Bewitching Page 7

  The innkeeper was a rotund man whose smudged and faded pink vest showed red where the seams had been let out at least three times. He stood in a crowd of locals, jolly farmers who wore the black dirt of their labors and who whooped and stomped and hawed when one of them scored over the London swells.

  Downe's blond head stuck out above the crowd, and Alec watched as he threw back his fifth portion of frothy and potent ale from an old sheep-horn stein. There was no doubt in Alec's mind that his friend would soon begin another drunken attempt to prove to the world that he was an obnoxious rake who held everything and everyone in contempt. When sober, the Earl of Downe was one of the best men Alec had ever known, but when drunk, a state that of late seemed more the rule than the exception, he was intent upon making everyone around him as miserable as he was.

  Alec glanced at the oak plank door of the retiring room into which the local leech, who had been summoned to attend the girl, had followed the innkeeper's wife. The duke glanced at his ale, but a drink was not what he needed. He doubted it would relieve the throb in his head, nor would it do anything for the burning in his eyes resulting from exhaustion and the rancid air. The truth was he was tired. He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes, fighting back a yawn.

  A commotion sounded from his left. After a moment of trying to ignore the noise he gave up and willed his tired eyes open—just in time to see Lady Agnes Voorhees—the biggest baffle-headed busybody in London—swell into the inn with her entourage. His fatigue disappeared, replaced by the urgent need to get the devil out of there before the bird-witted woman saw him. He rose abruptly, not out of courtesy but to avoid detection, and stepped back against the wall, intending to creep toward the kitchen.

  "Your Grace!"

  Alec groaned.

  "Imagine that, Eugenia! It's His Grace, the Duke of Belmore! What a small world!" The woman moved toward him faster than a dart to the board, her companions toddling along behind her.

  He was stuck as surely as if the inn floor were mired yard-deep in mud.

  "Why, we were just chatting about you," she said, standing directly across from him. "Henry dearest"—Lady Agnes turned to her weakling of a husband—"please go and retain a private parlor." She scowled about the room, waving a lace handkerchief in front of her beak of a nose. "The air's bad." She turned back and blabbered on. "I cannot believe the exquisite luck of finding you here. You see, Eugenia—of course you know Lady Eugenia Wentworth and Mrs. Timmons . . . ”

  Alec nodded to the other women—the second and third biggest gossips in London. A flock of bird-wits.

  "As I was saying, Eugenia said she heard from Mrs. Dunning-Whyte, who heard from Sally Jersey, that Lady Juliet Spencer—your Lady Juliet—had eloped! Piffle! I said. That just was not possible! Everyone knows that Your Grace would do the thing proper. A Duke of Belmore would never do anything so devil-may-care! Besides, it was my understanding that you had yet to declare yourself. Of course we were sure that you would do so any day. It was just a matter of time. But you can imagine my shock when Eugenia said that you were not the groom. Well, I just laughed. Hah-hah-hah!"

  Her companions giggled.

  "I mean after all, no lady in control of her senses would throw over the Duke of Belmore for a mere captain, no matter what his family connections are."

  Mrs. Timmons and Lady Eugenia nodded in unison.

  "And the whole ton knew that you were smitten from the first moment you laid eyes on her. Why I remember that night as if it were yesterday . . . . ”

  The stance of the Duke of Belmore had not changed, but if one looked very closely, the smallest twitch was discernible in his cheek, caused by the tightening of his jaw. As usual there was no warmth in his eyes, and he stood a little taller, a little straighter, a little stiffer than before. The more the woman prattled on, the deeper and more controlled the duke's breathing became.

  Then her husband returned. "The inn has no private parlors, m'dear." He looked up at Alec. "I say, that must be why His Grace is here in the common room. What say you, Belmore?"

  Before Alec could respond, Lady Agnes gasped and looked around the room. "No private parlors? Ohhhhh, I feel faint." The woman sank to the bench like a deflated balloon—a hot air balloon—then lolled against the table, the back of one gloved hand pressed against her forehead.

  "Now, now, m'dear." Lord Henry plucked the handkerchief from his wife's hand and began fanning her face. "There is a ladies' retiring room."

  Lady Agnes found her second wind and sat up.

  "Alas, m'dear, the room is occupied now, and the hostler asked that you wait out here for a few more minutes."

  She deflated. "But why must we wait?"

  "Seems some poor lady received an injury, and the physician is examining her now."

  She inflated again, looking perfectly healthy now that there was something to snoop into. She began firing questions at her husband faster than sticks and triggers. "Who is she? Did you ask? What's her name? Who is she with? Do we know her? Why didn't you ask?"

  Lord Henry blithered his way through some answers, none of which satisfied his wife.

  A moment later she was in tears. "Oh, Henry, you know how desperately I need to be needed. That poor girl, whoever she is, might need me, and you know how important it is for me to feel helpful, charity being one of my greatest pleasures in this life." She moaned—a sound similar to that emitted by a clogged fireplace bellows—and closed her eyes, then dropped a dramatic hand down on the table, right atop the special license.

  Alec tensed.

  At the crinkling sound of paper, one curious female eye popped open, then the other. She looked down, and her pained expression disappeared. Her hand closed over the paper as if it were her invitation to heaven. One skimming glance and she had the same feral look of Alec's hunting hounds when they were on the scent of a hare. She snapped up the paper in a wink, read it, and then eyed him over the edge of the paper. Slowly she fanned herself with the license, giving him her most ingratiating, toadying smile.

  She waved the license under his nose. "Why, Your Grace, what a sly one you are!"

  At that moment the innkeeper's wife came out of the room and requested Alec's presence. Wordlessly, he took the license from Lady Agnes and wasted no time crossing over to the room. But just as he opened the retiring room door he heard her whisper—the king, loony and daft and locked in his room at Westminster could have heard Lady Agnes whisper—"It's Lady Juliet, Eugenia. He and Lady Juliet are to be married. I told you that murky rumor about the soldier couldn't be true."

  Alec took two deep breaths and stared at his white-knuckled grip on the doorknob. Two more breaths and he entered the room, closing the door behind him.

  ***

  Joy sat in a ladies' receiving chair, not hearing one word the physician said because the duke was barely five feet away. Sensing his presence in the room, she stretched so she could peer over the physician's shoulder. He snapped his satchel closed and straightened, blocking her view.

  "Just a slight sprain, Your Grace," he told the duke. "I've wrapped it tightly, and the miss, here, can stand on it and move around without difficulty." He turned back to Joy. "Can't you, my dear? Here, show His Grace." He helped her up, and she walked a short distance to the huge hearth, where Beezle slept, curled up next to a fire that crackled and burned and gave warm dry relief from the damp English air. She looked at the duke and found him looking not at her foot but at her face. Joy froze.

  "Show His Grace how well you are able to move your ankle, my dear." The physician seemed completely unaware of the eerie magic that Joy felt whenever she was close to the duke. There were moments when she felt this man's gaze turned so intensely personal it was as if he were inside her for a brief instant.

  She lifted her skirts to just above her ankle and glanced up at the duke again. After a hesitation, he turned his gaze to her ankle and she rolled her foot to show him her ankle was fine.

  "No more pain?" the duke asked.

  "No," she replied. "Not a whit. Fit as a fiddle." And she gave him another smile. "Thank you."

  "She should not overdo for a day or so, but after that the ankle should be strong enough to allow her to walk to Scotland if she chooses to do so." The physician laughed, and Joy flushed, remembering the conversation in the carriage. The duke's expression had not changed. It was just as steely, just as pensive as before.

  He paid the man and closed the door behind him when he left the room. Joy held her hands out toward the fire. The innkeeper's wife, Mrs. Hobson, had helped her off with her pelisse and spread it and her gloves out to dry on a narrow tobacco-brown damask wing chair close to the fire. She grasped the hem of her pelisse and shook some of the water drops off. It gave her something to do other than gape at His Grace.

  "Have you had any contact with the new Earl of Craven?" the duke asked.

  The question caught Joy off guard and she turned to face him. "No. Why?"

  "I would think that, with your family gone, he would have a responsibility to you."

  "If I contacted that side of the family, my grandmother would rise from the dead. Believe me, Your Grace, there is no love lost there." She raised her chin, remembering the stories her papa had told her of the Locksleys' harsh treatment of his English mother. She would have been hard-pressed to believe that such a family could change radically with only the death of a great-grandfather. The whole lot of them had been cruel. Scots pride and stubbornness shone from her eyes. "I could be starving and naked and half dead, and still I would not seek anything from the Locksleys."

  "I see." He said no more, but he seemed to be pondering her every word. She wondered what he was thinking, how this man's mind worked, if all his thoughts were serious or if he ever let his mind wander into the fanciful w
orld that hers so frequently visited.

  The quiet sound of his boots on the wooden floor broke her thought. She watched him walk toward her, and she didn't know if she wanted to stand there or run the other way as fast as her weak ankles could carry her. She held her breath. He rested one arm on the walnut chimneypiece and rested one booted foot on a brass andiron while he stared thoughtfully into the blazing fire.

  The glow lit his silver hair and limned his profile like a halo of an archangel. He had a long, noble nose, high cheekbones, and a strong jaw dusted with the shadow of a man who had not shaved, or who needed to do so more than once a day. She found that fascinating, imagining the texture of the stubble that darkened his jaw. She decided it must be rough and masculine, and her fingertips tingled with the need to feel it. Unconsciously she rubbed her own jaw line.

  The air became suddenly warm, and the room seemed to have shrunk. Sweat pearled at her temples, neck, and chest. Her gown itched. She darted around to the other side of the wing chair to put some distance between herself and the fire.

  "When were you born?" He barked the question.

  She jumped, startled, then answered, "Seventeen ninety-two."

  "What day?"

  "The twenty-seventh of June."

  He was silent.

  "Why?"

  He didn't respond.

  "Your Grace?"

  "I am thinking."

  "About my age?"

  "Not really."

  "What, then?"

  He turned those eyes on her, eyes that held a tinge of regret, and he slowly moved toward her. "About the consequences of what I am about to do."

  "Oh." Joy stepped back. "What is that?"

  Alec moved forward, silent.

  A little intimidated, she stepped back again and almost fell over the chair arm.

  He caught her arms and drew her forward.

  "Oh …”

  His hand slid around her neck.

  “… My goodness!"

  And he pulled her mouth up to meet his. She watched, mesmerized by the eyes that pinned hers, watched the hard line of his lips come closer and closer until he was so close that her eyes drifted closed. She could taste his breath, feel it against her dry lips. She wanted this. It seemed a lifetime before his mouth brushed against hers ever so softly, tentatively, as if it searched for something.

  Please don't let this be a dream, she prayed. His lips brushed against hers again and again, real, tactile, with a tenderness she would have never expected in a man who didn't smile. She was afraid the kiss might end, and she wanted just a wee bit more. When he skimmed his lips to the corner of her mouth, moving gently, she turned her head just enough so there was closer contact. His hand pressed against the back of her head so her mouth was firmly on his. She melted against his chest.

  Still splayed across the back of her head, his hand held her in place, but she would not have pulled away from him for anything. She had no idea that kisses were so wonderful and warm and soft. The real thing was so much better than her daydreams. No cold, hard glass here.

  His other arm slid across the small of her back and ever so slowly pressed her stomach against him, and his hand moved from the back of her head to her neck, massaging the soft tendons and muscle beneath her flesh. His lips pressed harder; his hand held her fast. He licked her upper lip, then ran his tongue along the seam of her lips. She reacted with a gasp, and he filled her mouth, searching and retreating. She chilled with gooseflesh and shivered, once, twice, and again when his tongue dueled with hers.

  She thought this must be like flying, only better—like flying and feasting at the same time. He tasted of everything she'd always loved—of spicy gingerbread and sweet lemon honey, of buttery scones and tart strawberries, of fine aged wine and fresh warm yeasty bread. Her head felt light, her body weightless, and her blood seemed to speed undammed through channels within her. Her swelling heart pounded in her chest and ears and wrists. She was chilled one minute, warm and flushed the next.

  This was new to her, the feeling of his tongue filling her mouth, the warm dampness of the kiss, the very intimacy of it—a physical expression of the games their eyes had played. She wondered if his heart was beating with the same urgent drumming as hers, and she tried to get closer so she could feel it. She slid the palm of her hand across his coat to the center of his chest and raised her other hand to his neck. Her knees grew weaker than her ankle, and she clung to him to keep from falling. His arm moved beneath her buttocks and lifted her up off the floor, holding her safe and secure. She dangled her feet and held on tighter, gripping his coat in her fist.

  With the barest of touches, his hand moved from her head to her neck. His fingers played with the strands of hair that framed her face, then grazed her ear, and moved down her throat, across her shoulder, and over her arm to her ribs, where he rubbed slow circles that matched the rhythm of his questing tongue.

  She didn't want the kiss to end and gave a plaintive cry when he pulled his mouth away. Her eyes drifted open slowly, and she saw in the duke's midnight blue eyes—a need, a flash of desperate need—the path to the treasure. Then it was gone, hidden by the mask that kept her and the rest of the world out. The hard duke was back.

  "You'll do," he said.

  "Hmm?" She looked up at him, searching his eyes for another sign of that need, still savoring her first kiss, the feel of his arms. "I'll do what?"

  She had no idea that her eyes held her heart.

  "Never mind," he said, looking away for a pensive moment, before staring at the door.

  Joy was horrified to think that maybe someone else was there. She gripped his shoulders in fear, her worried eyes following his, expecting to see someone watching them, but the door was still closed, and there was no one in the room but the two of them.

  He set her down, but his hands still rested on her shoulders. His look softened, and he searched her face, spending a long silent moment staring at her mouth. His hands rubbed her upper arms and then with one knuckle tilted her chin up and looked her straight in the eye.

  "Marry me."

  Chapter 6

  For an eternal minute she stared up at him, unable to think, unable to move or speak. She told herself her wits were wandering. He could not have said that.

  "Marry me," he said again.

  "Oh--” She slapped her hand over her mouth and stepped back. He did say that. He did.

  She had died and gone to witch heaven.

  With little more than his thumb and forefinger, he pulled her chin forward and kissed her again and again and again, ever so gently. "Marry me," he whispered against her mouth. "Marry me."

  "I cannot." But her traitorous mouth sought his.

  "Of course you can. You are of age." He trailed his lips over hers again, barely brushing her mouth.

  "No, I mean I can, but I cannot."

  The words were barely out before he kissed her, long and deep, wet and lazy, stroking until she forgot how to think. He moved his lips to her ear. "You'll be a duchess."

  "I can—"

  He silenced her with another kiss, pulled her against the length of his body. Then his mouth left hers—"I cannot"— and moved to her ear. "Marry me, Joyous MacQuarrie."

  "Ummmmmm."

  His tongue scored her ear, and she shivered.

  "I don't know you." She wanted to see his face and tried to pull back.

  Kisses trailed down her neck. "Marriage will solve that. Trust me."

  "But what about love?"

  He paused near her shoulder. "Are you in love with someone?"

  "No."

  "Then there is nothing to stop us."

  "But we just met, and only by chance."

  "Marriages are arranged all the time between participants who have never met."

  "But you're the Duke of Belmore."

  "I know," he whispered in her damp ear. "And you're Scottish."

  "But . . . but . . . ”

  "Wouldn't you like to be a duchess?" His deep voice was so soft, so quiet.

  She was lost in the dreamy thoughts his words suggested.

  "My duchess."

  She didn't say a word. His lips moved in butterfly kisses.

  "Hmm?" His mouth grazed her temple. "Wouldn't you?"

  "I'm not sure . . . . Well, I mean, yes . . . uh, no."