An Unlikely Duchess (27 page)

He made his way to the door in the light of the moon and realized only as he was opening it that both his feet and his chest were bare. Wonderfully exposed targets for her wrath.

“Paul.” Josephine rushed into the room. “I thought this was your room. Oh, I would have been most embarrassed if it had not been.”

What? No poker? No pistol? No water jug or bowl? She was also barefoot. She had a shawl wrapped about her nightgown. Her hair was streaming down her back.

The Duke of Mitford closed the door quietly and leaned back against it.

“Paul,” she said, turning to face him, all wide eyes and mobile mouth. “You have to leave. Now. You must not wait until morning. They will kill you.” 

“They?”

“Bart is here,” she said. “It seems that he has been chasing after Sukey, too. And he caught up to Mr. Porterhouse after he left here. And he punched him too, though it was no fun at all, he said, because Mr. Porterhouse was quite incapable of fighting back. And now he is here and has given me a thundering scold.” She giggled suddenly. “All in a whisper so that no one in any other room would hear.”

The duke stood away from the door only so that he might clasp his hands behind him and rock on his heels.

“I told him you had gone,” she said. “Once we had found Sukey, I told him, and you had punished Mr. Porterhouse, you decided to continue on your way. He thinks you are gone. You must leave, or he will kill you in the morning.”

“Ah,” he said. “Who else is going to kill me?”

She put both hands up over her mouth, and her eyes grew rounder. “The Duke of Mitford is here,” she said.

“Here at this inn?” He raised his eyebrows.

“He was here when Bart arrived,” she said. “Bart only just stopped himself from blurting out that I was here too. I am supposed to be tending my sick aunt, I believe. I am going to have to remain hidden upstairs until he leaves, horrid man. What is it about him? Is he really following me, or is it just coincidence that he pops up wherever I go? He quite gives me the shudders, I declare.”

The Duke of Mitford drew a deep breath and clasped his hands even more tightly behind him. “Miss Middleton,” he began.

“Oh,” she said, coming closer and spreading her hands over his bare chest before removing them hastily again, “you must go, sir. You really must. They must not find you here tomorrow morning. They will kill you, I swear they will. And I should hate that of all things.”

The duke watched himself turn utterly and despicably craven. “Perhaps it would be best,” he said more to himself than to her. “There has to be a better time and place than this. And you are safe with your brother. He will be able to escort you home in safety.”

“And my jewels have been recovered,” she said, “so you need not feel obliged to go after them for me. Is it not absurd that we completely forgot about them in all the excitement over Sukey?”

“I suppose that means that your sister is more important to you than your jewels,” he said.

“But of course,” she said. “Well, of course she is. You must go. If Sukey wakes up or if Bart wakes up, you may even now be in danger. Please go.”

“Yes,” he said. “I shall.”

But how could he be expected to get himself dressed and on his way when her hands spread over his chest again and when she looked at him with those big eyes?

“Thank you,” she said. “You are a very kind gentleman. You have done so much for me. I am sorry that I have taken so much of your time and been such a burden to you. But I am not sorry that it all happened, though I know I should be. I am not sorry I met you.”

“Well.” When had his hands moved up to cover hers? “I am not sorry, either. Though I think perhaps both of us will be before too much more time has passed.”

“No,” she said. “I will always remember you. I will. Paul.” Her voice had become a high, thin thread.

“I will see you again,” he said, lifting one of her hands to his mouth and kissing the palm. “By that time you will doubtless not want to see me.”

“Paul.”

Had she sagged against him, or had he drawn her there? The answer was unimportant. She was there. That was all that mattered. And her arms had lifted about his neck and his had encircled her—the shawl must have dropped to the floor.

And her mouth was open and warm and inviting beneath his own. And her breasts were taut against his chest, only the flannel of her nightgown between them.

“Paul.”

His mouth was at her throat. His hand was toying with the idea of opening the buttons at the front of her nightgown. And he was walking her backward until she could walk no farther. And he was stooping down to lift her onto the bed.

And joining her there. And lying half on top of her, his hands smoothing back the hair from her face. He was kissing her and reaching into her mouth with his tongue for more of her.

“Josephine.”

And one hand was caressing her breast through the nightgown, his thumb rubbing against the taut nipple so that she moaned.

“Paul. Oh, Paul.”

Her hands were roaming over his back and down to the band at the waist of his breeches. And her fingers were reaching beneath it. Warm and teasing.

He was opening the top button of her nightgown, and his hand was moving flat inside it, across the delicate bones of her shoulders. And he was aching for her. On fire for her.

And remembering who she was.

And who he was.

Oh, Lord!

“Paul.” She reached for him as he rolled off her to the side of the bed. She was all languorous heat and invitation. The hussy.

“Good Lord,” he said, his voice not as steady as he would have liked to hear it. “Good Lord, what are we about now?”

“Oh, yes.” She sat up in a panic, her fingers fumbling with her top button. “You must leave, and I am keeping you. Yes, you must go. You must.”

He stood up beside the bed and reached down a hand for hers. “Yes, I will leave,” he said. “You must get back to bed before you are missed. Take care of yourself on your way home. Or rather, let your brother take care of you. Will you? Will you promise me?”

“Well, of course,” she said, looking blankly at him. “Why should I not let Bart look after me? Not that I need looking after, of course.”

The duke sighed. He held out his right hand in a gesture that struck him as ridiculously formal, considering what had just gone before.

“Au revoir,” he said.

Josephine put her hand in his and looked at it there. “Goodbye, Paul,” she said. “I am not sorry even for that, you know.” She nodded her head in the direction of the bed. “Am I not a shameless hussy?” She flashed a smile up at him and looked down again. “Good-bye.”

She stood meekly at the door while he opened it for her and took a quick look to right and left outside. Then she slipped past him without once looking up and disappeared along the corridor.

The Duke of Mitford stood looking after her before shutting the door quietly and blowing out his breath from puffed cheeks. Oh, Lord, what fireworks there were going to be when they next met!

Did the woman know nothing? Did she not realize that whether he were simply Paul Villiers or the Duke of Mitford he was honor-bound to seek out her father and make an offer for her?

Did she expect that he could fade out her life and retain his self-respect and his name of gentleman?

Whom was he more dreading meeting? Her father or her?

And how could he even contemplate marriage with her? His life would never be the same again.

He paused in the act of buttoning up his shirt and stared into the darkness for an interested moment.

Did he want his life to be the same again?

***

The Earl of Rutland and Viscount Cheamley were on the road north. They were following a very faint scent, if the strange details they had been given at the Crown and Anchor were anything to judge by. Yes, there had been such ladies, the servants there had claimed after listening to descriptions of Josephine and Susanna, all trying to talk more loudly and convincingly than everyone else. And such a gentleman. Though they had not been all traveling together. There had been a blue and yellow carriage—one groom declared dogmatically that it had been blue and green—and a gentleman’s curricle, and a lady who had been suffering from travel sickness. There were jewels, too.

There was that gentleman who had vomited in the stables, too, someone had added helpfully and apparently irrelevantly.

And Sam had gone to drive one of the carriages—without so much as a by-your-leave. They were all agreed on that, and the innkeeper also added wrathfully that if Sam thought there would be a job awaiting him when he returned from traipsing over England with some nobs who were all chasing after one another, then he would have a rude awakening.

The earl and the viscount dismissed Sam as having nothing whatsoever to do with their search. A blue and yellow carriage they would believe in—Mr. Porterhouse’s, and a travel-sick young lady—Susanna. But a curricle? What did a curricle have to do with anything? And jewels?

After a week, the two gentlemen supposed, one could not expect the servants at a public inn to remember anything with great clarity. It need not have been a week, of course, but it was amazing how much time could pass while one dithered in a wrath, and a panic, and a puzzle; and when one rushed off on wild goose chases.

Lord Cheamley had twiddled his thumbs and fumed and paced for all of one day at his sister’s, waiting for Jo to arrive, and afraid to leave for home again in case she came to the house by a different way, the moment he had left. Lord Rutland had spent a similar day at home, wondering when his son and his grandson and two granddaughters would decide to return home, and wondering what on earth he was to say to the Duke of Mitford when he arrived.

He was more relieved than he could say when the duke did not arrive.

When Lord Cheamley had arrived home the following day, it was to find that not only Jo, but also Bart and Sukey had taken themselves off and disappeared in the direction of nowhere.

Jo had not wanted to marry the duke, Augusta had told them. She had been in a panic at the very thought.

That was why she had decided to go to her aunt’s, the two men agreed. But no, if Jo really had taken fright—but why would she take fright at the thought of becoming a duchess with forty thousand a year?—she would doubtless want to run farther than Winnie’s. The foolish girl must have gone to her grandmother in London.

That was it. And Bart and Sukey must have realized it and gone after her. That was why their note had been rather vague, saying only that they were going to meet Jo and accompany her home. But why had they not written the truth? Didn’t Bart know better than that?

The viscount had gone, tearing off to London, only to come tearing back again after four days with the news that neither their grandmother nor their maternal aunt had seen either Bart or Jo or Sukey for almost two years.

Mr. Porterhouse had left the very same day as Jo, Penelope had said.

And so the truth, or at least some vague glimmering of the truth, had finally broken through the bafflement and the panic. Jo had eloped with Porterhouse rather than marry a duke, and Bart and Sukey had gone after them.

This time the earl accompanied his son. And the viscount, questioning the servants at the Crown and Anchor Inn, realized that if his daughter and Porterhouse really had spent a night there, it must have been the same night he had spent there on his way to Winnie’s.

And so they were on their way north, keeping a gloomy eye open for two familiar carriages coming the other way, returning from Gretna Green.

They were having a late breakfast at a posting inn.

“Jo, Jo,” the earl said with a sigh. “Why didn’t she just come to us and explain? Instead she has married over the anvil.”

“I thought Porterhouse was a decent sort,” the viscount said. “But I don’t call eloping with a girl who often doesn’t know if her head is facing forward or back, a decent thing to do. You don’t suppose Bart and Sukey caught up to them in time?”

“It has been seven days,” the earl said. “She will be ruined even if they caught up to her before Gretna. I wonder what was so wrong about Mitford? She had never even set eyes on the boy.”

“Perhaps that was the trouble,” his son said.

A young man at a nearby table had been sipping his coffee and fidgeting for a few minutes past. He finally threw his napkin to the table and strode over to stand beside theirs.

“Pardon the interruption,” he said, “but I am Mitford.”

If he had not been quite so full of digress, Mitford thought, he would have felt amusement at what he saw. The two men gaped at him. The elder’s fork was halfway to his mouth. And then both scrambled to their feet, and he found himself looking up at them.

“Mitford?” the elder man said.

The duke bowed. “Do I have the honor of addressing the Earl of Rutland and Viscount Cheamley?” he asked.

And he wondered why the urge to stand up and make himself known had won over the almost equally strong urge to pull his collar up about his ears, slink from the dining room, jump into his curricle, and spring his horses.

The two men were laughing heartily and making a very poor imitation of two gentlemen who just happened to be out on the Great North Road for the benefit of their health.

“Allow me to inform you," he said, “that your daughter is safe and not a half day’s journey ahead of you on the road. Coming this way. Both your daughters, in fact. And your son.”

Both gentlemen sank back to their chairs.

“You have seen them?” the viscount said.

The duke bowed. And this was definitely the tricky part. For if it would have been a relief to his conscience to confess all and risk being taken apart limb from limb in the public dining room of an inn, he must also remember that he would be compromising Josephine if he told even one small part of the truth.

And that little lady was such an accomplished liar and seemed to revel so gleefully in hopeless and tangled intrigue, that there was no knowing what story she would tell her relatives when she finally came up to them. The brother and sister were unknown quantities. He did not know whether they were normal human beings or formed from the same mold as Josephine. From what he had heard of Miss Susanna Middleton the night before, he rather thought that the latter might be closer to the truth.