The Lady Most Willing . . . (6 page)

“Did you sleep well?” the duke asked, valiantly trying to keep his eyes aloft.

“Oh heavens, no,” Marilla replied, laying a hand on his arm. “I was frightfully cold.”

“Perhaps Mr. Ferguson might lend you a dog,” he murmured.

Marilla blinked her pretty blue eyes.

Catriona, on the other hand, choked on her tea.

“And my bed was frightfully stiff and hard,” Marilla continued, sighing tremulously. She turned to the duke with melting eyes. “What about yours?”

“My . . . er . . .
what
?”

“Your bed, Your Grace,” Marilla murmured. “Was it stiff and hard?”

Catriona thought Bretton might expire on the spot. And what was that . . . a blush? He was blushing! He was!

“But the pillows were nice,” Marilla continued. “I do love a soft pillow, don’t you?”

The duke’s eyes immediately fell to Marilla’s soft pillows. Catriona couldn’t fault him for that; so did hers. It was rather like Taran’s scrawny arse when he’d run through the village trying to shock the vicar’s wife. It was impossible not to look.

“Ehrm . . . I . . . ehrm . . .” The duke picked up his teacup and drained the dregs.

“How long do you think it will be before someone saves us?” Marilla said in a breathy voice.

“We are hardly in danger, Miss Marilla,” Bretton replied.

“Still.” She sighed dramatically. “Ripped from our homes.”

“From Lady Cecily’s home,” Catriona corrected, still focusing on her food. She couldn’t look up. She really couldn’t. The way Marilla was shaking about, she was terrified by what she might see.

“Still,” Marilla said, with a touch less sweetness and light than the “still” she’d directed at the duke. “Whatever shall we do to occupy ourselves?” she continued.

“I believe Miss Burns suggested tossing a caber,” Bretton remarked.

Marilla blinked. “Oh, but you cannot be serious.”

Catriona looked up just in time to see him give a falsely modest shrug. “I don’t see why I couldn’t give it a try,” he murmured. “Besides, did you not just praise my fine sense of sportsmanship?”

“But Your Grace,” Marilla said. “Have you ever seen a caber?”

“Miss Burns tells me it’s a log.”

“Yes, but it’s— Oh!”

“Oh my heavens, I’m so sorry,” Catriona said. “I have no idea how my jam flew off my spoon like that.”

Marilla’s eyes narrowed to slits, but she said nothing as she picked up her serviette and wiped the red blob off her chest before it slid into the deep, dark crevasse between her breasts.

If the duke thought that a caber was a simple little log, Catriona wasn’t going to let Marilla tell him otherwise.

“Oh dear me,” Marilla said, leaning toward the duke. “I can’t reach the butter.”

Bretton dutifully reached out for the butter, which was to his right, and Catriona watched with amazement as Marilla scooted even closer to him while he wasn’t looking at her. When he turned around, she was just a few inches away, batting her lashes like butterfly wings.

If Catriona hadn’t disliked Marilla for so many years, she would have been impressed. Really, one had to give the girl credit for persistence.

The duke shot Catriona a look that said clearly,
Save me
, and she was trying to figure out precisely how she might accomplish this when they all heard the sound of approaching footsteps. Lord Oakley arrived on the scene, and Bretton shot to his feet to greet his friend.

“Oakley!” he said, with enough enthusiasm that Lord Oakley’s expression took on a vague tinge of alarm.

“Bret,” Lord Oakley said slowly, glancing about the room as if waiting for someone to jump out and yell, “Surprise!”

“Join us,” the duke ordered. “Now.”

“Good morning, Lord Oakley,” Marilla said.

Oakley glanced down at her and flinched.

“You remember Miss Marilla,” Bretton said.

“Oh, don’t be silly,” Marilla said with a laugh that set her all a-quivering. “How could he possibly forget any of us?”

Lord Oakley made haste to the sideboard, piling his plate with food.

“Miss Burns and I were just finishing,” Bretton said quickly.

Catriona felt her lips part, and she almost said,
We were?
But the duke shot her a look of such desperation, all she could do was nod and grunt, “Mmm-hmm,” over the giant forkful of eggs she’d just thrust into her mouth.

“You may keep Miss Marilla company,” the duke said to Lord Oakley.

Catriona shoveled two more bites of food into her mouth, watching Marilla as she eyed Lord Oakley assessingly.

The poor man was an earl, Catriona thought with a twinge of guilt. Marilla was going to be on to him like . . .

Well, like she’d been on to the duke.

Still, Catriona couldn’t be expected to save everyone from Marilla, and the duke had asked first . . .

Silently, but still. She’d got his meaning.

“Miss Burns?” the duke said, holding out his arm impatiently.

She nodded and held up a hand in a just-one-moment gesture as she gulped down the rest of her tea.

“We’re going for a walk,” the duke said to Lord Oakley.

“That sounds lovely,” Marilla said.

“Oh, but you must finish your breakfast,” Catriona said quickly. “And keep Lord Oakley company.”

“I would love that above all things,” Marilla said. She turned to Lord Oakley, who had taken a seat next to her, and smiled seductively at him over her bosom.

Catriona thought she might have heard Lord Oakley gulp. But she couldn’t be sure. The duke had already taken her arm and was hauling her toward the door.

Chapter 5

B
ret did not let go of Miss Burns’s arm until they had put three full rooms between them and Marilla Chisholm. Only then did he turn to her and say, “Thank you.” And then, because once was not even remotely enough: “
Thank you
.”

“You’re quite welcome,” she said, looking down at something in her hand.

“You brought a scone?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I was still hungry.”

His fault. But surely she’d forgive him.

She glanced toward the door through which they’d just come. “I think I may have left a trail of crumbs.”

“My deepest apologies,” Bret said, “but I—”

“There is no need to apologize,” Miss Burns said, “as long as you don’t mind if I finish eating while we’re standing here.”

“Please.”

She took a dainty little bite, then said, “I thought Marilla was going to attack you.”

“Is she always so . . .”

“Forward?”

A kinder version of the word he might have used. “Yes,” he said.

“No,” Miss Burns admitted. “But you’re a duke.” She looked up from her food, her eyes large and filled with the same amusement that played across her lips. “Sorry.”

“That I’m a duke?”

“It can’t be a good thing at times like this.”

He opened his mouth to say . . .

What?

His mouth hung open. What had he meant to say?

“Your Grace?” She looked at him curiously.

“You’re right,” he said. Because as lovely as it was to be a duke, and it
was
—really, what sort of idiot complained about money, power, and prestige?—it still had to be said, with Marilla Chisholm on the prowl, life as a stablehand was looking rather tempting.

“I’m sure most of the time it’s delightful,” she said, licking strawberry jam from her fingers. “Being a duke, I mean.”

He stared, unable to take his eyes from her mouth, from her lips, pink and full. And her tongue, darting out to capture every last bit of sticky-sweet jam.

Her tongue. Why was he staring at her tongue?

“You needn’t worry about me,” she said.

He blinked his way up from her mouth back to her eyes. “I beg your pardon?”

“Dangling after you,” she explained, sounding somewhat relieved to get it out in the open. “And I think you’re safe from Fiona as well.”

“Fiona?”

“The elder Miss Chisholm. She’s as unlike Marilla as, well, as I am, I suppose. She has no intention to marry.”

Bret regarded Miss Burns curiously. “Does that mean that you don’t, either?”

“Oh no, I do. But I don’t intend to marry
you
.”

“Of course not,” he said stiffly, because a man did have his pride. His first marriage rejection, and he had not even proposed.

Her eyes met his, and for the briefest moment, her gaze was devoid of levity. “It would be very foolish of me to even consider it,” she said quietly.

There didn’t seem to be an appropriate response. To agree would be a grave insult, and yet of course she was correct. He knew his position; he had a duty to marry well. The dukedom was thriving, but it had always been wealthier in land than in funds. The Duchesses of Bretton always entered the family with a dowry. It would be highly impractical otherwise.

He hadn’t given marriage much thought, really, except to think—
not yet
. He needed someone wellborn, who came with money, but whoever she turned out to be, he didn’t need her right away.

And yet, if he
were
to choose a duchess . . .

He looked at Miss Burns, peering into her bottomless brown eyes before his gaze dropped to the corner of her lips, where a tiny spot of strawberry jam lay temptingly pink and sweet.

“You’re not going to marry me,” he murmured.

“Well, no.” She sounded confused.

“So what you’re saying,” he said with soft calculation, “is that, for my own safety, I ought to remain in your company for the duration of our incarceration.”

“No!” she exclaimed, clearly horrified by his leap of logic. “That’s not what I meant at all.”

“But it makes sense,” he pressed. “Surely you can see the wisdom of it.”

“Not for me!” When he did not answer quickly enough, she planted her hands on her hips. “I have a reputation to consider, even if you do not.”

“True, but we need not steal away from the rest, as delightful as that sounds.”

She blushed. He quite liked that she blushed.

“All I really need,” he continued, “is for you to act as a deterrent.”

“A deterrent?” she choked out.

“A human shield, if you will.”

“
What?
”

“I cannot be left alone with that woman,” he said, and he felt no remorse at the low desperation in his voice. “Please, if you have any care for your fellow man.”

Her lips clamped together in a suspicious line. “I’m not certain what
I
get out of the equation.”

“You mean besides the joy of my delightful company?”

“Yes,” she said, with an impressive lack of inflection, “besides that.”

He chuckled. “I shall be honest . . . I don’t know. The joy of thwarting Miss Marilla?”

Her head tilted thoughtfully to the side. “That would be a joy,” she conceded.

He waited for a few more seconds, then said simply, “Please.”

Her lips parted, but whatever word she’d had resting on her tongue remained there for an endless frozen moment. “All right,” she finally agreed. “But if there is a hint—even a whisper—of anything improper . . .”

“You can be assured there will not.”

“You can’t kiss me again,” she said in a low voice.

Normally, he would have pointed out that she had been doing her fair share of the kissing, but he was far too desperate for her agreement to argue. “I will do my best,” he said.

Her eyes narrowed.

“It is all I can promise,” he said quite truthfully.

“Very well,” she said. “What shall we do?”

“Do?”

“Or hadn’t you thought that far ahead?”

“Apparently not,” he said, flashing her what he hoped was a winning grin.

“We can’t just stand here all day in the old buttery.”

For the first time, Bret paused to take a look about. They were in a pass-through room, with one door that opened to the great hall, and another that was presently shut but probably led to the kitchens. There were a couple of tables, but other than that, the small chamber was mostly empty, save for a few ancient barrels in the corner. “Is that where we are?” he remarked.

She gave him a look of mild disdain. “You do know what a buttery is, don’t you?”

“Of course I do. I
live
in a castle.”

“An English castle,” she said with a sniff.

“It’s a
castle
,” he ground out. Not as ancient as Finovair, of course, but the Brettons predated the Tudors by at least two hundred years.

“You do know that we don’t make butter in a buttery?” Miss Burns said.

“We don’t make anything in the buttery,” he shot back. And then, when her face still did not release its expression of skepticism, he said, “The buttery was where one got a beer. From wooden butts.” He raised a brow. “Satisfied?”

“This was hardly a test.”

“Wasn’t it, though?” he countered. But he felt a smile approaching. It was a little frightening how much he was enjoying himself.

“We Scots are proud of our history,” she admitted.

He gazed longingly at the dried-up old barrel. “I could use a beer right now.”

“Beer? A duke?”

“Bait to which I shall not rise,” he said archly.

She smiled at that.

“I suppose you’ll say it’s too early for spirits of any kind,” he grumbled.

“Not this morning I won’t,” she said with feeling.

He regarded her with curiosity. And admiration.

“Well, let’s see,” she said, ticking off her fingers. “I was kidnapped . . .”

“So was I,” he pointed out.

“. . . thrown into a carriage . . .”

“You have me there,” he acknowledged.

“. . . groped . . .”

“By whom?” he demanded.

“You,” she said, seemingly without ire, “but don’t worry, I got away very quickly.”

“Now see here,” Bret sputtered. He had never claimed to understand the female mind, but he did understand the female body, and there was no way she hadn’t enjoyed the previous night’s kiss every bit as much as he did. “When I kissed you . . .”

“I’m not talking about the kiss,” she said.

He stared at her, flummoxed.

She cleared her throat. “It was when . . . ah . . . Never mind.”