The Rusticated Duchess (7 page)

Despite the still day, the height and thickness of the old stone quieted their surroundings into an almost surreal peacefulness. The path quickly descended towards the sea, and Gloria realised that this route was how Clare had appeared so suddenly on the road. He’d come this way and not by the main gate.

Ahead of them the wall soared higher and higher above her head until it seemed to reach the sky when she looked up. At her feet, the stone dipped lower until it served double duty as a seawall past the end of the path, holding the harbour at bay and rising to the full height of the outer walls. Periodic and shallow cloistered arches were cut and framed into the lower, ancient stretches of stone, and Gloria glimpsed the revealing cross-shaped arrow slits within each arch that would have protected the castle walls long enough to launch a counterattack by small boat.

Farther along, past where the path disappeared into a short expanse of hard sand and water, a great iron grate protected a wide entrance by sea into what had to be a protected cove within the walls, at least a dock for a small fleet. Gloria couldn’t help but wonder what water crafts were concealed there now, when yawls or longboats of fighters and sailors would not be needed to defend the castle.

As promised, a pretty bench was set within one of the arches near the bottom of the path. Surrounded on each side by wild roses growing up the inside of the arch, with the arrow slit cross a good six feet above the bench, it was obviously kept as a quiet, meditative place. Clare led her to it and seated her to his left, so that she had to turn and wave Colman to the drizzly grey rocks beyond them before sitting. Colman would be able to see her hems if she kept to the edge of the stone bench, but Clare positioned himself so that Gloria would face away from her guard, and Clare could see him approach.

The man was a master manipulator. Gloria nearly congratulated him, but for her, there was too much at stake.

Clare remained silent, settling beside her and propping his right booted leg so, Gloria realised, Colman could see it, though their upper bodies would be shielded from view. He’d planned this encounter, and planned well.

Her stomach lurched as he folded his arms across his chest and waited.

She thought rapidly. If she bolted, he could easily grab her before she’d even left the wall’s recess. If she waited him out, eventually the others from the house would come searching for them, but even Colman was out of sight of the road. Unless Colman ran for their help away from her, it would take them some time to think of searching along the castle wall. They were more likely to call at the front gate and enlist Clare’s staff in a hunt for Gloria, and eventually, their own master.

By then, her nerves would have broken.

How little could she tell him? What secrets could she keep? What must he not know?

The immediate answer was
everything
. Clearly that would not satisfy him. But what did he know?

“Do you know Winchester, then?” she finally asked.

He raised a brow, considered her question, then shook his head. “No, nor Hanover. My father—Lauderdale—likely knows both, as he lives primarily in London and is active in Lords. He rarely travels any farther than St James or Westminster and stopped entertaining when my mother died, so I am not often in London.” He glanced up at the stone surrounding them and added, “The duchy’s interests are much more extensive than the business interests we have in the City itself. Besides Killard Castle, we have two other large estates, plus extensive interests in Berwick and Blackpool. They require nearly all of my time. I come to London only once or twice a year to consult with our man of affairs and solicitors.”

Gloria frowned, then shook her head. “You must have friends in London,” she said, disbelieving.

His eyebrows lowered at her disbelief. “Yes, of course, but why would I—” He broke off, frowned and his cheeks suddenly seemed even more pronounced and colour bloomed in them. It wasn’t a blush, Gloria understood as she watched. It was…disapproval. Of her? His words spilt out, harsh in tone. “You have been touched by scandal. Something I might have heard as gossip.”

She stiffened but there was no help for it. If she could simply avoid the details… “Scandals,” she corrected, letting the bitterness tinge her words. “All caused directly or indirectly by Winchester.”

He paused, clearly assessing her words before speaking. “So you have run away from your father and are hiding under a roof belonging to your mother’s brother, which suggests a family disagreement over the incident. Hanover conceals you—to protect you or to protect your son?”

“Hanover and Winchester have been at odds from before my birth,” Gloria eventually corrected. Such knowledge had no bearing on the current situation.

“It also suggests you are not independent of Winchester, or you would have simply set yourself up in your own residence in London, as widows do. In any event, you cannot be the guardian of the baby I know to be in the house. I already know you well enough to believe you could face me or any like me without baulking, so why else would you run unless you are hiding the child?”

Gloria looked away. His insight was too sharp, but if he didn’t know them—had no predisposition—mayhap she could beg him to silence.

“My son’s guardian knows where we are. But Winchester must not find me,” she whispered. Gathering her desperation and her frantic worry, she repeated herself, insistently this time. “
He must not
.” Almost unbidden, the tears rose to her eyes. She’d been brave for so long, had been so happy here, far from the drama playing out in London, but now all of that seemed at an end.

Gloria knew, of course, that Clare could detain her, physically and legally. Any Englishman of his rank on Irish soil would have been deputised as a magistrate or even as a representative of the Crown. She could shoot him, of course, but that would forevermore exclude her from polite society and likely end with her imprisoned or hanged. They could leave that night—Gloria, Eynon, Mrs Pitcher, Colman and Brody—by carriage and flee into Ireland, but it would mean the remaining staff would be vulnerable to arrest and imprisonment until she could get word to Lennox to rescue them. And where would they go, except to travel without destination, likely with constables on their trail and eventually all of Ireland searching for her? Must they flee to Italy? Could they even find a ship to take them there that didn’t first go to an English port?

She released the pistol inside her cloak and withdrew her hand, clutching desperately at his forearm. “Promise me. On your honour. I will not be safe for months yet, not truly safe. You must keep my secret.”

Clare’s face remained stern, unresponsive to her plea, but his eyelashes fluttered over his eyes until he eventually lifted them and she could see the dark colour of his eyes. Her heart beat harder.

“Why?” he finally asked.

Gloria blinked, frowned at the question, then looked at him, puzzled. “Because, as you said, I’m not independent.”

Anger flashed across his face and his hands jerked, then fisted in her heavy cloak. “How did you get to be a mother of a peer if you are still under your father’s guardianship?” he demanded.

Gasping, Gloria drew a deep breath. “I do not know how you know of my son,” she said bitingly, angered by his determined coolness, his obvious intention to show her as little sympathy or consideration as possible. “But he is an innocent in all of this.”

“Who fathered your child?” he asked again, his gloved hand tightening, jerking her body a fraction closer.

“The
wastrel
who bought me as a wife!” Gloria spat out, and suddenly she was closer to him, and his arm under her hand was moving as aggravation split the air between them. They were so close now that Gloria could see her own eyes reflected in the pale depths beside some darker desire she’d seen in a man’s eyes before—too often.

He stared back as she froze to stillness, his lips tight, until she breathed deeply without breaking eye contact and whispered, “Let me go.”

Clare’s head moved, so that his response was breathed against her cheek. “In a minute,” he whispered. “I have to know, first.”

“Know what?” she murmured, starting to turn away, but he reached up with his hand and caught her cheek in his gloved hand even as he answered.

The words filtered into Gloria’s mind as softly as if it were her own conscience answering the question instead of Clare. His mouth lowered. “Your taste.”

Gloria had been kissed before. She was no innocent miss—she’d been married, she knew exactly what a man could do with his mouth if he wanted to subdue a woman. She was too proud to openly struggle, so instead she stilled and decided to wait him out, her lips closed and her breath held.

But Clare’s mouth was nothing like March’s. He continued to hold her only with a hand on the lapel of her cloak and a glove cradling her cheek, without smothering her or pushing her into the stone behind her. His lips grazed against her fuller ones and to the corner of her mouth before slipping back to press against her softening lips.

Almost to her surprise, the muscles near her mouth loosened. Even then he didn’t press forwards or stab his tongue against her roughly. Instead, he breathed in deeply through his nose and rubbed his lower lip along hers.

Gloria trembled, shook, shivered, and he drew back. “You’re chilled,” he murmured regretfully.

“Then let me go,” she said coolly, wanting desperately to lick her lips and taste the musky warmth, but daring not. He would take that as encouragement, and she could not trust him. Not now, not when he knew—

His gloved hand slid so that the softest leather traced her bottom lip. “Winchester will not hear from me or mine where you are,” he said. “And by my word, any who approach your cottage will find it more difficult to leave than to arrive. But I must know what I am protecting you from.”

“Isn’t it enough—”

“No, it’s not,” he said firmly.

Gloria shivered, wrapped her arms inside her cloak. “It’s too long to tell here,” she finally stalled.

Clare looked at her closely, helped her to stand and shake out her skirts and cloak. “Tomorrow,” he declared.

Gloria hesitated, then nodded.

He considered her, obviously deciding whether she’d keep her word, but his real consideration of her comfort gave him little choice. “One thing,” he eventuated, reluctantly, drawing her arm inside his and stepping onto the path, where Colman stood, waiting.

Gloria looked at him, slid her hand into her cloak and squeezed the stock carefully, reassuringly. She raised her eyebrows.

“The wastrel you mentioned being married to—he is dead?”

Her face tightened and her limbs solidified. She swallowed, the weight in her head thickening her tongue, nauseating her. “Very,” she finally managed, the acid taste in her throat rising from her stomach.

He nodded. “Did you kill him?”

Her heart thumped. Colman was behind her, his presence a comfort. The pistol was in her deep pocket, undetected. She wasn’t a murderess, but speaking was impossible then. Gloria shook her head, mute, at a loss to explain why she wasn’t livid at his impertinent question.

They were nearly back to Blessing Cottage when she answered. “No,” she said. “Not then. Eventually, I would have.” It was the unvarnished truth, said to a stranger, words she could never have spoken to Lennox or to her mother.

To her surprise, his far hand reached across her and covered her gloved one on his arm. He stopped and they both stared at the gate—Matthew was already rushing to open it. “I’m glad you were spared at least that,” he said soberly, then stepped back and away.

Gloria blinked, but Colman came up behind and she was guided inside the protective gate and the garden walls and screening hedges. He was gone, and she was staring at the gate after him, utterly confounded and wondering if he would kiss her again.

* * * *

Clare didn’t even pretend he wouldn’t dream. He had understood at the moment that his mouth had touched hers that he wouldn’t sail away on the dawn tide as he had planned. He’d had to force himself to walk away from Blessing Cottage, when every instinct he possessed demanded he follow her into the house, close the parlour door and draw her against him again until she had no thought or desire to pull back.

It was only the brief glimpse of true fear—initially of her father, then a remembered terror in her eyes just as he’d kissed her—that had urged him to step back from the kiss. The venom in her voice at the mention of her late husband and her guilt-ridden confession had convinced him to retreat. So he’d withdrawn, then paced up and down the crenellated outer walls and eventually given orders for a full-time watch to be set on the Shore Road, with any strangers near Blessing Cottage stopped immediately, no matter the time.

Then he had gone to dream. The afternoon’s contact gave new detail, new intimacy to his night-time fantasies.

She stood before him, her pale green eyes hooded and distant. He vowed to conquer her reservations, backing her against the stone wall of the guard room at the top of the highest tower in the keep. Again nude, with proud, round breasts tipped with large pink, erect nipples, her stomach curved softly and her hips sloped into silken thighs adorned with dark blonde curls. He reached out with his thicker, work-roughened hands and tried to scrape his palms over her hips, but something indefinable kept him from feeling her skin. Then his hands traced upward over her figure—surely still a figment of his imagination despite what he’d gleaned from their brief meeting in her parlour.

When he reached her face, though, his palm cradled her chin and the fine edge of her jaw. The flawlessly creamy skin was luxuriant if a bit cool to the touch, and her ears lay prettily tucked within her golden halo. Her jaw tapered away and became a place beneath her ear to kiss and arouse. Her lips, like the slender curve of her face, were elementally female, firm but yielding to his. He tasted again the faintest trace of lemon overlaid by the salt air on the pink ridges framing her responsive mouth. A fragrance wafted into his dream—sweet pea mixed with sunshine, tempting him with every breath.