The Duchess Diaries: The Bridal Pleasures Series

by Jillian Hunter

  But he was attending a hiring fair tomorrow with a neighbor, and when he woke up, he noticed that Charlotte must have risen earlier, because her tea tray was on the table, and Sarah wasn’t in her room either when he checked.

  “They’ve gone fishing, Your Grace,” the governess informed him with a disapproving face.

  “Alone?”

  “No. They’ve taken the gamekeeper with them.”

  “People have drowned in the lake, you know,” he said irritably. Of course, that had been a century ago, during a vile winter storm, but that wasn’t the point. Sarah’s boat had capsized the last time she was here, and he’d had to swim out to save her. He rode to the water’s edge and, with a pair of field glasses, spotted the boat anchored in the middle of the sunlit lake.

  “Oh, look,” Sarah said, tugging Charlotte’s arm. “There’s my father.”

  “I thought he was going to the hiring fair.” Charlotte peered into the water, her fishing pole still. “I don’t think there are any fish in this lake.”

  “I don’t, either.”

  “Then why are we here?” Charlotte asked. “Fishing is not the most feminine pastime. Why don’t we give a tea party for your friends?”

  “I don’t have enough friends for a tea party.”

  Charlotte looked at her sadly. “Well, your father and I are here now to keep you from being lonely.”

  “Oh! Oh! Look! I’ve hooked a fish!”

  The gamekeeper reached for the bucket. Charlotte leaned over to watch the catch.

  “Help me!” Sarah shouted, fighting the pull of her pole. “It’s a lake monster! He’s pulling me out of the rowboat!”

  Charlotte gasped and rose gingerly to grab the girl. But as she stretched out her arm, she pitched forward and toppled right over the side of the rowboat into the lake.

  She gasped in shock from the cold.

  And as she foundered she felt the hook on Sarah’s line snag her sleeve. There wasn’t a fish on it at all.

  “Help! Help!” Sarah screamed to the shore. “Duchess overboard! Help, Papa!”

  The gamekeeper pulled off his boots to dive into the lake. “Stay with Lady Sarah!” Charlotte cried, releasing the hook and paddling to the other side of the boat.

  “Don’t panic, Charlotte!” Gideon roared from the shore, stripping down to his trousers. “Let the water carry you! Whatever you do, do not fight me when I take hold of you.”

  Gideon flung off his coat and shirt to take a running leap into the lake, and hit the water bare chested. It was cold enough to turn his private parts blue. Where was Charlotte? Had she gone under?

  “Grimes—hand the oar to my wife and tell her to hang on!”

  Grimes picked up the oar and threw it in the water at Charlotte. She gasped, ducking her head, and watched the oar drift away.

  “That’s helpful,” Gideon muttered, his powerful strokes propelling him toward Charlotte. “I wanted you to give it to her while you were holding the other end. The idea was to keep her afloat, not to knock her block off. I’m coming, Charlotte!”

  Sarah hung over the side of the boat, tears welling in her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Mother. I thought you said last night that you knew how to swim.”

  “I do,” Charlotte replied, dunking her head so that her long golden hair rippled out behind her like a skein of wet silk. “But I’m wearing boots and a boned corset that are making it difficult to move.”

  “Please don’t drown,” the gamekeeper said, rocking the boat as he clamped one arm around Sarah’s midriff and cast the other out to Charlotte.

  “I’ve got her!” Gideon gurgled, bobbing up and down in the lake like a serpent.

  Clever woman that she was, Charlotte appeared to be treading water and waiting for him. Actually, she looked as if she could swim to shore herself, but he wanted to rescue her, and perhaps he wanted to show off a little in front of his daughter, who had never had reason to view him in a flattering light before.

  Sarah’s father had wrapped his coat around Charlotte’s shoulders and was carrying her to his horse. Sarah folded her arms and watched them with a frown as the prow of the rowboat bumped through the cattails that lined the shore.

  “Come, Lady Sarah,” the grizzle-bearded gamekeeper said, giving her his hand. “I’ll not be responsible for another accident. You’d best run along with His Grace and tell Mrs. Stearns you’re home.”

  “I am not running alongside them when they’re acting like that.”

  “What?” he said, pulling the boat up to the small dock. “Acting like what? The duchess is fond of you; I can tell. Why are you pouting? This is the family you have wanted.”

  She gave him her hand. “I know. I know. But they do not have time to play with me.”

  He blinked, glancing up to watch the duke hoist his wife onto his saddled gray. “Well, then, let them be. You’ll have a little brother or sister to play with soon enough.”

  * * *

  Charlotte leaned against Gideon’s shoulder, determined to finish buttoning his shirt before they reached the drive. At length he caught her hand in his. “Stop touching me like that, my love, or I’ll be forced to take a detour through the woods.”

  “I’m soaking wet and cold.” She huddled against his back. “And so are you. Thank you for your valiant rescue.” She didn’t point out that she had been in no danger whatsoever. “I thought you were gone for the day.”

  He angled his head to look back at her. “So did I. It’s a good thing I came back when I did.”

  The dark emotion in his eyes generated a heat inside her that made her forget the breeze blowing against her dress. “I thought…Well, I didn’t think I’d see this much of you once we arrived here.”

  “Neither did I. But then, that is love.”

  He turned to guide the gray onto another path. Charlotte let the horse’s gait jostle her against Gideon’s back. “Did you say love?” she asked, sliding her free hand around his waist.

  He closed his hand over hers. “Yes. I said it. I’ll say it again. I’ll say it every day. I love you. I suspect I love you more than you love me. I know I need you more. Now please do not keep giving me cause to worry. I can’t spend the rest of my life dancing with men in wigs and jumping into lakes to prove how I feel.”

  She smiled, her chin pressed to his shoulder.

  Hours later, after supper, they were sitting in the great hall in front of a fire, Sarah playing with the two lithe greyhounds she had introduced to Charlotte as Romulus and Remus.

  “Did your governess give them their Roman names?” Charlotte asked, kneeling on the floor between her daughter and the rambunctious dogs.

  “No. I did.” Sarah clambered onto Gideon’s chair and settled in his lap. “How long will you be staying here?”

  “Forever. Do you mind?”

  “You always left me before for a long, long time.”

  He closed his eyes for a moment. “Oh, Sarah.”

  “I used to cry but Mrs. Stearns said I shouldn’t.”

  Gideon put his head to hers and brushed his hand over her hair. “I’ll send her away for reprimanding you like that.”

  “Please don’t,” Sarah whispered, reaching into his vest pocket. “She loves me and I love her.”

  The governess appeared in the passageway behind them as if she had been summoned. “Come, Lady Sarah. It’s time for you to go to bed.” One of the puppies growled at her. Mrs. Stearns ignored it.

  She started to make a fuss until Charlotte rose from the floor. “Give me and your father a kiss. And do what you are told.”

  Gideon shooed his daughter along and told her, “Sarah, we have many days to share ahead of us. I’ll never leave you for a long time again.”

  Then Charlotte and Gideon were alone. He stood up slowly. “Come, madam. It’s time for you to go to bed.”

  “Give me a kiss first. And— ”

  He drew her against him and kissed her in an unhurried taunt that swept her into oblivion.

  “Am I still t
he man of your dreams?” he asked as she arched her neck and felt his hand steal slowly down her shoulder to sift through her hair.

  “The dreams that I have when I’m awake or asleep?”

  “Both,” he said, his eyes searching hers. “Because if you ever banish me from your dreams, I will cease to exist. I adore you, Charlotte. You are more to me than anything I dreamed or deserved.”

  Charlotte let him lead her to the stairs. It didn’t matter how she had won him. The scandalmongers would believe what they would. But just in case Gideon and Charlotte’s children were curious, she would keep her diaries to explain how she and their father had fallen in love, and to prove that even the wickedest dreams had a way of coming true.

  Read on for a peek at the first captivating

  romance in Jillian Hunter’s

  Bridal Pleasures Series,

  A Duke’s Temptation

  Available now from Signet Select.

  Don’t let any rakes steal you while I’m gone.

  Who would want to steal her?

  She wasn’t the sort to excite that much passion, even in a rake.

  Lily blinked. What had come over her? She would not drink another glass of champagne. At least not until after she ate. And she would not sneak another glance at the man whose stare had practically singed her skin.

  She lifted her gaze. Her last look, she promised herself. It wouldn’t hurt. No one else would ever know. One. Final. Look.

  Relieved and a little disappointed, she realized that he was no longer looking at her. She assured herself it was for the best. Heartbreak might as well have been emblazoned on his forehead. She wasn’t surprised that females made up the innermost group of guests that he’d attracted.

  Still, how he managed to appear lost and affected with lethal boredom was a skill that Lily could only admire from a guarded distance. His negligent elegance announced to the room that he accepted his influence and felt no guilt in wielding this gift as he desired.

  Lily might not have recognized such inborn arrogance if she had not possessed some weaponry of her own. Nothing of his magnitude. But she adored the thrill of secret flirtations. And—

  She wasn’t merely looking at him now. She was studying him like a masterpiece in a museum. How on earth did he manage it? He gave the impression of a masked god who had dropped in on the party only to let the world of mortals worship in his shadow.

  Was that air of dark indolence part of his disguise? Perhaps he was an actor and that was why he had an audience that basked in his presence. She liked that notion. The longer she appraised him, the more she wondered whether he was holding court as part of a well-rehearsed performance.

  Demon, actor, or social darling, she found him captivating, too, judging by her furtive analysis of his person. And then it dawned on her that the weapon at his side was a rusty lance, and he wasn’t an ordinary knight-errant. He was Don Quixote de la Mancha, mad and self-appointed protector of the helpless.

  “Lily!”

  She turned reluctantly toward the sound of Chloe’s voice, her musings interrupted. Then it happened again. Unexpected, breath-catching. Like watching a star tumble from the midnight sky.

  He lifted his head and stared at her, as if he’d been waiting to catch her off guard again. What impeccable timing. His lean form straightened. His hard-lipped mouth curled at one corner.

  A farewell to their brief flirtation or an invitation to something far more dangerous? Lily couldn’t decide.

  She started to look away. She knew better than to encourage this sort of nonsense. A man who stared at a lady like that and didn’t mind who noticed only offered trouble. But all of a sudden her own instinct for mischief took over. Lily could flirt, too, and the fact that she was wearing a costume gave her a false sense of anonymity.

  Just for tonight she wasn’t the unsophisticated Miss Lily Boscastle of Tissington, who in a month would become a bride and settle down to a respectable life as Captain Grace’s wife.

  She would never see this knight-errant again. The unabashed attention he paid her begged for an answer. But what kind? An alluring smile to admit that she was intrigued? A firm shake of her head that meant a definite no? Or perhaps a little shrug to indicate that while he flattered her, she wasn’t willing to reciprocate with anything riskier?

  Would that be too wicked of her? It wasn’t as if he could leap into the air and snatch her up in full view of innumerable witnesses.

  She smiled back at him, a playful coquette’s smile, over the shoulder, straight in the direction of his handsome face.

  There.

  Take that.

  And he did, inclining his head in open approval, the devil acknowledging his due. What had she done? She took a breath, transfixed, as he raised his helmet in a tribute that tempted and immobilized her in the same delirious moment.

  Several members of his group turned their heads to identify her. He hadn’t been subtle at all. She barely felt the person behind her give her another shove. This time she was too distracted to take offense.

  In fact, she was so unbalanced that she allowed herself to be propelled directly into an opening in the line, into temptation’s path, and heaven only knew how far the shameless man would have carried this scandalous exchange had a firm hand not caught hers and an urgent voice not whispered in her ear, “Lily.”

  She tumbled back to earth, recognizing the raven-haired enchantress who was rightfully attempting to restore her common sense. “What has come over you?” Chloe demanded under her breath. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m not doing anything.” Not that she would readily admit.

  “I am going to give you a belated warning,” Chloe went on in such a breathless voice that Lily was forced to listen. “I assumed that because you flirted so well, you fully understood what a dangerous game it can be.”

  Lily bit her lip. From the corner of her eye she observed an older, distinguished-looking gentleman entering the room to a chorus of warm cheers. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,” she lied. “But perhaps you ought to lecture me later. Isn’t that our host, Lord Philbert, just making an appearance?”

  Chloe was clearly not to be deterred. She pointedly stared at the gorgeous creature standing up against the wall. Lily wasn’t positive, but she thought Lord Philbert had broken through the ranks that surrounded the charismatic one, which indicated that while the other man might be a rake, he was, as she suspected, an important one.

  At least Lily hadn’t smiled at a nobody. There was some consolation in that.

  Chloe released her grip on Lily’s hand. “Do you have the vaguest idea who that gentleman is?”

  “Which gentleman? The room is full of them.”

  “I saw you smile at only one.”

  Lily realized it was self-defeating to deceive a lady as observant as her cousin. “I couldn’t help it, Chloe. I mean, I couldn’t help noticing him. It was wrong.”

  “Everyone notices him,” Chloe continued in a forgiving voice. “There is nothing to be done for that. But the problem is that he is making a point to notice you. And that is why it is crucial that I warn you. He is the Duke of Gravenhurst.”

  Lily knew this announcement should have given her a scare.

  “Does the title signify some inherent evil?” she asked cautiously.

  Chloe straightened the gold circlet that pressed her fringe of black curls to her forehead. “I don’t know all that much about him myself. He is said to have inherited it after some family tragedy when he was a boy. As the story goes, he went a little wild as he reached his maturity. His supporters attribute his rebellious nature to the responsibilities he took on at a young age.”

  “Supporters?” Lily said, lifting her brow.

  “In the House of Lords. He gives persuasive speeches for causes that other people pretend don’t exist.” Chloe studied her in concern. “He’s very persuasive, from what I’ve gathered.”

  “That isn’t a crime, is it?”

  “It depen
ds on whom you ask. The opposite party thinks so. As do several parents whose daughters have formed a society to follow him around the capital with telescopes when he visits. His foes consider him a traitor to the peerage.”

  “Well, I don’t plan on joining any admiration societies in the near future, and it’s doubtful Jonathan will ever land in the House of Lords. Especially since he cannot even be bothered to finish a book, and his brother is going to inherit the family title.”

  Chloe calmed down a bit. “At least your captain is a decent person.”

  “And the duke is not?” Lily asked before she could censor the question.

  “A man that handsome, who has only to smile to mesmerize, cannot be unaware of his charm.”

  “Is it his fault that he is beautiful?”

  “He is rumored to run through women like…racehorses.”

  Lily reared back at this appalling image. “That is disgusting. And not beautiful in the least.”

  Chloe drew a breath, clearly mollified by Lily’s reaction. “If it is true,” she added in an apparent bid to be fair. “I can’t honestly say that I’ve had personal experience with the man. But I seem to recall a bit of gossip— Oh, dear.”

  “‘Oh dear,’ what?”

  “I think I read that he wakes up at midnight with one woman and blazes through the streets until dawn in his cabriolet with another. And that he has appeared at three routs in a single hour.”

  “No wonder he’s lean.”

  “Lily, listen. When other gentlemen come home to change into their evening clothes, he is removing his. Do you realize what that means?”

  It could mean anything, Lily thought. He could be nocturnal by nature. He could be allergic to daylight or city fog. It could mean he preferred the intimacy of the night. Perhaps he was simply one of those men who came alive when the sun went down. Lily knew only that his presence irradiated the room, and that it could be morning or midnight right now and she would not have noticed the difference.