When the Duchess Said Yes (19 page)

“Of course I shall wave,” she said, waving her hand so enthusiastically that she was immediately rewarded with a fresh round of cheers. “If they’ve been waiting to see me, it would be rude not to.”

The notion of a duchess worrying about offending a street full of gawkers made him smile.

“Everyone loves a bride,” he said, “but everyone loves a duchess bride even more. You’re a rare creature, you know.”

She looked away from the window to make a face at him, clearly believing he was only teasing.

“I’m not jesting, Lizzie,” he said, bemused. “Hasn’t the harpy explained the facts to you?”

“The harpy?” Lizzie repeated. “By which I suppose you mean Aunt Sophronia?”

“I suppose I do,” he said, not nearly as teasing as she assumed. “She
is
a harpy, but she likely understands the peerage better than I do myself. Dukes themselves are rare enough. There can’t be more than twenty-five or thirty dukedoms left in the kingdom. Of those dukes, at least half are still at school, or confirmed bachelors, or widowed, or in their dotage, which leaves perhaps a dozen with a duchess, and of that noble handful of ladies, I’d wager not one can come close to your beauty.”

“One can,” she answered immediately. “My sister Charlotte’s much prettier than I.”

Now he was the one who made a face. “Charlotte? Your sister, and March’s wife? You’re much mistaken, sweetheart. She can’t hold the proverbial candle to you, especially not today.”

“You’re very kind to say that, Hawke.” She smiled, but it was the sort of female smile that was one part indulgence for male idiocy and another part plain unvarnished disbelief, with a dash of melancholy tossed in.

“I didn’t say it to be kind,” he said. “I said it because it’s true.”

“But you
are
kind,” she insisted, neatly skirting the original question. “You don’t want to believe it, because apparently it’s not ducal and lordly to be kind, but you
are. Otherwise you wouldn’t have agreed when Mama asked you to come back to Marchbourne House.”

“I would have been barbarous cruel not to,” he said. “I do not wish to create havoc within your family as soon as I’ve married into it. You wish to bid your mother and sisters a proper farewell, and March and Brecon wish to try to make me drunk. Who am I to deny them those simple pleasures?”

“March did,” she said promptly, answering his rhetorical question in seriousness. “He refused to go to the wedding supper that Aunt Sophronia had arranged, and instead insisted on carrying off Charlotte directly after the wedding, like Hades with Persephone.”

That made him raise his brows. He didn’t know which seemed more improbable: March driven to ill manners by desire, or Lizzie quoting ancient mythology.

“Do you intend to carry that analogy further,” he said, “and liken Marchbourne House to the blackest bowels of hell?”

“I never meant that!” She scowled charmingly. “What I do mean is that March was so—so
ardent
for my sister that he couldn’t wait, and instead swept her away. Charlotte said that he almost didn’t wait until her bedchamber, but began to make love to her in the carriage.”

“How horrifying,” Hawke said dryly, trying hard not to laugh at this astounding sisterly revelation. His dry, dutiful cousin, unable to keep his breeches buttoned! “How mortifying for his eldest son if he had been begotten on a carriage seat.”

She grinned. “You were perfectly, perfectly willing to attempt the same with me on a
sarcophagus
. That’s far worse.”

“Why, that sarcophagus is older than England,” he retorted, “and it would have made a splendid foundation for siring an heir. Though it would seem that you, dear Lizzie, preferred St. Barnabas.”

“Oh, Hawke!” she exclaimed, blushing nearly as red as the rubies around her neck. “Oh, oh, I do not know
what
made me behave so!”

“I thought you laid the blame upon me,” he said, folding his arms across his chest and striving to look stern and undeserving of blame.

“I did, because it’s vastly true,” she said, pressing her palms to her cheeks in mortification. “I do not know what it is about you, but whenever I am in your company and you smile and look at me and make me laugh, I feel dreadfully
wanton
, and I forget who and where I am and behave quite irresponsibly, and—and—oh, Hawke, you are doing it to me
even now
!”

He laughed, realizing that he couldn’t recall a time in his life when he’d been happier.

“There is one sure way to address that trouble,” he said. “ ’Tis true, we haven’t much time left, but we still could follow Cousin March’s lead and—”

She slid her hands over her eyes, hiding them.

“Do not speak it, Hawke, not even in jest!” she wailed. “Because I would almost wish that we would, that you would
ravish
me now, here, with those people in the street waving and not knowing, and—and that is exactly what Mama was warning me of today! How can I be a strong and honorable duchess to you if my passions run wild like that?”

He was torn between two desires: to laugh, and to toss up her petticoats and fall upon her like a ravening beast. Neither was appropriate, and both would be disastrous in their own way.

Instead he took the safest course, though one that was disturbing in its own way. “Is
that
what your mother was saying to you? That you must put aside your passions for my sake?”

“Yes,” she confessed, distraught. “No. That is, I must
put aside my own foolish passions before I might become the duchess that—”

“Hush,” he said softly. “No more, mind?”

She was perilously close to tears—he heard it in the tremble of her voice—and he didn’t want the day spoiled like that. He reached across to her, gently taking her hands from her face and kissing each palm in turn. Then he kissed her, sweetly, fervently, devotedly, to make her forget her mother’s foolishness.

“You are perfect as you are, Lizzie,” he said between kisses and against her cheek and forehead and chin, wherever the words and kisses happened to fall. “Perfect as my wife, perfect as my duchess. And when we are in my house, in my bed, I shall show you exactly how perfectly your passions please me.”

She sighed, a deep, shuddering sigh, and rested against his shoulder.

“My own dear Hawke,” she murmured. “I shall hold you to that.”

He grunted, holding her a little more tightly. “So shall I.”

His knee was between her legs, his thigh acutely aware of hers against his, albeit through layers of silk. Her breasts were pressed against his chest, the jewels of the necklace jabbing into his shoulder blade. He’d tolerate the jewels for the sake of her breasts, and try to forget the throbbing demand of his own sadly neglected cock.

Damnation, why did he have to be so blasted noble?

“We’ve stopped,” she said, sniffing as she sat back against the seat and away from him. “We’re here.”

He was grateful she’d noticed. From the babies onward, her family was standing on the steps of the house, waiting to welcome them, and he needed a moment or two to compose himself and his breeches before he stepped out. As it was, he took his time helping her from the carriage, gallantly handing her the forgotten posy
and making sure her hand was tucked securely into the crook of his arm.

She noticed. “I won’t run again,” she said. “I only did it before to torment you.”

“You achieved magnificent success,” he said, giving her hand a final pat. “However, you’ve promised before, to no avail. I’ll not take another chance of you escaping now.”

“Escaping?” she scoffed. “I’m not escaping, nor do I wish to.”

“I’m glad of it,” he said, and smiled warmly. “If you please, my Duchess. The others are waiting.”

“That’s the first time you’ve called me that,” she said. “I like it, Duke.”

Her cheeks pinked again, this time with pleasure. He’d always been fond of women who blushed, and he was powerfully glad he’d married one.

“And I like you, Duchess,” he said, beginning to move her forward. “A good thing, too.”

“Hawke?”

He sighed. At this rate, it would take them at least an hour to reach the steps, another two or three to go inside, and by the time they eventually reached their own house and bed, they’d both be too exhausted to make any inventive, romantic use of it.

“Hawke,” she said, undeterred. “You
are
kind.”

“Indeed,” he said, not stopping or even slowing. “And you, Lizzie, are beautiful.”

“Oh, Duke,” she said, chuckling.

He was glad, very glad, that the chuckle had returned. March’s dogs—an assortment of rambunctious spaniels—had been loosed from the house and bounded past the family and servants, delighted to be free. While footmen and children ran about after them, two of the dogs came racing up to him and Lizzie. While most ladies would have screamed and tried to protect their gowns, Lizzie
handed Hawke her flowers and crouched down on the paving stones in her rubies and diamonds and Venetian lace to pet heads and ruffle ears. When a dog sat on her white silk petticoat, she only looked up at Hawke and laughed.

“We needn’t remain here long,” she said. “You gentlemen have your toasts, I shall change my clothes, and then we’ll leave.”

“We can stay as long with your family as you need to,” he said gallantly, forcing himself to ignore the splendid view of her mostly bare breasts available to him and the dogs. “As long as you wish.”

“What I wish, Hawke,” she said firmly, “is to be alone with you, and make you keep your promise about my passions.”

The nearest dog swiped its tongue across her cheek, and she didn’t even flinch. She grinned.

And in that moment, Hawke realized that he’d done the unthinkable for any Duke of Hawkesworth.

He’d fallen in love with his wife.

Lizzie stood before the long looking glass in her sister’s bedchamber, studying her reflection. To her disappointment, she didn’t appear any different at all, even though she’d been married and a duchess for nearly four hours now. Perhaps it wasn’t standing before the bishop that would make the change, but lying with Hawke. Perhaps then she’d look more like a duchess, a peeress, a
wife
. She gave a little shake to her shoulders, a mixture of excitement and anticipation, and a bit of fear, too. She thought she knew what to expect, and yet … she didn’t.

“I hope Hawke likes this gown,” she said to Charlotte as her maid gave her skirts one final tweak. She’d shifted from the elaborate silk damask wedding gown into another, simple and elegant, of pale blue lutestring, and the ruby and diamond necklace and the bracelet had been carefully packed away in their cases, ready to be taken with the rest of her belongings to Hawkesworth Chase. “I hope he won’t think it’s too plain.”

“Your gown?” Charlotte smiled knowingly. “Lizzie, Hawke won’t give a fig for what you’re wearing now. All that concerns him at present is what you won’t be wearing, and the sooner the better, too. That’s how men think.”

“I suppose you are right,” Lizzie said. Hawke had already displayed surprising skill at removing her clothing. She doubted that would change now that they were wed. “Men do have different notions about fashions.”

Suddenly one particular notion of Hawke’s came to mind. She couldn’t walk to their carriage in her shift, which would likely please him most, but she could oblige him in another way. She reached up and began to jerk the pins from her hair, running her fingers through the waves to free them.

“What are you doing?” Charlotte asked, shocked. “Stop, Lizzie, stop. There’s no time to redress your hair, not unless you wish to keep Hawke waiting even longer.”

“I don’t intend to redress it,” she said, shaking her hair free and over her shoulders. She seized a brush from the dressing table, and to the horror of Charlotte’s maid, vigorously began to brush her hair herself. “Hawke has asked me to wear my hair down, and for him, I will.”

“But you can’t, Lizzie,” Charlotte protested. “You’re a married woman, a lady, and now you’re a duchess. When he takes you to his house, he’ll present you to his servants for the first time. Do you wish their first glimpse of their new mistress to be with your hair trailing down as if you don’t know better?”

Lizzie remembered the footmen from the garden who had already seen her in a far more compromising situation than simply with unbound hair. “I can always twist it into a knot if I must.”

“But what about now?” Charlotte asked. “You can’t go downstairs with your hair hanging down like that. It’s not proper. It’s not decent.”

“Hawke says that as Duchess of Hawkesworth, I don’t have to follow the fashions,” Lizzie said finally. “I can make them instead. How pleased he’ll be to see it down!”

“But shouldn’t you wait until you are alone with him, Lizzie?” Charlotte pleaded. “A special pleasure for your husband’s eyes alone?”

Lizzie shook her head, relishing the sensation of her hair loose. Her hair was long, nearly to her waist, and rippled over her shoulders like a gleaming cloak. She liked how daring it made her feel, and she also liked being spared the unbalanced weight of having her hair pinned high. She gave her head one final shake and handed the brush to the maid.