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“Isn’t the scent delightful?” Damaris said, holding up a rose for Hester’s inspection and catching her quite off guard. “Don’t you think so, Reverend McKenna?”
“Beautiful,” the young man murmured, blushing, as Damaris bent her head toward another bloom. She colored very slightly, and Hester couldn’t be sure if it was because of her action, or because she, too, realized the remark was not strictly intended to refer to the flower.
Hester hoped Damaris would fall in love with Hamish McKenna. Damaris could do much worse for a husband, and she wanted the young woman safe from her father’s machinations.
And those of the Dark Duke, if she was being absolutely truthful.
Adrian spent the next few days closeted in his bedroom, where he did not have to put up with his stepmother, or make pleasant conversation with Sir Douglas and his daughter, who visited every day, or listen to the canon attempt to lecture him on the errors of his ways while trying not to offend him.
He saw nothing of Lady Hester, but he could guess that she was spending her time attending to his stepmother, whose various and sundry ailments would all have been made worse by the arrival of her prodigal stepson.
If Adrian regretted anything about his self-imposed confinement, it was missing the opportunity to study that interesting miss a little more. She certainly did not seem to begrudge Damaris Sackville-Cooper her beauty. Perhaps that could be explained by Lady Hester’s lovely sisters. She was probably used to being the plain woman in any gathering. However, he had been rather more surprised by her apparent lack of jealousy where the attentive young reverend was concerned. Adrian was quite sure of his ability to gauge reactions, and he was certain that Reverend McKenna was smitten with Miss Sackville-Cooper. Did Lady Hester see this, too, or did she simply not care?
That Sir Douglas was making grandiose plans for his daughter was also painfully obvious, and completely useless, for Adrian did not intend to marry for a very long time. He had enough responsibilities without adding those of a wife and subsequent children.
Nevertheless, by this time Adrian was heartily sick of his own company. To make matters worse, it began to rain, making his bedroom unremittingly gloomy. If the weather brought any comfort, it was that no unwelcome visitors would come to Barroughby Hall on such a day. Therefore, Adrian reasoned, he could venture to the library, a room his stepmother never entered. Jenkins could be counted on to have a fire there, for he lived in perpetual fear of the late duke’s library falling prey to mildew. It would be warm and cozy and he could find himself something new to read.
As he had hoped, a fire burned merrily in the library’s grate, making the dark-paneled room seem like a book-lined cavern. Adrian felt like Robinson Crusoe, marooned with only books for company. This did not particularly trouble him, for he had spent many such hours in this comfortable room, which had been his father’s favorite. His mother’s, too.
The peace of the room enfolded him. How much better it was to be here, instead of clubs and theaters with the men people liked to call the Dark Duke’s Dandies. Not a one of his London cronies was what a man could call a good friend. They simply amused him, and helped him pass the time.
He chose a book at random, something silly by Mrs. Radcliffe, and settled into a wing chair. He propped the foot of his sore leg on the grate as he prepared to read about the terrible dangers faced by the virtuous heroine in The Mysteries of Udolpho.
Soon Adrian was lulled into sleep by the warmth of the fire and the dull pit-pat of the rain on the window.
He drifted down into a dream, a memory. Of finding Elizabeth in that hot, filthy, dingy room. The efforts of her labor. The way she wailed and sobbed. The long, terrifying wait for the doctor and the dismissive look on the man’s face when he entered the room. Then the doctor’s fear when Adrian grabbed him by the throat and identified himself.
Too late. He was too late. The doctor was too late.
But there was someone else in the room. A woman. Quietly and competently swaddling the dying baby, cooing softly. Then, with infinite tenderness and patience, she turned to Elizabeth and wiped her feverish brow before looking up at him, with calm forgiveness and understanding.
It was Lady Hester, her smile like a balm on his tortured soul.
“Your Grace!”
Adrian awoke at once, to find Lady Hester shaking him gently, her face close to his, looking at him with worry and concern. Without thinking, he took her face between his two hands and pulled her toward him, kissing her deeply as if he could drink her in, like a dying man who finds water in the desert. For the briefest of moments she yielded, her lips soft and pliable against his.
How much he wanted her, he realized, the strength of his desire shocking him.
But only for a moment. She pulled back, staring at him with what could have been surprise or horror, her hand wiping her lips of his unclean touch—so different from his dream.
He cursed himself for a fool. Why, she wasn’t even pretty! It had to be because of the lingering effects of his dream that he had kissed her. “What do you want?” he demanded, wearily leaning back in his chair and waiting for her to slap him, or denounce him, to start crying, or run from the room.
She did none of those things. Instead, she took a step back, watching him, the expression in her large and shining blue eyes changing from shocked surprise to puzzlement. “Why did you do that?” she asked softly.
“Why not?”
“Because it was not a gentlemanly thing to do.”
“Given my reputation, this surprises you?”
“Yes, Your Grace,” she answered calmly.
What a strange woman! Does she never react like other females of her age and rank? he thought. He smiled cynically. “My stepmother would tell you I am no gentleman.”
Lady Hester nodded her head slowly, although not with agreement, he didn’t think. It was more a pondering of his words with a gravity he found extremely disconcerting, considering what they were discussing. “You were very rude to Reverend Canon Smeech.”
“He’s a greedy hypocrite.”
She didn’t look at all shocked. “That is no excuse. He is a representative of the church.”
“That excuses him, I suppose.”
This plain woman in her simple, unadorned gown of gray regarded him so steadily that despite his efforts to assure himself that her opinion could not be important, he was quite nonplussed. “No, it does not,” she said, “although I agree with your estimation. However, you can’t expect him to change because you are discourteous to him. You would do better to use your influence to get him appointed to a position where he will have less opportunity to be a greedy hypocrite.”
“Well, well, well,” Adrian said, rising slowly. “You seem very confident of my influence.” He went to the fireplace and leaned against the mantel.
“Your rank alone assures it.”
“If not my personal attributes?”
“I’m sorry to have disturbed you, Your Grace. If you will excuse me—”
“I don’t excuse you.” Surprisingly, despite moments of discomfort, he was enjoying himself, perhaps because it had been years since anyone had responded to him with something other than blatant animosity or fawning flattery. “What are you doing here?” he repeated.
“I came for a book.”
“And instead you found me. Why didn’t you creep away?”
“You were…dreaming. I thought…”
“I take it I did not appear to be enjoying my dream?”
“No, Your Grace.”
“As it happens, I was not. Grateful to be awakened, I kissed you. A moment of weakness.”
“I gather you have many such moments,” she noted dispassionately..
Adrian frowned slightly. “Where is my stepmother? Doesn’t she require your constant attendance?”
“She fell asleep. That’s why I came for a book. I’m sorry to have disturbed you, Your Grace.”
Quite unexpectedly, he realized he didn’t want her to go. “There is no need for you to rush off. I haven’t had a decent conversation in three days. Sit here beside the fire and tell me how you come to be living in my house.”
Hester hesitated, torn between the desire to flee and the desire to stay. She knew she should leave, especially after the duke’s impetuous and impertinent kiss, which would seem to lend credence to the popular opinion of the duke as a notable lecher.
However, she felt more confident in his presence now, because of the look on his face when she had awakened him. He had not been the handsome, sardonic, provocative nobleman then. He had been as vulnerable as anyone she had ever seen, and his eyes had been full of anguish, as had the soft moans that had escaped his lips as she had entered the library, sounds that had compelled her to approach him.
As for the kiss, she had never known anything more unexpected and exciting in her entire existence. She had never been kissed by a young man, and the sensation had been every bit as wonderful as she had ever imagined. Nor had she ever felt so flattered. To think that the Dark Duke, known for his taste in women, had bestowed that mark of favor upon her, even if she had been returned to prosaic reality by his admission that he had kissed her because of “a moment of weakness.”
Propriety demanded that she leave, but her own lonely heart told her to stay, and for once, Hester decided she would follow her heart. Surely they would be safe from discovery, for the duchess was a sound sleeper, and she had only just nodded off in the drawing room. They were in the usually empty library, and nobody even knew they were there.
She sat in a chair near the one upon which he had been sitting. “So, Lady Hester,” he said in a low tone that set her heart beating rapidly, “what are you doing at Barroughby Hall?”
“Your stepmother corresponds with my mother, and when she heard the duchess was looking for a companion, she thought I would do,” Hester replied matter-of-factly, trying to regard him with composure, reminding herself that he was a flirtatious man by nature, and his attention had nothing to do with her personally.
“What did you think?” He strolled behind her chair, and she wished she could see his face.
He sounded as if he truly cared, which created a sense of intimacy far more dangerous than his kiss had been. Nevertheless, she would remember who and what he was, and who or what she was. “Since I had no better prospects, I agreed.”
“No better prospects?”
She didn’t answer. He knew very well what she meant.
“But you cannot like it here,” he said, as if she could not possibly disagree.
“This is a lovely estate. I enjoy the garden very much, and—” she smiled and gestured at the walls “—the library.”
“My stepmother is not an easy woman.”
“Perhaps she has mellowed during your absence.”
The duke’s response was a sniff of disdain.
“The duchess provided a change of scene,” she replied honestly.
“I daresay,” he said, continuing his stroll around the room. “I have seen your sisters in London, but not you, I don’t believe.”
“No doubt you didn’t notice me.”
“Are you often overlooked?”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“You don’t sound very bitter,” he remarked with a wry smile.
She shrugged her shoulders. “My sisters are beautiful. I am not. There is nothing I can do about that.”
“I see.”
She didn’t think he did. No man as handsome as he would ever understand what it was like to be the ugly duckling in the family.
He moved back to the fireplace and continued to regard her with a scrutiny that grew increasingly unnerving. “I wonder what you really want, Lady Hester” he murmured.
“I told you. Your Grace. A book.”
He smiled, a more genuine smile, she thought, than she had yet seen him bestow upon anyone, including Damaris Sackville-Cooper. “I meant from life.”
“I hardly think, Your Grace—” she began to protest.
“Oh, I suspect you do a great deal of thinking,” he interrupted. “Let me guess at the deepest desires of Lady Hester Pimblett”.
She started to stand. “My lord, I—”
“First, attention.”
She straightened her shoulders and frowned deeply. “Your Grace, I really must protest—”
“Second, excitement.”
“If by that you mean the type of excitement you seem to crave, Your Grace, I assure you I can well do without!” Hester said sternly. “Since you are apparently only interested in making sport of me, I will take my leave of you, whether you excuse me or not!”
“I promise I shall stick to only the most mundane of subjects,” he pleaded unexpectedly, and with a most beguiling smile. “The weather. My injury. The fungus on my horse’s hooves. Whatever you wish, as long as you will stay a little longer.”
Hester suddenly realized there was nothing about this man that was not seductive, whether it was his looks or his voice or the way he could make every word an invitation, every gesture intimate. “I believe I have stayed far too long as it is. Good afternoon, Your Grace.”
She hurried to the door, then turned on the threshold and faced him with a mocking little smile of her own. “I shall tell your stepmother you are feeling better, as you most obviously are, and that you will surely join us for dinner.”
When she was gone, Adrian stared at the fire and tried to tell himself that Hester Pimblett was nothing so very special. They were both unappreciated children—they had that one little thing in common.
Well, that and a kiss. And he would not come down to dinner, even if he was finding the thought of speaking with Lady Hester again very tempting indeed.
Chapter Five (#ulink_249b4e9e-878a-5cf5-b6f8-dca7229bafbd)
“Hester, where on earth have you been?” the duchess demanded when Hester returned to the drawing room.
Hester, having never felt so frazzled before, dearly hoped her absence would not be remarked upon further. Her wish was granted as the older woman rose from the sofa with more alacrity than Hester had ever seen her demonstrate before and waved a letter as if it was a call to battle.
“I have just received the most exciting news!” the duchess declared unnecessarily.
Hester thought she had had quite enough excitement for one day; nevertheless, she put a happy smile on her face as she tried to calm down.
“Elliot is coming home tomorrow!” the older woman cried triumphantly. “My darling boy, here, tomorrow!” She paused in her exclamations, and a small frown creased her alabaster brow. “If Adrian will send the barouche to Barroughby. Oh, but he must. Just think of it, my own dear boy home at last!” The duchess paused in her raptures. “You seem very dull this afternoon.”
Hester was still considering the part of the duchess’s declaration that had seemed rather odd. Why should the duke have to approve the order of a carriage? Was the duchess not in command of the estate? Had it not been left to her upon the fifth duke’s death? She always acted as if it had, and spent money frequently and lavishly.
The present duke had referred to Barroughby Hall as “my house,” but she had assumed he meant his family’s house.
If this were not so, and he was in sole possession of the estate, why did he endure the company of a woman he so obviously disliked, and whom he could send away whenever he chose? That would be the response one would expect of a scoundrel.
“I am so happy for you,” Hester said, attempting to sound delighted, and reflecting that if she wasn’t careful, she would become as hypocritical as Canon Smeech. Nevertheless, she couldn’t help mentally contrasting the reception of the news of this son’s return with the way the duchess had received word that the duke was coming home. Still, one was a step son, the other her own child. The duchess would not be alone in preferring the child of her body over that of a son by marriage.
“He writes from Dover to say he can hardly wait to get here!” the duchess exclaimed. She walked to the windows and gazed out at the drive, as if she expected to see Lord Elliot’s carriage at that very moment. “He was ill, and only now recovered. I shall have to be a little cross with him for not telling his mama.”
“What is all the excitement?” the duke asked nonchalantly as he strolled into the drawing room. “Have we been robbed?”
Hester eyed the door with a view to escaping, but knew she was trapped as surely as any fly in amber. She would just have to forget about his kiss and try to maintain her composure.
