Stolen Encounters with the Duchess

by Julia Justiss

  ‘Of course, if it will make you feel better.’ But, she promised herself, if the Dowager started criticising her while she fretted about her son, Faith was going to instantly develop a headache that required she take to her bed.

  ‘Pour me a sherry, won’t you, dear? I’ll just send a note with the footman round to his lodgings. Sweet boy that he is, he might be feeling he’s imposed too much on us, visiting so often—as ridiculous as that sounds! I’ll reassure him that we miss him, and can’t have him with us often enough.’

  You’d be welcome to join him in Calais, Faith thought.

  It shouldn’t take the footman long to make the transit to and from Berkeley Square and the rooms near Bond Street where Lord Randall resided, when he wasn’t sponging off the estate. The interlude would give her the opportunity to warn her mother-in-law of her upcoming trip.

  Bringing the Dowager the requested glass, she poured herself one and waited until the woman finished writing her note. With that dispatched, Faith said, ‘I shall be off myself, as soon as I’ve confirmed a convenient date with my sister. My niece has been ill, you may recall. I promised Sarah when I made my first visit that I would return for a much longer one. It will give me an opportunity to become better acquainted with my niece and nephews, let my sister have a break from her sickroom duties, and allow the boys to enjoy their cousins’ company.’

  ‘Must you go now?’ the Dowager said with a frown. ‘Lady Blanchard told me tonight that her husband said this Parliamentary session will be ending soon. With all the best families heading to the countryside for the autumn shooting, there will be such a dearth of good company in town! We must enjoy the parties while they last. Surely you can visit your sister later. You have a duty to your family here, you know.’

  ‘Duty to family is very important,’ Faith replied patiently. ‘But while you have many friends in town to visit with at various entertainments, my sister has only me close enough to assist with her convalescing daughter. My other sisters are all busy with their families at their estates, far from London.’

  ‘Your responsibility to the ducal line should take precedence,’ the Dowager said repressively.

  While her husband was alive, much as her soul resisted such coercion, she would probably have acquiesced, as he certainly would have seconded his mother’s comments—probably with an added slur on how inadequately she performed her duties as duchess.

  Wonderful, she thought, how freeing his absence was.

  But for one thing, she could almost be happy with her life now.

  While the Dowager chattered on about the missteps she’d noted among the attendees tonight, and recounted all the latest gossip she’d obtained, Faith’s attention wandered back again to the interlude in the maze this afternoon, an episode to which her thoughts returned every time she wasn’t physically occupied doing something else.

  Her cheeks burning at the memory, she could still hardly believe what she’d had the audacity to propose. The burn went deeper as she recalled the humiliation of being refused.

  But ‘humiliation’ wasn’t truly an accurate description. Davie’s denial hadn’t denigrated her in the dismissive, contemptuous way her husband had delighted in. Her overwrought reaction stemmed from disappointment, devastation even, that Davie, who’d shown her more appreciation and concern than anyone since her family growing up, had refused her what she wanted so badly.

  Indeed, he’d taken pains to affirm it wasn’t the woman, or her desirability, he was repudiating. She knew with absolute certainty that Davie desired her and a liaison between them as much as she did. But Davie, honourable-to-the-core Davie, wouldn’t take what he wanted, when he knew that doing so would put her good name, reputation, and relationship with her children at risk.

  And he was right, much as she hated to admit it. They were not living isolated in some wilderness; in the London of servants and merchants and gossips avid to discover the latest on dit, there was no such thing as a ‘secret’ hideaway, where they could go back to being simple Faith Wellingford and Davie Smith, two kindred souls sharing friendship, as they had that halcyon summer.

  Sharing friendship, and so much more, she thought, recalling the kiss she’d all but forced on him. Not that he’d refused it. Oh, no, he’d let her play with his lips, his tongue, taking, retreating, opening himself to her fully. Even as she explored him, she’d sensed the strength of the passion he was restraining, felt the thrill of trying to provoke him beyond the limits of his control.

  He’d been teetering on the brink of succumbing as she stroked him. A shudder of arousal and longing went through her as she recalled the hard, thick length of him under her fingers, sharply outlined where it pressed against his breeches. The tremor intensified as she imagined his member teasing at the entrance to her hot, moist centre, then entering her, filling her. She could almost weep with disappointment that she hadn’t managed to break through that barrier of restraint and succeed in uncovering him, tasting him...mounting him.

  Right there in the maze? Where, as he’d rightly said, a casual observer looking out one of the palace’s upstairs windows might have been able to see them?

  No, he’d been right to stop her. Right to turn her down. An affair between them would eventually be discovered, probably sooner than later. Even with Randall gone, the risk of someone finding that relationship objectionable enough to broach the matter to her sons’ trustees was serious, and losing them too great a catastrophe to contemplate. No matter how much she wanted Davie.

  But her sons wouldn’t be young and in her care for ever. Sooner than she could imagine—as had happened for her sister Sarah and her eldest, Aubrey—they would be grown and going on with their lives.

  Might there be a time for her and Davie then? she wondered, her flattened hopes rising on an updraught of excitement. Truly, the only consideration preventing her from making a full-out assault on Davie’s sense of propriety was the threat of losing the boys. The prospect of being ‘disgraced’ didn’t worry her in the least—she’d been a source of mockery among the ton ever since her wandering husband made his disdain for her obvious. She didn’t care a fig for society’s opinion of her, and being banned from participation in its entertainments would almost be a blessing.

  Her growing excitement halted abruptly as she considered the man Davie had become. She knew he’d loved her since that long-ago summer. But he was no longer a gangly boy on the cusp of manhood, a powerful intellect who’d attracted a prominent patron, but was otherwise an obscure unknown of no wealth or family. With his sponsor’s support, and through his own wits, efforts, and skill, he’d become a force in the Commons and one of the intellectual leaders of the Reform movement.

  He’d also grown into a powerfully attractive, virile male. Considering that fact, Faith was astonished some ambitious girl hadn’t already manoeuvred him into the parson’s mousetrap. As his wealth and fame increased over the years, he’d likely be married long before her boys were old enough for her to be able to truly do whatever she wanted.

  As she reached that dismal conclusion, a knock sounded at the door, interrupting the Dowager’s monologue, followed by the entry of the footman she’d dispatched with her note.

  ‘Well, Johnson,’ the Dowager said sharply as the man simply stood there. ‘Did my son give you a reply?’

  ‘Weren’t there, Your Grace. I knocked and knocked, thinking his man would answer, but he never did. Finally, the landlord came round and said Lord Randall had scarpered—run off, Your Grace.’

  ‘“Run off!’’’ the Dowager echoed. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Lord Randall don’t live there no more. The landlord took me up to the rooms to have a look-see, telling me he woulda seized and sold anything Lord Randall left, to cover the unpaid rent, but there weren’t nothing. No clothes, no rings or snuff boxes or personal items. Looked like he’d left in a hurry, too—drawers standing ope
n, old newspapers spilled on to the floor. The landlord pressed me, wanting to know my direction—I think he wanted to task whoever sent me with paying the rent—but I didn’t tell him nothing.’

  ‘Gone? How could that be? Where could he have gone, with no word to me?’ the Dowager cried, wringing her hands. ‘Oh go away, man!’ she added with exasperation as the servant remained standing. ‘You are dismissed.’

  ‘Well done, Johnson,’ Faith said quietly before the footman could exit. Her mother-in-law might not appreciate the man’s cleverness in preventing Lord Randall’s creditors from descending upon them, but she certainly did. ‘Stop by my study tomorrow morning, and there’ll be a coin or two for your efforts.’

  The footman’s face creased in a smile. ‘Thankee, Duchess. Your Grace.’ Bowing, he left the room.

  ‘Honestly, child, I can’t imagine why, when you indulge in such reckless generosity, you haven’t already run through the household accounts,’ the Dowager said sourly. ‘Rewarding that impudent fellow, when he didn’t even fulfil his duty by actually delivering my note!’ Jumping up, she began to pace. ‘And where could Randall have gone, and why? Oh, I shall be beside myself until I know his whereabouts, and have word that he is unharmed!’

  With an effort, Faith refrained from retorting that Lord Randall was a far greater charge on the household budget than giving a vail to an employee who persisted in discovering her son’s circumstances, when he might well have simply knocked once and left. Reminding herself that the mother’s anxiety was genuine, despite the worthlessness of the child she worried over, she told herself to hold on to her patience.

  And might there be just a wee bit of guilt tempering her indulgence, because she knew Randall’s true circumstances but would not reveal them?

  She shrugged it off. Randall was perfectly capable of informing his mother of his plans, if he so chose. That it caused his mother distress because he had failed to do so was not her fault.

  ‘I can’t imagine what could have caused him to—to flee in the night, taking all his possessions, with no warning to me!’

  ‘He is very fond of gaming,’ Faith observed. ‘Perhaps he suffered...sudden and distressing reverses.’

  ‘Yes!’ the Dowager cried, halting. ‘That must be it. Naughty boy, he confessed the last time he visited that he has, on occasion, resorted to moneylenders when he found himself, as he put it, “up Tick Creek without a paddle”, and did not find me at home to provide assistance when he called. He must have been anxious to escape the presumptuous importunings of such a person, or his lackeys! There could be no other reason for him to decamp so suddenly.’

  That might not be the reason this time, Faith thought, but if Randall had indeed borrowed from a cent-per-center, such an individual would be none too dainty about the tactics he used to recover his loans.

  ‘Even so, where would he have gone, if he did not come here?’ the Dowager wailed. Then she stopped short, her worried countenance clearing. ‘Ashedon Court, of course! Clever boy! Some unsavoury individual might track him here, but they’d never venture that far out of London. Have your maid begin packing at once, and tell the nursery maids to prepare the boys, too. I shall get Talbot working now, so we can leave for Ashedon Court as soon as possible. I shall not sleep a wink until I am certain about the safety of my dearest Randall!’

  With that, she swept from the room, apparently not giving a thought to the fact that Faith might not wish to drop everything and hurry off to Ashedon Court with her.

  She was about to follow her mother-in-law out and tell her that she would visit Sarah while the Dowager travelled to Derbyshire when a new notion occurred.

  She knew for certain that Randall wouldn’t be at the ducal country house. Even if he quickly tired of Calais and made his way back to England, she doubted he’d return to an estate in the middle of the countryside that he’d several times pronounced a dead bore, in which he didn’t intend to spend a moment’s time until he was buried in the family crypt. So she needn’t fear running into him there.

  And she’d longed for years to take her boys into the country, acquaint them with the rhythms of a life she so much preferred to the city routine of London. Edward, in particular, needed to learn about the land and tenants whose care would be his duty and heritage.

  Instead of rusticating at Sarah’s, why not accompany the Dowager to Ashedon, spend some quiet, unhurried time there with her boys, soaking in the peace and beauty she’d missed so much? Meanwhile, she could see to hiring a new tutor, employ a groom to teach the boys to ride, and maybe show them a few tricks about catching fish, catching frogs, and climbing trees she remembered from a long, carefree youth spent running after her brother Colton.

  Davie had warned her he’d likely be too busy the next few weeks to find some ‘unexceptional’ occasion to see her. After their fraught meeting yesterday, she probably needed some time apart to reorder her thinking and convince herself to keep her promise and not try to seduce him again the first chance she got. To persuade herself that she could be content with friendship for the present, while she nurtured the hope they might share something more in future.

  As long as he didn’t marry. Needy for him as she was, she wouldn’t attempt to seduce a married man. Not that her honourable-to-the-core Davie would allow himself to be seduced, once he’d pledged his troth to some other woman.

  Dismissing that outcome as too dreadful to contemplate, she forced herself to concentrate on the immediate future. With him so occupied with his duties in Parliament, it was unlikely that some ambitious female would lure him into a liaison now. Surely she could bear being parted from him for a few weeks.

  He’d already helped her recover much of her former energy and confidence. It was up to her to continue the process, and being in the countryside she loved would further fuel that recovery.

  After they were safely arrived at Ashedon Court, she thought with another tweak of conscience, she’d make amends for her bad behaviour by having the Dowager receive an anonymous note informing the woman of her son’s whereabouts.

  She’d write the note tonight, with instructions that it not be posted until after their departure.

  If, after receiving it, her mother-in-law wanted to pursue her son to Calais, she could go with Faith’s blessing, but not with Faith’s escort.

  Oh, to be able to spend several weeks in the country! she thought, the idea filling her with enthusiasm. Having the boys all to herself, to dine with and read to and take walking and fishing and riding. Perhaps she’d even have the gamekeeper start showing Edward how to use a pistol.

  She could rise in the morning to fill her lungs with sweet country air. Ride for as long as she liked, without having to worry about returning to dress for callers. And, praise Heaven, delight in evenings spent reading or placing games with her sons instead of being forced to endure boring ton parties being polite to sharp-eyed matrons who, though wary of her now, still watched her every move, looking for something to ridicule or criticise.

  The only thing that would make a country sojourn more perfect would be having Davie beside her—in her life, in her bed. With a deep sigh, she recalled how safe and cherished she’d felt, wrapped in those powerful arms. The giddy delight of tasting, teasing, stroking him, pushing the limits of his passionate restraint. The heat and burn that simmered deep within whenever she was near him.

  Just thinking of him, she burned anew.

  But since the ultimate means of satisfying that desire wasn’t possible—yet—she might do well with a period away from Davie’s frustration-inducing presence. In the meantime, she would do her best to enjoy the unexpected opportunity the Dowager had just given her to introduce her sons to country life.

  Chapter Fifteen

  In the evening a few days later, Davie hefted a mug of ale with the other Hellions in the boisterous taproom of the Quill and Gavel, as they an
d the other patrons, most of them Members of Parliament, celebrated the passage through the Commons of the Reform Bill.

  ‘Almost ten years since we envisaged this, sitting in that dingy taproom in Oxford,’ Ben cried. ‘Here’s to Davie, our intellectual light, to Giles, master manipulator extraordinaire, to Christopher, the voice of doom who helped us find and eradicate the flaws. To the Reform Bill!’

  ‘To the Bill!’ they all repeated, raising their mugs.

  ‘We still have a lot of work to do, even if the Bill passes the Lords without alteration,’ Christopher pointed out. ‘Voting requirements need to be standardised from district to district, and we absolutely must work towards universal suffrage.’

  ‘Yes, towards a day where a farmer’s orphan won’t need aristocratic patrons to be able to participate in government,’ Davie agreed.

  ‘You’re a long way from being that penniless farmer’s orphan now,’ Giles said. ‘As a man of property with several sources of wealth, and a growing reputation as a visionary political thinker, you have no need for aristocratic patrons any longer.’

  Davie waved a deprecating hand. ‘If I am even close to being that, it’s due to the support and assistance of you all. From the day Giles took pity on the outcast sitting alone, nursing the single glass of ale he could afford at the cheapest of Oxford’s taverns.’

  ‘Giles is right,’ Ben agreed. ‘You’re no longer an indigent outsider, but a man of influence within the circles of power.’

  ‘At heart, I’ll always be that farm urchin,’ Davie said with a laugh. Then, those words instantly transporting him back to his contentious interview with Faith, he fell silent.

  She’d accused him of clinging to bourgeois values that prevented them from having a chance for happiness. She’d been right—but in a different way than she’d meant, or he’d realised at the time.