Disciplining the Duchess (30 page)

She turned her back on him and started walking. Why had he even come for her? She wiped her eyes and squared her shoulders. “I’m going home, right now, tonight. I don’t care what you think about it.”

He made an agitated sound and grabbed her. “Curse you, Harmony. You are going the wrong damn way!” He turned her around and stabbed a finger in the opposite direction. “It’s that way to Brook Street. If you’re going to run away from home, at least do it correctly.”

“I’m not running away from home. I’m running
to
home. My home where I can be myself, and do whatever I want.”

He shook his head and tightened his hand on her elbow. “Nobody can do whatever they want. You can’t run away from your duties, your responsibilities. My entire household is searching for you.” He dragged her toward his horse. “Your home is with me now.”

“I don’t want to go home with you,” she sobbed. She pushed at him, although he easily subdued her. “Anyway, you said you wouldn’t rescue me this time.”

“I am not rescuing you,” he said, tossing her onto his stallion and mounting behind her. “I am rescuing us both.”

They left London for Hertfordshire within the hour, with four grooms and one hastily-assembled baggage cart trailing behind. Court rode on the seat opposite her, smelling of horse as she smelled of night. They did not converse and he did not touch her, only sprawled out his legs and watched her from beneath his lashes. Harmony wrapped up in her cloak and stared out the window as they left the town behind.

He was taking her to his country home, to Courtland Manor, perhaps to imprison her in its prodigious rock walls. Well, she wasn’t sure if it had prodigious rock walls but she’d always pictured it that way. And it was unlikely he would imprison her. Surely gentlemen didn’t do that in this day and age.

In truth, she had no idea what he was going to do to her. She just knew it would be bad.

At some point she drowsed and they arrived in full black night to the welcome of a skeleton staff. The house—the palace—seemed a ghastly edifice, with vast walls and towers standing out against the moonlit sky. Inside, the corridors seemed to close upon her as she was turned over to a silent and stone-faced housekeeper.

The woman took her to a large dressing room where Harmony bathed and wrapped up in a nightgown and dressing gown taken from her trunks. The housekeeper and two younger girls unpacked her other items, placing them in armoires and on shelves.

“Please,” she said to them. “It is so late. You must leave that until the morning.”

“Your things will wrinkle, Your Grace,” said the housekeeper with a quick curtsy. “If it pleases you, your sleeping chambers are just through that door.”

Harmony did not feel like sleep but she passed through the wide, carved door and closed it behind her. The room was warm with a fire, and someone had set a tray of cakes and tea on a table near the fireplace. She stared at the tray, at the delicate china and gleaming silver, and dropped her head in her hands. What now? How badly was he going to punish her this time? Why was he making her wait until morning, so she had to dread it all night?

“You may eat first or come to bed,” said a voice behind her. “It is your choice.”

She turned to find her husband lying beneath her bedcovers, propped on one arm watching her. He didn’t appear to be wearing clothes.

“Oh,” she said. She looked away and sat by the tray feeling the weight of his stare on her. She felt nervous, too breathless to eat or drink. She forced down some sips of tea anyway. Why was he here? Would he punish her now, or…? She stole a glance back at him. No, he was not here to punish her. Why did he want to lie with her tonight, after everything?

The heir, of course. This would continue, this charade, until she gave him what he needed—an heir to carry on his name.

She took one last sip of tea and rose, going to the bed as if to battle. He still watched her, an unfathomable look on his face. She discarded her robe and stopped with her hands on the ribbons of her nightgown. “Do you wish it on or off?” she asked curtly.

“I prefer off, but the choice is yours. And you don’t have to lie with me. That is also your choice.”

She looked around in confusion. “Where else would I lie?”

He made a huff of a sound and held out a hand. “Come here. Leave it on for now.” Once she climbed into the bed, he drew her into his arms. She held herself stiffly, unsure of his mood. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I understand you haven’t the fondest regard for me at the moment. If you cannot endure my caresses, we will merely sleep together.”

“You will not…?” Her voice trailed off in a question.

“Force you? I can’t imagine any circumstance in which I’d do such a thing.”

“What about the heir?”

Court snorted and rolled away from her. “This confounded heir. He’s a third person in our marriage. Or rather a fifth, after my mother and the specter of my late father. How crowded our bed has become.”

Harmony stared down at the embroidered sheets. “Well…”

He turned toward her again. “I imagine you rode uncomfortably in the carriage. Turn around if you please, so I can see how the marks look today.”

She felt sharp, hot shame as he moved her onto her stomach and drew up the skirt of her nightgown. His fingers brushed the tender stripes, raised by his own hand. “I am sorry,” he said quietly.

She didn’t move. Couldn’t move. His apology meant the world to her but what did it really change? Silent tears dropped onto her pillow, creating a spreading ivory stain. His hand slid higher to touch her hips, her waist, her back and shoulders beneath the whisper-soft gown. She wished she understood her feelings. She wished she understood how he could be so threatening and yet so tender to her.

“Poor Harmony,” he said against her ear. “What a beast I’ve been.”

She shook her head. “Not a beast, exactly. I should not have screamed at you, or written so many letters to Mr. Burgermeister. I deserved to be punished.”

“But I disciplined you in anger. I broke a promise to you.”

She slid her hand across the pillow and sighed. “In some way it comforts me to know that I’m not the only one in this marriage who makes impulsive mistakes.”

He made a small, choked sound like a laugh, but it wasn’t quite a laugh. “You are certainly not the only one. I am deeply ashamed.”

She turned to him, meeting his tortured gaze. “I did warn you. I told you I’d be the very devil to live with. You married me anyway.”

“I had to marry you. How couldn’t I, after you spoke to me so passionately of Joan of Arc? After I saw you almost cuff Sheffield in the Darlingtons’ garden? How couldn’t I, once I saw you walking that damn road to Newcastle with your back stiff as a poker? I wonder if I didn’t want you from the time I found you under Darlington’s desk. I’m sorry, but I’m going to stay married to you forever, devil or not.”

Harmony stared at her husband. Her lover. She did believe that he loved her. His gaze spoke of longing, fear, regret. His fingers traced over her tear-dampened face. “You told me once to make a wish. I think I did, Harmony. Now we have to make it come true.”

“We need an eyelash,” she whispered through the tightness in her throat.

“No, we need each other.” He brushed away her tears and kissed her, then nudged his face into the curve of her neck with a groan. “Curse you for all the turmoil you’ve brought me. Your name, my darling…it’s such a lie.”

Harmony half-chuckled and half-sobbed. “My playmates always made fun of my name. I wanted so much to be Arabella, or Caroline or Jane. I asked my father once why he called me Harmony and he said it was because I brought harmony to his heart. That after Stephen, he had hoped for a little daughter, and there I was.” She took a shuddery, miserable breath. “And I think I was never the daughter he wanted. And you…” She hid her face against his hair, fresh sobs pouring out of her. “I shall never be the wife you want either. I’m terribly afraid I won’t be, no matter how hard I try.”

Court could only hear one thing over the clamor of his wife’s tears, and that was his own heart breaking in half. “Good Lord,” he said. “This has gone on far enough.” He shushed her and drew her right against the shelter of his body. “You are overwrought, I fear, and it’s my fault. But all shall be well now.”

“How?” she cried against his shoulder. “You should have let me go home. You should have made me go long before now.”

He grasped her, this wild, puzzling woman that had become so necessary to his happiness. He smoothed his hands over her bottom, over the fading welts he’d put there in jealous outrage, welts that had taught them both a lesson. “You cannot go,” he told her. “I don’t want to let you go!”

His palm slid between her thighs, over her secret wet curls, teasing and playing there until her sobs weakened into moans. He pressed her down to the bed, the soft gathers of her gown bunching between them. In a tangle of limbs and fabric, he stripped off the ruffled confection so he could lie with her as he wished, skin to skin with nothing between them. He suckled at her breasts and traced their generous shape with his tongue, and was rewarded with greedy thrusts of her hips.

He couldn’t rule such passion, he realized now. He could only stoke and nurture it, taking his own pleasure as reward. When he slipped inside her tight warmth, everything broken in the world seemed right again. “My beautiful love,” he whispered. “My Harmony.” They moved together with an intensity matched only by the risk of this reconnection. If he lost her now, he thought the pain of it would kill him.

Long after they tired of lovemaking and fell into an exhausted huddle on the bed, he stayed awake whispering promises to her—promises he meant to keep.

*** *** ***

Harmony awakened alone, exhausted and emotionally wrung out from the night before. Where was Court?

Sunlight poured through the high windows of the bedroom, illuminating heavy and ancient furniture and wall hangings, and the expanse of her curtained bed. Seven generations of Courtlands had lived in this imposing castle. Her husband was the eighth duke, and she must bear the ninth, or bring the long and honorable line to a close.

Was that why he’d brought her here? To show her what was at stake, what necessitated her cooperation and courage? This land, with its properties and tenants, was a great part of his purpose, and she realized now it must be her purpose too.

A servant knocked at the door and helped her dress. Harmony worried for poor Mrs. Redcliff back at St. James Square. Her maid had been frantic about their overnight flight to Hertfordshire, perhaps fearing the duke planned retribution. Last night hadn’t been about retribution at all. The memories of their passion had her blushing to her toes.

A footman led her to a breakfast room, a parlor with a great table and chairs and more sunshine in the windows. Her husband stood staring out one of them, and she recalled the time she’d opened the door to Lady Darlington’s parlor to find him silhouetted in a similar window, a tall, proper man of great nobility. He’d been His Grace then, as untouchable to her as the stars, telling her gently and apologetically that she must marry him. He looked very much like that man today.

“Sit and have some breakfast,” he said, coming to her. His hand touched hers, a reminder of his tenderness last night. “There are eggs and ham, and cakes.”

He knew she loved cakes and pressed them on her unforgivably. There were buns and coffee too, and tea and a salad of fruit and sweetmeats.

“Your home is beautiful,” she said once she’d seated herself with a laden plate. “Truly, it amazes me.”

“It is your home now too.” He sat across from her, gazing fixedly into a half-filled cup of tea. “I should have brought you here before now. I stay in town too much. When we have children…” His voice trailed off.

“This would make a fine place for children,” Harmony said. Her neck and cheeks heated in a flush as she thought about the night before, the way he’d held her and caressed her, and whispered of better times to come for them.
Please
, she thought, pondering magic and wishes.
Please let me give him an entire castle full of children…and at least two sons.

Breakfast was delicious and Courtland Manor not as forbidding in the daytime. He explained that there were two wings, each with sixty to eighty rooms, all of them serviced by scores of maids and footmen. There were outbuildings too: stables, servants’ quarters, a carriage house as large as entire streets back in town. She asked questions only to hear the measured pride in his answers. He told her the year the windows were installed, the origin of the intricately carved molding, the number of candles in each jeweled chandelier. When Harmony could not eat another bite, her husband asked if she would like to walk with him.

“I could use a walk,” she said. “After so much breakfast.”

“Feeling bloated, are you?”

She gave him a sheepish look. “Must you remind me of that?”

“If you hadn’t told Lord Monmouth you were bloated, we might never have met.” He took her arm and led her toward the double front doors. “That was the night I lured you alone to the Darlingtons’ ballroom and spoke with you of Romans and an ancient northern wall.”

It had been the first time in her life that any gentleman besides her father had encouraged her to speak of her interests. As they moved into the sun of the front lawn her eyes grew wet and hazy from the glare. “I liked that painting in the ballroom very much. I think I will always remember it.”

He gave her a long and enigmatic look. “You enjoy history,” he said. “Let us talk of history. Courtland Manor’s and my own.”

He took her first to the gardens and surrounding woods. Court seemed in his element here, seeking out long-unused paths and stomping about in his dust-covered boots. He showed her where he played as a boy with his beloved dog Mercury. He described everything about his childhood pet, from his glossy amber eyes to his coarse red fur. His tales were so vivid she almost expected old Mercury to come bounding from the surrounding trees. He showed her where he hid as a child and played forest games with one of the servants’ boys, at least until they were found out and forbidden to speak to one another again.