Lady Adventuress 01 - His Wayward Duchess (26 page)

*

Richmond was lovely in the pale autumn sunshine, and there was but a slight scattering of clouds as they wandered over the lawns and groves, pausing to admire the rippling silvery water of the lakes.

It reminded Holly so much of home that she closed her fashionable parasol and let the soft autumn sun stream ov
er her face, eyes half-shut with enjoyment. She wished that she could have removed her shoes and stockings to feel the soft grass under her bare feet.

Peters, the elderly groom, helped them lay out the picnic before returning to the curricle and his own carefully packed lunch.

Cook had put together a lovely spread for them, with still-warm, fragrant bread rolls, cheeses, wine, apples, cold chicken and little cakes.

Strathavon waited for Holly to fill her plate before he spoke. His voice was deceptively off-handed.

“I don’t know what game it is you’re playing with Sir John Compton, but you’ve made the poor man the talk of the town. It is beyond me how you managed it – a less likely candidate for a rakehell it would be impossible to find. And yet just this morning I was treated to the latest instalment of one of his escapades – this time involving a robbery, Hyde Park, and carrying Miss Dacre in his arms across the lawns.”

Holly appeared very pleased to hear this, he noted.

“Is that so? What an astonishing tale. I expect it just goes to show what a word or two dropped in the right direction can do – Verity had only twisted her ankle.”

“Oh?”

She refused to say any more on the subject, however, and asked instead that he pass her the clotted cream.

Occasionally
their gazes would lock as they ate, and a delicious spark of something would course through them. Holly could think of nothing so pleasant as to be alone together, away from society and obligation, as though they were the only two people in the whole world.

A smile lifted the corners of his mouth as he stretched out on the blanket. He looked like a king, enjoying the glories of his domain: supremely confident, and just a little predatory.

Holly enjoyed the sight of her Sylvester lounging back on the thick picnic blanket, his expression drowsy with wine and the warmth of the sun. She had never seen him so at ease and she wished that she had a way to capture this moment forever. It was a day she would remember all her life, no matter what followed.

*

The rain began to fall, in fat persistent droplets, just as they got to the slices of fruit cake which were to be their desert.

Holly glanced up, startled, as a particularly huge one landed on her nose.
The sun had disappeared in a matter of minutes. It had been too much to hope for that English weather would keep steady for entire duration of their idyllic outing.

A loud rumble of thunder rolled across the sky.

“We had better run,” she said, glancing back to the duke, her eyes dancing with amusement.

He scooped their things into the basket.
“Under the tree!”

“Oh, no, not in a thunder
storm.”

Grasping his arm, she pulled him to the waiting carriage, where Peters stood holding the horses and peering at them from beneath his wet hat.
He looked miserable and eager to be off.

“Home, Peters,” said the duke, helping Holly into
the carriage and taking the reins as the groom leapt up to his place at the back.

“We
really should have taken the landaulet,” said Sylvester as he steered the vehicle out of the park. “This folding hood isn’t any good for keeping out of the rain. You’re going to get soaked right through.”

“But the
axle clip is so much weaker on a landaulet. These muddy roads may well have done it in.”

“Axle clip?” His voice was amused for a moment “I stand corrected. Either way, Peters shan’t forgive us in a hurry.”

They drove furiously through the downpour – but the faster they flew, the more rain the curricle seemed to attract.

“My poor Holly –
you are drenched!” the duke exclaimed as they drove through Westminster. He shot a quick glance at her. Her hair had come nearly undone and water was cascading in rivulets down the long strands.

Holly, however, laughed with
pleasure. “So I am. But it hardly matters – it is only water, after all, and I have a great many spencers. I promise I shan’t die of a bit of rain. The dress is done-for with the flying mud, however – glazed chintz can’t be laundered, I’m told. But it is worth it. What a grand adventure this is! I do so like showers. And you are soaked also, Sylvester – your valet will be very put out.”

“We can but
be grateful that this coat is not a Weston, else he would have resigned on the spot. He nearly gave notice when he found your cat curled up among my cravats.”

Sylvester was amazed that he managed to sound
so calm as he did, because his heart had done something rather alarming, as it did every time she called him by his given name. She had said it so casually, as though she’d been calling him that every day of her life. He wished very much that she would say it again.

When they arrived home,
a very miserable looking Peters helped Holly down from the vehicle before steering it into the carriage house. They were instantly surrounded by a flutter of servants. Strathavon seemed extremely reluctant to step away from his wife, who looked diverted by all the fuss being made. She laughingly dismissed their attendants and proceeded into the parlour, where a warm fire waited. The duke followed her, shutting the door behind them.

Mittens, who clearly did not think
at all highly of their adventure, gave the invaders a very disdainful look from her perch on the sofa, and stretched with leisurely, feline grace before going back to sleep.

“You had much better go up to bed, an
d I’ll have a warm posset sent to you,” Strathavon told Holly seriously.

She looked startled at his unmistakable concern, before fixing him with a warm smile.

“Oh, no – all I need is a change of gowns. I shall be alright after that. One almost wants to say right as rain. Don’t look so stern! I told you I never mind a slight drizzle. Life in England would be very limiting if I did.”

“Then
a change of garments you shall have,” murmured the duke, his voice suddenly husky and his eyes dark. Holly’s soaked gown clung to her figure in a way that set his blood on fire on a most primal level. Rain did wonders for muslin, he decided, as he took in every ripe and tantalising inch of her.

He watched
Holly like a man parched as she shook water out of her hair. The long strands had come completely undone in a glorious tumble.

Holly felt herself shivering uncontrollably when she saw the hunger written across his face
. He drew nearer to her. The spicy scent of him teased her senses with every breath she took, and the way his wet hair hung about his sharp cheekbones made her long to run her hands through it, to brush it out of his eyes.

The duke’s
body seemed to give off a heat of its own; a heat which had nothing to do with the fire behind them.

Holly felt his breath on her face, on her lips, and instinctively drew even closer. Her throat was suddenly dry as a pile of autumn leaves, her voice gone. Nothing existed in the world except his nearness and the pounding of her heart. Time seemed to race past and slow down all at once.

When his lips first brushed hers, with a soft, tentative warmth, it was as though the world had come undone. Holly felt herself melt like butter into his strong body, and the kiss grew in intensity as his hands ran over her back and tangled in her hair.

At last they broke apart
, gasping for breath – both bewildered at the passion than had flown between them.

And yet, this passion
was only a start. There was so much more yet to be explored. Strathavon’s expression said that he knew it too. His eyes had grown even darker and his breathing erratic.

“I expect they’v
e already laid out a dry gown for you,” he told her in a low rumble.

Holly wondered if she ought to stay, to pull him back to her
, to claim his mouth in a kiss of her own. She felt the burning urge to feel his mouth on hers once more. But, after all, a little suspense would only do him good, she decided.

With a saucy smile at her impossible duke, she left the room in search of warm clothes, feeling his eyes
on her as she retreated.

*

True to her word, Holly did not become even a little ill after her adventure in the rain.

That evening, the duke left
Holly to meet with Avonbury. Doubtlessly, he would hear more of his cousin’s ridiculous problems and Sir John Compton’s fictitious escapades. Her ladyship was not only in high health, but more boisterous spirits could not have been imagined.

She’d thrown
him searing looks at every opportunity, as though taking great delight in testing his resolve, and Strathavon could not recall what kept him from sweeping her directly into his bed.

Firmly, he reminded himself of all the dangers that would come from such an entanglement – because where Holly was concerned, his heart would be lost the moment he claimed her as his own. And yet, was his heart not already hers for the taking?

The duke walked down St James to find that White’s was as bustling as ever, with a number of gentlemen squabbling over some new entry in the Boodle’s Betting Book. A rowdy game of billiards took up nearly everyone else’s attention. The stakes were always high at White’s.

Handing his cloak to the
majordomo, the duke hurried into the grand salon, where his cousin sat miserably over his dinner, seemingly impervious to the billiards or its impassioned audience. This alerted Strathavon to his cousin’s unusually low spirits.

“I take
it Lady Charlotte is still refusing to return the emeralds?”

Avonbury looked at the duke despondently. “I have never seen her so cutting. I do believe it is her way of getting revenge on me for being on go
od terms with Holly – she has taken a considerable dislike to your wife after the incident at the lake. She says she is going to put them on auction. Can you imagine? The Avonbury emeralds auctioned off by a woman just this side of the
demi-monde
. Or perhaps she would bet them at the Faro table. She means to play at Mrs Young’s establishment this evening. Sold or lost, my mother won’t survive the shame of it either way. And now my aunt would borrow them next week – you see how impossible
that
is.”

He took another generous
sip of his wine. “I really don’t see what else there is to do.”

Strathavon sighed. “There is nothing you can do – not while you are in your cups. Stay here. I will go to Young’s and see if I cannot talk
that woman into seeing sense – or at least striking a bargain.”

This
, at least, was much better than dwelling on his desire for his duchess, Sylvester told himself. He proceeded to Mrs Young’s, which was a gaming house favoured by all the most fashionable members of society as the best place to lose fortunes in the blink of an eye.

*

With Lucy’s help, Holly had already dressed for bed when an alarming knock on the front door startled the entire house. It reverberated through the marble entrance hall and carried all the way upstairs.

Holly looked at her maid a moment, wondering what this might be about, before snatching up a robe and proceeding
to the landing, Lucy right behind her. Holly’s blood froze and she nearly stumbled when it dawned on her that something very terrible must have happened to cause such a disturbance. Had there been an accident?

Mrs
Willan was already at the door when Holly arrived downstairs. The woman looked fierce beneath the most formidable nightcap imaginable. She held aloft a tall silver candle stick. Once she had swung open the door, she raised the candle to illuminate the face of their brash would-be caller. Holly could just imagine her expression of glacial disapproval.

“Lord Avonbury!” the woman gasped, scandalised.

Lord Avonbury swayed slightly. “G’evening, Mrs Willan. Strathavon about?”

Holly felt her anxiety drain out her. Not an accident, then. She was left feeling weak-kneed and a little giddy in her relief.

“His Grace is not home, Lord Avonbury, and I would say that in your condition, you ought to be.”

“Ah, a shame…” he looked up and spotted Holly as she
stepped forward. It was obvious that Avonbury was very deeply in his cups.

“Holly,
m’dear, has that husband of yours still not come back from Young’s, then? Alas, I should have known that woman would be the end of me.”

Holly knew that she ought to have been
apalled at finding a relation of her husband’s thoroughly foxed on her doorstep. A lady definitely did not hold with such things. But then that kind of lady seemed to her an ineffectual creature.

“It’s al
l right, Mrs Willan. Do let his lordship in. And could you please ask the kitchens for some coffee? As strong a brew as they can reasonably make it.”