Margaret Moore - The Dark Duke

“Yes, Your Grace,” she answered calmly.

What a strange woman! Does she never react like other females of her age and rank? he thought. He smiled cynically. “My stepmother would tell you I am no gentleman.”

Lady Hester nodded her head slowly, although not with agreement, he didn’t think. It was more a pondering of his words with a gravity he found extremely disconcerting, considering what they were discussing. “You were very rude to Reverend Canon Smeech.”

“He’s a greedy hypocrite.”

She didn’t look at all shocked. “That is no excuse. He is a representative of the church.”

“That excuses him, I suppose.”

This plain woman in her simple, unadorned gown of gray regarded him so steadily that despite his efforts to assure himself that her opinion could not be important, he was quite nonplussed. “No, it does not,” she said, “although I agree with your estimation. However, you can’t expect him to change because you are discourteous to him. You would do better to use your influence to get him appointed to a position where he will have less opportunity to be a greedy hypocrite.”

“Well, well, well,” Adrian said, rising slowly. “You seem very confident of my influence.” He went to the fireplace and leaned against the mantel.

“Your rank alone assures it.”

“If not my personal attributes?”

“I’m sorry to have disturbed you, Your Grace. If you will excuse me—”

“I don’t excuse you.” Surprisingly, despite moments of discomfort, he was enjoying himself, perhaps because it had been years since anyone had responded to him with something other than blatant animosity or fawning flattery. “What are you doing here?” he repeated.

“I came for a book.”

“And instead you found me. Why didn’t you creep away?”

“You were…dreaming. I thought…”

“I take it I did not appear to be enjoying my dream?”

“No, Your Grace.”

“As it happens, I was not. Grateful to be awakened, I kissed you. A moment of weakness.”

“I gather you have many such moments,” she noted dispassionately..

Adrian frowned slightly. “Where is my stepmother? Doesn’t she require your constant attendance?”

“She fell asleep. That’s why I came for a book. I’m sorry to have disturbed you, Your Grace.”

Quite unexpectedly, he realized he didn’t want her to go. “There is no need for you to rush off. I haven’t had a decent conversation in three days. Sit here beside the fire and tell me how you come to be living in my house.”

Hester hesitated, torn between the desire to flee and the desire to stay. She knew she should leave, especially after the duke’s impetuous and impertinent kiss, which would seem to lend credence to the popular opinion of the duke as a notable lecher.

However, she felt more confident in his presence now, because of the look on his face when she had awakened him. He had not been the handsome, sardonic, provocative nobleman then. He had been as vulnerable as anyone she had ever seen, and his eyes had been full of anguish, as had the soft moans that had escaped his lips as she had entered the library, sounds that had compelled her to approach him.

As for the kiss, she had never known anything more unexpected and exciting in her entire existence. She had never been kissed by a young man, and the sensation had been every bit as wonderful as she had ever imagined. Nor had she ever felt so flattered. To think that the Dark Duke, known for his taste in women, had bestowed that mark of favor upon her, even if she had been returned to prosaic reality by his admission that he had kissed her because of “a moment of weakness.”

Propriety demanded that she leave, but her own lonely heart told her to stay, and for once, Hester decided she would follow her heart. Surely they would be safe from discovery, for the duchess was a sound sleeper, and she had only just nodded off in the drawing room. They were in the usually empty library, and nobody even knew they were there.

She sat in a chair near the one upon which he had been sitting. “So, Lady Hester,” he said in a low tone that set her heart beating rapidly, “what are you doing at Barroughby Hall?”

“Your stepmother corresponds with my mother, and when she heard the duchess was looking for a companion, she thought I would do,” Hester replied matter-of-factly, trying to regard him with composure, reminding herself that he was a flirtatious man by nature, and his attention had nothing to do with her personally.

“What did you think?” He strolled behind her chair, and she wished she could see his face.

He sounded as if he truly cared, which created a sense of intimacy far more dangerous than his kiss had been. Nevertheless, she would remember who and what he was, and who or what she was. “Since I had no better prospects, I agreed.”

“No better prospects?”

She didn’t answer. He knew very well what she meant.

“But you cannot like it here,” he said, as if she could not possibly disagree.

“This is a lovely estate. I enjoy the garden very much, and—” she smiled and gestured at the walls “—the library.”

“My stepmother is not an easy woman.”

“Perhaps she has mellowed during your absence.”

The duke’s response was a sniff of disdain.

“The duchess provided a change of scene,” she replied honestly.

“I daresay,” he said, continuing his stroll around the room. “I have seen your sisters in London, but not you, I don’t believe.”

“No doubt you didn’t notice me.”

“Are you often overlooked?”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“You don’t sound very bitter,” he remarked with a wry smile.

She shrugged her shoulders. “My sisters are beautiful. I am not. There is nothing I can do about that.”

“I see.”

She didn’t think he did. No man as handsome as he would ever understand what it was like to be the ugly duckling in the family.

He moved back to the fireplace and continued to regard her with a scrutiny that grew increasingly unnerving. “I wonder what you really want, Lady Hester” he murmured.

“I told you. Your Grace. A book.”

He smiled, a more genuine smile, she thought, than she had yet seen him bestow upon anyone, including Damaris Sackville-Cooper. “I meant from life.”

“I hardly think, Your Grace—” she began to protest.

“Oh, I suspect you do a great deal of thinking,” he interrupted. “Let me guess at the deepest desires of Lady Hester Pimblett”.

She started to stand. “My lord, I—”

“First, attention.”

She straightened her shoulders and frowned deeply. “Your Grace, I really must protest—”

“Second, excitement.”

“If by that you mean the type of excitement you seem to crave, Your Grace, I assure you I can well do without!” Hester said sternly. “Since you are apparently only interested in making sport of me, I will take my leave of you, whether you excuse me or not!”

“I promise I shall stick to only the most mundane of subjects,” he pleaded unexpectedly, and with a most beguiling smile. “The weather. My injury. The fungus on my horse’s hooves. Whatever you wish, as long as you will stay a little longer.”

Hester suddenly realized there was nothing about this man that was not seductive, whether it was his looks or his voice or the way he could make every word an invitation, every gesture intimate. “I believe I have stayed far too long as it is. Good afternoon, Your Grace.”

She hurried to the door, then turned on the threshold and faced him with a mocking little smile of her own. “I shall tell your stepmother you are feeling better, as you most obviously are, and that you will surely join us for dinner.”