The Regency Season: Decadent Dukes: Rufus Drake: Duke of Wickedness / Griffin Stone: Duke of Decadence / Christian Seaton: Duke of Danger

“I must say, I was very surprised to learn that it was the parson’s sister who lied to me so brazenly on the last occasion we met.”

Anna stiffened, her back turned towards the owner of the voice as she knelt in the parsonage garden weeding the bed of herbs.

It would be an understatement for her to claim she had been dreading this meeting after the village became abuzz with the news that the new Duke of Northamptonshire had arrived unexpectedly three days ago and was now in residence at Banbury Hall.

Anna had not believed the duke’s unexpected arrival and her own meeting that same day with the stranger in the woods could possibly have been a coincidence; they simply did not have that many visitors riding through the parish in one day. Consequently, she had reluctantly been forced to accept that it was more than a possibility that the Duke of Northamptonshire was the same handsome gentleman who had stripped down to his drawers in front of her startled—and avid—gaze.

The same outrageous gentleman who had then teased and flirted with her.

The very same wicked man who had climbed a tree in order to assist her only so that he might claim a kiss as his reward! A kiss that had caused Anna to blush, warm and tremble with pleasure every time she had thought of it since.

She forced down those feelings as she rose slowly to her feet before turning to face the man who had surely come here to taunt and torment her for her past behaviour.

Anna was very much aware that he had once again found her in disarray; she always wore one of her oldest gowns for gardening, and her hair was slightly dishevelled from her exertions in the herb bed.

In comparison, the duke looked a picture of sartorial elegance, in a deep blue superfine with a silver paisley waistcoat over his snowy white linen.

He leaned confidently on the top of low wall surrounding the garden at the back of the parsonage as he nodded to her in mocking salute.

“I have asked forgiveness for the lie.” Anna’s gaze dropped from his. “Can you claim to have done the same, as you also lied to me when you said you were not visiting people in the area?” she reminded huskily.

“I did not lie, Anna,” Rufus denied smoothly. “I admitted only to travelling through the woods. And I could hardly claim to be visiting myself,” he reasoned.

Her eyes flashed deeply blue as she looked up at him. “A simple acknowledgement of being the Duke of Northamptonshire would have sufficed, as I am sure you are well aware.”

Rufus could not help but smile at this show of her previous sharpness with him, laying his hat on top of the wall and placing a hand beside it before jumping nimbly over into the garden.

“What are you doing?” Anna took a step back, having raised her hands to her breasts in alarm.

He strolled unconcernedly down the pathway to join her. “I have no intention of conversing with a wall between us when anyone might walk past and overhear us talking.”

That sentiment was all well and good, as Anna had no wish for anyone else to learn of the circumstance of their previous acquaintance either, but Rufus was now standing far too close to her.

So close, in fact, that he was able to reach out and take one of her hands in his. “There is no reason for you to fight me, Anna.” He frowned as she instantly attempted to release her hand. “Better.” He nodded as she reluctantly stilled but continued to regard him warily. “The truth of the matter is, I am still becoming accustomed to the fact that is who I now am. I was not born to be a duke, Anna,” he added as her gaze became quizzical.

Anna gave a slow shake of her head. “I do not understand.”

He smiled ruefully. “I am the third grandson of my grandfather, the only son born to his second son, and until five weeks ago I was just plain and uninteresting Mr Rufus Drake,” he dryly reminded her of her opinion of her own name in the woods that day. “I should never have become a duke, Anna, and truly wish I had never inherited,” he added grimly.

She gave a snort. “That is ridiculous!”

“Is it?” he mused softly.

“Of course,” she dismissed impatiently. “What gentleman would not wish to become a duke?”

“This one,” Rufus assured her, aware that his body was once again responding with its usual wilfulness at her close proximity.

Three days ago, Rufus had known his arousal was such that he had to get away from this young woman, or else break every rule he had ever set himself in regard to innocents.

And to Rufus’s chagrin and surprise, little else had occupied his thoughts but this young woman since.

No matter how hard he tried, he had been unable to rid himself of the memory of how soft and silky her skin had felt beneath his fingertips that day. How full and responsive her breasts. And her passion had been more than a match for his own as she’d returned the intimacy of his kisses. As for her taste... Rufus believed he had developed an addiction to that unique taste of honey and mint.

His mouth tightened as he recalled the last three frustrating days spent trying to ascertain the identity of his little wood nymph. Not as easy a task as it might have initially seemed.

He had not spent any time at Banbury Hall since he was a child; the Drake family was not a close or mutually sociable one, and as such he had absolutely no idea who Anna could be once he realised she was not Turner’s daughter after all.

The situation was one of delicacy. To ask outright for the surname and whereabouts of a girl called Anna would have placed them both in a questionable position.

And so Rufus had spent his time with Matthew Turner discussing Jacob Harker, the previous estate manager. Rufus had decided that the man had in all likelihood been involved with the other traitors to the Crown, unfortunately still in so many of the homes of the English aristocracy. Rufus had already sent word to his cousin Zachary in London, giving a detailed description of the man. Helped by the fact, he hoped, that Harker apparently had a distinctive mole on the left side of his neck.

There was nothing else Rufus could do about that while he remained in Northamptonshire, and so he had turned his attention to asking Turner for the names of all the people residing in and around Banbury, on the excuse that he wished to become acquainted with all his tenants. To Rufus’s frustration, during none of their conversations did Turner make mention of a young lady named Anna.

And then the young parson had called to see Rufus early yesterday evening, and introduced himself as Mark Bishop. Mark was the son of Andrew Bishop, the previous parson of the parish, and Rufus had learned through conversation with the younger man that he resided at the parsonage with his unmarried sister, Anna. A fact Matthew Turner, not being a churchgoer, had not seen fit to mention!

Rufus’s first instinct had been to return immediately to the parsonage with Bishop and see the man’s sister for himself. His second, more cautious response, had been to wonder whether it was possible that his Anna and the daughter and sister of two parsons could really be one and the same person. Rufus had questioned himself as to whether the spinster relation of two parsons would have behaved as she had in the woods that day.

But here Anna Juliet truly was, working in the parsonage garden, her blue gown slightly soiled from her endeavours, her hair softly ruffled by the lightly blowing breeze.

She looked utterly beautiful to him.

Utterly desirable.

Nor, he was pleased to have learned in the past few minutes, did her sharpness of tongue seem to have lessened in the least since learning his identity as the Duke of Northamptonshire.

“I did not wish to become a duke, Anna,” he repeated ruefully. “I liked my life exactly as it was, free of the responsibility of others, of all restraint. Until five weeks ago I could go where I wanted, be who I wanted, with whom I wanted.”

“And can you no longer do those things?”

He sighed. “Now I have numerous estates needing my attention, servants and tenants I am responsible for, along with all the other expectations of bearing the family title.”

Anna had never thought of a duke as being someone who had restraints placed upon him.

Restraints that seemed so strangely similar to her own, when all her close family relations were connected to the church.

All her life she had been Anna Bishop, the respectable daughter and then sister of a parson, her actions and words always guarded so that she did not bring embarrassment or shame upon her father or her brother.

But inside, shamefully, Anna had always longed for the sort of excitement she had known in this man’s arms three days ago.

“What are your own hopes and dreams, Anna?”

She looked at Rufus guardedly as he seemed to see, to recognise, her secret, wistful longings.

Her chin rose. “I have been the daughter of a parson all my life, sir, and now I am the sister of a parson, and since my mother died eight years ago, and I lost my father two years ago, I have been helpmate to my brother. I do not have any hopes, dreams or ambitions beyond that.”

Rufus did not believe her. He had seen the wistfulness of her expression just minutes ago; her cheeks flushed, the softness of her softly parted lips, as if she yearned for something just beyond her sight. Just beyond her reach.

“What if you should marry?” he probed softly.