Why would I forbid that, just because everyone else would? I trust you’ve finally depleted all arguments against marrying me.” All but one.
She hesitated before saying, “Just one more.”
Dane found himself holding his breath. Here it came. She wished to marry for love.
“Lady Cordelia told me the only reason you would marry anyone at all is because—well, because—well, she claims that no woman holds any allure for you.”
Dane huffed and rolled his eyes. “Oh, don’t tell me you believe that, too?”
“I’d rather not. I seem to recall telling her this morning that maybe it’s only buxom, middle-aged widows who hold no allure for you.”
He grinned. “Ah, do you not see, Cecily? I daresay you know me better than she does. You say you heard what happened when she stole into the drawing room last night?”
To his scarcely concealed delight, her cheeks flushed a beautiful shade of rose as she nodded.
He raised his voice to a falsetto. “What if I did this, Your Grace? And what if I did that?”
Then, to his further delight and yea, even pleasant surprise, Cecily burst into laughter.
“Or how about if I did...this?” He’d never forget what he saw last night, as much as he wished to.
But to behold Cecily doing the same things...he had to push the very idea out of his head now, or he’d become hard as rock—and that would not do while riding in this barouche with her.
Not for her first time.
She wiped her eyes, misty with mirth. “It just so happens I said the same thing to her this morning, and in the same tone of voice. I only wonder what she did.”
Dane went rigid all over, which was just as well. “Shall I tell you, Cecily?”
“I’m not certain you should.”
“We are going to marry. You may as well know. You should also know that I would respond quite differently were you to try this or that.”
Cecily gazed back at him with wonderfully wide blue eyes, her cheeks even pinker.
“She stood before me last night and opened her dressing gown,” he said. “She wore nothing beneath it. Not a stitch.”
Cecily visibly swallowed.
“When I did not respond as she hoped, she said, ‘What if I do this?’ and then she touched herself here.” Dane placed his hands over his chest, rubbing it just enough to give her the idea.
Cecily’s eyes remained in their saucer-like state.
He added, “When I still didn’t respond as she hoped, she said, ‘What if I did this?’ Whereupon she flung herself across the sofa, much as she did earlier in the day when she pretended to swoon. And when she still failed to impress me, she said something about how she used to drive Howland mad when she did this.”
Dane remained motionless. So did Cecily, though by now she was transfixed.
He waited.
Finally, she said, “I cannot read your mind as well as you read mine, Your—I mean, Dane. How did she drive him mad? How did she drive you out of the drawing room altogether?”
“She touched herself in a very intimate place.”
Cecily stared at him rather expectantly, as if she thought there should be more to that. But while Dane had rubbed his chest in a rather poor imitation of Lady Cordelia fondling her breasts and even plucking at her nipples, he wasn’t about to demonstrate what drove him out of the drawing room altogether—even though he wanted to.
This simply wasn’t the time or place.
“You’re a writer,” he said. “So I’m afraid you’ll have to use your imagination on that one. If I tried to show you, you might wish to escape this barouche even while it’s still in motion.”
“Or maybe I won’t,” she said. “Maybe I’ll continue to sit here staring at you as if I can’t believe what I’m hearing—or seeing.”
Surely she wasn’t...?
“Cecily, you must know what I meant by that last. You don’t want me doing that here.” He kept his hands firmly on his knees, hoping she didn’t notice his arousal. The very idea of exposing himself to her struck him as sordid, the sort of thing other men of his acquaintance would do if they happened to find themselves alone in a ca
rriage with an innocent (relatively speaking) young woman.
Her lips were pursed, her blue eyes not only wide but bright and shining with something that under any other circumstances, he might have called lust.
“Cecily, I do believe I’ve said more than enough. Anything more will cause enough commotion to make you queasy again—assuming you’re not queasy still.”
“I am starting to feel better,” she admitted. “It’s true what you said, that your barouche is so well sprung that I hardly feel a thing.”
Oh, that was a pity, Dane thought, and he wasn’t thinking of bumps and ruts in the road.
“Indeed, all the parts below feel as if they’re well oiled,” she added. “It feels as smooth as silk.” And she closed her eyes as if to savor the sensations.
Dane couldn’t help widening his own eyes. Was she deliberately phrasing it this way, or was it as innocent as she (relatively speaking), and he was still the one with the devilish mind?
“Yes, it’s very nice,” she murmured. “I even find my appetite returning.”
“That’s good to hear,” he said. “What are you hungry for? Something hot and succulent, all thick and steamy?”
“Mmmm,” she hummed in dreamy delight. “I’m not sure I can wait until our next stop.”
Dane wasn’t sure of that, either.
She opened her eyes, but just slightly, as if she were drowsy. “I don’t suppose you have anything hidden away in here that you could offer me?”
Oh, did he ever!
“To eat, that is,” she amended.
She could do that, too, if she liked.
“Alas, we have no food with us,” he said ruefully. “Since I didn’t get much sleep last night, I thought I would nap for most of the journey, and eat around midday should we find a suitable inn within that period of time. Which we did already.”
“You do look inordinately weary,” she remarked. “Why did you not sleep well last night?”
“I thought I explained that. I slept on the library sofa, which is much narrower than what I’m accustomed to, and I had no blanket, either.”
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