Say Yes to the Duke (23 page)

Janice pushed her hair back. “Eventful. And you?”

“Endless.” Because he couldn’t see her, that was why.

They stopped outside the stall, and he hung up the lantern as he had before. The puppies
were even more active, and Esmeralda, poor thing, was having a fine time of it trying
to keep up with them.

Lady Janice leaned her arms on the gate and laughed. “Oh, it’s so good to see them.”

“Didn’t you today?”

She shook her head. “No, actually. I spent some time looking for the journal. By the
way”—she looked up at him—“I confided in my maid. She might appear eccentric, but
she’s quite trustworthy, and she may be able to look some places I can’t. Plus, she
can talk to the other servants.”

“I sincerely hope she’ll be more subtle with them than she appeared to be in your
carriage.”

“She will.” The lady seemed quite sure on that point. “But back to my busy day—after
I looked on every bookshelf in the duke’s library, to no avail, I visited the dowager.
She was channeling the Queen, and when she’s like that she doesn’t seem to know who
anyone is. Later, she reverted to the dowager’s friendly self, but I felt it was too
soon to speak to her about your mother. I realize you’re giving me only this week
to find it. But I need to tread carefully.”

Her nearness was making it very hard to focus again. “You seem more quiet than usual.
That is, you’re speaking as much as you ever do, which is quite a lot.” She made a
disparaging face at him. “But was there more to your eventful day than what you’ve
revealed so far?”

She sighed. “Yes, actually.”

She told him the story about taking Her Grace to the sitting room and the drama that
ensued afterward—at least the part about how the duke had told Janice to turn around
and take the dowager back to her bedchamber.

“You told him to get out of your way?” Luke couldn’t believe it.

Or perhaps he could.

“Essentially,” she said. “There was no way I’d let the duchess leave the room without
her looking out those massive windows. But then…”

“Then what?” Luke asked.

Her lips thinned. “He told me his uncle Everett drowned in the pond behind the copse.
It would’ve traumatized Her Grace to be reminded when she looked out the windows.”

Luke’s father.

It was like a punch to the stomach to hear how he’d died.

Janice’s face flushed. “I felt so foolish then. Here I’d been trying to help.”

“No,” said Luke, trying to focus back on her. “You shouldn’t feel that way. You were
thinking about the dowager’s comfort.”

Luke had to admire Janice’s courage. She was truly a woman of action. And principle.
But he didn’t have to tell her any such thing. “So you plan to inform Halsey that
she needs to be moved to the newer wing?”

“Yes. But I need to work up to that.”

Luke felt a twinge of regret that he pushed aside. She had no idea yet that she’d
have no time. She’d want to pack her bags and leave when she learned what he had to
tell her about the duke’s perfidy. Luke was working up to that himself.

“Tell me about your day,” she said. “And yesterday, for that matter.”

Part of him was incredulous that anyone would care enough to ask how his day went.
It had never happened in his life. The nuns had been generous in their love, but they’d
been run off their feet. They hadn’t had time to ask a boy about his day.

“Sir Milo,” he said, “the duke’s visitor who arrived yesterday morning and who demanded
I go back with him to Bramblewood, has drunk himself into such a stupor that I left
him without permission. I’m not going back, either. If he complains to the duke, I’ll
simply tell His Grace that Sir Milo sent me home. He won’t recall either way.”

Lady Janice clamped a hand over her mouth, but Luke could hear her giggle. When she
subsided, she took her hand off her mouth. “Sorry.” She grinned. “We’ve both had a
difficult time of it.”

“Yes, we have. It’s been quite frustrating.”

“You want to be here—so you can find out about your mother.”

And kiss Janice. Didn’t she know that reason compelled him more than anything to come
back? “That’s true,” he said. “But it’s more complicated than that.”

“Is it?”

He shrugged. “There are people relying on me.”

“Who?”

He shook his head. “It doesn’t involve you.”

“But I want to
know.
” Her chin jutted out at a stubborn angle.

“Why?”

She stared at him a moment. “I don’t know. I simply do.”

There was a long silence. They watched Esmeralda cleaning her brood. Her tongue never
quit going from one pup to the next.

Lady Janice chuckled. He said nothing.

“Who’s going to take all these puppies?” Her chin was in her hand now.

It was his turn to say he didn’t know.

“You’ll have to help me find people to adopt them,” she said.

“They have to stay with their mother about eight weeks.” She’d be gone long before
that, he was sorry to realize.

“Oh.” Her brow furrowed. “At least I can extract promises from people.”

She wouldn’t be able to do that, either. It was a shame. But he couldn’t dwell on
that. He had a job to do.

Esmeralda settled in for the night with her pups a moment later, and Luke and Janice
were back to a sort of diffused sadness that hung between them both.

“What about you?” he asked the braided temptress beside him. “Is there something beyond
the dowager’s suffering that has brought you low?”

She shrugged.

“Hey.” He pulled lightly on her arm, forcing her to stand up straight and look at
him.

And then he did what came naturally. He took her around the waist—she in that blasted
winter coat—bent low, and kissed her.

The kiss didn’t take away any of the strain. But like a brilliant sunset at the end
of a hard working day, it made him suddenly glad, despite everything else that was
wrong.

And much was.

Sister Brigid was running out of time. Every week someone stopped helping the orphanage—a
vendor here, a farmer there. The local priest made all sorts of excuses to Luke about
why the orphanage was constantly short of food, supplies, and families looking to
adopt a child.

Luke recognized fear when he saw it.

Soon no one would dare to help Sister Brigid. And he knew it was all Grayson’s doing.

Luke sensed Janice was as glad as he was, that she needed this sensual respite. He
cradled her head and kissed her handily, the way a laborer or a soldier or a boxer—he’d
been all three—would kiss his woman.

She wasn’t his and never could be. But for a few minutes, he could pretend that she
was.

She moaned against his mouth, and he kissed her as he undid the top of her coat. And
then she pulled away—a bit wildly—and unbuttoned the rest while she watched him silently,
her lips pressed in that serious way he knew meant she was holding something back.

When she took his hand, he understood what she was asking. He picked up the lantern
and allowed her to lead him this time to the tack room. There wasn’t much there but
the bench. And the floor.

But it was warm, and both of them could shed their coats, which they did.

He sat cross-legged on their coats and drew her down on his lap. They kissed for a
long, cozy minute, her body curved into his, the weight of her hip and thigh a heady
pressure on his erection. Again she took the lead when she bracketed his face between
her hands and kissed him deeply, then dropped one hand to stroke his hard length through
his pants.

He pulled back. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Why do I need to? All I know is that I want to touch this. Badly.”

“It’s dangerous territory,” he said, feeling more dangerous by the second.

“I’m aware of that. I want you to be dangerous with me, Mr. Callahan.”

“Luke.”

“Luke,” she said softly. “Will you call me Janice?”

“No,” he said. “You’re ‘my lady.’ And that’s that.”

She chuckled. “Surely not when we’re like this.” She looked down at her night rail.
And then she traced a finger down his throat to his open shirt.

“Always you shall be ‘my lady.’” He spoke sternly.

But his body would have nothing to do with restraint. His body craved completion—total
union with her. And no words, no thoughts, would stand in its way.

Before he knew it, she was beneath him, her arms spread out on either side of her
head, his hands clenched around her fists. He was kissing her openmouthed, her legs
were spread wide, and he pressed his pelvis into hers with all the abandon of a rutting
buck. She wrapped her legs around his hips and clung to him, her breasts in her night
rail pressed sweetly against his shirt.

It was too much.

Yet it wasn’t enough.

He pulled back and looked down at her open mouth, prettily pink, like a rosebud. She
was breathing hard—and he saw in her eyes that she felt the same way: frustrated.

Yet who could stop?

He kissed her again. She laid a hand on his crotch and probed the tautly stretched
fabric. He rolled over and pulled her with him to lie side by side. They were desperate.
Both of them.

“It’s not enough,” she whispered. Her eyes were huge, her pupils dilated.

He ran a hand over her forehead. “We can’t do all a man and woman are meant to do
together.”

“I know that leads to children,” she said. “But does it have to? I hear snippets from
married women when they don’t think I’m listening. And once—once I saw a picture.
It was in a shop, in a book I suppose I wasn’t meant to see.”

“Hm-m-m.”

“You’re not very helpful.”

“I’m trying my best not to be.” He allowed himself a small grin.

“What I want to know is…”

“What?”

“What exactly are the ladies at Halsey House doing here? Please be honest with me.
You spoke of strumpets when my carriage came up the drive. These houseguests clearly
can’t be that. But are they something else? Lady Rose mentioned going north to find
other men. And Miss Branson—well, I don’t know what she’s doing here. She
paid
to come. Please be honest with me.”

“Very well.” He brushed her hair out of her eyes. “The two sisters are here in the
hopes that they’ll become someone’s mistress. Perhaps Lord Yarrow or Lord Rowntree
will take a fancy to one of them and set her up in her own house. I somehow doubt
they believe they can capture the duke’s interest.”

“Oh, no,” Janice murmured. “That makes me so sad.”

Luke was silent a moment. “Women do what they have to do. Perhaps Ladies Rose and
Opal believe it’s their only option.”

“I know they do.” Her eyes registered concern. “I heard them. They wanted to get married.…”

Luke shrugged. “Life doesn’t always turn out the way we plan it to.”

“What about Miss Branson then?”

“It could be that she’s paying the men for their, um, services.”

“No!”

“It’s not unheard of. If a man has gambling debts and a rich heiress offers him a
way out, who’s he to say no?”

Janice gasped. “She said the duke had gambling debts.”

“He’s rich enough to pay them all off. He has multiple properties. But he’s probably
flattered. And she might be into some unusual practices that he rather enjoys, too.”

Lady Janice’s face fell. “I-I’m appalled thinking of the duke getting involved in
that sort of thing.”

“Most men aren’t saints.”

“But if he were married…”

“Even then, you must know that many gentlemen in your rarefied stratum of society
think nothing of being unfaithful. Marriage among the members of the ton is much more
a business contract than anything else.”

“Not between
my
parents.”

“Then I’d say they’re the exception to the rule.”

“I can’t believe it of Marcia and Duncan, either. Or Gregory and Pippa.”

“You’re a good sister. And perhaps you’re right.”

“I know I am. They married for love.”

Luke wouldn’t disabuse her of that notion.

She put her palm on his face. “Show me something else that men and women do that won’t
lead to babies.”

“I did show you. Don’t you remember?”

Even in the low light, he could see her blush. “Of course. I can’t forget.”

“I can’t, either.”

They looked at each other a long moment. She reached over and kissed him softly. And
then she moved her mouth beneath his chin and kissed him there at the soft junction
between his jaw and his throat.

“You’re not going to stop until you get your way, are you?”

She laughed. “No.”

“Very well,” he said. “Just know that what we do here is nothing more than a lesson
in the sensual arts.”

“It has to be that,” she said. “You’re a groom. And I’m a lady.”

“Exactly.”

When he lowered her night rail and saw her breasts in the lantern light, he had to
suck in a breath. She was stunning—two globes of milky white skin topped with rosy
nipples.

“Someone should paint you,” he said.

She smiled and peeled off his shirt. “Ah,” she whispered, and rubbed her breasts against
his skin. “Mm-m-m,” she said next, and reached for his breeches.

He helped her open them but let her slide them down his hips. She gave several tugs
and made noises that somehow reminded him of the puppies—frustrated sounds that warmed
him, made him grin.

“Oh,” she said when he stood in his naked glory.

He said nothing, but he enjoyed her staring.

She looked up at him, her eyes wide. “I’m rather scared now,” she whispered. “Not
to hurt your feelings, but”—she swallowed—“it’s very imposing.”

He chuckled. “There’s nothing to fear. I promise you.”

“Really?”

“Yes.” He pulled her close against him and reveled in the silken feel of her. “You’re
safe with me. Tonight your lesson only goes so far as a look.”

She snuggled closer.

“We’re not done with you, though,” he said.

“No.” Her entire body was taut with anxiety.