The Duke's Holiday (20 page)

The Duke turned his attention to Sir Wesley, whose head
kept snapping between Astrid, the Duke, and Alice in confusion. “And you,
Mr. Honeywell
, have you any objections
to turning your
sisters
over into my
keeping? You must be as anxious to see them off your hands as I am.”

Wesley sputtered his response.

“Mr. Honeywell? Sisters?” Lady Emily barked. “Benwick, why
is he calling you Mr. Honeywell? What deviltry is going on here?”

“I … I couldn’t say, moth – Lady Emily – er,
mother. That is … I
can
say, with all
honesty, that I’ve quite lost the thread of the proceedings,” Wesley finished
resignedly.

“Of course you have,” the Duke said indulgently. He turned
to Lady Emily. “Thank you, madam, for providing me with such a detailed
accounting of your niece’s wayward behavior. I was undecided, before I sat down
at this table, whether to pursue my course of action. But you have made it so
abundantly clear how dire the situation is. I thank you for making up my mind.”

“Yes, well …” Lady Emily trailed off, clearly defeated.

He threw down his napkin and rose.

Everyone at the table was obliged to do the same, except
for Aunt Anabel, who was still asleep in her pudding. “Commend me to your chef,
madam. Now that it is all settled, I think I shall have that glass of port,
Mr. Honeywell
.”

“Certainly,” Wesley blustered.

Lady Emily knew when she had been dismissed. With a sniff,
she turned and walked stiffly out of the dining room, followed by Davina. Alice
trailed behind reluctantly, throwing a despairing glance at Astrid.

Astrid remained where she was, eyes locked with the Duke.
He seemed as determined as she not to break the stare.

His lips slowly lifted at the edges. He was well-pleased with
himself, having managed to simultaneously slay two dragons this evening. He had
routed Aunt Emily, but he had trampled Astrid in the process.

She did not feel at all guilty when she took a spoonful of
her syllabub and flicked it across the table at him. It landed with a plop
against his cravat.

His smile only deepened as the viscous substance slithered
down his waistcoat.

She hadn’t needed Ant and Art after all. She turned to her
younger siblings, who were looking quite confused at having to leave their
puddings – which they had combined together to form a bulbous-looking
figure of a man – and bid them to accompany her to the drawing room.

They left Aunt Anabel to her own fate.

AN
HOUR later, Astrid found herself blessedly alone in the drawing room. She
poured herself a sherry and sat back in her seat. She found no enjoyment in the
liquor, only a slight easing of tension in her muscles after a very trying day.

Aunt Emily had left the castle in high dudgeon after
dinner, Davina huffing along at her side, the vicar stuttering apologies at
everyone, as if
he
had ruined the
evening. Astrid had been spared having to endure sitting with them in the
drawing room, which was a small mercy, but she knew that one day her aunt would
make her pay for tonight’s insults. It was not a comforting thought.

However, at present, her Lady Aunt was the least of her
problems. The Duke had been quite serious over dinner, of that she hadn’t a
doubt, yet she still couldn’t quite believe her ears. A Season!

She would have rather gone to the gaol.

What the devil could he mean by sponsoring a Season for
them?

Well, perhaps in Alice’s case, it was welcome news. It was
what Alice had always wanted, acquiring a little Town Bronze, as they called
it. As the Duke had implied, Lady Emily had been too hateful and greedy to ever
give them a come-out. Astrid had never minded for herself, but she had always
thought it had not been well done of her aunt to slight Alice when she had come
of age. Astrid knew that this was partly on account of Alice’s beauty, of which
her aunt and cousin were jealous. Davina showed to disadvantage next to her
cousin.

Anyone
showed to
disadvantage next to Alice.

Astrid was not against the idea of sending Alice to London,
if it was what her sister wanted. But as for herself, it was out of the
question. She was six and twenty. She was unattractive, sharp-tongued, and
firmly set against matrimony. If the Duke thought he was going to make her
leave Rylestone, he had quite another thing coming. He’d have to physically subdue
her. Which meant he’d have to catch her first, hog-tie her for transport to
London, and put a gun to her head, before she’d agree to step foot in a London drawing
room.

She was not going to do it, and it was as simple as that.

But as she sipped her sherry, tentacles of dread worked up
her spine. No amount of alcohol was going to banish them, for the fact of the
matter was the Duke held all of the cards, and he knew it. There were other
ways of hog-tying a person other than with rope. There were subtler means of
exerting his will. He could snap his fingers and have the whole Yorkshire
constabulary – minus Hiram, of course – descend upon Rylestone to
arrest her, for one.

She sighed and leaned her head wearily against the chair
back.

She’d known it was always going to end in defeat. She only
wished she’d had just a little more time.

“Astrid! There you are! I’ve been looking everywhere for
you. We must talk!”

Astrid lifted her head and wearily surveyed the intruder. Sir
Wesley, flushed, rumpled, and agitated. Astrid barely contained a groan.

“Was His Grace serious about taking you and Alice to
London?” he demanded.

“It seems so.”

Wesley looked astonished, vexed. “When were you going to
tell me?”

“I did not know there was anything to tell until tonight.”

Astrid rose and went to refill her empty glass. Two
sherries were bordering on indecent, but she felt she required extra
fortification.

Wesley paced in front of her, pulling at his hair. “But
this is ridiculous! Utterly mad!”

“Isn’t it?” she asked between deep gulps.

“You have no need for a Season, nor Alice.”

Astrid grunted her agreement and decided to top off her
glass one more time before returning to her seat.

“If the Duke wants you wed so much, then we’ll just have to
push up the date of our nuptials.”

Astrid choked on her drink so badly it went up and out of
her nose. She glanced at Wesley in shock. “Excuse me?”

“Our wedding,” he said as if she were daft. “We’ll just
have to do it sooner rather than later.”

“Wesley, I never agreed to marry you.”

Wesley brushed aside this fact with a wave of his hand. “Of
course you’re going to marry me, Astrid. We’ve been practically betrothed since
the cradle.”

“I was unaware of this betrothal.”

Wesley looked at her beseechingly. He grabbed her hand.
“Come now, we’ve always known we would wed. I never pressed it before in the
past, because I knew you weren’t ready, and there was my mother…”

“Wesley …”

“But now the Duke has come and threatened such an … absurd
… proposition as to send you to London, I can see no solution but our marriage.
It is logical, and it is prudent.”

Astrid could see neither logic nor prudence in the plan.
She loved her cousin, but she would not marry him. No one would benefit from
such an arrangement.

And there was no way on God’s green earth she was going to
have Aunt Emily for a mother in law. She’d rather …

She’d rather have a Season in London than that.

So there
was
something worse than the Duke’s proposition, after all.

“Wesley, I’m not marrying you.”

“Nonsense,” he said, taking the glass from her hands and
setting it on a table. Then he caught her off guard by putting his hands on her
waist and pulling her near.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m going to kiss you,” he said as if speaking to a child.
“Then we’ll see about your answer.”

“I was unaware you had proposed.”

Wesley scowled. “Come on, Astrid. You’ll see I’m right in a
moment.”

“I am not going to … oh, stuff!” she managed just before
his lips clamped onto hers.

His lips were warm, soft and wet. She could taste the
sweetness of his port and pudding on them. The sensation of his lips covering
hers was not unpleasant, but neither was it particularly remarkable. Astrid had
read a lot of poetry. She knew what physical raptures kisses were said to be
capable of producing, but she felt none of that. Either every poet since Homer
had been guilty of gross misrepresentation, or Wesley was simply not capable of
provoking such a response in her.

And after a while, the kiss became a shade uncomfortable,
as if she were kissing her brother or Aunt Anabel. Or a fish.

She pushed against his chest, ending the kiss.

He ceased without a fight and stared down at her, as if
puzzled by something. He did not look as if he had enjoyed the kiss either and
was at a loss to explain why.

She
could explain
why very easily.

They were not suited.

“That didn’t work,” Wesley said, dumbfounded.

She rolled her eyes and started to give him a dissertation
as to why, when a voice interrupted them across the room.

“I thought kissing one’s brother was illegal.”

Astrid’s heart skidded to a halt. Wesley blushed to the
roots of his hair. They jumped away from each other and faced their intruder.

Astrid cleared her throat and met a pair of livid silver
eyes.

He was angry?

How very interesting.

She regained her composure and smiled sourly at him.
“Montford.”

IN WHICH THE
DUKE’S HOLIDAY STEAMS UP

MONTFORD
HAD had many successes that evening. He had put a self-satisfied, mean-spirited
baroness in her place; he had managed not to swoon when the impossibly red
syllabub was placed in front of him, reminding him of a clot of congealed
blood; he had blasphemed not once but twice against the Christian God –
once, he thought smugly, at the dinner table!;
and
he rendered Miss Honeywell speechless.

The latter was by far the sweetest.

But his one failure was costly. He had failed to conquer
his inexplicable lust for Miss Honeywell. Indeed, when he had first seen her in
the drawing room this evening, scrubbed up, trussed, and pinned into the first
attractive article of clothing he had seen her wear, her hair piled into a
half-way fashionable coiffure, her graceful neck adorned with a simple strand
of pearls, he had lost his head.

He had not meant to kiss her hand. But he had thought he’d
burst for sure if he didn’t touch her.

And afterwards, to save face, he’d had to kiss Alice’s hand
too. He would have done the same to the Lady Emily and Daughter, if he could
have stomached it.

Miss Honeywell was not pretty. Next to Alice, she didn’t
stand a chance. No woman did. But even next to Alice, she was hard to ignore.
The hair was unsightly. The eyes were monstrous. The freckles outrageous. She
was too plump. And she exuded from every cell of her being a restless,
ungovernable spirit that seemed to him physically palpable, pulsing in the air
surrounding her. Did no one else feel it? Did no one else understand what a
horrible power she wielded?

Lady Emily, perhaps, did, and she did her best to break
Miss Honeywell’s spirit with every word she spoke. Montford could hardly blame
Lady Emily for committing the unpardonable sin of openly criticizing her
relative at the dinner table. Miss Honeywell had the effect of turning one
inside out.

Montford himself burned to defeat her.

All through dinner he’d wanted to reach across the table
with his knife and saw off the three little corkscrews of fiery hair that had
escaped their pins. He wanted to yank the uneven puff of fichu out from her
bodice, whose asymmetry made his palms sweat. He wanted to gouge out one of her
eyes with his soupspoon and replace it with one that matched. But the problem
was he didn’t know which one to keep: the one the color of ripe autumn wheat,
or the one the color of the heavens.

And when she’d flung syllabub on him, he’d gone as hard as
a rock.

It was not to be borne.

Even two uncustomary after-dinner snifters of port had not
calmed him down one iota.

He was glad he was leaving on the morrow.

Yet he had to face Miss Honeywell at least once more before
he could retreat to his room and hide until dawn. And he was determined to be the
victor in their last confrontation. He would inform her of his plans for her
and her family, and she would be made to see that she had no choice but to
comply.

He had the upper hand.

Or at least he thought he did, until he entered the drawing
room and observed Miss Honeywell locked in a passionate kiss with her cousin/brother.
His vision clouded, his head thrummed, and his heart gave out for several
astonished moments.

He struggled to regain his composure, but three days of
torture and two glasses of port took their toll.

He was out of his mind with blind rage.

He’d thrash Sir Wesley. He’d thrash
her
.

He’d … he’d…

He’d pull himself together if it killed him. “I thought
kissing one’s brother was illegal.”

The two guilty parties jumped apart and faced him with
alarm.

Sir Wesley looked as if he might cry.

Miss Honeywell was red-faced and defiant.

“Your Grace! I know what this might seem …” Sir Wesley
blurted.

“Please, don’t let me interrupt such a lovely family
moment.”

“You already have,” Miss Honeywell retorted. Another
corkscrew sprang from its pins, making his pulse jump.

“Your Grace, you misunderstand. I am not …”

He held up a hand to stop Sir Wesley. “You are not her
brother. Yes. I know, Sir Wesley. What kind of imbecile do you take me for?”

“Shall I answer that?” Miss Honeywell muttered.

He gave her a deadly smile.

She glared at him and clenched her fists. “Wesley, I think
you had better leave. His
Excellency
and I have much to discuss.”

Wesley glanced uneasily between them and decided to cut his
losses. He fled the room.

Montford waited for her to break first. His diligence was
rewarded, for at length she turned from him and stalked to a table, where she
retrieved a glass of sherry and drank its contents in one gulp. “Well?” she bit
out as she refilled her glass.

“Shall you explain yourself?”

Her eyes cast daggers at him over her glass. “I don’t know
what you mean.”

“Let me make myself clearer. Do you make it a habit of
kissing every man who crosses your path?”

Her color heightened. “Don’t be absurd.”

“I should warn you now that such fast behavior shall not be
tolerated in London.”

She laughed. “If that is the case, perhaps I should stay
here.”

“No. It is quite decided. You are going to London with your
sisters.”

She set her glass aside and closed her eyes. Several clicks
of silence ensued. He was uneasy what lay on the other side. He felt the air
was electrically charged, and the next words out of her mouth would incinerate
both of them.

He was almost disappointed when she merely sighed with
resignation. “Tell me what you have decided.”

It was the voice of defeat. He should have felt victorious.
All he felt was deflated.

And he hated her for making him
feel
at all. “You have cheated me,” he began.

“If that is how you must see it,” she muttered.

“You have cheated me,” he began anew, telling himself to
stay calm, “and you have committed fraud. But rather than profiting from it,
you have invested it back into the estate in some misguided effort to
restructure the social order.”

She snorted.

“I could throw you in gaol for what you’ve done,” he
continued.

“Then do so. Get it over with.”

“Miss Honeywell, I am not a bloody monster.”

“Are you not?”

He ignored her and clutched his hands behind his back so he
wouldn’t be tempted to strangle her. “When I determined to travel here, I admit
I was ready to hang the lot of you. And you have made it very, very hard not to
make me want to follow through with it. Never in my life have I been treated so
infamously. However, I am not unreasonable. I can understand why you have done
what you have done, and the situation is not at all unsalvageable. Clearly, I
cannot make you give up Rylestone Hall –”

She glanced up at him, clearly taken aback. Her eyes were
wide with shock and something that looked like hope.

He looked away. “Of course it is your family’s home, and it
has been so for centuries, no matter what the contract says.”

“Your Grace!” she breathed, the relief in her voice
unmistakable.

“However,” he said quickly. “By law it is mine. By
extension, all who live under it are mine as well.”

Her relief vanished abruptly. Fury replaced it. “I am not
your property!”

“You are four unmarried women in a very precarious
position. Clearly, things cannot continue as they are. You cannot continue to
run this estate, for one. Mr. McConnell shall assume full responsibility from
now on. And he shall take his orders from me.”

“Has my management been so terrible? Tell me!”

“No, it has not,” he answered honestly. “But it is
unlawful. And unseemly. You are an unmarried female with no legal right to
administer my lands.”

“Perhaps not. But I am better at what I do than ten men.”

“I will not argue with you on this point. You can’t win.”

She groaned and ran her hands through her hair in
frustration, pulling half of it from its pins. “How unfair it is that simply
because I wasn’t born a man everything can be taken!”

She stared at him in abject misery, and he felt a pinprick
of guilt. “Not everything. Upon your contracting a decent marriage, Rylestone
Hall and a good portion of its acreage shall be settled upon you, as well as an
income. For your sisters, I shall provide dowries for each of them as well.”

“You mean, our husbands shall be rewarded for taking us off
your hands. Rylestone Hall won’t belong to me. It will belong to my husband.”

“I cannot change English law.”

“You bloody well can! You’re
Montford
! You’re more powerful than the Prince Regent.” She turned
away from him, her shoulders visibly shaking. “And I suppose I have no choice
in the matter. You have damning evidence against me that you’re more than
willing to blackmail me with.”

She was entirely correct. It was precisely what he was
doing. But once again, she had sucked all of his enjoyment out of his victory
over her. “I think I am being more than generous, under the circumstances. Most
females would die for a Season.”

“I am not most females. I have no wish to be auctioned off
like a damned brood mare!”

“I think it a bit more civilized than that,” he said,
wincing at the lie. She was quite right. The social whirl in London was little
better than an auction block for families to trade their daughters and sisters
to the highest bidder. He himself had just bought one of them for his duchess.

She turned back to him, her rage as palpable as the fire
burning in the hearth next to him. “You think you have concocted a fine plan,
don’t you? Throwing a bit of your blunt around, packing us off to the marriage
mart, and riddng yourself of a most unsavory complication to your perfect
little life. But did you ever consider that it won’t work? You expect me to
land a fribble of a husband? Me? Your Grace, look at me!”

She spread her arms wide, causing her gown to stretch tight
across her breasts. He forced himself not to squirm and to keep his eyes
trained on her face. He could not breathe from the weight of his lust.

“I am six and twenty years old. I am not pretty by any
stretch of the imagination. I cannot hold my tongue, and you yourself think I
am a common strumpet. I do not think how you can expect me to find a husband.”

“I’m sure you can browbeat someone into it,” he said before
he could stop himself. “And you come with a castle.”

She burst into hysterical laughter. “A crooked castle. Yes,
that does sweeten the pot. I’m sure many men would marry a castle – and
take me in the bargain.”

They stared hard at each other.

“I’m to be grateful for your condescension, I suppose,” she
said after a moment, her head cocked to one side, studying him intently.

He shrugged. “I do not care for pretense. You are free to
loathe me.”

A shadow of a smile flitted over her lips. “How very
generous you are.” She paused. “However, I have no need to go to London
shopping for a husband. I have had three offers for my hand already. I shall
simply marry one of them and have done with it.”

Something inside of him withered. It was one thing to
imagine Miss Honeywell in the far distant future in a far distant city
barreling her way through society gentlemen, quite another to be faced with an
immediate prospect. He did not like this at all, and it must have shown on his
face, because she turned away from him with a satisfied smile and began to
shuffle around the contents of one of the tables he had rearranged earlier,
placing everything at sixes and sevens.

“You have had
three
offers?”
he demanded.

“It is unlikely, isn’t it?” she said softly, moving a small
dish to the edge of the table.

His pulse thundered in his veins. No, it wasn’t unlikely,
he realized. For all of Alice’s beauty, half the village was in love with her
unsightly sister.

“Mr Lightfoot has asked twice…”

“Mr Lightfoot!” he bellowed.

“And Wesley has asked, oh, three times. So, including the
vicar’s proposal, I suppose that technically makes six times I have been asked
to leg shackle myself to a fool.” She sighed. “Since I doubt I shall find any
better in London, I suppose I shall make do with what I have. Though Mr.
Lightfoot is out of the question, as I think he’s a blackguard as well as a
fool. No, it shall be either the vicar or my cousin.”

She tapped her bottom lip, as if considering her options.

He stepped towards her, quite against all of his reason.
“The vicar or Sir Wesley. You can’t be serious.” He had a sudden, queasy
feeling in his stomach. “Was that what happened earlier? Did that idiot propose
to you?”

“Of course. Why else do you think he was kissing me?”

His breath hitched as he came close enough to smell her
– sharp, vibrant lavender, the whisper of something else beneath the
perfume, earthy and female and distinctly her own. She faced him squarely, set
her chin at a defiant angle. Her mismatched eyes were full of rage and
contempt, but her expression was serenely mocking, as if she knew precisely how
she affected him.
Did
she know? Did
she know how she plagued him? She was so hideously wrong, yet he burned to
possess her.

“Did you accept?” His voice sounded like gravel.

She curled her lips into a smile that was almost feral. “He
was trying to convince me to when you interrupted.”

“Would he have succeeded, I wonder? Are his kisses enough
to overcome your aversion to his mother?”

Her smile dimmed. Her eyes shifted away from his ever so
slightly.

“They were not, then,” he murmured, reading her expression,
triumphant in the knowledge that popinjay had not moved her.

“As I said, we were interrupted.” She paused, and her eyes
snapped back to his. “And it was a kiss. Singular. And as it was my first, I
have no basis for comparison. But I am sure it was quite satisfactory.”