Stolen Encounters With The Duchess

She slowed, resisting his forward motion. ‘You’re sure you can’t just let me go?’ After his sharp look of a reply, she said softly, ‘I didn’t set out to be foolish or irresponsible. I am sorry to have inadvertently got you involved.’

She swallowed hard, and the tears he saw sparkling at the edge of her lashes hit him like a fist to the chest. How it still distressed him to see her upset!

‘Well, I’m not. Can you imagine the uproar, if you had summoned the watch, and they discovered your identity? Far better for it to be me, whose discretion you can depend upon. If you don’t want to find out what society would say about a duchess wandering around alone on a Mayfair street, we better return you to Ashedon Place as soon as possible, before someone in a passing carriage recognises you.’

When she still resisted, a most unpalatable thought occurred. ‘You...you do trust me not to harm you, don’t you, Faith?’

She uttered a long, slow sigh that further tore at his heart. ‘Of course, I trust you, Davie. Very well, find us a hackney. And you don’t have to hang on to me. I won’t bolt again.’

Without another word, she resumed walking beside him. The energy that had fuelled her flight seemed to have drained out of her; head lowered, shoulders slumping, she looked...beaten, and weary.

Good thing he had to be mindful that some ton notable might at any minute drive by, else he might not have been able to resist the strong impulse to pick her up and carry her. After a few more minutes of brisk walking, they arrived at a hackney stand where, fortunately, a vehicle waited. Still not entirely believing he was accompanying his Faith—no, the widowed Duchess of Ashedon, he corrected himself, never his—he helped her in, guiding her back on to the seat.

After rapping on the panel to signal the driver to start, Davie looked back at the Duchess. ‘Are you all right? They didn’t hurt you? What about your knees? You took quite a fall.’ If they had harmed her, he’d track them down and take them apart limb from limb.

‘No,’ she said in a small voice. ‘I was frightened, and furious; my arm got twisted, but I’ve nothing more than bruises. I think I landed a few good kicks, too.’

‘Thank heaven for that! Before we get back to Berkeley Square, can you tell me how you ended up alone on the street at this time of night?’

‘Can’t you just let me return, and spare the exposition?’

He studied the outline of her profile in the light of the carriage lamps. ‘I don’t mean to pry. But finding you alone, practically in the middle of the night—well, it’s disturbing. Something isn’t right. I’d like to help fix it, if I can.’

To his further distress, the remark brought tears back to her eyes. ‘Ah, Davie. You’ve always wanted to make things better, haven’t you? Compelled to fix everything—government, Parliament, society. But this can’t be fixed.’

She looked so worn and miserable, Davie ached to pull her into his arms. Nothing new about that; he’d ached to hold her since he’d first seen her, more than ten years ago. Sister-in-law of a marquess, she’d been almost as unattainable then as she was now, as the widow of a duke.

Unfortunately, that hadn’t kept him from falling in love with her, or loving her all the years since.

‘What happened?’ he asked quietly. ‘What upset you so much, you had to escape into the night?’

She remained silent, her expression not just weary, but almost...despairing. While he hesitated, torn between respecting her privacy and the compulsion to right whatever was wrong in her universe, at last, she shrugged. ‘I might as well tell you, I suppose. It wasn’t some stupid wager, though, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

‘I’m sure it wasn’t. You may have been high-spirited and carefree as a girl, but you were never a brainless ninny, or a daredevil.’

‘Was I high-spirited and carefree? Maybe I was, once. It’s been so long.’

Her dull voice and lifeless eyes ratcheted his concern up even further. Granted, these two unlikely friends had grown apart in the years since the idyllic summer they’d met, he twenty and serving his first stint as secretary to Sir Edward Greaves, she a golden-haired, sixteen-year-old sprite paying a long visit to her cousin, Sir Edward’s wife. But even on the occasions he’d seen her since her marriage, her eyes had still held that warmth and joy for life that had so captured his heart the first time he set eyes on her.

‘You were carefree,’ he affirmed. ‘Which makes the fact that I found you alone on the street, seeking transport home, even more troubling. What drove you to it?’

‘Ever since Ashedon’s death—by the way, thank you for your kind note of condolence—his mother, the Dowager Duchess, has been making noises about how she must support “the poor young Duchess and her darling boys” and see that the “tragic young Duke” receives the guidance necessary for his elevated status in life. A month ago, she made good on her threat and moved herself back into Ashedon Place. She’s been wanting to do so for years, but though his mother doted on him, Ashedon knew how interfering she is and wouldn’t allow it. It’s enough that I must tolerate the sweetly contemptuous comments of other society matrons at all those boring, insipid evenings I’ve come to hate! Now, I have to live with the Dowager’s carping and criticism as well, every day. Then, tonight, when I accompanied her to the party she insisted we attend, I discovered her younger son, my brother-in-law Lord Randall, was there. When he caught me alone in the hallway on my way to the ladies’ retiring room and tried to force a kiss on me, I’d had enough. I knew the Dowager wasn’t ready to leave, and would never believe anything derogatory about her precious son, so there was no hope of persuading her to summon the carriage. But remaining was intolerable, so I decided to walk towards Oxford Street and look for a hackney.’

She gave a little sigh, the sadness of it piercing his heart. ‘Ashedon and his doxies were bad enough, and now this. Sometimes I don’t think I can bear it any longer.’

His heart ached for the gentle spirit whose girlish dreams of being loved and cherished had been slowly crushed under the heel of her husband’s indifference, leaving her trapped, a lonely and neglected wife. As Davie was trapped in his place, unable to help her.

Except, always, to be a friend.

To his dismay, the tears he’d seen on her lashes earlier began to silently slip down her cheeks. Putting up a hand to try to mask them, she turned away.

And then, somehow, she was in his arms, cradled against his chest. She clung to him and he clutched her tightly, almost ready to bless the ruffians he’d rescued her from, for without that incident, the marvel of holding her would never have been his. It was a dream come true; oh, far better than any dream, to feel the softness of her pressed against him, her lavender scent filling his nostrils, her silky blonde curls under his chin. He could die right now, and be content, for he would never get any closer to heaven.

And if his body burned to possess her fully, he rebuked it. He’d never expected to have even this much bliss; he’d not ask for more.

Inevitably and all too soon, she got herself back under control, and pulled away.

Letting her go, when all he wanted was to hold her for ever, was the hardest thing he’d ever done.

‘Sorry,’ she said gruffly. ‘Usually I’m not so poor-spirited.’

‘Don’t be sorry. I’m only glad I was here, to stand your friend.’

‘My friend. I have few enough of those. I did try to be careful tonight, I assure you! I suppose...I suppose I was just too tired and preoccupied, because I never noticed the two men who must have followed me. They seemed to appear out of nowhere.’

Davie shook his head with a shudder. ‘I’m only glad I happened along. What they might have done to you, I don’t even want to contemplate.’

She nodded. ‘They threatened to take me to a brothel. Could they drag a woman there against her will, or were they just trying to frighten me?’

‘I’m afraid it’s quite possible. A little laudanum, and you might have awakened to find yourself locked in a room in some den of vice somewhere,’ he answered grimly.

‘Except for not seeing my sons again, I’m not sure I’d have cared. I thought of leaving Ashedon, oh, so many times! But I couldn’t have taken my boys with me—legally, they belonged to him, of course, and Edward is the heir. Though I saw little enough of them; the Duke didn’t think children should be spoiled by having their mother dote on them. Now that he’s gone, I’ve tried to alter that, though I must continually fight against the Dowager and their tutor to do it. As long as I get to be with my boys, one way or another, I will endure it—for now, anyway.’

‘Have you talked with your family, your sisters? Do they know how unhappy you are?’

She smiled wryly. ‘I...I’m not that close to them any more. The Duke actively discouraged me from seeing my family at the beginning of our marriage. Silly me, I thought it was because he wanted me all to himself. Which he did, in a way. He didn’t want anyone around who might interfere with his authority. So over the years, we...drifted further and further apart. As you and I did.’

He nodded. ‘I’m sure they regret that as much as I do. Could you not try to re-establish ties?’

‘I suppose. But there isn’t anything they can do to help me, either. Most of the time I manage better.’ She tried to summon a smile for him. ‘It’s only rarely that I feel as if I’ll...burst out of my skin if I don’t get away from all of it.’

‘As you did tonight.’

‘As I did tonight.’

He looked at her, frowning. ‘At the moment, I don’t have any clever ideas on how to make things better. But will you promise me something?’

‘What?’ she asked, tilting her head at him with an enquiring look, and instantly, he was catapulted back into the memories.

How many times that summer had she gazed up at him just like that, her eager mind probing further into whatever they were discussing—poetry, politics, agriculture? As if the whole world excited and enthralled her, and she could not learn enough about it.

Fury fired in him again to realise how much of that joy had been squeezed out of her.

Suppressing the anger, he replied, ‘The next time you feel you cannot stand it a minute longer, please, don’t go wandering around the streets by yourself! Send me a note; I’ll meet you somewhere, anywhere, and we can talk. You’re not alone, Faith. You’ll never be alone, while I still draw breath. Promise me?’

She studied him for a moment. ‘You mean that?’

‘Of course. I never say anything I don’t mean.’