Gayle Wilson - His Secret Duchess

“My lord,” she said simply, and then the blue eyes returned to the lane before them.

Again, that upward tilt disturbed the line of the rider’s mouth, as his gray eyes, also, sought the shaded path that stretched ahead of them. The silence lasted for several moments as they moved side by side.

“Berrying?” he asked finally—a ridiculous question, given the evidence in the bottom of the basket.

The girl’s mouth, more used to laughter than to primness, flickered dangerously, almost losing its determined sternness. “Indeed,” she agreed.

Again silence descended, broken only by the plodding hooves of the gelding. The horse had finally relaxed into the pace his rider was keeping him to.

“May I give you a ride?” Lord Stanton offered, holding out his hand. His fingers were long and deeply tanned, despite the months he’d spent in England and away from his regiment. That had not, of course, been his choice, but the ball he took at Toulouse had proved to be far more troublesome than anyone suspected it might. There had even, at one juncture, been talk that he might lose the leg, but, thankfully, that danger was long past. Despite a slight, persistent stiffness in his right knee, Nick considered himself in fighting trim, and that had been the point of his recent trip to London—to convince his superiors at the Horse Guards of that.

“Thank you, but no, my lord. I’m sure you’re far too busy with your own affairs to bother with mine.”

“I promise I should be delighted to assist a lady.”

The girl’s eyes rose to linger a moment on the handsome face. “But surely you can see,” she said, “that I’m not—”

“A lady?” he said, interrupting her, his mouth controlled and his face a politely inquiring mask.

“In need of assistance,” she finished, without apparent rancor at his insult. She changed the heavy basket to her other arm, and from that sleeve removed a scrap of lace with which she touched the dew of perspiration on her upper lip.

“Making jam?” Stanton asked pleasantly, his eyes following the dabbing movements of the cloth along the beautiful bow of her upper lip.

The girl glanced at him, her dark lashes sweeping upward to reveal some emotion dancing in the. depths of her eyes.

“Pies, I believe,” she answered.

“For your sweetheart?”

“I have no sweetheart, my lord.”

“For a lass so beautiful, I find that difficult to believe. Are all the men here blind?”

“Perhaps. To my charms, at least. It seems there are always…other pleasures that distract them.”

“Then they’re fools,” Nick said softly. Unthinkingly, he slipped his right Hessian out of the stirrup and eased it into a more comfortable position, straightening the aching knee.

“So I’ve often thought,” she agreed, watching the procedure until he glanced down again. Then her gaze deliberately shifted from its focus on the man who rode beside her to the lane ahead.

“Do you have a name?” Stanton asked.

“Of course, my lord.”

This time Nick lost the battle to control his amusement, and the smile that had charmed the feminine half of the beau monde was unleashed in full force. Remarkably, it seemed to have no effect on the girl.

“Might I know it?” he urged.

“You might,” she said calmly, removing from her basket a berry that had apparently, on closer examination, proved unworthy for inclusion in the proposed pies. “And then, you might not. I’m sure I don’t know what you might know, my lord.”

“Has no one told you not to be pert with your betters?” Nick asked, laughing.

“No one but you, my lord. But I’m sure that was simply an oversight.”

“Gertrude,” he offered.

“I beg your pardon?” the girl said, but it was obvious, even to Stanton, that she didn’t.

“Since you seem so reluctant to share the information, I was attempting to guess your name.”

“My name is Mary Winters, my lord.”

“Do you live here in the village, Mary?”

“With my father in the vicarage, my lord.”

“The proverbial vicar’s daughter?”

“Indeed, my lord.”

“And have you finished gathering your berries, Mary Winters?”

“Oh, no, my lord. The very best spot, you see, is just through here.”

As she spoke, the girl stepped off the apron of the road and, pulling aside a limb that had blocked a small footpath, she disappeared into the shadowed undergrowth, the branch she had pushed aside returning to cover the hidden opening, as if by magic.

Horse and rider were left alone in the sudden quietness of the lane. Almost before the leaves had stilled, Stanton had dismounted. Displacing the same branch, he led the gelding into the clearing into which the girl had vanished. Once shielded from the road by the intervening hedges, he looped the horse’s reins over a branch and ran his hand soothingly over the shining chestnut of the horse’s neck.

Then the man’s gray eyes lifted to seek the girl. Surprisingly, she was standing on the gnarled trunk of an oak that had forked early in its existence. Something had bent the branch she stood upon, so that it now formed a natural platform about a foot off the ground. The basket rested on the grass beneath the other side of the trunk, which had grown straight and true. She balanced herself by holding on to a limb that protruded from the undamaged trunk of the tree. She had removed the straw hat, releasing a cascade of dark brown curls that seemed to lure all the leaf-diffused light of the clearing to glint in their richness. Her blue eyes watched as Nick Stanton crossed the clearing.

“You appear to be limping, my lord,” she said.

“I’ve just spent three days successfully not limping,” he answered, smiling, “so I should think you might try to be less critical.”

“A war wound, I suppose.”

“An honorable one, I assure you. Taken in the front.”

The girl’s mouth quivered, almost a smile.

“And heroic, no doubt?” she asked tauntingly.

“Not particularly.”

“Lord Wellington seemed to think so,” she said challengingly.

Smiling, Nick shook his head in denial, but his steps didn’t falter. Inexorably, he continued his approach to the oak.

“And foolhardy? Incredibly brave?” she suggested.

“A matter of opinion, I should imagine” he said dismissively.

He stood now directly below her, his height enough that their eyes were almost on a level. Blue met gray and held a moment, and then she touched him. She had turned her hand so that her knuckles trailed against the curling golden hair at his temple. He put his left hand up to catch her fingers, bringing them to his lips.

His mouth drifted slowly over the slender fingers, stained at the tips with the juice of the berries she’d gathered. Her free hand found his shoulder, the thumb caressing along the fine wool of his uniform and then upward along his neck until her palm cupped behind his head, her fingers lost in the warm silk of his hair.

Nick released the hand he’d captured and, putting his on either side of her slim waist, he lifted her from her perch into his arms. There was no resistance. She melted against his body, arms clinging around his neck, her mouth automatically opening and lowering to his. Familiar and practiced, his tongue slipped inside, as intimate as a lover’s. And as welcome.

The kiss was long and unhurried. Despite the limp with which he’d crossed the expanse between them, Stanton held her without effort, her body resting trustingly along the hard, masculine length of his. Slowly he lowered her until the toes of her kid slippers touched the ground, and still their mouths clung, moving against one another, cherishing, reluctant to let go. Finally she broke the kiss, her palms resting on either side of his face.

“Tell me that they refused you,” she entreated.

Smiling, he shook his head. “You know better than that, Mary. The Beau needs every experienced officer, every veteran, he can find. I told you that before I left.”

“And you convinced them you were fit.”

“To be truthful—”

“To be truthful, you lied about your leg,” she said accusingly.

“They were too glad of my offer to think of refusing. I suspect they’d have accepted me if I’d lost the leg,” he said, still smiling down at her. “Don’t be angry, Mary, my heart. That’s where I belong. It’s where my men will be. My regiment. It’s where I want to be.”

“Not again,” she whispered. “I can’t let you go to that hell again.” There was no answer for that plea. No comfort. Men were the warriors, and women those who wept. “How long?” she asked, and watched his lips tighten.

“Three hours. Less. I had to change horses. There were things I needed at the Hall, and I had to say goodbye to Charles and my father, in case…” His voice faded at the pain in her eyes, suddenly glazed with tears. “I came as fast as I could. But I have to be back in London to board the transport at dawn.”

“You just arrived. Surely—”

“Three hours, Mary,” he reminded, his mouth finding the small blue vein at her temple. “Shall we spend it arguing?”

“No,” she whispered, her lips lifting to his, her tongue seeking, fingers tangling through the golden curls. “No,” she said again as his mouth shifted over hers, turning to meld, to possess what was his. And always would be.

Nick had taken his cloak from his saddle pack and laid it on the ground, and now they lay together, watching dusk darken the sky they could barely see through the sheltering branches above their heads. He had removed his uniform jacket, and Mary’s fingers had long ago found the buttons of the soft lawn shirt he wore beneath it.

She had unfastened them, daringly, first one and then another, her lips exploring each inch of the hair-roughened chest as it was revealed. Her mouth had finally touched the smooth skin of his flat belly, tracing at last down the line of gold that disappeared into the top of his pantaloons.

His breathing had changed as she touched him, but he’d not protested the tentative exploration, except occasionally, his fingers locking suddenly in the spill of dark curls when her mouth found some previously unexamined area. Tortured by the sweetness of her lips, he was beyond conscious thought, beyond any remembrance of right and wrong. This was Mary, and it seemed that he had loved her so long. There was nothing about the gentleness of her kisses on his body that profaned what he felt for her. What he had felt almost since the first time he saw her.

He had come to service that Sunday morning only because his father insisted he leave the Hall, where he’d been secluded since his arrival from Spain. He’d been embarrassed then by the clumsiness of the crutches, by the villagers’ sympathetic stares and interested questions about his military exploits.

He and his father had taken their places in the ducal box pew, which was raised above the congregation and directly across from the pulpit. Nick’s eyes had remained downcast as he fought the humiliation of his body’s unfamiliar awkwardness. It was only when his father’s elbow admonished him that he’d looked down onto the congregation, his gray eyes rebellious, and found Mary.

She was sitting in the first row, her face rapt, listening to her father’s sermon, totally unaware of the fascinated attention of the Duke of Vail’s younger son. It was an experience that was new to Nick Stanton, and perhaps that was her initial appeal.

If so, it was soon overtaken by other, more conventional elements of attraction: the beauty of blue eyes fringed by long, dark lashes, the incredible clarity of her skin, the shining coils of brown hair demurely hidden under her Sunday bonnet. Stanton, long considered as one of the catches of any Season fortunate enough to find him spending a few months in London, quickly fell under the spell of a country vicar’s daughter.