Confessions of a Duchess

“You were swift enough to help me out of my clothes the last time we met,” Dexter said, “and we both know that your concessions to propriety are only for outward show.”

He took the shirt from her hands and tossed it carelessly aside, closing the space between them.

He saw the expression flare in Laura’s eyes, pain as well as heat. “I did not invite you here to—”

“To take up where we left off?”

Dexter was so close to her now that he could see the rapid rise and fall of her breasts beneath the damp muslin of her gown and the pulse that beat in the hollow of her throat. He wanted to rip the dress from neck to hem and expose her pale body to his sight and touch. The violence of his reaction shocked him, a man who prided himself on his self-control, even as the shock was swept away by the desire that ran through his blood in a ravening tide.

“Perhaps you did not intend this.” His words were a breath against her lips. “But now that I understand what it is that you want…”

Confusion flickered in the hazel eyes so close to his. “What I want?”

“Yes. An affair. No complications, no involvement. Four years ago you told me that sex was nothing more than sport to you. So that is what I am offering now—a love affair, nothing but pleasure.”

She put a hand against his chest and pushed him away from her. “I never said an affair was what I wanted!”

Anger and lust warred in Dexter. The feeling was utterly alien to him. He did not want to talk. His need for her had pushed him beyond that but still the bitterness in him could not be denied. His voice was harsh. “Four years ago I asked you to elope with me and instead you laughed at me and threw me from the house. It was clear that you did not wish for any emotional entanglement.”

“No, I did not…” Her voice caught. “But I did not intend you to interpret that as a desire for an affair.”

“No?” His anger increased by several notches. It seemed as uncontrollable as his need for her and his lack of restraint only served to inflame him further.

“So all you sought was one night of passion,” he said bitterly. “I realize that when your appetite was slaked you wanted nothing other than for me to leave.”

He did not give her the opportunity to reply. His delusion of self-restraint vanished and he bent his head and kissed her, determined now to prove that there was nothing unique or exceptional in his response to her and there never had been.

As soon as they touched he knew he had lost.

His mouth slanted over hers with the same precise perfection that he remembered. They matched as though they were made for one another. Their bodies came together gently, flawlessly, with the same exquisite sense of rightness as before.

The thought knocked the breath from Dexter’s body as powerfully as any physical reaction. There was no uncertainty between them. Their bodies recognized each other with an instinct older than time. The sense of belonging together was strong and dangerously seductive. Old feelings and emotions started to awaken.

“This is how it was always meant to be…”

Dexter knew that such thoughts and emotions were an illusion. They had to be. He might achieve physical bliss with Laura Cole but there was no more to it than that. There was no real sense of rightness, no belonging, no love. Love was a misnomer for infatuation anyway, and he was too old and experienced to feel that now. But in trying to banish the need he felt for her all he had managed to achieve was to awaken every last yearning, every last desire. He ached with the need for satisfaction. He wanted Laura so much it actually hurt. He closed his mind to complicated emotion and allowed himself simply to feel.

He deepened the kiss, coaxing her lips apart, his tongue sliding inside to search and caress and seduce. She tasted sweet as honey. He sensed a hesitation in her beneath the hot, helpless response that she could not deny, and he almost drew back, but a moment later her uncertainty had gone and she pressed closer against him, meeting his demands with a heated need of her own. Her hands slid across his bare chest, raising sensations in him that roused a firestorm of physical desire. This was the secret duchess that he remembered, the woman who responded to him without fear or modesty, who gave all of herself, in contradiction of her cool public persona, and aroused an answering ache of need in him. He had wondered if he had imagined their response to one another or if, in his innocence, he had made it more powerful and extraordinary than it really was. Yet now there was the same cascade of sensation and emotion, an explosion of feeling, sparks of fire in his blood. He was not a fanciful man but the force of it almost swept him away.

But as he reached for her to draw her closer still, she drew back with a gasp.

“No! I cannot do this.” She took a step back and raised one hand to her forehead. A frown dented the smooth skin between her brows as though she had a sudden headache. “I do not want this.”

Some of the white-hot fever eased within him and this time when Dexter made a determined effort to regain rational control, he succeeded. He too took a step back, his hands falling to his sides. So it seemed that what had felt so real, so right to him had been no more than an illusion. Once again it had meant nothing to her.

“Forgive me,” he said with biting sarcasm, “but I was under the impression that you kissed me back, your grace. Were you merely curious to see if all that whorehouse experience had changed me?”

She flinched. The color flooded her cheeks. Her lips were deep pink and slightly swollen from his kisses and she pressed a hand to them. “I have my reputation to consider,” she said steadily. “Fortune’s Folly is a small place and I cannot afford to lose my good name—”

Dexter laughed. “You were not so careful of it last time and I would swear you still want me.”

She bit her lip hard. “That is beside the point. There is more at stake now.”

“You are no more than a hypocrite,” Dexter said brutally. “You always were concerned for nothing but outward show.” The anger licked through his blood. He was in danger of making the same mistakes all over again and being carried away by his lust. His self-restraint where Laura Cole was concerned seemed as wafer-thin as before. He wondered bitterly why it took him so long to learn. Sanity was clearing his mind now and with it came a mixture of fury and perplexity that he had even thought of pursuing her again. He was in Fortune’s Folly for work and also to swallow his pride and find a rich, conformable wife who would fit into his life without causing any trouble. He did not want to behave in a way that reminded him of his parents’ disastrous indiscretions. The thought of such emotional incontinence made him feel cold to the bones. He had put all that behind him.

He grabbed his wet shirt and forced his feet into his soaking boots, wincing as the leather creaked in protest. “I won’t trouble you for those spare clothes,” he said. “I’ll walk back as I am.”

“Like that? From my house?” Laura was clearly taken aback.

It gave him the greatest pleasure to provoke her. “Indeed. If anyone gossips you may tell them that I have been fixing your medieval plumbing.”

“You are absurd.”

“And as I have said, you were always concerned with preserving public propriety when beneath the surface you broke every rule.” He gave her a brusque nod. “Good day, your grace.”

“Mr. Anstruther.” Her voice halted him before he reached the door and he stopped, deploring the fact that even now a part of him wanted her to call him back, back into her arms, back into her bed.

“I think it would be better,” she said, “if we avoided each other in future.”

That was going to be the devil of a problem in a small village like Fortune’s Folly but Dexter was not going to argue. In fact he would do his utmost to oblige her. He wanted to keep out of her way and forget that anything had ever occurred between them though he knew it would be the devil’s own job to do so.

“Of course,” he said. “It will be my pleasure.”

This time he walked out on her without being invited to leave.

Chapter Four

HE HAD CHANGED. The Dexter Anstruther she had known before would never have spoken, acted or behaved like that. He had become a man who was hard, experienced and cynical. And she had taken her part in making him so.

Laura, her soaking gown and underclothes changed for a clean, dry set, sat before her mirror combing the tangles out of her hair. Her body still hummed gently, frustratingly, with a pulse of thwarted desire. Her breasts felt heavy and full and her whole body was flushed with arousal. Woken from four years of celibacy, it was demanding satisfaction.

With an uncharacteristic impatience, she slammed the comb down on the dressing table. Damn Dexter Anstruther! It would have been better if she had never met him.

When first she had known him, Dexter had been sent to catch the notorious highwaywoman Glory and bring her to justice. For that reason alone Laura, who had ridden out on more than one occasion with the Glory Girls, had kept out of his way. Rumor whispered that Dexter was one of the shadowy Guardians, the men who worked for the Home Secretary to keep the country safe against threats to law and peace within its own borders. The war against Napoleon had made everyone acutely aware of the danger from abroad but equally important and equally secret was the threat of civil unrest.

It seemed strange now to recall that when Dexter had first joined their house party at Cole Court she had barely noticed him as a man, except to register the fact that he was very handsome. That had been a fact that was difficult to miss, for he had dark, tawny, golden hair, sapphire-blue eyes and an impressive physique. All the housemaids had been in love with him and probably some of the footmen, too. His good looks had in fact initially made Laura wary, for she was familiar with being the plain one at the ball, the girl whom everyone overlooked. She would never in her wildest dreams have expected to draw the attention of a man who was as sinfully attractive, as utterly gorgeous, as Dexter Anstruther.

But slowly and so subtly she was still not sure how it had happened, Laura had started to become aware of Dexter in a different way. He was thoughtful, kind and he listened. Laura, accustomed to being ignored by her husband, found that being the sole focus of Dexter’s attention was extremely seductive. She had allowed herself to spend time with him; she had fallen in love with him without even really noticing and once it had happened it was far too late to save her heart.

She had struggled hard against her feelings. Her involvement with the Glory Girls was one secret she absolutely had to keep. And not only was she eight years Dexter’s senior, she was also a married woman, a duchess, and as far as everyone knew, a pillar of the community. There were endless reasons why her foolish passion for Dexter was doomed and so she had tried to ignore it, and him, as best she could.

Then, one afternoon, Dexter had found her alone and distraught after Charles had betrayed and deserted her and she had lost one of her closest friends. Dexter had comforted her and she had turned to him absolutely. She did not know when comfort had turned to desire and desire to passion. It had ambushed her utterly, taking her into uncharted waters.

But in the morning the fever had gone from her and she had seen her actions for what they really were. She had hidden her guilt and criminality from Dexter. Worse than that, she had been unfaithful to her husband, she had taken the virginity of a man eight years her junior; she had used him to ease her pain.

For Laura, unfamiliar with sensual pleasure, the night had been unimaginably blissful. But it was still dreadfully wrong. And when Dexter had begged her to elope with him, to run away from Charles and leave all her unhappiness behind, she had known that although she found the idea dangerously appealing, it would be the worst thing that she could do.

She could still see the expression on Dexter’s face when he had pleaded with her to go with him. He had looked eager and hopeful, with the kind of shining, new happiness about him that she remembered from when she, too, had been young. When she saw it, it made her feel every one of those eight years’ difference in their ages. She knew that if she took what he was offering she would ruin him forever. For a man of his age at the start of his career, with no money or connections, with nothing but a good name and integrity of spirit, to run away with a married duchess considerably older than he was himself, would be absolute disaster. The scandal would ruin him and he would never recover.