Unmasking the Duke, page 19
“Johnny, you could have anyone!”
“I don’t want anyone. I want you.”
“Why?” she demanded.
A hiss of laughter escaped him. “Oh God, where do I start? Because you don’t care for my rank or my title or my wealth. Because you are beautiful and funny and intelligent. Because you make my blood sing, and you kiss me as if I’m all you’ll ever want. Because you’re all I’ll ever want. Because you give me purpose and meaning, and somehow, I’m not complete without you. Because I love you.”
His words battered her with wonder as the sleigh glided and bumped them over the gentle hill behind the house and down toward the stables.
“Please don’t ask me why I love you,” he added. “Because I don’t know the answer. I just do.” Slowing, he removed his arm from her shoulders. “I know this life—” He waved his free hand toward the house. “…is new to you, but you fit here, you know, and I want more than anything for you to share it with me. Will you think about it?”
She nodded dumbly, unable to speak or to take her eyes off his face. Never had it entered her head he would speak such words to her. Vaguely, she wondered what it was she was supposed to think about.
Inevitably, the sleigh bells brought everyone running, from servants to children, and almost as soon as he had lifted her down, they were separated, and she realized vaguely that he was giving orders for hot baths, and Martha was leading her hastily into the house, castigating her brother over her shoulder as she went.
Some time later, as she soaked in a steaming hot bath, it finally entered Kitty’s head that her abstraction and lack of speech were worrying everyone. They thought she was ill from her tumble into the snowdrift, not completely flabbergasted by what had happened after.
I let him go without telling him I loved him…
The marriage issue was considerably more terrifying. How could she, Kitty Renwick, become Duchess of Dearham? It was ridiculous, laughable. But she knew she would do that, too, and try her very best to make him proud of her.
She exerted herself to smile at the maid and to ask for the towel. Wrapped in it, she walked through to the bedchamber, where she found Martha and a tray of tea and scones.
“Nurse is making you a posset,” Lady Martha said anxiously. “It will taste nasty but usually helps stave off chills and worse. Now, into bed with you and drink your tea in the warmth.”
“Oh, I don’t want to go to bed,” Kitty assured her. “I’m fine now I’m warm. I’d just like to sit before the fire. Is Joh—Is His Grace well?”
“Alarmingly.” Martha sat in the armchair and, when Kitty had knelt comfortably before the fire, handed her the cup of tea. “Did he tip you out deliberately?”
Kitty blinked. “Oh, no. Why would he do such a thing? He just wasn’t paying attention.”
Martha stayed talking to her until she had finished the tea, then nodded as though satisfied and left her to the maid, who brushed out the tangle of her hair to dry before the fire and went to fuss with clothes for her to wear to dinner.
Only then did it occur to Kitty that she would have to face him in front of everyone else, with his kisses and his offer of marriage between them. His unanswered offer of marriage. Her cheeks began to glow. She had to speak to him before dinner, in a moment of privacy, or she felt she would burst.
*
“You are an idiot, Johnny,” Martha scolded him. “What were you thinking about to upend her in the snow?”
“I wasn’t thinking of anything,” Johnny replied ruefully. His sister had caught him lurking in the gallery waiting to catch Kitty and dragged him into the small drawing room which was still empty of guests. “Which is why I upended us both in the snow. I just didn’t pay attention.”
“That’s what she says.” Martha hesitated, then said, “You will be careful of her, Johnny? She doesn’t understand the restriction of her position, and she isn’t one of your ton women who deal in flirtation. And more.”
“What do you take me for?” he said with rare irritability.
“I take you for a rake and a libertine,” replied his sister. “But you’re never knowingly unkind, so for God’s sake, think about Kitty.”
I think of little else.
“You could hurt her, Johnny,” Martha said, scowling at him. “Without trying. Just by paying her attention.”
Johnny glanced at her, his annoyance fading as fast as it had come. Martha was looking out for his Kitty, and he approved of that. But before he could say anything, Calton and Dornan came in, arguing over something, and the time for private discussion had passed in favor of pre-prandial sherry.
As he circulated among his guests, he edged closer to the door, still hoping to catch Kitty before she entered the social fray. But Great-Aunt Augusta caught him, and while he patiently decoded and answered her rambling question, he felt rather than saw Kitty enter.
When he was able to disengage from Augusta with any degree of politeness, he found her between Calton and Keith Harborough, gamely holding her own. She looked, to his relief, none the worse for her adventures. In fact, wearing one of Meg’s altered evening gowns in a pretty shade of dark green, her beauty as well as her new-found poise closed up his throat.
He had not taught her that poise. She had always had it in her old world, had merely, finally, transferred it to his. To theirs. She did not need him to defend her from Calton or anyone else. She did not need to marry him. God knew she could receive many offers.
If she wished it, he would dower her and let her take her pick, which had always been his intention—to leave his courting until the new year, to let her meet other gentlemen first, better men than he, whom she might like better.
But God help him, he had never wanted her to like anyone better. He still didn’t. If Calton laid a finger on her, he’d kill him. If she wanted him to, he would…
She doesn’t. For some reason, I’m the one who moves her. If nothing else, the sleigh incident had proved that to his sweet satisfaction.
With a laugh, she extricated herself from Calton and Harborough, leaving the field free for his young cousins, and sat down by his aunt instead. As though she felt his gaze on her, she flushed rosily but did not look up. It almost felt like a battle of wills, and that felt good, too, in a strange, predatory kind of way.
And then it was time for dinner, and they all trooped into the Great Hall, where, in winter, the fire blazed all day in the massive hearth. Thanks to the alterations his father had made, it was no longer cold or drafty, though his mother had seated Kitty so far away from him, it might as well have been.
He passed the time between conversations trying to catch her eye and knew by the ebbing and flowing of color in her skin that she was aware of it. But only twice did he manage to trap her gaze. The first time, over the fish, she had immediately turned to speak to Calvert on her far side. The second time, she held his gaze for an instant, a small fugitive smile flickering across her lips before she again looked away.
Johnny breathed a sigh of relief. From that one gesture, he knew that the hours following their sleigh adventure had not brought her sensible counsel. She was still on the verge of being his, and now he simply had to wait for her decision.
Restored to happiness and the constant thrum of bodily excitement, he relaxed into his role of genial host, and even, once the ladies had withdrawn, a rather more rollicking friend. As a result, when he rose to relieve himself, he may not have been foxed or even a trifle disguised, but neither was he as sober as when he had sat down.
He hummed to himself as he strode across the outer hall toward the cloakroom, and almost didn’t hear the hiss from the anteroom on his left. He spared it a vaguely curious glance, and then the hum died in his throat.
Kitty stood in the doorway, urgently beckoning to him.
He didn’t hesitate but swerved back the way he had come and brushed past her into the room. To his surprise, she shut the door. Inappropriately, his body stirred.
She leaned against the door, clearly ready to say something, and then seemed to get stuck.
“What is it?” he asked urgently. “Is something wrong?”
She shook her head and swallowed. “What you said earlier, did you mean it?”
Pain pierced his heart that she could even think anyone would say such things to her and not mean them, that she could imagine him capable of such cruel deception. And for what reason? To get her into his bed? Well, God knew he looked for such an outcome in the end, and his body was screaming at him that the sooner, the better.
Words deserted him, and he acted purely on instinct, stepping forward and taking her into his arms.
“Every word. Every action. Except throwing you out of the sleigh,” he said and kissed her thoroughly enough, he hoped, to remove all doubt. She tried to speak and then simply melted into his arms as before and kissed him back.
“Then you do love me?” he whispered against her lips while his heart thundered with desire and with rare fear of rejection.
A breath of laughter kissed his mouth. “Oh, you idiot, I have always loved you, from the first moment you smiled at me, even though you promptly forgot about me. There was no reason in it. There still isn’t, for you should have some beautiful, witty heiress to be your duchess.”
“I want you,” he broke in. “Will you have me?”
She stared deep into his eyes, her fingers convulsing around the hair at his nape. “Oh God, yes,” she whispered and kissed him as though she would never stop.
But she did, eventually, slipping out of his arms just as he was contemplating the possibilities of the wooden table in the middle of the room since one shouldn’t really take a virgin against the wall…
Her breathing was ragged, though not as erratic as his own. But it was her smile that slayed him all over again, just before she whisked herself out of the anteroom and fled across the hall and round the corner toward the drawing room.
She had come to find him.
And he, poor fool, had not thought to look. Laughing softly, he recalled his original mission and walked slowly and slightly awkwardly toward the cloakroom.
Chapter Twenty
Christmas Eve was a day of merriment and joy, particularly for Kitty as she hugged to herself the astonishing joy of the duke’s love. Johnny’s love. The idea of being a duchess, the highest possible rank of British noblewoman outside the royal family, would take rather more getting used to. But it wasn’t the rank or the riches she wanted. It had always been Johnny.
And since he seemed to have stopped pretending, so did she. As the younger people all stamped out into the snow that morning and split up to collect greenery and berries with which to decorate the house for Christmas, Johnny simply took her hand and led her off with him. Not that he tried to hide from the others, merely he seemed to crave her company as much as she needed his.
It was not easy to find greenery under the snow, but Johnny knew where the right plants were to be found. He shook various trees and bushes and began to pile holly, ivy, and mistletoe into her arms and the waiting wheelbarrow. Then, collecting a huge bundle under his arm, he pushed the barrow as they returned to the house. Another successful forage by all concerned, and the duchess declared they had enough to decorate as they wished.
While the ladies and an army of footmen were set to ornamenting the great hall, both drawing rooms, the entrance hallway, and the ballroom, the men were sent off to the woods to find the traditional Yule log.
Chatting and laughing as everyone worked together to transform the main public areas of the house, Kitty felt a wave of contentment slide over her. This was her family now, novel, rich, and just a little eccentric, but they no longer seemed so strange. For Martha, as for Meg, she already felt a certain affection. Also, for Peter and even the duchess now that she had unbent. The flirtatious cousins she found were actually pleasant company when not trying too hard to be grown-up, And the duke himself… She had never imagined the profound pleasure of simply loving and being loved in return.
She did not even need to be alone with him to be happy, though she was delighted to be on his arm as they walked into the Great hall for dinner. In all its festive greenery hanging from the walls and ceiling, sprigs of holly ornamenting pictures and mirrors, there was a timeless element to the ancient room. Kitty imagined it looking very similar at Christmases spanning back hundreds of years, especially with the huge hunk of tree lying barbarically across the hearth, wound in ivy and holly. She enjoyed this feeling almost as much as sitting beside Johnny for once as they ate, exchanging banter and short, private conversation.
“I’ll tell my mother tomorrow morning,” he murmured. “And announce our engagement formally before the ball, so that I have a reason for monopolizing your waltzes.”
A cold dash of reality struck at her. “Your family won’t like it. They will want better for you.”
“My mother can’t help being worldly, but she will come around. So will Peter, and my sisters only want me to be happy.” His lips quirked. “But none of that really matters. Sometimes, it’s good to be the head of the family.”
She glanced up from her plate. “And Aline?”
“Aline already knows the direction of the wind.”
Glancing around the table to discover several pairs of eyes surreptitiously observing them, Kitty murmured, “I doubt she is the only one.”
“So, are we walking down to the village to church tonight?” Martha asked later as the duchess stood to lead the women from the dining room.
“Through the snow?” the duchess said acidly. “Hardly.”
“I think it’s thawing.” Martha was eternally optimistic. “And we are expecting everyone to trudge through the snow for our ball tomorrow evening.”
“That’s for fun, my dear, not church,” Aline drawled, to a burst of laughter, both shocked and appreciative.
“We have a chapel,” Johnny said mildly. “And a newly ordained clergyman amongst us. I vote we all squeeze into the chapel and allow Cousin George to take his first service.”
That was greeted with cheers and much back-slapping of Cousin George, who blushed fiery red and grinned.
The evening was spent in a quiet, pleasant mixture of music, talk, and card games. To avoid being roped into the latter and inevitably giving away her excessive facility with the cards, Kitty slipped out of the drawing room to fetch another shawl, which she would need in the cold chapel.
Returning, she saw from the staircase that the drawing room door was ajar. Leaning against the wall was Johnny, looking so handsome as he laughed at something within the room that Kitty’s heart turned over.
He will be my husband, she thought in awe, just as he glanced out the door and saw her.
At once, he eased off the wall and walked out the door, moving toward the foot of the stairs to meet her.
“At last,” he said, seizing her by the waist and swinging her down the last three steps to land scandalously close against his person. Smiling, she raised her face to receive his kiss, which was long and deep and melted her bones.
“I believe you are improper, sir,” she said breathlessly when she could say anything at all.
“Not in the slightest,” he argued, pointing upward at a sprig of mistletoe that dangled from the arch over their heads. “The servants tell me it’s bad luck not to kiss when you meet beneath the mistletoe.”
“Oh,” she said, thoughtfully. “Then you had better do it again, for we’ll need all the luck we can muster when the duchess—” The rest was lost in his mouth as he obliged, his arms closing more tightly around her.
“Dearham!” snapped an all too familiar voice in shocked fury, causing Kitty to gasp and jump. “Have you no decorum?”
The duke, who had kept an arm firmly around her when she had leapt away from him, now swept her with him into the center of the hall to face his mother—and most of the other curious guests spilling out of the drawing room to discover what mischief Johnny was about now.
“How could you?” the duchess demanded bitterly. “This child is under our protection!”
“More so than you think, Mama,” Johnny said calmly. “Kitty has just agreed to marry me.”
And that was when the pandemonium really started. Johnny’s friends surged forward to shake his hand but were still behind Martha, who hurled herself at her brother and then at Kitty before they even reached him. Even Peter was slapping him on the back, the flirtatious cousins fluttering around Kitty with a hundred delighted questions.
In the midst of the vocal crowd, the duchess stood rigid, her emotions impossible to read. And on the edge, curiously alone, Aline caught Kitty’s eye and raised her glass to her.
Kitty’s throat closed up, and then, without any recollection of how she got there, she found herself standing beside Johnny before the duchess.
“Your blessing, Mama, would mean a lot,” he said steadily.
The duchess, whose gaze had been boring into Kitty’s face, shifted her attention to her son, and, perhaps, read everything she was supposed to. Her blessing did mean a lot. But it was not everything, for the duke was head of his family and would marry whoever he chose with impunity. The warning was there, and it hurt Kitty that it was necessary.
Or was it?
A single tear escaped the duchess’s eye. “It is fitting,” she said unsteadily, “for Margaret’s daughter and my son.”
Kitty couldn’t help herself. For the first time, she embraced the duchess, who, taken by surprise, patted her back and then hugged her once, convulsively, before releasing her.
“Well!” commanded Her Grace. “A toast to my son and my future daughter-in-law, I think. And then it will be time for church!”
Accordingly, it was a merry crowd who, after a toast to the betrothed couple, made their way into the tiny, beautiful chapel, squashed into the four pews, and lined the walls. Cousin George made no attempt to preach or sermonize, merely welcomed the time of Christ’s birth, prayed for everyone to be better in His honor, and led them all in several Christmas carols.
