The Confessions of a Duchess (29 page)

Miles’s lips were cool and firm against her own, the kiss gentle and yet terrifying for its irresistible undertone of wicked danger. Alice understood instinctively that here was a man who knew exactly what he was doing, a ruthless rake who was treating her gently not because he was kind but because he was calculating the best way to seduce her.

Miles gently parted her lips and she felt his tongue touch the corner of her mouth with the most featherlight and temptingly soft touch. She opened her lips beneath his after only the slightest hesitation, and kissed him back. She thought that she should perhaps push him away but she was honest enough to admit to herself that she did not want to. It was very pleasant to be kissed in the moonlight by a man who was an absolute expert. Or perhaps pleasant did not quite cover the situation. It was utterly delightful.

When Miles finally let her go she felt shaken and weak at the knees. She glanced up at him and thought she saw a look of blank shock in his eyes. It was only there for a fleeting moment and then his expression became completely impassive. She had no idea what he was thinking. Perhaps she had done it all wrong. Perhaps she was hopeless at kissing. She could not tell. What she
did
know was that she should never have got herself into this situation in the first place. One of the lessons she
had
learned as a servant girl was to avoid dangerous rakes.

“Are you all right, Miss Lister?” Miles asked, and once again Alice felt that insidious tug of attraction that undermined all her defenses.

He truly cares…

“I am quite well,” she said, although that was not really an accurate reflection of her feelings. “If that is your idea of seeing me safely home,” she added, “I think that I should finish the journey alone.”

Miles’s grim expression lifted slightly and he almost smiled.

“Perhaps you should,” he said.

Alice walked away from him, controlling the instinct that made her want to turn to look back. Even though she could not see him she was aware that he stood watching until she reached the garden door and the thought that he was indeed taking care of her almost melted her guarded heart.

You are a fool, Alice Lister,
she told herself, for she knew Miles Vickery’s very skill lay in persuading her that it was her person and not her money he was interested in. Yet she was afraid that for all her stern common sense, she was falling in love with him.

DEXTER STOOD
under the pump in the courtyard of the Morris Clown Inn and shivered as the cold water cascaded over his head and down his body, soaking his shirt and chilling him to the bone. It was so cold that it hurt, and the autumn wind that was blowing down from the fells made him shiver all the more. But he had wanted this. He needed the clarity of mind that this coldness brought with it.

The previous night he had told Laura he would make her an offer of marriage.

Triumphant in his possession of her, full of raw masculine satisfaction that she had loved him, whether she had denied it or not, and exultant that she was wholly his, he had been determined to claim her publicly as his own. He wanted her and he was going to have her.

He was certainly not going to climb out the window like a thief and scuttle off to leave her to face the consequences. Since he seemed unable to control his passion for her he would tame it within marriage. It was a sensible solution.

One sleepless night later, the demons of poverty and fear were on his back again, flaying him alive for his wanton lack of self-control. If he could not persuade Laura to keep the money Henry Cole wished to settle on her then he would be throwing away the chance of making an advantageous marriage. He would be letting down his family. And all because those wayward urges that had ruined his parents’ lives were now threatening to play havoc with his own.

He thought back to the previous night and the moment in their lovemaking when Laura had begged him not to stop, not to leave her. From the moment he had first kissed her he had been so shaken by the blaze of their passion that it had taken every last ounce of his strength to restrain his desire for her. Nevertheless, he knew in his heart that he could still have ended it before it was too late, even though it would almost have killed him to cease at that particular point. He remembered clearly that although his mind had been clouded with pleasure and his body had clamored for satisfaction there had a been a moment—two moments, in fact—when he had stopped to think about what he was doing. He had to acknowledge that and to take responsibility. But he had been reckless. He had made the deliberate choice to continue because he had not wanted to stop. Making love to Laura had been as exquisitely pleasurable as he had remembered it. There had been the same sense of completion, of rightness, that he always felt when he was with her. He had thought that he had wanted to break the hold she had over him, but what he had really wanted was to take her and bind her to him forever and claim her as his alone. Each time he made love to her was more intense than the last. He could not make his craving for her cease and to think that he could was futile.

He disliked feeling like this. It was irrational and unhelpful. It reinforced for him how traitorous and untrustworthy physical passion could be. The feelings unleashed in him the previous night had been dangerously close to what he had felt four years before when he had loved Laura with such abandonment. It was easy to see how an impressionable young man might mistake lust for love. Dexter never again wanted to lose his control and his self-respect, lose his
way,
as he had done in his youthful madness. It was too close to the reckless excesses of his parents.

He shuddered under the stream of cold water. In truth it was too late. He had already lost his way. He had failed to exercise sufficient restraint. He had made love to Laura and they had been caught. She might argue that she was no schoolroom miss to lose her reputation, but the truth was that a man of honor—a status that he was hanging on to by the skin of his teeth—was obliged to make her an offer of marriage. If he did not he would be a cad of the first order and, on a more terminal note, her cousin would call him out and try to kill him.

Marrying Laura had clear benefits. He not only wanted her in his bed, but in some way he did not quite understand he knew that he also needed her warmth and openness in his life. He knew that in his determination to be responsible he could also be too serious.

Laura teased him out of that, though there was a danger that such frivolity could go too far.

In his heart of hearts he was not sure that he wanted to live without the sense of completeness she brought to him. To lose her would feel as though a part of him was missing. It would feel as though he had carelessly thrown away something that made him whole.

But such thoughts were not helpful. He shook his head angrily. To think like this was impractical. He had to admit that to marry Laura ran contrary to all his plans. She was not the heiress he had intended to wed. Although she was now a lot wealthier than he had realized, he knew that she planned to refuse the money the new duke insisted on settling on her and knowing Laura, she would do precisely that. She certainly could not offer him a calm and undemanding life. She was no biddable wife. If he made her an offer of marriage he would be throwing his future into the very turmoil he had sworn always to avoid. It would be reckless and dangerous. Downright irresponsible. He would be letting down those who relied on him to secure a fortune. He did not want to take that risk.

He stepped out from under the pump.

“A word with you, Anstruther.”

Dexter rubbed the water from his eyes and opened them to see Miles Vickery holding a towel out to him. It was not exactly a conciliatory gesture; Miles looked as though he would rather punch him. His face was tense, his hazel eyes, so like Laura’s own, were hard.

Looking at him, Dexter wondered suddenly whether he had permanently forfeited the good opinion of one of his oldest friends through his behavior the previous night. If he had, he could hardly blame Miles for it. If someone had seduced Annabelle or Caro he would kill him.

He took the towel and rubbed hard at his hair. “I know you want to hit me again, or worse,” he said, when Miles did not speak for a moment. “I would feel the same in your position. What I did was indefensible.”

Miles’s tight expression eased a notch. “I can scarcely blame a man for acting the rake when I do so myself,” he admitted, “but even so…”

“But even so you would not have acted the rake with my cousin.” This time Miles almost smiled. “No,” he said. “I hope I would not, although…” He shrugged. “Well, actually, I probably would have done. But I thought you were the better man.”

“And now you know I am not,” Dexter said.

Miles squared his shoulders. “Do you really mean to make Laura an offer, Anstruther?”

Dexter stopped. “It would be the honorable thing to do,” he said slowly.

“For God’s sake do not propose out of chivalry,” Miles said. “If this is just a casual affair for you then I would ask you to do the decent thing and end it. I will never speak of what happened nor, I am sure, would Miss Lister. Laura’s reputation would be safe.” Then, as Dexter looked at him in astonishment, he said with difficulty, “Laura deserves better than this, Anstruther. She has already been trapped in one unhappy marriage. She deserves someone who truly loves her, utterly, completely and forever. So finish this. Then you can marry Miss Cole for her money as you originally desired, or you can find another heiress, and Laura can find someone who will genuinely love her.” A rueful smile touched Miles’s mouth. “I doubt Laura would accept you, anyway. You heard what she said last night. She has no more wish to be compromised into marriage than you really have to offer it.”

He walked off leaving Dexter wondering if it were possible to feel any more dishonorable than he already did. Miles had put the situation in stark terms. He was suggesting that Dexter abandon Laura now in order to resume his carefully planned strategy of marrying Lydia for her money. Dexter’s integrity revolted at what that would make him.

Did the phrase
callous, fortune-hunting philanderer
cover the situation or was that too generous? And yet if he was to achieve his original intention of a convenient marriage, that was exactly what he had to do.

Finish this. She deserves someone who truly loves her…

Dexter did not believe in a love like that anymore. He did not want to. Love like that had to be dangerous, leading a man into all kinds of ill-considered actions. To love someone utterly, completely and forever, as Miles had said, would be extraordinary. He had never seen an all-consuming love like that, certainly not on the part of his parents, whose loves had been as undiscriminating as they had been frequent. He was not even sure that such a love could exist. But even if true love did exist, Dexter was not sure it was worth the risk. It was certainly not the way he felt for Laura. He wanted her with a passion, but that was surely a matter of physical possession only.

On that basis he should perhaps do as Miles suggested and step aside so that Laura could find love with another man. As soon as the thought formed in his mind—and it was an entirely rational thought based on a logical sequence of ideas—he realized that he did not like it. In point of fact he had a large problem with it. Specifically he had a problem with any other man marrying Laura, or making love to Laura, or even being within a radius of six feet of Laura. She was his. He wanted her. He needed her. And he certainly was not going to let any other man have her.

The primitive fury of his possessiveness shocked him even as he recognized that it was part and parcel of all those other turbulent emotions that Laura aroused in him. He thought again of his parents, led astray time and again by the type of uncontrollable lust that he felt for Laura now. It was not a sound basis for marriage. They had proved that with their infidelities and their affairs. He did not want to risk going down the same road. Yet he was already halfway down it. And if Laura had conceived his child in that mad, reckless moment last night then he had repeated all his parents’ mistakes. The thought brought him out in a hot sweat even as the last drops of the cold pump water still trickled down between his shoulder blades. No child of his would suffer the slights that he and his siblings had throughout their life. He would not permit a child of his to be in ignorance of their true parentage nor to have any doubt cast on their good name.

He went inside to find a clean set of clothes and prepare to set out to meet Laura, all the time mulling over the terrifying contrast in the paths now before him. He could sacrifice his honor by telling Laura that whatever was between them was at an end and then make his bloodless, passionless marriage to Lydia or another heiress. Then he would run the risk of being twice the scoundrel he already was if Laura gave birth to his child out of wedlock.

Alternatively he could sacrifice all his plans for security and fortune and offer for Laura. He would have her and all the wild passion that was between them but he would have no money and no security, he would not have the steady life he craved, and if the desire between them died he would be left with nothing at all. He had to make a choice and he had very little time in which to decide now.

He rode out of the village past the huge bonfire that the children were busy constructing for the celebration of Guy Fawkes Night in the field by the river. The track to Fortune Hill wound upward between walls of gray stone. Pastureland gave way to bracken and heather, turning bronze and gold in the autumn sun, and he rode higher until the whole of the village and the river and valley beyond were spread out before him. The wind was keen in his face.

He saw Laura as his horse breasted the rise at the top of Fortune Hill. He had expected her to be on horseback and maybe even to have brought a groom not so much for propriety’s sake but as a defensive gesture. However, she was alone. She had tied up her horse, a beautiful highly bred chestnut with a white flash that he recognized, ruefully, from his one encounter with the Glory Girls, and was seated on a pile of stones from the tumbledown wall. She was staring pensively across the valley to the far fells. She was wearing a riding jacket in deep rust red that matched the fallen autumn leaves.