An Unlikely Duchess (5 page)

“I told you she was not at the Winthrops’, Papa,” Penelope said. “When Sukey and I went to call on Anna, both she and Henrietta were in the mopes because Mr. Porterhouse took his leave this morning. But Jo was not there.”

“Winnie’s is twenty-five miles away,” the viscount said with a frown. “What can have possessed the girl? It is a hard day’s ride. She will be fortunate to get there before nightfall.”

The earl shook his head. “Jo, Jo,” he said. “Will she never realize that she is full grown now and must not go jauntering about on her own? Especially not a young lady in her position. I will have to explain to her when she comes home again. The little puss! She took a groom with her, I hope?”

His son was still frowning. “I’ll lay a wager she did not,” he said. “The last time she rode to Winnie’s was four years ago, and that time I told her I would lay my hand to her if she ever did it again. Do you think she remembers? That time, of course, she had us all frantic because she did not think to leave a note or a message of any sort. I don’t like to remember that night.”

“Papa!” Susanna’s worried voice broke in on his thoughts. “The Duke of Mitford is arriving tomorrow.”

The viscount’s jaw dropped while the earl passed a hand over his bald head.

“Heaven help us,” Lord Cheamley said slapping his forehead with Josephine’s note. “And so he is, child. Whatever could Jo have been thinking of? Is she planning to ride back here tomorrow and arrive dusty and panting to meet her bridegroom? Jo, Jo.”

Bartholomew, who was lolling in a chair, his leg thrown over one arm as usual, appeared to be enjoying the scene. “Do you want me to go and fetch her, Papa?” he asked.

“Eh? What’s that?” his father asked, crumpling the note in his hand.

“I could be there before midnight if I left at once,” Bartholomew said.

“Break your neck more like,” his grandfather said.

The viscount was tapping a knuckle against his teeth. “No,” he said. “I must go—with the carriage and with some respectable clothes for Jo to wear. If I leave now, I can get most of the way there before nightfall. I can complete the journey at dawn and be on the way back with Jo before the middle of the morning.”

“Scold her gently,” the earl said. “You don’t want her getting back here all upset.”

“I’ll set her ears to ringing with what I have to say,” the viscount said, looking unusually fierce. “The dratted girl. It is likely his grace will be here before our return. You will all have to hold him off with the story of how Jo insisted on accompanying me visiting the sick.”

Bartholomew chuckled and watched his foot swinging.

“Perhaps I’ll be able to reach the main road to London tonight,” the viscount said. “That’s only ten miles from Winnie’s. There is a fairly decent inn there. What’s it called? The Crown?”

“Crown and Anchor,” Bartholomew said.

The viscount nodded. “Sukey,” he said, “find a maid who can pick out a decent dress for Jo and all the trappings, there’s a good girl. A dress fit for meeting her bridegroom in. Bart, send to the stables and have the traveling carriage ready and before the doors here within the half hour. Drat the girl. I’ll lift my hand to her yet.”

“Do you think Jo forgot that the duke is expected tomorrow?” Augusta asked her older sister.

Penelope looked at her in some scorn. “I think Jo decided to visit Aunt Winifred just
because
the duke is expected,” she said. “I don’t know what she wants unless it is to be an old maid. She cannot do much better than a duke, now, can she?”

“But if it were my choice,” Augusta said, “I would prefer to marry someone like Mr. Porterhouse, even if he is just a mister. He is so very handsome, Penny. I do wish he had not gone away already. It will be dull visiting the Winthrops now that he has gone.”

“I am sure he would not know you if he passed you on an empty street, Gussie,” Penelope said. “You are only fourteen years old, after all. Gentlemen like Mr. Porterhouse have an eye for older ladies, and prettier ones.”

“Yes, like Jo,” her sister said with a sigh. “But perhaps his grace will be handsome too, Penny.”

They waved the traveling carriage and their father on the way half an hour later. Poor Papa would miss his dinner, Augusta remarked to Susanna.

***

“Well,” the Duke of Mitford said to the dull, demure country mouse his grandfather had chosen as his bride, “it would never do to be forced into an unwelcome marriage. You have any objection to the Duke of Mitford?”

“More than one,” she said, looking up at him with flushed cheeks and large gray eyes. “He is too handsome for his own good; he has all the arrogance one would expect of a man of his position and wealth and looks; and he is a libertine,” She counted the points off on her fingers. “I hate him.”

The duke pursed his lips and raised his eyebrows. “I take it you have met the gentleman?” he asked.

“No,” she said, “and I have no wish to. But I have heard quite enough about him. You should just know the aristocracy as I know them, sir—always more concerned for their own consequence than anything else. Being the daughter of a viscount and the granddaughter of an earl has taught me a great deal. I can just imagine what being the wife of a duke would be like, especially the wife of the Duke of Mitford.” She spoke the name with great scorn.

“Ah,” the Duke of Mitford said.

“My Uncle Ermingford is worth every bit as much as any titled gentleman I have ever met,” she said, “even though he is a mere mister. Grandpapa did not even want my aunt to marry him at the time.”

“Ah,” he said. “I suppose I had better deliver you to Mr. and Mrs. Ermingford’s tomorrow, then, instead of into the clutches of your libertine duke.”

“You are very obliging,” she said. “I thank you.”

“In the meantime,” he said, looking about him in some distaste at the sodden wallpaper, two scattered heaps of broken china, and the source of the smell on the floor beside the bed, “you had better get some sleep, ma’am. And behind locked doors. You must exchange rooms with me, the lock being broken on this door.”

“You must have broken it, mustn’t you,” she said admiringly, “when you rushed to my rescue? You are quite splendidly brave, sir. I think that punch to the jaw would have killed me.”

The duke thought so too.

“But I hate to think of your having to sleep in here,” she said, wrinkling her nose again.

“Bring your valise, ma’am,” he said. “I shall see you safely into the next room and collect my own bag from there.”

“You are very kind,” she said, following his directions and preceding him from the room.

A delightful night he was going to spend, the Duke of Mitford thought, following her glumly out into the corridor. The wit downstairs must be in action again. The inn was fairly rocking with raucous laughter. There was the sound of heavy boots on the stairs behind him, denoting the arrival of yet another potentially noisy guest. And he was to sleep amidst broken china and spilled water and vomit, his unlocked door an open invitation to thieves and pick-pockets.

Some adventure, indeed.

And by some unfortunate coincidence he had met his prospective bride, a delightfully demure young lady who had taken to her heels with a scoundrel rather than stay and listen to his addresses. It seemed that the day had had nothing but humiliations to offer.

However, he must try to see the humorous side of it all. He would arrive back in London in a few days’ time a wiser man, but basically unscathed. He would deliver this untidy, pretty, and foolish young girl to her aunt’s the following day, drive on to Rutland Park to find her gone—he would greet that news with the haughtiest surprise—make his excuses for not awaiting her return, and effect his escape with Henry and his baggage and his restored consequence.

He would don his titles again for the return journey. Adventure was not all he had dreamed of its being. Better the dull world he knew than the far less comfortable one he had just glimpsed.

Miss Middleton turned to smile up at him—at least she was smiling
up
, he thought, and not down—as he leaned around her to open the door into his room. And then she hurtled against him, wrapped her arms about his neck—her valise crashed against his spine—and was kissing him with desperate passion before he could even begin to defend himself from attack.

She backed into the room, dragging him with her, and slammed the door shut with one foot. For a moment, he thought she was about to use her knee on him without the fair warning she had given to Mr. Porterhouse. But it seemed that she had merely wanted to ensure greater privacy for her passion.

Before he could decide whether to encircle her with his arms and surrender to the novelty of being ravished by an amorous female or to wrestle her arms to her sides and hold her firmly away from him while he lectured her on morality and decorum and feminine modesty, she released his mouth, though she still clung to his neck. Hot eyes—they were a darker, more interesting shade of gray than his own, he noticed irrelevantly—were wide and focused on his.

“Oh, Lord,” he said.

“Did you see who that was?” she hissed in a loud stage whisper. “Did you see?”

“Coming up the stairs?” he asked. “Not having eyes in the back of my head, I would have to say no, though I thought I recognized the landlord’s voice.”

“But you would not have known him anyway,” she said. “How could you?” Her eyes widened further, if that were possible. “It was Papa. He has come after me and found me out, though I left a note to say that I was riding to Aunt Winifred’s. He would have killed you if he had seen you with me.”

“Oh, Lord,” the duke said again.

“He didn’t see, though,” she said. “He was looking back over his shoulder when I spotted him, and then when I put myself right against you, he would not have been able to see me. Oh!” She flushed and released her hold of his neck. She brushed unnecessarily at the creases in his shirt. “I do beg your pardon, sir.”

“I hope for your sake that Porterhouse used false names when he took a room here,” Mitford said.

“I will wager he did,” she said. “But you must not go out there, sir. They must have seen the mess and destruction next door, and Papa will have drawn his own conclusions. If you go out of here and in there, he will kill you. I know he will.”

“But I cannot just stay here,” the duke said reasonably, turning to the door.

She grabbed his arm. “Yes, you can,” she said. “You can stay here where it is safe and keep me safe. For if you go in there and he kills you, he will then come looking for me. And he will scold dreadfully.”

“Perhaps you deserve a scolding,” he said. “And at least you will be safe with your father. All will be proper again. I should go and speak with him, ma’am.”

“Don’t,” she said, her eyes large and anxious and pleading. “He will take me back home, and I will have to marry the Duke of Mitford. He is coming tomorrow to ask me.”

The Duke of Mitford hesitated. Oh, Lord, yes, there was that. Sometimes propriety did not seem so very wise. He glanced down at the bare planks of the floor and at the one pillow and two blankets on the bed. He sighed.

“It is most dreadfully improper for us to stay here together,” he said, his words sounding to his ears like the understatement of the decade. But she recognized her victory immediately. Her face brightened and she whisked herself over to the washstand, where she deposited her valise.

“I shall sleep on the floor,” she said. “This is your bed, sir. You have paid for it. I shall not disturb you. I beg you to lie down if you are ready for sleep. I shall just wash my hands and face, if I may.”

Mitford gave the back of her head a speaking glance and did not deign to reply. He picked up his bag, lumpy with his shaving gear and a clean shirt, and tossed it against the wall beside the bed. He eyed the blankets again, noted their thinness, and reached regretfully for his greatcoat.

By the time Josephine had turned away from the washstand, he was lying down on the floor and covered up. “Good night, ma’am,” he said, resisting the impulse to groan. Hardness was one thing. Unevenness was going to be something else again to contend with.

“Oh,” she said, “you really should not, you know. I would not mind the floor in the least. You are very kind. Are you sure you will not have the pillow? But you really must have one of the blankets. Your coat does not cover you completely, and it will doubtless get cold later in the night. It usually does in October.”

Her face appeared over the edge of the bed, looking rosy again from the washcloth, and she dropped a blanket in a heap onto his stomach.

Mitford almost forgot his physical discomfort in the mental one. As he spread the blanket over his coat, he could hear shufflings and rustlings from the bed above him—the sounds of a young lady settling for sleep.

Good Lord, he had an unmarried young lady in his room at the inn, about to fall asleep on his bed. And he was still inside the room himself. And her father was also at the inn, doubtless breathing fire and brimstone and contemplating the murder of her abductor.

Good Lord! Had she said the night would be cold? He pushed back the coat and blanket to his waist. He was sweating just as if he were running in a tropical jungle.

And his temperature did not abate by even one degree when he remembered the recent sensation of warm and generous breasts pressed to his chest and a tiny waist beneath his hands, with the suggestion of very feminine hips below. And warm and soft lips. And an enticing feminine fragrance.

The duke pushed his blankets lower. He was not at all accustomed to dallying with females. The only woman he had ever touched was Eveline. And though he had learned a great deal under her tutorship and had taught himself and her a great deal more over the course of three years, nevertheless he had only ever practiced it all on one female. And she had been considerably larger boned than this girl. Besides, it was more than a year since he had touched anyone.

It seemed as if months or even years had passed since he had been lamenting the very tame nature of his great adventure, since he had been able to find nothing more exciting to do than contemplate the angle of his big toes.