Confessions of a Duchess
Nicola Cornick
When a feudal law is invoked requiring all unmarried ladies to wed or surrender half their wealth, the quiet village of Fortune’s Folly becomes England’s greatest Marriage Market.Young, handsome and scandalously tempting, Dexter suspects duchess Laura has a hidden motive for resisting his charms…and he intends to discover it, by any means necessary.
A Brief Guide to Fortune’s Folly
The History and Antiquities of North Yorkshire by Lady Melicent Beaumont
Fortune’s Folly, population eight hundred and fifty-six, is a large village in north Yorkshire some twelve miles from the market town of Skipton. The village was originally called Fort-tun from the Old English, meaning a fort built on the site of an earlier farm. It is referred to as Fortune in a document from 1232 and has been known by that name ever since. The word Folly, from the Old French fol, meaning a fool, was added in 1455 when George Fortune, the lord of the manor, tried to repel a Lancastrian attack during the Wars of the Roses and accidentally blew up his own garrison instead.
The current lord of the manor is Sir Montague Fortune, baronet, who resides at Fortune Hall with his brother Thomas and half-sister Lady Elizabeth Scarlet. Sir Montague is considered by all the populace to be very much in the mould of his ancestor George Fortune.
Other major houses in the village are The Old Palace, once the property of the prior of Fortune and currently the residence of Laura, Dowager Duchess of Cole, and the attractive modern villa Spring House, which was recently purchased by the heiress Miss Alice Lister of Harrogate.
There is a lively social season in Fortune’s Folly that centres on the spa baths, the assembly rooms and the circulating library. There are two inns – The Granby Hotel, which is for the discerning visitor, and The Morris Clown for those slightly less plump of pocket and not too discriminating about the quality of their fellow guests. Whichever category you fall into, we hope you enjoy your visit!
Nicola Cornick’s novels
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Organization, on Deceived
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Confessions of a Duchess
Nicola Cornick
www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)
To all the wonderful writers I have met through
the UK Romantic Novelists Association and the
Romance Writers of America
Upcoming titles inthe Brides of Fortune series
SCANDALS OF AN INNOCENT
UNDOING OF A LADY
Browse www.nicolacornick.co.uk for Nicola’s full backlist
Prologue
Go, take thine angle, and with practiced line
Light as the gossamer, the current sweep;
And if thou failest in the calm, still deep,
In the rough eddy may a prize be thine.
—Thomas Doubleday
Brooks’s Club, London, July 1809
“SHE REFUSED ME!”
Sir Montague Fortune swept through the library of Brooks’s Club, scattered the gambling counters on the faro table with the edge of his sleeve and gave no apology, and deposited himself in an indignant flurry in a chair beside the Earl of Waterhouse. He smoothed one shaking hand over his hair and beckoned impatiently to a club servant to fetch him brandy.
“Ungrateful minx,” he muttered. “That I, one of the Fortunes of Fortune’s Folly should seek to ally myself with the servant classes and be rejected!” He swallowed half the glass of brandy in one gulp and gave the assembled group a furious glare. “Do you know what she called me? A bibulous country squire with watery eyes!” He reached for the brandy bottle that the servant had thoughtfullyleft on a low table beside him, refilled his glass and frowned slightly. “What does bibulous mean?”
“Damned if I know,” Nathaniel Waterhouse said comfortably. “Dex was the one who shone at Oxford whilst the rest of us were running wild. Dex?”
Dexter Anstruther, thus applied to, raised his shrewd blue gaze from The Times and looked from the squire of Fortune’s Folly to the brandy bottle and back again.
“It means that you drink too much, Monty,” he drawled. He looked across at Miles, Lord Vickery, the fourth member of the group, who was smiling quizzically at Montague Fortune’s indignation.
“Am I missing something here?” Miles inquired. “Who is the discerning lady who has rejected Monty’s suit?”
“You’ve been in the Peninsular so long you’ve missed the on dit, old fellow,” Waterhouse said. “Monty here has been paying ardent court to Miss Alice Lister, a former housemaid, if gossip is to be believed, who is now the richest heiress in Fortune’s Folly. He offered her his hand and his heart in return for her money but the sensible female has evidently rejected him.” He turned to Monty Fortune. “Surely you have not traveled all the way up to London just to bring us the bad news, Monty?”
“No,” Montague Fortune huffed. “I have come up to consult my lawyer and study the Fortune’s Folly estate papers.”
“Very laudable,” Dexter murmured. “Exactly what one would hope for in a responsible landowner.”
Monty Fortune glared at him. “It is not for the benefit of my tenants,” he protested. “It is so that I can get my hands on the money!”
“Whose money?” Dexter asked.
“Everyone’s money!” Sir Montague barked. “It is not appropriate that half the population of Fortune’s Folly should be richer than the squire!”
The others exchanged looks of covert amusement. The Fortunes were an old gentry family, perfectly respectable but with an inflated view of their own importance, and Sir Montague’s single-minded pursuit of money was considered by some to be very bad Ton.
“What does Tom think of your plans, Monty?” Dexter asked, referring to Sir Montague’s younger brother.
Sir Montague looked annoyed. “Said I was a grasping leech on other people’s lives and went off to spend my substance at the gambling tables,” he said.
The others laughed.
“And Lady Elizabeth?” Nat asked lazily. Lady Elizabeth Scarlet was Sir Montague’s debutante half sister and a veritable thorn in his side.
“I cannot repeat Lizzie’s language to you,” Sir Montague said primly. “It is far too shocking!”
The laughter of the others increased.
Miles leaned forward. “So what are you planning, Monty?”
“I intend to assert my rights as lord of the manor,” Sir Montague said, self-importantly. “There is a medieval law called the Dames’ Tax that has never been repealed. It permits the lord of the manor to levy a tithe on every unmarried woman in the village.”
Miles’s lips formed a soundless whistle. “How much is the tithe?”
“I can take half their fortune!” Sir Montague announced triumphantly.
There was a shocked silence around the group. “Monty,” Dexter said slowly, “did I understand you correctly? It is in your power to levy a tax of half their wealth on all unmarried women in Fortune’s Folly?”
Sir Montague nodded, eyes bright.
“How?” Dexter demanded. “Why?”
“I told you.” Sir Montague’s greedy gaze swept the group. “Medieval laws. Because Fortune’s Folly belonged to the church it was exempt when the secular laws were repealed in the seventeenth century. I discovered quite by accident that all the tithes and taxes are still applicable. In recent centuries they have not been collected only through the goodwill of the squire.”
“And you do not have any goodwill,” Nat said dryly.
“Not now that Miss Lister has refused me,” Sir Montague said, the virtuous expression on his face sitting oddly with the avarice in his eyes. “Had she accepted me I am sure that I would have been the most generous of village squires.”
“And one of the richest,” Dexter murmured.
“Every single woman…Half their fortunes…” Nat Waterhouse was spluttering into his brandy. “That’s…” His mathematical ability, never strong, failed him. “That’s potentially a huge amount of money, Monty!” he protested.
“I know.” With a self-satisfied smile, Sir Montague settled back in his chair. “I have not quite worked it out yet but Miss Lister’s fortune is rumored to be in the region of eighty thousand pounds and Mrs. Everton pocketed a cool fifty thousand under the terms of her husband’s will—”
Miles shot him a sharp glance. “It applies to widows as well as spinsters?”
“All unmarried women,” Sir Montague confirmed.
“But I have a cousin living in Fortune’s Folly,” Miles protested. “You can’t fleece her, Monty! It’s not socially acceptable, old fellow—not acceptable at all!”
Dexter raked a hand through his disordered tawny hair in a characteristic gesture. “Presumably if the ladies of Fortune’s Folly choose to marry they are exempt from the tax?”
Sir Montague nodded. “That’s it, Dexter. Got it in one. I can see why the government employs you.”
Dexter’s lips twitched. “Thank you, Monty. I am glad that my powers of deduction are still as acute as I thought. So.” He paused. “You announce the introduction of the Dames’ Tax and the ladies of Fortune’s Folly have to decide whether they wish to give away half of their money to you in tax or all of it to their husbands in marriage.”
Nat winced. “They will be as mad as wet hens to be forced into this situation, Monty. I hope you are prepared.”
Sir Montague shrugged expansively. “They can’t do anything about it. The law is on my side. I tell you, the plan is perfect.”
The others exchanged looks. “Monty, old chap,” Miles said softly, “much as I disapprove of your avarice, I do believe that you have just made Fortune’s Folly a veritable marriage mart, a positive haven for those of us who are—”
“Impecunious,” Dexter said. “Improvident, penurious—”
“Flat broke,” Nat said, “and looking for a rich wife.”
“You’re right,” Sir Montague said, beaming. “I have made Fortune’s Folly the marriage mart of England!”
Chapter One
Fortune’s Folly, Yorkshire, September 1809
DOWAGER. It was such a lonely word.
Most people thought of dowagers as faintly comic figures, diamonds displayed on their shelflike bosom, possessing a long, patrician nose to look down.
Laura Cole thought of dowagers as the loneliest people in the world.
It was Laura’s loneliness that had prompted her to go down to the river that day, dressed in a pale blue muslin gown with a warm navy-blue spencer over the top, a wide-brimmed straw bonnet on her head and a novel in her hand. She had read somewhere that the beauties of nature were supposed to soothe a troubled spirit and so she had decided to take the rowing boat out and float in bucolic peace under the willow branches that fringed the water’s edge.
However, the nature cure was proving to be a disappointing failure. For a start the boat was full of fallen yellow leaves, and once Laura had brushed them off the seat her gloves were already dirty. She sat down and opened her book, but found herself unable to concentrate on the trials and tribulations of her heroine because her mind was full of her own difficulties instead. Every so often, golden-brown leaves would float down and adorn the page. The wind was surprisingly chilly. Laura frowned at her lack of attentiveness and tried all the harder to enjoy herself.
Laura loved the countryside. She had grown up in this wild Yorkshire landscape and had lived in the county for much of her life, though she had spent the previous two years in London. She had hoped that returning to her childhood home would lessen the feeling of emptiness that dogged her steps these days, but it had not, and she could not understand it. It was not as though she was alone in the world. She adored her three-year-old daughter, Harriet, and spent an unfashionable amount of time with her. Fortune’s Folly was a busy little village and she had made many new friends there. And she also had a huge extended family with a tribe of cousins in every rank of the Ton. It was not even the case that she missed her late husband, Charles, for they had lived apart for the majority of their marriage. She had been shocked when Charles had died, of course. All of Society had been shocked that a man could be so profligate that he overturned his curricle and killed three of his mistresses as well as himself. But Laura had not missed the errant duke. She had felt enormous relief when she had heard that he had died.
Relief.
Guilt.
Excitement.
She had felt a thrill of anticipation that she and Hattie were free and then she had felt guilty again and lonelier than she had ever done in her life.
It was to forge a future for herself and Hattie that Laura had come to Fortune’s Folly. She wanted her daughter to grow up in the country, so after a year of formal mourning she had left London, where people insisted on trying to commiserate with her about Charles’s death, and had come to this Yorkshire village near to Skipton, where her grandmother had left her a modest house, The Old Palace. It sounded grand but Laura privately thought that it should have been renamed Old Place rather than Palace because it was an ancient and inconvenient medieval building no doubt suited to a not-so-ancient but impoverished dowager duchess who was trying to make a new start in life. Her brother and sister-in-law had pressed her to live with them but Laura had a vision of what that would be like—the dowager aunt taken in through charity, deferring to her brother’s will at every turn—and she knew that even solitary poverty had to be better than genteel dependence. Hattie’s situation would be even more intolerable than her own as she grew up as a poor relation. It was not to be borne. Skimping and scraping, growing her own fruit and vegetables, keeping bees, making and mending, just herself and Hattie and a few servants had to be preferable to being her brother’s pensioner.
Her daughter was a constant joy and revelation to her. And though she sometimes wished that Hattie had brothers or sisters with whom to share her childhood, Laura thought this wildly unlikely now. In order to have more children she would need to take a new husband and it would take an exceptional man to persuade her into marriage again after her experience with Charles. She and Hattie would fend quite well for themselves and soon, she was sure, her feelings of isolation would start to fade. She did not want her melancholy to affect Hattie. Hattie was such a happy child.
She cast the book aside and untied the mooring rope. Since she could not seem to concentrate on reading, she would take the boat for a short row on the river. Physical activity would help to occupy her and she could admire the autumnal countryside at the same time. She pushed the boat off from the bank and sat back to enjoy the gentle flow of the river.
As soon as the boat left the shelter of the bank the current caught it with quite unexpected strength. The water flowed deep and fast here. Nervous now, Laura gritted her teeth and tried to use the oars to steer back to the side, but she was clumsy and the river was too powerful. One of the oars slid from the rowlock and floated away. The boat began to make its rather erratic way down the river quite of its own accord.
Life, Laura thought helplessly, as she watched the oar bob away from her, so seldom turned out as planned. Here she was, a widow of four and thirty with a small daughter, virtually penniless and with an uncertain future. And now her immediate prospects scarcely looked better than her long-term ones. In fact they looked very wet and unpleasant indeed. She needed to start thinking about how she was going to get out of this situation without compromising her life, if not her dignity.
The boat scraped against the stony bed of the river and Laura made a grab for an overhanging branch, missed it and felt the sleeve of her spencer rip. Damnation. She could not afford to buy any new clothes. She would be the only duchess in the country who would be wearing darned clothing. People would commend her for her frugality to her face and talk about her poverty behind her back. Even in the small society of Fortune’s Folly there was a great deal of gossip, and not much of it was kind.
Laura plied her one remaining oar with energy but little direction and felt the boat start to turn in a slow circle in the water, which was not what she had intended at all. She rowed a little harder and the boat turned more quickly, picking up momentum, swinging around in a way that made her feel slightly sick. She grabbed for another branch in a last attempt to save herself. The sunlight was in her eyes and the shadows danced against her lids, blinding her, and the bark of the tree scored her fingers. She had just managed to gain a faint purchase when she felt the boat lurch as though someone had pushed it hard. The branch snapped, hitting her on the back of the head as it fell into the water. She heard the snap of breaking twigs and a scuffle as though someone were running away.
The boat rocked and Laura’s head spun with nausea. She let go of the second oar and clutched the sides. She could only hope that the boat would steady and the current would take her back in to the bank for she was momentarily too disoriented, and felt too sick, to do anything else.
But the boat did not steady. Instead it lurched out into the center of the river and headed toward the fish weir. The current was flowing faster and faster now. Laura knew she should jump but she had left it too late. The river was too strong for her here. She thought that she heard someone shouting but the sound was lost in the roar of the water and the grating of the stones of the weir beneath the hull of the boat. It rolled violently and then Laura was pitched over the side and the river closed over her head. The noise was in her ears and the water filled her lungs so she could not breathe. She had a last, vivid picture in her mind of her daughter’s smiling face and then everything went dark.
Chapter Two
DEXTER ANSTRUTHER was fishing.
Such a mild autumn day in the rocky reaches of the River Tune was perfect for grayling. Dexter liked fishing because it was a peaceful, soothing and solitary occupation, in contrast to the frequently disturbing, violent and unpleasant matters that he had to deal with in his work for the Home Secretary. Only the previous week Dexter had masterminded the capture of a brutal criminal who specialized in theft and extortion. He had hoped that after that success Lord Liverpool, the Home Secretary, would finally be persuaded to allow him some much-needed leave. But Liverpool had another plan.
“Need you to go to Yorkshire and deal with some damned murdering criminal,” Lord Liverpool had said, snapping a quill pen irritably between his fingers and casting the parts aside with a muttered curse. “You remember the death of Sir William Crosby, Anstruther?”
“Yes, my lord,” Dexter said. Sir William Crosby, a Yorkshire magistrate, had shot himself whilst out hunting a month before. “I thought,” he added, “that that had been an accident?”
Lord Liverpool shook his head. “Murder,” he said, with gloomy relish. “It was dressed up to look like an accident but Crosby was left-handed and the angle of the bullet made it impossible for him to have tripped and fallen. Blasted nuisance, but the fact is that these blackguards can’t be allowed to get away with it.”
“Quite, my lord,” Dexter said. “But if it is a straightforward case of murder, surely this is a matter for the local constable rather than the Guardians—” He stopped as Liverpool shook his head crossly and reached for another quill to decimate.
“Can’t allow some bungling local official to deal with this, Anstruther,” he had barked. “It’s complicated. Warren Sampson may be involved. Crosby was investigating some business that implicated Sampson when he died. Convenient, eh?”
Dexter pursed his lips on a soundless whistle. That did put a different complexion on matters. For several years there had been rumors that Warren Sampson, a disgustingly rich Yorkshire mill owner and businessman, was involved in stirring up civil unrest and sedition in the North of England. Sampson was clever about it and there was nothing that could be pinned on him; he worked through intermediaries and it was thought that he encouraged mill riots so that he could steal business from his rivals and that he had perpetrated various insurance frauds and other swindles. Lord Liverpool was near apoplectic because the authorities had been unable to trap Sampson.
“There is a rumor that one of Sampson’s henchmen is a member of the local gentry,” Liverpool said disgustedly. “The bored son of some rustic squire looking for excitement and extra cash, perhaps. He may well be the murderer, Anstruther. The whole thing is a damned nuisance, but the case needs careful handling.”
Dexter had sighed. “Do we have any idea of the location of this aristocratic delinquent, my lord?”
“Sampson owns land around Peacock Oak and Fortune’s Folly,” Lord Liverpool said, “and Crosby lived close by. The trouble is that every petty criminal in the country is hanging out there at the moment. Natural enough when that dashed fool Monty Fortune has put about town the fact that he has made the place the marriage mart of England. The town is crowded with visitors and every villain for miles around wants to get their share of the spoils.”
Dexter saw the problem. Even the impecunious fortune hunters who flocked to the village might have a watch or a snuffbox worth stealing and the homes of the rich heiresses would yield fine pickings. It was a temptation many criminals would not wish to resist and in amongst the petty thieves might lurk a more dangerous malefactor with Warren Sampson pulling his strings.
“Whilst you are there you could also turn your attention to finding yourself a rich wife, Anstruther,” Lord Liverpool had added. “Don’t think that I don’t know your family finances are in a parlous state. Your mama can no more retrench than she could swim the Thames, your sisters need to be launched into society and your brothers are damned expensive to educate. You need to wed an heiress. Penniless men are vulnerable to blackmail and I cannot have that in a man working so closely with me.”
“I would not dream of succumbing to blackmail, no matter how desperate my situation, my lord,” Dexter said coldly. He clenched his hands into fists to prevent himself from telling his employer how offended he was at the suggestion.
“No need to get touchy with me, lad,” Liverpool grunted, noticing the gesture. “I know you’re sound as a bell but others in your family may not be and where there is a weakness…” He shook his head. “Get you to Fortune’s Folly. If you cannot catch yourself a rich wife there, then I wash my hands of you. But make sure that you find our miscreant before you succumb to the lures of some young lady. I don’t want you distracted, An-struther. This Fortune’s Folly marriage mart business is the perfect cover for your presence in Yorkshire but make sure you keep your mind on your work first and your fortune hunting second.”
“Yes, my lord,” Dexter said.
“I’ll give you two months,” Lord Liverpool said. “Want the matter tied up by Christmas, Anstruther. That should give you plenty of time. If you’re lucky you might even fit in some fishing, as well. Catch the murdering miscreant fair and square, see that he implicates Sampson, as well, and if you also come back with a wealthy wife you will have done a good job.”
“Yes, my lord,” Dexter said, heart sinking. There was no reasoning with Lord Liverpool when he was in this sort of mood. And truth to tell, Dexter knew that he should not be arguing the case anyway. Lord Liverpool was right—he desperately needed a rich wife and ever since Monty Fortune had made his announcement in Brooks’s Club that night he had been thinking of going to Yorkshire to find one.
The problem, Dexter reflected, as he cast his line again, was that he was a reluctant suitor. Hence the fact that he was fishing today rather than paying court to any of the ladies gathered in the winter gardens and the pump rooms. Blatant fortune hunting offended his sense of honor. But, as Miles Vickery had helpfully pointed out to him, honor could be an expensive commodity and one that, in this context, Dexter really could not afford.
Dexter’s father had died five years before, having gambled away a fortune that he did not have. The Honorable James Anstruther had staggered out of his club on his way to a low tavern to drown his sorrows, and had finished the whole sorry business of his life by stumbling, blind drunk, in front of a carriage and leaving his eldest son with a pile of debts and six siblings to take care of. By great good fortune he had staved off his ruin until Dexter had completed his studies at Oxford, which at least ensured he could get a job in the government, but it was not well paid and the widowed Mrs. Anstruther and his younger brothers and sisters were ruinously extravagant and expensive.
Some people are blessed with one irresponsible parent; Dexter had two. In that respect The Honorable Mr. Anstruther and his wife were extremely well suited, with their gambling, their affairs and their general decadence. Dexter, the eldest child and the only one of the seven members of the “Anstruther Collection” who could definitely be assumed to be his father’s son, had watched his parents lurch from financial crisis to emotional disaster for as long as he could remember. From the age of twelve he had determined that his life was going to be the opposite of his father’s: rational, controlled and with no dangerous emotions to cloud his judgment. He would marry responsibly to a woman who would be faithful to him and his children would know exactly who their parents were. He would never tolerate for his offspring the kind of stigma and ignominy that had attached to him and his siblings: the covert smiles, the knowing looks, the veiled references to his parents’ disastrous affairs and their own illegitimacy.
Such a rational approach to life had stood him in good stead until the age of twenty-two, when he had succumbed to one spectacular, exhilarating episode of sexual abandon, during which he had lost his heart as well as his virginity and fallen hopelessly in love. The incident had been a disaster, reinforcing in the end all his beliefs about the need for a calm and controlled life. In his youth and inexperience he had miscalculated badly and thought his feelings were returned. Disillusioned and angry when he had discovered they were not, he had sought solace in liaisons with courtesans that he could ill afford until Lord Liverpool had called him gruffly to account.
There was no sound but for the call of a moorhen by the riverbank and the splash of a fish farther upstream. The day was extremely peaceful. Dexter cast his line again, thinking of the calm and rational future marriage he had planned.
“Try not to make as big a hash of this case as you did that Glory business, Anstruther,” Liverpool had said caustically as he bade Dexter farewell. “That whole affair was an utter disaster.”
Dexter shifted slightly now as he reflected on the conversation. The “Glory business” Lord Liverpool had referred to had indeed been an unfortunate case. Four years previously, Dexter and his colleague Nick Falconer had failed to capture the highway woman Glory, a popular heroine who was the darling of the Yorkshire Dales. Glory had fought for justice in her own inimitable style,righting wrongs, settling scores, taking from the rich to give to the poor in true Robin Hood style. Even now, Dexter could not quite think of Glory as anything other than a heroine, a piece of sentimentality that irritated him profoundly when he should not have been thinking about her at all.
The bobbin on the end of his fishing line dipped, indicating that a fish had taken the bait. Dexter started to reel it in.
He heard a splash followed by an expletive and then an oar drifted lazily past him, tangling briefly with the fishing line and dislodging his catch. Dexter swore, too, and again as a second oar came sailing past, knocking his fishing rod off the bank. He made a grab for it and reeled it in just as Laura, Dowager Duchess of Cole, floated past in a rowing boat.
Dexter straightened up and watched curiously.
The rowing boat was spinning slowly in the current, heading toward the fish weir. He could see Laura sitting bolt upright, clutching the sides of the boat. She seemed stunned. Dexter doubted that she could swim. Most women could not, for it was not something that they were taught. And she was perfectly right to be worried, of course. He calculated quite coolly that in a minute, two at the most, the boat would tumble over the weir and Laura would fall into the water and might well drown. She might hit her head as she fell, or her long skirts might become entangled and pull her underwater, or any number of fatal things might happen to her.
Which, arguably, was what Laura Cole deserved for giving him such a perfect night of love four years before and then shattering his heart immediately afterward,showing herself to be no more than a cold, calculating, selfish and hypocritical creature into the bargain.
Not that he was bitter.
He did not care. Laura Cole could drown, for all he cared.
Hell and the devil.
Laura Cole would drown in approximately one minute and he was standing here watching it happen.
Dexter threw down the fishing rod and wrenched off his jacket. There was no time to stop to remove his boots. He strode into the river—it was shallow at the edge but deep in the middle—just as the boat reached the top of the weir and stopped with a rather sickening crunch as the wooden frame caught on the stones at the top.
“Jump!” he shouted.
Laura turned toward him. Her face was a pale blur. She was gripping the edge of the boat so tightly that Dexter could see her knuckles white against the dark wood. She did not move.
The water was up to his chest now and the current was frighteningly strong, threatening to pull him over the top of the weir. The mossy stone of the riverbed slid beneath his feet, treacherously uneven, as he struggled to stay upright.
Dexter made a grab for the boat but in that second the keel slid with a grating roar across the stones at the top of the weir, tipped up at a steep angle and decanted Laura into the river. She disappeared over the top of the weir in a cacophony of water, her bonnet tumbling off and one of her shoes flying through the air in a perfect arc before landing with a plop in the water beside Dexter’s head. Muttering a curse, Dexter gave in and allowed the current to take him over the weir and into the deep green pool at the bottom. Even as he did it he wondered what on earth possessed him to take such a dangerous risk. He felt as though all the air had been pummeled from his body in the fall. There was the sound of rushing water in his ears, cold water that chilled him bone-deep. It filled his lungs, smothering him. He stumbled upright, shaking the water from his eyes, searching desperately for Laura.
Then he saw her.
She was struggling like a madwoman against the heavy, dragging weight of her skirts, which threatened to pull her under. He grabbed hold of her and held her hard against him, protecting her from the tow of the current. His hand was firm in the hollow of her back, their lower bodies pressed intimately together. The water splashed cold around them, but where their bodies touched and clung together he could, suddenly and surprisingly, feel the heat in her. Her breasts were resting against his chest and through his soaking shirt and her drenched clothes he could feel her nipples tight and hard, pressing against him. Despite the cold water and the extreme discomfort of their situation, he felt his body start to stir as he remembered that other occasion on which she had been clasped close in his arms, naked, warm and enticing.
Dexter had not anticipated this happening to him when—if—he ever met Laura Cole again. Certainly it was not his usual response to a soaking-wet female. But now the memories of his night with Laura swelled like a dam that was about to burst and in combination with her wet and seminaked state made his erection swell in proportion. He felt simultaneously hugely aroused and furiously angry with himself for that instant and very inappropriate arousal. He tried to think of icy winds and how chilly the water was, but his body felt like a furnace. He could not control it. And the more he tried to exert self-control the more excited his errant body seemed to become, as though it were asserting its independence and its right to find Laura attractive if it chose. Dex was enraged.
Laura could evidently feel his response, as well. She raised a hand and dashed the wet strands of honey-brown hair back from her face. Her hazel eyes snapped with anger and discomposure. A hint of color touched her cheekbones. She looked as though she was as uncomfortable with his proximity as he was with hers. It was the reaction of the perfect, respectable duchess that he had always imagined her to be. And indeed she had been utterly perfect in his bed and nowhere near as virtuous as she pretended to be out of it…
“Mr. Anstruther! What are you doing?” Laura hit exactly the right note for an outraged dowager duchess and Dexter admired the apparent ease with which she could assume the role. No one hearing her now would ever guess that she had taken him into her bed and made mad, ecstatic, explosive love to him for an entire afternoon, evening and night. It might be something that, with hindsight, he deplored ever happening, but it seemed he could not forget it.
“I am saving you from drowning, your grace,” Dexter said politely. “However, if you object I can let you go.” He suited actions to words by loosening his grip on her.
Laura gave a muffled squeak and clung to him all the more tightly, her fingers digging into the muscles of his upper arms. Dexter was immediately reminded of the sensation of her fingernails scoring his back as she had moved in sensual abandonment beneath him. He tried to ignore the thought and erase the memory—and failed dismally. His body hardened still further until he felt as though he might burst—or throw her down on the riverbank and make love to her. He struggled for some rationality but his body still felt as though it was under independent ownership, hot, tight and desperate for satisfaction. He almost groaned aloud. It was a long time since he had had a woman—since his fall from grace and subsequent recovery he had avoided casual affaires—and none of the women he had known had ever affected him in the stunningly physical way that Laura did. That had been part of the problem. The awareness between them was unwanted, it was infuriating, but it was undeniable.
“Mr. Anstruther, do you always find situations such as this so arousing?” Laura’s tone was frigid enough to turn the most ardent man limp.
“Always,” Dexter said grimly. He bent, slid an arm beneath her knees and swept her off her feet and up into his arms. Judging by the startled look on Laura’s face, he guessed that no one had ever done that to her before. Perhaps it was not surprising for she was a tall woman. He stood at over six feet and she was a bare few inches shorter than him. Many men, he was aware, would find that intimidating.
Buffeted by the current, he strode toward the bank and deposited her gently on the ground. She was still wearing one shoe, the match for the one that had floated off down the river. He noticed that her other foot, in its soaked silk stocking, was large for a woman, but nevertheless delicately shaped with an elegantly high instep. For some reason Dexter found the fact that Laura had big feet to be rather endearing. He wished now that the contrast between her size and her apparent fragility did not appeal to him so much. He did not like her and he did not want to be attracted to her any more but reason, the mainspring of his life, seemed to desert him when Laura was around. It was most inconvenient and quite inexplicable.
“Thank you for your assistance.” Laura’s tone was still arctic. “You may leave me now.”
Dexter had had every intention of doing precisely that, but her dismissal grated on him. He stood watching as she wrung the water from her skirts. It was a fairly pointless exercise. Her entire gown was soaking, damp, he was quick to appreciate, in ways that went far beyond the practice followed by fashionable whores. The drenched muslin clung to every one of her curves—and those who declared Laura Cole to have no figure were clearly mistaken for she had the most entrancingly small, rounded, tip-tilted breasts and a deliciously arched line to her hips.
But Dexter knew that already.
He had seen those curves.
He had traced every last one of them with his hands and his lips and his tongue. He had worshipped her with his body…
Suddenly the mild autumn day seemed sweltering. Dexter’s brain ceased to function at any coherent level as his mind finally gave up the resistance and was swamped with erotic images of Laura lying naked on her tumbled bed at Cole Court whilst he followed every lush, tempting line of her body with his lips. The memories seemed indelibly imprinted on his mind. No attempt at erasure ever seemed to work, no matter how he had tried, or how he had pretended to forget her.
He had wondered what would happen if and when he met Laura Cole again. It was a natural enough matter to speculate about. In the encounters he had envisaged, he had variously been civil, cold, contemptuous and indifferent. In none of them had his throat dried with lust and his eyes been riveted to her slender figure as she stood dripping wet and unbearably seductive before him. Another hot wave of desire surged through him even as he shivered as the breeze flattened his wet trousers against his thighs. There was no concealing his enormous erection now.
And Laura had stopped wringing out her skirts, the material falling from her hands as she straightened up, and was looking at him with a mixture of shock and outrage.
“Mr. Anstruther, a gentleman does not stare at a lady in that frank and boorish manner. Nor does he demonstrate such a strong reaction…” She stopped, making a vague flapping gesture with her hands toward his groin.
Dexter could have put her right on that. No matter how much he fought it, no matter how much he wished to suppress his desires, he was obliged to admit that any man with a pulse would be staring when a figure straight from his most heated fantasies was standing before him. That same man would, as Laura herself had put it, develop a strong and well-nigh irresistible reaction to what he saw. From the confrontational tilt of her chin, however, he suspected that Laura would not take kindly to being corrected. She had started to shiver and looked both upset and defiant. Whilst he had no time for her false protestations of respectability—not with the things that he knew about her—he could see that this might not be the moment to discuss the matter.
With one stride Dexter had reached her side and swung her up in his arms again. She went absolutely rigid as soon as he touched her.
“Where are you staying?” he inquired.
“I live at The Old Palace,” Laura said, “but there is absolutely no need for you to carry me home in this fashion. Unhand me at once, Mr. Anstruther. I insist!” She was at her most peremptory. Most people, Dexter was aware, would obey such a command from a dowager duchess. He ignored it and did not even break his stride as he marched purposefully across the water meadow toward the gate that led to The Old Palace.
Laura’s hair was starting to dry now in honey-brown wisps about her face. She had had it cut since Dexter had first known her and the cluster of curls in the nape of her neck was extremely becoming. One of them brushed his cheek like a feather across his bare skin. Dexter felt the shiver down to his toes. It was so light a touch to have so profound an effect on him. But it seemed impossible not to be aware of every last inch of her. She smelled of fresh air and roses; the scent was in her hair and on her skin and it made him want to bury his face in the curve of her neck and to taste her. He wondered if she would taste the same as he remembered. He wondered if she would kiss the way he remembered. He imagined not. These days he was inclined to believe—or to hope for the sake of his peace of mind—that in his youthful infatuation he had imagined her to be so much more perfect than she really was. The dazzling, physical compatibility that he had thought existed between them would prove to be a product of his inexperience. A kiss was just a kiss. She would not be special and he would not lose his head over her again.
But he would give a lot to know…
As though sensing his feelings, Laura tried to hold herself away from him and put some distance between their bodies.
“Do not be alarmed,” Dexter said. “You are perfectly safe. All I mean to do is convey you home. I have no intention of ravishing you. I do not even like you.”
Laura arched her brows. “Indeed? Parts of you seem to like me well enough, Mr. Anstruther.”
“True,” Dexter said. “They always did. But then not all of me is as discerning as my mind.”
Laura gave a snort of disgust. “Then spare yourself further bodily inconvenience and permit me to walk home unaided. I do not need your help. Indeed, I had no notion that you were even visiting Fortune’s Folly.”
“Nor I you.”
“A pity,” Laura said acidly. “If only we had known we could each have chosen a different destination and spared ourselves the unpleasantness of having to meet.”
Dexter ignored her comments again, kicking open the paddock gate with one booted foot and striding across the field toward the house. A little social discomfort was the least she owed him. Anger and contempt licked through his blood again. Laura had thrown him out of the house the very morning after their passionate night together. He had begged her to run away with him and she had told him he was no more than a stupid youth. She had laughed at his suggestion, taking all that new and untried love for her that he had only just discovered and making it seem tawdry. Her words were etched in his memory:
“Did you imagine that this meant more to me than a brief and pleasant interlude? What a great deal you have to learn, Mr. Anstruther. It was but sport.…”
He had been ridiculously naive, and she an experienced woman to whom he was, no doubt, just one in a long line of liaisons and infidelities. He knew that was how many of the bored wives of the Ton passed their time, going from husband to lover as the fancy took them. But at the time he had thought Laura different and the whole business had left him feeling stupid and betrayed, and vowing never again to allow his physical passions to cloud his emotions and swamp his good judgment. He had thought himself a man of firm principles until he had met Laura Cole but now he thought bitterly that in her company his strength of character lasted just as long as it took him to take his clothes off.
Cynically, he supposed that he should actually be grateful to her. If she had not shown her true colors, if she had not discarded him with careless disdain but had taken him at his word and run away with him, he would have made an almighty mess of his life and one from which he might never have recovered his rational, calm and logical course. No indeed, he should thank Laura for turning him down so brutally and making him see that passion had no place in his life.
Laura shifted in his arms and sighed again. Dexter almost sighed himself. His body was still clamoring for satisfaction even as his mind despised her. It was a small revenge to make her so uncomfortable through his proximity and not a particularly sensible idea, but he felt she deserved it.
“You know, you really should not go out alone in a boat if you cannot swim,” he observed softly into the tumble of curls that tickled his chin.
“I can swim.” Laura wriggled crossly, which did nothing for Dexter’s concentration and a great deal for his bodily torment.
“I was brought up around here and swam in the river from the age of three,” she said. “Unfortunately I do not have an extensive wardrobe and prefer not to swim in a muslin gown.”
“How like a woman,” Dexter said. “Given a choice between jumping in the water and ruining her gown or escaping drowning, she prefers not to jump.”
Laura clenched her lower lip between her teeth. Dexter felt his body jolt. He had fantasized often enough about feeling that mouth against his own again.
“I had forgotten that you are an expert on women these days, Mr. Anstruther,” Laura said. “How fortuitous that your experience gained in bawdy houses and brothels across London has given you such an insight into the female mind. You have changed.”
“I have.” Anger flickered within Dexter again. He tried to quench it. Anger was not a proper response to this situation. It was dangerous and threatened his control in much the same way that his lust did. Laura could try to goad him as much as she wished but he would not rise to her provocation.
“I am not the same man you knew before,” he said.
“Evidently,” Laura said. “Four years can change a man.”
“Is it four years?” Dexter was not going to admit that he could tell her the precise length of their time apart in days and months, and possibly hours if he was honest. “I had forgotten.”
“Of course you had,” Laura said. He saw a faint bitter smile touch her lips. “Men always do.”
Well, no doubt she knew the truth of that with her experience. Dexter tried not to care. He wrenched open the garden gate and marched up the path.
The grounds at The Old Palace were empty and overgrown. The house seemed shuttered and still. Dexter looked around. “Where are your servants?”
Laura seemed discomfited. “I do not have a large staff. They are probably busy about the house somewhere and my daughter is out in the village with her nursery maid, so no one will be about.”
Dexter had yet to meet a duchess who had less than a regiment of servants. They seemed to think that being waited upon hand and foot was their inalienable right. But perhaps Charles Cole had left Laura without a feather to fly and no means to support her young daughter. The new duke held the title now and there was apparently no love lost between Henry Cole and his cousin’s widow, so he would not be financing her, either. At any rate, no one answered the door to Dexter’s increasingly forthright knocking.
“Oh, put me down!” Laura said, clearly losing patience and slipping from his arms before Dexter could stop her. “I can open a door for myself and I am chilled to the bone, dripping here.” She looked at him. “You are very damp, as well, Mr. Anstruther. Do you require a change of clothing? I do believe there are some old clothes of my grandfather’s somewhere about the place should you need them.”
“Thank you, your grace,” Dexter said, with a slight bow, “but I shall collect my fishing gear and walk back to the inn as I am.”
Laura looked at the pool of water that was dripping steadily from his shirt onto the slate of the path. “Surely that will cause conjecture if anyone sees you?”
“Not as much as the sight of me walking back to the Morris Clown Inn dressed in your grandfather’s Georgian fashions, I imagine,” Dexter said.
“My grandfather was quite the beau,” Laura said. “You might find that you start a new style. Not that that is likely to appeal to you, I suppose, Mr. Anstruther. Fashion is far too shallow an interest for one of your serious nature, is it not? Or have you changed in that respect, as well?”
Dexter was almost drawn into replying to that. He admitted ruefully to himself that he was finding it hard to resist Laura’s provocation. She had a way of getting under his skin unmatched by anyone else he had ever met.
She looked exquisite, he thought, standing there in damp disarray. Others overlooked Laura because her beauty was not of the obvious variety that society admired. Her appeal for him lay in the fine, direct gaze of those hazel eyes and the rich creaminess of a skin that was sprinkled with endearing freckles. It was in the soft curl of that honey-chestnut-colored hair and the upward turn of her lips, as though she was always on the edge of a smile. The fact that she was not in the first flush of youth and had a tracery of fine lines about her eyes only enhanced her beauty for him because it added character…Dexter caught himself up before he got too carried away. There was no point in standing here catching a chill whilst he rhapsodized about Laura’s outward beauty. It was not a fair guide to the woman beneath, whom he had discovered was actually a calculating and manipulative whore.
“On second thoughts, I will accept your offer of a change of clothing, thank you,” he said, following her into the stone flagged hallway of The Old Palace. “The breeze is chilly today and there is no sense in taking cold. One must be practical.”
“Of course,” Laura said. “I know that you pride yourself on your practicality, Mr. Anstruther.”
The house was silent, the floors muffled in ancient rugs, the walls smothered in equally dark and old tapestries on which were depicted a variety of bloodthirsty war and hunting scenes. A huge suit of medieval armor dominated one corner. From the wall above the fireplace glared a bad-tempered stag’s head whilst a moth-eaten stuffed fox prowled the stone windowsill. There was a child’s rocking horse in one corner and a rather beautiful porcelain-faced doll sitting in a small chair.
“I see that your grandfather had martial tastes as well as sartorial ones,” Dexter said, looking at the shields hanging rather precariously from the walls.
Laura shook her head. “No, that was my grandmother. She rode to hounds every day and could shoot a longbow. She said that one of them had to think about more than the cut of their clothes.” She pointed to two portraits hanging on the far wall. “There they are.”
The late Lord Asthall looked every inch the eighteenth-century dandy, Dexter thought. He had hazel eyes and black hair, a pronounced nose and strong chin, and his expression was arrogant and amoral. His features were also vaguely familiar. Dexter’s paternal family had come from Yorkshire several generations back and there had been a rumor in the family that there was bastard Asthall blood in the line somewhere. Certainly Dexter’s brother Roly and his father’s so-called “ward” Caro had the same coloring. Dexter reflected ruefully that that was probably where his father had got his libertine tendencies from, as well. Lord Asthall looked a complete cad. Still, Lady Asthall was, quite frankly, a fearsome Amazon of a woman in her archery dress, so perhaps they had been well matched.
“Were they happy together?” he asked.
“I do not believe so. My grandfather was a terrible rake,” Laura said, confirming Dexter’s suspicions. “I am surprised that Grandmama did not shoot him with her bow and arrow.”
“And does your daughter inherit the same sporting prowess as her great-grandmother?” Dexter asked.
Laura paused. There was a rather odd silence. Looking at her, Dexter thought she looked pinched and cold, as though he were trespassing on a subject she did not want to discuss.
“Hattie is still very young.” Laura spoke stiffly. “She can sit a small pony if I walk beside her and she loves her rocking horse, so perhaps one day she will be a rider.”
There was another silence. Dexter could hear the loud hum of a bumblebee trapped against the windowpane and the rush of the river over the weir. He felt a little disquieted to think of Laura rattling around in this ancient place all on her own with her small daughter, but then there did not seem much of value to steal here. It seemed that his speculation about Charles Cole leaving Laura with no money had been close to the mark. She was penniless, alone and unprotected. He was disturbed at how uneasy the thought made him.
The door at the end of the dark corridor opened and a butler shuffled forward into the patch of sunlight that was making patterns through the diamond windowpanes.
“Your grace! I did not hear the bell.”
Dexter was shocked to recognize Carrington, the butler from Cole Court. Four years ago the man had been vigorous and healthy. Now he looked old and broken. He stooped. His hands shook and his voice was a whisper. Dexter doubted that he could hold a tray, let alone announce visitors.
“It does not matter, Carrington,” Laura spoke softly. “Please could you show Mr. Anstruther down to the warming room whilst I find some dry clothing for him? We have had a small mishap.”
The butler’s gaze darted from one to the other like a furtive rabbit. “An accident? Oh, madam—”
“There is nothing to cause distress,” Laura interrupted firmly. “It was no more than a fall in the river. If you would be so good…”
The butler nodded and drew himself up with a sad echo of his former authority. “This way, sir, if you please.”
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