Beauty and the Duke (17 page)

“You think no man would have me?”

“You’re a woman. From the moment a lad experiences his first erection, his predominant thought is driven by his want, need, and single desire to
fook
anything in skirts. I have no doubt half the men in Britain would have you.”

“Only half, your grace? You do me an injustice.”

“And you do me one as well.” He lifted her hand, an action that made her wary if only because she detected his intensity beneath the indolence of his touch. “Ye misjudge me if you think I do not know you, Christine.”

She misjudged herself if she thought she was not in danger of falling in love with him all over again.

“We’d best return,” he suddenly said, contemplating the churlish graying-green clouds overhead as if they had somehow become an extension of his mood.
“You do not want to be caught up here when the rain begins.”

She watched him swing up on the mount with athletic ease. Sitting astride the sorrel-maned chestnut, he stopped in front of her. The wind caught his hair and cloak and stirred the loose tendrils around her cheek. “You are welcome to ride anywhere you want, but never alone,” he said.

“Do you have a topographical map of this area?”

“I have a survey crew working on the road a mile from here. I will see what is available.”

He reached across her horse and loosened her hands on the reins, and she inhaled his warmth. His shoulder brushed her cheek. “Let Miss Pippen set the pace on the way down,” he said.

Erik nudged his heels. Then, absently pushing back a rebellious wave of dark hair batting her cheek, she watched his horse move past her and down the treacherous trail.

While Erik’s time was taken up the next few days with business, Christine had plenty to keep her occupied as she worked to settle into her life at Sedgwick. But by the time she’d pulled up her sleeves and finished digging books out of her trunks, and her gown looked more brown than cheerful yellow any longer, she realized she disliked this dour room Aunt Sophie had aptly called a crypt.

Erik’s retainers had put her trunks in the guardroom, and, though she didn’t mind being surrounded by medieval weaponry, she wanted some place that was her own. Some place she could turn into her own personal space.

Working her hair back into a chignon, she’d set out to find the housekeeper, when a glance out the window
stopped her. Her gaze landed on the old tower keep. Standing five stories in height, the keep belonged to the oldest part of the castle. Four turrets crowned the battlements. Windows overlooked the countryside in all directions. Her hands gripped the windowsill. With her heart racing like a child having just discovered her first cave drawing, she knew exactly where she would settle.

“His grace is the only one with a key to get inside,” Mrs. Brown said an hour later as they stood in a small enclosed courtyard outside, staring up at the beautiful ivy-covered keep.

“But surely he will not mind if I go inside to look around.”

“You will have to speak to the master, mum.”

The place was certainly ancient. “Is it dangerous?” Her heart raced in anticipation and impatience as she stood back and let her eyes travel upward. “Someone must go up there.”

Scotland’s flag, along with that of Great Britain and Sedgwick’s standard, flew atop the highest point of the battlements.

“You will have to speak to the master, mum. I only know that his grace does not want anyone in this courtyard either.”

Christine looked around. Little light penetrated the ivy-enclosed courtyard. But hidden in the shadows in what appeared to be abandoned enclaves gone to weed, the gardens looked as if loving hands had once tended them. “Why ever not? This spot is charming. If it were cleaned up a bit.”

Or perhaps a lot. If someone had a large scythe to hack away at the thorny vines that had come close to blocking the door.

Why should such a place be forgotten and neglected?

Christine shaded her eyes as she continued to look around her. A warm breeze tugged at her hair and skirts. The housekeeper cleared her throat, snapping Christine’s attention back to the woman.

“I will need the key back, mum.”

Christine frowned. She had practically forced Mrs. Brown, the termagant housekeeper, to give her the key just to unlock the gate so she could get into the tower courtyard. She and Mrs. Brown were definitely not going to get along.

“How long have you been with Lord Sedgwick, Mrs. Brown?”

“My family has served the dukes of Sedgwick Castle for the last hundred years,” she said as if she were the guardian of the eternal flame. “We have been here since the old Sedgwick laird stole Angus Maxwell’s bride from the altar and ravished her, then got hisself and all his seed cursed for the trouble.”

“I see.” Moved by Mrs. Brown’s passion, Christine found she wanted to know more. “Tell me about the curse, Mrs. Brown. Is it truly as awful as everyone seems to believe?”

“Aye, mum. A hundred years ago, the old Sedgwick laird and Angus Maxwell were cousins, but they both fell in love with the same woman. Angus Maxwell was so bitter that on his deathbed he cursed the man what had once been his best friend and who betrayed him. No Sedgwick duke would ever know love again. Those what carried the mark all died before the age of four and thirty.”

“But this is the nineteenth century. Surely no one believes such rubbish—”

“Rubbish?” Mrs. Brown’s chin jutted outward. “The master be the last descendant what sprung
from the youngest of the old laird’s three sons. The Sedgwick line will end with him. And when the last Sedgwick duke passes without an heir, a Maxwell will inherit the duchy, just as old Angus predicted. The master’s thirty-fourth birthday comes the end of summer.”

Christine opened her mouth to reply, but whether from shock, disbelief, or the niggling realization that Mrs. Brown believed everything she had said to be true, she didn’t know. What had Reverend Simms said about the power of superstition?

“The master would never have forgiven himself if something happened to you, mum.”

“I appreciate your honesty, Mrs. Brown.”

After a moment Christine withdrew the key from her pocket and handed it over to the housekeeper. She took two steps, stopped and returned her attention to the courtyard. “This place is too beautiful not to use. How difficult would it be to get someone in here and begin cleaning?”

“His grace—”

“I will talk to his grace.”

Christine found Erik in the library. But he was not alone. “I hope I am not interrupting, but I would have a word with you.”

“As I would with you.” Motioning for her to precede him, he invited her forward to meet his visitors. Her husband introduced her to Hodges and a man named Bailey, who was the engineer Erik had hired to work on the various road construction projects around the estate.

“They are at your disposal for questions and anything else you might need,” Erik said.

After Christine greeted them, Erik turned to the desk. She saw the rolled-up parchment next to a stack of books. It took only a moment after he handed her the parchment to discover that it was a topographical map. Or, as she realized as she met his gaze, something even better. Erik was essentially giving her the keys to his estate.

“My side of our bargain, madam.”

“Oh, Erik!” She held the map to her chest as if it were gold. “Thank you.”

“You do not have to thank me, Christine.”

The men remained standing. Conscious of their presence, she wished now she had dressed in a prettier gown and taken care with her hair before she ventured to talk to Erik. They still stood within sight of the others, but not so near that her conversation could be overheard.

“I would like to open the keep,” she said, jumping right into the kettle. Better to boil all at once than simmer slowly, as Aunt Sophie would say. “Your housekeeper seems to believe I am some invading army, and has refused to allow me any farther than the courtyard.”
Imagine that
, she almost said, sensing the sudden change inside him. “Mrs. Brown was concerned you would be angry.”

“Yet she let you inside anyway.” His voice was quiet, subdued.

Christine pretended to study a splotch of dirt on her cuff. “There is no reason the place should not be opened,” she replied, set on swaying him to her side even as she did not understand his shift in mood. “Just standing in the courtyard, I could see the keep is perfect for my needs. The windows on all sides will give me the light I need. I have a view of the estate.”

“No.”

His vehemence startled her. She could see the tall stone keep from where she stood. It didn’t seem fair that Erik should deprive her of such a wonderful place to work, especially since it was unused. “If you are concerned that it might need to be cleaned—”

“The keep stays closed. No one goes up there. Nor am I ready to open it. Not even for you, Christine.”

And with those words, so went their polite camaraderie. “Why? That is a ridiculous edict. What could possibly be up there that I cannot repair?”

“I have given you access to my land and to nearly every corner of Sedgwick Castle,” he said, his voice low, his eyes darkening. She glimpsed what it might be like to be on the receiving end of his anger, should he ever lose his temper. “The keep remains closed. I am not negotiating this, Christine.”

Aware that they were the subject of everyone’s curiosity, Christine tamped down her hurt and her disappointment and finally her anger as she held Erik’s gaze.

“It is not an insult to you,” he said quietly as if she could understand anything about him.

But rather than barter words, she inclined her head in acquiescence and, taking her map as if it were a gift of gold, she departed.

Erik could not find her later. Christine was not with Erin, Becca, Lady Sophia, or in the guardroom. A chambermaid had seen her cat in the kitchens but not the feline’s mistress.

“She has not been to her chambers all afternoon, your grace,” Annie said when Erik left Christine’s chambers a second time and sought out the maid.

He’d been aware of the deepest sensation of guilt since she’d left him in the library, pondering his refusal
to allow her to have the keep as her own.

Her request had hit him like a broadside, and he admitted he’d not handled it well. Only Hampton went inside that keep, and only because he managed the daily raising and lowering of the Sedgwick standard. The keep stood as a monument to Erik’s failures. If he’d had the courage to tear down the thing, he’d have done so stone by stone seven years ago. No, it would remain locked.

Finally, a stable boy reported that she had left Sedgwick Castle on foot nearly four hours ago. Her cloak lay on a chair next to her bed.

Even in summer, the weather could change in a snap. Then there were wolves to worry about, and a thousand places a person could break one’s neck if one did not stay on the roads. Erik cursed aloud, then ordered his horse saddled.

“We did nae know she were not supposed to leave, your grace”—the stable boy rushed to apologize, taking a step away as Erik mounted his horse—“You said she could go anywhere.”

Given his current wrath, Erik understood why the youth considered his life imperiled. “
Escorted.
That includes on foot. Never again without escort!”

He rode out beneath the old watchtower gate, flinging up clods of dirt against the rain-moistened ground, and a half hour later thundered across the wooden bridge that spanned a stream that eventually joined up with the river. The brisk wind whipped his cloak behind him as he reined in his horse two miles from the castle, atop a knoll glazed purple with a carpet of heather. His world stretched out in all its vastness for miles around him. His horse pranced sideways. He saw her then, a bright speck against the darker ash and hawthorns on the horizon, walking as if she were returning from
the riverbank. Something in his chest loosened as she stopped to pick a pebble from her shoe, paused, and straightened. As she tented her hand over her eyes, he knew she saw him. His body reacted as if she’d physically touched him.

Urging his horse forward, he nudged the stallion into a gallop. Did she even suspect just how much trouble she was in?

C
hristine stood in the stable doorway looking doubtfully up the darkened path. A sheet of rain poured from the roof and had pooled into mud at her feet. Clutching her map to her chest, she peered over her shoulder at her husband, who was talking to Hampton. She could not hear Erik’s words over the rain and thunder, but she sensed by the disgruntled look on Hampton’s face that he was receiving a hefty reprimand because of her.

Her eyes lingered on Erik’s broad back, shaped by the damp shirt clinging to his shoulders, before she returned her attention to the rain.

Erik had given her his cloak earlier. Whereas the woolen mantle struck him just below his knees, on her, it nearly dragged the ground. She’d welcomed the garment when the rain began just as they passed through the gates. Now she struggled to adjust the bulk on her shoulders.

Then Erik was suddenly standing beside her, the lantern he held spreading a warm glow around them. He looked vulnerable with no protection against the elements. She clenched her jaw in a false smile to keep her teeth from chattering and to keep her own anger at bay. “Erik, I am hardly cold.”

He held the lantern in front of him as a flash of lightning silvered the sky. “You will be.” He took her hand and moved with her outside.

The rain hit her face at once, and even he could not block it. All she could think to do was protect her map.

He’d been furious with her earlier when he’d found her. His silence more ominous as he’d looked down at her from atop his horse, then held out his hand. He’d lifted her into the saddle in front of him and they’d ridden back in silence. She was glad he arrived when he had, since it had started to rain.

His hand tightened on hers, guiding her up the trail. She followed closely behind him. No one had ever held her hand, except when she’d been a child. Papa used to hold her hand on busy streets, and once when she’d been lost, a stranger had brought her home to Aunt Sophie. The gesture left her feeling the same way now. A little lost. Her ribs were still tender from the jarring ride on Miss Pippen a few days ago and they began to ache more with the robust jaunt, but she did not want to complain.

She could not have voiced the words anyway in the face of the slashing, bone-chilling rain, and soon it was all she could do to keep her head down. For all she could see in the blackness, Erik could be leading her off a cliff.

Then a door slammed and the deafening roar of rain and wind stopped abruptly. They stood in a stone antechamber. Erik hung the lantern on a hook beside another door. He took her elbow and they entered into another foyer, smaller than the one through which she had left earlier in the day. This one was less ornate.

She heard him speak to someone, then felt the cloak being lifted from her shoulders. Cold seeped through
her soaked clothes to her drawers and she stood shivering and stumbling on her wet skirts. He lifted her and walked with her in his arms up a stone staircase. “This is why you must never leave the castle grounds without your cloak,” he said harshly, his wet hair dripping on her shoulders. “The weather changes quickly in this clime.”

She was too cold to argue or agree as he carried her through the long portrait gallery. They passed through another corridor to a pair of tall oak doors that opened ahead of them as if by unseen hands. He ordered a bath and hot tea brought to her chambers. She heard him instruct Annie to fetch her robe. Fog steamed her spectacles. She removed them and saw a fire burning in the hearth. He brought her within its glow, lowering her feet to the ground.

She was no longer shivering from the Scottish cold that permeated her bones but from the Scottish laird standing before her.

She retracted her palm. He saw the movement for what it was. Desire. Anger. Her gaze rose to meet his eyes.

“I feel much recovered,” she heard herself whisper, attempting to edge him away.

He pressed his palms against the chair behind her, caging her. “I am relieved,
leannanan
.” His whisper was a brand against her lips. “Your welfare is as much personal as business to me. I have to protect my investment.”

For what?
She wondered hotly, since he had rarely come to this bedroom and not yet to her bed since she had recovered from the accident. She told herself she would not ask him to do so.

That side of the contract belonged solely within
his
purview. Not hers. But whatever reason he had for stay
ing away from her, she suspected it went deeper than even he understood. She had not understood it completely until he’d come racing after her that evening.

The sound of movement behind her lifted his head. Annie stood in the doorway leading into the dressing room, Christine’s robe clutched in her hands. She gasped, “My apologies, your grace.”

“Stay,” Erik instructed. He stepped back, the firelight limming his shoulders and waist through his wet shirt. “My wife needs out of her wet clothing. I’ll have her supper sent up directly.”

“I wanted to thank you again for the map,” Christine managed to tell him.

He continued to the door connecting his room to hers. “You may need another copy. I am not sure how well ink endures against rain.”

“Then you can draw me another one. You
can
draw. You are an architect.”

He turned on his heel. “I design edifices. Surveyors draw maps.”

“Thank you,” she said quickly.

He stopped, clearly exasperated. “For what, now?”

She held up the map then set it on the table next to her spectacles. “For giving me an opportunity to prove myself.”

“I would not have wed you if I thought you a twit, Christine.”

“Thank you,” she said again to annoy him, and this time she watched with satisfaction as his eyes narrowed. “For answering a question I have been asking myself since my arrival. I thought you weren’t coming to me at night because I had disappointed you in some way. I am relieved to know your opinion of me remains high and that my
wit
and intelligence played some role in your choice to make me your bride.”

He reclaimed his steps and stood in front of her on a carpet now sodden with water dripping from her skirts. “My opinion of you has never been higher. In fact”—his voice lowered—“I would like for nothing more than to
fook
you where you stand if it would not shock Annie, who still happens to be standing in this room.”

Christine’s breath left her in a sudden gasp and her voice came out in a heated whisper. “You might shock Annie, but you don’t shock me, Erik. You are being purposely rude.”

He snorted in derision and turned on his heel. “It is not your intelligence and wit that clenched my decision to marry you,” he said over his shoulder, snatching open his collar as he strode away. “Though your knowledge was a factor in my decision to go to London, it was not the deciding one that made you my duchess.”

Christine followed him into his bedroom. His shirtfront unfastened, he stood at the bootjack. “What was the deciding factor?” she asked.

His sherry eyes burned into hers. “
You
were the deciding factor. Seeing you at Sommershorn. Touching you in the carriage. Watching while you tried to convince me why you should be the one to come to Scotland. You’ve never needed to prove yourself to me. Don’t ever demean yourself or insult me by trying to thank me for something you already have.” He removed his boots and strode to another door separating his bedroom from his dressing room.

Before Christine could follow, Annie dragged her back into her room. “You mustn’t make him angry,” she whispered as she helped Christine out of her sodden garments.

“Why not?” Christine snapped. “He’s only a man. Not some cursed beast.”

Ignoring her state of undress and Annie’s urge to give her the robe, Christine strode barefoot through the door into Erik’s chambers. She stepped over his balled-up shirt, a pair of boots near the bootjack and his trousers strewn carelessly on the well-tread path to his armoire. She found him belting a tie around his black silk robe and glared at him as he turned.

“You demand that I have confidence in my character when you do not ask the same of yourself,” she threw out at him. “I would never have wed
you
if I didn’t believe in your integrity or your innocence or…your honor. A hive of dragons could be living in those hills and it wouldn’t have been enough to make me wed you if I did not believe you principled. I know why you rushed out to find me today. But I am
not
Elizabeth. I was not running away from you—”

“Enough, Christine.”

She jabbed a finger in his chest and backed him a step. “Nor did some ridiculous curse cause that carriage accident, over which you have obviously been harboring guilt.”

“Christine,” he warned.

“And for whatever reason you choose not to allow me to use the keep, I will not argue. This castle is big. I will find somewhere else. We have a partnership, Erik. No one has ever willingly
sought
a partnership with me and I am appreciative of the trust. If I want to
thank
you then I will bloody thank you and you will
not
tell me I can’t!”

She had backed him into the armoire. They stared at each other in the heat of the room as the wind and rain wailed around the windows and beat against the glass with blistering fury. But it wasn’t fury she felt from him.

Like a tiny electrical current that stirred the air
around them, awareness coursed between them. Hot. Cold. After a moment, his head lifted, he looked over her shoulder and spoke to the shadows in his bedroom. “Leave us, Annie. You, too, Boris.”

Christine had not even seen Boris when she passed through Erik’s bedroom to the dressing room. “Yes, your grace,” came the masculine voice, and then the quiet click of a door closing as Annie shut the connecting door.

“My butler is also my valet,” Erik said. “I fear I insulted him by undressing myself, which probably flew straight from his brain the moment he saw you come striding through the room.”

She peered down at herself. She wore nothing but a shift and corset, and a blush as hot as a kiln.

Before she could finish that thought, he backed her against the wall, his body radiating heat, his hand slipping behind her head. Their warm breath mingled, until at last his thumb slid beneath her jaw, teasing the curls at her temple. Then slowly, he lowered his mouth to hers. “Tell me again that you believe I am confused about what I want from this marriage.”

His long legs pressed to hers, she was conscious of his erection pressed against the juncture in her thighs. “Tell me, Christine.” He kissed her with an intensity that caressed her fevered thoughts as it enflamed her with more than want and desire. Long hot, tonguing kisses claimed her mouth. She caught her breath as he raised his head and looked at her as if he didn’t want to stop looking for a long time.

Her corset went first to the ground. He drew her shift over her head. Her breasts warmed beneath his touch and her nipples hardened. In the dim firelight, she was conscious of the tingling where his lips touched, and the low grumble of thunder outside that seemed to vibrate
the floor beneath her feet. The tip of his tongue seared a path down her throat. Her head fell back and she allowed the tender assault as his caress centered upon the peak of each breast.

Somehow they had made it into his bedroom. He fell with her onto his bed; she atop him. As she caught her palms on his chest, her long hair, still damp from rain, fell forward across her shoulders. He cupped her face with his palms, bringing her lips down to his and she wrapped her thighs around his hips, a carnal invitation for him to indulge in his passion.

And indulge he did, guiding himself into her body, stretching her flesh to accommodate all of him. She became aware of nothing save the rasp of his breath, the pulse of his heartbeat, the feel of his flesh and sinew beneath the glide of her palms and his rhythmic movement inside her. She moved with him in a slow, sensuous push and pull of their bodies. She wanted to pleasure him, a desire so strong her breath caught, and she pushed up against her hands, raising her body to see his face, the exact slant of his mouth.

She savored the play of his muscles against her thighs, a small portion of her mind taking pleasure in her dominance. His fingers splayed over her bottom.

His eyes glinted as he watched her, with surety and profundity, a master of control, she realized in some distant part of her mind. He knew what she wanted of him, what he was still unprepared to give.

Turning her on her back, Erik caught her wrists, entwined his fingers with hers, and pushed back, raising himself above her as he drove himself into her. He did not seek her surrender. He did not want to conquer her as she did him.

He settled for her repletion.

And he watched her beneath him, heard her soft
cries of gratification before he took her pleasure and made it his own. His head bowed, his hair lapped at her breast as he drew her into his mouth. Instinctively she wrapped her legs around his hips, pulling him deeper still. With a final thrust, he poured himself into her, a deep growl coming from within his chest. His passion spent, he collapsed against his elbows.

Her arms around him, he listened to the muffled beat of his own heart, the sound of the wind and rain, and wondered what was happening to him.

“Did you really come to the decision to wed me when we were standing in the hallway at Sommershorn Abbey?” she asked some time later. “That day you came to ask me about the fossils?”

He raised up to look down at her in the dying firelight. “You answered the elemental question I went to the Abbey to ask.”

She pushed against him to see into his face, but he kissed her on the forehead, a tender kiss. “Did you still want me? I asked myself,” he said.

His penis had started to swell long before he breathed another kiss against her lips. “And you did,” he said, proceeding to show her just how much.