Dusk With a Dangerous Duke (20 page)

“What is your question, Your Grace?”

She sensed more than saw his grimace. “Will you marry me?”

Grace hesitated. She was not trying to be difficult. Half of her life she had often longed for the day he would claim her. The other half, she had come to accept that he had abandoned her. Though he refused to see it, there was a third choice. She could celebrate her twenty-first birthday as an unmarried lady. If she was strong enough to hold her ground, she could free them.

With a sigh of wistful regret, she said, “No.”

Without warning, Hunter pounded on the trapdoor to get the coachman’s attention. “Stop the coach!” he ordered, his harsh command waking his sleeping companions.

Regan yawned and blinked. “Has something happened? Are you two fighting again?”

“No,” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

The coach slowed, finally coming to a complete stop.

“Hunter, what mischief are you planning?” Frost drawled sleepily.

“Correcting a misunderstanding,” he said as he opened the door. He grabbed her by the hand and pulled her along as he disembarked from the coach. “To protect her tender feelings, I told Grace that she had a choice about marrying me. I wanted a willing bride in my bed, and I believed that she would make the right decision on her own.”

“I have a choice,” she insisted stubbornly.

“No, you don’t.” He placed his hands on her waist and effortlessly lifted her, shifting her from the coach’s steps to the dirt road. “And neither do I. It’s time for both of us to stop behaving as if we do.”

Chapter Nineteen

Two hours later, Grace married the Duke of Huntsley.

Five hours into the marriage, she was quite willing to have it annulled.

Grace gasped as her husband entered the bedchamber and shut the door. “Get out!” she hissed, seizing the sheet from Regan’s hands and using it to cover herself. “You have no right to intrude upon my bath.”

“I have every right,
wife.
”

Approaching the two women with a nonchalance that only inflamed her outrage and embarrassment, Hunter sat down on the wooden chest at the end of the bed. He crossed his arms, his gaze meeting hers. She sank deeper into the tub.

Having known Hunter for most of her life, Regan was the only one who was not intimidated by his presence. She stepped in front of Grace, effectively blocking his view of his naked bride.

“Really, Hunter,” she said in a chiding tone. “I would expect this high-handed conduct from Frost and possibly Sin, but this is beneath you.”

Grace tilted her head to peek around Regan’s body and glimpsed a quick flash of white as Hunter smiled at her. “Since you and your husband assisted me in kidnapping my reluctant bride, your lofty perch seems rather wobbly, my dear.”

“Oh for goodness’ sake!” she exclaimed, her arms rising along with her voice and exasperation. “If you had shared the details of your plan, I would have refused to have any part of it. The only reason why I stayed was the fact that no one could talk you out of it, and someone had to be on Grace’s side.”

“A warning that this madman was making plans to lure me away to Gretna Green would have spared all of us a long trip,” Grace muttered under her breath.

Regan glanced back, her expression full of sympathy and guilt. “You could not run from him forever, Grace.”

Hunter chuckled. “If she had tried, she would have found herself trussed up like a bird for the oven.”

Regan’s head snapped in his direction. “You are not being helpful,” she said before she offered him her back. To Grace, she said, “Ignore his brutish manner. Even if he will not admit it, his intentions are honorable.”

“A few more days and the contract would have been broken,” she argued stubbornly. “I was almost free.”

Of him.

She did not speak the words but they pealed like a church bell in the ensuing silence. Regan grimaced as Hunter climbed to his feet.

“Unfortunately for you, my duchess, you have been soundly caught,” Hunter said, glaring at her as he moved closer to Regan. “You bear my name and my ring on your finger. There is only one more task to undertake before we leave this village.”

“Hunter.”

He placed his hands on Regan’s upper arms and began to guide her to the door. “Be grateful that we do not need witnesses for this part.” Hunter glared at the frightened maid hovering near the tub. “You there. Your services are no longer required. Out you go.”

“Aye, Your Grace.” The servant dipped into a hasty curtsy before she rushed to the door as if her skirt were on fire. She was gone before Hunter could escort Regan to the door.

“This is not the way to go about this,” Regan hissed at him as she struggled to free herself from his unyielding grasp. “Can you not see that the poor girl is terrified?”

Hunter and Regan glanced in Grace’s direction. She tightened her hold on the sheet wrapped around her wet body and attempted to appear delicate and frightened. In truth, her heart was pounding with anger more than fear. He had thwarted all efforts to nullify their marriage contract, and now they were man and wife. The least he could do was leave her in peace while she sulked about her predicament.

Hunter switched his attention back to Regan. “You haven’t been married long enough for me to consider you an expert on marriage. And let us not forget, your marriage was an unexpected event. I might have missed the fun, but I heard all the details on how Dare slipped into your bedchamber and carried you off to the nearest vicar.”

Grace blinked in surprise. Dare had abducted his lady from her bed? Regan had mentioned that she had fallen in love with her husband when he still considered her a child rather than a young woman, but she had skipped some of the most fascinating parts of the tale.

“You most certainly did not hear
all
the details,” Regan shouted at him, poking a finger into his chest. “Dare is a gentleman. He would never speak disrespectfully of me.”

“Not with you in earshot anyway,” he shot back at her. “He likes having you in his bed. The man isn’t a complete fool.”

“Neither are you,” Regan countered. “So why are you behaving like an utter arse?”

Grace brought her fingers to her lips to conceal her smile. She would have never had the courage to deliver such a bold insult to Hunter. Even though Regan had played a role their elopement, Grace could not help but admire the young marchioness. She hoped to count her as a close friend one day.

Hunter frowned at Regan as he opened the door. “Your opinion is noted, Lady Pashley. Why don’t you run off and share it with your husband and brother. There now, off you go.” He gave her a not-so-gentle push.

“But—”

He closed the door, muffling the rest of Regan’s protest. For good measure, he locked the door and pocketed the key. The marchioness gave the door a frustrated thump with her fist, but then fell silent. Unless she had rushed off to get her husband to break down the door, Grace suspected that she was on her own.

Hunter dusted off his hands, his expression revealing he was quite pleased that he had won that battle of wills. All of a sudden, his body stilled as if he just remembered that he was not alone.

He lifted his head until their gazes locked. He offered her a roguish smile. “Am I not a lucky gent? A naked wench in my bedchamber. It’s my favorite way to while away an evening.”

*   *   *

Regan had distracted him from more important matters, and that was how he should handle his new bride. Grace was crouched low with a damp sheet covering her and the bathtub like a tent. Her attempt at modesty was endearing, but his duchess was losing the battle. As the thick linen soaked up her cooling bathwater, it revealed more than it concealed. He thought about waiting her out because in another fifteen minutes or so, his view was going to become positively entertaining.

“I am not naked,” Grace said rather waspishly as she adjusted her hold on the sheet covering her breasts. “Nor does this room belong to you. I have claimed it, so find another.”

If she thought to distract him by drawing his gaze to her cleavage, it was working. Although he had not had the pleasure of viewing them without the hindrance of clothing, the generous swells hinted that he would not be disappointed.

“The room may not be mine to claim, but you, my delectable duchess, are.” Hunter took an intimidating step closer, and she sank lower into the tub. “Do you require my assistance, or can you manage to get out of the tub on your own?”

She blushed. It was a reminder of her innocence and the sheltered life she had lived before he had married her. As a general rule, he had stayed away from virgins, who feathered their pillows with dreams of marrying a wealthy nobleman. His grandmother had bound him to Grace just as he was figuring out that girls had other talents besides being a nuisance. Dewy wide-eyed innocents were not for him, so he sought out the wicked and the reckless, earthy wenches who understood that his interest in them was fleeting. Along the way, there were one or two ladies who might have captured his heart if his grandmother had not sold it when neither he nor Grace was old enough to appreciate its loss.

“I will tend to myself once you leave the bedchamber,” his bride said with steel threading her voice.

By faith, her courage was admirable. Unfortunately, it would take more than cheek to win this battle.

“A reasonable suggestion, Duchess,” Hunter said, slowly circling the tub with his hands crossed behind his back. His actions forced an uncomfortable Grace to shift to protect her backside. “Though I respectably must point out a small flaw to your plan.”

“And that is?”

He paused to admire her wary, albeit defiant expression. “I have no intention of leaving this room till morning.”

Chapter Twenty

“B-but you must!” she sputtered.

Hunter leaned forward until his nose was inches from hers. “Contrary to your wishes, Duchess, what I must do is finish this business of making you my wife. A real marriage requires that I bind you to me legally and by flesh. I cannot sire my heir if you remain a virgin, now, can I?”

It was far cry from the honeyed words he was capable of uttering when he wanted a woman in his bed. However Grace had a manner of engaging him that was provoking as much as it was arousing.

“There is no reason to be coarse, Your Grace.”

“My little innocent bride … you think honest speech is coarse?” Hunter reached out, and she flinched away. He lowered his hand. “If I had chosen to be coarse, I would have declared that I intended to fuck you, my lovely bride. How ironical that it was my blood that was spilled the afternoon the marriage pact was made, and now yours will be shed to signal its fulfillment.”

His words and proximity threatened to break her composure. Grace blinked rapidly and glanced downward at her sodden sheet as if it were her shroud. “Of course, I understand that a woman is supposed to submit to her husband. However, I expected you to be … different.”

Hunter scowled at her. What precisely was she accusing him of being? A sodomite? Or worse—impotent? “Different how?”

Grace shrugged without looking up at him. “You have managed to ignore my existence for the past nineteen years. When you insisted on going through with the marriage, I assumed that we would continue to live in separate residences.”

Hunter stared down at her, silently willing her to meet his gaze. She must have exhausted what had seemed like an endless supply of impudence. He was quite surprised by the anger her assumptions about their marriage elicited. Granted, he had treated her shabbily, and might have continued to do so if not for the stipulation that he had to marry Grace before she turned one-and-twenty.

His grandmother knew him well.

He had not thought about his relationship with his duchess beyond marrying the chit and consummating the union. Since he had met Grace, he had given a lot of thought to the consummation part. His wife was extraordinarily beautiful. Bedding her was a task he intended to savor. If he had bothered to pay attention to Mr. Porter’s reports, he might have sacrificed the few remaining years of his freedom and married her years ago.

It definitely would have spared him the hasty jaunt to Gretna Green.

“You were a child for the better part of those nineteen years,” he said gruffly. “And I did not possess the inclination or the patience to have a girl underfoot.”

He felt a stab of guilt when she gazed up at him with pain in her eyes. “You have made it abundantly clear that I am a nuisance, Your Grace. Forgive me, if my expectations for a proper marriage were dismal at best.”

A proper marriage? Until recently, Hunter had not been intimately acquainted with what that entailed. Vane, Dare, Sin, and Reign claimed they were content to leave their bachelor days behind them, and their ladies seemed equally pleased with their husbands. There had been moments when watching the intimacy between the couples had been almost painful to observe. It had made him feel wistful, as if he had been missing something in his life.

Then he remembered the marriage contract.

And Grace.

The notion that she had been waiting for him should have eased his loneliness. Instead, the damnable contract had been a reminder that his grandmother’s ambitions had managed to cheat him out of finding true happiness. A blissful joy that his married friends had found, while he was to be denied.

It had just been one more thing to resent Grace for.

“It is time to amend your expectations, Duchess,” Hunter said, moving away from the tub while he removed his evening coat. He tossed the garment on the nearest chair, and his fingers went to work on the glass buttons of his waistcoat. “I have no desire to argue with you on the finer points of what makes a proper marriage, but one thing is certain—this is to be a true marriage. You will be my wife in all ways, and if you need guidance on your duties, I am acquainted with a few married ladies—”

“Just a few?” she mumbled under her breath.

Hunter’s eyebrow arched in bemusement that she was brave enough to toss his past conquests at his feet like a gauntlet. She was going to need her bravado if she was going to get through their wedding night without tears. “I know enough. My expectations will not be too trying for you. First, we will be residing under the same roof, and you will welcome me into your bed regularly and—”