Dancing with the Duke (7 page)

She was spiraling downward, drowning in twin
pools of darkness. The heat in the room seemed to increase as a
flush spread through her body. The seconds ticked by, seeming to
stretch into minutes.

Without another sound, the stranger’s eyes
closed again. She dragged in a shaky breath and shook off the
paralysis that had stolen over her. She could not, however, shake
off her sense of unease.

Her hands were still shaking when she dropped
the damp cloth into the basin. Pushing aside her trepidation, she
moved to the bottom of the bed to remove his boots. She hesitated
only a moment before placing one hand on the heel of the black
leather molded to his right leg and the other on his knee. A jolt
of awareness surged through her at the contact and she jerked back.
Her gaze flew to the stranger’s face, and she breathed a sigh of
relief when she saw he was still asleep. She would have died of
mortification if he’d seen her foolish reaction to touching
him.

She tugged off his boots before turning her
attention to removing his coat, but she knew her bravery did not
extend that far. Her bedcovers were already turned down and it took
only a couple of tugs to free them completely from under his legs.
Concentrating on the blankets and not on his form, she covered him
before exhaling the breath she’d been holding. Most of him was now
hidden from sight, but she found it impossible to ignore the keen
sense of awareness brought on by the knowledge that a very
attractive man now slept in her bed.

Trying to ignore the less than chaste
thoughts that rose, unbidden, to her mind, Louisa retrieved a
blanket for herself from the trunk at the foot of her bed and
settled into a chair to wait. When John returned from seeing to
their unexpected guest’s horse, he tried to insist on taking her
place, but if the stranger’s condition took a turn for the worse
John wouldn’t know what to do. He helped her to remove the man’s
coat and loosen his cravat before returning to his own room, but
only after extracting her promise to fetch him when the man
woke.

It was a long night. The stranger’s slumber
was restless, interrupted, at first, by frequent bouts of thrashing
and murmured words that were indecipherable. Eventually, he settled
into a deep sleep and she was able to close her eyes and get some
rest. She had just drifted off when a low moan woke her. She
struggled up from her cramped position in the armchair by the
bedside, and her blanket slid to the floor.

“Papa? Do you need anything?” she asked,
disoriented after being pulled from the middle of a strange
dream.

But the man lying in the bed, her bed, wasn’t
her father. She was confused for a moment before the memories
rushed back. After a year of failing health, her father had finally
succumbed to death six months before. She leaned back in the chair
and examined the stranger more closely in the faint morning light.
She hadn’t dreamt him after all.

The fire had long since gone out and she
shivered in the cool morning air. She picked up the blanket from
where it had fallen, wrapped it around her shoulders, and took the
few steps to the bed. Leaning forward, she laid a hand on the man’s
forehead and breathed a sigh of relief when she found his
temperature was normal.

She looked over at the window where the first
rays of morning light were already creeping over the horizon and
sighed softly. So much for a good night’s rest, she thought as she
began to work the kinks from her knotted muscles.

* * *

Nicholas Manning’s head was killing him, but
he was used to that. He raised a hand to rub at his temples, hoping
to massage away the pain. Unable to stop himself, his thoughts went
back to that time a few years ago, before his parents’ deaths.
They’d been content, their love still evident even after more than
thirty years of marriage. But then his father started complaining
of headaches and his health began to deteriorate rapidly. Nicholas
had spent most of his time in London, away from Overlea Manor, but
he’d witnessed his father’s strange moods and increasing surliness
on several occasions. Had witnessed how his father had pushed away
all who’d loved him before the accident that had taken both of his
parents’ lives.

He remembered, too, how his older brother had
developed the same mysterious ailment last year. An ailment that
had led to his death.

His father was sixty when he’d first started
complaining about headaches. His brother’s attacks had started much
earlier, at the age of thirty-two, and his illness had progressed
more quickly. Nicholas was only twenty-eight, but he could no
longer ignore the fact he was now showing signs of suffering from
that same disease.

Pushing back his grim thoughts, he opened his
eyes and squinted against the bright light streaming through the
window. He began to sit up but froze when he took in the unfamiliar
surroundings.

Vague images filtered back to him, most of
them featuring a blond-haired, gray-eyed woman hovering over him.
He frowned, trying to remember what had happened the night before,
but his memory eluded him.

He surveyed the room around him. Where was
he? Not in his London townhouse. He remembered receiving a letter
from his grandmother the day before. While not unusual, his
grandmother’s letters were rare enough to make him wary since she
never bothered him with good news.

He closed his eyes and concentrated on the
memory. He’d arrived home yesterday afternoon, and a footman had
presented him with the letter. He remembered wondering what bad
news he was about to read as he proceeded to his study and threw
the letter on the desk. He’d poured himself a brandy before picking
up the letter again and breaking the seal.

And that was all. Try as he might, he
couldn’t remember what his grandmother had written. Nor could he
remember anything after that. He must have read the letter. He
always did. He’d learned long ago there was no point in putting off
bad news.

He opened his eyes at the sound of the door
opening to find a woman standing there. Could this be the woman he
remembered hovering over him last night? She was younger than he’d
thought, not yet twenty if his guess was correct. Her long blond
hair, tousled from sleep, trailed over her shoulders.

He frowned. Had he spent the night with her?
He must have been truly out of his head, because he didn’t usually
dally with girls who were barely out of the schoolroom.

She was rubbing the sleep from her eyes when
she entered. When her gaze met his, she froze. Her eyes were blue
and wide with shock. Then, to his surprise, she opened her mouth
and screamed.

Well, this was different. He’d made many
women shriek in his day, but usually with pleasure.

Regency Erotic Romance

Excerpt

A proper widow. A rakish marquess. He rescued
her from thieves, but will she be able to save him from
himself?

When Violet Laurens is rescued from
highwaymen, the furthest thing from her mind is that her heart
might tumble next. She loves her independent life, no matter her
lonely bed. The handsome stranger reawakens the passion she thought
buried along with her husband, pushing her to new heights of
desire. But she knows it’s only a matter of time before he
remembers his name and leaves her.

The dissolute Marquess of Kittrick has vowed
never to marry, causing a rift in his family that sets him on the
road just in time to do battle with ruffians intent on stealing a
lady’s coins — and more. Discovering the fiery wanton beneath the
widow’s oh-so-proper demeanor makes him want nothing more than to
forget who he is for just a bit longer. Maybe forever.

When Kit is forced to acknowledge who he is,
will the truth trump their shared passion, and the love they can’t
quite admit to? Or will Violet overcome her fear — and Kit his
dissolute ways — and be able to lay claim to A Marquess for
Christmas?

“He still sleeps fitfully, my lady.” Avery
put his hand to the man’s head. “A little warm. We should get some
ice and keep his temperature down.”

“And you have checked his bandages?” The
bleeding had stopped, but the chance of infection was high. She
stood by the four poster bed, looking down at her savior, who lay
still and quiet, despite the people in the room.

“Yes, the wound is not healed, but neither is
it as gruesome as it was yesterday.”

“And he has not awoken?”

“He tosses and murmurs and has managed the
chamber pot a couple of times, but he does not speak and his eyes
are glazed and unfocused.”

It had been two days since the incident. She
prayed it was the laudanum keeping him so dazed and not his injury.
But they could not be sure yet.

“If he does not awaken in the next day or
two, we shall have to fetch Doctor Littleton. For now, let us keep
him cool and make sure that someone checks on him every hour.”

Violet went to the window and opened it. The
sky was cloudy and the ground covered with a thin layer of snow.
“The fresh, cool air should do him good.” She rang the bell then
went back to the bed and sat down. The man’s hands felt hot under
hers, but she raised them to her cheek to be sure. Definitely too
warm.

“My lady?” Miriam entered the room.

“Go and fetch some ice please. If there’s no
ice, send a footman outside and gather snow. We need to keep him
cool until his fever breaks.”

She leaned over to the small bedside table,
dipped a cloth into a small ceramic basin, and wrung it out. “I
will see to him for a while, Avery.” She looked up at him and
smiled. “Thank you.”

Gently, she took the cloth and wiped the
man’s face, always conscious of the bandage. She hummed as she
worked. It was a very old song that she’d learned as a girl.
Sometimes her mother would sing it as she stitched.

“Come live with me and be my love and we will
all the pleasures prove. The hill and valley, dale and field, and
all the craggy mountains yield.”

She washed his arms, noting each twist and
turn of muscle. She even tested it with her finger to see if it was
as firm as it appeared. Nothing about him was soft — except for his
lips and the silky threads of his hair.

She brushed the towel over his neck and down
to the exposed skin at the opening of his tunic. The hair there was
thin and fine. She couldn’t help but stare as she swept over his
chest. His nipples were wide, but tightened into little nubs when
she touched them.

What would it feel like to run her palms over
them? Would they react to her as they did to the damp cloth? What
about her mouth?

Violet turned away and blushed. She closed
her eyes and willed herself to remember him fighting off the thief
and the moment when he’d taken the fateful blow. She needed to
focus on her task and not on the yearnings she felt for a man she
barely knew.

She might be fantasizing about a man of base
morals or a man with a wife and four children. Or what if he was a
clergyman? That she doubted considering his skill with weapons and
his readiness to fight, but what gentleman would watch an innocent
woman get attacked by thieves and not come to her rescue?

A man does what needs must. Even a man of the
cloth will take up a pistol if his life or his country demanded it.
She had seen boys barely old enough to carry a gun with gaping
holes in their chest and villages ravaged and burned in the
war.

And this man would die like the rest if she
did not do her duty to him. He’d saved her and now she must do the
same for him.

With such thoughts distracting her, she
didn’t realize she’d paused her singing until she heard a low,
gravelly voice.

“Sing.”

She looked down to see dark eyes watching
her.

“You are awake!”

“Sing,” he repeated, but he’d barely finished
the word when a ragged cough took over his body.

“A belt of straw and ivy buds, with coral
clasps and amber studs, and if these pictures may thee move, come
live with me and —”

“Be my love.” His voice was hoarse, even more
than she expected for someone who’d slept for two days. She lifted
from the bed to pour water from the pitcher into a cup.

When she lifted the cup to his lips, he
coughed and it dribbled down his chin. “Easy.” They tried again,
but still, most of the water ended up down his chest. His tunic
absorbed the excess liquid and clung tightly to his body, so she
could see every line and curve. His nipples hardened again.

“Let me try this another way,” she said. This
time, she dipped her fingers into the cup and let the water drip
into his mouth.

He opened wide for more. She leaned closer,
her bosom near his face, and poured more water from her
fingers.

After the third time, he put her two fingers
to his lips and sucked them. A flash of heat shot through her
limbs. If she’d been standing, she would have faltered and lost her
balance.

His mouth was hot and she suspected it had
little to do with his fever.

“More,” he whispered. He stared at her and
she could not move, could not speak.

There was a knock behind them and that jolted
her out of her frozen state. Miriam stood in the doorway with ice
and more water. The man groaned.

She motioned for the maid to come in. As soon
as the girl was close, Violet took a tiny chip of ice and put it in
the man’s mouth.

The ice would help his thirst, but she also
was afraid for him to speak. The need in his eyes was too real, too
close to the desire that she felt. But he was a stranger. A
beautiful, dark, bewitching stranger who had risked his life for
her, yet she knew almost nothing about him.

A fact that she could remedy. No. What was
she thinking? He was wounded, disoriented, and who knows if he
mistook her for his wife or some mistress. A sharp pang twisted in
her gut. Did he have a mistress? She’d already considered that he
could be married, but she hadn’t thought about the possibility of a
mistress.