The Temporary Wife (21 page)

He held her hands flat against his chest. He held her eyes with his. What chance did she have?

"I am needed here," she said.

"No," he said, "not necessarily here. You are needed by your younger brothers and sister. They would perhaps like Enfield. They would perhaps like Augusta, who would adore them. Your older sister might like Enfield too."

"Penny likes Mr. Miller," she said.

"And if Mr. Miller likes Penelope," he said, "then I will concede that Enfield might be a far less attractive prospect than Mr. Miller's home. I assume he is eligible? But that is for your brother to decide. As for your brother, he and I have had a long talk. He is as stubborn as a mule and as proud as—what is the proudest thing you can think of? No matter. But he is no match for the Duke of Withingsby, my love. I am not my father's son for nothing. I can be marvelously toplofty when I wish to be. There are those who would say, indeed, that I never stop being toplofty. However it is, your brother will return here where he belongs and the debts which have kept him away working at menial drudgery will be paid off—he has not confessed to the debts, but I was not born yesterday. I gather that there is a certain paragon of beauty and charm? A Miss Gladstone?"

"Agnes," she said.

"I daresay she will be Mrs. Duncan before too long," he said, "so I will not bother remembering anything but her first name. I have everything taken care of, you see, my love. Are you with child?"

Her cheeks were instantly scarlet. She needed no looking glass to verify the fact. "No," she said.

"Ah." He smiled. "I must confess to some disappointment. But rectifying that situation will give us something to work on when we return to Enfield. Not that I intend to subject you to yearly confinements for the next twenty years. We will contrive a way to keep that from happening. But—" He stopped suddenly, dropped his hands from hers, took a step back, and turned to face away from her. "But I am babbling. I am so nervous I do not know what I am saying. Am I making any sense at all? Am I bullying you? Charity? Charity, will you be my wife?"

"It is not just, then," she said, "that you feel an obligation? That you have realized the distasteful nature of that agreement?"

He made a sound that was suspiciously like a moan.

"You really love me?" she asked wistfully.

"The devil!" he exclaimed, looking over his shoulder. "Did I forget to say it? The thing I came to say?"

"I love you too," she said. "I love you so much that it has felt to me since I came home that you are here all the time." She tapped her chest just above her heart.

"I told you you had stolen it," he said, and he smiled at her with such sudden warmth that she lost her knees and almost staggered. He turned and caught her in his arms.

"Anthony." She hid her face against his chest. "Oh, Anthony, what am I trying to say?"

"I have no idea," he said. "Has it not all been said? I would settle for a kiss in exchange for whatever we have missed. If you would just lift your face."

She did so and smiled at him while she slid her arms up about his neck. "You had better do it while we still have a moment to ourselves, then," she said. "I have never seen my brothers and sisters stunned into silence as they were when I came into the room. They have never been within a county's breadth of a duke before—especially one who looks so very toplofty. A few minutes ago they discovered that
their sister
is a duchess. But we are made of stern stuff, we Duncans. The shock is going to wear off any minute now and they are going to be bursting in here to ask a million questions each—of each of us. Be warned. It is no light task you have just talked yourself into undertaking."

"Dear me," the Duke of Withingsby said with a haughty lift of his brows. "We had better proceed with that kiss then, your grace. Clearly I need something with which to bolster my fortitude."

"Exactly what I was trying to say," she said while she could. She was certainly prevented from saying anything else for a good long while.

After a good long while there was the sound of voices all talking simultaneously approaching from the direction of the back door.

Mary Balogh was born in Swansea, South Wales. She now lives in Saskatchewan, where she taught for twenty years. She won the
Romantic Times
award for Best New Regency Writer in 1985 and has since become the genre's most popular and bestselling author. Recently she has begun to write historicals, which have received critical acclaim as well. Her most recent Regencies are
The Plumed Bonnet
and
The Famous Heroine
.