Duchesses in Disguise

by Grace Burrowes

  “I can die a happy man now. I’ve reached the heights of being termed ‘diverting’ by the Duchess of Coldbrook. Life can have nothing further to offer me.”

  But though he kept his words light, she’d shared something of herself with him just now in the story of her near drowning, and that meant a great deal to him.

  They arrived at the boathouse, and they stopped and dismounted, tying the horses near a sunny patch behind the boathouse where the animals could graze.

  “Are you sure it’s a good idea to walk on your ankle?” she asked.

  “It feels steady and quite a bit better. A little walking won’t do it any harm.”

  Kit took the basket he’d brought, and they walked by unspoken agreement to the front of the little house, where the pond was.

  “I was my parents’ only child,” he said. “And then when the earl took me in, I became that most precious thing he’d been denied for so long: an heir. I often wished I had come from a large and boisterous family, because I wished not only for playmates, but for something to dilute the attention focused on me. But of course, there are disadvantages to being one of many. A child might feel lost in a crowd.”

  “I might have shouted that out when we were galloping earlier: My parents forgot about me. For much of my childhood, I felt like one in a huge parcel of children, and a very average child at that.”

  “You, average? Never. No one who’s spent ten minutes in your company would believe such a thing.”

  They paused to choose a good spot for the blanket, and her eyes sparkled at him, pulling him further under her spell. “Are you certain?” she asked. “I seem to recall a conversation about dull, predictable spinsters and their inevitable cats a few days ago.”

  “I like cats,” he said, and only just barely managed to stop himself from kissing her. He wanted this to be perfect. “And, what is even more admirable in me, I have brought a packet from Cook full of cakes and shortbread.”

  “A great deal can be forgiven judgmental fellows who remember cakes.”

  He grinned. “A fellow can hope.”

  He took the blanket out of the picnic basket and spread it out to the side of the boathouse in a patch of gentle sunlight that was shielded from the path, though he was confident no one would disturb them. His friends were well occupied with their ladies, and no one else would have any reason to be near the pond, which was at some distance from the manor.

  They nibbled the cakes as they sat gazing out over the tranquil water.

  “What do you like best about your home at Brookleigh?”

  She was reclining, propped on her bent elbows, and though she had already seen much of the world, she looked young and innocent—but not timid. Despite her fear of water, he’d never once thought her timid. She had a confidence that was beyond anything to do with being a duchess and had everything to do, he suspected, with all the individual paths she’d chosen in her life so far. Choices to apply herself toward studies, to learn how to be a good duchess, to learn how to love the man her late husband had been.

  “The gardens are my favorite spot,” she said. “They’re quite large, and sometimes I’ll walk out along the paths and not come back for hours. It’s sheer bliss.”

  “And a way to avoid being a duchess for a time?”

  “Yes.” She sighed. “Being a duchess is a great privilege, but I am by nature a private person, and I don’t have a great deal of wants. I shall be relieved when Harold’s nephew, the current duke, finds a wife.”

  “And what will you do then?”

  She closed her eyes and tipped her face toward the sky. “Travel the world with a friend or two. Go live in a cottage by the sea all covered in climbing roses.” She smiled without opening her eyes. “Acquire some cats.”

  His heart was beating so loudly that he felt she must hear it. “Your Grace,” he said quietly, drinking in the sight of her face. “Olivia.”

  She opened her eyes, her expression puzzled.

  “You are very beautiful.”

  She made a face. “You know that I’m not. Why say such a thing?”

  “You are beautiful,” he said firmly. “Beautiful and good. Beautiful because you are good.”

  A few seconds passed, and he dared to hope that she’d accepted the sincerity behind his words. But then she rolled her eyes and let her head drop back and closed her eyes again. “You sound like a fool. Are you thinking to take up poetry writing? I recommend against it in your case.”

  Her hand was spread palm down on the blanket, and he touched the soft back of her hand with one fingertip. Her eyes opened again, and she frowned, those dark brows drawing together into a sharp line. “What’s got into you?”

  “You have.” He leaned closer, slowly, in case she would move away. She lifted her head, as if waiting to see what he would do.

  He kissed her neck at the juncture with her collarbone. Her skin was unendurably sweet. He breathed deeply of her scent-that-was-barely-a-scent, warm, sweet, and earthy.

  She let him kiss up her neck and didn’t protest or move away when he pressed his lips in a path along her jawline. His guide was the sound of her breath quickening. When he kissed her mouth, she opened to him.

  Chapter Ten

  * * *

  Olivia had been aware that Kit might try to kiss her at some point during their outing. She could imagine—well, she had imagined—that maybe they would dismount to take in a view, or stroll briefly if his ankle allowed, and that he would try to kiss her. And she had known that she would let him. Something had shifted for her, and she didn’t want to deny herself the pleasure of his company anymore.

  She had promised herself that if he did kiss her, she would simply keep her wits about her.

  But now his lips were on hers, and they felt wonderful, and she had not the smallest wish to be sensible.

  She was going to allow herself to enjoy whatever Kit was offering. Another encounter would make no difference to either of them in the long run, she told herself, even as a niggling feeling insisted this was not really true, that it hadn’t been true for some time. She didn’t care.

  His hands explored her gently but with purpose, bringing warmth and shivers of excitement as they moved over her arms and the swell of her bosom.

  She lifted a hand to his shoulder and discovered the hardness of muscles that flexed as he leaned over her.

  “I can’t stop thinking about you,” he murmured.

  “You can’t?” she whispered, almost breathless.

  “You don’t have to sound so pleased,” he growled, making her smile. He began undoing the buttons on the front of her habit.

  Cool spring air floated against her skin as her garment loosened, but she hardly noticed. His arms warmed her as they slid around her, and every touch of his hands made desire heat her more. He kissed along her neck and groaned as his mouth explored the exposed tops of her breasts. When his hand moved to cup her breast, she turned liquid inside.

  “Olivia,” he said, and she loved the sound of her name on his lips. “I want to touch all of you. I don’t think I could ever get enough.”

  His words spoke to a longing deep inside her. She abandoned conscious thought as desire rushed through her.

  “Kit.”

  He urged her back onto the blanket and lay down beside her and kissed her. Gathering the heavy, voluminous skirts of her riding habit, he drew it to her knees. She whimpered as his fingers traced the tender skin on the inside of her knee.

  “You want this as much as I do, don’t you?” he asked. Once, she would have thought this an arrogant claim from a man who knew exactly how to get what he wanted from a woman. But his words were a question, and she believed in the incertitude behind them. That Kit Stirling might be so vulnerable she found astonishing.

  “Yes.”

  He took his time, dallying near her knee, tracing shiver-making swirls here and there on a slow journey upward, to where she ached for him to touch her. Instead of satisfying her need, he moved between her l
egs and pressed himself against her through the many fabric layers, a tease and a promise. She gasped and shifted her hips against him, needing all of him.

  “Open your eyes, Olivia.”

  She had not realized they were closed, so consumed was she with what he was doing to her, but now she obeyed. He was looking at her, his eyes dark, his face flushed. “I want you,” he said. She wanted him too, was burning for him more each moment.

  He fixed his eyes on hers. “God knows I don’t deserve you, but I want all of you.”

  He was so different today. She felt different as well. And he seemed to guess this and to want her to acknowledge it.

  * * *

  The flush in Olivia’s cheeks deepened, and Kit dared to hope that she understood how special she had become to him. How was it possible that in such a short amount of time, he could come to know this woman and care so much for her?

  Sweet, sweet Olivia, with her bone-deep decency and her sensible ways and her hidden depths. Ah, those depths, how they called to him. He wanted to know everything about her—and he wanted the pleasure of discovering everything about her to be his and his alone.

  “I want this too,” she said.

  He unfastened his breeches and worked to push aside the bulky skirts of her habit. “Never wear a riding habit again,” he growled as he tussled with them.

  “You should have invited me for a drive instead,” she teased, but then, with a triumphant grunt, he gained access. He wanted promises from her, and he wanted to give her promises, but he must wait for what she would freely offer. She was offering him her body now, and her desire, and he believed that it might be the beginning of so much more.

  He kissed her, willing his love to flow through him to her.

  He touched her, found her ready for him, and entered her.

  The moment was pure pleasure, and joy, like a benediction washing away the stain of his recent life.

  He moved slowly in her, needing her to understand what he felt, even as he knew that she might never be his.

  But he had hope. He held her eyes with his as their pleasure climbed and they found their release, their hearts beating as one.

  * * *

  Olivia opened her eyes to the blue of the sky and the awareness that the air was really quite cool. She hadn’t noticed when Kit had been making her so warm.

  She sat up and reached behind herself to set her riding habit to rights. Next to her, she could sense Kit arranging himself too.

  “I hadn’t expected that to happen.” What she had just shared with Kit had been wonderful, an indulgence of all the sleeping yearnings he had awakened. But now that the beating of her heart had slowed, rational thought was returning. When she was with Kit, she did things that were entirely out of character for her. What more sign did she need that she must stop?

  His laugh was a deep rumble. “I hadn’t expected anything either. Though I won’t say I didn’t hope.”

  She frowned. “This isn’t like me, doing things like this.”

  He moved to face her. “And I am like this, is that what you mean? I’m the sort of fellow who seduces women who thought they were only going out for a ride?”

  He sounded serious, and she didn’t know what to do with a serious Kit. Her shoulders sagged. She didn’t know what to think anymore, either, and that wasn’t a good feeling. He wasn’t utterly frivolous. She liked him a great deal. But a man could be completely likable and even entirely kind, and also be unreliable, unpredictable, and selfish.

  “I am not saying there’s anything wrong with two people doing such things if they both wish to do so and no one is harmed by their actions,” she said. “Only that I am not accustomed to doing such things. And that I must not do them again.”

  “Why? Just because you haven’t done them before? You had never willingly approached a pond before, and now here you are, sitting relaxed right beside one.”

  “It’s not the same!”

  Silence fell between them, and she thought about getting up and leaving, but she couldn’t make herself go. She stared at the pond, trying to understand how she’d left for a holiday with two friends and ended up in this muddled whatever-it-was that she had become embroiled in with Kit Stirling.

  “I love you, Olivia.”

  His voice was calm and steady, his words hardly an incitement to riot, but they were the last thing she’d expected him to say, and they made her angry. She didn’t like to be angry, and she didn’t like that, somehow in recent days, she’d wandered into this foreign realm of unwanted emotion and entanglement. She didn’t look at him. “No.”

  He put a finger on her chin and tipped her head toward his. “No?” A dangerous note had come into his voice. “What do you mean ‘no’?”

  “I mean you don’t love me,” she said, and the firmness she forced into her voice was just as much for herself as it was for him. They’d both forgotten who they were. “You can’t possibly.”

  “What makes you think you can tell me how I feel?”

  Nothing. She had no business saying such a thing to another person, even a man who’d lived a life of dissipation. Her words had been arrogant and hardly kind. But she didn’t know how else to be, because she couldn’t let this thing that had sprung up between them grow any further.

  “Very well,” she said, “it’s your business what you wish to say. But what’s happened between us can’t go any further. I never meant—I don’t want—I—oh!” she growled in frustration. Apparently, in addition to becoming a loose woman, she had turned into a ninny unable to express herself.

  “You liked what we did,” Kit said. His tone was reasonable, but his jaw was hard. “And you like me, against your better judgment.”

  “What if I do? That’s not enough to build anything of substance on.”

  “Olivia, I’ve done many things I’m not proud of in my life, but I am more than the sum of those actions.”

  He was right, but he was also making it harder for her to hold fast to what she knew she needed to do. “I know that you are. You are capable of being very good.”

  “So why can’t you want this? Why can’t you want me?”

  She threw up her hands, frustrated beyond words. How could he not know that everything she’d ever learned told her he was the worst risk she could ever take? “Because you scare me! How I can trust a man like you?”

  “What if I’ve changed?” She didn’t miss the frustration that laced his voice as well, and she wished he’d just acknowledge that it was impossible for there to be anything solid and reliable between them, instead of pushing for something that could never work.

  “People always say they’ve changed. My father said it countless times to my mother whenever she discovered yet another mistress.”

  “Ah,” he said slowly. “I see now. I see why you are afraid.”

  She experienced an astonishing urge to scream. “I didn’t say I was afraid,” she said through clenched teeth. “I meant that you scare me because I can’t trust you.”

  “I understand why you feel that way.” She should have been grateful for his reasonable tone, especially when she now felt overtaken by a jumble of conflicting emotions, but she didn’t.

  “I wish I could tell you that I haven’t made many mistakes,” he continued, “but you know that I have. A good portion of what I’ve done in recent years was done to thumb my nose at my uncle and all he stands for. And that’s not in the least admirable.”

  “No, it isn’t.” He was giving her good reasons to refuse him, and she could only be grateful. So why did she feel like weeping?

  “Olivia, I know that I look like the same man you met days ago, but I feel totally different.”

  In truth, he looked different too. No hint of mockery teased the edges of his mouth, and his eyes were clear, his gaze direct. She forced herself to meet it. “Feelings are temporary things.”

  He shook his head. “How I feel isn’t temporary. Life looks different to me now. I love you as I’ve never loved anyone, and
I want to marry you and be with only you all the days of my life.”

  He wanted to marry her? His words made her gasp, but “Oh!” was all she had a chance to splutter before he put a finger to her lips.

  “I know.” He had the nerve to smile a little. “You weren’t expecting that. And you still have no reason to trust me. But don’t say anything just yet.”

  He stood and held a hand out to help her up. “It must be very nearly tea time.”

  Now he was talking of tea? Feeling as if she was nearly ready for Bedlam, Olivia followed him to where the horses stood. He’d just said he wanted to marry her, then told her not to say anything! Which she should be glad about, because she didn’t want to marry him.

  Of course she didn’t! How could she possibly?

  Except, the idea of marrying Kit— there was something terribly, terribly tempting about it.

  What was wrong with her that she was even considering what he’d said?

  In a daze, she allowed him to help her onto her horse. The only sign he gave of what he’d spoken of was when he briefly kissed her hand just before relinquishing it.

  He mounted his own horse, and they made their way along the path in silence. When they reached the manor, a stable boy came out to meet them. Though Olivia half expected Kit to help her dismount and try to speak with her further, he allowed the stable boy to assist her and merely gave her a wave of his hand as he lingered to speak with the fellow.

  She marched up to her bedchamber and rang for a piping hot bath.

  * * *

  When Olivia went down for dinner that night, determined to tell Kit in no uncertain terms that what was between them was now at an end, Colonel Stratton informed his guests that Kit had had to leave suddenly but was expected back within a few days.

  “He left this for you,” Stratton said, pressing a note in her hand.

  There’s something I need to do, but please don’t leave Rose Heath yet. Just give me a little time.