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Authors: Ashley March

BOOK: Seducing the Duchess
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Her mouth remained closed, but her eyes demanded an answer to her unspoken question:
why do you not go away?
He couldn’t tell her.
Their gazes were locked and the silence between them seemed to drown out the gay, chaotic noises of the fair around them. It was a rare intimate moment, but he couldn’t tell her the truth.
That he wouldn’t go away because he could not, that he needed her, that the very air around her was sweeter because she breathed it.
And in that moment, even though neither of them moved, he could feel the distance he had closed over the past few days growing wider. The sounds of the fair slowly crept back into his consciousness, until he was just a man and she was just a woman in the crowded mass of people.
And he couldn’t stand for her to think of him as just another man.
Desperately, as though caught in some mad fever, Philip turned. He glanced around, searching for something, anything—although he didn’t know what.
And then he saw it. A group of dancers, caught in the fading dusk. Firelight flung their shadows across the gathered circle of observers. Sweat and pleasure flickered over the dancers’ faces—some round, some gaunt, others young and old.
This wasn’t a London ball, with its waltzes and quadrilles. The attendees weren’t guests selected by special invitation; here there were no rules about whom one danced with, or even what sort of dancing was allowed.
All that mattered was that your feet moved in time to the sprightly notes flying off the fiddle, and that you didn’t stop.
Philip stared in fascination. Except for the men who had been recipients of Charlotte’s favor, he had never before been so envious of anyone.
And yet there was the irony; for despite all of his wealth and status and supposed happiness in this world, he could not remember ever before feeling as
alive
as those dancers appeared.
No, not quite. He had felt alive before. Every single time he was with
her
.
Philip turned toward Charlotte. She was also looking at the dancers, the light from the fire shadowing her face and highlighting the delicate curve of her neck, the ivory slope of her shoulder.
Then, as if drawn by his gaze, she turned to him. And even though the blaze was nearly behind her now, he could see little sparks of blue fire reflected in her irises—an invitation which he doubted she even knew she issued.
He extended his hand, palm upward.
“May I have this dance, Your Grace?”
 
Charlotte was two and twenty years old. Old enough to know the dangers of the world, and experienced enough to feel herself leaning toward doing something entirely foolish.
And though she usually delighted in doing foolish things, she was also a creature of self-preservation.
She knew, as thoroughly as she knew the many quirks of her husband’s smile, that to dance with Philip would be a mistake. Not only because she already felt more vulnerable in his presence than he had a right to make her feel, but also because she had never,
never
thought once in her life that she would hear Philip Burgess, the ninth Duke of Rutherford, ask to dance with her at a country fair.
It was unfathomable. Completely plebeian. Coarse. Common. Vulgar.
Exactly like her, and nothing like him.
And yet the foolish part of her—oh, there were so
many
foolish parts when it came to Philip—refused to allow him to retract the offer.
If Philip chose to lower himself to the level of the masses, to kick up the same dust as maids and farmers and wheelwrights, then she would be there to ensure he didn’t change his mind.
That was the reason why she laid her hand firmly over his, performed a small curtsy, and answered, “Why, of course, Your Grace.”
Not
out of any particular desire to dance with him. And certainly not because she wished to allay the awkwardness between them which had arisen moments before.
Perhaps—and here she was willing to admit this bit of spitefulness was part of her self-preservation—he would dance poorly and make an utter fool of himself.
Smiling a bit to herself and ignoring the warmth creeping from his hand to hers, then up her forearm to her elbow and beyond, she allowed him to lead her toward the dancing.
Some people in the crowd around the dancers were like her, straining toward the music, their toes tapping anxiously as they hummed along. And though they were fewer, there were also some like Philip: steady, silent, unmoving as they watched the performance with rapt attention.
The music ended with a hearty cheer from both the dancers and the observers, and those nearest the open circle quickly jumped in to claim their places. Since she and Philip stood near the middle of the crowd, they were required to wait again.
The main fiddler—a short, squat man with a bald head and a bushy beard that took up nearly half his face—bowed to the onlookers and then to the newest round of dancers. He lowered his head over the bow and began to draw out a few long, melancholy notes—the beginning of a ballad, or a dirge, but definitely not a reel.
He halted, raised his head expectantly, and in a chorus of voices, the dancers and the crowd around them heckled him, hollering for a “nice tune, Billy.”
Charlotte cupped her hands around her mouth and joined in, whooping a time or two.
Then, with a wink and a grin which turned his eyes into little half-moons, Billy lowered his head again. This time, however, once his hand drew the bow dramatically across the strings in a prolonged prelude, the music immediately dissolved into a fierce, frantic pulsing of melody.
And almost as quickly, the dancers began to move their feet, anxious to keep the pace of the fiddle.
It was a breathless moment, the kind that froze one in place with wonder: the music and the swirl of colorful skirts and the flashing of firelight and shadows, dark and light merging together, then separating in an almost hypnotic cadence.
She didn’t know what caused her to look at Philip. A slight shift of his body, or a brushing of his sleeve perhaps. But she lifted her gaze to his profile and traced each feature slowly, one by one, from the wing of his brow to the hard jut of his chin.
He was utterly still, his face a stark plane devoid of emotion as he stared at the dancers. A keen disappointment swept through Charlotte as she watched him. It was ridiculous for him to affect her so, but part of her joy in the night was now diminished because he didn’t share in it.
Sighing at her own foolishness, Charlotte touched his arm, resigned to beckon him away. Certainly by now he had changed his mind about dancing with her.
Yet when he turned toward her, every thought of leaving fled her mind. It was his eyes. When she had looked at his profile, she had not been able to see the expression in his eyes.
They are gray,
a little voice inside her scoffed. The same voice that had saved her through the torment in those early days, the one that kept her safe, distanced. The reasonable, pragmatic voice.
Gray, gray, gray.
But another voice swiftly dismissed the dry summarization.
Silver eyes. Hot silver eyes, molten with passion. Not of desire, not of lust, but passion for
life
. It was as if everything she felt while watching the dancers was magnified ten times over—the excitement, the joy, the pleasure.
And she couldn’t look away. Her gaze locked with his, and though neither spoke a word, a measure of understanding seemed to pass between them.
It was almost physical, the touch of his eyes. As if she could feel him prying, prodding, searching her.
Charlotte took a deep breath, tried to remind herself that this was
Philip
, and surely he couldn’t understand anything about her. Perhaps he thought the dancing was pretty, but that did not mean he knew
her
.And then . . . and
then
—
Dear God, he smiled. A languid, radiant curve of a smile, and Charlotte couldn’t help but return it. And as they stood there facing one another,
smiling
, Charlotte wished for her reasonable, pragmatic voice to return. To berate her for allowing him to pierce her vulnerability, for letting herself respond to him. Not in a seductive manner, but in every other way, in every way that counted.
God
damn
him and his silver eyes.
She was the first to look away, her emotions far too unsteady and tangled. She would not give him the pleasure of seeing her discomposure.
The music was ending, the dancers performing their final steps.
“Charlotte.” His voice was a quiet beckoning. A command spoken softly, but a command nonetheless.
At the sudden cheer of the crowd, she turned blindly toward him and grabbed his hand. “Come,” she urged, pulling him forward to the front of the spectators. “It’s our turn to dance.”
For a few minutes at least, there would be no time to talk, no time for him to stare into her eyes and search for her secrets.
When they entered the circle cleared for dancing, Charlotte released his hand and walked to the line where the other women stood.
The fiddler raised his arms in the air, the signal that the music was about to begin.
Charlotte dipped her knees in a deep curtsy and bent her head. When the women straightened, the men responded by bowing.
Philip arched a brow, a slight smirk on his lips, and Charlotte gave him a saucy grin.
Only he did not see her grin. Or if he did, he thoroughly ignored it. Instead, his focus shifted over her shoulder, somewhere to the right of where she stood. The first strains of the reel began. But again, the fiddler teased the crowd, turning it into a melancholy piece.
Charlotte leaned to the right, tried to catch Philip’s eye, but his brow had lowered and his lips had thinned, and he seemed to look right through her. She frowned. Surely he wasn’t going to change his mind, not at the very last moment.
Yet as the people around them raised their voices to encourage the fiddler to play properly, that’s exactly what he did.
Among the hoarse shouts and piercing whistles, Philip slipped out of line. Without a backward glance in her direction, he pivoted on his heel and disappeared.
 
Charlotte walked toward the woods between Ruthven Manor and Sheffield House.
She had waited for the rain. The darkening clouds had teased her at the fair, and on their return to Ruthven Manor, a few fat droplets spattered against the carriage window. The sound hadn’t been near enough to drown out the overbearing silence, yet it was the only reason she had for staring outside instead of meeting her husband’s brooding silver gaze.
Now the rain cascaded over her. Long, cool rivulets of water streamed down her face, plastering her hair to her head, her clothes to her skin. Her feet made little squishing noises as she neared the edge of the woods, the place where civilized manicured lawns were swallowed whole by the untamed wilderness.
She loved the rain.
She refused to think of it as some sort of solace, though. She needed no solace, no refuge, for she had no grief, nothing to run from. The rain simply . . . was. It never demanded anything from her, never toyed with her emotions. She never had to pretend with the rain, never had to lie or manipulate.
A swell of water rushed over her brow and into her eye, and Charlotte stumbled. Her vision blurred, she threw out her hand and found the crisp, rough edge of bark.
“Damn it to bloody hell.” The curse was empty in its bitterness, for she felt no pain at all, but it certainly made her feel better. And so she cursed again. “Damn. Damn. Bloody. Bloody—” And then, for some inexplicable reason, she began to laugh.
And then to cry.
She tried to convince herself it was just the rain, the lovely, wonderful rain, but she couldn’t deny that her lips were crumpled up and the rain certainly wasn’t causing her brows to pull so hard together.
Charlotte fisted her hand and swung at the tree trunk. “God da—Ow! Bloody
hell
!”
It was a foolish thing to do, to try to inflict pain on such a hard, solid object, when her husband’s equally hard head was the source of her—
Charlotte sank to the ground, her back against the tree.
Her what? Anger?
She halted another sniffle. Sadness?
Her eyes closed, and images of Philip’s face flashed in her memory. Expressions of joy, curiosity, eagerness, all wiped away by that mask of nothingness. Blank, bland ennui.
Philip would never dare to venture out into the rain. He would never understand why anyone would prefer to be chilled to the bone and have their skin shrivel from the damp when they could instead be warm and dry in front of a fire.
Why had she thought he’d changed?
Perhaps he’d been nice a few times, but that couldn’t erase the years of apathy and arrogance. Tonight had proven that.

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