Eleanor And The Duke (Berkshire Brides Book 1) (16 page)

“Your aunt will accompany us to the horse farm,” he said. He kept his pace slow enough for her to walk alongside him. Eleanor remembered that about him, the small courtesies that set him apart from other men.

“There is no need for you to bother. You could leave for London now and make it back to Town before dark,” she said. She did not want to dwell upon any positive characteristics he might possess.

“It will be no bother at all, I assure you.”

“But you cannot possibly be interested in spending any more time here in Berkshire. You have pressing business in London, I’m sure.”

“Tell me about Joshua Parris,” he said.

She looked at him curiously. “We played together as children.”

“But you thought you would marry him?”

Eleanor cast him a sidelong glance, but he continued looking straight ahead. He was jealous.

“Yes,” she said. “Joshua was my hero. He slayed many a dragon for me when we were young.”

“Dragons?”

Eleanor shrugged. “Figuratively, of course. We shared everything – all our thoughts and dreams.” She looked at him pointedly. “We had no secrets.”

“Ah. He was a brother to you.”

“Hardly. We intended to marry.”

“When? Ten years . . . Twelve years later? That is hardly a romance of any great distinction, Eleanor.”

“Perhaps not to you,” she replied quietly. “But to me, it was everything.”

Andrew nearly winced at the vulnerability in Eleanor’s tone. Her years at Primrose Manor could not have been pleasant, not with an ill mother and the harsh governess who’d been described to him at the picnic. And he knew that life in town with her father couldn’t have been much better.

“Eleanor—”

A swift wind brought a rumble of thunder and a sudden shower of rain, and Andrew could see that it was only going to get worse. He shrugged off his jacket and wrapped it around Eleanor’s shoulders, but the rain intensified far too quickly. “Come on! We have to hurry!”

“There’s an old castle ruin,” she called out, heading off the path toward a wooded area. “We can shelter there until the storm passes.”

She ran ahead, pulling up his coat to cover the top of her head, and making her way through the short grass at her feet. With Andrew just a few steps behind, Eleanor reached a grouping of medieval stone pillars. There was one ivy-covered wall and the remnants of a roof that provided some shelter. A large circle of ancient Roman mosaic was partially visible under the ivy.

Andrew stepped into the space in front of Eleanor and stood blocking her from the rain. He felt as though they were isolated in their own primeval world, surrounded by overgrown vegetation, with a solid wall of rain closing them in.

Eleanor looked up at him, her face and lashes moist with the rain. The vulnerability had not left her eyes, and Andrew was mindful of that when he tipped his head down and touched his lips to hers.

He kissed her gently, ignoring his own raging need to do more.

It was to be a reassuring kiss, a mere kiss of affection. But when Eleanor let his coat drop to the ground and leaned into his kiss, Andrew deepened their contact. He slid his arms around her and pulled her against him, groaning with pleasure as she tucked her hand around his waist.

He tasted her thoroughly, then slid his mouth to the crook of her neck and down until he reached the neckline of her gown. Hardly an obstacle for him.

With his hands behind her, it was no great difficulty to unfasten the buttons and slide her gown from her shoulders. It dropped to her waist, leaving her covered only by her thin, cotton shift.

It was damp, and concealed little.

Andrew groaned, slipping one hand up to trace her jaw with his thumb as he looked into her eyes. She was more to him than he’d ever thought possible. Gesu, how he’d missed her.

He lowered his hand and caressed her breast, and when she tipped her head back and shuddered at his touch, he bent further and took her nipple into his mouth, through the cloth of her shift.

“Beckworth . . .” Her voice was but a squeak.

“It’s Andrew, love.”

Her knees buckled under her and he pressed her back against the wall for support. He laved her mouth with kisses, and his breath caught when one of her hands slid down to the front of his trews and caressed his rapidly increasing arousal.

His brain ceased to function as pure sensation took over. “Ah, Ellie.”

Her kiss was hungry, hot, and demanding, a blending of lips, tongue, and teeth. Her touch was determined. She moved her hand into the waist of his trews and somehow managed to get beneath his shirt. When her hand met his hot, bare flesh, he stopped breathing.

Instinct drove him to seek a place where he could lie her down. He broke their kiss and took a deep, shuddering breath as he looked around their small shelter.

It was all wet grass and vines, and likely crawling with insects.

Eleanor pressed a kiss against his chest and slid her fingers across the tip of his erection. Andrew thought he might die if he was not inside her within the next couple of minutes.

But even though the rainstorm was waning, there was nowhere to go.

“Holy hell,” he muttered as sanity returned like a thunderclap. He would not lay Eleanor in a bed of mud in order to slake his desire. What was he thinking?

Eleanor had been caught up in the moment, too, but he knew she did not really want him. She still didn’t trust him.

“Ellie,” he said, gathering every bit of strength and sanity he had left, “we cannot.”

He took her hand from his trews and held it against his chest while he recovered his breath. Eleanor blinked her eyes in confusion. So beautiful, he wanted her desperately. But he wanted her trust more. He wanted her to believe in him.

“I apologize,” Andrew said. “I should not have taken such liberties.”

Eleanor remained silent as he raised her gown back up her arms and over her shoulders. Before his eyes, she collected herself while he righted his own clothes and she did the same.

“The rain has slowed to a mere mist,” he said. “We need to return to the house.” Desperately. Before he did lay her in the mud and do what his body demanded he do.

Eleanor said nothing as he fastened the buttons up her back, reaching down as soon as he was finished, to pick up his jacket before running back to the path. Andrew let her go. He gathered his horse’s reins in his hand and walked back to Primrose Manor at a steady pace, keeping Eleanor in his sights.

Eleanor made a dash for the front door of the manor, hoping to run all the way up to her bedchamber for a few minutes alone to compose herself. Dear lord, she must be mad! This business with Beckworth was all wrong.

The front door opened for her, and Eleanor ran inside, only to encounter an unexpected guest, a young man she had not seen in at least five years. He seemed to have been looking out the window, noting her arrival with Beckworth.

“Silas!” she cried. “What are you doing here?”

Silas Winter, who was now Viscount Maryfield, looked at her with a broad grin. “I’ve been known to stop here from time to time, Eleanor, when rain waylays me on my way home.”

She glanced out the open door and caught sight of Beckworth in shirtsleeves, walking his horse around the drive to the stable. Dear God, she was still wearing his jacket. She swallowed and turned back to Silas. He was just as handsome as ever, reminding her of her adolescent infatuation with him. And yet there was something unattractive about him as she looked at him now, an air of cockiness and even dissolution.

Eleanor gave a quick shake of her head. She was in a sorry state after that heated exchange in the old ruin, and now this. Silas Winter. The young man she had dreamed of kissing when she was fifteen years old and he was eighteen.

“Father always said you would grow up to be a beauty, Eleanor,” he said. “’Tis a shame about your dowry.”

Everyone knew the sad state of her dowry, but no one had tossed it in her face. Until now. “I-I . . . H-have you taken any refreshments? Has Mrs. Thornberry offered you any . . . um, t-tea?”

“Of course, but I had not planned on staying – that is, not until now.” He gave her a wink that sent the oddest quiver down her back. Perhaps not the pleasantest of sensations. Ten years ago, she’d have melted in a puddle of delight at his attention.

Today? Well, she’d done enough melting for one day.

“Will you come in?”

“Will Beckworth have my head if I do?”

“Beckworth has nothing to say about whom I invite into my house,” she retorted. “Besides, why would he object to you?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said as they walked into the drawing room, “perhaps because you entertained a decidedly avid passion for me in years past.”

Eleanor felt her face burn with embarrassment and was glad he walked behind her. She would have died back then if she’d known he was aware of her infatuation.

“I believe you do flatter yourself, Silas – or I ought to call you Maryfield now.”

“Silas will do, my dear,” he said, though his invitation to use his given name, and the fawning endearment that followed, put her off.

“Mmm.” Eleanor shuddered a little bit, wondering what she’d seen in him beyond his pretty face and fancy manners. Had he always been so smug? Yes, he was as wealthy and good-looking as ever. He’d come into his title quite young. Perhaps his guardian had neglected his training in the social graces.

“Did you just come from Stillwater House?” he asked, stopping to straighten his neck cloth while looking in the mirror over the mantel. He took a seat on a chair near the window. “It was quite a rainstorm.”

“I did. And yes, it was. Fortunately, Beckworth happened by and . . . and . . . and lent me his coat.” Oh lord, what had she done? Made it perfectly clear that his kisses were not unwelcome. Touched him as no decent woman would ever do.

“Good of him. Is he staying long?” Silas sat back and crossed one leg over the opposite knee.

Eleanor felt distracted. She caught herself looking out the window to catch sight of Beckworth returning from the stable. “I don’t believe so.” She draped Beck’s coat over the back of a chair and did her best not to think of his caresses.

Yet his touch was unlike anything Eleanor had ever known. The man was strong yet gentle, insistent but patient. She did not want to encourage his attentions, but she’d proved herself unable to resist his intimate touch.

She turned her attention to Silas, who sprawled comfortably, as though the room was his to command. Eleanor might not appreciate his proprietary demeanor but at least he would provide a diversion when Beckworth came inside. It would not be necessary to face him alone when her emotions were so raw, so disordered.

She told herself she was susceptible to his advances only because of the fatigue that had set in after everything that had transpired in the past few weeks – her quick journey home from Italy, her father’s final days, and the funeral.

The reading of his will and learning that Beckworth had been named trustee had not helped, either. It was all too much. She did not want to grieve for a father who had seen nothing wrong with tying her to a fiancé who was bound to be unfaithful from the first.

She rubbed her hands up and down her arms to ward off a chill. She did not know what to think any more, and looking at the object of her youthful infatuation confused her even more. She would be miserable attached to such a preening prig.

“Your clothing is soaked,” Silas said. “Perhaps you should change into something . . .”

Eleanor felt Beckworth’s presence behind her.

“Maryfield.” He spoke Silas’s name like a curse.

Eleanor had not heard him come in, and his tone indicated more than a minor displeasure at Silas’s presence. Or perhaps it was Silas’s presumption to suggest she change clothes.

“Yes, good evening, Beckworth,” Silas said.

“What are you doing here?”

“Visiting an old friend,” Silas retorted without bothering to stand.

Beck said nothing more, because Aunt Minerva came into the room just then.

“Why, Eleanor. You are . . .” She glanced at the two men and seemed to notice the tension coiled between them. “Silas Winter, it has been an age since I saw you last.”