Читать книгу: «His Secret Duchess»

Prologue

April 1815

The chestnut gelding, fresh and eager for the promised run, resented the sedate pace to which his rider was relentlessly holding him. That resentment had been subtly demonstrated to the man who competently, and without conscious thought, controlled the horse’s brief rebellion. To an outside observer, of course, it would have seemed that a flawless connection existed between the horseman’s hands and the magnificent animal they guided.

It was not until Lieutenant Colonel Lord Nicholas Stanton finally sighted the slender figure moving through the dappling shade the ancient oaks provided that he allowed his mount his head, and then only until they had closed the distance. The gelding was pulled up once again, and horse and rider sedately followed the strolling girl until, apparently hearing them behind her, she turned to look over her shoulder.

Her blue eyes, shaded by the wide brim of a style of straw bonnet that would certainly not have been seen in the fashionable city from which the Duke of Vail’s younger son had just returned, openly considered the rider a moment. Her gaze then returned to concentrate on the path she had been following along the edge of the shadowed country lane.

The horseman’s well-shaped lips tilted upward. Nick Stanton was unaccustomed to being snubbed. Especially by women. Indeed, the adulation of the marriageable ladies of the ton during his recent visit to London would have been enough to turn the head of many a man. Not only was he nobly born and extremely well-fixed, but he was an acknowledged military hero, as well, his exploits in Iberia having been remarked upon in dispatches by Wellington himself.

It didn’t hurt his standing with the fairer sex that his profile had, on more than one occasion, been compared to Adonis and his tailor was never forced to resort to buckram padding in the making of the well-cut uniforms Nick wore to perfection. The calm dismissal in the eyes of the girl in the outmoded straw bonnet was certainly not the reception Lord Stanton had recently been accorded by the London ton.

Perhaps in response to that obvious disdain, Nick touched his heels to the chestnut and guided him alongside the strolling figure. Again, blue eyes rose to his, their gaze far too direct for fashionable flirtation.

“Good afternoon,” Stanton said, holding his mount to the pace the girl had set. A finger of sun reaching through the overarching branches touched briefly on his hair, turning it gold. The fair hair was darkened now with perspiration, and slightly curling. What others of his set achieved with heated irons, nature had bestowed upon him quite naturally, another of her generous gifts for this favored son. His uniform jacket set off broad shoulders and a narrow waist, the tight pantaloons emphasizing the muscled strength of his long legs.

At his greeting, the girl’s eyes lifted again, slowly appraising both horse and rider. Her upturned face was classically heart-shaped, but her mouth was too wide for the current fashion and her nose straight rather than retroussé, and there was nothing the least bit simpering in her manner. Her assessment was unflinching.

The sprigged muslin she wore was at least two years old, its skirt rucked up in the country style to protect the fragile material from briars, revealing underneath a plain white petticoat. She carried over her arm a wicker basket almost half-full of red currants.

“My lord,” she said simply, and then the blue eyes returned to the lane before them.

Again, that upward tilt disturbed the line of the rider’s mouth, as his gray eyes, also, sought the shaded path that stretched ahead of them. The silence lasted for several moments as they moved side by side.

“Berrying?” he asked finally—a ridiculous question, given the evidence in the bottom of the basket.

The girl’s mouth, more used to laughter than to primness, flickered dangerously, almost losing its determined sternness. “Indeed,” she agreed.

Again silence descended, broken only by the plodding hooves of the gelding. The horse had finally relaxed into the pace his rider was keeping him to.

“May I give you a ride?” Lord Stanton offered, holding out his hand. His fingers were long and deeply tanned, despite the months he’d spent in England and away from his regiment. That had not, of course, been his choice, but the ball he took at Toulouse had proved to be far more troublesome than anyone suspected it might. There had even, at one juncture, been talk that he might lose the leg, but, thankfully, that danger was long past. Despite a slight, persistent stiffness in his right knee, Nick considered himself in fighting trim, and that had been the point of his recent trip to London—to convince his superiors at the Horse Guards of that.

“Thank you, but no, my lord. I’m sure you’re far too busy with your own affairs to bother with mine.”

“I promise I should be delighted to assist a lady.”

The girl’s eyes rose to linger a moment on the handsome face. “But surely you can see,” she said, “that I’m not—”

“A lady?” he said, interrupting her, his mouth controlled and his face a politely inquiring mask.

“In need of assistance,” she finished, without apparent rancor at his insult. She changed the heavy basket to her other arm, and from that sleeve removed a scrap of lace with which she touched the dew of perspiration on her upper lip.

“Making jam?” Stanton asked pleasantly, his eyes following the dabbing movements of the cloth along the beautiful bow of her upper lip.

The girl glanced at him, her dark lashes sweeping upward to reveal some emotion dancing in the. depths of her eyes.

“Pies, I believe,” she answered.

“For your sweetheart?”

“I have no sweetheart, my lord.”

“For a lass so beautiful, I find that difficult to believe. Are all the men here blind?”

“Perhaps. To my charms, at least. It seems there are always…other pleasures that distract them.”

“Then they’re fools,” Nick said softly. Unthinkingly, he slipped his right Hessian out of the stirrup and eased it into a more comfortable position, straightening the aching knee.

“So I’ve often thought,” she agreed, watching the procedure until he glanced down again. Then her gaze deliberately shifted from its focus on the man who rode beside her to the lane ahead.

“Do you have a name?” Stanton asked.

“Of course, my lord.”

This time Nick lost the battle to control his amusement, and the smile that had charmed the feminine half of the beau monde was unleashed in full force. Remarkably, it seemed to have no effect on the girl.

“Might I know it?” he urged.

“You might,” she said calmly, removing from her basket a berry that had apparently, on closer examination, proved unworthy for inclusion in the proposed pies. “And then, you might not. I’m sure I don’t know what you might know, my lord.”

“Has no one told you not to be pert with your betters?” Nick asked, laughing.

“No one but you, my lord. But I’m sure that was simply an oversight.”

“Gertrude,” he offered.

“I beg your pardon?” the girl said, but it was obvious, even to Stanton, that she didn’t.

“Since you seem so reluctant to share the information, I was attempting to guess your name.”

“My name is Mary Winters, my lord.”

“Do you live here in the village, Mary?”

“With my father in the vicarage, my lord.”

“The proverbial vicar’s daughter?”

“Indeed, my lord.”

“And have you finished gathering your berries, Mary Winters?”

“Oh, no, my lord. The very best spot, you see, is just through here.”

As she spoke, the girl stepped off the apron of the road and, pulling aside a limb that had blocked a small footpath, she disappeared into the shadowed undergrowth, the branch she had pushed aside returning to cover the hidden opening, as if by magic.

Horse and rider were left alone in the sudden quietness of the lane. Almost before the leaves had stilled, Stanton had dismounted. Displacing the same branch, he led the gelding into the clearing into which the girl had vanished. Once shielded from the road by the intervening hedges, he looped the horse’s reins over a branch and ran his hand soothingly over the shining chestnut of the horse’s neck.

Then the man’s gray eyes lifted to seek the girl. Surprisingly, she was standing on the gnarled trunk of an oak that had forked early in its existence. Something had bent the branch she stood upon, so that it now formed a natural platform about a foot off the ground. The basket rested on the grass beneath the other side of the trunk, which had grown straight and true. She balanced herself by holding on to a limb that protruded from the undamaged trunk of the tree. She had removed the straw hat, releasing a cascade of dark brown curls that seemed to lure all the leaf-diffused light of the clearing to glint in their richness. Her blue eyes watched as Nick Stanton crossed the clearing.

“You appear to be limping, my lord,” she said.

“I’ve just spent three days successfully not limping,” he answered, smiling, “so I should think you might try to be less critical.”

“A war wound, I suppose.”

“An honorable one, I assure you. Taken in the front.”

The girl’s mouth quivered, almost a smile.

“And heroic, no doubt?” she asked tauntingly.

“Not particularly.”

“Lord Wellington seemed to think so,” she said challengingly.

Smiling, Nick shook his head in denial, but his steps didn’t falter. Inexorably, he continued his approach to the oak.

“And foolhardy? Incredibly brave?” she suggested.

“A matter of opinion, I should imagine” he said dismissively.

He stood now directly below her, his height enough that their eyes were almost on a level. Blue met gray and held a moment, and then she touched him. She had turned her hand so that her knuckles trailed against the curling golden hair at his temple. He put his left hand up to catch her fingers, bringing them to his lips.

His mouth drifted slowly over the slender fingers, stained at the tips with the juice of the berries she’d gathered. Her free hand found his shoulder, the thumb caressing along the fine wool of his uniform and then upward along his neck until her palm cupped behind his head, her fingers lost in the warm silk of his hair.

Nick released the hand he’d captured and, putting his on either side of her slim waist, he lifted her from her perch into his arms. There was no resistance. She melted against his body, arms clinging around his neck, her mouth automatically opening and lowering to his. Familiar and practiced, his tongue slipped inside, as intimate as a lover’s. And as welcome.

The kiss was long and unhurried. Despite the limp with which he’d crossed the expanse between them, Stanton held her without effort, her body resting trustingly along the hard, masculine length of his. Slowly he lowered her until the toes of her kid slippers touched the ground, and still their mouths clung, moving against one another, cherishing, reluctant to let go. Finally she broke the kiss, her palms resting on either side of his face.

“Tell me that they refused you,” she entreated.

Smiling, he shook his head. “You know better than that, Mary. The Beau needs every experienced officer, every veteran, he can find. I told you that before I left.”

“And you convinced them you were fit.”

“To be truthful—”

“To be truthful, you lied about your leg,” she said accusingly.

“They were too glad of my offer to think of refusing. I suspect they’d have accepted me if I’d lost the leg,” he said, still smiling down at her. “Don’t be angry, Mary, my heart. That’s where I belong. It’s where my men will be. My regiment. It’s where I want to be.”

“Not again,” she whispered. “I can’t let you go to that hell again.” There was no answer for that plea. No comfort. Men were the warriors, and women those who wept. “How long?” she asked, and watched his lips tighten.

“Three hours. Less. I had to change horses. There were things I needed at the Hall, and I had to say goodbye to Charles and my father, in case…” His voice faded at the pain in her eyes, suddenly glazed with tears. “I came as fast as I could. But I have to be back in London to board the transport at dawn.”

“You just arrived. Surely—”

“Three hours, Mary,” he reminded, his mouth finding the small blue vein at her temple. “Shall we spend it arguing?”

“No,” she whispered, her lips lifting to his, her tongue seeking, fingers tangling through the golden curls. “No,” she said again as his mouth shifted over hers, turning to meld, to possess what was his. And always would be.

Nick had taken his cloak from his saddle pack and laid it on the ground, and now they lay together, watching dusk darken the sky they could barely see through the sheltering branches above their heads. He had removed his uniform jacket, and Mary’s fingers had long ago found the buttons of the soft lawn shirt he wore beneath it.

She had unfastened them, daringly, first one and then another, her lips exploring each inch of the hair-roughened chest as it was revealed. Her mouth had finally touched the smooth skin of his flat belly, tracing at last down the line of gold that disappeared into the top of his pantaloons.

His breathing had changed as she touched him, but he’d not protested the tentative exploration, except occasionally, his fingers locking suddenly in the spill of dark curls when her mouth found some previously unexamined area. Tortured by the sweetness of her lips, he was beyond conscious thought, beyond any remembrance of right and wrong. This was Mary, and it seemed that he had loved her so long. There was nothing about the gentleness of her kisses on his body that profaned what he felt for her. What he had felt almost since the first time he saw her.

He had come to service that Sunday morning only because his father insisted he leave the Hall, where he’d been secluded since his arrival from Spain. He’d been embarrassed then by the clumsiness of the crutches, by the villagers’ sympathetic stares and interested questions about his military exploits.

He and his father had taken their places in the ducal box pew, which was raised above the congregation and directly across from the pulpit. Nick’s eyes had remained downcast as he fought the humiliation of his body’s unfamiliar awkwardness. It was only when his father’s elbow admonished him that he’d looked down onto the congregation, his gray eyes rebellious, and found Mary.

She was sitting in the first row, her face rapt, listening to her father’s sermon, totally unaware of the fascinated attention of the Duke of Vail’s younger son. It was an experience that was new to Nick Stanton, and perhaps that was her initial appeal.

If so, it was soon overtaken by other, more conventional elements of attraction: the beauty of blue eyes fringed by long, dark lashes, the incredible clarity of her skin, the shining coils of brown hair demurely hidden under her Sunday bonnet. Stanton, long considered as one of the catches of any Season fortunate enough to find him spending a few months in London, quickly fell under the spell of a country vicar’s daughter.

Apparently, however, Mary Winters had no interest in his existence. Indeed, she seemed to be totally unaware that such an illustrious figure as Lieutenant Colonel Lord Nicholas Stanton had deigned to grace her father’s simple parish church that morning. And so, of course, motivated at first simply by boredom and his enforced inactivity, Nick set out to change that situation.

In the next few weeks, his father grew suspicious of Nick’s desire to attend service. The duke began to fear that the recently passed dangers of his wound or the disastrous influence of some Methodist evangelist might be responsible for his son’s unprecedented religious zeal.

It did not, however, take Vail long to realize that something more in keeping with Nick’s normal temperament had occurred. He had only to focus his lorgnette in the direction the straightforward gray gaze took each Sunday to find that the object of Nick’s devotion was not the promise of celestial paradise, but something more tangible, more earthly, and far more apt to cause trouble. He spoke sternly to his son and was surprised by the tenor of his answer.

“Trifle with her?” Nick repeated, incredulous at his father’s fear. “Good God, sir, look at her. Who would dare to trifle with Mary Winters?”

Recognizing the serenity of spirit and the cool intelligence in the girl’s blue eyes, attributes that Lord Stanton had already acknowledged, the duke was forced to agree.

“Mary,” Nick whispered finally, more plea than protest. But her lips lingered only a heart-shattering moment longer over the coarse hair that arrowed toward his achingly responsive body. He closed his eyes tightly at the sudden desertion of her mouth, knowing that her retreat was far wiser than his acquiescence had been.

Having spent three years on the battlefields of the Iberian Peninsula, he had come to find Mary today, well aware that he might never see her again, might never be allowed to make her his. Even now, he should be on his way to rejoin his regiment He had told her three hours, and under the untutored tenderness of her slender hands and the sweetness of her lips, those moments had slipped away, melting from his possession like snow in summer.

He lay, eyes still closed, listening to the sounds of approaching evening, the coo of the doves, the rising breeze disturbing the stillness of the leaves above his head, all the while desperately trying to will his body back to control.

“Nick,” Mary said softly, her voice coming from above him now. He opened his eyes, and then, despite the knowledge that there was only madness in the act, he found himself unable to close them again, unable to deny what she offered.

Mary had lowered the bodice of her gown and her chemise, holding the soft muslin protectively over her breasts with her fingers, the stains at their tips almost startling next to the pale delicacy of the fabric. Her eyes held his, her lips unsmiling, a tangle of dark curls over the bare ivory of her shoulders.

Then, as he watched, she lowered the garments, exposing for him the flawless perfection of her breasts. He lay unmoving, his breath stopped by wonder. Slowly, her eyes never leaving his, she raised the fingers of her right hand and placed them under one rose-tipped peak, her thumb stroking downward over the swell of smooth skin.

He was not aware of consciously directing the movement that brought his mouth to replace her trembling fingers. It was not planned or ordered by his brain. Something far more primitive was responsible for the placement of his lips over that small captive. Her breath shivered out against his hair, stirring in the golden softness, sobbing with the movement of his tongue, drawn slowly over and then around the nipple she had so trustingly given to his worship.

She hadn’t known that his mouth would feel like this, hot and moist and demanding, his teeth teasing the hardened bud his tongue created. Something was happening inside her body, moving, too, reaching toward him now, as her breast had sought out his caress. Unfamiliar and unknown, it responded to the incredible sensations of his mouth suckling the sensitive area no man’s eyes had ever seen before. No one but Nick. She was his, and it was right that he know before he left.

His tongue floated across the valley between her suddenly aching breasts, her heart fluttering underneath its heat and moisture, the trail it left branded on her skin by the very air. Her hands held his head, pulling it down against her chest, wanting his touch inside, where she ached. She made no protest when he turned her, laying her gently on his cloak, the coarseness of the wool against her bare back.

He leaned above her, propped on his elbow, the gray eyes studying the slender body before him. He touched the base of her throat, finding the small pulse. His long fingers were dark against her paleness, hard and callused against the soft translucence of her skin. They feathered lower, until, as hers had earlier, they stroked over the rose nipple that centered the milk-white globe.

Watching his eyes, she put her hands on his shoulders to urge him downward until the golden hair on his chest grazed over her too-sensitive flesh. Instinctively he moved above her, never allowing the hard muscles to contact her softness, choosing instead to torture them both, almost touching and then not, so close she could feel the heat of his skin beneath the softly tantalizing brush of hair.

It was not until her small hips arched upward into his, shockingly intimate, that he allowed his arms to close around her, locking her against the straining wall of his chest. She arched again, her body into his, demanding, this and more. Far more than she knew. Far more than he had ever intended. But not more than she wanted. And now, more than he could deny.

Her fingers, caught between their bodies, found, as he held her, the flap of his trousers, and frantic with need, she sought to free him from their restraint.

“Mary,” he said, his voice denying, but she didn’t listen.

He was leaving, and she, too, knew the dangers he’d face. Hers was a conscious decision, undeterred by all she had been taught, by all that she had truly believed until the reality of his danger intruded. Nick was hers, and her body demanded the fulfillment of that ownership, despite the denial of society’s mores, of her religion. This was hers and his. And might never be again.

She touched the unfamiliar contours of his body, desperate, urging him to finish what they had begun. What could no longer be denied.

“Mary,” he whispered again, his voice hoarse and agonized with need, with want, with pain.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes.”

Again, her small hands entreated. Country-bred, she had no sophistication and no longer any hesitancy. She could taste the salt on his skin as the strong brown column of his neck rested over her lips. And finally, after she had touched him a long time, his hands joined hers to help with what she sought, to guide and to direct.

The air was shocking against her uncovered body, cold and invasive, but she wanted it, as she wanted the invasion that followed. Painful and tearing. She gasped her shock into the shoulder that strained against her mouth and heard his voice again whisper her name.

He turned his cheek against her face, the slight roughness of his beard burning her skin, his movements frenzied and uncontrolled. His hips drove above her a long time, and from within her pain, from its dark center, something began to form, to open like the tight-furled bud of a rose releasing into the afternoon’s sun.

She wasn’t sure of the feeling at first, at the edge of pain, and then beyond discomfort. Into something else. Pulsing and growing at the heart of his body’s driving caress. Expanding like the silk of the balloons she had watched them fill that summer in the London pleasure gardens. Filling with heat that couldn’t be denied, that couldn’t be contained by the pull of the earth’s gravity, until all at once, whatever had been there floated upward, soaring as the balloons had, out of her control.

She heard her own voice, crying out as the center released, and then Nick’s mouth was over hers, capturing the echo of the cry that had shattered the twilight stillness around them. His own release followed quickly, hot and powerful, roaring into the receptacle of her body like a torrent, shattering in its intensity. His body convulsed under her caressing hands. Once. Twice. And then was still. As still now as the clearing where they lay, still entwined. One.

Finally he moved, raising his chest away from hers on hard brown arms that trembled. He looked down into her face, which was touched with this great mystery», softened and exposed by what had happened.

“Mary,” he said again, the afternoon’s litany, and thinking that, she smiled at him. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered.

Her smile widened, blue eyes moving over the strong lines of his face. Beloved. This is my beloved. She watched her fingers touch his cheek, feeling, as she had felt before, the dear roughness. Too intimate and too private. Only hers.

“Oh, dear God, Mary, what have I done?” Nick said, his tone choked with despair.

“Hush.” She comforted him, her voice that of a mother whispering from the darkness of the storm’s rage to her frightened child. “It’s all right,” she promised. Her thumb moved against his lashes, which were gold tipped and darker at the root. Beautiful eyes. She had never really seen them before. Their color now was the same slate as the afternoon’s sky in winter. “I love you,” she said, and watched his face change again. Realigning. Finding the direction he had lost, the sure course of honor she had stolen from him.

“Where is your father?” he asked, and for a moment she couldn’t remember. Or think why he would want to know.