In Bed with the Duke (11 page)

The farmer, who'd glanced at Prudence's feet when she spoke of them, was now glaring at Madge in a very similar fashion.

‘Where'd she get those stockings?'

‘From me, of course, you cloth-head,' said Madge.

‘Ain't it enough I caught the pair of them trespassing on our land but you must give 'em the food from our table and the very clothes off our back?'

Prudence had just reached the doorway, and Gregory's side, when Madge darted up to her.

‘Here,' she said, pressing the remains of the loaf and the opened jar of jam into her hands in defiance of her husband, who was positively swelling with indignation.

‘My kitchen,' said Madge, whirling back to him. ‘My jam. I made it. And you swore I could do what I wanted with the money I make from it.'

‘Ar, but I didn't mean for you to—'

They didn't wait to hear what the farmer hadn't meant for Madge to do with her jam, but took off as fast as they could go.

‘What a charming scene of rustic marital bliss,' said Gregory with heavy sarcasm as they made for the barn. ‘No wonder he came out here in a mood to shoot something.'

‘Here,' said Prudence, thrusting the loaf and the crock of jam at him. ‘You are clearly one of those men who wake in a bad mood and need something to eat before you are fit company.'

‘It is no longer first thing in the morning,' he replied, taking the bread and ripping off a hunk. ‘And it is all very well for you to complain of my mood when you have clearly been treated like a queen in that farmhouse kitchen while
I
,' he said, dipping the bread into the open jam pot, ‘have been mucking out the cow byre.'

She wrinkled her nose. ‘I thought I could smell something.'

He glowered at her.

‘I hope you washed your hands.'

His glower deepened. ‘I washed not only my hands but my boots, my breeches and my hair,' he said with his mouth full. ‘Under the pump.'

‘Oh.' Well, that explained why his hair was wet. ‘I did the breakfast dishes,' she put in, hoping to placate him.

‘Mrs Grumpy Farmer was clearly a decent sort of woman. Mr Grumpy Farmer did nothing but complain and berate me every time he came to check on my progress. And as for the disgusting state of that byre...' He shuddered expressively. ‘No wonder he didn't want to clean it out himself.'

‘Oh, dear. Well, I'm very sorry. Perhaps I shouldn't have volunteered our services to Mr Grumpy Farmer with the Gun. I just thought it would be better than having to explain ourselves to the local law. When you started telling him what had happened to us it all sounded so implausible that I could see exactly why he wasn't believing a word of it. Indeed, had I not lived through it I wouldn't have believed a word of it myself.'

‘Hmmph,' he said, spraying crumbs down the front of his waistcoat as he stomped across the barn to the mound of hay they'd slept on the previous night.

‘Um...' she said, shifting from one foot to the other. ‘I can see how much you want your breakfast, but I really don't want to linger here any longer than we have to. Do you?'

‘Your point?' He raised one eyebrow at her in a way that expressed many things at once. All of them negative.

‘Well, you're clearly going to need both your hands to deal with your bread and jam. So you won't have one free to carry your valise. I was going to suggest I carry it, so we can make a start.' She bent to pick it up. ‘It's not very heavy,' she said with some relief.

‘And it does have some of your things in it,' he said, with a funny sort of glint in his eye.

‘Does it? What—?' She suddenly had a vivid recollection of tossing her stays aside as she'd fled from his room. There were stockings, too. She hadn't stopped to pull them on. And he'd put at least one of them in his pocket. But—why? It wasn't as if they could be of any use to him. And he'd already proved that having only one stocking was of absolutely no use to her, either.

Sometimes men were a complete mystery.

‘Come on, then,' he said, turning and heading out of the barn, leaving her to trot behind him with his luggage.

She supposed he was getting his own back on her for getting a decent breakfast while he'd been mucking out a cow byre. Because it certainly wasn't like him to behave in such an ungentlemanly fashion.

Not that she could complain, though, could she? She'd offered to carry it, after all. And even if he'd argued that it was his job, as a big strong man, to do so, she would only have pointed out that she was perfectly capable of carrying a small bag for a short while. In a way he was paying her a compliment by taking her at her word and letting her do as she'd suggested.

Or so he would say if she dared say anything derogatory about the way he was striding ahead, enjoying the bread and jam, while she trotted behind him with the luggage.

They walked along in simmering silence past various farm buildings, heading for the track she could see winding across the fields, while he demolished the bread. When the last crust was gone he frowned into the jam pot, then stuck his finger in and swirled it round to get at the very last traces. When his finger was sufficiently loaded, he raised it to his mouth and sucked it clean.

Prudence promptly forgot why she'd been irritated with him as she watched him half close his eyes in bliss. When he set about doing something he did it with total concentration. To the exclusion of everything else.

As if to prove her right, the moment he'd wiped the jar completely clean he set it aside on the top bar of the stile they'd just reached and turned to her with a smile.

‘I'll carry that now,' he said, holding out his hand for the valise.

She handed it over without a word of protest. What would be the point? And, judging by the twinkle in his eye, he knew exactly what arguments had been going through her head while he'd been breaking his fast.

He tossed the valise over the stile, then stepped up onto the first rung and swung one leg over the top. When he was safely on the other side he leaned back and reached for her hand to help her over. Since she'd just mounted the lower step his movement brought their faces to within inches of each other. And she couldn't help noticing he had a smear of jam on his lower lip.

‘You have...um...' she began, reaching out one finger to wipe the jam from his mouth.

He moved really swiftly, catching her hand and stilling it. And looked at her in a considering sort of way, as though wondering what to make of her. Why didn't he want her touching his face? Well, then, she wouldn't do so. But when she went to pull her hand back his hold on it tightened. And the look in his eyes went sort of slumberous. And then he pulled her hand right up to his mouth, dipped his head, and sucked her forefinger inside.

He swirled his tongue round her finger and her knees went weak. She pitched forward, bracing herself against the top of the stile with her free hand.

He released her finger from his mouth and looked at her. In a steady sort of way that seemed to dare her to do what she wanted. So she did. She leaned forward and pressed her lips to his. He tasted of jam. And fresh bread. And outdoors. And man.

She reached for him and clung as hard as she could with the stile between them. And they kissed and kissed and kissed.

When they finished her legs were shaking so much that the stile might as well have been a sheer brick wall. There was no way she was going to be able to get over it.

As though he knew how she felt, Gregory got onto the lower step, leaned over and grasped her round the waist, then lifted her right over as though she weighed next to nothing.

She landed on his side of the stile, breathless and shaky, flush with the solid mass of his body. And yearning for another kiss.

He steadied her, and gently but firmly pushed her away. ‘We need to keep going.' Then he turned to pick up his valise. ‘Come on,' he said, holding out his hand to her.

Which filled her with relief. He might have pushed her away, but at least he was prepared to hold her hand. It was like last night. The way he'd turned over, yet kept hold of her hand to let her know he wasn't rejecting her. So she put her hand in his. And noticed, for the first time, that Mr Grumpy Farmer lived on the prettiest farm she'd ever seen. There were primroses on the banks. Little white clouds scudding across the blue sky. Madge's stockings were of thick, serviceable cotton which cushioned her feet from her shoes so that they no longer caused her agony with every step. And the scent of green growing things was almost managing to overpower the rather unpleasant odour emanating from Gregory's general vicinity.

All in all, she didn't think she'd ever felt quite so happy.

Until, that was, she darted a look up at Gregory's face. For
he
didn't look as though he was wallowing in the memory of strawberry kisses over the stile, or indeed enjoying walking through the countryside in any way at all. He certainly didn't look as though he was thanking his lucky stars he'd fallen in with a wealthy girl who'd proposed marriage to him the night before.

On the contrary. Gregory looked the way a man might look if he was on his way to the scaffold.

A cold hand squeezed at her stomach.

She'd thought that last night in the barn, when he'd told her about his marriage, it had meant that they were becoming close. Which was why she'd blurted out the suggestion that they should marry. But he hadn't agreed, had he? Just because he'd kissed her, that didn't mean he wanted to go as far as marrying her, did it? She'd gone and jumped in with both feet again, as Aunt Charity would say, the way she always did. The way her mother always had.

A man like him couldn't possibly want a girl like her for a wife, could he? How could she have forgotten that she'd made an exhibition of herself by singing in the market place? Or that she'd very nearly killed him by throwing that bit of rock? Men didn't generally marry women whose behaviour they couldn't predict. Let alone women who might accidentally kill them if there were any loose rocks to hand.

‘You don't want to marry me at all, do you?'

Her stomach cramped again. She'd made a total fool of herself. Here she'd been, assuming he must be dreaming about how he could invest her money to expand his business, whatever it was, but the truth was he hadn't actually said yes. And now she'd gone and kissed him, assuming he was as keen on the idea as she was.

‘Last night, when you told me about your marriage, I thought... Oh, how silly of me.' It was all much clearer this morning. ‘You were trying to explain why you didn't wish to marry again, weren't you? And I...'

‘Hmm? What?' He turned and stared at her as though he'd completely forgotten she was there.

She wrenched her hand from his. ‘I am sure we can come up with some other way out of our predicament.'

Even though she had kissed him. What was a kiss, after all? Men were always trying to snatch kisses—especially from girls who practically threw themselves into their arms. Even if they appeared to enjoy the kiss it didn't mean they actually wanted to
marry
the girl they'd been kissing. Men with less honour than him would make the most of the opportunity to have carnal relations with a girl if she was silly enough to indicate she was willing before he put a ring on her finger.

‘You don't need to go to the lengths of marrying me,' she said.

* * *

What was the matter with her? he wondered. Why had she suddenly changed her mind about marrying him?

He grabbed her hand back and held it tightly. ‘There
is
no other way out of our “predicament”, as you put it, apart from marriage. No way at all.'

He'd gone over it time and time again. Although Prudence was so far removed from him socially that everyone would describe it as a
mésalliance
, he was going to have to marry her. Oh, not to avoid scandal. But because after that kiss there was no way he was going to let her go. And because he was almost certain she'd never agree to be his mistress.

If he offered her carte blanche, even though it was something he'd never offered any other woman, he couldn't see Prudence taking it as a compliment. In fact she was more likely to take such a proposition as an insult. She might even feel so insulted she'd never forgive him. And he couldn't risk that. She was going to be upset enough as it was once they reached Bramley Park, where he would no longer be able to hide his true identity from her.

But he wanted Prudence.

And he was going to have Prudence.

That was all there was to it.

Chapter Eleven

P
rudence's fingers were going numb. Once or twice she'd been on the verge of complaining about the way he was crushing them, but she'd been afraid he might let go altogether. And at least while he was holding her hand she had
some
connection with him.

He hadn't spoken a word since telling her that there was no way out of their predicament but marriage. He'd never been what you'd call a chatty sort of man, but since then he'd become downright distant.

He was also walking slower and slower, dragging his feet, as though he was trying to put off reaching their destination for as long as possible. The only conclusion she could draw was that he was having serious second thoughts about marrying her. It was one thing admitting he wanted to bed her. But in the cold light of day perhaps he was starting to wonder if marrying her to get what he wanted was going a step too far.

Which was perfectly understandable, given the grief his last marriage had brought him. Especially since he hadn't known her long enough to be sure she would take her marriage vows seriously.

‘There,' he said grimly as they crested a rise. ‘That's Bramley Park.'

He came to a complete standstill, gazing down at a substantial park spread out on the slopes of the next valley. A high stone wall divided the neatly landscaped grounds from the rougher grazing land on which they stood. There was so much parkland she couldn't even see the house it surrounded.

‘That is where your aunt lives?'

He nodded.

‘She must be a wealthy woman.' Only wealthy people had houses stuck in the middle of so much land, with high stone walls to keep ordinary people out.

‘Not really.'

‘Oh? But—'

‘Come on,' he said impatiently, veering to the left and tugging her after him down the slope towards the wall which bisected the lower part of the valley.

At length, they came to a section where a couple of gnarled trees grew close to the wall, their branches arching over the top.

‘I should have asked,' he said, turning to her with a wary expression. ‘Are you any good at climbing trees?'

‘Actually,' she replied with a proud toss of her head, ‘I am
very
good at climbing trees.' At least she had been as a girl. You couldn't grow up on the fringes of the army without learning all sorts of things that decently brought up girls really shouldn't. Or so Aunt Charity had frequently complained.

‘Is there
anything
you cannot do?'

He'd said it with a smile. A rather fond sort of smile, she thought. Or was she just looking for signs that he liked her well enough to think that marrying her wouldn't be a total disaster? He might just as well be the kind of man to cover his doubts and fears by putting on a brave face.

‘I believe,' she said, pushing back the waves of insecurity that had been surging over her ever since she'd kissed him, and he hadn't been willing to kiss her again, ‘in rising to any challenge. Or at least that is what Mama used to say. Whenever things were hard, she'd say we mustn't look upon them as stumbling blocks in our way, but as stepping stones across troubled waters.'

‘And what would she have said about walls that block our paths? That we should climb them?'

She was about to say yes, when something stopped her. ‘I don't know about that. I mean, that wall was put there to keep people out, wasn't it? And I'm starting to get a horrid feeling that we may be...um...breaking in.'

He'd already admitted he didn't scruple to break into places when it suited him. He was one of those men who thought the end justified the means. Not that he was a bad man. Just a bit of a rogue, as Papa had been.

‘We've already had a farmer threatening us with his gun this morning. What if some gamekeeper mistakes us for poachers? It is just the sort of thing that would happen, the way my luck has been running recently.'

‘I can promise you faithfully that we won't be mistaken for poachers once we get over that wall,' he replied, drawing back his arm and tossing the valise over it. ‘And, what's more, one cannot break into property that one owns oneself.'

‘You are trying to tell me that the estate that lies beyond that wall belongs to
you
?' She eyed his clothing, then his black eye and his grazed knuckles dubiously. ‘I thought you said it was your aunt's?'

‘I said my aunt lives there,' he replied, planting his fists on his hips. ‘Prudence, never say you've been judging me by my appearance?'

He ran his eyes pointedly from the crown of her tousled head to the soles of her shoes, via the jacket she'd borrowed from him, which came almost to her knees, and the stockings she'd borrowed from the farmer's wife, which were sagging round her ankles. Then he flicked his eyes back to her face. Which felt sticky with jam and was probably grimy.

‘That's a fair point,' she admitted. ‘To look at me nobody would ever suspect I was an heiress, would they? But just explain one thing, if you wouldn't mind? If this is your property, then why are we about to climb over the wall when there must be a perfectly good front gate?'

‘Because it would take us the best part of an hour to walk all the way round to the main gate. And your feet have suffered enough abuse already.'

‘You want to spare my feet? Oh.' She felt mean now, for suspecting his behaviour to be shifty. ‘Then, thank you.'

‘Don't thank me just yet,' he said, eyeing the tree, the height of the wall, and then her again. ‘I really should have taken into consideration how hard it will be for you to climb up that tree in skirts.'

The very last thing she would do was admit that she hadn't climbed any trees for a considerable time.

‘I will go first,' he said. ‘And help you up.'

He strode up to the tree. Put his fists on his hips and frowned. Which puzzled her, for a moment, since there was a gnarly knot at a perfect height from which to commence his climb. But then she worked out that he must be considering it from
her
perspective.

‘I am sure I will be able to manage,' she assured him. ‘This tree has lots of handholds and footholds,'

‘Footholds?' He looked from her to the tree, then back to her again, his expression rather blank.

‘Yes,' she said, pointing to the stubby projection left behind from where a branch had snapped off years before.

‘Ah, yes. Indeed.' He rubbed his hands together. Stayed exactly where he was.

‘What is the problem?' What had he seen that she hadn't considered?

‘The problem... Well,' he said, ‘it is merely that I have never climbed this tree before.'

Oh, how sweet of him to warn her that he wasn't going to be able to point out the best route up it.

‘There's no need to worry. Although I haven't climbed a tree since I was a girl, this one looks remarkably easy. Even hampered as I am by skirts.'

‘Well, that's good. Yes. Very good.'

A determined look came over his face. He stepped up to the tree. Set one foot on the knot she'd just pointed out. Looked further up the trunk. As though he had no idea what to do next.

‘Do you know?' she said with a touch of amusement. ‘If I didn't know better, I'd think you've never climbed
any
tree before—never mind that one.'

His shoulders stiffened. Oh, dear, she shouldn't have teased him. Some men could take it, and some men couldn't. Funny, but she'd thought he was the type who could. He'd been remarkably forgiving so far, about all sorts of things she'd done to him.

Without a word he reached up for the most obvious handhold, then scrambled very clumsily up to the first branch thick enough to bear his weight. With only the minimum of cursing he pulled himself up and onto it, swinging one leg over so that he sat astride.

Then he turned and grinned down at her. ‘Nothing to it!'

She gasped. ‘I was only joking before, but it's true, isn't it? You never
have
climbed a tree, have you?'

He gave an insouciant shrug. ‘Well, no. But I always suspected that if other boys could do it I could.'

‘What kind of boy never climbed trees?'

‘One whose parents were terrified of some harm befalling him and had him watched over night and day,' he replied.

‘Oh. That sounds—' Very restricting. And a total contrast to her own childhood. Compared with her life in Stoketown, it had taken on a rosy hue in her memory. But, if she looked at it honestly, it must have been a very precarious sort of existence.

‘I suppose,' she said thoughtfully, ‘that is what parents do. Even mine—I mean, since they couldn't protect me from actual danger, they did what they could to stop me from being afraid by making light of all the upheavals and privations of army life. Treating it all—in front of me, at least—as though it was all some grand adventure.'

‘Which is why nothing scares you now?'

‘Well, I wouldn't say that,' she countered. Right this minute she was, if not exactly scared, certainly very wary of climbing up to join him. Because she'd suddenly become very aware that learning to climb trees was not the kind of activity that should have formed part of her education, if there were even some boys, like Gregory, who hadn't been allowed to do it. And also, more to the point, that when she'd been a girl she hadn't cared about showing off her legs.

‘Come on,' he said, leaning down and holding out his hand to her. ‘Up you get.'

‘Wait a minute,' she said. ‘I need to take some precautionary measures.'

She hitched up her gown and her petticoat as high as she dared, then reached between her legs and pulled the bunched material from behind through to the front, forming a sort of shortened, baggy set of breeches. It was the best she could do. She only hoped nobody came up over the rise and saw her display of legs bare to the thigh. With one hand clutching her skirts, and her face on fire, she set her foot on the knot she'd shown him earlier, took his hand, and let him haul her up onto the branch next to him.

‘What a pity it is that ladies' fashions demand they cover their legs so completely,' he said, running his eyes over hers.

‘Impractical, too,' she said with a nonchalant toss of her head, since it was impossible to blush any hotter. ‘When a lady decides she needs to climb a tree, breeches would make it far easier.'

He grinned at her again, then shuffled along the branch to the top of the wall, slid across it, and dropped down into the shrubbery that grew right up to the base of the wall on the other side. He turned to her and held out his arms.

‘All you need to do is slide to the edge and drop down. I'll catch you,' he said.

All
she had to do? In a gown that was hitched almost to her waist?

‘It's all very well for you. You
are
wearing breeches.' Which protected his vulnerable parts. It was no joke, shuffling over a crumbling brick wall when shielded only by a cotton chemise and a bit of kerseymere, since his jacket was trailing uselessly behind her.

But at last she was right at the edge of the wall, her legs dangling down into the park. With Gregory standing below, a wide grin on his face.

‘Enjoying the view?' she asked tartly.

‘Immensely,' he said without a trace of shame. ‘You have very beautiful legs. Even those hideous stockings cannot disguise how very shapely they are.'

‘You really shouldn't be staring,' she scolded.

‘I would be mad not to.'

‘I should slap your face.'

‘You will have to come down here first to reach it.'

So she jumped.

And he caught her. And steadied her. And then held on to her elbows for far longer than was necessary. And what with all the talk of legs, and the heated look in his eyes, somehow she didn't wish to slap his face any longer.

‘Prudence...' he breathed. ‘Prudence, about us getting married...'

Her heart sank. She'd already worked out that he didn't really want to marry her. That he was probably thinking of ways to let her down gently.

‘I've already told you—you don't have to,' she said, nobly letting him off the hook. If he didn't want to marry her she wasn't going to force his hand. ‘It was just a silly idea I had. I could—'

‘No. You couldn't. I won't let you go—do you hear me?'

And then, to her complete surprise, he hauled her all the way into his arms and kissed her. Savagely. The way she'd always suspected a man with a face as harsh as his could kiss.

Yes! Yes, yes, yes, yes,
yes
. It was heavenly. No question this time about who had initiated the kiss. Though of course she kissed him back for all she was worth.

‘Oh, Gregory...' She sighed when he broke away. ‘That was lovely.'

He reared back, an expression of astonishment on his face. ‘Yes, it was.'

All the pleasurable feelings humming through her dropped through the soles of her feet.

‘Didn't you expect to like it? After our last kiss I thought— Oh! Did I do something wrong? Was that it?' She tried to pull away from him.

But he held on to her tightly, refusing to release her from the circle of his arms.

‘How could you have done anything wrong?' He shook his head in a sort of daze. ‘You kissed me back.'

‘Well, then, what was wrong with it?'

‘Nothing was wrong with it. That was what was so surprising. Prudence...' He shifted from one foot to another. Took a deep breath. ‘I never really saw the point to kissing—that's all. There are more...interesting parts of a woman I've always wanted to pay attention to, you see. But your mouth...'

He looked at her lips again. In the way he'd done before. The way that made them tingle, and part, and wait expectantly for the touch of his lips.

‘Your mouth is worth...' He cocked his head to one side. ‘Savouring—yes, that is the word. I would never feel as though I was wasting my time, no matter how long you wanted to kiss me.'